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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:37:44 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:37:44 -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/11751-0.txt b/11751-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a5a7b73 --- /dev/null +++ b/11751-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8454 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11751 *** + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. III.--JUNE, 1859.--NO. XX. + + + + + + + +SHAKSPEARE'S ART. + + "Yet must I not give Nature all; thy Art, + My gentle SHAKSPEARE, must enjoy a part. + For though the poet's matter Nature be, + His Art doth give the fashion."--Ben Jonson. + + +Whoever would learn to think naturally, clearly, logically, and to +express himself intelligibly and earnestly, let him give his days and +nights to WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. His ear will thus accustom itself to forms +of phrase whose only mannerism is occasioned by the fulness of thought +and the directness of expression; and he will not easily, through the +habits which either his understanding or his ear will acquire, fall into +the fluent cadences of that sort of writing in which words are used +without discrimination of their nice meanings,--where the sentences are +only a smoothly-undulating current of common phrases, in which it takes +a page to say weakly what should be said forcibly in a few periods. + +These are somewhat novel arguments for the study of one whom all the +world has so long reverenced as "the great poet of Nature." But they may +properly serve to introduce a consideration of the sense in which +that phrase should be understood,--an attempt, in short, to look +into Shakspeare's modes of creation, and define his relations, as an +_artist_, with Nature. + +We shall perhaps be excused the suggestion, that a poet cannot be +natural in the same sense that a fool may be; he cannot be _a_ +natural,--since, if he is, he is not a poet. For to be a poet implies +the ability to use ideas and forms of speech artistically, as well as to +have an eye in a fine frenzy rolling. This is a distinction which all +who write on poets or poetry should forever seek to keep clear by new +illustrations. The poet has poetic powers that are born with him; but he +must also have a power over language, skill in arrangement, a thousand, +yes, a myriad, of powers which he was born with only the ability to +acquire, and to use after their acquirement. In ranking Shakspeare the +great poet of Nature, it is meant that he had the purpose and the power +to think what was natural, and to select and follow it,--that, among his +thick-coming fancies, he could perceive what was too fine, what tinged +with personal vanity, what incongruous, unsuitable, feeble, strained, in +short, unnatural, and reject it. His vision was so strong that he saw +his characters and identified himself with them, yet preserving his cool +judgment above them, and subjecting all he felt through them to its +test, and developing it through this artificial process of writing. This +vision and high state of being he could assume and keep up and work out +through days and weeks, foreseeing the end from the beginning, retaining +himself, and determining long before how many acts his work should be, +what should be its plot, what the order of its scenes, what personages +he would introduce, and where the main passions of the work should be +developed. His fancy, which enabled him to see the stage and all its +characters,--almost to _be_ them,--was so under the control of his +imagination, that it did not, through any interruptions while he was at +his labor, beguile him with caprices. The _gradation_ or action of his +work, opens and grows under his creative hand; twenty or more characters +appear, (in some plays nearly forty, as in "Antony and Cleopatra" and +the "First Part of Henry the Sixth,") who are all distinguished, who +are all more or less necessary to the plot or the underplots, and who +preserve throughout an identity that is life itself; all this is done, +and the imagined state, the great power by which this evolution of +characters and scene and story be carried on, is always under the +control of the poet's will, and the direction of his taste or critical +judgment. He chooses to set his imagination upon a piece of work, he +selects his plot, conceives the action, the variety of characters, and +all their doings; as he goes on reflecting upon them, his imagination +warms, and excites his fancy; he sees and identifies himself with his +characters, lives a secondary life in his work, as one may in a dream +which he directs and yet believes in; his whole soul becomes more active +under this fervor of the imagination, the fancy, and all the powers of +suggestion,--yet, still, the presiding judgment remains calm above all, +guiding the whole; and above or behind that, the will which elects to do +all this, perchance for a very simple purpose,--namely, for filthy lucre, +the purchase-money of an estate in Stratford. + +To say that he "followed Nature" is to mean that he permits his thoughts +to flow out in the order in which thoughts naturally come,--that he +makes his characters think as we all fancy we should think under the +circumstances in which he places them,--that it is the truth of his +thoughts which first impresses us. It is in this respect that he is +so universal; and it is by his universality that his naturalness is +confirmed. Not all his finer strokes of genius, but the general scope +and progress of his mind, are within the path all other minds travel; +his mind _answers_ to all other men's minds, and hence is like the voice +of Nature, which, apart from particular association, addresses all +alike. The cataracts, the mountains, the sea, the landscapes, the +changes of season and weather have each the same general meaning to +all mankind. So it is with Shakspeare, both in the conception and +development of his characters, and in the play of his reflections and +fancies. All the world recognizes his sanity, and the health and beauty +of his genius. + +Not all the world, either. Nature's poet fares no better than Nature +herself. Half the world is out of the pale of knowledge; a good part +of the rest are stunted by cant in its Protean shapes, or by inherited +narrowness and prejudice, and innumerable soul-cankers. They neither +know nor think of Nature or Poetry. Just as there are hundreds in all +great cities who never leave their accustomed streets winter or summer, +until finally they lose all curiosity, and cease to feel the yearnings +of that love which all are born with for the sight of the land and +sea,--the dear face of our common mother. Or the creatures who compose +the numerical majority of the world are rather like the children of some +noble lady stolen away by gypsies, and taught to steal and cheat and +beg, and practised in low arts, till they utterly forget the lawns +whereon they once played; and if their mother ever discovers them, their +natures are so subdued that they neither recognize her nor wish to go +with her. + +Without fearing that Shakspeare can ever lose his empire while the +language lasts, it is humiliating to be obliged to acknowledge one +great cause that is operating to keep him from thousands of our young +countrymen and women, namely, the wide-spread _mediocrity_ that is +created and sustained by the universal diffusion of our so-called +cheap literature;--dear enough it will prove by and by!--But this is +needlessly digressing. + +The very act of writing implies an art not born with the poet. This +process of forming letters and words with a pen is not natural, nor +will the poetic frenzy inspire us with the art to go through it. In +conceiving the language of passion, the _natural_ impulse is to imitate +the passion in gesture; there is something artificial in sitting quietly +at a table and hollaing, "Mortimer!" through a quill. If Hotspur's +language is in the highest degree natural, it is because the poet felt +the character, and words suggested themselves to him which he chose and +wrote down. The act of choice might have been almost spontaneous with +the feeling of the character and the situation, yet it was there,--the +conscious judgment was present; and if the poet wrote the first words +that came, (as no doubt he usually did,) it was because he was satisfied +with them at the time; there was no paroxysm of poetic inspiration,--the +workings of his mind were sane. His fertility was such that he was not +obliged to pause and compare every expression with all others he could +think of as appropriate;--judgment may decide swiftly and without +comparison, especially when it is supervising the suggestions of a vivid +fancy, and still be judgment, or taste, if we choose to call it by that +name. We know by the result whether it was present. The poet rapt into +unconsciousness would soon betray himself. Under the power of the +imagination, all his faculties waken to a higher life; his fancies are +more vivid and clear; all the suggestions that come to him are more +apt and congruous; and his faculties of selection, his perceptions of +fitness, beauty, and appropriateness of relation are more keen and +watchful. No lapse in what he writes at such times indicates aught +like dreaming or madness, or any condition of mind incompatible with +soundness and health,--with that perfect sanity in which all the mental +powers move in order and harmony under the control of the rightful +sovereign, Reason. + +These observations are not intended to bear, except remotely, upon the +question, Which is the true Dramatic Art, the romantic or the ancient? +We shall not venture into that land of drought, where dry minds forever +wander. We can admit both schools. In fact, even the countrymen of +Racine have long since admitted both,--speculatively, at least,--though +practically their temperament will always confine them to artificial +models. We may consider the question as set at rest in these words of M. +Guizot:--"Everything which men acknowledge as beautiful in Art owes its +effect to certain combinations, of which our reason can always detect +the secret when our emotions have attested its power. The science--or +the employment of these combinations--constitutes what we call Art. +Shakspeare had his own. We must detect it in his works, and examine the +means he employs and the results he aims at." Although we should be +far from admitting so general a definition of Art as this, yet it is +sufficient as an answer to the admirers of the purely classic school. + +But it has become necessary in this "spasmodic" day to vindicate +our great poet from the supposition of having written in a state of +somnambulism,--to show that he was even an _artist_, without reference +to schools. The scope of our observations is to exhibit him in that +light; we wish to insist that he was a man of forethought,--that, though +possessing creative genius, he did not dive recklessly into the sea of +his fancy without knowing its depth, and ready to grasp every pebble for +a pearl-shell; we wish to show that he was not what has been called, in +the cant of a class who mistake lawlessness for liberty, an "earnest +creature,"--that he was not "fancy's child" in any other sense than as +having in his power a beautifully suggestive fancy, and that he "warbled +his native wood-notes wild" in no other meaning than as Milton warbled +his organ-notes,--namely, through the exercise of conscious Art, of Art +that displayed itself not only in the broad outlines of his works, but +in their every character and shade of color. With this purpose we +have urged that he was "natural" from taste and choice,--artistically +natural. To illustrate the point, let us consider his Art alone in a few +passages. + +We will suppose, preliminarily, however, that we are largely interested +in the Globe Theatre, and that, in order to keep it up and continue to +draw good houses, we must write a new piece,--that, last salary-day, +we fell short, and were obliged to borrow twenty pounds of my Lord +Southampton to pay our actors. Something must be done. We look into our +old books and endeavor to find a plot out of ancient story, in the same +manner that Sir Hugh Evans would hunt for a text for a sermon. At length +one occurs that pleases our fancy; we revolve it over and over in our +mind,--and at last, after some days' thought, elaborate from it the plot +of a play,--"TIMON OF ATHENS,"--which plot we make a memorandum of, +lest we should forget it. Meantime, we are busy at the theatre with +rehearsals, changes of performance, bill-printing, and a hundred +thousand similar matters that must be each day disposed of. But we keep +our newly-thought-of play in mind at odd intervals, good things occur to +us as we are walking in the street, and we begin to long to be at it. +The opening scenes we have quite clearly in our eye, and we almost know +the whole; or it may be, _vice versa_, that we work out the last scenes +first; at all events, we have them hewn out in the rough, so that we +work the first with an intention of making them conform to a something +which is to succeed; and we are so sure of our course that we have no +dread of the something after,--nothing to puzzle the will, or make us +think too precisely on the event. Such is the condition of mind in which +we finally begin our labor. Some Wednesday afternoon in a holiday-week, +when the theatres are closed, we find ourselves sitting at a desk before +a sea-coal fire in a quaintly panelled rush-strewn chamber, the pen in +our hand, nibbed with a "Rogers's" pen-knife, [A] and the blank page +beneath it. + +[Footnote A: "A Shefeld thwitel bare he in his hose."--CHAUCER. _The +Reve's Tale._] + +We desire the reader to close his eyes for a moment and endeavor to +fancy himself in the position of William Shakspeare about to write a +piece,--the play abovenamed. This may be attempted without presumption. +We wish to recall and make real the fact that our idol was a man, +subject to the usual circumstances of men living in his time, and to +those which affect all men at all times,--that he had the same round of +day and night to pass through, the same common household accidents which +render "no man a hero to his valet." The world was as real to him as it +is to us. The dreamy past, of two hundred and fifty years since, was to +him the present of one of the most stirring periods in history, when +wonders were born quite as frequently as they are now. + +And having persuaded the reader to place himself in Shakspeare's +position, we will make one more very slight request, which is, that he +will occupy another chair in the same chamber and fancy that he sees the +immortal dramatist begin a work,--still keeping himself so far in his +position that he can observe the workings of his mind as he writes. + +Shakspeare has fixed upon a name for his piece, and he writes it,--he +that the players told Ben Jonson "never blotted a line." It is the +tragedy,-- + +TIMON OF ATHENS. + +He will have it in five acts, as the best form; and he has fixed upon +his _dramatis personae_, at least the principal of them, for he names +them on the margin as he writes. He uses twelve in the first scene, some +of whom he has no occasion for but to bring forward the character of his +hero; but they are all individualized while he employs them. The scene +he has fixed upon; this is present to his mind's eye; and as he cannot +afterwards alter it without making his characters talk incongruously and +being compelled to rewrite the whole, he writes it down thus:-- + + +ACT I. + +SCENE I.--_A Hall in Timon's House._ + +Now he has reflected that his first object is to interest his audience +in the action and passion of the piece,--at the very outset, if +possible, to catch their fancies and draw them into the mimic life of +the play,--to beguile and attract them without their knowing it. He has +reflected upon this, we say,--for see how artfully he opens the scene, +and how soon the empty stage is peopled with life! He chooses to begin +by having two persons enter from opposite wings, whose qualities are +known at once to the reader of the play, but not to an audience. The +stage-direction informs us:-- + +[_Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, Merchant, and others, at several +doors._ + +We shall see how at the same time they introduce and unfold their own +characters and awaken an interest in the main action. In writing, we +are obliged to name them. They do not all enter quite at once. At first +comes + + _Poet._ Good day, Sir. + _Painter._ I am glad to see you well. + _Poet._ I have not seen you long; how goes the world? + _Painter._ It wears, Sir, as it grows. + +This shows them to be acquaintances.--While the next reply is made, in +which the Poet begins to talk in character even before the audience know +him, two others enter from the same side, as having just met, and others +in the background. + + _Poet._ Ay, that's well known:-- + But what particular rarity? what strange, + That manifold record not matches? See, + +And we fancy him waving his hand in an enthusiastic manner,-- + + Magic of bounty! all these spirits thy power + Hath conjured to attend. + +Which manner is only a high-flowing habit, for he adds in the same +breath, dropping his figure suddenly,-- + + I know the merchant. + _Painter._ I know them both; t'other's a jeweller. + +It is certainly natural that painters should know jewellers,--and, +perhaps, that poets should be able to recognize merchants, though the +converse might not hold. We now know who the next speakers are, and soon +distinguish them. + + _Merchant._ Oh, 'tis a worthy lord! + _Jeweller._ Nay, that's most fixed. + _Merchant._ A most incomparable man; breathed as it were + To an untirable and continuate goodness: + He passes. + _Jeweller._ I have a jewel here. + +The Jeweller being known, the Merchant is; and, it will be noticed that +the first speaks in a cautious manner. + + _Merchant._ Oh, pray, let's see it! For the lord Timon, Sir? + _Jeweller._ If he will touch the estimate; but, for that---- + +We begin to suspect who is the "magic of bounty" and the "incomparable +man," and also to have an idea that all these people have come to his +house to see him.--While the Merchant examines the jewel, the first who +spoke, the high-flown individual, is pacing and talking to himself near +the one he met:-- + + _Poet. When we for recompense have praised the vile, + It stains the glory in that happy verse + Which aptly sings the good._ + +Perhaps he is thinking of himself. The Merchant and Jeweller do not hear +him;--they stand in twos at opposite sides of the stage. + + _Merchant_. 'Tis a good form. + [_Looking at the jewel._ + +He observes only that the stone is well cut; but the Jeweller adds,-- + + _Jeweller_. And rich: here is a water, look you. + +While they are interested in this and move backward, the two others come +nearer the front. + + _Painter_. You are rapt, Sir, in some work, some dedication + To the great lord. + +This is said, of course, with reference to the other's recent soliloquy. +And now we are going to know them. + + _Poet_. A thing slipped idly from me. + Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes + From whence 'tis nourished. The fire i' the flint + Shows not till it be struck; our gentle flame + Provokes itself, and like the current files + Each bound it chafes.--What have you there? + +We perceive that he is a poet, and a rather rhetorical than sincere one. +He has the art, but, as we shall see, not the heart. + + _Painter_. A picture, Sir.--And when comes your book forth? + + _Poet_. Upon the heels of my presentment, Sir-- + Let's see your piece. + _Painter_. 'Tis a good piece. + +We know that the Poet has come to make his presentment. The Painter, +the more modest of the two, wishes his work to be admired, but is +apprehensive, and would forestall the Poet's judgment. He means, it is a +"tolerable" piece. + + _Poet_. So 'tis: this comes off well and excellent. + + _Painter_. Indifferent. + + _Poet_. Admirable. How this grace + Speaks his own standing! What a mental power + This eye shoots forth! How big imagination + Moves in this lip! To the dumbness of the gesture + One might interpret. + +He, at all events, means to flatter the Painter,--or he is so habituated +to ecstasies that he cannot speak without going into one. But with what +Shakspearean nicety of discrimination! The "grace that speaks his own +standing," the "power of the eye," the "imagination of the lip," are all +true; and so is the natural impulse, in one of so fertile a brain as a +poet from whom verse "oozes" to "interpret to the dumb gesture,"--to +invent an appropriate speech for the figure (Timon, of course) to be +uttering. And all this is but to preoccupy our minds with a conception +of the lord Timon! + + _Painter_. It is a pretty mocking of the life. + Here's a touch; is't good? + + _Poet_. I'll say of it + It tutors Nature: artificial strife + Lives in these touches livelier than life. + +He has thought of too fine a phrase; but it is in character with all his +fancies. + + [_Enter certain Senators, and pass over._ + + _Painter_. How this lord's followed! + + _Poet_. The senators of Athens: happy men! + +This informs us who they are that pass over. The Poet also keeps up the +Ercles vein; while the Painter's eye is caught. + + _Painter_. Look, more! + + _Poet_. You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors. + + I have, in this rough work, shaped out a man + Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug + With amplest entertainment: my free drift + Halts not particularly, but moves itself + In a wide sea of wax: no levelled malice + Infects one comma in the course I hold: + But flies an eagle flight, bold, and forth on, + Leaving no tract behind. + +This flight of rhetoric is intended to produce a sort of musical effect, +in preparing us by its lofty sound for readily apprehending the lord +Timon with "amplest entertainment." The same is true of all that +follows. The Poet and Painter do but sound a lordly note of preparation, +and move the curtain that is to be lifted before a scene of profusion. +Call it by what name we please, it surely was not accident or +unconscious inspiration,--a rapture or frenzy,--which led Shakspeare to +open this play in this manner. If we remember the old use of choruses, +which was to lift up and excite the fancy, we may well believe that he +intended this flourishing Poet to act as a chorus,--to be a "mighty +whiffler," going before, elevating "the flat unraised spirits" of his +auditory, and working on their "imaginary forces." He is a rhetorical +character, designed to rouse the attention of the house by the pomp +of his language, and to set their fancies in motion by his broad +conceptions. How well he does it! No wonder the Painter is a little +confused as he listens to him. + + _Painter_. How shall I understand you? + + _Poet_. I'll unbolt to you. + + You see how all conditions, how all minds, + (As well of glib and slippery creatures, as + Of grave and austere quality,) tender down + Their services to Lord Timon; his large fortune, + Upon his good and gracious nature hanging, + Subdues and properties to his love and tendance + All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-faced flatterer + To Apemantus, that few things loves better + Than to abhor himself; even he drops down + The knee before him, and returns in peace, + Most rich in Timon's nod. + +There was almost a necessity that the spectator should be made +acquainted with the character of Timon before his appearance; for his +profuseness could be illustrated, after being known, better than it +could make itself known in dialogue and action in which he should bear a +part. And of the hundreds of English plays opening with an explanation +or narrative of foregone matters, there is none where the formality is +concealed by a more ingenious artifice than is used in this scene. The +spectator is fore-possessed with Timon's character, and (in the outline +the Poet is proceeding to give) with a suspicion that he is going to see +him ruined in the course of the piece; and this is accomplished in +the description of a panegyric, incidentally, briefly, picturesquely, +artfully, with an art that tutors Nature, and which so well conceals +itself that it can scarcely be perceived except in this our microscopic +analysis. Here also we have Apemantus introduced beforehand. And with +all this, the Painter and Poet speak minutely and broadly in character; +the one sees scenes, the other plans an action (which is just what his +own creator had done) and talks in poetic language. It is no more +than the text warrants to remark that the next observation, primarily +intended to break the poet's speech, was also intended to be the natural +thought and words of a + + _Painter_. I saw them speak together. + + _Poet_. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill + Feigned Fortune to be throned: the base of + the mount + Is ranked with all deserts, all kinds of natures + That labor on the bosom of this sphere + To propagate their states; amongst them all, + Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fixed, + One do I personate of Lord Timon's frame, + Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her; + Whose present grace to present slaves and servants + Translates his rivals. + + _Painter_. 'Tis conceived to scope. + This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks, + With one man beckoned from the rest below, + Bowing his head against the steepy mount + To climb his happiness, would be well expressed + In our condition. + + _Poet_. Nay, Sir, but hear me on. + +The artifice is to secure the attention of the spectator. The +interruptions give naturalness and force to the narrative; and the +questions and entreaties, though addressed to each other by the +personages on the stage, have their effect in the front. The same +artifice is employed in the most obvious manner where Prospero (Tempest, +Act i. Sc. 2) narrates his and her previous history to Miranda. The Poet +continues:-- + + All those which were his fellows but of late + (Some better than his value) on the moment + Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance, + Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear, + Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him + Drink the free air. + + _Painter_. Ay, marry, what of these? + +The Poet has half deserted his figure, and is losing himself in a new +description, from which the Painter impatiently recalls him. The text +is so artificially natural that it will bear the nicest natural +construction. + + _Poet_. When Fortune, in her shift and + change of mood, + Spurns down her late beloved, all his dependants, + Which labored after him to the mountain's + top, + Even on their knees and hands, let him slip + down, + Not one accompanying his declining foot. + + _Painter_. 'Tis common: + A thousand moral paintings I can show + That shall demonstrate these quick blows of + Fortune + More pregnantly than words. Yet you do + well + To show Lord Timon that mean eyes have + seen + The foot above the head. + + [_Trumpets sound. Enter Timon, attended; the + servant of Ventidius talking with him_. + +Thus far (and it is of no consequence if we have once or twice forgotten +it while pursuing our analysis) we have fancied ourselves present, +seeing Shakspeare write this, and looking into his mind. But although +divining his intentions, we have not made him intend any more than his +words show that he did intend. Let us presently fancy, that, before +introducing his principal character, he here turns back to see if he has +brought in everything that is necessary. It would have been easier to +plan this scene after the rest of the play had been done,--and, as +already remarked, it may have been so written; but when the whole +coheres, the artistic purpose is more or less evident in every part; and +the order in which each was put upon paper is of as little consequence +as the place or time or date or the state of the weather. Wordsworth has +been particular enough to let it be known, where he composed the last +verse of a poem first. With some artists the writing is a mere copying +from memory of what is completely elaborated in the whole or in long +passages: Milton wrote thus, through a habit made necessary by his +blindness; and so Mozart, whose incessant labors trained his genius in +the paths of musical learning, or brought learning to be its slave, till +his first conceptions were often beyond the reach of elaboration, and +remained so clear in his own mind that he could venture to perform +in public concertos to which he had written only the orchestral or +accessory parts. Other artists work _seriatim_; some can work only when +the pen is in their hands; and the blotted page speaks eloquently +enough of the artistic processes of mind to which their most passionate +passages are subjected before they come to the reader's eye. Think of +the fac-simile of Byron's handwriting in "Childe Harold"! It shows a +soul rapt almost beyond the power of writing. But the blots and erasures +were not made by a "fine frenzy"; _they_ speak no less eloquently for an +artistic taste and skill excited and alert, and able to guide the frenzy +and give it a contagious power through the forms of verse,--this +taste and this skill and control being the very elements by which his +expressions become an echo of the poet's soul,--pleasing, or, in the +uncultivated, helping to form, a like taste in the hearer, and exciting +a like imagined condition of feeling and poetic vision. + +Yet if it were made a question, to be decided from internal evidence, +whether the scene here analyzed was written before or after the rest of +the piece, a strong argument for its being written before might be found +in the peculiar impression it leaves upon the fancy. Let us suppose we +follow the author while he runs it over, which he does quite rapidly, +since there are no blotted lines, but only here and there a comma to +be inserted. He designed to open his tragedy. He finds he has set a +scene,--in his mind's eye the entrance-hall to an Athenian house, which +he thinks he has presently intimated plainly enough to be Timon's house. +Here he has brought forward four actors and made them speak as just +meeting; they come by twos from different ways, and the first two +immediately make it known that the other two are a merchant and +jeweller, and almost immediately that they themselves are, one a +painter, the other a poet. They have all brought gifts or goods for +the lord Timon. The Athenian Senators pass over, and, as becomes +their dignity, are at once received in an inner hall,--the first four +remaining on the stage. All is so far clear. He has also, by the +dialogue of the Painter and Poet, made in itself taking to the attention +through the picture and the flighty recitation, suggested and interested +us incidentally in the character of Timon, and conveyed a vague +misgiving of misfortune to come to him. And there is withal a swelling +pomp, three parts rhetorical and one part genuinely poetical, in the +Poet's style, which gives a tone, and prepares the fancy to enter +readily into the spirit of the tragedy. This effect the author wished to +produce; he felt that the piece required it; he was so preoccupied with +the Timon he conceived that he sets to work with a Timon-rich hue of +fancy and feeling; to this note he pitches himself, and begins his +measured march "bold and forth on." What he has assumed to feel he +wishes spectators to feel; and he leaves his style to be colored by his +feeling, because he knows that such is the way to make them feel it. And +we do feel it, and know also that we are made thus to feel through an +art which we can perceive and admire. On the whole, this introduction +opens upon the tragedy with just such a display of high-sounding +phrases, such a fine appropriateness, such a vague presentiment, and +such a rapid, yet artful, rising from indifference to interest, that it +seems easiest to suppose the author to be writing while his conceptions +of what is to follow are freshest and as yet unwrought out. We cannot +ask him; even while we have overlooked him in his labor, his form has +faded, and we are again in this dull every-day Present. + +We have seen him take up his pen and begin a tragedy; or, to drop the +fancy, we have made it real to ourselves in what manner Shakspeare's +writing evidences that he wrought as an _artist_,--one who has an idea +in his mind of an effect he desires to produce, and elaborates it with +careful skill, not in a trance or ecstasy, but "in clear dream and +solemn vision." The subtile tone of feeling to be struck is as much a +matter of art as the action or argument to be opened. And it is no less +proper to judge (as we have done) of the presence of art by its result +in this respect than in respect to what relates to the form or story. +An introduction is before us, a dramatic scene, in which characters are +brought forward and a dialogue is given, apparently concerning a picture +and poem that have been made, but having a more important reference to a +character yet to be unfolded. Along with this there is also expressed, +in the person of a professed panegyrist, a certain lofty and free +opinion of his own work, in a confident declamatory style of +description,-- + + "Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill + Feigned Fortune to be throned," etc.,-- + +that is levelled with exquisite tact just on the verge of bombast. This +is not done to make the hearer care for the thing described, which is +never heard of after, but to give a hint of Timon and what is to befall +him, and to create a _melodic effect_ upon the hearer's sense which +shall put him in a state to yield readily to the illusion of the piece. + +It is not possible to conceive Shakspeare reviewing his lines and +thinking to himself, "That is well done; my genius has not deserted me; +I could not have written anything more to my liking, if I had set about +it deliberately!" But it is easy to see him running it over with a +sensation of "This will serve; my poet will open their eyes and ears; +and now for the hall and banquet scene." + +The sense of fitness and relation operates among thoughts and feelings +as well as among fancies, and its results cannot be mistaken for +accident. Ariel and his harpies could not interrupt a scene with a more +discordant action than the phase of feeling or the poetic atmosphere +pervading it would be interrupted by, if a cloud of distraction came +across the poet and the faculties of his mind rioted out of his control. +For he not only feels, but sees his feeling; he takes it up as an object +and holds it before him,--a feeling to be conveyed. Just as a sculptor +holds in his mind a form and models it out of clay, undiverted by other +forms thronging into his vision, or by the accidental forms that the +plastic substance takes upon itself in the course of his work, till it +stands forth the image of his ideal,--so the poet works out his states +of poetic feeling. He grasps and holds and sustains them amidst the +multiplicity of upflying thoughts and thick-coming fancies;--no matter +how subtile or how aspiring they may be, he fastens them in the chamber +of his imagination until his distant purpose is accomplished, and he has +found a language for them which the world will understand. And this is +where Shakspeare's art is so noble,--in that he conquers the entire +universe of thought, sentiment, feeling, and passion,--goes into the +whole and takes up and portrays characters the most extreme and diverse, +passions the most wild, sentiment the most refined, feelings the most +delicate,--and does this by an art in which he must make his characters +appear real and we looking on, though he cannot use, to develop his +dramas, a hundred-thousandth part of the words that would be used in +real life,--that is, in Nature. He also always approaches us upon the +level of our common sense and experience, and never requires us to yield +it,--never breaks in or jars upon our judgment, or shocks or alarms any +natural sensibility. After enlarging our souls with the stir of whatever +can move us through poetry, he leaves us where he found us, refreshed by +new thoughts, new scenes, and new knowledge of ourselves and our kind, +more capable, and, if we choose to be so, more wise. His art is so great +that we almost forget its presence,--almost forget that the Macbeth and +Othello we have seen and heard were Shakspeare's, and that he MADE them; +we can scarce conceive how he could feign as if felt, and retain and +reproduce such a play of emotions and passions from the position of +spectator, his own soul remaining, with its sovereign reason, and all +its powers natural and acquired, far, far above all its creations,--a +spirit alone before its Maker. + +The opening of "Timon" was selected on account of its artful preparation +for and relation to what it precedes. It shows the forethought and skill +of its author in the construction or opening out of his play, both +in respect to the story and the feeling; yet even here, in this +half-declamatory prologue, the poet's dramatic art is also evident. His +poet and painter are living men, and not mere utterers of so many words. +Was this from intuition?--or because he found it easy to make them +what he conceived them, and felt that it would add to the life of his +introduction, though he should scarcely bring them forward afterwards? +No doubt the mind's eye helps the mind in character-drawing, and that +appropriate language springs almost uncalled to the pen, especially of +a practised writer for the stage. But is his scene a dream which he can +direct, and which, though he knows it all proceeds from himself, yet +seems to keep just in advance of him,--his fancy shooting ahead and +astonishing him with novelties in dialogue and situation? There are +those who have experienced this condition in sickness, and who have +amused themselves with listening to a fancied conversation having +reference to subjects of their own choosing, yet in which they did not +seem to themselves to control the cause of the dialogue or originate the +particular things said, until they could actually hear the voices rising +from an indistinct whisper to plain speech. I knew an instance, (which +at least is not related in the very curious work of M. Boismont on the +"Natural History of Hallucinations,") where an invalid, recovering +from illness, could hear for half a night the debates and doings of an +imaginary association in the next chamber, the absurdity of which often +made him laugh so that he could with difficulty keep quiet enough to +listen; while occasionally extracts would be read from books written in +a style whose precision and eloquence excited his admiration, or whose +affecting solemnity moved him deeply, though he knew perfectly well that +the whole came from his own brain. This he could either cause or permit, +and could in an instant change the subject of the conversation or +command it into silence. He would sometimes throw his pillow against the +wall and say, "Be still! I'll hear no more till daybreak!" And this has +taken place when he was in calm health in mind, and, except weakness, in +body, and broad awake. What was singular, the voices would cease at his +bidding, and in one instance (which might have startled him, had he not +known how common it is for persons to wake at an hour they fix) they +awoke him at the time appointed. Their language would bear the ordinary +tests of sanity, and was like that we see in daily newspapers; but the +various knowledge brought in, the complicated scenes gone through, made +the whole resemble intricate concerted music, from the imperfect study +of which possibly came the power to fabricate them. That they were owing +to some physical cause was shown by their keeping a sort of cadence with +the pulse, and in the fact, that, though not disagreeable, they were +wearisome; especially as they always appeared to be got up with some +remote reference to the private faults and virtues of that tedious +individual who is always forcing his acquaintance upon us, avoid him +however we may,--one's self. + +Shall we suppose that Shakspeare wrote in such an _opium dream_ as this? +Did his "wood-notes wild" come from him as tunes do from a barrel-organ, +where it is necessary only to set the machine and disturb the bowels of +it by turning? Was it sufficient for him to fore-plan the plots of his +plays, the story, acts, scenes, persons,--the general rough idea, or +argument,--and then to sit at his table, and, by some process analogous +to mesmeric manipulations, put himself into a condition in which his +_genius_ should elaborate and shape what he, by the aid of his poetic +taste and all other faculties, had been able to rough-hew? How far did +his consciousness desert him?--only partially, as in the instance just +given, so that he marvelled, while he wrote, at his own fertility, +power, and truth?--or wholly, as in a Pythonic inspiration, so that the +frenzy filled him to his fingers' ends, and he wrote, he knew not what, +until he re-read it in his ordinary state? In fine, was he the mere +conduit of a divinity within him?--or was he in his very self, in the +nobility and true greatness of his being and the infinitude of his +faculties, a living fountain,--he, he alone, in as plain and common a +sense as we mean when we say "a man," the divinity? + +These are "questions not to be asked," or, at least, argued, any +more than the question, Whether the blessed sun of heaven shall eat +blackberries. The quality of Shakspeare's writing renders it impossible +to suppose that it was produced in any other state than one where all +the perceptions that make good sense, and not only good, but most +excellent sense, were present and alert. Howsoever "apprehensive, quick, +forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes" his brain +may be, it never gambols from the superintendence of his reason and +understanding. In truth, it is the perfectness of the control, the +conscious assurance of soundness in himself, which leaves him so free +that the control is to so many eyes invisible; they perceive nothing but +luxuriant ease in the midst of intricate complexities of passion and +character, and they think he could have followed the path he took only +by a sort of necessity which they call Nature,--that he wrote himself +quite into his works, bodily, just as he was, every thought that came +and went, and every expression that flew to his pen,--leaving out only a +few for shortness. They are so thoroughly beguiled by the very quality +they do not see, that they are like spectators who mistake the scene on +the stage for reality; they cannot fancy that a man put it all there, +and that it is by the artistic and poetic power of him, this man, who is +now standing behind or at the wing, and counting the money in the house, +that they are beguiled of their tears or thrown into such ecstasies of +mirth. + +It exalts, and not degrades, the memory of Shakspeare to think of him in +this manner, as a man: for he _was_ a man; he had eyes, hands, organs, +dimensions, and so forth, the same that a Jew hath; a good many people +saw him alive. Had we lived in London between 1580 and 1610, we might +have seen him,--a man who came from his Maker's hand endowed with the +noblest powers and the most godlike reason,--who had the greatest +natural ability to become a great dramatic poet,--the native genius and +the aptness to acquire the art, and who did acquire the highest art +of his age, and went on far beyond it, exhibiting new ingenuities and +resources, and a breadth that has never been equalled, and which admits +at once and harmonizes the deepest tragedy and the broadest farce, and, +in language, the loftiest flights of measured rhetoric along with +the closest imitation of common talk;--and all this he _so used_, so +elaborated through it the poetic creations of his mind, in such glorious +union and perfection of high purpose and art and reach of soul, that he +was the greatest and most universal poet the world has known. + +Rowe observes, in regard to Shakspeare,--"Art had so little and +Nature so large a share in what he did, that, for aught I know, the +performances of his youth, as they were the most vigorous, and had the +most fire and strength of imagination in them, were the best. I +would not be thought by this to mean that his fancy was so loose and +extravagant as to be independent on the rule and government of judgment; +but that what he thought was commonly so great, so justly and rightly +conceived in itself, that it wanted little or no correction, and was +immediately approved by an impartial judgment at the first sight." + +The last sentence is true; but Mr. Rowe really means to say that he was +as great an artist as natural poet,--that his _creative_ and _executive_ +powers wrought in almost perfect spontaneity and harmony,--the work +of the _making_ part of him being generally at once approved by the +_shaping_ part, and each and both being admirable. When a man creates +an Othello, feigns his story and his passion, assumes to be him and to +observe him at the same time, figures him so exactly that all the +world may realize him also, brings in Desdemona and Iago and the rest, +everything kept in propriety and with the minutest perfection of detail, +which does most, Art or Nature? How shall we distinguish? Where does one +leave off and the other begin? The truth of the passion, that is Nature; +but can we not perceive that the Art goes along with it? Do we not at +once acknowledge the Art when we say, "How natural!"? In such as Iago, +for example, it would seem as if the least reflective spectator must +derive a little critical satisfaction,--if he can only bring himself to +fancy that Iago is not alive, but that the great master painted him and +wrote every word he utters. As we read his words, can we not see how +boldly he is drawn, and how highly colored? There he is, right in the +foreground, prominent, strong, a most miraculous villain. Did Nature put +the words into his mouth, or Art? The question involves a consideration +of how far natural it is for men to make Iagos, and to make them +speaking naturally. Though it be natural, it is not common; and if its +naturalness is what must be most insisted on, it may be conceded, and we +may say, with Polixenes, "The Art itself is Nature." + +There is a strong rapture that always attends the full exercise of our +highest faculties. The whole spirit is raised and quickened into a +secondary life. This was felt by Shakspeare,--felt, and at the same +time controlled and guided with the same strictness over all thoughts, +feelings, passions, fancies, that thronged his mind at such moments, as +he had over those in his dull every-day hours. When we are writing, how +difficult it is to avoid pleasing our own vanity! how hard not to step +aside a little, now and then, for a brilliant thought or a poetic fancy, +or any of the thousand illusions that throng upon us! Even for the sake +of a well-sounding phrase we are often tempted to turn. The language of +passion,--how hard it is to feign, to write it! how harder than all, to +keep the tone, serious, or whatever it may be, with which we begin, so +that no expressions occur to break it,--lapses of thought or speech, +that are like sudden stumbles or uneasy jolts! And if this is so in +ordinarily elevated prose, how much more must it be so in high dramatic +poetry, where the poet rides on the whirlwind and tempest of passion and +"directs the storm." There must go to the conception and execution of +this sort of work a resolved mind, strong fancies, thoughts high and +deep, in fine, a multitude of powers, all under the grand creative, +sustaining imagination. When completed, the work stands forth to all +time, a great work of Art, and bulwark of all that is high against all +that is low. It is a great poetic work, the work of a maker who gives +form and direction to the minds of men. + +In a certain sense, it is not an extravagance to say that all who are +now living and speak English have views of life and Nature modified by +the influence of Shakspeare. We see the world through his eyes; he has +taught us how to think; the freedom of soul, the strong sense, the +grasp of thought,--above all, the honor, the faith, the love,--who has +imparted such noble ideas of these things as he? Not any one, though +there were giants in those days as well as he. Hence he has grown to +seem even more "natural" than he did in his own day, his judges being +mediately or immediately educated by him. The works are admired, but the +nobleness of soul in him that made them is not perceived, and his genius +and power are degraded into a blind faculty by unthinking minds, and by +vain ones that flatter themselves they have discovered the royal road to +poetry. What they seem to require for poetry is the flash of thought +or fancy that starts the sympathetic thrill,--the little jots,--the +striking, often-quoted lines or "gems." The rest is merely introduced to +build up a piece; these are the "pure Nature," and all that. + +And it is not to be denied that they are pure Nature; for they are true +to Nature, and are spontaneous, beautiful, exquisite, deserving to be +called gems, and even diamonds. + + "The sweet South, + That breathes upon a bank of violets, + Stealing and giving odor":-- + +thousands of such lines we keep in our memories' choicest cells; yet +they are but the exterior adornments of a great work of Art. They are +the delightful finishes and lesser beauties which the great work admits, +and, indeed, is never without, but which are not to be classed among its +essentials. Their beauty and fitness are not those of the grand columns +of the temple; they are the sculptures upon the frieze, the caryatides, +or the graceful interlacings of vines. They catch the fancy of those +whose field of vision is not large enough to take in the whole, and +upon whom all excellences that are not little are lost. Beautiful in +themselves, their own beauty is frequently all that is seen; the beauty +of their propriety, the grace and charm with which they come in, are +overlooked. Many people will have it that nothing is poetry or poetic +but these gems of poetry; and because the apparent spontaneousness of +them is what makes them so striking, these admirers are unwilling to see +that it is through an art that they are brought in so beautifully in +their spontaneousness and give such finish to larger effects. And +we have no end of writers who are forever trying to imitate them, +forgetting that the essence of their beauty is in their coming unsought +and in their proper places as unexpected felicities and fine touches +growing out of and contributing to some higher purpose. They are natural +in this way:--when the poet is engaged upon his work, these delicate +fancies and choice expressions throng into his mind; he instantly, by +his Art-sense, accepts some, and rejects more; and those he accepts are +such as he wants for his ulterior purpose, which will not admit the +appearance of art; hence he will have none that do not grow out of his +feeling and harmonize with it. All this passes in an instant, and the +apt simile or the happy epithet is created,--an immortal beauty, both in +itself and as it occurs in its place. It was put there by an art; +the poet knew that the way to make expressions come is to assume the +feeling; he knew that he + + "But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, + Could force his soul so to his own conceit" + +that his whole function would suit with expressions to his conceit. +He then withdrew his judgment from within, and cheated his fancy into +supposing he had given her the rein, letting the feigned state be as +real to him as it could, and writing from that primarily,--humoring +Nature by his art in leaving her to do what she alone could do. So that +the very gems we admire as natural are the offspring of Nature creating +under Art. To make streaked gillyflowers, we marry a gentler scion to +the wildest stock, and Nature does the rest. So in poetry, we cannot +get at the finest excellences by seeking for them directly, but we put +Nature in the way to suggest them. We do not strive to think whether +"the mobled queen" is good; we do not let our vanity keep such a +strict look-out upon Nature; she will not desert us, if we follow her +modes,--which we must do with all the art and fine tact we can acquire +and command, not only in order to gain the minute beauties, but to +compass the great whole. + +The analogies that might be drawn from music would much assist in making +all this clear, if they could be used with a chance of being understood. +But, unfortunately, the ability to comprehend a great work, as a whole, +is even rarer in music than in poetry. The little taking bits of melody +are all that is thought of or perceived; the great _epos_ or rhapsody, +the form and meaning of the entire composition,--which is a work of Art +in no other sense than a poem is one, except that it uses, instead of +speech, musical forms, of greater variety and symmetry,--are not at all +understood. Nor is the subtile and irresistible coherence in successions +of clear sunny melody, in which Mozart so abounds, in any great degree +understood, even by some who call themselves artists. They think only +of the sudden flashes, the happinesses, and, if such a word may be used +once only, the smartnesses,--like children who care for nothing in their +cake but the frosting and the plums. But in continuing the study of the +art with such notions of its expression, the relish for it soon cloys, +the mind ceases to advance, the enthusiasm deadens, progress becomes +hopeless, and the little gained is soon lost; whereas, if the student is +familiarized with the most perfect forms of the art, and led on by them, +both by committing a few of them to memory, and by fully understanding +their structure, it will soon be evident that an intellectual study of +music, pursued with a true love of it, can, more than any other study, +strengthen the imaginative faculty. + +The forms of poetry have only the rhythmic analogy, as forms, to those +of music; but in their foundation in the same Nature, and in their +manner of development, there is a closer resemblance. Both in music and +poetry, the older artists regarded with most strictness the carrying +through of the whole; they cared little for the taking tunes or the +striking passages; they looked with eyes single to their ultimate +purposes. Shakspeare came, and accomplished at once, for dramatic art, +what the fathers of modern music began for their art nearly a century +later. He made the strict form yield to and take new shape from natural +feeling. This feeling, whose expression is the musical element of +poetry, he brought up to its proper relation with all the other +qualities. Look at the terrific bombast which preceded him,--the mighty +efforts of mighty men to draw music or the power of sound into their +art; Hieronymo is like some portentous convulsion of Nature,--the +upheaval of a new geological era. The writers felt that there must be +style suited to passion, and that they must attain it,--but how? By +artificial pomp?--or by yielding with artful reserve to the natural +eloquence of passion? + +Shakspeare has answered the question for all time; and he uses both, +each in its proper place. Nothing, even in music, ever showed an art +growing out of a nicer sensibility in sound than his variety and +appropriateness in style. For an art it is, and we cannot make a +definition of that word which shall include other forms of art and not +include it. If the passion and the feeling make the style, it is the +poet's art that leaves them free to do it; he superintends; he feigns +that which he leaves to make; he shares his art with "great creating +Nature." All is unreal; all comes out of him; and all that has to do +with the form and expression of his products is, of course, included +in the manifest when his ship of fancy gets its clearance at the +custom-house of his judgment. The style he assumes cannot but be present +to his consciousness in the progress of a long drama. He must perceive, +as he writes, if he has the common penetration of humanity, that the +flow and cadence of his "Henry the Eighth" are not like those of his +"Midsummer Night's Dream"; and he must preserve his tone, with, at +times, direct art, not leaving everything to the feeling. That he does +so is as evident as if he had chosen a form of verse more remote +from the language of Nature and obliged himself to conform to its +requirements. The terrible cursing of Margaret in "Richard III.," for +example, is not the remorseless, hollow monotony of it, while it so +heightens the passion, as evident to Shakspeare as to us; or had he no +ear for verse, and just let his words sound on as they would, looking +only at the meaning, and counting his iambics on his fingers,--not too +carefully either? If the last supposition is to be insisted on, we must +confine our notions of his perceptions and powers within very ordinary +bounds, and make dramatic art as unpoetic as the art of brickmaking. + +The beauty of Shakspeare's art is in its comprehensiveness. It takes in +every quality of excellence. It looks at the great whole, and admits +the little charms and graces. It includes constructiveness in story, +character-drawing, picturesqueness, musicalness, naturalness,--in fine, +whatever art may combine with poetry or the soul of poetry admit in art. +To the young and unobservant, and all who are unable to consider the +poet's writing, as we have in this article endeavoured to study a single +passage of it, _from his position_, the art is not apparent; the mimic +scene is reality, or some supernatural inspiration or schoolboy-like +enthusiasm has produced the work. But there are others, created with +different faculties, who begin to perceive the art almost as soon as +they feel its power, and who love to study it and to live in the spirit +of poetry that breathes through it; these come gradually to think of the +man, as well as of his works,--to feel more and more the influence upon +them of his greatness and beauty of soul, and, as years pass by, to find +consolation and repose in the loftiness of his wisdom. + + * * * * * + + +MIEN-YAUN. + + +I. + + +Young Mien-yaun had for two years been the shining centre of the +aristocratic circles of Pekin. Around him revolved the social system. +He was the vitalizing element in fashionable life,--the radiant sun, +diffusing conventional warmth of tone and brilliancy of polish. He +created modes. He regulated reputations. + +His smile or his frown determined the worldly fate of thousands. His +ready assurance gave him preeminence with one sex, and his beauty made +him the admiration of the other. When he talked, Mandarins listened; +when he walked, maidens' eyes glistened. He was, in short, the +rage,--and he knew it, and meant to remain so. He was a wonderful +student, and understood politics like a second Confucius. With the +literature of all ages, from the Shee-king, written four thousand +years ago, down to the latest achievements of the modern poets, he was +intimately acquainted. His accomplishments were rich and varied, and his +Tartar descent endowed him with a spirit and animation that enabled him +to exhibit them to every advantage. He sang like a veritable Orpheus, +and sensitive women had been known to faint under the excitement of his +Moo-lee-wha, or national song. He even danced,--a most rare faculty in +Pekin, as in all China,--but this was frowned upon, as immoral, by his +family. Comely indeed he was, especially on state occasions, when he +appeared in all the radiance of rosy health, overflowing spirits, and +the richest crapes and satins,--decorated with the high order of the +peacock's feather, the red button, and numberless glittering ornaments +of ivory and lapis-lazuli. Beloved or envied by all the men, and with +all the women dying for him, he was fully able to appreciate the +comforts of existence. Considering the homage universally accorded him, +he was as little of a dandy as could reasonably be expected. + +His family connections were very exalted. All his relatives belonged to +the Tse,--the learned and governing class. His father had been one of +the Tootche-yuen, a censor of the highest board, and was still a member +of the council of ministerial Mandarins. His uncle was a personal noble, +a prince, higher in rank than the best of the Mandarins, and directed +the deliberations of the Ping-pu, the Council of War. Thus his station +gave him access to all the best society. His career was a path of roses. +He never knew a sorrow. All were friendly to him, even the jealous, +because it was the fashion. The doors of the mighty opened at his +approach, and the smiles of the noble greeted him. He lived in an +atmosphere of adulation, and yet resisted the more intoxicating +influences of his dangerous elevation. Young as he was, he had +penetrated the social surface, and, marking its many uncertainties, +had laid out for himself a system of diplomacy which he believed best +calculated to fortify him in his agreeable position of master of modes +and dictator of fashionable public opinion. + +The course he adopted was thoroughly effective. His sway was never +disputed for a moment. He knew his personal charms, and determined to +enhance their value by displaying them sparingly. Accordingly, he began +by refusing forty-nine out of every fifty public invitations,--his +former habit having been to refuse but one in five. He appeared on the +promenade only twice in three weeks, but on these occasions he always +artfully contrived to throw the community into the wildest excitement. +One day, he appeared arrayed from head to foot in yellow Nankin, a +color always considered a special abomination in Pekin, but which was +nevertheless instantly adopted by all the gallants about town,--a +proceeding which caused so much scandal that an imperial edict had to +be issued, forbidding the practice in future. Another time, he came out +with an unparalleled twist to his tail, the construction of which had +occupied his mind for some days, and which occasioned the death by +suicide of three over-ambitious youths who found themselves unable to +survive the mortification of an unsuccessful attempt to imitate it. +Again, to the infinite horror of the Mandarins, he paraded himself one +afternoon with decacuminated finger-nails, and came very near producing +a riot by his unwillingness to permit them to grow again, besides +calling forth another imperial decree, threatening ignominious death to +all nobles throughout the empire who should encourage the practice. +All these eccentricities served only to add to the consequence of the +multipotent Mien-yaun. Then again, he was gifted with a bewitching +smile; but he steadily refrained from making any use of it oftener than +once a month, at which times the enthusiasm of his adherents knew no +bounds, and it might have been supposed that all Pekin had administered +unto itself a mild preparation of laughing-gas, so universal were the +grimaces. On very rare and distinguished occasions, Mien-yaun permitted +himself to be persuaded to sing; but as ladies sometimes swooned under +his melodious influence, the natural goodness of his heart prevented him +from frequent indulgence in the exercise of this accomplishment. + +It may naturally be supposed that the popular and fascinating young +Chinese nobleman was the devoted object of much matrimonial speculation. +Managing mammas and aspiring daughters gave the whole of their minds to +him. To look forward to the possible hope of sharing through life his +fortunes and his fame was the continual employment of many a high-born +damsel. And they the more readily and unreservedly indulged these +fancies, as nothing in the laws of China could prevent Mien-yaun from +taking as many wives as he chose, provided he could support them all, +and supply all their natural wants. But our hero knew his value. He was +fully conscious that a member of the Tse, a son of an ex-censor of the +highest board, a nephew of a personal noble and the Secretary of War, +and, above all, the brightest ornament of aristocratic society, was by +no means the sort of person to throw himself lightly away upon any woman +or any set of women. He preferred to wait. + +His family had high hopes of him. He was largely gifted with filial +piety, which is everything in China. Politics, religion, literature, +government, all rest upon the broad principle of filial piety. Being +very filially pious, of course Mien-yaun was eminent in all these varied +accomplishments. Consequently his family had a right to have high hopes +of him. The great statesman, Kei-ying,--who has very recently terminated +a life of devoted patriotism and heroic virtues by a sublime death on +the scaffold,--undertook his instruction in Chinese politics. One lesson +completed his education. "Lie, cheat, steal, and honor your parents," +were the elementary principles which Kei-ying inculcated. The readiness +with which Mien-yaun mastered them inspired his tutor with a lively +confidence in the young man's future greatness. He was pronounced a +rising character. His popularity increased. His name was in everybody's +mouth. He shunned society more sedulously than ever, and assumed new and +loftier airs. He was seized with fits of ambition, each of which lasted +a day, and then gave place to some new aspiration. First, he would be a +poet; but, after a few hours' labor, he declared the exertion of hunting +up rhymes too great an exertion. Next, he would be a moral philosopher, +and commenced a work, to be completed in sixty volumes, on the Whole +Duty of Chinamen; but he never got beyond the elementary principles he +had imbibed from Kei-ying. Again, he would become a great painter; but, +having in an unguarded moment permitted the claims of perspective to be +recognized, he was discouraged from this attempt by a deputation of the +first artists of the empire, who waited upon him, and with great respect +laid before him the appalling effects that would inevitably follow any +public recognition of perspective in painting. Finally, he renounced +all ambition but that of ruling his fellow-creatures with a rod more +tyrannical than that of political authority, and more respected than the +sceptre of government itself. + + +II. + + +Satiated with success, Mien-yaun at length became weary of the ceaseless +round of flattering triumphs, and began to lament that no higher step on +the social staircase remained for him to achieve. Alas that discontent +should so soon follow the realization of our brightest hopes! What, in +this world, is enough? More than we have! Mien-yaun felt all the pangs +of anxious aspiration, without knowing how to alleviate them. He was +only conscious of a deep desolation, for which none of the elementary +principles he had learned from Kei-ying afforded the slightest +consolation. He now avoided publicity from inclination, rather than from +any systematic plan of action. He dressed mostly in blue, a sufficient +sign of a perturbed spirit. He discarded the peacock's feather, as +an idle vanity, and always came forth among the world arrayed in +ultramarine gowns and cerulean petticoats. His stockings, especially, +were of the deepest, darkest, and most beautiful blue. The world of +fashion saw, and was amazed; but in less than, a week all Pekin had the +blues. Annoyed at what a few months before he would have delighted in as +another convincing proof of his influential position, Mien-yaun fled +the city, and sought relief in a cruise up and down the Peiho, in his +private junk. As he neared the Gulf of Pe-tche-lee, the sea-breeze +brought calm to his troubled spirit and imparted renewed vigor to his +wearied mind. A degree of resolution, to which he had heretofore been +a stranger, possessed him. His courage returned. He would go back to +Pekin. He would renounce those vain pursuits in which he had passed his +unworthy life. Henceforth he would strive for nobler aims. Something +great and wonderful he certainly would accomplish,--the exact nature of +which, however, he did not pause to consider. + +As he reëntered the city, he was obliged to pass through that quarter +which is inhabited by the Kung,--the working and manufacturing classes. +His attention was suddenly arrested by feminine cries of distress; and, +turning a corner, he came upon a domestic scene so common in China +that it would hardly have attracted his notice but for a peculiar +circumstance. A matron, well advanced in years, was violently beating +a young and beautiful girl with a bit of bamboo; and the peculiar +circumstance that enforced Mien-yaun's interest was, that, as the maiden +turned her fair face towards him, she smiled through her tears and +telegraphed him a fragrant kiss, by means of her fair fingers. Naturally +astounded, he paused, and gazed upon the pair. The younger female was +the loveliest maid he had ever looked upon. She had the smallest eyes in +the world, the most tempting, large, full, pouting lips, the blackest +and most abundant hair, exquisitely plaited, and feet no bigger than her +little finger. As these are the four characteristics of female beauty +dearest to a Chinaman's heart, it is no wonder that Mien-yaun thought +her a paragon. The old woman, on the contrary, was hideously ugly. Her +teeth were gone, and her eyes sought the comforting assistance of an +ill-fitting pair of crystal spectacles. She had no hair, and her feet +might have supported an elephant. As he rested his eyes wistfully upon +them, the young woman discharged a second rapturous salute. His heart +beat with singular turbulence, and he approached. + +"What has the child done?" he asked. + +Now the law of China is, that parents shall not be restrained from +beating and abusing their children as often and as soundly as is +convenient. The great principle of filial piety knows no reciprocity. +Should a child occasionally be killed, the payment of a small fine will +satisfy the accommodating spirit of the authorities. The ill-favored +mother was not, therefore, in any way bound to answer this somewhat +abrupt question; but, observing the appearance of high gentility, and +touched by the engaging manner of the interrogator, she answered, that +her appetite had of late been uncertain, and that she was endeavoring to +restore it by a little wholesome exercise. + +So reasonable an explanation admitted of no reply; and Mien-yaun was +about to resume his way with a sigh, when the young lady insinuated a +third osculatory hint, more penetrating than either of the others, +and bestowed on him, besides, a most ravishing smile. He fluttered +internally, but succeeded in preserving his outward immobility. He +entered into conversation with the elderly female, observing that it was +a fine day, and that it promised to continue so, although destiny was +impenetrable, and clouds might overshadow the radiant face of Nature at +any unexpected moment. To these and other equally profound and original +remarks the old woman graciously assented, and finally invited the young +gentleman to partake of a cup of scau-tcheou. Now scau-tcheou, which is +the most ardent of Chinese spirits, was Mien-yaun's abomination; but he +concealed his disgust, and quietly observed that he should prefer a cup +of tea. + +The old woman was delighted, and ran off to prepare the desired +refreshment, so that Mien-yaun was at length rewarded by the opportunity +of a few private words with the daughter. + +"Tell me, Miss," said he,--"why did the sweetest of lips perform their +most delicate office when the brightest of eyes first turned upon me?" + +The young lady, confused and blushing, answered, that the brilliancy of +the jewel which Mien-yaun wore in his hat had dazzled her vision, and +that she mistook him for an intimate friend of her youth,--that was all. + +He knew this was a lie; but as lying was in exact accordance with the +elementary principles laid down by the learned Kei-ying, he was rather +pleased by it. Moreover, it was a very pretty lie, worthy of so pretty a +girl; and Mien-yaun, whose wits were fast leaving him, removed the jewel +from his hat, and begged the maiden to accept it. She, declaring that +she never could think of such a thing, deposited it in her bosom. +Evidently the twain were on the brink of love; a gentle push only was +needed to submerge them. + +Mien-yaun speedily learned that his fair friend's name was Ching-ki-pin; +that she was the daughter of a wealthy manufacturer, named Tching-whang, +who owned extensive porcelain-factories at the North, and was besides a +considerable tobacco-planter; that her father was very kind to her, +but that the old woman, who was not her own mother, treated her very +cruelly; that her father married this ancient virago for her wealth, and +now repented the rash step, but found it impossible to retrace it, as +the law of China allows no divorces excepting when the wife has parents +living to receive and shelter her; and the obnoxious woman being nearly +a hundred years old herself, this was out of the question. When he +had learned so much, they were interrupted by the reappearance of the +Antique, who brought with her the cup of tea, most carefully prepared. +In deep abstraction, Mien-yaun seized it, and, instead of drinking the +boiling beverage, poured it upon the old woman's back, scalding her to +such a degree that her shrieks resounded through the neighborhood. Then +dropping the cup upon the ground, he put his heel into it, and, with a +burning glance of love at Ching-ki-pin, strode, melancholy, away. + + +III. + + +All that night, Mien-yaun's heart was troubled. The tranquillizing +finger of Sleep never touched his eyelids. At earliest dawn he arose, +and devoted some hours to the consideration of his costume. Never before +had he murmured at his wardrobe; now everything seemed unworthy of +the magnitude of the occasion. Finally, after many doubts and inward +struggles, and much bewilderment and desperation, the thing was done. He +issued forth in a blaze of splendor, preceded by two servants bearing +rare and costly presents. His raiment was a masterpiece of artistic +effect. He wore furs from Russia, and cotton from Bombay; his breast +sparkled with various orders of nobility; his slippers glistened with +gems; his hat was surmounted with the waving feather of the peacock. +Turning neither to the right nor to the left, he made his way to the +residence of Tching-whang. At the portal he paused, and sent in before +him his card,--a sheet of bright red paper,--with a list of the presents +he designed to offer the family whose acquaintance he desired to +cultivate. + +As he had expected, his reception was most cordial. Though his person +was unknown, the magic of his name was not unfelt, even in the regions +of the Kung. A prince of the peacock's feather was no common visitor to +the home of a plebeian manufacturer; and when that prince was found +to be in addition the leader of the fashions and the idol of the +aristocracy, the marvel assumed a miraculous character. The guest was +ushered in with many low obeisances. How the too gay Ching-ki-pin +regretted those unlucky telegraphic kisses! What would he think of her? +She, too, had passed a most unquiet night, but had been able to relieve +her feelings to some extent at the sewing-circle, which had met at +her home, and at which she poured into the eager ears of her young +companions rapturous accounts of the beauty, elegance, dignity, and +tenderness of the enchanting stranger, and displayed before their +dazzled eyes the lustrous jewel he had presented to her. Having excited +a great deal of envy and jealousy, she was able to rest more in peace +than would otherwise have been possible. But she had never dreamed of +the real rank of her admirer. It came upon her like a lightning-flash, +and almost reduced her to a condition of temporary distraction. As for +the mother-in-law, she would infallibly have gone off into hysterics, +but for the pain in her back, which the barbers--who are also the +physicians in China--had not been able to allay. But the sight of a +peacock's feather under her roof was better than balm to her tortured +spine. Tching-whang lost his presence of mind altogether, and violated +the common decencies of life by receiving his visitor with his hat +off, and taking the proffered presents with one hand,--the other being +occupied in pulling his ear, to assure himself he was not dreaming. + +Mien-yaun spoke. His voice fell like soft music on the ears of his +hosts, and went straight to the innermost core of Ching-ki-pin's heart. +He had come, he said, to give utterance to his deep grief at the mishap +of yesterday, the recollection of which had harrowed his soul. The +thought of that venerable blistered back had taken away his repose, and +seriously interfered with his appetite. At the same time he could not +forget his own great loss, occasioned by the unlucky spilling of the +precious cup. He was sure, that Madam, in the kindness of her heart, +would overlook his fault, and consent to bestow on him another cheering, +but not inebriating draught. + +The Antique was overcome by so much condescension. She could not say +a word. Tching-whang, too, remained paralyzed. But the beauteous +Ching-ki-pin, who had recovered her composure, answered with the +sweetest air imaginable, and succeeded in winding another amorous chain +around the already sufficiently-enslaved heart of her lover. + +Presently the ice of constraint was broken, and the Antique, having once +put her foot in it, plunged off into conversation with remarkable vigor. +She entertained Mien-yaun with a detailed account of her family trials, +so interminable, that, with all his politeness, the young noble could +not avoid gaping desperately. Tching-whang, observing his visitor's +strait, interposed. + +"What the women have lost in their feet, they have added to their +tongues," said he, quoting a Chinese proverb of great popularity. + +As the Antique persisted, her husband gently reminded her that excessive +talkativeness is an allowed ground for divorce in China, and, by +suggesting the idea that she might possibly become the dismembered +fragment of a shattered union, at length succeeded in shaming her into +silence. + +This Tching-whang was a fine old fellow. He was not a bit fashionable, +and Mien-yaun liked him the better for it. He had been educated by the +bamboo, and not by masters in the arts of courtesy. But he was a shrewd, +cunning, jolly old Chinaman, and was evidently perfectly familiar with +the elementary principles according to Kei-ying. After an animated +discussion of some ten minutes, it would have been difficult to +determine which of the two gentlemen was most deeply imbued with a sense +of the righteousness of the elementary principles. + +After a proper time had elapsed, Mien-yaun was permitted the luxury of +a private chat with his charmer. What sighs, what smiles, what pleasing +tremors, what soft murmurings, what pressings of the hand and throbbings +of the heart were there! The Antique, who watched the course of +proceedings through a contiguous keyhole, subsequently declared that she +had never in all her life witnessed so affecting a spectacle, and she +was prevented from giving way to her excessive agitation only by +the thought that the interruption might seriously endanger her +daughter-in-law's prospects. The lovers, unconscious of scrutiny, made +great progress. Some doubt appeared at one time to exist as to which +had first experienced the budding passion which had now blossomed so +profusely; but in due time it was settled that both had suffered love at +precisely the same moment, and that the first gleam of the other's eye +had kindled the flame in the bosom of each. + +Towards evening, the Antique came in with a cup of tea worthy to excite +a poet's inspiration,--and poets in China have sung the delights of tea, +and written odes to teacups, too, before now. Mien-yaun sipped it with +an air of high-breeding that neither Ching-ki-pin nor her respectable +mother-in-law had ever seen before. Soon after, the enamored couple +parted, with many fond protestations of faith, avowed and betrothed +lovers. + +Mien-yaun went home in an amatory ecstasy, and immediately exploded four +bunches of crackers and blazed a Bengal light, as a slight token of his +infinite happiness. + + +IV. + + +All Pekin was in an uproar. That is to say, the three thousand eminent +individuals who composed the aristocracy had nearly lost their wits. +The million and a half of common people were, of course, of no account. +Mien-yaun had given out that he was about to be married; but to whom, +or to how many, remained a mystery. No further intelligence passed his +lips. Consequently, in less than twenty-four hours there were four +hundred and fifty persons who knew the lady's name, as many more who had +conversed with her upon the subject, twice as many who knew the day on +which the ceremony was to take place, at least one thousand who had been +invited to assist, and an infinitely greater number who simply shook +their heads. In two days the names of some hundreds of young and comely +damsels were popularly accepted as the chosen future partner of the +glass of fashion and the mould of form. Fifty different days and hours +were fixed as the appointed time. All the most noted bonzes in Pekin +were in turn declared to be the fortunate sacred instrument by which +the union was to be effected. In the course of a week, public feeling +reached such a height that business was neglected and property declined +in value. A panic was feared. Mien-yaun shut himself up, and did not +stir abroad for a month, lest he should be tracked, and his secret +discovered. He contrived, however, to maintain a constant correspondence +with the light of his soul. + +He was a little disturbed to find that his much revered father, the +ex-censor of the highest board, took no notice of what was going on, and +never alluded to the subject in any manner. Mien-yaun was too deeply +impressed with a sense of filial obligation to intrude his humble +affairs upon the old gentleman's + +[Transcriber's note: Page missing in original.] + +There were lanterns--without number, and of the largest size; there were +the richest and most luxurious couches disposed about for the general +comfort; there were consultations of cooks, headed by a professor from +Ning-po, a city famed throughout China for its culinary perfection, with +a view to producing an unrivalled gastronomic sensation; there were +tailors who tortured their inventive brains to realize the ideal raiment +which Mien-yaun desired to appear in. The panic ceased as suddenly as it +had arisen. A little while ago, and there was a surplus of supply and no +demand; now, the demand far exceeded the supply. Artists in apparel were +driven frantic. In three days the entire fashionable world of Pekin had +to be new clad, and well clad, for the great occasion. One tailor, +in despair at his inability to execute more than the tenth of his +commissions, went and drowned himself in the Peiho River, a proceeding +which did not at all diminish the public distress. The loss of the +tailor was nothing, to be sure, but his death was a fatal blow to the +hopes of at least a hundred of the first families. As for the women, +they were beside themselves, and knew not which way to turn. It was +evident that nothing had occurred within a half-century to create +anything like the excitement that existed. Mien-yaun's prospects of +eternal potency never seemed so cheering. + +All this time, our hero's father, the ex-censor of the highest board, +preserved a profound silence. + + +VI. + + +The three days passed so rapidly, that even Mien-yaun's anxiety, great +as it was, could hardly keep pace with the swift hours. The morning +of the New Year came. For the first time in his life, the dictator of +fashion lost his mind. His head whirled like a tee-to-tum, and his +pulses beat sharp and irregular as the detonations of a bundle of +crackers. He was obliged to resign himself to fate and his valet, and +felt compelled to have recourse to many cups of tea to calm his fevered +senses. At length it became necessary for him to descend to the gardens. +Nerving himself by a powerful effort, he advanced among his guests. + +What a gorgeous array of rank and beauty was there! The customary calls +of the New Year had been forgotten. Curiosity had alike infected all, +and the traditionary commemoration of two thousand years was for the +first time neglected. Why this tremor at our hero's heart? Was he not +lord of all that he surveyed? Reigned he not yet with undisputed sway? +Or was it that, an undefined presentiment of dire misfortune had settled +upon him? He strove to banish his melancholy, but with slight success. + +His troubled air did not escape the scrutinizing eyes of the company. +The women whispered; the men shook their heads. But all greeted him with +enthusiasm, and asked after his bride with eagerness. + +A crash of gongs was heard. The gates of a pavilion flew open, and the +beauteous Ching-ki-pin stepped forth, glowing with loveliness and hope. +As she stood an instant timidly on the portal, she seemed almost a +divinity,--at least, Mien-yaun thought so. Her sweet face was surmounted +by a heavy coronet of black hair, plaited to perfection, and glistening +with gum. Her little eyes beamed lovingly on her betrothed, and a flush +of expectancy overspread her countenance. Her costume was in the best +Chinese taste. An embroidered tunic of silk fell from her neck almost to +her ankles, and just temptingly revealed the spangled trowsers and the +richly jewelled slippers. A murmur of admiration diffused itself around. +Then followed many anxious inquiries. Who was she? Whence came she? To +whom belonged she? Her face was strange to all that high-born throng. In +a minute, however, her father appeared, bearing on his arm the Antique, +who looked more hideous than ever. A flash of intelligence quivered +through the multitude. Many of the nobility purchased their porcelain +and tobacco of Tching-whang, and recognized him immediately. It is +astonishing how like lightning unpleasant facts do fly. In less than two +minutes, every soul in the gardens knew that Mien-yaun, the noble, the +princely, the loftily-descended, the genteel, was going to marry a +tradesman's daughter. + +Now that the great secret was out, everybody had thought so. Some had +been sure of it. Others had told you so. It was the most natural thing +in the world. Where there was so much mystery, there must, of necessity, +be some peculiar reason for it. A great many had always thought him a +little crazy. In fact, the whole tide of public sentiment instantly +turned. Mien-yaun, without knowing it, was dethroned. Upstarts, who +that morning had trembled at his frown, and had very properly deemed +themselves unworthy to braid his tail, now swept by him with swaggering +insolence, as if to compensate in their new-found freedom for the years +of social enslavement they had been subjected to. Leers and shrugs and +spiteful whispers circulated extensively. But the enraptured Mien-yaun, +blind to everything except his own overwhelming happiness, saw and heard +them not. + +Little time was afforded for these private expressions of amiable +feeling. The grand repast was declared ready, and the importance of this +announcement overweighed, for a short period, the claims of scandal and +ill-nature. The company quickly found their way to the tables, which, as +the "Pekin Gazette" of the next morning said, in describing the _fête_, +"literally groaned beneath the weight of the delicacies with which they +were loaded." The consultations of the Ning-po cook and his confederates +had produced great results. The guests seated themselves, and delicately +tasted the slices of goose and shell-fish, and the pickled berries, and +prawns, and preserves, which always compose the prefatory course of a +Chinese dinner of high degree. Then porcelain plates and spoons of the +finest quality, and ivory chopsticks tipped with pearl, were distributed +about, and the birds'-nest soup was brought on. After a sufficient +indulgence in this luxury, came sea-slugs, and shark stews, and crab +salad, all served with rich and gelatinous sauces, and cooked to a +charm. Ducks' tongues and deers' tendons, from Tartary, succeeded, with +stewed fruits and mucilaginous gravy. Every known and some unknown +luxuries were lavishly provided. The Ning-po cook had invented a +new dish expressly for the occasion,--"Baked ice _à la_ +Ching-ki-pin,"--which was highly esteemed. The ice was enveloped in a +crust of fine pastry, and introduced into the oven; the paste being +baked before the ice--thus protected from the heat--had melted, the +astonished visitors had the satisfaction of biting through a burning +crust, and instantly cooling their palates with the grateful contents. +The Chinese never cook except on substantial principles; and it was the +principle of contrast which regulated this sublime _chef-d'oeuvre_ of +the Ning-po artist. + +Of course, the rarest beverages were not wanting. A good dinner without +good wine is nought. Useless each without the other. Those whose fancy +rested upon medicated _liqueurs_ found them in every variety. Those who +placed a higher value upon plain light wines had no reason to complain +of the supply set before them. Those whose unconquerable instinct +impelled them to the more invigorating sam-shu had only to make known +their natural desires. As the feast progressed, and the spirits of +the company rose, the charms of music were added to the delights of +appetite. A band of singsong girls gently beat their tom-toms, and +carolled in soft and soothing strains. As they finished, a general +desire to hear Mien-yaun was expressed. Willing, indeed, he was, and, +after seven protestations that he could not think upon it, each fainter +than the other, he suffered himself to be prevailed over, and, casting +a fond look upon his betrothed, he rose, and sang the following verses +from the Shee-king,--a collection of odes four thousand years old, and, +consequently, of indisputable beauty:-- + + "The peach-tree, how graceful! how fair! + How blooming, how pleasant its leaves! + Such is a bride when she enters to share + The home of her bridegroom, and every care + Her family from her receives."[A] + +[Footnote A: The following is Sir William Jones's less literal and more +poetic paraphrase of the same selection:-- + + "Gay child of Spring, the garden's queen, + Yon peach-tree charms the roving sight; + Its fragrant leaves how richly green! + Its blossoms how divinely bright! + + "So softly smiles the blooming bride + By love and conscious virtue led + O'er her new mansion to preside, + And placid joys around her spread."] + + +VII. + + +The festivities were at their height, the sam-shu was spreading its +benign influences over the guests, the deep delight of satiated appetite +possessed their bosoms, when the entrance of a stern and fat old +gentleman arrested universal attention. It was the respected father of +Mien-yaun, the ex-censor of the highest board, and Councillor of the +Empire. The company rose to greet him; but he, with gracious suavity, +begged them not to discompose themselves. Approaching that part of the +table occupied by the bridal party, he laid his hand upon his heart, and +assured Tching-whang that he was unable to express the joy he felt at +seeing him and his family. + +Mien-yaun's father was a perfect master of the elementary principles. + +Turning then to his son, he pleasantly requested him to excuse himself +to the assemblage, and follow him for a few minutes to a private +apartment. + +As soon as they were alone, the adipose ex-censor of the highest board +said:--"My son, have you thought of wedding this maiden?" + +"Nothing shall divert me from that purpose, O my father," confidently +answered Mien-yaun. + +"Nothing but my displeasure," said the ex-censor of the highest board. +"You will not marry her." + +Mien-yaun was thunderstruck. When he had said that nothing should +awe him from the career of his humor, he had never contemplated the +appalling contingency of the interposition of paternal authority. He +wept, he prayed, he raved, he gnashed his teeth, he tore out as much of +his hair as was consistent with appearances. He went through all the +various manifestations of despair, but without producing the slightest +effect upon the inexorable ex-censor of the highest board. That worthy +official briefly explained his objections to a union between his son, +the pride and joy of the Tse, and a daughter of one of the Kung, and +then, taking the grief-stricken lover by the hand, he led him back to +the gardens. + +"Good friends," said he, "my son has just conveyed to me his lively +appreciation of the folly he was about to commit. He renounces all +connection with the black-haired daughter of the Kung, whom he now +wishes a very good evening." + +And the ex-censor of the highest board gravely and gracefully bowed the +family of Tching-whang out of the premises. The moment they crossed the +threshold, Mien-yaun and Ching-ki-pin went into a simultaneous fit. + + +VIII. + + +Mien-yaun now abandoned himself to grief. He laid away the peacock's +feather on a lofty shelf, and took to cotton breeches. Mien-yaun in +cotton breeches! What stronger confirmation could be needed of his utter +desolation? As he kept himself strictly secluded, he knew nothing of +the storm of ridicule that was sweeping his once illustrious name +disgracefully through the city. He knew not that a popular but +unscrupulous novelist had caught up the sad story and wrought it into +three thrilling volumes,--nor that an enterprising dramatist had +constructed a closely-written play in five acts, founded on the event, +and called "The Judgment of Taoli, or Vanity Rebuked," which had been +prepared, rehearsed, and put upon the stage by the second night after +the occurrence. He would gladly have abdicated the throne of fashion; +he cared nothing for that;--but it was well that he was spared the +humiliation of seeing his Ching-ki-pin's name held up to public scorn; +that would have destroyed the feeble remains of intellect which yet +inhabited his bewildered brain. + +Occasionally he would address the most piteous entreaties to his +cruel parent, but always unavailingly. He had not the spirit to show +resentment, even if the elementary principles would have permitted +it. The reaction of his life had come. This first great sorrow had +completely overwhelmed him, and, like most young persons in the agony of +a primal disappointment, he believed that the world had now no charms +for him, and that in future his existence would be little better than +a long sad bore. He looked back upon his career of gaudy magnificence +without regret, and felt like a _blasé_ butterfly, who would gladly +return to the sober obscurity of the chrysalis. He found that wealth and +station, though they might command the admiration of the world, could +not insure him happiness; and he thought how readily he would resign all +the gifts and glories which Fortune had showered on him for the joyous +hope, could he dare to indulge it, of a cottage on the banks of the +Grand Canal, with his darling Ching-ki-pin at his side. + +Thus passed away some months. At last, one day, he ventured forth, in +hope of meeting some former friend, in whose confiding ear he might +whisper his many sorrows. He had not proceeded twenty paces before a +group of young gallants, who in earlier days had been the humblest +of his satellites, brushed rudely by him, without acknowledging his +courteous salutation. Thinking that anguish might have changed his +features beyond recognition, he walked on, and soon met one with whom +his intimacy had been unlimited. He paused, and accosted him. + +The other stared coldly upon him, said he had a faint remembrance of +Mien-yaun, but Mien-yaun was _passé_ now, since that affair with old +Tching-whang's daughter, and he must really be excused from entering +into conversation with any one so excessively behind the fashionable +times. + +Mien-yaun seized the offender by the tail, whirled him violently to the +ground, and strode haughtily back to his home, whence he could not be +persuaded to stir, until after the occurrence of a very remarkable +event. + + +IX. + + +When Mien-yaun had pined nearly half away, and was considering within +himself whether it was expedient to commence upon the other half, word +was brought to him, one day, that his father, whom he had not seen for +some weeks, had met with an accident. Further inquiry revealed the fact, +that the worthy ex-censor of the highest board had so far forgotten +himself as to sneeze in the presence of the Emperor; and as nothing in +the elementary principles could be found to justify so gross a breach +of etiquette, the ex-censor's head had been struck off by the public +executioner, and his property, which was immense, had been confiscated +to the state. Some of Mien-yaun's friends, who had sedulously shunned +him for six months, lost no time in hastening to him with the agreeable +intelligence that he was an orphan and a pauper. After kicking them out +of doors, he sat down and pondered upon the matter. + +On the whole, he saw no great cause for grief. The Chinese law, which +is strict in the enforcement of all duties of a son to a living parent, +does not compel excessive lamentation for the dead. Mien-yaun could not +but perceive that the only obstacle to his union with Ching-ki-pin was +now removed. The sudden flood of joy which this thought gave rise +to came very near upsetting him again, and he had to resort to an +opium-pipe to quiet his nerves. He attended personally to the ceremonies +of interring the decollated deceased, and then shut himself up for a +week, to settle his mind. + +At the expiration of this time, he started out, one early morning, alone +and in humble garb, to seek his lost love. He threaded the familiar +streets, and, with heart beating high in delightful expectation, he +stood before the door of Tching-whang's mansion. He entered, and found +the Antique alone. + +Then followed a woful scene. The Antique began by informing him that +Mien-yaun rich and famous, and Mien-yaun poor and in disgrace, were two +very different persons. She went on to show that things were not now as +they used to be,--that, though her daughter-in-law had permitted his +addresses when he was in prosperity, she could not think of listening to +them under the present circumstances. _Pei_ was one thing, and _pin_ was +another. She concluded by recommending him, as he seemed in distress, to +take a dose of gin-seng and go to bed. After which she opened the door, +and gently eliminated him. + + +X. + + +Deeper than ever plummet sounded was Mien-yaun's wretchedness now. +Desperation took possession of him. Nothing prevented him from severing +his carotid artery but the recollection that only the vulgar thus +disposed of themselves. He thought of poison, whose sale was present +death in Pekin, according to established law. Suicide by poison being a +forbidden luxury, it recommended itself nimbly unto Mien-yaun's senses. +He did remember an apothecary whose poverty, if not his will, would +consent to let him have a dram of poison. He was about acting on this +inspiration, when a message was brought to him from Tching-whang, that, +at his daughter's most earnest prayer, one solitary interview would be +permitted the lovers. + +Like an arrow, Mien-yaun flew to the arms of Ching-ki-pin. She was, +then, true to him. She told him so; she swore it. Hope revived. He +thought no longer of the apothecary. Since Ching-ki-pin was faithful, he +asked no higher bliss. + +A hundred plans were discussed, and all declared ineffectual to +accomplish their union. Still they suggested impracticabilities. + +"Let us run away," said Mien-yaun. + +"Think of my feet," said Ching-ki-pin, reproachfully;--"am I a Hong-Kong +woman, that I should run?" + +It is only in Hong-Kong that the Chinese women permit their feet to +grow. + +Mien-yaun was full of heroic resolutions. Hitherto, besides being born +great, he had had greatness thrust upon him. Now he would achieve +greatness. He would secure not only wealth, but also a more enduring +fame than he had before enjoyed. He saw many avenues to eminence opening +before him. He would establish a periodical devoted to pictorial +civilization. If civilization did not bring it success, he would +illustrate great crimes and deadly horrors, in the highest style of Art, +and thus command the attention of the world. Or he would establish a +rival theatre. Two playhouses already existed in Pekin, each controlled +by men of high integrity, great tact, and undenied claims to public +support. He would overturn all that. He would start without capital, +sink immense sums, pay nobody, ruin his company, and retire in triumph. +Or he would become a successful politician, which was easier than +all, for nothing was needed in this career but strong lungs and a +cyclopaedia. Many other methods of achieving renown did he rehearse, all +of which seemed feasible. + +Ching-ki-pin, too, thought she might do something to acquire wealth. She +painted beautifully, with no sign of perspective to mar her artistic +productions. She warbled like a nightingale. She understood botany +better than the great Chin-nong, who discovered in one day no less than +seventy poisonous plants, and their seventy antidotes. Could she not +give lessons to select classes of young ladies in all these several +accomplishments? She was dying to do something to help defeat the +machinations of their evil Quei-shin, the mother-in-law. + +Finally, without coming to any particular conclusion, and after +interchanging eternal vows, they parted much comforted, and looking +forward to a brighter future. + + +XI. + + +Mien-yaun went to his home,--no longer the splendid mansion of his early +days, but a poor cottage, in an obscure quarter of the city. As he threw +himself upon a bench, a sharp bright thought flashed across his mind. +His brain expanded with a sudden poetic ecstasy. He seized upon a fresh +white sheet, and quickly covered it with the mute symbols of his fancy. +Another sheet, and yet another. Faster than his hand could record them, +the burning thoughts crowded upon him. No hesitation now, as in his +former efforts to effect his rhymes. Experience had taught him how to +think, and much suffering had filled his bosom with emotions that longed +to be expressed. Still he wrote on. Towards midnight he kicked off his +shoes, and wrote on, throwing the pages over his shoulder as fast as +they were finished. Morning dawned, and found him still at his task. He +continued writing with desperate haste until noon, and then flung away +his last sheet; his poem was done. + +He rose, and moistened his lips with a cup of fragrant Hyson, which, +according to the great Kian-lung, who was both a poet and an emperor, +and therefore undoubted authority on all subjects, drives away all the +five causes of disquietude which come to trouble us. Then he walked up +and down his narrow apartment many times, carefully avoiding the piles +of eloquence that lay scattered around. Then he sat down, and, gathering +up the disordered pages, resigned himself to the dire necessity--that +curse of authorship--of revising and correcting his verses. By +nightfall, this, too, was completed. + +In the morning, he ran to the nearest publisher. His poem was +enthusiastically accepted. In a week, it was issued anonymously, +although the author's name was universally known the same day. + +As Mien-yaun himself was afterwards accustomed to say,--after six months +of ignominious obscurity, he awoke one morning and found himself famous! + +In two days the first edition was exhausted, and a second, with +illustrations, was called for. In two more, it became necessary to issue +a third, with a biography of the author, in which it was shown that +Mien-yaun was the worst-abused individual in the world, and that Pekin +had forever dishonored itself by ill-treating the greatest genius that +city had ever produced. In the fourth edition, which speedily followed, +the poet's portrait appeared. + +It was soon found that Mien-yaun's poem was a versified narration of his +own experiences. There was the romantic youth, the beautiful maiden, the +obdurate papa, the villanous mother-in-law, and the shabby public. This +discovery augmented its popularity, and ten editions were disposed of in +a month. + +At length the Emperor was induced to read it. He underwent a new +sensation, and, in the exuberance of his delight, summoned the author +to a grand feast. When the Antique heard of this, she swallowed her +chopsticks in a fit of rage and spite, and died of suffocation. +Mien-yaun was then satisfied. He went to the dinner. The noble and the +mighty again lavished their attentions upon him, but he turned from them +with disgust. He saw through the flimsy tissue of flattery they would +fain cast over his eyes. The most appetizing delicacies were set before +him, but, like a true poet, he refused to take anything but biscuits and +soda-water. As neither of these articles had been provided, he consented +to regale himself with a single duck's tongue. In short, he behaved so +singularly, and gave himself so many airs, that everybody present, from +the Emperor to the cook, was ready to bow down and worship him. + +At the close of the repast, the Emperor begged to be informed in what +way he could be permitted to testify his appreciation of the towering +talents of his gifted subject. + +"Son of Heaven," answered Mien-yaun, "grant me only the hand in marriage +of my beauteous Ching-ki-pin. No other ambition have I." + +The Emperor was provoked at the modesty of the demand. In truth, he +would have been glad to see the young poet united to one of his own +daughters. But his imperial word was pledged,--and as Mien-yaun willed +it, so it was. + + +XII. + + +Their home is a little cottage on the bank of the Peiho; finery never +enters it, and neatness never leaves it. The singing of birds, the +rustling of the breeze, the murmuring of the waters are the only sounds +that they hear. Their windows will shut, and their door open,--but +to wise men only; the wicked shun it. Truth dwells in their hearts, +innocence guides their actions. Glory has no more charms for them than +wealth, and all the pleasures of the world cost them not a single wish. +The enjoyment of ease and solitude is their chief concern. Leisure +surrounds them, and discord shuns them. They contemplate the heavens and +are fortified. They look on the earth and are comforted. They remain in +the world without being of it. One day leads on another, and one year is +followed by another; the last will conduct them safe to their eternal +rest, and they will have lived for one another.[B] + +[Footnote B: The concluding lines are from a modern Chinese poem.] + + * * * * * + + +JOY-MONTH. + + + Oh, hark to the brown thrush! hear how he sings! + How he pours the dear pain of his gladness! + What a gush! and from out what golden springs! + What a rage of how sweet madness! + + And golden the buttercup blooms by the way, + A song of the joyous ground; + While the melody rained from yonder spray + Is a blossom in fields of sound. + + How glisten the eyes of the happy leaves! + How whispers each blade, "I am blest!" + Rosy heaven his lips to flowered earth gives, + With the costliest bliss of his breast. + + Pour, pour of the wine of thy heart, O Nature, + By cups of field and of sky, + By the brimming soul of every creature!-- + Joy-mad, dear Mother, am I! + + Tongues, tongues for my joy, for my joy! more tongues!-- + Oh, thanks to the thrush on the tree, + To the sky, and to all earth's blooms and songs! + They utter the heart in me. + + + + +A TRIP TO CUBA. + +[Continued.] + + +THE HARBOR OF HAVANA. + + +As we have said, there were some official mysteries connected with the +arrival of our steamer in Nassau; but these did not compare with the +visitations experienced in Havana. As soon as we had dropped anchor, a +swarm of dark creatures came on board, with gloomy brows, mulish noses, +and suspicious eyes. This application of Spanish flies proves irritating +to the good-natured captain, and uncomfortable to all of us. All +possible documents are produced for their satisfaction,--bill of lading, +bill of health, and so on. Still they persevere in tormenting the whole +ship's crew, and regard us, when we pass, with all the hatred of race in +their rayless eyes. "Is it a crime," we are disposed to ask, "to have +a fair Saxon skin, blue eyes, and red blood?" Truly, one would seem to +think so; and the first glance at this historical race makes clear to us +the Inquisition, the Conquest of Granada, and the ancient butcheries of +Alva and Pizarro. + +As Havana is an unco uncertain place for accommodations, we do not go on +shore, the first night, but, standing close beside the bulwarks, feel a +benevolent pleasure in seeing our late companions swallowed and carried +off like tidbits by the voracious boatmen below, who squabble first for +them and then with them, and so gradually disappear in the darkness. On +board the "Karnak" harmony reigns serene. The custom-house wretches are +gone, and we are, on the whole, glad we did not murder them. Our little +party enjoys tea and bread-and-butter together for the last time. After +so many mutual experiences of good and evil, the catguts about our tough +old hearts are loosened, and discourse the pleasant music of Friendship. +An hour later, I creep up to the higher deck, to have a look-out +forward, where the sailors are playing leap-frog and dancing +fore-and-afters. I have a genuine love of such common sights, and am +quite absorbed by the good fun before me, when a solemn voice sounds at +my left, and, looking round, I perceive Can Grande, who has come up to +explain to me the philosophy of the sailor's dances, and to unfold his +theory of amusements, as far as the narrow area of one little brain +(mine, not his) will permit. His monologue, and its interruptions, ran +very much as follows:-- + +_I_.--This is a pleasant sight, isn't it? + +_Can Grande_.--It has a certain interest, as exhibiting the inborn ideal +tendency of the human race;--no tribe of people so wretched, so poor, or +so infamous as to dispense with amusement, in some form or other. + +_Voice from below_.--Play up, Cook! That's but a slow jig ye're fluting +away at. + +_Can Grande_.--I went once to the Five Points of New York, with a +police-officer and two philanthropists;--our object was to investigate +that lowest phase of social existence.---- + +Bang, whang, go the wrestlers below, with loud shouts and laughter. I +give them one eye and ear,--Can Grande has me by the other. + +_Can Grande_.--I went into one of their miserable dance-saloons. I saw +there the vilest of men and the vilest of women, meeting with the worst +intentions; but even for this they had the fiddle, music and dancing. +Without this little crowning of something higher, their degradation +would have been intolerable to themselves and to each other.---- + +Here the man who gave the back in leap-frog suddenly went down in the +middle of the leap, bringing with him the other, who, rolling on the +deck, caught the traitor by the hair, and pommelled him to his heart's +content. I ventured to laugh, and exclaim, "Did you see that?" + +_Can Grande_.--Yes; that is very common.--At that dance of death, every +wretched woman had such poor adornment as her circumstances allowed,--a +collar, a tawdry ribbon, a glaring false jewel, her very rags disposed +with the greater decency of the finer sex,--a little effort at beauty, a +sense of it. The good God puts it there;--He does not allow the poorest, +the lowest of his human children the thoughtless indifference of +brutes.---- + +And there was the beautiful tropical sky above, starry, soft, and +velvet-deep,--the placid waters all around, and at my side the man who +is to speak no more in public, but whose words in private have still the +old thrill, the old power to shake the heart and bring the good thoughts +uppermost. I put my hand in his, and we descended the companionway +together and left the foolish sailors to their play. + +But now, on the after-deck, the captain, much entreated, and in no wise +unwilling, takes down his violin, and with pleasant touch gives us the +dear old airs, "Home, Sweet Home," "Annie Laurie," and so on, and we +accompany him with voices toned down by the quiet of the scene around. +He plays, too, with a musing look, the merry tune to which his little +daughter dances, in the English dancing-school, hundreds of leagues +away. Good-night, at last, and make the most of it. Coolness and quiet +on the water to-night, and heat and mosquitoes, howling of dogs and +chattering of negroes tomorrow night, in Havana. + +The next morning allowed us to accomplish our transit to the desired +land of Havana. We pass the custom-house, where an official in a cage, +with eyes of most oily sweetness, and tongue, no doubt, to match, +pockets our gold, and imparts in return a governmental permission to +inhabit the Island of Cuba for the space of one calendar month. We go +trailing through the market, where we buy peeled oranges, and through +the streets, where we eat them, seen and recognized afar as Yankees by +our hats, bonnets, and other features. We stop at the Café Dominica, and +refresh with coffee and buttered rolls, for we have still a drive of +three miles to accomplish before breakfast. All the hotels in Havana are +full, and more than full. Woolcut, of the Cerro, three miles from the +gates, is the only landlord who will take us in; so he seizes us fairly +by the neck, bundles us into an omnibus, swears that his hotel is but +two miles distant, smiles archly when we find the two miles long, brings +us where he wants to have us, the Spaniards in the omnibus puffing and +staring at the ladies all the way. Finally, we arrive at his hotel, glad +to be somewhere, but hot, tired, hungry, and not in raptures with our +first experience of tropical life. + +It must be confessed that our long-tried energies fall somewhat flat on +the quiet of Woolcut's. We look round, and behold one long room with +marble floor, with two large doors, not windows, opening in front upon +the piazza and the street, and other openings into a large court behind, +surrounded by small, dark bedrooms. The large room is furnished with two +dilapidated cane sofas, a few chairs, a small table, and three or four +indifferent prints, which we have ample time to study. For company, we +see a stray New York or Philadelphia family, a superannuated Mexican who +smiles and bows to everybody, and some dozen of those undistinguishable +individuals whom we class together as Yankees, and who, taking the map +from Maine to Georgia, might as well come from one place as another, the +Southerner being as like the Northerner as a dried pea is to a green +pea. The ladies begin to hang their heads, and question a little:--"What +are we to do here? and where is the perfectly delightful Havana you told +us of?" Answer:--"There is nothing whatever to do here, at this hour +of the day, but to undress and go to sleep;--the heat will not let you +stir, the glare will not let you write or read. Go to bed; dinner is at +four; and after that, we will make an effort to find the Havana of the +poetical and Gan Eden people, praying Heaven it may not have its only +existence in their brains." + +Still, the pretty ones do not brighten; they walk up and down, eyeing +askance the quiet boarders who look so contented over their children and +worsted-work, and wondering in what part of the world they have taken +the precaution to leave their souls. Unpacking is then begun, with +rather a flinging of the things about, interspersed with little peppery +hints as to discomfort and dulness, and dejected stage-sighs, intended +for hearing. But this cannot go on,--the thermometer is at 78 degrees +in the shade,--an intense and contagious stillness reigns through the +house,--some good genius waves a bunch of poppies near those little +fretful faces, for which a frown is rather heavy artillery. The balmy +breath of sleep blows off the lightly-traced furrows, and, after a +dreamy hour or two, all is bright, smooth, and freshly dressed, as a +husband could wish it. The dinner proves not intolerable, and after it +we sit on the piazza. A refreshing breeze springs up, and presently the +tide of the afternoon drive sets in from the city. The _volantes_ dash +by, with silver-studded harnesses, and postilions black and booted; +within sit the pretty Señoritas, in twos and threes. They are attired +mostly in muslins, with bare necks and arms; bonnets they know +not,--their heads are dressed with flowers, or with jewelled pins. Their +faces are whitened, we know, with powder, but in the distance the effect +is pleasing. Their dark eyes are vigilant; they know a lover when they +see him. But there is no twilight in these parts, and the curtain of the +dark falls upon the scene as suddenly as the screen of the theatre upon +the _dénouement_ of the tragedy. Then comes a cup of truly infernal tea, +the mastication of a stale roll, with butter, also stale,--then, +more sitting on the piazza,--then, retirement, and a wild hunt after +mosquitoes,--and so ends the first day at Woolcut's, on the Cerro. + + +HAVANA. THE HOTELS. + + +"Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?" Yes, truly, if you can get it, +Jack Falstaff; but it is one thing to pay for comfort, and another thing +to have it. You certainly pay for it, in Havana; for the $3 or $3.50 +_per diem_, which is your simplest hotel-charge there, should, in any +civilized part of the world, give you a creditable apartment, clean +linen, and all reasonable diet. What it does give, the travelling public +may like to learn. + +Can Grande has left Woolcut's. The first dinner did not please him,--the +cup of tea, with only bread, exasperated,--and the second breakfast, +greasy, peppery, and incongruous, finished his disgust; so he asked for +his bill, packed his trunk, called the hotel detestable, and went. + +Now he was right enough in this; the house is detestable;--but as all +houses of entertainment throughout the country are about equally so, +it is scarcely fair to complain of one. I shall not fear to be more +inclusive in my statement, and to affirm that in no part of the world +does one get so little comfort for so much money as on the Island of +Cuba. To wit: an early cup of black coffee, oftenest very bad; bread not +to be had without an extra sputtering of Spanish, and darkening of the +countenance;--to wit, a breakfast between nine and ten, invariably +consisting of fish, rice, beefsteak, fried plantains, salt cod with +tomatoes, stewed tripe and onions, indifferent claret, and an after-cup +of coffee or green tea;--to wit, a dinner at three or four, of which +the inventory varieth not,--to wit, a plate of soup, roast beef, tough +turkeys and chickens, tolerable ham, nameless stews, cajota, plantains, +salad, sweet potatoes; and for dessert, a spoonful each of West India +preserve,--invariably the kind you do not like,--oranges, bananas, and +another cup of coffee;--to wit, tea of the sort already described;--to +wit, attendance and non-attendance of negro and half-breed waiters, who +mostly speak no English, and neither know nor care what you want;--to +wit, a room whose windows, reaching from floor to ceiling, inclose no +glass, and are defended from the public by iron rails, and from the +outer air, at desire, by clumsy wooden shutters, which are closed only +when it rains;--to wit, a bed with a mosquito-netting;--to wit, a towel +and a pint of water, for all ablutions. This is the sum of your comforts +as to quantity; but as to their quality, experience alone can enlighten +you. + +Taking pity on my exile at the Cerro, Can Grande and his party invite +me to come and spend a day at their hotel, of higher reputation, and +situated in the centre of things. I go;--the breakfast, to my surprise, +is just like Woolcut's; the dinner _idem_, but rather harder to get; +preserves for tea, and two towels daily, instead of one, seem to +constitute the chief advantages of this establishment. Domestic linens, +too, are fairer than elsewhere; but when you have got your ideas of +cleanliness down to the Cuban standard, a shade or two either way makes +no material difference. + +Can Grande comes and goes; for stay in the hotel, behind those +prison-gratings, he cannot. He goes to the market and comes back, goes +to the Jesuit College and comes back, goes to the banker's and gets +money. In his encounters with the sun he is like a prize-fighter coming +up to time. Every round finds him weaker and weaker, still his pluck is +first-rate, and he goes at it again. It is not until three, P.M., that +he wrings out his dripping pocket-handkerchief, slouches his hat over +his brows, and gives in as dead-beat. + +They of the lovely sex, meanwhile, undergo, with what patience they may, +an Oriental imprisonment. In the public street they must on no account +set foot. The Creole and Spanish women are born and bred to this, and +the hardiest American or English woman will scarcely venture out a +second time without the severe escort of husband or brother. These +relatives are, accordingly, in great demand. In the thrifty North, man +is considered an incumbrance from breakfast to dinner,--and the sooner +he is fed and got out of the way in the morning, the better the work +of the household goes on. If the master of the house return at an +unseasonable hour, he is held to an excuse, and must prove a headache, +or other suitable indisposition. In Havana, on the contrary, the +American woman suddenly becomes very fond of her husband:--"he must not +leave her at home alone; where does he go? she will go with him; when +will he come back? remember, now, she will expect him." The secret of +all this is, that she cannot go out without him. The other angel of +deliverance is the _volante_, with its tireless horses and _calesero_, +who seems fitted and screwed to the saddle, which he never leaves. He +does not even turn his head for orders. His senses are in the back of +his head, or wherever his mistress pleases. "_José, calle de la muralla, +esquina á los oficios_,"--and the black machine moves on, without look, +word, or sign of intelligence. In New York, your Irish coachman grins +approval of your order; and even an English flunkey may touch his hat +and say, "Yes, Mum." But in the Cuban negro of service, dumbness is the +complement of darkness;--you speak, and the patient right hand pulls the +strap that leads the off horse, while the other gathers up the reins of +the nigh, and the horses, their tails tightly braided and deprived of +all movement, seem as mechanical as the driver. Happy are the ladies +at the hotel who have a perpetual _volante_ at their service! for they +dress in their best clothes three times a day, and do not soil them by +contact with the dusty street. They drive before breakfast, and shop +before dinner, and after dinner go to flirt their fans and refresh their +robes on the Paseo, where the fashions drive. At twilight, they stop at +friendly doors and pay visits, or at the entrance of the _café_, where +ices are brought out to them. At eight o'clock they go to the Plaza, and +hear the band play, sitting in the _volante_; and at ten they come home, +without fatigue, having all day taken excellent care of number one, +beyond which their arithmetic does not extend. "I and my _volante_" is +like Cardinal Wolsey's "_Ego et Rex meus_." + +As for those who have no _volantes_, modesty becomes them, and quietness +of dress and demeanor. They get a little walk before breakfast, and stay +at home all day, or ride in an omnibus, which is perhaps worse;--they +pay a visit now and then in a hired carriage, the bargain being made +with difficulty;--they look a good deal through the bars of the +windows, and remember the free North, and would, perhaps, envy the +_volante_-commanding women, did not dreadful Moses forbid. + +One alleviation of the tedium of hotel-life in the city is the almost +daily visit of the young man from the dry-goods' shop, who brings +samples of lawns, misses' linen dresses, piña handkerchiefs, and fans of +all prices, from two to seventy-five dollars. The ladies cluster like +bees around these flowery goods, and, after some hours of bargaining, +disputing, and purchasing, the vendor pockets the golden honey, and +marches off. As dress-makers in Havana are scarce, dear, and bad, our +fair friends at the hotel make up these dresses mostly themselves, and +astonish their little world every day by appearing in new attire. "How +extravagant!" you say. They reply, "Oh! it cost nothing for the making; +I made it myself." But we remember to have heard somewhere that "Time +is Money." At four in the afternoon, a negress visits in turn +every bedroom, sweeps out the mosquitoes from the curtains with a +feather-brush, and lets down the mosquito-net, which she tucks in around +the bed. After this, do not meddle with your bed until it is time to get +into it; then put the light away, open the net cautiously, enter with a +dexterous swing, and close up immediately, leaving no smallest opening +to help them after. In this mosquito-net you live, move, and have your +being until morning; and should you venture to pull it aside, even for +an hour, you will appall your friends, next morning, with a face which +suggests the early stages of small-pox, or the spotted fever. + +The valuable information I have now communicated is the sum of what I +learned in that one day at Mrs. Almy's; and though our party speedily +removed thither, I doubt whether I shall be able to add to it anything +of importance. + + +HAVANA. YOUR BANKER. OUR CONSUL. THE FRIENDLY CUP OF TEA. + + +One is apt to arrive in Havana with a heart elated by the prospect of +such kindnesses and hospitalities as are poetically supposed to be +the perquisite of travellers. You count over your letters as so many +treasures; you regard the unknown houses you pass as places of deposit +for the new acquaintances and delightful friendships which await you. +In England, say you, each of these letters would represent a pleasant +family-mansion thrown open to your view,--a social breakfast,--a dinner +of London wits,--a box at the opera,--or the visit of a lord, whose +perfect carriage and livery astonish the quiet street in which you +lodge, and whose good taste and good manners should, one thinks, prove +contagious, at once soothing and shaming the fretful Yankee conceit. But +your Cuban letters, like fairy money, soon turn to withered leaves in +your possession, and, having delivered two or three of them, you employ +the others more advantageously, as shaving-paper, or for the lighting of +cigars, or any other useful purpose. + +Your banker, of course, stands first upon the list,--and to him +accordingly, with a beaming countenance, you present yourself. For him +you have a special letter of recommendation, and, however others may +fail, you consider him as sure as the trump of the deal at whist. +But why, alas, should people, who have gone through the necessary +disappointments of life, prepare for themselves others, which may be +avoided? Listen and learn. At the first visit, your banker is tolerably +glad to see you,--he discounts your modest letter of credit, and pockets +his two and a half _per cent._ with the best grace imaginable. If he +wishes to be very civil, he offers you a seat, offers you a cigar, and +mumbles in an indistinct tone that he will be happy to serve you in any +way. You call again and again, keeping yourself before his favorable +remembrance,--always the same seat, the same cigar, the same desire to +serve you, carefully repressed, and prevented from breaking out into any +overt demonstration of good-will. At last, emboldened by the brilliant +accounts of former tourists and the successes of your friends, you +suggest that you would like to see a plantation,--you only ask for +one,--would he give you a letter, etc., etc.? He assumes an abstracted +air, wonders if he knows anybody who has a plantation,--the fact being +that he scarcely knows any one who has not one. Finally, he will +try,--call again, and he will let you know. You call again,--"Next +week," he says. You call after that interval,--"Next week," again, is +all you get. Now, if you are a thoroughbred man, you can afford to +quarrel with your banker; so you say, "Next week,--why not next +year?"--make a very decided snatch at your hat, and wish him a very long +"good-morning." But if you are a snob, and afraid, you take his neglect +quietly enough, and will boast, when you go home, of his polite +attentions to yourself and family, when on the Island of Cuba. + +_Our Consul_ is the next post in the weary journey of your hopes, and +to him, with such assurance as you have left, you now betake yourself. +Touching him personally I have nothing to say. I will only remark, in +general, that the traveller who can find, in any part of the world, an +American Consul not disabled from all service by ill-health, want of +means, ignorance of foreign languages, or unpleasant relations with the +representatives of foreign powers,--that traveller, we say, should go in +search of the sea-serpent, and the passage of the North Pole, for he +has proved himself able to find what, to every one but him, is +undiscoverable. + +But who, setting these aside, is to show you any attention? Who will +lift you from the wayside, and set you upon his own horse, or in his +own _volante_, pouring oil and wine upon your wounded feelings? Ah! the +breed of the good Samaritan is never allowed to become extinct in this +world, where so much is left for it to do. + +A kind and hospitable American family, long resident in Havana, takes us +up at last. They call upon us, and we lift up our heads a little; they +take us out in their carriage, and we step in with a little familiar +flounce, intended to show that we are used to such things; finally, they +invite us to a friendly cup of tea,--all the hotel knows it,--we have +tarried at home in the shade long enough. Now, people have begun to find +us out,--_we are going out to tea!_ + +How pleasant the tea-table was! how good the tea! how more than good +the bread-and-butter and plum-cake! how quaint the house of Spanish +construction, all open to the air, adorned with flowers like a temple, +fresh and fragrant, and with no weary upholstery to sit heavy on +the sight! how genial and prolonged the talk! how reluctant the +separation!--imagine it, ye who sing the songs of home in a strange +land. And ye who cannot imagine, forego the pleasure, for I shall tell +you no more about it. I will not, I, give names, to make good-natured +people regret the hospitality they have afforded. If they have +entertained unawares angels and correspondents of the press, (I use the +two terms as synonymous,) they shall not be made aware of it by the +sacrifice of their domestic privacy. All celebrated people do this, and +that we do it not answers for our obscurity. + +The cup of tea proves the precursor of many kind services and pleasant +hours. Our new friends assist us to a deal of sight-seeing, and +introduce us to cathedral, college, and garden. We walk out with them +at sunrise and at sunset, and sit under the stately trees, and think it +almost strange to be at home with people of our own race and our own way +of thinking, so far from the home-surroundings. For the gardens, they +may chiefly be described as triumphs of Nature over Art,--our New +England horticulture being, on the contrary, the triumph of Art over +Nature, after a hard-fought battle. Here, the avenues of palm and cocoa +are magnificent, and the flowers new to us, and very brilliant. But +pruning and weeding out are hard tasks for Creole natures, with only +negroes to help them. There is for the most part a great overgrowth +and overrunning of the least desirable elements, a general air of +slovenliness and unthrift; in all artificial arrangements decay seems +imminent, and the want of idea in the laying out of grounds is a +striking feature. In Italian villas, the feeling of the Beautiful, which +has produced a race of artists, is everywhere manifest,--everywhere are +beautiful forms and picturesque effects. Even the ruins of Rome seem to +be held together by this fine bond. No stone dares to drop, no arch to +moulder, but with an exquisite and touching grace. And the weeds, oh! +the weeds that hung their little pennon on the Coliseum, how graciously +do they float, as if they said,--"Breathe softly, lest this crumbling +vision of the Past go down before the rude touch of the modern world!" +And so, one treads lightly, and speaks in hushed accents; lest, in the +brilliant Southern noon, one should wake the sleeping heart of Rome to +the agony of her slow extinction. + +But what is all this? We are dreaming of Rome,--and this is Cuba, where +the spirit of Art has never been, and where it could not pass without +sweeping out from houses, churches, gardens, and brains, such trash as +has rarely been seen and endured elsewhere. They show us, for example, +some mutilated statues in the ruins of what is called the Bishop's +Garden. Why, the elements did a righteous work, when they effaced the +outlines of these coarse and trivial shapes, unworthy even the poor +marble on which they were imposed. Turning from these, however, we +find lovely things enough to rebuke this savage mood of criticism. The +palm-trees are unapproachable in beauty,--they stand in rows like Ionic +columns, straight, strong, and regular, with their plumed capitals. They +talk solemnly of the Pyramids and the Desert, whose legends have been +whispered to them by the winds that cross the ocean, freighted with the +thoughts of God. Then, these huge white lilies, deep as goblets, which +one drinks fragrance from, and never exhausts,--these thousand unknown +jewels of the tropic. Here is a large tank, whose waters are covered +with the leaves and flowers of beautiful aquatic plants, whose Latin +names are of no possible consequence to anybody. Here, in the very heart +of the garden, is a rustic lodge, curtained with trailing vines. Birds +in cages are hung about it, and a sweet voice, singing within, tells us +that the lodge is the cage of a more costly bird. We stop to listen, +and the branches of the trees seem to droop more closely about us, the +twilight lays its cool, soft touch upon our heated foreheads, and we +whisper,--"Peace to his soul!" as we leave the precincts of the Bishop's +Garden. + + + + +SOME INEDITED MEMORIALS OF SMOLLETT. + + +A hundred years and upwards have elapsed since Fielding and Smollett, +the fathers and chiefs of the modern school of English novel-writing, +fairly established their claims to the dignified eminence they have ever +since continued to enjoy; and the passage of time serves but to confirm +them in their merited honors. Their pictures of life and manners are no +longer, it is true, so familiar as in their own days to the great mass +of readers; but this is an incident that scarce any author can hope to +avert. The changes of habits and customs, and the succession of writers +who in their turn essay to hold the mirror up to Nature, must always +produce such a result. But while the mind of man is capable of enjoying +the most fortunate combinations of genius and fancy, the most faithful +expositions of the springs of action, the most ludicrous and the most +pathetic representations of human conduct, the writings of Fielding and +Smollett will be read and their memories kept green. Undeterred by those +coarsenesses of language and occasional grossnesses of detail (which +were often less their own fault than that of the age) that frequently +disfigure the pages of "Amelia" and "Roderick Random," men will always +be found to yield their whole attention to the story, and to recognize +in every line the touches of the master's hand. + +Were any needed, stronger proof of the truth of this proposition could +not be given than is afforded by the zeal with which the greatest +novelists since their day have turned aside to contemplate and to +chronicle the career of this immortal pair, whose names, notwithstanding +the dissimilarity of genius and style, seem destined to be as eternally +coupled together as those of the twin sons of Leda. To the rescue +from oblivion of their personal histories, a host of biographers have +appeared, scattered over the whole period that has elapsed since their +deaths to the present time. The first life that appeared of Tobias +George Smollett came from the hands of his friend and companion, the +celebrated Dr. Moore, himself a novel-writer of no mean fame. To him +succeeded Anderson; who in turn was followed by Sir Walter Scott, the +fruits of whose unrivalled capacity for obtaining information are before +the world in the form of a most delightful memoir. So that when +Roscoe, at a later date, took up the same theme, he found that the +investigations of his predecessors had left him little more to do than +to make selections or abridgments, and to arrange what new matter he +had come into possession of. One would have thought that with all these +labors the public appetite should have been satisfied,--that everything +apt to be heard with interest of and about Smollett had been said. So +far from this being the case, however, it was but a few years ago, that, +as we all recollect, the brilliant pen of Thackeray was brought to bear +on the same subject, and the great humorist of this generation employed +his talents worthily in illustrating the genius of a past age. +"'Humphrey Clinker,'" says he, "is, I do believe, the most laughable +story that has ever been written since the goodly art of novel-writing +began." This is strong praise, though but of a single book; yet it falls +short of the general estimate that Walter Scott formed of the capacity +of our author. "We readily grant to Smollett," he says, "an equal rank +with his great rival, Fielding, while we place both far above any of +their successors in the same line of fictitious composition." + +After the testimonies we have cited, it would be useless to seek other +approbation of Smollett's merits. + + "From higher judgment-seats make no appeal + To lower." + +Yet, with all his imaginative power and humorous perception, it cannot +be gainsaid that there was a great lack of delicacy in the composition +of his mind,--a deficiency which, even in his own days, gave just +offence to readers of the best taste, and which he himself was sometimes +so candid as to acknowledge and to correct. Its existence is too often +a sufficient cause to deter any but minds of a certain masculine vigor +from the perusal of such a work as "Roderick Random"; and yet this work +was an especial favorite with the most refined portion of the public in +the latter half of the last century. Burke delighted in it, and would +no doubt often read from it aloud to the circle of guests of both sexes +that gathered about him at Beaconsfield; and Elia makes his imaginary +aunt refer to the pleasure with which in her younger days she had read +the story of that unfortunate young nobleman whose adventures make such +a figure in "Peregrine Pickle." So great is the change in the habit of +thought and expression in less than half a century, that we believe +there is not in all America a gentleman who would now venture to read +either of these works aloud to a fireside group. Smollett's Muse was +free enough herself; in all conscience;-- + + "High-kirtled was she, + As she gaed o'er the lea";-- + +but in "Peregrine Pickle," beside the natural incidents, there are two +long episodes foisted upon the story, neither of which has any lawful +connection with the matter in hand, and one of which, indelicate and +indecent in the extreme, does not appear to have even been of his +own composition. Reference is here made to the "Memoirs of a Lady of +Quality," and to the passages respecting young Annesley; and since +biographers do not seem to have touched especially on the manner of +their introduction into the novel, we will give a word or two to this +point. + +John Taylor, in the Records of his Life, states that the memoirs of Lady +Vane, as they appear in "Peregrine Pickle," were actually written by +an Irish gentleman of wealth, a Mr. Denis McKerchier, who at the time +entertained relations with that abandoned, shameless woman; so that, if, +as was probably the case, she paid Smollett a sum of money to procure +their incorporation in his pages, there could have been no other motive +to actuate her conduct than a desire to blazon her own fall or to +mortify the feelings of her husband. The latter is the more likely +alternative, if we are to believe that Lord Vane himself stooped to +employ Dr. Hill to prepare a history of Lady Frail, by way of retorting +the affront he had received. This Mr. McKerchier in season broke with +her Ladyship, and refused her admission to his dying bedside; but, in +the mean time, his Memoirs had gone out to the world, and had greatly +conduced to the popularity and sale of Smollett's novel. He was also the +patron of Annesley, that unfortunate young nobleman whose romantic +life has furnished Godwin and Scott with a foundation for their most +highly-wrought novels; and it was, we may judge, from his own lips that +Smollett received the narrative of his _protégé_'s adventures. Whatever +we may think, however, of the introduction of scenes that were of +sufficient importance to suggest such books as "Cloudesley" and "Guy +Mannering," there can be but one opinion as to the bad taste which +governed Smollett, when he consented to overload "Peregrine Pickle" +with Lady Vane's memoirs; and if lucre were indeed at the bottom of the +business, it assumes a yet graver aspect. + +But the business of this article is not to dwell upon matters that are +already in print, and to which the general reader can have easy access. +To such as are desirous of obtaining a full account of the life and +genius of Smollett, prepared with all the aids that are to be derived +from a thorough knowledge of the question, we would suggest the perusal +of an exceedingly well-written article in the London Quarterly Review +for January, 1858; and we will here heartily express a regret that the +unpublished materials which have found a place in this magazine could +not have been in the hands of the author of that paper. It is certain he +would have made a good use of them. As it is, however, they will perhaps +possess an additional interest to the public from the fact that they +have never before seen the light. + +It is something, says Washington Irving, to have seen the dust of +Shakspeare. It is assuredly not less true that one can hardly examine +without a peculiar emotion the private letters of such a man as +Smollett. A strange sensation accompanies the unfolding of the faded +sheets, that have hardly been disturbed during the greater part of a +century. And as one at least of the documents in question is of an +almost autobiographical character, its tattered folds at once assume a +value to the literary student far beyond the usual scope of an inedited +autograph. + +The first letter to which we shall call attention was written by +Smollett in 1763. It was in reply to one from Richard Smith, Esq., of +Burlington, New Jersey, by whose family it has been carefully preserved, +together with a copy of the letter which called it forth. Mr. Smith was +a highly respectable man, and in later years, when the Revolution broke +out, a delegate from his Province to the first and second Continental +Congress. He had written to Smollett, expressing his hopes that the +King had gratified with a pension the author of "Peregrine Pickle" and +"Roderick Random," and asking under what circumstances these books were +composed, and whether they contained any traces of his correspondent's +real adventures. He adverts to a report that, in the case of "Sir +Launcelot Greaves," Smollett had merely lent his name to "a mercenary +bookseller." "The Voyages which go under your name Mr. Rivington (whom +I consulted on the matter) tells me are only nominally your's, or, at +least, were chiefly collected by understrappers. Mr. Rivington also +gives me such an account of the shortness of time in which you wrote +the History, as is hardly credible." A list of Smollett's genuine +publications is also requested. + +The Mr. Rivington referred to in the foregoing extract was probably the +well-known New York bookseller, whose press was so obnoxious to the +Whigs a few years later. To the letter itself Smollett thus replied:-- + + +DR. SMOLLETT TO MR. SMITH. + +"Sir,--I am favoured with your's of the 26th of February, and cannot +but be pleased to find myself, as a writer, so high in your esteem. The +curiosity you express, with regard to the particulars of my life and +the variety of situations in which I may have been, cannot be gratified +within the compass of a letter. Besides, there are some particulars of +my life which it would ill become me to relate. The only similitude +between the circumstances of my own fortune and those I have attributed +to Roderick Random consists in my being born of a reputable family in +Scotland, in my being bred a surgeon, and having served as a surgeon's +mate on board a man-of-war during the expedition to Carthagena. The low +situations in which I have exhibited Roderick I never experienced in my +own person. I married very young, a native of Jamaica, a young lady well +known and universally respected under the name of Miss Nancy Lassells, +and by her I enjoy a comfortable, tho' moderate estate in that island. I +practised surgery in London, after having improved myself by travelling +in France and other foreign countries, till the year 1749, when I took +my degree of Doctor in Medicine, and have lived ever since in Chelsea (I +hope) with credit and reputation. + +"No man knows better than Mr. Rivington what time I employed in writing +the four first volumes of the History of England; and, indeed, the short +period in which that work was finished appears almost incredible to +myself, when I recollect that I turned over and consulted above three +hundred volumes in the course of my labour. Mr. Rivington likewise +knows that I spent the best part of a year in revising, correcting, and +improving the quarto edition; which is now going to press, and will be +continued in the same size to the late Peace. Whatever reputation I may +have got by this work has been dearly purchased by the loss of health, +which I am of opinion I shall never retrieve. I am now going to the +South of France, in order to try the effects of that climate; and very +probably I shall never return. I am much obliged to you for the hope you +express that I have obtained some provision from his Majesty; but the +truth is, I have neither pension nor place, nor am I of that disposition +which can stoop to solicit either. I have always piqued myself upon my +Independancy, and I trust in God I shall preserve it to my dying day. + +"Exclusive of some small detached performances that have been published +occasionally in papers and magazines, the following is a genuine list of +my productions. Roderick Random. The Regicide, a Tragedy. A translation +of Gil Blas. A translation of Don Quixotte. An Essay upon the external +use of water. Peregrine Pickle. Ferdinand Count Fathom. Great part of +the Critical Review. A very small part of a Compendium of Voyages. The +complete History of England, and Continuation. A small part of the +Modern Universal History. Some pieces in the British Magazine, +comprehending the whole of Sir Launcelot Greaves. A small part of the +translation of Voltaire's Works, including all the notes, historical and +critical, to be found in that translation. + +"I am much mortified to find it is believed in America that I have lent +my name to Booksellers: that is a species of prostitution of which I am +altogether incapable. I had engaged with Mr. Rivington, and made some +progress in a work exhibiting the present state of the world; which work +I shall finish, if I recover my health. If you should see Mr. Rivington, +please give my kindest compliments to him. Tell him I wish him all +manner of happiness, tho' I have little to expect for my own share; +having lost my only child, a fine girl of fifteen, whose death has +overwhelmed myself and my wife with unutterable sorrow. + +"I have now complied with your request, and beg, in my turn, you will +commend me to all my friends in America. I have endeavoured more than +once to do the Colonies some service; and am, Sir, your very humble +servant, + +"Ts. SMOLLETT. + +"London, May 8, 1763." + + * * * * * + +The foregoing letter, though by no means confidential, must possess +considerable value to any future biographer of the writer. It very +clearly shows the light in which Smollett was willing to be viewed by +the public. It explains the share he took in more than one literary +enterprise, and establishes his paternity of the translation of "Gil +Blas," which has been questioned by Scott and ignored by other critics. +The travels in France, which, according to the letter, could not have +been posterior to 1749, seem unknown even to the Quarterly Reviewer; but +it is possible that here Smollett's memory may have played him false, +and that he confounded 1749 with the following year, when, as is well +known, he visited that kingdom. The reference to his own share in +furnishing the original for the story of "Roderick Random" is curious; +nevertheless it can no longer be doubted that very many of the persons +and scenes of that work, as well as of "Peregrine Pickle," were drawn, +with more or less exaggeration, from his actual experience of men and +manners. And the despondency with which he contemplates his shattered +health and the prospect of finding a grave in a foreign land explains +completely the governing motives that produced, in the concluding pages +of the history of the reign of George II., so calm and impartial a +testimony to the various worth of his literary compeers that it almost +assumes the tone of the voice of posterity. This is the suggestion of +the article in the "Quarterly Review," and the language of the letter +confirms it. Despairing of ever again returning to his accustomed +avocations, and with a frame shattered by sickness and grief, he passes +from the field of busy life to a distant land, where he thinks to leave +his bones; but ere he bids a last farewell to his own soil, he passes in +review the names of those with whom he has for years been on relations +of amity or of ill-will, in his own profession, and, while he makes +their respective merits, so far as in him lies, a part of the history of +their country, he seems to breathe the parting formula of the gladiator +of old,--_Moriturus vos saluto_. + +In the first of the ensuing letters an amusing commentary will be found +on Smollett's assertion, that his independent spirit would not stoop to +solicit either place or pension. The papers of which it forms one appear +to have been selected from the private correspondence of Dr. Smollett, +and are preserved among the MSS. of the Library Company of Philadelphia, +to which they were presented by Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of +the Declaration of Independence, who may have obtained them in Scotland. +Like the letter to Mr. Smith, we are satisfied that these are authentic +documents, and shall deal with them as such here. Lord Shelburne (better +known by his after-acquired title of Marquis of Lansdowne) was the +identical minister whom Pitt, twenty years later, so highly eulogized +for "that capacity of conferring good offices on those he prefers," and +for "his attention to the claims of merit," of which we could wish to +know that Smollett had reaped some benefit. The place sought for was +probably a consulate on the Mediterranean, which would have enabled our +author to look forward with some assurance of faith to longer and easier +years. The Duchess of Hamilton, to whom his Lordship writes, and by whom +his letter seems to have been transmitted to its object, was apparently +the beautiful Elizabeth Gunning, dowager Duchess of Hamilton, but +married, at the date of the letter, to the Duke of Argyle. Having +an English peerage of Hamilton in her own right, it is probable she +preferred to continue her former title. + + +LORD SHELBURNE TO THE DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. + +"_Holt Street, Tuesday._ + +"Madam,--I am honour'd with your Grace's letter, inclosing one from +Doctor Smollett. It is above a year since I was applied to by Doctor +Smollett, thro' a person I wish'd extremely to oblige; but there were +and still subsist some applications for the same office, of a nature +which it will be impossible to get over in favour of Mr. Smollett, which +makes it impossible for me to give him the least hopes of it. I could +not immediately recollect what had pass'd upon that subject, else I +should have had the honour to answer your Grace's letter sooner. I am +with great truth and respect your Grace's most obedient and most humble +servant. + +"SHELBURNE." + + * * * * * + +The letter bears no month nor year, but is indorsed, apparently by +Smollett himself, as of 1762,--that is, in the year previous to his +expressed aversion to solicitations for place. Yet if there was a man in +England entitled to ask for and to receive some provision by his country +for his broken health and narrow fortunes, that man was Smollett. It is +perhaps a trifling thing to notice, but it may be observed that Lord +Shelburne's communication does not bear any marks of frequent perusal. +The silver sand with which the fresh lines were besprinkled still clings +to the fading ink, furnishing perhaps the only example remaining of the +use of that article. Rousseau, we remember, mentions such sand as the +proper material to be resorted to by one who would be very particular +in his correspondence,--"_employant pour cela le plus beau papier doré, +séchant l'écriture avec de la poudre d'azur et d'argent_"; and Moore +repeats the precept in the example of M. le Colonel Calicot, according +to the text of Miss Biddy, in the "Fudge Family in Paris":-- + + "Upon paper gilt-edged, without blot or erasure + Then sanded it over with silver and azure." + +Among the remaining letters in this collection we find some from John +Gray, "teacher of mathematics in Cupar of Fife,"--some from Dr. John +Armstrong, the author of "The Art of Health,"--and one from George +Colman the elder. In 1761, Gray writes to Smollett, thanking him for +kind notices in the "Critical Review," and asking his influence in +regard to certain theories concerning the longitude, of which Gray was +the inventor. In 1770, Colman thus writes:-- + + +GEORGE COLMAN TO DR. SMOLLETT. + +"Dear Sir,--I have some idea that Mr. Hamilton about two years ago told +me he should soon receive a piece from you, which he meant, at your +desire, to put into my hands; but since that time I have neither seen +nor heard of the piece. + +"I hope you enjoy your health abroad, and shall be glad of every +opportunity to convince you that I am most heartily and sincerely, dear +Sir, your, &c., + +"G. COLMAN. + +"London, 28 Sept. 1770." + + * * * * * + +The piece referred to here by Colman (who was at this period, we +believe, the manager of the Haymarket Theatre) may possibly have been +a farce that was brought out fifteen years later on the Covent-Garden +stage, with the title of "The Israelites, or the Pampered Nabob." Its +merits and its success are said by Scott to have been but slight, and +the proof of its having been written by Smollett very doubtful; so that +it was never printed, and was soon forgotten. + +At this time, (1770,) it must be remembered, Smollett was established at +Leghorn, where a milder climate and sunnier skies tended to promote, +we fancy, a serener condition of mind than he had known for years. In +leaving England, he left behind him some friends, but many enemies. In +his literary career, as he himself had not been over-merciful, so he +was in return not always tenderly handled. As a sample of the invective +which was occasionally poured forth on him, we will quote some lines +from "The Race," a dull imitation of "The Dunciad," ascribed to one +Cuthbert Shaw, and published in 1766. Although reprinted in "Dilly's +Repository," (1790,) it has long ago been very properly forgotten, and +is now utterly worthless save for purposes of illustration. The Hamilton +referred to is the same person to whom Colman makes allusion; he was +indeed Smollett's _fidus Achaies._ + + "--Next Smollet came. What author dare resist + Historian, critic, bard, and novelist? + 'To reach thy temple, honoured Fame,' he cried, + 'Where, where's an avenue I have not tried? + But since the glorious present of to-day + Is meant to grace alone the poet's lay, + My claim I wave to every art beside, + And rest my plea upon the Regicide. + * * * * * + But if, to crown the labours of my Muse, + Thou, inauspicious, should'st the wreath refuse, + Whoe'er attempts it in this scribbling age + Shall feel the Scottish pow'rs of Crilic rage. + Thus spurn'd, thus disappointed of my aim, + I'll stand a bugbear in the road to Fame, + Each future author's infant hopes undo, + And blast the budding honours of his brow.' + He said,--and, grown with future vengeance big, + Grimly he shook his scientific wig. + To clinch the cause, and fuel add to fire, + Behind came Hamilton, his trusty squire: + Awhile _he_ paus'd, revolving the disgrace, + And gath'ring all the honours of his face; + Then rais'd his head, and, turning to the crowd, + Burst into bellowing, terrible and loud:-- + 'Hear my resolve; and first by--I swear, + By Smollet, and his gods, whoe'er shall date + With him this day for glorious fame to vie, + Sous'd in the bottom of the ditch shall lie; + And know, the world no other shall confess, + While I have crab-tree, life, or letter-press.' + Scar'd at the menace, _authors_ fearful grew, + Poor Virtue trembled, and e'en Vice look'd blue." + +It is unnecessary to pursue this vapid composition to its most lame and +impotent conclusion; it is sufficient to cite it as a specimen-brick of +the hostility which many literary characters entertained against the +author of "Roderick Random." Despite his own birthplace being north of +the Tweed, many Scots were aggrieved at the incidental ridicule with +which characters from "the land o' cakes" are sometimes treated in that +and other works from the same hand; and the picture of Lismahago in +"Humphrey Clinker" is said to have still more violently inflamed their +ire. It is to this feeling on the part of his countrymen that Charles +Lamb alludes, in his essay upon "Imperfect Sympathies." "Speak of +Smollett as a great genius," he says, "and they [the Scots] will retort +upon Hume's History compared with _his_ continuation of it. What if the +historian had continued 'Humphrey Clinker'?" In fact, there were a good +many North Britons, a century ago, who seem to have felt, on the subject +of English censure or ridicule, pretty much as some of our own people do +to-day. No matter how well-founded the objection may be, or how justly +a local habit may be satirized, our sensitiveness is wounded and our +indignation aroused. That the portrait in Lismahago's case was not +altogether overcharged may be deduced from a passage in one of Walter +Scott's letters, in which he likens the behavior and appearance of one +of his oldest and most approved friends to that of the gallant Obadiah +in a similar critical moment. "The noble Captain Ferguson was married on +Monday last. I was present at the bridal, and I assure you the like +hath not been seen since the days of Lismahago. Like his prototype, the +Captain advanced in a jaunty military step, with a kind of leer on +his face that seemed to quiz the whole matter." That the sketch was a +portrait, though doubtless disguised to such an extent as rendered its +introduction permissible, is very probable; and as it is beyond question +one of the masterpieces of English fiction, a few lines may well be +given to the point. With great justice the Quarterly Reviewer pronounces +the character of Lismahago in no whit inferior to that of Scott's Dugald +Dalgetty; and who would not go out of his way to trace any circumstance +in the history of such a conception as that of the valiant Laird of +Drumthwacket, the service-seeking Rittmaster of Swedish Black Dragoons? + +Scott himself tells us that he recollected "a good and gallant officer" +who was said to have been the prototype of Lismahago, though probably +the opinion had its origin in "the striking resemblance which he bore in +externals to the doughty Captain." Sir Walter names no name; but there +is a tradition that a certain Major Robert Stobo was the real original +from which the picture was drawn. Stobo may fairly be said to fulfil the +necessary requisites for this theory. That he was as great an oddity as +ever lived is abundantly testified by his own "Memorial," written about +1760, and printed at Pittsburg in 1854, from a copy of the MS. in the +British Museum. At the breaking out of the Seven-Years' War, he was in +Virginia, seeking his fortune under the patronage of his countryman, +Dinwiddie, and thus obtained a captaincy in the expedition which +Washington, in 1754, led to the Great Meadows. On the fall of Fort +Necessity, he was one of the hostages surrendered by Washington to the +enemy; and thus, and by his subsequent doings at Fort Du Quesne and in +Canada, he has linked his name with some interesting passages of our +national history.[A] That he was known to Smollett in after life appears +by a letter from David Hume to the latter, in which his "strange +adventures" are alluded to; and there is considerable resemblance +between these, as narrated by Stobo himself, and those assigned by +the novelist to Lismahago. And, bearing in mind the ineffable +self-complacency with which Stobo always dwells on himself and his +belongings, the description of his person given in the "Memorial" +coincides very well with that of the figure which the novelist makes to +descend in the yard of the Durham inn. One circumstance further may be +noted. We are told of "the noble and sonorous names" which Miss Tabitha +Bramble so much admired: "that Obadiah was an adventitious appellation, +derived from his great-grandfather, who had been one of the original +Covenanters; but Lismahago was the family surname, taken from a place +in Scotland, so called." Now we are not very well versed in Scottish +topography; but we well recollect, that in Dean Swift's "Memoirs of +Captain John Creichton," who was a noted Cavalier in the reigns of +Charles II., James II., and William III., and had borne an active part +in the persecution of "the puir hill-folk," there is mention made of the +name of Stobo. The Captain dwells with no little satisfaction upon the +manner in which, after he had been so thoroughly outwitted by Mass David +Williamson,--the Covenanting minister, who played Achilles among the +women at my Lady Cherrytree's,--he succeeded in circumventing and taking +prisoner "a notorious rebel, one Adam Stobow, a farmer in Fife near +Culross." And later in the same book occurs a very characteristic +passage:--"_Having drunk hard one night_, I dreamed that I had found +Captain David Steele, a notorious rebel, in one of the five farmers' +houses on a mountain in the shire of Clydesdale and parish of Lismahago, +within eight miles of Hamilton, a place I was well acquainted with." +Lest the marvellous fulfilment of Creichton's dream should induce other +seekers to have resort to a like self-preparation, we will merely add, +that the village of Hamilton is hard by the castle of the Duke of that +name, to whose family we have already seen Smollett was under some +obligations, and that it is described in the same pages with Lismahago. +It is not improbable, therefore, that, being at Hamilton, the novelist's +attention may have been attracted to "Creichton's Memoirs," which treat +of the adjacent districts, and that the mention of Stobo's name therein +may have suggested to his mind its connection with Lismahago. Certainly +there was no antecedent work to "Humphrey Clinker," in which, as we may +believe, either of these names finds a place, save this of Creichton; +and as, throughout the whole series of letters, Smollett does not +profess to avoid the introduction of actual persons and events, often +even with no pretence of disguise, we need not hesitate to think that +he would make no difficulty of turning the eccentricities of a half-pay +officer to some useful account. + +[Footnote A: Some amusing particulars concerning Stobo may be found also +in the _Journal of Lieut. Simon Stevens:_ Boston 1760.--EDS. ATLANTIC.] + +But we have wandered too far away from the business of his +correspondence. The next letter that we shall examine is one from John +Gray, dated at Florence, Nov. 15th, 1770, to Smollett, at Leghorn. It +abounds in details of the writer's attempts at the translation of a +French play for the English stage, on which he desires a judgment; and +cites verses from several of the songs it contains,--one of them being +that so familiar to American ears thirty years since, when Lafayette was +making his last tour through this country:-- + + "Où peut on être mieux + Qu'au sein de sa famille?" + +Gray had been at Leghorn, on his way to Rome; and now amuses his +correspondent with the inconveniences of his journey under the auspices +of a tippling companion, with his notions about Pisa and Italy in +general, and with particulars of public intelligence from home, some +of which relate to Smollett's old antagonist, Admiral Knowles.--"I +despaired of executing Mrs. Smollett's commission," he says, "for there +was no ultramarine to be found in the shops; but I at length procured a +little from Mr. Patch, which I have sent along with the patterns in +Mrs. Varrien's letter, hoping that the word _Mostre_ on the back of the +letter will serve for a passport to all. The ultramarine costs nothing; +therefore, if it arrives safe, the commission is finished." + +We next have a couple of letters from Dr. Armstrong; which, on account +of his ancient and enduring friendship for Smollett, and of the +similarity in their careers, may be given at large. Armstrong was a +wrongheaded, righthearted man,--a surgeon in the army, we believe,--and +a worshipper of Apollo, as well in his proper person as in that of +Esculapius. In these, and in the varied uses to which he turned his pen, +the reader will see a similarity to the story of his brother Scot. That +he was occasionally splenetic in his disposition is very manifest. +His quarrel with Wilkes, with whom he had been on terms of intimate +friendship, finds a parallel in Smollett's own history. The first +letter is without date; but the reference to the publication of his +"Miscellanies" fixes it as of 1770, and at London. + + +DR. ARMSTRONG TO DR. SMOLLETT. + +"My dear Doctor,--I reproach myself;--but it is as insignificant as +embarrassing to explain some things;--so much for that. As to my +confidence in your stamina, I can see no reason to flinch from it; but I +wish you would avoid all unwholesome accidents as much as possible. + +"I am quite serious about my visit to you next autumn. My scheme is now +to pass my June or July at Paris; from thence to set out for Italy, +either over the Alps or by sea from Marseilles. I don't expect the +company of my widow lumber, or any other that may be too fat and +indolent for such an excursion; and hope to pick up some agreeable +companion without being at the expense of advertising. + +"You feel exactly as I do on the subject of State Politicks. But from +some late glimpses it is still to be hoped that some _Patriots_ may be +disappointed in their favourite views of involving their country in +confusion and destruction. As to the K. Bench patriot, it is hard to say +from what motive he published a letter of your's asking some trifling +favour of him on behalf of somebody for whom _the Cham of Literature_, +Mr. Johnson, had interested himself. I have within this month published +what I call my Miscellanies. Tho' I admitted my operator to an equal +share of profit and loss, the publication has been managed in such +a manner as if there had been a combination to suppress it: +notwithstanding which, it makes its way very tolerably at least. But I +have heard to-day that somebody is to give me a good trimming very soon. + +"All friends remember you very kindly, and our little club at the Q. +Arms never fail to devote a bumper to you, except when they are in the +humour of drinking none but scoundrels. I send my best compliments to +Mrs. Smollett and two other ladies, and beg you'll write me as soon +as suits you: and with black ink. I am always, my dear Doctor, most +affectionately yours,-- + +"JOHN ARMSTRONG." + + * * * * * + +The letter to Wilkes had been written many years before, to obtain his +assistance in procuring the release of Johnson's black servant, who had +been impressed. It was couched in free terms respecting Dr. Johnson, and +was probably now given by Wilkes to the press in the hope that it might +do its author harm with the _Cham_, or at least cause the latter some +annoyance. + +Armstrong's next letter finds him arrived in Italy, and on the eve of +repairing to his friend at Leghorn. + + +DR. ARMSTRONG TO DR. SMOLLETT. + +"_Rome, 2nd June_, 1770. + +"Dear Doctor,--I arrived here last Thursday night, and since that have +already seen all the most celebrated wonders of Rome. But I am most +generally disappointed in these matters; partly, I suppose, from my +expectations being too high. But what I have seen has been in such a +hurry as to make it a fatigue: besides, I have strolled about amongst +them neither in very good humour nor very good health. + +"I have delayed writing till I could lay before you the plan of my +future operations for a few weeks. I propose to post it to Naples about +the middle of next week, along with a Colonel of our Country, who seems +to be a very good-natured man. After remaining a week or ten days there, +I shall return hither, and, after having visited Tivoli and Frascati, +set out for Leghorn, if possible, in some vessel from Civita Vecchia; +for I hate the lodgings upon the road in this country. I don't expect to +be happy till I see Leghorn; and if I find my Friend in such health as I +wish him, or even hope for him, I shall not be disappointed in the chief +pleasure I proposed to myself in my visit to Italy. As you talked of a +ramble somewhere towards the South of France, I shall be extremely happy +to attend you. + +"I wrote to my brother from Genoa, and desired him to direct his answer +to your care at Pisa. If it comes, please direct it, with your own +letter, for which I shall long violently look, care of Mr. Francis +Barazzi at Rome. I am, with my best compliments to Mrs. Smollett and the +rest of the ladies, &c., + +"JOHN ARMSTRONG." + + * * * * * + +There is no reason to suppose that Armstrong found anything in the +condition of his friend to fulfil the anxious wishes of his letter. In +the following year, Smollett died, leaving to his widow little beyond +the empty consolations of his great fame. From her very narrow purse she +supplied the means of erecting the stone that marks the spot where he +lies; and the pen of his companion, whose letter we have just given, +furnished an appropriate inscription. The niggardly hands of government +remained as firmly closed against the relief of Mrs. Smollett as they +had been in answer to her husband's own application for himself; an +application which must have cost a severe struggle to his proud spirit, +and of which his most intimate literary friends were probably never +aware. He sought favors for others, says Dr. Moore; but "for himself +he never made an application to any great man in his life!" He was not +intemperate, nor yet was he extravagant, but by nature hospitable and of +a cheerful temperament; his housekeeping was never niggardly, so long as +he could employ his pen. Thus his genius was too often degraded to the +hackney-tasks of booksellers; while a small portion of those pensions +which were so lavishly bestowed upon ministerial dependants and placemen +would have enabled him to turn his mind to its congenial pursuits, and +probably to still further elevate the literary civilization of his +country. But if there be satisfaction in the thought that a neglect +similar to that which befell so bright a genius as his could no longer +occur in England, there is food likewise for reflection in the change +that has come over the position in which men of letters lived in those +days towards the public, and even towards each other. Let any one read +the account of the ten or a dozen authors whom Smollett describes +himself, in "Humphrey Clinker," as entertaining at dinner on +Sundays,--that being the only day upon which they could pass through the +streets without being seized by bailiffs for debt. Each character is +drawn with a distinctive minuteness that leaves us no room to doubt its +possessing a living original; yet how disgusting to suppose that such +a crew were really to be seen at the board of a brother writer! and in +what bad taste does their host describe and ridicule their squalor! That +such things were in those times cannot be doubted. Even in this century, +in the golden days of book-making, we are told how Constable and +how Ballantyne, the great publisher and the great printer of +Edinburgh,--"His Czarish Majesty," and "the Dey of All-jeers," as Scott +would call them,--delighted at their Sunday dinners to practise the +same exercises as those which Smollett relates,--how they would bring +together for their diversion Constable's "poor authors," and start +his literary drudges on an after-dinner foot-race for a new pair of +breeches, and the like! While it cannot justify the indifference with +which Shelburne treated his request, we cannot but perceive that +Smollett's contemptuous ridicule of his unfortunate or incapable +Grub-Street friends must rob him of much of the sympathy which would +otherwise accompany the ministerial neglect with which the claims of +literature were visited in his person. + + * * * * * + + +BLOODROOT + + + "Hast thou loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk?" + + Beech-trees, stretching their arms, rugged, yet beautiful, + Here shade meadow and brook; here the gay bobolink, + High poised over his mate, pours out his melody. + Here, too, under the hill, blooms the wild violet; + Damp nooks hide, near the brook, bellworts that modestly, + Pale-faced, hanging their heads, droop there in silence; while + South winds, noiseless and soft, bring us the odor of + Birch twigs mingled with fresh buds of the hickory. + + Hard by, clinging to rocks, nods the red columbine; + Close hid, under the leaves, nestle anemones,-- + White-robed, airy and frail, tender and delicate. + + Ye who, wandering here, seeking the beautiful, + Stoop down, thinking to pluck one of these favorites, + Take heed! Nymphs may avenge. List to a prodigy;-- + One moon scarcely has waned since I here witnessed it. + + One moon scarcely has waned, since, on a holiday, + I came, careless and gay, into this paradise,-- + Found here, wrapped in their cloaks made of a leaf, little + White flowers, pure as the snow, modest and innocent,-- + Stooped down, eagerly plucked one of the fairest, when + Forth rushed, fresh from the stem broken thus wickedly, + Blood!--tears, red, as of blood!--shed through my selfishness! + + + + + +THE DIFFERENTIAL AND INTEGRAL CALCULUS. + + [Greek: Polla ta deina, konden + anthropon deinoteron pelei ... + periphradaes anaer!] + +SOPH. _Ant_. 822 [322] et seq. + + +"Many things are wonderful," says the Greek poet, "but nought more +wonderful than man, all-inventive man!" And surely, among many wonders +wrought out by human endeavor, there are few of higher interest than +that splendid system of mathematical science, the growth of so many +slow-revolving ages and toiling hands, still incomplete, destined to +remain so forever perhaps, but to-day embracing within its wide circuit +many marvellous trophies wrung from Nature in closest contest. There +are strange depths, doubtless, in the human soul,--recesses where the +universal sunlight of reason fails us altogether; into which if we +would enter, it must be humbly and trustfully, laying our right hands +reverentially in God's, that he may lead us. There are faculties +reaching farther than all reason, and utterances of higher import than +hers, problems, too, in the solution of which we shall derive very +little aid from any mere mathematical considerations. Those who think +differently should read once more, and more attentively, the sad history +of frantic folly and limitless license, written down forever under the +date, September, 1792, boastfully proclaimed to the world as the New +Era, the year 1 of the Age of Reason. Perhaps the number of those +who would to-day follow Momoro's pretty wife with loud adulation and +Bacchanalian rejoicings to the insulted Church of Nôtre Dame, thus +publicly disowning the God of the Universe and discarding the sweetest +of all hopes, the hope of immortality and eternal youth after the +weariness of age, would be found to be very small. This was indeed a new +version of the old story of Godiva, wherein implacable, inhuman hate +sadly enough took the place of the sweet Christian charity of that dear +lady. Let us recognize its deep significance, and acknowledge that many +things of very great importance lie beyond the utmost limits of human +reason. + +But let us not forget, meanwhile, that within its own sphere this same +Human Reason is an apt conjuror, marshalling and deftly controlling the +powers of the earth and air to a degree wonderful and full of interest. +And nowhere have all its possibilities so fully found expression in vast +attainment as in those studies preëminently called the mathematics, as +embracing all [Greek: mathaesis], all sound learning. Casting about for +some sure anchorage, drifting hither and thither over changeful seas +of phenomena, a large body of men, deep, clear thinkers withal, some +twenty-four centuries since, fancied that they had found _all_ truth +in the fixed, eternal relations of number and quantity. Hence that +wide-spread Pythagorean philosophy, with its spheral harmonics and +esoteric mysteries, uniting in one brotherhood for many years men of +thought and action,--dare we say, our inferiors? Why allude to the old +fable of the dwarf upon the giant's shoulders? Let us have a tender +care for the sensitive nature of this ultimate Nineteenth Century, and +refrain. They were not so far wrong either, those old philosophers; they +saw clearly a part of the boundless expanse of Truth,--and somewhat +prematurely, as we believe, pronounced it the true Land's End, stoutly +asserting that beyond lay only barren seas of uncertain conjecture. + +But mark what followed! Presently, under their hands, fair and clear of +outline as a Grecian temple, grew up the science of Geometry. Perfect +for all time, and as incapable of change or improvement as the +Parthenon, appear the Elements of Euclid, whose voice comes floating +down through the ages, in that one significant rejoinder,--"_Non est +regia ad mathematicam via_." It is the reply of the mathematician, +quiet-eyed and thoughtful, to the first Ptolemy, inquiring if there were +not some less difficult path to the mysteries. But the Greek Geometry +was in no wise confined to the elements. Before Euclid, Plato is said to +have written over the entrance to his garden,--"Let no one enter, who is +unacquainted with geometry,"--and had himself unveiled the geometrical +analysis, exhibiting the whole strength and weakness of the instrument, +and applying it successfully in the discussion of the properties of +the Conic Sections. Various were the discoveries, and various the +discoverers also, all now at rest, like Archimedes, the greatest of them +all, in his Sicilian tomb, overgrown with brambles and forgotten, found +only by careful research of that liberal-minded Cicero, and recognized +only by the sphere and circumscribed cylinder thereon engraved by the +dead mathematician's direction. + +Meanwhile, let us turn elsewhere, to that singular people whose name +alone is suggestive of all the passion, all the deep repose of the +East. Very unlike the Greeks we shall find these Arabs, a nation +intellectually, as physically, characterized by adroitness rather than +endurance, by free, careless grace rather than perfect, well-ordered +symmetry. Called forth from centuries of proud repose, not unadorned by +noble studies and by poesy, they swept like wildfire, under Mohammed and +his successors, over Palestine, Syria, Persia, Egypt, and before the +expiration of the Seventh Century occupied Sicily and the North of +Africa. Spain soon fell into their hands;--only that seven-days' battle +of Tours, resplendent with many brilliant feats of arms, resonant with +shoutings, and weightier with fate than those dusty combatants knew, +saved France. Then until the last year of the Eleventh Century, +almost four hundred years, the Caliphs ruled the Spanish Peninsula. +Architecture, music, astrology, chemistry, medicine,--all these arts, +were theirs; the grace of the Alhambra endures; deep and permanent are +the traces left by these Saracens upon European civilization. During +all this time they were never idle. Continually they seized upon the +thoughts of others, gathering them in from every quarter, translating +the Greek mathematical works, borrowing the Indian arithmetic and system +of notation, which we in turn call Arabic, filling the world with wild +astrological fantasies. Nay, the "good Haroun Al Raschid," familiar to +us all as the genial-hearted sovereign of the World of Faëry, is said to +have sent from Bagdad, in the year 807 or thereabout, a royal present +to Charlemagne, a very singular clock, which marked the hours by the +sonorous fall of heavy balls into an iron vase. At noon, appeared +simultaneously, at twelve open doors, twelve knights in armor, retiring +one after another, as the hour struck. The time-piece then had +superseded the sun-dial and hour-glass: the mechanical arts had +attained no slight degree of perfection. But passing over all ingenious +mechanism, making no mention here of astronomical discoveries, some of +them surprising enough, it is especially for the Algebraic analysis that +we must thank the Moors. A strange fascination, doubtless, these crafty +men found in the cabalistic characters and hidden processes of reasoning +peculiar to this science. So they established it on a firm basis, +solving equations of no inconsiderable difficulty, (of the fourth +degree, it is said,) and enriched our arithmetic with various rules +derived from this source, Single and Double Position among others. +Trigonometry became a distinct branch of study with them; and then, as +suddenly as they had appeared, they passed away. The Moorish cavalier +had no longer a place in the history of the coming days; the sage had +done his duty and departed, leaving among his mysterious manuscripts, +bristling with uncouth and, as the many believed, unholy signs, the +elements of truth mingled with much error,--error which in the advancing +centuries fell off as easily as the husk from ripe corn. Whether the +present civilization of Spain is an advance upon that of the Moors might +in many respects become a matter of much doubt. + +Long lethargy and intellectual inanition brooded over Christian Europe. +The darkness of the Middle Ages reached its midnight, and slowly the +dawn arose,--musical with the chirping of innumerable trouvères and +minnesingers. As early as the Tenth Century, Gerbert, afterwards Pope +Sylvester II., had passed into Spain and brought thence arithmetic, +astronomy, and geometry; and five hundred years after, led by the old +tradition of Moorish skill, Camille Leonard of Pisa sailed away over the +sea into the distant East, and brought back the forgotten algebra and +trigonometry,--a rich lading, better than gold-dust or many negroes. +Then, in that Fifteenth Century, and in the Sixteenth, followed much +that is of interest, not to be mentioned here. Copernicus, Galileo, +Kepler,--we must pass on, only indicating these names of men whose lives +have something of romance in them, so much are they tinged with the +characteristics of an age just passing away forever, played out and +ended. The invention of printing, the restoration of classical learning, +the discovery of America, the Reformation, followed each other in +splendid succession, and the Seventeenth Century dawned upon the world. + +The Seventeenth Century!--forever remarkable alike for intellectual and +physical activity, the age of Louis XIV. in France, the revolutionary +period of English history, say, rather, the Cromwellian period, +indelibly written down in German remembrance by that Thirty-Years' +War,--these are only the external manifestations of that prodigious +activity which prevailed in every direction. Meanwhile the two sciences +of algebra and geometry, thus far single, each depending on its own +resources, neither in consequence fully developed, as nothing of human +or divine origin can be alone, were united, in the very beginning of +this epoch, by Descartes. This philosopher first applied the algebraic +analysis to the solution of geometrical problems; and in this brilliant +discovery lay the germ of a sudden growth of interest in the pure +mathematics. The breadth and facility of these solutions added a new +charm to the investigation of curves; and passing lightly by the Conic +Sections, the mathematicians of that day busied themselves in finding +the areas, solids of revolution, tangents, etc., of all imaginable +curves,--some of them remarkable enough. Such is the cycloid, first +conceived by Galileo, and a stumbling-block and cause of contention +among geometers long after he had left it, together with his system +of the universe, undetermined. Descartes, Roberval, Pascal, became +successively challengers or challenged respecting some new property of +this curve. Thereupon followed the epicycloids, curves which--as the +cycloid is generated by a point upon the circumference of a circle +rolled along a straight line--are generated by a similar point when the +path of the circle becomes any curve whatever. Caustic curves, spirals +without number, succeeded, of which but one shall claim our notice,--the +logarithmic spiral, first fully discussed by James Bernouilli. This +curve possesses the property of reproducing itself in a variety of +curious and interesting ways; for which reason Bernouilli wished it +inscribed upon his tomb, with the motto,--_Eadem mutata resurgo_. Shall +we wisely shake our heads at all this, as unavailing? Can we not see the +hand of Providence, all through history, leading men wiselier than +they knew? If not, may it not be possible that we have read the wrong +book,--the Universal Gazetteer, perhaps, instead of the true History? +When Plato and Plato's followers wrought out the theory of those Conic +Sections, do we imagine that they saw the great truth, now evident, that +every whirling planet in the silent spaces, yes, and every falling body +on this earth, describes one of these same curves which furnished to +those Athenian philosophers what you, my practical friend, stigmatize as +idle amusement? Comfort yourself, my friend: there was many a Callicles +then who believed that he could better bestow his time upon the politics +of the state, neglecting these vain speculations, which to-day are found +to be not quite unprofitable, after all, you perceive. + +And so in the instance which suggested these reflections, all this eager +study of unmeaning curves (if there be anything in the starry universe +quite unmeaning) was leading gradually, but directly, to the discovery +of the most wonderful of all mathematical instruments, the Calculus +preëminently. In the quadrature of curves, the method of exhaustions was +most ancient,--whereby similar circumscribed and inscribed polygons, by +continually increasing the number of their sides, were made to approach +the curve until the space contained between them was _exhausted_, or +reduced to an inappreciable quantity. The sides of the polygons, it was +evident, must then be infinitely small. Yet the polygons and curves +were always regarded as distinct lines, differing inappreciably, but +different. The careful study of the period to which we refer led to +a new discovery, that every curve may be considered as composed of +infinitely small straight lines. For, by the definition which assigns to +a point position _without_ extension, there can be no tangency of points +without coincidence. In the circumference of the circle, then, no two +of the points equidistant from the centre can touch each other; and the +circumference must be made up of infinite all rectilineal sides joining +these points. + +A clear conception of this fact led almost immediately to the Method of +Tangents of Fermat and Barrow; and this again is the stepping-stone to +the Differential Calculus,--itself a particular application of that +instrument. Dr. Barrow regarded the tangent as merely the prolongation +of any one of these infinitely small sides, and demonstrated the +relations of these sides to the curve and its ordinates. His work, +entitled "Lectiones Geometricae," appeared in 1669. To his high +abilities was united a simplicity of character almost sublime. "_Tu, +autem, Domine, quantus es geometra_!" was written on the title-page of +his Apollonius; and in the last hour he expressed his joy, that now, in +the bosom of God, he should arrive at the solution of many problems of +the highest interest, without pain or weariness. The comment of the +French historian conveys a sly sarcasm on the Encyclopedists:--"_On voit +au reste, par-là , que Barrow étoit un pauvre philosophe; car il croiroit +en l'immortalité de l'âme, et une Divinité, autre que la nature +universelle_."[A] + +[Footnote A: MONTUCLA. _Hist. des Math_. Part iv. liv. 1.] + +The Italian Cavalleri had, before this, published his "Geometry of +Indivisibles," and fully established his theory in the "Exercitationes +Mathematicae," which appeared in 1647. Led to these considerations by +various problems of unusual difficulty proposed by the great Kepler, +who appears to have introduced infinitely great and infinitely small +quantities into mathematical calculations for the first time, in a tract +on the measure of solids, Cavalleri enounced the principle, that all +lines are composed of an infinite number of points, all surfaces of +an infinite number of lines, and all solids of an infinite number of +surfaces. What this statement lacks in strict accuracy is abundantly +made up in its conciseness; and when some discussion arose thereupon, +it appeared that the absurdity was only seeming, and that the author +himself clearly enough understood by these apparently harsh terms, +infinitely small sides, areas, and sections. Establishing the relation +between these elements and their primitives, the way lay open to the +Integral Calculus. The greatest geometers of the day, Pascal, Roberval, +and others, unhesitatingly adopted this method, and employed it in the +abstruse researches which engaged their attention. + +And now, when but the magic touch of genius was wanting to unite and +harmonize these scattered elements, came Newton. Early recognized by Dr. +Barrow, that truly great and good man resigned the Mathematical Chair at +Cambridge in his favor. Twenty-seven years of age, he entered upon his +duties, having been in possession of the Calculus of Fluxions since +1666, three years previously. Why speak of all his other discoveries, +known to the whole world? _Animi vi propè divinâ, planetarum motus, +figuras, cometarum semitas, Oceanique aestus, suâ Mathesi lucem +praeferente, primus demonstravit. Radiorum lucis dissimilitudines, +colorumque inde nascentium proprietates, quas nemo suspicatus est, +pervestigavit_. So stands the record in Westminster Abbey; and in many +a dusty alcove stands the "Principia," a prouder monument perhaps, more +enduring than brass or crumbling stone. And yet, with rare modesty, such +as might be considered again and again with singular advantage by many +another, this great man hesitated to publish to the world his rich +discoveries, wishing rather to wait for maturity and perfection. The +solicitation of Dr. Barrow, however, prevailed upon him to send forth, +about this time, the "Analysis of Equations containing an Infinite +Number of Terms,"--a work which proves, incontestably, that he was in +possession of the Calculus, though nowhere explaining its principles. + +This delay occasioned the bitter quarrel between Newton and Leibnitz,--a +quarrel exaggerated by narrow-minded partisans, and in truth not very +creditable, in all its ramifications, to either party. Newton, in the +course of a scientific correspondence with Leibnitz, published in 1712, +by the Royal Society, under the title, "Commercium Epistolicum +de Analysi promotâ," not only communicated very many remarkable +discoveries, but added, that he was in possession of the inverse problem +of the tangents, and that he employed two methods which he did +not choose to make public, for which reason he concealed them by +anagrammatical transposition, so effectual as completely to +extinguish the faint glimmer of light which shone through his scanty +explanation.[B] The reference is obviously to what was afterwards known +as the Method of Fluxions and Fluents. This method he derived from the +consideration of the laws of motion uniformly varied, like the motion of +the extreme point of the ordinate of any curve whatever. The name which +he gave to his method is derived from the idea of motion connected with +its origin. + +[Footnote B: This logograph Newton afterwards rendered as follows: "Una +methodus consistit in extractione fluentis quantitatis ex aequatione +simul involvente; altera tantùm in assumptione seriei pro quantitate +incognitâ ex quâ ceterae commodè derivari possunt, et in collatione +terminonim homologorum aequationis resultantis ad eruendos terminos +seriei assumptae."] + +Leibnitz, reflecting upon these statements on the part of Newton, +arrived by a somewhat different path at the Differential and Integral +Calculus, reasoning, however, concerning infinitely great and infinitely +small quantities in general, viewing the problem algebraically instead +of geometrically,--and immediately imparted the result of his studies to +the English mathematician. In the Preface to the _first_ edition of +the "Principia," Newton says, "It is ten years since, being in +correspondence with M. Leibnitz, and having instructed him that I was +in possession of a method of determining tangents and solving questions +involving _maxima_ and _minima_, a method which included irrational +expressions, and having concealed it by transposing the letters, +he replied to me that he had discovered a similar method, which he +communicated, differing from mine only in the terms and signs, as +well as in the generation of the quantities." This would seem to be +sufficient to set at rest any conceivable controversy, establishing an +equal claim to originality, conceding priority of discovery to Newton. +Thus far all had been open and honorable. The petty complaint, that, +while Leibnitz freely imparted his discoveries to Newton, the latter +churlishly concealed his own, would deserve to be considered, if it were +obligatory upon every man of genius to unfold immediately to the world +the results of his labor. As there may be many reasons for a different +course, which we can never know, perhaps could never hope to appreciate, +if we did know them, let us pass on, merely recalling the example of +Galileo. When the first faint glimpses of the rings of Saturn floated +hazily in the field of his imperfect telescope, he was misled into the +belief that three large bodies composed the then most distant light of +the system,--a conclusion which, in 1610, he communicated to Kepler in +the following logograph:-- + +SMAISMRMILMEPOETALEVMIBVNENGTTAVIRAVS. + +It is not strange that the riddle was unread. The old problem, Given the +Greek alphabet, to find an Iliad, differs from this rather in degree +than in kind. The sentence disentangled runs thus:-- + +ALTISSIMVM PLANETAM TERGEMINVM OBSERVAVI. + +And yet we have never heard that Kepler, or, in fact, Leibnitz himself, +felt aggrieved by such a course. + +But Leibnitz made his discovery public, neglecting to give Newton _any_ +credit whatever; and so it happened that various patriotic Englishmen +raised the cry of plagiarism. Keil, in the "Philosophical Transactions" +for 1708, declared that he had published the Method of Fluxions, only +changing the name and notation. Much debate and angry discussion +followed; and, alas for human weakness! Newton himself, in a later +edition of the "Principia," struck out the generous recognition of +genius recorded above, and joined in terming Leibnitz an impostor, +--while the latter maintained that Newton had not fathomed the more +abstruse depths of the new Calculus. The "Commercium Epistolicum" was +published, giving rise to new contentions; and only death, which ends +all things, ended the dispute. Leibnitz died in 1716. + +The Calculus at first found its chief supporters on the Continent. James +and John Bernouilli, Varignon, author of the "Theory of Variations," and +the Marquis de l'Hôpital, were the first to appreciate it; but soon it +attracted the attention of the scientific world to such a degree that +the frivolous populace of Paris had even a well-known song with the +burden, "_Des infiniment petits_." Neither were opponents wanting. +Wrong-headed men and thick-headed men are unfortunately too numerous +in all times and places. One Nieuwentiit, a dweller in intellectual +fogbanks, who had distinguished himself by proving the existence of +the Deity in one of his works, made about this time what he doubtless +considered a second discovery. He found a flaw in the reasoning of +Leibnitz, namely, that _he_ (Nieuwentiit) could not conceive of +quantities infinitely small! A certain Chever also performed sundry +singular mathematical feats, such as squaring the circle, a problem +which he reduced to the single question, _Construere mundum divinae +menti analogum_, and showing that the parabola, the only conic section +squared by ancient or modern geometers, could never be quadrated, to the +eternal discomfiture and discredit of the shade of Archimedes. Leibnitz +used every means in his power to engage these worthy adversaries in +a contest concerning his Calculus, but unfortunately failed. Bishop +Berkeley, too, author of the "Essay on Tar-Water," devout disbeliever in +the material universe, could not resist the Quixotic inclination to run +a tilt against a science which promised so much aid in unveiling those +starry splendors which he with strenuous asseveration denied. He +published, in 1754, "The Minute Philosopher," and soon after, "The +Analyst, or the Discourse of a Mathematician," showing that the +Mathematics are opposed to religion, and cultivate an incredulous +spirit,--such as would never for a moment listen, let us hope, to any +theory which proclaims this green earth and all the universe "such stuff +as dreams are made of," even though the doctrine be ecclesiastically +sustained and backed with abundant wealth of learning. Numerous were the +defenders, called out rather by the acknowledged metaphysical ability of +Bishop Berkeley than by any transcendent merit in these two tracts; and +among others came Maclaurin. + +Taylor's Theorem, based upon that first published by Maclaurin, is the +foundation of the Calculus by La Grange, differing from the methods of +Leibnitz and Newton in the manner of deriving the auxiliaries employed, +proceeding upon analytical considerations throughout. Of his "Théorie +des Fonctions," and that noblest achievement of the pure reason, the +"Mécanique Analytique," we do not propose to speak, nor of the later +developments of the Calculus, so largely due to his genius and labors. +These are mysteries, known only to the initiated, yet capable of raising +their thoughts in as sublime emotion as arose from the view of the +elder, forgotten mysteries, which Cicero deemed the very source and +beginning of true life. + +We have seen how, and through whose toil, this mightiest instrument of +human thought has reached its present perfection. Now, its vast powers +fully recognized, it has become interwoven with all Natural Philosophy. +On its sure basis rests that majestic structure, the "Mécanique Céleste" +of La Place. Its demonstration supports with undoubted proof many +doctrines of the great Newton. Discovery has succeeded discovery; but +its powers have never yet been fully tested. "It is that field of +mathematical investigation," says Davies, "where genius may exert its +highest powers and find its surest rewards." Looking back through the +long course of events leading to such a magnificent result, looking up +to that choral dance of wandering planets, all whose courses and seasons +are marked down for us in the yearly almanac, can we not find in these +manifestations something on the whole quite wonderful, worthy of very +deep thankfulness, heartfelt humility withal, and far-reaching hope? + +In an age of many-colored absurdity, when extremes meet and +contradictions harmonize,--when men of gross, material aims give +implicit confidence to the wildest ravings of the supernatural, and +pure-minded men embrace French theories of social organization,--when +crowds of dullards all aflame with unexpected imagination assemble in +ascension-robes to await the apocalyptic trump, and Asiatic polygamy +spreads unmolested along our Western rivers,--when the prediction is +accomplished, "Old men dream dreams and young men see visions," and the +most practical of the ages bids fair to glide ghostly into history as +the most superstitious,--it is well, it can but be well, to contemplate +reverently that Reason, which Coleridge, after Leighton, calls "an +influence from the Glory of the Almighty." In the contemplation of the +spirit of man (not your _animula_, by any means!) there is earnest of +immortality which needs not that one rise from the dead to confirm it. +In view of the Foresight which guides men, we may trust that all this +tumultuous sense of inadequacy in present institutions, this blind +notion of wrong, far enough from intelligent correction, is, after all, +better than sluggish inaction. + + + + +BULLS AND BEARS. + +[Concluded.] + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +The suspension of specie payments brought instant relief to all really +solvent mercantile houses; since those who had valuable assets of any +kind could now obtain discounts sufficient to enable them to meet their +liabilities. Among those who were at once relieved was the house of +Lindsay and Company; they resumed payment and recommenced business. + +Mr. Lindsay lost no time in finding his clerk Monroe, and reinstated him +with an increased salary. Great was the sorrow in the ragged school at +the loss of the teacher; and it was with some regret that he abandoned +the place. He felt no especial vocation to the career of a missionary; +but his duties had become less irksome than at the beginning, if not +absolutely pleasant. His own position, however, was such that he could +not afford to continue in his self-denying occupation. Easelmann was one +of the first to congratulate him upon his improved prospects. + +"Don't you feel sorry, my dear fellow? Now you get upon your treadmill +of business, and you must keep going, or break your legs. Think, too, +of the jolly little rascals you have left! The beggars are the only +aristocracy we have,--the only people who enjoy their _dolce far +niente_. Look on the Common: who are there amusing themselves on a fine +day, unless it be your Duke Do-nothing, Earl Out-at-elbows, Duchess +Draggle-tail, and others of that happy class? Meanwhile your Lawrences, +Eliots, and the 'Merchant Princes' (a satirical dog that invented the +title!) are going about with sharpened faces, looking as though they +weren't sure of a dinner. Oh, business is a great matter, to be sure! +but the idlers, artists, poets, and other lazzaroni, are the only people +that enjoy life." + +Monroe smiled, and only replied,-- + +"Think of my mother! I must do something besides enjoying life, as you +call it: I must earn the means of making it enjoyable." + +"You were always a good boy," replied his friend, benignantly. "So go to +work; but don't forget to walk out of town now and then; in which case, +I hope you won't disdain the company of _one_ of the idlers." + + * * * * * + +The "mother" was full of joy; her melancholy nervousness almost wholly +forsook her. She looked proudly upon her "dear boy," thinking him the +best, most considerate, faithful, and affectionate of sons,--as he was. + +Walter, after listening to her benedictions, told her he had an +invitation from Mr. Lindsay to dine the next day, and begged her to go +with him; but the habit of inaction, the dread of bustle and motion, +were too strong to be overcome. She could not be persuaded to leave +home. + +"But go, by all means, Walter," she added. "It will be pleasant to be +on such terms with your employer. I must keep watch of you, though, now +that Alice is gone. Are there young ladies at the house?" + +"Why, mother, how jealous you are! Do you think I go about falling +in love with all the young ladies I see? Mr. Lindsay has a beautiful +daughter; but do you think a poor clerk is likely to be regarded as +'eligible' by a family accustomed to wealth and luxury?" + +The mother looked as though she thought her son a match for the richest +and proudest; she said nothing, but patted his head as though he were +still only a boy. + +"Speaking of Alice, mother, I am very much concerned about her. Now that +I am reëstablished, I shall make every exertion to find her and bring +her home to live with us. Mr. Greenleaf, I know, is looking for her; +very little good it will do him, if he finds her." + +"But we shall hear from him, I presume?" + +"I think so. He is intimate with my friend Mr. Easelmann.--But, mother, +I have some more good news. I shall get our property back. Lawyers say +that Mr. Tonsor will be obliged to give up the notes, and look to the +estate of Sandford for the money he lent. And the notes, fortunately, +are as valuable as ever, in spite of all the multitude of failures; one +name, at least, on each note is good." + +"Everything comes back, like Job's prosperity. This repays us for all +our anxiety." + +"If Alice had not run away!" + +"But we shall have her again,--poor motherless child!" + +So with mutual gratulations they passed the evening. My readers who now +enjoy a mother's love, or look back with affectionate reverence to such +scenes in the past, will pardon these apparently unimportant portions +of the story. Sooner or later all will learn that no worldly success +whatever, no friendships, not even the absorbing love of wife and +children, can afford a pleasure so full, so serene, as the sacred +feeling which rises at the recollection of a mother's self-sacrificing +affection. + +Very commonplace, no doubt,--but still worth an occasional thought. As +for those who demand that natural and simple feelings shall be ignored, +and that every chapter shall record something not less startling than +murder or treason, are there not already means for gratifying their +tastes? Do not the "Torpedo" and the "Blessing of the Boudoir" give +enough of these delicate condiments with the intellectual viands they +furnish? Let old-fashioned people enjoy their plain dishes in peace. + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + +The reader may be quite sure that Greenleaf lost no time in presenting +himself at Easelmann's studio on the morning after his last interview. + +"On hand early, I see," said the elder. "And how fresh you look! The +blood comes dancing into your face; you are radiant with expectation." + +"You mummy, what do you suppose I am made of, if the thought of meeting +Alice should not quicken my blood a little?" + +"If it were my case, I think my cheeks would tingle from another cause." + +"Now you need not try to frighten me. I will see her first. I don't +believe she has forgotten me." + +"Nor I; but forgetting is one thing, and forgiving is another. Besides, +we haven't seen her yet." + +"I haven't, I know; but I'll wager you have." + +"Well, my Hotspur, I sha'n't entice her away from you." + +"Let us go," said Greenleaf. + +"Presently; I must finish this pipe first; it lasts thirty-six minutes, +and I have smoked only--let me see--twenty-eight." + +"Well, puff away; but you'll burn up my patience with your tobacco, +unless you are ready soon." + +"Don't hurry. You'll get to your stool of repentance quite soon enough. +Have you heard the news? The banks have suspended,--ditto Fletcher, a +banker's clerk. + +"What do you mean?" + +"Plain enough. The banks suspend paying specie because they haven't any +to redeem their bills; and Fletcher, because he has neither specie nor +bills." + +"Fletcher suspended?" + +"Yes, _sus. per coll._, as the Newgate records have it,--hung himself +with his handkerchief,--an article he might have put to better use." + +And Easelmann blew a vigorous blast with his, as he laid down the pipe. + +"You understand, choking is disagreeable,--painful, in fact,--and, if +indulged in long enough, is apt to produce unpleasant effects. Remember, +I once warned you against it." + +"This matter of suicide is horrible. Couldn't it have been prevented?" + +"Yes, if Fletcher could have got hold of Bullion." + +"Coin would have done as well, I suppose." + +"Now haven't I been successful in diverting your attention? You have +actually punned. Don't you know Mr. Bullion, the capitalist?" + +"I have good reason to remember him, though I don't know him myself. My +father was once connected with him in business, and not at all to his +own advantage." + +"I never heard you speak of your father before; in fact, I never knew +you had one." + +"It was not necessary to speak of him; he has been dead many years." + +"And left you nothing to remember him by. Now a man with an estate has a +perpetual reminder." + +"So has the son of a famous man; and people are continually depreciating +him, comparing his little bud of promise with the ripe fruitage of the +ancestral tree. I prefer to acquire my own fortune and my own fame. My +father did his part by giving me being and educating me.--But come; your +pipe is out; you draw like a pump, without puffing even a nebula of +smoke." + +"I suppose I must yield. First a lavation; this Virginian incense +is more agreeable to devout worshippers like you and me than to the +uninitiated. There," (wiping the water from his moustaches,) "now I +am qualified to meet that queenly rose, Mrs. Sandford, or even that +delicate spring violet of yours,--if we should find the nook where she +blooms." + +"You are the most tantalizing fellow! How provokingly cool you are, to +stand dallying as though you were going on the most indifferent errand! +And all the while to remind me of what I have lost. Come, you look +sufficiently fascinating; your gray moustache has the proper artistic +curl; your hair is carelessly-well-arranged." + +"So the boy can't wait for due preparation. There, I believe I am +ready." + +Arrived at the house where Mrs. Sandford boarded, they were ushered into +the reception-room; but Easelmann, bidding his friend wait, followed the +servant upstairs. Waiting is never an agreeable employment. The courtier +in the ante-chamber before the expected audience, the office-seeker at +the end of a cue in the Presidential mansion, the beau lounging in the +drawing-room while the idol of his soul is in her chamber busy with the +thousand little arts that are to complete her charms,--none of these +find that time speeds. To Greenleaf the delay was full of torture; he +paced the room, looked at the pictures without seeing anything, looked +out of the window, turned over the gift-books on the table, counted the +squares in the carpet, and finally sat down in utter despair. At length +Easelmann returned. Greenleaf started up. + +"Where is she? Have you seen her? Why doesn't she come down? And why, in +the name of goodness, have you kept me waiting in this outrageous way?" + +"I don't know.--I have not--I can't tell you.--And because I couldn't +help it.--Never say, after this, I don't answer all your questions." + +"Now, what is the use of all this mystery?" + +"Softly, my friend; and let us not make a mess of it. Mrs. Sandford +advises us to walk out awhile." + +"I am obliged to her and to you for your well-meant caution, but I don't +intend to go out until I have seen Alice,--if she will see me." + +"But consider." + +"I have considered, and am determined to see her; I can't endure this +suspense." + +"But Alice bore it much longer. Be advised; Mrs. Sandford wants to +prepare the way for you." + +"I thank you; but I don't mean to have any stratagem acted for my +benefit. I will trust the decision to her: if she loves me, all will be +well; if her just resentment has uprooted her love, the sooner I know it +the better." + +While they were engaged in this mutual expostulation, Alice, +all-unconscious of the impending situation in the drama, was busy in her +own room,--for Mrs. Sandford had not yet decided how to break the news +to her,--and having an errand that led her to the street, she put on her +cloak and hat and tripped lightly down-stairs. Naturally she went into +the drawing-room, to make sure, by the mirror, that her ribbons were +neatly adjusted. As she entered, fastening her cloak, and humming some +simple air meanwhile, she started back at the sight of strangers, +and was rapidly retreating, when a voice that she had not forgotten +exclaimed, "Great Heavens, there she is now! Alice! Alice! stop! I beg +of you!" + +Greenleaf at the same time bounded to the door, and, seizing her hand, +drew her, bewildered, faint, and fluttering, back into the room. + +He turned almost fiercely to his companion:-- + +"This is your policy, is it, to send her off?--or, more probably, to +amuse me and not send for her at all?" + +"Ask the lady,--ask Mrs. Sandford," replied Easelmann. "I have not sent +her off; and you ought to know by this time that I am incapable of +playing false to any man." + +Alice, erect, but very pale, maintained her composure as well as she +could, though the timid lips trembled a little, and blinding clouds rose +before her eyes. She withdrew her hand from Greenleaf's grasp, and asked +the meaning of this unusual conduct. Greenleaf's good sense came to the +rescue seasonably. + +"Alice,--Miss Lee,--allow me to introduce my friend Mr. Easelmann. We +came here to see you, and were waiting for that purpose; but it seems +you were not told of it." + +Easelmann bowed, saying, "No, Miss Lee; I saw Mrs. Sandford, who thought +it best to speak to you first herself." + +"I am happy to meet you, Mr. Easelmann," said Alice. "I was just going +out, however, as you see, and I must ask you to excuse me this morning." + +Greenleaf saw with a pang how silently, but effectually, he was disposed +of; a downright rebuff would not have been so humiliating. But he was +not to be deterred from his purpose, and he went on: + +"Pardon me, if I seem to overstep the bounds of courtesy; but I cannot +let you go in this way, Alice,--for so I must call you. Stay and hear +me. Now that I see you, I must speak. God only knows with what anxiety I +have sought you for the last month." + +She tried to answer, but could not command her speech. Seeing her +increasing agitation, Easelmann led her to a seat, and then, in a +gentler tone than he often used, said,-- + +"I will leave the room, if you please, Miss Lee; this is an interview I +did not desire to witness." + +"No," she exclaimed, "do not go. I have nothing to say that you should +not hear; and I hope Mr. Greenleaf will spare me the pain of going over +a history which is better forgotten." + +"It can never be forgotten," interposed Greenleaf; "and, in spite of +your protest, I must say what I can--and that is little enough--to +exculpate myself, and then throw myself upon your charity for +forgiveness." + +Alice remained silent; but it was a silence that gave no encouragement +to Greenleaf. He advanced still nearer, looking at her with a tender +earnestness, as though his very soul were in the glance. She covered her +face with her hands. + +"Alice," he said, "you know what that name once meant to me. I cannot +speak it now without a feeling beyond utterance." + +Easelmann, meanwhile, quietly sidled towards the door, and, saying that +he was going back to see Mrs. Sandford, abruptly left the room. + +Greenleaf went on,--"I know my conduct was utterly inexcusable; but I +declare, by my hope of heaven, I never _loved_ any woman but you. I was +fascinated, ensnared, captivated by the senses only; now that illusion +is past, and I turn to you." + +"My illusion is past also; you turn too late. Can you make me forget +those months of neglect?" + +The tone was tender, but mournful. How he wished that her answer had +been fuller of rebuke! He could hope to overcome her anger far more +easily than this settled sorrow. + +"I know I can never atone for the wrong; there are injuries that are +irreparable, wounds that leave ineffaceable scars. I can never undo what +I have done; would to Heaven I could! You may never forget this period +of suffering; but that is past now; it is not to be lived over again. Go +back rather to the brighter days before it; think of them, and then look +down the future;--may I dare say it?--the future, perhaps, will make us +both forget my insane wanderings and your undeserved pains." + +"But love must have faith to lean upon. While I loved you, I rested on +absolute trust. I would have believed you against all the world. I would +have been glad to share your lot, even in poverty and obscurity. I did +not love you for your art nor your fame. You wavered; you forgot me. I +don't know what it was that tempted you, but it was enough; it drew +you away from me; and as long as you preferred another, or could be +satisfied with any other woman's love, you lost all claim to mine." + +Greenleaf could not but feel the force of this direct, womanly logic: in +its clear light how pitiful were the excuses he had framed for himself! +He felt sure that many, even of the best of men, might have erred in the +same way; but this was an argument which would have much more weight +with his own sex than with women. Men know their own frailties, and +are therefore charitable; women consider inconstancy to be the one +unpardonable sin, and are inexorable. + +He came still nearer, vainly hoping to see some indication of relenting; +but the pale face was as firm as it was sad. + +"I said before, Alice, that I do not attempt to defend my faithlessness, +hardly to extenuate it; and I do not at all wonder at your altered +temper towards me. It was a cruel blow I gave you. But my life shall +show you the sincerity of my repentance." + +She shook her head as she answered,-- + +"When you left me, the last spark of love went out. It is hard to kindle +anew the dead embers. No,--when I found that you _could_ be untrue, all +was over,--past, present, and future." + +"But consider," he said, still more earnestly, "what remains for you or +me. You will have the memory of this great sorrow, and I the unending +remorse. I can never love another woman while you live, and you--may I +say it?--will never love again as you have loved. Is it not for your +own happiness, as it is most assuredly for mine, that you overlook the +fault, receive me again, and trust to the lasting effect of the bitter +lesson I have learned? Forgive me, if I seem too bold,--if the desire to +atone for the past makes me sue for pardon with unbecoming zeal. If I +were less urgent, it would be because I was not sensible of the wrong, +and careless about reparation." + +She was silent; contending passions strove for mastery. She had not +forgotten him, then! He took courage and came yet nearer. + +"Will you give me your hand? Alice, will you?" + +He reached his own towards her. + +"No,--pardon me,--I must not. It is not well to decide by impulse,--to +be swayed by a thrill. When my heart tells me to give you my hand, it +shall be yours. I don't wish to be charmed out of my calmer judgment. +Your presence, your fiery words, and your will, are sufficiently +magnetic." + +"My dear Alice, I have been guilty of _one_ folly, a serious one, but +you don't believe I am incapable of constancy henceforth. Remember you +were away; time hung heavily on my hands; my good nature made me accept +invitations which brought me into daily contact with a woman who of all +others was most dangerous to a man of ardent temperament. The friendship +which began without a thought of a nearer relation grew into an intimacy +which I was not far-sighted enough to check. In your own words, I was +magnetized, thoroughly; and when, at last, in a scene of imminent +danger, I rashly said some things that should not have been spoken, I +found myself committed irrevocably. It is not too much to say that the +lady was looking for the opportunity which fate and my own stupidity +gave her. But the spell did not last. Your face was constantly before me +like an accusing angel. I waited only until the lady recovered from +a dangerous illness to tell her that I did not love her, and that my +heart, as well as my faith, was yours. I went at once to see you, and +found your father dead, yourself homeless. And from that hour I have +done nothing but search for you. Is it in vain?--I can say no more. +Perhaps I have said too much. But I implore you, Alice, by the memory of +our love as it was once, by all your hope of the future, to forgive me, +and not to make my whole life as miserable as the last few months have +been to you." + +It was the last word; he felt that he had nothing further to urge. He +bent over her chair, seized her hand and pressed it passionately to +his lips, watching with the intensest eagerness the effect of his +appeal.--There was a rustle of silk behind him, an incoming of perfumes, +a light footstep. He started, as did Alice, and beheld--Miss Marcia +Sandford! She was tastefully dressed, as usual, and she bore +herself with superb composure. In coming from the sunlight into the +semi-translucent gloom which pervades modern drawing-rooms, people are +not easily recognized, and the lady swept majestically across the floor, +and took a seat, without a sign of consciousness, near the couple whose +conversation she had interrupted. + +Not so Greenleaf; it was the most dangerous dilemma in which he had ever +been placed, and he was thoroughly at a loss to know how to extricate +himself. Would that he could telegraph to Easelmann to come down, so +that he could effect a decent retreat, and not leave the field in the +sole possession of the enemy. The silence was becoming embarrassing. He +was about to make some excuse for departure, when the lioness fixed +her eyes upon him,--her glance sparkling with malicious joy. A servant +entered to say that Mrs. Sandford was engaged for a few minutes, and +that she wished to know the name of her visitor. + +"Miss Sandford," she replied, "and please tell her I will wait." + +Alice remembered the name, and now shared fully in Greenleaf's +embarrassment. She watched him, therefore, keenly, while the lady +began,-- + +"Oh, Mr. Greenleaf, is it you? Why didn't you speak? It is not worth +while to keep a memory of the old disappointment. Let bygones be +bygones. Besides, I see you know the remedy for heartbreak; if you can't +succeed where you would, you must try elsewhere. And you seemed to be +getting on very well when I came in." + +"Miss Sandford," he retorted, indignantly, "there is as little need of +your ironical condolence as of your ungenerous insinuations." + +"What an impatient fellow! and so sensitive, too! The wound is not +healed, then. Pray introduce me to the Zerlina in our little opera. As I +know you so well, I can give her some excellent counsel about managing +you.--Ah, you wince! I am indiscreet, I fear; I have betrayed a secret; +the Zerlina is perhaps still in her rustic seclusion, and this is +only--Well, you must submit to your destiny, I suppose. How many are +there since? Let me see,--six weeks,--time for three flirtations of the +most intensely crimson hue." + +Alice rose to her feet, with a glow of resentment on her hitherto pale +face. And Greenleaf, feeling that courtesy was now wholly unnecessary, +exclaimed,-- + +"Miss Sandford, you have said quite as much as was proper for a young +girl to hear: your own cheeks, I presume, are proof against any +indelicate surprise. Let me ask you to stop, before"-- + +"Before what, Sir? And what is this high-and-mighty innocence about? +To be sure, one does not like to be exposed,--that is, the wolf +doesn't,--though the lamb shouldn't be angry. A pretty lamb it is, too." + +Alice gradually drew away from Greenleaf's side, turning her glances +from one to the other of the combatants. She had never seen such +confidence, such readiness of invective, joined with such apparent +sincerity and ease of manner; and the evident effect of the attack upon +Greenleaf puzzled her not a little; in this brief colloquy there were +opened new fields for dark conjecture. The woman's words had been barbed +arrows in her ears. + +Greenleaf's perplexity increased momently. He dared not go away now; +and he knew not how, in Miss Sandford's presence, to counteract the +impression she might make. If he could get rid of her or shut her +wickedly-beautiful mouth, he might answer all she had so artfully thrown +out. But as Alice had not given any token of returning affection, he +could not presume upon his good standing with her and remain silent. +Growing desperate, he ventured once more. + +"Miss Sandford, I know very well the depth of your hate towards me, as +well as your capacity for misrepresentation. If you desire to have +the history of our intimacy dragged to the light, I, for my part, am +willing. But don't think your sex will screen you, if you continue the +calumnies you have begun.--You, Alice, must judge between us. And in +almost every point, Mrs. Sandford, your friend and her sister-in-law, +will be able to support my statements." + +The servant returned to say that "Mrs. Sandford must be excused." + +Greenleaf turned upon the adversary with a triumphant glance. + +"A palpable trick," she exclaimed. "You gave the servant a signal: you +were unwilling to have us confronted. You have filled her ears with +scandal about me." + +"Not a word; she can hear a plenty about you in any circle where you are +known, without coming to me. And so far from giving any signal, I should +be rejoiced to show Alice how easily an honest woman's testimony will +put your monstrous effrontery to shame." + +Alice here interposed,--her resolute spirit manifest in spite of her +trembling voice,-- + +"I have heard this too long already; I don't wish to be the subject of +this lady's jests, and I don't desire her advice. Your quarrel does not +concern me,--at least, not so deeply that I wish to have it repeated in +my presence. Mr. Greenleaf, let me bid you good-morning." + +She moved away with a simple dignity, bowing with marked coolness to the +former rival. + +"Stay, Alice," said Greenleaf. "Let me not be thrust aside in this way. +Miss Sandford, now that she has done what mischief she can, will go away +and enjoy the triumph. I beg of you, stay and let me set myself right." + +Miss Sandford laughed heartily,--a laugh that made Greenleaf shiver. + +"Not to-day, Mr. Greenleaf," she answered. "I have need of rest and +reflection. I am not used to scenes like this, and my brain is in a +whirl." + +The first flush of excitement was over, and it was with difficulty that +she found her way through the hall. Easelmann was coming down, and saw +her hesitating step and her tremulous grasp upon the rail; he sprang +down four steps at a time, caught her before she fell, and carried her +in his arms like a child up to Mrs. Sandford's room. + +Greenleaf was so completely absorbed by the danger of losing the last +hold upon Alice, that he forgot his most excusable anger against the +vindictive woman who still lingered, enjoying her victory. He sank into +a chair, buried his face in his hands, and for some time neither looked +up nor replied to her taunts. + +"Come, now," said she, "don't take it so hard. Is my handsome +sister-in-law obdurate? Never mind; don't be desolate; other women will +be kind,--for you are just the man to attract sentimental damsels. Cheer +up! you will find a new affinity before night, I haven't a doubt." + +Roused at length, Greenleaf stood up before the mocking fiend, so +radiant in her evil smiles, and said,-- + +"You enemy of all that is good, what brought you here? Keep in your own +sphere, if there is one for you in this world." + +"I came to see my sister, as you know. It was a most unexpected pleasure +to meet you. I came to tell her that brother Henry has either run away +or killed himself, it doesn't matter which." + +"Pray, follow him. I assure you we shall mourn your absence as bitterly +as you do his." + +"Well, good-bye," she said, still laughing in the same terrible tone. +"Better luck next time." + +The door closed upon her, and Greenleaf drew a long breath--with a sense +of infinite relief. + +"Come," said Easelmann, entering a moment later,--"come, let us go. We +have done quite enough for one day. You wouldn't take my advice, and a +pretty mess you have made of it." + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + +When the remains of John Fletcher were borne to the grave, the memory +of his faults was buried with him. "Poor fellow!" was the general +ejaculation in State Street,--at once his _requiescat_ and epitaph. But +the great wheels of business moved on; Bulls and Bears kept up their +ever-renewing conflicts and their secret machinations; new gladiators +stepped into the ring; new crowds waited the turn of the wheel of +Fortune; and new Fletchers were ready to sacrifice themselves, if need +were, for the Bullions of the exchange. Who believes in the efficacy of +"lessons"? What public execution ever deterred the murderer from his +design? What spectacle of drunkenness ever restrained the youthful +debauchee? What accession, however notable, to the ranks of "the +unfortunate" ever made the fascinated woman pause in her first steps +toward ruin? + +No,--human nature remains the same; and the erring ones, predestined to +sin by their own unrestrained passions, wait only for the overmastering +circumstances to yield and fall. When any of these solemn warnings are +held up to the yet callow sinner, what does he propose to do? To stop +and repent? No,--to be a little more careful and not be caught. + +Not that precepts and examples are useless. All together go to make up +the moral government of the world,--pervading like the atmosphere, and +like it resting with uniform pressure upon the earth. Crime and folly +will always have their exemplars, but retribution furnishes the +restraining influence that keeps evil down to its average. As locks and +bolts are made for honest men, not for thieves, so the moral law and its +penalties are for those who have never openly sinned. + +If Mr. Bullion had been ten times the Shylock he was, he could not have +disregarded the last injunction of Fletcher. The turn in the market +enabled him to make advantageous sales of his stocks, and in less than +a week he resumed payment. The first thing he did was to pay over to +trustees the notes he had given Fletcher, thereby securing the widow at +least a decent support. He also sent Danforth & Co. the ten thousand +dollars for which their clerk had paid such a terrible forfeiture. +After discharging all his obligations, there was still an ample margin +left,--a large fortune, in fact. Mr. Bullion could now retire with +comfort,--could look forward to many years; so he flattered himself. +His will was made, his children provided for; and some unsettled +accounts, not remembered by any save himself and the recording angel, +were adjusted as well as the lapse of time would allow. So he thought of +purchasing a country-house for the next season, and of giving the rest +of his days to the enjoyment of life. + +But it was not so to be. A swift and sudden stroke smote him down. In +the dead of night, and alone, he met the angel for whose summons all of +us are waiting, and went his way without a struggle. The morning sun, +as its rays shot in between the blinds, lighted the seamed and careworn +face of an old man, resting as in a serene, dreamless sleep. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Tonsor found, on consulting the best legal authorities, that he +could not maintain his claim upon the notes he had received of Sandford; +and, rather than subject himself to the expense of a lawsuit in which he +was certain to be beaten, he relinquished them to Monroe, and filed his +claim for the money against Sandford's estate. Ten _per cent._ was the +amount of the dividend he received; the remainder was charged to Profit +and Loss,--Experience being duly credited with the same amount. + + * * * * * + +It was with the greatest difficulty that the judicious Easelmann +prevented his friend from making a second visit in the evening of the +same day. Greenleaf had come to a full conviction, in his own mind, that +his difference with Alice ought to be settled, and he could not conceive +that it might take time to bring her to the same conclusion. Some people +adapt themselves to circumstances instantly; the aversion of one hour +becomes the delight of the next; but those who are guided by reasoning, +especially where there is a shade of resentment,--who are fortified by +pride of opinion, and by the idea of consistent self-respect,--such +persons are slow to change a settled conviction; the course of feeling +is too powerful and too constant to be arrested and turned backward. +Easelmann thought--and perhaps rightly--that Alice needed only time to +become accustomed to the new view of the case; and he believed that any +precipitation might be fatal to his friend's hopes. + +"Give her the opportunity to think about it," he said; "if she loves +you, depend upon it, the wind will change with her. Due east to-day, +according to all you have told me; and the violets won't blossom till +the sun comes out of the sullen gray cloud and the south wind breathes +on them.--The very contact with a lover, you see, makes me poetical." + +"But her thoughts may take another direction. Who can tell what +impression that malicious vixen has made upon her?" + +"Alice, I fancy, is a sensible young woman; and Miss Sandford, in her +rage, must have shown her hand too freely. To be sure, Alice might +wonder how you could ever have been captivated; but she could not blame +you for getting out of reach of such a Tartar. Besides, the exemplary +widow is your friend, you know, and I'll warrant that she will set the +matter right. Marcia won't trouble you again; such a mischance couldn't +happen twice. You are as safe as the sailor who put his head into the +hole where a cannon-shot had just come through. Lightning doesn't strike +the same tree twice in one shower." + +Greenleaf was at length persuaded to wait and let events take their +course. If he remained inactive, however, Easelmann did not; from Mrs. +Sandford he heard daily the progress of affairs, and at length intimated +to his friend that it might be judicious to call again. + +Once more Greenleaf was seated in the drawing-room of the +boarding-house. At every distant footstep his heart beat almost audibly; +and when at last the breezy rustle of a woman's robes came in from the +hall, he thought, as many a man has, before and since,-- + +"She is coming, my life, my fate!" + +She entered, not with the welcoming smile he would have liked to see, +nor with the forbidding cloud of sadness which veiled her face a few +days before. But how lovely! Time had given fulness and perfection to +her beauty, while the effect of the trials she had undergone was seen +only in the look of womanly dignity and self-control she had acquired. +It was the freshness of girlhood joined to the grace of maturity. + +Nothing is more inscrutable than the working of the human will; argument +does not reach it, nor does persuasion overcome it. It holds out against +reason, against interest, against passion; no sufficient motive can be +found with which to control it. On the other hand, it sometimes stoops +in a way that defies prediction; pride is vanquished or disarmed, +resentment melts away like frost, and the resolution that at first +seemed firm as the everlasting rock proves to be no barrier. Nor is this +uncertainty confined to the sex at whose foibles the satirists have been +wont to let fly their arrows. + +Feeling is deeper than thought; and as the earthquake lifts the mountain +with all the weight of its rocky strata and of the piled-up edifices +that crown its top, so there comes a time when the emotional nature +rises up and overthrows the carefully wrought structures of the +intellect, and asserts its original and supreme mastery over the soul of +man. + +Alice felt sure that every trace of her love for Greenleaf had +disappeared. She looked in her heart and saw there only the memory of +neglect and unfaithfulness. If love existed, it was as fire lurks in +ashes, unrecognized. She had conversed freely with Mrs. Sandford, and +learned that Greenleaf's version of the story was the correct one. Still +the original treason remained without apology; and she had determined +to express her regret for what had happened, to assure him of her +friendship, but to forbid any hope of reëstablishing their former +relations. With this intention, she bade him good-morning and quietly +took a seat. + +"I did not think that so many days would pass before I should see you; +but now that you have had time to reflect, I hope your feelings have +softened towards me." + +"You mistake, if you suppose that giving me time for reflection has +produced any such change." + +"Then, pray, forget the past altogether." + +"I cannot forget." + +"If your memory must be busy, pray, go back to the pleasanter days of +our acquaintance." + +"I remember the days you speak of; I shall never forget them; but it is +a happiness that is dead and buried." + +"Love will make it live again." + +"It is hard to recognize love when it comes like Lazarus from the tomb." + +"Still we don't read that the friends of Lazarus were displeased with +his return and wished him back to his grave-clothes." + +"You can turn the comparison as you choose; but it is not necessary that +an illustration should be perfect in every respect; if one catches a +gleam of resemblance, it is enough." + +The perfect command of her faculties, and the deliberate way in which +she sustained her part in the conversation, thus far, were sufficiently +disheartening to Greenleaf. He longed to change the tone, but feared to +lose all by any rapid advance. He answered deprecatingly,--"But all this +intellectual fencing, my dear Alice, is useless. Love is not a spark +to be struck out by the collision of arguments; I shall in vain try to +_reason_ you into affection for me. I have already said all I can say by +way of apology for what I have done. If there yet lingers any particle +of regard for me in your heart, I would fain revive it. If it is your +pride that withstands me, I pray you consider whether it is well to make +us both unhappy in order to maintain so poor a triumph. I am already +conquered, and throw myself upon your generosity." + +"You would put me in the wrong, then, and ascribe my refusal to an +ungenerous pride? Is it generous in you to do so? Have you the right to +place such a construction upon my conduct? I appeal to you in return. +Remember, it is you who are responsible for this painful interview. I +never sought you to cover you with reproaches. You force me to say what +I would gladly leave in silence." + +"Forgive me, Alice, if I wrong you; but my heart clings to you and will +not be repulsed. I would fain believe, that, beneath all your natural +resentment, there yet survives some portion of the love you once bore +to me. If it were the first time I had ever approached you, a sense of +delicacy, to say nothing of my own self-respect, would have prevented +my importuning you in this way. But my fault has given me warrant to +be bold, and if you finally cast me off,--but that is what I won't +anticipate; I can't give you up. You once loved me,--and am I not the +same?" + +"No, not the same; or, rather, you have proved to be not what I +thought." + +"You persist in fixing your attention upon one dark spot. Do you +remember this miniature? It has never been out of my bosom, and there +has never been but one day in which I might not loyally carry it there. +At that time, when I opened it, your eyes looked out at me with a tender +reproach, and I was instantly recalled to myself. It was only the +illusion of a moment, through which I had passed. Whatever may happen, I +have one consolation: this dear image will remind me of the love I once +possessed. I shall fold to my bosom the Alice that once was mine, and +strive to forget our estrangement." + +Alice was sensibly touched by this appeal, and much more by the tone in +which it was made. In the momentary pause, Greenleaf raised his eyes and +saw the struggle in her face. He rose, came nearer, and quietly took a +seat on the sofa beside her. + +"I heard you distinctly where you sat," she said, making an effort to +keep down the tumult within, and shrinking, perhaps, from the influence +of his presence. + +"I wished to hear you, dear Alice, and therefore came nearer. Tell me, +are you not mistaken? You have not forgotten me: you do love me yet. Let +your heart speak; if you imprison it and force the dissembling lips to +deny me, the dear traitor will make signals: it looks out of your eyes +now." + +He seized and imprisoned her hand, and still watched the current of +feeling in her face. + +"I thought myself strong enough for this," she said, tremblingly, "but I +am not. I meant only to say that we would part----friends, but that we +must part. It is not so easy to be calm, when you distract me so." + +"Alice, you only deceive yourself; you love me. You have covered +the spring in your heart with snow, but the fountain still flows +underneath." + +Her tears could be kept back no longer; they fell not like November +rain, but rather like those sudden showers of spring from passing +clouds, while the blue sky still looks down, and rainbow smiles +transfigure the landscape. + +His heart gave a mighty throb as those softly humid eyes were turned +upon him. He drew her, half consenting, still nearer. She hesitated, but +not long. + + * * * * * + +"Hard a-port!" shouts the master; and the helmsman, with firm hand, +holds down the wheel. Slowly the ship veers; the sails flutter and back, +the yards are swung; waves strive to head the bow off, but the rudder is +held with iron grasp; now comes the wind, the shaking sails fill with +the sudden rush, and the ship bounds on her new course over the heaving +waters. + +Shall I fill out the comparison? Not for you, elders, who have seen the +struggle of "tacking ship," and have felt the ecstatic swell of delight +when it was accomplished! Not for the younger, who must learn for +themselves the seamanship that is to carry them safely over the +mysterious ocean on whose shore they have lingered and gazed and wished! + +The conversation that followed it would be vain to report, even if +it were possible; for the force of ejaculations depends so much +on _tone_,--which our types do not know how to convey; and their +punctuation-marks, I fear, were such as are not in use in any +well-regulated printing-office. In due time it came to an end; and when +Greenleaf took his unwilling departure, having repeatedly said good-bye, +with the usual confirmation, he could no more remember what had been +said in that miraculous hour than a bee flying home from a garden could +tell you about the separate blossoms from which he (the Sybarite!) had +gathered his freight of flower-dust. + +One thing only he heard which the wisely incurious reader will care +to know. Alice had met her cousin, Walter Monroe, the day before, had +received a proper scolding for her absurd independence, and, after a +frank settlement of the heart-question which came up on the day of her +flight, had promised at once to return to his house,--where, for the +brief remainder of our story, she is to be found. Let us wish her +joy,--and the kind, motherly aunt, also. + +Greenleaf went directly to Easelmann's room, opened the door, and spread +his arms. + +"Have you a strawberry-mark?" he shouted. + +"No." + +"Then you are my long-lost brother! Come to my arms!" + +Easelmann laughed long and loudly. + +"Forgive my nonsense, Easelmann. I know I am beside myself and ready for +any extravagance,--I am so full of joy. I feared, in coming along the +street, that I should break out into singing, or fall to dancing, like +the Scriptural hills." + +"Then you have succeeded, and the girl is yours! I forgive your stupid +old joke. You can say and do just what you like. You have a right to +be jolly, and to make a prodigious fool of yourself, if you want to. I +should like to have heard you. You were very poetical, quoted Tennyson, +fell on your knees, and perhaps blubbered a little. You _are_ +sentimental, you know." + +"I am happy, I know, and I don't care whether you think me sentimental +or not." + +"Well, I wish you joy anyhow. Let us make a night of it. 'It is our +royal pleasure to be'--imagine the rest of the line. 'Now is the winter +of our discontent.' 'My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne.' Come, +let us make ready, and we'll talk till + + "'Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day + Stands tiptoe on the misty'-- + +misty steeple of Park-Street Church,--since we haven't any misty +mountaintops in the neighborhood." + +"One would think _you_ the happy man." + +"I am; your enthusiasm is so contagious that I am back in my twenties +again." + +"Why do you take your pleasure vicariously? There is Mrs. Sandford, the +charming woman; I love her, because"-- + +"No, Sir, not her,--one is enough." + +"Then why not love her yourself? We'll make a double-barrelled shot of +it,--two couples brought down by one parson." + +"Very ingenious, and economical, too; but I think not. It is too late. I +was brought up in the country, and I don't think it good policy to begin +agricultural operations in the fall of the year; my spring has past. But +is the day fixed? When are you to be the truly happy man?" + +"No,--the day is not fixed," said Greenleaf, thoughtfully. "You see, +I was so bent upon the settlement of the difficulty, that I had not +considered the practical bearing of the matter. I am too poor to marry, +and I am heartsick at the prospect of waiting"-- + +"With the chance of another rupture." + +"No,--we shall not quarrel again. But I shall go to work. I'll inundate +the town with pictures; if I can't sell them myself, I will have Jews to +peddle them for me." + +"Hear the mercenary man! No,--go to work in earnest, but put your life +into your pictures. If you can keep up your present glow, you will be +warmer than Cuyp, dreamier than Claude, more imaginative than Millais." + +"But the desperate long interval!" + +"I don't know about that. I quite like the philosophy of Mr. Micawber, +and strenuously believe in something turning up." + +"What is that?" asked Greenleaf, noticing a letter on his friend's +table. "It seems to be addressed to me." + +"Yes,--I met a lawyer to-day, who asked me if I knew one George +Greenleaf. As I did, he gave me the letter. Some dun, probably, or +threat of a suit. I wouldn't open it. Don't!" + +"You only make me curious. I shall open it. To-day I can defy a dun even +from--What, what's this? Bullion dead?--left in his will a bequest--forty +thousand--to _me_?" + +Easelmann looked over his friend's shoulder with well-simulated +astonishment. + +"Sure enough; there it is, in black and white.--What do you think of +Micawber?" + +"I think," said Greenleaf, with manly tears in his eyes, "that you are +the artfullest, craftiest, hugger-muggering, dear old rascal that ever +lived. Now let me embrace you in good earnest. Oh, Easelmann, this is +too much! Here is Alice--mine! Here is Europe, that I have looked at as +I would heaven, beyond reach in this life! _Now_ we will go to work; and +let Cuyp, Claude, and the rest of them, look out for their laurels!" + +"Softly, my boy; you squeeze like a cider-press. But how came the old +miser to give you this?" + +"My father was his partner; he was thought to be worth a handsome sum +while he lived,--but at his death, though Bullion and another junior +went on with the business, there was nothing left for us. My mother died +poor. I am the only child living. This, I suppose, is the return for the +property that Bullion wrongfully detained,--with compound interest, too, +I should say. Let us not speak ill of the dead. He has made restitution +and squared the books; I hope the correction has been made above." + +"How lucky for you that Bullion was your banker! Suppose you had grown +up with the expectation of having this money, what would you have +been good for? You would have run all to patent-leather boots, silky +moustaches, and black-tan terriers. Your struggles have developed your +muscles, metaphorically speaking, and made a man of you." + +"Two sides to that question. It is true, luxury might have spoiled me, +for I am accessible to such influences; but, on the other hand, I should +have escaped some painful things. No one who has not been poor can +understand me, can know the wounds which a sensitive man must receive as +he is working his way up in the world,--wounds that leave lasting scars, +too. I am conscious of certain feelings, most discreditable, if I were +to avow them, which have been cultivated in me, and which will probably +cling to me all my days. What I have gained in hardiness I have +gained as the smith gains his strength, at the expense of symmetry, +sensibility, and grace." + +"Nonsense, you mimosa! Don't curl up your leaves before you are +touched." + +"But if I am a sensitive-plant, as you say, I can't help it; if I were a +burdock, I might." + +"You'll get over that. By-the-by, you may as well tell Alice. I know +you will be uneasy; go, go,--but come back soon. It is jolly that she +accepted you poor; if the report had got abroad, you might have thought +she was influenced by golden reasons." + +"That's because you don't know her, my cynical friend. She is incapable +of mercenary motives." + + "'What female heart can gold despise? + What cat's averse to fish?'" + +"Well, for an hour, good-bye. Have a good fire and the pipes ready." + +"Yes, truly,--and a magnum, if my closet is not empty. The king will +drink to Hamlet." + + * * * * * + +Little more remains to be told. After the long period of probation, it +was not deemed necessary that the nuptials should be deferred beyond +the time necessary to make due preparation. In a month the wedding took +place at Mr. Monroe's house, Mr. Easelmann giving away the bride. I do +not say that the bachelor felt no twinges when he saw among the guests +the lovely Mrs. Sandford in her becoming white robes; in fact, he +"thought seriously," as all such people do while there remains even the +recollection of youth--but his habits were too fixed. He saw and sighed, +and that was all. However, he is on the right side of----forty, we will +call it, and there is hope for him. We may find him in some adventure +yet; if so, the reader shall assuredly know it. + +In the spring, Greenleaf with his wife went abroad and took up their +residence in Rome. + +"What pictures has he painted?" did you ask? + +Really, Madam, a great many; but I have not the least idea of letting +you come at the name of my hero in this way. You have seen them both +here and in New York, and you thought them the productions of a rising +man,--as they are. + + * * * * * + +Our friend Monroe is now a partner in the house of Lindsay & Co. He +makes frequent visits to the villa at Brookline, and is always welcome. +Mr. Lindsay considers him a most sensible and worthy young man, and his +daughter Clara has implicit confidence in his judgment of literature as +well as in his taste for pictures. One fine day last summer, Mrs. Monroe +was prevailed upon, after some weeks of solicitation, to get into a +carriage and take a drive with her son. "She's a nice girl," said the +mother, fervently, on their return; "and if you _must_ marry anybody, I +don't think you can do better." Walter's smile showed that he thought +so too, although the alternative was hardly so painful as she seemed to +consider it,--from which we infer that his relations with the senior +partner of the house have become, or will be, still more intimate. + +Mrs. Sandford has left Boston and gone to live with her relatives some +fifty miles distant;--the place Mr. Easelmann can tell, as he has had +occasion to send her a few letters. + +The personages of our drama are all dismissed; the curtain begins to +fall; but a voice is heard, "What became of the Bulls and Bears?" What +became of Mars and Minerva after the siege of Troy? Men die; but the +deities, infernal as well as celestial, live on. Fortunes may rise like +Satan's _chef d'oeuvre_ of architecture, may be transported from city to +city like the palace of Aladdin, or may sink into salt-water lots as did +the Cities of the Plain; success may wait upon commerce and the arts, +or desolation may cover the land; still, surviving all change, and +profiting alike by prosperity and by calamity, the secret, unfathomable +agents in all human enterprises will remain the BULLS AND BEARS. + + * * * * * + + +THE SPHINX. + + + Go not to Thebes. The Sphinx is there; + And thou shalt see her beauty rare, + And thee the sorcery of her smile + To read her riddle shall beguile. + + Oh! woe to those who fail to read! + And woe to him who shall succeed! + For he who fails the truth to show + The terror of her wrath shall know: + + But should'st thou find her mystery, + Not less is Death assured to thee; + For she shall cease, and thou shalt sigh + That she no longer is, and die. + + + + +A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. + + + "Thousands were there, in darker fame that dwell, + Whose deeds some nobler poem shall adorn; + And though to me unknown, they sure fought well, + Whom Rupert led, and who were British-born." + +DRYDEN. + + +I. + +THE MARCH. JUNE 17, 1643. + + +Last night the Canary wine flashed in the red Venice glasses on the +oaken tables of the hall; loud voices shouted and laughed till the +clustered hawk-bells jingled from the rafters, and the chaplain's fiddle +throbbed responsive from the wall; while the coupled stag-hounds fawned +unnoticed, and the watchful falcon whistled to himself unheard. In the +carved chairs lounged groups of revellers, dressed in scarlet, dressed +in purple, dressed in white and gold, gay with satins and ribbons, +gorgeous with glittering chains and jewelled swords: stern, manly faces, +that had been singed with powder in the Palatinate; brutal, swarthy +faces, knowing all that sack and sin could teach them; beautiful, boyish +faces, fresh from ancestral homes and high-born mothers; grave, sad +faces,--sad for undoubted tyranny, grave against the greater wrong of +disloyalty. Some were in council, some were in strife, many were in +liquor; the parson was there with useless gravity, and the jester with +superfluous folly; and in the outer hall men more plebeian drained the +brown October from pewter cans, which were beaten flat, next moment, in +hammering the loud drinking-chorus on the wall; while the clink of the +armorer still went on, repairing the old head-pieces and breastplates +which had hung untouched since the Wars of the Roses; and in the +doorway the wild Welsh recruits crouched with their scythes and their +cudgels, and muttered in their uncouth dialect, now a prayer to God; and +now a curse for their enemy. + +But to-day the inner hall is empty, the stag-hounds leap in the doorway, +the chaplain prays, the maidens cluster in the windows, beneath the soft +beauty of the June afternoon. The streets of Oxford resound with many +hoofs; armed troopers are gathering beside chapel and quadrangle, +gateway and tower; the trumpeter waves his gold and crimson trappings, +and blows, "To the Standard,"--for the great flag is borne to the +front, and Rupert and his men are mustering for a night of danger +beneath that banner of "Tender and True." + +With beat of drum, with clatter of hoof, and rattle of spur and +scabbard, tramping across old Magdalen Bridge, cantering down the +hill-sides, crashing through the beech-woods, echoing through the chalky +hollows, ride leisurely the gay Cavaliers. Some in new scarfs and +feathers, worthy of the "show-troop,"--others with torn laces, broken +helmets, and guilty red smears on their buff doublets;--some eager for +their first skirmish,--others weak and silent, still bandaged from the +last one;--discharging now a rattle of contemptuous shot at some closed +Puritan house, grim and stern as its master,--firing anon as noisy a +salute, as they pass some mansion where a high-born beauty dwells,--on +they ride. Leaving the towers of Oxford behind them, keeping the ancient +Roman highway, passing by the low, strong, many-gabled farmhouses, with +rustic beauties smiling at the windows and wiser fathers scowling at +the doors,--on they ride. To the Royalists, these troopers are "Prince +Robert and the hope of the nation";--to the Puritans, they are only +"Prince Robber and his company of rake-shames." + +Riding great Flanders horses, a flagon swung on one side of the large +padded saddle, and a haversack on the other,--booted to the thigh, +and girded with the leathern bandoleer, supporting cartridge-box and +basket-hilted sword, they are a picturesque and a motley troop. Some +wear the embroidered buffcoat over the coat of mail, others beneath +it,--neither having yet learned that the buffcoat alone is sabre-proof +and bullet-proof also. Scantily furnished with basinet or breastplate, +pot, haqueton, cuirass, pouldron, taslets, vambraces, or cuisses,--each +with the best piece of iron he could secure when the ancestral armory +was ransacked,--they yet care little for the deficit, remembering, that, +when they first rode down the enemy at Worcester, there was not a piece +of armor on their side, while the Puritans were armed to a man. There +are a thousand horsemen under Percy and O'Neal, armed with swords, +pole-axes, and petronels; this includes Rupert's own lifeguard of chosen +men. Lord Wentworth, with Innis and Washington, leads three hundred and +fifty dragoons,--dragoons of the old model, intended to fight either +on foot or on horseback, whence the name they bear, and the emblematic +dragon which adorns their carbines. The advanced guard, or "forlorn +hope," of a hundred horse and fifty dragoons, is commanded by Will +Legge, Rupert's life-long friend and correspondent; and Herbert Lunsford +leads the infantry, "the inhuman cannibal foot," as the Puritan journals +call them. There are five hundred of these, in lightest marching order, +and carrying either pike or arquebuse,--this last being a matchlock +musket with an iron rest to support it, and a lance combined, to resist +cavalry,--the whole being called "Swine (Swedish) feathers,"--a weapon +so clumsy, that the Cavaliers say a Puritan needs two years' practice to +discharge one without winking. And over all these float flags of every +hue and purport, from the blue and gold with its loyal "_Ut rex, sit +rex_" to the ominous crimson, flaming with a lurid furnace and the +terrible motto, "_Quasi ignis conflatoris_." + +And foremost rides Prince Rupert, darling of fortune and of war, with +his beautiful and thoughtful face of twenty-three, stern and bronzed +already, yet beardless and dimpled, his dark and passionate eyes, his +long love-locks drooping over costly embroidery, his graceful scarlet +cloak, his white-plumed hat, and his tall and stately form, which, +almost alone in the army, has not yet known a wound. His high-born +beauty is preserved to us forever on the canvas of Vandyck, and as the +Italians have named the artist "Il Pittore Cavalieresco," so will +this subject of his skill remain forever the ideal of Il Cavaliere +Pittoresco. And as he now rides at the head of this brilliant array, his +beautiful white dog bounds onward joyously beside him, that quadruped +renowned in the pamphlets of the time, whose snowy skin has been stained +by many a blood-drop in the desperate forays of his master, but who has +thus far escaped so safely that the Puritans believe him a familiar +spirit, and try to destroy him "by poyson and extempore prayer, which +yet hurt him no more than the plague plaster did Mr. Pym." Failing in +this, they pronounce the pretty creature to be "a divell, not a very +downright divell, but some Lapland ladye, once by nature a handsome +white ladye, now by art a handsome white dogge." + +The Civil War is begun. The King has made his desperate attempt to +arrest the five members of Parliament, and been checkmated by Lucy +Carlisle. So the fatal standard was reared, ten months ago, on that +dismal day at Nottingham,--the King's arms, quartered with a bloody +hand pointing to the crown, and the red battle-flag above;--blown down +disastrously at night, replaced sadly in the morning, to wave while the +Cavaliers rallied, slowly, beneath its folds. During those long months, +the King's fortunes have had constant and increasing success,--a success +always greatest when Rupert has been nearest. And now this night-march +is made to avenge a late attack, of unaccustomed audacity, from Essex, +and to redeem the threat of Rupert to pass in one night through the +whole country held by the enemy, and beat up the most distant quarters +of the Roundheads. + + +II. + +THE CONDITION OF THE TIMES. + + +It is no easy thing to paint, with any accurate shadings, this opening +period of the English Revolution. Looking habitually, as we do, at the +maturer condition of the two great parties, we do not remember how +gradual was their formation. The characters of Cavalier and Roundhead +were not more the cause than the consequence of civil strife. There is +no such chemical solvent as war; where it finds a mingling of two +alien elements, it leaves them permanently severed. At the opening +of hostilities, the two parties were scarcely distinguishable, in +externals, from each other. Arms, costume, features, phrases, manners, +were as yet common to both sides. On the battlefield, spies could pass +undetected from one army to the other. At Edgehill, Chalgrove, and +even Naseby, men and standards were captured and rescued, through the +impossibility of distinguishing between the forces. An orange scarf, or +a piece of white paper, was the most reliable designation. True, there +was nothing in the Parliamentary army so gorgeous as Sir John Suckling's +troop in Scotland, with their white doublets and scarlet hats and +plumes; but that bright company substituted the white feather for the +red one, in 1639, and rallied no more. Yet even the Puritans came to +battle in attire which would have seemed preposterously gaudy to the +plain men of our own Revolution. The London regiment of Hollis wore +red, in imitation of the royal colors, adopted to make wounds less +conspicuous. Lord Say's regiment wore blue, in imitation of the +Covenanters, who took it from Numbers, xv. 38; Hampden's men wore green; +Lord Brooke's purple; Colonel Ballard's gray. Even the hair afforded far +less distinction than we imagine, since there is scarcely a portrait of +a leading Parliamentarian which has not a display of tresses such as +would now appear the extreme of foppery; and when the remains of Hampden +himself were disinterred within twenty-five years, the body was at first +taken for a woman's, from the exceeding length and beauty of the hair. + +But every year of warfare brought a change. On the King's side, the +raiment grew more gorgeous amid misfortunes; on the Parliament's, it +became sadder with every success. The Royalists took up feathers and +oaths, in proportion as the Puritans laid them down; and as the tresses +of the Cavaliers waved more luxuriantly, the hair of the Roundheads +was more scrupulously shorn. And the same instinctive exaggeration was +constantly extending into manners and morals also. Both sides became +ostentatious; the one made the most of its dissoluteness, and the other +of its decorum. The reproachful names applied derisively to the two +parties became fixed distinctions. The word "Roundhead" was first used +early in 1642, though whether it originated with Henrietta Maria or with +David Hyde is disputed. And Charles, in his speech before the battle of +Edgehill, in October of the same year, mentioned the name "Cavalier" as +one bestowed "in a reproachful sense," and one "which our enemies have +striven to make odious." + +And all social as well as moral prejudices gradually identified +themselves with this party division. As time passed on, all that was +high-born in England gravitated more and more to the royal side, while +the popular cause enlisted the Londoners, the yeomanry, and those +country-gentlemen whom Mrs. Hutchinson styled the "worsted-stocking +members." The Puritans gradually found themselves excluded from the +manorial halls, and the Cavaliers (a more inconvenient privation) +from the blacksmiths' shops. Languishing at first under aristocratic +leadership, the cause of the Parliament first became strong when the +Self-denying Ordinance abolished all that weakness. Thus the very +sincerity of the civil conflict drew the lines deeper; had the battles +been fought by mercenaries, like the contemporary Continental wars, +there would have grown up a less hearty mutual antipathy, but a far more +terrible demoralization. As it was, the character of the war was, on the +whole, a humane one; few towns were sacked or destroyed, the harvests +were bounteous and freely gathered, and the population increased during +the whole period. But the best civil war is fearfully injurious. In this +case, virtues and vices were found on both sides; and it was only the +gradual preponderance which finally stamped on each party its own +historic reputation. The Cavaliers confessed to "the vices of men,--love +of wine and women"; but they charged upon their opponents "the vices of +devils,--hypocrisy and spiritual pride." Accordingly, the two verdicts +have been recorded in the most delicate of all registers,--language. For +the Cavaliers added to the English vocabulary the word _plunder_, and +the Puritans the word _cant_. + +Yet it is certain that at the outset neither of these peculiarities was +monopolized by either party. In abundant instances, the sins changed +places,--Cavaliers canted, and Puritans plundered. That is, if by cant +we understand the exaggerated use of Scripture language which originated +with the reverend gentleman of that name, it was an offence in which +both sides participated. Clarendon, reviewing the Presbyterian +discourses, quoted text against text with infinite relish. Old Judge +Jenkins, could he have persuaded the "House of Rimmon," as he called +Parliament, to hang him, would have swung the Bible triumphantly to his +neck by a ribbon, to show the unscriptural character of their doings. +Charles himself, in one of his early addresses to his army, denounced +the opposing party as "Brownists, Anabaptists, and Atheists," and in +his address to the city of London pleaded in favor of his own "godly, +learned, and painfull preachers." Every royal regiment had its chaplain, +including in the service such men as Pearson and Jeremy Taylor, and +they had prayers before battle, as regularly and seriously as their +opponents. "After solemn prayers at the head of every division, I led my +part away," wrote the virtuous Sir Bevill Grenvill to his wife, after +the battle of Bradock. Rupert, in like manner, had prayers before every +division at Marston Moor. To be sure, we cannot always vouch for the +quality of these prayers, when the chaplain happened to be out of the +way and the colonel was his substitute. "O Lord," petitioned stout Sir +Jacob Astley, at Edgehill, "thou knowest how busy I must be this day; if +I forget thee, do not thou forget me!"--after which, he rose up, crying, +"March on, boys!" + +And as the Puritans had not the monopoly of prayer, so the Cavaliers did +not monopolize plunder. Of course, when civil war is once begun, such +laxity is mere matter of self-defence. If the Royalists unhorsed the +Roundheads, the latter must horse themselves again, as best they could. +If Goring "uncattled" the neighborhood of London, Major Medhope must +be ordered to "uncattle" the neighborhood of Oxford. Very possibly +individual animals were identified with the right side or the wrong +side, to be spared or confiscated in consequence;--as in modern Kansas, +during a similar condition of things, one might hear men talk of a +pro-slavery colt, or an anti-slavery cow. And the precedent being +established, each party could use the smallest excesses of the other +side to palliate the greatest of its own. No use for the King to hang +two of Rupert's men for stealing, when their commander could urge in +extenuation the plunder of the house of Lady Lucas, and the indignities +offered by the Roundheads to the Countess of Rivers. Why spare the +churches as sanctuaries for the enemy, when rumor accused that enemy +(right or wrong) of hunting cats in those same churches with hounds, or +baptizing dogs and pigs in ridicule of the consecrated altars? Setting +aside these charges as questionable, we cannot so easily dispose of +the facts which rest on actual Puritan testimony. If, even after the +Self-denying Ordinance, the "Perfect Occurrences" repeatedly report +soldiers of the Puritan army, as cashiered for drunkenness, rudeness to +women, pilfering, and defrauding innkeepers, it is inevitable to infer +that in earlier and less stringent times they did the same undetected or +unpunished. When Mrs. Hutchinson describes a portion of the soldiers on +her own side as "licentious, ungovernable wretches,"--when Sir Samuel +Luke, in his letters, depicts the glee with which his men plunder +the pockets of the slain,--when poor John Wolstenholme writes to +head-quarters that his own compatriots have seized all his hay and +horses, "so that his wife cannot serve God with the congregation but +in frosty weather,"--when Vicars in "Jehovah Jireh" exults over the +horrible maiming and butchery wrought by the troopers upon the officers' +wives and female camp-followers at Naseby,--it is useless to attribute +exaggeration to the other side. In civil war, even the humanest, there +is seldom much opening for exaggeration,--the actual horrors being +usually quite as vivid as any imaginations of the sufferers, especially +when, as in this case, the spiritual instructors preach, on the one +side, from "Curse ye Meroz," and, on the other side, from "Cursed be he +that keepeth back his sword from blood." + +We mention these things, not because they are deliberately denied by +anybody, but because they are apt to be overlooked by those who take +their facts at secondhand. All this does not show that the Puritans had, +even at the outset, worse men or a cause no better; it simply shows +that war demoralizes, and that right-thinking men may easily, under its +influence, slide into rather reprehensible practices. At a later period +the evil worked its own cure, among the Puritans, and the army of +Cromwell was a moral triumph almost incredible; but at the time of which +we write, the distinction was but lightly drawn. It would be easy to go +farther and show that among the leading Parliamentary statesmen there +were gay and witty debauchees,--that Harry Marten deserved the epithet +with which Cromwell saluted him,--that Pym succeeded to the regards of +Stafford's bewitching mistress,--that Warwick was truly, as Clarendon +describes him, a profuse and generous profligate, tolerated by the +Puritans for the sake of his earldom and his bounty, at a time when +bounty was convenient and peers scarce. But it is hardly worth while +farther to demonstrate the simple and intelligible fact, that there were +faults on both sides. Neither war nor any other social phenomenon can +divide infallibly the sheep from the goats, or collect all the saints +under one set of staff-officers and all the sinners under another. + +But, on the other hand, the strength of both sides, at this early day, +was in a class of serious and devoted men, who took up the sword so +sadly, in view of civil strife, that victory seemed to them almost as +terrible as defeat. In some, the scale of loyalty slightly inclined, +and they held with the King; in others, the scale of liberty, and they +served the Parliament; in both cases, with the same noble regrets at +first, merging gradually into bitter alienation afterwards. "If there +could be an expedient found to solve the punctilio of honor, I would not +be hero an hour," wrote Lord Robert Spencer to his wife, from the +camp of the Cavaliers. Sir Edmund Verney, the King's standard-bearer, +disapproved of the royal cause, and adhered to it only because he "had +eaten the King's bread." Lord Falkland, Charles's Secretary of State, +"sitting among his friends, often, after a deep silence and frequent +sighs, would, with a shriek and sad accent, ingeminate the words, Peace! +Peace!" and would prophesy for himself that death which soon came. And +these words show close approximation to the positions of men honored +among the Puritans, as when Sir William Waller wrote from his camp to +his chivalrous opponent, Sir Ralph Hopton,--"The great God, who is +the searcher of my heart, knows with what reluctance I go upon this +service." + +As time passed on, the hostility between the two parties exceeded all +bounds of courteous intercourse. The social distinction was constantly +widening, and so was the religious antagonism. Waller could be allowed +to joke with Goring and sentimentalize with Hopton,--for Waller was a +gentleman, though a rebel; but it was a different thing when the Puritan +gentlemen were seen to be gradually superseded by Puritan clowns. +Strafford had early complained of "your Prynnes, Pims, and Bens, with +the rest of that generation of odd names and natures." But what were +these to the later brood, whose plebeian quality Mr. Buckle has so +laboriously explored,--Goffe the grocer and Whalley the tailor, Pride +the drayman and Venner the cooper, culminating at last in Noll Cromwell +the brewer? The formidable force of these upstarts only embittered +the aversion. If odious when vanquished, what must they have been as +victors? For if it be disagreeable to find a foeman unworthy of your +steel, it is much more unpleasant when your steel turns out unworthy of +the foeman; and if sad-colored Puritan raiment looked absurd upon the +persons of fugitives, it must have been very particularly unbecoming +when worn by conquerors. + +And the growing division was constantly aggravated by very acid satire. +The Court, it must be remembered, was more than half French in its +general character and tone, and every Frenchman of that day habitually +sneered at every Englishman as dull and inelegant. The dazzling wit that +flashed for both sides in the French civil wars flashed for one only in +the English; the Puritans had no comforts of that kind, save in some +caustic repartee from Harry Marten, or some fearless sarcasm from Lucy +Carlisle. But the Cavaliers softened labor and sweetened care with their +little jokes. It was rather consoling to cover some ignominious retreat +with a new epigram on Cromwell's red nose, that irresistible member +which kindled in its day as much wit as Bardolph's,--to hail it as "Nose +Immortal," a beacon, a glow-worm, a bird of prey,--to make it stand as a +personification of the rebel cause, till even the stately Montrose asked +newcomers from England, "How is Oliver's nose?" It was very entertaining +to christen the Solemn League and Covenant "the constellation on the +back of Aries," because most of the signers could only make their marks +on the little bits of sheepskin circulated for that purpose. It was +quite lively to rebaptize Rundway Down as Run-away-down, after a royal +victory, and to remark how Hazlerig's regiment of "lobsters" turned to +crabs, on that occasion, and crawled backwards. But all these pleasant +follies became whips to scourge them, at last,--shifting suddenly into +very grim earnest when the Royalists themselves took to running away, +with truculent saints, in steeple-hats, behind them. + +Oxford was the stronghold of the Cavaliers, in these times, as that +of the Puritans was London. The Court itself (though here we are +anticipating a little) was transferred to the academic city. Thither +came Henrietta Maria, with what the pamphleteers called "her +Rattle-headed Parliament of Ladies," the beautiful Duchess of Richmond, +the merry Mrs. Kirke, and brave Kate D'Aubigny. In Merton College the +Queen resided; at Oriel the Privy Council was held; at Christ Church +the King and Rupert were quartered; and at All Souls Jeremy Taylor was +writing his beautiful meditations, in the intervals of war. In the New +College quadrangle, the students were drilled to arms "in the eye of +Doctor Pink," while Mars and Venus kept undisturbed their ancient reign, +although transferred to the sacred precincts of Magdalen. And amidst the +passion and the pomp, the narrow streets would suddenly ring with the +trumpet of some foam-covered scout, bringing tidings of perilous +deeds outside; while some traitorous spy was being hanged, drawn, and +quartered in some other part of the city, for betraying the secrets of +the Court. And forth from the outskirts of Oxford rides Rupert on the +day we are to describe, and we must still protract our pause a little +longer to speak of him. + +Prince Rupert, Prince Robert, or Prince Robber,--for by all these names +was he known,--was the one formidable military leader on the royal side. +He was not a statesman, for he was hardly yet a mature man; he was +not, in the grandest sense, a hero, yet he had no quality that was not +heroic. Chivalrous, brilliant, honest, generous,--neither dissolute, nor +bigoted, nor cruel,--he was still a Royalist for the love of royalty, +and a soldier for the love of war, and in civil strife there can hardly +be a more dangerous character. Through all the blunt periods of his +military or civil proclamations, we see the proud, careless boy, +fighting for fighting sake, and always finding his own side the right +one. He could not have much charity for the most generous opponents; he +certainly had none at all for those who (as he said) printed malicious +and lying pamphlets against him "almost every morning," in which he +found himself saluted as a "nest of perfidious vipers," "a night-flying +dragon prince," "a flapdragon," "a caterpillar," "a spider," and "a +_butterbox_." + +He was the King's own nephew,--great-grandson of William the Silent, and +son of that Elizabeth Stuart from whom all the modern royal family of +England descends. His sister was the renowned Princess Palatine, the +one favorite pupil of Descartes, and the chosen friend of Leibnitz, +Malebranche, and William Penn. From early childhood he was trained to +war; we find him at fourteen pronounced by his tutors fit to command +an army,--at fifteen, bearing away the palm in one of the last of the +tournaments,--at sixteen, fighting beside the young Turenne in the Low +Countries,--at nineteen, heading the advanced guard in the army of the +Prince of Orange,--and at twenty-three, appearing in England, the day +before the Royal Standard was reared, and the day after the King lost +Coventry, because Wilmot, not Rupert, was commander of the horse. +This training made him a general,--not, as many have supposed, a mere +cavalry-captain;--he was one of the few men who have shown great +military powers on both land and sea; he was a man of energy unbounded, +industry inexhaustible, and the most comprehensive and systematic +forethought. It was not merely, that, as Warwick said, "he put that +spirit into the King's army that all men seemed resolved,"--not merely, +that, always charging at the head of his troops, he was never wounded, +and that, seeing more service than any of his compeers, he outlived them +all. But even in these early years, before he was generalissimo, the +Parliament deliberately declared the whole war to be "managed by his +skill, labor, and industry," and his was the only name habitually +printed in capitals in the Puritan newspapers. He had to create soldiers +by enthusiasm, and feed them by stratagem,--to toil for a king +who feared him, and against a queen who hated him,--to take vast +responsibilities alone,--accused of negligence, if he failed, reproached +with license, if he succeeded. Against him he had the wealth of London, +intrusted to men who were great diplomatists, though new to power, and +great soldiers, though they had never seen a battle-field till middle +life; on his side he had only unmanageable lords and penniless +gentlemen, who gained victories by daring, and then wasted them by +license. His troops had no tents, no wagons, no military stores; they +used those of the enemy. Clarendon says, that the King's cause labored +under an incurable disease of want of money, and that the only cure for +starvation was a victory. To say, therefore, that Rupert's men never +starved is to say that they always conquered,--which, at this early +period, was true. + +He was the best shot in the army, and the best tennis-player among the +courtiers, and Pepys calls him "the boldest attacker in England for +personal courage." Seemingly without reverence or religion, he yet +ascribed his defeats to Satan, and, at the close of a letter about a +marauding expedition, requested his friend Will Legge to pray for him. +Versed in all the courtly society of the age, chosen interpreter for the +wooing of young Prince Charles and La Grande Mademoiselle, and mourning +in purple, with the royal family, for Marie de Médicis, he could yet +mingle in any conceivable company and assume any part. He penetrated the +opposing camp at Dunsmore Heath as an apple-seller, and the hostile town +of Warwick as a dealer in cabbage-nets, and the pamphleteers were never +weary of describing his disguises. He was charged with all manner of +offences, even to slaying children with cannibal intent, and only very +carelessly disavowed such soft impeachments. But no man could deny that +he was perfectly true to his word; he never forgot one whom he had +promised to protect, and, if he had promised to strip a man's goods, he +did it to the uttermost farthing. And so must his pledge of vengeance +be redeemed to-night; and so, riding eastward, with the dying sunlight +behind him and the quiet Chiltern hills before, through air softened by +the gathering coolness of these midsummer eves, beside clover fields, +and hedges of wild roses, and ponds white with closing water-lilies, and +pastures sprinkled with meadow-sweet, like foam,--he muses only of the +clash of sword and the sharp rattle of shot, and all the passionate joys +of the coming charge. + + +III. + +THE FORAY. + + +The long and picturesque array winds onward, crossing Chiselhampton +Bridge, (not to be re-crossed so easily,) avoiding Thame with its church +and abbey, where Lord-General Essex himself is quartered, unconscious of +their march; and the Cavaliers are soon riding beneath the bases of +the wooded hills towards Postcombe. Near Tetsworth, the enemy's first +outpost, they halt till evening; the horsemen dismount, the flagon and +the foraging-bag are opened, the black-jack and the manchet go round, +healths are drunk to successes past and glories future, to "Queen Mary's +eyes," and to "Prince Rupert's dog." A few hours bring darkness; they +move on eastward through the lanes, avoiding, when possible, the Roman +highways; they are sometimes fired upon by a picket, but make no return, +for they are hurrying past the main quarters of the enemy. In the +silence of the summer night, they stealthily ride miles and miles +through a hostile country, the renegade Urry guiding them. At early +dawn, they see, through the misty air, the low hamlet of Postcombe, +where the "beating up of the enemy's quarters" is to begin. A hurried +word of command; the infantry halt; the cavalry close, and sweep down +like night-hawks upon the sleeping village,--safe, one would have +supposed it, with the whole Parliamentary army lying between it and +Oxford, to protect from danger. Yet the small party of Puritan troopers +awake in their quarters with Rupert at the door; it is well for +them that they happen to be picked men, and have promptness, if not +vigilance; forming hastily, they secure a retreat westward through the +narrow street, leaving but few prisoners behind them. As hastily the +prisoners are swept away with the stealthy troop, who have other work +before them; and before half the startled villagers have opened their +lattices the skirmish is over. Long before they can send a messenger up, +over the hills, to sound the alarm-bells of Stoken Church, the swift +gallop of the Cavaliers has reached Chinnor, two miles away, and the +goal of their foray. The compact, strongly-built village is surrounded. +They form a parallel line behind the houses, on each side, leaping +fences and ditches to their posts. They break down the iron chains +stretched nightly across each end of the street, and line it from end to +end. Rupert, Will Legge, and the "forlorn hope," dismounting, rush in +upon the quarters, sparing those alone who surrender. + +In five minutes the town is up. The awakened troopers fight as +desperately as their assailants, some on foot, some on horseback. More +and more of Rupert's men rush in; they fight through the straggling +street of the village, from the sign of the Ram at one end to that of +the Crown at the other, and then back again. The citizens join against +the invaders, the 'prentices rush from their attics, hasty barricades +of carts and harrows are formed in the streets, long musket-barrels are +thrust from the windows, dark groups cluster on the roofs, and stones +begin to rattle on the heads below, together with phrases more galling +than stones, hurled down by women, "cursed dogs," "devilish Cavaliers," +"Papist traitors." In return, the intruders shoot at the windows +indiscriminately, storm the doors, fire the houses; they grow more +furious, and spare nothing; some towns-people retreat within the +church-doors; the doors are beaten in; women barricade them with +wool-packs, and fight over them with muskets, barrel to barrel. Outside, +the troopers ride round and round the town, seizing or slaying all who +escape; within, desperate men still aim from their windows, though the +houses each side are in flames. Melting lead pours down from the blazing +roofs, while the drum still beats and the flag still goes on. It is +struck down presently; tied to a broken pike-staff, it rises again, +while a chaos of armor and plumes, black and orange, blue and red, torn +laces and tossing feathers, powder-stains and blood-stains, fills the +dewy morning with terror, and opens the June Sunday with sin. + +Threescore and more of the towns-people are slain, sixscore are led +away at the horses' sides, bound with ropes, to be handed over to +the infantry for keeping. Some of these prisoners, even of the armed +troopers, are so ignorant and unwarlike as yet, that they know not the +meaning of the word "quarter," refusing it when offered, and imploring +"mercy" instead. Others are little children, for whom a heavy ransom +shall yet be paid. Others, cheaper prisoners, are ransomed on the spot. +Some plunder has also been taken, but the soldiers look longingly on +the larger wealth that must be left behind, in the hurry of +retreat,--treasures that, otherwise, no trooper of Rupert's would have +spared: scarlet cloth, bedding, saddles, cutlery, ironware, hats, shoes, +hops for beer, and books to sell to the Oxford scholars. But the daring +which has given them victory now makes their danger;--they have been +nearly twelve hours in the saddle and have fought two actions; they have +twenty-five miles to ride, with the whole force of the enemy in their +path; they came unseen in the darkness, they must return by daylight and +with the alarm already given; Stoken Church-bell has been pealing for +hours, the troop from Postcombe has fallen back on Tetsworth, and +everywhere in the distance videttes are hurrying from post to post. + +The perilous retreat begins. Ranks are closed; they ride silently; many +a man leads a second horse beside him, and one bears in triumph the +great captured Puritan standard, with its five buff Bibles on a black +ground. They choose their course more carefully than ever, seek the +by-lanes, and swim the rivers with their swords between their teeth. At +one point, in their hushed progress, they hear the sound of rattling +wagons. There is a treasure-train within their reach, worth twenty-one +thousand pounds, and destined for the Parliamentary camp, but the thick +woods of the Chilterns have sheltered it from pursuit, and they have +not a moment to waste; they are riding for their lives. Already the +gathering parties of Roundheads are closing upon them, nearer and +nearer, as they approach the most perilous point of the wild expedition, +their only return-path across the Cherwell, Chiselhampton Bridge. Percy +and O'Neal with difficulty hold the assailants in check; the case grows +desperate at last, and Rupert stands at bay on Chalgrove Field. + +It is Sunday morning, June 18th, 1643. The early church-bells are +ringing over all Oxfordshire,--dying away in the soft air, among the +sunny English hills, while Englishmen are drawing near each other with +hatred in their hearts,--dying away, as on that other Sunday, eight +months ago, when Baxter, preaching near Edgehill, heard the sounds of +battle, and disturbed the rest of his saints by exclaiming, "To the +fight!" But here there are no warrior-preachers, no bishops praying in +surplices on the one side, no dark-robed divines preaching on horseback +on the other, no king in glittering armor, no Tutor Harvey in peaceful +meditation beneath a hedge, pondering on the circulation of the blood, +with hotter blood flowing so near him; all these were to be seen at +Edgehill, but not here. This smaller skirmish rather turns our thoughts +to Cisatlantic associations; its date suggests Bunker's Hill,--and its +circumstances, Lexington. For this, also, is a marauding party, with a +Percy among its officers, brought to a stand by a half-armed and angry +peasantry. + +Rupert sends his infantry forward, to secure the bridge, and a +sufficient body of dragoons to line the mile-and-a-half of road +between,--the remainder of the troops being drawn up at the entrance of +a corn-field, several hundred acres in extent, and lying between the +villages and the hills. The Puritans take a long circuit, endeavoring to +get to windward of their formidable enemy,--a point judged as important, +during the seventeenth century, in a land fight as in a naval +engagement. They have with them some light field-pieces, artillery +being the only point of superiority they yet claim; but these are not +basilisks, nor falconets, nor culverins, (_colubri_, _couleuvres_,) nor +drakes, (_dracones_,) nor warning-pieces,--they are the leathern guns +of Gustavus Adolphus, made of light cast-iron and bound with ropes and +leather. The Roundhead dragoons, dismounted, line a hedge near the +Cavaliers, and plant their "swine-feathers"; under cover of their fire +the horse advance in line, matches burning. As they advance, one or two +dash forward, at risk of their lives, flinging off the orange scarfs +which alone distinguish them, in token that they desert to the royal +cause. Prince Rupert falls back into the lane a little, to lead the +other forces into his ambush of dragoons. These tactics do not come +naturally to him, however; nor does he like the practice of the time, +that two bodies of cavalry should ride up within pistol-shot of each +other, and exchange a volley before they charge. He rather anticipates, +in his style of operations, the famous order of Frederick the Great: +"The King hereby forbids all officers of cavalry, on pain of being broke +with ignominy, ever to allow themselves to be attacked in any action by +the enemy; but the Prussians must always attack them." Accordingly he +restrains himself for a little while, chafing beneath the delay, and +then, a soldier or two being suddenly struck down by the fire, he +exclaims, "Yea! this insolency is not to be endured." The moment is +come. + +"God and Queen Mary!" shouts Rupert; "Charge!" In one instant that mass +of motionless statues becomes a flood of lava; down in one terrible +sweep it comes, silence behind it and despair before; no one notices the +beauty of that brilliant chivalrous array,--all else is merged in the +fury of the wild gallop; spurs are deep, reins free, blades grasped, +heads bent; the excited horse feels the heel no more than he feels the +hand; the uneven ground breaks their ranks,--no matter, they feel that +they can ride down the world: Rupert first clears the hedge,--he is +always first,--then comes the captain of his lifeguard, then the +whole troop "jumble after them," in a spectator's piquant phrase. The +dismounted Puritan dragoons break from the hedges and scatter for their +lives, but the cavalry "bear the charge better than they have done since +Worcester,"--that is, now they stand it an instant, then they did not +stand it at all; the Prince takes them in flank and breaks them in +pieces at the first encounter,--the very wind of the charge shatters +them. Horse and foot, carbines and petronels, swords and pole-axes, are +mingled in one struggling mass. Rupert and his men seem refreshed, not +exhausted, by the weary night,--they seem incapable of fatigue; they +spike the guns as they cut down the gunners, and, if any escape, it +is because many in both armies wear the same red scarfs. One Puritan, +surrounded by the enemy, shows such desperate daring that Rupert bids +release him at last, and sends afterwards to Essex to ask his name. +One Cavalier bends, with a wild oath, to search the pockets of a slain +enemy;--it is his own brother. O'Neal slays a standard-bearer, and thus +restores to his company the right to bear a flag, a right they lost at +Hopton Heath; Legge is taken prisoner and escapes; Urry proves himself +no coward, though a renegade, and is trusted to bear to Oxford the news +of the victory, being raised to knighthood in return. + +For a victory of course it is. Nothing in England can yet resist these +high-born, dissolute, reckless Cavaliers of Rupert's. "I have seen them +running up walls twenty feet high," said the engineer consulted by the +frightened citizens of Dorchester: "these defences of yours may possibly +keep them out half an hour." Darlings of triumphant aristocracy, they +are destined to meet with no foe that can match them, until they recoil +at last before the plebeian pikes of the London train-bands. Nor can +even Rupert's men claim to monopolize the courage of the King's party. +The brilliant "show-troop" of Lord Bernard Stuart, comprising the young +nobles having no separate command,--a troop which could afford to +indulge in all the gorgeousness of dress, since their united incomes, +Clarendon declares, would have exceeded those of the whole Puritan +Parliament,--led, by their own desire, the triumphant charge at +Edgehill, and threescore of their bodies were found piled on the spot +where the Royal Standard was captured and rescued. Not less faithful +were the Marquis of Newcastle's "Lambs," who took their name from the +white woollen clothing which they refused to have dyed, saying that +their hearts' blood would dye it soon enough; and so it did: only thirty +survived the battle of Marston Moor, and the bodies of the rest were +found in the field, ranked regularly, side by side, in death as in life. + +But here at Chalgrove Field no such fortitude of endurance is needed; +the enemy are scattered, and, as Rupert's Cavaliers are dashing on, in +their accustomed headlong pursuit, a small, but fresh force of Puritan +cavalry appears behind the hedges and charges on them from the +right,--two troops, hastily gathered, and in various garb. They are +headed by a man in middle life and of noble aspect: once seen, he cannot +easily be forgotten; but seen he will never be again, and, for the last +time, Rupert and Hampden meet face to face. + +The foremost representative men of their respective parties, they +scarcely remember, perhaps, that there are ties and coincidences in +their lives. At the marriage of Rupert's mother, the student Hampden was +chosen to write the Oxford epithalamium, exulting in the prediction of +some noble offspring to follow such a union. Rupert is about to be made +General-in-chief of the Cavaliers; Hampden is looked to by all as the +future General-in-chief of the Puritans. Rupert is the nephew of the +King,--Hampden the cousin of Cromwell; and as the former is believed +to be aiming at the Crown, so the latter is the only possible rival of +Cromwell for the Protectorate,--"the eyes of all being fixed upon him as +their _pater patriae_." But in all the greater qualities of manhood, how +far must Hampden be placed above the magnificent and gifted Rupert! In +a congress of natural noblemen--for such do the men of the Commonwealth +appear--he must rank foremost. It is difficult to avoid exaggeration in +speaking of these men,--men whose deeds vindicate their words, and whose +words are unsurpassed by Greek or Roman fame,--men whom even Hume can +only criticize for a "mysterious jargon" which most of them did not use, +and for a "vulgar hypocrisy" which few of them practised. Let us not +underrate the self-forgetting loyalty of the Royalists,--the Duke of +Newcastle laying at the King's feet seven hundred thousand pounds, +and the Marquis of Worcester a million; but the sublimer poverty and +abstinence of the Parliamentary party deserve a yet loftier meed,--Vane +surrendering an office of thirty thousand pounds a year to promote +public economy,--Hutchinson refusing a peerage and a fortune as a bribe +to hold Nottingham Castle a little while for the King,--Eliot and Pym +bequeathing their families to the nation's justice, having spent their +all for the good cause. And rising to yet higher attributes, as they +pass before us in the brilliant paragraphs of the courtly Clarendon, or +the juster modern estimates of Forster, it seems like a procession of +born sovereigns; while the more pungent epithets of contemporary wit +only familiarize, but do not mar, the fame of Cromwell, (Cleaveland's +"Caesar in a Clown,")--"William the Conqueror" Waller,--"young Harry" +Vane,--"fiery Tom" Fairfax,--and "King Pym." But among all these there +is no peer of Hampden, of him who came not from courts or camps, but +from the tranquil study of his Davila, from that thoughtful retirement +which was for him, as for his model, Coligny, the school of all noble +virtues,--came to find himself at once a statesman and a soldier, +receiving from his contemporary, Clarendon, no affectionate critic, the +triple crown of historic praise, as being "the most able, resolute, and +popular person in the kingdom." Who can tell how changed the destiny of +England, had the Earl of Bedford's first compromise with the country +party succeeded, and Hampden become the tutor of Prince Charles,--or +could this fight at Chalgrove Field issue differently, and Hampden +survive to be general instead of Essex, and Protector in place of +Cromwell? + +But that may not be. Had Hampden's earlier counsels prevailed, Rupert +never would have ventured on his night foray; had his next suggestions +been followed, Rupert never would have returned from it. Those +failing, Hampden has come, gladly followed by Gunter and his dragoons, +outstripping the tardy Essex, to dare all and die. In vain does Gunter +perish beside his flag; in vain does Crosse, his horse being killed +under him, spring in the midst of battle on another; in vain does "that +great-spirited little Sir Samuel Luke" (the original of Hudibras) get +thrice captured and thrice escape. For Hampden, the hope of the nation, +is fatally shot through the shoulder with two carbine-balls, in the +first charge; the whole troop sees it with dismay; Essex comes up, as +usual, too late, and the fight at Chalgrove Field is lost. + +We must leave this picture, painted in the fading colors of a far-off +time. Let us leave the noble Hampden, weak and almost fainting, riding +calmly from the field, and wandering away over his own Chiltern meadows, +that he loves so well,--leave him, drooping over his saddle, directing +his horse first towards his father-in-law's house at Pyrton, where once +he wedded his youthful bride, then turning towards Thame, and mustering +his last strength to leap his tired steed across its boundary brook. A +few days of laborious weakness, spent in letter-writing to urge upon +Parliament something of that military energy which, if earlier adopted, +might have saved his life,--and we see a last, funereal procession +winding beneath the Chiltern hills, and singing the 90th Psalm as the +mourners approach the tomb of the Hampdens, and the 43d as they return. +And well may the "Weekly Intelligencer" say of him, (June 27, 1643,) +that "the memory of this deceased Colonel is such that in no age to +come but it will more and more be had in honor and esteem; a man so +religious, and of that prudence, judgment, temper, valor, and integrity, +that he hath left few his like behind him." + +And we must leave Rupert to his career of romantic daring, to be made +President of Wales and Generalissimo of the army,--to rescue with +unequalled energy Newark and York and the besieged heroine of Lathom +House,--to fight through Newbury and Marston Moor and Naseby, and many a +lesser field,--to surrender Bristol and be acquitted by court-martial, +but hopelessly condemned by the King;--then to leave the kingdom, +refusing a passport, and fighting his perilous way to the seaside;--then +to wander over the world for years, astonishing Dutchmen by his +seamanship, Austrians by his soldiership, Spaniards and Portuguese by +his buccaneering powers, and Frenchmen by his gold and diamonds and +birds and monkeys and "richly-liveried Blackamoors";--then to reorganize +the navy of England, exchanging characters with his fellow-commander, +Monk, whom the ocean makes rash, as it makes Rupert prudent;--leave him +to use nobly his declining years, in studious toils in Windsor Castle, +the fulfilment of Milton's dream, outwatching the Bear with thrice-great +Hermes, surrounded by strange old arms and instruments, and maps of +voyages, and plans of battles, and the abstruse library which the +"Harleian Miscellany" still records;--leave him to hunt and play at +tennis, serve in the Hudson's Bay Company and the Board of Trade;--leave +him to experiment in alchemy and astrology, in hydraulics, metallurgy, +gunpowder, perspective, quadrants, mezzotint, fish-hooks, and +revolvers;--leave him to look from his solitary turret over hills and +fields, now peaceful, but each the scene of some wild and warlike memory +for him;--leave him to die a calm and honored death at sixty-three, +outliving every companion of his early days. The busy world, which has +no time to remember many, forgets him and remembers only the slain and +defeated Hampden. The brilliant renown of the Prince was like the glass +toys which record his ingenuity and preserve his name; the hammer and +the anvil can scarcely mar them, yet a slight pressure of the finger, +in the fatal spot, will burst them into glittering showers of dust. The +full force of those iron times beat ineffectual upon Rupert;--Death +touched him, and that shining fame sparkled and was shattered forever. + + * * * * * + + +SPRING. + + + Ah! my beautiful violets, + Stirring under the sod, + Feeling, in all your being, + The breath of the spirit of God + Thrilling your delicate pulses, + Warming your life-blood anew,-- + Struggle up into the Spring-light; + I'm watching and waiting for you. + + Stretch up your white arms towards me, + Climb and never despair; + Come! the blue sky is above you, + Sunlight and soft warm air. + Shake off the sleep from your eyelids, + Work in the darkness awhile, + Trust in the light that's above you, + Win your way up to its smile. + + Ah! do you know how the May-flowers, + Down on the shore of the lake. + Are whispering, one to another, + All in the silence, "Awake!" + Blushing from under the pine-leaves, + Soon they will greet me anew,-- + But still, oh, my beautiful violets, + I'll be watching and longing for you. + + + + +THE STEREOSCOPE AND THE STEREOGRAPH. + + +Democritus of Abdera, commonly known as the Laughing Philosopher, +probably because he did not consider the study of truth inconsistent +with a cheerful countenance, believed and taught that all bodies were +continually throwing off certain images like themselves, which subtile +emanations, striking on our bodily organs, gave rise to our sensations. +Epicurus borrowed the idea from him, and incorporated it into the famous +system, of which Lucretius has given us the most popular version. Those +who are curious on the matter will find the poet's description at the +beginning of his fourth book. Forms, effigies, membranes, or _films_, +are the nearest representatives of the terms applied to these +effluences. They are perpetually shed from the surfaces of solids, as +bark is shed by trees. _Cortex_ is, indeed, one of the names applied to +them by Lucretius. + +These evanescent films may be seen in one of their aspects in any clear, +calm sheet of water, in a mirror, in the eye of an animal by one who +looks at it in front, but better still by the consciousness behind the +eye in the ordinary act of vision. They must be packed like the leaves +of a closed book; for suppose a mirror to give an image of an object a +mile off, it will give one at every point less than a mile, though this +were subdivided into a million parts. Yet the images will not be the +same; for the one taken a mile off will be very small, at half a mile as +large again, at a hundred feet fifty times as large, and so on, as long +as the mirror can contain the image. + +Under the action of light, then, a body makes its superficial aspect +potentially present at a distance, becoming appreciable as a shadow or +as a picture. But remove the cause,--the body itself,--and the effect is +removed. The man beholdeth himself in the glass and goeth his way, and +straightway both the mirror and the mirrored forget what manner of man +he was. These visible films or membranous _exuviae_ of objects, which +the old philosophers talked about, have no real existence, separable +from their illuminated source, and perish instantly when it is +withdrawn. + +If a man had handed a metallic speculum to Democritus of Abdera, and +told him to look at his face in it while his heart was beating thirty +or forty times, promising that one of the films his face was shedding +should stick there, so that neither he, nor it, nor anybody should +forget what manner of man he was, the Laughing Philosopher would +probably have vindicated his claim to his title by an explosion that +would have astonished the speaker. + +This is just what the Daguerreotype has done. It has fixed the most +fleeting of our illusions, that which the apostle and the philosopher +and the poet have alike used as the type of instability and unreality. +The photograph has completed the triumph, by making a sheet of paper +reflect images like a mirror and hold them as a picture. + +This triumph of human ingenuity is the most audacious, remote, +improbable, incredible,--the one that would seem least likely to be +regained, if all traces of it were lost, of all the discoveries man has +made. It has become such an everyday matter with us, that we forget its +miraculous nature, as we forget that of the sun itself, to which we owe +the creations of our new art. Yet in all the prophecies of dreaming +enthusiasts, in all the random guesses of the future conquests over +matter, we do not remember any prediction of such an inconceivable +wonder, as our neighbor round the corner, or the proprietor of the small +house on wheels, standing on the village common, will furnish any of us +for the most painfully slender remuneration. No Century of Inventions +includes this among its possibilities. Nothing but the vision of a +Laputan, who passed his days in extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, +could have reached such a height of delirium as to rave about the time +when a man should paint his miniature by looking at a blank tablet, and +a multitudinous wilderness of forest foliage or an endless Babel of +roofs and spires stamp itself, in a moment, so faithfully and so +minutely, that one may creep over the surface of the picture with his +microscope and find every leaf perfect, or read the letters of distant +signs, and see what was the play at the "Variétés" or the "Victoria," +on the evening of the day when it was taken, just as he would sweep the +real view with a spy-glass to explore all that it contains. + +Some years ago, we sent a page or two to one of the magazines,--the +"Knickerbocker," if we remember aright,--in which the story was told +from the "Arabian Nights," of the three kings' sons, who each wished to +obtain the hand of a lovely princess, and received for answer, that he +who brought home the most wonderful object should obtain the lady's hand +as his reward. Our readers, doubtless, remember the original tale, with +the flying carpet, the tube which showed what a distant friend was +doing by looking into it, and the apple which gave relief to the +most desperate sufferings only by inhalation of its fragrance. The +railroad-car, the telegraph, and the apple-flavored chloroform could and +do realize, every day,--as was stated in the passage referred to, with +a certain rhetorical amplitude not doubtfully suggestive of the +lecture-room,--all that was fabled to have been done by the carpet, the +tube, and the fruit of the Arabian story. + +All these inventions force themselves upon us to the full extent of +their significance. It is therefore hardly necessary to waste any +considerable amount of rhetoric upon wonders that are so thoroughly +appreciated. When human art says to each one of us, I will give you +ears that can hear a whisper in New Orleans, and legs that can walk six +hundred miles in a day, and if, in consequence of any defect of rail +or carriage, you should be so injured that your own very insignificant +walking members must be taken off, I can make the surgeon's visit a +pleasant dream for you, on awaking from which you will ask when he +is coming to do that which he has done already,--what is the use of +poetical or rhetorical amplification? But this other invention of _the +mirror with a memory_, and especially that application of it which has +given us the wonders of the stereoscope, is not so easily, completely, +universally recognized in all the immensity of its applications and +suggestions. The stereoscope, and the pictures it gives, are, however, +common enough to be in the hands of many of our readers; and as many of +those who are not acquainted with it must before long become as familiar +with it as they are now with friction-matches, we feel sure that a few +pages relating to it will not be unacceptable. + +Our readers may like to know the outlines of the process of making +daguerreotypes and photographs, as just furnished us by Mr. Whipple, one +of the most successful operators in this country. We omit many of those +details which are everything to the practical artist, but nothing to +the general reader. We must premise, that certain substances undergo +chemical alterations, when exposed to the light, which produce a change +of color. Some of the compounds of silver possess this faculty to a +remarkable degree,--as the common indelible marking-ink, (a solution of +nitrate of silver,) which soon darkens in the light, shows us every day. +This is only one of the innumerable illustrations of the varied effects +of light on color. A living plant owes its brilliant hues to the +sunshine; but a dead one, or the tints extracted from it, will fade +in the same rays which clothe the tulip in crimson and gold,--as our +lady-readers who have rich curtains in their drawing-rooms know full +well. The sun, then, is a master of _chiaroscuro_, and, if he has a +living petal for his pallet, is the first of colorists.--Let us walk +into his studio, and examine some of his painting machinery. + + * * * * * + + +1. THE DAGUERREOTYPE.--A silver-plated sheet of copper is resilvered by +electro-plating, and perfectly polished. It is then exposed in a glass +box to the vapor of iodine until its surface turns to a golden yellow. +Then it is exposed in another box to the fumes of the bromide of lime +until it becomes of a blood-red tint. Then it is exposed once more, for +a few seconds, to the vapor of iodine. The plate is now sensitive to +light, and is of course kept from it, until, having been placed in the +darkened camera, the screen is withdrawn and the camera-picture falls +upon it. In strong light, and with the best instruments, _three +seconds'_ exposure is enough,--but the time varies with circumstances. +The plate is now withdrawn and exposed to the vapor of mercury at 212°. +Where the daylight was strongest, the sensitive coating of the plate has +undergone such a chemical change, that the mercury penetrates readily to +the silver, producing a minute white granular deposit upon it, like +a very thin fall of snow, drifted by the wind. The strong lights are +little heaps of these granules, the middle lights thinner sheets of +them; the shades are formed by the dark silver itself, thinly sprinkled +only, as the earth shows with a few scattered snow-flakes on its +surface. The precise chemical nature of these granules we care less +for than their palpable presence, which may be perfectly made out by a +microscope magnifying fifty diameters or even less. + +The picture thus formed would soon fade under the action of light, in +consequence of further changes in the chemical elements of the film +of which it consists. Some of these elements are therefore removed by +washing it with a solution of hyposulphite of soda, after which it is +rinsed with pure water. It is now permanent in the light, but a touch +wipes off the picture as it does the bloom from a plum. To fix it, a +solution of hyposulphite of soda containing chloride of gold is poured +on the plate while this is held over a spirit-lamp. It is then again +rinsed with pure water, and is ready for its frame. + +2. THE PHOTOGRAPH.--Just as we must have a mould before we can make a +cast, we must get a _negative_ or reversed picture on glass before we +can get our positive or natural picture. The first thing, then, is to +lay a sensitive coating on a piece of glass,--crown-glass, which has a +natural surface, being preferable to plate-glass. _Collodion_, which is +a solution of gun-cotton in alcohol and ether, mingled with a solution +of iodide and bromide of potassium, is used to form a thin coating over +the glass. Before the plate is dry, it is dipped into a solution of +nitrate of silver, where it remains from one to three or four minutes. +Here, then, we have essentially the same chemical elements that we +have seen employed in the daguerreotype,--namely, iodine, bromine, and +silver; and by their mutual reactions in the last process we have formed +the sensitive iodide and bromide of silver. The glass is now placed, +still wet, in the camera, and there remains from three seconds to one +or two minutes, according to circumstances. It is then washed with a +solution of sulphate of iron. Every light spot in the camera-picture +becomes dark on the sensitive coating of the glass-plate. But where the +shadows or dark parts of the camera-picture fall, the sensitive coating +is less darkened, or not at all, if the shadows are very deep, and +so these shadows of the camera-picture become the lights of the +glass-picture, as the lights become the shadows. Again, the picture is +reversed, just as in every camera-obscura where the image is received on +a screen direct from the lens. Thus the glass plate has the right part +of the object on the left side of its picture, and the left part on its +right side; its light is darkness, and its darkness is light. Everything +is just as wrong as it can be, except that the relations of each wrong +to the other wrongs are like the relations of the corresponding rights +to each other in the original natural image. This is a _negative_ +picture. + +Extremes meet. Every given point of the picture is as far from truth as +a lie can be. But in travelling away from the pattern it has gone round +a complete circle, and is at once as remote from Nature and as near it +as possible.--"How far is it to Taunton?" said a countryman, who was +walking exactly the wrong way to reach that commercial and piscatory +centre.--"'Bäout twenty-five thäousan' mild,"--said the boy he +asked,--"'f y' go 'z y' 'r' goin' näow, 'n' 'bäout häaf a mild 'f y' turn +right räoun' 'n' go t'other way." + +The negative picture being formed, it is washed with a solution of +hyposulphite of soda, to remove the soluble principles which are liable +to decomposition, and then coated with shellac varnish to protect it. + +This _negative_ is now to give birth to a _positive_,--this mass of +contradictions to assert its hidden truth in a perfect harmonious +affirmation of the realities of Nature. Behold the process! + +A sheet of the best linen paper is dipped in salt water and suffered to +dry. Then a solution of nitrate of silver is poured over it and it is +dried in a dark place. This paper is now sensitive; it has a conscience, +and is afraid of daylight. Press it against the glass negative and lay +them in the sun, the glass uppermost, leaving them so for from three to +ten minutes. The paper, having the picture formed on it, is then washed +with the solution of hyposulphite of soda, rinsed in pure water, soaked +again in a solution of hyposulphite of soda, to which, however, the +chloride of gold has been added, and again rinsed. It is then sized or +varnished. + +Out of the perverse and totally depraved negative,--where it might +almost seem as if some magic and diabolic power had wrenched all things +from their proprieties, where the light of the eye was darkness, and the +deepest blackness was gilded with the brightest glare,--is to come the +true end of all this series of operations, a copy of Nature in all her +sweet gradations and harmonies and contrasts. + +We owe the suggestion to a great wit, who overflowed our small +intellectual home-lot with a rushing freshet of fertilizing talk +the other day,--one of our friends, who quarries thought on his +own premises, but does not care to build his blocks into books and +essays,--that perhaps this world is only the _negative_ of that better +one in which lights will be turned to shadows and shadows into light, +but all harmonized, so that we shall see why these ugly patches, these +misplaced gleams and blots, were wrought into the temporary arrangements +of our planetary life. + +For, lo! when the sensitive paper is laid in the sun under the negative +glass, every dark spot on the glass arrests a sunbeam, and so the spot +of the paper lying beneath remains unchanged; but every light space of +the negative lets the sunlight through, and the sensitive paper +beneath confesses its weakness, and betrays it by growing dark just in +proportion to the glare that strikes upon it. So, too, we have only +to turn the glass before laying it on the paper, and we bring all the +natural relations of the object delineated back again,--its right to the +right of the picture, its left to the picture's left. + +On examining the glass negative by transmitted light with a power of a +hundred diameters, we observe minute granules, whether crystalline or +not we cannot say, very similar to those described in the account of +the daguerreotype. But now their effect is reversed. Being opaque, they +darken the glass wherever they are accumulated, just as the snow darkens +our skylights. Where these particles are drifted, therefore, we have our +shadows, and where they are thinly scattered, our lights. On examining +the paper photographs, we have found no distinct granules, but diffused +stains of deeper or lighter shades. + +Such is the sun-picture, in the form in which we now most commonly meet +it,--for the daguerreotype, perfect and cheap as it is, and admirably +adapted for miniatures, has almost disappeared from the field of +landscape, still life, architecture, and _genre_ painting, to make room +for the photograph. Mr. Whipple tells us that even now he takes a much +greater number of miniature portraits on metal than on paper; and yet, +except occasionally a statue, it is rare to see anything besides +a portrait shown in a daguerreotype. But the greatest number of +sun-pictures we see are the photographs which are intended to be looked +at with the aid of the instrument we are next to describe, and to the +stimulus of which the recent vast extension of photographic copies of +Nature and Art is mainly owing. + +3. THE STEREOSCOPE.--This instrument was invented by Professor +Wheatstone, and first described by him in 1838. It was only a year after +this that M. Daguerre made known his discovery in Paris; and almost +at the same time Mr. Fox Talbot sent his communication to the Royal +Society, giving an account of his method of obtaining pictures on paper +by the action of light. Iodine was discovered in 1811, bromine in 1826, +chloroform in 1831, gun-cotton, from which collodion is made, in 1846, +the electro-plating process about the same time with photography; "all +things, great and small, working together to produce what seemed at +first as delightful, but as fabulous, as Aladdin's ring, which is now as +little suggestive of surprise as our daily bread." + +A stereoscope is an instrument which makes surfaces look solid. All +pictures in which perspective and light and shade are properly managed, +have more or less of the effect of solidity; but by this instrument that +effect is so heightened as to produce an appearance of reality which +cheats the senses with its seeming truth. + +There is good reason to believe that the appreciation of solidity by the +eye is purely a matter of education. The famous case of a young man who +underwent the operation of couching for cataract, related by Cheselden, +and a similar one reported in the Appendix to Müller's Physiology, go to +prove that everything is seen only as a superficial extension, until +the other senses have taught the eye to recognize _depth_, or the third +dimension, which gives solidity, by converging outlines, distribution +of light and shade, change of size, and of the texture of surfaces. +Cheselden's patient thought "all objects whatever touched his eyes, as +what he felt did his skin." The patient whose case is reported by Müller +could not tell the form of a cube held obliquely before his eye from +that of a flat piece of pasteboard presenting the same outline. Each of +these patients saw only with one eye,--the other being destroyed, in one +case, and not restored to sight until long after the first, in the +other case. In two months' time Cheselden's patient had learned to +know solids; in fact, he argued so logically from light and shade and +perspective that he felt of pictures, expecting to find reliefs and +depressions, and was surprised to discover that they were flat surfaces. +If these patients had suddenly recovered the sight of _both_ eyes, +they would probably have learned to recognize solids more easily and +speedily. + +We can commonly tell whether an object is solid, readily enough with one +eye, but still better with two eyes, and sometimes _only_ by using both. +If we look at a square piece of ivory with one eye alone, we cannot tell +whether it is a scale of veneer, or the side of a cube, or the base of +a pyramid, or the end of a prism. But if we now open the other eye, we +shall see one or more of its sides, if it have any, and then know it to +be a solid, and what kind of a solid. + +We see something with the second eye which we did not see with the +first; in other words, the two eyes see different pictures of the same +thing, for the obvious reason that they look from points two or three +inches apart. By means of these two different views of an object, the +mind, as it were, _feels round it_ and gets an idea of its solidity. We +clasp an object with our eyes, as with our arms, or with our hands, or +with our thumb and finger, and then we know it to be something more than +a surface. This, of course, is an illustration of the fact, rather than +an explanation of its mechanism. + +Though, as we have seen, the two eyes look on two different pictures, we +perceive but one picture. The two have run together and become blended +in a third, which shows us everything we see in each. But, in order that +they should so run together, both the eye and the brain must be in a +natural state. Push one eye a little inward with the forefinger, and the +image is doubled, or at least confused. Only certain parts of the two +retinae work harmoniously together, and you have disturbed their natural +relations. Again, take two or three glasses more than temperance +permits, and you see double; the eyes are right enough, probably, but +the brain is in trouble, and does not report their telegraphic messages +correctly. These exceptions illustrate the every-day truth, that, when +we are in right condition, our two eyes see two somewhat different +pictures, which our perception combines to form one picture, +representing objects in all their dimensions, and not merely as +surfaces. + +Now, if we can get two artificial pictures of any given object, one as +we should see it with the right eye, the other as we should see it with +the left eye, and then, looking at the right picture, and that only, +with the right eye, and at the left picture, and that only, with the +left eye, contrive some way of making these pictures run together as we +have seen our two views of a natural object do, we shall get the sense +of solidity that natural objects give us. The arrangement which effects +it will be a _stereoscope_, according to our definition of that +instrument. How shall we attain these two ends? + +1. An artist can draw an object as he sees it, looking at it only with +his right eye. Then he can draw a second view of the same object as he +sees it with his left eye. It will not be hard to draw a cube or an +octahedron in this way; indeed, the first stereoscopic figures were +pairs of outlines, right and left, of solid bodies, thus drawn. But the +minute details of a portrait, a group, or a landscape, all so nearly +alike to the two eyes, yet not identical in each picture of our natural +double view, would defy any human skill to reproduce them exactly. +And just here comes in the photograph to meet the difficulty. A first +picture of an object is taken,--then the instrument is moved a couple +of inches or a little more, the distance between the human eyes, and a +second picture is taken. Better than this, two pictures are taken at +once in a double camera. + +We were just now stereographed, ourselves, at a moment's warning, as +if we were fugitives from justice. A skeleton shape, of about a man's +height, its head covered with a black veil, glided across the floor, +faced us, lifted its veil, and took a preliminary look. When we had +grown sufficiently rigid in our attitude of studied ease, and got +our umbrella into a position of thoughtful carelessness, and put our +features with much effort into an unconstrained aspect of cheerfulness +tempered with dignity, of manly firmness blended with womanly +sensibility, of courtesy, as much as to imply,--"You honor me, Sir," +toned or sized, as one may say, with something of the self-assertion of +a human soul which reflects proudly, "I am superior to all this,"--when, +I say, we were all right, the spectral Mokanna dropped his long veil, +and his waiting-slave put a sensitive tablet under its folds. The veil +was then again lifted, and the two great glassy eyes stared at us once +more for some thirty seconds. The veil then dropped again; but in the +mean time, the shrouded sorcerer had stolen our double image; we were +immortal. Posterity might thenceforth inspect us, (if not otherwise +engaged,) not as a surface only, but in all our dimensions as an +undisputed _solid_ man of Boston. + +2. We have now obtained the double-eyed or twin pictures, or +STEREOGRAPH, if we may coin a name. But the pictures are two, and we +want to slide them into each other, so to speak, as in natural vision, +that we may see them as one. How shall we make one picture out of two, +the corresponding parts of which are separated by a distance of two or +three inches? + +We can do this in two ways. First, by _squinting_ as we look at them. +But this is tedious, painful, and to some impossible, or at least very +difficult. We shall find it much easier to look through a couple of +glasses that _squint for us_. If at the same time they _magnify_ the +two pictures, we gain just so much in the distinctness of the picture, +which, if the figures on the slide are small, is a great advantage. One +of the easiest ways of accomplishing this double purpose is to cut a +convex lens through the middle, grind the curves of the two halves +down to straight lines, and join them by their thin edges. This is a +_squinting magnifier_, and if arranged so that with its right half we +see the right picture on the slide, and with its left half the left +picture, it squints them both inward so that they run together and form +a single picture. + +Such are the stereoscope and the photograph, by the aid of which _form_ +is henceforth to make itself seen through the world of intelligence, as +thought has long made itself heard by means of the art of printing. The +_morphotype_, or form-print, must hereafter take its place by the side +of the _logotype_, or word-print. The _stereograph_, as we have called +the double picture designed for the stereoscope, is to be the card of +introduction to make all mankind acquaintances. + +The first effect of looking at a good photograph through the stereoscope +is a surprise such as no painting ever produced. The mind feels its way +into the very depths of the picture. The scraggy branches of a tree in +the foreground run out at us as if they would scratch our eyes out. The +elbow of a figure stands forth so as to make us almost uncomfortable. +Then there is such a frightful amount of detail, that we have the same +sense of infinite complexity which Nature gives us. A painter shows us +masses; the stereoscopic figure spares us nothing,--all must be there, +every stick, straw, scratch, as faithfully as the dome of St. Peter's, +or the summit of Mont Blanc, or the ever-moving stillness of Niagara. +The sun is no respecter of persons or of things. + +This is one infinite charm of the photographic delineation. +Theoretically, a perfect photograph is absolutely inexhaustible. In a +picture you can find nothing which the artist has not seen before you; +but in a perfect photograph there will be as many beauties lurking, +unobserved, as there are flowers that blush unseen in forests and +meadows. It is a mistake to suppose one knows a stereoscopic picture +when he has studied it a hundred times by the aid of the best of our +common instruments. Do we know all that there is in a landscape +by looking out at it from our parlor-windows? In one of the glass +stereoscopic views of Table Rock, two figures, so minute as to be +mere objects of comparison with the surrounding vastness, may be seen +standing side by side. Look at the two faces with a strong magnifier, +and you could identify their owners, if you met them in a court of law. + +Many persons suppose that they are looking on _miniatures_ of the +objects represented, when they see them in the stereoscope. They will be +surprised to be told that they see most objects as large as they appear +in Nature. A few simple experiments will show how what we see in +ordinary vision is modified in our perceptions by what we think we see. +We made a sham stereoscope, the other day, with no glasses, and an +opening in the place where the pictures belong, about the size of one of +the common stereoscopic pictures. Through this we got a very ample view +of the town of Cambridge, including Mount Auburn and the Colleges, in a +single field of vision. We do not recognize how minute distant objects +really look to us, without something to bring the fact home to our +conceptions. A man does not deceive us as to his real size when we see +him at the distance of the length of Cambridge Bridge. But hold a common +black pin before the eyes at the distance of distinct vision, and +one-twentieth of its length, nearest the point, is enough to cover him +so that he cannot be seen. The head of the same pin will cover one of +the Cambridge horse-cars at the same distance, and conceal the tower of +Mount Auburn, as seen from Boston. + +We are near enough to an edifice to see it well, when we can easily +read an inscription upon it. The stereoscopic views of the arches +of Constantine and of Titus give not only every letter of the old +inscriptions, but render the grain of the stone itself. On the pediment +of the Pantheon may be read, not only the words traced by Agrippa, but a +rough inscription above it, scratched or hacked into the stone by some +wanton hand during an insurrectionary tumult. + +This distinctness of the lesser details of a building or a landscape +often gives us incidental truths which interest us more than the central +object of the picture. Here is Alloway Kirk, in the churchyard of which +you may read a real story by the side of the ruin that tells of more +romantic fiction. There stands the stone "Erected by James Russell, +seedsman, Ayr, in memory of his children,"--three little boys, James, +and Thomas, and John, all snatched away from him in the space of three +successive summer-days, and lying under the matted grass in the shadow +of the old witch-haunted walls. It was Burns's Alloway Kirk we paid +for, and we find we have bought a share in the griefs of James Russell, +seedsman; for is not the stone that tells this blinding sorrow of real +life the true centre of the picture, and not the roofless pile which +reminds us of an idle legend? + +We have often found these incidental glimpses of life and death running +away with us from the main object the picture was meant to delineate. +The more evidently accidental their introduction, the more trivial they +are in themselves, the more they take hold of the imagination. It is +common to find an object in one of the twin pictures which we miss in +the other; the person or the vehicle having moved in the interval of +taking the two photographs. There is before us a view of the Pool of +David at Hebron, in which a shadowy figure appears at the water's edge, +in the right-hand farther corner of the right-hand picture only. This +muffled shape stealing silently into the solemn scene has already +written a hundred biographies in our imagination. In the lovely glass +stereograph of the Lake of Brienz, on the left-hand side, a vaguely +hinted female figure stands by the margin of the fair water; on the +other side of the picture she is not seen. This is life; we seem to see +her come and go. All the longings, passions, experiences, possibilities +of womanhood animate that gliding shadow which has flitted through our +consciousness, nameless, dateless, featureless, yet more profoundly +real than the sharpest of portraits traced by a human hand. Here is +the Fountain of the Ogre, at Berne. In the right picture two women are +chatting, with arms akimbo, over its basin; before the plate for the +left picture is got ready, "one shall be taken and the other left"; +look! on the left side there is but one woman, and you may see the blur +where the other is melting into thin air as she fades forever from your +eyes. + +Oh, infinite volumes of poems that I treasure in this small library of +glass and pasteboard! I creep over the vast features of Rameses, on the +face of his rock-hewn Nubian temple; I scale the huge mountain-crystal +that calls itself the Pyramid of Cheops. I pace the length of the three +Titanic stones of the wall of Baalbee,--mightiest masses of quarried +rock that man has lifted into the air; and then I dive into some mass +of foliage with my microscope, and trace the veinings of a leaf so +delicately wrought in the painting not made with hands, that I can +almost see its down and the green aphis that sucks its juices. I +look into the eyes of the caged tiger, and on the scaly train of the +crocodile, stretched on the sands of the river that has mirrored a +hundred dynasties. I stroll through Rhenish vineyards, I sit under Roman +arches, I walk the streets of once buried cities, I look into the chasms +of Alpine glaciers, and on the rush of wasteful cataracts. I pass, in +a moment, from the banks of the Charles to the ford of the Jordan, and +leave my outward frame in the arm-chair at my table, while in spirit I +am looking down upon Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. + +"Give me the full tide of life at Charing Cross," said Dr. Johnson. Here +is Charing Cross, but without the full tide of life. A perpetual stream +of figures leaves no definite shapes upon the picture. But on one side +of this stereoscopic doublet a little London "gent" is leaning pensively +against a post; on the other side he is seen sitting at the foot of the +next post;--what is the matter with the little "gent"? + +The very things which an artist would leave out, or render imperfectly, +the photograph takes infinite care with, and so makes its illusions +perfect. What is the picture of a drum without the marks on its head +where the beating of the sticks has darkened the parchment? In three +pictures of the Ann Hathaway Cottage, before us,--the most perfect, +perhaps, of all the paper stereographs we have seen,--the door at the +farther end of the cottage is open, and we see the marks left by the +rubbing of hands and shoulders as the good people came through the +entry, or leaned against it, or felt for the latch. It is not impossible +that scales from the epidermis of the trembling hand of Ann Hathaway's +young suitor, Will Shakspeare, are still adherent about the old latch +and door, and that they contribute to the stains we see in our picture. + +Among the accidents of life, as delineated in the stereograph, there is +one that rarely fails in any extended view which shows us the details of +streets and buildings. There may be neither man nor beast nor vehicle to +be seen. You may be looking down on a place in such a way that none of +the ordinary marks of its being actually inhabited show themselves. But +in the rawest Western settlement and the oldest Eastern city, in +the midst of the shanties at Pike's Peak and stretching across the +court-yards as you look into them from above the clay-plastered roofs of +Damascus, wherever man lives with any of the decencies of civilization, +you will find the _clothes-line_. It may be a fence, (in Ireland,)--it +may be a tree, (if the Irish license is still allowed us,)--but +clothes-drying, or a place to dry clothes on, the stereoscopic +photograph insists on finding, wherever it gives us a group of houses. +This is the city of Berne. How it brings the people who sleep under that +roof before us to see their sheets drying on that fence! and how real it +makes the men in that house to look at their shirts hanging, arms down, +from yonder line! + +The reader will, perhaps, thank us for a few hints as to the choice +of stereoscopes and stereoscopic pictures. The only way to be sure of +getting a good instrument is to try a number of them, but it may be well +to know which are worth trying. Those made with achromatic glasses may +be as much better as they are dearer, but we have not been able to +satisfy ourselves of the fact. We do not commonly find any trouble from +chromatic aberration (or false color in the image). It is an excellent +thing to have the glasses adjust by pulling out and pushing in, either +by the hand, or, more conveniently, by a screw. The large instruments, +holding twenty-five slides, are best adapted to the use of those who +wish to show their views often to friends; the owner is a little apt +to get tired of the unvarying round in which they present themselves. +Perhaps we relish them more for having a little trouble in placing them, +as we do nuts that we crack better than those we buy cracked. In optical +effect, there is not much difference between them and the best ordinary +instruments. We employ one stereoscope with adjusting glasses for the +hand, and another common one upon a broad rosewood stand. The stand may +be added to any instrument, and is a great convenience. + +Some will have none but glass stereoscopic pictures; paper ones are not +good enough for them. Wisdom dwells not with such. It is true that +there is a brilliancy in a glass picture, with a flood of light pouring +through it, which no paper one, with the light necessarily falling _on_ +it, can approach. But this brilliancy fatigues the eye much more than +the quiet reflected light of the paper stereograph. Twenty-five glass +slides, well inspected in a strong light, are _good_ for one headache, +if a person is disposed to that trouble. + +Again, a good paper photograph is infinitely better than a bad glass +one. We have a glass stereograph of Bethlehem, which looks as if the +ground were covered with snow,--and paper ones of Jerusalem colored and +uncolored, much superior to it both in effect and detail. The Oriental +pictures, we think, are apt to have this white, patchy look; possibly we +do not get the best in this country. + +A good view on glass or paper is, as a rule, best uncolored. But some +of the American views of Niagara on glass are greatly improved by being +colored; the water being rendered vastly more suggestive of the reality +by the deep green tinge. _Per contra_, we have seen some American views +so carelessly colored that they were all the worse for having been +meddled with. The views of the Hathaway Cottage, before referred to, are +not only admirable in themselves, but some of them are admirably colored +also. Few glass stereographs compare with them as real representatives +of Nature. + +In choosing stereoscopic pictures, beware of investing largely in +_groups_. The owner soon gets tired to death of them. Two or three +of the most striking among them are worth having, but mostly they +detestable,--vulgar repetitions of vulgar models, shamming grace, +gentility, and emotion, by the aid of costumes, attitudes, expressions, +and accessories worthy only of a Thespian society of candle-snuffers. In +buying brides under veils, and such figures, look at the lady's _hands_. +You will very probably find the young countess is a maid-of-all-work. +The presence of a human figure adds greatly to the interest of all +architectural views, by giving us a standard of size, and should often +decide our choice out of a variety of such pictures. No view pleases the +eye which has glaring patches in it,--a perfectly white-looking river, +for instance,--or trees and shrubs in full leaf, but looking as if they +were covered with snow,--or glaring roads, or frosted-looking stones and +pebbles. As for composition in landscape, each person must consult his +own taste. All have agreed in admiring many of the Irish views, as those +about the Lakes of Killarney, for instance, which are beautiful alike in +general effect and in nicety of detail. The glass views on the Rhine, +and of the Pyrenees in Spain, are of consummate beauty. As a specimen of +the most perfect, in its truth and union of harmony and contrast, the +view of the Circus of Gavarni, with the female figure on horseback in +the front ground, is not surpassed by any we remember to have seen. + + * * * * * + +What is to come of the stereoscope and the photograph we are almost +afraid to guess, lest we should seem extravagant. But, premising that we +are to give a _colored_ stereoscopic mental view of their prospects, +we will venture on a few glimpses at a conceivable, if not a possible +future. + +_Form is henceforth divorced from matter._ In fact, matter as a visible +object is of no great use any longer, except as the mould on which form +is shaped. Give us a few negatives of a thing worth seeing, taken from +different points of view, and that is all we want of it. Pull it down or +burn it up, if you please. We must, perhaps, sacrifice some luxury in +the loss of color; but form and light, and shade are the great things, +and even color can be added, and perhaps by and by may be got direct +from Nature. + +There is only one Coliseum or Pantheon; but how many millions of +potential negatives have they shed,--representatives of billions of +pictures,--since they were erected! Matter in large masses must always +be fixed and dear; form is cheap and transportable. We have got the +fruit of creation now, and need not trouble ourselves with the core. +Every conceivable object of Nature and Art will soon scale off its +surface for us. Men will hunt all curious, beautiful, grand objects, as +they hunt the cattle in South America, for their _skins_, and leave the +carcasses as of little worth. + +The consequence of this will soon be such an enormous collection +of forms that they will have to be classified and arranged in vast +libraries, as books are now. The time will come when a man who wishes +to see any object, natural or artificial, will go to the Imperial, +National, or City Stereographic Library and call for its skin or form, +as he would for a book at any common library. We do now distinctly +propose the creation of a comprehensive and systematic stereographic +library, where all men can find the special forms they particularly +desire to see as artists, or as scholars, or as mechanics, or in any +other capacity. Already a workman has been travelling about the country +with stereographic views of furniture, showing his employer's patterns +in this way, and taking orders for them. This is a mere hint of what is +coming before long. + +Again, we must have special stereographic collections, just as we have +professional and other special libraries. And as a means of facilitating +the formation of public and private stereographic collections, there +must be arranged a comprehensive system of exchanges, so that there may +grow up something like a universal currency of these bank-notes, or +promises to pay in solid substance, which the sun has engraved for the +great Bank of Nature. + +To render comparison of similar objects, or of any that we may wish to +see side by side, easy, there should be a stereographic _metre_ or +fixed standard of focal length for the camera lens, to furnish by its +multiples or fractions, if necessary, the scale of distances, and the +standard of power in the stereoscope-lens. In this way the eye can +make the most rapid and exact comparisons. If the "great elm" and the +Cowthorpe oak, if the State-House and St. Peter's, were taken on the +same scale, and looked at with the same magnifying power, we should +compare them without the possibility of being misled by those +partialities which might tend to make us overrate the indigenous +vegetable and the dome of our native Michel Angelo. + +The next European war will send us stereographs of battles. It is +asserted that a bursting shell can be photographed. The time is perhaps +at hand when a flash of light, as sudden and brief as that of the +lightning which shows a whirling wheel standing stock still, shall +preserve the very instant of the shock of contact of the mighty armies +that are even now gathering. The lightning from heaven does actually +photograph natural objects on the bodies of those it has just +blasted,--so we are told by many witnesses. The lightning of clashing +sabres and bayonets may be forced to stereotype itself in a stillness +as complete as that of the tumbling tide of Niagara as we see it +self-pictured. + +We should be led on too far, if we developed our belief as to the +transformations to be wrought by this greatest of human triumphs over +earthly conditions, the divorce of form and substance. Let our readers +fill out a blank check on the future as they like,--we give our +indorsement to their imaginations beforehand. We are looking into +stereoscopes as pretty toys, and wondering over the photograph as a +charming novelty; but before another generation has passed away, it will +be recognized that a new epoch in the history of human progress dates +from the time when He who + + ----never but in uncreated light + Dwelt from eternity-- + +took a pencil of fire from the hand of the "angel standing in the sun," +and placed it in the hands of a mortal. + + + + +THE MINISTER'S WOOING. + +[Continued.] + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +At the period of which we are speaking, no name in the New Republic was +associated with ideas of more brilliant promise, and invested with a +greater _prestige_ of popularity and success, than that of Colonel Aaron +Burr. + +Sprung of a line distinguished for intellectual ability, the grandson of +a man whose genius has swayed New England from that day to this, the son +of parents eminent in their day for influential and popular talents, he +united in himself the quickest perceptions and keenest delicacy of +fibre with the most diamond hardness and unflinching steadiness of +purpose;--apt, subtle, adroit, dazzling, no man in his time ever began +life with fairer chances of success and fame. + +His name, as it fell on the ear of our heroine, carried with it the +suggestion of all this; and when, with his peculiarly engaging smile, he +offered his arm, she felt a little of the flutter natural to a modest +young person unexpectedly honored with the notice of one of the great +ones of the earth, whom it is seldom the lot of humble individuals to +know, except by distant report. + +But, although Mary was a blushing and sensitive person, she was not +what is commonly called a diffident girl;--her nerves had that healthy, +steady poise which gave her presence of mind in the most unwonted +circumstances. + +The first few sentences addressed to her by her new companion were in a +tone and style altogether different from any in which she had ever been +approached,--different from the dashing frankness of her sailor lover, +and from the rustic gallantry of her other admirers. + +That indescribable mixture of ease and deference, guided by refined +tact, which shows the practised, high-bred man of the world, made +its impression on her immediately, as the breeze on the chords of a +wind-harp. She felt herself pleasantly swayed and breathed upon;--it was +as if an atmosphere were around her in which she felt a perfect ease and +freedom, an assurance that her lightest word might launch forth safely, +as a tiny boat, on the smooth, glassy mirror of her listener's pleased +attention. + +"I came to Newport only on a visit of business," he said, after a few +moments of introductory conversation. "I was not prepared for its many +attractions." + +"Newport has a great deal of beautiful scenery," said Mary. + +"I have heard that it was celebrated for the beauty of its scenery, and +of its ladies," he answered; "but," he added, with a quick flash of his +dark eye, "I never realized the fact before." + +The glance of the eye pointed and limited the compliment, and, at the +same time, there was a wary shrewdness in it;--he was measuring how deep +his shaft had sunk, as he always instinctively measured the person he +talked with. + +Mary had been told of her beauty since her childhood, notwithstanding +her mother had essayed all that transparent, respectable hoaxing by +which discreet mothers endeavor to blind their daughters to the real +facts of such cases; but, in her own calm, balanced mind, she had +accepted what she was so often told, as a quiet verity; and therefore +she neither fluttered nor blushed on this occasion, but regarded her +auditor with a pleased attention, as one who was saying obliging things. + +"Cool!" he thought to himself,--"hum!--a little rustic belle, I +suppose,--well aware of her own value;--rather piquant, on my word!" + +"Shall we walk in the garden?" he said,--"the evening is so beautiful." + +They passed out of the door and began promenading the long walk. At the +bottom of the alley he stopped, and, turning, looked up the vista of box +ending in the brilliantly-lighted rooms, where gentlemen, with powdered +heads, lace ruffles, and glittering knee-buckles, were handing ladies in +stiff brocades, whose towering heads were shaded by ostrich-feathers and +sparkling with gems. + +"Quite court-like, on my word!" he said. "Tell me, do you often have +such brilliant entertainments as this?" + +"I suppose they do," said Mary. "I never was at one before, but I +sometimes hear of them." + +"And _you_ do not attend?" said the gentleman, with an accent which made +the inquiry a marked compliment. + +"No, I do not," said Mary; "these people generally do not visit us." + +"What a pity," he said, "that their parties should want such an +ornament! But," he added, "this night must make them aware of their +oversight;--if you are not always in society after this, it will surely +not be for want of solicitation." + +"You are very kind to think so," replied Mary; "but even if it were +to be so, I should not see my way clear to be often in such scenes as +this." + +Her companion looked at her with a glance a little doubtful and amused, +and said, "And pray, why not? if the inquiry be not too presumptuous." + +"Because," said Mary, "I should be afraid they would take too much time +and thought, and lead me to forget the great object of life." + +The simple gravity with which this was said, as if quite assured of the +sympathy of her auditor, appeared to give him a secret amusement. His +bright, dark eyes danced, as if he suppressed some quick repartee; but, +drooping his long lashes deferentially, he said, in gentle tones, "I +should like to know what so beautiful a young lady considers the great +object of life." + +Mary answered reverentially, in those words then familiar from infancy +to every Puritan child, "To glorify God, and enjoy Him forever." + +"_Really?_" he said, looking straight into her eyes with that +penetrating glance with which he was accustomed to take the gauge of +every one with whom he conversed. + +"Is it _not_?" said Mary, looking back, calm and firm, into the +sparkling, restless depths of his eyes. + +At that moment, two souls, going with the whole force of their being in +opposite directions, looked out of their windows at each other with a +fixed and earnest recognition. + +Burr was practised in every art of gallantry,--he had made womankind +a study,--he never saw a beautiful face and form without a sort of +restless desire to experiment upon it and try his power over the +interior inhabitant; but, just at this moment, something streamed into +his soul from those blue, earnest eyes, which brought back to his mind +what pious people had so often told him of his mother, the beautiful +and early-sainted Esther Burr. He was one of those persons who +systematically managed and played upon himself and others, as a skilful +musician, on an instrument. Yet one secret of his fascination was the +_naïveté_ with which, at certain moments, he would abandon himself to +some little impulse of a nature originally sensitive and tender. Had the +strain of feeling which now awoke in him come over him elsewhere, he +would have shut down some spring in his mind, and excluded it in a +moment; but, talking with a beautiful creature whom he wished to please, +he gave way at once to the emotion:--real tears stood in his fine eyes, +and he raised Mary's hand to his lips, and kissed it, saying-- + +"Thank you, my beautiful child, for so good a thought. It is truly a +noble sentiment, though practicable only to those gifted with angelic +natures." + +"Oh, I trust not," said Mary, earnestly touched and wrought upon, more +than she herself knew, by the beautiful eyes, the modulated voice, the +charm of manner, which seemed to enfold her like an Italian summer. + +Burr sighed,--a real sigh of his better nature, but passed out with all +the more freedom that he felt it would interest his fair companion, who, +for the time being, was the one woman of the world to him. + +"Pure and artless souls like yours," he said, "cannot measure the +temptations of those who are called to the real battle of life in a +world like this. How many nobler aspirations fall withered in the fierce +heat and struggle of the conflict!" + +He was saying then what he really felt, often bitterly felt,--but +_using_ this real feeling advisedly, and with skilful tact, for the +purpose of the hour. + +What was this purpose? To win the regard, the esteem, the tenderness of +a religious, exalted nature shrined in a beautiful form,--to gain and +hold ascendency. It was a life-long habit,--one of those forms of +refined self-indulgence which he pursued, thoughtless and reckless of +consequences. He had found now the key-note of the character; it was a +beautiful instrument, and he was well pleased to play on it. + +"I think, Sir," said Mary, modestly, "that you forget the great +provision made for our weakness." + +"How?" he said. + +"They that _wait on the Lord_ shall renew their strength," she replied, +gently. + +He looked at her, as she spoke these words, with a pleased, artistic +perception of the contrast between her worldly attire and the simple, +religious earnestness of her words. + +"She is entrancing!" he thought to himself,--"so altogether fresh and +_naive_!" + +"My sweet saint," he said, "such as you are the appointed guardians of +us coarser beings. The prayers of souls given up to worldliness and +ambition effect little. You must intercede for us. I am very orthodox, +you see," he added, with that subtle smile which sometimes irradiated +his features. "I am fully aware of all that your reverend doctor tells +you of the worthlessness of unregenerate doings; and so, when I see +angels walking below, I try to secure 'a friend at court.'" + +He saw that Mary looked embarrassed and pained at this banter, and +therefore added, with a delicate shading of earnestness,-- + +"In truth, my fair young friend, I hope you _will_ sometimes pray for +me. I am sure, if I have any chance of good, it will come in such a +way." + +"Indeed I will," said Mary, fervently,--her little heart full, tears +in her eyes, her breath coming quick,--and she added, with a deepening +color, "I am sure, Mr. Burr, that there should be a covenant blessing +for you, if for any one, for you are the son of a holy ancestry." + +"_Eh, bien, mon ami, qu'est ce que tu fais ici_?" said a gay voice +behind a clump of box; and immediately there started out, like a French +picture from its frame, a dark-eyed figure, dressed like a Marquise of +Louis XIV.'s time, with powdered hair, sparkling with diamonds. + +"_Rien que m'amuser_," he replied, with ready presence of mind, in the +same tone, and then added,--"Permit me, Madame, to present to you a +charming specimen of our genuine New England flowers. Miss Scudder, +I have the honor to present you to the acquaintance of Madame de +Frontignac." + +"I am very happy," said the lady, with that sweet, lisping accentuation +of English which well became her lovely mouth. "Miss Scudder, I hope, is +very well." + +Mary replied in the affirmative,--her eyes resting the while with +pleased admiration on the graceful, animated face and diamond-bright +eyes which seemed looking her through. + +"_Monsieur la trouve bien séduisante apparemment_" said the stranger, +in a low, rapid voice, to the gentleman, in a manner which showed a +mingling of pique and admiration. + +"_Petite jalouse! rassure-toi_," he replied, with a look and manner into +which, with that mobile force which was peculiar to him, he threw the +most tender and passionate devotion. "_Ne suis-je pas à toi tout à +fait_?"--and as he spoke, he offered her his other arm. "Allow me to be +an unworthy link between the beauty of France and America." + +The lady swept a proud curtsy backward, bridled her beautiful neck, and +signed for them to pass her. "I am waiting here for a friend," she said. + +"Whatever is your will is mine," replied Burr, bowing with proud +humility, and passing on with Mary to the supper-room. + +Here the company were fast assembling, in that high tide of good-humor +which generally sets in at this crisis of the evening. + +The scene, in truth, was a specimen of a range of society which in those +times could have been assembled nowhere else but in Newport. There stood +Dr. H. in the tranquil majesty of his lordly form, and by his side, the +alert, compact figure of his contemporary and theological opponent, Dr. +Stiles, who, animated by the social spirit of the hour, was dispensing +courtesies to right and left with the debonair grace of the trained +gentleman of the old school. Near by, and engaging from time to time in +conversation with them, stood a Jewish Rabbin, whose olive complexion, +keen eye, and flowing beard gave a picturesque and foreign grace to the +scene. Colonel Burr, one of the most brilliant and distinguished men of +the New Republic, and Colonel de Frontignac, who had won for himself +laurels in the corps of La Fayette, during the recent revolutionary +struggle, with his brilliant, accomplished wife, were all unexpected and +distinguished additions to the circle. + +Burr gently cleared the way for his fair companion, and, purposely +placing her where the full light of the wax chandeliers set off her +beauty to the best advantage, devoted himself to her with a subserviency +as deferential as if she had been a goddess. + +For all that, he was not unobservant, when, a few moments after, Madame +de Frontignac was led in, on the arm of a Senator, with whom she was +presently in full flirtation. + +He observed, with a quiet, furtive smile, that, while she rattled and +fanned herself, and listened with apparent attention to the flatteries +addressed to her, she darted every now and then a glance keen as a steel +blade towards him and his companion. He was perfectly adroit in playing +off one woman against another, and it struck him with a pleasant sense +of oddity, how perfectly unconscious his sweet and saintly neighbor was +of the position in which she was supposed to stand by her rival; and +poor Mary, all this while, in her simplicity, really thought that she +had seen traces of what she would have called the "strivings of the +spirit" in his soul. Alas! that a phrase weighed down with such +mysterious truth and meaning should ever come to fall on the ear as mere +empty cant! + +With Mary it was a living form,--as were all her words; for in nothing +was the Puritan education more marked than in the earnest _reality_ and +truthfulness which it gave to language; and even now, as she stands by +his side, her large blue eye is occasionally fixed in dreamy reverie as +she thinks what a triumph of Divine grace it would be, if these inward +movings of her companion's mind _should_ lead him, as all the pious of +New England hoped, to follow in the footsteps of President Edwards, and +forms wishes that she could see him some time when she could talk to him +undisturbed. + +She was too humble and too modest fully to accept the delicious flattery +which he had breathed, in implying that her hand had had power to unseal +the fountains of good in his soul; but still it thrilled through all the +sensitive strings of her nature a tremulous flutter of suggestion. + +She had read instances of striking and wonderful conversions from words +dropped by children and women,--and suppose some such thing should +happen to her! and that this so charming and distinguished and powerful +being should be called into the fold of Christ's Church by her means! +No! it was too much to be hoped,--but the very possibility was +thrilling. + +When, after supper, Mrs. Scudder and the Doctor made their adieus, +Burr's devotion was still unabated. With an enchanting mixture +of reverence and fatherly protection, he waited on her to the +last,--shawled her with delicate care, and handed her into the small, +one-horse wagon,--as if it had been the coach of a duchess. + +"I have pleasant recollections connected with this kind of +establishment," he said, as, after looking carefully at the harness, +he passed the reins into Mrs. Scudder's hands. "It reminds me of +school-days and old times. I hope your horse is quite safe, Madam." + +"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Scudder, "I perfectly understand him." + +"Pardon the suggestion," he replied;--"what is there that a New England +matron does _not_ understand? Doctor, I must call by-and-by and have +a little talk with you,--my theology, you know, needs a little +straightening." + +"We should all be happy to see you, Colonel Burr," said Mrs. Scudder; +"we live in a very plain way, it is true,"-- + +"But can always find place for a friend,--that, I trust, is what you +meant to say," he replied, bowing, with his own peculiar grace, as the +carriage drove off. + +"Really, a most charming person is this Colonel Burr," said Mrs. +Scudder. + +"He seems a very frank, ingenuous young person," said the Doctor; "one +cannot but mourn that the son of such gracious parents should be left to +wander into infidelity." + +"Oh, he is not an infidel," said Mary; "he is far from it, though I +think his mind is a little darkened on some points." + +"Ah," said the Doctor, "have you had any special religious conversation +with him?" + +"A little," said Mary, blushing; "and it seems to me that his mind is +perplexed somewhat in regard to the doings of the unregenerate,--I fear +that it has rather proved a stumbling-block in his way; but he showed so +much feeling!--I could really see the tears in his eyes!" + +"His mother was a most godly woman, Mary," said the Doctor. "She was +called from her youth, and her beautiful person became a temple for the +indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Aaron Burr is a child of many prayers, +and therefore there is hope that he may yet be effectually called. He +studied awhile with Bellamy," he added, musingly, "and I have often +doubted whether Bellamy took just the right course with him." + +"I hope he _will_ call and talk with you," said Mary, earnestly; "what +a blessing to the world, if such talents as his could become wholly +consecrated!" + +"Not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble are called," said the +Doctor; "yet if it would please the Lord to employ my instrumentality +and prayers, how much should I rejoice! I was struck," he added, +"to-night, when I saw those Jews present, with the thought that it was, +as it were, a type of that last ingathering, when both Jew and Gentile +shall sit down lovingly together to the gospel feast. It is only by +passing over and forgetting these present years, when so few are called +and the gospel makes such slow progress, and looking unto that +glorious time, that I find comfort. If the Lord but use me as a dumb +stepping-stone to that heavenly Jerusalem, I shall be content." + +Thus they talked while the wagon jogged soberly homeward, and the +frogs and the turtles and the distant ripple of the sea made a drowsy, +mingling concert in the summer-evening air. + +Meanwhile Colonel Burr had returned to the lighted rooms, and it was not +long before his quick eye espied Madame de Frontignac standing pensively +in a window-recess, half hid by the curtain. He stole softly up behind +her and whispered something in her ear. + +In a moment she turned on him a face glowing--with anger, and drew back +haughtily; but Burr remarked the glitter of tears, not quite dried even +by the angry flush of her eyes. + +"In what have I had the misfortune to offend?" he said, crossing his +arms upon his breast. "I stand at the bar, and plead, Not guilty." + +He spoke in French, and she replied in the same smooth accents,-- + +"It was not for her to dispute Monsieur's right to amuse himself." + +Burr drew nearer, and spoke in those persuasive, pleading tones which he +had ever at command, and in that language whose very structure in its +delicate _tutoiment_ gives such opportunity for gliding on through shade +after shade of intimacy and tenderness, till gradually the haughty fire +of the eyes was quenched in tears, and, in the sudden revulsion of a +strong, impulsive nature, she said what she called words of friendship, +but which carried with them all the warmth of that sacred fire which is +given to woman to light and warm the temple of home, and which sears and +scars when kindled for any other shrine. + +And yet this woman was the wife of his friend and associate! + +Colonel de Frontignac was a grave and dignified man of forty-five. +Virginie de Frontignac had been given him to wife when but eighteen,--a +beautiful, generous, impulsive, wilful girl. She had accepted him +gladly, for very substantial reasons. First, that she might come out of +the convent where she was kept for the very purpose of educating her in +ignorance of the world she was to live in. Second, that she might wear +velvet, lace, cashmere, and jewels. Third, that she might be a Madame, +free to go and come, ride, walk, and talk, without surveillance. +Fourth,--and consequent upon this,--that she might go into company and +have admirers and adorers. + +She supposed, of course, that she loved her husband;--whom else should +she love? He was the only man, except her father and brothers, that she +had ever known; and in the fortnight that preceded their marriage did he +not send her the most splendid _bons-bons_ every day, with bouquets of +every pattern that ever taxed the brain of a Parisian _artiste_?--was +not the _corbeille de mariage_ a wonder and an envy to all her +acquaintance?--and after marriage had she not found him always a steady, +indulgent friend, easy to be coaxed as any grave papa? + +On his part, Monsieur de Frontignac cherished his young wife as a +beautiful, though somewhat absurd little pet, and amused himself with +her frolics and gambols, as the gravest person often will with those of +a kitten. + +It was not until she knew Aaron Burr that poor Virginie de Frontignac +came to that great awakening of her being which teaches woman what +she is, and transforms her from a careless child to a deep-hearted, +thinking, suffering human being. + +For the first time, in his society she became aware of the charm of a +polished and cultivated mind, able with exquisite tact to adapt itself +to hers, to draw forth her inquiries, to excite her tastes, to stimulate +her observation. A new world awoke around her,--the world of literature +and taste, of art and of sentiment; she felt, somehow, as if she had +gained the growth of years in a few months. She felt within herself the +stirring of dim aspiration, the uprising of a new power of self-devotion +and self-sacrifice, a trance of hero-worship, a cloud of high ideal +images,--the lighting up, in short, of all that God has laid, ready to +be enkindled, in a woman's nature, when the time comes to sanctify her +as the pure priestess of a domestic temple. But, alas! it was kindled +by one who did it only for an experiment, because he felt an artistic +pleasure in the beautiful light and heat, and cared not, though it +burned a soul away. + +Burr was one of those men willing to play with any charming woman the +game of those navigators who give to simple natives glass beads and +feathers in return for gold and diamonds,--to accept from a woman her +heart's blood in return for such odds and ends and clippings as he can +afford her from the serious ambition of life. + +Look in with us one moment, now that the party is over, and the busy +hum of voices and blaze of lights has died down to midnight silence and +darkness; we make you clairvoyant, and you may look through the walls of +this stately old mansion, still known as that where Rochambeau held his +head-quarters, into this room, where two wax candles are burning on a +toilette table, before an old-fashioned mirror. The slumberous folds +of the curtains are drawn with stately gloom around a high bed, where +Colonel de Frontignac has been for many hours quietly asleep; but +opposite, resting with one elbow on the toilette table, her long black +hair hanging down over her night-dress, and the brush lying listlessly +in her hand, sits Virginie, looking fixedly into the dreamy depths of +the mirror. + +Scarcely twenty yet, all unwarned of the world of power and passion that +lay slumbering in her girl's heart, led in the meshes of custom and +society to utter vows and take responsibilities of whose nature she was +no more apprised than is a slumbering babe, and now at last fully awake, +feeling the whole power of that mysterious and awful force which we call +love, yet shuddering to call it by its name, but by its light beginning +to understand all she is capable of, and all that marriage should have +been to her! She struggles feebly and confusedly with her fate, still +clinging to the name of duty, and baptizing as friendship this strange +new feeling which makes her tremble through all her being. How can she +dream of danger in such a feeling, when it seems to her the awakening +of all that is highest and noblest within her? She remembers when she +thought of nothing beyond an opera-ticket or a new dress; and now she +feels that there might be to her a friend for whose sake she would try +to be noble and great and good,--for whom all self-denial, all high +endeavor, all difficult virtue would become possible,--who would be to +her life, inspiration, order, beauty. + +She sees him as woman always sees the man she loves,--noble, great, and +good;--for when did a loving woman ever believe a man otherwise?--too +noble, too great, too high, too good, she thinks, for her,--poor, +trivial, ignorant coquette,--poor, childish, trifling Virginie! Has he +not commanded armies? she thinks,--is he not eloquent in the senate? +and yet, what interest he has taken in her, a poor, unformed, ignorant +creature!--she never tried to improve herself till since she knew him. +And he is so considerate, too,--so respectful, so thoughtful and kind, +so manly and honorable, and has such a tender friendship for her, such +a brotherly and fatherly solicitude! and yet, if she is haughty or +imperious or severe, how humbled and grieved he looks! How strange that +she could have power over such a man! + +It is one of the saddest truths of this sad mystery of life, that woman +is, often, never so much an angel as just the moment before she falls +into an unsounded depth of perdition. And what shall we say of the man +who leads her on as an experiment,--who amuses himself with taking +woman after woman up these dazzling, delusive heights, knowing, as he +certainly must, where they lead? + +We have been told, in extenuation of the course of Aaron Burr, that he +was not a man of gross passions or of coarse indulgence, but, in the +most consummate and refined sense, _a man of gallantry_. This, then, is +the descriptive name which polite society has invented for the man who +does this thing! + +Of old, it was thought that one who administered poison in the +sacramental bread and wine had touched the very height of impious +sacrilege; but this crime is white, by the side of his who poisons +God's eternal sacrament of love and destroys a woman's soul through her +noblest and purest affections. + +We have given you the after-view of most of the actors of our little +scene to-night, and therefore it is but fair that you should have a peep +over the Colonel's shoulder, as he sums up the evening in a letter to a +friend. + +"MY DEAR ---- + +"As to the business, it gets on rather slowly. L---- and S---- are away, +and the coalition cannot be formed without them; they set out a week ago +from Philadelphia, and are yet on the road. + +"Meanwhile, we have some providential alleviations,--as, for example, +a wedding-party to-night, at the Wilcoxes', which was really quite an +affair. I saw the prettiest little Puritan there that I have set eyes on +for many a day. I really couldn't help getting up a flirtation with her, +although it was much like flirting with a small copy of the 'Assembly's +Catechism,'--of which last I had enough years ago, Heaven knows. + +"But, really, such a _naïve_, earnest little saint, who has such real +deadly belief, and opens such pitying blue eyes on one, is quite a +stimulating novelty. I got myself well scolded by the fair Madame, (as +angels scold,) and had to plead like a lawyer to make my peace;--after +all, that woman really enchains me. Don't shake your head wisely,--' +What's going to be the end of it?' I'm sure I don't know; we'll see, +when the time comes. + +"Meanwhile, push the business ahead with all your might. I shall not be +idle. D---- must canvass the Senate thoroughly. I wish I could be in two +places at once,--I would do it myself. _Au revoir_. + +"Ever yours, + +"Burr." + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +"And now, Mary," said Mrs. Scudder, at five o'clock the next morning, +"to-day, you know, is the Doctor's fast; so we won't get any regular +dinner, and it will be a good time to do up all our little odd jobs. +Miss Prissy promised to come in for two or three hours this morning, to +alter the waist of that black silk; and I shouldn't be surprised if we +should get it all done and ready to wear by Sunday." + +We will remark, by way of explanation to a part of this conversation, +that our Doctor, who was a specimen of life in earnest, made a practice, +through the greater part of his pulpit course, of spending every +Saturday as a day of fasting and retirement, in preparation for the +duties of the Sabbath. + +Accordingly, the early breakfast things were no sooner disposed of than +Miss Prissy's quick footsteps might have been heard pattering in the +kitchen. + +"Well, Miss Scudder, how do you do this morning? and how do you do, +Mary? Well, if you a'n't the beaters! up just as early as ever, and +everything cleared away! I was telling Miss Wilcox there didn't ever +seem to be anything done in Miss Scudder's kitchen, and I did verily +believe you made your beds before you got up in the morning. + +"Well, well, wasn't that a party last night?" she said, as she sat down +with the black silk and prepared her ripping-knife.--"I must rip this +myself, Miss Scudder; for there's a great deal in ripping silk so as not +to let anybody know where it has been sewed.--You didn't know that I was +at the party, did you? Well, I was. You see, I thought I'd just step +round there, to see about that money to get the Doctor's shirt with, and +there I found Miss Wilcox with so many things on her mind, and says she, +'Miss Prissy, you don't know how much it would help me if I had somebody +like you just to look after things a little here.' And says I, 'Miss +Wilcox, you just go right to your room and dress, and don't you give +yourself one minute's thought about anything, and you see if I don't +have everything just right.' And so, there I was, in for it; and I just +staid through, and it was well I did,--for Dinah, she wouldn't have put +near enough egg into the coffee, if it hadn't been for me; why, I just +went and beat up four eggs with my own hands and stirred 'em into the +grounds. + +"Well,--but, really, wasn't I behind the door, and didn't I peep into +the supper-room? I saw who was a-waitin' on Miss Mary. Well, they do say +he's the handsomest, most fascinating man. Why, they say all the ladies +in Philadelphia are in a perfect quarrel about him; and I heard he said +he hadn't seen such a beauty he didn't remember when." + +"We all know that beauty is of small consequence," said Mrs. Scudder. "I +hope Mary has been brought up to feel that." + +"Oh, of course," said Miss Prissy, "it's just like a fading flower; all +is to be good and useful,--and that's what she is. I told 'em that her +beauty was the least part of her; though I must say, that dress did fit +like a biscuit,--if 'twas my own fitting. + +"But, Miss Scudder, what do you think I heard 'em saying about the good +Doctor?" + +"I'm sure I don't know," said Mrs. Scudder; "I only know they couldn't +say anything bad." + +"Well, not bad exactly," said Miss Prissy,--"but they say he's getting +such strange notions in his head. Why, I heard some of 'em say, he's +going to come out and preach against the slave-trade; and I'm sure I +don't know what Newport folks will do, if that's wicked. There a'n't +hardly any money here that's made any other way; and I hope the Doctor +a'n't a-going to do anything of that sort." + +"I believe he is," said Mrs. Scudder; "he thinks it's a great sin, that +ought to be rebuked;--and I think so too," she added, bracing herself +resolutely; "that was Mr. Scudder's opinion when I first married him, +and it's mine." + +"Oh,--ah,--yes,--well,--if it's a sin, of course," said Miss Prissy; +"but then--dear me!--it don't seem as if it could be. Why, just think +how many great houses are living on it;--why, there's General Wilcox +himself, and he's a very nice man; and then there's Major Seaforth; why, +I could count you off a dozen,--all our very first people. Why, Doctor +Stiles doesn't think so, and I'm sure he's a good Christian. Doctor +Stiles thinks it's a dispensation for giving the light of the gospel +to the Africans. Why, now I'm sure, when I was a-workin' at Deacon +Stebbins', I stopped over Sunday once 'cause Miss Stebbins she was +weakly,--'twas when she was getting up, after Samuel was born,--no, on +the whole, I believe it was Nehemiah,--but, any way, I remember I staid +there, and I remember, as plain as if 'twas yesterday, just after +breakfast, how a man went driving by in a chaise, and the Deacon he went +out and stopped him ('cause you know he was justice of the peace) for +travelling on the Lord's day, and who should it be but Tom Seaforth?--he +told the Deacon his father had got a ship-load of negroes just come +in,--and the Deacon he just let him go; 'cause I remember he said that +was a plain work of necessity and mercy.[A] Well, now who would 'a' +thought it? I believe the Doctor is better than most folks, but then the +best people may be mistaken, you know." + +[Footnote A: A fact.] + +"The Doctor has made up his mind that it's his duty," said Mrs. Scudder. +"I'm afraid it will make him very unpopular; but I, for one, shall stand +by him." + +"Oh, certainly, Miss Scudder, you are doing just right exactly. Well, +there's one comfort, he'll have a great crowd to hear him preach; +'cause, as I was going round through the entries last night, I heard 'em +talking about it,--and Colonel Burr said he should be there, and so did +the General, and so did Mr. What's-his-name there, that Senator from +Philadelphia. I tell you, you'll have a full house." + +It was to be confessed that Mrs. Scudder's heart rather sunk than +otherwise at this announcement; and those who have felt what it is to +stand almost alone in the right, in the face of all the first families +of their acquaintance, may perhaps find some compassion for her,--since, +after all, truth is invisible, but "first families" are very evident. +First families are often very agreeable, undeniably respectable, +fearfully virtuous, and it takes great faith to resist an evil principle +which incarnates itself in the suavities of their breeding and +amiability; and therefore it was that Mrs. Scudder felt her heart heavy +within her, and could with a very good grace have joined in the Doctor's +Saturday fast. + +As for the Doctor, he sat the while tranquil in his study, with his +great Bible and his Concordance open before him, culling, with that +patient assiduity for which he was remarkable, all the terrible texts +which that very unceremonious and old-fashioned book rains down so +unsparingly on the sin of oppressing the weak. + +First families, whether in Newport or elsewhere, were as invisible to +him as they were to Moses during the forty days that he spent with God +on the mount; he was merely thinking of his message,--thinking only how +he should shape it, so as not to leave one word of it unsaid,--not even +imagining in the least what the result of it was to be. He was but a +voice, but an instrument,--the passive instrument through which an +almighty will was to reveal itself; and the sublime fatalism of his +faith made him as dead to all human considerations as if he had been a +portion of the immutable laws of Nature herself. + +So, the next morning, although all his friends trembled for him when he +rose in the pulpit, he never thought of trembling for himself; he had +come in the covered way of silence from the secret place of the Most +High, and felt himself still abiding under the shadow of the Almighty. +It was alike to him, whether the house was full or empty,--whoever were +decreed to hear the message would be there; whether they would hear or +forbear was already settled in the counsels of a mightier will than +his,--he had the simple duty of utterance. + +The ruinous old meeting-house was never so radiant with station and +gentility as on that morning. A June sun shone brightly; the sea +sparkled with a thousand little eyes; the birds sang all along the +way; and all the notables turned out to hear the Doctor. Mrs. Scudder +received into her pew, with dignified politeness, Colonel Burr and +Colonel and Madame de Frontignac. General Wilcox and his portly dame, +Major Seaforth, and we know not what of Vernons and De Wolfs, and other +grand old names, were represented there; stiff silks rustled, Chinese +fans fluttered, and the last court fashions stood revealed in bonnets. + +Everybody was looking fresh and amiable,--a charming and respectable set +of sinners, come to hear what the Doctor would find to tell them about +their transgressions. + +Mrs. Scudder was calculating consequences; and, shutting her eyes on the +too evident world about her, prayed that the Lord would overrule all for +good. The Doctor prayed that he might have grace to speak the truth, +and the whole truth. We have yet on record, in his published works, the +great argument of that day, through which he moved with that calm appeal +to the reason which made his results always so weighty. + +"If these things be true," he said, after a condensed statement of the +facts of the case, "then the following terrible consequences, which may +well make all shudder and tremble who realize them, force themselves +upon us, namely: that all who have had any hand in this iniquitous +business, whether directly or indirectly, or have used their influence +to promote it, or have consented to it, or even connived at it, or have +not opposed it by all proper exertions of which they are capable,--all +these are, in a greater or less degree, chargeable with the injuries and +miseries which millions have suffered and are suffering, and are guilty +of the blood of millions who have lost their lives by this traffic in +the human species. Not only the merchants who have been engaged in this +trade, and the captains who have been tempted by the love of money to +engage in this cruel work, and the slave-holders of every description, +are guilty of shedding rivers of blood, but all the legislatures who +have authorized, encouraged, or even neglected to suppress it to the +utmost of their power, and all the individuals in private stations who +have in any way aided in this business, consented to it, or have not +opposed it to the utmost of their ability, have a share in this guilt. + +"This trade in the human species has been the first wheel of commerce in +Newport, on which every other movement in business has chiefly depended; +this town has been built up, and flourished in times past, at the +expense of the blood, the liberty, and the happiness of the poor +Africans; and the inhabitants have lived on this, and by it have gotten +most of their wealth and riches. If a bitter woe is pronounced on him +'that buildeth his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by wrong,' +Jer. xxii. 13,--to him 'that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth +a city by iniquity,' Hab. ii. 12,--to 'the bloody city,' Ezek. xxiv. +6,--what a heavy, dreadful woe hangs over the heads of all those +whose hands are defiled by the blood of the Africans, especially the +inhabitants of this State and this town, who have had a distinguished +share in this unrighteous and bloody commerce!" + +He went over the recent history of the country, expatiated on the +national declaration so lately made, that all men are born equally free +and independent and have natural and inalienable rights to liberty, and +asked with what face a nation declaring such things could continue to +hold thousands of their fellowmen in abject slavery. He pointed out +signs of national disaster which foreboded the wrath of Heaven,--the +increase of public and private debts, the spirit of murmuring and +jealousy of rulers among the people, divisions and contentions and +bitter party alienations, the jealous irritation of England constantly +endeavoring to hamper our trade, the Indians making war on the +frontiers, the Algerines taking captive our ships and making slaves +of our citizens,--all evident tokens of the displeasure and impending +judgment of an offended Justice. + +The sermon rolled over the heads of the gay audience, deep and dark as a +thunder-cloud, which in a few moments changes a summer sky into heaviest +gloom. Gradually an expression of intense interest and deep concern +spread over the listeners; it was the magnetism of a strong mind, which +held them for a time under the shadow of his own awful sense of God's +almighty justice. + +It is said that a little child once described his appearance in the +pulpit by saying, "I saw God there, and I was afraid." + +Something of the same effect was produced on his audience now; and it +was not till after sermon, prayer, and benediction were all over, that +the respectables of Newport began gradually to unstiffen themselves +from the spell, and to look into each other's eyes for comfort, and to +reassure themselves that after all they were the first families, and +going on the way the world had always gone, and that the Doctor, of +course, was a radical and a fanatic. + +When the audience streamed out, crowding the broad aisle, Mary descended +from the singers, and stood with her psalm-book in hand, waiting at the +door to be joined by her mother and the Doctor. She overheard many +hard words from people who, an evening or two before, had smiled so +graciously upon them. It was therefore with no little determination of +manner that she advanced and took the Doctor's arm, as if anxious to +associate herself with his well-earned unpopularity,--and just at +this moment she caught the eye and smile of Colonel Burr, as he bowed +gracefully, yet not without a suggestion of something sarcastic in his +eye. + +[To be continued.] + + + + +THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. + +WHAT HE SAID, WHAT HE HEARD, AND WHAT HE SAW. + + +You don't look so dreadful poor in the face as you did a while back. +Bloated some, I expect. + +This was the cheerful and encouraging remark with which the Poor +Relation greeted the divinity-student one morning. + +Of course every good man considers it a great sacrifice on his part to +continue living in this transitory, unsatisfactory, and particularly +unpleasant world. This is so much a matter of course, that I was +surprised to see the divinity-student change color. He took a look at a +small and uncertain-minded glass which hung slanting forward over the +chapped sideboard. The image it returned to him had the color of a very +young pea somewhat over-boiled. The scenery of a long tragic drama +flashed through his mind as the lightning-express-train _whishes_ by a +station: the gradual dismantling process of disease; friends looking on, +sympathetic, but secretly chuckling over their own stomachs of iron and +lungs of caoutchouc; nurses attentive, but calculating their crop, and +thinking how soon it will be ripe, so that they can go to your neighbor, +who is good for a year or so longer; doctors assiduous, but giving +themselves a mental shake, as they go out of your door, that throws +off your particular grief as a duck sheds a rain-drop from his oily +feathers; undertakers solemn, but happy; then the great subsoil +cultivator, who plants, but never looks for fruit in his garden; then +the stone-cutter, who finds the lie that has been waiting for you on a +slab ever since the birds or beasts made their tracks on the new red +sandstone; then the grass and the dandelions and the buttercups,--Earth +saying to the mortal body, with her sweet symbolism, "You have scarred +my bosom, but you are forgiven"; then a glimpse of the soul as a +floating consciousness without very definite form or place, but dimly +conceived of as an upright column of vapor or mist several times larger +than life-size, so far as it could be said to have any size at all, +wandering about and living a thin and half-awake life for want of good +old-fashioned solid _matter_ to come down upon with foot and fist,--in +fact, having neither foot nor fist, nor conveniences for taking the +sitting posture. + +And yet the divinity-student was a good Christian, and those heathen +images which remind one of the childlike fancies of the dying Adrian +were only the efforts of his imagination to give shape to the formless +and position to the placeless. Neither did his thoughts spread +themselves out and link themselves as I have displayed them. They came +confusedly into his mind like a heap of broken mosaics,--sometimes a +part of the picture complete in itself, sometimes connected fragments, +and sometimes only single severed stones. + +They did not diffuse a light of celestial joy over his countenance. On +the contrary, the Poor Relation's remark turned him pale, as I have +said; and when the terrible wrinkled and jaundiced looking-glass turned +him green in addition, and he saw himself in it, it seemed to him as +if it were all settled, and his book of life were to be shut not yet +half-read, and go back to the dust of the under-ground archives. He +coughed a mild short cough, as if to point the direction in which his +downward path was tending. It was an honest little cough enough, so far +as appearances went. But coughs are ungrateful things. You find one out +in the cold, take it up and nurse it and make everything of it, dress it +up warm, give it all sorts of balsams and other food it likes, and carry +it round in your bosom as if it were a miniature lapdog. And by-and-by +its little bark grows sharp and savage, and--confound the thing!--you +find it is a wolf's whelp that you have got there, and he is gnawing in +the breast where he has been nestling so long.--The Poor Relation said +that somebody's surrup was good for folks that were gettin' into a +bad way. The landlady had heard of desperate cases cured by +cherry-pictorial. + +Whiskey's the fellah,--said the young man John.--Make it into punch, +cold at dinner-time 'n' hot at bed-time. I'll come up 'n' show you how +to mix it. Haven't any of you seen the wonderful fat man exhibitin' down +in Hanover Street? + +Master Benjamin Franklin rushed into the dialogue with a breezy +exclamation, that he had seen a great picter outside of the place where +the fat man was exhibitin'. Tried to get in at half-price, but the man +at the door looked at his teeth and said he was more'n ten year old. + +It isn't two years,--said the young man John,--since that fat fellah +was exhibitin' here as the Livin' Skeleton. Whiskey--that's what did +it,--real Burbon's the stuff. Hot water, sugar, 'n' jest a little +shavin' of lemon-skin in it,--_skin_, mind you, none o' your juice; take +it off thin,--shape of one of them flat curls the factory-girls wear on +the sides of their foreheads. + +But I am a teetotaller,--said the divinity-student, in a subdued +tone;--not noticing the enormous length of the bow-string the young +fellow had just drawn. + +He took up his hat and went out. + +I think you have worried that young man more than you meant,--I said.--I +don't believe he will jump off of one of the bridges, for he has too +much principle; but I mean to follow him and see where he goes, for he +looks as if his mind were made up to something. + +I followed him at a reasonable distance. He walked doggedly along, +looking neither to the right nor the left, turned into State Street, and +made for a well-known Life-Insurance Office. Luckily, the doctor was +there and overhauled him on the spot. There was nothing the matter with +him, he said, and he could have his life insured as a sound one. He came +out in good spirits, and told me this soon after. + +This led me to make some remarks the next morning on the manners of +well-bred and ill-bred people. + +I began,--The whole essence of true gentle-breeding (one does not +like to say gentility) lies in the wish and the art to be agreeable. +Good-breeding is _surface-Christianity_. Every look, movement, tone, +expression, subject of discourse, that may give pain to another is +habitually excluded from conversational intercourse. This is the reason +why rich people are apt to be so much more agreeable than others. + +--I thought you were a great champion of equality,--said the discreet +and severe lady who had accompanied our young friend, the Latin Tutor's +daughter. + +I go politically for _e_quality,--I said,--and socially for _the_ +quality. + +Who are the "quality,"--said the Model, etc.,--in a community like ours? + +I confess I find this question a little difficult to answer,--I +said.--Nothing is better known than the distinction of social ranks +which exists in every community, and nothing is harder to define. The +great gentlemen and ladies of a place are its real lords and masters and +mistresses; they are the _quality_, whether in a monarchy or a republic; +mayors and governors and generals and senators and ex-presidents are +nothing to them. How well we know this, and how seldom it finds a +distinct expression! Now I tell you truly, I believe in man as man, and +I disbelieve in all distinctions except such as follow the natural lines +of cleavage in a society which has crystallized according to its own +true laws. But the essence of equality is to be able to say the truth; +and there is nothing more curious than these truths relating to the +stratification of society. + +Of all the facts in this world that do not take hold of immortality, +there is not one so intensely real, permanent, and engrossing as this of +social position,--as you see by the circumstance that the core of all +the great social orders the world has seen has been, and is still, for +the most part, a privileged class of gentlemen and ladies arranged in a +regular scale of precedence among themselves, but superior as a body to +all else. + +Nothing but an ideal Christian equality, which we have been getting +farther away from since the days of the Primitive Church, can +prevent this subdivision of society into classes from taking place +everywhere,--in the great centres of our republic as much as in +old European monarchies. Only there position is more absolutely +hereditary,--here it is more completely elective. + +--Where is the election held? and what are the qualifications? and who +are the electors?--said the Model. + +Nobody ever sees when the vote is taken; there never is a formal vote. +The women settle it mostly; and they know wonderfully well what is +presentable, and what can't stand the blaze of the chandeliers and the +critical eye and ear of people trained to know a staring shade in a +ribbon, a false light in a jewel, an ill-bred tone, an angular movement, +everything that betrays a coarse fibre and cheap training. As a general +thing, you do not get elegance short of two or three removes from the +soil, out of which our best blood doubtless comes,--quite as good, no +doubt, as if it came from those old prize-fighters with iron pots on +their heads, to whom some great people are so fond of tracing their +descent through a line of small artisans and petty shopkeepers whose +veins have held base fluid enough to fill the Cloaca Maxima! + +Does not money go everywhere?--said the Model. + +Almost. And with good reason. For though there are numerous exceptions, +rich people are, as I said, commonly altogether the most agreeable +companions. The influence of a fine house, graceful furniture, good +libraries, well-ordered tables, trim servants, and, above all, a +position so secure that one becomes unconscious of it, gives a harmony +and refinement to the character and manners which we feel, even if +we cannot explain their charm. Yet we can get at the reason of it by +thinking a little. + +All these appliances are to shield the sensibility from disagreeable +contacts, and to soothe it by varied natural and artificial influences. +In this way the mind, the taste, the feelings, grow delicate, just as +the hands grow white and soft when saved from toil and incased in soft +gloves. The whole nature becomes subdued into suavity. I confess I like +the quality-ladies better than the common kind even of literary ones. +They haven't read the last book, perhaps, but they attend better to you +when you are talking to them. If they are never learned, they make up +for it in tact and elegance. Besides, I think, on the whole, there is +less self-assertion in diamonds than in dogmas. I don't know where +you will find a sweeter portrait of humility than in Esther, the poor +play-girl of King Ahasuerus; yet Esther put on her royal apparel when +she went before her lord. I have no doubt she was a more gracious and +agreeable person than Deborah, who judged the people and wrote the story +of Sisera. The wisest woman you talk with is ignorant of something that +you know, but an elegant woman never forgets her elegance. + +Dowdyism is clearly an expression of imperfect vitality. The highest +fashion is intensely alive,--not alive necessarily to the truest and +best things, but with its blood tingling, as it were, in all its +extremities and to the farthest point of its surface, so that the +feather in its bonnet is as fresh as the crest of a fighting-cock, and +the rosette on its slipper as clean-cut and _pimpant_ (pronounce it +English fashion,--it is a good word) as a dahlia. As a general rule, +that society where flattery is acted is much more agreeable than that +where it is spoken. Don't you see why? Attention and deference don't +require you to make fine speeches expressing your sense of unworthiness +(lies) and returning all the compliments paid you. This is one reason. + +--A woman of sense ought to be above flattering any man,--said the +Model. + +[_My reflection._ Oh! oh! no wonder you didn't get married. Served you +right.] _My remark._ Surely, Madam,--if you mean by flattery telling +people boldly to their faces that they are this or that, which they are +not. But a woman who does not carry a halo of good feeling and desire +to make everybody contented about with her wherever she goes,--an +atmosphere of grace, mercy, and peace, of at least six feet radius, +which wraps every human being upon whom she voluntarily bestows her +presence, and so flatters him with the comfortable thought that she +is rather glad he is alive than otherwise, isn't worth the trouble of +talking to, _as a woman_; she may do well enough to hold discussions +with. + +--I don't think the Model exactly liked this. She said,--a little +spitefully, I thought,--that a sensible man might stand a little praise, +but would of course soon get sick of it, if he were in the habit of +getting much. + +Oh, yes,--I replied,--just as men get sick of tobacco. It is notorious +how apt they are to get tired of that vegetable. + +--That's so!--said the young fellow John.--I've got tired of my cigars +and burnt 'em all up. + +I am heartily glad to hear it,--said the Model.--I wish they were all +disposed of in the same way. + +So do I,--said the young fellow John. + +Can't you get your friends to unite with you in committing those odious +instruments of debauchery to the flames in which you have consumed your +own? + +I wish I could,--said the young fellow John. + +It would be a noble sacrifice,--said the Model,--and every American +woman would be grateful to you. Let us burn them all in a heap out in +the yard. + +That a'n't my way,--said the young fellow John;--I burn 'em one 't' +time,--little end in my mouth and big end outside. + +--I watched for the effect of this sudden change of programme, when it +should reach the calm stillness of the Model's interior apprehension, +as a boy watches for the splash of a stone which he has dropped into a +well. But before it had fairly reached the water, poor Iris, who had +followed the conversation with a certain interest until it turned this +sharp corner, (for she seems rather to fancy the young fellow John,) +laughed out such a clear, loud laugh, that it started us all off, as the +locust-cry of some full-throated soprano drags a multitudinous chorus +after it. It was plain that some dam or other had broken in the soul of +this young girl, and she was squaring up old scores of laughter, out of +which she had been cheated, with a grand flood of merriment that +swept all before it. So we had a great laugh all round, in which the +Model--who, if she had as many virtues as there are spokes to a wheel, +all compacted with a personality as round and complete as its tire, yet +wanted that one little addition of grace, which seems so small, and +is as important as the linchpin in trundling over the rough ways of +life--had not the tact to join. She seemed to be "stuffy" about it, as +the young fellow John said. In fact, I was afraid the joke would have +cost us both our new lady-boarders. It had no effect, however, except, +perhaps, to hasten the departure of the elder of the two, who could, on +the whole, be spared. + +--I had meant to make this note of our conversation a text for a few +axioms on the matter of breeding. But it so happened, that, exactly at +this point of my record, a very distinguished philosopher, whom several +of our boarders and myself go to hear, and whom no doubt many of my +readers follow habitually, treated this matter of _manners_. Up to this +point, if I have been so fortunate as to coincide with him in opinion, +and so unfortunate as to try to express what he has more felicitously +said, nobody is to blame; for what has been given thus far was all +written before the lecture was delivered. But what shall I do now? He +told us it was childish to lay down rules for deportment,--but he could +not help laying down a few. + +Thus,--_Nothing so vulgar as to be in a hurry._--True, but hard of +application. People with short legs step quickly, because legs are +pendulums, and swing more times in a minute the shorter they are. +Generally a natural rhythm runs through the whole organization: quick +pulse, fast breathing, hasty speech, rapid trains of thought, excitable +temper. _Stillness_ of person and steadiness of features are signal +marks of good-breeding. Vulgar persons can't sit still, or, at least, +they must work their limbs--or features. + +_Talking of one's own ails and grievances._--Bad enough, but not so bad +as insulting the person you talk with by remarking on his ill-looks, or +appearing to notice any of his personal peculiarities. + +_Apologizing._--A very desperate habit,--one that is rarely cured. +Apology is only egotism wrong side out. Nine times out of ten, the first +thing a man's companion knows of his shortcoming is from his apology. It +is mighty presumptuous on your part to suppose your small failures of so +much consequence that you must make a talk about them. + +Good dressing, quiet ways, low tones of voice, lips that can wait, and +eyes that do not wander,--shyness of personalities, except in certain +intimate communions,--to be _light in hand_ in conversation, to have +ideas, but to be able to make talk, if necessary, without them,--to +belong to the company you are in, and not to yourself,--to have nothing +in your dress or furniture so fine that you cannot afford to spoil it +and get another like it, yet to preserve the harmonies throughout your +person and dwelling: I should say that this was a fair capital of +manners to begin with. + +Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies very commonly an +overestimate of our special individuality, as distinguished from our +generic humanity. It is just here that the very highest society asserts +its superior breeding. Among truly elegant people of the highest _ton_, +you will find more real equality in social intercourse than in a country +village. As nuns drop their birth-names and become Sister Margaret and +Sister Mary, so high-bred people drop their personal distinctions +and become brothers and sisters of conversational charity. Nor are +fashionable people without their heroism. I believe there are men that +have shown as much self-devotion in carrying a lone wall-flower down to +the supper-table as ever saint or martyr in the act that has canonized +his name. There are Florence Nightingales of the ballroom, whom nothing +can hold back from their errands of mercy. They find out the red-handed, +gloveless undergraduate of bucolic antecedents, as he squirms in his +corner, and distil their soft words upon him like dew upon the green +herb. They reach even the poor relation, whose dreary apparition saddens +the perfumed atmosphere of the sumptuous drawing-room. I have known one +of these angels ask, _of her own accord_, that a desolate middle-aged +man, whom nobody seemed to know, should be presented to her by the +hostess. He wore no shirt-collar,--he had on black gloves,--and was +flourishing a red bandanna handkerchief! Match me this, ye proud +children of poverty, who boast of your paltry sacrifices for each other! +Virtue in humble life! What is that to the glorious self-renunciation +of a martyr in pearls and diamonds? As I saw this noble woman bending +gracefully before the social mendicant,--the white billows of her beauty +heaving under the foam of the traitorous laces that half revealed +them,--I should have wept with sympathetic emotion, but that tears, +except as a private demonstration, are an ill-disguised expression of +self-consciousness and vanity, which is inadmissible in good society. + +I have sometimes thought, with a pang, of the position in which +political chance or contrivance might hereafter place some one of +our fellow-citizens. It has happened hitherto, so far as my limited +knowledge goes, that the President of the United States has always been +what might be called in general terms a gentleman. But what if at some +future time the choice of the people should fall upon one on whom that +lofty title could not, by any stretch of charity, be bestowed? This may +happen,--how soon the future only knows. Think of this miserable man +of coming political possibilities,--an unpresentable boor, sucked into +office by one of those eddies in the flow of popular sentiment which +carry straws and chips into the public harbor, while the prostrate +trunks of the monarchs of the forest hurry down on the senseless stream +to the gulf of political oblivion! Think of him, I say, and of the +concentrated gaze of good society through its thousand eyes, all +confluent, as it were, in one great burning-glass of ice that shrivels +its wretched object in fiery torture, itself cold as the glacier of an +unsunned cavern! No,--there will be angels of good-breeding then as now, +to shield the victim of free institutions from himself and from his +torturers. I can fancy a lovely woman playfully withdrawing the knife +which he would abuse by making it an instrument for the conveyance +of food,--or, failing in this kind artifice, sacrificing herself by +imitating his use of that implement; how much harder than to plunge it +into her bosom, like Lucretia! I can see her studying his provincial +dialect until she becomes the Champollion of New England or Western or +Southern barbarisms. She has learned that _häow_ means _what_; that +_thinkin'_ is the same thing as _thinking_; or she has found out the +meaning of that extraordinary monosyllable, which no single-tongued +phonographer can make legible, prevailing on the banks of the Hudson and +at its embouchure, and elsewhere,--what they say when they think they +say _first_, (_fe-eest,--fe_ as in the French _le_),--or that _cheer_ +means _chair_,--or that _urritation_ means _irritation_,--and so of +other enormities. Nothing surprises her. The highest breeding, you know, +comes round to the Indian standard,--to take everything coolly,--_nil +admirari_,--if you happen to be learned and like the Roman phrase for +the same thing. + +If you like the company of people that stare at you from head to foot to +see if there is a hole in your coat, or if you have not grown a little +older, or if your eyes are not yellow with jaundice, or if your +complexion is not a little faded, and so on, and then convey the fact +to you, in the style in which the Poor Relation addressed the +divinity-student,--go with them as much as you like. I hate the sight +of the wretches. Don't for mercy's sake think I hate _them_; the +distinction is one my friend or I drew long ago. No matter where you +find such people; they are clowns. The rich woman who looks and talks in +this way is not half so much a lady as her Irish servant, whose pretty +"saving your presence," when she has to say something which offends +her natural sense of good manners, has a hint in it of the breeding of +courts, and the blood of old Milesian kings, which very likely runs in +her veins,--thinned by two hundred years of potato, which, being an +underground fruit, tends to drag down the generations that are made +of it to the earth from which it came, and, filling their veins with +starch, turn them into a kind of human vegetable. + +I say, if you like such people, go with them. But I am going to make a +practical application of the example at the beginning of this particular +record, which some young people who are going to choose professional +advisers by-and-by may remember and thank me for. If you are making +choice of a physician, be sure you get one, if possible, with a cheerful +and serene countenance. A physician is not--at least, ought not to +be--an executioner; and a sentence of death on his face is as bad as a +warrant for execution signed by the Governor. As a general rule, no man +has a right to tell another by word or look that he is going to die. It +may be necessary in some extreme cases; but as a rule, it is the last +extreme of impertinence which one human being can offer to another. "You +have killed me," said a patient once to a physician who had rashly told +him he was incurable. He ought to have lived six months, but he was dead +in six weeks. If we will only let Nature and the God of Nature alone, +persons will commonly learn their condition as early as they ought to +know it, and not be cheated out of their natural birthright of hope of +recovery, which is intended to accompany sick people as long as life is +comfortable, and is graciously replaced by the hope of heaven, or at +least of rest, when life has become a burden which the bearer is ready +to let fall. + +Underbred people tease their sick and dying friends to death. The chance +of a gentleman or lady with a given mortal ailment to live a certain +time is as good again as that of the common sort of coarse people. As +you go down the social scale, you reach a point at length where the +common talk in sick rooms is of churchyards and sepulchres, and a kind +of perpetual vivisection is forever carried on, upon the person of the +miserable sufferer. + +And so, in choosing your clergyman, other things being equal, prefer the +one of a wholesome and cheerful habit of mind and body. If you can get +along with people who carry a certificate in their faces that their +goodness is so great as to make them very miserable, your children +cannot. And whatever offends one of these little ones cannot be right in +the eyes of Him who loved them so well. + +After all, as _you_ are a gentleman or a lady, you will probably select +gentlemen for your bodily and spiritual advisers, and then all will be +right. + +This repetition of the above words,--_gentleman and lady_,--which could +not be conveniently avoided, reminds me how much use is made of them by +those who ought to know what they mean. Thus, at a marriage ceremony, +once, of two very excellent persons who had been at service, instead +of, Do you take this man, etc.? and, Do you take this woman? how do you +think the officiating clergyman put the questions? It was, Do you, MISS +So and So, take this GENTLEMAN? and, Do you, MR. This or That, take +this LADY?! What would any English duchess, ay, or the Queen of England +herself, have thought, if the Archbishop of Canterbury had called her +and her bridegroom anything but plain woman and man at such a time? + +I don't doubt the Poor Relation thought it was all very fine, if she +happened to have been in the church; but if the worthy man who uttered +these monstrous words--monstrous in such a connection--had known the +ludicrous surprise, the convulsion of inward disgust and contempt, that +seized upon many of the persons who were present,--had guessed what a +sudden flash of light it threw on the Dutch gilding, the pinchbeck, +the shabby, perking pretension belonging to certain social layers,--so +inherent in their whole mode of being, that the holiest offices of +religion cannot exclude its impertinences,--the good man would have +given his marriage-fee twice over to recall that superb and full-blown +vulgarism. Any persons whom it could please have no better notion of +what the words referred to signify than of the meaning of _apsides_ and +_asymptotes_. + +MAN! Sir! WOMAN! Sir! Gentility is a fine thing, not to be undervalued, +as I have been trying to explain; but humanity comes before that. + + "When Adam delved and Eve span, + Where was then the gentleman?" + +The beauty of that plainness of speech and manners which comes from the +finest training is not to be understood by those whose _habitat_ is +below a certain level. Just as the exquisite sea-anemones and all the +graceful ocean-flowers die out at some fathoms below the surface, the +elegances and suavities of life die out one by one as we sink through +the social scale. Fortunately, the virtues are more tenacious of life, +and last pretty well until we get down to the mud of absolute pauperism, +where they do not flourish greatly. + +--I had almost forgotten about our boarders. As the Model of all the +Virtues is about to leave us, I find myself wondering what is the reason +we are not all very sorry. Surely we all like good persons. She is a +good person. Therefore we like her.--Only we don't. + +This brief syllogism, and its briefer negative, involving the principle +which some English conveyancer borrowed from a French wit and embodied +in the lines by which _Dr. Fell_ is made unamiably immortal,--this +syllogism, I say, is one that most persons have had occasion to +construct and demolish, respecting somebody or other, as I have done for +the Model. "Pious and painefull." Why has that excellent old phrase gone +out of use? Simply because these good _painefull_ or painstaking persons +proved to be such nuisances in the long run, that the word "painefull" +came, before people thought of it, to mean _paingiving_ instead of +_painstaking_. + +--So, the old fellah's off to-morrah,--said the young man John. + +Old fellow?--said I,--whom do you mean? + +Why, the chap that came with our little beauty,--the old boy in +petticoats. + +--Now that means something,--said I to myself.--These rough young +rascals very often hit the nail on the head, if they do strike with +their eyes shut. A real woman does a great many things without knowing +why she does them; but these pattern machines mix up their intellects +with everything they do, just like men. They can't help it, no doubt; +but we can't help getting sick of them, either. Intellect is to a +woman's nature what her watch-spring skirt is to her dress; it ought +to underlie her silks and embroideries, but not to show itself too +staringly on the outside.--You don't know, perhaps, but I will tell +you;--the brain is the palest of all the internal organs, and the heart +the reddest. Whatever comes from the brain carries the hue of the place +it came from, and whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and +color of its birthplace. + +The young man John did not hear my _soliloque_, of course, but sent +up one more bubble from our sinking conversation, in the form of a +statement, that she was at liberty to go to a personage who receives no +visits, as is commonly supposed, from virtuous people. + +Why, I ask again, (of my reader,) should a person who never did anybody +any wrong, but, on the contrary, is an estimable and intelligent, nay, +a particularly enlightened and exemplary member of society, fail to +inspire interest, love, and devotion? Because of the _reversed current_ +in the flow of thought and emotion. The red heart sends all its +instincts up to the white brain to be analyzed, chilled, blanched, and +so become pure reason, which is just exactly what we do not want of +woman as woman. The current should run the other way. The nice, calm, +cold thought, which in women shapes itself so rapidly that they hardly +know it as thought, should always travel to the lips _viâ_ the heart. It +does so in those women whom all love and admire. It travels the wrong +way in the Model. That is the reason why the Little Gentleman said, "I +hate her, I hate her." That is the reason why the young man John called +her the "old fellah," and banished her to the company of the great +Unpresentable. That is the reason why I, the Professor, am picking her +to pieces with scalpel and forceps. That is the reason why the young +girl whom she has befriended repays her kindness with gratitude and +respect, rather than with the devotion and passionate fondness which lie +sleeping beneath the calmness of her amber eyes. I can see her, as she +sits between this estimable and most correct of personages and the +misshapen, crotchety, often violent and explosive little man on the +other side of her, leaning and swaying towards him as she speaks, and +looking into his sad eyes as if she found some fountain in them at which +her soul could quiet its thirst. + +Women like the Model are a natural product of a chilly climate and high +culture. It is not + + "The frolic wind that breathes the spring, + Zephyr with Aurora playing," + +when the two meet + + ----"on beds of violets blue, + And fresh-blown roses washed in dew," + +that claim such women as their offspring. It is rather the east wind, as +it blows out of the fogs of Newfoundland, and clasps a clear-eyed wintry +noon on the chill bridal couch of a New England ice-quarry.--Don't throw +up your cap now, and hurrah as if this were giving up everything, and +turning against the best growth of our latitudes,--the daughters of the +soil. The brain-women never interest us like the heart-women; white +roses please less than red. But our Northern seasons have a narrow green +streak of spring, as well as a broad white zone of winter,--they have +a glowing band of summer and a golden stripe of autumn in their +many-colored wardrobe; and women are born to us that wear all these hues +of earth and heaven in their souls. Our ice-eyed brain-women are really +admirable, if we only ask of them just what they can give, and no more. +Only compare them, talking or writing, with one of those babbling, +chattering dolls, of warmer latitudes, who do not know enough even to +keep out of print, and who are interesting to us only as specimens of +_arrest of development_ for our psychological cabinets. + +Good-bye, Model of all the Virtues! We can spare you now. A little clear +perfection, undiluted with human weakness, goes a great way. Go! be +useful, be honorable and honored, be just, be charitable, talk pure +reason, and help to disenchant the world by the light of an achromatic +understanding. Good-bye! Where is my Béranger? I must read "Frétillon." + +Fair play for all. But don't claim incompatible qualities for anybody. +Justice is a very rare virtue in our community. Everything that public +sentiment cares about is put into a Papin's digester, and boiled under +high pressure till all is turned into one homogeneous pulp, and the very +bones give up their jelly. What are all the strongest epithets of our +dictionary to us now? The critics and politicians, and especially +the philanthropists, have chewed them, till they are mere wads of +syllable-fibre, without a suggestion of their old pungency and power. + +Justice! A good man respects the rights even of brute matter and +arbitrary symbols. If he writes the same word twice in succession, by +accident, he always erases the one that stands _second_; has not the +first-comer the prior right? This act of abstract justice, which I trust +many of my readers, like myself, have often performed, is a curious +anti-illustration, by the way, of the absolute wickedness of human +dispositions. Why doesn't a man always strike out the _first_ of the two +words, to gratify his diabolical love of _in_justice? + +So, I say, we owe a genuine, substantial tribute of respect to these +filtered intellects which have left their womanhood on the strainer. +They are so clear that it is a pleasure at times to look at the world of +thought through them. But the rose and purple tints of richer natures +they cannot give us, and it is not just to them to ask it. + +Fashionable society gets at these rich natures very often in a way one +would hardly at first think of. It loves vitality above all things, +sometimes disguised by affected languor, always well kept under by the +laws of good-breeding,--but still it loves abundant life, opulent and +showy organizations,--the spherical rather than the plane trigonometry +of female architecture,--plenty of red blood, flashing eyes, tropical +voices, and forms that bear the splendors of dress without growing pale +beneath their lustre. Among these you will find the most delicious women +you will ever meet,--women whom dress and flattery and the round of city +gayeties cannot spoil,--talking with whom, you forget their diamonds +and laces,--and around whom all the nice details of elegance, which +the cold-blooded beauty next them is scanning so nicely, blend in one +harmonious whole, too perfect to be disturbed by the petulant sparkle of +a jewel, or the yellow glare of a bangle, or the gay toss of a feather. + +There are many things that I, personally, love better than fashion or +wealth. Not to speak of those highest objects of our love and loyalty, +I think I love ease and independence better than the golden slavery of +perpetual _matinées_ and _soirées_, or the pleasures of accumulation. + +But fashion and wealth are two very solemn realities, which the +frivolous class of moralists have talked a great deal of silly stuff +about. Fashion is only the attempt to realize Art in living forms and +social intercourse. What business has a man who knows nothing about the +beautiful, and cannot pronounce the word _view_, to talk about fashion +to a set of people who, if one of the quality left a card at their +doors, would contrive to keep it on the very top of their heap of the +names of their two-story acquaintances, till it was as yellow as the +Codex Vaticanus? + +Wealth, too,--what an endless repetition of the same foolish +trivialities about it! Take the single fact of its alleged uncertain +tenure and transitory character. In old times, when men were all the +time fighting and robbing each other,--in those tropical countries where +the Sabeans and the Chaldeans stole all a man's cattle and camels, and +there were frightful tornadoes and rains of fire from heaven, it was +true enough that riches took wings to themselves not unfrequently in a +very unexpected way. But, with common prudence in investments, it is not +so now. In fact, there is nothing earthly that lasts so well, on the +whole, as money. A man's learning dies with him; even his virtues fade +out of remembrance; but the dividends on the stocks he bequeathes to his +children live and keep his memory green. + +I do not think there is much courage or originality in giving utterance +to truths that everybody knows, but which get overlaid by conventional +trumpery. The only distinction which it is necessary to point out to +feeble-minded folk is this: that, in asserting the breadth and depth of +that significance which gives to fashion and fortune their tremendous +power, we do not indorse the extravagances which often disgrace the one, +nor the meanness which often degrades the other. + +A remark which seems to contradict a universally current opinion is not +generally to be taken "neat," but watered with the ideas of common-sense +and commonplace people. So, if any of my young friends should be tempted +to waste their substance on white kids and "all-rounds," or to insist +on becoming millionnaires at once, by anything I have said, I will give +them references to some of the class referred to, well known to the +public as literary diluents, who will weaken any truth so that there is +not an old woman in the land who cannot take it with perfect impunity. + +I am afraid some of the blessed saints in diamonds will think I mean to +flatter them. I hope not;--if I do, set it down as a weakness. But there +is so much foolish talk about wealth and fashion, (which, of course, +draw a good many heartless and essentially vulgar people into the glare +of their candelabra, but which have a real respectability and meaning, +if we will only look at them stereoscopically, with both eyes instead of +one,) that I thought it a duty to speak a few words for them. Why can't +somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, +and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks? + +Lest my parish should suppose we have forgotten graver matters in these +lesser topics, I beg them to drop these trifles and read the following +lesson for the day. + + + + +THE TWO STREAMS. + + + Behold the rocky wall + That down its sloping sides + Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, + In rushing river-tides! + + Yon stream, whose sources run + Turned by a pebble's edge, + Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun + Through the cleft mountain-ledge. + + The slender rill had strayed, + But for the slanting stone, + To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid + Of foam-flecked Oregon. + + So from the heights of Will + Life's parting stream descends, + And, as a moment turns its slender rill, + Each widening torrent bends,-- + + From the same cradle's side, + From the same mother's knee,-- + One to long darkness and the frozen tide, + One to the Peaceful Sea! + + * * * * * + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Sixty Years' Gleanings from Life's Harvest._ A Genuine Autobiography. +By JOHN BROWN, Proprietor of the University Billiard-Rooms, Cambridge. +New York: Appleton & Company. 1859. + +We are all familiar with that John Brown whom the minstrel has +immortalized as being the possessor of a diminutive youth of the +aboriginal American race, who, in the course of the ditty, is multiplied +from "one little Injun" into "ten little Injuns," and who, in a +succeeding stanza, by an ingenious amphisbaenic process, is again +reduced to the singular number. As far as we are aware, the author of +this "genuine autobiography" claims no relationship with the famous +owner of tender redskins. The multiplicity of adventures of which he +has been the hero demands for him, however, the same notice that a +multiplicity of "Injuns" has insured to his illustrious namesake. + +We have always had a pet theory, that a plain and minute narrative +of any ordinary man's life, stated with simplicity and without any +reference to dramatic effect or the elegances of composition, would +possess an immediate interest for the public. We cannot know too much +about men. No man's life is so uneventful as to be incapable of amusing +and instructing. The same event is never the same to more than one +person; no two see it from the same point of view. And as we want to +know more of men than of incidents, every one's record of trifles +is useful. A book written by a Cornish miner, whose life passes in +subterranean monotony, sparing none of the petty and ever-recurring +details that make up his routined existence, would, if set down in the +baldest language, be a valuable contribution to literature. But we +rarely, if ever, find a man sufficiently free from vanity and the demon +of composition to tell us plainly what has happened to him. The moment +the working-man gets a pen into his hand, he is, as it were, possessed. +He is no longer himself. He has not the courage to come out naked +and show himself in all his grime and strength. The instant that he +conceives the idea of putting himself on paper he borrows somebody +else's clothes, and, instead of a free, manly figure, we have a wretched +scarecrow in a coat too small or too large for him,--generally the +latter. For it is a curious fact, that the more uneducated a man +is,--in which condition his ordinary language must of necessity be +proportionately idiomatic,--the greater pains he takes, when he has +formed the resolution of composing, to be splendid and expansive in his +style. He racks his brains until he rummages out imperfect memories of +the turgid paragraphs of cheap newspapers and novels which he has +some time or other read, and forthwith struts off with all the finest +feathers in the dictionary rustling about him. + +Mr. John Brown, the hero of the Autobiography before us, is no exception +to this unhappy rule. The son of a butcher, he became in boyhood a +sheep-driver, was then apprenticed to a shoemaker, got into trouble and +a prison, enlisted as a soldier, deserted, turned strolling player, +shipped on board a man-of-war, tried again to desert, was flogged at the +gratings, beheld Napoleon on board the Bellerophon, was discharged from +the navy, consorted with thieves and prize-fighters, appeared on the +London stage with success, married and starved, became the pet of the +Cambridge students, whom he assisted in amateur theatricals, started a +stage-coach line to London and failed, set up a billiard-room, got into +innumerable street-fights and always came off conqueror, was elected +town-councillor of Cambridge and made a fortune, which it is to be hoped +he is now enjoying. + +Here was material for a book. From the glimpses of his _personnel_ which +we occasionally catch through all Mr. Brown's splendid writing, we +should say that he was a man of a strong, hearty nature, full of +indomitable energy, and possessed with a truly Saxon predilection for +the use of his fists. The number of physical contests in which he was +chief actor renders his volume almost epical in character. Invulnerable +as Achilles and quarrelsome as Hector, he strides over the bodies of +innumerable foes. If some of his friends, the Seniors, at Cambridge, +would only put his adventures into Greek verse, he might descend to +posterity in sounding hexameters with the sons of Telamon and Thetis. + +The plain narrative portions of Mr. Brown's volume possess much real +interest. His adventures with the strolling players, the insight he +gives us into the life of a journeyman shoemaker, and his reminiscences +of his friends, the Jew old-clothes-men, the pick-pockets, and the +prize-fighters, are so many steaks cut warm from the living world, and +are good, substantial food for thought. But he seldom forgets himself +long, and is natural only by fits and starts. After he has been striding +along for a short time with a free, manly gait, he suddenly bethinks +himself that he is writing a book. The malign influences of Cambridge +University begin to work upon him. The loose stride is contracted; the +swing of the vigorous shoulders is restrained, and, instead of an honest +fellow tramping sturdily after his own fashion through the paths of +literature, we are treated to an imitation of Dr. Johnson, done by an +illiterate butcher's son. We are afraid that the Cantabs have been at +the bottom of John Brown's fine writing. How valuable, for instance, are +the following philosophical reflections upon Napoleon, which John Brown +makes when he beholds the dethroned Emperor standing sadly upon the poop +of the Bellerophon! + +"Here, then," remarks John, "had ended his dream of universal conquest; +here he lay prostrate at the foot of the altar," (we are informed a few +lines before this that he had taken his stand on the poop,) "on which he +sacrificed, not hecatombs, but pyramids, of human victims." (Beautiful +antithesis!) "As his ambition was boundless, posterity will not weep at +his fall. But that he insinuated himself into the hearts of a generous +people is too true; they worshipped him as a demi-god, until," etc. +Farther on, we learn the startling intelligence, that "for a time his +adopted country was enriched by the spoils and plunder of other lands." +(Did Alison know this?) "He formed the bulk of the population into an +organized banditti, and led them forth in martial pomp to do the unholy +work of bloodshed and robbery.... All the independent states of Europe +leagued together to put down this infamous system of national plunder." +(Russia among the rest of the independent states, we suppose.)... "Had +he been desirous of establishing just principles on earth, and crushing +despotism, the sympathies of the entire human race would have been +enlisted on his side." Certainly, John. Two and two make four, and +things that are equal to the same are equal to each other. + +After having in a street-fight pommelled an unhappy Cambridge student +into jelly, and reduced him to a state which he picturesquely describes +as resembling that of "a dog in a coal-box," he picks him up and +philosophically informs him that "all the different styles of fence were +invented and established for man's protection, not for his destruction. +Besides," he adds, with much profundity, "the laws thereto appertaining +are based on certain strict principles of honor, which you have +unquestionably violated in this case. Now, take my advice, never again +engage in fight without having some just cause of quarrel. Thus, at +least, you will always come off with credit, if not with victory." And +having delivered himself of this stupendous moral lesson, Dr. Samuel +Johnson Mendoza John Brown puts on his hat (he surely ought to have +had a full-bottomed wig under it) and walks off, leaving his opponent +doubtless more like a dog in a coal-box than ever. He sees Dr. +Abernethy, and rises into this inspired strain: "To me, who have ever +held genius and talent in veneration, as being + + "'Olympus-high above all earthly things,' + +the sight of this plain, unostentatious man afforded more pleasurable +feelings than could all the gilded pomp beneath the sun." One can fancy, +if John had communicated this reflection to the Doctor, what would have +been the reply of that suave practitioner. He goes to low dance-houses, +and the interesting result of his reflections on what he beheld there +is, "that vice, however gilded over, is still a hideous monster; in +which conviction, I resigned myself to that power that 'must delight in +virtue.'" When he speaks of his billiard-pupils, he loftily denominates +them "hundreds of the best gentlemen-players scattered over the earth's +surface," from which we draw the pleasing inference that none of John +Brown's scholars are addicted to subterranean billiards. + +In spite of these rags of old college-gowns, in which John so funnily +arrays himself on occasions, his book is worth reading. If it has not +the muscular, unaffected morality of his namesake's unsurpassable +"School-Days at Rugby," it is at least the production of an honest, +hearty Englishman, and teaches an excellent lesson on the value of pluck +and perseverance. + + +_Colton's Illustrated Cabinet Atlas and Descriptive Geography._ Maps by +G.W. COLTON. Text by R.S. FISHER. New YORK: J.H. Colton & Co. 4to. pp. +400. + +This work meets an acknowledged want; it combines in one convenient +volume most of the desirable features of the larger atlases, being full +enough in detail for all ordinary purposes, without being cumbersome and +costly. It is prefaced by a clear and well-digested statement of the +laws of Physical Geography, "based," as the publishers say, "upon the +excellent treatise on the same subject found in the Atlas of Milner and +Petermann, recently published in London." The maps are one hundred and +sixteen in number, admirably engraved, and, what especially enhances +their value, they are draughted on easily-convertible scales,--one inch +always representing ten, twenty-five, fifty, one hundred, or other +number of miles readily comparable. They include the results of the +latest explorations of travellers, and the newest settlements made by +the English and Americans. + +The descriptions are full and accurate, and the statistics of +population, trade, public and private institutions, etc., are convenient +for reference. This department is illustrated by over six hundred +wood-cuts. + +This Atlas may, therefore, fairly claim rank as a Cyclopaedia of +Geography, and for the household and school it is one of the most useful +publications of our time. The attention now everywhere excited by +proposed or impending changes in the boundary-lines of European States, +by the inroads of Western civilization in the East, by the settlement of +the Pacific Islands, and by the growth of empire on the western coast of +our own country, renders the publication of a compendious work like this +very timely. + + +_Poems._ By OWEN MEREDITH. The Wanderer and Clytemnestra. Boston: +Ticknor & Fields. 18mo. + +The author of these poems is Robert Bulwer Lytton, the son of the +eminent novelist. Though still very young, he has reached the honor of +being arrayed in Ticknor and Fields's "blue and gold," the paradisiacal +condition of contemporary poets; and his works occupy, in words, though +not in matter, as much space as Tennyson's. The volume includes all the +poems which Lytton has published up to the present time. The general +characteristics of his Muse are fluency, fancy, melody, and sensibility. +The diligent reader will detect, throughout the volume, the traces of +the author's sympathy with other poets, especially Tennyson, and, +amid all the opulence of expression and intensity of feeling, will be +sensible of the lack of decided original genius and character. There is +evidence of intellect and imagination, but they are at present tossed +somewhat wildly about in a tumult of sensations and passions, and have +not yet mastered their instruments. But the poems, as they are the +product of a young man, so they possess all the attractions which allure +young readers. It would not be surprising, if they obtained a popularity +equal to those of Alexander Smith; for they give even more musical +utterance to the loves, hopes, exultations, regrets, and despairs of +youth, and indicate the same hot blood. They are also characterized by +similar vagueness of thought and vividness of fancy, in those passages +where sensibility turns theorist and philosophizes on its gratified or +battled sensations,--while they generally evince wider culture, larger +superficial experience of life, a more controlling sense of the +beautiful, and an equal facility of self-abandonment to the passion of +the moment. + +Leaving out those poems which are repetitions or imitations, a thin +volume might be made containing some striking examples of original +perception and original experience. Among these the charming little +piece entitled "Madame La Marquise" would hold a prominent place. After +making, however, all deductions from the pretensions of the volume, it +may be said, that the father, at the same age, did not indicate so much +talent as the son. + + +_Symbols of the Capital; or Civilization in New York._ By A.D. MAYO. +12mo. + +This is a clear and forcibly written exposition of the tendencies of +American society, as surveyed from the point of view of an earnest, +practical, and dispassionate reformer. The essays on Town and Country +Life, those on Education, Art, and Religion, the Forces of Free Labor, +and the Gold Dollar, exhibit equal independence of thought and extent +of information. In the essay on the Position of Woman in America, a +difficult theme is discussed with candor and sagacity. We have rarely +seen a volume to which the conscientious adversaries of the reforms of +the day could go for a more lucid statement of the opinions they oppose; +and it is admirably calculated to effect the purpose the author had in +view, namely, "to aid the young men and women of our land in their +attempt to realize a character that shall justify our professions of +republicanism, and to establish a civilization which, in becoming +national, shall illustrate every principle of a pure Christianity." + + +_The Avenger, a Narrative; and other Papers._ By THOMAS DE QUINCEY, +Author of "Confessions of an Opium-Eater," etc. Boston: Ticknor & +Fields. 16mo. + +This is the twenty-first volume of De Quincey's miscellaneous writings, +collected by the indefatigable American editor, Mr. James T. Fields. +It contains "The Avenger," a powerful story of wrong and revenge; +"Additions to the Confessions of an Opium-Eater"; "Supplementary Note +on the Essenes," in which the theory of the original paper is supported +against objections by some new arguments; a long paper on "China," +published in 1857, and full of information in regard to that empire; and +"Traditions of the Rabbins," one of the most exquisite papers in the +list of the author's writings. + + +_The Life of George Herbert. _By GEORGE L. DUYCKINCK. New York: 1858. +pp. 197. + +We have too long neglected to do our share in bringing this delightful +little book to the notice of the lovers of holy George Herbert, +among whom we may safely reckon a large number of the readers of the +"Atlantic." It is based on the life by Izaak Walton, but contains much +new matter, either out of Walton's reach or beyond the range of his +sympathy. Notices are given of Nicholas Ferrar and other friends +of Herbert. There is a very agreeable sketch of Bemerton and its +neighborhood, as it now is, and the neat illustrations are of the kind +that really illustrate. The Brothers Duyckinck are well known for their +unpretentious and valuable labors in the cause of good letters and +American literary history, and this is precisely such a book as we +should expect from the taste, scholarship, and purity of mind which +distinguish both of them. It is much the best account of Herbert with +which we are acquainted. + + +_Lectures on Metaphysics._ By SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART., Professor of +Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. Edited by the +Rev. Henry Longueville Mansel, B.D., Oxford, and John Veitch, M.A., +Edinburgh. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 8vo. + +Few persons, with any pretensions to a knowledge of the metaphysicians +of the century, are unacquainted with Sir William Hamilton. His articles +in the "Edinburgh Review" on Cousin and Dr. Brown, and his Dissertations +on Reid, are the most important contributions to philosophy made in +Great Britain for many years. The present volume contains his Course +of Lectures, forty-six in number, which he delivered as Professor +of Metaphysics; and being intended for young students, they are, as +compared with his other works, more comprehensible without being less +comprehensive. The most conclusive proof of the excellence of these +Lectures is to be found in their influence on the successive classes of +students before whom they were pronounced. The universal testimony of +the young men who were fortunate enough to listen to Hamilton has been, +that his teaching not only inspired them with an enthusiasm for the +science, and gave them clear ideas and accurate information, but +directly aided them in the discipline of their minds. Some of his +students became, later in life, champions of his system; others became +its opponents; but opponents as well as champions warmly professed their +obligations to their instructor, and dated their interest in philosophy +from the period when they were brought by these Lectures within the +contagious sphere of his powerful intellect. So numerous were these +testimonials, that they gradually roused public curiosity to see +and read what was so effective as spoken. That curiosity has now an +opportunity of being gratified, and we do not doubt that these Lectures +will have a greater popularity than usually attends philosophical +publications. The American publishers deserve thanks for the cheap, +compact, and elegant form of their reprint. + +We have no space to present here an exposition of Hamilton's system, or +to discuss any of its leading principles. We can merely allude to some +characteristics of his mode of thinking and writing which make his +Lectures of especial value to those who propose to begin the study of +metaphysics, or whose knowledge of the science is superficial. Hamilton +has the immense advantage of being a scholar in that large sense which +implies the exercise, not merely of attention and memory, but of every +faculty of the mind, in the acquisition and arrangement of knowledge. +His erudition is great, but it is also critical and interpretative. He +knows intimately every philosophical writer from the dawn of speculation +to the last German thinker, including the somewhat neglected Schoolmen +of the Middle Ages; and in this volume, every important question that +arises is historically as well as analytically treated, and the names +are given of the thinkers on both sides. In the course of one or two +sentences, he often places the reader in a position to view a principle, +not only in itself, but in relation to the controversies which have +raged round it for two thousand years. Hamilton's erudition is +also displayed in the quotations with which his pages are +sprinkled,--fragrant sentences, which came originally from the +imagination or character of the writers he quotes, and which relieve his +own abstract propositions and reasonings with concrete beauty or truth. +Most of these quotations will be novel even to advanced students. + +Hamilton is also admirable in statement. Confusion, vacillation, +obscurity, uncertainty, are as foreign to his style as to his mind. He +is almost rigid in his precision. Every word has its meaning, and +every idea its stern, sure, decisive statement. His masterly powers +of analysis, of reasoning, of generalization, are always adequately +exhibited by a corresponding mastery of expression. The study of such a +volume as the present is itself an education in statement and logic; and +that it will be studied by thousands, in the colleges and out of the +colleges of the country, we cannot but hope. + + +_Allibone's Dictionary of Authors._ Philadelphia: Childs & Peterson, +1858. Vol. I. pp. 1005. + +Leigh Hunt, in one of his Essays, speaks of the wishful thrill with +which, in looking over an index, he wondered if ever his name would +appear under the letter H in the reversed order (Hunt, Leigh) peculiar +to that useful and too much neglected field of literary achievement. In +Mr. Allibone's Dictionary he would see his wish more than satisfied; for +if he turn up "Hunt, Leigh," he will find a reference to "Hunt, James +Henry Leigh," and under that head a list of his works, more complete, +perhaps, than he himself could easily have drawn up. + +In glancing along the leaves of a collection like this, one's heart is +touched with something of the same vague pathos that dims the eye in a +graveyard. What a necrology of notability! How many a controversialist +who made a great stir in his day, how many a once rising genius, how +many a withering satirist, lies here shrunk all away to the tombstone +immortality of a name and date! Think of the aspirations, the dreams, +the hopes, the toil, the confidence (of himself and wife) in an +impartial and generous posterity;--and then read "Smith J.(ohn?) +1713-1784(?). The Vision of Immortality, an Epic Poem in Twelve Books, +1740, 4to. _See Lowndes._" The time of his own death less certain than +that of his poem, which we may fix pretty safely in 1740,--and the only +posterity that took any interest in him the indefatigable Lowndes! Well, +even a bibliographic indemnity for contemporary neglect, to have so +much as your title-page read after it is a century old, and to enjoy a +posthumous public of one, is better than nothing. + +A volume like Mr. Allibone's--so largely a hospital for incurable +forgottenhoods--is better than any course of philosophy to the young +author. Let him reckon how many of the ten thousand or so names here +recorded he has ever heard of before, let him make this myriad the +denominator of a fraction to which the dozen perennial fames shall +be the numerator, and he will find that his dividend of a chance at +escaping speedy extinction is not worth making himself unhappy about. +Should some statistician make such a book the basis for constructing the +tables of a fame-insurance company, the rates at which alone policies +could be safely issued would put them beyond the reach of all except +those who did not need them. After all, perhaps, the next best thing to +being famous or infamous is to be utterly forgotten; for that, at least, +is to accomplish a decisive result by living. To hang on the perilous +edge of immortality by the nails, liable at any moment to drop into the +waters of Oblivion, is at best a questionable beatitude. + +But if a dictionary of this kind give rise to some melancholy +reflections, it is not without suggestions of a more soothing character. +We are reminded by it of the tender-heartedness of Chaucer, who, in the +"House of Fame," after speaking of Orpheus and Arion, (Mr. Tyrwhitt +calls him Orion,) and Cheiron and Glasgerion, has a kind word for the +lesser minstrels that play on pipes made of straw,-- + + "Such as have the little herd-groomes + That keepen beastes in the broomes." + +This is the true Valhalla of Mediocrity, the _libra d'oro_ of the +_onymi-anonymi_, of the never-named authors who exist only in +name,--Parson Adams would be here, had he found a printer for his +sermons, Mr. Primrose for his tracts on Monogamy,--and not merely +such _nominum umbroe_ of the past, but that still stranger class of +ancient-moderns, preterite-presents, dead (and something more) as +authors, but still to be met with in the flesh as solid men and +brethren,--privileged, alas, to outstay cockcrow when they drop in of an +evening to give you their views on the aims and tendencies of periodical +literature. Will it be nothing, if we should be untimely snatched +away from our present sphere of usefulness, to those shadowy [Greek: +pleiones] who lived too soon to enjoy their monthly dip in the +ATLANTIC,--will it be nothing, we say, that our orphaned Papyrorcetes, +junior, will be able to read the name of his lamented parent on the +nine-hundredth page of Allibone,--occupying, at least, an entire line, +and therefore (as we gather from a hasty calculation) sure forever of +1/360,000th of the attention of whoever reads the book through? This +is a handy and inexpensive substitute for the _imagines_ of the Roman +nobles; for those were inconvenient to pack on a change of lodgings, +liable to melt in warm weather,--even the elder Brutus himself might +soften in August,--and not readily salable, unless to a _novus homo_ who +wished to buy a set of ancestors ready-made, as some of our enthusiastic +genealogists are said to order a family-tree from the heraldic +nursery-man skilled to graft a slip of Scroggins on a stock of De Vere +or Montmorenci. Contemporary glory is comparatively dear; it is sold by +the column,--for columns have got over their Horatian antipathies; but +the bibliographer will thank you for the name of any man that has ever +printed a book, nay, his gratitude will glow in exact proportion to the +obscurity of the author, and one may thus confer perpetuity at +least (which is a kind of Tithonus-immortality) upon some respected +progenitor, or assure it to himself, with little trouble and at the cost +of a postage-stamp. + +The benignity of Providence is nowhere more strongly marked than in its +compensations; and what can be more beautiful than the arrangement by +which the same harmless disinterestedness of matter and style that once +made an author the favorite of trunk-makers and grocers should, by +thus leading to the quiet absorption of his works, make them sure of +commemoration by Brunet or Lowndes and of commanding famine-prices under +the hammer? Fame, like electricity, is thus positive and negative; and +if a writer must be Somebody to make himself of permanent interest to +the world at large, he must not less be Nobody--like Junius--to have his +namelessness embalmed by Mons. Guérard. Take comfort, therefore, all ye +who either make paper invaluable or worthless by the addition of your +autograph! for your dice (as the Abbé Galiani said of Nature's) are +always loaded, and you may make your book the heir of Memory in two +ways,--by contriving to get the fire of genius into it, or to get it +into the fire by the hands of the hangman. Milton's "Areopagitica" is an +example of one method, and the "Philostratus" of Blount (who pillaged +the "Areopagitica") of the other. And yet, again, how perverse is human +nature! how more perverse is literary taste! There is a large class +of men madly desirous to read cuneiform and runic inscriptions simply +because of their unreadableness, adding to our compulsory stock of +knowledge about the royal Smiths and Joneses of to-day much conjectural +and conflicting information concerning their royal prototypes of an +antiquity unknown, and, as we fondly hoped, unknowable. Were there only +a compensatory arrangement for this also in another class who should be +driven by a like irresistible instinct to unreadable books, the heart +of the political economist would be gladdened at seeing the substantial +rewards of authorship so much more equally distributed by means of a +demand adapted to the always abundant supply. + +We should like Mr. Allibone's book better, if it were more exclusively a +dictionary of names, facts, editions, and dates, and allowed less +space (or none at all) to opinions. The contemporaneous judgments of +individual critics upon writers of original power are commonly of little +value, and are absolutely worthless when an author's fame has struck its +roots down into the kindly soil of national or European appreciation, +when his work has won that "perfect witness of all-judging Jove" which +cannot be begged or bought. When the criticism is anonymous, (as are +many of those cited by Mr. Allibone,) it has not even the reflected +interest, as a measure of the critic himself, which we find sometimes +in the incapacity of a strong nature to appreciate a great one, as in +Johnson's opinion of Milton, for instance,--or of a delicate mind to +comprehend an imaginative one, as in Addison's of Bunyan. In the article +"Carlyle," for example, (by the way, John A. Carlyle is omitted,) we +should have been better content, if Mr. Allibone (instead of letting us +know what "Blackwood's Magazine" thinks of a writer who, whatever his +faults of style, has probably influenced the thought of his generation +more than any other man) had given us the date of the first publication +of "Cromwell's Letters and Speeches," and had mentioned that the +original collection of the "Miscellanies" was made in America. (This +last we have since found alluded to under "De Quincey.") Sometimes the +editor himself intrudes remarks which are quite out of keeping with the +character of such a work. We will give an instance which caught our +eye in turning over the leaves. After giving the title of "The Rare +Trauailes" of Job Hortop, Mr. Allibone adds, "We trust that in the +home-relation of his 'Rare Trauails among wilde and sauage people' the +_raconteur_ did not yield to the temptation of 'pulling the long bow,' +for the purpose of increasing the amazement of his wondering auditors." +Now if Mr. Allibone knew nothing about Hortop, he should have said +nothing. If the edition of 1591 was inaccessible to him, he could have +found out what kind of a story-teller our ancient mariner was in the +third volume of Hakluyt. We resent this slur upon Job the more because +he happens to be a favorite of ours, and saw no more wonders than +travellers of that day had the happy gift of seeing. We remember he got +sight of a very fine merman in the neighborhood of the Bermudas; but +then stout Sir John Hawkins was as lucky. + +The two criticisms we have made touch, one of them the plan of the work, +and the other its manner. We have one more to make, which, perhaps, +should properly have come under the former of these two heads;--it +is that Mr. Allibone allows a disproportionate space to the smaller +celebrities of the day in comparison with those of the past. In such +an undertaking, the amount of interest which the general public may be +supposed to take in comparatively local notabilities should, it seems to +us, be measured on a scale whose degrees are generations. + +Mr. Allibone's good-nature has misled him in some cases to the allowance +of manifest disproportions. Twice as much room, for instance, is allowed +to Mr. Dallas as to Emerson. Mr. Dallas has been Vice-President of the +United States; Emerson is one of the few masters of the English tongue, +and both by teaching and practical example has done more to make the +life of the scholar beautiful, and the career of the man of letters a +reproof to all low aims and an inspiration to all high ones, than any +other man in America. + +What we have said has been predicated upon the general impression left +on our minds after dipping into the book here and there almost at +random. But on opening it again, we find so much that is interesting, +even in those articles which are most expansive and gossiping, that we +are almost inclined to draw our pen through what we have written in the +way of objection, and merely express our gratitude to Mr. Allibone for +what he has done. We have been led to speak of what we consider the +defects, or rather the redundancies, of the "Dictionary," because we +believe, that, if less bulky, it would be more certain of the +wide distribution it so highly deserves. It is a shrewd saying of +Vauvenargues, that it is "_un grand signe de médiocrité de louer +toujours modérément_," and we have no desire to expose the "Atlantic" to +a charge so fatal by showing ourselves cold to the uncommon merits of +Mr. Allibone's achievement. The book is rather entitled to be called an +Encyclopaedia than a Dictionary. As the work of a single man, it is one +of the wonders of literary industry. The amount of labor implied in it +is enormous, and its general accuracy, considering the immense number +and variety of particulars, remarkable. A kindly and impartial spirit +makes itself felt everywhere,--by no means an easy or inconsiderable +merit. We have already had occasion several times to test its practical +value by use, and can recommend it from actual experiment. Every man +who ever owned an English book, or ever means to own one, will find +something here to his purpose. + +That a volume so comprehensive in its scope and so multitudinous in its +details should be wholly without errors and omissions is impossible; and +we trust that any of our readers who detect such will discharge a part +of the obligation they are under to Mr. Allibone by communicating them +to him for the benefit of a second edition. + + +1. _Trübner's Bibliographical Guide to American Literature._ London: +TRÃœBNER & CO. 1859. pp. cxlix., 554. 8vo. + +2. _Index to the Catalogue of a Portion of the Public Library of the +City of Boston._ 1858. pp. 204. + +Next to knowledge itself, perhaps the best thing is to know where to +find it. To make an index that shall combine completeness, succinctness, +and clearness,--how much intelligence this demands is proved by the +number of failures. Mr. Trübner's volume contains, 1st, some valuable +bibliographical prolegomena by the editor himself; 2d, an historical +sketch of American literature, which is not very well done by Mr. Moran, +and would have been admirably done by Mr. Duyckinck; 3d, a full and very +interesting account of American libraries by Mr. Edwards; and 4th, a +classed list of books written and published in the United States during +the last forty years, arranged in thirty-one appropriate departments, +with a supplementary thirty-second of _Addenda_. In some instances,--as +in giving tables of the proceedings of learned societies,--the period +embraced is nearly a century. A general alphabetical index completes +the volume. The several heads are, Bibliography, Collections, Theology, +Jurisprudence, Medicine and Surgery, Natural History (in five +subdivisions), Chemistry and Pharmacy, Natural Philosophy, Mathematics +and Astronomy, Philosophy, Education (in three subdivisions), Modern +Languages, Philology, American Antiquities, Indians and Languages, +History (in three subdivisions), Geography, Useful Arts, Military +Science, Naval Science, Rural and Domestic Economy, Politics, Commerce, +Belles Lettres, Fine Arts, Music, Freemasonry, Mormonism, Spiritualism, +Guide Books, Maps and Atlases, Periodicals. This list is enough to show +the great value of the "Guide" to students and collectors. The volume +will serve to give both Americans and Europeans a juster notion of the +range and tendency, as well as amount, of literary activity in the +United States. As the work of a cultivated and intelligent foreigner, it +has all the more claim to our acknowledgment, and also to our indulgence +where we discover omissions or inaccuracies. + +The second volume whose title stands at the head of our article would +demand no special notice from us, were it not for the admirable manner +in which it is executed and the judgment evinced in the selection of the +books which it catalogues. The Boston Library may well be congratulated +on having at its head a gentleman so experienced and competent as +Professor Jewett. He has hitherto distinguished himself in a department +of literature in which little notoriety is to be won, his labors +in which, however, are appreciated by the few whose quiet suffrage +outvalues the noisy applause of the moment. His little work on the +"Construction of Library Catalogues" is a truly valuable contribution to +letters, rendering, as it does, the work of classification more easy, +and increasing the chances of our getting good general directories to +the books already in our libraries, without which the number of volumes +we gather is only an increase of incumbrance. It is a great detriment to +sound and exhaustive scholarship, that the books for students to read +should be left to chance; and we owe a great deal more than we are apt +to acknowledge to men who, like Mr. Jewett, enable us to find out the +books that will really help us. Dr. Johnson, to be sure, commends the +habit of "browsing" in libraries; and this will do very well for those +whose memory clinches, like the tentacula of zoöphytes, around every +particle of nourishment that comes within its reach. But the habit tends +rather to make ready talkers than thorough scholars; and he who is left +to his chances in a collection of books grasps like a child in the +"grab-bag" at a fair, and gets, in nine cases out of ten, precisely what +he does not want. + +We think that a great mistake is made in the multiplying of libraries +in the same neighborhood, unless for some specialty, such as Natural +History or the like. It is sad to think of the money thus wasted in +duplicates and triplicates. Rivalry in such cases is detrimental rather +than advantageous to the interests of scholarship. Instead of one good +library, we get three poor ones; and so, instead of twenty men of real +learning, we are vexed with a score of sciolists, who are so through +no fault of their own. We hope that the movement now on foot, to give +something like adequacy to the University Library at Cambridge, will +receive the aid it deserves, not only from graduates of the College, but +from all persons interested in the literary advancement of the country. +So there be one really good library in the United States, it matters +little where it is, for students will find it,--and they should at least +be spared the necessity of going abroad in order to master any branch of +learning. + +A great library is of incalculable benefit to any community. It saves +infinite waste of time to the thinker by enabling him to know what has +already been thought. It is of greater advantage (and that advantage is +of a higher kind) than any seminary of learning, for it supplies the +climate and atmosphere, without which good seed is sown in vain. It is +not merely that books are the "precious life-blood of master-spirits," +and to be prized for what they contain, but they are still more useful +for what they prevent. The more a man knows, the less will he be apt to +think he knows, the less rash will he be in conclusion, and the less +hasty in utterance. It is of great consequence to the minds of most +men how they _begin_ to think, and many an intellect has been lamed +irretrievably for steady and lofty flight by toppling out into the +helpless void of opinion with wings yet callow. The gross and carnal +hallucinations of what is called "Spiritualism"--the weakest-kneed of +all whimsies that have come upon the parish from the days of the augurs +down to our own--would be disenchanted at once in a neighborhood +familiar with Del Rio, Wierus, Bodin, Scot, Glanvil, Webster, Casaubon, +and the Mathers. Good books are the enemies of delusion, the most +effectual extinguishers of self-conceit. Impersonal, dispassionate, +self-possessed, they reason without temper, and remain forever of the +same mind without obstinacy. The man who has the freedom of a great +library lengthens his own life without the weariness of living; he may +include all past generations in his experience without risk of senility; +not yet fifty, he may have made himself the contemporary of "the +world's gray fathers"; and with no advantages of birth or person, he may +have been admitted to the selectest society of all times and lands. + +We live in the hope of seeing, if not a great library somewhere on this +continent, at least the foundations of such a one, laid broad enough and +deep enough to change hope into a not too remote certainty. Hitherto +America has erected but one statue in commemoration of a scholar, and we +cannot help wishing that the money that has been wasted in setting up +in effigy one or two departed celebrities we could mention had been +appropriated to a means of culture which, perhaps more than any other, +would be likely to give us men worthy of bronze or marble, but above the +necessity of them for memory. + + * * * * * + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS. + + +The Poetical Works of William Motherwell; with a Memoir of his Life. +Fourth Edition, greatly Enlarged. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 32mo. pp. +308. 75 cts. + +The Avenger, a Narrative; and other Papers. By Thomas De Quincey. +Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. 327. 75 cts. + +Life of William Pitt. By Lord Macaulay. Preceded by the Life of the Earl +of Chatham. New York. Delisser & Proctor. 32mo. pp. 227. 50 cts. + +Shakspeare's Legal Acquirements Considered. By John Lord Campbell, +LL.D., F.R.S.E. In a Letter to J. Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A. New York. +D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 146. 75 cts. + +The Pillar of Fire; or, Israel in Bondage. By Rev. J.H. Ingraham, Author +of "The Prince of the House of David." New York. Pudney & Russell. 12mo. +pp. 600. $1.25. + +The Life of North American Insects. By B. Jaeger, Assisted by H.E. +Preston, M.D. With Numerous Illustrations from Specimens in the Cabinet +of the Author. New York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 319. $1.25. + +Life of Frederick the Great. By Macaulay. New York. Delisser & Proctor. +32mo. pp. 277. 50 cts. + +Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic. By Sir William Hamilton, Bart. Edited +by the Rev. Henry Longueville Mansel, B.D., Oxford, and John Veitch, +M.A., Edinburgh. 2 vols. Vol. I. Metaphysics. Boston. Gould & Lincoln. +8vo. pp. 718. $3.00. + +India and the Indian Mutiny. Comprising the Complete History of +Hindostan, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day; with Full +Particulars of the Recent Mutiny in India. By Henry Frederick Malcolm. +Illustrated with Numerous Engravings. Philadelphia. J.W. Bradley. 12mo. +pp. 426. $1.25. + +Frank Elliott; or, Walks in the Desert. By James Challen. Philadelphia. +J. Challen & Son. 12mo. pp. 349. $1.00. + +Border War. A Tale of Disunion. By J.B. Jones, Author of "Wild Western +Scenes." New York. Rudd & Carleton. 12mo. pp. 502. $1.25. + +Mothers and Infants, Nurses and Nursing. A Translation from the French +of a Treatise on Nursing, Weaning, and the General Treatment of Young +Children. By Dr. A.L. Donné. Boston. Phillips, Sampson, & Co. 12mo. pp. +303. $1.00. + +Poems and Ballads of Goethe. Translated by W. Edmonstoune Aytoun, +D.C.L., and Theodore Martin. New York. Delisser & Proctor. 12mo. pp. +240. 75 cts. + +On the Probable Fall of the Value of Gold; the Commercial and Social +Consequences which may Ensue, and the Measures which it Invites. By +Michel Chevalier. Translated from the French, with a Preface by Richard +Cobden, Esq. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 217. $1.25. + +A Treatise on Theism and on the Modern Skeptical Theories. By Francis +Wheaton. Philadelphia. J.B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 395. $1.25. + +The Precious Stones of the Heavenly Foundation; with Illustrations +Selected in Prose and Verse. By Augusta Browne Garrett. New York. +Sheldon & Co. 12mo. pp. 328. $1.00. + +The Convalescent. By N. Parker Willis. New York. Charles Scribner. 12mo. +pp. 456. $1.25. + +Plan of the Creation; or, Other Worlds, and who Inhabit them. By Rev. +C.L. Hequembourg. Boston. Phillips, Sampson, & Co. 12mo. pp. 391. $1.25. + +Five Essays. By John Kearsley Mitchell, M.D. Edited by S. Weir Mitchell, +M.D. Philadelphia. J.B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 371. $1.25. + +Hope Marshall; or, Government and its Offices. By William N.O. Lasselle. +Washington. H. Lasselle. 12mo. pp. 326. $1.00. + +Sermons Preached and Revised by the Rev. C.H. Spurgeon. Fifth Series. +New York. Sheldon & Co. 12mo. pp. 454. $1.00. + +Hours with my Pupils; or, Educational Addresses, etc. The Young Lady's +Guide and Parents' and Teachers' Assistant. By Mrs. Lincoln Phelps. New +York. C. Scribner. 12mo. $1.25. + +"Love me Little, Love me Long." By Charles Reade. New York. Harper & +Brothers. 12mo. pp. 435. 75 cts. + +The Christian Law of Amusement. By James Leonard Corning, Pastor of the +Westminster Presbyterian Church. Buffalo, N.Y. Phinney & Co. 16mo. pp. +162. 50 cts. + +Scenes and Adventures in the Army; or, Romance of Military Life. By P. +St. G. Cooke, Colonel Second Dragoons, U.S.A. Philadelphia. Lindsay & +Blakiston. 12mo. pp. 432. $1.00. + +Infant Salvation In its Relation to Infant Depravity, Infant +Regeneration, and Infant Baptism. By J.H. Bomberger. Philadelphia. +Lindsay & Blakiston. 16mo. pp. 192. 50 cts. + +Popular Geology. A Series of Lectures read before the Philosophical +Institution of Edinburgh; with Descriptive Sketches from a Geologist's +Portfolio. By Hugh Miller. With an Introductory _Résumé_, of the +Progress of Geological Science within the last Two Years, by Mrs. +Miller. Boston. Gould & Lincoln. 12mo. pp. 423. $1.25. + +Poems of Owen Meredith. The Wanderer and Clytemnestra. Boston. Ticknor & +Fields. 32mo. pp. 514. 75 cts. + +Memoir of Theophilus Parsons, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial +Court of Massachusetts; with Notices of Some of his Contemporaries. By +his Son, Theophilus Parsons. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. 476. +$1.50. + +The Life of James Watt; with Selections from his Correspondence. By +James Patrick Muirhead, M.A. Illustrated with Wood-Cuts. New York. D. +Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 424. $1.25. + +The Spy. A Tale of the Neutral Ground. By J. Fenimore Cooper. +Illustrated from Drawings by F.O.C. Barley. New York. W.A. Townsend & +Co. crown 8vo. pp. 463. $1.50. + +Internal Relations of the Cities, Towns, Villages, Counties, and States +of the Union; or, the Municipalist. A highly Useful Book for Voters, +Tax-Payers, Statesmen, Politicians, and Families. Second Edition. New +York. Ross & Tousey, etc., and Wm. Radde. 12mo. pp. 302. $1.00. + +Farm Drainage. The Principles, Processes, and Effects of Draining Land, +etc., etc. Including Tables of Rain-Fall, etc., and more than One +Hundred Illustrations. By Henry F. French. New York. A.O. Moore & Co. +12mo. pp. 381. $1.00. + +The Jealous Husband. A Story of the Heart. By Annette Marie Maillard. +Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 375. $1.25. + +A Practical Treatise on the Hive and Honey-Bee. By L.L. Langstroth. With +an Introduction by Rev. Robert Baird, D.D. Third Edition. Revised, with +Illustrations. New York. A.O. Moore & Co. 12mo. pp. 405. $1.25. + +From Wall Street to Cashmere. A Journal of Five Years in Asia, Africa, +and Europe; comprising Visits, during 1851-2-3-4-5-6, to the Danemona +Iron-Mines, etc., etc. By John B. Ireland. With nearly One Hundred +Illustrations from Sketches made on the Spot, by the Author. New York. +S.A. Rollo. 8vo. pp. 526. $3.50. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11751 *** 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..0d76324 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #11751 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11751) diff --git a/old/11751-8.txt b/old/11751-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4a72e69 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11751-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8883 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, +1859, 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 3, No. 20, June, 1859 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: March 28, 2004 [eBook #11751] +[Date last updated: August 27, 2005] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 3, NO. +20, JUNE, 1859*** + + +E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen, and Project Gutenberg +Distributed Proofreaders + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. III.--JUNE, 1859.--NO. XX. + + + + + + + +SHAKSPEARE'S ART. + + "Yet must I not give Nature all; thy Art, + My gentle SHAKSPEARE, must enjoy a part. + For though the poet's matter Nature be, + His Art doth give the fashion."--Ben Jonson. + + +Whoever would learn to think naturally, clearly, logically, and to +express himself intelligibly and earnestly, let him give his days and +nights to WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. His ear will thus accustom itself to forms +of phrase whose only mannerism is occasioned by the fulness of thought +and the directness of expression; and he will not easily, through the +habits which either his understanding or his ear will acquire, fall into +the fluent cadences of that sort of writing in which words are used +without discrimination of their nice meanings,--where the sentences are +only a smoothly-undulating current of common phrases, in which it takes +a page to say weakly what should be said forcibly in a few periods. + +These are somewhat novel arguments for the study of one whom all the +world has so long reverenced as "the great poet of Nature." But they may +properly serve to introduce a consideration of the sense in which +that phrase should be understood,--an attempt, in short, to look +into Shakspeare's modes of creation, and define his relations, as an +_artist_, with Nature. + +We shall perhaps be excused the suggestion, that a poet cannot be +natural in the same sense that a fool may be; he cannot be _a_ +natural,--since, if he is, he is not a poet. For to be a poet implies +the ability to use ideas and forms of speech artistically, as well as to +have an eye in a fine frenzy rolling. This is a distinction which all +who write on poets or poetry should forever seek to keep clear by new +illustrations. The poet has poetic powers that are born with him; but he +must also have a power over language, skill in arrangement, a thousand, +yes, a myriad, of powers which he was born with only the ability to +acquire, and to use after their acquirement. In ranking Shakspeare the +great poet of Nature, it is meant that he had the purpose and the power +to think what was natural, and to select and follow it,--that, among his +thick-coming fancies, he could perceive what was too fine, what tinged +with personal vanity, what incongruous, unsuitable, feeble, strained, in +short, unnatural, and reject it. His vision was so strong that he saw +his characters and identified himself with them, yet preserving his cool +judgment above them, and subjecting all he felt through them to its +test, and developing it through this artificial process of writing. This +vision and high state of being he could assume and keep up and work out +through days and weeks, foreseeing the end from the beginning, retaining +himself, and determining long before how many acts his work should be, +what should be its plot, what the order of its scenes, what personages +he would introduce, and where the main passions of the work should be +developed. His fancy, which enabled him to see the stage and all its +characters,--almost to _be_ them,--was so under the control of his +imagination, that it did not, through any interruptions while he was at +his labor, beguile him with caprices. The _gradation_ or action of his +work, opens and grows under his creative hand; twenty or more characters +appear, (in some plays nearly forty, as in "Antony and Cleopatra" and +the "First Part of Henry the Sixth,") who are all distinguished, who +are all more or less necessary to the plot or the underplots, and who +preserve throughout an identity that is life itself; all this is done, +and the imagined state, the great power by which this evolution of +characters and scene and story be carried on, is always under the +control of the poet's will, and the direction of his taste or critical +judgment. He chooses to set his imagination upon a piece of work, he +selects his plot, conceives the action, the variety of characters, and +all their doings; as he goes on reflecting upon them, his imagination +warms, and excites his fancy; he sees and identifies himself with his +characters, lives a secondary life in his work, as one may in a dream +which he directs and yet believes in; his whole soul becomes more active +under this fervor of the imagination, the fancy, and all the powers of +suggestion,--yet, still, the presiding judgment remains calm above all, +guiding the whole; and above or behind that, the will which elects to do +all this, perchance for a very simple purpose,--namely, for filthy lucre, +the purchase-money of an estate in Stratford. + +To say that he "followed Nature" is to mean that he permits his thoughts +to flow out in the order in which thoughts naturally come,--that he +makes his characters think as we all fancy we should think under the +circumstances in which he places them,--that it is the truth of his +thoughts which first impresses us. It is in this respect that he is +so universal; and it is by his universality that his naturalness is +confirmed. Not all his finer strokes of genius, but the general scope +and progress of his mind, are within the path all other minds travel; +his mind _answers_ to all other men's minds, and hence is like the voice +of Nature, which, apart from particular association, addresses all +alike. The cataracts, the mountains, the sea, the landscapes, the +changes of season and weather have each the same general meaning to +all mankind. So it is with Shakspeare, both in the conception and +development of his characters, and in the play of his reflections and +fancies. All the world recognizes his sanity, and the health and beauty +of his genius. + +Not all the world, either. Nature's poet fares no better than Nature +herself. Half the world is out of the pale of knowledge; a good part +of the rest are stunted by cant in its Protean shapes, or by inherited +narrowness and prejudice, and innumerable soul-cankers. They neither +know nor think of Nature or Poetry. Just as there are hundreds in all +great cities who never leave their accustomed streets winter or summer, +until finally they lose all curiosity, and cease to feel the yearnings +of that love which all are born with for the sight of the land and +sea,--the dear face of our common mother. Or the creatures who compose +the numerical majority of the world are rather like the children of some +noble lady stolen away by gypsies, and taught to steal and cheat and +beg, and practised in low arts, till they utterly forget the lawns +whereon they once played; and if their mother ever discovers them, their +natures are so subdued that they neither recognize her nor wish to go +with her. + +Without fearing that Shakspeare can ever lose his empire while the +language lasts, it is humiliating to be obliged to acknowledge one +great cause that is operating to keep him from thousands of our young +countrymen and women, namely, the wide-spread _mediocrity_ that is +created and sustained by the universal diffusion of our so-called +cheap literature;--dear enough it will prove by and by!--But this is +needlessly digressing. + +The very act of writing implies an art not born with the poet. This +process of forming letters and words with a pen is not natural, nor +will the poetic frenzy inspire us with the art to go through it. In +conceiving the language of passion, the _natural_ impulse is to imitate +the passion in gesture; there is something artificial in sitting quietly +at a table and hollaing, "Mortimer!" through a quill. If Hotspur's +language is in the highest degree natural, it is because the poet felt +the character, and words suggested themselves to him which he chose and +wrote down. The act of choice might have been almost spontaneous with +the feeling of the character and the situation, yet it was there,--the +conscious judgment was present; and if the poet wrote the first words +that came, (as no doubt he usually did,) it was because he was satisfied +with them at the time; there was no paroxysm of poetic inspiration,--the +workings of his mind were sane. His fertility was such that he was not +obliged to pause and compare every expression with all others he could +think of as appropriate;--judgment may decide swiftly and without +comparison, especially when it is supervising the suggestions of a vivid +fancy, and still be judgment, or taste, if we choose to call it by that +name. We know by the result whether it was present. The poet rapt into +unconsciousness would soon betray himself. Under the power of the +imagination, all his faculties waken to a higher life; his fancies are +more vivid and clear; all the suggestions that come to him are more +apt and congruous; and his faculties of selection, his perceptions of +fitness, beauty, and appropriateness of relation are more keen and +watchful. No lapse in what he writes at such times indicates aught +like dreaming or madness, or any condition of mind incompatible with +soundness and health,--with that perfect sanity in which all the mental +powers move in order and harmony under the control of the rightful +sovereign, Reason. + +These observations are not intended to bear, except remotely, upon the +question, Which is the true Dramatic Art, the romantic or the ancient? +We shall not venture into that land of drought, where dry minds forever +wander. We can admit both schools. In fact, even the countrymen of +Racine have long since admitted both,--speculatively, at least,--though +practically their temperament will always confine them to artificial +models. We may consider the question as set at rest in these words of M. +Guizot:--"Everything which men acknowledge as beautiful in Art owes its +effect to certain combinations, of which our reason can always detect +the secret when our emotions have attested its power. The science--or +the employment of these combinations--constitutes what we call Art. +Shakspeare had his own. We must detect it in his works, and examine the +means he employs and the results he aims at." Although we should be +far from admitting so general a definition of Art as this, yet it is +sufficient as an answer to the admirers of the purely classic school. + +But it has become necessary in this "spasmodic" day to vindicate +our great poet from the supposition of having written in a state of +somnambulism,--to show that he was even an _artist_, without reference +to schools. The scope of our observations is to exhibit him in that +light; we wish to insist that he was a man of forethought,--that, though +possessing creative genius, he did not dive recklessly into the sea of +his fancy without knowing its depth, and ready to grasp every pebble for +a pearl-shell; we wish to show that he was not what has been called, in +the cant of a class who mistake lawlessness for liberty, an "earnest +creature,"--that he was not "fancy's child" in any other sense than as +having in his power a beautifully suggestive fancy, and that he "warbled +his native wood-notes wild" in no other meaning than as Milton warbled +his organ-notes,--namely, through the exercise of conscious Art, of Art +that displayed itself not only in the broad outlines of his works, but +in their every character and shade of color. With this purpose we +have urged that he was "natural" from taste and choice,--artistically +natural. To illustrate the point, let us consider his Art alone in a few +passages. + +We will suppose, preliminarily, however, that we are largely interested +in the Globe Theatre, and that, in order to keep it up and continue to +draw good houses, we must write a new piece,--that, last salary-day, +we fell short, and were obliged to borrow twenty pounds of my Lord +Southampton to pay our actors. Something must be done. We look into our +old books and endeavor to find a plot out of ancient story, in the same +manner that Sir Hugh Evans would hunt for a text for a sermon. At length +one occurs that pleases our fancy; we revolve it over and over in our +mind,--and at last, after some days' thought, elaborate from it the plot +of a play,--"TIMON OF ATHENS,"--which plot we make a memorandum of, +lest we should forget it. Meantime, we are busy at the theatre with +rehearsals, changes of performance, bill-printing, and a hundred +thousand similar matters that must be each day disposed of. But we keep +our newly-thought-of play in mind at odd intervals, good things occur to +us as we are walking in the street, and we begin to long to be at it. +The opening scenes we have quite clearly in our eye, and we almost know +the whole; or it may be, _vice versa_, that we work out the last scenes +first; at all events, we have them hewn out in the rough, so that we +work the first with an intention of making them conform to a something +which is to succeed; and we are so sure of our course that we have no +dread of the something after,--nothing to puzzle the will, or make us +think too precisely on the event. Such is the condition of mind in which +we finally begin our labor. Some Wednesday afternoon in a holiday-week, +when the theatres are closed, we find ourselves sitting at a desk before +a sea-coal fire in a quaintly panelled rush-strewn chamber, the pen in +our hand, nibbed with a "Rogers's" pen-knife, [A] and the blank page +beneath it. + +[Footnote A: "A Shefeld thwitel bare he in his hose."--CHAUCER. _The +Reve's Tale._] + +We desire the reader to close his eyes for a moment and endeavor to +fancy himself in the position of William Shakspeare about to write a +piece,--the play abovenamed. This may be attempted without presumption. +We wish to recall and make real the fact that our idol was a man, +subject to the usual circumstances of men living in his time, and to +those which affect all men at all times,--that he had the same round of +day and night to pass through, the same common household accidents which +render "no man a hero to his valet." The world was as real to him as it +is to us. The dreamy past, of two hundred and fifty years since, was to +him the present of one of the most stirring periods in history, when +wonders were born quite as frequently as they are now. + +And having persuaded the reader to place himself in Shakspeare's +position, we will make one more very slight request, which is, that he +will occupy another chair in the same chamber and fancy that he sees the +immortal dramatist begin a work,--still keeping himself so far in his +position that he can observe the workings of his mind as he writes. + +Shakspeare has fixed upon a name for his piece, and he writes it,--he +that the players told Ben Jonson "never blotted a line." It is the +tragedy,-- + +TIMON OF ATHENS. + +He will have it in five acts, as the best form; and he has fixed upon +his _dramatis personae_, at least the principal of them, for he names +them on the margin as he writes. He uses twelve in the first scene, some +of whom he has no occasion for but to bring forward the character of his +hero; but they are all individualized while he employs them. The scene +he has fixed upon; this is present to his mind's eye; and as he cannot +afterwards alter it without making his characters talk incongruously and +being compelled to rewrite the whole, he writes it down thus:-- + + +ACT I. + +SCENE I.--_A Hall in Timon's House._ + +Now he has reflected that his first object is to interest his audience +in the action and passion of the piece,--at the very outset, if +possible, to catch their fancies and draw them into the mimic life of +the play,--to beguile and attract them without their knowing it. He has +reflected upon this, we say,--for see how artfully he opens the scene, +and how soon the empty stage is peopled with life! He chooses to begin +by having two persons enter from opposite wings, whose qualities are +known at once to the reader of the play, but not to an audience. The +stage-direction informs us:-- + +[_Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, Merchant, and others, at several +doors._ + +We shall see how at the same time they introduce and unfold their own +characters and awaken an interest in the main action. In writing, we +are obliged to name them. They do not all enter quite at once. At first +comes + + _Poet._ Good day, Sir. + _Painter._ I am glad to see you well. + _Poet._ I have not seen you long; how goes the world? + _Painter._ It wears, Sir, as it grows. + +This shows them to be acquaintances.--While the next reply is made, in +which the Poet begins to talk in character even before the audience know +him, two others enter from the same side, as having just met, and others +in the background. + + _Poet._ Ay, that's well known:-- + But what particular rarity? what strange, + That manifold record not matches? See, + +And we fancy him waving his hand in an enthusiastic manner,-- + + Magic of bounty! all these spirits thy power + Hath conjured to attend. + +Which manner is only a high-flowing habit, for he adds in the same +breath, dropping his figure suddenly,-- + + I know the merchant. + _Painter._ I know them both; t'other's a jeweller. + +It is certainly natural that painters should know jewellers,--and, +perhaps, that poets should be able to recognize merchants, though the +converse might not hold. We now know who the next speakers are, and soon +distinguish them. + + _Merchant._ Oh, 'tis a worthy lord! + _Jeweller._ Nay, that's most fixed. + _Merchant._ A most incomparable man; breathed as it were + To an untirable and continuate goodness: + He passes. + _Jeweller._ I have a jewel here. + +The Jeweller being known, the Merchant is; and, it will be noticed that +the first speaks in a cautious manner. + + _Merchant._ Oh, pray, let's see it! For the lord Timon, Sir? + _Jeweller._ If he will touch the estimate; but, for that---- + +We begin to suspect who is the "magic of bounty" and the "incomparable +man," and also to have an idea that all these people have come to his +house to see him.--While the Merchant examines the jewel, the first who +spoke, the high-flown individual, is pacing and talking to himself near +the one he met:-- + + _Poet. When we for recompense have praised the vile, + It stains the glory in that happy verse + Which aptly sings the good._ + +Perhaps he is thinking of himself. The Merchant and Jeweller do not hear +him;--they stand in twos at opposite sides of the stage. + + _Merchant_. 'Tis a good form. + [_Looking at the jewel._ + +He observes only that the stone is well cut; but the Jeweller adds,-- + + _Jeweller_. And rich: here is a water, look you. + +While they are interested in this and move backward, the two others come +nearer the front. + + _Painter_. You are rapt, Sir, in some work, some dedication + To the great lord. + +This is said, of course, with reference to the other's recent soliloquy. +And now we are going to know them. + + _Poet_. A thing slipped idly from me. + Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes + From whence 'tis nourished. The fire i' the flint + Shows not till it be struck; our gentle flame + Provokes itself, and like the current files + Each bound it chafes.--What have you there? + +We perceive that he is a poet, and a rather rhetorical than sincere one. +He has the art, but, as we shall see, not the heart. + + _Painter_. A picture, Sir.--And when comes your book forth? + + _Poet_. Upon the heels of my presentment, Sir-- + Let's see your piece. + _Painter_. 'Tis a good piece. + +We know that the Poet has come to make his presentment. The Painter, +the more modest of the two, wishes his work to be admired, but is +apprehensive, and would forestall the Poet's judgment. He means, it is a +"tolerable" piece. + + _Poet_. So 'tis: this comes off well and excellent. + + _Painter_. Indifferent. + + _Poet_. Admirable. How this grace + Speaks his own standing! What a mental power + This eye shoots forth! How big imagination + Moves in this lip! To the dumbness of the gesture + One might interpret. + +He, at all events, means to flatter the Painter,--or he is so habituated +to ecstasies that he cannot speak without going into one. But with what +Shakspearean nicety of discrimination! The "grace that speaks his own +standing," the "power of the eye," the "imagination of the lip," are all +true; and so is the natural impulse, in one of so fertile a brain as a +poet from whom verse "oozes" to "interpret to the dumb gesture,"--to +invent an appropriate speech for the figure (Timon, of course) to be +uttering. And all this is but to preoccupy our minds with a conception +of the lord Timon! + + _Painter_. It is a pretty mocking of the life. + Here's a touch; is't good? + + _Poet_. I'll say of it + It tutors Nature: artificial strife + Lives in these touches livelier than life. + +He has thought of too fine a phrase; but it is in character with all his +fancies. + + [_Enter certain Senators, and pass over._ + + _Painter_. How this lord's followed! + + _Poet_. The senators of Athens: happy men! + +This informs us who they are that pass over. The Poet also keeps up the +Ercles vein; while the Painter's eye is caught. + + _Painter_. Look, more! + + _Poet_. You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors. + + I have, in this rough work, shaped out a man + Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug + With amplest entertainment: my free drift + Halts not particularly, but moves itself + In a wide sea of wax: no levelled malice + Infects one comma in the course I hold: + But flies an eagle flight, bold, and forth on, + Leaving no tract behind. + +This flight of rhetoric is intended to produce a sort of musical effect, +in preparing us by its lofty sound for readily apprehending the lord +Timon with "amplest entertainment." The same is true of all that +follows. The Poet and Painter do but sound a lordly note of preparation, +and move the curtain that is to be lifted before a scene of profusion. +Call it by what name we please, it surely was not accident or +unconscious inspiration,--a rapture or frenzy,--which led Shakspeare to +open this play in this manner. If we remember the old use of choruses, +which was to lift up and excite the fancy, we may well believe that he +intended this flourishing Poet to act as a chorus,--to be a "mighty +whiffler," going before, elevating "the flat unraised spirits" of his +auditory, and working on their "imaginary forces." He is a rhetorical +character, designed to rouse the attention of the house by the pomp +of his language, and to set their fancies in motion by his broad +conceptions. How well he does it! No wonder the Painter is a little +confused as he listens to him. + + _Painter_. How shall I understand you? + + _Poet_. I'll unbolt to you. + + You see how all conditions, how all minds, + (As well of glib and slippery creatures, as + Of grave and austere quality,) tender down + Their services to Lord Timon; his large fortune, + Upon his good and gracious nature hanging, + Subdues and properties to his love and tendance + All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-faced flatterer + To Apemantus, that few things loves better + Than to abhor himself; even he drops down + The knee before him, and returns in peace, + Most rich in Timon's nod. + +There was almost a necessity that the spectator should be made +acquainted with the character of Timon before his appearance; for his +profuseness could be illustrated, after being known, better than it +could make itself known in dialogue and action in which he should bear a +part. And of the hundreds of English plays opening with an explanation +or narrative of foregone matters, there is none where the formality is +concealed by a more ingenious artifice than is used in this scene. The +spectator is fore-possessed with Timon's character, and (in the outline +the Poet is proceeding to give) with a suspicion that he is going to see +him ruined in the course of the piece; and this is accomplished in +the description of a panegyric, incidentally, briefly, picturesquely, +artfully, with an art that tutors Nature, and which so well conceals +itself that it can scarcely be perceived except in this our microscopic +analysis. Here also we have Apemantus introduced beforehand. And with +all this, the Painter and Poet speak minutely and broadly in character; +the one sees scenes, the other plans an action (which is just what his +own creator had done) and talks in poetic language. It is no more +than the text warrants to remark that the next observation, primarily +intended to break the poet's speech, was also intended to be the natural +thought and words of a + + _Painter_. I saw them speak together. + + _Poet_. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill + Feigned Fortune to be throned: the base of + the mount + Is ranked with all deserts, all kinds of natures + That labor on the bosom of this sphere + To propagate their states; amongst them all, + Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fixed, + One do I personate of Lord Timon's frame, + Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her; + Whose present grace to present slaves and servants + Translates his rivals. + + _Painter_. 'Tis conceived to scope. + This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks, + With one man beckoned from the rest below, + Bowing his head against the steepy mount + To climb his happiness, would be well expressed + In our condition. + + _Poet_. Nay, Sir, but hear me on. + +The artifice is to secure the attention of the spectator. The +interruptions give naturalness and force to the narrative; and the +questions and entreaties, though addressed to each other by the +personages on the stage, have their effect in the front. The same +artifice is employed in the most obvious manner where Prospero (Tempest, +Act i. Sc. 2) narrates his and her previous history to Miranda. The Poet +continues:-- + + All those which were his fellows but of late + (Some better than his value) on the moment + Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance, + Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear, + Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him + Drink the free air. + + _Painter_. Ay, marry, what of these? + +The Poet has half deserted his figure, and is losing himself in a new +description, from which the Painter impatiently recalls him. The text +is so artificially natural that it will bear the nicest natural +construction. + + _Poet_. When Fortune, in her shift and + change of mood, + Spurns down her late beloved, all his dependants, + Which labored after him to the mountain's + top, + Even on their knees and hands, let him slip + down, + Not one accompanying his declining foot. + + _Painter_. 'Tis common: + A thousand moral paintings I can show + That shall demonstrate these quick blows of + Fortune + More pregnantly than words. Yet you do + well + To show Lord Timon that mean eyes have + seen + The foot above the head. + + [_Trumpets sound. Enter Timon, attended; the + servant of Ventidius talking with him_. + +Thus far (and it is of no consequence if we have once or twice forgotten +it while pursuing our analysis) we have fancied ourselves present, +seeing Shakspeare write this, and looking into his mind. But although +divining his intentions, we have not made him intend any more than his +words show that he did intend. Let us presently fancy, that, before +introducing his principal character, he here turns back to see if he has +brought in everything that is necessary. It would have been easier to +plan this scene after the rest of the play had been done,--and, as +already remarked, it may have been so written; but when the whole +coheres, the artistic purpose is more or less evident in every part; and +the order in which each was put upon paper is of as little consequence +as the place or time or date or the state of the weather. Wordsworth has +been particular enough to let it be known, where he composed the last +verse of a poem first. With some artists the writing is a mere copying +from memory of what is completely elaborated in the whole or in long +passages: Milton wrote thus, through a habit made necessary by his +blindness; and so Mozart, whose incessant labors trained his genius in +the paths of musical learning, or brought learning to be its slave, till +his first conceptions were often beyond the reach of elaboration, and +remained so clear in his own mind that he could venture to perform +in public concertos to which he had written only the orchestral or +accessory parts. Other artists work _seriatim_; some can work only when +the pen is in their hands; and the blotted page speaks eloquently +enough of the artistic processes of mind to which their most passionate +passages are subjected before they come to the reader's eye. Think of +the fac-simile of Byron's handwriting in "Childe Harold"! It shows a +soul rapt almost beyond the power of writing. But the blots and erasures +were not made by a "fine frenzy"; _they_ speak no less eloquently for an +artistic taste and skill excited and alert, and able to guide the frenzy +and give it a contagious power through the forms of verse,--this +taste and this skill and control being the very elements by which his +expressions become an echo of the poet's soul,--pleasing, or, in the +uncultivated, helping to form, a like taste in the hearer, and exciting +a like imagined condition of feeling and poetic vision. + +Yet if it were made a question, to be decided from internal evidence, +whether the scene here analyzed was written before or after the rest of +the piece, a strong argument for its being written before might be found +in the peculiar impression it leaves upon the fancy. Let us suppose we +follow the author while he runs it over, which he does quite rapidly, +since there are no blotted lines, but only here and there a comma to +be inserted. He designed to open his tragedy. He finds he has set a +scene,--in his mind's eye the entrance-hall to an Athenian house, which +he thinks he has presently intimated plainly enough to be Timon's house. +Here he has brought forward four actors and made them speak as just +meeting; they come by twos from different ways, and the first two +immediately make it known that the other two are a merchant and +jeweller, and almost immediately that they themselves are, one a +painter, the other a poet. They have all brought gifts or goods for +the lord Timon. The Athenian Senators pass over, and, as becomes +their dignity, are at once received in an inner hall,--the first four +remaining on the stage. All is so far clear. He has also, by the +dialogue of the Painter and Poet, made in itself taking to the attention +through the picture and the flighty recitation, suggested and interested +us incidentally in the character of Timon, and conveyed a vague +misgiving of misfortune to come to him. And there is withal a swelling +pomp, three parts rhetorical and one part genuinely poetical, in the +Poet's style, which gives a tone, and prepares the fancy to enter +readily into the spirit of the tragedy. This effect the author wished to +produce; he felt that the piece required it; he was so preoccupied with +the Timon he conceived that he sets to work with a Timon-rich hue of +fancy and feeling; to this note he pitches himself, and begins his +measured march "bold and forth on." What he has assumed to feel he +wishes spectators to feel; and he leaves his style to be colored by his +feeling, because he knows that such is the way to make them feel it. And +we do feel it, and know also that we are made thus to feel through an +art which we can perceive and admire. On the whole, this introduction +opens upon the tragedy with just such a display of high-sounding +phrases, such a fine appropriateness, such a vague presentiment, and +such a rapid, yet artful, rising from indifference to interest, that it +seems easiest to suppose the author to be writing while his conceptions +of what is to follow are freshest and as yet unwrought out. We cannot +ask him; even while we have overlooked him in his labor, his form has +faded, and we are again in this dull every-day Present. + +We have seen him take up his pen and begin a tragedy; or, to drop the +fancy, we have made it real to ourselves in what manner Shakspeare's +writing evidences that he wrought as an _artist_,--one who has an idea +in his mind of an effect he desires to produce, and elaborates it with +careful skill, not in a trance or ecstasy, but "in clear dream and +solemn vision." The subtile tone of feeling to be struck is as much a +matter of art as the action or argument to be opened. And it is no less +proper to judge (as we have done) of the presence of art by its result +in this respect than in respect to what relates to the form or story. +An introduction is before us, a dramatic scene, in which characters are +brought forward and a dialogue is given, apparently concerning a picture +and poem that have been made, but having a more important reference to a +character yet to be unfolded. Along with this there is also expressed, +in the person of a professed panegyrist, a certain lofty and free +opinion of his own work, in a confident declamatory style of +description,-- + + "Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill + Feigned Fortune to be throned," etc.,-- + +that is levelled with exquisite tact just on the verge of bombast. This +is not done to make the hearer care for the thing described, which is +never heard of after, but to give a hint of Timon and what is to befall +him, and to create a _melodic effect_ upon the hearer's sense which +shall put him in a state to yield readily to the illusion of the piece. + +It is not possible to conceive Shakspeare reviewing his lines and +thinking to himself, "That is well done; my genius has not deserted me; +I could not have written anything more to my liking, if I had set about +it deliberately!" But it is easy to see him running it over with a +sensation of "This will serve; my poet will open their eyes and ears; +and now for the hall and banquet scene." + +The sense of fitness and relation operates among thoughts and feelings +as well as among fancies, and its results cannot be mistaken for +accident. Ariel and his harpies could not interrupt a scene with a more +discordant action than the phase of feeling or the poetic atmosphere +pervading it would be interrupted by, if a cloud of distraction came +across the poet and the faculties of his mind rioted out of his control. +For he not only feels, but sees his feeling; he takes it up as an object +and holds it before him,--a feeling to be conveyed. Just as a sculptor +holds in his mind a form and models it out of clay, undiverted by other +forms thronging into his vision, or by the accidental forms that the +plastic substance takes upon itself in the course of his work, till it +stands forth the image of his ideal,--so the poet works out his states +of poetic feeling. He grasps and holds and sustains them amidst the +multiplicity of upflying thoughts and thick-coming fancies;--no matter +how subtile or how aspiring they may be, he fastens them in the chamber +of his imagination until his distant purpose is accomplished, and he has +found a language for them which the world will understand. And this is +where Shakspeare's art is so noble,--in that he conquers the entire +universe of thought, sentiment, feeling, and passion,--goes into the +whole and takes up and portrays characters the most extreme and diverse, +passions the most wild, sentiment the most refined, feelings the most +delicate,--and does this by an art in which he must make his characters +appear real and we looking on, though he cannot use, to develop his +dramas, a hundred-thousandth part of the words that would be used in +real life,--that is, in Nature. He also always approaches us upon the +level of our common sense and experience, and never requires us to yield +it,--never breaks in or jars upon our judgment, or shocks or alarms any +natural sensibility. After enlarging our souls with the stir of whatever +can move us through poetry, he leaves us where he found us, refreshed by +new thoughts, new scenes, and new knowledge of ourselves and our kind, +more capable, and, if we choose to be so, more wise. His art is so great +that we almost forget its presence,--almost forget that the Macbeth and +Othello we have seen and heard were Shakspeare's, and that he MADE them; +we can scarce conceive how he could feign as if felt, and retain and +reproduce such a play of emotions and passions from the position of +spectator, his own soul remaining, with its sovereign reason, and all +its powers natural and acquired, far, far above all its creations,--a +spirit alone before its Maker. + +The opening of "Timon" was selected on account of its artful preparation +for and relation to what it precedes. It shows the forethought and skill +of its author in the construction or opening out of his play, both +in respect to the story and the feeling; yet even here, in this +half-declamatory prologue, the poet's dramatic art is also evident. His +poet and painter are living men, and not mere utterers of so many words. +Was this from intuition?--or because he found it easy to make them +what he conceived them, and felt that it would add to the life of his +introduction, though he should scarcely bring them forward afterwards? +No doubt the mind's eye helps the mind in character-drawing, and that +appropriate language springs almost uncalled to the pen, especially of +a practised writer for the stage. But is his scene a dream which he can +direct, and which, though he knows it all proceeds from himself, yet +seems to keep just in advance of him,--his fancy shooting ahead and +astonishing him with novelties in dialogue and situation? There are +those who have experienced this condition in sickness, and who have +amused themselves with listening to a fancied conversation having +reference to subjects of their own choosing, yet in which they did not +seem to themselves to control the cause of the dialogue or originate the +particular things said, until they could actually hear the voices rising +from an indistinct whisper to plain speech. I knew an instance, (which +at least is not related in the very curious work of M. Boismont on the +"Natural History of Hallucinations,") where an invalid, recovering +from illness, could hear for half a night the debates and doings of an +imaginary association in the next chamber, the absurdity of which often +made him laugh so that he could with difficulty keep quiet enough to +listen; while occasionally extracts would be read from books written in +a style whose precision and eloquence excited his admiration, or whose +affecting solemnity moved him deeply, though he knew perfectly well that +the whole came from his own brain. This he could either cause or permit, +and could in an instant change the subject of the conversation or +command it into silence. He would sometimes throw his pillow against the +wall and say, "Be still! I'll hear no more till daybreak!" And this has +taken place when he was in calm health in mind, and, except weakness, in +body, and broad awake. What was singular, the voices would cease at his +bidding, and in one instance (which might have startled him, had he not +known how common it is for persons to wake at an hour they fix) they +awoke him at the time appointed. Their language would bear the ordinary +tests of sanity, and was like that we see in daily newspapers; but the +various knowledge brought in, the complicated scenes gone through, made +the whole resemble intricate concerted music, from the imperfect study +of which possibly came the power to fabricate them. That they were owing +to some physical cause was shown by their keeping a sort of cadence with +the pulse, and in the fact, that, though not disagreeable, they were +wearisome; especially as they always appeared to be got up with some +remote reference to the private faults and virtues of that tedious +individual who is always forcing his acquaintance upon us, avoid him +however we may,--one's self. + +Shall we suppose that Shakspeare wrote in such an _opium dream_ as this? +Did his "wood-notes wild" come from him as tunes do from a barrel-organ, +where it is necessary only to set the machine and disturb the bowels of +it by turning? Was it sufficient for him to fore-plan the plots of his +plays, the story, acts, scenes, persons,--the general rough idea, or +argument,--and then to sit at his table, and, by some process analogous +to mesmeric manipulations, put himself into a condition in which his +_genius_ should elaborate and shape what he, by the aid of his poetic +taste and all other faculties, had been able to rough-hew? How far did +his consciousness desert him?--only partially, as in the instance just +given, so that he marvelled, while he wrote, at his own fertility, +power, and truth?--or wholly, as in a Pythonic inspiration, so that the +frenzy filled him to his fingers' ends, and he wrote, he knew not what, +until he re-read it in his ordinary state? In fine, was he the mere +conduit of a divinity within him?--or was he in his very self, in the +nobility and true greatness of his being and the infinitude of his +faculties, a living fountain,--he, he alone, in as plain and common a +sense as we mean when we say "a man," the divinity? + +These are "questions not to be asked," or, at least, argued, any +more than the question, Whether the blessed sun of heaven shall eat +blackberries. The quality of Shakspeare's writing renders it impossible +to suppose that it was produced in any other state than one where all +the perceptions that make good sense, and not only good, but most +excellent sense, were present and alert. Howsoever "apprehensive, quick, +forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes" his brain +may be, it never gambols from the superintendence of his reason and +understanding. In truth, it is the perfectness of the control, the +conscious assurance of soundness in himself, which leaves him so free +that the control is to so many eyes invisible; they perceive nothing but +luxuriant ease in the midst of intricate complexities of passion and +character, and they think he could have followed the path he took only +by a sort of necessity which they call Nature,--that he wrote himself +quite into his works, bodily, just as he was, every thought that came +and went, and every expression that flew to his pen,--leaving out only a +few for shortness. They are so thoroughly beguiled by the very quality +they do not see, that they are like spectators who mistake the scene on +the stage for reality; they cannot fancy that a man put it all there, +and that it is by the artistic and poetic power of him, this man, who is +now standing behind or at the wing, and counting the money in the house, +that they are beguiled of their tears or thrown into such ecstasies of +mirth. + +It exalts, and not degrades, the memory of Shakspeare to think of him in +this manner, as a man: for he _was_ a man; he had eyes, hands, organs, +dimensions, and so forth, the same that a Jew hath; a good many people +saw him alive. Had we lived in London between 1580 and 1610, we might +have seen him,--a man who came from his Maker's hand endowed with the +noblest powers and the most godlike reason,--who had the greatest +natural ability to become a great dramatic poet,--the native genius and +the aptness to acquire the art, and who did acquire the highest art +of his age, and went on far beyond it, exhibiting new ingenuities and +resources, and a breadth that has never been equalled, and which admits +at once and harmonizes the deepest tragedy and the broadest farce, and, +in language, the loftiest flights of measured rhetoric along with +the closest imitation of common talk;--and all this he _so used_, so +elaborated through it the poetic creations of his mind, in such glorious +union and perfection of high purpose and art and reach of soul, that he +was the greatest and most universal poet the world has known. + +Rowe observes, in regard to Shakspeare,--"Art had so little and +Nature so large a share in what he did, that, for aught I know, the +performances of his youth, as they were the most vigorous, and had the +most fire and strength of imagination in them, were the best. I +would not be thought by this to mean that his fancy was so loose and +extravagant as to be independent on the rule and government of judgment; +but that what he thought was commonly so great, so justly and rightly +conceived in itself, that it wanted little or no correction, and was +immediately approved by an impartial judgment at the first sight." + +The last sentence is true; but Mr. Rowe really means to say that he was +as great an artist as natural poet,--that his _creative_ and _executive_ +powers wrought in almost perfect spontaneity and harmony,--the work +of the _making_ part of him being generally at once approved by the +_shaping_ part, and each and both being admirable. When a man creates +an Othello, feigns his story and his passion, assumes to be him and to +observe him at the same time, figures him so exactly that all the +world may realize him also, brings in Desdemona and Iago and the rest, +everything kept in propriety and with the minutest perfection of detail, +which does most, Art or Nature? How shall we distinguish? Where does one +leave off and the other begin? The truth of the passion, that is Nature; +but can we not perceive that the Art goes along with it? Do we not at +once acknowledge the Art when we say, "How natural!"? In such as Iago, +for example, it would seem as if the least reflective spectator must +derive a little critical satisfaction,--if he can only bring himself to +fancy that Iago is not alive, but that the great master painted him and +wrote every word he utters. As we read his words, can we not see how +boldly he is drawn, and how highly colored? There he is, right in the +foreground, prominent, strong, a most miraculous villain. Did Nature put +the words into his mouth, or Art? The question involves a consideration +of how far natural it is for men to make Iagos, and to make them +speaking naturally. Though it be natural, it is not common; and if its +naturalness is what must be most insisted on, it may be conceded, and we +may say, with Polixenes, "The Art itself is Nature." + +There is a strong rapture that always attends the full exercise of our +highest faculties. The whole spirit is raised and quickened into a +secondary life. This was felt by Shakspeare,--felt, and at the same +time controlled and guided with the same strictness over all thoughts, +feelings, passions, fancies, that thronged his mind at such moments, as +he had over those in his dull every-day hours. When we are writing, how +difficult it is to avoid pleasing our own vanity! how hard not to step +aside a little, now and then, for a brilliant thought or a poetic fancy, +or any of the thousand illusions that throng upon us! Even for the sake +of a well-sounding phrase we are often tempted to turn. The language of +passion,--how hard it is to feign, to write it! how harder than all, to +keep the tone, serious, or whatever it may be, with which we begin, so +that no expressions occur to break it,--lapses of thought or speech, +that are like sudden stumbles or uneasy jolts! And if this is so in +ordinarily elevated prose, how much more must it be so in high dramatic +poetry, where the poet rides on the whirlwind and tempest of passion and +"directs the storm." There must go to the conception and execution of +this sort of work a resolved mind, strong fancies, thoughts high and +deep, in fine, a multitude of powers, all under the grand creative, +sustaining imagination. When completed, the work stands forth to all +time, a great work of Art, and bulwark of all that is high against all +that is low. It is a great poetic work, the work of a maker who gives +form and direction to the minds of men. + +In a certain sense, it is not an extravagance to say that all who are +now living and speak English have views of life and Nature modified by +the influence of Shakspeare. We see the world through his eyes; he has +taught us how to think; the freedom of soul, the strong sense, the +grasp of thought,--above all, the honor, the faith, the love,--who has +imparted such noble ideas of these things as he? Not any one, though +there were giants in those days as well as he. Hence he has grown to +seem even more "natural" than he did in his own day, his judges being +mediately or immediately educated by him. The works are admired, but the +nobleness of soul in him that made them is not perceived, and his genius +and power are degraded into a blind faculty by unthinking minds, and by +vain ones that flatter themselves they have discovered the royal road to +poetry. What they seem to require for poetry is the flash of thought +or fancy that starts the sympathetic thrill,--the little jots,--the +striking, often-quoted lines or "gems." The rest is merely introduced to +build up a piece; these are the "pure Nature," and all that. + +And it is not to be denied that they are pure Nature; for they are true +to Nature, and are spontaneous, beautiful, exquisite, deserving to be +called gems, and even diamonds. + + "The sweet South, + That breathes upon a bank of violets, + Stealing and giving odor":-- + +thousands of such lines we keep in our memories' choicest cells; yet +they are but the exterior adornments of a great work of Art. They are +the delightful finishes and lesser beauties which the great work admits, +and, indeed, is never without, but which are not to be classed among its +essentials. Their beauty and fitness are not those of the grand columns +of the temple; they are the sculptures upon the frieze, the caryatides, +or the graceful interlacings of vines. They catch the fancy of those +whose field of vision is not large enough to take in the whole, and +upon whom all excellences that are not little are lost. Beautiful in +themselves, their own beauty is frequently all that is seen; the beauty +of their propriety, the grace and charm with which they come in, are +overlooked. Many people will have it that nothing is poetry or poetic +but these gems of poetry; and because the apparent spontaneousness of +them is what makes them so striking, these admirers are unwilling to see +that it is through an art that they are brought in so beautifully in +their spontaneousness and give such finish to larger effects. And +we have no end of writers who are forever trying to imitate them, +forgetting that the essence of their beauty is in their coming unsought +and in their proper places as unexpected felicities and fine touches +growing out of and contributing to some higher purpose. They are natural +in this way:--when the poet is engaged upon his work, these delicate +fancies and choice expressions throng into his mind; he instantly, by +his Art-sense, accepts some, and rejects more; and those he accepts are +such as he wants for his ulterior purpose, which will not admit the +appearance of art; hence he will have none that do not grow out of his +feeling and harmonize with it. All this passes in an instant, and the +apt simile or the happy epithet is created,--an immortal beauty, both in +itself and as it occurs in its place. It was put there by an art; +the poet knew that the way to make expressions come is to assume the +feeling; he knew that he + + "But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, + Could force his soul so to his own conceit" + +that his whole function would suit with expressions to his conceit. +He then withdrew his judgment from within, and cheated his fancy into +supposing he had given her the rein, letting the feigned state be as +real to him as it could, and writing from that primarily,--humoring +Nature by his art in leaving her to do what she alone could do. So that +the very gems we admire as natural are the offspring of Nature creating +under Art. To make streaked gillyflowers, we marry a gentler scion to +the wildest stock, and Nature does the rest. So in poetry, we cannot +get at the finest excellences by seeking for them directly, but we put +Nature in the way to suggest them. We do not strive to think whether +"the mobled queen" is good; we do not let our vanity keep such a +strict look-out upon Nature; she will not desert us, if we follow her +modes,--which we must do with all the art and fine tact we can acquire +and command, not only in order to gain the minute beauties, but to +compass the great whole. + +The analogies that might be drawn from music would much assist in making +all this clear, if they could be used with a chance of being understood. +But, unfortunately, the ability to comprehend a great work, as a whole, +is even rarer in music than in poetry. The little taking bits of melody +are all that is thought of or perceived; the great _epos_ or rhapsody, +the form and meaning of the entire composition,--which is a work of Art +in no other sense than a poem is one, except that it uses, instead of +speech, musical forms, of greater variety and symmetry,--are not at all +understood. Nor is the subtile and irresistible coherence in successions +of clear sunny melody, in which Mozart so abounds, in any great degree +understood, even by some who call themselves artists. They think only +of the sudden flashes, the happinesses, and, if such a word may be used +once only, the smartnesses,--like children who care for nothing in their +cake but the frosting and the plums. But in continuing the study of the +art with such notions of its expression, the relish for it soon cloys, +the mind ceases to advance, the enthusiasm deadens, progress becomes +hopeless, and the little gained is soon lost; whereas, if the student is +familiarized with the most perfect forms of the art, and led on by them, +both by committing a few of them to memory, and by fully understanding +their structure, it will soon be evident that an intellectual study of +music, pursued with a true love of it, can, more than any other study, +strengthen the imaginative faculty. + +The forms of poetry have only the rhythmic analogy, as forms, to those +of music; but in their foundation in the same Nature, and in their +manner of development, there is a closer resemblance. Both in music and +poetry, the older artists regarded with most strictness the carrying +through of the whole; they cared little for the taking tunes or the +striking passages; they looked with eyes single to their ultimate +purposes. Shakspeare came, and accomplished at once, for dramatic art, +what the fathers of modern music began for their art nearly a century +later. He made the strict form yield to and take new shape from natural +feeling. This feeling, whose expression is the musical element of +poetry, he brought up to its proper relation with all the other +qualities. Look at the terrific bombast which preceded him,--the mighty +efforts of mighty men to draw music or the power of sound into their +art; Hieronymo is like some portentous convulsion of Nature,--the +upheaval of a new geological era. The writers felt that there must be +style suited to passion, and that they must attain it,--but how? By +artificial pomp?--or by yielding with artful reserve to the natural +eloquence of passion? + +Shakspeare has answered the question for all time; and he uses both, +each in its proper place. Nothing, even in music, ever showed an art +growing out of a nicer sensibility in sound than his variety and +appropriateness in style. For an art it is, and we cannot make a +definition of that word which shall include other forms of art and not +include it. If the passion and the feeling make the style, it is the +poet's art that leaves them free to do it; he superintends; he feigns +that which he leaves to make; he shares his art with "great creating +Nature." All is unreal; all comes out of him; and all that has to do +with the form and expression of his products is, of course, included +in the manifest when his ship of fancy gets its clearance at the +custom-house of his judgment. The style he assumes cannot but be present +to his consciousness in the progress of a long drama. He must perceive, +as he writes, if he has the common penetration of humanity, that the +flow and cadence of his "Henry the Eighth" are not like those of his +"Midsummer Night's Dream"; and he must preserve his tone, with, at +times, direct art, not leaving everything to the feeling. That he does +so is as evident as if he had chosen a form of verse more remote +from the language of Nature and obliged himself to conform to its +requirements. The terrible cursing of Margaret in "Richard III.," for +example, is not the remorseless, hollow monotony of it, while it so +heightens the passion, as evident to Shakspeare as to us; or had he no +ear for verse, and just let his words sound on as they would, looking +only at the meaning, and counting his iambics on his fingers,--not too +carefully either? If the last supposition is to be insisted on, we must +confine our notions of his perceptions and powers within very ordinary +bounds, and make dramatic art as unpoetic as the art of brickmaking. + +The beauty of Shakspeare's art is in its comprehensiveness. It takes in +every quality of excellence. It looks at the great whole, and admits +the little charms and graces. It includes constructiveness in story, +character-drawing, picturesqueness, musicalness, naturalness,--in fine, +whatever art may combine with poetry or the soul of poetry admit in art. +To the young and unobservant, and all who are unable to consider the +poet's writing, as we have in this article endeavoured to study a single +passage of it, _from his position_, the art is not apparent; the mimic +scene is reality, or some supernatural inspiration or schoolboy-like +enthusiasm has produced the work. But there are others, created with +different faculties, who begin to perceive the art almost as soon as +they feel its power, and who love to study it and to live in the spirit +of poetry that breathes through it; these come gradually to think of the +man, as well as of his works,--to feel more and more the influence upon +them of his greatness and beauty of soul, and, as years pass by, to find +consolation and repose in the loftiness of his wisdom. + + * * * * * + + +MIEN-YAUN. + + +I. + + +Young Mien-yaun had for two years been the shining centre of the +aristocratic circles of Pekin. Around him revolved the social system. +He was the vitalizing element in fashionable life,--the radiant sun, +diffusing conventional warmth of tone and brilliancy of polish. He +created modes. He regulated reputations. + +His smile or his frown determined the worldly fate of thousands. His +ready assurance gave him preeminence with one sex, and his beauty made +him the admiration of the other. When he talked, Mandarins listened; +when he walked, maidens' eyes glistened. He was, in short, the +rage,--and he knew it, and meant to remain so. He was a wonderful +student, and understood politics like a second Confucius. With the +literature of all ages, from the Shee-king, written four thousand +years ago, down to the latest achievements of the modern poets, he was +intimately acquainted. His accomplishments were rich and varied, and his +Tartar descent endowed him with a spirit and animation that enabled him +to exhibit them to every advantage. He sang like a veritable Orpheus, +and sensitive women had been known to faint under the excitement of his +Moo-lee-wha, or national song. He even danced,--a most rare faculty in +Pekin, as in all China,--but this was frowned upon, as immoral, by his +family. Comely indeed he was, especially on state occasions, when he +appeared in all the radiance of rosy health, overflowing spirits, and +the richest crapes and satins,--decorated with the high order of the +peacock's feather, the red button, and numberless glittering ornaments +of ivory and lapis-lazuli. Beloved or envied by all the men, and with +all the women dying for him, he was fully able to appreciate the +comforts of existence. Considering the homage universally accorded him, +he was as little of a dandy as could reasonably be expected. + +His family connections were very exalted. All his relatives belonged to +the Tse,--the learned and governing class. His father had been one of +the Tootche-yuen, a censor of the highest board, and was still a member +of the council of ministerial Mandarins. His uncle was a personal noble, +a prince, higher in rank than the best of the Mandarins, and directed +the deliberations of the Ping-pu, the Council of War. Thus his station +gave him access to all the best society. His career was a path of roses. +He never knew a sorrow. All were friendly to him, even the jealous, +because it was the fashion. The doors of the mighty opened at his +approach, and the smiles of the noble greeted him. He lived in an +atmosphere of adulation, and yet resisted the more intoxicating +influences of his dangerous elevation. Young as he was, he had +penetrated the social surface, and, marking its many uncertainties, +had laid out for himself a system of diplomacy which he believed best +calculated to fortify him in his agreeable position of master of modes +and dictator of fashionable public opinion. + +The course he adopted was thoroughly effective. His sway was never +disputed for a moment. He knew his personal charms, and determined to +enhance their value by displaying them sparingly. Accordingly, he began +by refusing forty-nine out of every fifty public invitations,--his +former habit having been to refuse but one in five. He appeared on the +promenade only twice in three weeks, but on these occasions he always +artfully contrived to throw the community into the wildest excitement. +One day, he appeared arrayed from head to foot in yellow Nankin, a +color always considered a special abomination in Pekin, but which was +nevertheless instantly adopted by all the gallants about town,--a +proceeding which caused so much scandal that an imperial edict had to +be issued, forbidding the practice in future. Another time, he came out +with an unparalleled twist to his tail, the construction of which had +occupied his mind for some days, and which occasioned the death by +suicide of three over-ambitious youths who found themselves unable to +survive the mortification of an unsuccessful attempt to imitate it. +Again, to the infinite horror of the Mandarins, he paraded himself one +afternoon with decacuminated finger-nails, and came very near producing +a riot by his unwillingness to permit them to grow again, besides +calling forth another imperial decree, threatening ignominious death to +all nobles throughout the empire who should encourage the practice. +All these eccentricities served only to add to the consequence of the +multipotent Mien-yaun. Then again, he was gifted with a bewitching +smile; but he steadily refrained from making any use of it oftener than +once a month, at which times the enthusiasm of his adherents knew no +bounds, and it might have been supposed that all Pekin had administered +unto itself a mild preparation of laughing-gas, so universal were the +grimaces. On very rare and distinguished occasions, Mien-yaun permitted +himself to be persuaded to sing; but as ladies sometimes swooned under +his melodious influence, the natural goodness of his heart prevented him +from frequent indulgence in the exercise of this accomplishment. + +It may naturally be supposed that the popular and fascinating young +Chinese nobleman was the devoted object of much matrimonial speculation. +Managing mammas and aspiring daughters gave the whole of their minds to +him. To look forward to the possible hope of sharing through life his +fortunes and his fame was the continual employment of many a high-born +damsel. And they the more readily and unreservedly indulged these +fancies, as nothing in the laws of China could prevent Mien-yaun from +taking as many wives as he chose, provided he could support them all, +and supply all their natural wants. But our hero knew his value. He was +fully conscious that a member of the Tse, a son of an ex-censor of the +highest board, a nephew of a personal noble and the Secretary of War, +and, above all, the brightest ornament of aristocratic society, was by +no means the sort of person to throw himself lightly away upon any woman +or any set of women. He preferred to wait. + +His family had high hopes of him. He was largely gifted with filial +piety, which is everything in China. Politics, religion, literature, +government, all rest upon the broad principle of filial piety. Being +very filially pious, of course Mien-yaun was eminent in all these varied +accomplishments. Consequently his family had a right to have high hopes +of him. The great statesman, Kei-ying,--who has very recently terminated +a life of devoted patriotism and heroic virtues by a sublime death on +the scaffold,--undertook his instruction in Chinese politics. One lesson +completed his education. "Lie, cheat, steal, and honor your parents," +were the elementary principles which Kei-ying inculcated. The readiness +with which Mien-yaun mastered them inspired his tutor with a lively +confidence in the young man's future greatness. He was pronounced a +rising character. His popularity increased. His name was in everybody's +mouth. He shunned society more sedulously than ever, and assumed new and +loftier airs. He was seized with fits of ambition, each of which lasted +a day, and then gave place to some new aspiration. First, he would be a +poet; but, after a few hours' labor, he declared the exertion of hunting +up rhymes too great an exertion. Next, he would be a moral philosopher, +and commenced a work, to be completed in sixty volumes, on the Whole +Duty of Chinamen; but he never got beyond the elementary principles he +had imbibed from Kei-ying. Again, he would become a great painter; but, +having in an unguarded moment permitted the claims of perspective to be +recognized, he was discouraged from this attempt by a deputation of the +first artists of the empire, who waited upon him, and with great respect +laid before him the appalling effects that would inevitably follow any +public recognition of perspective in painting. Finally, he renounced +all ambition but that of ruling his fellow-creatures with a rod more +tyrannical than that of political authority, and more respected than the +sceptre of government itself. + + +II. + + +Satiated with success, Mien-yaun at length became weary of the ceaseless +round of flattering triumphs, and began to lament that no higher step on +the social staircase remained for him to achieve. Alas that discontent +should so soon follow the realization of our brightest hopes! What, in +this world, is enough? More than we have! Mien-yaun felt all the pangs +of anxious aspiration, without knowing how to alleviate them. He was +only conscious of a deep desolation, for which none of the elementary +principles he had learned from Kei-ying afforded the slightest +consolation. He now avoided publicity from inclination, rather than from +any systematic plan of action. He dressed mostly in blue, a sufficient +sign of a perturbed spirit. He discarded the peacock's feather, as +an idle vanity, and always came forth among the world arrayed in +ultramarine gowns and cerulean petticoats. His stockings, especially, +were of the deepest, darkest, and most beautiful blue. The world of +fashion saw, and was amazed; but in less than, a week all Pekin had the +blues. Annoyed at what a few months before he would have delighted in as +another convincing proof of his influential position, Mien-yaun fled +the city, and sought relief in a cruise up and down the Peiho, in his +private junk. As he neared the Gulf of Pe-tche-lee, the sea-breeze +brought calm to his troubled spirit and imparted renewed vigor to his +wearied mind. A degree of resolution, to which he had heretofore been +a stranger, possessed him. His courage returned. He would go back to +Pekin. He would renounce those vain pursuits in which he had passed his +unworthy life. Henceforth he would strive for nobler aims. Something +great and wonderful he certainly would accomplish,--the exact nature of +which, however, he did not pause to consider. + +As he reëntered the city, he was obliged to pass through that quarter +which is inhabited by the Kung,--the working and manufacturing classes. +His attention was suddenly arrested by feminine cries of distress; and, +turning a corner, he came upon a domestic scene so common in China +that it would hardly have attracted his notice but for a peculiar +circumstance. A matron, well advanced in years, was violently beating +a young and beautiful girl with a bit of bamboo; and the peculiar +circumstance that enforced Mien-yaun's interest was, that, as the maiden +turned her fair face towards him, she smiled through her tears and +telegraphed him a fragrant kiss, by means of her fair fingers. Naturally +astounded, he paused, and gazed upon the pair. The younger female was +the loveliest maid he had ever looked upon. She had the smallest eyes in +the world, the most tempting, large, full, pouting lips, the blackest +and most abundant hair, exquisitely plaited, and feet no bigger than her +little finger. As these are the four characteristics of female beauty +dearest to a Chinaman's heart, it is no wonder that Mien-yaun thought +her a paragon. The old woman, on the contrary, was hideously ugly. Her +teeth were gone, and her eyes sought the comforting assistance of an +ill-fitting pair of crystal spectacles. She had no hair, and her feet +might have supported an elephant. As he rested his eyes wistfully upon +them, the young woman discharged a second rapturous salute. His heart +beat with singular turbulence, and he approached. + +"What has the child done?" he asked. + +Now the law of China is, that parents shall not be restrained from +beating and abusing their children as often and as soundly as is +convenient. The great principle of filial piety knows no reciprocity. +Should a child occasionally be killed, the payment of a small fine will +satisfy the accommodating spirit of the authorities. The ill-favored +mother was not, therefore, in any way bound to answer this somewhat +abrupt question; but, observing the appearance of high gentility, and +touched by the engaging manner of the interrogator, she answered, that +her appetite had of late been uncertain, and that she was endeavoring to +restore it by a little wholesome exercise. + +So reasonable an explanation admitted of no reply; and Mien-yaun was +about to resume his way with a sigh, when the young lady insinuated a +third osculatory hint, more penetrating than either of the others, +and bestowed on him, besides, a most ravishing smile. He fluttered +internally, but succeeded in preserving his outward immobility. He +entered into conversation with the elderly female, observing that it was +a fine day, and that it promised to continue so, although destiny was +impenetrable, and clouds might overshadow the radiant face of Nature at +any unexpected moment. To these and other equally profound and original +remarks the old woman graciously assented, and finally invited the young +gentleman to partake of a cup of scau-tcheou. Now scau-tcheou, which is +the most ardent of Chinese spirits, was Mien-yaun's abomination; but he +concealed his disgust, and quietly observed that he should prefer a cup +of tea. + +The old woman was delighted, and ran off to prepare the desired +refreshment, so that Mien-yaun was at length rewarded by the opportunity +of a few private words with the daughter. + +"Tell me, Miss," said he,--"why did the sweetest of lips perform their +most delicate office when the brightest of eyes first turned upon me?" + +The young lady, confused and blushing, answered, that the brilliancy of +the jewel which Mien-yaun wore in his hat had dazzled her vision, and +that she mistook him for an intimate friend of her youth,--that was all. + +He knew this was a lie; but as lying was in exact accordance with the +elementary principles laid down by the learned Kei-ying, he was rather +pleased by it. Moreover, it was a very pretty lie, worthy of so pretty a +girl; and Mien-yaun, whose wits were fast leaving him, removed the jewel +from his hat, and begged the maiden to accept it. She, declaring that +she never could think of such a thing, deposited it in her bosom. +Evidently the twain were on the brink of love; a gentle push only was +needed to submerge them. + +Mien-yaun speedily learned that his fair friend's name was Ching-ki-pin; +that she was the daughter of a wealthy manufacturer, named Tching-whang, +who owned extensive porcelain-factories at the North, and was besides a +considerable tobacco-planter; that her father was very kind to her, +but that the old woman, who was not her own mother, treated her very +cruelly; that her father married this ancient virago for her wealth, and +now repented the rash step, but found it impossible to retrace it, as +the law of China allows no divorces excepting when the wife has parents +living to receive and shelter her; and the obnoxious woman being nearly +a hundred years old herself, this was out of the question. When he +had learned so much, they were interrupted by the reappearance of the +Antique, who brought with her the cup of tea, most carefully prepared. +In deep abstraction, Mien-yaun seized it, and, instead of drinking the +boiling beverage, poured it upon the old woman's back, scalding her to +such a degree that her shrieks resounded through the neighborhood. Then +dropping the cup upon the ground, he put his heel into it, and, with a +burning glance of love at Ching-ki-pin, strode, melancholy, away. + + +III. + + +All that night, Mien-yaun's heart was troubled. The tranquillizing +finger of Sleep never touched his eyelids. At earliest dawn he arose, +and devoted some hours to the consideration of his costume. Never before +had he murmured at his wardrobe; now everything seemed unworthy of +the magnitude of the occasion. Finally, after many doubts and inward +struggles, and much bewilderment and desperation, the thing was done. He +issued forth in a blaze of splendor, preceded by two servants bearing +rare and costly presents. His raiment was a masterpiece of artistic +effect. He wore furs from Russia, and cotton from Bombay; his breast +sparkled with various orders of nobility; his slippers glistened with +gems; his hat was surmounted with the waving feather of the peacock. +Turning neither to the right nor to the left, he made his way to the +residence of Tching-whang. At the portal he paused, and sent in before +him his card,--a sheet of bright red paper,--with a list of the presents +he designed to offer the family whose acquaintance he desired to +cultivate. + +As he had expected, his reception was most cordial. Though his person +was unknown, the magic of his name was not unfelt, even in the regions +of the Kung. A prince of the peacock's feather was no common visitor to +the home of a plebeian manufacturer; and when that prince was found +to be in addition the leader of the fashions and the idol of the +aristocracy, the marvel assumed a miraculous character. The guest was +ushered in with many low obeisances. How the too gay Ching-ki-pin +regretted those unlucky telegraphic kisses! What would he think of her? +She, too, had passed a most unquiet night, but had been able to relieve +her feelings to some extent at the sewing-circle, which had met at +her home, and at which she poured into the eager ears of her young +companions rapturous accounts of the beauty, elegance, dignity, and +tenderness of the enchanting stranger, and displayed before their +dazzled eyes the lustrous jewel he had presented to her. Having excited +a great deal of envy and jealousy, she was able to rest more in peace +than would otherwise have been possible. But she had never dreamed of +the real rank of her admirer. It came upon her like a lightning-flash, +and almost reduced her to a condition of temporary distraction. As for +the mother-in-law, she would infallibly have gone off into hysterics, +but for the pain in her back, which the barbers--who are also the +physicians in China--had not been able to allay. But the sight of a +peacock's feather under her roof was better than balm to her tortured +spine. Tching-whang lost his presence of mind altogether, and violated +the common decencies of life by receiving his visitor with his hat +off, and taking the proffered presents with one hand,--the other being +occupied in pulling his ear, to assure himself he was not dreaming. + +Mien-yaun spoke. His voice fell like soft music on the ears of his +hosts, and went straight to the innermost core of Ching-ki-pin's heart. +He had come, he said, to give utterance to his deep grief at the mishap +of yesterday, the recollection of which had harrowed his soul. The +thought of that venerable blistered back had taken away his repose, and +seriously interfered with his appetite. At the same time he could not +forget his own great loss, occasioned by the unlucky spilling of the +precious cup. He was sure, that Madam, in the kindness of her heart, +would overlook his fault, and consent to bestow on him another cheering, +but not inebriating draught. + +The Antique was overcome by so much condescension. She could not say +a word. Tching-whang, too, remained paralyzed. But the beauteous +Ching-ki-pin, who had recovered her composure, answered with the +sweetest air imaginable, and succeeded in winding another amorous chain +around the already sufficiently-enslaved heart of her lover. + +Presently the ice of constraint was broken, and the Antique, having once +put her foot in it, plunged off into conversation with remarkable vigor. +She entertained Mien-yaun with a detailed account of her family trials, +so interminable, that, with all his politeness, the young noble could +not avoid gaping desperately. Tching-whang, observing his visitor's +strait, interposed. + +"What the women have lost in their feet, they have added to their +tongues," said he, quoting a Chinese proverb of great popularity. + +As the Antique persisted, her husband gently reminded her that excessive +talkativeness is an allowed ground for divorce in China, and, by +suggesting the idea that she might possibly become the dismembered +fragment of a shattered union, at length succeeded in shaming her into +silence. + +This Tching-whang was a fine old fellow. He was not a bit fashionable, +and Mien-yaun liked him the better for it. He had been educated by the +bamboo, and not by masters in the arts of courtesy. But he was a shrewd, +cunning, jolly old Chinaman, and was evidently perfectly familiar with +the elementary principles according to Kei-ying. After an animated +discussion of some ten minutes, it would have been difficult to +determine which of the two gentlemen was most deeply imbued with a sense +of the righteousness of the elementary principles. + +After a proper time had elapsed, Mien-yaun was permitted the luxury of +a private chat with his charmer. What sighs, what smiles, what pleasing +tremors, what soft murmurings, what pressings of the hand and throbbings +of the heart were there! The Antique, who watched the course of +proceedings through a contiguous keyhole, subsequently declared that she +had never in all her life witnessed so affecting a spectacle, and she +was prevented from giving way to her excessive agitation only by +the thought that the interruption might seriously endanger her +daughter-in-law's prospects. The lovers, unconscious of scrutiny, made +great progress. Some doubt appeared at one time to exist as to which +had first experienced the budding passion which had now blossomed so +profusely; but in due time it was settled that both had suffered love at +precisely the same moment, and that the first gleam of the other's eye +had kindled the flame in the bosom of each. + +Towards evening, the Antique came in with a cup of tea worthy to excite +a poet's inspiration,--and poets in China have sung the delights of tea, +and written odes to teacups, too, before now. Mien-yaun sipped it with +an air of high-breeding that neither Ching-ki-pin nor her respectable +mother-in-law had ever seen before. Soon after, the enamored couple +parted, with many fond protestations of faith, avowed and betrothed +lovers. + +Mien-yaun went home in an amatory ecstasy, and immediately exploded four +bunches of crackers and blazed a Bengal light, as a slight token of his +infinite happiness. + + +IV. + + +All Pekin was in an uproar. That is to say, the three thousand eminent +individuals who composed the aristocracy had nearly lost their wits. +The million and a half of common people were, of course, of no account. +Mien-yaun had given out that he was about to be married; but to whom, +or to how many, remained a mystery. No further intelligence passed his +lips. Consequently, in less than twenty-four hours there were four +hundred and fifty persons who knew the lady's name, as many more who had +conversed with her upon the subject, twice as many who knew the day on +which the ceremony was to take place, at least one thousand who had been +invited to assist, and an infinitely greater number who simply shook +their heads. In two days the names of some hundreds of young and comely +damsels were popularly accepted as the chosen future partner of the +glass of fashion and the mould of form. Fifty different days and hours +were fixed as the appointed time. All the most noted bonzes in Pekin +were in turn declared to be the fortunate sacred instrument by which +the union was to be effected. In the course of a week, public feeling +reached such a height that business was neglected and property declined +in value. A panic was feared. Mien-yaun shut himself up, and did not +stir abroad for a month, lest he should be tracked, and his secret +discovered. He contrived, however, to maintain a constant correspondence +with the light of his soul. + +He was a little disturbed to find that his much revered father, the +ex-censor of the highest board, took no notice of what was going on, and +never alluded to the subject in any manner. Mien-yaun was too deeply +impressed with a sense of filial obligation to intrude his humble +affairs upon the old gentleman's + +[Transcriber's note: Page missing in original.] + +There were lanterns--without number, and of the largest size; there were +the richest and most luxurious couches disposed about for the general +comfort; there were consultations of cooks, headed by a professor from +Ning-po, a city famed throughout China for its culinary perfection, with +a view to producing an unrivalled gastronomic sensation; there were +tailors who tortured their inventive brains to realize the ideal raiment +which Mien-yaun desired to appear in. The panic ceased as suddenly as it +had arisen. A little while ago, and there was a surplus of supply and no +demand; now, the demand far exceeded the supply. Artists in apparel were +driven frantic. In three days the entire fashionable world of Pekin had +to be new clad, and well clad, for the great occasion. One tailor, +in despair at his inability to execute more than the tenth of his +commissions, went and drowned himself in the Peiho River, a proceeding +which did not at all diminish the public distress. The loss of the +tailor was nothing, to be sure, but his death was a fatal blow to the +hopes of at least a hundred of the first families. As for the women, +they were beside themselves, and knew not which way to turn. It was +evident that nothing had occurred within a half-century to create +anything like the excitement that existed. Mien-yaun's prospects of +eternal potency never seemed so cheering. + +All this time, our hero's father, the ex-censor of the highest board, +preserved a profound silence. + + +VI. + + +The three days passed so rapidly, that even Mien-yaun's anxiety, great +as it was, could hardly keep pace with the swift hours. The morning +of the New Year came. For the first time in his life, the dictator of +fashion lost his mind. His head whirled like a tee-to-tum, and his +pulses beat sharp and irregular as the detonations of a bundle of +crackers. He was obliged to resign himself to fate and his valet, and +felt compelled to have recourse to many cups of tea to calm his fevered +senses. At length it became necessary for him to descend to the gardens. +Nerving himself by a powerful effort, he advanced among his guests. + +What a gorgeous array of rank and beauty was there! The customary calls +of the New Year had been forgotten. Curiosity had alike infected all, +and the traditionary commemoration of two thousand years was for the +first time neglected. Why this tremor at our hero's heart? Was he not +lord of all that he surveyed? Reigned he not yet with undisputed sway? +Or was it that, an undefined presentiment of dire misfortune had settled +upon him? He strove to banish his melancholy, but with slight success. + +His troubled air did not escape the scrutinizing eyes of the company. +The women whispered; the men shook their heads. But all greeted him with +enthusiasm, and asked after his bride with eagerness. + +A crash of gongs was heard. The gates of a pavilion flew open, and the +beauteous Ching-ki-pin stepped forth, glowing with loveliness and hope. +As she stood an instant timidly on the portal, she seemed almost a +divinity,--at least, Mien-yaun thought so. Her sweet face was surmounted +by a heavy coronet of black hair, plaited to perfection, and glistening +with gum. Her little eyes beamed lovingly on her betrothed, and a flush +of expectancy overspread her countenance. Her costume was in the best +Chinese taste. An embroidered tunic of silk fell from her neck almost to +her ankles, and just temptingly revealed the spangled trowsers and the +richly jewelled slippers. A murmur of admiration diffused itself around. +Then followed many anxious inquiries. Who was she? Whence came she? To +whom belonged she? Her face was strange to all that high-born throng. In +a minute, however, her father appeared, bearing on his arm the Antique, +who looked more hideous than ever. A flash of intelligence quivered +through the multitude. Many of the nobility purchased their porcelain +and tobacco of Tching-whang, and recognized him immediately. It is +astonishing how like lightning unpleasant facts do fly. In less than two +minutes, every soul in the gardens knew that Mien-yaun, the noble, the +princely, the loftily-descended, the genteel, was going to marry a +tradesman's daughter. + +Now that the great secret was out, everybody had thought so. Some had +been sure of it. Others had told you so. It was the most natural thing +in the world. Where there was so much mystery, there must, of necessity, +be some peculiar reason for it. A great many had always thought him a +little crazy. In fact, the whole tide of public sentiment instantly +turned. Mien-yaun, without knowing it, was dethroned. Upstarts, who +that morning had trembled at his frown, and had very properly deemed +themselves unworthy to braid his tail, now swept by him with swaggering +insolence, as if to compensate in their new-found freedom for the years +of social enslavement they had been subjected to. Leers and shrugs and +spiteful whispers circulated extensively. But the enraptured Mien-yaun, +blind to everything except his own overwhelming happiness, saw and heard +them not. + +Little time was afforded for these private expressions of amiable +feeling. The grand repast was declared ready, and the importance of this +announcement overweighed, for a short period, the claims of scandal and +ill-nature. The company quickly found their way to the tables, which, as +the "Pekin Gazette" of the next morning said, in describing the _fête_, +"literally groaned beneath the weight of the delicacies with which they +were loaded." The consultations of the Ning-po cook and his confederates +had produced great results. The guests seated themselves, and delicately +tasted the slices of goose and shell-fish, and the pickled berries, and +prawns, and preserves, which always compose the prefatory course of a +Chinese dinner of high degree. Then porcelain plates and spoons of the +finest quality, and ivory chopsticks tipped with pearl, were distributed +about, and the birds'-nest soup was brought on. After a sufficient +indulgence in this luxury, came sea-slugs, and shark stews, and crab +salad, all served with rich and gelatinous sauces, and cooked to a +charm. Ducks' tongues and deers' tendons, from Tartary, succeeded, with +stewed fruits and mucilaginous gravy. Every known and some unknown +luxuries were lavishly provided. The Ning-po cook had invented a +new dish expressly for the occasion,--"Baked ice _à la_ +Ching-ki-pin,"--which was highly esteemed. The ice was enveloped in a +crust of fine pastry, and introduced into the oven; the paste being +baked before the ice--thus protected from the heat--had melted, the +astonished visitors had the satisfaction of biting through a burning +crust, and instantly cooling their palates with the grateful contents. +The Chinese never cook except on substantial principles; and it was the +principle of contrast which regulated this sublime _chef-d'oeuvre_ of +the Ning-po artist. + +Of course, the rarest beverages were not wanting. A good dinner without +good wine is nought. Useless each without the other. Those whose fancy +rested upon medicated _liqueurs_ found them in every variety. Those who +placed a higher value upon plain light wines had no reason to complain +of the supply set before them. Those whose unconquerable instinct +impelled them to the more invigorating sam-shu had only to make known +their natural desires. As the feast progressed, and the spirits of +the company rose, the charms of music were added to the delights of +appetite. A band of singsong girls gently beat their tom-toms, and +carolled in soft and soothing strains. As they finished, a general +desire to hear Mien-yaun was expressed. Willing, indeed, he was, and, +after seven protestations that he could not think upon it, each fainter +than the other, he suffered himself to be prevailed over, and, casting +a fond look upon his betrothed, he rose, and sang the following verses +from the Shee-king,--a collection of odes four thousand years old, and, +consequently, of indisputable beauty:-- + + "The peach-tree, how graceful! how fair! + How blooming, how pleasant its leaves! + Such is a bride when she enters to share + The home of her bridegroom, and every care + Her family from her receives."[A] + +[Footnote A: The following is Sir William Jones's less literal and more +poetic paraphrase of the same selection:-- + + "Gay child of Spring, the garden's queen, + Yon peach-tree charms the roving sight; + Its fragrant leaves how richly green! + Its blossoms how divinely bright! + + "So softly smiles the blooming bride + By love and conscious virtue led + O'er her new mansion to preside, + And placid joys around her spread."] + + +VII. + + +The festivities were at their height, the sam-shu was spreading its +benign influences over the guests, the deep delight of satiated appetite +possessed their bosoms, when the entrance of a stern and fat old +gentleman arrested universal attention. It was the respected father of +Mien-yaun, the ex-censor of the highest board, and Councillor of the +Empire. The company rose to greet him; but he, with gracious suavity, +begged them not to discompose themselves. Approaching that part of the +table occupied by the bridal party, he laid his hand upon his heart, and +assured Tching-whang that he was unable to express the joy he felt at +seeing him and his family. + +Mien-yaun's father was a perfect master of the elementary principles. + +Turning then to his son, he pleasantly requested him to excuse himself +to the assemblage, and follow him for a few minutes to a private +apartment. + +As soon as they were alone, the adipose ex-censor of the highest board +said:--"My son, have you thought of wedding this maiden?" + +"Nothing shall divert me from that purpose, O my father," confidently +answered Mien-yaun. + +"Nothing but my displeasure," said the ex-censor of the highest board. +"You will not marry her." + +Mien-yaun was thunderstruck. When he had said that nothing should +awe him from the career of his humor, he had never contemplated the +appalling contingency of the interposition of paternal authority. He +wept, he prayed, he raved, he gnashed his teeth, he tore out as much of +his hair as was consistent with appearances. He went through all the +various manifestations of despair, but without producing the slightest +effect upon the inexorable ex-censor of the highest board. That worthy +official briefly explained his objections to a union between his son, +the pride and joy of the Tse, and a daughter of one of the Kung, and +then, taking the grief-stricken lover by the hand, he led him back to +the gardens. + +"Good friends," said he, "my son has just conveyed to me his lively +appreciation of the folly he was about to commit. He renounces all +connection with the black-haired daughter of the Kung, whom he now +wishes a very good evening." + +And the ex-censor of the highest board gravely and gracefully bowed the +family of Tching-whang out of the premises. The moment they crossed the +threshold, Mien-yaun and Ching-ki-pin went into a simultaneous fit. + + +VIII. + + +Mien-yaun now abandoned himself to grief. He laid away the peacock's +feather on a lofty shelf, and took to cotton breeches. Mien-yaun in +cotton breeches! What stronger confirmation could be needed of his utter +desolation? As he kept himself strictly secluded, he knew nothing of +the storm of ridicule that was sweeping his once illustrious name +disgracefully through the city. He knew not that a popular but +unscrupulous novelist had caught up the sad story and wrought it into +three thrilling volumes,--nor that an enterprising dramatist had +constructed a closely-written play in five acts, founded on the event, +and called "The Judgment of Taoli, or Vanity Rebuked," which had been +prepared, rehearsed, and put upon the stage by the second night after +the occurrence. He would gladly have abdicated the throne of fashion; +he cared nothing for that;--but it was well that he was spared the +humiliation of seeing his Ching-ki-pin's name held up to public scorn; +that would have destroyed the feeble remains of intellect which yet +inhabited his bewildered brain. + +Occasionally he would address the most piteous entreaties to his +cruel parent, but always unavailingly. He had not the spirit to show +resentment, even if the elementary principles would have permitted +it. The reaction of his life had come. This first great sorrow had +completely overwhelmed him, and, like most young persons in the agony of +a primal disappointment, he believed that the world had now no charms +for him, and that in future his existence would be little better than +a long sad bore. He looked back upon his career of gaudy magnificence +without regret, and felt like a _blasé_ butterfly, who would gladly +return to the sober obscurity of the chrysalis. He found that wealth and +station, though they might command the admiration of the world, could +not insure him happiness; and he thought how readily he would resign all +the gifts and glories which Fortune had showered on him for the joyous +hope, could he dare to indulge it, of a cottage on the banks of the +Grand Canal, with his darling Ching-ki-pin at his side. + +Thus passed away some months. At last, one day, he ventured forth, in +hope of meeting some former friend, in whose confiding ear he might +whisper his many sorrows. He had not proceeded twenty paces before a +group of young gallants, who in earlier days had been the humblest +of his satellites, brushed rudely by him, without acknowledging his +courteous salutation. Thinking that anguish might have changed his +features beyond recognition, he walked on, and soon met one with whom +his intimacy had been unlimited. He paused, and accosted him. + +The other stared coldly upon him, said he had a faint remembrance of +Mien-yaun, but Mien-yaun was _passé_ now, since that affair with old +Tching-whang's daughter, and he must really be excused from entering +into conversation with any one so excessively behind the fashionable +times. + +Mien-yaun seized the offender by the tail, whirled him violently to the +ground, and strode haughtily back to his home, whence he could not be +persuaded to stir, until after the occurrence of a very remarkable +event. + + +IX. + + +When Mien-yaun had pined nearly half away, and was considering within +himself whether it was expedient to commence upon the other half, word +was brought to him, one day, that his father, whom he had not seen for +some weeks, had met with an accident. Further inquiry revealed the fact, +that the worthy ex-censor of the highest board had so far forgotten +himself as to sneeze in the presence of the Emperor; and as nothing in +the elementary principles could be found to justify so gross a breach +of etiquette, the ex-censor's head had been struck off by the public +executioner, and his property, which was immense, had been confiscated +to the state. Some of Mien-yaun's friends, who had sedulously shunned +him for six months, lost no time in hastening to him with the agreeable +intelligence that he was an orphan and a pauper. After kicking them out +of doors, he sat down and pondered upon the matter. + +On the whole, he saw no great cause for grief. The Chinese law, which +is strict in the enforcement of all duties of a son to a living parent, +does not compel excessive lamentation for the dead. Mien-yaun could not +but perceive that the only obstacle to his union with Ching-ki-pin was +now removed. The sudden flood of joy which this thought gave rise +to came very near upsetting him again, and he had to resort to an +opium-pipe to quiet his nerves. He attended personally to the ceremonies +of interring the decollated deceased, and then shut himself up for a +week, to settle his mind. + +At the expiration of this time, he started out, one early morning, alone +and in humble garb, to seek his lost love. He threaded the familiar +streets, and, with heart beating high in delightful expectation, he +stood before the door of Tching-whang's mansion. He entered, and found +the Antique alone. + +Then followed a woful scene. The Antique began by informing him that +Mien-yaun rich and famous, and Mien-yaun poor and in disgrace, were two +very different persons. She went on to show that things were not now as +they used to be,--that, though her daughter-in-law had permitted his +addresses when he was in prosperity, she could not think of listening to +them under the present circumstances. _Pei_ was one thing, and _pin_ was +another. She concluded by recommending him, as he seemed in distress, to +take a dose of gin-seng and go to bed. After which she opened the door, +and gently eliminated him. + + +X. + + +Deeper than ever plummet sounded was Mien-yaun's wretchedness now. +Desperation took possession of him. Nothing prevented him from severing +his carotid artery but the recollection that only the vulgar thus +disposed of themselves. He thought of poison, whose sale was present +death in Pekin, according to established law. Suicide by poison being a +forbidden luxury, it recommended itself nimbly unto Mien-yaun's senses. +He did remember an apothecary whose poverty, if not his will, would +consent to let him have a dram of poison. He was about acting on this +inspiration, when a message was brought to him from Tching-whang, that, +at his daughter's most earnest prayer, one solitary interview would be +permitted the lovers. + +Like an arrow, Mien-yaun flew to the arms of Ching-ki-pin. She was, +then, true to him. She told him so; she swore it. Hope revived. He +thought no longer of the apothecary. Since Ching-ki-pin was faithful, he +asked no higher bliss. + +A hundred plans were discussed, and all declared ineffectual to +accomplish their union. Still they suggested impracticabilities. + +"Let us run away," said Mien-yaun. + +"Think of my feet," said Ching-ki-pin, reproachfully;--"am I a Hong-Kong +woman, that I should run?" + +It is only in Hong-Kong that the Chinese women permit their feet to +grow. + +Mien-yaun was full of heroic resolutions. Hitherto, besides being born +great, he had had greatness thrust upon him. Now he would achieve +greatness. He would secure not only wealth, but also a more enduring +fame than he had before enjoyed. He saw many avenues to eminence opening +before him. He would establish a periodical devoted to pictorial +civilization. If civilization did not bring it success, he would +illustrate great crimes and deadly horrors, in the highest style of Art, +and thus command the attention of the world. Or he would establish a +rival theatre. Two playhouses already existed in Pekin, each controlled +by men of high integrity, great tact, and undenied claims to public +support. He would overturn all that. He would start without capital, +sink immense sums, pay nobody, ruin his company, and retire in triumph. +Or he would become a successful politician, which was easier than +all, for nothing was needed in this career but strong lungs and a +cyclopaedia. Many other methods of achieving renown did he rehearse, all +of which seemed feasible. + +Ching-ki-pin, too, thought she might do something to acquire wealth. She +painted beautifully, with no sign of perspective to mar her artistic +productions. She warbled like a nightingale. She understood botany +better than the great Chin-nong, who discovered in one day no less than +seventy poisonous plants, and their seventy antidotes. Could she not +give lessons to select classes of young ladies in all these several +accomplishments? She was dying to do something to help defeat the +machinations of their evil Quei-shin, the mother-in-law. + +Finally, without coming to any particular conclusion, and after +interchanging eternal vows, they parted much comforted, and looking +forward to a brighter future. + + +XI. + + +Mien-yaun went to his home,--no longer the splendid mansion of his early +days, but a poor cottage, in an obscure quarter of the city. As he threw +himself upon a bench, a sharp bright thought flashed across his mind. +His brain expanded with a sudden poetic ecstasy. He seized upon a fresh +white sheet, and quickly covered it with the mute symbols of his fancy. +Another sheet, and yet another. Faster than his hand could record them, +the burning thoughts crowded upon him. No hesitation now, as in his +former efforts to effect his rhymes. Experience had taught him how to +think, and much suffering had filled his bosom with emotions that longed +to be expressed. Still he wrote on. Towards midnight he kicked off his +shoes, and wrote on, throwing the pages over his shoulder as fast as +they were finished. Morning dawned, and found him still at his task. He +continued writing with desperate haste until noon, and then flung away +his last sheet; his poem was done. + +He rose, and moistened his lips with a cup of fragrant Hyson, which, +according to the great Kian-lung, who was both a poet and an emperor, +and therefore undoubted authority on all subjects, drives away all the +five causes of disquietude which come to trouble us. Then he walked up +and down his narrow apartment many times, carefully avoiding the piles +of eloquence that lay scattered around. Then he sat down, and, gathering +up the disordered pages, resigned himself to the dire necessity--that +curse of authorship--of revising and correcting his verses. By +nightfall, this, too, was completed. + +In the morning, he ran to the nearest publisher. His poem was +enthusiastically accepted. In a week, it was issued anonymously, +although the author's name was universally known the same day. + +As Mien-yaun himself was afterwards accustomed to say,--after six months +of ignominious obscurity, he awoke one morning and found himself famous! + +In two days the first edition was exhausted, and a second, with +illustrations, was called for. In two more, it became necessary to issue +a third, with a biography of the author, in which it was shown that +Mien-yaun was the worst-abused individual in the world, and that Pekin +had forever dishonored itself by ill-treating the greatest genius that +city had ever produced. In the fourth edition, which speedily followed, +the poet's portrait appeared. + +It was soon found that Mien-yaun's poem was a versified narration of his +own experiences. There was the romantic youth, the beautiful maiden, the +obdurate papa, the villanous mother-in-law, and the shabby public. This +discovery augmented its popularity, and ten editions were disposed of in +a month. + +At length the Emperor was induced to read it. He underwent a new +sensation, and, in the exuberance of his delight, summoned the author +to a grand feast. When the Antique heard of this, she swallowed her +chopsticks in a fit of rage and spite, and died of suffocation. +Mien-yaun was then satisfied. He went to the dinner. The noble and the +mighty again lavished their attentions upon him, but he turned from them +with disgust. He saw through the flimsy tissue of flattery they would +fain cast over his eyes. The most appetizing delicacies were set before +him, but, like a true poet, he refused to take anything but biscuits and +soda-water. As neither of these articles had been provided, he consented +to regale himself with a single duck's tongue. In short, he behaved so +singularly, and gave himself so many airs, that everybody present, from +the Emperor to the cook, was ready to bow down and worship him. + +At the close of the repast, the Emperor begged to be informed in what +way he could be permitted to testify his appreciation of the towering +talents of his gifted subject. + +"Son of Heaven," answered Mien-yaun, "grant me only the hand in marriage +of my beauteous Ching-ki-pin. No other ambition have I." + +The Emperor was provoked at the modesty of the demand. In truth, he +would have been glad to see the young poet united to one of his own +daughters. But his imperial word was pledged,--and as Mien-yaun willed +it, so it was. + + +XII. + + +Their home is a little cottage on the bank of the Peiho; finery never +enters it, and neatness never leaves it. The singing of birds, the +rustling of the breeze, the murmuring of the waters are the only sounds +that they hear. Their windows will shut, and their door open,--but +to wise men only; the wicked shun it. Truth dwells in their hearts, +innocence guides their actions. Glory has no more charms for them than +wealth, and all the pleasures of the world cost them not a single wish. +The enjoyment of ease and solitude is their chief concern. Leisure +surrounds them, and discord shuns them. They contemplate the heavens and +are fortified. They look on the earth and are comforted. They remain in +the world without being of it. One day leads on another, and one year is +followed by another; the last will conduct them safe to their eternal +rest, and they will have lived for one another.[B] + +[Footnote B: The concluding lines are from a modern Chinese poem.] + + * * * * * + + +JOY-MONTH. + + + Oh, hark to the brown thrush! hear how he sings! + How he pours the dear pain of his gladness! + What a gush! and from out what golden springs! + What a rage of how sweet madness! + + And golden the buttercup blooms by the way, + A song of the joyous ground; + While the melody rained from yonder spray + Is a blossom in fields of sound. + + How glisten the eyes of the happy leaves! + How whispers each blade, "I am blest!" + Rosy heaven his lips to flowered earth gives, + With the costliest bliss of his breast. + + Pour, pour of the wine of thy heart, O Nature, + By cups of field and of sky, + By the brimming soul of every creature!-- + Joy-mad, dear Mother, am I! + + Tongues, tongues for my joy, for my joy! more tongues!-- + Oh, thanks to the thrush on the tree, + To the sky, and to all earth's blooms and songs! + They utter the heart in me. + + + + +A TRIP TO CUBA. + +[Continued.] + + +THE HARBOR OF HAVANA. + + +As we have said, there were some official mysteries connected with the +arrival of our steamer in Nassau; but these did not compare with the +visitations experienced in Havana. As soon as we had dropped anchor, a +swarm of dark creatures came on board, with gloomy brows, mulish noses, +and suspicious eyes. This application of Spanish flies proves irritating +to the good-natured captain, and uncomfortable to all of us. All +possible documents are produced for their satisfaction,--bill of lading, +bill of health, and so on. Still they persevere in tormenting the whole +ship's crew, and regard us, when we pass, with all the hatred of race in +their rayless eyes. "Is it a crime," we are disposed to ask, "to have +a fair Saxon skin, blue eyes, and red blood?" Truly, one would seem to +think so; and the first glance at this historical race makes clear to us +the Inquisition, the Conquest of Granada, and the ancient butcheries of +Alva and Pizarro. + +As Havana is an unco uncertain place for accommodations, we do not go on +shore, the first night, but, standing close beside the bulwarks, feel a +benevolent pleasure in seeing our late companions swallowed and carried +off like tidbits by the voracious boatmen below, who squabble first for +them and then with them, and so gradually disappear in the darkness. On +board the "Karnak" harmony reigns serene. The custom-house wretches are +gone, and we are, on the whole, glad we did not murder them. Our little +party enjoys tea and bread-and-butter together for the last time. After +so many mutual experiences of good and evil, the catguts about our tough +old hearts are loosened, and discourse the pleasant music of Friendship. +An hour later, I creep up to the higher deck, to have a look-out +forward, where the sailors are playing leap-frog and dancing +fore-and-afters. I have a genuine love of such common sights, and am +quite absorbed by the good fun before me, when a solemn voice sounds at +my left, and, looking round, I perceive Can Grande, who has come up to +explain to me the philosophy of the sailor's dances, and to unfold his +theory of amusements, as far as the narrow area of one little brain +(mine, not his) will permit. His monologue, and its interruptions, ran +very much as follows:-- + +_I_.--This is a pleasant sight, isn't it? + +_Can Grande_.--It has a certain interest, as exhibiting the inborn ideal +tendency of the human race;--no tribe of people so wretched, so poor, or +so infamous as to dispense with amusement, in some form or other. + +_Voice from below_.--Play up, Cook! That's but a slow jig ye're fluting +away at. + +_Can Grande_.--I went once to the Five Points of New York, with a +police-officer and two philanthropists;--our object was to investigate +that lowest phase of social existence.---- + +Bang, whang, go the wrestlers below, with loud shouts and laughter. I +give them one eye and ear,--Can Grande has me by the other. + +_Can Grande_.--I went into one of their miserable dance-saloons. I saw +there the vilest of men and the vilest of women, meeting with the worst +intentions; but even for this they had the fiddle, music and dancing. +Without this little crowning of something higher, their degradation +would have been intolerable to themselves and to each other.---- + +Here the man who gave the back in leap-frog suddenly went down in the +middle of the leap, bringing with him the other, who, rolling on the +deck, caught the traitor by the hair, and pommelled him to his heart's +content. I ventured to laugh, and exclaim, "Did you see that?" + +_Can Grande_.--Yes; that is very common.--At that dance of death, every +wretched woman had such poor adornment as her circumstances allowed,--a +collar, a tawdry ribbon, a glaring false jewel, her very rags disposed +with the greater decency of the finer sex,--a little effort at beauty, a +sense of it. The good God puts it there;--He does not allow the poorest, +the lowest of his human children the thoughtless indifference of +brutes.---- + +And there was the beautiful tropical sky above, starry, soft, and +velvet-deep,--the placid waters all around, and at my side the man who +is to speak no more in public, but whose words in private have still the +old thrill, the old power to shake the heart and bring the good thoughts +uppermost. I put my hand in his, and we descended the companionway +together and left the foolish sailors to their play. + +But now, on the after-deck, the captain, much entreated, and in no wise +unwilling, takes down his violin, and with pleasant touch gives us the +dear old airs, "Home, Sweet Home," "Annie Laurie," and so on, and we +accompany him with voices toned down by the quiet of the scene around. +He plays, too, with a musing look, the merry tune to which his little +daughter dances, in the English dancing-school, hundreds of leagues +away. Good-night, at last, and make the most of it. Coolness and quiet +on the water to-night, and heat and mosquitoes, howling of dogs and +chattering of negroes tomorrow night, in Havana. + +The next morning allowed us to accomplish our transit to the desired +land of Havana. We pass the custom-house, where an official in a cage, +with eyes of most oily sweetness, and tongue, no doubt, to match, +pockets our gold, and imparts in return a governmental permission to +inhabit the Island of Cuba for the space of one calendar month. We go +trailing through the market, where we buy peeled oranges, and through +the streets, where we eat them, seen and recognized afar as Yankees by +our hats, bonnets, and other features. We stop at the Café Dominica, and +refresh with coffee and buttered rolls, for we have still a drive of +three miles to accomplish before breakfast. All the hotels in Havana are +full, and more than full. Woolcut, of the Cerro, three miles from the +gates, is the only landlord who will take us in; so he seizes us fairly +by the neck, bundles us into an omnibus, swears that his hotel is but +two miles distant, smiles archly when we find the two miles long, brings +us where he wants to have us, the Spaniards in the omnibus puffing and +staring at the ladies all the way. Finally, we arrive at his hotel, glad +to be somewhere, but hot, tired, hungry, and not in raptures with our +first experience of tropical life. + +It must be confessed that our long-tried energies fall somewhat flat on +the quiet of Woolcut's. We look round, and behold one long room with +marble floor, with two large doors, not windows, opening in front upon +the piazza and the street, and other openings into a large court behind, +surrounded by small, dark bedrooms. The large room is furnished with two +dilapidated cane sofas, a few chairs, a small table, and three or four +indifferent prints, which we have ample time to study. For company, we +see a stray New York or Philadelphia family, a superannuated Mexican who +smiles and bows to everybody, and some dozen of those undistinguishable +individuals whom we class together as Yankees, and who, taking the map +from Maine to Georgia, might as well come from one place as another, the +Southerner being as like the Northerner as a dried pea is to a green +pea. The ladies begin to hang their heads, and question a little:--"What +are we to do here? and where is the perfectly delightful Havana you told +us of?" Answer:--"There is nothing whatever to do here, at this hour +of the day, but to undress and go to sleep;--the heat will not let you +stir, the glare will not let you write or read. Go to bed; dinner is at +four; and after that, we will make an effort to find the Havana of the +poetical and Gan Eden people, praying Heaven it may not have its only +existence in their brains." + +Still, the pretty ones do not brighten; they walk up and down, eyeing +askance the quiet boarders who look so contented over their children and +worsted-work, and wondering in what part of the world they have taken +the precaution to leave their souls. Unpacking is then begun, with +rather a flinging of the things about, interspersed with little peppery +hints as to discomfort and dulness, and dejected stage-sighs, intended +for hearing. But this cannot go on,--the thermometer is at 78 degrees +in the shade,--an intense and contagious stillness reigns through the +house,--some good genius waves a bunch of poppies near those little +fretful faces, for which a frown is rather heavy artillery. The balmy +breath of sleep blows off the lightly-traced furrows, and, after a +dreamy hour or two, all is bright, smooth, and freshly dressed, as a +husband could wish it. The dinner proves not intolerable, and after it +we sit on the piazza. A refreshing breeze springs up, and presently the +tide of the afternoon drive sets in from the city. The _volantes_ dash +by, with silver-studded harnesses, and postilions black and booted; +within sit the pretty Señoritas, in twos and threes. They are attired +mostly in muslins, with bare necks and arms; bonnets they know +not,--their heads are dressed with flowers, or with jewelled pins. Their +faces are whitened, we know, with powder, but in the distance the effect +is pleasing. Their dark eyes are vigilant; they know a lover when they +see him. But there is no twilight in these parts, and the curtain of the +dark falls upon the scene as suddenly as the screen of the theatre upon +the _dénouement_ of the tragedy. Then comes a cup of truly infernal tea, +the mastication of a stale roll, with butter, also stale,--then, +more sitting on the piazza,--then, retirement, and a wild hunt after +mosquitoes,--and so ends the first day at Woolcut's, on the Cerro. + + +HAVANA. THE HOTELS. + + +"Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?" Yes, truly, if you can get it, +Jack Falstaff; but it is one thing to pay for comfort, and another thing +to have it. You certainly pay for it, in Havana; for the $3 or $3.50 +_per diem_, which is your simplest hotel-charge there, should, in any +civilized part of the world, give you a creditable apartment, clean +linen, and all reasonable diet. What it does give, the travelling public +may like to learn. + +Can Grande has left Woolcut's. The first dinner did not please him,--the +cup of tea, with only bread, exasperated,--and the second breakfast, +greasy, peppery, and incongruous, finished his disgust; so he asked for +his bill, packed his trunk, called the hotel detestable, and went. + +Now he was right enough in this; the house is detestable;--but as all +houses of entertainment throughout the country are about equally so, +it is scarcely fair to complain of one. I shall not fear to be more +inclusive in my statement, and to affirm that in no part of the world +does one get so little comfort for so much money as on the Island of +Cuba. To wit: an early cup of black coffee, oftenest very bad; bread not +to be had without an extra sputtering of Spanish, and darkening of the +countenance;--to wit, a breakfast between nine and ten, invariably +consisting of fish, rice, beefsteak, fried plantains, salt cod with +tomatoes, stewed tripe and onions, indifferent claret, and an after-cup +of coffee or green tea;--to wit, a dinner at three or four, of which +the inventory varieth not,--to wit, a plate of soup, roast beef, tough +turkeys and chickens, tolerable ham, nameless stews, cajota, plantains, +salad, sweet potatoes; and for dessert, a spoonful each of West India +preserve,--invariably the kind you do not like,--oranges, bananas, and +another cup of coffee;--to wit, tea of the sort already described;--to +wit, attendance and non-attendance of negro and half-breed waiters, who +mostly speak no English, and neither know nor care what you want;--to +wit, a room whose windows, reaching from floor to ceiling, inclose no +glass, and are defended from the public by iron rails, and from the +outer air, at desire, by clumsy wooden shutters, which are closed only +when it rains;--to wit, a bed with a mosquito-netting;--to wit, a towel +and a pint of water, for all ablutions. This is the sum of your comforts +as to quantity; but as to their quality, experience alone can enlighten +you. + +Taking pity on my exile at the Cerro, Can Grande and his party invite +me to come and spend a day at their hotel, of higher reputation, and +situated in the centre of things. I go;--the breakfast, to my surprise, +is just like Woolcut's; the dinner _idem_, but rather harder to get; +preserves for tea, and two towels daily, instead of one, seem to +constitute the chief advantages of this establishment. Domestic linens, +too, are fairer than elsewhere; but when you have got your ideas of +cleanliness down to the Cuban standard, a shade or two either way makes +no material difference. + +Can Grande comes and goes; for stay in the hotel, behind those +prison-gratings, he cannot. He goes to the market and comes back, goes +to the Jesuit College and comes back, goes to the banker's and gets +money. In his encounters with the sun he is like a prize-fighter coming +up to time. Every round finds him weaker and weaker, still his pluck is +first-rate, and he goes at it again. It is not until three, P.M., that +he wrings out his dripping pocket-handkerchief, slouches his hat over +his brows, and gives in as dead-beat. + +They of the lovely sex, meanwhile, undergo, with what patience they may, +an Oriental imprisonment. In the public street they must on no account +set foot. The Creole and Spanish women are born and bred to this, and +the hardiest American or English woman will scarcely venture out a +second time without the severe escort of husband or brother. These +relatives are, accordingly, in great demand. In the thrifty North, man +is considered an incumbrance from breakfast to dinner,--and the sooner +he is fed and got out of the way in the morning, the better the work +of the household goes on. If the master of the house return at an +unseasonable hour, he is held to an excuse, and must prove a headache, +or other suitable indisposition. In Havana, on the contrary, the +American woman suddenly becomes very fond of her husband:--"he must not +leave her at home alone; where does he go? she will go with him; when +will he come back? remember, now, she will expect him." The secret of +all this is, that she cannot go out without him. The other angel of +deliverance is the _volante_, with its tireless horses and _calesero_, +who seems fitted and screwed to the saddle, which he never leaves. He +does not even turn his head for orders. His senses are in the back of +his head, or wherever his mistress pleases. "_José, calle de la muralla, +esquina á los oficios_,"--and the black machine moves on, without look, +word, or sign of intelligence. In New York, your Irish coachman grins +approval of your order; and even an English flunkey may touch his hat +and say, "Yes, Mum." But in the Cuban negro of service, dumbness is the +complement of darkness;--you speak, and the patient right hand pulls the +strap that leads the off horse, while the other gathers up the reins of +the nigh, and the horses, their tails tightly braided and deprived of +all movement, seem as mechanical as the driver. Happy are the ladies +at the hotel who have a perpetual _volante_ at their service! for they +dress in their best clothes three times a day, and do not soil them by +contact with the dusty street. They drive before breakfast, and shop +before dinner, and after dinner go to flirt their fans and refresh their +robes on the Paseo, where the fashions drive. At twilight, they stop at +friendly doors and pay visits, or at the entrance of the _café_, where +ices are brought out to them. At eight o'clock they go to the Plaza, and +hear the band play, sitting in the _volante_; and at ten they come home, +without fatigue, having all day taken excellent care of number one, +beyond which their arithmetic does not extend. "I and my _volante_" is +like Cardinal Wolsey's "_Ego et Rex meus_." + +As for those who have no _volantes_, modesty becomes them, and quietness +of dress and demeanor. They get a little walk before breakfast, and stay +at home all day, or ride in an omnibus, which is perhaps worse;--they +pay a visit now and then in a hired carriage, the bargain being made +with difficulty;--they look a good deal through the bars of the +windows, and remember the free North, and would, perhaps, envy the +_volante_-commanding women, did not dreadful Moses forbid. + +One alleviation of the tedium of hotel-life in the city is the almost +daily visit of the young man from the dry-goods' shop, who brings +samples of lawns, misses' linen dresses, piña handkerchiefs, and fans of +all prices, from two to seventy-five dollars. The ladies cluster like +bees around these flowery goods, and, after some hours of bargaining, +disputing, and purchasing, the vendor pockets the golden honey, and +marches off. As dress-makers in Havana are scarce, dear, and bad, our +fair friends at the hotel make up these dresses mostly themselves, and +astonish their little world every day by appearing in new attire. "How +extravagant!" you say. They reply, "Oh! it cost nothing for the making; +I made it myself." But we remember to have heard somewhere that "Time +is Money." At four in the afternoon, a negress visits in turn +every bedroom, sweeps out the mosquitoes from the curtains with a +feather-brush, and lets down the mosquito-net, which she tucks in around +the bed. After this, do not meddle with your bed until it is time to get +into it; then put the light away, open the net cautiously, enter with a +dexterous swing, and close up immediately, leaving no smallest opening +to help them after. In this mosquito-net you live, move, and have your +being until morning; and should you venture to pull it aside, even for +an hour, you will appall your friends, next morning, with a face which +suggests the early stages of small-pox, or the spotted fever. + +The valuable information I have now communicated is the sum of what I +learned in that one day at Mrs. Almy's; and though our party speedily +removed thither, I doubt whether I shall be able to add to it anything +of importance. + + +HAVANA. YOUR BANKER. OUR CONSUL. THE FRIENDLY CUP OF TEA. + + +One is apt to arrive in Havana with a heart elated by the prospect of +such kindnesses and hospitalities as are poetically supposed to be +the perquisite of travellers. You count over your letters as so many +treasures; you regard the unknown houses you pass as places of deposit +for the new acquaintances and delightful friendships which await you. +In England, say you, each of these letters would represent a pleasant +family-mansion thrown open to your view,--a social breakfast,--a dinner +of London wits,--a box at the opera,--or the visit of a lord, whose +perfect carriage and livery astonish the quiet street in which you +lodge, and whose good taste and good manners should, one thinks, prove +contagious, at once soothing and shaming the fretful Yankee conceit. But +your Cuban letters, like fairy money, soon turn to withered leaves in +your possession, and, having delivered two or three of them, you employ +the others more advantageously, as shaving-paper, or for the lighting of +cigars, or any other useful purpose. + +Your banker, of course, stands first upon the list,--and to him +accordingly, with a beaming countenance, you present yourself. For him +you have a special letter of recommendation, and, however others may +fail, you consider him as sure as the trump of the deal at whist. +But why, alas, should people, who have gone through the necessary +disappointments of life, prepare for themselves others, which may be +avoided? Listen and learn. At the first visit, your banker is tolerably +glad to see you,--he discounts your modest letter of credit, and pockets +his two and a half _per cent._ with the best grace imaginable. If he +wishes to be very civil, he offers you a seat, offers you a cigar, and +mumbles in an indistinct tone that he will be happy to serve you in any +way. You call again and again, keeping yourself before his favorable +remembrance,--always the same seat, the same cigar, the same desire to +serve you, carefully repressed, and prevented from breaking out into any +overt demonstration of good-will. At last, emboldened by the brilliant +accounts of former tourists and the successes of your friends, you +suggest that you would like to see a plantation,--you only ask for +one,--would he give you a letter, etc., etc.? He assumes an abstracted +air, wonders if he knows anybody who has a plantation,--the fact being +that he scarcely knows any one who has not one. Finally, he will +try,--call again, and he will let you know. You call again,--"Next +week," he says. You call after that interval,--"Next week," again, is +all you get. Now, if you are a thoroughbred man, you can afford to +quarrel with your banker; so you say, "Next week,--why not next +year?"--make a very decided snatch at your hat, and wish him a very long +"good-morning." But if you are a snob, and afraid, you take his neglect +quietly enough, and will boast, when you go home, of his polite +attentions to yourself and family, when on the Island of Cuba. + +_Our Consul_ is the next post in the weary journey of your hopes, and +to him, with such assurance as you have left, you now betake yourself. +Touching him personally I have nothing to say. I will only remark, in +general, that the traveller who can find, in any part of the world, an +American Consul not disabled from all service by ill-health, want of +means, ignorance of foreign languages, or unpleasant relations with the +representatives of foreign powers,--that traveller, we say, should go in +search of the sea-serpent, and the passage of the North Pole, for he +has proved himself able to find what, to every one but him, is +undiscoverable. + +But who, setting these aside, is to show you any attention? Who will +lift you from the wayside, and set you upon his own horse, or in his +own _volante_, pouring oil and wine upon your wounded feelings? Ah! the +breed of the good Samaritan is never allowed to become extinct in this +world, where so much is left for it to do. + +A kind and hospitable American family, long resident in Havana, takes us +up at last. They call upon us, and we lift up our heads a little; they +take us out in their carriage, and we step in with a little familiar +flounce, intended to show that we are used to such things; finally, they +invite us to a friendly cup of tea,--all the hotel knows it,--we have +tarried at home in the shade long enough. Now, people have begun to find +us out,--_we are going out to tea!_ + +How pleasant the tea-table was! how good the tea! how more than good +the bread-and-butter and plum-cake! how quaint the house of Spanish +construction, all open to the air, adorned with flowers like a temple, +fresh and fragrant, and with no weary upholstery to sit heavy on +the sight! how genial and prolonged the talk! how reluctant the +separation!--imagine it, ye who sing the songs of home in a strange +land. And ye who cannot imagine, forego the pleasure, for I shall tell +you no more about it. I will not, I, give names, to make good-natured +people regret the hospitality they have afforded. If they have +entertained unawares angels and correspondents of the press, (I use the +two terms as synonymous,) they shall not be made aware of it by the +sacrifice of their domestic privacy. All celebrated people do this, and +that we do it not answers for our obscurity. + +The cup of tea proves the precursor of many kind services and pleasant +hours. Our new friends assist us to a deal of sight-seeing, and +introduce us to cathedral, college, and garden. We walk out with them +at sunrise and at sunset, and sit under the stately trees, and think it +almost strange to be at home with people of our own race and our own way +of thinking, so far from the home-surroundings. For the gardens, they +may chiefly be described as triumphs of Nature over Art,--our New +England horticulture being, on the contrary, the triumph of Art over +Nature, after a hard-fought battle. Here, the avenues of palm and cocoa +are magnificent, and the flowers new to us, and very brilliant. But +pruning and weeding out are hard tasks for Creole natures, with only +negroes to help them. There is for the most part a great overgrowth +and overrunning of the least desirable elements, a general air of +slovenliness and unthrift; in all artificial arrangements decay seems +imminent, and the want of idea in the laying out of grounds is a +striking feature. In Italian villas, the feeling of the Beautiful, which +has produced a race of artists, is everywhere manifest,--everywhere are +beautiful forms and picturesque effects. Even the ruins of Rome seem to +be held together by this fine bond. No stone dares to drop, no arch to +moulder, but with an exquisite and touching grace. And the weeds, oh! +the weeds that hung their little pennon on the Coliseum, how graciously +do they float, as if they said,--"Breathe softly, lest this crumbling +vision of the Past go down before the rude touch of the modern world!" +And so, one treads lightly, and speaks in hushed accents; lest, in the +brilliant Southern noon, one should wake the sleeping heart of Rome to +the agony of her slow extinction. + +But what is all this? We are dreaming of Rome,--and this is Cuba, where +the spirit of Art has never been, and where it could not pass without +sweeping out from houses, churches, gardens, and brains, such trash as +has rarely been seen and endured elsewhere. They show us, for example, +some mutilated statues in the ruins of what is called the Bishop's +Garden. Why, the elements did a righteous work, when they effaced the +outlines of these coarse and trivial shapes, unworthy even the poor +marble on which they were imposed. Turning from these, however, we +find lovely things enough to rebuke this savage mood of criticism. The +palm-trees are unapproachable in beauty,--they stand in rows like Ionic +columns, straight, strong, and regular, with their plumed capitals. They +talk solemnly of the Pyramids and the Desert, whose legends have been +whispered to them by the winds that cross the ocean, freighted with the +thoughts of God. Then, these huge white lilies, deep as goblets, which +one drinks fragrance from, and never exhausts,--these thousand unknown +jewels of the tropic. Here is a large tank, whose waters are covered +with the leaves and flowers of beautiful aquatic plants, whose Latin +names are of no possible consequence to anybody. Here, in the very heart +of the garden, is a rustic lodge, curtained with trailing vines. Birds +in cages are hung about it, and a sweet voice, singing within, tells us +that the lodge is the cage of a more costly bird. We stop to listen, +and the branches of the trees seem to droop more closely about us, the +twilight lays its cool, soft touch upon our heated foreheads, and we +whisper,--"Peace to his soul!" as we leave the precincts of the Bishop's +Garden. + + + + +SOME INEDITED MEMORIALS OF SMOLLETT. + + +A hundred years and upwards have elapsed since Fielding and Smollett, +the fathers and chiefs of the modern school of English novel-writing, +fairly established their claims to the dignified eminence they have ever +since continued to enjoy; and the passage of time serves but to confirm +them in their merited honors. Their pictures of life and manners are no +longer, it is true, so familiar as in their own days to the great mass +of readers; but this is an incident that scarce any author can hope to +avert. The changes of habits and customs, and the succession of writers +who in their turn essay to hold the mirror up to Nature, must always +produce such a result. But while the mind of man is capable of enjoying +the most fortunate combinations of genius and fancy, the most faithful +expositions of the springs of action, the most ludicrous and the most +pathetic representations of human conduct, the writings of Fielding and +Smollett will be read and their memories kept green. Undeterred by those +coarsenesses of language and occasional grossnesses of detail (which +were often less their own fault than that of the age) that frequently +disfigure the pages of "Amelia" and "Roderick Random," men will always +be found to yield their whole attention to the story, and to recognize +in every line the touches of the master's hand. + +Were any needed, stronger proof of the truth of this proposition could +not be given than is afforded by the zeal with which the greatest +novelists since their day have turned aside to contemplate and to +chronicle the career of this immortal pair, whose names, notwithstanding +the dissimilarity of genius and style, seem destined to be as eternally +coupled together as those of the twin sons of Leda. To the rescue +from oblivion of their personal histories, a host of biographers have +appeared, scattered over the whole period that has elapsed since their +deaths to the present time. The first life that appeared of Tobias +George Smollett came from the hands of his friend and companion, the +celebrated Dr. Moore, himself a novel-writer of no mean fame. To him +succeeded Anderson; who in turn was followed by Sir Walter Scott, the +fruits of whose unrivalled capacity for obtaining information are before +the world in the form of a most delightful memoir. So that when +Roscoe, at a later date, took up the same theme, he found that the +investigations of his predecessors had left him little more to do than +to make selections or abridgments, and to arrange what new matter he +had come into possession of. One would have thought that with all these +labors the public appetite should have been satisfied,--that everything +apt to be heard with interest of and about Smollett had been said. So +far from this being the case, however, it was but a few years ago, that, +as we all recollect, the brilliant pen of Thackeray was brought to bear +on the same subject, and the great humorist of this generation employed +his talents worthily in illustrating the genius of a past age. +"'Humphrey Clinker,'" says he, "is, I do believe, the most laughable +story that has ever been written since the goodly art of novel-writing +began." This is strong praise, though but of a single book; yet it falls +short of the general estimate that Walter Scott formed of the capacity +of our author. "We readily grant to Smollett," he says, "an equal rank +with his great rival, Fielding, while we place both far above any of +their successors in the same line of fictitious composition." + +After the testimonies we have cited, it would be useless to seek other +approbation of Smollett's merits. + + "From higher judgment-seats make no appeal + To lower." + +Yet, with all his imaginative power and humorous perception, it cannot +be gainsaid that there was a great lack of delicacy in the composition +of his mind,--a deficiency which, even in his own days, gave just +offence to readers of the best taste, and which he himself was sometimes +so candid as to acknowledge and to correct. Its existence is too often +a sufficient cause to deter any but minds of a certain masculine vigor +from the perusal of such a work as "Roderick Random"; and yet this work +was an especial favorite with the most refined portion of the public in +the latter half of the last century. Burke delighted in it, and would +no doubt often read from it aloud to the circle of guests of both sexes +that gathered about him at Beaconsfield; and Elia makes his imaginary +aunt refer to the pleasure with which in her younger days she had read +the story of that unfortunate young nobleman whose adventures make such +a figure in "Peregrine Pickle." So great is the change in the habit of +thought and expression in less than half a century, that we believe +there is not in all America a gentleman who would now venture to read +either of these works aloud to a fireside group. Smollett's Muse was +free enough herself; in all conscience;-- + + "High-kirtled was she, + As she gaed o'er the lea";-- + +but in "Peregrine Pickle," beside the natural incidents, there are two +long episodes foisted upon the story, neither of which has any lawful +connection with the matter in hand, and one of which, indelicate and +indecent in the extreme, does not appear to have even been of his +own composition. Reference is here made to the "Memoirs of a Lady of +Quality," and to the passages respecting young Annesley; and since +biographers do not seem to have touched especially on the manner of +their introduction into the novel, we will give a word or two to this +point. + +John Taylor, in the Records of his Life, states that the memoirs of Lady +Vane, as they appear in "Peregrine Pickle," were actually written by +an Irish gentleman of wealth, a Mr. Denis McKerchier, who at the time +entertained relations with that abandoned, shameless woman; so that, if, +as was probably the case, she paid Smollett a sum of money to procure +their incorporation in his pages, there could have been no other motive +to actuate her conduct than a desire to blazon her own fall or to +mortify the feelings of her husband. The latter is the more likely +alternative, if we are to believe that Lord Vane himself stooped to +employ Dr. Hill to prepare a history of Lady Frail, by way of retorting +the affront he had received. This Mr. McKerchier in season broke with +her Ladyship, and refused her admission to his dying bedside; but, in +the mean time, his Memoirs had gone out to the world, and had greatly +conduced to the popularity and sale of Smollett's novel. He was also the +patron of Annesley, that unfortunate young nobleman whose romantic +life has furnished Godwin and Scott with a foundation for their most +highly-wrought novels; and it was, we may judge, from his own lips that +Smollett received the narrative of his _protégé_'s adventures. Whatever +we may think, however, of the introduction of scenes that were of +sufficient importance to suggest such books as "Cloudesley" and "Guy +Mannering," there can be but one opinion as to the bad taste which +governed Smollett, when he consented to overload "Peregrine Pickle" +with Lady Vane's memoirs; and if lucre were indeed at the bottom of the +business, it assumes a yet graver aspect. + +But the business of this article is not to dwell upon matters that are +already in print, and to which the general reader can have easy access. +To such as are desirous of obtaining a full account of the life and +genius of Smollett, prepared with all the aids that are to be derived +from a thorough knowledge of the question, we would suggest the perusal +of an exceedingly well-written article in the London Quarterly Review +for January, 1858; and we will here heartily express a regret that the +unpublished materials which have found a place in this magazine could +not have been in the hands of the author of that paper. It is certain he +would have made a good use of them. As it is, however, they will perhaps +possess an additional interest to the public from the fact that they +have never before seen the light. + +It is something, says Washington Irving, to have seen the dust of +Shakspeare. It is assuredly not less true that one can hardly examine +without a peculiar emotion the private letters of such a man as +Smollett. A strange sensation accompanies the unfolding of the faded +sheets, that have hardly been disturbed during the greater part of a +century. And as one at least of the documents in question is of an +almost autobiographical character, its tattered folds at once assume a +value to the literary student far beyond the usual scope of an inedited +autograph. + +The first letter to which we shall call attention was written by +Smollett in 1763. It was in reply to one from Richard Smith, Esq., of +Burlington, New Jersey, by whose family it has been carefully preserved, +together with a copy of the letter which called it forth. Mr. Smith was +a highly respectable man, and in later years, when the Revolution broke +out, a delegate from his Province to the first and second Continental +Congress. He had written to Smollett, expressing his hopes that the +King had gratified with a pension the author of "Peregrine Pickle" and +"Roderick Random," and asking under what circumstances these books were +composed, and whether they contained any traces of his correspondent's +real adventures. He adverts to a report that, in the case of "Sir +Launcelot Greaves," Smollett had merely lent his name to "a mercenary +bookseller." "The Voyages which go under your name Mr. Rivington (whom +I consulted on the matter) tells me are only nominally your's, or, at +least, were chiefly collected by understrappers. Mr. Rivington also +gives me such an account of the shortness of time in which you wrote +the History, as is hardly credible." A list of Smollett's genuine +publications is also requested. + +The Mr. Rivington referred to in the foregoing extract was probably the +well-known New York bookseller, whose press was so obnoxious to the +Whigs a few years later. To the letter itself Smollett thus replied:-- + + +DR. SMOLLETT TO MR. SMITH. + +"Sir,--I am favoured with your's of the 26th of February, and cannot +but be pleased to find myself, as a writer, so high in your esteem. The +curiosity you express, with regard to the particulars of my life and +the variety of situations in which I may have been, cannot be gratified +within the compass of a letter. Besides, there are some particulars of +my life which it would ill become me to relate. The only similitude +between the circumstances of my own fortune and those I have attributed +to Roderick Random consists in my being born of a reputable family in +Scotland, in my being bred a surgeon, and having served as a surgeon's +mate on board a man-of-war during the expedition to Carthagena. The low +situations in which I have exhibited Roderick I never experienced in my +own person. I married very young, a native of Jamaica, a young lady well +known and universally respected under the name of Miss Nancy Lassells, +and by her I enjoy a comfortable, tho' moderate estate in that island. I +practised surgery in London, after having improved myself by travelling +in France and other foreign countries, till the year 1749, when I took +my degree of Doctor in Medicine, and have lived ever since in Chelsea (I +hope) with credit and reputation. + +"No man knows better than Mr. Rivington what time I employed in writing +the four first volumes of the History of England; and, indeed, the short +period in which that work was finished appears almost incredible to +myself, when I recollect that I turned over and consulted above three +hundred volumes in the course of my labour. Mr. Rivington likewise +knows that I spent the best part of a year in revising, correcting, and +improving the quarto edition; which is now going to press, and will be +continued in the same size to the late Peace. Whatever reputation I may +have got by this work has been dearly purchased by the loss of health, +which I am of opinion I shall never retrieve. I am now going to the +South of France, in order to try the effects of that climate; and very +probably I shall never return. I am much obliged to you for the hope you +express that I have obtained some provision from his Majesty; but the +truth is, I have neither pension nor place, nor am I of that disposition +which can stoop to solicit either. I have always piqued myself upon my +Independancy, and I trust in God I shall preserve it to my dying day. + +"Exclusive of some small detached performances that have been published +occasionally in papers and magazines, the following is a genuine list of +my productions. Roderick Random. The Regicide, a Tragedy. A translation +of Gil Blas. A translation of Don Quixotte. An Essay upon the external +use of water. Peregrine Pickle. Ferdinand Count Fathom. Great part of +the Critical Review. A very small part of a Compendium of Voyages. The +complete History of England, and Continuation. A small part of the +Modern Universal History. Some pieces in the British Magazine, +comprehending the whole of Sir Launcelot Greaves. A small part of the +translation of Voltaire's Works, including all the notes, historical and +critical, to be found in that translation. + +"I am much mortified to find it is believed in America that I have lent +my name to Booksellers: that is a species of prostitution of which I am +altogether incapable. I had engaged with Mr. Rivington, and made some +progress in a work exhibiting the present state of the world; which work +I shall finish, if I recover my health. If you should see Mr. Rivington, +please give my kindest compliments to him. Tell him I wish him all +manner of happiness, tho' I have little to expect for my own share; +having lost my only child, a fine girl of fifteen, whose death has +overwhelmed myself and my wife with unutterable sorrow. + +"I have now complied with your request, and beg, in my turn, you will +commend me to all my friends in America. I have endeavoured more than +once to do the Colonies some service; and am, Sir, your very humble +servant, + +"Ts. SMOLLETT. + +"London, May 8, 1763." + + * * * * * + +The foregoing letter, though by no means confidential, must possess +considerable value to any future biographer of the writer. It very +clearly shows the light in which Smollett was willing to be viewed by +the public. It explains the share he took in more than one literary +enterprise, and establishes his paternity of the translation of "Gil +Blas," which has been questioned by Scott and ignored by other critics. +The travels in France, which, according to the letter, could not have +been posterior to 1749, seem unknown even to the Quarterly Reviewer; but +it is possible that here Smollett's memory may have played him false, +and that he confounded 1749 with the following year, when, as is well +known, he visited that kingdom. The reference to his own share in +furnishing the original for the story of "Roderick Random" is curious; +nevertheless it can no longer be doubted that very many of the persons +and scenes of that work, as well as of "Peregrine Pickle," were drawn, +with more or less exaggeration, from his actual experience of men and +manners. And the despondency with which he contemplates his shattered +health and the prospect of finding a grave in a foreign land explains +completely the governing motives that produced, in the concluding pages +of the history of the reign of George II., so calm and impartial a +testimony to the various worth of his literary compeers that it almost +assumes the tone of the voice of posterity. This is the suggestion of +the article in the "Quarterly Review," and the language of the letter +confirms it. Despairing of ever again returning to his accustomed +avocations, and with a frame shattered by sickness and grief, he passes +from the field of busy life to a distant land, where he thinks to leave +his bones; but ere he bids a last farewell to his own soil, he passes in +review the names of those with whom he has for years been on relations +of amity or of ill-will, in his own profession, and, while he makes +their respective merits, so far as in him lies, a part of the history of +their country, he seems to breathe the parting formula of the gladiator +of old,--_Moriturus vos saluto_. + +In the first of the ensuing letters an amusing commentary will be found +on Smollett's assertion, that his independent spirit would not stoop to +solicit either place or pension. The papers of which it forms one appear +to have been selected from the private correspondence of Dr. Smollett, +and are preserved among the MSS. of the Library Company of Philadelphia, +to which they were presented by Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of +the Declaration of Independence, who may have obtained them in Scotland. +Like the letter to Mr. Smith, we are satisfied that these are authentic +documents, and shall deal with them as such here. Lord Shelburne (better +known by his after-acquired title of Marquis of Lansdowne) was the +identical minister whom Pitt, twenty years later, so highly eulogized +for "that capacity of conferring good offices on those he prefers," and +for "his attention to the claims of merit," of which we could wish to +know that Smollett had reaped some benefit. The place sought for was +probably a consulate on the Mediterranean, which would have enabled our +author to look forward with some assurance of faith to longer and easier +years. The Duchess of Hamilton, to whom his Lordship writes, and by whom +his letter seems to have been transmitted to its object, was apparently +the beautiful Elizabeth Gunning, dowager Duchess of Hamilton, but +married, at the date of the letter, to the Duke of Argyle. Having +an English peerage of Hamilton in her own right, it is probable she +preferred to continue her former title. + + +LORD SHELBURNE TO THE DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. + +"_Holt Street, Tuesday._ + +"Madam,--I am honour'd with your Grace's letter, inclosing one from +Doctor Smollett. It is above a year since I was applied to by Doctor +Smollett, thro' a person I wish'd extremely to oblige; but there were +and still subsist some applications for the same office, of a nature +which it will be impossible to get over in favour of Mr. Smollett, which +makes it impossible for me to give him the least hopes of it. I could +not immediately recollect what had pass'd upon that subject, else I +should have had the honour to answer your Grace's letter sooner. I am +with great truth and respect your Grace's most obedient and most humble +servant. + +"SHELBURNE." + + * * * * * + +The letter bears no month nor year, but is indorsed, apparently by +Smollett himself, as of 1762,--that is, in the year previous to his +expressed aversion to solicitations for place. Yet if there was a man in +England entitled to ask for and to receive some provision by his country +for his broken health and narrow fortunes, that man was Smollett. It is +perhaps a trifling thing to notice, but it may be observed that Lord +Shelburne's communication does not bear any marks of frequent perusal. +The silver sand with which the fresh lines were besprinkled still clings +to the fading ink, furnishing perhaps the only example remaining of the +use of that article. Rousseau, we remember, mentions such sand as the +proper material to be resorted to by one who would be very particular +in his correspondence,--"_employant pour cela le plus beau papier doré, +séchant l'écriture avec de la poudre d'azur et d'argent_"; and Moore +repeats the precept in the example of M. le Colonel Calicot, according +to the text of Miss Biddy, in the "Fudge Family in Paris":-- + + "Upon paper gilt-edged, without blot or erasure + Then sanded it over with silver and azure." + +Among the remaining letters in this collection we find some from John +Gray, "teacher of mathematics in Cupar of Fife,"--some from Dr. John +Armstrong, the author of "The Art of Health,"--and one from George +Colman the elder. In 1761, Gray writes to Smollett, thanking him for +kind notices in the "Critical Review," and asking his influence in +regard to certain theories concerning the longitude, of which Gray was +the inventor. In 1770, Colman thus writes:-- + + +GEORGE COLMAN TO DR. SMOLLETT. + +"Dear Sir,--I have some idea that Mr. Hamilton about two years ago told +me he should soon receive a piece from you, which he meant, at your +desire, to put into my hands; but since that time I have neither seen +nor heard of the piece. + +"I hope you enjoy your health abroad, and shall be glad of every +opportunity to convince you that I am most heartily and sincerely, dear +Sir, your, &c., + +"G. COLMAN. + +"London, 28 Sept. 1770." + + * * * * * + +The piece referred to here by Colman (who was at this period, we +believe, the manager of the Haymarket Theatre) may possibly have been +a farce that was brought out fifteen years later on the Covent-Garden +stage, with the title of "The Israelites, or the Pampered Nabob." Its +merits and its success are said by Scott to have been but slight, and +the proof of its having been written by Smollett very doubtful; so that +it was never printed, and was soon forgotten. + +At this time, (1770,) it must be remembered, Smollett was established at +Leghorn, where a milder climate and sunnier skies tended to promote, +we fancy, a serener condition of mind than he had known for years. In +leaving England, he left behind him some friends, but many enemies. In +his literary career, as he himself had not been over-merciful, so he +was in return not always tenderly handled. As a sample of the invective +which was occasionally poured forth on him, we will quote some lines +from "The Race," a dull imitation of "The Dunciad," ascribed to one +Cuthbert Shaw, and published in 1766. Although reprinted in "Dilly's +Repository," (1790,) it has long ago been very properly forgotten, and +is now utterly worthless save for purposes of illustration. The Hamilton +referred to is the same person to whom Colman makes allusion; he was +indeed Smollett's _fidus Achaies._ + + "--Next Smollet came. What author dare resist + Historian, critic, bard, and novelist? + 'To reach thy temple, honoured Fame,' he cried, + 'Where, where's an avenue I have not tried? + But since the glorious present of to-day + Is meant to grace alone the poet's lay, + My claim I wave to every art beside, + And rest my plea upon the Regicide. + * * * * * + But if, to crown the labours of my Muse, + Thou, inauspicious, should'st the wreath refuse, + Whoe'er attempts it in this scribbling age + Shall feel the Scottish pow'rs of Crilic rage. + Thus spurn'd, thus disappointed of my aim, + I'll stand a bugbear in the road to Fame, + Each future author's infant hopes undo, + And blast the budding honours of his brow.' + He said,--and, grown with future vengeance big, + Grimly he shook his scientific wig. + To clinch the cause, and fuel add to fire, + Behind came Hamilton, his trusty squire: + Awhile _he_ paus'd, revolving the disgrace, + And gath'ring all the honours of his face; + Then rais'd his head, and, turning to the crowd, + Burst into bellowing, terrible and loud:-- + 'Hear my resolve; and first by--I swear, + By Smollet, and his gods, whoe'er shall date + With him this day for glorious fame to vie, + Sous'd in the bottom of the ditch shall lie; + And know, the world no other shall confess, + While I have crab-tree, life, or letter-press.' + Scar'd at the menace, _authors_ fearful grew, + Poor Virtue trembled, and e'en Vice look'd blue." + +It is unnecessary to pursue this vapid composition to its most lame and +impotent conclusion; it is sufficient to cite it as a specimen-brick of +the hostility which many literary characters entertained against the +author of "Roderick Random." Despite his own birthplace being north of +the Tweed, many Scots were aggrieved at the incidental ridicule with +which characters from "the land o' cakes" are sometimes treated in that +and other works from the same hand; and the picture of Lismahago in +"Humphrey Clinker" is said to have still more violently inflamed their +ire. It is to this feeling on the part of his countrymen that Charles +Lamb alludes, in his essay upon "Imperfect Sympathies." "Speak of +Smollett as a great genius," he says, "and they [the Scots] will retort +upon Hume's History compared with _his_ continuation of it. What if the +historian had continued 'Humphrey Clinker'?" In fact, there were a good +many North Britons, a century ago, who seem to have felt, on the subject +of English censure or ridicule, pretty much as some of our own people do +to-day. No matter how well-founded the objection may be, or how justly +a local habit may be satirized, our sensitiveness is wounded and our +indignation aroused. That the portrait in Lismahago's case was not +altogether overcharged may be deduced from a passage in one of Walter +Scott's letters, in which he likens the behavior and appearance of one +of his oldest and most approved friends to that of the gallant Obadiah +in a similar critical moment. "The noble Captain Ferguson was married on +Monday last. I was present at the bridal, and I assure you the like +hath not been seen since the days of Lismahago. Like his prototype, the +Captain advanced in a jaunty military step, with a kind of leer on +his face that seemed to quiz the whole matter." That the sketch was a +portrait, though doubtless disguised to such an extent as rendered its +introduction permissible, is very probable; and as it is beyond question +one of the masterpieces of English fiction, a few lines may well be +given to the point. With great justice the Quarterly Reviewer pronounces +the character of Lismahago in no whit inferior to that of Scott's Dugald +Dalgetty; and who would not go out of his way to trace any circumstance +in the history of such a conception as that of the valiant Laird of +Drumthwacket, the service-seeking Rittmaster of Swedish Black Dragoons? + +Scott himself tells us that he recollected "a good and gallant officer" +who was said to have been the prototype of Lismahago, though probably +the opinion had its origin in "the striking resemblance which he bore in +externals to the doughty Captain." Sir Walter names no name; but there +is a tradition that a certain Major Robert Stobo was the real original +from which the picture was drawn. Stobo may fairly be said to fulfil the +necessary requisites for this theory. That he was as great an oddity as +ever lived is abundantly testified by his own "Memorial," written about +1760, and printed at Pittsburg in 1854, from a copy of the MS. in the +British Museum. At the breaking out of the Seven-Years' War, he was in +Virginia, seeking his fortune under the patronage of his countryman, +Dinwiddie, and thus obtained a captaincy in the expedition which +Washington, in 1754, led to the Great Meadows. On the fall of Fort +Necessity, he was one of the hostages surrendered by Washington to the +enemy; and thus, and by his subsequent doings at Fort Du Quesne and in +Canada, he has linked his name with some interesting passages of our +national history.[A] That he was known to Smollett in after life appears +by a letter from David Hume to the latter, in which his "strange +adventures" are alluded to; and there is considerable resemblance +between these, as narrated by Stobo himself, and those assigned by +the novelist to Lismahago. And, bearing in mind the ineffable +self-complacency with which Stobo always dwells on himself and his +belongings, the description of his person given in the "Memorial" +coincides very well with that of the figure which the novelist makes to +descend in the yard of the Durham inn. One circumstance further may be +noted. We are told of "the noble and sonorous names" which Miss Tabitha +Bramble so much admired: "that Obadiah was an adventitious appellation, +derived from his great-grandfather, who had been one of the original +Covenanters; but Lismahago was the family surname, taken from a place +in Scotland, so called." Now we are not very well versed in Scottish +topography; but we well recollect, that in Dean Swift's "Memoirs of +Captain John Creichton," who was a noted Cavalier in the reigns of +Charles II., James II., and William III., and had borne an active part +in the persecution of "the puir hill-folk," there is mention made of the +name of Stobo. The Captain dwells with no little satisfaction upon the +manner in which, after he had been so thoroughly outwitted by Mass David +Williamson,--the Covenanting minister, who played Achilles among the +women at my Lady Cherrytree's,--he succeeded in circumventing and taking +prisoner "a notorious rebel, one Adam Stobow, a farmer in Fife near +Culross." And later in the same book occurs a very characteristic +passage:--"_Having drunk hard one night_, I dreamed that I had found +Captain David Steele, a notorious rebel, in one of the five farmers' +houses on a mountain in the shire of Clydesdale and parish of Lismahago, +within eight miles of Hamilton, a place I was well acquainted with." +Lest the marvellous fulfilment of Creichton's dream should induce other +seekers to have resort to a like self-preparation, we will merely add, +that the village of Hamilton is hard by the castle of the Duke of that +name, to whose family we have already seen Smollett was under some +obligations, and that it is described in the same pages with Lismahago. +It is not improbable, therefore, that, being at Hamilton, the novelist's +attention may have been attracted to "Creichton's Memoirs," which treat +of the adjacent districts, and that the mention of Stobo's name therein +may have suggested to his mind its connection with Lismahago. Certainly +there was no antecedent work to "Humphrey Clinker," in which, as we may +believe, either of these names finds a place, save this of Creichton; +and as, throughout the whole series of letters, Smollett does not +profess to avoid the introduction of actual persons and events, often +even with no pretence of disguise, we need not hesitate to think that +he would make no difficulty of turning the eccentricities of a half-pay +officer to some useful account. + +[Footnote A: Some amusing particulars concerning Stobo may be found also +in the _Journal of Lieut. Simon Stevens:_ Boston 1760.--EDS. ATLANTIC.] + +But we have wandered too far away from the business of his +correspondence. The next letter that we shall examine is one from John +Gray, dated at Florence, Nov. 15th, 1770, to Smollett, at Leghorn. It +abounds in details of the writer's attempts at the translation of a +French play for the English stage, on which he desires a judgment; and +cites verses from several of the songs it contains,--one of them being +that so familiar to American ears thirty years since, when Lafayette was +making his last tour through this country:-- + + "Où peut on être mieux + Qu'au sein de sa famille?" + +Gray had been at Leghorn, on his way to Rome; and now amuses his +correspondent with the inconveniences of his journey under the auspices +of a tippling companion, with his notions about Pisa and Italy in +general, and with particulars of public intelligence from home, some +of which relate to Smollett's old antagonist, Admiral Knowles.--"I +despaired of executing Mrs. Smollett's commission," he says, "for there +was no ultramarine to be found in the shops; but I at length procured a +little from Mr. Patch, which I have sent along with the patterns in +Mrs. Varrien's letter, hoping that the word _Mostre_ on the back of the +letter will serve for a passport to all. The ultramarine costs nothing; +therefore, if it arrives safe, the commission is finished." + +We next have a couple of letters from Dr. Armstrong; which, on account +of his ancient and enduring friendship for Smollett, and of the +similarity in their careers, may be given at large. Armstrong was a +wrongheaded, righthearted man,--a surgeon in the army, we believe,--and +a worshipper of Apollo, as well in his proper person as in that of +Esculapius. In these, and in the varied uses to which he turned his pen, +the reader will see a similarity to the story of his brother Scot. That +he was occasionally splenetic in his disposition is very manifest. +His quarrel with Wilkes, with whom he had been on terms of intimate +friendship, finds a parallel in Smollett's own history. The first +letter is without date; but the reference to the publication of his +"Miscellanies" fixes it as of 1770, and at London. + + +DR. ARMSTRONG TO DR. SMOLLETT. + +"My dear Doctor,--I reproach myself;--but it is as insignificant as +embarrassing to explain some things;--so much for that. As to my +confidence in your stamina, I can see no reason to flinch from it; but I +wish you would avoid all unwholesome accidents as much as possible. + +"I am quite serious about my visit to you next autumn. My scheme is now +to pass my June or July at Paris; from thence to set out for Italy, +either over the Alps or by sea from Marseilles. I don't expect the +company of my widow lumber, or any other that may be too fat and +indolent for such an excursion; and hope to pick up some agreeable +companion without being at the expense of advertising. + +"You feel exactly as I do on the subject of State Politicks. But from +some late glimpses it is still to be hoped that some _Patriots_ may be +disappointed in their favourite views of involving their country in +confusion and destruction. As to the K. Bench patriot, it is hard to say +from what motive he published a letter of your's asking some trifling +favour of him on behalf of somebody for whom _the Cham of Literature_, +Mr. Johnson, had interested himself. I have within this month published +what I call my Miscellanies. Tho' I admitted my operator to an equal +share of profit and loss, the publication has been managed in such +a manner as if there had been a combination to suppress it: +notwithstanding which, it makes its way very tolerably at least. But I +have heard to-day that somebody is to give me a good trimming very soon. + +"All friends remember you very kindly, and our little club at the Q. +Arms never fail to devote a bumper to you, except when they are in the +humour of drinking none but scoundrels. I send my best compliments to +Mrs. Smollett and two other ladies, and beg you'll write me as soon +as suits you: and with black ink. I am always, my dear Doctor, most +affectionately yours,-- + +"JOHN ARMSTRONG." + + * * * * * + +The letter to Wilkes had been written many years before, to obtain his +assistance in procuring the release of Johnson's black servant, who had +been impressed. It was couched in free terms respecting Dr. Johnson, and +was probably now given by Wilkes to the press in the hope that it might +do its author harm with the _Cham_, or at least cause the latter some +annoyance. + +Armstrong's next letter finds him arrived in Italy, and on the eve of +repairing to his friend at Leghorn. + + +DR. ARMSTRONG TO DR. SMOLLETT. + +"_Rome, 2nd June_, 1770. + +"Dear Doctor,--I arrived here last Thursday night, and since that have +already seen all the most celebrated wonders of Rome. But I am most +generally disappointed in these matters; partly, I suppose, from my +expectations being too high. But what I have seen has been in such a +hurry as to make it a fatigue: besides, I have strolled about amongst +them neither in very good humour nor very good health. + +"I have delayed writing till I could lay before you the plan of my +future operations for a few weeks. I propose to post it to Naples about +the middle of next week, along with a Colonel of our Country, who seems +to be a very good-natured man. After remaining a week or ten days there, +I shall return hither, and, after having visited Tivoli and Frascati, +set out for Leghorn, if possible, in some vessel from Civita Vecchia; +for I hate the lodgings upon the road in this country. I don't expect to +be happy till I see Leghorn; and if I find my Friend in such health as I +wish him, or even hope for him, I shall not be disappointed in the chief +pleasure I proposed to myself in my visit to Italy. As you talked of a +ramble somewhere towards the South of France, I shall be extremely happy +to attend you. + +"I wrote to my brother from Genoa, and desired him to direct his answer +to your care at Pisa. If it comes, please direct it, with your own +letter, for which I shall long violently look, care of Mr. Francis +Barazzi at Rome. I am, with my best compliments to Mrs. Smollett and the +rest of the ladies, &c., + +"JOHN ARMSTRONG." + + * * * * * + +There is no reason to suppose that Armstrong found anything in the +condition of his friend to fulfil the anxious wishes of his letter. In +the following year, Smollett died, leaving to his widow little beyond +the empty consolations of his great fame. From her very narrow purse she +supplied the means of erecting the stone that marks the spot where he +lies; and the pen of his companion, whose letter we have just given, +furnished an appropriate inscription. The niggardly hands of government +remained as firmly closed against the relief of Mrs. Smollett as they +had been in answer to her husband's own application for himself; an +application which must have cost a severe struggle to his proud spirit, +and of which his most intimate literary friends were probably never +aware. He sought favors for others, says Dr. Moore; but "for himself +he never made an application to any great man in his life!" He was not +intemperate, nor yet was he extravagant, but by nature hospitable and of +a cheerful temperament; his housekeeping was never niggardly, so long as +he could employ his pen. Thus his genius was too often degraded to the +hackney-tasks of booksellers; while a small portion of those pensions +which were so lavishly bestowed upon ministerial dependants and placemen +would have enabled him to turn his mind to its congenial pursuits, and +probably to still further elevate the literary civilization of his +country. But if there be satisfaction in the thought that a neglect +similar to that which befell so bright a genius as his could no longer +occur in England, there is food likewise for reflection in the change +that has come over the position in which men of letters lived in those +days towards the public, and even towards each other. Let any one read +the account of the ten or a dozen authors whom Smollett describes +himself, in "Humphrey Clinker," as entertaining at dinner on +Sundays,--that being the only day upon which they could pass through the +streets without being seized by bailiffs for debt. Each character is +drawn with a distinctive minuteness that leaves us no room to doubt its +possessing a living original; yet how disgusting to suppose that such +a crew were really to be seen at the board of a brother writer! and in +what bad taste does their host describe and ridicule their squalor! That +such things were in those times cannot be doubted. Even in this century, +in the golden days of book-making, we are told how Constable and +how Ballantyne, the great publisher and the great printer of +Edinburgh,--"His Czarish Majesty," and "the Dey of All-jeers," as Scott +would call them,--delighted at their Sunday dinners to practise the +same exercises as those which Smollett relates,--how they would bring +together for their diversion Constable's "poor authors," and start +his literary drudges on an after-dinner foot-race for a new pair of +breeches, and the like! While it cannot justify the indifference with +which Shelburne treated his request, we cannot but perceive that +Smollett's contemptuous ridicule of his unfortunate or incapable +Grub-Street friends must rob him of much of the sympathy which would +otherwise accompany the ministerial neglect with which the claims of +literature were visited in his person. + + * * * * * + + +BLOODROOT + + + "Hast thou loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk?" + + Beech-trees, stretching their arms, rugged, yet beautiful, + Here shade meadow and brook; here the gay bobolink, + High poised over his mate, pours out his melody. + Here, too, under the hill, blooms the wild violet; + Damp nooks hide, near the brook, bellworts that modestly, + Pale-faced, hanging their heads, droop there in silence; while + South winds, noiseless and soft, bring us the odor of + Birch twigs mingled with fresh buds of the hickory. + + Hard by, clinging to rocks, nods the red columbine; + Close hid, under the leaves, nestle anemones,-- + White-robed, airy and frail, tender and delicate. + + Ye who, wandering here, seeking the beautiful, + Stoop down, thinking to pluck one of these favorites, + Take heed! Nymphs may avenge. List to a prodigy;-- + One moon scarcely has waned since I here witnessed it. + + One moon scarcely has waned, since, on a holiday, + I came, careless and gay, into this paradise,-- + Found here, wrapped in their cloaks made of a leaf, little + White flowers, pure as the snow, modest and innocent,-- + Stooped down, eagerly plucked one of the fairest, when + Forth rushed, fresh from the stem broken thus wickedly, + Blood!--tears, red, as of blood!--shed through my selfishness! + + + + + +THE DIFFERENTIAL AND INTEGRAL CALCULUS. + + [Greek: Polla ta deina, konden + anthropon deinoteron pelei ... + periphradaes anaer!] + +SOPH. _Ant_. 822 [322] et seq. + + +"Many things are wonderful," says the Greek poet, "but nought more +wonderful than man, all-inventive man!" And surely, among many wonders +wrought out by human endeavor, there are few of higher interest than +that splendid system of mathematical science, the growth of so many +slow-revolving ages and toiling hands, still incomplete, destined to +remain so forever perhaps, but to-day embracing within its wide circuit +many marvellous trophies wrung from Nature in closest contest. There +are strange depths, doubtless, in the human soul,--recesses where the +universal sunlight of reason fails us altogether; into which if we +would enter, it must be humbly and trustfully, laying our right hands +reverentially in God's, that he may lead us. There are faculties +reaching farther than all reason, and utterances of higher import than +hers, problems, too, in the solution of which we shall derive very +little aid from any mere mathematical considerations. Those who think +differently should read once more, and more attentively, the sad history +of frantic folly and limitless license, written down forever under the +date, September, 1792, boastfully proclaimed to the world as the New +Era, the year 1 of the Age of Reason. Perhaps the number of those +who would to-day follow Momoro's pretty wife with loud adulation and +Bacchanalian rejoicings to the insulted Church of Nôtre Dame, thus +publicly disowning the God of the Universe and discarding the sweetest +of all hopes, the hope of immortality and eternal youth after the +weariness of age, would be found to be very small. This was indeed a new +version of the old story of Godiva, wherein implacable, inhuman hate +sadly enough took the place of the sweet Christian charity of that dear +lady. Let us recognize its deep significance, and acknowledge that many +things of very great importance lie beyond the utmost limits of human +reason. + +But let us not forget, meanwhile, that within its own sphere this same +Human Reason is an apt conjuror, marshalling and deftly controlling the +powers of the earth and air to a degree wonderful and full of interest. +And nowhere have all its possibilities so fully found expression in vast +attainment as in those studies preëminently called the mathematics, as +embracing all [Greek: mathaesis], all sound learning. Casting about for +some sure anchorage, drifting hither and thither over changeful seas +of phenomena, a large body of men, deep, clear thinkers withal, some +twenty-four centuries since, fancied that they had found _all_ truth +in the fixed, eternal relations of number and quantity. Hence that +wide-spread Pythagorean philosophy, with its spheral harmonics and +esoteric mysteries, uniting in one brotherhood for many years men of +thought and action,--dare we say, our inferiors? Why allude to the old +fable of the dwarf upon the giant's shoulders? Let us have a tender +care for the sensitive nature of this ultimate Nineteenth Century, and +refrain. They were not so far wrong either, those old philosophers; they +saw clearly a part of the boundless expanse of Truth,--and somewhat +prematurely, as we believe, pronounced it the true Land's End, stoutly +asserting that beyond lay only barren seas of uncertain conjecture. + +But mark what followed! Presently, under their hands, fair and clear of +outline as a Grecian temple, grew up the science of Geometry. Perfect +for all time, and as incapable of change or improvement as the +Parthenon, appear the Elements of Euclid, whose voice comes floating +down through the ages, in that one significant rejoinder,--"_Non est +regia ad mathematicam via_." It is the reply of the mathematician, +quiet-eyed and thoughtful, to the first Ptolemy, inquiring if there were +not some less difficult path to the mysteries. But the Greek Geometry +was in no wise confined to the elements. Before Euclid, Plato is said to +have written over the entrance to his garden,--"Let no one enter, who is +unacquainted with geometry,"--and had himself unveiled the geometrical +analysis, exhibiting the whole strength and weakness of the instrument, +and applying it successfully in the discussion of the properties of +the Conic Sections. Various were the discoveries, and various the +discoverers also, all now at rest, like Archimedes, the greatest of them +all, in his Sicilian tomb, overgrown with brambles and forgotten, found +only by careful research of that liberal-minded Cicero, and recognized +only by the sphere and circumscribed cylinder thereon engraved by the +dead mathematician's direction. + +Meanwhile, let us turn elsewhere, to that singular people whose name +alone is suggestive of all the passion, all the deep repose of the +East. Very unlike the Greeks we shall find these Arabs, a nation +intellectually, as physically, characterized by adroitness rather than +endurance, by free, careless grace rather than perfect, well-ordered +symmetry. Called forth from centuries of proud repose, not unadorned by +noble studies and by poesy, they swept like wildfire, under Mohammed and +his successors, over Palestine, Syria, Persia, Egypt, and before the +expiration of the Seventh Century occupied Sicily and the North of +Africa. Spain soon fell into their hands;--only that seven-days' battle +of Tours, resplendent with many brilliant feats of arms, resonant with +shoutings, and weightier with fate than those dusty combatants knew, +saved France. Then until the last year of the Eleventh Century, +almost four hundred years, the Caliphs ruled the Spanish Peninsula. +Architecture, music, astrology, chemistry, medicine,--all these arts, +were theirs; the grace of the Alhambra endures; deep and permanent are +the traces left by these Saracens upon European civilization. During +all this time they were never idle. Continually they seized upon the +thoughts of others, gathering them in from every quarter, translating +the Greek mathematical works, borrowing the Indian arithmetic and system +of notation, which we in turn call Arabic, filling the world with wild +astrological fantasies. Nay, the "good Haroun Al Raschid," familiar to +us all as the genial-hearted sovereign of the World of Faëry, is said to +have sent from Bagdad, in the year 807 or thereabout, a royal present +to Charlemagne, a very singular clock, which marked the hours by the +sonorous fall of heavy balls into an iron vase. At noon, appeared +simultaneously, at twelve open doors, twelve knights in armor, retiring +one after another, as the hour struck. The time-piece then had +superseded the sun-dial and hour-glass: the mechanical arts had +attained no slight degree of perfection. But passing over all ingenious +mechanism, making no mention here of astronomical discoveries, some of +them surprising enough, it is especially for the Algebraic analysis that +we must thank the Moors. A strange fascination, doubtless, these crafty +men found in the cabalistic characters and hidden processes of reasoning +peculiar to this science. So they established it on a firm basis, +solving equations of no inconsiderable difficulty, (of the fourth +degree, it is said,) and enriched our arithmetic with various rules +derived from this source, Single and Double Position among others. +Trigonometry became a distinct branch of study with them; and then, as +suddenly as they had appeared, they passed away. The Moorish cavalier +had no longer a place in the history of the coming days; the sage had +done his duty and departed, leaving among his mysterious manuscripts, +bristling with uncouth and, as the many believed, unholy signs, the +elements of truth mingled with much error,--error which in the advancing +centuries fell off as easily as the husk from ripe corn. Whether the +present civilization of Spain is an advance upon that of the Moors might +in many respects become a matter of much doubt. + +Long lethargy and intellectual inanition brooded over Christian Europe. +The darkness of the Middle Ages reached its midnight, and slowly the +dawn arose,--musical with the chirping of innumerable trouvères and +minnesingers. As early as the Tenth Century, Gerbert, afterwards Pope +Sylvester II., had passed into Spain and brought thence arithmetic, +astronomy, and geometry; and five hundred years after, led by the old +tradition of Moorish skill, Camille Leonard of Pisa sailed away over the +sea into the distant East, and brought back the forgotten algebra and +trigonometry,--a rich lading, better than gold-dust or many negroes. +Then, in that Fifteenth Century, and in the Sixteenth, followed much +that is of interest, not to be mentioned here. Copernicus, Galileo, +Kepler,--we must pass on, only indicating these names of men whose lives +have something of romance in them, so much are they tinged with the +characteristics of an age just passing away forever, played out and +ended. The invention of printing, the restoration of classical learning, +the discovery of America, the Reformation, followed each other in +splendid succession, and the Seventeenth Century dawned upon the world. + +The Seventeenth Century!--forever remarkable alike for intellectual and +physical activity, the age of Louis XIV. in France, the revolutionary +period of English history, say, rather, the Cromwellian period, +indelibly written down in German remembrance by that Thirty-Years' +War,--these are only the external manifestations of that prodigious +activity which prevailed in every direction. Meanwhile the two sciences +of algebra and geometry, thus far single, each depending on its own +resources, neither in consequence fully developed, as nothing of human +or divine origin can be alone, were united, in the very beginning of +this epoch, by Descartes. This philosopher first applied the algebraic +analysis to the solution of geometrical problems; and in this brilliant +discovery lay the germ of a sudden growth of interest in the pure +mathematics. The breadth and facility of these solutions added a new +charm to the investigation of curves; and passing lightly by the Conic +Sections, the mathematicians of that day busied themselves in finding +the areas, solids of revolution, tangents, etc., of all imaginable +curves,--some of them remarkable enough. Such is the cycloid, first +conceived by Galileo, and a stumbling-block and cause of contention +among geometers long after he had left it, together with his system +of the universe, undetermined. Descartes, Roberval, Pascal, became +successively challengers or challenged respecting some new property of +this curve. Thereupon followed the epicycloids, curves which--as the +cycloid is generated by a point upon the circumference of a circle +rolled along a straight line--are generated by a similar point when the +path of the circle becomes any curve whatever. Caustic curves, spirals +without number, succeeded, of which but one shall claim our notice,--the +logarithmic spiral, first fully discussed by James Bernouilli. This +curve possesses the property of reproducing itself in a variety of +curious and interesting ways; for which reason Bernouilli wished it +inscribed upon his tomb, with the motto,--_Eadem mutata resurgo_. Shall +we wisely shake our heads at all this, as unavailing? Can we not see the +hand of Providence, all through history, leading men wiselier than +they knew? If not, may it not be possible that we have read the wrong +book,--the Universal Gazetteer, perhaps, instead of the true History? +When Plato and Plato's followers wrought out the theory of those Conic +Sections, do we imagine that they saw the great truth, now evident, that +every whirling planet in the silent spaces, yes, and every falling body +on this earth, describes one of these same curves which furnished to +those Athenian philosophers what you, my practical friend, stigmatize as +idle amusement? Comfort yourself, my friend: there was many a Callicles +then who believed that he could better bestow his time upon the politics +of the state, neglecting these vain speculations, which to-day are found +to be not quite unprofitable, after all, you perceive. + +And so in the instance which suggested these reflections, all this eager +study of unmeaning curves (if there be anything in the starry universe +quite unmeaning) was leading gradually, but directly, to the discovery +of the most wonderful of all mathematical instruments, the Calculus +preëminently. In the quadrature of curves, the method of exhaustions was +most ancient,--whereby similar circumscribed and inscribed polygons, by +continually increasing the number of their sides, were made to approach +the curve until the space contained between them was _exhausted_, or +reduced to an inappreciable quantity. The sides of the polygons, it was +evident, must then be infinitely small. Yet the polygons and curves +were always regarded as distinct lines, differing inappreciably, but +different. The careful study of the period to which we refer led to +a new discovery, that every curve may be considered as composed of +infinitely small straight lines. For, by the definition which assigns to +a point position _without_ extension, there can be no tangency of points +without coincidence. In the circumference of the circle, then, no two +of the points equidistant from the centre can touch each other; and the +circumference must be made up of infinite all rectilineal sides joining +these points. + +A clear conception of this fact led almost immediately to the Method of +Tangents of Fermat and Barrow; and this again is the stepping-stone to +the Differential Calculus,--itself a particular application of that +instrument. Dr. Barrow regarded the tangent as merely the prolongation +of any one of these infinitely small sides, and demonstrated the +relations of these sides to the curve and its ordinates. His work, +entitled "Lectiones Geometricae," appeared in 1669. To his high +abilities was united a simplicity of character almost sublime. "_Tu, +autem, Domine, quantus es geometra_!" was written on the title-page of +his Apollonius; and in the last hour he expressed his joy, that now, in +the bosom of God, he should arrive at the solution of many problems of +the highest interest, without pain or weariness. The comment of the +French historian conveys a sly sarcasm on the Encyclopedists:--"_On voit +au reste, par-là, que Barrow étoit un pauvre philosophe; car il croiroit +en l'immortalité de l'âme, et une Divinité, autre que la nature +universelle_."[A] + +[Footnote A: MONTUCLA. _Hist. des Math_. Part iv. liv. 1.] + +The Italian Cavalleri had, before this, published his "Geometry of +Indivisibles," and fully established his theory in the "Exercitationes +Mathematicae," which appeared in 1647. Led to these considerations by +various problems of unusual difficulty proposed by the great Kepler, +who appears to have introduced infinitely great and infinitely small +quantities into mathematical calculations for the first time, in a tract +on the measure of solids, Cavalleri enounced the principle, that all +lines are composed of an infinite number of points, all surfaces of +an infinite number of lines, and all solids of an infinite number of +surfaces. What this statement lacks in strict accuracy is abundantly +made up in its conciseness; and when some discussion arose thereupon, +it appeared that the absurdity was only seeming, and that the author +himself clearly enough understood by these apparently harsh terms, +infinitely small sides, areas, and sections. Establishing the relation +between these elements and their primitives, the way lay open to the +Integral Calculus. The greatest geometers of the day, Pascal, Roberval, +and others, unhesitatingly adopted this method, and employed it in the +abstruse researches which engaged their attention. + +And now, when but the magic touch of genius was wanting to unite and +harmonize these scattered elements, came Newton. Early recognized by Dr. +Barrow, that truly great and good man resigned the Mathematical Chair at +Cambridge in his favor. Twenty-seven years of age, he entered upon his +duties, having been in possession of the Calculus of Fluxions since +1666, three years previously. Why speak of all his other discoveries, +known to the whole world? _Animi vi propè divinâ, planetarum motus, +figuras, cometarum semitas, Oceanique aestus, suâ Mathesi lucem +praeferente, primus demonstravit. Radiorum lucis dissimilitudines, +colorumque inde nascentium proprietates, quas nemo suspicatus est, +pervestigavit_. So stands the record in Westminster Abbey; and in many +a dusty alcove stands the "Principia," a prouder monument perhaps, more +enduring than brass or crumbling stone. And yet, with rare modesty, such +as might be considered again and again with singular advantage by many +another, this great man hesitated to publish to the world his rich +discoveries, wishing rather to wait for maturity and perfection. The +solicitation of Dr. Barrow, however, prevailed upon him to send forth, +about this time, the "Analysis of Equations containing an Infinite +Number of Terms,"--a work which proves, incontestably, that he was in +possession of the Calculus, though nowhere explaining its principles. + +This delay occasioned the bitter quarrel between Newton and Leibnitz,--a +quarrel exaggerated by narrow-minded partisans, and in truth not very +creditable, in all its ramifications, to either party. Newton, in the +course of a scientific correspondence with Leibnitz, published in 1712, +by the Royal Society, under the title, "Commercium Epistolicum +de Analysi promotâ," not only communicated very many remarkable +discoveries, but added, that he was in possession of the inverse problem +of the tangents, and that he employed two methods which he did +not choose to make public, for which reason he concealed them by +anagrammatical transposition, so effectual as completely to +extinguish the faint glimmer of light which shone through his scanty +explanation.[B] The reference is obviously to what was afterwards known +as the Method of Fluxions and Fluents. This method he derived from the +consideration of the laws of motion uniformly varied, like the motion of +the extreme point of the ordinate of any curve whatever. The name which +he gave to his method is derived from the idea of motion connected with +its origin. + +[Footnote B: This logograph Newton afterwards rendered as follows: "Una +methodus consistit in extractione fluentis quantitatis ex aequatione +simul involvente; altera tantùm in assumptione seriei pro quantitate +incognitâ ex quâ ceterae commodè derivari possunt, et in collatione +terminonim homologorum aequationis resultantis ad eruendos terminos +seriei assumptae."] + +Leibnitz, reflecting upon these statements on the part of Newton, +arrived by a somewhat different path at the Differential and Integral +Calculus, reasoning, however, concerning infinitely great and infinitely +small quantities in general, viewing the problem algebraically instead +of geometrically,--and immediately imparted the result of his studies to +the English mathematician. In the Preface to the _first_ edition of +the "Principia," Newton says, "It is ten years since, being in +correspondence with M. Leibnitz, and having instructed him that I was +in possession of a method of determining tangents and solving questions +involving _maxima_ and _minima_, a method which included irrational +expressions, and having concealed it by transposing the letters, +he replied to me that he had discovered a similar method, which he +communicated, differing from mine only in the terms and signs, as +well as in the generation of the quantities." This would seem to be +sufficient to set at rest any conceivable controversy, establishing an +equal claim to originality, conceding priority of discovery to Newton. +Thus far all had been open and honorable. The petty complaint, that, +while Leibnitz freely imparted his discoveries to Newton, the latter +churlishly concealed his own, would deserve to be considered, if it were +obligatory upon every man of genius to unfold immediately to the world +the results of his labor. As there may be many reasons for a different +course, which we can never know, perhaps could never hope to appreciate, +if we did know them, let us pass on, merely recalling the example of +Galileo. When the first faint glimpses of the rings of Saturn floated +hazily in the field of his imperfect telescope, he was misled into the +belief that three large bodies composed the then most distant light of +the system,--a conclusion which, in 1610, he communicated to Kepler in +the following logograph:-- + +SMAISMRMILMEPOETALEVMIBVNENGTTAVIRAVS. + +It is not strange that the riddle was unread. The old problem, Given the +Greek alphabet, to find an Iliad, differs from this rather in degree +than in kind. The sentence disentangled runs thus:-- + +ALTISSIMVM PLANETAM TERGEMINVM OBSERVAVI. + +And yet we have never heard that Kepler, or, in fact, Leibnitz himself, +felt aggrieved by such a course. + +But Leibnitz made his discovery public, neglecting to give Newton _any_ +credit whatever; and so it happened that various patriotic Englishmen +raised the cry of plagiarism. Keil, in the "Philosophical Transactions" +for 1708, declared that he had published the Method of Fluxions, only +changing the name and notation. Much debate and angry discussion +followed; and, alas for human weakness! Newton himself, in a later +edition of the "Principia," struck out the generous recognition of +genius recorded above, and joined in terming Leibnitz an impostor, +--while the latter maintained that Newton had not fathomed the more +abstruse depths of the new Calculus. The "Commercium Epistolicum" was +published, giving rise to new contentions; and only death, which ends +all things, ended the dispute. Leibnitz died in 1716. + +The Calculus at first found its chief supporters on the Continent. James +and John Bernouilli, Varignon, author of the "Theory of Variations," and +the Marquis de l'Hôpital, were the first to appreciate it; but soon it +attracted the attention of the scientific world to such a degree that +the frivolous populace of Paris had even a well-known song with the +burden, "_Des infiniment petits_." Neither were opponents wanting. +Wrong-headed men and thick-headed men are unfortunately too numerous +in all times and places. One Nieuwentiit, a dweller in intellectual +fogbanks, who had distinguished himself by proving the existence of +the Deity in one of his works, made about this time what he doubtless +considered a second discovery. He found a flaw in the reasoning of +Leibnitz, namely, that _he_ (Nieuwentiit) could not conceive of +quantities infinitely small! A certain Chever also performed sundry +singular mathematical feats, such as squaring the circle, a problem +which he reduced to the single question, _Construere mundum divinae +menti analogum_, and showing that the parabola, the only conic section +squared by ancient or modern geometers, could never be quadrated, to the +eternal discomfiture and discredit of the shade of Archimedes. Leibnitz +used every means in his power to engage these worthy adversaries in +a contest concerning his Calculus, but unfortunately failed. Bishop +Berkeley, too, author of the "Essay on Tar-Water," devout disbeliever in +the material universe, could not resist the Quixotic inclination to run +a tilt against a science which promised so much aid in unveiling those +starry splendors which he with strenuous asseveration denied. He +published, in 1754, "The Minute Philosopher," and soon after, "The +Analyst, or the Discourse of a Mathematician," showing that the +Mathematics are opposed to religion, and cultivate an incredulous +spirit,--such as would never for a moment listen, let us hope, to any +theory which proclaims this green earth and all the universe "such stuff +as dreams are made of," even though the doctrine be ecclesiastically +sustained and backed with abundant wealth of learning. Numerous were the +defenders, called out rather by the acknowledged metaphysical ability of +Bishop Berkeley than by any transcendent merit in these two tracts; and +among others came Maclaurin. + +Taylor's Theorem, based upon that first published by Maclaurin, is the +foundation of the Calculus by La Grange, differing from the methods of +Leibnitz and Newton in the manner of deriving the auxiliaries employed, +proceeding upon analytical considerations throughout. Of his "Théorie +des Fonctions," and that noblest achievement of the pure reason, the +"Mécanique Analytique," we do not propose to speak, nor of the later +developments of the Calculus, so largely due to his genius and labors. +These are mysteries, known only to the initiated, yet capable of raising +their thoughts in as sublime emotion as arose from the view of the +elder, forgotten mysteries, which Cicero deemed the very source and +beginning of true life. + +We have seen how, and through whose toil, this mightiest instrument of +human thought has reached its present perfection. Now, its vast powers +fully recognized, it has become interwoven with all Natural Philosophy. +On its sure basis rests that majestic structure, the "Mécanique Céleste" +of La Place. Its demonstration supports with undoubted proof many +doctrines of the great Newton. Discovery has succeeded discovery; but +its powers have never yet been fully tested. "It is that field of +mathematical investigation," says Davies, "where genius may exert its +highest powers and find its surest rewards." Looking back through the +long course of events leading to such a magnificent result, looking up +to that choral dance of wandering planets, all whose courses and seasons +are marked down for us in the yearly almanac, can we not find in these +manifestations something on the whole quite wonderful, worthy of very +deep thankfulness, heartfelt humility withal, and far-reaching hope? + +In an age of many-colored absurdity, when extremes meet and +contradictions harmonize,--when men of gross, material aims give +implicit confidence to the wildest ravings of the supernatural, and +pure-minded men embrace French theories of social organization,--when +crowds of dullards all aflame with unexpected imagination assemble in +ascension-robes to await the apocalyptic trump, and Asiatic polygamy +spreads unmolested along our Western rivers,--when the prediction is +accomplished, "Old men dream dreams and young men see visions," and the +most practical of the ages bids fair to glide ghostly into history as +the most superstitious,--it is well, it can but be well, to contemplate +reverently that Reason, which Coleridge, after Leighton, calls "an +influence from the Glory of the Almighty." In the contemplation of the +spirit of man (not your _animula_, by any means!) there is earnest of +immortality which needs not that one rise from the dead to confirm it. +In view of the Foresight which guides men, we may trust that all this +tumultuous sense of inadequacy in present institutions, this blind +notion of wrong, far enough from intelligent correction, is, after all, +better than sluggish inaction. + + + + +BULLS AND BEARS. + +[Concluded.] + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +The suspension of specie payments brought instant relief to all really +solvent mercantile houses; since those who had valuable assets of any +kind could now obtain discounts sufficient to enable them to meet their +liabilities. Among those who were at once relieved was the house of +Lindsay and Company; they resumed payment and recommenced business. + +Mr. Lindsay lost no time in finding his clerk Monroe, and reinstated him +with an increased salary. Great was the sorrow in the ragged school at +the loss of the teacher; and it was with some regret that he abandoned +the place. He felt no especial vocation to the career of a missionary; +but his duties had become less irksome than at the beginning, if not +absolutely pleasant. His own position, however, was such that he could +not afford to continue in his self-denying occupation. Easelmann was one +of the first to congratulate him upon his improved prospects. + +"Don't you feel sorry, my dear fellow? Now you get upon your treadmill +of business, and you must keep going, or break your legs. Think, too, +of the jolly little rascals you have left! The beggars are the only +aristocracy we have,--the only people who enjoy their _dolce far +niente_. Look on the Common: who are there amusing themselves on a fine +day, unless it be your Duke Do-nothing, Earl Out-at-elbows, Duchess +Draggle-tail, and others of that happy class? Meanwhile your Lawrences, +Eliots, and the 'Merchant Princes' (a satirical dog that invented the +title!) are going about with sharpened faces, looking as though they +weren't sure of a dinner. Oh, business is a great matter, to be sure! +but the idlers, artists, poets, and other lazzaroni, are the only people +that enjoy life." + +Monroe smiled, and only replied,-- + +"Think of my mother! I must do something besides enjoying life, as you +call it: I must earn the means of making it enjoyable." + +"You were always a good boy," replied his friend, benignantly. "So go to +work; but don't forget to walk out of town now and then; in which case, +I hope you won't disdain the company of _one_ of the idlers." + + * * * * * + +The "mother" was full of joy; her melancholy nervousness almost wholly +forsook her. She looked proudly upon her "dear boy," thinking him the +best, most considerate, faithful, and affectionate of sons,--as he was. + +Walter, after listening to her benedictions, told her he had an +invitation from Mr. Lindsay to dine the next day, and begged her to go +with him; but the habit of inaction, the dread of bustle and motion, +were too strong to be overcome. She could not be persuaded to leave +home. + +"But go, by all means, Walter," she added. "It will be pleasant to be +on such terms with your employer. I must keep watch of you, though, now +that Alice is gone. Are there young ladies at the house?" + +"Why, mother, how jealous you are! Do you think I go about falling +in love with all the young ladies I see? Mr. Lindsay has a beautiful +daughter; but do you think a poor clerk is likely to be regarded as +'eligible' by a family accustomed to wealth and luxury?" + +The mother looked as though she thought her son a match for the richest +and proudest; she said nothing, but patted his head as though he were +still only a boy. + +"Speaking of Alice, mother, I am very much concerned about her. Now that +I am reëstablished, I shall make every exertion to find her and bring +her home to live with us. Mr. Greenleaf, I know, is looking for her; +very little good it will do him, if he finds her." + +"But we shall hear from him, I presume?" + +"I think so. He is intimate with my friend Mr. Easelmann.--But, mother, +I have some more good news. I shall get our property back. Lawyers say +that Mr. Tonsor will be obliged to give up the notes, and look to the +estate of Sandford for the money he lent. And the notes, fortunately, +are as valuable as ever, in spite of all the multitude of failures; one +name, at least, on each note is good." + +"Everything comes back, like Job's prosperity. This repays us for all +our anxiety." + +"If Alice had not run away!" + +"But we shall have her again,--poor motherless child!" + +So with mutual gratulations they passed the evening. My readers who now +enjoy a mother's love, or look back with affectionate reverence to such +scenes in the past, will pardon these apparently unimportant portions +of the story. Sooner or later all will learn that no worldly success +whatever, no friendships, not even the absorbing love of wife and +children, can afford a pleasure so full, so serene, as the sacred +feeling which rises at the recollection of a mother's self-sacrificing +affection. + +Very commonplace, no doubt,--but still worth an occasional thought. As +for those who demand that natural and simple feelings shall be ignored, +and that every chapter shall record something not less startling than +murder or treason, are there not already means for gratifying their +tastes? Do not the "Torpedo" and the "Blessing of the Boudoir" give +enough of these delicate condiments with the intellectual viands they +furnish? Let old-fashioned people enjoy their plain dishes in peace. + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + +The reader may be quite sure that Greenleaf lost no time in presenting +himself at Easelmann's studio on the morning after his last interview. + +"On hand early, I see," said the elder. "And how fresh you look! The +blood comes dancing into your face; you are radiant with expectation." + +"You mummy, what do you suppose I am made of, if the thought of meeting +Alice should not quicken my blood a little?" + +"If it were my case, I think my cheeks would tingle from another cause." + +"Now you need not try to frighten me. I will see her first. I don't +believe she has forgotten me." + +"Nor I; but forgetting is one thing, and forgiving is another. Besides, +we haven't seen her yet." + +"I haven't, I know; but I'll wager you have." + +"Well, my Hotspur, I sha'n't entice her away from you." + +"Let us go," said Greenleaf. + +"Presently; I must finish this pipe first; it lasts thirty-six minutes, +and I have smoked only--let me see--twenty-eight." + +"Well, puff away; but you'll burn up my patience with your tobacco, +unless you are ready soon." + +"Don't hurry. You'll get to your stool of repentance quite soon enough. +Have you heard the news? The banks have suspended,--ditto Fletcher, a +banker's clerk. + +"What do you mean?" + +"Plain enough. The banks suspend paying specie because they haven't any +to redeem their bills; and Fletcher, because he has neither specie nor +bills." + +"Fletcher suspended?" + +"Yes, _sus. per coll._, as the Newgate records have it,--hung himself +with his handkerchief,--an article he might have put to better use." + +And Easelmann blew a vigorous blast with his, as he laid down the pipe. + +"You understand, choking is disagreeable,--painful, in fact,--and, if +indulged in long enough, is apt to produce unpleasant effects. Remember, +I once warned you against it." + +"This matter of suicide is horrible. Couldn't it have been prevented?" + +"Yes, if Fletcher could have got hold of Bullion." + +"Coin would have done as well, I suppose." + +"Now haven't I been successful in diverting your attention? You have +actually punned. Don't you know Mr. Bullion, the capitalist?" + +"I have good reason to remember him, though I don't know him myself. My +father was once connected with him in business, and not at all to his +own advantage." + +"I never heard you speak of your father before; in fact, I never knew +you had one." + +"It was not necessary to speak of him; he has been dead many years." + +"And left you nothing to remember him by. Now a man with an estate has a +perpetual reminder." + +"So has the son of a famous man; and people are continually depreciating +him, comparing his little bud of promise with the ripe fruitage of the +ancestral tree. I prefer to acquire my own fortune and my own fame. My +father did his part by giving me being and educating me.--But come; your +pipe is out; you draw like a pump, without puffing even a nebula of +smoke." + +"I suppose I must yield. First a lavation; this Virginian incense +is more agreeable to devout worshippers like you and me than to the +uninitiated. There," (wiping the water from his moustaches,) "now I +am qualified to meet that queenly rose, Mrs. Sandford, or even that +delicate spring violet of yours,--if we should find the nook where she +blooms." + +"You are the most tantalizing fellow! How provokingly cool you are, to +stand dallying as though you were going on the most indifferent errand! +And all the while to remind me of what I have lost. Come, you look +sufficiently fascinating; your gray moustache has the proper artistic +curl; your hair is carelessly-well-arranged." + +"So the boy can't wait for due preparation. There, I believe I am +ready." + +Arrived at the house where Mrs. Sandford boarded, they were ushered into +the reception-room; but Easelmann, bidding his friend wait, followed the +servant upstairs. Waiting is never an agreeable employment. The courtier +in the ante-chamber before the expected audience, the office-seeker at +the end of a cue in the Presidential mansion, the beau lounging in the +drawing-room while the idol of his soul is in her chamber busy with the +thousand little arts that are to complete her charms,--none of these +find that time speeds. To Greenleaf the delay was full of torture; he +paced the room, looked at the pictures without seeing anything, looked +out of the window, turned over the gift-books on the table, counted the +squares in the carpet, and finally sat down in utter despair. At length +Easelmann returned. Greenleaf started up. + +"Where is she? Have you seen her? Why doesn't she come down? And why, in +the name of goodness, have you kept me waiting in this outrageous way?" + +"I don't know.--I have not--I can't tell you.--And because I couldn't +help it.--Never say, after this, I don't answer all your questions." + +"Now, what is the use of all this mystery?" + +"Softly, my friend; and let us not make a mess of it. Mrs. Sandford +advises us to walk out awhile." + +"I am obliged to her and to you for your well-meant caution, but I don't +intend to go out until I have seen Alice,--if she will see me." + +"But consider." + +"I have considered, and am determined to see her; I can't endure this +suspense." + +"But Alice bore it much longer. Be advised; Mrs. Sandford wants to +prepare the way for you." + +"I thank you; but I don't mean to have any stratagem acted for my +benefit. I will trust the decision to her: if she loves me, all will be +well; if her just resentment has uprooted her love, the sooner I know it +the better." + +While they were engaged in this mutual expostulation, Alice, +all-unconscious of the impending situation in the drama, was busy in her +own room,--for Mrs. Sandford had not yet decided how to break the news +to her,--and having an errand that led her to the street, she put on her +cloak and hat and tripped lightly down-stairs. Naturally she went into +the drawing-room, to make sure, by the mirror, that her ribbons were +neatly adjusted. As she entered, fastening her cloak, and humming some +simple air meanwhile, she started back at the sight of strangers, +and was rapidly retreating, when a voice that she had not forgotten +exclaimed, "Great Heavens, there she is now! Alice! Alice! stop! I beg +of you!" + +Greenleaf at the same time bounded to the door, and, seizing her hand, +drew her, bewildered, faint, and fluttering, back into the room. + +He turned almost fiercely to his companion:-- + +"This is your policy, is it, to send her off?--or, more probably, to +amuse me and not send for her at all?" + +"Ask the lady,--ask Mrs. Sandford," replied Easelmann. "I have not sent +her off; and you ought to know by this time that I am incapable of +playing false to any man." + +Alice, erect, but very pale, maintained her composure as well as she +could, though the timid lips trembled a little, and blinding clouds rose +before her eyes. She withdrew her hand from Greenleaf's grasp, and asked +the meaning of this unusual conduct. Greenleaf's good sense came to the +rescue seasonably. + +"Alice,--Miss Lee,--allow me to introduce my friend Mr. Easelmann. We +came here to see you, and were waiting for that purpose; but it seems +you were not told of it." + +Easelmann bowed, saying, "No, Miss Lee; I saw Mrs. Sandford, who thought +it best to speak to you first herself." + +"I am happy to meet you, Mr. Easelmann," said Alice. "I was just going +out, however, as you see, and I must ask you to excuse me this morning." + +Greenleaf saw with a pang how silently, but effectually, he was disposed +of; a downright rebuff would not have been so humiliating. But he was +not to be deterred from his purpose, and he went on: + +"Pardon me, if I seem to overstep the bounds of courtesy; but I cannot +let you go in this way, Alice,--for so I must call you. Stay and hear +me. Now that I see you, I must speak. God only knows with what anxiety I +have sought you for the last month." + +She tried to answer, but could not command her speech. Seeing her +increasing agitation, Easelmann led her to a seat, and then, in a +gentler tone than he often used, said,-- + +"I will leave the room, if you please, Miss Lee; this is an interview I +did not desire to witness." + +"No," she exclaimed, "do not go. I have nothing to say that you should +not hear; and I hope Mr. Greenleaf will spare me the pain of going over +a history which is better forgotten." + +"It can never be forgotten," interposed Greenleaf; "and, in spite of +your protest, I must say what I can--and that is little enough--to +exculpate myself, and then throw myself upon your charity for +forgiveness." + +Alice remained silent; but it was a silence that gave no encouragement +to Greenleaf. He advanced still nearer, looking at her with a tender +earnestness, as though his very soul were in the glance. She covered her +face with her hands. + +"Alice," he said, "you know what that name once meant to me. I cannot +speak it now without a feeling beyond utterance." + +Easelmann, meanwhile, quietly sidled towards the door, and, saying that +he was going back to see Mrs. Sandford, abruptly left the room. + +Greenleaf went on,--"I know my conduct was utterly inexcusable; but I +declare, by my hope of heaven, I never _loved_ any woman but you. I was +fascinated, ensnared, captivated by the senses only; now that illusion +is past, and I turn to you." + +"My illusion is past also; you turn too late. Can you make me forget +those months of neglect?" + +The tone was tender, but mournful. How he wished that her answer had +been fuller of rebuke! He could hope to overcome her anger far more +easily than this settled sorrow. + +"I know I can never atone for the wrong; there are injuries that are +irreparable, wounds that leave ineffaceable scars. I can never undo what +I have done; would to Heaven I could! You may never forget this period +of suffering; but that is past now; it is not to be lived over again. Go +back rather to the brighter days before it; think of them, and then look +down the future;--may I dare say it?--the future, perhaps, will make us +both forget my insane wanderings and your undeserved pains." + +"But love must have faith to lean upon. While I loved you, I rested on +absolute trust. I would have believed you against all the world. I would +have been glad to share your lot, even in poverty and obscurity. I did +not love you for your art nor your fame. You wavered; you forgot me. I +don't know what it was that tempted you, but it was enough; it drew +you away from me; and as long as you preferred another, or could be +satisfied with any other woman's love, you lost all claim to mine." + +Greenleaf could not but feel the force of this direct, womanly logic: in +its clear light how pitiful were the excuses he had framed for himself! +He felt sure that many, even of the best of men, might have erred in the +same way; but this was an argument which would have much more weight +with his own sex than with women. Men know their own frailties, and +are therefore charitable; women consider inconstancy to be the one +unpardonable sin, and are inexorable. + +He came still nearer, vainly hoping to see some indication of relenting; +but the pale face was as firm as it was sad. + +"I said before, Alice, that I do not attempt to defend my faithlessness, +hardly to extenuate it; and I do not at all wonder at your altered +temper towards me. It was a cruel blow I gave you. But my life shall +show you the sincerity of my repentance." + +She shook her head as she answered,-- + +"When you left me, the last spark of love went out. It is hard to kindle +anew the dead embers. No,--when I found that you _could_ be untrue, all +was over,--past, present, and future." + +"But consider," he said, still more earnestly, "what remains for you or +me. You will have the memory of this great sorrow, and I the unending +remorse. I can never love another woman while you live, and you--may I +say it?--will never love again as you have loved. Is it not for your +own happiness, as it is most assuredly for mine, that you overlook the +fault, receive me again, and trust to the lasting effect of the bitter +lesson I have learned? Forgive me, if I seem too bold,--if the desire to +atone for the past makes me sue for pardon with unbecoming zeal. If I +were less urgent, it would be because I was not sensible of the wrong, +and careless about reparation." + +She was silent; contending passions strove for mastery. She had not +forgotten him, then! He took courage and came yet nearer. + +"Will you give me your hand? Alice, will you?" + +He reached his own towards her. + +"No,--pardon me,--I must not. It is not well to decide by impulse,--to +be swayed by a thrill. When my heart tells me to give you my hand, it +shall be yours. I don't wish to be charmed out of my calmer judgment. +Your presence, your fiery words, and your will, are sufficiently +magnetic." + +"My dear Alice, I have been guilty of _one_ folly, a serious one, but +you don't believe I am incapable of constancy henceforth. Remember you +were away; time hung heavily on my hands; my good nature made me accept +invitations which brought me into daily contact with a woman who of all +others was most dangerous to a man of ardent temperament. The friendship +which began without a thought of a nearer relation grew into an intimacy +which I was not far-sighted enough to check. In your own words, I was +magnetized, thoroughly; and when, at last, in a scene of imminent +danger, I rashly said some things that should not have been spoken, I +found myself committed irrevocably. It is not too much to say that the +lady was looking for the opportunity which fate and my own stupidity +gave her. But the spell did not last. Your face was constantly before me +like an accusing angel. I waited only until the lady recovered from +a dangerous illness to tell her that I did not love her, and that my +heart, as well as my faith, was yours. I went at once to see you, and +found your father dead, yourself homeless. And from that hour I have +done nothing but search for you. Is it in vain?--I can say no more. +Perhaps I have said too much. But I implore you, Alice, by the memory of +our love as it was once, by all your hope of the future, to forgive me, +and not to make my whole life as miserable as the last few months have +been to you." + +It was the last word; he felt that he had nothing further to urge. He +bent over her chair, seized her hand and pressed it passionately to +his lips, watching with the intensest eagerness the effect of his +appeal.--There was a rustle of silk behind him, an incoming of perfumes, +a light footstep. He started, as did Alice, and beheld--Miss Marcia +Sandford! She was tastefully dressed, as usual, and she bore +herself with superb composure. In coming from the sunlight into the +semi-translucent gloom which pervades modern drawing-rooms, people are +not easily recognized, and the lady swept majestically across the floor, +and took a seat, without a sign of consciousness, near the couple whose +conversation she had interrupted. + +Not so Greenleaf; it was the most dangerous dilemma in which he had ever +been placed, and he was thoroughly at a loss to know how to extricate +himself. Would that he could telegraph to Easelmann to come down, so +that he could effect a decent retreat, and not leave the field in the +sole possession of the enemy. The silence was becoming embarrassing. He +was about to make some excuse for departure, when the lioness fixed +her eyes upon him,--her glance sparkling with malicious joy. A servant +entered to say that Mrs. Sandford was engaged for a few minutes, and +that she wished to know the name of her visitor. + +"Miss Sandford," she replied, "and please tell her I will wait." + +Alice remembered the name, and now shared fully in Greenleaf's +embarrassment. She watched him, therefore, keenly, while the lady +began,-- + +"Oh, Mr. Greenleaf, is it you? Why didn't you speak? It is not worth +while to keep a memory of the old disappointment. Let bygones be +bygones. Besides, I see you know the remedy for heartbreak; if you can't +succeed where you would, you must try elsewhere. And you seemed to be +getting on very well when I came in." + +"Miss Sandford," he retorted, indignantly, "there is as little need of +your ironical condolence as of your ungenerous insinuations." + +"What an impatient fellow! and so sensitive, too! The wound is not +healed, then. Pray introduce me to the Zerlina in our little opera. As I +know you so well, I can give her some excellent counsel about managing +you.--Ah, you wince! I am indiscreet, I fear; I have betrayed a secret; +the Zerlina is perhaps still in her rustic seclusion, and this is +only--Well, you must submit to your destiny, I suppose. How many are +there since? Let me see,--six weeks,--time for three flirtations of the +most intensely crimson hue." + +Alice rose to her feet, with a glow of resentment on her hitherto pale +face. And Greenleaf, feeling that courtesy was now wholly unnecessary, +exclaimed,-- + +"Miss Sandford, you have said quite as much as was proper for a young +girl to hear: your own cheeks, I presume, are proof against any +indelicate surprise. Let me ask you to stop, before"-- + +"Before what, Sir? And what is this high-and-mighty innocence about? +To be sure, one does not like to be exposed,--that is, the wolf +doesn't,--though the lamb shouldn't be angry. A pretty lamb it is, too." + +Alice gradually drew away from Greenleaf's side, turning her glances +from one to the other of the combatants. She had never seen such +confidence, such readiness of invective, joined with such apparent +sincerity and ease of manner; and the evident effect of the attack upon +Greenleaf puzzled her not a little; in this brief colloquy there were +opened new fields for dark conjecture. The woman's words had been barbed +arrows in her ears. + +Greenleaf's perplexity increased momently. He dared not go away now; +and he knew not how, in Miss Sandford's presence, to counteract the +impression she might make. If he could get rid of her or shut her +wickedly-beautiful mouth, he might answer all she had so artfully thrown +out. But as Alice had not given any token of returning affection, he +could not presume upon his good standing with her and remain silent. +Growing desperate, he ventured once more. + +"Miss Sandford, I know very well the depth of your hate towards me, as +well as your capacity for misrepresentation. If you desire to have +the history of our intimacy dragged to the light, I, for my part, am +willing. But don't think your sex will screen you, if you continue the +calumnies you have begun.--You, Alice, must judge between us. And in +almost every point, Mrs. Sandford, your friend and her sister-in-law, +will be able to support my statements." + +The servant returned to say that "Mrs. Sandford must be excused." + +Greenleaf turned upon the adversary with a triumphant glance. + +"A palpable trick," she exclaimed. "You gave the servant a signal: you +were unwilling to have us confronted. You have filled her ears with +scandal about me." + +"Not a word; she can hear a plenty about you in any circle where you are +known, without coming to me. And so far from giving any signal, I should +be rejoiced to show Alice how easily an honest woman's testimony will +put your monstrous effrontery to shame." + +Alice here interposed,--her resolute spirit manifest in spite of her +trembling voice,-- + +"I have heard this too long already; I don't wish to be the subject of +this lady's jests, and I don't desire her advice. Your quarrel does not +concern me,--at least, not so deeply that I wish to have it repeated in +my presence. Mr. Greenleaf, let me bid you good-morning." + +She moved away with a simple dignity, bowing with marked coolness to the +former rival. + +"Stay, Alice," said Greenleaf. "Let me not be thrust aside in this way. +Miss Sandford, now that she has done what mischief she can, will go away +and enjoy the triumph. I beg of you, stay and let me set myself right." + +Miss Sandford laughed heartily,--a laugh that made Greenleaf shiver. + +"Not to-day, Mr. Greenleaf," she answered. "I have need of rest and +reflection. I am not used to scenes like this, and my brain is in a +whirl." + +The first flush of excitement was over, and it was with difficulty that +she found her way through the hall. Easelmann was coming down, and saw +her hesitating step and her tremulous grasp upon the rail; he sprang +down four steps at a time, caught her before she fell, and carried her +in his arms like a child up to Mrs. Sandford's room. + +Greenleaf was so completely absorbed by the danger of losing the last +hold upon Alice, that he forgot his most excusable anger against the +vindictive woman who still lingered, enjoying her victory. He sank into +a chair, buried his face in his hands, and for some time neither looked +up nor replied to her taunts. + +"Come, now," said she, "don't take it so hard. Is my handsome +sister-in-law obdurate? Never mind; don't be desolate; other women will +be kind,--for you are just the man to attract sentimental damsels. Cheer +up! you will find a new affinity before night, I haven't a doubt." + +Roused at length, Greenleaf stood up before the mocking fiend, so +radiant in her evil smiles, and said,-- + +"You enemy of all that is good, what brought you here? Keep in your own +sphere, if there is one for you in this world." + +"I came to see my sister, as you know. It was a most unexpected pleasure +to meet you. I came to tell her that brother Henry has either run away +or killed himself, it doesn't matter which." + +"Pray, follow him. I assure you we shall mourn your absence as bitterly +as you do his." + +"Well, good-bye," she said, still laughing in the same terrible tone. +"Better luck next time." + +The door closed upon her, and Greenleaf drew a long breath--with a sense +of infinite relief. + +"Come," said Easelmann, entering a moment later,--"come, let us go. We +have done quite enough for one day. You wouldn't take my advice, and a +pretty mess you have made of it." + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + +When the remains of John Fletcher were borne to the grave, the memory +of his faults was buried with him. "Poor fellow!" was the general +ejaculation in State Street,--at once his _requiescat_ and epitaph. But +the great wheels of business moved on; Bulls and Bears kept up their +ever-renewing conflicts and their secret machinations; new gladiators +stepped into the ring; new crowds waited the turn of the wheel of +Fortune; and new Fletchers were ready to sacrifice themselves, if need +were, for the Bullions of the exchange. Who believes in the efficacy of +"lessons"? What public execution ever deterred the murderer from his +design? What spectacle of drunkenness ever restrained the youthful +debauchee? What accession, however notable, to the ranks of "the +unfortunate" ever made the fascinated woman pause in her first steps +toward ruin? + +No,--human nature remains the same; and the erring ones, predestined to +sin by their own unrestrained passions, wait only for the overmastering +circumstances to yield and fall. When any of these solemn warnings are +held up to the yet callow sinner, what does he propose to do? To stop +and repent? No,--to be a little more careful and not be caught. + +Not that precepts and examples are useless. All together go to make up +the moral government of the world,--pervading like the atmosphere, and +like it resting with uniform pressure upon the earth. Crime and folly +will always have their exemplars, but retribution furnishes the +restraining influence that keeps evil down to its average. As locks and +bolts are made for honest men, not for thieves, so the moral law and its +penalties are for those who have never openly sinned. + +If Mr. Bullion had been ten times the Shylock he was, he could not have +disregarded the last injunction of Fletcher. The turn in the market +enabled him to make advantageous sales of his stocks, and in less than +a week he resumed payment. The first thing he did was to pay over to +trustees the notes he had given Fletcher, thereby securing the widow at +least a decent support. He also sent Danforth & Co. the ten thousand +dollars for which their clerk had paid such a terrible forfeiture. +After discharging all his obligations, there was still an ample margin +left,--a large fortune, in fact. Mr. Bullion could now retire with +comfort,--could look forward to many years; so he flattered himself. +His will was made, his children provided for; and some unsettled +accounts, not remembered by any save himself and the recording angel, +were adjusted as well as the lapse of time would allow. So he thought of +purchasing a country-house for the next season, and of giving the rest +of his days to the enjoyment of life. + +But it was not so to be. A swift and sudden stroke smote him down. In +the dead of night, and alone, he met the angel for whose summons all of +us are waiting, and went his way without a struggle. The morning sun, +as its rays shot in between the blinds, lighted the seamed and careworn +face of an old man, resting as in a serene, dreamless sleep. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Tonsor found, on consulting the best legal authorities, that he +could not maintain his claim upon the notes he had received of Sandford; +and, rather than subject himself to the expense of a lawsuit in which he +was certain to be beaten, he relinquished them to Monroe, and filed his +claim for the money against Sandford's estate. Ten _per cent._ was the +amount of the dividend he received; the remainder was charged to Profit +and Loss,--Experience being duly credited with the same amount. + + * * * * * + +It was with the greatest difficulty that the judicious Easelmann +prevented his friend from making a second visit in the evening of the +same day. Greenleaf had come to a full conviction, in his own mind, that +his difference with Alice ought to be settled, and he could not conceive +that it might take time to bring her to the same conclusion. Some people +adapt themselves to circumstances instantly; the aversion of one hour +becomes the delight of the next; but those who are guided by reasoning, +especially where there is a shade of resentment,--who are fortified by +pride of opinion, and by the idea of consistent self-respect,--such +persons are slow to change a settled conviction; the course of feeling +is too powerful and too constant to be arrested and turned backward. +Easelmann thought--and perhaps rightly--that Alice needed only time to +become accustomed to the new view of the case; and he believed that any +precipitation might be fatal to his friend's hopes. + +"Give her the opportunity to think about it," he said; "if she loves +you, depend upon it, the wind will change with her. Due east to-day, +according to all you have told me; and the violets won't blossom till +the sun comes out of the sullen gray cloud and the south wind breathes +on them.--The very contact with a lover, you see, makes me poetical." + +"But her thoughts may take another direction. Who can tell what +impression that malicious vixen has made upon her?" + +"Alice, I fancy, is a sensible young woman; and Miss Sandford, in her +rage, must have shown her hand too freely. To be sure, Alice might +wonder how you could ever have been captivated; but she could not blame +you for getting out of reach of such a Tartar. Besides, the exemplary +widow is your friend, you know, and I'll warrant that she will set the +matter right. Marcia won't trouble you again; such a mischance couldn't +happen twice. You are as safe as the sailor who put his head into the +hole where a cannon-shot had just come through. Lightning doesn't strike +the same tree twice in one shower." + +Greenleaf was at length persuaded to wait and let events take their +course. If he remained inactive, however, Easelmann did not; from Mrs. +Sandford he heard daily the progress of affairs, and at length intimated +to his friend that it might be judicious to call again. + +Once more Greenleaf was seated in the drawing-room of the +boarding-house. At every distant footstep his heart beat almost audibly; +and when at last the breezy rustle of a woman's robes came in from the +hall, he thought, as many a man has, before and since,-- + +"She is coming, my life, my fate!" + +She entered, not with the welcoming smile he would have liked to see, +nor with the forbidding cloud of sadness which veiled her face a few +days before. But how lovely! Time had given fulness and perfection to +her beauty, while the effect of the trials she had undergone was seen +only in the look of womanly dignity and self-control she had acquired. +It was the freshness of girlhood joined to the grace of maturity. + +Nothing is more inscrutable than the working of the human will; argument +does not reach it, nor does persuasion overcome it. It holds out against +reason, against interest, against passion; no sufficient motive can be +found with which to control it. On the other hand, it sometimes stoops +in a way that defies prediction; pride is vanquished or disarmed, +resentment melts away like frost, and the resolution that at first +seemed firm as the everlasting rock proves to be no barrier. Nor is this +uncertainty confined to the sex at whose foibles the satirists have been +wont to let fly their arrows. + +Feeling is deeper than thought; and as the earthquake lifts the mountain +with all the weight of its rocky strata and of the piled-up edifices +that crown its top, so there comes a time when the emotional nature +rises up and overthrows the carefully wrought structures of the +intellect, and asserts its original and supreme mastery over the soul of +man. + +Alice felt sure that every trace of her love for Greenleaf had +disappeared. She looked in her heart and saw there only the memory of +neglect and unfaithfulness. If love existed, it was as fire lurks in +ashes, unrecognized. She had conversed freely with Mrs. Sandford, and +learned that Greenleaf's version of the story was the correct one. Still +the original treason remained without apology; and she had determined +to express her regret for what had happened, to assure him of her +friendship, but to forbid any hope of reëstablishing their former +relations. With this intention, she bade him good-morning and quietly +took a seat. + +"I did not think that so many days would pass before I should see you; +but now that you have had time to reflect, I hope your feelings have +softened towards me." + +"You mistake, if you suppose that giving me time for reflection has +produced any such change." + +"Then, pray, forget the past altogether." + +"I cannot forget." + +"If your memory must be busy, pray, go back to the pleasanter days of +our acquaintance." + +"I remember the days you speak of; I shall never forget them; but it is +a happiness that is dead and buried." + +"Love will make it live again." + +"It is hard to recognize love when it comes like Lazarus from the tomb." + +"Still we don't read that the friends of Lazarus were displeased with +his return and wished him back to his grave-clothes." + +"You can turn the comparison as you choose; but it is not necessary that +an illustration should be perfect in every respect; if one catches a +gleam of resemblance, it is enough." + +The perfect command of her faculties, and the deliberate way in which +she sustained her part in the conversation, thus far, were sufficiently +disheartening to Greenleaf. He longed to change the tone, but feared to +lose all by any rapid advance. He answered deprecatingly,--"But all this +intellectual fencing, my dear Alice, is useless. Love is not a spark +to be struck out by the collision of arguments; I shall in vain try to +_reason_ you into affection for me. I have already said all I can say by +way of apology for what I have done. If there yet lingers any particle +of regard for me in your heart, I would fain revive it. If it is your +pride that withstands me, I pray you consider whether it is well to make +us both unhappy in order to maintain so poor a triumph. I am already +conquered, and throw myself upon your generosity." + +"You would put me in the wrong, then, and ascribe my refusal to an +ungenerous pride? Is it generous in you to do so? Have you the right to +place such a construction upon my conduct? I appeal to you in return. +Remember, it is you who are responsible for this painful interview. I +never sought you to cover you with reproaches. You force me to say what +I would gladly leave in silence." + +"Forgive me, Alice, if I wrong you; but my heart clings to you and will +not be repulsed. I would fain believe, that, beneath all your natural +resentment, there yet survives some portion of the love you once bore +to me. If it were the first time I had ever approached you, a sense of +delicacy, to say nothing of my own self-respect, would have prevented +my importuning you in this way. But my fault has given me warrant to +be bold, and if you finally cast me off,--but that is what I won't +anticipate; I can't give you up. You once loved me,--and am I not the +same?" + +"No, not the same; or, rather, you have proved to be not what I +thought." + +"You persist in fixing your attention upon one dark spot. Do you +remember this miniature? It has never been out of my bosom, and there +has never been but one day in which I might not loyally carry it there. +At that time, when I opened it, your eyes looked out at me with a tender +reproach, and I was instantly recalled to myself. It was only the +illusion of a moment, through which I had passed. Whatever may happen, I +have one consolation: this dear image will remind me of the love I once +possessed. I shall fold to my bosom the Alice that once was mine, and +strive to forget our estrangement." + +Alice was sensibly touched by this appeal, and much more by the tone in +which it was made. In the momentary pause, Greenleaf raised his eyes and +saw the struggle in her face. He rose, came nearer, and quietly took a +seat on the sofa beside her. + +"I heard you distinctly where you sat," she said, making an effort to +keep down the tumult within, and shrinking, perhaps, from the influence +of his presence. + +"I wished to hear you, dear Alice, and therefore came nearer. Tell me, +are you not mistaken? You have not forgotten me: you do love me yet. Let +your heart speak; if you imprison it and force the dissembling lips to +deny me, the dear traitor will make signals: it looks out of your eyes +now." + +He seized and imprisoned her hand, and still watched the current of +feeling in her face. + +"I thought myself strong enough for this," she said, tremblingly, "but I +am not. I meant only to say that we would part----friends, but that we +must part. It is not so easy to be calm, when you distract me so." + +"Alice, you only deceive yourself; you love me. You have covered +the spring in your heart with snow, but the fountain still flows +underneath." + +Her tears could be kept back no longer; they fell not like November +rain, but rather like those sudden showers of spring from passing +clouds, while the blue sky still looks down, and rainbow smiles +transfigure the landscape. + +His heart gave a mighty throb as those softly humid eyes were turned +upon him. He drew her, half consenting, still nearer. She hesitated, but +not long. + + * * * * * + +"Hard a-port!" shouts the master; and the helmsman, with firm hand, +holds down the wheel. Slowly the ship veers; the sails flutter and back, +the yards are swung; waves strive to head the bow off, but the rudder is +held with iron grasp; now comes the wind, the shaking sails fill with +the sudden rush, and the ship bounds on her new course over the heaving +waters. + +Shall I fill out the comparison? Not for you, elders, who have seen the +struggle of "tacking ship," and have felt the ecstatic swell of delight +when it was accomplished! Not for the younger, who must learn for +themselves the seamanship that is to carry them safely over the +mysterious ocean on whose shore they have lingered and gazed and wished! + +The conversation that followed it would be vain to report, even if +it were possible; for the force of ejaculations depends so much +on _tone_,--which our types do not know how to convey; and their +punctuation-marks, I fear, were such as are not in use in any +well-regulated printing-office. In due time it came to an end; and when +Greenleaf took his unwilling departure, having repeatedly said good-bye, +with the usual confirmation, he could no more remember what had been +said in that miraculous hour than a bee flying home from a garden could +tell you about the separate blossoms from which he (the Sybarite!) had +gathered his freight of flower-dust. + +One thing only he heard which the wisely incurious reader will care +to know. Alice had met her cousin, Walter Monroe, the day before, had +received a proper scolding for her absurd independence, and, after a +frank settlement of the heart-question which came up on the day of her +flight, had promised at once to return to his house,--where, for the +brief remainder of our story, she is to be found. Let us wish her +joy,--and the kind, motherly aunt, also. + +Greenleaf went directly to Easelmann's room, opened the door, and spread +his arms. + +"Have you a strawberry-mark?" he shouted. + +"No." + +"Then you are my long-lost brother! Come to my arms!" + +Easelmann laughed long and loudly. + +"Forgive my nonsense, Easelmann. I know I am beside myself and ready for +any extravagance,--I am so full of joy. I feared, in coming along the +street, that I should break out into singing, or fall to dancing, like +the Scriptural hills." + +"Then you have succeeded, and the girl is yours! I forgive your stupid +old joke. You can say and do just what you like. You have a right to +be jolly, and to make a prodigious fool of yourself, if you want to. I +should like to have heard you. You were very poetical, quoted Tennyson, +fell on your knees, and perhaps blubbered a little. You _are_ +sentimental, you know." + +"I am happy, I know, and I don't care whether you think me sentimental +or not." + +"Well, I wish you joy anyhow. Let us make a night of it. 'It is our +royal pleasure to be'--imagine the rest of the line. 'Now is the winter +of our discontent.' 'My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne.' Come, +let us make ready, and we'll talk till + + "'Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day + Stands tiptoe on the misty'-- + +misty steeple of Park-Street Church,--since we haven't any misty +mountaintops in the neighborhood." + +"One would think _you_ the happy man." + +"I am; your enthusiasm is so contagious that I am back in my twenties +again." + +"Why do you take your pleasure vicariously? There is Mrs. Sandford, the +charming woman; I love her, because"-- + +"No, Sir, not her,--one is enough." + +"Then why not love her yourself? We'll make a double-barrelled shot of +it,--two couples brought down by one parson." + +"Very ingenious, and economical, too; but I think not. It is too late. I +was brought up in the country, and I don't think it good policy to begin +agricultural operations in the fall of the year; my spring has past. But +is the day fixed? When are you to be the truly happy man?" + +"No,--the day is not fixed," said Greenleaf, thoughtfully. "You see, +I was so bent upon the settlement of the difficulty, that I had not +considered the practical bearing of the matter. I am too poor to marry, +and I am heartsick at the prospect of waiting"-- + +"With the chance of another rupture." + +"No,--we shall not quarrel again. But I shall go to work. I'll inundate +the town with pictures; if I can't sell them myself, I will have Jews to +peddle them for me." + +"Hear the mercenary man! No,--go to work in earnest, but put your life +into your pictures. If you can keep up your present glow, you will be +warmer than Cuyp, dreamier than Claude, more imaginative than Millais." + +"But the desperate long interval!" + +"I don't know about that. I quite like the philosophy of Mr. Micawber, +and strenuously believe in something turning up." + +"What is that?" asked Greenleaf, noticing a letter on his friend's +table. "It seems to be addressed to me." + +"Yes,--I met a lawyer to-day, who asked me if I knew one George +Greenleaf. As I did, he gave me the letter. Some dun, probably, or +threat of a suit. I wouldn't open it. Don't!" + +"You only make me curious. I shall open it. To-day I can defy a dun even +from--What, what's this? Bullion dead?--left in his will a bequest--forty +thousand--to _me_?" + +Easelmann looked over his friend's shoulder with well-simulated +astonishment. + +"Sure enough; there it is, in black and white.--What do you think of +Micawber?" + +"I think," said Greenleaf, with manly tears in his eyes, "that you are +the artfullest, craftiest, hugger-muggering, dear old rascal that ever +lived. Now let me embrace you in good earnest. Oh, Easelmann, this is +too much! Here is Alice--mine! Here is Europe, that I have looked at as +I would heaven, beyond reach in this life! _Now_ we will go to work; and +let Cuyp, Claude, and the rest of them, look out for their laurels!" + +"Softly, my boy; you squeeze like a cider-press. But how came the old +miser to give you this?" + +"My father was his partner; he was thought to be worth a handsome sum +while he lived,--but at his death, though Bullion and another junior +went on with the business, there was nothing left for us. My mother died +poor. I am the only child living. This, I suppose, is the return for the +property that Bullion wrongfully detained,--with compound interest, too, +I should say. Let us not speak ill of the dead. He has made restitution +and squared the books; I hope the correction has been made above." + +"How lucky for you that Bullion was your banker! Suppose you had grown +up with the expectation of having this money, what would you have +been good for? You would have run all to patent-leather boots, silky +moustaches, and black-tan terriers. Your struggles have developed your +muscles, metaphorically speaking, and made a man of you." + +"Two sides to that question. It is true, luxury might have spoiled me, +for I am accessible to such influences; but, on the other hand, I should +have escaped some painful things. No one who has not been poor can +understand me, can know the wounds which a sensitive man must receive as +he is working his way up in the world,--wounds that leave lasting scars, +too. I am conscious of certain feelings, most discreditable, if I were +to avow them, which have been cultivated in me, and which will probably +cling to me all my days. What I have gained in hardiness I have +gained as the smith gains his strength, at the expense of symmetry, +sensibility, and grace." + +"Nonsense, you mimosa! Don't curl up your leaves before you are +touched." + +"But if I am a sensitive-plant, as you say, I can't help it; if I were a +burdock, I might." + +"You'll get over that. By-the-by, you may as well tell Alice. I know +you will be uneasy; go, go,--but come back soon. It is jolly that she +accepted you poor; if the report had got abroad, you might have thought +she was influenced by golden reasons." + +"That's because you don't know her, my cynical friend. She is incapable +of mercenary motives." + + "'What female heart can gold despise? + What cat's averse to fish?'" + +"Well, for an hour, good-bye. Have a good fire and the pipes ready." + +"Yes, truly,--and a magnum, if my closet is not empty. The king will +drink to Hamlet." + + * * * * * + +Little more remains to be told. After the long period of probation, it +was not deemed necessary that the nuptials should be deferred beyond +the time necessary to make due preparation. In a month the wedding took +place at Mr. Monroe's house, Mr. Easelmann giving away the bride. I do +not say that the bachelor felt no twinges when he saw among the guests +the lovely Mrs. Sandford in her becoming white robes; in fact, he +"thought seriously," as all such people do while there remains even the +recollection of youth--but his habits were too fixed. He saw and sighed, +and that was all. However, he is on the right side of----forty, we will +call it, and there is hope for him. We may find him in some adventure +yet; if so, the reader shall assuredly know it. + +In the spring, Greenleaf with his wife went abroad and took up their +residence in Rome. + +"What pictures has he painted?" did you ask? + +Really, Madam, a great many; but I have not the least idea of letting +you come at the name of my hero in this way. You have seen them both +here and in New York, and you thought them the productions of a rising +man,--as they are. + + * * * * * + +Our friend Monroe is now a partner in the house of Lindsay & Co. He +makes frequent visits to the villa at Brookline, and is always welcome. +Mr. Lindsay considers him a most sensible and worthy young man, and his +daughter Clara has implicit confidence in his judgment of literature as +well as in his taste for pictures. One fine day last summer, Mrs. Monroe +was prevailed upon, after some weeks of solicitation, to get into a +carriage and take a drive with her son. "She's a nice girl," said the +mother, fervently, on their return; "and if you _must_ marry anybody, I +don't think you can do better." Walter's smile showed that he thought +so too, although the alternative was hardly so painful as she seemed to +consider it,--from which we infer that his relations with the senior +partner of the house have become, or will be, still more intimate. + +Mrs. Sandford has left Boston and gone to live with her relatives some +fifty miles distant;--the place Mr. Easelmann can tell, as he has had +occasion to send her a few letters. + +The personages of our drama are all dismissed; the curtain begins to +fall; but a voice is heard, "What became of the Bulls and Bears?" What +became of Mars and Minerva after the siege of Troy? Men die; but the +deities, infernal as well as celestial, live on. Fortunes may rise like +Satan's _chef d'oeuvre_ of architecture, may be transported from city to +city like the palace of Aladdin, or may sink into salt-water lots as did +the Cities of the Plain; success may wait upon commerce and the arts, +or desolation may cover the land; still, surviving all change, and +profiting alike by prosperity and by calamity, the secret, unfathomable +agents in all human enterprises will remain the BULLS AND BEARS. + + * * * * * + + +THE SPHINX. + + + Go not to Thebes. The Sphinx is there; + And thou shalt see her beauty rare, + And thee the sorcery of her smile + To read her riddle shall beguile. + + Oh! woe to those who fail to read! + And woe to him who shall succeed! + For he who fails the truth to show + The terror of her wrath shall know: + + But should'st thou find her mystery, + Not less is Death assured to thee; + For she shall cease, and thou shalt sigh + That she no longer is, and die. + + + + +A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. + + + "Thousands were there, in darker fame that dwell, + Whose deeds some nobler poem shall adorn; + And though to me unknown, they sure fought well, + Whom Rupert led, and who were British-born." + +DRYDEN. + + +I. + +THE MARCH. JUNE 17, 1643. + + +Last night the Canary wine flashed in the red Venice glasses on the +oaken tables of the hall; loud voices shouted and laughed till the +clustered hawk-bells jingled from the rafters, and the chaplain's fiddle +throbbed responsive from the wall; while the coupled stag-hounds fawned +unnoticed, and the watchful falcon whistled to himself unheard. In the +carved chairs lounged groups of revellers, dressed in scarlet, dressed +in purple, dressed in white and gold, gay with satins and ribbons, +gorgeous with glittering chains and jewelled swords: stern, manly faces, +that had been singed with powder in the Palatinate; brutal, swarthy +faces, knowing all that sack and sin could teach them; beautiful, boyish +faces, fresh from ancestral homes and high-born mothers; grave, sad +faces,--sad for undoubted tyranny, grave against the greater wrong of +disloyalty. Some were in council, some were in strife, many were in +liquor; the parson was there with useless gravity, and the jester with +superfluous folly; and in the outer hall men more plebeian drained the +brown October from pewter cans, which were beaten flat, next moment, in +hammering the loud drinking-chorus on the wall; while the clink of the +armorer still went on, repairing the old head-pieces and breastplates +which had hung untouched since the Wars of the Roses; and in the +doorway the wild Welsh recruits crouched with their scythes and their +cudgels, and muttered in their uncouth dialect, now a prayer to God; and +now a curse for their enemy. + +But to-day the inner hall is empty, the stag-hounds leap in the doorway, +the chaplain prays, the maidens cluster in the windows, beneath the soft +beauty of the June afternoon. The streets of Oxford resound with many +hoofs; armed troopers are gathering beside chapel and quadrangle, +gateway and tower; the trumpeter waves his gold and crimson trappings, +and blows, "To the Standard,"--for the great flag is borne to the +front, and Rupert and his men are mustering for a night of danger +beneath that banner of "Tender and True." + +With beat of drum, with clatter of hoof, and rattle of spur and +scabbard, tramping across old Magdalen Bridge, cantering down the +hill-sides, crashing through the beech-woods, echoing through the chalky +hollows, ride leisurely the gay Cavaliers. Some in new scarfs and +feathers, worthy of the "show-troop,"--others with torn laces, broken +helmets, and guilty red smears on their buff doublets;--some eager for +their first skirmish,--others weak and silent, still bandaged from the +last one;--discharging now a rattle of contemptuous shot at some closed +Puritan house, grim and stern as its master,--firing anon as noisy a +salute, as they pass some mansion where a high-born beauty dwells,--on +they ride. Leaving the towers of Oxford behind them, keeping the ancient +Roman highway, passing by the low, strong, many-gabled farmhouses, with +rustic beauties smiling at the windows and wiser fathers scowling at +the doors,--on they ride. To the Royalists, these troopers are "Prince +Robert and the hope of the nation";--to the Puritans, they are only +"Prince Robber and his company of rake-shames." + +Riding great Flanders horses, a flagon swung on one side of the large +padded saddle, and a haversack on the other,--booted to the thigh, +and girded with the leathern bandoleer, supporting cartridge-box and +basket-hilted sword, they are a picturesque and a motley troop. Some +wear the embroidered buffcoat over the coat of mail, others beneath +it,--neither having yet learned that the buffcoat alone is sabre-proof +and bullet-proof also. Scantily furnished with basinet or breastplate, +pot, haqueton, cuirass, pouldron, taslets, vambraces, or cuisses,--each +with the best piece of iron he could secure when the ancestral armory +was ransacked,--they yet care little for the deficit, remembering, that, +when they first rode down the enemy at Worcester, there was not a piece +of armor on their side, while the Puritans were armed to a man. There +are a thousand horsemen under Percy and O'Neal, armed with swords, +pole-axes, and petronels; this includes Rupert's own lifeguard of chosen +men. Lord Wentworth, with Innis and Washington, leads three hundred and +fifty dragoons,--dragoons of the old model, intended to fight either +on foot or on horseback, whence the name they bear, and the emblematic +dragon which adorns their carbines. The advanced guard, or "forlorn +hope," of a hundred horse and fifty dragoons, is commanded by Will +Legge, Rupert's life-long friend and correspondent; and Herbert Lunsford +leads the infantry, "the inhuman cannibal foot," as the Puritan journals +call them. There are five hundred of these, in lightest marching order, +and carrying either pike or arquebuse,--this last being a matchlock +musket with an iron rest to support it, and a lance combined, to resist +cavalry,--the whole being called "Swine (Swedish) feathers,"--a weapon +so clumsy, that the Cavaliers say a Puritan needs two years' practice to +discharge one without winking. And over all these float flags of every +hue and purport, from the blue and gold with its loyal "_Ut rex, sit +rex_" to the ominous crimson, flaming with a lurid furnace and the +terrible motto, "_Quasi ignis conflatoris_." + +And foremost rides Prince Rupert, darling of fortune and of war, with +his beautiful and thoughtful face of twenty-three, stern and bronzed +already, yet beardless and dimpled, his dark and passionate eyes, his +long love-locks drooping over costly embroidery, his graceful scarlet +cloak, his white-plumed hat, and his tall and stately form, which, +almost alone in the army, has not yet known a wound. His high-born +beauty is preserved to us forever on the canvas of Vandyck, and as the +Italians have named the artist "Il Pittore Cavalieresco," so will +this subject of his skill remain forever the ideal of Il Cavaliere +Pittoresco. And as he now rides at the head of this brilliant array, his +beautiful white dog bounds onward joyously beside him, that quadruped +renowned in the pamphlets of the time, whose snowy skin has been stained +by many a blood-drop in the desperate forays of his master, but who has +thus far escaped so safely that the Puritans believe him a familiar +spirit, and try to destroy him "by poyson and extempore prayer, which +yet hurt him no more than the plague plaster did Mr. Pym." Failing in +this, they pronounce the pretty creature to be "a divell, not a very +downright divell, but some Lapland ladye, once by nature a handsome +white ladye, now by art a handsome white dogge." + +The Civil War is begun. The King has made his desperate attempt to +arrest the five members of Parliament, and been checkmated by Lucy +Carlisle. So the fatal standard was reared, ten months ago, on that +dismal day at Nottingham,--the King's arms, quartered with a bloody +hand pointing to the crown, and the red battle-flag above;--blown down +disastrously at night, replaced sadly in the morning, to wave while the +Cavaliers rallied, slowly, beneath its folds. During those long months, +the King's fortunes have had constant and increasing success,--a success +always greatest when Rupert has been nearest. And now this night-march +is made to avenge a late attack, of unaccustomed audacity, from Essex, +and to redeem the threat of Rupert to pass in one night through the +whole country held by the enemy, and beat up the most distant quarters +of the Roundheads. + + +II. + +THE CONDITION OF THE TIMES. + + +It is no easy thing to paint, with any accurate shadings, this opening +period of the English Revolution. Looking habitually, as we do, at the +maturer condition of the two great parties, we do not remember how +gradual was their formation. The characters of Cavalier and Roundhead +were not more the cause than the consequence of civil strife. There is +no such chemical solvent as war; where it finds a mingling of two +alien elements, it leaves them permanently severed. At the opening +of hostilities, the two parties were scarcely distinguishable, in +externals, from each other. Arms, costume, features, phrases, manners, +were as yet common to both sides. On the battlefield, spies could pass +undetected from one army to the other. At Edgehill, Chalgrove, and +even Naseby, men and standards were captured and rescued, through the +impossibility of distinguishing between the forces. An orange scarf, or +a piece of white paper, was the most reliable designation. True, there +was nothing in the Parliamentary army so gorgeous as Sir John Suckling's +troop in Scotland, with their white doublets and scarlet hats and +plumes; but that bright company substituted the white feather for the +red one, in 1639, and rallied no more. Yet even the Puritans came to +battle in attire which would have seemed preposterously gaudy to the +plain men of our own Revolution. The London regiment of Hollis wore +red, in imitation of the royal colors, adopted to make wounds less +conspicuous. Lord Say's regiment wore blue, in imitation of the +Covenanters, who took it from Numbers, xv. 38; Hampden's men wore green; +Lord Brooke's purple; Colonel Ballard's gray. Even the hair afforded far +less distinction than we imagine, since there is scarcely a portrait of +a leading Parliamentarian which has not a display of tresses such as +would now appear the extreme of foppery; and when the remains of Hampden +himself were disinterred within twenty-five years, the body was at first +taken for a woman's, from the exceeding length and beauty of the hair. + +But every year of warfare brought a change. On the King's side, the +raiment grew more gorgeous amid misfortunes; on the Parliament's, it +became sadder with every success. The Royalists took up feathers and +oaths, in proportion as the Puritans laid them down; and as the tresses +of the Cavaliers waved more luxuriantly, the hair of the Roundheads +was more scrupulously shorn. And the same instinctive exaggeration was +constantly extending into manners and morals also. Both sides became +ostentatious; the one made the most of its dissoluteness, and the other +of its decorum. The reproachful names applied derisively to the two +parties became fixed distinctions. The word "Roundhead" was first used +early in 1642, though whether it originated with Henrietta Maria or with +David Hyde is disputed. And Charles, in his speech before the battle of +Edgehill, in October of the same year, mentioned the name "Cavalier" as +one bestowed "in a reproachful sense," and one "which our enemies have +striven to make odious." + +And all social as well as moral prejudices gradually identified +themselves with this party division. As time passed on, all that was +high-born in England gravitated more and more to the royal side, while +the popular cause enlisted the Londoners, the yeomanry, and those +country-gentlemen whom Mrs. Hutchinson styled the "worsted-stocking +members." The Puritans gradually found themselves excluded from the +manorial halls, and the Cavaliers (a more inconvenient privation) +from the blacksmiths' shops. Languishing at first under aristocratic +leadership, the cause of the Parliament first became strong when the +Self-denying Ordinance abolished all that weakness. Thus the very +sincerity of the civil conflict drew the lines deeper; had the battles +been fought by mercenaries, like the contemporary Continental wars, +there would have grown up a less hearty mutual antipathy, but a far more +terrible demoralization. As it was, the character of the war was, on the +whole, a humane one; few towns were sacked or destroyed, the harvests +were bounteous and freely gathered, and the population increased during +the whole period. But the best civil war is fearfully injurious. In this +case, virtues and vices were found on both sides; and it was only the +gradual preponderance which finally stamped on each party its own +historic reputation. The Cavaliers confessed to "the vices of men,--love +of wine and women"; but they charged upon their opponents "the vices of +devils,--hypocrisy and spiritual pride." Accordingly, the two verdicts +have been recorded in the most delicate of all registers,--language. For +the Cavaliers added to the English vocabulary the word _plunder_, and +the Puritans the word _cant_. + +Yet it is certain that at the outset neither of these peculiarities was +monopolized by either party. In abundant instances, the sins changed +places,--Cavaliers canted, and Puritans plundered. That is, if by cant +we understand the exaggerated use of Scripture language which originated +with the reverend gentleman of that name, it was an offence in which +both sides participated. Clarendon, reviewing the Presbyterian +discourses, quoted text against text with infinite relish. Old Judge +Jenkins, could he have persuaded the "House of Rimmon," as he called +Parliament, to hang him, would have swung the Bible triumphantly to his +neck by a ribbon, to show the unscriptural character of their doings. +Charles himself, in one of his early addresses to his army, denounced +the opposing party as "Brownists, Anabaptists, and Atheists," and in +his address to the city of London pleaded in favor of his own "godly, +learned, and painfull preachers." Every royal regiment had its chaplain, +including in the service such men as Pearson and Jeremy Taylor, and +they had prayers before battle, as regularly and seriously as their +opponents. "After solemn prayers at the head of every division, I led my +part away," wrote the virtuous Sir Bevill Grenvill to his wife, after +the battle of Bradock. Rupert, in like manner, had prayers before every +division at Marston Moor. To be sure, we cannot always vouch for the +quality of these prayers, when the chaplain happened to be out of the +way and the colonel was his substitute. "O Lord," petitioned stout Sir +Jacob Astley, at Edgehill, "thou knowest how busy I must be this day; if +I forget thee, do not thou forget me!"--after which, he rose up, crying, +"March on, boys!" + +And as the Puritans had not the monopoly of prayer, so the Cavaliers did +not monopolize plunder. Of course, when civil war is once begun, such +laxity is mere matter of self-defence. If the Royalists unhorsed the +Roundheads, the latter must horse themselves again, as best they could. +If Goring "uncattled" the neighborhood of London, Major Medhope must +be ordered to "uncattle" the neighborhood of Oxford. Very possibly +individual animals were identified with the right side or the wrong +side, to be spared or confiscated in consequence;--as in modern Kansas, +during a similar condition of things, one might hear men talk of a +pro-slavery colt, or an anti-slavery cow. And the precedent being +established, each party could use the smallest excesses of the other +side to palliate the greatest of its own. No use for the King to hang +two of Rupert's men for stealing, when their commander could urge in +extenuation the plunder of the house of Lady Lucas, and the indignities +offered by the Roundheads to the Countess of Rivers. Why spare the +churches as sanctuaries for the enemy, when rumor accused that enemy +(right or wrong) of hunting cats in those same churches with hounds, or +baptizing dogs and pigs in ridicule of the consecrated altars? Setting +aside these charges as questionable, we cannot so easily dispose of +the facts which rest on actual Puritan testimony. If, even after the +Self-denying Ordinance, the "Perfect Occurrences" repeatedly report +soldiers of the Puritan army, as cashiered for drunkenness, rudeness to +women, pilfering, and defrauding innkeepers, it is inevitable to infer +that in earlier and less stringent times they did the same undetected or +unpunished. When Mrs. Hutchinson describes a portion of the soldiers on +her own side as "licentious, ungovernable wretches,"--when Sir Samuel +Luke, in his letters, depicts the glee with which his men plunder +the pockets of the slain,--when poor John Wolstenholme writes to +head-quarters that his own compatriots have seized all his hay and +horses, "so that his wife cannot serve God with the congregation but +in frosty weather,"--when Vicars in "Jehovah Jireh" exults over the +horrible maiming and butchery wrought by the troopers upon the officers' +wives and female camp-followers at Naseby,--it is useless to attribute +exaggeration to the other side. In civil war, even the humanest, there +is seldom much opening for exaggeration,--the actual horrors being +usually quite as vivid as any imaginations of the sufferers, especially +when, as in this case, the spiritual instructors preach, on the one +side, from "Curse ye Meroz," and, on the other side, from "Cursed be he +that keepeth back his sword from blood." + +We mention these things, not because they are deliberately denied by +anybody, but because they are apt to be overlooked by those who take +their facts at secondhand. All this does not show that the Puritans had, +even at the outset, worse men or a cause no better; it simply shows +that war demoralizes, and that right-thinking men may easily, under its +influence, slide into rather reprehensible practices. At a later period +the evil worked its own cure, among the Puritans, and the army of +Cromwell was a moral triumph almost incredible; but at the time of which +we write, the distinction was but lightly drawn. It would be easy to go +farther and show that among the leading Parliamentary statesmen there +were gay and witty debauchees,--that Harry Marten deserved the epithet +with which Cromwell saluted him,--that Pym succeeded to the regards of +Stafford's bewitching mistress,--that Warwick was truly, as Clarendon +describes him, a profuse and generous profligate, tolerated by the +Puritans for the sake of his earldom and his bounty, at a time when +bounty was convenient and peers scarce. But it is hardly worth while +farther to demonstrate the simple and intelligible fact, that there were +faults on both sides. Neither war nor any other social phenomenon can +divide infallibly the sheep from the goats, or collect all the saints +under one set of staff-officers and all the sinners under another. + +But, on the other hand, the strength of both sides, at this early day, +was in a class of serious and devoted men, who took up the sword so +sadly, in view of civil strife, that victory seemed to them almost as +terrible as defeat. In some, the scale of loyalty slightly inclined, +and they held with the King; in others, the scale of liberty, and they +served the Parliament; in both cases, with the same noble regrets at +first, merging gradually into bitter alienation afterwards. "If there +could be an expedient found to solve the punctilio of honor, I would not +be hero an hour," wrote Lord Robert Spencer to his wife, from the +camp of the Cavaliers. Sir Edmund Verney, the King's standard-bearer, +disapproved of the royal cause, and adhered to it only because he "had +eaten the King's bread." Lord Falkland, Charles's Secretary of State, +"sitting among his friends, often, after a deep silence and frequent +sighs, would, with a shriek and sad accent, ingeminate the words, Peace! +Peace!" and would prophesy for himself that death which soon came. And +these words show close approximation to the positions of men honored +among the Puritans, as when Sir William Waller wrote from his camp to +his chivalrous opponent, Sir Ralph Hopton,--"The great God, who is +the searcher of my heart, knows with what reluctance I go upon this +service." + +As time passed on, the hostility between the two parties exceeded all +bounds of courteous intercourse. The social distinction was constantly +widening, and so was the religious antagonism. Waller could be allowed +to joke with Goring and sentimentalize with Hopton,--for Waller was a +gentleman, though a rebel; but it was a different thing when the Puritan +gentlemen were seen to be gradually superseded by Puritan clowns. +Strafford had early complained of "your Prynnes, Pims, and Bens, with +the rest of that generation of odd names and natures." But what were +these to the later brood, whose plebeian quality Mr. Buckle has so +laboriously explored,--Goffe the grocer and Whalley the tailor, Pride +the drayman and Venner the cooper, culminating at last in Noll Cromwell +the brewer? The formidable force of these upstarts only embittered +the aversion. If odious when vanquished, what must they have been as +victors? For if it be disagreeable to find a foeman unworthy of your +steel, it is much more unpleasant when your steel turns out unworthy of +the foeman; and if sad-colored Puritan raiment looked absurd upon the +persons of fugitives, it must have been very particularly unbecoming +when worn by conquerors. + +And the growing division was constantly aggravated by very acid satire. +The Court, it must be remembered, was more than half French in its +general character and tone, and every Frenchman of that day habitually +sneered at every Englishman as dull and inelegant. The dazzling wit that +flashed for both sides in the French civil wars flashed for one only in +the English; the Puritans had no comforts of that kind, save in some +caustic repartee from Harry Marten, or some fearless sarcasm from Lucy +Carlisle. But the Cavaliers softened labor and sweetened care with their +little jokes. It was rather consoling to cover some ignominious retreat +with a new epigram on Cromwell's red nose, that irresistible member +which kindled in its day as much wit as Bardolph's,--to hail it as "Nose +Immortal," a beacon, a glow-worm, a bird of prey,--to make it stand as a +personification of the rebel cause, till even the stately Montrose asked +newcomers from England, "How is Oliver's nose?" It was very entertaining +to christen the Solemn League and Covenant "the constellation on the +back of Aries," because most of the signers could only make their marks +on the little bits of sheepskin circulated for that purpose. It was +quite lively to rebaptize Rundway Down as Run-away-down, after a royal +victory, and to remark how Hazlerig's regiment of "lobsters" turned to +crabs, on that occasion, and crawled backwards. But all these pleasant +follies became whips to scourge them, at last,--shifting suddenly into +very grim earnest when the Royalists themselves took to running away, +with truculent saints, in steeple-hats, behind them. + +Oxford was the stronghold of the Cavaliers, in these times, as that +of the Puritans was London. The Court itself (though here we are +anticipating a little) was transferred to the academic city. Thither +came Henrietta Maria, with what the pamphleteers called "her +Rattle-headed Parliament of Ladies," the beautiful Duchess of Richmond, +the merry Mrs. Kirke, and brave Kate D'Aubigny. In Merton College the +Queen resided; at Oriel the Privy Council was held; at Christ Church +the King and Rupert were quartered; and at All Souls Jeremy Taylor was +writing his beautiful meditations, in the intervals of war. In the New +College quadrangle, the students were drilled to arms "in the eye of +Doctor Pink," while Mars and Venus kept undisturbed their ancient reign, +although transferred to the sacred precincts of Magdalen. And amidst the +passion and the pomp, the narrow streets would suddenly ring with the +trumpet of some foam-covered scout, bringing tidings of perilous +deeds outside; while some traitorous spy was being hanged, drawn, and +quartered in some other part of the city, for betraying the secrets of +the Court. And forth from the outskirts of Oxford rides Rupert on the +day we are to describe, and we must still protract our pause a little +longer to speak of him. + +Prince Rupert, Prince Robert, or Prince Robber,--for by all these names +was he known,--was the one formidable military leader on the royal side. +He was not a statesman, for he was hardly yet a mature man; he was +not, in the grandest sense, a hero, yet he had no quality that was not +heroic. Chivalrous, brilliant, honest, generous,--neither dissolute, nor +bigoted, nor cruel,--he was still a Royalist for the love of royalty, +and a soldier for the love of war, and in civil strife there can hardly +be a more dangerous character. Through all the blunt periods of his +military or civil proclamations, we see the proud, careless boy, +fighting for fighting sake, and always finding his own side the right +one. He could not have much charity for the most generous opponents; he +certainly had none at all for those who (as he said) printed malicious +and lying pamphlets against him "almost every morning," in which he +found himself saluted as a "nest of perfidious vipers," "a night-flying +dragon prince," "a flapdragon," "a caterpillar," "a spider," and "a +_butterbox_." + +He was the King's own nephew,--great-grandson of William the Silent, and +son of that Elizabeth Stuart from whom all the modern royal family of +England descends. His sister was the renowned Princess Palatine, the +one favorite pupil of Descartes, and the chosen friend of Leibnitz, +Malebranche, and William Penn. From early childhood he was trained to +war; we find him at fourteen pronounced by his tutors fit to command +an army,--at fifteen, bearing away the palm in one of the last of the +tournaments,--at sixteen, fighting beside the young Turenne in the Low +Countries,--at nineteen, heading the advanced guard in the army of the +Prince of Orange,--and at twenty-three, appearing in England, the day +before the Royal Standard was reared, and the day after the King lost +Coventry, because Wilmot, not Rupert, was commander of the horse. +This training made him a general,--not, as many have supposed, a mere +cavalry-captain;--he was one of the few men who have shown great +military powers on both land and sea; he was a man of energy unbounded, +industry inexhaustible, and the most comprehensive and systematic +forethought. It was not merely, that, as Warwick said, "he put that +spirit into the King's army that all men seemed resolved,"--not merely, +that, always charging at the head of his troops, he was never wounded, +and that, seeing more service than any of his compeers, he outlived them +all. But even in these early years, before he was generalissimo, the +Parliament deliberately declared the whole war to be "managed by his +skill, labor, and industry," and his was the only name habitually +printed in capitals in the Puritan newspapers. He had to create soldiers +by enthusiasm, and feed them by stratagem,--to toil for a king +who feared him, and against a queen who hated him,--to take vast +responsibilities alone,--accused of negligence, if he failed, reproached +with license, if he succeeded. Against him he had the wealth of London, +intrusted to men who were great diplomatists, though new to power, and +great soldiers, though they had never seen a battle-field till middle +life; on his side he had only unmanageable lords and penniless +gentlemen, who gained victories by daring, and then wasted them by +license. His troops had no tents, no wagons, no military stores; they +used those of the enemy. Clarendon says, that the King's cause labored +under an incurable disease of want of money, and that the only cure for +starvation was a victory. To say, therefore, that Rupert's men never +starved is to say that they always conquered,--which, at this early +period, was true. + +He was the best shot in the army, and the best tennis-player among the +courtiers, and Pepys calls him "the boldest attacker in England for +personal courage." Seemingly without reverence or religion, he yet +ascribed his defeats to Satan, and, at the close of a letter about a +marauding expedition, requested his friend Will Legge to pray for him. +Versed in all the courtly society of the age, chosen interpreter for the +wooing of young Prince Charles and La Grande Mademoiselle, and mourning +in purple, with the royal family, for Marie de Médicis, he could yet +mingle in any conceivable company and assume any part. He penetrated the +opposing camp at Dunsmore Heath as an apple-seller, and the hostile town +of Warwick as a dealer in cabbage-nets, and the pamphleteers were never +weary of describing his disguises. He was charged with all manner of +offences, even to slaying children with cannibal intent, and only very +carelessly disavowed such soft impeachments. But no man could deny that +he was perfectly true to his word; he never forgot one whom he had +promised to protect, and, if he had promised to strip a man's goods, he +did it to the uttermost farthing. And so must his pledge of vengeance +be redeemed to-night; and so, riding eastward, with the dying sunlight +behind him and the quiet Chiltern hills before, through air softened by +the gathering coolness of these midsummer eves, beside clover fields, +and hedges of wild roses, and ponds white with closing water-lilies, and +pastures sprinkled with meadow-sweet, like foam,--he muses only of the +clash of sword and the sharp rattle of shot, and all the passionate joys +of the coming charge. + + +III. + +THE FORAY. + + +The long and picturesque array winds onward, crossing Chiselhampton +Bridge, (not to be re-crossed so easily,) avoiding Thame with its church +and abbey, where Lord-General Essex himself is quartered, unconscious of +their march; and the Cavaliers are soon riding beneath the bases of +the wooded hills towards Postcombe. Near Tetsworth, the enemy's first +outpost, they halt till evening; the horsemen dismount, the flagon and +the foraging-bag are opened, the black-jack and the manchet go round, +healths are drunk to successes past and glories future, to "Queen Mary's +eyes," and to "Prince Rupert's dog." A few hours bring darkness; they +move on eastward through the lanes, avoiding, when possible, the Roman +highways; they are sometimes fired upon by a picket, but make no return, +for they are hurrying past the main quarters of the enemy. In the +silence of the summer night, they stealthily ride miles and miles +through a hostile country, the renegade Urry guiding them. At early +dawn, they see, through the misty air, the low hamlet of Postcombe, +where the "beating up of the enemy's quarters" is to begin. A hurried +word of command; the infantry halt; the cavalry close, and sweep down +like night-hawks upon the sleeping village,--safe, one would have +supposed it, with the whole Parliamentary army lying between it and +Oxford, to protect from danger. Yet the small party of Puritan troopers +awake in their quarters with Rupert at the door; it is well for +them that they happen to be picked men, and have promptness, if not +vigilance; forming hastily, they secure a retreat westward through the +narrow street, leaving but few prisoners behind them. As hastily the +prisoners are swept away with the stealthy troop, who have other work +before them; and before half the startled villagers have opened their +lattices the skirmish is over. Long before they can send a messenger up, +over the hills, to sound the alarm-bells of Stoken Church, the swift +gallop of the Cavaliers has reached Chinnor, two miles away, and the +goal of their foray. The compact, strongly-built village is surrounded. +They form a parallel line behind the houses, on each side, leaping +fences and ditches to their posts. They break down the iron chains +stretched nightly across each end of the street, and line it from end to +end. Rupert, Will Legge, and the "forlorn hope," dismounting, rush in +upon the quarters, sparing those alone who surrender. + +In five minutes the town is up. The awakened troopers fight as +desperately as their assailants, some on foot, some on horseback. More +and more of Rupert's men rush in; they fight through the straggling +street of the village, from the sign of the Ram at one end to that of +the Crown at the other, and then back again. The citizens join against +the invaders, the 'prentices rush from their attics, hasty barricades +of carts and harrows are formed in the streets, long musket-barrels are +thrust from the windows, dark groups cluster on the roofs, and stones +begin to rattle on the heads below, together with phrases more galling +than stones, hurled down by women, "cursed dogs," "devilish Cavaliers," +"Papist traitors." In return, the intruders shoot at the windows +indiscriminately, storm the doors, fire the houses; they grow more +furious, and spare nothing; some towns-people retreat within the +church-doors; the doors are beaten in; women barricade them with +wool-packs, and fight over them with muskets, barrel to barrel. Outside, +the troopers ride round and round the town, seizing or slaying all who +escape; within, desperate men still aim from their windows, though the +houses each side are in flames. Melting lead pours down from the blazing +roofs, while the drum still beats and the flag still goes on. It is +struck down presently; tied to a broken pike-staff, it rises again, +while a chaos of armor and plumes, black and orange, blue and red, torn +laces and tossing feathers, powder-stains and blood-stains, fills the +dewy morning with terror, and opens the June Sunday with sin. + +Threescore and more of the towns-people are slain, sixscore are led +away at the horses' sides, bound with ropes, to be handed over to +the infantry for keeping. Some of these prisoners, even of the armed +troopers, are so ignorant and unwarlike as yet, that they know not the +meaning of the word "quarter," refusing it when offered, and imploring +"mercy" instead. Others are little children, for whom a heavy ransom +shall yet be paid. Others, cheaper prisoners, are ransomed on the spot. +Some plunder has also been taken, but the soldiers look longingly on +the larger wealth that must be left behind, in the hurry of +retreat,--treasures that, otherwise, no trooper of Rupert's would have +spared: scarlet cloth, bedding, saddles, cutlery, ironware, hats, shoes, +hops for beer, and books to sell to the Oxford scholars. But the daring +which has given them victory now makes their danger;--they have been +nearly twelve hours in the saddle and have fought two actions; they have +twenty-five miles to ride, with the whole force of the enemy in their +path; they came unseen in the darkness, they must return by daylight and +with the alarm already given; Stoken Church-bell has been pealing for +hours, the troop from Postcombe has fallen back on Tetsworth, and +everywhere in the distance videttes are hurrying from post to post. + +The perilous retreat begins. Ranks are closed; they ride silently; many +a man leads a second horse beside him, and one bears in triumph the +great captured Puritan standard, with its five buff Bibles on a black +ground. They choose their course more carefully than ever, seek the +by-lanes, and swim the rivers with their swords between their teeth. At +one point, in their hushed progress, they hear the sound of rattling +wagons. There is a treasure-train within their reach, worth twenty-one +thousand pounds, and destined for the Parliamentary camp, but the thick +woods of the Chilterns have sheltered it from pursuit, and they have +not a moment to waste; they are riding for their lives. Already the +gathering parties of Roundheads are closing upon them, nearer and +nearer, as they approach the most perilous point of the wild expedition, +their only return-path across the Cherwell, Chiselhampton Bridge. Percy +and O'Neal with difficulty hold the assailants in check; the case grows +desperate at last, and Rupert stands at bay on Chalgrove Field. + +It is Sunday morning, June 18th, 1643. The early church-bells are +ringing over all Oxfordshire,--dying away in the soft air, among the +sunny English hills, while Englishmen are drawing near each other with +hatred in their hearts,--dying away, as on that other Sunday, eight +months ago, when Baxter, preaching near Edgehill, heard the sounds of +battle, and disturbed the rest of his saints by exclaiming, "To the +fight!" But here there are no warrior-preachers, no bishops praying in +surplices on the one side, no dark-robed divines preaching on horseback +on the other, no king in glittering armor, no Tutor Harvey in peaceful +meditation beneath a hedge, pondering on the circulation of the blood, +with hotter blood flowing so near him; all these were to be seen at +Edgehill, but not here. This smaller skirmish rather turns our thoughts +to Cisatlantic associations; its date suggests Bunker's Hill,--and its +circumstances, Lexington. For this, also, is a marauding party, with a +Percy among its officers, brought to a stand by a half-armed and angry +peasantry. + +Rupert sends his infantry forward, to secure the bridge, and a +sufficient body of dragoons to line the mile-and-a-half of road +between,--the remainder of the troops being drawn up at the entrance of +a corn-field, several hundred acres in extent, and lying between the +villages and the hills. The Puritans take a long circuit, endeavoring to +get to windward of their formidable enemy,--a point judged as important, +during the seventeenth century, in a land fight as in a naval +engagement. They have with them some light field-pieces, artillery +being the only point of superiority they yet claim; but these are not +basilisks, nor falconets, nor culverins, (_colubri_, _couleuvres_,) nor +drakes, (_dracones_,) nor warning-pieces,--they are the leathern guns +of Gustavus Adolphus, made of light cast-iron and bound with ropes and +leather. The Roundhead dragoons, dismounted, line a hedge near the +Cavaliers, and plant their "swine-feathers"; under cover of their fire +the horse advance in line, matches burning. As they advance, one or two +dash forward, at risk of their lives, flinging off the orange scarfs +which alone distinguish them, in token that they desert to the royal +cause. Prince Rupert falls back into the lane a little, to lead the +other forces into his ambush of dragoons. These tactics do not come +naturally to him, however; nor does he like the practice of the time, +that two bodies of cavalry should ride up within pistol-shot of each +other, and exchange a volley before they charge. He rather anticipates, +in his style of operations, the famous order of Frederick the Great: +"The King hereby forbids all officers of cavalry, on pain of being broke +with ignominy, ever to allow themselves to be attacked in any action by +the enemy; but the Prussians must always attack them." Accordingly he +restrains himself for a little while, chafing beneath the delay, and +then, a soldier or two being suddenly struck down by the fire, he +exclaims, "Yea! this insolency is not to be endured." The moment is +come. + +"God and Queen Mary!" shouts Rupert; "Charge!" In one instant that mass +of motionless statues becomes a flood of lava; down in one terrible +sweep it comes, silence behind it and despair before; no one notices the +beauty of that brilliant chivalrous array,--all else is merged in the +fury of the wild gallop; spurs are deep, reins free, blades grasped, +heads bent; the excited horse feels the heel no more than he feels the +hand; the uneven ground breaks their ranks,--no matter, they feel that +they can ride down the world: Rupert first clears the hedge,--he is +always first,--then comes the captain of his lifeguard, then the +whole troop "jumble after them," in a spectator's piquant phrase. The +dismounted Puritan dragoons break from the hedges and scatter for their +lives, but the cavalry "bear the charge better than they have done since +Worcester,"--that is, now they stand it an instant, then they did not +stand it at all; the Prince takes them in flank and breaks them in +pieces at the first encounter,--the very wind of the charge shatters +them. Horse and foot, carbines and petronels, swords and pole-axes, are +mingled in one struggling mass. Rupert and his men seem refreshed, not +exhausted, by the weary night,--they seem incapable of fatigue; they +spike the guns as they cut down the gunners, and, if any escape, it +is because many in both armies wear the same red scarfs. One Puritan, +surrounded by the enemy, shows such desperate daring that Rupert bids +release him at last, and sends afterwards to Essex to ask his name. +One Cavalier bends, with a wild oath, to search the pockets of a slain +enemy;--it is his own brother. O'Neal slays a standard-bearer, and thus +restores to his company the right to bear a flag, a right they lost at +Hopton Heath; Legge is taken prisoner and escapes; Urry proves himself +no coward, though a renegade, and is trusted to bear to Oxford the news +of the victory, being raised to knighthood in return. + +For a victory of course it is. Nothing in England can yet resist these +high-born, dissolute, reckless Cavaliers of Rupert's. "I have seen them +running up walls twenty feet high," said the engineer consulted by the +frightened citizens of Dorchester: "these defences of yours may possibly +keep them out half an hour." Darlings of triumphant aristocracy, they +are destined to meet with no foe that can match them, until they recoil +at last before the plebeian pikes of the London train-bands. Nor can +even Rupert's men claim to monopolize the courage of the King's party. +The brilliant "show-troop" of Lord Bernard Stuart, comprising the young +nobles having no separate command,--a troop which could afford to +indulge in all the gorgeousness of dress, since their united incomes, +Clarendon declares, would have exceeded those of the whole Puritan +Parliament,--led, by their own desire, the triumphant charge at +Edgehill, and threescore of their bodies were found piled on the spot +where the Royal Standard was captured and rescued. Not less faithful +were the Marquis of Newcastle's "Lambs," who took their name from the +white woollen clothing which they refused to have dyed, saying that +their hearts' blood would dye it soon enough; and so it did: only thirty +survived the battle of Marston Moor, and the bodies of the rest were +found in the field, ranked regularly, side by side, in death as in life. + +But here at Chalgrove Field no such fortitude of endurance is needed; +the enemy are scattered, and, as Rupert's Cavaliers are dashing on, in +their accustomed headlong pursuit, a small, but fresh force of Puritan +cavalry appears behind the hedges and charges on them from the +right,--two troops, hastily gathered, and in various garb. They are +headed by a man in middle life and of noble aspect: once seen, he cannot +easily be forgotten; but seen he will never be again, and, for the last +time, Rupert and Hampden meet face to face. + +The foremost representative men of their respective parties, they +scarcely remember, perhaps, that there are ties and coincidences in +their lives. At the marriage of Rupert's mother, the student Hampden was +chosen to write the Oxford epithalamium, exulting in the prediction of +some noble offspring to follow such a union. Rupert is about to be made +General-in-chief of the Cavaliers; Hampden is looked to by all as the +future General-in-chief of the Puritans. Rupert is the nephew of the +King,--Hampden the cousin of Cromwell; and as the former is believed +to be aiming at the Crown, so the latter is the only possible rival of +Cromwell for the Protectorate,--"the eyes of all being fixed upon him as +their _pater patriae_." But in all the greater qualities of manhood, how +far must Hampden be placed above the magnificent and gifted Rupert! In +a congress of natural noblemen--for such do the men of the Commonwealth +appear--he must rank foremost. It is difficult to avoid exaggeration in +speaking of these men,--men whose deeds vindicate their words, and whose +words are unsurpassed by Greek or Roman fame,--men whom even Hume can +only criticize for a "mysterious jargon" which most of them did not use, +and for a "vulgar hypocrisy" which few of them practised. Let us not +underrate the self-forgetting loyalty of the Royalists,--the Duke of +Newcastle laying at the King's feet seven hundred thousand pounds, +and the Marquis of Worcester a million; but the sublimer poverty and +abstinence of the Parliamentary party deserve a yet loftier meed,--Vane +surrendering an office of thirty thousand pounds a year to promote +public economy,--Hutchinson refusing a peerage and a fortune as a bribe +to hold Nottingham Castle a little while for the King,--Eliot and Pym +bequeathing their families to the nation's justice, having spent their +all for the good cause. And rising to yet higher attributes, as they +pass before us in the brilliant paragraphs of the courtly Clarendon, or +the juster modern estimates of Forster, it seems like a procession of +born sovereigns; while the more pungent epithets of contemporary wit +only familiarize, but do not mar, the fame of Cromwell, (Cleaveland's +"Caesar in a Clown,")--"William the Conqueror" Waller,--"young Harry" +Vane,--"fiery Tom" Fairfax,--and "King Pym." But among all these there +is no peer of Hampden, of him who came not from courts or camps, but +from the tranquil study of his Davila, from that thoughtful retirement +which was for him, as for his model, Coligny, the school of all noble +virtues,--came to find himself at once a statesman and a soldier, +receiving from his contemporary, Clarendon, no affectionate critic, the +triple crown of historic praise, as being "the most able, resolute, and +popular person in the kingdom." Who can tell how changed the destiny of +England, had the Earl of Bedford's first compromise with the country +party succeeded, and Hampden become the tutor of Prince Charles,--or +could this fight at Chalgrove Field issue differently, and Hampden +survive to be general instead of Essex, and Protector in place of +Cromwell? + +But that may not be. Had Hampden's earlier counsels prevailed, Rupert +never would have ventured on his night foray; had his next suggestions +been followed, Rupert never would have returned from it. Those +failing, Hampden has come, gladly followed by Gunter and his dragoons, +outstripping the tardy Essex, to dare all and die. In vain does Gunter +perish beside his flag; in vain does Crosse, his horse being killed +under him, spring in the midst of battle on another; in vain does "that +great-spirited little Sir Samuel Luke" (the original of Hudibras) get +thrice captured and thrice escape. For Hampden, the hope of the nation, +is fatally shot through the shoulder with two carbine-balls, in the +first charge; the whole troop sees it with dismay; Essex comes up, as +usual, too late, and the fight at Chalgrove Field is lost. + +We must leave this picture, painted in the fading colors of a far-off +time. Let us leave the noble Hampden, weak and almost fainting, riding +calmly from the field, and wandering away over his own Chiltern meadows, +that he loves so well,--leave him, drooping over his saddle, directing +his horse first towards his father-in-law's house at Pyrton, where once +he wedded his youthful bride, then turning towards Thame, and mustering +his last strength to leap his tired steed across its boundary brook. A +few days of laborious weakness, spent in letter-writing to urge upon +Parliament something of that military energy which, if earlier adopted, +might have saved his life,--and we see a last, funereal procession +winding beneath the Chiltern hills, and singing the 90th Psalm as the +mourners approach the tomb of the Hampdens, and the 43d as they return. +And well may the "Weekly Intelligencer" say of him, (June 27, 1643,) +that "the memory of this deceased Colonel is such that in no age to +come but it will more and more be had in honor and esteem; a man so +religious, and of that prudence, judgment, temper, valor, and integrity, +that he hath left few his like behind him." + +And we must leave Rupert to his career of romantic daring, to be made +President of Wales and Generalissimo of the army,--to rescue with +unequalled energy Newark and York and the besieged heroine of Lathom +House,--to fight through Newbury and Marston Moor and Naseby, and many a +lesser field,--to surrender Bristol and be acquitted by court-martial, +but hopelessly condemned by the King;--then to leave the kingdom, +refusing a passport, and fighting his perilous way to the seaside;--then +to wander over the world for years, astonishing Dutchmen by his +seamanship, Austrians by his soldiership, Spaniards and Portuguese by +his buccaneering powers, and Frenchmen by his gold and diamonds and +birds and monkeys and "richly-liveried Blackamoors";--then to reorganize +the navy of England, exchanging characters with his fellow-commander, +Monk, whom the ocean makes rash, as it makes Rupert prudent;--leave him +to use nobly his declining years, in studious toils in Windsor Castle, +the fulfilment of Milton's dream, outwatching the Bear with thrice-great +Hermes, surrounded by strange old arms and instruments, and maps of +voyages, and plans of battles, and the abstruse library which the +"Harleian Miscellany" still records;--leave him to hunt and play at +tennis, serve in the Hudson's Bay Company and the Board of Trade;--leave +him to experiment in alchemy and astrology, in hydraulics, metallurgy, +gunpowder, perspective, quadrants, mezzotint, fish-hooks, and +revolvers;--leave him to look from his solitary turret over hills and +fields, now peaceful, but each the scene of some wild and warlike memory +for him;--leave him to die a calm and honored death at sixty-three, +outliving every companion of his early days. The busy world, which has +no time to remember many, forgets him and remembers only the slain and +defeated Hampden. The brilliant renown of the Prince was like the glass +toys which record his ingenuity and preserve his name; the hammer and +the anvil can scarcely mar them, yet a slight pressure of the finger, +in the fatal spot, will burst them into glittering showers of dust. The +full force of those iron times beat ineffectual upon Rupert;--Death +touched him, and that shining fame sparkled and was shattered forever. + + * * * * * + + +SPRING. + + + Ah! my beautiful violets, + Stirring under the sod, + Feeling, in all your being, + The breath of the spirit of God + Thrilling your delicate pulses, + Warming your life-blood anew,-- + Struggle up into the Spring-light; + I'm watching and waiting for you. + + Stretch up your white arms towards me, + Climb and never despair; + Come! the blue sky is above you, + Sunlight and soft warm air. + Shake off the sleep from your eyelids, + Work in the darkness awhile, + Trust in the light that's above you, + Win your way up to its smile. + + Ah! do you know how the May-flowers, + Down on the shore of the lake. + Are whispering, one to another, + All in the silence, "Awake!" + Blushing from under the pine-leaves, + Soon they will greet me anew,-- + But still, oh, my beautiful violets, + I'll be watching and longing for you. + + + + +THE STEREOSCOPE AND THE STEREOGRAPH. + + +Democritus of Abdera, commonly known as the Laughing Philosopher, +probably because he did not consider the study of truth inconsistent +with a cheerful countenance, believed and taught that all bodies were +continually throwing off certain images like themselves, which subtile +emanations, striking on our bodily organs, gave rise to our sensations. +Epicurus borrowed the idea from him, and incorporated it into the famous +system, of which Lucretius has given us the most popular version. Those +who are curious on the matter will find the poet's description at the +beginning of his fourth book. Forms, effigies, membranes, or _films_, +are the nearest representatives of the terms applied to these +effluences. They are perpetually shed from the surfaces of solids, as +bark is shed by trees. _Cortex_ is, indeed, one of the names applied to +them by Lucretius. + +These evanescent films may be seen in one of their aspects in any clear, +calm sheet of water, in a mirror, in the eye of an animal by one who +looks at it in front, but better still by the consciousness behind the +eye in the ordinary act of vision. They must be packed like the leaves +of a closed book; for suppose a mirror to give an image of an object a +mile off, it will give one at every point less than a mile, though this +were subdivided into a million parts. Yet the images will not be the +same; for the one taken a mile off will be very small, at half a mile as +large again, at a hundred feet fifty times as large, and so on, as long +as the mirror can contain the image. + +Under the action of light, then, a body makes its superficial aspect +potentially present at a distance, becoming appreciable as a shadow or +as a picture. But remove the cause,--the body itself,--and the effect is +removed. The man beholdeth himself in the glass and goeth his way, and +straightway both the mirror and the mirrored forget what manner of man +he was. These visible films or membranous _exuviae_ of objects, which +the old philosophers talked about, have no real existence, separable +from their illuminated source, and perish instantly when it is +withdrawn. + +If a man had handed a metallic speculum to Democritus of Abdera, and +told him to look at his face in it while his heart was beating thirty +or forty times, promising that one of the films his face was shedding +should stick there, so that neither he, nor it, nor anybody should +forget what manner of man he was, the Laughing Philosopher would +probably have vindicated his claim to his title by an explosion that +would have astonished the speaker. + +This is just what the Daguerreotype has done. It has fixed the most +fleeting of our illusions, that which the apostle and the philosopher +and the poet have alike used as the type of instability and unreality. +The photograph has completed the triumph, by making a sheet of paper +reflect images like a mirror and hold them as a picture. + +This triumph of human ingenuity is the most audacious, remote, +improbable, incredible,--the one that would seem least likely to be +regained, if all traces of it were lost, of all the discoveries man has +made. It has become such an everyday matter with us, that we forget its +miraculous nature, as we forget that of the sun itself, to which we owe +the creations of our new art. Yet in all the prophecies of dreaming +enthusiasts, in all the random guesses of the future conquests over +matter, we do not remember any prediction of such an inconceivable +wonder, as our neighbor round the corner, or the proprietor of the small +house on wheels, standing on the village common, will furnish any of us +for the most painfully slender remuneration. No Century of Inventions +includes this among its possibilities. Nothing but the vision of a +Laputan, who passed his days in extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, +could have reached such a height of delirium as to rave about the time +when a man should paint his miniature by looking at a blank tablet, and +a multitudinous wilderness of forest foliage or an endless Babel of +roofs and spires stamp itself, in a moment, so faithfully and so +minutely, that one may creep over the surface of the picture with his +microscope and find every leaf perfect, or read the letters of distant +signs, and see what was the play at the "Variétés" or the "Victoria," +on the evening of the day when it was taken, just as he would sweep the +real view with a spy-glass to explore all that it contains. + +Some years ago, we sent a page or two to one of the magazines,--the +"Knickerbocker," if we remember aright,--in which the story was told +from the "Arabian Nights," of the three kings' sons, who each wished to +obtain the hand of a lovely princess, and received for answer, that he +who brought home the most wonderful object should obtain the lady's hand +as his reward. Our readers, doubtless, remember the original tale, with +the flying carpet, the tube which showed what a distant friend was +doing by looking into it, and the apple which gave relief to the +most desperate sufferings only by inhalation of its fragrance. The +railroad-car, the telegraph, and the apple-flavored chloroform could and +do realize, every day,--as was stated in the passage referred to, with +a certain rhetorical amplitude not doubtfully suggestive of the +lecture-room,--all that was fabled to have been done by the carpet, the +tube, and the fruit of the Arabian story. + +All these inventions force themselves upon us to the full extent of +their significance. It is therefore hardly necessary to waste any +considerable amount of rhetoric upon wonders that are so thoroughly +appreciated. When human art says to each one of us, I will give you +ears that can hear a whisper in New Orleans, and legs that can walk six +hundred miles in a day, and if, in consequence of any defect of rail +or carriage, you should be so injured that your own very insignificant +walking members must be taken off, I can make the surgeon's visit a +pleasant dream for you, on awaking from which you will ask when he +is coming to do that which he has done already,--what is the use of +poetical or rhetorical amplification? But this other invention of _the +mirror with a memory_, and especially that application of it which has +given us the wonders of the stereoscope, is not so easily, completely, +universally recognized in all the immensity of its applications and +suggestions. The stereoscope, and the pictures it gives, are, however, +common enough to be in the hands of many of our readers; and as many of +those who are not acquainted with it must before long become as familiar +with it as they are now with friction-matches, we feel sure that a few +pages relating to it will not be unacceptable. + +Our readers may like to know the outlines of the process of making +daguerreotypes and photographs, as just furnished us by Mr. Whipple, one +of the most successful operators in this country. We omit many of those +details which are everything to the practical artist, but nothing to +the general reader. We must premise, that certain substances undergo +chemical alterations, when exposed to the light, which produce a change +of color. Some of the compounds of silver possess this faculty to a +remarkable degree,--as the common indelible marking-ink, (a solution of +nitrate of silver,) which soon darkens in the light, shows us every day. +This is only one of the innumerable illustrations of the varied effects +of light on color. A living plant owes its brilliant hues to the +sunshine; but a dead one, or the tints extracted from it, will fade +in the same rays which clothe the tulip in crimson and gold,--as our +lady-readers who have rich curtains in their drawing-rooms know full +well. The sun, then, is a master of _chiaroscuro_, and, if he has a +living petal for his pallet, is the first of colorists.--Let us walk +into his studio, and examine some of his painting machinery. + + * * * * * + + +1. THE DAGUERREOTYPE.--A silver-plated sheet of copper is resilvered by +electro-plating, and perfectly polished. It is then exposed in a glass +box to the vapor of iodine until its surface turns to a golden yellow. +Then it is exposed in another box to the fumes of the bromide of lime +until it becomes of a blood-red tint. Then it is exposed once more, for +a few seconds, to the vapor of iodine. The plate is now sensitive to +light, and is of course kept from it, until, having been placed in the +darkened camera, the screen is withdrawn and the camera-picture falls +upon it. In strong light, and with the best instruments, _three +seconds'_ exposure is enough,--but the time varies with circumstances. +The plate is now withdrawn and exposed to the vapor of mercury at 212°. +Where the daylight was strongest, the sensitive coating of the plate has +undergone such a chemical change, that the mercury penetrates readily to +the silver, producing a minute white granular deposit upon it, like +a very thin fall of snow, drifted by the wind. The strong lights are +little heaps of these granules, the middle lights thinner sheets of +them; the shades are formed by the dark silver itself, thinly sprinkled +only, as the earth shows with a few scattered snow-flakes on its +surface. The precise chemical nature of these granules we care less +for than their palpable presence, which may be perfectly made out by a +microscope magnifying fifty diameters or even less. + +The picture thus formed would soon fade under the action of light, in +consequence of further changes in the chemical elements of the film +of which it consists. Some of these elements are therefore removed by +washing it with a solution of hyposulphite of soda, after which it is +rinsed with pure water. It is now permanent in the light, but a touch +wipes off the picture as it does the bloom from a plum. To fix it, a +solution of hyposulphite of soda containing chloride of gold is poured +on the plate while this is held over a spirit-lamp. It is then again +rinsed with pure water, and is ready for its frame. + +2. THE PHOTOGRAPH.--Just as we must have a mould before we can make a +cast, we must get a _negative_ or reversed picture on glass before we +can get our positive or natural picture. The first thing, then, is to +lay a sensitive coating on a piece of glass,--crown-glass, which has a +natural surface, being preferable to plate-glass. _Collodion_, which is +a solution of gun-cotton in alcohol and ether, mingled with a solution +of iodide and bromide of potassium, is used to form a thin coating over +the glass. Before the plate is dry, it is dipped into a solution of +nitrate of silver, where it remains from one to three or four minutes. +Here, then, we have essentially the same chemical elements that we +have seen employed in the daguerreotype,--namely, iodine, bromine, and +silver; and by their mutual reactions in the last process we have formed +the sensitive iodide and bromide of silver. The glass is now placed, +still wet, in the camera, and there remains from three seconds to one +or two minutes, according to circumstances. It is then washed with a +solution of sulphate of iron. Every light spot in the camera-picture +becomes dark on the sensitive coating of the glass-plate. But where the +shadows or dark parts of the camera-picture fall, the sensitive coating +is less darkened, or not at all, if the shadows are very deep, and +so these shadows of the camera-picture become the lights of the +glass-picture, as the lights become the shadows. Again, the picture is +reversed, just as in every camera-obscura where the image is received on +a screen direct from the lens. Thus the glass plate has the right part +of the object on the left side of its picture, and the left part on its +right side; its light is darkness, and its darkness is light. Everything +is just as wrong as it can be, except that the relations of each wrong +to the other wrongs are like the relations of the corresponding rights +to each other in the original natural image. This is a _negative_ +picture. + +Extremes meet. Every given point of the picture is as far from truth as +a lie can be. But in travelling away from the pattern it has gone round +a complete circle, and is at once as remote from Nature and as near it +as possible.--"How far is it to Taunton?" said a countryman, who was +walking exactly the wrong way to reach that commercial and piscatory +centre.--"'Bäout twenty-five thäousan' mild,"--said the boy he +asked,--"'f y' go 'z y' 'r' goin' näow, 'n' 'bäout häaf a mild 'f y' turn +right räoun' 'n' go t'other way." + +The negative picture being formed, it is washed with a solution of +hyposulphite of soda, to remove the soluble principles which are liable +to decomposition, and then coated with shellac varnish to protect it. + +This _negative_ is now to give birth to a _positive_,--this mass of +contradictions to assert its hidden truth in a perfect harmonious +affirmation of the realities of Nature. Behold the process! + +A sheet of the best linen paper is dipped in salt water and suffered to +dry. Then a solution of nitrate of silver is poured over it and it is +dried in a dark place. This paper is now sensitive; it has a conscience, +and is afraid of daylight. Press it against the glass negative and lay +them in the sun, the glass uppermost, leaving them so for from three to +ten minutes. The paper, having the picture formed on it, is then washed +with the solution of hyposulphite of soda, rinsed in pure water, soaked +again in a solution of hyposulphite of soda, to which, however, the +chloride of gold has been added, and again rinsed. It is then sized or +varnished. + +Out of the perverse and totally depraved negative,--where it might +almost seem as if some magic and diabolic power had wrenched all things +from their proprieties, where the light of the eye was darkness, and the +deepest blackness was gilded with the brightest glare,--is to come the +true end of all this series of operations, a copy of Nature in all her +sweet gradations and harmonies and contrasts. + +We owe the suggestion to a great wit, who overflowed our small +intellectual home-lot with a rushing freshet of fertilizing talk +the other day,--one of our friends, who quarries thought on his +own premises, but does not care to build his blocks into books and +essays,--that perhaps this world is only the _negative_ of that better +one in which lights will be turned to shadows and shadows into light, +but all harmonized, so that we shall see why these ugly patches, these +misplaced gleams and blots, were wrought into the temporary arrangements +of our planetary life. + +For, lo! when the sensitive paper is laid in the sun under the negative +glass, every dark spot on the glass arrests a sunbeam, and so the spot +of the paper lying beneath remains unchanged; but every light space of +the negative lets the sunlight through, and the sensitive paper +beneath confesses its weakness, and betrays it by growing dark just in +proportion to the glare that strikes upon it. So, too, we have only +to turn the glass before laying it on the paper, and we bring all the +natural relations of the object delineated back again,--its right to the +right of the picture, its left to the picture's left. + +On examining the glass negative by transmitted light with a power of a +hundred diameters, we observe minute granules, whether crystalline or +not we cannot say, very similar to those described in the account of +the daguerreotype. But now their effect is reversed. Being opaque, they +darken the glass wherever they are accumulated, just as the snow darkens +our skylights. Where these particles are drifted, therefore, we have our +shadows, and where they are thinly scattered, our lights. On examining +the paper photographs, we have found no distinct granules, but diffused +stains of deeper or lighter shades. + +Such is the sun-picture, in the form in which we now most commonly meet +it,--for the daguerreotype, perfect and cheap as it is, and admirably +adapted for miniatures, has almost disappeared from the field of +landscape, still life, architecture, and _genre_ painting, to make room +for the photograph. Mr. Whipple tells us that even now he takes a much +greater number of miniature portraits on metal than on paper; and yet, +except occasionally a statue, it is rare to see anything besides +a portrait shown in a daguerreotype. But the greatest number of +sun-pictures we see are the photographs which are intended to be looked +at with the aid of the instrument we are next to describe, and to the +stimulus of which the recent vast extension of photographic copies of +Nature and Art is mainly owing. + +3. THE STEREOSCOPE.--This instrument was invented by Professor +Wheatstone, and first described by him in 1838. It was only a year after +this that M. Daguerre made known his discovery in Paris; and almost +at the same time Mr. Fox Talbot sent his communication to the Royal +Society, giving an account of his method of obtaining pictures on paper +by the action of light. Iodine was discovered in 1811, bromine in 1826, +chloroform in 1831, gun-cotton, from which collodion is made, in 1846, +the electro-plating process about the same time with photography; "all +things, great and small, working together to produce what seemed at +first as delightful, but as fabulous, as Aladdin's ring, which is now as +little suggestive of surprise as our daily bread." + +A stereoscope is an instrument which makes surfaces look solid. All +pictures in which perspective and light and shade are properly managed, +have more or less of the effect of solidity; but by this instrument that +effect is so heightened as to produce an appearance of reality which +cheats the senses with its seeming truth. + +There is good reason to believe that the appreciation of solidity by the +eye is purely a matter of education. The famous case of a young man who +underwent the operation of couching for cataract, related by Cheselden, +and a similar one reported in the Appendix to Müller's Physiology, go to +prove that everything is seen only as a superficial extension, until +the other senses have taught the eye to recognize _depth_, or the third +dimension, which gives solidity, by converging outlines, distribution +of light and shade, change of size, and of the texture of surfaces. +Cheselden's patient thought "all objects whatever touched his eyes, as +what he felt did his skin." The patient whose case is reported by Müller +could not tell the form of a cube held obliquely before his eye from +that of a flat piece of pasteboard presenting the same outline. Each of +these patients saw only with one eye,--the other being destroyed, in one +case, and not restored to sight until long after the first, in the +other case. In two months' time Cheselden's patient had learned to +know solids; in fact, he argued so logically from light and shade and +perspective that he felt of pictures, expecting to find reliefs and +depressions, and was surprised to discover that they were flat surfaces. +If these patients had suddenly recovered the sight of _both_ eyes, +they would probably have learned to recognize solids more easily and +speedily. + +We can commonly tell whether an object is solid, readily enough with one +eye, but still better with two eyes, and sometimes _only_ by using both. +If we look at a square piece of ivory with one eye alone, we cannot tell +whether it is a scale of veneer, or the side of a cube, or the base of +a pyramid, or the end of a prism. But if we now open the other eye, we +shall see one or more of its sides, if it have any, and then know it to +be a solid, and what kind of a solid. + +We see something with the second eye which we did not see with the +first; in other words, the two eyes see different pictures of the same +thing, for the obvious reason that they look from points two or three +inches apart. By means of these two different views of an object, the +mind, as it were, _feels round it_ and gets an idea of its solidity. We +clasp an object with our eyes, as with our arms, or with our hands, or +with our thumb and finger, and then we know it to be something more than +a surface. This, of course, is an illustration of the fact, rather than +an explanation of its mechanism. + +Though, as we have seen, the two eyes look on two different pictures, we +perceive but one picture. The two have run together and become blended +in a third, which shows us everything we see in each. But, in order that +they should so run together, both the eye and the brain must be in a +natural state. Push one eye a little inward with the forefinger, and the +image is doubled, or at least confused. Only certain parts of the two +retinae work harmoniously together, and you have disturbed their natural +relations. Again, take two or three glasses more than temperance +permits, and you see double; the eyes are right enough, probably, but +the brain is in trouble, and does not report their telegraphic messages +correctly. These exceptions illustrate the every-day truth, that, when +we are in right condition, our two eyes see two somewhat different +pictures, which our perception combines to form one picture, +representing objects in all their dimensions, and not merely as +surfaces. + +Now, if we can get two artificial pictures of any given object, one as +we should see it with the right eye, the other as we should see it with +the left eye, and then, looking at the right picture, and that only, +with the right eye, and at the left picture, and that only, with the +left eye, contrive some way of making these pictures run together as we +have seen our two views of a natural object do, we shall get the sense +of solidity that natural objects give us. The arrangement which effects +it will be a _stereoscope_, according to our definition of that +instrument. How shall we attain these two ends? + +1. An artist can draw an object as he sees it, looking at it only with +his right eye. Then he can draw a second view of the same object as he +sees it with his left eye. It will not be hard to draw a cube or an +octahedron in this way; indeed, the first stereoscopic figures were +pairs of outlines, right and left, of solid bodies, thus drawn. But the +minute details of a portrait, a group, or a landscape, all so nearly +alike to the two eyes, yet not identical in each picture of our natural +double view, would defy any human skill to reproduce them exactly. +And just here comes in the photograph to meet the difficulty. A first +picture of an object is taken,--then the instrument is moved a couple +of inches or a little more, the distance between the human eyes, and a +second picture is taken. Better than this, two pictures are taken at +once in a double camera. + +We were just now stereographed, ourselves, at a moment's warning, as +if we were fugitives from justice. A skeleton shape, of about a man's +height, its head covered with a black veil, glided across the floor, +faced us, lifted its veil, and took a preliminary look. When we had +grown sufficiently rigid in our attitude of studied ease, and got +our umbrella into a position of thoughtful carelessness, and put our +features with much effort into an unconstrained aspect of cheerfulness +tempered with dignity, of manly firmness blended with womanly +sensibility, of courtesy, as much as to imply,--"You honor me, Sir," +toned or sized, as one may say, with something of the self-assertion of +a human soul which reflects proudly, "I am superior to all this,"--when, +I say, we were all right, the spectral Mokanna dropped his long veil, +and his waiting-slave put a sensitive tablet under its folds. The veil +was then again lifted, and the two great glassy eyes stared at us once +more for some thirty seconds. The veil then dropped again; but in the +mean time, the shrouded sorcerer had stolen our double image; we were +immortal. Posterity might thenceforth inspect us, (if not otherwise +engaged,) not as a surface only, but in all our dimensions as an +undisputed _solid_ man of Boston. + +2. We have now obtained the double-eyed or twin pictures, or +STEREOGRAPH, if we may coin a name. But the pictures are two, and we +want to slide them into each other, so to speak, as in natural vision, +that we may see them as one. How shall we make one picture out of two, +the corresponding parts of which are separated by a distance of two or +three inches? + +We can do this in two ways. First, by _squinting_ as we look at them. +But this is tedious, painful, and to some impossible, or at least very +difficult. We shall find it much easier to look through a couple of +glasses that _squint for us_. If at the same time they _magnify_ the +two pictures, we gain just so much in the distinctness of the picture, +which, if the figures on the slide are small, is a great advantage. One +of the easiest ways of accomplishing this double purpose is to cut a +convex lens through the middle, grind the curves of the two halves +down to straight lines, and join them by their thin edges. This is a +_squinting magnifier_, and if arranged so that with its right half we +see the right picture on the slide, and with its left half the left +picture, it squints them both inward so that they run together and form +a single picture. + +Such are the stereoscope and the photograph, by the aid of which _form_ +is henceforth to make itself seen through the world of intelligence, as +thought has long made itself heard by means of the art of printing. The +_morphotype_, or form-print, must hereafter take its place by the side +of the _logotype_, or word-print. The _stereograph_, as we have called +the double picture designed for the stereoscope, is to be the card of +introduction to make all mankind acquaintances. + +The first effect of looking at a good photograph through the stereoscope +is a surprise such as no painting ever produced. The mind feels its way +into the very depths of the picture. The scraggy branches of a tree in +the foreground run out at us as if they would scratch our eyes out. The +elbow of a figure stands forth so as to make us almost uncomfortable. +Then there is such a frightful amount of detail, that we have the same +sense of infinite complexity which Nature gives us. A painter shows us +masses; the stereoscopic figure spares us nothing,--all must be there, +every stick, straw, scratch, as faithfully as the dome of St. Peter's, +or the summit of Mont Blanc, or the ever-moving stillness of Niagara. +The sun is no respecter of persons or of things. + +This is one infinite charm of the photographic delineation. +Theoretically, a perfect photograph is absolutely inexhaustible. In a +picture you can find nothing which the artist has not seen before you; +but in a perfect photograph there will be as many beauties lurking, +unobserved, as there are flowers that blush unseen in forests and +meadows. It is a mistake to suppose one knows a stereoscopic picture +when he has studied it a hundred times by the aid of the best of our +common instruments. Do we know all that there is in a landscape +by looking out at it from our parlor-windows? In one of the glass +stereoscopic views of Table Rock, two figures, so minute as to be +mere objects of comparison with the surrounding vastness, may be seen +standing side by side. Look at the two faces with a strong magnifier, +and you could identify their owners, if you met them in a court of law. + +Many persons suppose that they are looking on _miniatures_ of the +objects represented, when they see them in the stereoscope. They will be +surprised to be told that they see most objects as large as they appear +in Nature. A few simple experiments will show how what we see in +ordinary vision is modified in our perceptions by what we think we see. +We made a sham stereoscope, the other day, with no glasses, and an +opening in the place where the pictures belong, about the size of one of +the common stereoscopic pictures. Through this we got a very ample view +of the town of Cambridge, including Mount Auburn and the Colleges, in a +single field of vision. We do not recognize how minute distant objects +really look to us, without something to bring the fact home to our +conceptions. A man does not deceive us as to his real size when we see +him at the distance of the length of Cambridge Bridge. But hold a common +black pin before the eyes at the distance of distinct vision, and +one-twentieth of its length, nearest the point, is enough to cover him +so that he cannot be seen. The head of the same pin will cover one of +the Cambridge horse-cars at the same distance, and conceal the tower of +Mount Auburn, as seen from Boston. + +We are near enough to an edifice to see it well, when we can easily +read an inscription upon it. The stereoscopic views of the arches +of Constantine and of Titus give not only every letter of the old +inscriptions, but render the grain of the stone itself. On the pediment +of the Pantheon may be read, not only the words traced by Agrippa, but a +rough inscription above it, scratched or hacked into the stone by some +wanton hand during an insurrectionary tumult. + +This distinctness of the lesser details of a building or a landscape +often gives us incidental truths which interest us more than the central +object of the picture. Here is Alloway Kirk, in the churchyard of which +you may read a real story by the side of the ruin that tells of more +romantic fiction. There stands the stone "Erected by James Russell, +seedsman, Ayr, in memory of his children,"--three little boys, James, +and Thomas, and John, all snatched away from him in the space of three +successive summer-days, and lying under the matted grass in the shadow +of the old witch-haunted walls. It was Burns's Alloway Kirk we paid +for, and we find we have bought a share in the griefs of James Russell, +seedsman; for is not the stone that tells this blinding sorrow of real +life the true centre of the picture, and not the roofless pile which +reminds us of an idle legend? + +We have often found these incidental glimpses of life and death running +away with us from the main object the picture was meant to delineate. +The more evidently accidental their introduction, the more trivial they +are in themselves, the more they take hold of the imagination. It is +common to find an object in one of the twin pictures which we miss in +the other; the person or the vehicle having moved in the interval of +taking the two photographs. There is before us a view of the Pool of +David at Hebron, in which a shadowy figure appears at the water's edge, +in the right-hand farther corner of the right-hand picture only. This +muffled shape stealing silently into the solemn scene has already +written a hundred biographies in our imagination. In the lovely glass +stereograph of the Lake of Brienz, on the left-hand side, a vaguely +hinted female figure stands by the margin of the fair water; on the +other side of the picture she is not seen. This is life; we seem to see +her come and go. All the longings, passions, experiences, possibilities +of womanhood animate that gliding shadow which has flitted through our +consciousness, nameless, dateless, featureless, yet more profoundly +real than the sharpest of portraits traced by a human hand. Here is +the Fountain of the Ogre, at Berne. In the right picture two women are +chatting, with arms akimbo, over its basin; before the plate for the +left picture is got ready, "one shall be taken and the other left"; +look! on the left side there is but one woman, and you may see the blur +where the other is melting into thin air as she fades forever from your +eyes. + +Oh, infinite volumes of poems that I treasure in this small library of +glass and pasteboard! I creep over the vast features of Rameses, on the +face of his rock-hewn Nubian temple; I scale the huge mountain-crystal +that calls itself the Pyramid of Cheops. I pace the length of the three +Titanic stones of the wall of Baalbee,--mightiest masses of quarried +rock that man has lifted into the air; and then I dive into some mass +of foliage with my microscope, and trace the veinings of a leaf so +delicately wrought in the painting not made with hands, that I can +almost see its down and the green aphis that sucks its juices. I +look into the eyes of the caged tiger, and on the scaly train of the +crocodile, stretched on the sands of the river that has mirrored a +hundred dynasties. I stroll through Rhenish vineyards, I sit under Roman +arches, I walk the streets of once buried cities, I look into the chasms +of Alpine glaciers, and on the rush of wasteful cataracts. I pass, in +a moment, from the banks of the Charles to the ford of the Jordan, and +leave my outward frame in the arm-chair at my table, while in spirit I +am looking down upon Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. + +"Give me the full tide of life at Charing Cross," said Dr. Johnson. Here +is Charing Cross, but without the full tide of life. A perpetual stream +of figures leaves no definite shapes upon the picture. But on one side +of this stereoscopic doublet a little London "gent" is leaning pensively +against a post; on the other side he is seen sitting at the foot of the +next post;--what is the matter with the little "gent"? + +The very things which an artist would leave out, or render imperfectly, +the photograph takes infinite care with, and so makes its illusions +perfect. What is the picture of a drum without the marks on its head +where the beating of the sticks has darkened the parchment? In three +pictures of the Ann Hathaway Cottage, before us,--the most perfect, +perhaps, of all the paper stereographs we have seen,--the door at the +farther end of the cottage is open, and we see the marks left by the +rubbing of hands and shoulders as the good people came through the +entry, or leaned against it, or felt for the latch. It is not impossible +that scales from the epidermis of the trembling hand of Ann Hathaway's +young suitor, Will Shakspeare, are still adherent about the old latch +and door, and that they contribute to the stains we see in our picture. + +Among the accidents of life, as delineated in the stereograph, there is +one that rarely fails in any extended view which shows us the details of +streets and buildings. There may be neither man nor beast nor vehicle to +be seen. You may be looking down on a place in such a way that none of +the ordinary marks of its being actually inhabited show themselves. But +in the rawest Western settlement and the oldest Eastern city, in +the midst of the shanties at Pike's Peak and stretching across the +court-yards as you look into them from above the clay-plastered roofs of +Damascus, wherever man lives with any of the decencies of civilization, +you will find the _clothes-line_. It may be a fence, (in Ireland,)--it +may be a tree, (if the Irish license is still allowed us,)--but +clothes-drying, or a place to dry clothes on, the stereoscopic +photograph insists on finding, wherever it gives us a group of houses. +This is the city of Berne. How it brings the people who sleep under that +roof before us to see their sheets drying on that fence! and how real it +makes the men in that house to look at their shirts hanging, arms down, +from yonder line! + +The reader will, perhaps, thank us for a few hints as to the choice +of stereoscopes and stereoscopic pictures. The only way to be sure of +getting a good instrument is to try a number of them, but it may be well +to know which are worth trying. Those made with achromatic glasses may +be as much better as they are dearer, but we have not been able to +satisfy ourselves of the fact. We do not commonly find any trouble from +chromatic aberration (or false color in the image). It is an excellent +thing to have the glasses adjust by pulling out and pushing in, either +by the hand, or, more conveniently, by a screw. The large instruments, +holding twenty-five slides, are best adapted to the use of those who +wish to show their views often to friends; the owner is a little apt +to get tired of the unvarying round in which they present themselves. +Perhaps we relish them more for having a little trouble in placing them, +as we do nuts that we crack better than those we buy cracked. In optical +effect, there is not much difference between them and the best ordinary +instruments. We employ one stereoscope with adjusting glasses for the +hand, and another common one upon a broad rosewood stand. The stand may +be added to any instrument, and is a great convenience. + +Some will have none but glass stereoscopic pictures; paper ones are not +good enough for them. Wisdom dwells not with such. It is true that +there is a brilliancy in a glass picture, with a flood of light pouring +through it, which no paper one, with the light necessarily falling _on_ +it, can approach. But this brilliancy fatigues the eye much more than +the quiet reflected light of the paper stereograph. Twenty-five glass +slides, well inspected in a strong light, are _good_ for one headache, +if a person is disposed to that trouble. + +Again, a good paper photograph is infinitely better than a bad glass +one. We have a glass stereograph of Bethlehem, which looks as if the +ground were covered with snow,--and paper ones of Jerusalem colored and +uncolored, much superior to it both in effect and detail. The Oriental +pictures, we think, are apt to have this white, patchy look; possibly we +do not get the best in this country. + +A good view on glass or paper is, as a rule, best uncolored. But some +of the American views of Niagara on glass are greatly improved by being +colored; the water being rendered vastly more suggestive of the reality +by the deep green tinge. _Per contra_, we have seen some American views +so carelessly colored that they were all the worse for having been +meddled with. The views of the Hathaway Cottage, before referred to, are +not only admirable in themselves, but some of them are admirably colored +also. Few glass stereographs compare with them as real representatives +of Nature. + +In choosing stereoscopic pictures, beware of investing largely in +_groups_. The owner soon gets tired to death of them. Two or three +of the most striking among them are worth having, but mostly they +detestable,--vulgar repetitions of vulgar models, shamming grace, +gentility, and emotion, by the aid of costumes, attitudes, expressions, +and accessories worthy only of a Thespian society of candle-snuffers. In +buying brides under veils, and such figures, look at the lady's _hands_. +You will very probably find the young countess is a maid-of-all-work. +The presence of a human figure adds greatly to the interest of all +architectural views, by giving us a standard of size, and should often +decide our choice out of a variety of such pictures. No view pleases the +eye which has glaring patches in it,--a perfectly white-looking river, +for instance,--or trees and shrubs in full leaf, but looking as if they +were covered with snow,--or glaring roads, or frosted-looking stones and +pebbles. As for composition in landscape, each person must consult his +own taste. All have agreed in admiring many of the Irish views, as those +about the Lakes of Killarney, for instance, which are beautiful alike in +general effect and in nicety of detail. The glass views on the Rhine, +and of the Pyrenees in Spain, are of consummate beauty. As a specimen of +the most perfect, in its truth and union of harmony and contrast, the +view of the Circus of Gavarni, with the female figure on horseback in +the front ground, is not surpassed by any we remember to have seen. + + * * * * * + +What is to come of the stereoscope and the photograph we are almost +afraid to guess, lest we should seem extravagant. But, premising that we +are to give a _colored_ stereoscopic mental view of their prospects, +we will venture on a few glimpses at a conceivable, if not a possible +future. + +_Form is henceforth divorced from matter._ In fact, matter as a visible +object is of no great use any longer, except as the mould on which form +is shaped. Give us a few negatives of a thing worth seeing, taken from +different points of view, and that is all we want of it. Pull it down or +burn it up, if you please. We must, perhaps, sacrifice some luxury in +the loss of color; but form and light, and shade are the great things, +and even color can be added, and perhaps by and by may be got direct +from Nature. + +There is only one Coliseum or Pantheon; but how many millions of +potential negatives have they shed,--representatives of billions of +pictures,--since they were erected! Matter in large masses must always +be fixed and dear; form is cheap and transportable. We have got the +fruit of creation now, and need not trouble ourselves with the core. +Every conceivable object of Nature and Art will soon scale off its +surface for us. Men will hunt all curious, beautiful, grand objects, as +they hunt the cattle in South America, for their _skins_, and leave the +carcasses as of little worth. + +The consequence of this will soon be such an enormous collection +of forms that they will have to be classified and arranged in vast +libraries, as books are now. The time will come when a man who wishes +to see any object, natural or artificial, will go to the Imperial, +National, or City Stereographic Library and call for its skin or form, +as he would for a book at any common library. We do now distinctly +propose the creation of a comprehensive and systematic stereographic +library, where all men can find the special forms they particularly +desire to see as artists, or as scholars, or as mechanics, or in any +other capacity. Already a workman has been travelling about the country +with stereographic views of furniture, showing his employer's patterns +in this way, and taking orders for them. This is a mere hint of what is +coming before long. + +Again, we must have special stereographic collections, just as we have +professional and other special libraries. And as a means of facilitating +the formation of public and private stereographic collections, there +must be arranged a comprehensive system of exchanges, so that there may +grow up something like a universal currency of these bank-notes, or +promises to pay in solid substance, which the sun has engraved for the +great Bank of Nature. + +To render comparison of similar objects, or of any that we may wish to +see side by side, easy, there should be a stereographic _metre_ or +fixed standard of focal length for the camera lens, to furnish by its +multiples or fractions, if necessary, the scale of distances, and the +standard of power in the stereoscope-lens. In this way the eye can +make the most rapid and exact comparisons. If the "great elm" and the +Cowthorpe oak, if the State-House and St. Peter's, were taken on the +same scale, and looked at with the same magnifying power, we should +compare them without the possibility of being misled by those +partialities which might tend to make us overrate the indigenous +vegetable and the dome of our native Michel Angelo. + +The next European war will send us stereographs of battles. It is +asserted that a bursting shell can be photographed. The time is perhaps +at hand when a flash of light, as sudden and brief as that of the +lightning which shows a whirling wheel standing stock still, shall +preserve the very instant of the shock of contact of the mighty armies +that are even now gathering. The lightning from heaven does actually +photograph natural objects on the bodies of those it has just +blasted,--so we are told by many witnesses. The lightning of clashing +sabres and bayonets may be forced to stereotype itself in a stillness +as complete as that of the tumbling tide of Niagara as we see it +self-pictured. + +We should be led on too far, if we developed our belief as to the +transformations to be wrought by this greatest of human triumphs over +earthly conditions, the divorce of form and substance. Let our readers +fill out a blank check on the future as they like,--we give our +indorsement to their imaginations beforehand. We are looking into +stereoscopes as pretty toys, and wondering over the photograph as a +charming novelty; but before another generation has passed away, it will +be recognized that a new epoch in the history of human progress dates +from the time when He who + + ----never but in uncreated light + Dwelt from eternity-- + +took a pencil of fire from the hand of the "angel standing in the sun," +and placed it in the hands of a mortal. + + + + +THE MINISTER'S WOOING. + +[Continued.] + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +At the period of which we are speaking, no name in the New Republic was +associated with ideas of more brilliant promise, and invested with a +greater _prestige_ of popularity and success, than that of Colonel Aaron +Burr. + +Sprung of a line distinguished for intellectual ability, the grandson of +a man whose genius has swayed New England from that day to this, the son +of parents eminent in their day for influential and popular talents, he +united in himself the quickest perceptions and keenest delicacy of +fibre with the most diamond hardness and unflinching steadiness of +purpose;--apt, subtle, adroit, dazzling, no man in his time ever began +life with fairer chances of success and fame. + +His name, as it fell on the ear of our heroine, carried with it the +suggestion of all this; and when, with his peculiarly engaging smile, he +offered his arm, she felt a little of the flutter natural to a modest +young person unexpectedly honored with the notice of one of the great +ones of the earth, whom it is seldom the lot of humble individuals to +know, except by distant report. + +But, although Mary was a blushing and sensitive person, she was not +what is commonly called a diffident girl;--her nerves had that healthy, +steady poise which gave her presence of mind in the most unwonted +circumstances. + +The first few sentences addressed to her by her new companion were in a +tone and style altogether different from any in which she had ever been +approached,--different from the dashing frankness of her sailor lover, +and from the rustic gallantry of her other admirers. + +That indescribable mixture of ease and deference, guided by refined +tact, which shows the practised, high-bred man of the world, made +its impression on her immediately, as the breeze on the chords of a +wind-harp. She felt herself pleasantly swayed and breathed upon;--it was +as if an atmosphere were around her in which she felt a perfect ease and +freedom, an assurance that her lightest word might launch forth safely, +as a tiny boat, on the smooth, glassy mirror of her listener's pleased +attention. + +"I came to Newport only on a visit of business," he said, after a few +moments of introductory conversation. "I was not prepared for its many +attractions." + +"Newport has a great deal of beautiful scenery," said Mary. + +"I have heard that it was celebrated for the beauty of its scenery, and +of its ladies," he answered; "but," he added, with a quick flash of his +dark eye, "I never realized the fact before." + +The glance of the eye pointed and limited the compliment, and, at the +same time, there was a wary shrewdness in it;--he was measuring how deep +his shaft had sunk, as he always instinctively measured the person he +talked with. + +Mary had been told of her beauty since her childhood, notwithstanding +her mother had essayed all that transparent, respectable hoaxing by +which discreet mothers endeavor to blind their daughters to the real +facts of such cases; but, in her own calm, balanced mind, she had +accepted what she was so often told, as a quiet verity; and therefore +she neither fluttered nor blushed on this occasion, but regarded her +auditor with a pleased attention, as one who was saying obliging things. + +"Cool!" he thought to himself,--"hum!--a little rustic belle, I +suppose,--well aware of her own value;--rather piquant, on my word!" + +"Shall we walk in the garden?" he said,--"the evening is so beautiful." + +They passed out of the door and began promenading the long walk. At the +bottom of the alley he stopped, and, turning, looked up the vista of box +ending in the brilliantly-lighted rooms, where gentlemen, with powdered +heads, lace ruffles, and glittering knee-buckles, were handing ladies in +stiff brocades, whose towering heads were shaded by ostrich-feathers and +sparkling with gems. + +"Quite court-like, on my word!" he said. "Tell me, do you often have +such brilliant entertainments as this?" + +"I suppose they do," said Mary. "I never was at one before, but I +sometimes hear of them." + +"And _you_ do not attend?" said the gentleman, with an accent which made +the inquiry a marked compliment. + +"No, I do not," said Mary; "these people generally do not visit us." + +"What a pity," he said, "that their parties should want such an +ornament! But," he added, "this night must make them aware of their +oversight;--if you are not always in society after this, it will surely +not be for want of solicitation." + +"You are very kind to think so," replied Mary; "but even if it were +to be so, I should not see my way clear to be often in such scenes as +this." + +Her companion looked at her with a glance a little doubtful and amused, +and said, "And pray, why not? if the inquiry be not too presumptuous." + +"Because," said Mary, "I should be afraid they would take too much time +and thought, and lead me to forget the great object of life." + +The simple gravity with which this was said, as if quite assured of the +sympathy of her auditor, appeared to give him a secret amusement. His +bright, dark eyes danced, as if he suppressed some quick repartee; but, +drooping his long lashes deferentially, he said, in gentle tones, "I +should like to know what so beautiful a young lady considers the great +object of life." + +Mary answered reverentially, in those words then familiar from infancy +to every Puritan child, "To glorify God, and enjoy Him forever." + +"_Really?_" he said, looking straight into her eyes with that +penetrating glance with which he was accustomed to take the gauge of +every one with whom he conversed. + +"Is it _not_?" said Mary, looking back, calm and firm, into the +sparkling, restless depths of his eyes. + +At that moment, two souls, going with the whole force of their being in +opposite directions, looked out of their windows at each other with a +fixed and earnest recognition. + +Burr was practised in every art of gallantry,--he had made womankind +a study,--he never saw a beautiful face and form without a sort of +restless desire to experiment upon it and try his power over the +interior inhabitant; but, just at this moment, something streamed into +his soul from those blue, earnest eyes, which brought back to his mind +what pious people had so often told him of his mother, the beautiful +and early-sainted Esther Burr. He was one of those persons who +systematically managed and played upon himself and others, as a skilful +musician, on an instrument. Yet one secret of his fascination was the +_naïveté_ with which, at certain moments, he would abandon himself to +some little impulse of a nature originally sensitive and tender. Had the +strain of feeling which now awoke in him come over him elsewhere, he +would have shut down some spring in his mind, and excluded it in a +moment; but, talking with a beautiful creature whom he wished to please, +he gave way at once to the emotion:--real tears stood in his fine eyes, +and he raised Mary's hand to his lips, and kissed it, saying-- + +"Thank you, my beautiful child, for so good a thought. It is truly a +noble sentiment, though practicable only to those gifted with angelic +natures." + +"Oh, I trust not," said Mary, earnestly touched and wrought upon, more +than she herself knew, by the beautiful eyes, the modulated voice, the +charm of manner, which seemed to enfold her like an Italian summer. + +Burr sighed,--a real sigh of his better nature, but passed out with all +the more freedom that he felt it would interest his fair companion, who, +for the time being, was the one woman of the world to him. + +"Pure and artless souls like yours," he said, "cannot measure the +temptations of those who are called to the real battle of life in a +world like this. How many nobler aspirations fall withered in the fierce +heat and struggle of the conflict!" + +He was saying then what he really felt, often bitterly felt,--but +_using_ this real feeling advisedly, and with skilful tact, for the +purpose of the hour. + +What was this purpose? To win the regard, the esteem, the tenderness of +a religious, exalted nature shrined in a beautiful form,--to gain and +hold ascendency. It was a life-long habit,--one of those forms of +refined self-indulgence which he pursued, thoughtless and reckless of +consequences. He had found now the key-note of the character; it was a +beautiful instrument, and he was well pleased to play on it. + +"I think, Sir," said Mary, modestly, "that you forget the great +provision made for our weakness." + +"How?" he said. + +"They that _wait on the Lord_ shall renew their strength," she replied, +gently. + +He looked at her, as she spoke these words, with a pleased, artistic +perception of the contrast between her worldly attire and the simple, +religious earnestness of her words. + +"She is entrancing!" he thought to himself,--"so altogether fresh and +_naive_!" + +"My sweet saint," he said, "such as you are the appointed guardians of +us coarser beings. The prayers of souls given up to worldliness and +ambition effect little. You must intercede for us. I am very orthodox, +you see," he added, with that subtle smile which sometimes irradiated +his features. "I am fully aware of all that your reverend doctor tells +you of the worthlessness of unregenerate doings; and so, when I see +angels walking below, I try to secure 'a friend at court.'" + +He saw that Mary looked embarrassed and pained at this banter, and +therefore added, with a delicate shading of earnestness,-- + +"In truth, my fair young friend, I hope you _will_ sometimes pray for +me. I am sure, if I have any chance of good, it will come in such a +way." + +"Indeed I will," said Mary, fervently,--her little heart full, tears +in her eyes, her breath coming quick,--and she added, with a deepening +color, "I am sure, Mr. Burr, that there should be a covenant blessing +for you, if for any one, for you are the son of a holy ancestry." + +"_Eh, bien, mon ami, qu'est ce que tu fais ici_?" said a gay voice +behind a clump of box; and immediately there started out, like a French +picture from its frame, a dark-eyed figure, dressed like a Marquise of +Louis XIV.'s time, with powdered hair, sparkling with diamonds. + +"_Rien que m'amuser_," he replied, with ready presence of mind, in the +same tone, and then added,--"Permit me, Madame, to present to you a +charming specimen of our genuine New England flowers. Miss Scudder, +I have the honor to present you to the acquaintance of Madame de +Frontignac." + +"I am very happy," said the lady, with that sweet, lisping accentuation +of English which well became her lovely mouth. "Miss Scudder, I hope, is +very well." + +Mary replied in the affirmative,--her eyes resting the while with +pleased admiration on the graceful, animated face and diamond-bright +eyes which seemed looking her through. + +"_Monsieur la trouve bien séduisante apparemment_" said the stranger, +in a low, rapid voice, to the gentleman, in a manner which showed a +mingling of pique and admiration. + +"_Petite jalouse! rassure-toi_," he replied, with a look and manner into +which, with that mobile force which was peculiar to him, he threw the +most tender and passionate devotion. "_Ne suis-je pas à toi tout à +fait_?"--and as he spoke, he offered her his other arm. "Allow me to be +an unworthy link between the beauty of France and America." + +The lady swept a proud curtsy backward, bridled her beautiful neck, and +signed for them to pass her. "I am waiting here for a friend," she said. + +"Whatever is your will is mine," replied Burr, bowing with proud +humility, and passing on with Mary to the supper-room. + +Here the company were fast assembling, in that high tide of good-humor +which generally sets in at this crisis of the evening. + +The scene, in truth, was a specimen of a range of society which in those +times could have been assembled nowhere else but in Newport. There stood +Dr. H. in the tranquil majesty of his lordly form, and by his side, the +alert, compact figure of his contemporary and theological opponent, Dr. +Stiles, who, animated by the social spirit of the hour, was dispensing +courtesies to right and left with the debonair grace of the trained +gentleman of the old school. Near by, and engaging from time to time in +conversation with them, stood a Jewish Rabbin, whose olive complexion, +keen eye, and flowing beard gave a picturesque and foreign grace to the +scene. Colonel Burr, one of the most brilliant and distinguished men of +the New Republic, and Colonel de Frontignac, who had won for himself +laurels in the corps of La Fayette, during the recent revolutionary +struggle, with his brilliant, accomplished wife, were all unexpected and +distinguished additions to the circle. + +Burr gently cleared the way for his fair companion, and, purposely +placing her where the full light of the wax chandeliers set off her +beauty to the best advantage, devoted himself to her with a subserviency +as deferential as if she had been a goddess. + +For all that, he was not unobservant, when, a few moments after, Madame +de Frontignac was led in, on the arm of a Senator, with whom she was +presently in full flirtation. + +He observed, with a quiet, furtive smile, that, while she rattled and +fanned herself, and listened with apparent attention to the flatteries +addressed to her, she darted every now and then a glance keen as a steel +blade towards him and his companion. He was perfectly adroit in playing +off one woman against another, and it struck him with a pleasant sense +of oddity, how perfectly unconscious his sweet and saintly neighbor was +of the position in which she was supposed to stand by her rival; and +poor Mary, all this while, in her simplicity, really thought that she +had seen traces of what she would have called the "strivings of the +spirit" in his soul. Alas! that a phrase weighed down with such +mysterious truth and meaning should ever come to fall on the ear as mere +empty cant! + +With Mary it was a living form,--as were all her words; for in nothing +was the Puritan education more marked than in the earnest _reality_ and +truthfulness which it gave to language; and even now, as she stands by +his side, her large blue eye is occasionally fixed in dreamy reverie as +she thinks what a triumph of Divine grace it would be, if these inward +movings of her companion's mind _should_ lead him, as all the pious of +New England hoped, to follow in the footsteps of President Edwards, and +forms wishes that she could see him some time when she could talk to him +undisturbed. + +She was too humble and too modest fully to accept the delicious flattery +which he had breathed, in implying that her hand had had power to unseal +the fountains of good in his soul; but still it thrilled through all the +sensitive strings of her nature a tremulous flutter of suggestion. + +She had read instances of striking and wonderful conversions from words +dropped by children and women,--and suppose some such thing should +happen to her! and that this so charming and distinguished and powerful +being should be called into the fold of Christ's Church by her means! +No! it was too much to be hoped,--but the very possibility was +thrilling. + +When, after supper, Mrs. Scudder and the Doctor made their adieus, +Burr's devotion was still unabated. With an enchanting mixture +of reverence and fatherly protection, he waited on her to the +last,--shawled her with delicate care, and handed her into the small, +one-horse wagon,--as if it had been the coach of a duchess. + +"I have pleasant recollections connected with this kind of +establishment," he said, as, after looking carefully at the harness, +he passed the reins into Mrs. Scudder's hands. "It reminds me of +school-days and old times. I hope your horse is quite safe, Madam." + +"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Scudder, "I perfectly understand him." + +"Pardon the suggestion," he replied;--"what is there that a New England +matron does _not_ understand? Doctor, I must call by-and-by and have +a little talk with you,--my theology, you know, needs a little +straightening." + +"We should all be happy to see you, Colonel Burr," said Mrs. Scudder; +"we live in a very plain way, it is true,"-- + +"But can always find place for a friend,--that, I trust, is what you +meant to say," he replied, bowing, with his own peculiar grace, as the +carriage drove off. + +"Really, a most charming person is this Colonel Burr," said Mrs. +Scudder. + +"He seems a very frank, ingenuous young person," said the Doctor; "one +cannot but mourn that the son of such gracious parents should be left to +wander into infidelity." + +"Oh, he is not an infidel," said Mary; "he is far from it, though I +think his mind is a little darkened on some points." + +"Ah," said the Doctor, "have you had any special religious conversation +with him?" + +"A little," said Mary, blushing; "and it seems to me that his mind is +perplexed somewhat in regard to the doings of the unregenerate,--I fear +that it has rather proved a stumbling-block in his way; but he showed so +much feeling!--I could really see the tears in his eyes!" + +"His mother was a most godly woman, Mary," said the Doctor. "She was +called from her youth, and her beautiful person became a temple for the +indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Aaron Burr is a child of many prayers, +and therefore there is hope that he may yet be effectually called. He +studied awhile with Bellamy," he added, musingly, "and I have often +doubted whether Bellamy took just the right course with him." + +"I hope he _will_ call and talk with you," said Mary, earnestly; "what +a blessing to the world, if such talents as his could become wholly +consecrated!" + +"Not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble are called," said the +Doctor; "yet if it would please the Lord to employ my instrumentality +and prayers, how much should I rejoice! I was struck," he added, +"to-night, when I saw those Jews present, with the thought that it was, +as it were, a type of that last ingathering, when both Jew and Gentile +shall sit down lovingly together to the gospel feast. It is only by +passing over and forgetting these present years, when so few are called +and the gospel makes such slow progress, and looking unto that +glorious time, that I find comfort. If the Lord but use me as a dumb +stepping-stone to that heavenly Jerusalem, I shall be content." + +Thus they talked while the wagon jogged soberly homeward, and the +frogs and the turtles and the distant ripple of the sea made a drowsy, +mingling concert in the summer-evening air. + +Meanwhile Colonel Burr had returned to the lighted rooms, and it was not +long before his quick eye espied Madame de Frontignac standing pensively +in a window-recess, half hid by the curtain. He stole softly up behind +her and whispered something in her ear. + +In a moment she turned on him a face glowing--with anger, and drew back +haughtily; but Burr remarked the glitter of tears, not quite dried even +by the angry flush of her eyes. + +"In what have I had the misfortune to offend?" he said, crossing his +arms upon his breast. "I stand at the bar, and plead, Not guilty." + +He spoke in French, and she replied in the same smooth accents,-- + +"It was not for her to dispute Monsieur's right to amuse himself." + +Burr drew nearer, and spoke in those persuasive, pleading tones which he +had ever at command, and in that language whose very structure in its +delicate _tutoiment_ gives such opportunity for gliding on through shade +after shade of intimacy and tenderness, till gradually the haughty fire +of the eyes was quenched in tears, and, in the sudden revulsion of a +strong, impulsive nature, she said what she called words of friendship, +but which carried with them all the warmth of that sacred fire which is +given to woman to light and warm the temple of home, and which sears and +scars when kindled for any other shrine. + +And yet this woman was the wife of his friend and associate! + +Colonel de Frontignac was a grave and dignified man of forty-five. +Virginie de Frontignac had been given him to wife when but eighteen,--a +beautiful, generous, impulsive, wilful girl. She had accepted him +gladly, for very substantial reasons. First, that she might come out of +the convent where she was kept for the very purpose of educating her in +ignorance of the world she was to live in. Second, that she might wear +velvet, lace, cashmere, and jewels. Third, that she might be a Madame, +free to go and come, ride, walk, and talk, without surveillance. +Fourth,--and consequent upon this,--that she might go into company and +have admirers and adorers. + +She supposed, of course, that she loved her husband;--whom else should +she love? He was the only man, except her father and brothers, that she +had ever known; and in the fortnight that preceded their marriage did he +not send her the most splendid _bons-bons_ every day, with bouquets of +every pattern that ever taxed the brain of a Parisian _artiste_?--was +not the _corbeille de mariage_ a wonder and an envy to all her +acquaintance?--and after marriage had she not found him always a steady, +indulgent friend, easy to be coaxed as any grave papa? + +On his part, Monsieur de Frontignac cherished his young wife as a +beautiful, though somewhat absurd little pet, and amused himself with +her frolics and gambols, as the gravest person often will with those of +a kitten. + +It was not until she knew Aaron Burr that poor Virginie de Frontignac +came to that great awakening of her being which teaches woman what +she is, and transforms her from a careless child to a deep-hearted, +thinking, suffering human being. + +For the first time, in his society she became aware of the charm of a +polished and cultivated mind, able with exquisite tact to adapt itself +to hers, to draw forth her inquiries, to excite her tastes, to stimulate +her observation. A new world awoke around her,--the world of literature +and taste, of art and of sentiment; she felt, somehow, as if she had +gained the growth of years in a few months. She felt within herself the +stirring of dim aspiration, the uprising of a new power of self-devotion +and self-sacrifice, a trance of hero-worship, a cloud of high ideal +images,--the lighting up, in short, of all that God has laid, ready to +be enkindled, in a woman's nature, when the time comes to sanctify her +as the pure priestess of a domestic temple. But, alas! it was kindled +by one who did it only for an experiment, because he felt an artistic +pleasure in the beautiful light and heat, and cared not, though it +burned a soul away. + +Burr was one of those men willing to play with any charming woman the +game of those navigators who give to simple natives glass beads and +feathers in return for gold and diamonds,--to accept from a woman her +heart's blood in return for such odds and ends and clippings as he can +afford her from the serious ambition of life. + +Look in with us one moment, now that the party is over, and the busy +hum of voices and blaze of lights has died down to midnight silence and +darkness; we make you clairvoyant, and you may look through the walls of +this stately old mansion, still known as that where Rochambeau held his +head-quarters, into this room, where two wax candles are burning on a +toilette table, before an old-fashioned mirror. The slumberous folds +of the curtains are drawn with stately gloom around a high bed, where +Colonel de Frontignac has been for many hours quietly asleep; but +opposite, resting with one elbow on the toilette table, her long black +hair hanging down over her night-dress, and the brush lying listlessly +in her hand, sits Virginie, looking fixedly into the dreamy depths of +the mirror. + +Scarcely twenty yet, all unwarned of the world of power and passion that +lay slumbering in her girl's heart, led in the meshes of custom and +society to utter vows and take responsibilities of whose nature she was +no more apprised than is a slumbering babe, and now at last fully awake, +feeling the whole power of that mysterious and awful force which we call +love, yet shuddering to call it by its name, but by its light beginning +to understand all she is capable of, and all that marriage should have +been to her! She struggles feebly and confusedly with her fate, still +clinging to the name of duty, and baptizing as friendship this strange +new feeling which makes her tremble through all her being. How can she +dream of danger in such a feeling, when it seems to her the awakening +of all that is highest and noblest within her? She remembers when she +thought of nothing beyond an opera-ticket or a new dress; and now she +feels that there might be to her a friend for whose sake she would try +to be noble and great and good,--for whom all self-denial, all high +endeavor, all difficult virtue would become possible,--who would be to +her life, inspiration, order, beauty. + +She sees him as woman always sees the man she loves,--noble, great, and +good;--for when did a loving woman ever believe a man otherwise?--too +noble, too great, too high, too good, she thinks, for her,--poor, +trivial, ignorant coquette,--poor, childish, trifling Virginie! Has he +not commanded armies? she thinks,--is he not eloquent in the senate? +and yet, what interest he has taken in her, a poor, unformed, ignorant +creature!--she never tried to improve herself till since she knew him. +And he is so considerate, too,--so respectful, so thoughtful and kind, +so manly and honorable, and has such a tender friendship for her, such +a brotherly and fatherly solicitude! and yet, if she is haughty or +imperious or severe, how humbled and grieved he looks! How strange that +she could have power over such a man! + +It is one of the saddest truths of this sad mystery of life, that woman +is, often, never so much an angel as just the moment before she falls +into an unsounded depth of perdition. And what shall we say of the man +who leads her on as an experiment,--who amuses himself with taking +woman after woman up these dazzling, delusive heights, knowing, as he +certainly must, where they lead? + +We have been told, in extenuation of the course of Aaron Burr, that he +was not a man of gross passions or of coarse indulgence, but, in the +most consummate and refined sense, _a man of gallantry_. This, then, is +the descriptive name which polite society has invented for the man who +does this thing! + +Of old, it was thought that one who administered poison in the +sacramental bread and wine had touched the very height of impious +sacrilege; but this crime is white, by the side of his who poisons +God's eternal sacrament of love and destroys a woman's soul through her +noblest and purest affections. + +We have given you the after-view of most of the actors of our little +scene to-night, and therefore it is but fair that you should have a peep +over the Colonel's shoulder, as he sums up the evening in a letter to a +friend. + +"MY DEAR ---- + +"As to the business, it gets on rather slowly. L---- and S---- are away, +and the coalition cannot be formed without them; they set out a week ago +from Philadelphia, and are yet on the road. + +"Meanwhile, we have some providential alleviations,--as, for example, +a wedding-party to-night, at the Wilcoxes', which was really quite an +affair. I saw the prettiest little Puritan there that I have set eyes on +for many a day. I really couldn't help getting up a flirtation with her, +although it was much like flirting with a small copy of the 'Assembly's +Catechism,'--of which last I had enough years ago, Heaven knows. + +"But, really, such a _naïve_, earnest little saint, who has such real +deadly belief, and opens such pitying blue eyes on one, is quite a +stimulating novelty. I got myself well scolded by the fair Madame, (as +angels scold,) and had to plead like a lawyer to make my peace;--after +all, that woman really enchains me. Don't shake your head wisely,--' +What's going to be the end of it?' I'm sure I don't know; we'll see, +when the time comes. + +"Meanwhile, push the business ahead with all your might. I shall not be +idle. D---- must canvass the Senate thoroughly. I wish I could be in two +places at once,--I would do it myself. _Au revoir_. + +"Ever yours, + +"Burr." + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +"And now, Mary," said Mrs. Scudder, at five o'clock the next morning, +"to-day, you know, is the Doctor's fast; so we won't get any regular +dinner, and it will be a good time to do up all our little odd jobs. +Miss Prissy promised to come in for two or three hours this morning, to +alter the waist of that black silk; and I shouldn't be surprised if we +should get it all done and ready to wear by Sunday." + +We will remark, by way of explanation to a part of this conversation, +that our Doctor, who was a specimen of life in earnest, made a practice, +through the greater part of his pulpit course, of spending every +Saturday as a day of fasting and retirement, in preparation for the +duties of the Sabbath. + +Accordingly, the early breakfast things were no sooner disposed of than +Miss Prissy's quick footsteps might have been heard pattering in the +kitchen. + +"Well, Miss Scudder, how do you do this morning? and how do you do, +Mary? Well, if you a'n't the beaters! up just as early as ever, and +everything cleared away! I was telling Miss Wilcox there didn't ever +seem to be anything done in Miss Scudder's kitchen, and I did verily +believe you made your beds before you got up in the morning. + +"Well, well, wasn't that a party last night?" she said, as she sat down +with the black silk and prepared her ripping-knife.--"I must rip this +myself, Miss Scudder; for there's a great deal in ripping silk so as not +to let anybody know where it has been sewed.--You didn't know that I was +at the party, did you? Well, I was. You see, I thought I'd just step +round there, to see about that money to get the Doctor's shirt with, and +there I found Miss Wilcox with so many things on her mind, and says she, +'Miss Prissy, you don't know how much it would help me if I had somebody +like you just to look after things a little here.' And says I, 'Miss +Wilcox, you just go right to your room and dress, and don't you give +yourself one minute's thought about anything, and you see if I don't +have everything just right.' And so, there I was, in for it; and I just +staid through, and it was well I did,--for Dinah, she wouldn't have put +near enough egg into the coffee, if it hadn't been for me; why, I just +went and beat up four eggs with my own hands and stirred 'em into the +grounds. + +"Well,--but, really, wasn't I behind the door, and didn't I peep into +the supper-room? I saw who was a-waitin' on Miss Mary. Well, they do say +he's the handsomest, most fascinating man. Why, they say all the ladies +in Philadelphia are in a perfect quarrel about him; and I heard he said +he hadn't seen such a beauty he didn't remember when." + +"We all know that beauty is of small consequence," said Mrs. Scudder. "I +hope Mary has been brought up to feel that." + +"Oh, of course," said Miss Prissy, "it's just like a fading flower; all +is to be good and useful,--and that's what she is. I told 'em that her +beauty was the least part of her; though I must say, that dress did fit +like a biscuit,--if 'twas my own fitting. + +"But, Miss Scudder, what do you think I heard 'em saying about the good +Doctor?" + +"I'm sure I don't know," said Mrs. Scudder; "I only know they couldn't +say anything bad." + +"Well, not bad exactly," said Miss Prissy,--"but they say he's getting +such strange notions in his head. Why, I heard some of 'em say, he's +going to come out and preach against the slave-trade; and I'm sure I +don't know what Newport folks will do, if that's wicked. There a'n't +hardly any money here that's made any other way; and I hope the Doctor +a'n't a-going to do anything of that sort." + +"I believe he is," said Mrs. Scudder; "he thinks it's a great sin, that +ought to be rebuked;--and I think so too," she added, bracing herself +resolutely; "that was Mr. Scudder's opinion when I first married him, +and it's mine." + +"Oh,--ah,--yes,--well,--if it's a sin, of course," said Miss Prissy; +"but then--dear me!--it don't seem as if it could be. Why, just think +how many great houses are living on it;--why, there's General Wilcox +himself, and he's a very nice man; and then there's Major Seaforth; why, +I could count you off a dozen,--all our very first people. Why, Doctor +Stiles doesn't think so, and I'm sure he's a good Christian. Doctor +Stiles thinks it's a dispensation for giving the light of the gospel +to the Africans. Why, now I'm sure, when I was a-workin' at Deacon +Stebbins', I stopped over Sunday once 'cause Miss Stebbins she was +weakly,--'twas when she was getting up, after Samuel was born,--no, on +the whole, I believe it was Nehemiah,--but, any way, I remember I staid +there, and I remember, as plain as if 'twas yesterday, just after +breakfast, how a man went driving by in a chaise, and the Deacon he went +out and stopped him ('cause you know he was justice of the peace) for +travelling on the Lord's day, and who should it be but Tom Seaforth?--he +told the Deacon his father had got a ship-load of negroes just come +in,--and the Deacon he just let him go; 'cause I remember he said that +was a plain work of necessity and mercy.[A] Well, now who would 'a' +thought it? I believe the Doctor is better than most folks, but then the +best people may be mistaken, you know." + +[Footnote A: A fact.] + +"The Doctor has made up his mind that it's his duty," said Mrs. Scudder. +"I'm afraid it will make him very unpopular; but I, for one, shall stand +by him." + +"Oh, certainly, Miss Scudder, you are doing just right exactly. Well, +there's one comfort, he'll have a great crowd to hear him preach; +'cause, as I was going round through the entries last night, I heard 'em +talking about it,--and Colonel Burr said he should be there, and so did +the General, and so did Mr. What's-his-name there, that Senator from +Philadelphia. I tell you, you'll have a full house." + +It was to be confessed that Mrs. Scudder's heart rather sunk than +otherwise at this announcement; and those who have felt what it is to +stand almost alone in the right, in the face of all the first families +of their acquaintance, may perhaps find some compassion for her,--since, +after all, truth is invisible, but "first families" are very evident. +First families are often very agreeable, undeniably respectable, +fearfully virtuous, and it takes great faith to resist an evil principle +which incarnates itself in the suavities of their breeding and +amiability; and therefore it was that Mrs. Scudder felt her heart heavy +within her, and could with a very good grace have joined in the Doctor's +Saturday fast. + +As for the Doctor, he sat the while tranquil in his study, with his +great Bible and his Concordance open before him, culling, with that +patient assiduity for which he was remarkable, all the terrible texts +which that very unceremonious and old-fashioned book rains down so +unsparingly on the sin of oppressing the weak. + +First families, whether in Newport or elsewhere, were as invisible to +him as they were to Moses during the forty days that he spent with God +on the mount; he was merely thinking of his message,--thinking only how +he should shape it, so as not to leave one word of it unsaid,--not even +imagining in the least what the result of it was to be. He was but a +voice, but an instrument,--the passive instrument through which an +almighty will was to reveal itself; and the sublime fatalism of his +faith made him as dead to all human considerations as if he had been a +portion of the immutable laws of Nature herself. + +So, the next morning, although all his friends trembled for him when he +rose in the pulpit, he never thought of trembling for himself; he had +come in the covered way of silence from the secret place of the Most +High, and felt himself still abiding under the shadow of the Almighty. +It was alike to him, whether the house was full or empty,--whoever were +decreed to hear the message would be there; whether they would hear or +forbear was already settled in the counsels of a mightier will than +his,--he had the simple duty of utterance. + +The ruinous old meeting-house was never so radiant with station and +gentility as on that morning. A June sun shone brightly; the sea +sparkled with a thousand little eyes; the birds sang all along the +way; and all the notables turned out to hear the Doctor. Mrs. Scudder +received into her pew, with dignified politeness, Colonel Burr and +Colonel and Madame de Frontignac. General Wilcox and his portly dame, +Major Seaforth, and we know not what of Vernons and De Wolfs, and other +grand old names, were represented there; stiff silks rustled, Chinese +fans fluttered, and the last court fashions stood revealed in bonnets. + +Everybody was looking fresh and amiable,--a charming and respectable set +of sinners, come to hear what the Doctor would find to tell them about +their transgressions. + +Mrs. Scudder was calculating consequences; and, shutting her eyes on the +too evident world about her, prayed that the Lord would overrule all for +good. The Doctor prayed that he might have grace to speak the truth, +and the whole truth. We have yet on record, in his published works, the +great argument of that day, through which he moved with that calm appeal +to the reason which made his results always so weighty. + +"If these things be true," he said, after a condensed statement of the +facts of the case, "then the following terrible consequences, which may +well make all shudder and tremble who realize them, force themselves +upon us, namely: that all who have had any hand in this iniquitous +business, whether directly or indirectly, or have used their influence +to promote it, or have consented to it, or even connived at it, or have +not opposed it by all proper exertions of which they are capable,--all +these are, in a greater or less degree, chargeable with the injuries and +miseries which millions have suffered and are suffering, and are guilty +of the blood of millions who have lost their lives by this traffic in +the human species. Not only the merchants who have been engaged in this +trade, and the captains who have been tempted by the love of money to +engage in this cruel work, and the slave-holders of every description, +are guilty of shedding rivers of blood, but all the legislatures who +have authorized, encouraged, or even neglected to suppress it to the +utmost of their power, and all the individuals in private stations who +have in any way aided in this business, consented to it, or have not +opposed it to the utmost of their ability, have a share in this guilt. + +"This trade in the human species has been the first wheel of commerce in +Newport, on which every other movement in business has chiefly depended; +this town has been built up, and flourished in times past, at the +expense of the blood, the liberty, and the happiness of the poor +Africans; and the inhabitants have lived on this, and by it have gotten +most of their wealth and riches. If a bitter woe is pronounced on him +'that buildeth his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by wrong,' +Jer. xxii. 13,--to him 'that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth +a city by iniquity,' Hab. ii. 12,--to 'the bloody city,' Ezek. xxiv. +6,--what a heavy, dreadful woe hangs over the heads of all those +whose hands are defiled by the blood of the Africans, especially the +inhabitants of this State and this town, who have had a distinguished +share in this unrighteous and bloody commerce!" + +He went over the recent history of the country, expatiated on the +national declaration so lately made, that all men are born equally free +and independent and have natural and inalienable rights to liberty, and +asked with what face a nation declaring such things could continue to +hold thousands of their fellowmen in abject slavery. He pointed out +signs of national disaster which foreboded the wrath of Heaven,--the +increase of public and private debts, the spirit of murmuring and +jealousy of rulers among the people, divisions and contentions and +bitter party alienations, the jealous irritation of England constantly +endeavoring to hamper our trade, the Indians making war on the +frontiers, the Algerines taking captive our ships and making slaves +of our citizens,--all evident tokens of the displeasure and impending +judgment of an offended Justice. + +The sermon rolled over the heads of the gay audience, deep and dark as a +thunder-cloud, which in a few moments changes a summer sky into heaviest +gloom. Gradually an expression of intense interest and deep concern +spread over the listeners; it was the magnetism of a strong mind, which +held them for a time under the shadow of his own awful sense of God's +almighty justice. + +It is said that a little child once described his appearance in the +pulpit by saying, "I saw God there, and I was afraid." + +Something of the same effect was produced on his audience now; and it +was not till after sermon, prayer, and benediction were all over, that +the respectables of Newport began gradually to unstiffen themselves +from the spell, and to look into each other's eyes for comfort, and to +reassure themselves that after all they were the first families, and +going on the way the world had always gone, and that the Doctor, of +course, was a radical and a fanatic. + +When the audience streamed out, crowding the broad aisle, Mary descended +from the singers, and stood with her psalm-book in hand, waiting at the +door to be joined by her mother and the Doctor. She overheard many +hard words from people who, an evening or two before, had smiled so +graciously upon them. It was therefore with no little determination of +manner that she advanced and took the Doctor's arm, as if anxious to +associate herself with his well-earned unpopularity,--and just at +this moment she caught the eye and smile of Colonel Burr, as he bowed +gracefully, yet not without a suggestion of something sarcastic in his +eye. + +[To be continued.] + + + + +THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. + +WHAT HE SAID, WHAT HE HEARD, AND WHAT HE SAW. + + +You don't look so dreadful poor in the face as you did a while back. +Bloated some, I expect. + +This was the cheerful and encouraging remark with which the Poor +Relation greeted the divinity-student one morning. + +Of course every good man considers it a great sacrifice on his part to +continue living in this transitory, unsatisfactory, and particularly +unpleasant world. This is so much a matter of course, that I was +surprised to see the divinity-student change color. He took a look at a +small and uncertain-minded glass which hung slanting forward over the +chapped sideboard. The image it returned to him had the color of a very +young pea somewhat over-boiled. The scenery of a long tragic drama +flashed through his mind as the lightning-express-train _whishes_ by a +station: the gradual dismantling process of disease; friends looking on, +sympathetic, but secretly chuckling over their own stomachs of iron and +lungs of caoutchouc; nurses attentive, but calculating their crop, and +thinking how soon it will be ripe, so that they can go to your neighbor, +who is good for a year or so longer; doctors assiduous, but giving +themselves a mental shake, as they go out of your door, that throws +off your particular grief as a duck sheds a rain-drop from his oily +feathers; undertakers solemn, but happy; then the great subsoil +cultivator, who plants, but never looks for fruit in his garden; then +the stone-cutter, who finds the lie that has been waiting for you on a +slab ever since the birds or beasts made their tracks on the new red +sandstone; then the grass and the dandelions and the buttercups,--Earth +saying to the mortal body, with her sweet symbolism, "You have scarred +my bosom, but you are forgiven"; then a glimpse of the soul as a +floating consciousness without very definite form or place, but dimly +conceived of as an upright column of vapor or mist several times larger +than life-size, so far as it could be said to have any size at all, +wandering about and living a thin and half-awake life for want of good +old-fashioned solid _matter_ to come down upon with foot and fist,--in +fact, having neither foot nor fist, nor conveniences for taking the +sitting posture. + +And yet the divinity-student was a good Christian, and those heathen +images which remind one of the childlike fancies of the dying Adrian +were only the efforts of his imagination to give shape to the formless +and position to the placeless. Neither did his thoughts spread +themselves out and link themselves as I have displayed them. They came +confusedly into his mind like a heap of broken mosaics,--sometimes a +part of the picture complete in itself, sometimes connected fragments, +and sometimes only single severed stones. + +They did not diffuse a light of celestial joy over his countenance. On +the contrary, the Poor Relation's remark turned him pale, as I have +said; and when the terrible wrinkled and jaundiced looking-glass turned +him green in addition, and he saw himself in it, it seemed to him as +if it were all settled, and his book of life were to be shut not yet +half-read, and go back to the dust of the under-ground archives. He +coughed a mild short cough, as if to point the direction in which his +downward path was tending. It was an honest little cough enough, so far +as appearances went. But coughs are ungrateful things. You find one out +in the cold, take it up and nurse it and make everything of it, dress it +up warm, give it all sorts of balsams and other food it likes, and carry +it round in your bosom as if it were a miniature lapdog. And by-and-by +its little bark grows sharp and savage, and--confound the thing!--you +find it is a wolf's whelp that you have got there, and he is gnawing in +the breast where he has been nestling so long.--The Poor Relation said +that somebody's surrup was good for folks that were gettin' into a +bad way. The landlady had heard of desperate cases cured by +cherry-pictorial. + +Whiskey's the fellah,--said the young man John.--Make it into punch, +cold at dinner-time 'n' hot at bed-time. I'll come up 'n' show you how +to mix it. Haven't any of you seen the wonderful fat man exhibitin' down +in Hanover Street? + +Master Benjamin Franklin rushed into the dialogue with a breezy +exclamation, that he had seen a great picter outside of the place where +the fat man was exhibitin'. Tried to get in at half-price, but the man +at the door looked at his teeth and said he was more'n ten year old. + +It isn't two years,--said the young man John,--since that fat fellah +was exhibitin' here as the Livin' Skeleton. Whiskey--that's what did +it,--real Burbon's the stuff. Hot water, sugar, 'n' jest a little +shavin' of lemon-skin in it,--_skin_, mind you, none o' your juice; take +it off thin,--shape of one of them flat curls the factory-girls wear on +the sides of their foreheads. + +But I am a teetotaller,--said the divinity-student, in a subdued +tone;--not noticing the enormous length of the bow-string the young +fellow had just drawn. + +He took up his hat and went out. + +I think you have worried that young man more than you meant,--I said.--I +don't believe he will jump off of one of the bridges, for he has too +much principle; but I mean to follow him and see where he goes, for he +looks as if his mind were made up to something. + +I followed him at a reasonable distance. He walked doggedly along, +looking neither to the right nor the left, turned into State Street, and +made for a well-known Life-Insurance Office. Luckily, the doctor was +there and overhauled him on the spot. There was nothing the matter with +him, he said, and he could have his life insured as a sound one. He came +out in good spirits, and told me this soon after. + +This led me to make some remarks the next morning on the manners of +well-bred and ill-bred people. + +I began,--The whole essence of true gentle-breeding (one does not +like to say gentility) lies in the wish and the art to be agreeable. +Good-breeding is _surface-Christianity_. Every look, movement, tone, +expression, subject of discourse, that may give pain to another is +habitually excluded from conversational intercourse. This is the reason +why rich people are apt to be so much more agreeable than others. + +--I thought you were a great champion of equality,--said the discreet +and severe lady who had accompanied our young friend, the Latin Tutor's +daughter. + +I go politically for _e_quality,--I said,--and socially for _the_ +quality. + +Who are the "quality,"--said the Model, etc.,--in a community like ours? + +I confess I find this question a little difficult to answer,--I +said.--Nothing is better known than the distinction of social ranks +which exists in every community, and nothing is harder to define. The +great gentlemen and ladies of a place are its real lords and masters and +mistresses; they are the _quality_, whether in a monarchy or a republic; +mayors and governors and generals and senators and ex-presidents are +nothing to them. How well we know this, and how seldom it finds a +distinct expression! Now I tell you truly, I believe in man as man, and +I disbelieve in all distinctions except such as follow the natural lines +of cleavage in a society which has crystallized according to its own +true laws. But the essence of equality is to be able to say the truth; +and there is nothing more curious than these truths relating to the +stratification of society. + +Of all the facts in this world that do not take hold of immortality, +there is not one so intensely real, permanent, and engrossing as this of +social position,--as you see by the circumstance that the core of all +the great social orders the world has seen has been, and is still, for +the most part, a privileged class of gentlemen and ladies arranged in a +regular scale of precedence among themselves, but superior as a body to +all else. + +Nothing but an ideal Christian equality, which we have been getting +farther away from since the days of the Primitive Church, can +prevent this subdivision of society into classes from taking place +everywhere,--in the great centres of our republic as much as in +old European monarchies. Only there position is more absolutely +hereditary,--here it is more completely elective. + +--Where is the election held? and what are the qualifications? and who +are the electors?--said the Model. + +Nobody ever sees when the vote is taken; there never is a formal vote. +The women settle it mostly; and they know wonderfully well what is +presentable, and what can't stand the blaze of the chandeliers and the +critical eye and ear of people trained to know a staring shade in a +ribbon, a false light in a jewel, an ill-bred tone, an angular movement, +everything that betrays a coarse fibre and cheap training. As a general +thing, you do not get elegance short of two or three removes from the +soil, out of which our best blood doubtless comes,--quite as good, no +doubt, as if it came from those old prize-fighters with iron pots on +their heads, to whom some great people are so fond of tracing their +descent through a line of small artisans and petty shopkeepers whose +veins have held base fluid enough to fill the Cloaca Maxima! + +Does not money go everywhere?--said the Model. + +Almost. And with good reason. For though there are numerous exceptions, +rich people are, as I said, commonly altogether the most agreeable +companions. The influence of a fine house, graceful furniture, good +libraries, well-ordered tables, trim servants, and, above all, a +position so secure that one becomes unconscious of it, gives a harmony +and refinement to the character and manners which we feel, even if +we cannot explain their charm. Yet we can get at the reason of it by +thinking a little. + +All these appliances are to shield the sensibility from disagreeable +contacts, and to soothe it by varied natural and artificial influences. +In this way the mind, the taste, the feelings, grow delicate, just as +the hands grow white and soft when saved from toil and incased in soft +gloves. The whole nature becomes subdued into suavity. I confess I like +the quality-ladies better than the common kind even of literary ones. +They haven't read the last book, perhaps, but they attend better to you +when you are talking to them. If they are never learned, they make up +for it in tact and elegance. Besides, I think, on the whole, there is +less self-assertion in diamonds than in dogmas. I don't know where +you will find a sweeter portrait of humility than in Esther, the poor +play-girl of King Ahasuerus; yet Esther put on her royal apparel when +she went before her lord. I have no doubt she was a more gracious and +agreeable person than Deborah, who judged the people and wrote the story +of Sisera. The wisest woman you talk with is ignorant of something that +you know, but an elegant woman never forgets her elegance. + +Dowdyism is clearly an expression of imperfect vitality. The highest +fashion is intensely alive,--not alive necessarily to the truest and +best things, but with its blood tingling, as it were, in all its +extremities and to the farthest point of its surface, so that the +feather in its bonnet is as fresh as the crest of a fighting-cock, and +the rosette on its slipper as clean-cut and _pimpant_ (pronounce it +English fashion,--it is a good word) as a dahlia. As a general rule, +that society where flattery is acted is much more agreeable than that +where it is spoken. Don't you see why? Attention and deference don't +require you to make fine speeches expressing your sense of unworthiness +(lies) and returning all the compliments paid you. This is one reason. + +--A woman of sense ought to be above flattering any man,--said the +Model. + +[_My reflection._ Oh! oh! no wonder you didn't get married. Served you +right.] _My remark._ Surely, Madam,--if you mean by flattery telling +people boldly to their faces that they are this or that, which they are +not. But a woman who does not carry a halo of good feeling and desire +to make everybody contented about with her wherever she goes,--an +atmosphere of grace, mercy, and peace, of at least six feet radius, +which wraps every human being upon whom she voluntarily bestows her +presence, and so flatters him with the comfortable thought that she +is rather glad he is alive than otherwise, isn't worth the trouble of +talking to, _as a woman_; she may do well enough to hold discussions +with. + +--I don't think the Model exactly liked this. She said,--a little +spitefully, I thought,--that a sensible man might stand a little praise, +but would of course soon get sick of it, if he were in the habit of +getting much. + +Oh, yes,--I replied,--just as men get sick of tobacco. It is notorious +how apt they are to get tired of that vegetable. + +--That's so!--said the young fellow John.--I've got tired of my cigars +and burnt 'em all up. + +I am heartily glad to hear it,--said the Model.--I wish they were all +disposed of in the same way. + +So do I,--said the young fellow John. + +Can't you get your friends to unite with you in committing those odious +instruments of debauchery to the flames in which you have consumed your +own? + +I wish I could,--said the young fellow John. + +It would be a noble sacrifice,--said the Model,--and every American +woman would be grateful to you. Let us burn them all in a heap out in +the yard. + +That a'n't my way,--said the young fellow John;--I burn 'em one 't' +time,--little end in my mouth and big end outside. + +--I watched for the effect of this sudden change of programme, when it +should reach the calm stillness of the Model's interior apprehension, +as a boy watches for the splash of a stone which he has dropped into a +well. But before it had fairly reached the water, poor Iris, who had +followed the conversation with a certain interest until it turned this +sharp corner, (for she seems rather to fancy the young fellow John,) +laughed out such a clear, loud laugh, that it started us all off, as the +locust-cry of some full-throated soprano drags a multitudinous chorus +after it. It was plain that some dam or other had broken in the soul of +this young girl, and she was squaring up old scores of laughter, out of +which she had been cheated, with a grand flood of merriment that +swept all before it. So we had a great laugh all round, in which the +Model--who, if she had as many virtues as there are spokes to a wheel, +all compacted with a personality as round and complete as its tire, yet +wanted that one little addition of grace, which seems so small, and +is as important as the linchpin in trundling over the rough ways of +life--had not the tact to join. She seemed to be "stuffy" about it, as +the young fellow John said. In fact, I was afraid the joke would have +cost us both our new lady-boarders. It had no effect, however, except, +perhaps, to hasten the departure of the elder of the two, who could, on +the whole, be spared. + +--I had meant to make this note of our conversation a text for a few +axioms on the matter of breeding. But it so happened, that, exactly at +this point of my record, a very distinguished philosopher, whom several +of our boarders and myself go to hear, and whom no doubt many of my +readers follow habitually, treated this matter of _manners_. Up to this +point, if I have been so fortunate as to coincide with him in opinion, +and so unfortunate as to try to express what he has more felicitously +said, nobody is to blame; for what has been given thus far was all +written before the lecture was delivered. But what shall I do now? He +told us it was childish to lay down rules for deportment,--but he could +not help laying down a few. + +Thus,--_Nothing so vulgar as to be in a hurry._--True, but hard of +application. People with short legs step quickly, because legs are +pendulums, and swing more times in a minute the shorter they are. +Generally a natural rhythm runs through the whole organization: quick +pulse, fast breathing, hasty speech, rapid trains of thought, excitable +temper. _Stillness_ of person and steadiness of features are signal +marks of good-breeding. Vulgar persons can't sit still, or, at least, +they must work their limbs--or features. + +_Talking of one's own ails and grievances._--Bad enough, but not so bad +as insulting the person you talk with by remarking on his ill-looks, or +appearing to notice any of his personal peculiarities. + +_Apologizing._--A very desperate habit,--one that is rarely cured. +Apology is only egotism wrong side out. Nine times out of ten, the first +thing a man's companion knows of his shortcoming is from his apology. It +is mighty presumptuous on your part to suppose your small failures of so +much consequence that you must make a talk about them. + +Good dressing, quiet ways, low tones of voice, lips that can wait, and +eyes that do not wander,--shyness of personalities, except in certain +intimate communions,--to be _light in hand_ in conversation, to have +ideas, but to be able to make talk, if necessary, without them,--to +belong to the company you are in, and not to yourself,--to have nothing +in your dress or furniture so fine that you cannot afford to spoil it +and get another like it, yet to preserve the harmonies throughout your +person and dwelling: I should say that this was a fair capital of +manners to begin with. + +Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies very commonly an +overestimate of our special individuality, as distinguished from our +generic humanity. It is just here that the very highest society asserts +its superior breeding. Among truly elegant people of the highest _ton_, +you will find more real equality in social intercourse than in a country +village. As nuns drop their birth-names and become Sister Margaret and +Sister Mary, so high-bred people drop their personal distinctions +and become brothers and sisters of conversational charity. Nor are +fashionable people without their heroism. I believe there are men that +have shown as much self-devotion in carrying a lone wall-flower down to +the supper-table as ever saint or martyr in the act that has canonized +his name. There are Florence Nightingales of the ballroom, whom nothing +can hold back from their errands of mercy. They find out the red-handed, +gloveless undergraduate of bucolic antecedents, as he squirms in his +corner, and distil their soft words upon him like dew upon the green +herb. They reach even the poor relation, whose dreary apparition saddens +the perfumed atmosphere of the sumptuous drawing-room. I have known one +of these angels ask, _of her own accord_, that a desolate middle-aged +man, whom nobody seemed to know, should be presented to her by the +hostess. He wore no shirt-collar,--he had on black gloves,--and was +flourishing a red bandanna handkerchief! Match me this, ye proud +children of poverty, who boast of your paltry sacrifices for each other! +Virtue in humble life! What is that to the glorious self-renunciation +of a martyr in pearls and diamonds? As I saw this noble woman bending +gracefully before the social mendicant,--the white billows of her beauty +heaving under the foam of the traitorous laces that half revealed +them,--I should have wept with sympathetic emotion, but that tears, +except as a private demonstration, are an ill-disguised expression of +self-consciousness and vanity, which is inadmissible in good society. + +I have sometimes thought, with a pang, of the position in which +political chance or contrivance might hereafter place some one of +our fellow-citizens. It has happened hitherto, so far as my limited +knowledge goes, that the President of the United States has always been +what might be called in general terms a gentleman. But what if at some +future time the choice of the people should fall upon one on whom that +lofty title could not, by any stretch of charity, be bestowed? This may +happen,--how soon the future only knows. Think of this miserable man +of coming political possibilities,--an unpresentable boor, sucked into +office by one of those eddies in the flow of popular sentiment which +carry straws and chips into the public harbor, while the prostrate +trunks of the monarchs of the forest hurry down on the senseless stream +to the gulf of political oblivion! Think of him, I say, and of the +concentrated gaze of good society through its thousand eyes, all +confluent, as it were, in one great burning-glass of ice that shrivels +its wretched object in fiery torture, itself cold as the glacier of an +unsunned cavern! No,--there will be angels of good-breeding then as now, +to shield the victim of free institutions from himself and from his +torturers. I can fancy a lovely woman playfully withdrawing the knife +which he would abuse by making it an instrument for the conveyance +of food,--or, failing in this kind artifice, sacrificing herself by +imitating his use of that implement; how much harder than to plunge it +into her bosom, like Lucretia! I can see her studying his provincial +dialect until she becomes the Champollion of New England or Western or +Southern barbarisms. She has learned that _häow_ means _what_; that +_thinkin'_ is the same thing as _thinking_; or she has found out the +meaning of that extraordinary monosyllable, which no single-tongued +phonographer can make legible, prevailing on the banks of the Hudson and +at its embouchure, and elsewhere,--what they say when they think they +say _first_, (_fe-eest,--fe_ as in the French _le_),--or that _cheer_ +means _chair_,--or that _urritation_ means _irritation_,--and so of +other enormities. Nothing surprises her. The highest breeding, you know, +comes round to the Indian standard,--to take everything coolly,--_nil +admirari_,--if you happen to be learned and like the Roman phrase for +the same thing. + +If you like the company of people that stare at you from head to foot to +see if there is a hole in your coat, or if you have not grown a little +older, or if your eyes are not yellow with jaundice, or if your +complexion is not a little faded, and so on, and then convey the fact +to you, in the style in which the Poor Relation addressed the +divinity-student,--go with them as much as you like. I hate the sight +of the wretches. Don't for mercy's sake think I hate _them_; the +distinction is one my friend or I drew long ago. No matter where you +find such people; they are clowns. The rich woman who looks and talks in +this way is not half so much a lady as her Irish servant, whose pretty +"saving your presence," when she has to say something which offends +her natural sense of good manners, has a hint in it of the breeding of +courts, and the blood of old Milesian kings, which very likely runs in +her veins,--thinned by two hundred years of potato, which, being an +underground fruit, tends to drag down the generations that are made +of it to the earth from which it came, and, filling their veins with +starch, turn them into a kind of human vegetable. + +I say, if you like such people, go with them. But I am going to make a +practical application of the example at the beginning of this particular +record, which some young people who are going to choose professional +advisers by-and-by may remember and thank me for. If you are making +choice of a physician, be sure you get one, if possible, with a cheerful +and serene countenance. A physician is not--at least, ought not to +be--an executioner; and a sentence of death on his face is as bad as a +warrant for execution signed by the Governor. As a general rule, no man +has a right to tell another by word or look that he is going to die. It +may be necessary in some extreme cases; but as a rule, it is the last +extreme of impertinence which one human being can offer to another. "You +have killed me," said a patient once to a physician who had rashly told +him he was incurable. He ought to have lived six months, but he was dead +in six weeks. If we will only let Nature and the God of Nature alone, +persons will commonly learn their condition as early as they ought to +know it, and not be cheated out of their natural birthright of hope of +recovery, which is intended to accompany sick people as long as life is +comfortable, and is graciously replaced by the hope of heaven, or at +least of rest, when life has become a burden which the bearer is ready +to let fall. + +Underbred people tease their sick and dying friends to death. The chance +of a gentleman or lady with a given mortal ailment to live a certain +time is as good again as that of the common sort of coarse people. As +you go down the social scale, you reach a point at length where the +common talk in sick rooms is of churchyards and sepulchres, and a kind +of perpetual vivisection is forever carried on, upon the person of the +miserable sufferer. + +And so, in choosing your clergyman, other things being equal, prefer the +one of a wholesome and cheerful habit of mind and body. If you can get +along with people who carry a certificate in their faces that their +goodness is so great as to make them very miserable, your children +cannot. And whatever offends one of these little ones cannot be right in +the eyes of Him who loved them so well. + +After all, as _you_ are a gentleman or a lady, you will probably select +gentlemen for your bodily and spiritual advisers, and then all will be +right. + +This repetition of the above words,--_gentleman and lady_,--which could +not be conveniently avoided, reminds me how much use is made of them by +those who ought to know what they mean. Thus, at a marriage ceremony, +once, of two very excellent persons who had been at service, instead +of, Do you take this man, etc.? and, Do you take this woman? how do you +think the officiating clergyman put the questions? It was, Do you, MISS +So and So, take this GENTLEMAN? and, Do you, MR. This or That, take +this LADY?! What would any English duchess, ay, or the Queen of England +herself, have thought, if the Archbishop of Canterbury had called her +and her bridegroom anything but plain woman and man at such a time? + +I don't doubt the Poor Relation thought it was all very fine, if she +happened to have been in the church; but if the worthy man who uttered +these monstrous words--monstrous in such a connection--had known the +ludicrous surprise, the convulsion of inward disgust and contempt, that +seized upon many of the persons who were present,--had guessed what a +sudden flash of light it threw on the Dutch gilding, the pinchbeck, +the shabby, perking pretension belonging to certain social layers,--so +inherent in their whole mode of being, that the holiest offices of +religion cannot exclude its impertinences,--the good man would have +given his marriage-fee twice over to recall that superb and full-blown +vulgarism. Any persons whom it could please have no better notion of +what the words referred to signify than of the meaning of _apsides_ and +_asymptotes_. + +MAN! Sir! WOMAN! Sir! Gentility is a fine thing, not to be undervalued, +as I have been trying to explain; but humanity comes before that. + + "When Adam delved and Eve span, + Where was then the gentleman?" + +The beauty of that plainness of speech and manners which comes from the +finest training is not to be understood by those whose _habitat_ is +below a certain level. Just as the exquisite sea-anemones and all the +graceful ocean-flowers die out at some fathoms below the surface, the +elegances and suavities of life die out one by one as we sink through +the social scale. Fortunately, the virtues are more tenacious of life, +and last pretty well until we get down to the mud of absolute pauperism, +where they do not flourish greatly. + +--I had almost forgotten about our boarders. As the Model of all the +Virtues is about to leave us, I find myself wondering what is the reason +we are not all very sorry. Surely we all like good persons. She is a +good person. Therefore we like her.--Only we don't. + +This brief syllogism, and its briefer negative, involving the principle +which some English conveyancer borrowed from a French wit and embodied +in the lines by which _Dr. Fell_ is made unamiably immortal,--this +syllogism, I say, is one that most persons have had occasion to +construct and demolish, respecting somebody or other, as I have done for +the Model. "Pious and painefull." Why has that excellent old phrase gone +out of use? Simply because these good _painefull_ or painstaking persons +proved to be such nuisances in the long run, that the word "painefull" +came, before people thought of it, to mean _paingiving_ instead of +_painstaking_. + +--So, the old fellah's off to-morrah,--said the young man John. + +Old fellow?--said I,--whom do you mean? + +Why, the chap that came with our little beauty,--the old boy in +petticoats. + +--Now that means something,--said I to myself.--These rough young +rascals very often hit the nail on the head, if they do strike with +their eyes shut. A real woman does a great many things without knowing +why she does them; but these pattern machines mix up their intellects +with everything they do, just like men. They can't help it, no doubt; +but we can't help getting sick of them, either. Intellect is to a +woman's nature what her watch-spring skirt is to her dress; it ought +to underlie her silks and embroideries, but not to show itself too +staringly on the outside.--You don't know, perhaps, but I will tell +you;--the brain is the palest of all the internal organs, and the heart +the reddest. Whatever comes from the brain carries the hue of the place +it came from, and whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and +color of its birthplace. + +The young man John did not hear my _soliloque_, of course, but sent +up one more bubble from our sinking conversation, in the form of a +statement, that she was at liberty to go to a personage who receives no +visits, as is commonly supposed, from virtuous people. + +Why, I ask again, (of my reader,) should a person who never did anybody +any wrong, but, on the contrary, is an estimable and intelligent, nay, +a particularly enlightened and exemplary member of society, fail to +inspire interest, love, and devotion? Because of the _reversed current_ +in the flow of thought and emotion. The red heart sends all its +instincts up to the white brain to be analyzed, chilled, blanched, and +so become pure reason, which is just exactly what we do not want of +woman as woman. The current should run the other way. The nice, calm, +cold thought, which in women shapes itself so rapidly that they hardly +know it as thought, should always travel to the lips _viâ_ the heart. It +does so in those women whom all love and admire. It travels the wrong +way in the Model. That is the reason why the Little Gentleman said, "I +hate her, I hate her." That is the reason why the young man John called +her the "old fellah," and banished her to the company of the great +Unpresentable. That is the reason why I, the Professor, am picking her +to pieces with scalpel and forceps. That is the reason why the young +girl whom she has befriended repays her kindness with gratitude and +respect, rather than with the devotion and passionate fondness which lie +sleeping beneath the calmness of her amber eyes. I can see her, as she +sits between this estimable and most correct of personages and the +misshapen, crotchety, often violent and explosive little man on the +other side of her, leaning and swaying towards him as she speaks, and +looking into his sad eyes as if she found some fountain in them at which +her soul could quiet its thirst. + +Women like the Model are a natural product of a chilly climate and high +culture. It is not + + "The frolic wind that breathes the spring, + Zephyr with Aurora playing," + +when the two meet + + ----"on beds of violets blue, + And fresh-blown roses washed in dew," + +that claim such women as their offspring. It is rather the east wind, as +it blows out of the fogs of Newfoundland, and clasps a clear-eyed wintry +noon on the chill bridal couch of a New England ice-quarry.--Don't throw +up your cap now, and hurrah as if this were giving up everything, and +turning against the best growth of our latitudes,--the daughters of the +soil. The brain-women never interest us like the heart-women; white +roses please less than red. But our Northern seasons have a narrow green +streak of spring, as well as a broad white zone of winter,--they have +a glowing band of summer and a golden stripe of autumn in their +many-colored wardrobe; and women are born to us that wear all these hues +of earth and heaven in their souls. Our ice-eyed brain-women are really +admirable, if we only ask of them just what they can give, and no more. +Only compare them, talking or writing, with one of those babbling, +chattering dolls, of warmer latitudes, who do not know enough even to +keep out of print, and who are interesting to us only as specimens of +_arrest of development_ for our psychological cabinets. + +Good-bye, Model of all the Virtues! We can spare you now. A little clear +perfection, undiluted with human weakness, goes a great way. Go! be +useful, be honorable and honored, be just, be charitable, talk pure +reason, and help to disenchant the world by the light of an achromatic +understanding. Good-bye! Where is my Béranger? I must read "Frétillon." + +Fair play for all. But don't claim incompatible qualities for anybody. +Justice is a very rare virtue in our community. Everything that public +sentiment cares about is put into a Papin's digester, and boiled under +high pressure till all is turned into one homogeneous pulp, and the very +bones give up their jelly. What are all the strongest epithets of our +dictionary to us now? The critics and politicians, and especially +the philanthropists, have chewed them, till they are mere wads of +syllable-fibre, without a suggestion of their old pungency and power. + +Justice! A good man respects the rights even of brute matter and +arbitrary symbols. If he writes the same word twice in succession, by +accident, he always erases the one that stands _second_; has not the +first-comer the prior right? This act of abstract justice, which I trust +many of my readers, like myself, have often performed, is a curious +anti-illustration, by the way, of the absolute wickedness of human +dispositions. Why doesn't a man always strike out the _first_ of the two +words, to gratify his diabolical love of _in_justice? + +So, I say, we owe a genuine, substantial tribute of respect to these +filtered intellects which have left their womanhood on the strainer. +They are so clear that it is a pleasure at times to look at the world of +thought through them. But the rose and purple tints of richer natures +they cannot give us, and it is not just to them to ask it. + +Fashionable society gets at these rich natures very often in a way one +would hardly at first think of. It loves vitality above all things, +sometimes disguised by affected languor, always well kept under by the +laws of good-breeding,--but still it loves abundant life, opulent and +showy organizations,--the spherical rather than the plane trigonometry +of female architecture,--plenty of red blood, flashing eyes, tropical +voices, and forms that bear the splendors of dress without growing pale +beneath their lustre. Among these you will find the most delicious women +you will ever meet,--women whom dress and flattery and the round of city +gayeties cannot spoil,--talking with whom, you forget their diamonds +and laces,--and around whom all the nice details of elegance, which +the cold-blooded beauty next them is scanning so nicely, blend in one +harmonious whole, too perfect to be disturbed by the petulant sparkle of +a jewel, or the yellow glare of a bangle, or the gay toss of a feather. + +There are many things that I, personally, love better than fashion or +wealth. Not to speak of those highest objects of our love and loyalty, +I think I love ease and independence better than the golden slavery of +perpetual _matinées_ and _soirées_, or the pleasures of accumulation. + +But fashion and wealth are two very solemn realities, which the +frivolous class of moralists have talked a great deal of silly stuff +about. Fashion is only the attempt to realize Art in living forms and +social intercourse. What business has a man who knows nothing about the +beautiful, and cannot pronounce the word _view_, to talk about fashion +to a set of people who, if one of the quality left a card at their +doors, would contrive to keep it on the very top of their heap of the +names of their two-story acquaintances, till it was as yellow as the +Codex Vaticanus? + +Wealth, too,--what an endless repetition of the same foolish +trivialities about it! Take the single fact of its alleged uncertain +tenure and transitory character. In old times, when men were all the +time fighting and robbing each other,--in those tropical countries where +the Sabeans and the Chaldeans stole all a man's cattle and camels, and +there were frightful tornadoes and rains of fire from heaven, it was +true enough that riches took wings to themselves not unfrequently in a +very unexpected way. But, with common prudence in investments, it is not +so now. In fact, there is nothing earthly that lasts so well, on the +whole, as money. A man's learning dies with him; even his virtues fade +out of remembrance; but the dividends on the stocks he bequeathes to his +children live and keep his memory green. + +I do not think there is much courage or originality in giving utterance +to truths that everybody knows, but which get overlaid by conventional +trumpery. The only distinction which it is necessary to point out to +feeble-minded folk is this: that, in asserting the breadth and depth of +that significance which gives to fashion and fortune their tremendous +power, we do not indorse the extravagances which often disgrace the one, +nor the meanness which often degrades the other. + +A remark which seems to contradict a universally current opinion is not +generally to be taken "neat," but watered with the ideas of common-sense +and commonplace people. So, if any of my young friends should be tempted +to waste their substance on white kids and "all-rounds," or to insist +on becoming millionnaires at once, by anything I have said, I will give +them references to some of the class referred to, well known to the +public as literary diluents, who will weaken any truth so that there is +not an old woman in the land who cannot take it with perfect impunity. + +I am afraid some of the blessed saints in diamonds will think I mean to +flatter them. I hope not;--if I do, set it down as a weakness. But there +is so much foolish talk about wealth and fashion, (which, of course, +draw a good many heartless and essentially vulgar people into the glare +of their candelabra, but which have a real respectability and meaning, +if we will only look at them stereoscopically, with both eyes instead of +one,) that I thought it a duty to speak a few words for them. Why can't +somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, +and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks? + +Lest my parish should suppose we have forgotten graver matters in these +lesser topics, I beg them to drop these trifles and read the following +lesson for the day. + + + + +THE TWO STREAMS. + + + Behold the rocky wall + That down its sloping sides + Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, + In rushing river-tides! + + Yon stream, whose sources run + Turned by a pebble's edge, + Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun + Through the cleft mountain-ledge. + + The slender rill had strayed, + But for the slanting stone, + To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid + Of foam-flecked Oregon. + + So from the heights of Will + Life's parting stream descends, + And, as a moment turns its slender rill, + Each widening torrent bends,-- + + From the same cradle's side, + From the same mother's knee,-- + One to long darkness and the frozen tide, + One to the Peaceful Sea! + + * * * * * + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Sixty Years' Gleanings from Life's Harvest._ A Genuine Autobiography. +By JOHN BROWN, Proprietor of the University Billiard-Rooms, Cambridge. +New York: Appleton & Company. 1859. + +We are all familiar with that John Brown whom the minstrel has +immortalized as being the possessor of a diminutive youth of the +aboriginal American race, who, in the course of the ditty, is multiplied +from "one little Injun" into "ten little Injuns," and who, in a +succeeding stanza, by an ingenious amphisbaenic process, is again +reduced to the singular number. As far as we are aware, the author of +this "genuine autobiography" claims no relationship with the famous +owner of tender redskins. The multiplicity of adventures of which he +has been the hero demands for him, however, the same notice that a +multiplicity of "Injuns" has insured to his illustrious namesake. + +We have always had a pet theory, that a plain and minute narrative +of any ordinary man's life, stated with simplicity and without any +reference to dramatic effect or the elegances of composition, would +possess an immediate interest for the public. We cannot know too much +about men. No man's life is so uneventful as to be incapable of amusing +and instructing. The same event is never the same to more than one +person; no two see it from the same point of view. And as we want to +know more of men than of incidents, every one's record of trifles +is useful. A book written by a Cornish miner, whose life passes in +subterranean monotony, sparing none of the petty and ever-recurring +details that make up his routined existence, would, if set down in the +baldest language, be a valuable contribution to literature. But we +rarely, if ever, find a man sufficiently free from vanity and the demon +of composition to tell us plainly what has happened to him. The moment +the working-man gets a pen into his hand, he is, as it were, possessed. +He is no longer himself. He has not the courage to come out naked +and show himself in all his grime and strength. The instant that he +conceives the idea of putting himself on paper he borrows somebody +else's clothes, and, instead of a free, manly figure, we have a wretched +scarecrow in a coat too small or too large for him,--generally the +latter. For it is a curious fact, that the more uneducated a man +is,--in which condition his ordinary language must of necessity be +proportionately idiomatic,--the greater pains he takes, when he has +formed the resolution of composing, to be splendid and expansive in his +style. He racks his brains until he rummages out imperfect memories of +the turgid paragraphs of cheap newspapers and novels which he has +some time or other read, and forthwith struts off with all the finest +feathers in the dictionary rustling about him. + +Mr. John Brown, the hero of the Autobiography before us, is no exception +to this unhappy rule. The son of a butcher, he became in boyhood a +sheep-driver, was then apprenticed to a shoemaker, got into trouble and +a prison, enlisted as a soldier, deserted, turned strolling player, +shipped on board a man-of-war, tried again to desert, was flogged at the +gratings, beheld Napoleon on board the Bellerophon, was discharged from +the navy, consorted with thieves and prize-fighters, appeared on the +London stage with success, married and starved, became the pet of the +Cambridge students, whom he assisted in amateur theatricals, started a +stage-coach line to London and failed, set up a billiard-room, got into +innumerable street-fights and always came off conqueror, was elected +town-councillor of Cambridge and made a fortune, which it is to be hoped +he is now enjoying. + +Here was material for a book. From the glimpses of his _personnel_ which +we occasionally catch through all Mr. Brown's splendid writing, we +should say that he was a man of a strong, hearty nature, full of +indomitable energy, and possessed with a truly Saxon predilection for +the use of his fists. The number of physical contests in which he was +chief actor renders his volume almost epical in character. Invulnerable +as Achilles and quarrelsome as Hector, he strides over the bodies of +innumerable foes. If some of his friends, the Seniors, at Cambridge, +would only put his adventures into Greek verse, he might descend to +posterity in sounding hexameters with the sons of Telamon and Thetis. + +The plain narrative portions of Mr. Brown's volume possess much real +interest. His adventures with the strolling players, the insight he +gives us into the life of a journeyman shoemaker, and his reminiscences +of his friends, the Jew old-clothes-men, the pick-pockets, and the +prize-fighters, are so many steaks cut warm from the living world, and +are good, substantial food for thought. But he seldom forgets himself +long, and is natural only by fits and starts. After he has been striding +along for a short time with a free, manly gait, he suddenly bethinks +himself that he is writing a book. The malign influences of Cambridge +University begin to work upon him. The loose stride is contracted; the +swing of the vigorous shoulders is restrained, and, instead of an honest +fellow tramping sturdily after his own fashion through the paths of +literature, we are treated to an imitation of Dr. Johnson, done by an +illiterate butcher's son. We are afraid that the Cantabs have been at +the bottom of John Brown's fine writing. How valuable, for instance, are +the following philosophical reflections upon Napoleon, which John Brown +makes when he beholds the dethroned Emperor standing sadly upon the poop +of the Bellerophon! + +"Here, then," remarks John, "had ended his dream of universal conquest; +here he lay prostrate at the foot of the altar," (we are informed a few +lines before this that he had taken his stand on the poop,) "on which he +sacrificed, not hecatombs, but pyramids, of human victims." (Beautiful +antithesis!) "As his ambition was boundless, posterity will not weep at +his fall. But that he insinuated himself into the hearts of a generous +people is too true; they worshipped him as a demi-god, until," etc. +Farther on, we learn the startling intelligence, that "for a time his +adopted country was enriched by the spoils and plunder of other lands." +(Did Alison know this?) "He formed the bulk of the population into an +organized banditti, and led them forth in martial pomp to do the unholy +work of bloodshed and robbery.... All the independent states of Europe +leagued together to put down this infamous system of national plunder." +(Russia among the rest of the independent states, we suppose.)... "Had +he been desirous of establishing just principles on earth, and crushing +despotism, the sympathies of the entire human race would have been +enlisted on his side." Certainly, John. Two and two make four, and +things that are equal to the same are equal to each other. + +After having in a street-fight pommelled an unhappy Cambridge student +into jelly, and reduced him to a state which he picturesquely describes +as resembling that of "a dog in a coal-box," he picks him up and +philosophically informs him that "all the different styles of fence were +invented and established for man's protection, not for his destruction. +Besides," he adds, with much profundity, "the laws thereto appertaining +are based on certain strict principles of honor, which you have +unquestionably violated in this case. Now, take my advice, never again +engage in fight without having some just cause of quarrel. Thus, at +least, you will always come off with credit, if not with victory." And +having delivered himself of this stupendous moral lesson, Dr. Samuel +Johnson Mendoza John Brown puts on his hat (he surely ought to have +had a full-bottomed wig under it) and walks off, leaving his opponent +doubtless more like a dog in a coal-box than ever. He sees Dr. +Abernethy, and rises into this inspired strain: "To me, who have ever +held genius and talent in veneration, as being + + "'Olympus-high above all earthly things,' + +the sight of this plain, unostentatious man afforded more pleasurable +feelings than could all the gilded pomp beneath the sun." One can fancy, +if John had communicated this reflection to the Doctor, what would have +been the reply of that suave practitioner. He goes to low dance-houses, +and the interesting result of his reflections on what he beheld there +is, "that vice, however gilded over, is still a hideous monster; in +which conviction, I resigned myself to that power that 'must delight in +virtue.'" When he speaks of his billiard-pupils, he loftily denominates +them "hundreds of the best gentlemen-players scattered over the earth's +surface," from which we draw the pleasing inference that none of John +Brown's scholars are addicted to subterranean billiards. + +In spite of these rags of old college-gowns, in which John so funnily +arrays himself on occasions, his book is worth reading. If it has not +the muscular, unaffected morality of his namesake's unsurpassable +"School-Days at Rugby," it is at least the production of an honest, +hearty Englishman, and teaches an excellent lesson on the value of pluck +and perseverance. + + +_Colton's Illustrated Cabinet Atlas and Descriptive Geography._ Maps by +G.W. COLTON. Text by R.S. FISHER. New YORK: J.H. Colton & Co. 4to. pp. +400. + +This work meets an acknowledged want; it combines in one convenient +volume most of the desirable features of the larger atlases, being full +enough in detail for all ordinary purposes, without being cumbersome and +costly. It is prefaced by a clear and well-digested statement of the +laws of Physical Geography, "based," as the publishers say, "upon the +excellent treatise on the same subject found in the Atlas of Milner and +Petermann, recently published in London." The maps are one hundred and +sixteen in number, admirably engraved, and, what especially enhances +their value, they are draughted on easily-convertible scales,--one inch +always representing ten, twenty-five, fifty, one hundred, or other +number of miles readily comparable. They include the results of the +latest explorations of travellers, and the newest settlements made by +the English and Americans. + +The descriptions are full and accurate, and the statistics of +population, trade, public and private institutions, etc., are convenient +for reference. This department is illustrated by over six hundred +wood-cuts. + +This Atlas may, therefore, fairly claim rank as a Cyclopaedia of +Geography, and for the household and school it is one of the most useful +publications of our time. The attention now everywhere excited by +proposed or impending changes in the boundary-lines of European States, +by the inroads of Western civilization in the East, by the settlement of +the Pacific Islands, and by the growth of empire on the western coast of +our own country, renders the publication of a compendious work like this +very timely. + + +_Poems._ By OWEN MEREDITH. The Wanderer and Clytemnestra. Boston: +Ticknor & Fields. 18mo. + +The author of these poems is Robert Bulwer Lytton, the son of the +eminent novelist. Though still very young, he has reached the honor of +being arrayed in Ticknor and Fields's "blue and gold," the paradisiacal +condition of contemporary poets; and his works occupy, in words, though +not in matter, as much space as Tennyson's. The volume includes all the +poems which Lytton has published up to the present time. The general +characteristics of his Muse are fluency, fancy, melody, and sensibility. +The diligent reader will detect, throughout the volume, the traces of +the author's sympathy with other poets, especially Tennyson, and, +amid all the opulence of expression and intensity of feeling, will be +sensible of the lack of decided original genius and character. There is +evidence of intellect and imagination, but they are at present tossed +somewhat wildly about in a tumult of sensations and passions, and have +not yet mastered their instruments. But the poems, as they are the +product of a young man, so they possess all the attractions which allure +young readers. It would not be surprising, if they obtained a popularity +equal to those of Alexander Smith; for they give even more musical +utterance to the loves, hopes, exultations, regrets, and despairs of +youth, and indicate the same hot blood. They are also characterized by +similar vagueness of thought and vividness of fancy, in those passages +where sensibility turns theorist and philosophizes on its gratified or +battled sensations,--while they generally evince wider culture, larger +superficial experience of life, a more controlling sense of the +beautiful, and an equal facility of self-abandonment to the passion of +the moment. + +Leaving out those poems which are repetitions or imitations, a thin +volume might be made containing some striking examples of original +perception and original experience. Among these the charming little +piece entitled "Madame La Marquise" would hold a prominent place. After +making, however, all deductions from the pretensions of the volume, it +may be said, that the father, at the same age, did not indicate so much +talent as the son. + + +_Symbols of the Capital; or Civilization in New York._ By A.D. MAYO. +12mo. + +This is a clear and forcibly written exposition of the tendencies of +American society, as surveyed from the point of view of an earnest, +practical, and dispassionate reformer. The essays on Town and Country +Life, those on Education, Art, and Religion, the Forces of Free Labor, +and the Gold Dollar, exhibit equal independence of thought and extent +of information. In the essay on the Position of Woman in America, a +difficult theme is discussed with candor and sagacity. We have rarely +seen a volume to which the conscientious adversaries of the reforms of +the day could go for a more lucid statement of the opinions they oppose; +and it is admirably calculated to effect the purpose the author had in +view, namely, "to aid the young men and women of our land in their +attempt to realize a character that shall justify our professions of +republicanism, and to establish a civilization which, in becoming +national, shall illustrate every principle of a pure Christianity." + + +_The Avenger, a Narrative; and other Papers._ By THOMAS DE QUINCEY, +Author of "Confessions of an Opium-Eater," etc. Boston: Ticknor & +Fields. 16mo. + +This is the twenty-first volume of De Quincey's miscellaneous writings, +collected by the indefatigable American editor, Mr. James T. Fields. +It contains "The Avenger," a powerful story of wrong and revenge; +"Additions to the Confessions of an Opium-Eater"; "Supplementary Note +on the Essenes," in which the theory of the original paper is supported +against objections by some new arguments; a long paper on "China," +published in 1857, and full of information in regard to that empire; and +"Traditions of the Rabbins," one of the most exquisite papers in the +list of the author's writings. + + +_The Life of George Herbert. _By GEORGE L. DUYCKINCK. New York: 1858. +pp. 197. + +We have too long neglected to do our share in bringing this delightful +little book to the notice of the lovers of holy George Herbert, +among whom we may safely reckon a large number of the readers of the +"Atlantic." It is based on the life by Izaak Walton, but contains much +new matter, either out of Walton's reach or beyond the range of his +sympathy. Notices are given of Nicholas Ferrar and other friends +of Herbert. There is a very agreeable sketch of Bemerton and its +neighborhood, as it now is, and the neat illustrations are of the kind +that really illustrate. The Brothers Duyckinck are well known for their +unpretentious and valuable labors in the cause of good letters and +American literary history, and this is precisely such a book as we +should expect from the taste, scholarship, and purity of mind which +distinguish both of them. It is much the best account of Herbert with +which we are acquainted. + + +_Lectures on Metaphysics._ By SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART., Professor of +Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. Edited by the +Rev. Henry Longueville Mansel, B.D., Oxford, and John Veitch, M.A., +Edinburgh. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 8vo. + +Few persons, with any pretensions to a knowledge of the metaphysicians +of the century, are unacquainted with Sir William Hamilton. His articles +in the "Edinburgh Review" on Cousin and Dr. Brown, and his Dissertations +on Reid, are the most important contributions to philosophy made in +Great Britain for many years. The present volume contains his Course +of Lectures, forty-six in number, which he delivered as Professor +of Metaphysics; and being intended for young students, they are, as +compared with his other works, more comprehensible without being less +comprehensive. The most conclusive proof of the excellence of these +Lectures is to be found in their influence on the successive classes of +students before whom they were pronounced. The universal testimony of +the young men who were fortunate enough to listen to Hamilton has been, +that his teaching not only inspired them with an enthusiasm for the +science, and gave them clear ideas and accurate information, but +directly aided them in the discipline of their minds. Some of his +students became, later in life, champions of his system; others became +its opponents; but opponents as well as champions warmly professed their +obligations to their instructor, and dated their interest in philosophy +from the period when they were brought by these Lectures within the +contagious sphere of his powerful intellect. So numerous were these +testimonials, that they gradually roused public curiosity to see +and read what was so effective as spoken. That curiosity has now an +opportunity of being gratified, and we do not doubt that these Lectures +will have a greater popularity than usually attends philosophical +publications. The American publishers deserve thanks for the cheap, +compact, and elegant form of their reprint. + +We have no space to present here an exposition of Hamilton's system, or +to discuss any of its leading principles. We can merely allude to some +characteristics of his mode of thinking and writing which make his +Lectures of especial value to those who propose to begin the study of +metaphysics, or whose knowledge of the science is superficial. Hamilton +has the immense advantage of being a scholar in that large sense which +implies the exercise, not merely of attention and memory, but of every +faculty of the mind, in the acquisition and arrangement of knowledge. +His erudition is great, but it is also critical and interpretative. He +knows intimately every philosophical writer from the dawn of speculation +to the last German thinker, including the somewhat neglected Schoolmen +of the Middle Ages; and in this volume, every important question that +arises is historically as well as analytically treated, and the names +are given of the thinkers on both sides. In the course of one or two +sentences, he often places the reader in a position to view a principle, +not only in itself, but in relation to the controversies which have +raged round it for two thousand years. Hamilton's erudition is +also displayed in the quotations with which his pages are +sprinkled,--fragrant sentences, which came originally from the +imagination or character of the writers he quotes, and which relieve his +own abstract propositions and reasonings with concrete beauty or truth. +Most of these quotations will be novel even to advanced students. + +Hamilton is also admirable in statement. Confusion, vacillation, +obscurity, uncertainty, are as foreign to his style as to his mind. He +is almost rigid in his precision. Every word has its meaning, and +every idea its stern, sure, decisive statement. His masterly powers +of analysis, of reasoning, of generalization, are always adequately +exhibited by a corresponding mastery of expression. The study of such a +volume as the present is itself an education in statement and logic; and +that it will be studied by thousands, in the colleges and out of the +colleges of the country, we cannot but hope. + + +_Allibone's Dictionary of Authors._ Philadelphia: Childs & Peterson, +1858. Vol. I. pp. 1005. + +Leigh Hunt, in one of his Essays, speaks of the wishful thrill with +which, in looking over an index, he wondered if ever his name would +appear under the letter H in the reversed order (Hunt, Leigh) peculiar +to that useful and too much neglected field of literary achievement. In +Mr. Allibone's Dictionary he would see his wish more than satisfied; for +if he turn up "Hunt, Leigh," he will find a reference to "Hunt, James +Henry Leigh," and under that head a list of his works, more complete, +perhaps, than he himself could easily have drawn up. + +In glancing along the leaves of a collection like this, one's heart is +touched with something of the same vague pathos that dims the eye in a +graveyard. What a necrology of notability! How many a controversialist +who made a great stir in his day, how many a once rising genius, how +many a withering satirist, lies here shrunk all away to the tombstone +immortality of a name and date! Think of the aspirations, the dreams, +the hopes, the toil, the confidence (of himself and wife) in an +impartial and generous posterity;--and then read "Smith J.(ohn?) +1713-1784(?). The Vision of Immortality, an Epic Poem in Twelve Books, +1740, 4to. _See Lowndes._" The time of his own death less certain than +that of his poem, which we may fix pretty safely in 1740,--and the only +posterity that took any interest in him the indefatigable Lowndes! Well, +even a bibliographic indemnity for contemporary neglect, to have so +much as your title-page read after it is a century old, and to enjoy a +posthumous public of one, is better than nothing. + +A volume like Mr. Allibone's--so largely a hospital for incurable +forgottenhoods--is better than any course of philosophy to the young +author. Let him reckon how many of the ten thousand or so names here +recorded he has ever heard of before, let him make this myriad the +denominator of a fraction to which the dozen perennial fames shall +be the numerator, and he will find that his dividend of a chance at +escaping speedy extinction is not worth making himself unhappy about. +Should some statistician make such a book the basis for constructing the +tables of a fame-insurance company, the rates at which alone policies +could be safely issued would put them beyond the reach of all except +those who did not need them. After all, perhaps, the next best thing to +being famous or infamous is to be utterly forgotten; for that, at least, +is to accomplish a decisive result by living. To hang on the perilous +edge of immortality by the nails, liable at any moment to drop into the +waters of Oblivion, is at best a questionable beatitude. + +But if a dictionary of this kind give rise to some melancholy +reflections, it is not without suggestions of a more soothing character. +We are reminded by it of the tender-heartedness of Chaucer, who, in the +"House of Fame," after speaking of Orpheus and Arion, (Mr. Tyrwhitt +calls him Orion,) and Cheiron and Glasgerion, has a kind word for the +lesser minstrels that play on pipes made of straw,-- + + "Such as have the little herd-groomes + That keepen beastes in the broomes." + +This is the true Valhalla of Mediocrity, the _libra d'oro_ of the +_onymi-anonymi_, of the never-named authors who exist only in +name,--Parson Adams would be here, had he found a printer for his +sermons, Mr. Primrose for his tracts on Monogamy,--and not merely +such _nominum umbroe_ of the past, but that still stranger class of +ancient-moderns, preterite-presents, dead (and something more) as +authors, but still to be met with in the flesh as solid men and +brethren,--privileged, alas, to outstay cockcrow when they drop in of an +evening to give you their views on the aims and tendencies of periodical +literature. Will it be nothing, if we should be untimely snatched +away from our present sphere of usefulness, to those shadowy [Greek: +pleiones] who lived too soon to enjoy their monthly dip in the +ATLANTIC,--will it be nothing, we say, that our orphaned Papyrorcetes, +junior, will be able to read the name of his lamented parent on the +nine-hundredth page of Allibone,--occupying, at least, an entire line, +and therefore (as we gather from a hasty calculation) sure forever of +1/360,000th of the attention of whoever reads the book through? This +is a handy and inexpensive substitute for the _imagines_ of the Roman +nobles; for those were inconvenient to pack on a change of lodgings, +liable to melt in warm weather,--even the elder Brutus himself might +soften in August,--and not readily salable, unless to a _novus homo_ who +wished to buy a set of ancestors ready-made, as some of our enthusiastic +genealogists are said to order a family-tree from the heraldic +nursery-man skilled to graft a slip of Scroggins on a stock of De Vere +or Montmorenci. Contemporary glory is comparatively dear; it is sold by +the column,--for columns have got over their Horatian antipathies; but +the bibliographer will thank you for the name of any man that has ever +printed a book, nay, his gratitude will glow in exact proportion to the +obscurity of the author, and one may thus confer perpetuity at +least (which is a kind of Tithonus-immortality) upon some respected +progenitor, or assure it to himself, with little trouble and at the cost +of a postage-stamp. + +The benignity of Providence is nowhere more strongly marked than in its +compensations; and what can be more beautiful than the arrangement by +which the same harmless disinterestedness of matter and style that once +made an author the favorite of trunk-makers and grocers should, by +thus leading to the quiet absorption of his works, make them sure of +commemoration by Brunet or Lowndes and of commanding famine-prices under +the hammer? Fame, like electricity, is thus positive and negative; and +if a writer must be Somebody to make himself of permanent interest to +the world at large, he must not less be Nobody--like Junius--to have his +namelessness embalmed by Mons. Guérard. Take comfort, therefore, all ye +who either make paper invaluable or worthless by the addition of your +autograph! for your dice (as the Abbé Galiani said of Nature's) are +always loaded, and you may make your book the heir of Memory in two +ways,--by contriving to get the fire of genius into it, or to get it +into the fire by the hands of the hangman. Milton's "Areopagitica" is an +example of one method, and the "Philostratus" of Blount (who pillaged +the "Areopagitica") of the other. And yet, again, how perverse is human +nature! how more perverse is literary taste! There is a large class +of men madly desirous to read cuneiform and runic inscriptions simply +because of their unreadableness, adding to our compulsory stock of +knowledge about the royal Smiths and Joneses of to-day much conjectural +and conflicting information concerning their royal prototypes of an +antiquity unknown, and, as we fondly hoped, unknowable. Were there only +a compensatory arrangement for this also in another class who should be +driven by a like irresistible instinct to unreadable books, the heart +of the political economist would be gladdened at seeing the substantial +rewards of authorship so much more equally distributed by means of a +demand adapted to the always abundant supply. + +We should like Mr. Allibone's book better, if it were more exclusively a +dictionary of names, facts, editions, and dates, and allowed less +space (or none at all) to opinions. The contemporaneous judgments of +individual critics upon writers of original power are commonly of little +value, and are absolutely worthless when an author's fame has struck its +roots down into the kindly soil of national or European appreciation, +when his work has won that "perfect witness of all-judging Jove" which +cannot be begged or bought. When the criticism is anonymous, (as are +many of those cited by Mr. Allibone,) it has not even the reflected +interest, as a measure of the critic himself, which we find sometimes +in the incapacity of a strong nature to appreciate a great one, as in +Johnson's opinion of Milton, for instance,--or of a delicate mind to +comprehend an imaginative one, as in Addison's of Bunyan. In the article +"Carlyle," for example, (by the way, John A. Carlyle is omitted,) we +should have been better content, if Mr. Allibone (instead of letting us +know what "Blackwood's Magazine" thinks of a writer who, whatever his +faults of style, has probably influenced the thought of his generation +more than any other man) had given us the date of the first publication +of "Cromwell's Letters and Speeches," and had mentioned that the +original collection of the "Miscellanies" was made in America. (This +last we have since found alluded to under "De Quincey.") Sometimes the +editor himself intrudes remarks which are quite out of keeping with the +character of such a work. We will give an instance which caught our +eye in turning over the leaves. After giving the title of "The Rare +Trauailes" of Job Hortop, Mr. Allibone adds, "We trust that in the +home-relation of his 'Rare Trauails among wilde and sauage people' the +_raconteur_ did not yield to the temptation of 'pulling the long bow,' +for the purpose of increasing the amazement of his wondering auditors." +Now if Mr. Allibone knew nothing about Hortop, he should have said +nothing. If the edition of 1591 was inaccessible to him, he could have +found out what kind of a story-teller our ancient mariner was in the +third volume of Hakluyt. We resent this slur upon Job the more because +he happens to be a favorite of ours, and saw no more wonders than +travellers of that day had the happy gift of seeing. We remember he got +sight of a very fine merman in the neighborhood of the Bermudas; but +then stout Sir John Hawkins was as lucky. + +The two criticisms we have made touch, one of them the plan of the work, +and the other its manner. We have one more to make, which, perhaps, +should properly have come under the former of these two heads;--it +is that Mr. Allibone allows a disproportionate space to the smaller +celebrities of the day in comparison with those of the past. In such +an undertaking, the amount of interest which the general public may be +supposed to take in comparatively local notabilities should, it seems to +us, be measured on a scale whose degrees are generations. + +Mr. Allibone's good-nature has misled him in some cases to the allowance +of manifest disproportions. Twice as much room, for instance, is allowed +to Mr. Dallas as to Emerson. Mr. Dallas has been Vice-President of the +United States; Emerson is one of the few masters of the English tongue, +and both by teaching and practical example has done more to make the +life of the scholar beautiful, and the career of the man of letters a +reproof to all low aims and an inspiration to all high ones, than any +other man in America. + +What we have said has been predicated upon the general impression left +on our minds after dipping into the book here and there almost at +random. But on opening it again, we find so much that is interesting, +even in those articles which are most expansive and gossiping, that we +are almost inclined to draw our pen through what we have written in the +way of objection, and merely express our gratitude to Mr. Allibone for +what he has done. We have been led to speak of what we consider the +defects, or rather the redundancies, of the "Dictionary," because we +believe, that, if less bulky, it would be more certain of the +wide distribution it so highly deserves. It is a shrewd saying of +Vauvenargues, that it is "_un grand signe de médiocrité de louer +toujours modérément_," and we have no desire to expose the "Atlantic" to +a charge so fatal by showing ourselves cold to the uncommon merits of +Mr. Allibone's achievement. The book is rather entitled to be called an +Encyclopaedia than a Dictionary. As the work of a single man, it is one +of the wonders of literary industry. The amount of labor implied in it +is enormous, and its general accuracy, considering the immense number +and variety of particulars, remarkable. A kindly and impartial spirit +makes itself felt everywhere,--by no means an easy or inconsiderable +merit. We have already had occasion several times to test its practical +value by use, and can recommend it from actual experiment. Every man +who ever owned an English book, or ever means to own one, will find +something here to his purpose. + +That a volume so comprehensive in its scope and so multitudinous in its +details should be wholly without errors and omissions is impossible; and +we trust that any of our readers who detect such will discharge a part +of the obligation they are under to Mr. Allibone by communicating them +to him for the benefit of a second edition. + + +1. _Trübner's Bibliographical Guide to American Literature._ London: +TRÜBNER & CO. 1859. pp. cxlix., 554. 8vo. + +2. _Index to the Catalogue of a Portion of the Public Library of the +City of Boston._ 1858. pp. 204. + +Next to knowledge itself, perhaps the best thing is to know where to +find it. To make an index that shall combine completeness, succinctness, +and clearness,--how much intelligence this demands is proved by the +number of failures. Mr. Trübner's volume contains, 1st, some valuable +bibliographical prolegomena by the editor himself; 2d, an historical +sketch of American literature, which is not very well done by Mr. Moran, +and would have been admirably done by Mr. Duyckinck; 3d, a full and very +interesting account of American libraries by Mr. Edwards; and 4th, a +classed list of books written and published in the United States during +the last forty years, arranged in thirty-one appropriate departments, +with a supplementary thirty-second of _Addenda_. In some instances,--as +in giving tables of the proceedings of learned societies,--the period +embraced is nearly a century. A general alphabetical index completes +the volume. The several heads are, Bibliography, Collections, Theology, +Jurisprudence, Medicine and Surgery, Natural History (in five +subdivisions), Chemistry and Pharmacy, Natural Philosophy, Mathematics +and Astronomy, Philosophy, Education (in three subdivisions), Modern +Languages, Philology, American Antiquities, Indians and Languages, +History (in three subdivisions), Geography, Useful Arts, Military +Science, Naval Science, Rural and Domestic Economy, Politics, Commerce, +Belles Lettres, Fine Arts, Music, Freemasonry, Mormonism, Spiritualism, +Guide Books, Maps and Atlases, Periodicals. This list is enough to show +the great value of the "Guide" to students and collectors. The volume +will serve to give both Americans and Europeans a juster notion of the +range and tendency, as well as amount, of literary activity in the +United States. As the work of a cultivated and intelligent foreigner, it +has all the more claim to our acknowledgment, and also to our indulgence +where we discover omissions or inaccuracies. + +The second volume whose title stands at the head of our article would +demand no special notice from us, were it not for the admirable manner +in which it is executed and the judgment evinced in the selection of the +books which it catalogues. The Boston Library may well be congratulated +on having at its head a gentleman so experienced and competent as +Professor Jewett. He has hitherto distinguished himself in a department +of literature in which little notoriety is to be won, his labors +in which, however, are appreciated by the few whose quiet suffrage +outvalues the noisy applause of the moment. His little work on the +"Construction of Library Catalogues" is a truly valuable contribution to +letters, rendering, as it does, the work of classification more easy, +and increasing the chances of our getting good general directories to +the books already in our libraries, without which the number of volumes +we gather is only an increase of incumbrance. It is a great detriment to +sound and exhaustive scholarship, that the books for students to read +should be left to chance; and we owe a great deal more than we are apt +to acknowledge to men who, like Mr. Jewett, enable us to find out the +books that will really help us. Dr. Johnson, to be sure, commends the +habit of "browsing" in libraries; and this will do very well for those +whose memory clinches, like the tentacula of zoöphytes, around every +particle of nourishment that comes within its reach. But the habit tends +rather to make ready talkers than thorough scholars; and he who is left +to his chances in a collection of books grasps like a child in the +"grab-bag" at a fair, and gets, in nine cases out of ten, precisely what +he does not want. + +We think that a great mistake is made in the multiplying of libraries +in the same neighborhood, unless for some specialty, such as Natural +History or the like. It is sad to think of the money thus wasted in +duplicates and triplicates. Rivalry in such cases is detrimental rather +than advantageous to the interests of scholarship. Instead of one good +library, we get three poor ones; and so, instead of twenty men of real +learning, we are vexed with a score of sciolists, who are so through +no fault of their own. We hope that the movement now on foot, to give +something like adequacy to the University Library at Cambridge, will +receive the aid it deserves, not only from graduates of the College, but +from all persons interested in the literary advancement of the country. +So there be one really good library in the United States, it matters +little where it is, for students will find it,--and they should at least +be spared the necessity of going abroad in order to master any branch of +learning. + +A great library is of incalculable benefit to any community. It saves +infinite waste of time to the thinker by enabling him to know what has +already been thought. It is of greater advantage (and that advantage is +of a higher kind) than any seminary of learning, for it supplies the +climate and atmosphere, without which good seed is sown in vain. It is +not merely that books are the "precious life-blood of master-spirits," +and to be prized for what they contain, but they are still more useful +for what they prevent. The more a man knows, the less will he be apt to +think he knows, the less rash will he be in conclusion, and the less +hasty in utterance. It is of great consequence to the minds of most +men how they _begin_ to think, and many an intellect has been lamed +irretrievably for steady and lofty flight by toppling out into the +helpless void of opinion with wings yet callow. The gross and carnal +hallucinations of what is called "Spiritualism"--the weakest-kneed of +all whimsies that have come upon the parish from the days of the augurs +down to our own--would be disenchanted at once in a neighborhood +familiar with Del Rio, Wierus, Bodin, Scot, Glanvil, Webster, Casaubon, +and the Mathers. Good books are the enemies of delusion, the most +effectual extinguishers of self-conceit. Impersonal, dispassionate, +self-possessed, they reason without temper, and remain forever of the +same mind without obstinacy. The man who has the freedom of a great +library lengthens his own life without the weariness of living; he may +include all past generations in his experience without risk of senility; +not yet fifty, he may have made himself the contemporary of "the +world's gray fathers"; and with no advantages of birth or person, he may +have been admitted to the selectest society of all times and lands. + +We live in the hope of seeing, if not a great library somewhere on this +continent, at least the foundations of such a one, laid broad enough and +deep enough to change hope into a not too remote certainty. Hitherto +America has erected but one statue in commemoration of a scholar, and we +cannot help wishing that the money that has been wasted in setting up +in effigy one or two departed celebrities we could mention had been +appropriated to a means of culture which, perhaps more than any other, +would be likely to give us men worthy of bronze or marble, but above the +necessity of them for memory. + + * * * * * + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS. + + +The Poetical Works of William Motherwell; with a Memoir of his Life. +Fourth Edition, greatly Enlarged. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 32mo. pp. +308. 75 cts. + +The Avenger, a Narrative; and other Papers. By Thomas De Quincey. +Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. 327. 75 cts. + +Life of William Pitt. By Lord Macaulay. Preceded by the Life of the Earl +of Chatham. New York. Delisser & Proctor. 32mo. pp. 227. 50 cts. + +Shakspeare's Legal Acquirements Considered. By John Lord Campbell, +LL.D., F.R.S.E. In a Letter to J. 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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 3, No. 20, June, 1859 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: March 28, 2004 [eBook #11751] +[Date last updated: August 27, 2005] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 3, NO. +20, JUNE, 1859*** + + +E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen, and Project Gutenberg +Distributed Proofreaders + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. III.--JUNE, 1859.--NO. XX. + + + + + + + +SHAKSPEARE'S ART. + + "Yet must I not give Nature all; thy Art, + My gentle SHAKSPEARE, must enjoy a part. + For though the poet's matter Nature be, + His Art doth give the fashion."--Ben Jonson. + + +Whoever would learn to think naturally, clearly, logically, and to +express himself intelligibly and earnestly, let him give his days and +nights to WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. His ear will thus accustom itself to forms +of phrase whose only mannerism is occasioned by the fulness of thought +and the directness of expression; and he will not easily, through the +habits which either his understanding or his ear will acquire, fall into +the fluent cadences of that sort of writing in which words are used +without discrimination of their nice meanings,--where the sentences are +only a smoothly-undulating current of common phrases, in which it takes +a page to say weakly what should be said forcibly in a few periods. + +These are somewhat novel arguments for the study of one whom all the +world has so long reverenced as "the great poet of Nature." But they may +properly serve to introduce a consideration of the sense in which +that phrase should be understood,--an attempt, in short, to look +into Shakspeare's modes of creation, and define his relations, as an +_artist_, with Nature. + +We shall perhaps be excused the suggestion, that a poet cannot be +natural in the same sense that a fool may be; he cannot be _a_ +natural,--since, if he is, he is not a poet. For to be a poet implies +the ability to use ideas and forms of speech artistically, as well as to +have an eye in a fine frenzy rolling. This is a distinction which all +who write on poets or poetry should forever seek to keep clear by new +illustrations. The poet has poetic powers that are born with him; but he +must also have a power over language, skill in arrangement, a thousand, +yes, a myriad, of powers which he was born with only the ability to +acquire, and to use after their acquirement. In ranking Shakspeare the +great poet of Nature, it is meant that he had the purpose and the power +to think what was natural, and to select and follow it,--that, among his +thick-coming fancies, he could perceive what was too fine, what tinged +with personal vanity, what incongruous, unsuitable, feeble, strained, in +short, unnatural, and reject it. His vision was so strong that he saw +his characters and identified himself with them, yet preserving his cool +judgment above them, and subjecting all he felt through them to its +test, and developing it through this artificial process of writing. This +vision and high state of being he could assume and keep up and work out +through days and weeks, foreseeing the end from the beginning, retaining +himself, and determining long before how many acts his work should be, +what should be its plot, what the order of its scenes, what personages +he would introduce, and where the main passions of the work should be +developed. His fancy, which enabled him to see the stage and all its +characters,--almost to _be_ them,--was so under the control of his +imagination, that it did not, through any interruptions while he was at +his labor, beguile him with caprices. The _gradation_ or action of his +work, opens and grows under his creative hand; twenty or more characters +appear, (in some plays nearly forty, as in "Antony and Cleopatra" and +the "First Part of Henry the Sixth,") who are all distinguished, who +are all more or less necessary to the plot or the underplots, and who +preserve throughout an identity that is life itself; all this is done, +and the imagined state, the great power by which this evolution of +characters and scene and story be carried on, is always under the +control of the poet's will, and the direction of his taste or critical +judgment. He chooses to set his imagination upon a piece of work, he +selects his plot, conceives the action, the variety of characters, and +all their doings; as he goes on reflecting upon them, his imagination +warms, and excites his fancy; he sees and identifies himself with his +characters, lives a secondary life in his work, as one may in a dream +which he directs and yet believes in; his whole soul becomes more active +under this fervor of the imagination, the fancy, and all the powers of +suggestion,--yet, still, the presiding judgment remains calm above all, +guiding the whole; and above or behind that, the will which elects to do +all this, perchance for a very simple purpose,--namely, for filthy lucre, +the purchase-money of an estate in Stratford. + +To say that he "followed Nature" is to mean that he permits his thoughts +to flow out in the order in which thoughts naturally come,--that he +makes his characters think as we all fancy we should think under the +circumstances in which he places them,--that it is the truth of his +thoughts which first impresses us. It is in this respect that he is +so universal; and it is by his universality that his naturalness is +confirmed. Not all his finer strokes of genius, but the general scope +and progress of his mind, are within the path all other minds travel; +his mind _answers_ to all other men's minds, and hence is like the voice +of Nature, which, apart from particular association, addresses all +alike. The cataracts, the mountains, the sea, the landscapes, the +changes of season and weather have each the same general meaning to +all mankind. So it is with Shakspeare, both in the conception and +development of his characters, and in the play of his reflections and +fancies. All the world recognizes his sanity, and the health and beauty +of his genius. + +Not all the world, either. Nature's poet fares no better than Nature +herself. Half the world is out of the pale of knowledge; a good part +of the rest are stunted by cant in its Protean shapes, or by inherited +narrowness and prejudice, and innumerable soul-cankers. They neither +know nor think of Nature or Poetry. Just as there are hundreds in all +great cities who never leave their accustomed streets winter or summer, +until finally they lose all curiosity, and cease to feel the yearnings +of that love which all are born with for the sight of the land and +sea,--the dear face of our common mother. Or the creatures who compose +the numerical majority of the world are rather like the children of some +noble lady stolen away by gypsies, and taught to steal and cheat and +beg, and practised in low arts, till they utterly forget the lawns +whereon they once played; and if their mother ever discovers them, their +natures are so subdued that they neither recognize her nor wish to go +with her. + +Without fearing that Shakspeare can ever lose his empire while the +language lasts, it is humiliating to be obliged to acknowledge one +great cause that is operating to keep him from thousands of our young +countrymen and women, namely, the wide-spread _mediocrity_ that is +created and sustained by the universal diffusion of our so-called +cheap literature;--dear enough it will prove by and by!--But this is +needlessly digressing. + +The very act of writing implies an art not born with the poet. This +process of forming letters and words with a pen is not natural, nor +will the poetic frenzy inspire us with the art to go through it. In +conceiving the language of passion, the _natural_ impulse is to imitate +the passion in gesture; there is something artificial in sitting quietly +at a table and hollaing, "Mortimer!" through a quill. If Hotspur's +language is in the highest degree natural, it is because the poet felt +the character, and words suggested themselves to him which he chose and +wrote down. The act of choice might have been almost spontaneous with +the feeling of the character and the situation, yet it was there,--the +conscious judgment was present; and if the poet wrote the first words +that came, (as no doubt he usually did,) it was because he was satisfied +with them at the time; there was no paroxysm of poetic inspiration,--the +workings of his mind were sane. His fertility was such that he was not +obliged to pause and compare every expression with all others he could +think of as appropriate;--judgment may decide swiftly and without +comparison, especially when it is supervising the suggestions of a vivid +fancy, and still be judgment, or taste, if we choose to call it by that +name. We know by the result whether it was present. The poet rapt into +unconsciousness would soon betray himself. Under the power of the +imagination, all his faculties waken to a higher life; his fancies are +more vivid and clear; all the suggestions that come to him are more +apt and congruous; and his faculties of selection, his perceptions of +fitness, beauty, and appropriateness of relation are more keen and +watchful. No lapse in what he writes at such times indicates aught +like dreaming or madness, or any condition of mind incompatible with +soundness and health,--with that perfect sanity in which all the mental +powers move in order and harmony under the control of the rightful +sovereign, Reason. + +These observations are not intended to bear, except remotely, upon the +question, Which is the true Dramatic Art, the romantic or the ancient? +We shall not venture into that land of drought, where dry minds forever +wander. We can admit both schools. In fact, even the countrymen of +Racine have long since admitted both,--speculatively, at least,--though +practically their temperament will always confine them to artificial +models. We may consider the question as set at rest in these words of M. +Guizot:--"Everything which men acknowledge as beautiful in Art owes its +effect to certain combinations, of which our reason can always detect +the secret when our emotions have attested its power. The science--or +the employment of these combinations--constitutes what we call Art. +Shakspeare had his own. We must detect it in his works, and examine the +means he employs and the results he aims at." Although we should be +far from admitting so general a definition of Art as this, yet it is +sufficient as an answer to the admirers of the purely classic school. + +But it has become necessary in this "spasmodic" day to vindicate +our great poet from the supposition of having written in a state of +somnambulism,--to show that he was even an _artist_, without reference +to schools. The scope of our observations is to exhibit him in that +light; we wish to insist that he was a man of forethought,--that, though +possessing creative genius, he did not dive recklessly into the sea of +his fancy without knowing its depth, and ready to grasp every pebble for +a pearl-shell; we wish to show that he was not what has been called, in +the cant of a class who mistake lawlessness for liberty, an "earnest +creature,"--that he was not "fancy's child" in any other sense than as +having in his power a beautifully suggestive fancy, and that he "warbled +his native wood-notes wild" in no other meaning than as Milton warbled +his organ-notes,--namely, through the exercise of conscious Art, of Art +that displayed itself not only in the broad outlines of his works, but +in their every character and shade of color. With this purpose we +have urged that he was "natural" from taste and choice,--artistically +natural. To illustrate the point, let us consider his Art alone in a few +passages. + +We will suppose, preliminarily, however, that we are largely interested +in the Globe Theatre, and that, in order to keep it up and continue to +draw good houses, we must write a new piece,--that, last salary-day, +we fell short, and were obliged to borrow twenty pounds of my Lord +Southampton to pay our actors. Something must be done. We look into our +old books and endeavor to find a plot out of ancient story, in the same +manner that Sir Hugh Evans would hunt for a text for a sermon. At length +one occurs that pleases our fancy; we revolve it over and over in our +mind,--and at last, after some days' thought, elaborate from it the plot +of a play,--"TIMON OF ATHENS,"--which plot we make a memorandum of, +lest we should forget it. Meantime, we are busy at the theatre with +rehearsals, changes of performance, bill-printing, and a hundred +thousand similar matters that must be each day disposed of. But we keep +our newly-thought-of play in mind at odd intervals, good things occur to +us as we are walking in the street, and we begin to long to be at it. +The opening scenes we have quite clearly in our eye, and we almost know +the whole; or it may be, _vice versa_, that we work out the last scenes +first; at all events, we have them hewn out in the rough, so that we +work the first with an intention of making them conform to a something +which is to succeed; and we are so sure of our course that we have no +dread of the something after,--nothing to puzzle the will, or make us +think too precisely on the event. Such is the condition of mind in which +we finally begin our labor. Some Wednesday afternoon in a holiday-week, +when the theatres are closed, we find ourselves sitting at a desk before +a sea-coal fire in a quaintly panelled rush-strewn chamber, the pen in +our hand, nibbed with a "Rogers's" pen-knife, [A] and the blank page +beneath it. + +[Footnote A: "A Shefeld thwitel bare he in his hose."--CHAUCER. _The +Reve's Tale._] + +We desire the reader to close his eyes for a moment and endeavor to +fancy himself in the position of William Shakspeare about to write a +piece,--the play abovenamed. This may be attempted without presumption. +We wish to recall and make real the fact that our idol was a man, +subject to the usual circumstances of men living in his time, and to +those which affect all men at all times,--that he had the same round of +day and night to pass through, the same common household accidents which +render "no man a hero to his valet." The world was as real to him as it +is to us. The dreamy past, of two hundred and fifty years since, was to +him the present of one of the most stirring periods in history, when +wonders were born quite as frequently as they are now. + +And having persuaded the reader to place himself in Shakspeare's +position, we will make one more very slight request, which is, that he +will occupy another chair in the same chamber and fancy that he sees the +immortal dramatist begin a work,--still keeping himself so far in his +position that he can observe the workings of his mind as he writes. + +Shakspeare has fixed upon a name for his piece, and he writes it,--he +that the players told Ben Jonson "never blotted a line." It is the +tragedy,-- + +TIMON OF ATHENS. + +He will have it in five acts, as the best form; and he has fixed upon +his _dramatis personae_, at least the principal of them, for he names +them on the margin as he writes. He uses twelve in the first scene, some +of whom he has no occasion for but to bring forward the character of his +hero; but they are all individualized while he employs them. The scene +he has fixed upon; this is present to his mind's eye; and as he cannot +afterwards alter it without making his characters talk incongruously and +being compelled to rewrite the whole, he writes it down thus:-- + + +ACT I. + +SCENE I.--_A Hall in Timon's House._ + +Now he has reflected that his first object is to interest his audience +in the action and passion of the piece,--at the very outset, if +possible, to catch their fancies and draw them into the mimic life of +the play,--to beguile and attract them without their knowing it. He has +reflected upon this, we say,--for see how artfully he opens the scene, +and how soon the empty stage is peopled with life! He chooses to begin +by having two persons enter from opposite wings, whose qualities are +known at once to the reader of the play, but not to an audience. The +stage-direction informs us:-- + +[_Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, Merchant, and others, at several +doors._ + +We shall see how at the same time they introduce and unfold their own +characters and awaken an interest in the main action. In writing, we +are obliged to name them. They do not all enter quite at once. At first +comes + + _Poet._ Good day, Sir. + _Painter._ I am glad to see you well. + _Poet._ I have not seen you long; how goes the world? + _Painter._ It wears, Sir, as it grows. + +This shows them to be acquaintances.--While the next reply is made, in +which the Poet begins to talk in character even before the audience know +him, two others enter from the same side, as having just met, and others +in the background. + + _Poet._ Ay, that's well known:-- + But what particular rarity? what strange, + That manifold record not matches? See, + +And we fancy him waving his hand in an enthusiastic manner,-- + + Magic of bounty! all these spirits thy power + Hath conjured to attend. + +Which manner is only a high-flowing habit, for he adds in the same +breath, dropping his figure suddenly,-- + + I know the merchant. + _Painter._ I know them both; t'other's a jeweller. + +It is certainly natural that painters should know jewellers,--and, +perhaps, that poets should be able to recognize merchants, though the +converse might not hold. We now know who the next speakers are, and soon +distinguish them. + + _Merchant._ Oh, 'tis a worthy lord! + _Jeweller._ Nay, that's most fixed. + _Merchant._ A most incomparable man; breathed as it were + To an untirable and continuate goodness: + He passes. + _Jeweller._ I have a jewel here. + +The Jeweller being known, the Merchant is; and, it will be noticed that +the first speaks in a cautious manner. + + _Merchant._ Oh, pray, let's see it! For the lord Timon, Sir? + _Jeweller._ If he will touch the estimate; but, for that---- + +We begin to suspect who is the "magic of bounty" and the "incomparable +man," and also to have an idea that all these people have come to his +house to see him.--While the Merchant examines the jewel, the first who +spoke, the high-flown individual, is pacing and talking to himself near +the one he met:-- + + _Poet. When we for recompense have praised the vile, + It stains the glory in that happy verse + Which aptly sings the good._ + +Perhaps he is thinking of himself. The Merchant and Jeweller do not hear +him;--they stand in twos at opposite sides of the stage. + + _Merchant_. 'Tis a good form. + [_Looking at the jewel._ + +He observes only that the stone is well cut; but the Jeweller adds,-- + + _Jeweller_. And rich: here is a water, look you. + +While they are interested in this and move backward, the two others come +nearer the front. + + _Painter_. You are rapt, Sir, in some work, some dedication + To the great lord. + +This is said, of course, with reference to the other's recent soliloquy. +And now we are going to know them. + + _Poet_. A thing slipped idly from me. + Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes + From whence 'tis nourished. The fire i' the flint + Shows not till it be struck; our gentle flame + Provokes itself, and like the current files + Each bound it chafes.--What have you there? + +We perceive that he is a poet, and a rather rhetorical than sincere one. +He has the art, but, as we shall see, not the heart. + + _Painter_. A picture, Sir.--And when comes your book forth? + + _Poet_. Upon the heels of my presentment, Sir-- + Let's see your piece. + _Painter_. 'Tis a good piece. + +We know that the Poet has come to make his presentment. The Painter, +the more modest of the two, wishes his work to be admired, but is +apprehensive, and would forestall the Poet's judgment. He means, it is a +"tolerable" piece. + + _Poet_. So 'tis: this comes off well and excellent. + + _Painter_. Indifferent. + + _Poet_. Admirable. How this grace + Speaks his own standing! What a mental power + This eye shoots forth! How big imagination + Moves in this lip! To the dumbness of the gesture + One might interpret. + +He, at all events, means to flatter the Painter,--or he is so habituated +to ecstasies that he cannot speak without going into one. But with what +Shakspearean nicety of discrimination! The "grace that speaks his own +standing," the "power of the eye," the "imagination of the lip," are all +true; and so is the natural impulse, in one of so fertile a brain as a +poet from whom verse "oozes" to "interpret to the dumb gesture,"--to +invent an appropriate speech for the figure (Timon, of course) to be +uttering. And all this is but to preoccupy our minds with a conception +of the lord Timon! + + _Painter_. It is a pretty mocking of the life. + Here's a touch; is't good? + + _Poet_. I'll say of it + It tutors Nature: artificial strife + Lives in these touches livelier than life. + +He has thought of too fine a phrase; but it is in character with all his +fancies. + + [_Enter certain Senators, and pass over._ + + _Painter_. How this lord's followed! + + _Poet_. The senators of Athens: happy men! + +This informs us who they are that pass over. The Poet also keeps up the +Ercles vein; while the Painter's eye is caught. + + _Painter_. Look, more! + + _Poet_. You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors. + + I have, in this rough work, shaped out a man + Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug + With amplest entertainment: my free drift + Halts not particularly, but moves itself + In a wide sea of wax: no levelled malice + Infects one comma in the course I hold: + But flies an eagle flight, bold, and forth on, + Leaving no tract behind. + +This flight of rhetoric is intended to produce a sort of musical effect, +in preparing us by its lofty sound for readily apprehending the lord +Timon with "amplest entertainment." The same is true of all that +follows. The Poet and Painter do but sound a lordly note of preparation, +and move the curtain that is to be lifted before a scene of profusion. +Call it by what name we please, it surely was not accident or +unconscious inspiration,--a rapture or frenzy,--which led Shakspeare to +open this play in this manner. If we remember the old use of choruses, +which was to lift up and excite the fancy, we may well believe that he +intended this flourishing Poet to act as a chorus,--to be a "mighty +whiffler," going before, elevating "the flat unraised spirits" of his +auditory, and working on their "imaginary forces." He is a rhetorical +character, designed to rouse the attention of the house by the pomp +of his language, and to set their fancies in motion by his broad +conceptions. How well he does it! No wonder the Painter is a little +confused as he listens to him. + + _Painter_. How shall I understand you? + + _Poet_. I'll unbolt to you. + + You see how all conditions, how all minds, + (As well of glib and slippery creatures, as + Of grave and austere quality,) tender down + Their services to Lord Timon; his large fortune, + Upon his good and gracious nature hanging, + Subdues and properties to his love and tendance + All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-faced flatterer + To Apemantus, that few things loves better + Than to abhor himself; even he drops down + The knee before him, and returns in peace, + Most rich in Timon's nod. + +There was almost a necessity that the spectator should be made +acquainted with the character of Timon before his appearance; for his +profuseness could be illustrated, after being known, better than it +could make itself known in dialogue and action in which he should bear a +part. And of the hundreds of English plays opening with an explanation +or narrative of foregone matters, there is none where the formality is +concealed by a more ingenious artifice than is used in this scene. The +spectator is fore-possessed with Timon's character, and (in the outline +the Poet is proceeding to give) with a suspicion that he is going to see +him ruined in the course of the piece; and this is accomplished in +the description of a panegyric, incidentally, briefly, picturesquely, +artfully, with an art that tutors Nature, and which so well conceals +itself that it can scarcely be perceived except in this our microscopic +analysis. Here also we have Apemantus introduced beforehand. And with +all this, the Painter and Poet speak minutely and broadly in character; +the one sees scenes, the other plans an action (which is just what his +own creator had done) and talks in poetic language. It is no more +than the text warrants to remark that the next observation, primarily +intended to break the poet's speech, was also intended to be the natural +thought and words of a + + _Painter_. I saw them speak together. + + _Poet_. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill + Feigned Fortune to be throned: the base of + the mount + Is ranked with all deserts, all kinds of natures + That labor on the bosom of this sphere + To propagate their states; amongst them all, + Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fixed, + One do I personate of Lord Timon's frame, + Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her; + Whose present grace to present slaves and servants + Translates his rivals. + + _Painter_. 'Tis conceived to scope. + This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks, + With one man beckoned from the rest below, + Bowing his head against the steepy mount + To climb his happiness, would be well expressed + In our condition. + + _Poet_. Nay, Sir, but hear me on. + +The artifice is to secure the attention of the spectator. The +interruptions give naturalness and force to the narrative; and the +questions and entreaties, though addressed to each other by the +personages on the stage, have their effect in the front. The same +artifice is employed in the most obvious manner where Prospero (Tempest, +Act i. Sc. 2) narrates his and her previous history to Miranda. The Poet +continues:-- + + All those which were his fellows but of late + (Some better than his value) on the moment + Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance, + Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear, + Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him + Drink the free air. + + _Painter_. Ay, marry, what of these? + +The Poet has half deserted his figure, and is losing himself in a new +description, from which the Painter impatiently recalls him. The text +is so artificially natural that it will bear the nicest natural +construction. + + _Poet_. When Fortune, in her shift and + change of mood, + Spurns down her late beloved, all his dependants, + Which labored after him to the mountain's + top, + Even on their knees and hands, let him slip + down, + Not one accompanying his declining foot. + + _Painter_. 'Tis common: + A thousand moral paintings I can show + That shall demonstrate these quick blows of + Fortune + More pregnantly than words. Yet you do + well + To show Lord Timon that mean eyes have + seen + The foot above the head. + + [_Trumpets sound. Enter Timon, attended; the + servant of Ventidius talking with him_. + +Thus far (and it is of no consequence if we have once or twice forgotten +it while pursuing our analysis) we have fancied ourselves present, +seeing Shakspeare write this, and looking into his mind. But although +divining his intentions, we have not made him intend any more than his +words show that he did intend. Let us presently fancy, that, before +introducing his principal character, he here turns back to see if he has +brought in everything that is necessary. It would have been easier to +plan this scene after the rest of the play had been done,--and, as +already remarked, it may have been so written; but when the whole +coheres, the artistic purpose is more or less evident in every part; and +the order in which each was put upon paper is of as little consequence +as the place or time or date or the state of the weather. Wordsworth has +been particular enough to let it be known, where he composed the last +verse of a poem first. With some artists the writing is a mere copying +from memory of what is completely elaborated in the whole or in long +passages: Milton wrote thus, through a habit made necessary by his +blindness; and so Mozart, whose incessant labors trained his genius in +the paths of musical learning, or brought learning to be its slave, till +his first conceptions were often beyond the reach of elaboration, and +remained so clear in his own mind that he could venture to perform +in public concertos to which he had written only the orchestral or +accessory parts. Other artists work _seriatim_; some can work only when +the pen is in their hands; and the blotted page speaks eloquently +enough of the artistic processes of mind to which their most passionate +passages are subjected before they come to the reader's eye. Think of +the fac-simile of Byron's handwriting in "Childe Harold"! It shows a +soul rapt almost beyond the power of writing. But the blots and erasures +were not made by a "fine frenzy"; _they_ speak no less eloquently for an +artistic taste and skill excited and alert, and able to guide the frenzy +and give it a contagious power through the forms of verse,--this +taste and this skill and control being the very elements by which his +expressions become an echo of the poet's soul,--pleasing, or, in the +uncultivated, helping to form, a like taste in the hearer, and exciting +a like imagined condition of feeling and poetic vision. + +Yet if it were made a question, to be decided from internal evidence, +whether the scene here analyzed was written before or after the rest of +the piece, a strong argument for its being written before might be found +in the peculiar impression it leaves upon the fancy. Let us suppose we +follow the author while he runs it over, which he does quite rapidly, +since there are no blotted lines, but only here and there a comma to +be inserted. He designed to open his tragedy. He finds he has set a +scene,--in his mind's eye the entrance-hall to an Athenian house, which +he thinks he has presently intimated plainly enough to be Timon's house. +Here he has brought forward four actors and made them speak as just +meeting; they come by twos from different ways, and the first two +immediately make it known that the other two are a merchant and +jeweller, and almost immediately that they themselves are, one a +painter, the other a poet. They have all brought gifts or goods for +the lord Timon. The Athenian Senators pass over, and, as becomes +their dignity, are at once received in an inner hall,--the first four +remaining on the stage. All is so far clear. He has also, by the +dialogue of the Painter and Poet, made in itself taking to the attention +through the picture and the flighty recitation, suggested and interested +us incidentally in the character of Timon, and conveyed a vague +misgiving of misfortune to come to him. And there is withal a swelling +pomp, three parts rhetorical and one part genuinely poetical, in the +Poet's style, which gives a tone, and prepares the fancy to enter +readily into the spirit of the tragedy. This effect the author wished to +produce; he felt that the piece required it; he was so preoccupied with +the Timon he conceived that he sets to work with a Timon-rich hue of +fancy and feeling; to this note he pitches himself, and begins his +measured march "bold and forth on." What he has assumed to feel he +wishes spectators to feel; and he leaves his style to be colored by his +feeling, because he knows that such is the way to make them feel it. And +we do feel it, and know also that we are made thus to feel through an +art which we can perceive and admire. On the whole, this introduction +opens upon the tragedy with just such a display of high-sounding +phrases, such a fine appropriateness, such a vague presentiment, and +such a rapid, yet artful, rising from indifference to interest, that it +seems easiest to suppose the author to be writing while his conceptions +of what is to follow are freshest and as yet unwrought out. We cannot +ask him; even while we have overlooked him in his labor, his form has +faded, and we are again in this dull every-day Present. + +We have seen him take up his pen and begin a tragedy; or, to drop the +fancy, we have made it real to ourselves in what manner Shakspeare's +writing evidences that he wrought as an _artist_,--one who has an idea +in his mind of an effect he desires to produce, and elaborates it with +careful skill, not in a trance or ecstasy, but "in clear dream and +solemn vision." The subtile tone of feeling to be struck is as much a +matter of art as the action or argument to be opened. And it is no less +proper to judge (as we have done) of the presence of art by its result +in this respect than in respect to what relates to the form or story. +An introduction is before us, a dramatic scene, in which characters are +brought forward and a dialogue is given, apparently concerning a picture +and poem that have been made, but having a more important reference to a +character yet to be unfolded. Along with this there is also expressed, +in the person of a professed panegyrist, a certain lofty and free +opinion of his own work, in a confident declamatory style of +description,-- + + "Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill + Feigned Fortune to be throned," etc.,-- + +that is levelled with exquisite tact just on the verge of bombast. This +is not done to make the hearer care for the thing described, which is +never heard of after, but to give a hint of Timon and what is to befall +him, and to create a _melodic effect_ upon the hearer's sense which +shall put him in a state to yield readily to the illusion of the piece. + +It is not possible to conceive Shakspeare reviewing his lines and +thinking to himself, "That is well done; my genius has not deserted me; +I could not have written anything more to my liking, if I had set about +it deliberately!" But it is easy to see him running it over with a +sensation of "This will serve; my poet will open their eyes and ears; +and now for the hall and banquet scene." + +The sense of fitness and relation operates among thoughts and feelings +as well as among fancies, and its results cannot be mistaken for +accident. Ariel and his harpies could not interrupt a scene with a more +discordant action than the phase of feeling or the poetic atmosphere +pervading it would be interrupted by, if a cloud of distraction came +across the poet and the faculties of his mind rioted out of his control. +For he not only feels, but sees his feeling; he takes it up as an object +and holds it before him,--a feeling to be conveyed. Just as a sculptor +holds in his mind a form and models it out of clay, undiverted by other +forms thronging into his vision, or by the accidental forms that the +plastic substance takes upon itself in the course of his work, till it +stands forth the image of his ideal,--so the poet works out his states +of poetic feeling. He grasps and holds and sustains them amidst the +multiplicity of upflying thoughts and thick-coming fancies;--no matter +how subtile or how aspiring they may be, he fastens them in the chamber +of his imagination until his distant purpose is accomplished, and he has +found a language for them which the world will understand. And this is +where Shakspeare's art is so noble,--in that he conquers the entire +universe of thought, sentiment, feeling, and passion,--goes into the +whole and takes up and portrays characters the most extreme and diverse, +passions the most wild, sentiment the most refined, feelings the most +delicate,--and does this by an art in which he must make his characters +appear real and we looking on, though he cannot use, to develop his +dramas, a hundred-thousandth part of the words that would be used in +real life,--that is, in Nature. He also always approaches us upon the +level of our common sense and experience, and never requires us to yield +it,--never breaks in or jars upon our judgment, or shocks or alarms any +natural sensibility. After enlarging our souls with the stir of whatever +can move us through poetry, he leaves us where he found us, refreshed by +new thoughts, new scenes, and new knowledge of ourselves and our kind, +more capable, and, if we choose to be so, more wise. His art is so great +that we almost forget its presence,--almost forget that the Macbeth and +Othello we have seen and heard were Shakspeare's, and that he MADE them; +we can scarce conceive how he could feign as if felt, and retain and +reproduce such a play of emotions and passions from the position of +spectator, his own soul remaining, with its sovereign reason, and all +its powers natural and acquired, far, far above all its creations,--a +spirit alone before its Maker. + +The opening of "Timon" was selected on account of its artful preparation +for and relation to what it precedes. It shows the forethought and skill +of its author in the construction or opening out of his play, both +in respect to the story and the feeling; yet even here, in this +half-declamatory prologue, the poet's dramatic art is also evident. His +poet and painter are living men, and not mere utterers of so many words. +Was this from intuition?--or because he found it easy to make them +what he conceived them, and felt that it would add to the life of his +introduction, though he should scarcely bring them forward afterwards? +No doubt the mind's eye helps the mind in character-drawing, and that +appropriate language springs almost uncalled to the pen, especially of +a practised writer for the stage. But is his scene a dream which he can +direct, and which, though he knows it all proceeds from himself, yet +seems to keep just in advance of him,--his fancy shooting ahead and +astonishing him with novelties in dialogue and situation? There are +those who have experienced this condition in sickness, and who have +amused themselves with listening to a fancied conversation having +reference to subjects of their own choosing, yet in which they did not +seem to themselves to control the cause of the dialogue or originate the +particular things said, until they could actually hear the voices rising +from an indistinct whisper to plain speech. I knew an instance, (which +at least is not related in the very curious work of M. Boismont on the +"Natural History of Hallucinations,") where an invalid, recovering +from illness, could hear for half a night the debates and doings of an +imaginary association in the next chamber, the absurdity of which often +made him laugh so that he could with difficulty keep quiet enough to +listen; while occasionally extracts would be read from books written in +a style whose precision and eloquence excited his admiration, or whose +affecting solemnity moved him deeply, though he knew perfectly well that +the whole came from his own brain. This he could either cause or permit, +and could in an instant change the subject of the conversation or +command it into silence. He would sometimes throw his pillow against the +wall and say, "Be still! I'll hear no more till daybreak!" And this has +taken place when he was in calm health in mind, and, except weakness, in +body, and broad awake. What was singular, the voices would cease at his +bidding, and in one instance (which might have startled him, had he not +known how common it is for persons to wake at an hour they fix) they +awoke him at the time appointed. Their language would bear the ordinary +tests of sanity, and was like that we see in daily newspapers; but the +various knowledge brought in, the complicated scenes gone through, made +the whole resemble intricate concerted music, from the imperfect study +of which possibly came the power to fabricate them. That they were owing +to some physical cause was shown by their keeping a sort of cadence with +the pulse, and in the fact, that, though not disagreeable, they were +wearisome; especially as they always appeared to be got up with some +remote reference to the private faults and virtues of that tedious +individual who is always forcing his acquaintance upon us, avoid him +however we may,--one's self. + +Shall we suppose that Shakspeare wrote in such an _opium dream_ as this? +Did his "wood-notes wild" come from him as tunes do from a barrel-organ, +where it is necessary only to set the machine and disturb the bowels of +it by turning? Was it sufficient for him to fore-plan the plots of his +plays, the story, acts, scenes, persons,--the general rough idea, or +argument,--and then to sit at his table, and, by some process analogous +to mesmeric manipulations, put himself into a condition in which his +_genius_ should elaborate and shape what he, by the aid of his poetic +taste and all other faculties, had been able to rough-hew? How far did +his consciousness desert him?--only partially, as in the instance just +given, so that he marvelled, while he wrote, at his own fertility, +power, and truth?--or wholly, as in a Pythonic inspiration, so that the +frenzy filled him to his fingers' ends, and he wrote, he knew not what, +until he re-read it in his ordinary state? In fine, was he the mere +conduit of a divinity within him?--or was he in his very self, in the +nobility and true greatness of his being and the infinitude of his +faculties, a living fountain,--he, he alone, in as plain and common a +sense as we mean when we say "a man," the divinity? + +These are "questions not to be asked," or, at least, argued, any +more than the question, Whether the blessed sun of heaven shall eat +blackberries. The quality of Shakspeare's writing renders it impossible +to suppose that it was produced in any other state than one where all +the perceptions that make good sense, and not only good, but most +excellent sense, were present and alert. Howsoever "apprehensive, quick, +forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes" his brain +may be, it never gambols from the superintendence of his reason and +understanding. In truth, it is the perfectness of the control, the +conscious assurance of soundness in himself, which leaves him so free +that the control is to so many eyes invisible; they perceive nothing but +luxuriant ease in the midst of intricate complexities of passion and +character, and they think he could have followed the path he took only +by a sort of necessity which they call Nature,--that he wrote himself +quite into his works, bodily, just as he was, every thought that came +and went, and every expression that flew to his pen,--leaving out only a +few for shortness. They are so thoroughly beguiled by the very quality +they do not see, that they are like spectators who mistake the scene on +the stage for reality; they cannot fancy that a man put it all there, +and that it is by the artistic and poetic power of him, this man, who is +now standing behind or at the wing, and counting the money in the house, +that they are beguiled of their tears or thrown into such ecstasies of +mirth. + +It exalts, and not degrades, the memory of Shakspeare to think of him in +this manner, as a man: for he _was_ a man; he had eyes, hands, organs, +dimensions, and so forth, the same that a Jew hath; a good many people +saw him alive. Had we lived in London between 1580 and 1610, we might +have seen him,--a man who came from his Maker's hand endowed with the +noblest powers and the most godlike reason,--who had the greatest +natural ability to become a great dramatic poet,--the native genius and +the aptness to acquire the art, and who did acquire the highest art +of his age, and went on far beyond it, exhibiting new ingenuities and +resources, and a breadth that has never been equalled, and which admits +at once and harmonizes the deepest tragedy and the broadest farce, and, +in language, the loftiest flights of measured rhetoric along with +the closest imitation of common talk;--and all this he _so used_, so +elaborated through it the poetic creations of his mind, in such glorious +union and perfection of high purpose and art and reach of soul, that he +was the greatest and most universal poet the world has known. + +Rowe observes, in regard to Shakspeare,--"Art had so little and +Nature so large a share in what he did, that, for aught I know, the +performances of his youth, as they were the most vigorous, and had the +most fire and strength of imagination in them, were the best. I +would not be thought by this to mean that his fancy was so loose and +extravagant as to be independent on the rule and government of judgment; +but that what he thought was commonly so great, so justly and rightly +conceived in itself, that it wanted little or no correction, and was +immediately approved by an impartial judgment at the first sight." + +The last sentence is true; but Mr. Rowe really means to say that he was +as great an artist as natural poet,--that his _creative_ and _executive_ +powers wrought in almost perfect spontaneity and harmony,--the work +of the _making_ part of him being generally at once approved by the +_shaping_ part, and each and both being admirable. When a man creates +an Othello, feigns his story and his passion, assumes to be him and to +observe him at the same time, figures him so exactly that all the +world may realize him also, brings in Desdemona and Iago and the rest, +everything kept in propriety and with the minutest perfection of detail, +which does most, Art or Nature? How shall we distinguish? Where does one +leave off and the other begin? The truth of the passion, that is Nature; +but can we not perceive that the Art goes along with it? Do we not at +once acknowledge the Art when we say, "How natural!"? In such as Iago, +for example, it would seem as if the least reflective spectator must +derive a little critical satisfaction,--if he can only bring himself to +fancy that Iago is not alive, but that the great master painted him and +wrote every word he utters. As we read his words, can we not see how +boldly he is drawn, and how highly colored? There he is, right in the +foreground, prominent, strong, a most miraculous villain. Did Nature put +the words into his mouth, or Art? The question involves a consideration +of how far natural it is for men to make Iagos, and to make them +speaking naturally. Though it be natural, it is not common; and if its +naturalness is what must be most insisted on, it may be conceded, and we +may say, with Polixenes, "The Art itself is Nature." + +There is a strong rapture that always attends the full exercise of our +highest faculties. The whole spirit is raised and quickened into a +secondary life. This was felt by Shakspeare,--felt, and at the same +time controlled and guided with the same strictness over all thoughts, +feelings, passions, fancies, that thronged his mind at such moments, as +he had over those in his dull every-day hours. When we are writing, how +difficult it is to avoid pleasing our own vanity! how hard not to step +aside a little, now and then, for a brilliant thought or a poetic fancy, +or any of the thousand illusions that throng upon us! Even for the sake +of a well-sounding phrase we are often tempted to turn. The language of +passion,--how hard it is to feign, to write it! how harder than all, to +keep the tone, serious, or whatever it may be, with which we begin, so +that no expressions occur to break it,--lapses of thought or speech, +that are like sudden stumbles or uneasy jolts! And if this is so in +ordinarily elevated prose, how much more must it be so in high dramatic +poetry, where the poet rides on the whirlwind and tempest of passion and +"directs the storm." There must go to the conception and execution of +this sort of work a resolved mind, strong fancies, thoughts high and +deep, in fine, a multitude of powers, all under the grand creative, +sustaining imagination. When completed, the work stands forth to all +time, a great work of Art, and bulwark of all that is high against all +that is low. It is a great poetic work, the work of a maker who gives +form and direction to the minds of men. + +In a certain sense, it is not an extravagance to say that all who are +now living and speak English have views of life and Nature modified by +the influence of Shakspeare. We see the world through his eyes; he has +taught us how to think; the freedom of soul, the strong sense, the +grasp of thought,--above all, the honor, the faith, the love,--who has +imparted such noble ideas of these things as he? Not any one, though +there were giants in those days as well as he. Hence he has grown to +seem even more "natural" than he did in his own day, his judges being +mediately or immediately educated by him. The works are admired, but the +nobleness of soul in him that made them is not perceived, and his genius +and power are degraded into a blind faculty by unthinking minds, and by +vain ones that flatter themselves they have discovered the royal road to +poetry. What they seem to require for poetry is the flash of thought +or fancy that starts the sympathetic thrill,--the little jots,--the +striking, often-quoted lines or "gems." The rest is merely introduced to +build up a piece; these are the "pure Nature," and all that. + +And it is not to be denied that they are pure Nature; for they are true +to Nature, and are spontaneous, beautiful, exquisite, deserving to be +called gems, and even diamonds. + + "The sweet South, + That breathes upon a bank of violets, + Stealing and giving odor":-- + +thousands of such lines we keep in our memories' choicest cells; yet +they are but the exterior adornments of a great work of Art. They are +the delightful finishes and lesser beauties which the great work admits, +and, indeed, is never without, but which are not to be classed among its +essentials. Their beauty and fitness are not those of the grand columns +of the temple; they are the sculptures upon the frieze, the caryatides, +or the graceful interlacings of vines. They catch the fancy of those +whose field of vision is not large enough to take in the whole, and +upon whom all excellences that are not little are lost. Beautiful in +themselves, their own beauty is frequently all that is seen; the beauty +of their propriety, the grace and charm with which they come in, are +overlooked. Many people will have it that nothing is poetry or poetic +but these gems of poetry; and because the apparent spontaneousness of +them is what makes them so striking, these admirers are unwilling to see +that it is through an art that they are brought in so beautifully in +their spontaneousness and give such finish to larger effects. And +we have no end of writers who are forever trying to imitate them, +forgetting that the essence of their beauty is in their coming unsought +and in their proper places as unexpected felicities and fine touches +growing out of and contributing to some higher purpose. They are natural +in this way:--when the poet is engaged upon his work, these delicate +fancies and choice expressions throng into his mind; he instantly, by +his Art-sense, accepts some, and rejects more; and those he accepts are +such as he wants for his ulterior purpose, which will not admit the +appearance of art; hence he will have none that do not grow out of his +feeling and harmonize with it. All this passes in an instant, and the +apt simile or the happy epithet is created,--an immortal beauty, both in +itself and as it occurs in its place. It was put there by an art; +the poet knew that the way to make expressions come is to assume the +feeling; he knew that he + + "But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, + Could force his soul so to his own conceit" + +that his whole function would suit with expressions to his conceit. +He then withdrew his judgment from within, and cheated his fancy into +supposing he had given her the rein, letting the feigned state be as +real to him as it could, and writing from that primarily,--humoring +Nature by his art in leaving her to do what she alone could do. So that +the very gems we admire as natural are the offspring of Nature creating +under Art. To make streaked gillyflowers, we marry a gentler scion to +the wildest stock, and Nature does the rest. So in poetry, we cannot +get at the finest excellences by seeking for them directly, but we put +Nature in the way to suggest them. We do not strive to think whether +"the mobled queen" is good; we do not let our vanity keep such a +strict look-out upon Nature; she will not desert us, if we follow her +modes,--which we must do with all the art and fine tact we can acquire +and command, not only in order to gain the minute beauties, but to +compass the great whole. + +The analogies that might be drawn from music would much assist in making +all this clear, if they could be used with a chance of being understood. +But, unfortunately, the ability to comprehend a great work, as a whole, +is even rarer in music than in poetry. The little taking bits of melody +are all that is thought of or perceived; the great _epos_ or rhapsody, +the form and meaning of the entire composition,--which is a work of Art +in no other sense than a poem is one, except that it uses, instead of +speech, musical forms, of greater variety and symmetry,--are not at all +understood. Nor is the subtile and irresistible coherence in successions +of clear sunny melody, in which Mozart so abounds, in any great degree +understood, even by some who call themselves artists. They think only +of the sudden flashes, the happinesses, and, if such a word may be used +once only, the smartnesses,--like children who care for nothing in their +cake but the frosting and the plums. But in continuing the study of the +art with such notions of its expression, the relish for it soon cloys, +the mind ceases to advance, the enthusiasm deadens, progress becomes +hopeless, and the little gained is soon lost; whereas, if the student is +familiarized with the most perfect forms of the art, and led on by them, +both by committing a few of them to memory, and by fully understanding +their structure, it will soon be evident that an intellectual study of +music, pursued with a true love of it, can, more than any other study, +strengthen the imaginative faculty. + +The forms of poetry have only the rhythmic analogy, as forms, to those +of music; but in their foundation in the same Nature, and in their +manner of development, there is a closer resemblance. Both in music and +poetry, the older artists regarded with most strictness the carrying +through of the whole; they cared little for the taking tunes or the +striking passages; they looked with eyes single to their ultimate +purposes. Shakspeare came, and accomplished at once, for dramatic art, +what the fathers of modern music began for their art nearly a century +later. He made the strict form yield to and take new shape from natural +feeling. This feeling, whose expression is the musical element of +poetry, he brought up to its proper relation with all the other +qualities. Look at the terrific bombast which preceded him,--the mighty +efforts of mighty men to draw music or the power of sound into their +art; Hieronymo is like some portentous convulsion of Nature,--the +upheaval of a new geological era. The writers felt that there must be +style suited to passion, and that they must attain it,--but how? By +artificial pomp?--or by yielding with artful reserve to the natural +eloquence of passion? + +Shakspeare has answered the question for all time; and he uses both, +each in its proper place. Nothing, even in music, ever showed an art +growing out of a nicer sensibility in sound than his variety and +appropriateness in style. For an art it is, and we cannot make a +definition of that word which shall include other forms of art and not +include it. If the passion and the feeling make the style, it is the +poet's art that leaves them free to do it; he superintends; he feigns +that which he leaves to make; he shares his art with "great creating +Nature." All is unreal; all comes out of him; and all that has to do +with the form and expression of his products is, of course, included +in the manifest when his ship of fancy gets its clearance at the +custom-house of his judgment. The style he assumes cannot but be present +to his consciousness in the progress of a long drama. He must perceive, +as he writes, if he has the common penetration of humanity, that the +flow and cadence of his "Henry the Eighth" are not like those of his +"Midsummer Night's Dream"; and he must preserve his tone, with, at +times, direct art, not leaving everything to the feeling. That he does +so is as evident as if he had chosen a form of verse more remote +from the language of Nature and obliged himself to conform to its +requirements. The terrible cursing of Margaret in "Richard III.," for +example, is not the remorseless, hollow monotony of it, while it so +heightens the passion, as evident to Shakspeare as to us; or had he no +ear for verse, and just let his words sound on as they would, looking +only at the meaning, and counting his iambics on his fingers,--not too +carefully either? If the last supposition is to be insisted on, we must +confine our notions of his perceptions and powers within very ordinary +bounds, and make dramatic art as unpoetic as the art of brickmaking. + +The beauty of Shakspeare's art is in its comprehensiveness. It takes in +every quality of excellence. It looks at the great whole, and admits +the little charms and graces. It includes constructiveness in story, +character-drawing, picturesqueness, musicalness, naturalness,--in fine, +whatever art may combine with poetry or the soul of poetry admit in art. +To the young and unobservant, and all who are unable to consider the +poet's writing, as we have in this article endeavoured to study a single +passage of it, _from his position_, the art is not apparent; the mimic +scene is reality, or some supernatural inspiration or schoolboy-like +enthusiasm has produced the work. But there are others, created with +different faculties, who begin to perceive the art almost as soon as +they feel its power, and who love to study it and to live in the spirit +of poetry that breathes through it; these come gradually to think of the +man, as well as of his works,--to feel more and more the influence upon +them of his greatness and beauty of soul, and, as years pass by, to find +consolation and repose in the loftiness of his wisdom. + + * * * * * + + +MIEN-YAUN. + + +I. + + +Young Mien-yaun had for two years been the shining centre of the +aristocratic circles of Pekin. Around him revolved the social system. +He was the vitalizing element in fashionable life,--the radiant sun, +diffusing conventional warmth of tone and brilliancy of polish. He +created modes. He regulated reputations. + +His smile or his frown determined the worldly fate of thousands. His +ready assurance gave him preeminence with one sex, and his beauty made +him the admiration of the other. When he talked, Mandarins listened; +when he walked, maidens' eyes glistened. He was, in short, the +rage,--and he knew it, and meant to remain so. He was a wonderful +student, and understood politics like a second Confucius. With the +literature of all ages, from the Shee-king, written four thousand +years ago, down to the latest achievements of the modern poets, he was +intimately acquainted. His accomplishments were rich and varied, and his +Tartar descent endowed him with a spirit and animation that enabled him +to exhibit them to every advantage. He sang like a veritable Orpheus, +and sensitive women had been known to faint under the excitement of his +Moo-lee-wha, or national song. He even danced,--a most rare faculty in +Pekin, as in all China,--but this was frowned upon, as immoral, by his +family. Comely indeed he was, especially on state occasions, when he +appeared in all the radiance of rosy health, overflowing spirits, and +the richest crapes and satins,--decorated with the high order of the +peacock's feather, the red button, and numberless glittering ornaments +of ivory and lapis-lazuli. Beloved or envied by all the men, and with +all the women dying for him, he was fully able to appreciate the +comforts of existence. Considering the homage universally accorded him, +he was as little of a dandy as could reasonably be expected. + +His family connections were very exalted. All his relatives belonged to +the Tse,--the learned and governing class. His father had been one of +the Tootche-yuen, a censor of the highest board, and was still a member +of the council of ministerial Mandarins. His uncle was a personal noble, +a prince, higher in rank than the best of the Mandarins, and directed +the deliberations of the Ping-pu, the Council of War. Thus his station +gave him access to all the best society. His career was a path of roses. +He never knew a sorrow. All were friendly to him, even the jealous, +because it was the fashion. The doors of the mighty opened at his +approach, and the smiles of the noble greeted him. He lived in an +atmosphere of adulation, and yet resisted the more intoxicating +influences of his dangerous elevation. Young as he was, he had +penetrated the social surface, and, marking its many uncertainties, +had laid out for himself a system of diplomacy which he believed best +calculated to fortify him in his agreeable position of master of modes +and dictator of fashionable public opinion. + +The course he adopted was thoroughly effective. His sway was never +disputed for a moment. He knew his personal charms, and determined to +enhance their value by displaying them sparingly. Accordingly, he began +by refusing forty-nine out of every fifty public invitations,--his +former habit having been to refuse but one in five. He appeared on the +promenade only twice in three weeks, but on these occasions he always +artfully contrived to throw the community into the wildest excitement. +One day, he appeared arrayed from head to foot in yellow Nankin, a +color always considered a special abomination in Pekin, but which was +nevertheless instantly adopted by all the gallants about town,--a +proceeding which caused so much scandal that an imperial edict had to +be issued, forbidding the practice in future. Another time, he came out +with an unparalleled twist to his tail, the construction of which had +occupied his mind for some days, and which occasioned the death by +suicide of three over-ambitious youths who found themselves unable to +survive the mortification of an unsuccessful attempt to imitate it. +Again, to the infinite horror of the Mandarins, he paraded himself one +afternoon with decacuminated finger-nails, and came very near producing +a riot by his unwillingness to permit them to grow again, besides +calling forth another imperial decree, threatening ignominious death to +all nobles throughout the empire who should encourage the practice. +All these eccentricities served only to add to the consequence of the +multipotent Mien-yaun. Then again, he was gifted with a bewitching +smile; but he steadily refrained from making any use of it oftener than +once a month, at which times the enthusiasm of his adherents knew no +bounds, and it might have been supposed that all Pekin had administered +unto itself a mild preparation of laughing-gas, so universal were the +grimaces. On very rare and distinguished occasions, Mien-yaun permitted +himself to be persuaded to sing; but as ladies sometimes swooned under +his melodious influence, the natural goodness of his heart prevented him +from frequent indulgence in the exercise of this accomplishment. + +It may naturally be supposed that the popular and fascinating young +Chinese nobleman was the devoted object of much matrimonial speculation. +Managing mammas and aspiring daughters gave the whole of their minds to +him. To look forward to the possible hope of sharing through life his +fortunes and his fame was the continual employment of many a high-born +damsel. And they the more readily and unreservedly indulged these +fancies, as nothing in the laws of China could prevent Mien-yaun from +taking as many wives as he chose, provided he could support them all, +and supply all their natural wants. But our hero knew his value. He was +fully conscious that a member of the Tse, a son of an ex-censor of the +highest board, a nephew of a personal noble and the Secretary of War, +and, above all, the brightest ornament of aristocratic society, was by +no means the sort of person to throw himself lightly away upon any woman +or any set of women. He preferred to wait. + +His family had high hopes of him. He was largely gifted with filial +piety, which is everything in China. Politics, religion, literature, +government, all rest upon the broad principle of filial piety. Being +very filially pious, of course Mien-yaun was eminent in all these varied +accomplishments. Consequently his family had a right to have high hopes +of him. The great statesman, Kei-ying,--who has very recently terminated +a life of devoted patriotism and heroic virtues by a sublime death on +the scaffold,--undertook his instruction in Chinese politics. One lesson +completed his education. "Lie, cheat, steal, and honor your parents," +were the elementary principles which Kei-ying inculcated. The readiness +with which Mien-yaun mastered them inspired his tutor with a lively +confidence in the young man's future greatness. He was pronounced a +rising character. His popularity increased. His name was in everybody's +mouth. He shunned society more sedulously than ever, and assumed new and +loftier airs. He was seized with fits of ambition, each of which lasted +a day, and then gave place to some new aspiration. First, he would be a +poet; but, after a few hours' labor, he declared the exertion of hunting +up rhymes too great an exertion. Next, he would be a moral philosopher, +and commenced a work, to be completed in sixty volumes, on the Whole +Duty of Chinamen; but he never got beyond the elementary principles he +had imbibed from Kei-ying. Again, he would become a great painter; but, +having in an unguarded moment permitted the claims of perspective to be +recognized, he was discouraged from this attempt by a deputation of the +first artists of the empire, who waited upon him, and with great respect +laid before him the appalling effects that would inevitably follow any +public recognition of perspective in painting. Finally, he renounced +all ambition but that of ruling his fellow-creatures with a rod more +tyrannical than that of political authority, and more respected than the +sceptre of government itself. + + +II. + + +Satiated with success, Mien-yaun at length became weary of the ceaseless +round of flattering triumphs, and began to lament that no higher step on +the social staircase remained for him to achieve. Alas that discontent +should so soon follow the realization of our brightest hopes! What, in +this world, is enough? More than we have! Mien-yaun felt all the pangs +of anxious aspiration, without knowing how to alleviate them. He was +only conscious of a deep desolation, for which none of the elementary +principles he had learned from Kei-ying afforded the slightest +consolation. He now avoided publicity from inclination, rather than from +any systematic plan of action. He dressed mostly in blue, a sufficient +sign of a perturbed spirit. He discarded the peacock's feather, as +an idle vanity, and always came forth among the world arrayed in +ultramarine gowns and cerulean petticoats. His stockings, especially, +were of the deepest, darkest, and most beautiful blue. The world of +fashion saw, and was amazed; but in less than, a week all Pekin had the +blues. Annoyed at what a few months before he would have delighted in as +another convincing proof of his influential position, Mien-yaun fled +the city, and sought relief in a cruise up and down the Peiho, in his +private junk. As he neared the Gulf of Pe-tche-lee, the sea-breeze +brought calm to his troubled spirit and imparted renewed vigor to his +wearied mind. A degree of resolution, to which he had heretofore been +a stranger, possessed him. His courage returned. He would go back to +Pekin. He would renounce those vain pursuits in which he had passed his +unworthy life. Henceforth he would strive for nobler aims. Something +great and wonderful he certainly would accomplish,--the exact nature of +which, however, he did not pause to consider. + +As he reentered the city, he was obliged to pass through that quarter +which is inhabited by the Kung,--the working and manufacturing classes. +His attention was suddenly arrested by feminine cries of distress; and, +turning a corner, he came upon a domestic scene so common in China +that it would hardly have attracted his notice but for a peculiar +circumstance. A matron, well advanced in years, was violently beating +a young and beautiful girl with a bit of bamboo; and the peculiar +circumstance that enforced Mien-yaun's interest was, that, as the maiden +turned her fair face towards him, she smiled through her tears and +telegraphed him a fragrant kiss, by means of her fair fingers. Naturally +astounded, he paused, and gazed upon the pair. The younger female was +the loveliest maid he had ever looked upon. She had the smallest eyes in +the world, the most tempting, large, full, pouting lips, the blackest +and most abundant hair, exquisitely plaited, and feet no bigger than her +little finger. As these are the four characteristics of female beauty +dearest to a Chinaman's heart, it is no wonder that Mien-yaun thought +her a paragon. The old woman, on the contrary, was hideously ugly. Her +teeth were gone, and her eyes sought the comforting assistance of an +ill-fitting pair of crystal spectacles. She had no hair, and her feet +might have supported an elephant. As he rested his eyes wistfully upon +them, the young woman discharged a second rapturous salute. His heart +beat with singular turbulence, and he approached. + +"What has the child done?" he asked. + +Now the law of China is, that parents shall not be restrained from +beating and abusing their children as often and as soundly as is +convenient. The great principle of filial piety knows no reciprocity. +Should a child occasionally be killed, the payment of a small fine will +satisfy the accommodating spirit of the authorities. The ill-favored +mother was not, therefore, in any way bound to answer this somewhat +abrupt question; but, observing the appearance of high gentility, and +touched by the engaging manner of the interrogator, she answered, that +her appetite had of late been uncertain, and that she was endeavoring to +restore it by a little wholesome exercise. + +So reasonable an explanation admitted of no reply; and Mien-yaun was +about to resume his way with a sigh, when the young lady insinuated a +third osculatory hint, more penetrating than either of the others, +and bestowed on him, besides, a most ravishing smile. He fluttered +internally, but succeeded in preserving his outward immobility. He +entered into conversation with the elderly female, observing that it was +a fine day, and that it promised to continue so, although destiny was +impenetrable, and clouds might overshadow the radiant face of Nature at +any unexpected moment. To these and other equally profound and original +remarks the old woman graciously assented, and finally invited the young +gentleman to partake of a cup of scau-tcheou. Now scau-tcheou, which is +the most ardent of Chinese spirits, was Mien-yaun's abomination; but he +concealed his disgust, and quietly observed that he should prefer a cup +of tea. + +The old woman was delighted, and ran off to prepare the desired +refreshment, so that Mien-yaun was at length rewarded by the opportunity +of a few private words with the daughter. + +"Tell me, Miss," said he,--"why did the sweetest of lips perform their +most delicate office when the brightest of eyes first turned upon me?" + +The young lady, confused and blushing, answered, that the brilliancy of +the jewel which Mien-yaun wore in his hat had dazzled her vision, and +that she mistook him for an intimate friend of her youth,--that was all. + +He knew this was a lie; but as lying was in exact accordance with the +elementary principles laid down by the learned Kei-ying, he was rather +pleased by it. Moreover, it was a very pretty lie, worthy of so pretty a +girl; and Mien-yaun, whose wits were fast leaving him, removed the jewel +from his hat, and begged the maiden to accept it. She, declaring that +she never could think of such a thing, deposited it in her bosom. +Evidently the twain were on the brink of love; a gentle push only was +needed to submerge them. + +Mien-yaun speedily learned that his fair friend's name was Ching-ki-pin; +that she was the daughter of a wealthy manufacturer, named Tching-whang, +who owned extensive porcelain-factories at the North, and was besides a +considerable tobacco-planter; that her father was very kind to her, +but that the old woman, who was not her own mother, treated her very +cruelly; that her father married this ancient virago for her wealth, and +now repented the rash step, but found it impossible to retrace it, as +the law of China allows no divorces excepting when the wife has parents +living to receive and shelter her; and the obnoxious woman being nearly +a hundred years old herself, this was out of the question. When he +had learned so much, they were interrupted by the reappearance of the +Antique, who brought with her the cup of tea, most carefully prepared. +In deep abstraction, Mien-yaun seized it, and, instead of drinking the +boiling beverage, poured it upon the old woman's back, scalding her to +such a degree that her shrieks resounded through the neighborhood. Then +dropping the cup upon the ground, he put his heel into it, and, with a +burning glance of love at Ching-ki-pin, strode, melancholy, away. + + +III. + + +All that night, Mien-yaun's heart was troubled. The tranquillizing +finger of Sleep never touched his eyelids. At earliest dawn he arose, +and devoted some hours to the consideration of his costume. Never before +had he murmured at his wardrobe; now everything seemed unworthy of +the magnitude of the occasion. Finally, after many doubts and inward +struggles, and much bewilderment and desperation, the thing was done. He +issued forth in a blaze of splendor, preceded by two servants bearing +rare and costly presents. His raiment was a masterpiece of artistic +effect. He wore furs from Russia, and cotton from Bombay; his breast +sparkled with various orders of nobility; his slippers glistened with +gems; his hat was surmounted with the waving feather of the peacock. +Turning neither to the right nor to the left, he made his way to the +residence of Tching-whang. At the portal he paused, and sent in before +him his card,--a sheet of bright red paper,--with a list of the presents +he designed to offer the family whose acquaintance he desired to +cultivate. + +As he had expected, his reception was most cordial. Though his person +was unknown, the magic of his name was not unfelt, even in the regions +of the Kung. A prince of the peacock's feather was no common visitor to +the home of a plebeian manufacturer; and when that prince was found +to be in addition the leader of the fashions and the idol of the +aristocracy, the marvel assumed a miraculous character. The guest was +ushered in with many low obeisances. How the too gay Ching-ki-pin +regretted those unlucky telegraphic kisses! What would he think of her? +She, too, had passed a most unquiet night, but had been able to relieve +her feelings to some extent at the sewing-circle, which had met at +her home, and at which she poured into the eager ears of her young +companions rapturous accounts of the beauty, elegance, dignity, and +tenderness of the enchanting stranger, and displayed before their +dazzled eyes the lustrous jewel he had presented to her. Having excited +a great deal of envy and jealousy, she was able to rest more in peace +than would otherwise have been possible. But she had never dreamed of +the real rank of her admirer. It came upon her like a lightning-flash, +and almost reduced her to a condition of temporary distraction. As for +the mother-in-law, she would infallibly have gone off into hysterics, +but for the pain in her back, which the barbers--who are also the +physicians in China--had not been able to allay. But the sight of a +peacock's feather under her roof was better than balm to her tortured +spine. Tching-whang lost his presence of mind altogether, and violated +the common decencies of life by receiving his visitor with his hat +off, and taking the proffered presents with one hand,--the other being +occupied in pulling his ear, to assure himself he was not dreaming. + +Mien-yaun spoke. His voice fell like soft music on the ears of his +hosts, and went straight to the innermost core of Ching-ki-pin's heart. +He had come, he said, to give utterance to his deep grief at the mishap +of yesterday, the recollection of which had harrowed his soul. The +thought of that venerable blistered back had taken away his repose, and +seriously interfered with his appetite. At the same time he could not +forget his own great loss, occasioned by the unlucky spilling of the +precious cup. He was sure, that Madam, in the kindness of her heart, +would overlook his fault, and consent to bestow on him another cheering, +but not inebriating draught. + +The Antique was overcome by so much condescension. She could not say +a word. Tching-whang, too, remained paralyzed. But the beauteous +Ching-ki-pin, who had recovered her composure, answered with the +sweetest air imaginable, and succeeded in winding another amorous chain +around the already sufficiently-enslaved heart of her lover. + +Presently the ice of constraint was broken, and the Antique, having once +put her foot in it, plunged off into conversation with remarkable vigor. +She entertained Mien-yaun with a detailed account of her family trials, +so interminable, that, with all his politeness, the young noble could +not avoid gaping desperately. Tching-whang, observing his visitor's +strait, interposed. + +"What the women have lost in their feet, they have added to their +tongues," said he, quoting a Chinese proverb of great popularity. + +As the Antique persisted, her husband gently reminded her that excessive +talkativeness is an allowed ground for divorce in China, and, by +suggesting the idea that she might possibly become the dismembered +fragment of a shattered union, at length succeeded in shaming her into +silence. + +This Tching-whang was a fine old fellow. He was not a bit fashionable, +and Mien-yaun liked him the better for it. He had been educated by the +bamboo, and not by masters in the arts of courtesy. But he was a shrewd, +cunning, jolly old Chinaman, and was evidently perfectly familiar with +the elementary principles according to Kei-ying. After an animated +discussion of some ten minutes, it would have been difficult to +determine which of the two gentlemen was most deeply imbued with a sense +of the righteousness of the elementary principles. + +After a proper time had elapsed, Mien-yaun was permitted the luxury of +a private chat with his charmer. What sighs, what smiles, what pleasing +tremors, what soft murmurings, what pressings of the hand and throbbings +of the heart were there! The Antique, who watched the course of +proceedings through a contiguous keyhole, subsequently declared that she +had never in all her life witnessed so affecting a spectacle, and she +was prevented from giving way to her excessive agitation only by +the thought that the interruption might seriously endanger her +daughter-in-law's prospects. The lovers, unconscious of scrutiny, made +great progress. Some doubt appeared at one time to exist as to which +had first experienced the budding passion which had now blossomed so +profusely; but in due time it was settled that both had suffered love at +precisely the same moment, and that the first gleam of the other's eye +had kindled the flame in the bosom of each. + +Towards evening, the Antique came in with a cup of tea worthy to excite +a poet's inspiration,--and poets in China have sung the delights of tea, +and written odes to teacups, too, before now. Mien-yaun sipped it with +an air of high-breeding that neither Ching-ki-pin nor her respectable +mother-in-law had ever seen before. Soon after, the enamored couple +parted, with many fond protestations of faith, avowed and betrothed +lovers. + +Mien-yaun went home in an amatory ecstasy, and immediately exploded four +bunches of crackers and blazed a Bengal light, as a slight token of his +infinite happiness. + + +IV. + + +All Pekin was in an uproar. That is to say, the three thousand eminent +individuals who composed the aristocracy had nearly lost their wits. +The million and a half of common people were, of course, of no account. +Mien-yaun had given out that he was about to be married; but to whom, +or to how many, remained a mystery. No further intelligence passed his +lips. Consequently, in less than twenty-four hours there were four +hundred and fifty persons who knew the lady's name, as many more who had +conversed with her upon the subject, twice as many who knew the day on +which the ceremony was to take place, at least one thousand who had been +invited to assist, and an infinitely greater number who simply shook +their heads. In two days the names of some hundreds of young and comely +damsels were popularly accepted as the chosen future partner of the +glass of fashion and the mould of form. Fifty different days and hours +were fixed as the appointed time. All the most noted bonzes in Pekin +were in turn declared to be the fortunate sacred instrument by which +the union was to be effected. In the course of a week, public feeling +reached such a height that business was neglected and property declined +in value. A panic was feared. Mien-yaun shut himself up, and did not +stir abroad for a month, lest he should be tracked, and his secret +discovered. He contrived, however, to maintain a constant correspondence +with the light of his soul. + +He was a little disturbed to find that his much revered father, the +ex-censor of the highest board, took no notice of what was going on, and +never alluded to the subject in any manner. Mien-yaun was too deeply +impressed with a sense of filial obligation to intrude his humble +affairs upon the old gentleman's + +[Transcriber's note: Page missing in original.] + +There were lanterns--without number, and of the largest size; there were +the richest and most luxurious couches disposed about for the general +comfort; there were consultations of cooks, headed by a professor from +Ning-po, a city famed throughout China for its culinary perfection, with +a view to producing an unrivalled gastronomic sensation; there were +tailors who tortured their inventive brains to realize the ideal raiment +which Mien-yaun desired to appear in. The panic ceased as suddenly as it +had arisen. A little while ago, and there was a surplus of supply and no +demand; now, the demand far exceeded the supply. Artists in apparel were +driven frantic. In three days the entire fashionable world of Pekin had +to be new clad, and well clad, for the great occasion. One tailor, +in despair at his inability to execute more than the tenth of his +commissions, went and drowned himself in the Peiho River, a proceeding +which did not at all diminish the public distress. The loss of the +tailor was nothing, to be sure, but his death was a fatal blow to the +hopes of at least a hundred of the first families. As for the women, +they were beside themselves, and knew not which way to turn. It was +evident that nothing had occurred within a half-century to create +anything like the excitement that existed. Mien-yaun's prospects of +eternal potency never seemed so cheering. + +All this time, our hero's father, the ex-censor of the highest board, +preserved a profound silence. + + +VI. + + +The three days passed so rapidly, that even Mien-yaun's anxiety, great +as it was, could hardly keep pace with the swift hours. The morning +of the New Year came. For the first time in his life, the dictator of +fashion lost his mind. His head whirled like a tee-to-tum, and his +pulses beat sharp and irregular as the detonations of a bundle of +crackers. He was obliged to resign himself to fate and his valet, and +felt compelled to have recourse to many cups of tea to calm his fevered +senses. At length it became necessary for him to descend to the gardens. +Nerving himself by a powerful effort, he advanced among his guests. + +What a gorgeous array of rank and beauty was there! The customary calls +of the New Year had been forgotten. Curiosity had alike infected all, +and the traditionary commemoration of two thousand years was for the +first time neglected. Why this tremor at our hero's heart? Was he not +lord of all that he surveyed? Reigned he not yet with undisputed sway? +Or was it that, an undefined presentiment of dire misfortune had settled +upon him? He strove to banish his melancholy, but with slight success. + +His troubled air did not escape the scrutinizing eyes of the company. +The women whispered; the men shook their heads. But all greeted him with +enthusiasm, and asked after his bride with eagerness. + +A crash of gongs was heard. The gates of a pavilion flew open, and the +beauteous Ching-ki-pin stepped forth, glowing with loveliness and hope. +As she stood an instant timidly on the portal, she seemed almost a +divinity,--at least, Mien-yaun thought so. Her sweet face was surmounted +by a heavy coronet of black hair, plaited to perfection, and glistening +with gum. Her little eyes beamed lovingly on her betrothed, and a flush +of expectancy overspread her countenance. Her costume was in the best +Chinese taste. An embroidered tunic of silk fell from her neck almost to +her ankles, and just temptingly revealed the spangled trowsers and the +richly jewelled slippers. A murmur of admiration diffused itself around. +Then followed many anxious inquiries. Who was she? Whence came she? To +whom belonged she? Her face was strange to all that high-born throng. In +a minute, however, her father appeared, bearing on his arm the Antique, +who looked more hideous than ever. A flash of intelligence quivered +through the multitude. Many of the nobility purchased their porcelain +and tobacco of Tching-whang, and recognized him immediately. It is +astonishing how like lightning unpleasant facts do fly. In less than two +minutes, every soul in the gardens knew that Mien-yaun, the noble, the +princely, the loftily-descended, the genteel, was going to marry a +tradesman's daughter. + +Now that the great secret was out, everybody had thought so. Some had +been sure of it. Others had told you so. It was the most natural thing +in the world. Where there was so much mystery, there must, of necessity, +be some peculiar reason for it. A great many had always thought him a +little crazy. In fact, the whole tide of public sentiment instantly +turned. Mien-yaun, without knowing it, was dethroned. Upstarts, who +that morning had trembled at his frown, and had very properly deemed +themselves unworthy to braid his tail, now swept by him with swaggering +insolence, as if to compensate in their new-found freedom for the years +of social enslavement they had been subjected to. Leers and shrugs and +spiteful whispers circulated extensively. But the enraptured Mien-yaun, +blind to everything except his own overwhelming happiness, saw and heard +them not. + +Little time was afforded for these private expressions of amiable +feeling. The grand repast was declared ready, and the importance of this +announcement overweighed, for a short period, the claims of scandal and +ill-nature. The company quickly found their way to the tables, which, as +the "Pekin Gazette" of the next morning said, in describing the _fete_, +"literally groaned beneath the weight of the delicacies with which they +were loaded." The consultations of the Ning-po cook and his confederates +had produced great results. The guests seated themselves, and delicately +tasted the slices of goose and shell-fish, and the pickled berries, and +prawns, and preserves, which always compose the prefatory course of a +Chinese dinner of high degree. Then porcelain plates and spoons of the +finest quality, and ivory chopsticks tipped with pearl, were distributed +about, and the birds'-nest soup was brought on. After a sufficient +indulgence in this luxury, came sea-slugs, and shark stews, and crab +salad, all served with rich and gelatinous sauces, and cooked to a +charm. Ducks' tongues and deers' tendons, from Tartary, succeeded, with +stewed fruits and mucilaginous gravy. Every known and some unknown +luxuries were lavishly provided. The Ning-po cook had invented a +new dish expressly for the occasion,--"Baked ice _a la_ +Ching-ki-pin,"--which was highly esteemed. The ice was enveloped in a +crust of fine pastry, and introduced into the oven; the paste being +baked before the ice--thus protected from the heat--had melted, the +astonished visitors had the satisfaction of biting through a burning +crust, and instantly cooling their palates with the grateful contents. +The Chinese never cook except on substantial principles; and it was the +principle of contrast which regulated this sublime _chef-d'oeuvre_ of +the Ning-po artist. + +Of course, the rarest beverages were not wanting. A good dinner without +good wine is nought. Useless each without the other. Those whose fancy +rested upon medicated _liqueurs_ found them in every variety. Those who +placed a higher value upon plain light wines had no reason to complain +of the supply set before them. Those whose unconquerable instinct +impelled them to the more invigorating sam-shu had only to make known +their natural desires. As the feast progressed, and the spirits of +the company rose, the charms of music were added to the delights of +appetite. A band of singsong girls gently beat their tom-toms, and +carolled in soft and soothing strains. As they finished, a general +desire to hear Mien-yaun was expressed. Willing, indeed, he was, and, +after seven protestations that he could not think upon it, each fainter +than the other, he suffered himself to be prevailed over, and, casting +a fond look upon his betrothed, he rose, and sang the following verses +from the Shee-king,--a collection of odes four thousand years old, and, +consequently, of indisputable beauty:-- + + "The peach-tree, how graceful! how fair! + How blooming, how pleasant its leaves! + Such is a bride when she enters to share + The home of her bridegroom, and every care + Her family from her receives."[A] + +[Footnote A: The following is Sir William Jones's less literal and more +poetic paraphrase of the same selection:-- + + "Gay child of Spring, the garden's queen, + Yon peach-tree charms the roving sight; + Its fragrant leaves how richly green! + Its blossoms how divinely bright! + + "So softly smiles the blooming bride + By love and conscious virtue led + O'er her new mansion to preside, + And placid joys around her spread."] + + +VII. + + +The festivities were at their height, the sam-shu was spreading its +benign influences over the guests, the deep delight of satiated appetite +possessed their bosoms, when the entrance of a stern and fat old +gentleman arrested universal attention. It was the respected father of +Mien-yaun, the ex-censor of the highest board, and Councillor of the +Empire. The company rose to greet him; but he, with gracious suavity, +begged them not to discompose themselves. Approaching that part of the +table occupied by the bridal party, he laid his hand upon his heart, and +assured Tching-whang that he was unable to express the joy he felt at +seeing him and his family. + +Mien-yaun's father was a perfect master of the elementary principles. + +Turning then to his son, he pleasantly requested him to excuse himself +to the assemblage, and follow him for a few minutes to a private +apartment. + +As soon as they were alone, the adipose ex-censor of the highest board +said:--"My son, have you thought of wedding this maiden?" + +"Nothing shall divert me from that purpose, O my father," confidently +answered Mien-yaun. + +"Nothing but my displeasure," said the ex-censor of the highest board. +"You will not marry her." + +Mien-yaun was thunderstruck. When he had said that nothing should +awe him from the career of his humor, he had never contemplated the +appalling contingency of the interposition of paternal authority. He +wept, he prayed, he raved, he gnashed his teeth, he tore out as much of +his hair as was consistent with appearances. He went through all the +various manifestations of despair, but without producing the slightest +effect upon the inexorable ex-censor of the highest board. That worthy +official briefly explained his objections to a union between his son, +the pride and joy of the Tse, and a daughter of one of the Kung, and +then, taking the grief-stricken lover by the hand, he led him back to +the gardens. + +"Good friends," said he, "my son has just conveyed to me his lively +appreciation of the folly he was about to commit. He renounces all +connection with the black-haired daughter of the Kung, whom he now +wishes a very good evening." + +And the ex-censor of the highest board gravely and gracefully bowed the +family of Tching-whang out of the premises. The moment they crossed the +threshold, Mien-yaun and Ching-ki-pin went into a simultaneous fit. + + +VIII. + + +Mien-yaun now abandoned himself to grief. He laid away the peacock's +feather on a lofty shelf, and took to cotton breeches. Mien-yaun in +cotton breeches! What stronger confirmation could be needed of his utter +desolation? As he kept himself strictly secluded, he knew nothing of +the storm of ridicule that was sweeping his once illustrious name +disgracefully through the city. He knew not that a popular but +unscrupulous novelist had caught up the sad story and wrought it into +three thrilling volumes,--nor that an enterprising dramatist had +constructed a closely-written play in five acts, founded on the event, +and called "The Judgment of Taoli, or Vanity Rebuked," which had been +prepared, rehearsed, and put upon the stage by the second night after +the occurrence. He would gladly have abdicated the throne of fashion; +he cared nothing for that;--but it was well that he was spared the +humiliation of seeing his Ching-ki-pin's name held up to public scorn; +that would have destroyed the feeble remains of intellect which yet +inhabited his bewildered brain. + +Occasionally he would address the most piteous entreaties to his +cruel parent, but always unavailingly. He had not the spirit to show +resentment, even if the elementary principles would have permitted +it. The reaction of his life had come. This first great sorrow had +completely overwhelmed him, and, like most young persons in the agony of +a primal disappointment, he believed that the world had now no charms +for him, and that in future his existence would be little better than +a long sad bore. He looked back upon his career of gaudy magnificence +without regret, and felt like a _blase_ butterfly, who would gladly +return to the sober obscurity of the chrysalis. He found that wealth and +station, though they might command the admiration of the world, could +not insure him happiness; and he thought how readily he would resign all +the gifts and glories which Fortune had showered on him for the joyous +hope, could he dare to indulge it, of a cottage on the banks of the +Grand Canal, with his darling Ching-ki-pin at his side. + +Thus passed away some months. At last, one day, he ventured forth, in +hope of meeting some former friend, in whose confiding ear he might +whisper his many sorrows. He had not proceeded twenty paces before a +group of young gallants, who in earlier days had been the humblest +of his satellites, brushed rudely by him, without acknowledging his +courteous salutation. Thinking that anguish might have changed his +features beyond recognition, he walked on, and soon met one with whom +his intimacy had been unlimited. He paused, and accosted him. + +The other stared coldly upon him, said he had a faint remembrance of +Mien-yaun, but Mien-yaun was _passe_ now, since that affair with old +Tching-whang's daughter, and he must really be excused from entering +into conversation with any one so excessively behind the fashionable +times. + +Mien-yaun seized the offender by the tail, whirled him violently to the +ground, and strode haughtily back to his home, whence he could not be +persuaded to stir, until after the occurrence of a very remarkable +event. + + +IX. + + +When Mien-yaun had pined nearly half away, and was considering within +himself whether it was expedient to commence upon the other half, word +was brought to him, one day, that his father, whom he had not seen for +some weeks, had met with an accident. Further inquiry revealed the fact, +that the worthy ex-censor of the highest board had so far forgotten +himself as to sneeze in the presence of the Emperor; and as nothing in +the elementary principles could be found to justify so gross a breach +of etiquette, the ex-censor's head had been struck off by the public +executioner, and his property, which was immense, had been confiscated +to the state. Some of Mien-yaun's friends, who had sedulously shunned +him for six months, lost no time in hastening to him with the agreeable +intelligence that he was an orphan and a pauper. After kicking them out +of doors, he sat down and pondered upon the matter. + +On the whole, he saw no great cause for grief. The Chinese law, which +is strict in the enforcement of all duties of a son to a living parent, +does not compel excessive lamentation for the dead. Mien-yaun could not +but perceive that the only obstacle to his union with Ching-ki-pin was +now removed. The sudden flood of joy which this thought gave rise +to came very near upsetting him again, and he had to resort to an +opium-pipe to quiet his nerves. He attended personally to the ceremonies +of interring the decollated deceased, and then shut himself up for a +week, to settle his mind. + +At the expiration of this time, he started out, one early morning, alone +and in humble garb, to seek his lost love. He threaded the familiar +streets, and, with heart beating high in delightful expectation, he +stood before the door of Tching-whang's mansion. He entered, and found +the Antique alone. + +Then followed a woful scene. The Antique began by informing him that +Mien-yaun rich and famous, and Mien-yaun poor and in disgrace, were two +very different persons. She went on to show that things were not now as +they used to be,--that, though her daughter-in-law had permitted his +addresses when he was in prosperity, she could not think of listening to +them under the present circumstances. _Pei_ was one thing, and _pin_ was +another. She concluded by recommending him, as he seemed in distress, to +take a dose of gin-seng and go to bed. After which she opened the door, +and gently eliminated him. + + +X. + + +Deeper than ever plummet sounded was Mien-yaun's wretchedness now. +Desperation took possession of him. Nothing prevented him from severing +his carotid artery but the recollection that only the vulgar thus +disposed of themselves. He thought of poison, whose sale was present +death in Pekin, according to established law. Suicide by poison being a +forbidden luxury, it recommended itself nimbly unto Mien-yaun's senses. +He did remember an apothecary whose poverty, if not his will, would +consent to let him have a dram of poison. He was about acting on this +inspiration, when a message was brought to him from Tching-whang, that, +at his daughter's most earnest prayer, one solitary interview would be +permitted the lovers. + +Like an arrow, Mien-yaun flew to the arms of Ching-ki-pin. She was, +then, true to him. She told him so; she swore it. Hope revived. He +thought no longer of the apothecary. Since Ching-ki-pin was faithful, he +asked no higher bliss. + +A hundred plans were discussed, and all declared ineffectual to +accomplish their union. Still they suggested impracticabilities. + +"Let us run away," said Mien-yaun. + +"Think of my feet," said Ching-ki-pin, reproachfully;--"am I a Hong-Kong +woman, that I should run?" + +It is only in Hong-Kong that the Chinese women permit their feet to +grow. + +Mien-yaun was full of heroic resolutions. Hitherto, besides being born +great, he had had greatness thrust upon him. Now he would achieve +greatness. He would secure not only wealth, but also a more enduring +fame than he had before enjoyed. He saw many avenues to eminence opening +before him. He would establish a periodical devoted to pictorial +civilization. If civilization did not bring it success, he would +illustrate great crimes and deadly horrors, in the highest style of Art, +and thus command the attention of the world. Or he would establish a +rival theatre. Two playhouses already existed in Pekin, each controlled +by men of high integrity, great tact, and undenied claims to public +support. He would overturn all that. He would start without capital, +sink immense sums, pay nobody, ruin his company, and retire in triumph. +Or he would become a successful politician, which was easier than +all, for nothing was needed in this career but strong lungs and a +cyclopaedia. Many other methods of achieving renown did he rehearse, all +of which seemed feasible. + +Ching-ki-pin, too, thought she might do something to acquire wealth. She +painted beautifully, with no sign of perspective to mar her artistic +productions. She warbled like a nightingale. She understood botany +better than the great Chin-nong, who discovered in one day no less than +seventy poisonous plants, and their seventy antidotes. Could she not +give lessons to select classes of young ladies in all these several +accomplishments? She was dying to do something to help defeat the +machinations of their evil Quei-shin, the mother-in-law. + +Finally, without coming to any particular conclusion, and after +interchanging eternal vows, they parted much comforted, and looking +forward to a brighter future. + + +XI. + + +Mien-yaun went to his home,--no longer the splendid mansion of his early +days, but a poor cottage, in an obscure quarter of the city. As he threw +himself upon a bench, a sharp bright thought flashed across his mind. +His brain expanded with a sudden poetic ecstasy. He seized upon a fresh +white sheet, and quickly covered it with the mute symbols of his fancy. +Another sheet, and yet another. Faster than his hand could record them, +the burning thoughts crowded upon him. No hesitation now, as in his +former efforts to effect his rhymes. Experience had taught him how to +think, and much suffering had filled his bosom with emotions that longed +to be expressed. Still he wrote on. Towards midnight he kicked off his +shoes, and wrote on, throwing the pages over his shoulder as fast as +they were finished. Morning dawned, and found him still at his task. He +continued writing with desperate haste until noon, and then flung away +his last sheet; his poem was done. + +He rose, and moistened his lips with a cup of fragrant Hyson, which, +according to the great Kian-lung, who was both a poet and an emperor, +and therefore undoubted authority on all subjects, drives away all the +five causes of disquietude which come to trouble us. Then he walked up +and down his narrow apartment many times, carefully avoiding the piles +of eloquence that lay scattered around. Then he sat down, and, gathering +up the disordered pages, resigned himself to the dire necessity--that +curse of authorship--of revising and correcting his verses. By +nightfall, this, too, was completed. + +In the morning, he ran to the nearest publisher. His poem was +enthusiastically accepted. In a week, it was issued anonymously, +although the author's name was universally known the same day. + +As Mien-yaun himself was afterwards accustomed to say,--after six months +of ignominious obscurity, he awoke one morning and found himself famous! + +In two days the first edition was exhausted, and a second, with +illustrations, was called for. In two more, it became necessary to issue +a third, with a biography of the author, in which it was shown that +Mien-yaun was the worst-abused individual in the world, and that Pekin +had forever dishonored itself by ill-treating the greatest genius that +city had ever produced. In the fourth edition, which speedily followed, +the poet's portrait appeared. + +It was soon found that Mien-yaun's poem was a versified narration of his +own experiences. There was the romantic youth, the beautiful maiden, the +obdurate papa, the villanous mother-in-law, and the shabby public. This +discovery augmented its popularity, and ten editions were disposed of in +a month. + +At length the Emperor was induced to read it. He underwent a new +sensation, and, in the exuberance of his delight, summoned the author +to a grand feast. When the Antique heard of this, she swallowed her +chopsticks in a fit of rage and spite, and died of suffocation. +Mien-yaun was then satisfied. He went to the dinner. The noble and the +mighty again lavished their attentions upon him, but he turned from them +with disgust. He saw through the flimsy tissue of flattery they would +fain cast over his eyes. The most appetizing delicacies were set before +him, but, like a true poet, he refused to take anything but biscuits and +soda-water. As neither of these articles had been provided, he consented +to regale himself with a single duck's tongue. In short, he behaved so +singularly, and gave himself so many airs, that everybody present, from +the Emperor to the cook, was ready to bow down and worship him. + +At the close of the repast, the Emperor begged to be informed in what +way he could be permitted to testify his appreciation of the towering +talents of his gifted subject. + +"Son of Heaven," answered Mien-yaun, "grant me only the hand in marriage +of my beauteous Ching-ki-pin. No other ambition have I." + +The Emperor was provoked at the modesty of the demand. In truth, he +would have been glad to see the young poet united to one of his own +daughters. But his imperial word was pledged,--and as Mien-yaun willed +it, so it was. + + +XII. + + +Their home is a little cottage on the bank of the Peiho; finery never +enters it, and neatness never leaves it. The singing of birds, the +rustling of the breeze, the murmuring of the waters are the only sounds +that they hear. Their windows will shut, and their door open,--but +to wise men only; the wicked shun it. Truth dwells in their hearts, +innocence guides their actions. Glory has no more charms for them than +wealth, and all the pleasures of the world cost them not a single wish. +The enjoyment of ease and solitude is their chief concern. Leisure +surrounds them, and discord shuns them. They contemplate the heavens and +are fortified. They look on the earth and are comforted. They remain in +the world without being of it. One day leads on another, and one year is +followed by another; the last will conduct them safe to their eternal +rest, and they will have lived for one another.[B] + +[Footnote B: The concluding lines are from a modern Chinese poem.] + + * * * * * + + +JOY-MONTH. + + + Oh, hark to the brown thrush! hear how he sings! + How he pours the dear pain of his gladness! + What a gush! and from out what golden springs! + What a rage of how sweet madness! + + And golden the buttercup blooms by the way, + A song of the joyous ground; + While the melody rained from yonder spray + Is a blossom in fields of sound. + + How glisten the eyes of the happy leaves! + How whispers each blade, "I am blest!" + Rosy heaven his lips to flowered earth gives, + With the costliest bliss of his breast. + + Pour, pour of the wine of thy heart, O Nature, + By cups of field and of sky, + By the brimming soul of every creature!-- + Joy-mad, dear Mother, am I! + + Tongues, tongues for my joy, for my joy! more tongues!-- + Oh, thanks to the thrush on the tree, + To the sky, and to all earth's blooms and songs! + They utter the heart in me. + + + + +A TRIP TO CUBA. + +[Continued.] + + +THE HARBOR OF HAVANA. + + +As we have said, there were some official mysteries connected with the +arrival of our steamer in Nassau; but these did not compare with the +visitations experienced in Havana. As soon as we had dropped anchor, a +swarm of dark creatures came on board, with gloomy brows, mulish noses, +and suspicious eyes. This application of Spanish flies proves irritating +to the good-natured captain, and uncomfortable to all of us. All +possible documents are produced for their satisfaction,--bill of lading, +bill of health, and so on. Still they persevere in tormenting the whole +ship's crew, and regard us, when we pass, with all the hatred of race in +their rayless eyes. "Is it a crime," we are disposed to ask, "to have +a fair Saxon skin, blue eyes, and red blood?" Truly, one would seem to +think so; and the first glance at this historical race makes clear to us +the Inquisition, the Conquest of Granada, and the ancient butcheries of +Alva and Pizarro. + +As Havana is an unco uncertain place for accommodations, we do not go on +shore, the first night, but, standing close beside the bulwarks, feel a +benevolent pleasure in seeing our late companions swallowed and carried +off like tidbits by the voracious boatmen below, who squabble first for +them and then with them, and so gradually disappear in the darkness. On +board the "Karnak" harmony reigns serene. The custom-house wretches are +gone, and we are, on the whole, glad we did not murder them. Our little +party enjoys tea and bread-and-butter together for the last time. After +so many mutual experiences of good and evil, the catguts about our tough +old hearts are loosened, and discourse the pleasant music of Friendship. +An hour later, I creep up to the higher deck, to have a look-out +forward, where the sailors are playing leap-frog and dancing +fore-and-afters. I have a genuine love of such common sights, and am +quite absorbed by the good fun before me, when a solemn voice sounds at +my left, and, looking round, I perceive Can Grande, who has come up to +explain to me the philosophy of the sailor's dances, and to unfold his +theory of amusements, as far as the narrow area of one little brain +(mine, not his) will permit. His monologue, and its interruptions, ran +very much as follows:-- + +_I_.--This is a pleasant sight, isn't it? + +_Can Grande_.--It has a certain interest, as exhibiting the inborn ideal +tendency of the human race;--no tribe of people so wretched, so poor, or +so infamous as to dispense with amusement, in some form or other. + +_Voice from below_.--Play up, Cook! That's but a slow jig ye're fluting +away at. + +_Can Grande_.--I went once to the Five Points of New York, with a +police-officer and two philanthropists;--our object was to investigate +that lowest phase of social existence.---- + +Bang, whang, go the wrestlers below, with loud shouts and laughter. I +give them one eye and ear,--Can Grande has me by the other. + +_Can Grande_.--I went into one of their miserable dance-saloons. I saw +there the vilest of men and the vilest of women, meeting with the worst +intentions; but even for this they had the fiddle, music and dancing. +Without this little crowning of something higher, their degradation +would have been intolerable to themselves and to each other.---- + +Here the man who gave the back in leap-frog suddenly went down in the +middle of the leap, bringing with him the other, who, rolling on the +deck, caught the traitor by the hair, and pommelled him to his heart's +content. I ventured to laugh, and exclaim, "Did you see that?" + +_Can Grande_.--Yes; that is very common.--At that dance of death, every +wretched woman had such poor adornment as her circumstances allowed,--a +collar, a tawdry ribbon, a glaring false jewel, her very rags disposed +with the greater decency of the finer sex,--a little effort at beauty, a +sense of it. The good God puts it there;--He does not allow the poorest, +the lowest of his human children the thoughtless indifference of +brutes.---- + +And there was the beautiful tropical sky above, starry, soft, and +velvet-deep,--the placid waters all around, and at my side the man who +is to speak no more in public, but whose words in private have still the +old thrill, the old power to shake the heart and bring the good thoughts +uppermost. I put my hand in his, and we descended the companionway +together and left the foolish sailors to their play. + +But now, on the after-deck, the captain, much entreated, and in no wise +unwilling, takes down his violin, and with pleasant touch gives us the +dear old airs, "Home, Sweet Home," "Annie Laurie," and so on, and we +accompany him with voices toned down by the quiet of the scene around. +He plays, too, with a musing look, the merry tune to which his little +daughter dances, in the English dancing-school, hundreds of leagues +away. Good-night, at last, and make the most of it. Coolness and quiet +on the water to-night, and heat and mosquitoes, howling of dogs and +chattering of negroes tomorrow night, in Havana. + +The next morning allowed us to accomplish our transit to the desired +land of Havana. We pass the custom-house, where an official in a cage, +with eyes of most oily sweetness, and tongue, no doubt, to match, +pockets our gold, and imparts in return a governmental permission to +inhabit the Island of Cuba for the space of one calendar month. We go +trailing through the market, where we buy peeled oranges, and through +the streets, where we eat them, seen and recognized afar as Yankees by +our hats, bonnets, and other features. We stop at the Cafe Dominica, and +refresh with coffee and buttered rolls, for we have still a drive of +three miles to accomplish before breakfast. All the hotels in Havana are +full, and more than full. Woolcut, of the Cerro, three miles from the +gates, is the only landlord who will take us in; so he seizes us fairly +by the neck, bundles us into an omnibus, swears that his hotel is but +two miles distant, smiles archly when we find the two miles long, brings +us where he wants to have us, the Spaniards in the omnibus puffing and +staring at the ladies all the way. Finally, we arrive at his hotel, glad +to be somewhere, but hot, tired, hungry, and not in raptures with our +first experience of tropical life. + +It must be confessed that our long-tried energies fall somewhat flat on +the quiet of Woolcut's. We look round, and behold one long room with +marble floor, with two large doors, not windows, opening in front upon +the piazza and the street, and other openings into a large court behind, +surrounded by small, dark bedrooms. The large room is furnished with two +dilapidated cane sofas, a few chairs, a small table, and three or four +indifferent prints, which we have ample time to study. For company, we +see a stray New York or Philadelphia family, a superannuated Mexican who +smiles and bows to everybody, and some dozen of those undistinguishable +individuals whom we class together as Yankees, and who, taking the map +from Maine to Georgia, might as well come from one place as another, the +Southerner being as like the Northerner as a dried pea is to a green +pea. The ladies begin to hang their heads, and question a little:--"What +are we to do here? and where is the perfectly delightful Havana you told +us of?" Answer:--"There is nothing whatever to do here, at this hour +of the day, but to undress and go to sleep;--the heat will not let you +stir, the glare will not let you write or read. Go to bed; dinner is at +four; and after that, we will make an effort to find the Havana of the +poetical and Gan Eden people, praying Heaven it may not have its only +existence in their brains." + +Still, the pretty ones do not brighten; they walk up and down, eyeing +askance the quiet boarders who look so contented over their children and +worsted-work, and wondering in what part of the world they have taken +the precaution to leave their souls. Unpacking is then begun, with +rather a flinging of the things about, interspersed with little peppery +hints as to discomfort and dulness, and dejected stage-sighs, intended +for hearing. But this cannot go on,--the thermometer is at 78 degrees +in the shade,--an intense and contagious stillness reigns through the +house,--some good genius waves a bunch of poppies near those little +fretful faces, for which a frown is rather heavy artillery. The balmy +breath of sleep blows off the lightly-traced furrows, and, after a +dreamy hour or two, all is bright, smooth, and freshly dressed, as a +husband could wish it. The dinner proves not intolerable, and after it +we sit on the piazza. A refreshing breeze springs up, and presently the +tide of the afternoon drive sets in from the city. The _volantes_ dash +by, with silver-studded harnesses, and postilions black and booted; +within sit the pretty Senoritas, in twos and threes. They are attired +mostly in muslins, with bare necks and arms; bonnets they know +not,--their heads are dressed with flowers, or with jewelled pins. Their +faces are whitened, we know, with powder, but in the distance the effect +is pleasing. Their dark eyes are vigilant; they know a lover when they +see him. But there is no twilight in these parts, and the curtain of the +dark falls upon the scene as suddenly as the screen of the theatre upon +the _denouement_ of the tragedy. Then comes a cup of truly infernal tea, +the mastication of a stale roll, with butter, also stale,--then, +more sitting on the piazza,--then, retirement, and a wild hunt after +mosquitoes,--and so ends the first day at Woolcut's, on the Cerro. + + +HAVANA. THE HOTELS. + + +"Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?" Yes, truly, if you can get it, +Jack Falstaff; but it is one thing to pay for comfort, and another thing +to have it. You certainly pay for it, in Havana; for the $3 or $3.50 +_per diem_, which is your simplest hotel-charge there, should, in any +civilized part of the world, give you a creditable apartment, clean +linen, and all reasonable diet. What it does give, the travelling public +may like to learn. + +Can Grande has left Woolcut's. The first dinner did not please him,--the +cup of tea, with only bread, exasperated,--and the second breakfast, +greasy, peppery, and incongruous, finished his disgust; so he asked for +his bill, packed his trunk, called the hotel detestable, and went. + +Now he was right enough in this; the house is detestable;--but as all +houses of entertainment throughout the country are about equally so, +it is scarcely fair to complain of one. I shall not fear to be more +inclusive in my statement, and to affirm that in no part of the world +does one get so little comfort for so much money as on the Island of +Cuba. To wit: an early cup of black coffee, oftenest very bad; bread not +to be had without an extra sputtering of Spanish, and darkening of the +countenance;--to wit, a breakfast between nine and ten, invariably +consisting of fish, rice, beefsteak, fried plantains, salt cod with +tomatoes, stewed tripe and onions, indifferent claret, and an after-cup +of coffee or green tea;--to wit, a dinner at three or four, of which +the inventory varieth not,--to wit, a plate of soup, roast beef, tough +turkeys and chickens, tolerable ham, nameless stews, cajota, plantains, +salad, sweet potatoes; and for dessert, a spoonful each of West India +preserve,--invariably the kind you do not like,--oranges, bananas, and +another cup of coffee;--to wit, tea of the sort already described;--to +wit, attendance and non-attendance of negro and half-breed waiters, who +mostly speak no English, and neither know nor care what you want;--to +wit, a room whose windows, reaching from floor to ceiling, inclose no +glass, and are defended from the public by iron rails, and from the +outer air, at desire, by clumsy wooden shutters, which are closed only +when it rains;--to wit, a bed with a mosquito-netting;--to wit, a towel +and a pint of water, for all ablutions. This is the sum of your comforts +as to quantity; but as to their quality, experience alone can enlighten +you. + +Taking pity on my exile at the Cerro, Can Grande and his party invite +me to come and spend a day at their hotel, of higher reputation, and +situated in the centre of things. I go;--the breakfast, to my surprise, +is just like Woolcut's; the dinner _idem_, but rather harder to get; +preserves for tea, and two towels daily, instead of one, seem to +constitute the chief advantages of this establishment. Domestic linens, +too, are fairer than elsewhere; but when you have got your ideas of +cleanliness down to the Cuban standard, a shade or two either way makes +no material difference. + +Can Grande comes and goes; for stay in the hotel, behind those +prison-gratings, he cannot. He goes to the market and comes back, goes +to the Jesuit College and comes back, goes to the banker's and gets +money. In his encounters with the sun he is like a prize-fighter coming +up to time. Every round finds him weaker and weaker, still his pluck is +first-rate, and he goes at it again. It is not until three, P.M., that +he wrings out his dripping pocket-handkerchief, slouches his hat over +his brows, and gives in as dead-beat. + +They of the lovely sex, meanwhile, undergo, with what patience they may, +an Oriental imprisonment. In the public street they must on no account +set foot. The Creole and Spanish women are born and bred to this, and +the hardiest American or English woman will scarcely venture out a +second time without the severe escort of husband or brother. These +relatives are, accordingly, in great demand. In the thrifty North, man +is considered an incumbrance from breakfast to dinner,--and the sooner +he is fed and got out of the way in the morning, the better the work +of the household goes on. If the master of the house return at an +unseasonable hour, he is held to an excuse, and must prove a headache, +or other suitable indisposition. In Havana, on the contrary, the +American woman suddenly becomes very fond of her husband:--"he must not +leave her at home alone; where does he go? she will go with him; when +will he come back? remember, now, she will expect him." The secret of +all this is, that she cannot go out without him. The other angel of +deliverance is the _volante_, with its tireless horses and _calesero_, +who seems fitted and screwed to the saddle, which he never leaves. He +does not even turn his head for orders. His senses are in the back of +his head, or wherever his mistress pleases. "_Jose, calle de la muralla, +esquina a los oficios_,"--and the black machine moves on, without look, +word, or sign of intelligence. In New York, your Irish coachman grins +approval of your order; and even an English flunkey may touch his hat +and say, "Yes, Mum." But in the Cuban negro of service, dumbness is the +complement of darkness;--you speak, and the patient right hand pulls the +strap that leads the off horse, while the other gathers up the reins of +the nigh, and the horses, their tails tightly braided and deprived of +all movement, seem as mechanical as the driver. Happy are the ladies +at the hotel who have a perpetual _volante_ at their service! for they +dress in their best clothes three times a day, and do not soil them by +contact with the dusty street. They drive before breakfast, and shop +before dinner, and after dinner go to flirt their fans and refresh their +robes on the Paseo, where the fashions drive. At twilight, they stop at +friendly doors and pay visits, or at the entrance of the _cafe_, where +ices are brought out to them. At eight o'clock they go to the Plaza, and +hear the band play, sitting in the _volante_; and at ten they come home, +without fatigue, having all day taken excellent care of number one, +beyond which their arithmetic does not extend. "I and my _volante_" is +like Cardinal Wolsey's "_Ego et Rex meus_." + +As for those who have no _volantes_, modesty becomes them, and quietness +of dress and demeanor. They get a little walk before breakfast, and stay +at home all day, or ride in an omnibus, which is perhaps worse;--they +pay a visit now and then in a hired carriage, the bargain being made +with difficulty;--they look a good deal through the bars of the +windows, and remember the free North, and would, perhaps, envy the +_volante_-commanding women, did not dreadful Moses forbid. + +One alleviation of the tedium of hotel-life in the city is the almost +daily visit of the young man from the dry-goods' shop, who brings +samples of lawns, misses' linen dresses, pina handkerchiefs, and fans of +all prices, from two to seventy-five dollars. The ladies cluster like +bees around these flowery goods, and, after some hours of bargaining, +disputing, and purchasing, the vendor pockets the golden honey, and +marches off. As dress-makers in Havana are scarce, dear, and bad, our +fair friends at the hotel make up these dresses mostly themselves, and +astonish their little world every day by appearing in new attire. "How +extravagant!" you say. They reply, "Oh! it cost nothing for the making; +I made it myself." But we remember to have heard somewhere that "Time +is Money." At four in the afternoon, a negress visits in turn +every bedroom, sweeps out the mosquitoes from the curtains with a +feather-brush, and lets down the mosquito-net, which she tucks in around +the bed. After this, do not meddle with your bed until it is time to get +into it; then put the light away, open the net cautiously, enter with a +dexterous swing, and close up immediately, leaving no smallest opening +to help them after. In this mosquito-net you live, move, and have your +being until morning; and should you venture to pull it aside, even for +an hour, you will appall your friends, next morning, with a face which +suggests the early stages of small-pox, or the spotted fever. + +The valuable information I have now communicated is the sum of what I +learned in that one day at Mrs. Almy's; and though our party speedily +removed thither, I doubt whether I shall be able to add to it anything +of importance. + + +HAVANA. YOUR BANKER. OUR CONSUL. THE FRIENDLY CUP OF TEA. + + +One is apt to arrive in Havana with a heart elated by the prospect of +such kindnesses and hospitalities as are poetically supposed to be +the perquisite of travellers. You count over your letters as so many +treasures; you regard the unknown houses you pass as places of deposit +for the new acquaintances and delightful friendships which await you. +In England, say you, each of these letters would represent a pleasant +family-mansion thrown open to your view,--a social breakfast,--a dinner +of London wits,--a box at the opera,--or the visit of a lord, whose +perfect carriage and livery astonish the quiet street in which you +lodge, and whose good taste and good manners should, one thinks, prove +contagious, at once soothing and shaming the fretful Yankee conceit. But +your Cuban letters, like fairy money, soon turn to withered leaves in +your possession, and, having delivered two or three of them, you employ +the others more advantageously, as shaving-paper, or for the lighting of +cigars, or any other useful purpose. + +Your banker, of course, stands first upon the list,--and to him +accordingly, with a beaming countenance, you present yourself. For him +you have a special letter of recommendation, and, however others may +fail, you consider him as sure as the trump of the deal at whist. +But why, alas, should people, who have gone through the necessary +disappointments of life, prepare for themselves others, which may be +avoided? Listen and learn. At the first visit, your banker is tolerably +glad to see you,--he discounts your modest letter of credit, and pockets +his two and a half _per cent._ with the best grace imaginable. If he +wishes to be very civil, he offers you a seat, offers you a cigar, and +mumbles in an indistinct tone that he will be happy to serve you in any +way. You call again and again, keeping yourself before his favorable +remembrance,--always the same seat, the same cigar, the same desire to +serve you, carefully repressed, and prevented from breaking out into any +overt demonstration of good-will. At last, emboldened by the brilliant +accounts of former tourists and the successes of your friends, you +suggest that you would like to see a plantation,--you only ask for +one,--would he give you a letter, etc., etc.? He assumes an abstracted +air, wonders if he knows anybody who has a plantation,--the fact being +that he scarcely knows any one who has not one. Finally, he will +try,--call again, and he will let you know. You call again,--"Next +week," he says. You call after that interval,--"Next week," again, is +all you get. Now, if you are a thoroughbred man, you can afford to +quarrel with your banker; so you say, "Next week,--why not next +year?"--make a very decided snatch at your hat, and wish him a very long +"good-morning." But if you are a snob, and afraid, you take his neglect +quietly enough, and will boast, when you go home, of his polite +attentions to yourself and family, when on the Island of Cuba. + +_Our Consul_ is the next post in the weary journey of your hopes, and +to him, with such assurance as you have left, you now betake yourself. +Touching him personally I have nothing to say. I will only remark, in +general, that the traveller who can find, in any part of the world, an +American Consul not disabled from all service by ill-health, want of +means, ignorance of foreign languages, or unpleasant relations with the +representatives of foreign powers,--that traveller, we say, should go in +search of the sea-serpent, and the passage of the North Pole, for he +has proved himself able to find what, to every one but him, is +undiscoverable. + +But who, setting these aside, is to show you any attention? Who will +lift you from the wayside, and set you upon his own horse, or in his +own _volante_, pouring oil and wine upon your wounded feelings? Ah! the +breed of the good Samaritan is never allowed to become extinct in this +world, where so much is left for it to do. + +A kind and hospitable American family, long resident in Havana, takes us +up at last. They call upon us, and we lift up our heads a little; they +take us out in their carriage, and we step in with a little familiar +flounce, intended to show that we are used to such things; finally, they +invite us to a friendly cup of tea,--all the hotel knows it,--we have +tarried at home in the shade long enough. Now, people have begun to find +us out,--_we are going out to tea!_ + +How pleasant the tea-table was! how good the tea! how more than good +the bread-and-butter and plum-cake! how quaint the house of Spanish +construction, all open to the air, adorned with flowers like a temple, +fresh and fragrant, and with no weary upholstery to sit heavy on +the sight! how genial and prolonged the talk! how reluctant the +separation!--imagine it, ye who sing the songs of home in a strange +land. And ye who cannot imagine, forego the pleasure, for I shall tell +you no more about it. I will not, I, give names, to make good-natured +people regret the hospitality they have afforded. If they have +entertained unawares angels and correspondents of the press, (I use the +two terms as synonymous,) they shall not be made aware of it by the +sacrifice of their domestic privacy. All celebrated people do this, and +that we do it not answers for our obscurity. + +The cup of tea proves the precursor of many kind services and pleasant +hours. Our new friends assist us to a deal of sight-seeing, and +introduce us to cathedral, college, and garden. We walk out with them +at sunrise and at sunset, and sit under the stately trees, and think it +almost strange to be at home with people of our own race and our own way +of thinking, so far from the home-surroundings. For the gardens, they +may chiefly be described as triumphs of Nature over Art,--our New +England horticulture being, on the contrary, the triumph of Art over +Nature, after a hard-fought battle. Here, the avenues of palm and cocoa +are magnificent, and the flowers new to us, and very brilliant. But +pruning and weeding out are hard tasks for Creole natures, with only +negroes to help them. There is for the most part a great overgrowth +and overrunning of the least desirable elements, a general air of +slovenliness and unthrift; in all artificial arrangements decay seems +imminent, and the want of idea in the laying out of grounds is a +striking feature. In Italian villas, the feeling of the Beautiful, which +has produced a race of artists, is everywhere manifest,--everywhere are +beautiful forms and picturesque effects. Even the ruins of Rome seem to +be held together by this fine bond. No stone dares to drop, no arch to +moulder, but with an exquisite and touching grace. And the weeds, oh! +the weeds that hung their little pennon on the Coliseum, how graciously +do they float, as if they said,--"Breathe softly, lest this crumbling +vision of the Past go down before the rude touch of the modern world!" +And so, one treads lightly, and speaks in hushed accents; lest, in the +brilliant Southern noon, one should wake the sleeping heart of Rome to +the agony of her slow extinction. + +But what is all this? We are dreaming of Rome,--and this is Cuba, where +the spirit of Art has never been, and where it could not pass without +sweeping out from houses, churches, gardens, and brains, such trash as +has rarely been seen and endured elsewhere. They show us, for example, +some mutilated statues in the ruins of what is called the Bishop's +Garden. Why, the elements did a righteous work, when they effaced the +outlines of these coarse and trivial shapes, unworthy even the poor +marble on which they were imposed. Turning from these, however, we +find lovely things enough to rebuke this savage mood of criticism. The +palm-trees are unapproachable in beauty,--they stand in rows like Ionic +columns, straight, strong, and regular, with their plumed capitals. They +talk solemnly of the Pyramids and the Desert, whose legends have been +whispered to them by the winds that cross the ocean, freighted with the +thoughts of God. Then, these huge white lilies, deep as goblets, which +one drinks fragrance from, and never exhausts,--these thousand unknown +jewels of the tropic. Here is a large tank, whose waters are covered +with the leaves and flowers of beautiful aquatic plants, whose Latin +names are of no possible consequence to anybody. Here, in the very heart +of the garden, is a rustic lodge, curtained with trailing vines. Birds +in cages are hung about it, and a sweet voice, singing within, tells us +that the lodge is the cage of a more costly bird. We stop to listen, +and the branches of the trees seem to droop more closely about us, the +twilight lays its cool, soft touch upon our heated foreheads, and we +whisper,--"Peace to his soul!" as we leave the precincts of the Bishop's +Garden. + + + + +SOME INEDITED MEMORIALS OF SMOLLETT. + + +A hundred years and upwards have elapsed since Fielding and Smollett, +the fathers and chiefs of the modern school of English novel-writing, +fairly established their claims to the dignified eminence they have ever +since continued to enjoy; and the passage of time serves but to confirm +them in their merited honors. Their pictures of life and manners are no +longer, it is true, so familiar as in their own days to the great mass +of readers; but this is an incident that scarce any author can hope to +avert. The changes of habits and customs, and the succession of writers +who in their turn essay to hold the mirror up to Nature, must always +produce such a result. But while the mind of man is capable of enjoying +the most fortunate combinations of genius and fancy, the most faithful +expositions of the springs of action, the most ludicrous and the most +pathetic representations of human conduct, the writings of Fielding and +Smollett will be read and their memories kept green. Undeterred by those +coarsenesses of language and occasional grossnesses of detail (which +were often less their own fault than that of the age) that frequently +disfigure the pages of "Amelia" and "Roderick Random," men will always +be found to yield their whole attention to the story, and to recognize +in every line the touches of the master's hand. + +Were any needed, stronger proof of the truth of this proposition could +not be given than is afforded by the zeal with which the greatest +novelists since their day have turned aside to contemplate and to +chronicle the career of this immortal pair, whose names, notwithstanding +the dissimilarity of genius and style, seem destined to be as eternally +coupled together as those of the twin sons of Leda. To the rescue +from oblivion of their personal histories, a host of biographers have +appeared, scattered over the whole period that has elapsed since their +deaths to the present time. The first life that appeared of Tobias +George Smollett came from the hands of his friend and companion, the +celebrated Dr. Moore, himself a novel-writer of no mean fame. To him +succeeded Anderson; who in turn was followed by Sir Walter Scott, the +fruits of whose unrivalled capacity for obtaining information are before +the world in the form of a most delightful memoir. So that when +Roscoe, at a later date, took up the same theme, he found that the +investigations of his predecessors had left him little more to do than +to make selections or abridgments, and to arrange what new matter he +had come into possession of. One would have thought that with all these +labors the public appetite should have been satisfied,--that everything +apt to be heard with interest of and about Smollett had been said. So +far from this being the case, however, it was but a few years ago, that, +as we all recollect, the brilliant pen of Thackeray was brought to bear +on the same subject, and the great humorist of this generation employed +his talents worthily in illustrating the genius of a past age. +"'Humphrey Clinker,'" says he, "is, I do believe, the most laughable +story that has ever been written since the goodly art of novel-writing +began." This is strong praise, though but of a single book; yet it falls +short of the general estimate that Walter Scott formed of the capacity +of our author. "We readily grant to Smollett," he says, "an equal rank +with his great rival, Fielding, while we place both far above any of +their successors in the same line of fictitious composition." + +After the testimonies we have cited, it would be useless to seek other +approbation of Smollett's merits. + + "From higher judgment-seats make no appeal + To lower." + +Yet, with all his imaginative power and humorous perception, it cannot +be gainsaid that there was a great lack of delicacy in the composition +of his mind,--a deficiency which, even in his own days, gave just +offence to readers of the best taste, and which he himself was sometimes +so candid as to acknowledge and to correct. Its existence is too often +a sufficient cause to deter any but minds of a certain masculine vigor +from the perusal of such a work as "Roderick Random"; and yet this work +was an especial favorite with the most refined portion of the public in +the latter half of the last century. Burke delighted in it, and would +no doubt often read from it aloud to the circle of guests of both sexes +that gathered about him at Beaconsfield; and Elia makes his imaginary +aunt refer to the pleasure with which in her younger days she had read +the story of that unfortunate young nobleman whose adventures make such +a figure in "Peregrine Pickle." So great is the change in the habit of +thought and expression in less than half a century, that we believe +there is not in all America a gentleman who would now venture to read +either of these works aloud to a fireside group. Smollett's Muse was +free enough herself; in all conscience;-- + + "High-kirtled was she, + As she gaed o'er the lea";-- + +but in "Peregrine Pickle," beside the natural incidents, there are two +long episodes foisted upon the story, neither of which has any lawful +connection with the matter in hand, and one of which, indelicate and +indecent in the extreme, does not appear to have even been of his +own composition. Reference is here made to the "Memoirs of a Lady of +Quality," and to the passages respecting young Annesley; and since +biographers do not seem to have touched especially on the manner of +their introduction into the novel, we will give a word or two to this +point. + +John Taylor, in the Records of his Life, states that the memoirs of Lady +Vane, as they appear in "Peregrine Pickle," were actually written by +an Irish gentleman of wealth, a Mr. Denis McKerchier, who at the time +entertained relations with that abandoned, shameless woman; so that, if, +as was probably the case, she paid Smollett a sum of money to procure +their incorporation in his pages, there could have been no other motive +to actuate her conduct than a desire to blazon her own fall or to +mortify the feelings of her husband. The latter is the more likely +alternative, if we are to believe that Lord Vane himself stooped to +employ Dr. Hill to prepare a history of Lady Frail, by way of retorting +the affront he had received. This Mr. McKerchier in season broke with +her Ladyship, and refused her admission to his dying bedside; but, in +the mean time, his Memoirs had gone out to the world, and had greatly +conduced to the popularity and sale of Smollett's novel. He was also the +patron of Annesley, that unfortunate young nobleman whose romantic +life has furnished Godwin and Scott with a foundation for their most +highly-wrought novels; and it was, we may judge, from his own lips that +Smollett received the narrative of his _protege_'s adventures. Whatever +we may think, however, of the introduction of scenes that were of +sufficient importance to suggest such books as "Cloudesley" and "Guy +Mannering," there can be but one opinion as to the bad taste which +governed Smollett, when he consented to overload "Peregrine Pickle" +with Lady Vane's memoirs; and if lucre were indeed at the bottom of the +business, it assumes a yet graver aspect. + +But the business of this article is not to dwell upon matters that are +already in print, and to which the general reader can have easy access. +To such as are desirous of obtaining a full account of the life and +genius of Smollett, prepared with all the aids that are to be derived +from a thorough knowledge of the question, we would suggest the perusal +of an exceedingly well-written article in the London Quarterly Review +for January, 1858; and we will here heartily express a regret that the +unpublished materials which have found a place in this magazine could +not have been in the hands of the author of that paper. It is certain he +would have made a good use of them. As it is, however, they will perhaps +possess an additional interest to the public from the fact that they +have never before seen the light. + +It is something, says Washington Irving, to have seen the dust of +Shakspeare. It is assuredly not less true that one can hardly examine +without a peculiar emotion the private letters of such a man as +Smollett. A strange sensation accompanies the unfolding of the faded +sheets, that have hardly been disturbed during the greater part of a +century. And as one at least of the documents in question is of an +almost autobiographical character, its tattered folds at once assume a +value to the literary student far beyond the usual scope of an inedited +autograph. + +The first letter to which we shall call attention was written by +Smollett in 1763. It was in reply to one from Richard Smith, Esq., of +Burlington, New Jersey, by whose family it has been carefully preserved, +together with a copy of the letter which called it forth. Mr. Smith was +a highly respectable man, and in later years, when the Revolution broke +out, a delegate from his Province to the first and second Continental +Congress. He had written to Smollett, expressing his hopes that the +King had gratified with a pension the author of "Peregrine Pickle" and +"Roderick Random," and asking under what circumstances these books were +composed, and whether they contained any traces of his correspondent's +real adventures. He adverts to a report that, in the case of "Sir +Launcelot Greaves," Smollett had merely lent his name to "a mercenary +bookseller." "The Voyages which go under your name Mr. Rivington (whom +I consulted on the matter) tells me are only nominally your's, or, at +least, were chiefly collected by understrappers. Mr. Rivington also +gives me such an account of the shortness of time in which you wrote +the History, as is hardly credible." A list of Smollett's genuine +publications is also requested. + +The Mr. Rivington referred to in the foregoing extract was probably the +well-known New York bookseller, whose press was so obnoxious to the +Whigs a few years later. To the letter itself Smollett thus replied:-- + + +DR. SMOLLETT TO MR. SMITH. + +"Sir,--I am favoured with your's of the 26th of February, and cannot +but be pleased to find myself, as a writer, so high in your esteem. The +curiosity you express, with regard to the particulars of my life and +the variety of situations in which I may have been, cannot be gratified +within the compass of a letter. Besides, there are some particulars of +my life which it would ill become me to relate. The only similitude +between the circumstances of my own fortune and those I have attributed +to Roderick Random consists in my being born of a reputable family in +Scotland, in my being bred a surgeon, and having served as a surgeon's +mate on board a man-of-war during the expedition to Carthagena. The low +situations in which I have exhibited Roderick I never experienced in my +own person. I married very young, a native of Jamaica, a young lady well +known and universally respected under the name of Miss Nancy Lassells, +and by her I enjoy a comfortable, tho' moderate estate in that island. I +practised surgery in London, after having improved myself by travelling +in France and other foreign countries, till the year 1749, when I took +my degree of Doctor in Medicine, and have lived ever since in Chelsea (I +hope) with credit and reputation. + +"No man knows better than Mr. Rivington what time I employed in writing +the four first volumes of the History of England; and, indeed, the short +period in which that work was finished appears almost incredible to +myself, when I recollect that I turned over and consulted above three +hundred volumes in the course of my labour. Mr. Rivington likewise +knows that I spent the best part of a year in revising, correcting, and +improving the quarto edition; which is now going to press, and will be +continued in the same size to the late Peace. Whatever reputation I may +have got by this work has been dearly purchased by the loss of health, +which I am of opinion I shall never retrieve. I am now going to the +South of France, in order to try the effects of that climate; and very +probably I shall never return. I am much obliged to you for the hope you +express that I have obtained some provision from his Majesty; but the +truth is, I have neither pension nor place, nor am I of that disposition +which can stoop to solicit either. I have always piqued myself upon my +Independancy, and I trust in God I shall preserve it to my dying day. + +"Exclusive of some small detached performances that have been published +occasionally in papers and magazines, the following is a genuine list of +my productions. Roderick Random. The Regicide, a Tragedy. A translation +of Gil Blas. A translation of Don Quixotte. An Essay upon the external +use of water. Peregrine Pickle. Ferdinand Count Fathom. Great part of +the Critical Review. A very small part of a Compendium of Voyages. The +complete History of England, and Continuation. A small part of the +Modern Universal History. Some pieces in the British Magazine, +comprehending the whole of Sir Launcelot Greaves. A small part of the +translation of Voltaire's Works, including all the notes, historical and +critical, to be found in that translation. + +"I am much mortified to find it is believed in America that I have lent +my name to Booksellers: that is a species of prostitution of which I am +altogether incapable. I had engaged with Mr. Rivington, and made some +progress in a work exhibiting the present state of the world; which work +I shall finish, if I recover my health. If you should see Mr. Rivington, +please give my kindest compliments to him. Tell him I wish him all +manner of happiness, tho' I have little to expect for my own share; +having lost my only child, a fine girl of fifteen, whose death has +overwhelmed myself and my wife with unutterable sorrow. + +"I have now complied with your request, and beg, in my turn, you will +commend me to all my friends in America. I have endeavoured more than +once to do the Colonies some service; and am, Sir, your very humble +servant, + +"Ts. SMOLLETT. + +"London, May 8, 1763." + + * * * * * + +The foregoing letter, though by no means confidential, must possess +considerable value to any future biographer of the writer. It very +clearly shows the light in which Smollett was willing to be viewed by +the public. It explains the share he took in more than one literary +enterprise, and establishes his paternity of the translation of "Gil +Blas," which has been questioned by Scott and ignored by other critics. +The travels in France, which, according to the letter, could not have +been posterior to 1749, seem unknown even to the Quarterly Reviewer; but +it is possible that here Smollett's memory may have played him false, +and that he confounded 1749 with the following year, when, as is well +known, he visited that kingdom. The reference to his own share in +furnishing the original for the story of "Roderick Random" is curious; +nevertheless it can no longer be doubted that very many of the persons +and scenes of that work, as well as of "Peregrine Pickle," were drawn, +with more or less exaggeration, from his actual experience of men and +manners. And the despondency with which he contemplates his shattered +health and the prospect of finding a grave in a foreign land explains +completely the governing motives that produced, in the concluding pages +of the history of the reign of George II., so calm and impartial a +testimony to the various worth of his literary compeers that it almost +assumes the tone of the voice of posterity. This is the suggestion of +the article in the "Quarterly Review," and the language of the letter +confirms it. Despairing of ever again returning to his accustomed +avocations, and with a frame shattered by sickness and grief, he passes +from the field of busy life to a distant land, where he thinks to leave +his bones; but ere he bids a last farewell to his own soil, he passes in +review the names of those with whom he has for years been on relations +of amity or of ill-will, in his own profession, and, while he makes +their respective merits, so far as in him lies, a part of the history of +their country, he seems to breathe the parting formula of the gladiator +of old,--_Moriturus vos saluto_. + +In the first of the ensuing letters an amusing commentary will be found +on Smollett's assertion, that his independent spirit would not stoop to +solicit either place or pension. The papers of which it forms one appear +to have been selected from the private correspondence of Dr. Smollett, +and are preserved among the MSS. of the Library Company of Philadelphia, +to which they were presented by Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of +the Declaration of Independence, who may have obtained them in Scotland. +Like the letter to Mr. Smith, we are satisfied that these are authentic +documents, and shall deal with them as such here. Lord Shelburne (better +known by his after-acquired title of Marquis of Lansdowne) was the +identical minister whom Pitt, twenty years later, so highly eulogized +for "that capacity of conferring good offices on those he prefers," and +for "his attention to the claims of merit," of which we could wish to +know that Smollett had reaped some benefit. The place sought for was +probably a consulate on the Mediterranean, which would have enabled our +author to look forward with some assurance of faith to longer and easier +years. The Duchess of Hamilton, to whom his Lordship writes, and by whom +his letter seems to have been transmitted to its object, was apparently +the beautiful Elizabeth Gunning, dowager Duchess of Hamilton, but +married, at the date of the letter, to the Duke of Argyle. Having +an English peerage of Hamilton in her own right, it is probable she +preferred to continue her former title. + + +LORD SHELBURNE TO THE DUCHESS OF HAMILTON. + +"_Holt Street, Tuesday._ + +"Madam,--I am honour'd with your Grace's letter, inclosing one from +Doctor Smollett. It is above a year since I was applied to by Doctor +Smollett, thro' a person I wish'd extremely to oblige; but there were +and still subsist some applications for the same office, of a nature +which it will be impossible to get over in favour of Mr. Smollett, which +makes it impossible for me to give him the least hopes of it. I could +not immediately recollect what had pass'd upon that subject, else I +should have had the honour to answer your Grace's letter sooner. I am +with great truth and respect your Grace's most obedient and most humble +servant. + +"SHELBURNE." + + * * * * * + +The letter bears no month nor year, but is indorsed, apparently by +Smollett himself, as of 1762,--that is, in the year previous to his +expressed aversion to solicitations for place. Yet if there was a man in +England entitled to ask for and to receive some provision by his country +for his broken health and narrow fortunes, that man was Smollett. It is +perhaps a trifling thing to notice, but it may be observed that Lord +Shelburne's communication does not bear any marks of frequent perusal. +The silver sand with which the fresh lines were besprinkled still clings +to the fading ink, furnishing perhaps the only example remaining of the +use of that article. Rousseau, we remember, mentions such sand as the +proper material to be resorted to by one who would be very particular +in his correspondence,--"_employant pour cela le plus beau papier dore, +sechant l'ecriture avec de la poudre d'azur et d'argent_"; and Moore +repeats the precept in the example of M. le Colonel Calicot, according +to the text of Miss Biddy, in the "Fudge Family in Paris":-- + + "Upon paper gilt-edged, without blot or erasure + Then sanded it over with silver and azure." + +Among the remaining letters in this collection we find some from John +Gray, "teacher of mathematics in Cupar of Fife,"--some from Dr. John +Armstrong, the author of "The Art of Health,"--and one from George +Colman the elder. In 1761, Gray writes to Smollett, thanking him for +kind notices in the "Critical Review," and asking his influence in +regard to certain theories concerning the longitude, of which Gray was +the inventor. In 1770, Colman thus writes:-- + + +GEORGE COLMAN TO DR. SMOLLETT. + +"Dear Sir,--I have some idea that Mr. Hamilton about two years ago told +me he should soon receive a piece from you, which he meant, at your +desire, to put into my hands; but since that time I have neither seen +nor heard of the piece. + +"I hope you enjoy your health abroad, and shall be glad of every +opportunity to convince you that I am most heartily and sincerely, dear +Sir, your, &c., + +"G. COLMAN. + +"London, 28 Sept. 1770." + + * * * * * + +The piece referred to here by Colman (who was at this period, we +believe, the manager of the Haymarket Theatre) may possibly have been +a farce that was brought out fifteen years later on the Covent-Garden +stage, with the title of "The Israelites, or the Pampered Nabob." Its +merits and its success are said by Scott to have been but slight, and +the proof of its having been written by Smollett very doubtful; so that +it was never printed, and was soon forgotten. + +At this time, (1770,) it must be remembered, Smollett was established at +Leghorn, where a milder climate and sunnier skies tended to promote, +we fancy, a serener condition of mind than he had known for years. In +leaving England, he left behind him some friends, but many enemies. In +his literary career, as he himself had not been over-merciful, so he +was in return not always tenderly handled. As a sample of the invective +which was occasionally poured forth on him, we will quote some lines +from "The Race," a dull imitation of "The Dunciad," ascribed to one +Cuthbert Shaw, and published in 1766. Although reprinted in "Dilly's +Repository," (1790,) it has long ago been very properly forgotten, and +is now utterly worthless save for purposes of illustration. The Hamilton +referred to is the same person to whom Colman makes allusion; he was +indeed Smollett's _fidus Achaies._ + + "--Next Smollet came. What author dare resist + Historian, critic, bard, and novelist? + 'To reach thy temple, honoured Fame,' he cried, + 'Where, where's an avenue I have not tried? + But since the glorious present of to-day + Is meant to grace alone the poet's lay, + My claim I wave to every art beside, + And rest my plea upon the Regicide. + * * * * * + But if, to crown the labours of my Muse, + Thou, inauspicious, should'st the wreath refuse, + Whoe'er attempts it in this scribbling age + Shall feel the Scottish pow'rs of Crilic rage. + Thus spurn'd, thus disappointed of my aim, + I'll stand a bugbear in the road to Fame, + Each future author's infant hopes undo, + And blast the budding honours of his brow.' + He said,--and, grown with future vengeance big, + Grimly he shook his scientific wig. + To clinch the cause, and fuel add to fire, + Behind came Hamilton, his trusty squire: + Awhile _he_ paus'd, revolving the disgrace, + And gath'ring all the honours of his face; + Then rais'd his head, and, turning to the crowd, + Burst into bellowing, terrible and loud:-- + 'Hear my resolve; and first by--I swear, + By Smollet, and his gods, whoe'er shall date + With him this day for glorious fame to vie, + Sous'd in the bottom of the ditch shall lie; + And know, the world no other shall confess, + While I have crab-tree, life, or letter-press.' + Scar'd at the menace, _authors_ fearful grew, + Poor Virtue trembled, and e'en Vice look'd blue." + +It is unnecessary to pursue this vapid composition to its most lame and +impotent conclusion; it is sufficient to cite it as a specimen-brick of +the hostility which many literary characters entertained against the +author of "Roderick Random." Despite his own birthplace being north of +the Tweed, many Scots were aggrieved at the incidental ridicule with +which characters from "the land o' cakes" are sometimes treated in that +and other works from the same hand; and the picture of Lismahago in +"Humphrey Clinker" is said to have still more violently inflamed their +ire. It is to this feeling on the part of his countrymen that Charles +Lamb alludes, in his essay upon "Imperfect Sympathies." "Speak of +Smollett as a great genius," he says, "and they [the Scots] will retort +upon Hume's History compared with _his_ continuation of it. What if the +historian had continued 'Humphrey Clinker'?" In fact, there were a good +many North Britons, a century ago, who seem to have felt, on the subject +of English censure or ridicule, pretty much as some of our own people do +to-day. No matter how well-founded the objection may be, or how justly +a local habit may be satirized, our sensitiveness is wounded and our +indignation aroused. That the portrait in Lismahago's case was not +altogether overcharged may be deduced from a passage in one of Walter +Scott's letters, in which he likens the behavior and appearance of one +of his oldest and most approved friends to that of the gallant Obadiah +in a similar critical moment. "The noble Captain Ferguson was married on +Monday last. I was present at the bridal, and I assure you the like +hath not been seen since the days of Lismahago. Like his prototype, the +Captain advanced in a jaunty military step, with a kind of leer on +his face that seemed to quiz the whole matter." That the sketch was a +portrait, though doubtless disguised to such an extent as rendered its +introduction permissible, is very probable; and as it is beyond question +one of the masterpieces of English fiction, a few lines may well be +given to the point. With great justice the Quarterly Reviewer pronounces +the character of Lismahago in no whit inferior to that of Scott's Dugald +Dalgetty; and who would not go out of his way to trace any circumstance +in the history of such a conception as that of the valiant Laird of +Drumthwacket, the service-seeking Rittmaster of Swedish Black Dragoons? + +Scott himself tells us that he recollected "a good and gallant officer" +who was said to have been the prototype of Lismahago, though probably +the opinion had its origin in "the striking resemblance which he bore in +externals to the doughty Captain." Sir Walter names no name; but there +is a tradition that a certain Major Robert Stobo was the real original +from which the picture was drawn. Stobo may fairly be said to fulfil the +necessary requisites for this theory. That he was as great an oddity as +ever lived is abundantly testified by his own "Memorial," written about +1760, and printed at Pittsburg in 1854, from a copy of the MS. in the +British Museum. At the breaking out of the Seven-Years' War, he was in +Virginia, seeking his fortune under the patronage of his countryman, +Dinwiddie, and thus obtained a captaincy in the expedition which +Washington, in 1754, led to the Great Meadows. On the fall of Fort +Necessity, he was one of the hostages surrendered by Washington to the +enemy; and thus, and by his subsequent doings at Fort Du Quesne and in +Canada, he has linked his name with some interesting passages of our +national history.[A] That he was known to Smollett in after life appears +by a letter from David Hume to the latter, in which his "strange +adventures" are alluded to; and there is considerable resemblance +between these, as narrated by Stobo himself, and those assigned by +the novelist to Lismahago. And, bearing in mind the ineffable +self-complacency with which Stobo always dwells on himself and his +belongings, the description of his person given in the "Memorial" +coincides very well with that of the figure which the novelist makes to +descend in the yard of the Durham inn. One circumstance further may be +noted. We are told of "the noble and sonorous names" which Miss Tabitha +Bramble so much admired: "that Obadiah was an adventitious appellation, +derived from his great-grandfather, who had been one of the original +Covenanters; but Lismahago was the family surname, taken from a place +in Scotland, so called." Now we are not very well versed in Scottish +topography; but we well recollect, that in Dean Swift's "Memoirs of +Captain John Creichton," who was a noted Cavalier in the reigns of +Charles II., James II., and William III., and had borne an active part +in the persecution of "the puir hill-folk," there is mention made of the +name of Stobo. The Captain dwells with no little satisfaction upon the +manner in which, after he had been so thoroughly outwitted by Mass David +Williamson,--the Covenanting minister, who played Achilles among the +women at my Lady Cherrytree's,--he succeeded in circumventing and taking +prisoner "a notorious rebel, one Adam Stobow, a farmer in Fife near +Culross." And later in the same book occurs a very characteristic +passage:--"_Having drunk hard one night_, I dreamed that I had found +Captain David Steele, a notorious rebel, in one of the five farmers' +houses on a mountain in the shire of Clydesdale and parish of Lismahago, +within eight miles of Hamilton, a place I was well acquainted with." +Lest the marvellous fulfilment of Creichton's dream should induce other +seekers to have resort to a like self-preparation, we will merely add, +that the village of Hamilton is hard by the castle of the Duke of that +name, to whose family we have already seen Smollett was under some +obligations, and that it is described in the same pages with Lismahago. +It is not improbable, therefore, that, being at Hamilton, the novelist's +attention may have been attracted to "Creichton's Memoirs," which treat +of the adjacent districts, and that the mention of Stobo's name therein +may have suggested to his mind its connection with Lismahago. Certainly +there was no antecedent work to "Humphrey Clinker," in which, as we may +believe, either of these names finds a place, save this of Creichton; +and as, throughout the whole series of letters, Smollett does not +profess to avoid the introduction of actual persons and events, often +even with no pretence of disguise, we need not hesitate to think that +he would make no difficulty of turning the eccentricities of a half-pay +officer to some useful account. + +[Footnote A: Some amusing particulars concerning Stobo may be found also +in the _Journal of Lieut. Simon Stevens:_ Boston 1760.--EDS. ATLANTIC.] + +But we have wandered too far away from the business of his +correspondence. The next letter that we shall examine is one from John +Gray, dated at Florence, Nov. 15th, 1770, to Smollett, at Leghorn. It +abounds in details of the writer's attempts at the translation of a +French play for the English stage, on which he desires a judgment; and +cites verses from several of the songs it contains,--one of them being +that so familiar to American ears thirty years since, when Lafayette was +making his last tour through this country:-- + + "Ou peut on etre mieux + Qu'au sein de sa famille?" + +Gray had been at Leghorn, on his way to Rome; and now amuses his +correspondent with the inconveniences of his journey under the auspices +of a tippling companion, with his notions about Pisa and Italy in +general, and with particulars of public intelligence from home, some +of which relate to Smollett's old antagonist, Admiral Knowles.--"I +despaired of executing Mrs. Smollett's commission," he says, "for there +was no ultramarine to be found in the shops; but I at length procured a +little from Mr. Patch, which I have sent along with the patterns in +Mrs. Varrien's letter, hoping that the word _Mostre_ on the back of the +letter will serve for a passport to all. The ultramarine costs nothing; +therefore, if it arrives safe, the commission is finished." + +We next have a couple of letters from Dr. Armstrong; which, on account +of his ancient and enduring friendship for Smollett, and of the +similarity in their careers, may be given at large. Armstrong was a +wrongheaded, righthearted man,--a surgeon in the army, we believe,--and +a worshipper of Apollo, as well in his proper person as in that of +Esculapius. In these, and in the varied uses to which he turned his pen, +the reader will see a similarity to the story of his brother Scot. That +he was occasionally splenetic in his disposition is very manifest. +His quarrel with Wilkes, with whom he had been on terms of intimate +friendship, finds a parallel in Smollett's own history. The first +letter is without date; but the reference to the publication of his +"Miscellanies" fixes it as of 1770, and at London. + + +DR. ARMSTRONG TO DR. SMOLLETT. + +"My dear Doctor,--I reproach myself;--but it is as insignificant as +embarrassing to explain some things;--so much for that. As to my +confidence in your stamina, I can see no reason to flinch from it; but I +wish you would avoid all unwholesome accidents as much as possible. + +"I am quite serious about my visit to you next autumn. My scheme is now +to pass my June or July at Paris; from thence to set out for Italy, +either over the Alps or by sea from Marseilles. I don't expect the +company of my widow lumber, or any other that may be too fat and +indolent for such an excursion; and hope to pick up some agreeable +companion without being at the expense of advertising. + +"You feel exactly as I do on the subject of State Politicks. But from +some late glimpses it is still to be hoped that some _Patriots_ may be +disappointed in their favourite views of involving their country in +confusion and destruction. As to the K. Bench patriot, it is hard to say +from what motive he published a letter of your's asking some trifling +favour of him on behalf of somebody for whom _the Cham of Literature_, +Mr. Johnson, had interested himself. I have within this month published +what I call my Miscellanies. Tho' I admitted my operator to an equal +share of profit and loss, the publication has been managed in such +a manner as if there had been a combination to suppress it: +notwithstanding which, it makes its way very tolerably at least. But I +have heard to-day that somebody is to give me a good trimming very soon. + +"All friends remember you very kindly, and our little club at the Q. +Arms never fail to devote a bumper to you, except when they are in the +humour of drinking none but scoundrels. I send my best compliments to +Mrs. Smollett and two other ladies, and beg you'll write me as soon +as suits you: and with black ink. I am always, my dear Doctor, most +affectionately yours,-- + +"JOHN ARMSTRONG." + + * * * * * + +The letter to Wilkes had been written many years before, to obtain his +assistance in procuring the release of Johnson's black servant, who had +been impressed. It was couched in free terms respecting Dr. Johnson, and +was probably now given by Wilkes to the press in the hope that it might +do its author harm with the _Cham_, or at least cause the latter some +annoyance. + +Armstrong's next letter finds him arrived in Italy, and on the eve of +repairing to his friend at Leghorn. + + +DR. ARMSTRONG TO DR. SMOLLETT. + +"_Rome, 2nd June_, 1770. + +"Dear Doctor,--I arrived here last Thursday night, and since that have +already seen all the most celebrated wonders of Rome. But I am most +generally disappointed in these matters; partly, I suppose, from my +expectations being too high. But what I have seen has been in such a +hurry as to make it a fatigue: besides, I have strolled about amongst +them neither in very good humour nor very good health. + +"I have delayed writing till I could lay before you the plan of my +future operations for a few weeks. I propose to post it to Naples about +the middle of next week, along with a Colonel of our Country, who seems +to be a very good-natured man. After remaining a week or ten days there, +I shall return hither, and, after having visited Tivoli and Frascati, +set out for Leghorn, if possible, in some vessel from Civita Vecchia; +for I hate the lodgings upon the road in this country. I don't expect to +be happy till I see Leghorn; and if I find my Friend in such health as I +wish him, or even hope for him, I shall not be disappointed in the chief +pleasure I proposed to myself in my visit to Italy. As you talked of a +ramble somewhere towards the South of France, I shall be extremely happy +to attend you. + +"I wrote to my brother from Genoa, and desired him to direct his answer +to your care at Pisa. If it comes, please direct it, with your own +letter, for which I shall long violently look, care of Mr. Francis +Barazzi at Rome. I am, with my best compliments to Mrs. Smollett and the +rest of the ladies, &c., + +"JOHN ARMSTRONG." + + * * * * * + +There is no reason to suppose that Armstrong found anything in the +condition of his friend to fulfil the anxious wishes of his letter. In +the following year, Smollett died, leaving to his widow little beyond +the empty consolations of his great fame. From her very narrow purse she +supplied the means of erecting the stone that marks the spot where he +lies; and the pen of his companion, whose letter we have just given, +furnished an appropriate inscription. The niggardly hands of government +remained as firmly closed against the relief of Mrs. Smollett as they +had been in answer to her husband's own application for himself; an +application which must have cost a severe struggle to his proud spirit, +and of which his most intimate literary friends were probably never +aware. He sought favors for others, says Dr. Moore; but "for himself +he never made an application to any great man in his life!" He was not +intemperate, nor yet was he extravagant, but by nature hospitable and of +a cheerful temperament; his housekeeping was never niggardly, so long as +he could employ his pen. Thus his genius was too often degraded to the +hackney-tasks of booksellers; while a small portion of those pensions +which were so lavishly bestowed upon ministerial dependants and placemen +would have enabled him to turn his mind to its congenial pursuits, and +probably to still further elevate the literary civilization of his +country. But if there be satisfaction in the thought that a neglect +similar to that which befell so bright a genius as his could no longer +occur in England, there is food likewise for reflection in the change +that has come over the position in which men of letters lived in those +days towards the public, and even towards each other. Let any one read +the account of the ten or a dozen authors whom Smollett describes +himself, in "Humphrey Clinker," as entertaining at dinner on +Sundays,--that being the only day upon which they could pass through the +streets without being seized by bailiffs for debt. Each character is +drawn with a distinctive minuteness that leaves us no room to doubt its +possessing a living original; yet how disgusting to suppose that such +a crew were really to be seen at the board of a brother writer! and in +what bad taste does their host describe and ridicule their squalor! That +such things were in those times cannot be doubted. Even in this century, +in the golden days of book-making, we are told how Constable and +how Ballantyne, the great publisher and the great printer of +Edinburgh,--"His Czarish Majesty," and "the Dey of All-jeers," as Scott +would call them,--delighted at their Sunday dinners to practise the +same exercises as those which Smollett relates,--how they would bring +together for their diversion Constable's "poor authors," and start +his literary drudges on an after-dinner foot-race for a new pair of +breeches, and the like! While it cannot justify the indifference with +which Shelburne treated his request, we cannot but perceive that +Smollett's contemptuous ridicule of his unfortunate or incapable +Grub-Street friends must rob him of much of the sympathy which would +otherwise accompany the ministerial neglect with which the claims of +literature were visited in his person. + + * * * * * + + +BLOODROOT + + + "Hast thou loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk?" + + Beech-trees, stretching their arms, rugged, yet beautiful, + Here shade meadow and brook; here the gay bobolink, + High poised over his mate, pours out his melody. + Here, too, under the hill, blooms the wild violet; + Damp nooks hide, near the brook, bellworts that modestly, + Pale-faced, hanging their heads, droop there in silence; while + South winds, noiseless and soft, bring us the odor of + Birch twigs mingled with fresh buds of the hickory. + + Hard by, clinging to rocks, nods the red columbine; + Close hid, under the leaves, nestle anemones,-- + White-robed, airy and frail, tender and delicate. + + Ye who, wandering here, seeking the beautiful, + Stoop down, thinking to pluck one of these favorites, + Take heed! Nymphs may avenge. List to a prodigy;-- + One moon scarcely has waned since I here witnessed it. + + One moon scarcely has waned, since, on a holiday, + I came, careless and gay, into this paradise,-- + Found here, wrapped in their cloaks made of a leaf, little + White flowers, pure as the snow, modest and innocent,-- + Stooped down, eagerly plucked one of the fairest, when + Forth rushed, fresh from the stem broken thus wickedly, + Blood!--tears, red, as of blood!--shed through my selfishness! + + + + + +THE DIFFERENTIAL AND INTEGRAL CALCULUS. + + [Greek: Polla ta deina, konden + anthropon deinoteron pelei ... + periphradaes anaer!] + +SOPH. _Ant_. 822 [322] et seq. + + +"Many things are wonderful," says the Greek poet, "but nought more +wonderful than man, all-inventive man!" And surely, among many wonders +wrought out by human endeavor, there are few of higher interest than +that splendid system of mathematical science, the growth of so many +slow-revolving ages and toiling hands, still incomplete, destined to +remain so forever perhaps, but to-day embracing within its wide circuit +many marvellous trophies wrung from Nature in closest contest. There +are strange depths, doubtless, in the human soul,--recesses where the +universal sunlight of reason fails us altogether; into which if we +would enter, it must be humbly and trustfully, laying our right hands +reverentially in God's, that he may lead us. There are faculties +reaching farther than all reason, and utterances of higher import than +hers, problems, too, in the solution of which we shall derive very +little aid from any mere mathematical considerations. Those who think +differently should read once more, and more attentively, the sad history +of frantic folly and limitless license, written down forever under the +date, September, 1792, boastfully proclaimed to the world as the New +Era, the year 1 of the Age of Reason. Perhaps the number of those +who would to-day follow Momoro's pretty wife with loud adulation and +Bacchanalian rejoicings to the insulted Church of Notre Dame, thus +publicly disowning the God of the Universe and discarding the sweetest +of all hopes, the hope of immortality and eternal youth after the +weariness of age, would be found to be very small. This was indeed a new +version of the old story of Godiva, wherein implacable, inhuman hate +sadly enough took the place of the sweet Christian charity of that dear +lady. Let us recognize its deep significance, and acknowledge that many +things of very great importance lie beyond the utmost limits of human +reason. + +But let us not forget, meanwhile, that within its own sphere this same +Human Reason is an apt conjuror, marshalling and deftly controlling the +powers of the earth and air to a degree wonderful and full of interest. +And nowhere have all its possibilities so fully found expression in vast +attainment as in those studies preeminently called the mathematics, as +embracing all [Greek: mathaesis], all sound learning. Casting about for +some sure anchorage, drifting hither and thither over changeful seas +of phenomena, a large body of men, deep, clear thinkers withal, some +twenty-four centuries since, fancied that they had found _all_ truth +in the fixed, eternal relations of number and quantity. Hence that +wide-spread Pythagorean philosophy, with its spheral harmonics and +esoteric mysteries, uniting in one brotherhood for many years men of +thought and action,--dare we say, our inferiors? Why allude to the old +fable of the dwarf upon the giant's shoulders? Let us have a tender +care for the sensitive nature of this ultimate Nineteenth Century, and +refrain. They were not so far wrong either, those old philosophers; they +saw clearly a part of the boundless expanse of Truth,--and somewhat +prematurely, as we believe, pronounced it the true Land's End, stoutly +asserting that beyond lay only barren seas of uncertain conjecture. + +But mark what followed! Presently, under their hands, fair and clear of +outline as a Grecian temple, grew up the science of Geometry. Perfect +for all time, and as incapable of change or improvement as the +Parthenon, appear the Elements of Euclid, whose voice comes floating +down through the ages, in that one significant rejoinder,--"_Non est +regia ad mathematicam via_." It is the reply of the mathematician, +quiet-eyed and thoughtful, to the first Ptolemy, inquiring if there were +not some less difficult path to the mysteries. But the Greek Geometry +was in no wise confined to the elements. Before Euclid, Plato is said to +have written over the entrance to his garden,--"Let no one enter, who is +unacquainted with geometry,"--and had himself unveiled the geometrical +analysis, exhibiting the whole strength and weakness of the instrument, +and applying it successfully in the discussion of the properties of +the Conic Sections. Various were the discoveries, and various the +discoverers also, all now at rest, like Archimedes, the greatest of them +all, in his Sicilian tomb, overgrown with brambles and forgotten, found +only by careful research of that liberal-minded Cicero, and recognized +only by the sphere and circumscribed cylinder thereon engraved by the +dead mathematician's direction. + +Meanwhile, let us turn elsewhere, to that singular people whose name +alone is suggestive of all the passion, all the deep repose of the +East. Very unlike the Greeks we shall find these Arabs, a nation +intellectually, as physically, characterized by adroitness rather than +endurance, by free, careless grace rather than perfect, well-ordered +symmetry. Called forth from centuries of proud repose, not unadorned by +noble studies and by poesy, they swept like wildfire, under Mohammed and +his successors, over Palestine, Syria, Persia, Egypt, and before the +expiration of the Seventh Century occupied Sicily and the North of +Africa. Spain soon fell into their hands;--only that seven-days' battle +of Tours, resplendent with many brilliant feats of arms, resonant with +shoutings, and weightier with fate than those dusty combatants knew, +saved France. Then until the last year of the Eleventh Century, +almost four hundred years, the Caliphs ruled the Spanish Peninsula. +Architecture, music, astrology, chemistry, medicine,--all these arts, +were theirs; the grace of the Alhambra endures; deep and permanent are +the traces left by these Saracens upon European civilization. During +all this time they were never idle. Continually they seized upon the +thoughts of others, gathering them in from every quarter, translating +the Greek mathematical works, borrowing the Indian arithmetic and system +of notation, which we in turn call Arabic, filling the world with wild +astrological fantasies. Nay, the "good Haroun Al Raschid," familiar to +us all as the genial-hearted sovereign of the World of Faery, is said to +have sent from Bagdad, in the year 807 or thereabout, a royal present +to Charlemagne, a very singular clock, which marked the hours by the +sonorous fall of heavy balls into an iron vase. At noon, appeared +simultaneously, at twelve open doors, twelve knights in armor, retiring +one after another, as the hour struck. The time-piece then had +superseded the sun-dial and hour-glass: the mechanical arts had +attained no slight degree of perfection. But passing over all ingenious +mechanism, making no mention here of astronomical discoveries, some of +them surprising enough, it is especially for the Algebraic analysis that +we must thank the Moors. A strange fascination, doubtless, these crafty +men found in the cabalistic characters and hidden processes of reasoning +peculiar to this science. So they established it on a firm basis, +solving equations of no inconsiderable difficulty, (of the fourth +degree, it is said,) and enriched our arithmetic with various rules +derived from this source, Single and Double Position among others. +Trigonometry became a distinct branch of study with them; and then, as +suddenly as they had appeared, they passed away. The Moorish cavalier +had no longer a place in the history of the coming days; the sage had +done his duty and departed, leaving among his mysterious manuscripts, +bristling with uncouth and, as the many believed, unholy signs, the +elements of truth mingled with much error,--error which in the advancing +centuries fell off as easily as the husk from ripe corn. Whether the +present civilization of Spain is an advance upon that of the Moors might +in many respects become a matter of much doubt. + +Long lethargy and intellectual inanition brooded over Christian Europe. +The darkness of the Middle Ages reached its midnight, and slowly the +dawn arose,--musical with the chirping of innumerable trouveres and +minnesingers. As early as the Tenth Century, Gerbert, afterwards Pope +Sylvester II., had passed into Spain and brought thence arithmetic, +astronomy, and geometry; and five hundred years after, led by the old +tradition of Moorish skill, Camille Leonard of Pisa sailed away over the +sea into the distant East, and brought back the forgotten algebra and +trigonometry,--a rich lading, better than gold-dust or many negroes. +Then, in that Fifteenth Century, and in the Sixteenth, followed much +that is of interest, not to be mentioned here. Copernicus, Galileo, +Kepler,--we must pass on, only indicating these names of men whose lives +have something of romance in them, so much are they tinged with the +characteristics of an age just passing away forever, played out and +ended. The invention of printing, the restoration of classical learning, +the discovery of America, the Reformation, followed each other in +splendid succession, and the Seventeenth Century dawned upon the world. + +The Seventeenth Century!--forever remarkable alike for intellectual and +physical activity, the age of Louis XIV. in France, the revolutionary +period of English history, say, rather, the Cromwellian period, +indelibly written down in German remembrance by that Thirty-Years' +War,--these are only the external manifestations of that prodigious +activity which prevailed in every direction. Meanwhile the two sciences +of algebra and geometry, thus far single, each depending on its own +resources, neither in consequence fully developed, as nothing of human +or divine origin can be alone, were united, in the very beginning of +this epoch, by Descartes. This philosopher first applied the algebraic +analysis to the solution of geometrical problems; and in this brilliant +discovery lay the germ of a sudden growth of interest in the pure +mathematics. The breadth and facility of these solutions added a new +charm to the investigation of curves; and passing lightly by the Conic +Sections, the mathematicians of that day busied themselves in finding +the areas, solids of revolution, tangents, etc., of all imaginable +curves,--some of them remarkable enough. Such is the cycloid, first +conceived by Galileo, and a stumbling-block and cause of contention +among geometers long after he had left it, together with his system +of the universe, undetermined. Descartes, Roberval, Pascal, became +successively challengers or challenged respecting some new property of +this curve. Thereupon followed the epicycloids, curves which--as the +cycloid is generated by a point upon the circumference of a circle +rolled along a straight line--are generated by a similar point when the +path of the circle becomes any curve whatever. Caustic curves, spirals +without number, succeeded, of which but one shall claim our notice,--the +logarithmic spiral, first fully discussed by James Bernouilli. This +curve possesses the property of reproducing itself in a variety of +curious and interesting ways; for which reason Bernouilli wished it +inscribed upon his tomb, with the motto,--_Eadem mutata resurgo_. Shall +we wisely shake our heads at all this, as unavailing? Can we not see the +hand of Providence, all through history, leading men wiselier than +they knew? If not, may it not be possible that we have read the wrong +book,--the Universal Gazetteer, perhaps, instead of the true History? +When Plato and Plato's followers wrought out the theory of those Conic +Sections, do we imagine that they saw the great truth, now evident, that +every whirling planet in the silent spaces, yes, and every falling body +on this earth, describes one of these same curves which furnished to +those Athenian philosophers what you, my practical friend, stigmatize as +idle amusement? Comfort yourself, my friend: there was many a Callicles +then who believed that he could better bestow his time upon the politics +of the state, neglecting these vain speculations, which to-day are found +to be not quite unprofitable, after all, you perceive. + +And so in the instance which suggested these reflections, all this eager +study of unmeaning curves (if there be anything in the starry universe +quite unmeaning) was leading gradually, but directly, to the discovery +of the most wonderful of all mathematical instruments, the Calculus +preeminently. In the quadrature of curves, the method of exhaustions was +most ancient,--whereby similar circumscribed and inscribed polygons, by +continually increasing the number of their sides, were made to approach +the curve until the space contained between them was _exhausted_, or +reduced to an inappreciable quantity. The sides of the polygons, it was +evident, must then be infinitely small. Yet the polygons and curves +were always regarded as distinct lines, differing inappreciably, but +different. The careful study of the period to which we refer led to +a new discovery, that every curve may be considered as composed of +infinitely small straight lines. For, by the definition which assigns to +a point position _without_ extension, there can be no tangency of points +without coincidence. In the circumference of the circle, then, no two +of the points equidistant from the centre can touch each other; and the +circumference must be made up of infinite all rectilineal sides joining +these points. + +A clear conception of this fact led almost immediately to the Method of +Tangents of Fermat and Barrow; and this again is the stepping-stone to +the Differential Calculus,--itself a particular application of that +instrument. Dr. Barrow regarded the tangent as merely the prolongation +of any one of these infinitely small sides, and demonstrated the +relations of these sides to the curve and its ordinates. His work, +entitled "Lectiones Geometricae," appeared in 1669. To his high +abilities was united a simplicity of character almost sublime. "_Tu, +autem, Domine, quantus es geometra_!" was written on the title-page of +his Apollonius; and in the last hour he expressed his joy, that now, in +the bosom of God, he should arrive at the solution of many problems of +the highest interest, without pain or weariness. The comment of the +French historian conveys a sly sarcasm on the Encyclopedists:--"_On voit +au reste, par-la, que Barrow etoit un pauvre philosophe; car il croiroit +en l'immortalite de l'ame, et une Divinite, autre que la nature +universelle_."[A] + +[Footnote A: MONTUCLA. _Hist. des Math_. Part iv. liv. 1.] + +The Italian Cavalleri had, before this, published his "Geometry of +Indivisibles," and fully established his theory in the "Exercitationes +Mathematicae," which appeared in 1647. Led to these considerations by +various problems of unusual difficulty proposed by the great Kepler, +who appears to have introduced infinitely great and infinitely small +quantities into mathematical calculations for the first time, in a tract +on the measure of solids, Cavalleri enounced the principle, that all +lines are composed of an infinite number of points, all surfaces of +an infinite number of lines, and all solids of an infinite number of +surfaces. What this statement lacks in strict accuracy is abundantly +made up in its conciseness; and when some discussion arose thereupon, +it appeared that the absurdity was only seeming, and that the author +himself clearly enough understood by these apparently harsh terms, +infinitely small sides, areas, and sections. Establishing the relation +between these elements and their primitives, the way lay open to the +Integral Calculus. The greatest geometers of the day, Pascal, Roberval, +and others, unhesitatingly adopted this method, and employed it in the +abstruse researches which engaged their attention. + +And now, when but the magic touch of genius was wanting to unite and +harmonize these scattered elements, came Newton. Early recognized by Dr. +Barrow, that truly great and good man resigned the Mathematical Chair at +Cambridge in his favor. Twenty-seven years of age, he entered upon his +duties, having been in possession of the Calculus of Fluxions since +1666, three years previously. Why speak of all his other discoveries, +known to the whole world? _Animi vi prope divina, planetarum motus, +figuras, cometarum semitas, Oceanique aestus, sua Mathesi lucem +praeferente, primus demonstravit. Radiorum lucis dissimilitudines, +colorumque inde nascentium proprietates, quas nemo suspicatus est, +pervestigavit_. So stands the record in Westminster Abbey; and in many +a dusty alcove stands the "Principia," a prouder monument perhaps, more +enduring than brass or crumbling stone. And yet, with rare modesty, such +as might be considered again and again with singular advantage by many +another, this great man hesitated to publish to the world his rich +discoveries, wishing rather to wait for maturity and perfection. The +solicitation of Dr. Barrow, however, prevailed upon him to send forth, +about this time, the "Analysis of Equations containing an Infinite +Number of Terms,"--a work which proves, incontestably, that he was in +possession of the Calculus, though nowhere explaining its principles. + +This delay occasioned the bitter quarrel between Newton and Leibnitz,--a +quarrel exaggerated by narrow-minded partisans, and in truth not very +creditable, in all its ramifications, to either party. Newton, in the +course of a scientific correspondence with Leibnitz, published in 1712, +by the Royal Society, under the title, "Commercium Epistolicum +de Analysi promota," not only communicated very many remarkable +discoveries, but added, that he was in possession of the inverse problem +of the tangents, and that he employed two methods which he did +not choose to make public, for which reason he concealed them by +anagrammatical transposition, so effectual as completely to +extinguish the faint glimmer of light which shone through his scanty +explanation.[B] The reference is obviously to what was afterwards known +as the Method of Fluxions and Fluents. This method he derived from the +consideration of the laws of motion uniformly varied, like the motion of +the extreme point of the ordinate of any curve whatever. The name which +he gave to his method is derived from the idea of motion connected with +its origin. + +[Footnote B: This logograph Newton afterwards rendered as follows: "Una +methodus consistit in extractione fluentis quantitatis ex aequatione +simul involvente; altera tantum in assumptione seriei pro quantitate +incognita ex qua ceterae commode derivari possunt, et in collatione +terminonim homologorum aequationis resultantis ad eruendos terminos +seriei assumptae."] + +Leibnitz, reflecting upon these statements on the part of Newton, +arrived by a somewhat different path at the Differential and Integral +Calculus, reasoning, however, concerning infinitely great and infinitely +small quantities in general, viewing the problem algebraically instead +of geometrically,--and immediately imparted the result of his studies to +the English mathematician. In the Preface to the _first_ edition of +the "Principia," Newton says, "It is ten years since, being in +correspondence with M. Leibnitz, and having instructed him that I was +in possession of a method of determining tangents and solving questions +involving _maxima_ and _minima_, a method which included irrational +expressions, and having concealed it by transposing the letters, +he replied to me that he had discovered a similar method, which he +communicated, differing from mine only in the terms and signs, as +well as in the generation of the quantities." This would seem to be +sufficient to set at rest any conceivable controversy, establishing an +equal claim to originality, conceding priority of discovery to Newton. +Thus far all had been open and honorable. The petty complaint, that, +while Leibnitz freely imparted his discoveries to Newton, the latter +churlishly concealed his own, would deserve to be considered, if it were +obligatory upon every man of genius to unfold immediately to the world +the results of his labor. As there may be many reasons for a different +course, which we can never know, perhaps could never hope to appreciate, +if we did know them, let us pass on, merely recalling the example of +Galileo. When the first faint glimpses of the rings of Saturn floated +hazily in the field of his imperfect telescope, he was misled into the +belief that three large bodies composed the then most distant light of +the system,--a conclusion which, in 1610, he communicated to Kepler in +the following logograph:-- + +SMAISMRMILMEPOETALEVMIBVNENGTTAVIRAVS. + +It is not strange that the riddle was unread. The old problem, Given the +Greek alphabet, to find an Iliad, differs from this rather in degree +than in kind. The sentence disentangled runs thus:-- + +ALTISSIMVM PLANETAM TERGEMINVM OBSERVAVI. + +And yet we have never heard that Kepler, or, in fact, Leibnitz himself, +felt aggrieved by such a course. + +But Leibnitz made his discovery public, neglecting to give Newton _any_ +credit whatever; and so it happened that various patriotic Englishmen +raised the cry of plagiarism. Keil, in the "Philosophical Transactions" +for 1708, declared that he had published the Method of Fluxions, only +changing the name and notation. Much debate and angry discussion +followed; and, alas for human weakness! Newton himself, in a later +edition of the "Principia," struck out the generous recognition of +genius recorded above, and joined in terming Leibnitz an impostor, +--while the latter maintained that Newton had not fathomed the more +abstruse depths of the new Calculus. The "Commercium Epistolicum" was +published, giving rise to new contentions; and only death, which ends +all things, ended the dispute. Leibnitz died in 1716. + +The Calculus at first found its chief supporters on the Continent. James +and John Bernouilli, Varignon, author of the "Theory of Variations," and +the Marquis de l'Hopital, were the first to appreciate it; but soon it +attracted the attention of the scientific world to such a degree that +the frivolous populace of Paris had even a well-known song with the +burden, "_Des infiniment petits_." Neither were opponents wanting. +Wrong-headed men and thick-headed men are unfortunately too numerous +in all times and places. One Nieuwentiit, a dweller in intellectual +fogbanks, who had distinguished himself by proving the existence of +the Deity in one of his works, made about this time what he doubtless +considered a second discovery. He found a flaw in the reasoning of +Leibnitz, namely, that _he_ (Nieuwentiit) could not conceive of +quantities infinitely small! A certain Chever also performed sundry +singular mathematical feats, such as squaring the circle, a problem +which he reduced to the single question, _Construere mundum divinae +menti analogum_, and showing that the parabola, the only conic section +squared by ancient or modern geometers, could never be quadrated, to the +eternal discomfiture and discredit of the shade of Archimedes. Leibnitz +used every means in his power to engage these worthy adversaries in +a contest concerning his Calculus, but unfortunately failed. Bishop +Berkeley, too, author of the "Essay on Tar-Water," devout disbeliever in +the material universe, could not resist the Quixotic inclination to run +a tilt against a science which promised so much aid in unveiling those +starry splendors which he with strenuous asseveration denied. He +published, in 1754, "The Minute Philosopher," and soon after, "The +Analyst, or the Discourse of a Mathematician," showing that the +Mathematics are opposed to religion, and cultivate an incredulous +spirit,--such as would never for a moment listen, let us hope, to any +theory which proclaims this green earth and all the universe "such stuff +as dreams are made of," even though the doctrine be ecclesiastically +sustained and backed with abundant wealth of learning. Numerous were the +defenders, called out rather by the acknowledged metaphysical ability of +Bishop Berkeley than by any transcendent merit in these two tracts; and +among others came Maclaurin. + +Taylor's Theorem, based upon that first published by Maclaurin, is the +foundation of the Calculus by La Grange, differing from the methods of +Leibnitz and Newton in the manner of deriving the auxiliaries employed, +proceeding upon analytical considerations throughout. Of his "Theorie +des Fonctions," and that noblest achievement of the pure reason, the +"Mecanique Analytique," we do not propose to speak, nor of the later +developments of the Calculus, so largely due to his genius and labors. +These are mysteries, known only to the initiated, yet capable of raising +their thoughts in as sublime emotion as arose from the view of the +elder, forgotten mysteries, which Cicero deemed the very source and +beginning of true life. + +We have seen how, and through whose toil, this mightiest instrument of +human thought has reached its present perfection. Now, its vast powers +fully recognized, it has become interwoven with all Natural Philosophy. +On its sure basis rests that majestic structure, the "Mecanique Celeste" +of La Place. Its demonstration supports with undoubted proof many +doctrines of the great Newton. Discovery has succeeded discovery; but +its powers have never yet been fully tested. "It is that field of +mathematical investigation," says Davies, "where genius may exert its +highest powers and find its surest rewards." Looking back through the +long course of events leading to such a magnificent result, looking up +to that choral dance of wandering planets, all whose courses and seasons +are marked down for us in the yearly almanac, can we not find in these +manifestations something on the whole quite wonderful, worthy of very +deep thankfulness, heartfelt humility withal, and far-reaching hope? + +In an age of many-colored absurdity, when extremes meet and +contradictions harmonize,--when men of gross, material aims give +implicit confidence to the wildest ravings of the supernatural, and +pure-minded men embrace French theories of social organization,--when +crowds of dullards all aflame with unexpected imagination assemble in +ascension-robes to await the apocalyptic trump, and Asiatic polygamy +spreads unmolested along our Western rivers,--when the prediction is +accomplished, "Old men dream dreams and young men see visions," and the +most practical of the ages bids fair to glide ghostly into history as +the most superstitious,--it is well, it can but be well, to contemplate +reverently that Reason, which Coleridge, after Leighton, calls "an +influence from the Glory of the Almighty." In the contemplation of the +spirit of man (not your _animula_, by any means!) there is earnest of +immortality which needs not that one rise from the dead to confirm it. +In view of the Foresight which guides men, we may trust that all this +tumultuous sense of inadequacy in present institutions, this blind +notion of wrong, far enough from intelligent correction, is, after all, +better than sluggish inaction. + + + + +BULLS AND BEARS. + +[Concluded.] + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +The suspension of specie payments brought instant relief to all really +solvent mercantile houses; since those who had valuable assets of any +kind could now obtain discounts sufficient to enable them to meet their +liabilities. Among those who were at once relieved was the house of +Lindsay and Company; they resumed payment and recommenced business. + +Mr. Lindsay lost no time in finding his clerk Monroe, and reinstated him +with an increased salary. Great was the sorrow in the ragged school at +the loss of the teacher; and it was with some regret that he abandoned +the place. He felt no especial vocation to the career of a missionary; +but his duties had become less irksome than at the beginning, if not +absolutely pleasant. His own position, however, was such that he could +not afford to continue in his self-denying occupation. Easelmann was one +of the first to congratulate him upon his improved prospects. + +"Don't you feel sorry, my dear fellow? Now you get upon your treadmill +of business, and you must keep going, or break your legs. Think, too, +of the jolly little rascals you have left! The beggars are the only +aristocracy we have,--the only people who enjoy their _dolce far +niente_. Look on the Common: who are there amusing themselves on a fine +day, unless it be your Duke Do-nothing, Earl Out-at-elbows, Duchess +Draggle-tail, and others of that happy class? Meanwhile your Lawrences, +Eliots, and the 'Merchant Princes' (a satirical dog that invented the +title!) are going about with sharpened faces, looking as though they +weren't sure of a dinner. Oh, business is a great matter, to be sure! +but the idlers, artists, poets, and other lazzaroni, are the only people +that enjoy life." + +Monroe smiled, and only replied,-- + +"Think of my mother! I must do something besides enjoying life, as you +call it: I must earn the means of making it enjoyable." + +"You were always a good boy," replied his friend, benignantly. "So go to +work; but don't forget to walk out of town now and then; in which case, +I hope you won't disdain the company of _one_ of the idlers." + + * * * * * + +The "mother" was full of joy; her melancholy nervousness almost wholly +forsook her. She looked proudly upon her "dear boy," thinking him the +best, most considerate, faithful, and affectionate of sons,--as he was. + +Walter, after listening to her benedictions, told her he had an +invitation from Mr. Lindsay to dine the next day, and begged her to go +with him; but the habit of inaction, the dread of bustle and motion, +were too strong to be overcome. She could not be persuaded to leave +home. + +"But go, by all means, Walter," she added. "It will be pleasant to be +on such terms with your employer. I must keep watch of you, though, now +that Alice is gone. Are there young ladies at the house?" + +"Why, mother, how jealous you are! Do you think I go about falling +in love with all the young ladies I see? Mr. Lindsay has a beautiful +daughter; but do you think a poor clerk is likely to be regarded as +'eligible' by a family accustomed to wealth and luxury?" + +The mother looked as though she thought her son a match for the richest +and proudest; she said nothing, but patted his head as though he were +still only a boy. + +"Speaking of Alice, mother, I am very much concerned about her. Now that +I am reestablished, I shall make every exertion to find her and bring +her home to live with us. Mr. Greenleaf, I know, is looking for her; +very little good it will do him, if he finds her." + +"But we shall hear from him, I presume?" + +"I think so. He is intimate with my friend Mr. Easelmann.--But, mother, +I have some more good news. I shall get our property back. Lawyers say +that Mr. Tonsor will be obliged to give up the notes, and look to the +estate of Sandford for the money he lent. And the notes, fortunately, +are as valuable as ever, in spite of all the multitude of failures; one +name, at least, on each note is good." + +"Everything comes back, like Job's prosperity. This repays us for all +our anxiety." + +"If Alice had not run away!" + +"But we shall have her again,--poor motherless child!" + +So with mutual gratulations they passed the evening. My readers who now +enjoy a mother's love, or look back with affectionate reverence to such +scenes in the past, will pardon these apparently unimportant portions +of the story. Sooner or later all will learn that no worldly success +whatever, no friendships, not even the absorbing love of wife and +children, can afford a pleasure so full, so serene, as the sacred +feeling which rises at the recollection of a mother's self-sacrificing +affection. + +Very commonplace, no doubt,--but still worth an occasional thought. As +for those who demand that natural and simple feelings shall be ignored, +and that every chapter shall record something not less startling than +murder or treason, are there not already means for gratifying their +tastes? Do not the "Torpedo" and the "Blessing of the Boudoir" give +enough of these delicate condiments with the intellectual viands they +furnish? Let old-fashioned people enjoy their plain dishes in peace. + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + +The reader may be quite sure that Greenleaf lost no time in presenting +himself at Easelmann's studio on the morning after his last interview. + +"On hand early, I see," said the elder. "And how fresh you look! The +blood comes dancing into your face; you are radiant with expectation." + +"You mummy, what do you suppose I am made of, if the thought of meeting +Alice should not quicken my blood a little?" + +"If it were my case, I think my cheeks would tingle from another cause." + +"Now you need not try to frighten me. I will see her first. I don't +believe she has forgotten me." + +"Nor I; but forgetting is one thing, and forgiving is another. Besides, +we haven't seen her yet." + +"I haven't, I know; but I'll wager you have." + +"Well, my Hotspur, I sha'n't entice her away from you." + +"Let us go," said Greenleaf. + +"Presently; I must finish this pipe first; it lasts thirty-six minutes, +and I have smoked only--let me see--twenty-eight." + +"Well, puff away; but you'll burn up my patience with your tobacco, +unless you are ready soon." + +"Don't hurry. You'll get to your stool of repentance quite soon enough. +Have you heard the news? The banks have suspended,--ditto Fletcher, a +banker's clerk. + +"What do you mean?" + +"Plain enough. The banks suspend paying specie because they haven't any +to redeem their bills; and Fletcher, because he has neither specie nor +bills." + +"Fletcher suspended?" + +"Yes, _sus. per coll._, as the Newgate records have it,--hung himself +with his handkerchief,--an article he might have put to better use." + +And Easelmann blew a vigorous blast with his, as he laid down the pipe. + +"You understand, choking is disagreeable,--painful, in fact,--and, if +indulged in long enough, is apt to produce unpleasant effects. Remember, +I once warned you against it." + +"This matter of suicide is horrible. Couldn't it have been prevented?" + +"Yes, if Fletcher could have got hold of Bullion." + +"Coin would have done as well, I suppose." + +"Now haven't I been successful in diverting your attention? You have +actually punned. Don't you know Mr. Bullion, the capitalist?" + +"I have good reason to remember him, though I don't know him myself. My +father was once connected with him in business, and not at all to his +own advantage." + +"I never heard you speak of your father before; in fact, I never knew +you had one." + +"It was not necessary to speak of him; he has been dead many years." + +"And left you nothing to remember him by. Now a man with an estate has a +perpetual reminder." + +"So has the son of a famous man; and people are continually depreciating +him, comparing his little bud of promise with the ripe fruitage of the +ancestral tree. I prefer to acquire my own fortune and my own fame. My +father did his part by giving me being and educating me.--But come; your +pipe is out; you draw like a pump, without puffing even a nebula of +smoke." + +"I suppose I must yield. First a lavation; this Virginian incense +is more agreeable to devout worshippers like you and me than to the +uninitiated. There," (wiping the water from his moustaches,) "now I +am qualified to meet that queenly rose, Mrs. Sandford, or even that +delicate spring violet of yours,--if we should find the nook where she +blooms." + +"You are the most tantalizing fellow! How provokingly cool you are, to +stand dallying as though you were going on the most indifferent errand! +And all the while to remind me of what I have lost. Come, you look +sufficiently fascinating; your gray moustache has the proper artistic +curl; your hair is carelessly-well-arranged." + +"So the boy can't wait for due preparation. There, I believe I am +ready." + +Arrived at the house where Mrs. Sandford boarded, they were ushered into +the reception-room; but Easelmann, bidding his friend wait, followed the +servant upstairs. Waiting is never an agreeable employment. The courtier +in the ante-chamber before the expected audience, the office-seeker at +the end of a cue in the Presidential mansion, the beau lounging in the +drawing-room while the idol of his soul is in her chamber busy with the +thousand little arts that are to complete her charms,--none of these +find that time speeds. To Greenleaf the delay was full of torture; he +paced the room, looked at the pictures without seeing anything, looked +out of the window, turned over the gift-books on the table, counted the +squares in the carpet, and finally sat down in utter despair. At length +Easelmann returned. Greenleaf started up. + +"Where is she? Have you seen her? Why doesn't she come down? And why, in +the name of goodness, have you kept me waiting in this outrageous way?" + +"I don't know.--I have not--I can't tell you.--And because I couldn't +help it.--Never say, after this, I don't answer all your questions." + +"Now, what is the use of all this mystery?" + +"Softly, my friend; and let us not make a mess of it. Mrs. Sandford +advises us to walk out awhile." + +"I am obliged to her and to you for your well-meant caution, but I don't +intend to go out until I have seen Alice,--if she will see me." + +"But consider." + +"I have considered, and am determined to see her; I can't endure this +suspense." + +"But Alice bore it much longer. Be advised; Mrs. Sandford wants to +prepare the way for you." + +"I thank you; but I don't mean to have any stratagem acted for my +benefit. I will trust the decision to her: if she loves me, all will be +well; if her just resentment has uprooted her love, the sooner I know it +the better." + +While they were engaged in this mutual expostulation, Alice, +all-unconscious of the impending situation in the drama, was busy in her +own room,--for Mrs. Sandford had not yet decided how to break the news +to her,--and having an errand that led her to the street, she put on her +cloak and hat and tripped lightly down-stairs. Naturally she went into +the drawing-room, to make sure, by the mirror, that her ribbons were +neatly adjusted. As she entered, fastening her cloak, and humming some +simple air meanwhile, she started back at the sight of strangers, +and was rapidly retreating, when a voice that she had not forgotten +exclaimed, "Great Heavens, there she is now! Alice! Alice! stop! I beg +of you!" + +Greenleaf at the same time bounded to the door, and, seizing her hand, +drew her, bewildered, faint, and fluttering, back into the room. + +He turned almost fiercely to his companion:-- + +"This is your policy, is it, to send her off?--or, more probably, to +amuse me and not send for her at all?" + +"Ask the lady,--ask Mrs. Sandford," replied Easelmann. "I have not sent +her off; and you ought to know by this time that I am incapable of +playing false to any man." + +Alice, erect, but very pale, maintained her composure as well as she +could, though the timid lips trembled a little, and blinding clouds rose +before her eyes. She withdrew her hand from Greenleaf's grasp, and asked +the meaning of this unusual conduct. Greenleaf's good sense came to the +rescue seasonably. + +"Alice,--Miss Lee,--allow me to introduce my friend Mr. Easelmann. We +came here to see you, and were waiting for that purpose; but it seems +you were not told of it." + +Easelmann bowed, saying, "No, Miss Lee; I saw Mrs. Sandford, who thought +it best to speak to you first herself." + +"I am happy to meet you, Mr. Easelmann," said Alice. "I was just going +out, however, as you see, and I must ask you to excuse me this morning." + +Greenleaf saw with a pang how silently, but effectually, he was disposed +of; a downright rebuff would not have been so humiliating. But he was +not to be deterred from his purpose, and he went on: + +"Pardon me, if I seem to overstep the bounds of courtesy; but I cannot +let you go in this way, Alice,--for so I must call you. Stay and hear +me. Now that I see you, I must speak. God only knows with what anxiety I +have sought you for the last month." + +She tried to answer, but could not command her speech. Seeing her +increasing agitation, Easelmann led her to a seat, and then, in a +gentler tone than he often used, said,-- + +"I will leave the room, if you please, Miss Lee; this is an interview I +did not desire to witness." + +"No," she exclaimed, "do not go. I have nothing to say that you should +not hear; and I hope Mr. Greenleaf will spare me the pain of going over +a history which is better forgotten." + +"It can never be forgotten," interposed Greenleaf; "and, in spite of +your protest, I must say what I can--and that is little enough--to +exculpate myself, and then throw myself upon your charity for +forgiveness." + +Alice remained silent; but it was a silence that gave no encouragement +to Greenleaf. He advanced still nearer, looking at her with a tender +earnestness, as though his very soul were in the glance. She covered her +face with her hands. + +"Alice," he said, "you know what that name once meant to me. I cannot +speak it now without a feeling beyond utterance." + +Easelmann, meanwhile, quietly sidled towards the door, and, saying that +he was going back to see Mrs. Sandford, abruptly left the room. + +Greenleaf went on,--"I know my conduct was utterly inexcusable; but I +declare, by my hope of heaven, I never _loved_ any woman but you. I was +fascinated, ensnared, captivated by the senses only; now that illusion +is past, and I turn to you." + +"My illusion is past also; you turn too late. Can you make me forget +those months of neglect?" + +The tone was tender, but mournful. How he wished that her answer had +been fuller of rebuke! He could hope to overcome her anger far more +easily than this settled sorrow. + +"I know I can never atone for the wrong; there are injuries that are +irreparable, wounds that leave ineffaceable scars. I can never undo what +I have done; would to Heaven I could! You may never forget this period +of suffering; but that is past now; it is not to be lived over again. Go +back rather to the brighter days before it; think of them, and then look +down the future;--may I dare say it?--the future, perhaps, will make us +both forget my insane wanderings and your undeserved pains." + +"But love must have faith to lean upon. While I loved you, I rested on +absolute trust. I would have believed you against all the world. I would +have been glad to share your lot, even in poverty and obscurity. I did +not love you for your art nor your fame. You wavered; you forgot me. I +don't know what it was that tempted you, but it was enough; it drew +you away from me; and as long as you preferred another, or could be +satisfied with any other woman's love, you lost all claim to mine." + +Greenleaf could not but feel the force of this direct, womanly logic: in +its clear light how pitiful were the excuses he had framed for himself! +He felt sure that many, even of the best of men, might have erred in the +same way; but this was an argument which would have much more weight +with his own sex than with women. Men know their own frailties, and +are therefore charitable; women consider inconstancy to be the one +unpardonable sin, and are inexorable. + +He came still nearer, vainly hoping to see some indication of relenting; +but the pale face was as firm as it was sad. + +"I said before, Alice, that I do not attempt to defend my faithlessness, +hardly to extenuate it; and I do not at all wonder at your altered +temper towards me. It was a cruel blow I gave you. But my life shall +show you the sincerity of my repentance." + +She shook her head as she answered,-- + +"When you left me, the last spark of love went out. It is hard to kindle +anew the dead embers. No,--when I found that you _could_ be untrue, all +was over,--past, present, and future." + +"But consider," he said, still more earnestly, "what remains for you or +me. You will have the memory of this great sorrow, and I the unending +remorse. I can never love another woman while you live, and you--may I +say it?--will never love again as you have loved. Is it not for your +own happiness, as it is most assuredly for mine, that you overlook the +fault, receive me again, and trust to the lasting effect of the bitter +lesson I have learned? Forgive me, if I seem too bold,--if the desire to +atone for the past makes me sue for pardon with unbecoming zeal. If I +were less urgent, it would be because I was not sensible of the wrong, +and careless about reparation." + +She was silent; contending passions strove for mastery. She had not +forgotten him, then! He took courage and came yet nearer. + +"Will you give me your hand? Alice, will you?" + +He reached his own towards her. + +"No,--pardon me,--I must not. It is not well to decide by impulse,--to +be swayed by a thrill. When my heart tells me to give you my hand, it +shall be yours. I don't wish to be charmed out of my calmer judgment. +Your presence, your fiery words, and your will, are sufficiently +magnetic." + +"My dear Alice, I have been guilty of _one_ folly, a serious one, but +you don't believe I am incapable of constancy henceforth. Remember you +were away; time hung heavily on my hands; my good nature made me accept +invitations which brought me into daily contact with a woman who of all +others was most dangerous to a man of ardent temperament. The friendship +which began without a thought of a nearer relation grew into an intimacy +which I was not far-sighted enough to check. In your own words, I was +magnetized, thoroughly; and when, at last, in a scene of imminent +danger, I rashly said some things that should not have been spoken, I +found myself committed irrevocably. It is not too much to say that the +lady was looking for the opportunity which fate and my own stupidity +gave her. But the spell did not last. Your face was constantly before me +like an accusing angel. I waited only until the lady recovered from +a dangerous illness to tell her that I did not love her, and that my +heart, as well as my faith, was yours. I went at once to see you, and +found your father dead, yourself homeless. And from that hour I have +done nothing but search for you. Is it in vain?--I can say no more. +Perhaps I have said too much. But I implore you, Alice, by the memory of +our love as it was once, by all your hope of the future, to forgive me, +and not to make my whole life as miserable as the last few months have +been to you." + +It was the last word; he felt that he had nothing further to urge. He +bent over her chair, seized her hand and pressed it passionately to +his lips, watching with the intensest eagerness the effect of his +appeal.--There was a rustle of silk behind him, an incoming of perfumes, +a light footstep. He started, as did Alice, and beheld--Miss Marcia +Sandford! She was tastefully dressed, as usual, and she bore +herself with superb composure. In coming from the sunlight into the +semi-translucent gloom which pervades modern drawing-rooms, people are +not easily recognized, and the lady swept majestically across the floor, +and took a seat, without a sign of consciousness, near the couple whose +conversation she had interrupted. + +Not so Greenleaf; it was the most dangerous dilemma in which he had ever +been placed, and he was thoroughly at a loss to know how to extricate +himself. Would that he could telegraph to Easelmann to come down, so +that he could effect a decent retreat, and not leave the field in the +sole possession of the enemy. The silence was becoming embarrassing. He +was about to make some excuse for departure, when the lioness fixed +her eyes upon him,--her glance sparkling with malicious joy. A servant +entered to say that Mrs. Sandford was engaged for a few minutes, and +that she wished to know the name of her visitor. + +"Miss Sandford," she replied, "and please tell her I will wait." + +Alice remembered the name, and now shared fully in Greenleaf's +embarrassment. She watched him, therefore, keenly, while the lady +began,-- + +"Oh, Mr. Greenleaf, is it you? Why didn't you speak? It is not worth +while to keep a memory of the old disappointment. Let bygones be +bygones. Besides, I see you know the remedy for heartbreak; if you can't +succeed where you would, you must try elsewhere. And you seemed to be +getting on very well when I came in." + +"Miss Sandford," he retorted, indignantly, "there is as little need of +your ironical condolence as of your ungenerous insinuations." + +"What an impatient fellow! and so sensitive, too! The wound is not +healed, then. Pray introduce me to the Zerlina in our little opera. As I +know you so well, I can give her some excellent counsel about managing +you.--Ah, you wince! I am indiscreet, I fear; I have betrayed a secret; +the Zerlina is perhaps still in her rustic seclusion, and this is +only--Well, you must submit to your destiny, I suppose. How many are +there since? Let me see,--six weeks,--time for three flirtations of the +most intensely crimson hue." + +Alice rose to her feet, with a glow of resentment on her hitherto pale +face. And Greenleaf, feeling that courtesy was now wholly unnecessary, +exclaimed,-- + +"Miss Sandford, you have said quite as much as was proper for a young +girl to hear: your own cheeks, I presume, are proof against any +indelicate surprise. Let me ask you to stop, before"-- + +"Before what, Sir? And what is this high-and-mighty innocence about? +To be sure, one does not like to be exposed,--that is, the wolf +doesn't,--though the lamb shouldn't be angry. A pretty lamb it is, too." + +Alice gradually drew away from Greenleaf's side, turning her glances +from one to the other of the combatants. She had never seen such +confidence, such readiness of invective, joined with such apparent +sincerity and ease of manner; and the evident effect of the attack upon +Greenleaf puzzled her not a little; in this brief colloquy there were +opened new fields for dark conjecture. The woman's words had been barbed +arrows in her ears. + +Greenleaf's perplexity increased momently. He dared not go away now; +and he knew not how, in Miss Sandford's presence, to counteract the +impression she might make. If he could get rid of her or shut her +wickedly-beautiful mouth, he might answer all she had so artfully thrown +out. But as Alice had not given any token of returning affection, he +could not presume upon his good standing with her and remain silent. +Growing desperate, he ventured once more. + +"Miss Sandford, I know very well the depth of your hate towards me, as +well as your capacity for misrepresentation. If you desire to have +the history of our intimacy dragged to the light, I, for my part, am +willing. But don't think your sex will screen you, if you continue the +calumnies you have begun.--You, Alice, must judge between us. And in +almost every point, Mrs. Sandford, your friend and her sister-in-law, +will be able to support my statements." + +The servant returned to say that "Mrs. Sandford must be excused." + +Greenleaf turned upon the adversary with a triumphant glance. + +"A palpable trick," she exclaimed. "You gave the servant a signal: you +were unwilling to have us confronted. You have filled her ears with +scandal about me." + +"Not a word; she can hear a plenty about you in any circle where you are +known, without coming to me. And so far from giving any signal, I should +be rejoiced to show Alice how easily an honest woman's testimony will +put your monstrous effrontery to shame." + +Alice here interposed,--her resolute spirit manifest in spite of her +trembling voice,-- + +"I have heard this too long already; I don't wish to be the subject of +this lady's jests, and I don't desire her advice. Your quarrel does not +concern me,--at least, not so deeply that I wish to have it repeated in +my presence. Mr. Greenleaf, let me bid you good-morning." + +She moved away with a simple dignity, bowing with marked coolness to the +former rival. + +"Stay, Alice," said Greenleaf. "Let me not be thrust aside in this way. +Miss Sandford, now that she has done what mischief she can, will go away +and enjoy the triumph. I beg of you, stay and let me set myself right." + +Miss Sandford laughed heartily,--a laugh that made Greenleaf shiver. + +"Not to-day, Mr. Greenleaf," she answered. "I have need of rest and +reflection. I am not used to scenes like this, and my brain is in a +whirl." + +The first flush of excitement was over, and it was with difficulty that +she found her way through the hall. Easelmann was coming down, and saw +her hesitating step and her tremulous grasp upon the rail; he sprang +down four steps at a time, caught her before she fell, and carried her +in his arms like a child up to Mrs. Sandford's room. + +Greenleaf was so completely absorbed by the danger of losing the last +hold upon Alice, that he forgot his most excusable anger against the +vindictive woman who still lingered, enjoying her victory. He sank into +a chair, buried his face in his hands, and for some time neither looked +up nor replied to her taunts. + +"Come, now," said she, "don't take it so hard. Is my handsome +sister-in-law obdurate? Never mind; don't be desolate; other women will +be kind,--for you are just the man to attract sentimental damsels. Cheer +up! you will find a new affinity before night, I haven't a doubt." + +Roused at length, Greenleaf stood up before the mocking fiend, so +radiant in her evil smiles, and said,-- + +"You enemy of all that is good, what brought you here? Keep in your own +sphere, if there is one for you in this world." + +"I came to see my sister, as you know. It was a most unexpected pleasure +to meet you. I came to tell her that brother Henry has either run away +or killed himself, it doesn't matter which." + +"Pray, follow him. I assure you we shall mourn your absence as bitterly +as you do his." + +"Well, good-bye," she said, still laughing in the same terrible tone. +"Better luck next time." + +The door closed upon her, and Greenleaf drew a long breath--with a sense +of infinite relief. + +"Come," said Easelmann, entering a moment later,--"come, let us go. We +have done quite enough for one day. You wouldn't take my advice, and a +pretty mess you have made of it." + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + +When the remains of John Fletcher were borne to the grave, the memory +of his faults was buried with him. "Poor fellow!" was the general +ejaculation in State Street,--at once his _requiescat_ and epitaph. But +the great wheels of business moved on; Bulls and Bears kept up their +ever-renewing conflicts and their secret machinations; new gladiators +stepped into the ring; new crowds waited the turn of the wheel of +Fortune; and new Fletchers were ready to sacrifice themselves, if need +were, for the Bullions of the exchange. Who believes in the efficacy of +"lessons"? What public execution ever deterred the murderer from his +design? What spectacle of drunkenness ever restrained the youthful +debauchee? What accession, however notable, to the ranks of "the +unfortunate" ever made the fascinated woman pause in her first steps +toward ruin? + +No,--human nature remains the same; and the erring ones, predestined to +sin by their own unrestrained passions, wait only for the overmastering +circumstances to yield and fall. When any of these solemn warnings are +held up to the yet callow sinner, what does he propose to do? To stop +and repent? No,--to be a little more careful and not be caught. + +Not that precepts and examples are useless. All together go to make up +the moral government of the world,--pervading like the atmosphere, and +like it resting with uniform pressure upon the earth. Crime and folly +will always have their exemplars, but retribution furnishes the +restraining influence that keeps evil down to its average. As locks and +bolts are made for honest men, not for thieves, so the moral law and its +penalties are for those who have never openly sinned. + +If Mr. Bullion had been ten times the Shylock he was, he could not have +disregarded the last injunction of Fletcher. The turn in the market +enabled him to make advantageous sales of his stocks, and in less than +a week he resumed payment. The first thing he did was to pay over to +trustees the notes he had given Fletcher, thereby securing the widow at +least a decent support. He also sent Danforth & Co. the ten thousand +dollars for which their clerk had paid such a terrible forfeiture. +After discharging all his obligations, there was still an ample margin +left,--a large fortune, in fact. Mr. Bullion could now retire with +comfort,--could look forward to many years; so he flattered himself. +His will was made, his children provided for; and some unsettled +accounts, not remembered by any save himself and the recording angel, +were adjusted as well as the lapse of time would allow. So he thought of +purchasing a country-house for the next season, and of giving the rest +of his days to the enjoyment of life. + +But it was not so to be. A swift and sudden stroke smote him down. In +the dead of night, and alone, he met the angel for whose summons all of +us are waiting, and went his way without a struggle. The morning sun, +as its rays shot in between the blinds, lighted the seamed and careworn +face of an old man, resting as in a serene, dreamless sleep. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Tonsor found, on consulting the best legal authorities, that he +could not maintain his claim upon the notes he had received of Sandford; +and, rather than subject himself to the expense of a lawsuit in which he +was certain to be beaten, he relinquished them to Monroe, and filed his +claim for the money against Sandford's estate. Ten _per cent._ was the +amount of the dividend he received; the remainder was charged to Profit +and Loss,--Experience being duly credited with the same amount. + + * * * * * + +It was with the greatest difficulty that the judicious Easelmann +prevented his friend from making a second visit in the evening of the +same day. Greenleaf had come to a full conviction, in his own mind, that +his difference with Alice ought to be settled, and he could not conceive +that it might take time to bring her to the same conclusion. Some people +adapt themselves to circumstances instantly; the aversion of one hour +becomes the delight of the next; but those who are guided by reasoning, +especially where there is a shade of resentment,--who are fortified by +pride of opinion, and by the idea of consistent self-respect,--such +persons are slow to change a settled conviction; the course of feeling +is too powerful and too constant to be arrested and turned backward. +Easelmann thought--and perhaps rightly--that Alice needed only time to +become accustomed to the new view of the case; and he believed that any +precipitation might be fatal to his friend's hopes. + +"Give her the opportunity to think about it," he said; "if she loves +you, depend upon it, the wind will change with her. Due east to-day, +according to all you have told me; and the violets won't blossom till +the sun comes out of the sullen gray cloud and the south wind breathes +on them.--The very contact with a lover, you see, makes me poetical." + +"But her thoughts may take another direction. Who can tell what +impression that malicious vixen has made upon her?" + +"Alice, I fancy, is a sensible young woman; and Miss Sandford, in her +rage, must have shown her hand too freely. To be sure, Alice might +wonder how you could ever have been captivated; but she could not blame +you for getting out of reach of such a Tartar. Besides, the exemplary +widow is your friend, you know, and I'll warrant that she will set the +matter right. Marcia won't trouble you again; such a mischance couldn't +happen twice. You are as safe as the sailor who put his head into the +hole where a cannon-shot had just come through. Lightning doesn't strike +the same tree twice in one shower." + +Greenleaf was at length persuaded to wait and let events take their +course. If he remained inactive, however, Easelmann did not; from Mrs. +Sandford he heard daily the progress of affairs, and at length intimated +to his friend that it might be judicious to call again. + +Once more Greenleaf was seated in the drawing-room of the +boarding-house. At every distant footstep his heart beat almost audibly; +and when at last the breezy rustle of a woman's robes came in from the +hall, he thought, as many a man has, before and since,-- + +"She is coming, my life, my fate!" + +She entered, not with the welcoming smile he would have liked to see, +nor with the forbidding cloud of sadness which veiled her face a few +days before. But how lovely! Time had given fulness and perfection to +her beauty, while the effect of the trials she had undergone was seen +only in the look of womanly dignity and self-control she had acquired. +It was the freshness of girlhood joined to the grace of maturity. + +Nothing is more inscrutable than the working of the human will; argument +does not reach it, nor does persuasion overcome it. It holds out against +reason, against interest, against passion; no sufficient motive can be +found with which to control it. On the other hand, it sometimes stoops +in a way that defies prediction; pride is vanquished or disarmed, +resentment melts away like frost, and the resolution that at first +seemed firm as the everlasting rock proves to be no barrier. Nor is this +uncertainty confined to the sex at whose foibles the satirists have been +wont to let fly their arrows. + +Feeling is deeper than thought; and as the earthquake lifts the mountain +with all the weight of its rocky strata and of the piled-up edifices +that crown its top, so there comes a time when the emotional nature +rises up and overthrows the carefully wrought structures of the +intellect, and asserts its original and supreme mastery over the soul of +man. + +Alice felt sure that every trace of her love for Greenleaf had +disappeared. She looked in her heart and saw there only the memory of +neglect and unfaithfulness. If love existed, it was as fire lurks in +ashes, unrecognized. She had conversed freely with Mrs. Sandford, and +learned that Greenleaf's version of the story was the correct one. Still +the original treason remained without apology; and she had determined +to express her regret for what had happened, to assure him of her +friendship, but to forbid any hope of reestablishing their former +relations. With this intention, she bade him good-morning and quietly +took a seat. + +"I did not think that so many days would pass before I should see you; +but now that you have had time to reflect, I hope your feelings have +softened towards me." + +"You mistake, if you suppose that giving me time for reflection has +produced any such change." + +"Then, pray, forget the past altogether." + +"I cannot forget." + +"If your memory must be busy, pray, go back to the pleasanter days of +our acquaintance." + +"I remember the days you speak of; I shall never forget them; but it is +a happiness that is dead and buried." + +"Love will make it live again." + +"It is hard to recognize love when it comes like Lazarus from the tomb." + +"Still we don't read that the friends of Lazarus were displeased with +his return and wished him back to his grave-clothes." + +"You can turn the comparison as you choose; but it is not necessary that +an illustration should be perfect in every respect; if one catches a +gleam of resemblance, it is enough." + +The perfect command of her faculties, and the deliberate way in which +she sustained her part in the conversation, thus far, were sufficiently +disheartening to Greenleaf. He longed to change the tone, but feared to +lose all by any rapid advance. He answered deprecatingly,--"But all this +intellectual fencing, my dear Alice, is useless. Love is not a spark +to be struck out by the collision of arguments; I shall in vain try to +_reason_ you into affection for me. I have already said all I can say by +way of apology for what I have done. If there yet lingers any particle +of regard for me in your heart, I would fain revive it. If it is your +pride that withstands me, I pray you consider whether it is well to make +us both unhappy in order to maintain so poor a triumph. I am already +conquered, and throw myself upon your generosity." + +"You would put me in the wrong, then, and ascribe my refusal to an +ungenerous pride? Is it generous in you to do so? Have you the right to +place such a construction upon my conduct? I appeal to you in return. +Remember, it is you who are responsible for this painful interview. I +never sought you to cover you with reproaches. You force me to say what +I would gladly leave in silence." + +"Forgive me, Alice, if I wrong you; but my heart clings to you and will +not be repulsed. I would fain believe, that, beneath all your natural +resentment, there yet survives some portion of the love you once bore +to me. If it were the first time I had ever approached you, a sense of +delicacy, to say nothing of my own self-respect, would have prevented +my importuning you in this way. But my fault has given me warrant to +be bold, and if you finally cast me off,--but that is what I won't +anticipate; I can't give you up. You once loved me,--and am I not the +same?" + +"No, not the same; or, rather, you have proved to be not what I +thought." + +"You persist in fixing your attention upon one dark spot. Do you +remember this miniature? It has never been out of my bosom, and there +has never been but one day in which I might not loyally carry it there. +At that time, when I opened it, your eyes looked out at me with a tender +reproach, and I was instantly recalled to myself. It was only the +illusion of a moment, through which I had passed. Whatever may happen, I +have one consolation: this dear image will remind me of the love I once +possessed. I shall fold to my bosom the Alice that once was mine, and +strive to forget our estrangement." + +Alice was sensibly touched by this appeal, and much more by the tone in +which it was made. In the momentary pause, Greenleaf raised his eyes and +saw the struggle in her face. He rose, came nearer, and quietly took a +seat on the sofa beside her. + +"I heard you distinctly where you sat," she said, making an effort to +keep down the tumult within, and shrinking, perhaps, from the influence +of his presence. + +"I wished to hear you, dear Alice, and therefore came nearer. Tell me, +are you not mistaken? You have not forgotten me: you do love me yet. Let +your heart speak; if you imprison it and force the dissembling lips to +deny me, the dear traitor will make signals: it looks out of your eyes +now." + +He seized and imprisoned her hand, and still watched the current of +feeling in her face. + +"I thought myself strong enough for this," she said, tremblingly, "but I +am not. I meant only to say that we would part----friends, but that we +must part. It is not so easy to be calm, when you distract me so." + +"Alice, you only deceive yourself; you love me. You have covered +the spring in your heart with snow, but the fountain still flows +underneath." + +Her tears could be kept back no longer; they fell not like November +rain, but rather like those sudden showers of spring from passing +clouds, while the blue sky still looks down, and rainbow smiles +transfigure the landscape. + +His heart gave a mighty throb as those softly humid eyes were turned +upon him. He drew her, half consenting, still nearer. She hesitated, but +not long. + + * * * * * + +"Hard a-port!" shouts the master; and the helmsman, with firm hand, +holds down the wheel. Slowly the ship veers; the sails flutter and back, +the yards are swung; waves strive to head the bow off, but the rudder is +held with iron grasp; now comes the wind, the shaking sails fill with +the sudden rush, and the ship bounds on her new course over the heaving +waters. + +Shall I fill out the comparison? Not for you, elders, who have seen the +struggle of "tacking ship," and have felt the ecstatic swell of delight +when it was accomplished! Not for the younger, who must learn for +themselves the seamanship that is to carry them safely over the +mysterious ocean on whose shore they have lingered and gazed and wished! + +The conversation that followed it would be vain to report, even if +it were possible; for the force of ejaculations depends so much +on _tone_,--which our types do not know how to convey; and their +punctuation-marks, I fear, were such as are not in use in any +well-regulated printing-office. In due time it came to an end; and when +Greenleaf took his unwilling departure, having repeatedly said good-bye, +with the usual confirmation, he could no more remember what had been +said in that miraculous hour than a bee flying home from a garden could +tell you about the separate blossoms from which he (the Sybarite!) had +gathered his freight of flower-dust. + +One thing only he heard which the wisely incurious reader will care +to know. Alice had met her cousin, Walter Monroe, the day before, had +received a proper scolding for her absurd independence, and, after a +frank settlement of the heart-question which came up on the day of her +flight, had promised at once to return to his house,--where, for the +brief remainder of our story, she is to be found. Let us wish her +joy,--and the kind, motherly aunt, also. + +Greenleaf went directly to Easelmann's room, opened the door, and spread +his arms. + +"Have you a strawberry-mark?" he shouted. + +"No." + +"Then you are my long-lost brother! Come to my arms!" + +Easelmann laughed long and loudly. + +"Forgive my nonsense, Easelmann. I know I am beside myself and ready for +any extravagance,--I am so full of joy. I feared, in coming along the +street, that I should break out into singing, or fall to dancing, like +the Scriptural hills." + +"Then you have succeeded, and the girl is yours! I forgive your stupid +old joke. You can say and do just what you like. You have a right to +be jolly, and to make a prodigious fool of yourself, if you want to. I +should like to have heard you. You were very poetical, quoted Tennyson, +fell on your knees, and perhaps blubbered a little. You _are_ +sentimental, you know." + +"I am happy, I know, and I don't care whether you think me sentimental +or not." + +"Well, I wish you joy anyhow. Let us make a night of it. 'It is our +royal pleasure to be'--imagine the rest of the line. 'Now is the winter +of our discontent.' 'My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne.' Come, +let us make ready, and we'll talk till + + "'Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day + Stands tiptoe on the misty'-- + +misty steeple of Park-Street Church,--since we haven't any misty +mountaintops in the neighborhood." + +"One would think _you_ the happy man." + +"I am; your enthusiasm is so contagious that I am back in my twenties +again." + +"Why do you take your pleasure vicariously? There is Mrs. Sandford, the +charming woman; I love her, because"-- + +"No, Sir, not her,--one is enough." + +"Then why not love her yourself? We'll make a double-barrelled shot of +it,--two couples brought down by one parson." + +"Very ingenious, and economical, too; but I think not. It is too late. I +was brought up in the country, and I don't think it good policy to begin +agricultural operations in the fall of the year; my spring has past. But +is the day fixed? When are you to be the truly happy man?" + +"No,--the day is not fixed," said Greenleaf, thoughtfully. "You see, +I was so bent upon the settlement of the difficulty, that I had not +considered the practical bearing of the matter. I am too poor to marry, +and I am heartsick at the prospect of waiting"-- + +"With the chance of another rupture." + +"No,--we shall not quarrel again. But I shall go to work. I'll inundate +the town with pictures; if I can't sell them myself, I will have Jews to +peddle them for me." + +"Hear the mercenary man! No,--go to work in earnest, but put your life +into your pictures. If you can keep up your present glow, you will be +warmer than Cuyp, dreamier than Claude, more imaginative than Millais." + +"But the desperate long interval!" + +"I don't know about that. I quite like the philosophy of Mr. Micawber, +and strenuously believe in something turning up." + +"What is that?" asked Greenleaf, noticing a letter on his friend's +table. "It seems to be addressed to me." + +"Yes,--I met a lawyer to-day, who asked me if I knew one George +Greenleaf. As I did, he gave me the letter. Some dun, probably, or +threat of a suit. I wouldn't open it. Don't!" + +"You only make me curious. I shall open it. To-day I can defy a dun even +from--What, what's this? Bullion dead?--left in his will a bequest--forty +thousand--to _me_?" + +Easelmann looked over his friend's shoulder with well-simulated +astonishment. + +"Sure enough; there it is, in black and white.--What do you think of +Micawber?" + +"I think," said Greenleaf, with manly tears in his eyes, "that you are +the artfullest, craftiest, hugger-muggering, dear old rascal that ever +lived. Now let me embrace you in good earnest. Oh, Easelmann, this is +too much! Here is Alice--mine! Here is Europe, that I have looked at as +I would heaven, beyond reach in this life! _Now_ we will go to work; and +let Cuyp, Claude, and the rest of them, look out for their laurels!" + +"Softly, my boy; you squeeze like a cider-press. But how came the old +miser to give you this?" + +"My father was his partner; he was thought to be worth a handsome sum +while he lived,--but at his death, though Bullion and another junior +went on with the business, there was nothing left for us. My mother died +poor. I am the only child living. This, I suppose, is the return for the +property that Bullion wrongfully detained,--with compound interest, too, +I should say. Let us not speak ill of the dead. He has made restitution +and squared the books; I hope the correction has been made above." + +"How lucky for you that Bullion was your banker! Suppose you had grown +up with the expectation of having this money, what would you have +been good for? You would have run all to patent-leather boots, silky +moustaches, and black-tan terriers. Your struggles have developed your +muscles, metaphorically speaking, and made a man of you." + +"Two sides to that question. It is true, luxury might have spoiled me, +for I am accessible to such influences; but, on the other hand, I should +have escaped some painful things. No one who has not been poor can +understand me, can know the wounds which a sensitive man must receive as +he is working his way up in the world,--wounds that leave lasting scars, +too. I am conscious of certain feelings, most discreditable, if I were +to avow them, which have been cultivated in me, and which will probably +cling to me all my days. What I have gained in hardiness I have +gained as the smith gains his strength, at the expense of symmetry, +sensibility, and grace." + +"Nonsense, you mimosa! Don't curl up your leaves before you are +touched." + +"But if I am a sensitive-plant, as you say, I can't help it; if I were a +burdock, I might." + +"You'll get over that. By-the-by, you may as well tell Alice. I know +you will be uneasy; go, go,--but come back soon. It is jolly that she +accepted you poor; if the report had got abroad, you might have thought +she was influenced by golden reasons." + +"That's because you don't know her, my cynical friend. She is incapable +of mercenary motives." + + "'What female heart can gold despise? + What cat's averse to fish?'" + +"Well, for an hour, good-bye. Have a good fire and the pipes ready." + +"Yes, truly,--and a magnum, if my closet is not empty. The king will +drink to Hamlet." + + * * * * * + +Little more remains to be told. After the long period of probation, it +was not deemed necessary that the nuptials should be deferred beyond +the time necessary to make due preparation. In a month the wedding took +place at Mr. Monroe's house, Mr. Easelmann giving away the bride. I do +not say that the bachelor felt no twinges when he saw among the guests +the lovely Mrs. Sandford in her becoming white robes; in fact, he +"thought seriously," as all such people do while there remains even the +recollection of youth--but his habits were too fixed. He saw and sighed, +and that was all. However, he is on the right side of----forty, we will +call it, and there is hope for him. We may find him in some adventure +yet; if so, the reader shall assuredly know it. + +In the spring, Greenleaf with his wife went abroad and took up their +residence in Rome. + +"What pictures has he painted?" did you ask? + +Really, Madam, a great many; but I have not the least idea of letting +you come at the name of my hero in this way. You have seen them both +here and in New York, and you thought them the productions of a rising +man,--as they are. + + * * * * * + +Our friend Monroe is now a partner in the house of Lindsay & Co. He +makes frequent visits to the villa at Brookline, and is always welcome. +Mr. Lindsay considers him a most sensible and worthy young man, and his +daughter Clara has implicit confidence in his judgment of literature as +well as in his taste for pictures. One fine day last summer, Mrs. Monroe +was prevailed upon, after some weeks of solicitation, to get into a +carriage and take a drive with her son. "She's a nice girl," said the +mother, fervently, on their return; "and if you _must_ marry anybody, I +don't think you can do better." Walter's smile showed that he thought +so too, although the alternative was hardly so painful as she seemed to +consider it,--from which we infer that his relations with the senior +partner of the house have become, or will be, still more intimate. + +Mrs. Sandford has left Boston and gone to live with her relatives some +fifty miles distant;--the place Mr. Easelmann can tell, as he has had +occasion to send her a few letters. + +The personages of our drama are all dismissed; the curtain begins to +fall; but a voice is heard, "What became of the Bulls and Bears?" What +became of Mars and Minerva after the siege of Troy? Men die; but the +deities, infernal as well as celestial, live on. Fortunes may rise like +Satan's _chef d'oeuvre_ of architecture, may be transported from city to +city like the palace of Aladdin, or may sink into salt-water lots as did +the Cities of the Plain; success may wait upon commerce and the arts, +or desolation may cover the land; still, surviving all change, and +profiting alike by prosperity and by calamity, the secret, unfathomable +agents in all human enterprises will remain the BULLS AND BEARS. + + * * * * * + + +THE SPHINX. + + + Go not to Thebes. The Sphinx is there; + And thou shalt see her beauty rare, + And thee the sorcery of her smile + To read her riddle shall beguile. + + Oh! woe to those who fail to read! + And woe to him who shall succeed! + For he who fails the truth to show + The terror of her wrath shall know: + + But should'st thou find her mystery, + Not less is Death assured to thee; + For she shall cease, and thou shalt sigh + That she no longer is, and die. + + + + +A CHARGE WITH PRINCE RUPERT. + + + "Thousands were there, in darker fame that dwell, + Whose deeds some nobler poem shall adorn; + And though to me unknown, they sure fought well, + Whom Rupert led, and who were British-born." + +DRYDEN. + + +I. + +THE MARCH. JUNE 17, 1643. + + +Last night the Canary wine flashed in the red Venice glasses on the +oaken tables of the hall; loud voices shouted and laughed till the +clustered hawk-bells jingled from the rafters, and the chaplain's fiddle +throbbed responsive from the wall; while the coupled stag-hounds fawned +unnoticed, and the watchful falcon whistled to himself unheard. In the +carved chairs lounged groups of revellers, dressed in scarlet, dressed +in purple, dressed in white and gold, gay with satins and ribbons, +gorgeous with glittering chains and jewelled swords: stern, manly faces, +that had been singed with powder in the Palatinate; brutal, swarthy +faces, knowing all that sack and sin could teach them; beautiful, boyish +faces, fresh from ancestral homes and high-born mothers; grave, sad +faces,--sad for undoubted tyranny, grave against the greater wrong of +disloyalty. Some were in council, some were in strife, many were in +liquor; the parson was there with useless gravity, and the jester with +superfluous folly; and in the outer hall men more plebeian drained the +brown October from pewter cans, which were beaten flat, next moment, in +hammering the loud drinking-chorus on the wall; while the clink of the +armorer still went on, repairing the old head-pieces and breastplates +which had hung untouched since the Wars of the Roses; and in the +doorway the wild Welsh recruits crouched with their scythes and their +cudgels, and muttered in their uncouth dialect, now a prayer to God; and +now a curse for their enemy. + +But to-day the inner hall is empty, the stag-hounds leap in the doorway, +the chaplain prays, the maidens cluster in the windows, beneath the soft +beauty of the June afternoon. The streets of Oxford resound with many +hoofs; armed troopers are gathering beside chapel and quadrangle, +gateway and tower; the trumpeter waves his gold and crimson trappings, +and blows, "To the Standard,"--for the great flag is borne to the +front, and Rupert and his men are mustering for a night of danger +beneath that banner of "Tender and True." + +With beat of drum, with clatter of hoof, and rattle of spur and +scabbard, tramping across old Magdalen Bridge, cantering down the +hill-sides, crashing through the beech-woods, echoing through the chalky +hollows, ride leisurely the gay Cavaliers. Some in new scarfs and +feathers, worthy of the "show-troop,"--others with torn laces, broken +helmets, and guilty red smears on their buff doublets;--some eager for +their first skirmish,--others weak and silent, still bandaged from the +last one;--discharging now a rattle of contemptuous shot at some closed +Puritan house, grim and stern as its master,--firing anon as noisy a +salute, as they pass some mansion where a high-born beauty dwells,--on +they ride. Leaving the towers of Oxford behind them, keeping the ancient +Roman highway, passing by the low, strong, many-gabled farmhouses, with +rustic beauties smiling at the windows and wiser fathers scowling at +the doors,--on they ride. To the Royalists, these troopers are "Prince +Robert and the hope of the nation";--to the Puritans, they are only +"Prince Robber and his company of rake-shames." + +Riding great Flanders horses, a flagon swung on one side of the large +padded saddle, and a haversack on the other,--booted to the thigh, +and girded with the leathern bandoleer, supporting cartridge-box and +basket-hilted sword, they are a picturesque and a motley troop. Some +wear the embroidered buffcoat over the coat of mail, others beneath +it,--neither having yet learned that the buffcoat alone is sabre-proof +and bullet-proof also. Scantily furnished with basinet or breastplate, +pot, haqueton, cuirass, pouldron, taslets, vambraces, or cuisses,--each +with the best piece of iron he could secure when the ancestral armory +was ransacked,--they yet care little for the deficit, remembering, that, +when they first rode down the enemy at Worcester, there was not a piece +of armor on their side, while the Puritans were armed to a man. There +are a thousand horsemen under Percy and O'Neal, armed with swords, +pole-axes, and petronels; this includes Rupert's own lifeguard of chosen +men. Lord Wentworth, with Innis and Washington, leads three hundred and +fifty dragoons,--dragoons of the old model, intended to fight either +on foot or on horseback, whence the name they bear, and the emblematic +dragon which adorns their carbines. The advanced guard, or "forlorn +hope," of a hundred horse and fifty dragoons, is commanded by Will +Legge, Rupert's life-long friend and correspondent; and Herbert Lunsford +leads the infantry, "the inhuman cannibal foot," as the Puritan journals +call them. There are five hundred of these, in lightest marching order, +and carrying either pike or arquebuse,--this last being a matchlock +musket with an iron rest to support it, and a lance combined, to resist +cavalry,--the whole being called "Swine (Swedish) feathers,"--a weapon +so clumsy, that the Cavaliers say a Puritan needs two years' practice to +discharge one without winking. And over all these float flags of every +hue and purport, from the blue and gold with its loyal "_Ut rex, sit +rex_" to the ominous crimson, flaming with a lurid furnace and the +terrible motto, "_Quasi ignis conflatoris_." + +And foremost rides Prince Rupert, darling of fortune and of war, with +his beautiful and thoughtful face of twenty-three, stern and bronzed +already, yet beardless and dimpled, his dark and passionate eyes, his +long love-locks drooping over costly embroidery, his graceful scarlet +cloak, his white-plumed hat, and his tall and stately form, which, +almost alone in the army, has not yet known a wound. His high-born +beauty is preserved to us forever on the canvas of Vandyck, and as the +Italians have named the artist "Il Pittore Cavalieresco," so will +this subject of his skill remain forever the ideal of Il Cavaliere +Pittoresco. And as he now rides at the head of this brilliant array, his +beautiful white dog bounds onward joyously beside him, that quadruped +renowned in the pamphlets of the time, whose snowy skin has been stained +by many a blood-drop in the desperate forays of his master, but who has +thus far escaped so safely that the Puritans believe him a familiar +spirit, and try to destroy him "by poyson and extempore prayer, which +yet hurt him no more than the plague plaster did Mr. Pym." Failing in +this, they pronounce the pretty creature to be "a divell, not a very +downright divell, but some Lapland ladye, once by nature a handsome +white ladye, now by art a handsome white dogge." + +The Civil War is begun. The King has made his desperate attempt to +arrest the five members of Parliament, and been checkmated by Lucy +Carlisle. So the fatal standard was reared, ten months ago, on that +dismal day at Nottingham,--the King's arms, quartered with a bloody +hand pointing to the crown, and the red battle-flag above;--blown down +disastrously at night, replaced sadly in the morning, to wave while the +Cavaliers rallied, slowly, beneath its folds. During those long months, +the King's fortunes have had constant and increasing success,--a success +always greatest when Rupert has been nearest. And now this night-march +is made to avenge a late attack, of unaccustomed audacity, from Essex, +and to redeem the threat of Rupert to pass in one night through the +whole country held by the enemy, and beat up the most distant quarters +of the Roundheads. + + +II. + +THE CONDITION OF THE TIMES. + + +It is no easy thing to paint, with any accurate shadings, this opening +period of the English Revolution. Looking habitually, as we do, at the +maturer condition of the two great parties, we do not remember how +gradual was their formation. The characters of Cavalier and Roundhead +were not more the cause than the consequence of civil strife. There is +no such chemical solvent as war; where it finds a mingling of two +alien elements, it leaves them permanently severed. At the opening +of hostilities, the two parties were scarcely distinguishable, in +externals, from each other. Arms, costume, features, phrases, manners, +were as yet common to both sides. On the battlefield, spies could pass +undetected from one army to the other. At Edgehill, Chalgrove, and +even Naseby, men and standards were captured and rescued, through the +impossibility of distinguishing between the forces. An orange scarf, or +a piece of white paper, was the most reliable designation. True, there +was nothing in the Parliamentary army so gorgeous as Sir John Suckling's +troop in Scotland, with their white doublets and scarlet hats and +plumes; but that bright company substituted the white feather for the +red one, in 1639, and rallied no more. Yet even the Puritans came to +battle in attire which would have seemed preposterously gaudy to the +plain men of our own Revolution. The London regiment of Hollis wore +red, in imitation of the royal colors, adopted to make wounds less +conspicuous. Lord Say's regiment wore blue, in imitation of the +Covenanters, who took it from Numbers, xv. 38; Hampden's men wore green; +Lord Brooke's purple; Colonel Ballard's gray. Even the hair afforded far +less distinction than we imagine, since there is scarcely a portrait of +a leading Parliamentarian which has not a display of tresses such as +would now appear the extreme of foppery; and when the remains of Hampden +himself were disinterred within twenty-five years, the body was at first +taken for a woman's, from the exceeding length and beauty of the hair. + +But every year of warfare brought a change. On the King's side, the +raiment grew more gorgeous amid misfortunes; on the Parliament's, it +became sadder with every success. The Royalists took up feathers and +oaths, in proportion as the Puritans laid them down; and as the tresses +of the Cavaliers waved more luxuriantly, the hair of the Roundheads +was more scrupulously shorn. And the same instinctive exaggeration was +constantly extending into manners and morals also. Both sides became +ostentatious; the one made the most of its dissoluteness, and the other +of its decorum. The reproachful names applied derisively to the two +parties became fixed distinctions. The word "Roundhead" was first used +early in 1642, though whether it originated with Henrietta Maria or with +David Hyde is disputed. And Charles, in his speech before the battle of +Edgehill, in October of the same year, mentioned the name "Cavalier" as +one bestowed "in a reproachful sense," and one "which our enemies have +striven to make odious." + +And all social as well as moral prejudices gradually identified +themselves with this party division. As time passed on, all that was +high-born in England gravitated more and more to the royal side, while +the popular cause enlisted the Londoners, the yeomanry, and those +country-gentlemen whom Mrs. Hutchinson styled the "worsted-stocking +members." The Puritans gradually found themselves excluded from the +manorial halls, and the Cavaliers (a more inconvenient privation) +from the blacksmiths' shops. Languishing at first under aristocratic +leadership, the cause of the Parliament first became strong when the +Self-denying Ordinance abolished all that weakness. Thus the very +sincerity of the civil conflict drew the lines deeper; had the battles +been fought by mercenaries, like the contemporary Continental wars, +there would have grown up a less hearty mutual antipathy, but a far more +terrible demoralization. As it was, the character of the war was, on the +whole, a humane one; few towns were sacked or destroyed, the harvests +were bounteous and freely gathered, and the population increased during +the whole period. But the best civil war is fearfully injurious. In this +case, virtues and vices were found on both sides; and it was only the +gradual preponderance which finally stamped on each party its own +historic reputation. The Cavaliers confessed to "the vices of men,--love +of wine and women"; but they charged upon their opponents "the vices of +devils,--hypocrisy and spiritual pride." Accordingly, the two verdicts +have been recorded in the most delicate of all registers,--language. For +the Cavaliers added to the English vocabulary the word _plunder_, and +the Puritans the word _cant_. + +Yet it is certain that at the outset neither of these peculiarities was +monopolized by either party. In abundant instances, the sins changed +places,--Cavaliers canted, and Puritans plundered. That is, if by cant +we understand the exaggerated use of Scripture language which originated +with the reverend gentleman of that name, it was an offence in which +both sides participated. Clarendon, reviewing the Presbyterian +discourses, quoted text against text with infinite relish. Old Judge +Jenkins, could he have persuaded the "House of Rimmon," as he called +Parliament, to hang him, would have swung the Bible triumphantly to his +neck by a ribbon, to show the unscriptural character of their doings. +Charles himself, in one of his early addresses to his army, denounced +the opposing party as "Brownists, Anabaptists, and Atheists," and in +his address to the city of London pleaded in favor of his own "godly, +learned, and painfull preachers." Every royal regiment had its chaplain, +including in the service such men as Pearson and Jeremy Taylor, and +they had prayers before battle, as regularly and seriously as their +opponents. "After solemn prayers at the head of every division, I led my +part away," wrote the virtuous Sir Bevill Grenvill to his wife, after +the battle of Bradock. Rupert, in like manner, had prayers before every +division at Marston Moor. To be sure, we cannot always vouch for the +quality of these prayers, when the chaplain happened to be out of the +way and the colonel was his substitute. "O Lord," petitioned stout Sir +Jacob Astley, at Edgehill, "thou knowest how busy I must be this day; if +I forget thee, do not thou forget me!"--after which, he rose up, crying, +"March on, boys!" + +And as the Puritans had not the monopoly of prayer, so the Cavaliers did +not monopolize plunder. Of course, when civil war is once begun, such +laxity is mere matter of self-defence. If the Royalists unhorsed the +Roundheads, the latter must horse themselves again, as best they could. +If Goring "uncattled" the neighborhood of London, Major Medhope must +be ordered to "uncattle" the neighborhood of Oxford. Very possibly +individual animals were identified with the right side or the wrong +side, to be spared or confiscated in consequence;--as in modern Kansas, +during a similar condition of things, one might hear men talk of a +pro-slavery colt, or an anti-slavery cow. And the precedent being +established, each party could use the smallest excesses of the other +side to palliate the greatest of its own. No use for the King to hang +two of Rupert's men for stealing, when their commander could urge in +extenuation the plunder of the house of Lady Lucas, and the indignities +offered by the Roundheads to the Countess of Rivers. Why spare the +churches as sanctuaries for the enemy, when rumor accused that enemy +(right or wrong) of hunting cats in those same churches with hounds, or +baptizing dogs and pigs in ridicule of the consecrated altars? Setting +aside these charges as questionable, we cannot so easily dispose of +the facts which rest on actual Puritan testimony. If, even after the +Self-denying Ordinance, the "Perfect Occurrences" repeatedly report +soldiers of the Puritan army, as cashiered for drunkenness, rudeness to +women, pilfering, and defrauding innkeepers, it is inevitable to infer +that in earlier and less stringent times they did the same undetected or +unpunished. When Mrs. Hutchinson describes a portion of the soldiers on +her own side as "licentious, ungovernable wretches,"--when Sir Samuel +Luke, in his letters, depicts the glee with which his men plunder +the pockets of the slain,--when poor John Wolstenholme writes to +head-quarters that his own compatriots have seized all his hay and +horses, "so that his wife cannot serve God with the congregation but +in frosty weather,"--when Vicars in "Jehovah Jireh" exults over the +horrible maiming and butchery wrought by the troopers upon the officers' +wives and female camp-followers at Naseby,--it is useless to attribute +exaggeration to the other side. In civil war, even the humanest, there +is seldom much opening for exaggeration,--the actual horrors being +usually quite as vivid as any imaginations of the sufferers, especially +when, as in this case, the spiritual instructors preach, on the one +side, from "Curse ye Meroz," and, on the other side, from "Cursed be he +that keepeth back his sword from blood." + +We mention these things, not because they are deliberately denied by +anybody, but because they are apt to be overlooked by those who take +their facts at secondhand. All this does not show that the Puritans had, +even at the outset, worse men or a cause no better; it simply shows +that war demoralizes, and that right-thinking men may easily, under its +influence, slide into rather reprehensible practices. At a later period +the evil worked its own cure, among the Puritans, and the army of +Cromwell was a moral triumph almost incredible; but at the time of which +we write, the distinction was but lightly drawn. It would be easy to go +farther and show that among the leading Parliamentary statesmen there +were gay and witty debauchees,--that Harry Marten deserved the epithet +with which Cromwell saluted him,--that Pym succeeded to the regards of +Stafford's bewitching mistress,--that Warwick was truly, as Clarendon +describes him, a profuse and generous profligate, tolerated by the +Puritans for the sake of his earldom and his bounty, at a time when +bounty was convenient and peers scarce. But it is hardly worth while +farther to demonstrate the simple and intelligible fact, that there were +faults on both sides. Neither war nor any other social phenomenon can +divide infallibly the sheep from the goats, or collect all the saints +under one set of staff-officers and all the sinners under another. + +But, on the other hand, the strength of both sides, at this early day, +was in a class of serious and devoted men, who took up the sword so +sadly, in view of civil strife, that victory seemed to them almost as +terrible as defeat. In some, the scale of loyalty slightly inclined, +and they held with the King; in others, the scale of liberty, and they +served the Parliament; in both cases, with the same noble regrets at +first, merging gradually into bitter alienation afterwards. "If there +could be an expedient found to solve the punctilio of honor, I would not +be hero an hour," wrote Lord Robert Spencer to his wife, from the +camp of the Cavaliers. Sir Edmund Verney, the King's standard-bearer, +disapproved of the royal cause, and adhered to it only because he "had +eaten the King's bread." Lord Falkland, Charles's Secretary of State, +"sitting among his friends, often, after a deep silence and frequent +sighs, would, with a shriek and sad accent, ingeminate the words, Peace! +Peace!" and would prophesy for himself that death which soon came. And +these words show close approximation to the positions of men honored +among the Puritans, as when Sir William Waller wrote from his camp to +his chivalrous opponent, Sir Ralph Hopton,--"The great God, who is +the searcher of my heart, knows with what reluctance I go upon this +service." + +As time passed on, the hostility between the two parties exceeded all +bounds of courteous intercourse. The social distinction was constantly +widening, and so was the religious antagonism. Waller could be allowed +to joke with Goring and sentimentalize with Hopton,--for Waller was a +gentleman, though a rebel; but it was a different thing when the Puritan +gentlemen were seen to be gradually superseded by Puritan clowns. +Strafford had early complained of "your Prynnes, Pims, and Bens, with +the rest of that generation of odd names and natures." But what were +these to the later brood, whose plebeian quality Mr. Buckle has so +laboriously explored,--Goffe the grocer and Whalley the tailor, Pride +the drayman and Venner the cooper, culminating at last in Noll Cromwell +the brewer? The formidable force of these upstarts only embittered +the aversion. If odious when vanquished, what must they have been as +victors? For if it be disagreeable to find a foeman unworthy of your +steel, it is much more unpleasant when your steel turns out unworthy of +the foeman; and if sad-colored Puritan raiment looked absurd upon the +persons of fugitives, it must have been very particularly unbecoming +when worn by conquerors. + +And the growing division was constantly aggravated by very acid satire. +The Court, it must be remembered, was more than half French in its +general character and tone, and every Frenchman of that day habitually +sneered at every Englishman as dull and inelegant. The dazzling wit that +flashed for both sides in the French civil wars flashed for one only in +the English; the Puritans had no comforts of that kind, save in some +caustic repartee from Harry Marten, or some fearless sarcasm from Lucy +Carlisle. But the Cavaliers softened labor and sweetened care with their +little jokes. It was rather consoling to cover some ignominious retreat +with a new epigram on Cromwell's red nose, that irresistible member +which kindled in its day as much wit as Bardolph's,--to hail it as "Nose +Immortal," a beacon, a glow-worm, a bird of prey,--to make it stand as a +personification of the rebel cause, till even the stately Montrose asked +newcomers from England, "How is Oliver's nose?" It was very entertaining +to christen the Solemn League and Covenant "the constellation on the +back of Aries," because most of the signers could only make their marks +on the little bits of sheepskin circulated for that purpose. It was +quite lively to rebaptize Rundway Down as Run-away-down, after a royal +victory, and to remark how Hazlerig's regiment of "lobsters" turned to +crabs, on that occasion, and crawled backwards. But all these pleasant +follies became whips to scourge them, at last,--shifting suddenly into +very grim earnest when the Royalists themselves took to running away, +with truculent saints, in steeple-hats, behind them. + +Oxford was the stronghold of the Cavaliers, in these times, as that +of the Puritans was London. The Court itself (though here we are +anticipating a little) was transferred to the academic city. Thither +came Henrietta Maria, with what the pamphleteers called "her +Rattle-headed Parliament of Ladies," the beautiful Duchess of Richmond, +the merry Mrs. Kirke, and brave Kate D'Aubigny. In Merton College the +Queen resided; at Oriel the Privy Council was held; at Christ Church +the King and Rupert were quartered; and at All Souls Jeremy Taylor was +writing his beautiful meditations, in the intervals of war. In the New +College quadrangle, the students were drilled to arms "in the eye of +Doctor Pink," while Mars and Venus kept undisturbed their ancient reign, +although transferred to the sacred precincts of Magdalen. And amidst the +passion and the pomp, the narrow streets would suddenly ring with the +trumpet of some foam-covered scout, bringing tidings of perilous +deeds outside; while some traitorous spy was being hanged, drawn, and +quartered in some other part of the city, for betraying the secrets of +the Court. And forth from the outskirts of Oxford rides Rupert on the +day we are to describe, and we must still protract our pause a little +longer to speak of him. + +Prince Rupert, Prince Robert, or Prince Robber,--for by all these names +was he known,--was the one formidable military leader on the royal side. +He was not a statesman, for he was hardly yet a mature man; he was +not, in the grandest sense, a hero, yet he had no quality that was not +heroic. Chivalrous, brilliant, honest, generous,--neither dissolute, nor +bigoted, nor cruel,--he was still a Royalist for the love of royalty, +and a soldier for the love of war, and in civil strife there can hardly +be a more dangerous character. Through all the blunt periods of his +military or civil proclamations, we see the proud, careless boy, +fighting for fighting sake, and always finding his own side the right +one. He could not have much charity for the most generous opponents; he +certainly had none at all for those who (as he said) printed malicious +and lying pamphlets against him "almost every morning," in which he +found himself saluted as a "nest of perfidious vipers," "a night-flying +dragon prince," "a flapdragon," "a caterpillar," "a spider," and "a +_butterbox_." + +He was the King's own nephew,--great-grandson of William the Silent, and +son of that Elizabeth Stuart from whom all the modern royal family of +England descends. His sister was the renowned Princess Palatine, the +one favorite pupil of Descartes, and the chosen friend of Leibnitz, +Malebranche, and William Penn. From early childhood he was trained to +war; we find him at fourteen pronounced by his tutors fit to command +an army,--at fifteen, bearing away the palm in one of the last of the +tournaments,--at sixteen, fighting beside the young Turenne in the Low +Countries,--at nineteen, heading the advanced guard in the army of the +Prince of Orange,--and at twenty-three, appearing in England, the day +before the Royal Standard was reared, and the day after the King lost +Coventry, because Wilmot, not Rupert, was commander of the horse. +This training made him a general,--not, as many have supposed, a mere +cavalry-captain;--he was one of the few men who have shown great +military powers on both land and sea; he was a man of energy unbounded, +industry inexhaustible, and the most comprehensive and systematic +forethought. It was not merely, that, as Warwick said, "he put that +spirit into the King's army that all men seemed resolved,"--not merely, +that, always charging at the head of his troops, he was never wounded, +and that, seeing more service than any of his compeers, he outlived them +all. But even in these early years, before he was generalissimo, the +Parliament deliberately declared the whole war to be "managed by his +skill, labor, and industry," and his was the only name habitually +printed in capitals in the Puritan newspapers. He had to create soldiers +by enthusiasm, and feed them by stratagem,--to toil for a king +who feared him, and against a queen who hated him,--to take vast +responsibilities alone,--accused of negligence, if he failed, reproached +with license, if he succeeded. Against him he had the wealth of London, +intrusted to men who were great diplomatists, though new to power, and +great soldiers, though they had never seen a battle-field till middle +life; on his side he had only unmanageable lords and penniless +gentlemen, who gained victories by daring, and then wasted them by +license. His troops had no tents, no wagons, no military stores; they +used those of the enemy. Clarendon says, that the King's cause labored +under an incurable disease of want of money, and that the only cure for +starvation was a victory. To say, therefore, that Rupert's men never +starved is to say that they always conquered,--which, at this early +period, was true. + +He was the best shot in the army, and the best tennis-player among the +courtiers, and Pepys calls him "the boldest attacker in England for +personal courage." Seemingly without reverence or religion, he yet +ascribed his defeats to Satan, and, at the close of a letter about a +marauding expedition, requested his friend Will Legge to pray for him. +Versed in all the courtly society of the age, chosen interpreter for the +wooing of young Prince Charles and La Grande Mademoiselle, and mourning +in purple, with the royal family, for Marie de Medicis, he could yet +mingle in any conceivable company and assume any part. He penetrated the +opposing camp at Dunsmore Heath as an apple-seller, and the hostile town +of Warwick as a dealer in cabbage-nets, and the pamphleteers were never +weary of describing his disguises. He was charged with all manner of +offences, even to slaying children with cannibal intent, and only very +carelessly disavowed such soft impeachments. But no man could deny that +he was perfectly true to his word; he never forgot one whom he had +promised to protect, and, if he had promised to strip a man's goods, he +did it to the uttermost farthing. And so must his pledge of vengeance +be redeemed to-night; and so, riding eastward, with the dying sunlight +behind him and the quiet Chiltern hills before, through air softened by +the gathering coolness of these midsummer eves, beside clover fields, +and hedges of wild roses, and ponds white with closing water-lilies, and +pastures sprinkled with meadow-sweet, like foam,--he muses only of the +clash of sword and the sharp rattle of shot, and all the passionate joys +of the coming charge. + + +III. + +THE FORAY. + + +The long and picturesque array winds onward, crossing Chiselhampton +Bridge, (not to be re-crossed so easily,) avoiding Thame with its church +and abbey, where Lord-General Essex himself is quartered, unconscious of +their march; and the Cavaliers are soon riding beneath the bases of +the wooded hills towards Postcombe. Near Tetsworth, the enemy's first +outpost, they halt till evening; the horsemen dismount, the flagon and +the foraging-bag are opened, the black-jack and the manchet go round, +healths are drunk to successes past and glories future, to "Queen Mary's +eyes," and to "Prince Rupert's dog." A few hours bring darkness; they +move on eastward through the lanes, avoiding, when possible, the Roman +highways; they are sometimes fired upon by a picket, but make no return, +for they are hurrying past the main quarters of the enemy. In the +silence of the summer night, they stealthily ride miles and miles +through a hostile country, the renegade Urry guiding them. At early +dawn, they see, through the misty air, the low hamlet of Postcombe, +where the "beating up of the enemy's quarters" is to begin. A hurried +word of command; the infantry halt; the cavalry close, and sweep down +like night-hawks upon the sleeping village,--safe, one would have +supposed it, with the whole Parliamentary army lying between it and +Oxford, to protect from danger. Yet the small party of Puritan troopers +awake in their quarters with Rupert at the door; it is well for +them that they happen to be picked men, and have promptness, if not +vigilance; forming hastily, they secure a retreat westward through the +narrow street, leaving but few prisoners behind them. As hastily the +prisoners are swept away with the stealthy troop, who have other work +before them; and before half the startled villagers have opened their +lattices the skirmish is over. Long before they can send a messenger up, +over the hills, to sound the alarm-bells of Stoken Church, the swift +gallop of the Cavaliers has reached Chinnor, two miles away, and the +goal of their foray. The compact, strongly-built village is surrounded. +They form a parallel line behind the houses, on each side, leaping +fences and ditches to their posts. They break down the iron chains +stretched nightly across each end of the street, and line it from end to +end. Rupert, Will Legge, and the "forlorn hope," dismounting, rush in +upon the quarters, sparing those alone who surrender. + +In five minutes the town is up. The awakened troopers fight as +desperately as their assailants, some on foot, some on horseback. More +and more of Rupert's men rush in; they fight through the straggling +street of the village, from the sign of the Ram at one end to that of +the Crown at the other, and then back again. The citizens join against +the invaders, the 'prentices rush from their attics, hasty barricades +of carts and harrows are formed in the streets, long musket-barrels are +thrust from the windows, dark groups cluster on the roofs, and stones +begin to rattle on the heads below, together with phrases more galling +than stones, hurled down by women, "cursed dogs," "devilish Cavaliers," +"Papist traitors." In return, the intruders shoot at the windows +indiscriminately, storm the doors, fire the houses; they grow more +furious, and spare nothing; some towns-people retreat within the +church-doors; the doors are beaten in; women barricade them with +wool-packs, and fight over them with muskets, barrel to barrel. Outside, +the troopers ride round and round the town, seizing or slaying all who +escape; within, desperate men still aim from their windows, though the +houses each side are in flames. Melting lead pours down from the blazing +roofs, while the drum still beats and the flag still goes on. It is +struck down presently; tied to a broken pike-staff, it rises again, +while a chaos of armor and plumes, black and orange, blue and red, torn +laces and tossing feathers, powder-stains and blood-stains, fills the +dewy morning with terror, and opens the June Sunday with sin. + +Threescore and more of the towns-people are slain, sixscore are led +away at the horses' sides, bound with ropes, to be handed over to +the infantry for keeping. Some of these prisoners, even of the armed +troopers, are so ignorant and unwarlike as yet, that they know not the +meaning of the word "quarter," refusing it when offered, and imploring +"mercy" instead. Others are little children, for whom a heavy ransom +shall yet be paid. Others, cheaper prisoners, are ransomed on the spot. +Some plunder has also been taken, but the soldiers look longingly on +the larger wealth that must be left behind, in the hurry of +retreat,--treasures that, otherwise, no trooper of Rupert's would have +spared: scarlet cloth, bedding, saddles, cutlery, ironware, hats, shoes, +hops for beer, and books to sell to the Oxford scholars. But the daring +which has given them victory now makes their danger;--they have been +nearly twelve hours in the saddle and have fought two actions; they have +twenty-five miles to ride, with the whole force of the enemy in their +path; they came unseen in the darkness, they must return by daylight and +with the alarm already given; Stoken Church-bell has been pealing for +hours, the troop from Postcombe has fallen back on Tetsworth, and +everywhere in the distance videttes are hurrying from post to post. + +The perilous retreat begins. Ranks are closed; they ride silently; many +a man leads a second horse beside him, and one bears in triumph the +great captured Puritan standard, with its five buff Bibles on a black +ground. They choose their course more carefully than ever, seek the +by-lanes, and swim the rivers with their swords between their teeth. At +one point, in their hushed progress, they hear the sound of rattling +wagons. There is a treasure-train within their reach, worth twenty-one +thousand pounds, and destined for the Parliamentary camp, but the thick +woods of the Chilterns have sheltered it from pursuit, and they have +not a moment to waste; they are riding for their lives. Already the +gathering parties of Roundheads are closing upon them, nearer and +nearer, as they approach the most perilous point of the wild expedition, +their only return-path across the Cherwell, Chiselhampton Bridge. Percy +and O'Neal with difficulty hold the assailants in check; the case grows +desperate at last, and Rupert stands at bay on Chalgrove Field. + +It is Sunday morning, June 18th, 1643. The early church-bells are +ringing over all Oxfordshire,--dying away in the soft air, among the +sunny English hills, while Englishmen are drawing near each other with +hatred in their hearts,--dying away, as on that other Sunday, eight +months ago, when Baxter, preaching near Edgehill, heard the sounds of +battle, and disturbed the rest of his saints by exclaiming, "To the +fight!" But here there are no warrior-preachers, no bishops praying in +surplices on the one side, no dark-robed divines preaching on horseback +on the other, no king in glittering armor, no Tutor Harvey in peaceful +meditation beneath a hedge, pondering on the circulation of the blood, +with hotter blood flowing so near him; all these were to be seen at +Edgehill, but not here. This smaller skirmish rather turns our thoughts +to Cisatlantic associations; its date suggests Bunker's Hill,--and its +circumstances, Lexington. For this, also, is a marauding party, with a +Percy among its officers, brought to a stand by a half-armed and angry +peasantry. + +Rupert sends his infantry forward, to secure the bridge, and a +sufficient body of dragoons to line the mile-and-a-half of road +between,--the remainder of the troops being drawn up at the entrance of +a corn-field, several hundred acres in extent, and lying between the +villages and the hills. The Puritans take a long circuit, endeavoring to +get to windward of their formidable enemy,--a point judged as important, +during the seventeenth century, in a land fight as in a naval +engagement. They have with them some light field-pieces, artillery +being the only point of superiority they yet claim; but these are not +basilisks, nor falconets, nor culverins, (_colubri_, _couleuvres_,) nor +drakes, (_dracones_,) nor warning-pieces,--they are the leathern guns +of Gustavus Adolphus, made of light cast-iron and bound with ropes and +leather. The Roundhead dragoons, dismounted, line a hedge near the +Cavaliers, and plant their "swine-feathers"; under cover of their fire +the horse advance in line, matches burning. As they advance, one or two +dash forward, at risk of their lives, flinging off the orange scarfs +which alone distinguish them, in token that they desert to the royal +cause. Prince Rupert falls back into the lane a little, to lead the +other forces into his ambush of dragoons. These tactics do not come +naturally to him, however; nor does he like the practice of the time, +that two bodies of cavalry should ride up within pistol-shot of each +other, and exchange a volley before they charge. He rather anticipates, +in his style of operations, the famous order of Frederick the Great: +"The King hereby forbids all officers of cavalry, on pain of being broke +with ignominy, ever to allow themselves to be attacked in any action by +the enemy; but the Prussians must always attack them." Accordingly he +restrains himself for a little while, chafing beneath the delay, and +then, a soldier or two being suddenly struck down by the fire, he +exclaims, "Yea! this insolency is not to be endured." The moment is +come. + +"God and Queen Mary!" shouts Rupert; "Charge!" In one instant that mass +of motionless statues becomes a flood of lava; down in one terrible +sweep it comes, silence behind it and despair before; no one notices the +beauty of that brilliant chivalrous array,--all else is merged in the +fury of the wild gallop; spurs are deep, reins free, blades grasped, +heads bent; the excited horse feels the heel no more than he feels the +hand; the uneven ground breaks their ranks,--no matter, they feel that +they can ride down the world: Rupert first clears the hedge,--he is +always first,--then comes the captain of his lifeguard, then the +whole troop "jumble after them," in a spectator's piquant phrase. The +dismounted Puritan dragoons break from the hedges and scatter for their +lives, but the cavalry "bear the charge better than they have done since +Worcester,"--that is, now they stand it an instant, then they did not +stand it at all; the Prince takes them in flank and breaks them in +pieces at the first encounter,--the very wind of the charge shatters +them. Horse and foot, carbines and petronels, swords and pole-axes, are +mingled in one struggling mass. Rupert and his men seem refreshed, not +exhausted, by the weary night,--they seem incapable of fatigue; they +spike the guns as they cut down the gunners, and, if any escape, it +is because many in both armies wear the same red scarfs. One Puritan, +surrounded by the enemy, shows such desperate daring that Rupert bids +release him at last, and sends afterwards to Essex to ask his name. +One Cavalier bends, with a wild oath, to search the pockets of a slain +enemy;--it is his own brother. O'Neal slays a standard-bearer, and thus +restores to his company the right to bear a flag, a right they lost at +Hopton Heath; Legge is taken prisoner and escapes; Urry proves himself +no coward, though a renegade, and is trusted to bear to Oxford the news +of the victory, being raised to knighthood in return. + +For a victory of course it is. Nothing in England can yet resist these +high-born, dissolute, reckless Cavaliers of Rupert's. "I have seen them +running up walls twenty feet high," said the engineer consulted by the +frightened citizens of Dorchester: "these defences of yours may possibly +keep them out half an hour." Darlings of triumphant aristocracy, they +are destined to meet with no foe that can match them, until they recoil +at last before the plebeian pikes of the London train-bands. Nor can +even Rupert's men claim to monopolize the courage of the King's party. +The brilliant "show-troop" of Lord Bernard Stuart, comprising the young +nobles having no separate command,--a troop which could afford to +indulge in all the gorgeousness of dress, since their united incomes, +Clarendon declares, would have exceeded those of the whole Puritan +Parliament,--led, by their own desire, the triumphant charge at +Edgehill, and threescore of their bodies were found piled on the spot +where the Royal Standard was captured and rescued. Not less faithful +were the Marquis of Newcastle's "Lambs," who took their name from the +white woollen clothing which they refused to have dyed, saying that +their hearts' blood would dye it soon enough; and so it did: only thirty +survived the battle of Marston Moor, and the bodies of the rest were +found in the field, ranked regularly, side by side, in death as in life. + +But here at Chalgrove Field no such fortitude of endurance is needed; +the enemy are scattered, and, as Rupert's Cavaliers are dashing on, in +their accustomed headlong pursuit, a small, but fresh force of Puritan +cavalry appears behind the hedges and charges on them from the +right,--two troops, hastily gathered, and in various garb. They are +headed by a man in middle life and of noble aspect: once seen, he cannot +easily be forgotten; but seen he will never be again, and, for the last +time, Rupert and Hampden meet face to face. + +The foremost representative men of their respective parties, they +scarcely remember, perhaps, that there are ties and coincidences in +their lives. At the marriage of Rupert's mother, the student Hampden was +chosen to write the Oxford epithalamium, exulting in the prediction of +some noble offspring to follow such a union. Rupert is about to be made +General-in-chief of the Cavaliers; Hampden is looked to by all as the +future General-in-chief of the Puritans. Rupert is the nephew of the +King,--Hampden the cousin of Cromwell; and as the former is believed +to be aiming at the Crown, so the latter is the only possible rival of +Cromwell for the Protectorate,--"the eyes of all being fixed upon him as +their _pater patriae_." But in all the greater qualities of manhood, how +far must Hampden be placed above the magnificent and gifted Rupert! In +a congress of natural noblemen--for such do the men of the Commonwealth +appear--he must rank foremost. It is difficult to avoid exaggeration in +speaking of these men,--men whose deeds vindicate their words, and whose +words are unsurpassed by Greek or Roman fame,--men whom even Hume can +only criticize for a "mysterious jargon" which most of them did not use, +and for a "vulgar hypocrisy" which few of them practised. Let us not +underrate the self-forgetting loyalty of the Royalists,--the Duke of +Newcastle laying at the King's feet seven hundred thousand pounds, +and the Marquis of Worcester a million; but the sublimer poverty and +abstinence of the Parliamentary party deserve a yet loftier meed,--Vane +surrendering an office of thirty thousand pounds a year to promote +public economy,--Hutchinson refusing a peerage and a fortune as a bribe +to hold Nottingham Castle a little while for the King,--Eliot and Pym +bequeathing their families to the nation's justice, having spent their +all for the good cause. And rising to yet higher attributes, as they +pass before us in the brilliant paragraphs of the courtly Clarendon, or +the juster modern estimates of Forster, it seems like a procession of +born sovereigns; while the more pungent epithets of contemporary wit +only familiarize, but do not mar, the fame of Cromwell, (Cleaveland's +"Caesar in a Clown,")--"William the Conqueror" Waller,--"young Harry" +Vane,--"fiery Tom" Fairfax,--and "King Pym." But among all these there +is no peer of Hampden, of him who came not from courts or camps, but +from the tranquil study of his Davila, from that thoughtful retirement +which was for him, as for his model, Coligny, the school of all noble +virtues,--came to find himself at once a statesman and a soldier, +receiving from his contemporary, Clarendon, no affectionate critic, the +triple crown of historic praise, as being "the most able, resolute, and +popular person in the kingdom." Who can tell how changed the destiny of +England, had the Earl of Bedford's first compromise with the country +party succeeded, and Hampden become the tutor of Prince Charles,--or +could this fight at Chalgrove Field issue differently, and Hampden +survive to be general instead of Essex, and Protector in place of +Cromwell? + +But that may not be. Had Hampden's earlier counsels prevailed, Rupert +never would have ventured on his night foray; had his next suggestions +been followed, Rupert never would have returned from it. Those +failing, Hampden has come, gladly followed by Gunter and his dragoons, +outstripping the tardy Essex, to dare all and die. In vain does Gunter +perish beside his flag; in vain does Crosse, his horse being killed +under him, spring in the midst of battle on another; in vain does "that +great-spirited little Sir Samuel Luke" (the original of Hudibras) get +thrice captured and thrice escape. For Hampden, the hope of the nation, +is fatally shot through the shoulder with two carbine-balls, in the +first charge; the whole troop sees it with dismay; Essex comes up, as +usual, too late, and the fight at Chalgrove Field is lost. + +We must leave this picture, painted in the fading colors of a far-off +time. Let us leave the noble Hampden, weak and almost fainting, riding +calmly from the field, and wandering away over his own Chiltern meadows, +that he loves so well,--leave him, drooping over his saddle, directing +his horse first towards his father-in-law's house at Pyrton, where once +he wedded his youthful bride, then turning towards Thame, and mustering +his last strength to leap his tired steed across its boundary brook. A +few days of laborious weakness, spent in letter-writing to urge upon +Parliament something of that military energy which, if earlier adopted, +might have saved his life,--and we see a last, funereal procession +winding beneath the Chiltern hills, and singing the 90th Psalm as the +mourners approach the tomb of the Hampdens, and the 43d as they return. +And well may the "Weekly Intelligencer" say of him, (June 27, 1643,) +that "the memory of this deceased Colonel is such that in no age to +come but it will more and more be had in honor and esteem; a man so +religious, and of that prudence, judgment, temper, valor, and integrity, +that he hath left few his like behind him." + +And we must leave Rupert to his career of romantic daring, to be made +President of Wales and Generalissimo of the army,--to rescue with +unequalled energy Newark and York and the besieged heroine of Lathom +House,--to fight through Newbury and Marston Moor and Naseby, and many a +lesser field,--to surrender Bristol and be acquitted by court-martial, +but hopelessly condemned by the King;--then to leave the kingdom, +refusing a passport, and fighting his perilous way to the seaside;--then +to wander over the world for years, astonishing Dutchmen by his +seamanship, Austrians by his soldiership, Spaniards and Portuguese by +his buccaneering powers, and Frenchmen by his gold and diamonds and +birds and monkeys and "richly-liveried Blackamoors";--then to reorganize +the navy of England, exchanging characters with his fellow-commander, +Monk, whom the ocean makes rash, as it makes Rupert prudent;--leave him +to use nobly his declining years, in studious toils in Windsor Castle, +the fulfilment of Milton's dream, outwatching the Bear with thrice-great +Hermes, surrounded by strange old arms and instruments, and maps of +voyages, and plans of battles, and the abstruse library which the +"Harleian Miscellany" still records;--leave him to hunt and play at +tennis, serve in the Hudson's Bay Company and the Board of Trade;--leave +him to experiment in alchemy and astrology, in hydraulics, metallurgy, +gunpowder, perspective, quadrants, mezzotint, fish-hooks, and +revolvers;--leave him to look from his solitary turret over hills and +fields, now peaceful, but each the scene of some wild and warlike memory +for him;--leave him to die a calm and honored death at sixty-three, +outliving every companion of his early days. The busy world, which has +no time to remember many, forgets him and remembers only the slain and +defeated Hampden. The brilliant renown of the Prince was like the glass +toys which record his ingenuity and preserve his name; the hammer and +the anvil can scarcely mar them, yet a slight pressure of the finger, +in the fatal spot, will burst them into glittering showers of dust. The +full force of those iron times beat ineffectual upon Rupert;--Death +touched him, and that shining fame sparkled and was shattered forever. + + * * * * * + + +SPRING. + + + Ah! my beautiful violets, + Stirring under the sod, + Feeling, in all your being, + The breath of the spirit of God + Thrilling your delicate pulses, + Warming your life-blood anew,-- + Struggle up into the Spring-light; + I'm watching and waiting for you. + + Stretch up your white arms towards me, + Climb and never despair; + Come! the blue sky is above you, + Sunlight and soft warm air. + Shake off the sleep from your eyelids, + Work in the darkness awhile, + Trust in the light that's above you, + Win your way up to its smile. + + Ah! do you know how the May-flowers, + Down on the shore of the lake. + Are whispering, one to another, + All in the silence, "Awake!" + Blushing from under the pine-leaves, + Soon they will greet me anew,-- + But still, oh, my beautiful violets, + I'll be watching and longing for you. + + + + +THE STEREOSCOPE AND THE STEREOGRAPH. + + +Democritus of Abdera, commonly known as the Laughing Philosopher, +probably because he did not consider the study of truth inconsistent +with a cheerful countenance, believed and taught that all bodies were +continually throwing off certain images like themselves, which subtile +emanations, striking on our bodily organs, gave rise to our sensations. +Epicurus borrowed the idea from him, and incorporated it into the famous +system, of which Lucretius has given us the most popular version. Those +who are curious on the matter will find the poet's description at the +beginning of his fourth book. Forms, effigies, membranes, or _films_, +are the nearest representatives of the terms applied to these +effluences. They are perpetually shed from the surfaces of solids, as +bark is shed by trees. _Cortex_ is, indeed, one of the names applied to +them by Lucretius. + +These evanescent films may be seen in one of their aspects in any clear, +calm sheet of water, in a mirror, in the eye of an animal by one who +looks at it in front, but better still by the consciousness behind the +eye in the ordinary act of vision. They must be packed like the leaves +of a closed book; for suppose a mirror to give an image of an object a +mile off, it will give one at every point less than a mile, though this +were subdivided into a million parts. Yet the images will not be the +same; for the one taken a mile off will be very small, at half a mile as +large again, at a hundred feet fifty times as large, and so on, as long +as the mirror can contain the image. + +Under the action of light, then, a body makes its superficial aspect +potentially present at a distance, becoming appreciable as a shadow or +as a picture. But remove the cause,--the body itself,--and the effect is +removed. The man beholdeth himself in the glass and goeth his way, and +straightway both the mirror and the mirrored forget what manner of man +he was. These visible films or membranous _exuviae_ of objects, which +the old philosophers talked about, have no real existence, separable +from their illuminated source, and perish instantly when it is +withdrawn. + +If a man had handed a metallic speculum to Democritus of Abdera, and +told him to look at his face in it while his heart was beating thirty +or forty times, promising that one of the films his face was shedding +should stick there, so that neither he, nor it, nor anybody should +forget what manner of man he was, the Laughing Philosopher would +probably have vindicated his claim to his title by an explosion that +would have astonished the speaker. + +This is just what the Daguerreotype has done. It has fixed the most +fleeting of our illusions, that which the apostle and the philosopher +and the poet have alike used as the type of instability and unreality. +The photograph has completed the triumph, by making a sheet of paper +reflect images like a mirror and hold them as a picture. + +This triumph of human ingenuity is the most audacious, remote, +improbable, incredible,--the one that would seem least likely to be +regained, if all traces of it were lost, of all the discoveries man has +made. It has become such an everyday matter with us, that we forget its +miraculous nature, as we forget that of the sun itself, to which we owe +the creations of our new art. Yet in all the prophecies of dreaming +enthusiasts, in all the random guesses of the future conquests over +matter, we do not remember any prediction of such an inconceivable +wonder, as our neighbor round the corner, or the proprietor of the small +house on wheels, standing on the village common, will furnish any of us +for the most painfully slender remuneration. No Century of Inventions +includes this among its possibilities. Nothing but the vision of a +Laputan, who passed his days in extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, +could have reached such a height of delirium as to rave about the time +when a man should paint his miniature by looking at a blank tablet, and +a multitudinous wilderness of forest foliage or an endless Babel of +roofs and spires stamp itself, in a moment, so faithfully and so +minutely, that one may creep over the surface of the picture with his +microscope and find every leaf perfect, or read the letters of distant +signs, and see what was the play at the "Varietes" or the "Victoria," +on the evening of the day when it was taken, just as he would sweep the +real view with a spy-glass to explore all that it contains. + +Some years ago, we sent a page or two to one of the magazines,--the +"Knickerbocker," if we remember aright,--in which the story was told +from the "Arabian Nights," of the three kings' sons, who each wished to +obtain the hand of a lovely princess, and received for answer, that he +who brought home the most wonderful object should obtain the lady's hand +as his reward. Our readers, doubtless, remember the original tale, with +the flying carpet, the tube which showed what a distant friend was +doing by looking into it, and the apple which gave relief to the +most desperate sufferings only by inhalation of its fragrance. The +railroad-car, the telegraph, and the apple-flavored chloroform could and +do realize, every day,--as was stated in the passage referred to, with +a certain rhetorical amplitude not doubtfully suggestive of the +lecture-room,--all that was fabled to have been done by the carpet, the +tube, and the fruit of the Arabian story. + +All these inventions force themselves upon us to the full extent of +their significance. It is therefore hardly necessary to waste any +considerable amount of rhetoric upon wonders that are so thoroughly +appreciated. When human art says to each one of us, I will give you +ears that can hear a whisper in New Orleans, and legs that can walk six +hundred miles in a day, and if, in consequence of any defect of rail +or carriage, you should be so injured that your own very insignificant +walking members must be taken off, I can make the surgeon's visit a +pleasant dream for you, on awaking from which you will ask when he +is coming to do that which he has done already,--what is the use of +poetical or rhetorical amplification? But this other invention of _the +mirror with a memory_, and especially that application of it which has +given us the wonders of the stereoscope, is not so easily, completely, +universally recognized in all the immensity of its applications and +suggestions. The stereoscope, and the pictures it gives, are, however, +common enough to be in the hands of many of our readers; and as many of +those who are not acquainted with it must before long become as familiar +with it as they are now with friction-matches, we feel sure that a few +pages relating to it will not be unacceptable. + +Our readers may like to know the outlines of the process of making +daguerreotypes and photographs, as just furnished us by Mr. Whipple, one +of the most successful operators in this country. We omit many of those +details which are everything to the practical artist, but nothing to +the general reader. We must premise, that certain substances undergo +chemical alterations, when exposed to the light, which produce a change +of color. Some of the compounds of silver possess this faculty to a +remarkable degree,--as the common indelible marking-ink, (a solution of +nitrate of silver,) which soon darkens in the light, shows us every day. +This is only one of the innumerable illustrations of the varied effects +of light on color. A living plant owes its brilliant hues to the +sunshine; but a dead one, or the tints extracted from it, will fade +in the same rays which clothe the tulip in crimson and gold,--as our +lady-readers who have rich curtains in their drawing-rooms know full +well. The sun, then, is a master of _chiaroscuro_, and, if he has a +living petal for his pallet, is the first of colorists.--Let us walk +into his studio, and examine some of his painting machinery. + + * * * * * + + +1. THE DAGUERREOTYPE.--A silver-plated sheet of copper is resilvered by +electro-plating, and perfectly polished. It is then exposed in a glass +box to the vapor of iodine until its surface turns to a golden yellow. +Then it is exposed in another box to the fumes of the bromide of lime +until it becomes of a blood-red tint. Then it is exposed once more, for +a few seconds, to the vapor of iodine. The plate is now sensitive to +light, and is of course kept from it, until, having been placed in the +darkened camera, the screen is withdrawn and the camera-picture falls +upon it. In strong light, and with the best instruments, _three +seconds'_ exposure is enough,--but the time varies with circumstances. +The plate is now withdrawn and exposed to the vapor of mercury at 212 deg.. +Where the daylight was strongest, the sensitive coating of the plate has +undergone such a chemical change, that the mercury penetrates readily to +the silver, producing a minute white granular deposit upon it, like +a very thin fall of snow, drifted by the wind. The strong lights are +little heaps of these granules, the middle lights thinner sheets of +them; the shades are formed by the dark silver itself, thinly sprinkled +only, as the earth shows with a few scattered snow-flakes on its +surface. The precise chemical nature of these granules we care less +for than their palpable presence, which may be perfectly made out by a +microscope magnifying fifty diameters or even less. + +The picture thus formed would soon fade under the action of light, in +consequence of further changes in the chemical elements of the film +of which it consists. Some of these elements are therefore removed by +washing it with a solution of hyposulphite of soda, after which it is +rinsed with pure water. It is now permanent in the light, but a touch +wipes off the picture as it does the bloom from a plum. To fix it, a +solution of hyposulphite of soda containing chloride of gold is poured +on the plate while this is held over a spirit-lamp. It is then again +rinsed with pure water, and is ready for its frame. + +2. THE PHOTOGRAPH.--Just as we must have a mould before we can make a +cast, we must get a _negative_ or reversed picture on glass before we +can get our positive or natural picture. The first thing, then, is to +lay a sensitive coating on a piece of glass,--crown-glass, which has a +natural surface, being preferable to plate-glass. _Collodion_, which is +a solution of gun-cotton in alcohol and ether, mingled with a solution +of iodide and bromide of potassium, is used to form a thin coating over +the glass. Before the plate is dry, it is dipped into a solution of +nitrate of silver, where it remains from one to three or four minutes. +Here, then, we have essentially the same chemical elements that we +have seen employed in the daguerreotype,--namely, iodine, bromine, and +silver; and by their mutual reactions in the last process we have formed +the sensitive iodide and bromide of silver. The glass is now placed, +still wet, in the camera, and there remains from three seconds to one +or two minutes, according to circumstances. It is then washed with a +solution of sulphate of iron. Every light spot in the camera-picture +becomes dark on the sensitive coating of the glass-plate. But where the +shadows or dark parts of the camera-picture fall, the sensitive coating +is less darkened, or not at all, if the shadows are very deep, and +so these shadows of the camera-picture become the lights of the +glass-picture, as the lights become the shadows. Again, the picture is +reversed, just as in every camera-obscura where the image is received on +a screen direct from the lens. Thus the glass plate has the right part +of the object on the left side of its picture, and the left part on its +right side; its light is darkness, and its darkness is light. Everything +is just as wrong as it can be, except that the relations of each wrong +to the other wrongs are like the relations of the corresponding rights +to each other in the original natural image. This is a _negative_ +picture. + +Extremes meet. Every given point of the picture is as far from truth as +a lie can be. But in travelling away from the pattern it has gone round +a complete circle, and is at once as remote from Nature and as near it +as possible.--"How far is it to Taunton?" said a countryman, who was +walking exactly the wrong way to reach that commercial and piscatory +centre.--"'Baeout twenty-five thaeousan' mild,"--said the boy he +asked,--"'f y' go 'z y' 'r' goin' naeow, 'n' 'baeout haeaf a mild 'f y' turn +right raeoun' 'n' go t'other way." + +The negative picture being formed, it is washed with a solution of +hyposulphite of soda, to remove the soluble principles which are liable +to decomposition, and then coated with shellac varnish to protect it. + +This _negative_ is now to give birth to a _positive_,--this mass of +contradictions to assert its hidden truth in a perfect harmonious +affirmation of the realities of Nature. Behold the process! + +A sheet of the best linen paper is dipped in salt water and suffered to +dry. Then a solution of nitrate of silver is poured over it and it is +dried in a dark place. This paper is now sensitive; it has a conscience, +and is afraid of daylight. Press it against the glass negative and lay +them in the sun, the glass uppermost, leaving them so for from three to +ten minutes. The paper, having the picture formed on it, is then washed +with the solution of hyposulphite of soda, rinsed in pure water, soaked +again in a solution of hyposulphite of soda, to which, however, the +chloride of gold has been added, and again rinsed. It is then sized or +varnished. + +Out of the perverse and totally depraved negative,--where it might +almost seem as if some magic and diabolic power had wrenched all things +from their proprieties, where the light of the eye was darkness, and the +deepest blackness was gilded with the brightest glare,--is to come the +true end of all this series of operations, a copy of Nature in all her +sweet gradations and harmonies and contrasts. + +We owe the suggestion to a great wit, who overflowed our small +intellectual home-lot with a rushing freshet of fertilizing talk +the other day,--one of our friends, who quarries thought on his +own premises, but does not care to build his blocks into books and +essays,--that perhaps this world is only the _negative_ of that better +one in which lights will be turned to shadows and shadows into light, +but all harmonized, so that we shall see why these ugly patches, these +misplaced gleams and blots, were wrought into the temporary arrangements +of our planetary life. + +For, lo! when the sensitive paper is laid in the sun under the negative +glass, every dark spot on the glass arrests a sunbeam, and so the spot +of the paper lying beneath remains unchanged; but every light space of +the negative lets the sunlight through, and the sensitive paper +beneath confesses its weakness, and betrays it by growing dark just in +proportion to the glare that strikes upon it. So, too, we have only +to turn the glass before laying it on the paper, and we bring all the +natural relations of the object delineated back again,--its right to the +right of the picture, its left to the picture's left. + +On examining the glass negative by transmitted light with a power of a +hundred diameters, we observe minute granules, whether crystalline or +not we cannot say, very similar to those described in the account of +the daguerreotype. But now their effect is reversed. Being opaque, they +darken the glass wherever they are accumulated, just as the snow darkens +our skylights. Where these particles are drifted, therefore, we have our +shadows, and where they are thinly scattered, our lights. On examining +the paper photographs, we have found no distinct granules, but diffused +stains of deeper or lighter shades. + +Such is the sun-picture, in the form in which we now most commonly meet +it,--for the daguerreotype, perfect and cheap as it is, and admirably +adapted for miniatures, has almost disappeared from the field of +landscape, still life, architecture, and _genre_ painting, to make room +for the photograph. Mr. Whipple tells us that even now he takes a much +greater number of miniature portraits on metal than on paper; and yet, +except occasionally a statue, it is rare to see anything besides +a portrait shown in a daguerreotype. But the greatest number of +sun-pictures we see are the photographs which are intended to be looked +at with the aid of the instrument we are next to describe, and to the +stimulus of which the recent vast extension of photographic copies of +Nature and Art is mainly owing. + +3. THE STEREOSCOPE.--This instrument was invented by Professor +Wheatstone, and first described by him in 1838. It was only a year after +this that M. Daguerre made known his discovery in Paris; and almost +at the same time Mr. Fox Talbot sent his communication to the Royal +Society, giving an account of his method of obtaining pictures on paper +by the action of light. Iodine was discovered in 1811, bromine in 1826, +chloroform in 1831, gun-cotton, from which collodion is made, in 1846, +the electro-plating process about the same time with photography; "all +things, great and small, working together to produce what seemed at +first as delightful, but as fabulous, as Aladdin's ring, which is now as +little suggestive of surprise as our daily bread." + +A stereoscope is an instrument which makes surfaces look solid. All +pictures in which perspective and light and shade are properly managed, +have more or less of the effect of solidity; but by this instrument that +effect is so heightened as to produce an appearance of reality which +cheats the senses with its seeming truth. + +There is good reason to believe that the appreciation of solidity by the +eye is purely a matter of education. The famous case of a young man who +underwent the operation of couching for cataract, related by Cheselden, +and a similar one reported in the Appendix to Mueller's Physiology, go to +prove that everything is seen only as a superficial extension, until +the other senses have taught the eye to recognize _depth_, or the third +dimension, which gives solidity, by converging outlines, distribution +of light and shade, change of size, and of the texture of surfaces. +Cheselden's patient thought "all objects whatever touched his eyes, as +what he felt did his skin." The patient whose case is reported by Mueller +could not tell the form of a cube held obliquely before his eye from +that of a flat piece of pasteboard presenting the same outline. Each of +these patients saw only with one eye,--the other being destroyed, in one +case, and not restored to sight until long after the first, in the +other case. In two months' time Cheselden's patient had learned to +know solids; in fact, he argued so logically from light and shade and +perspective that he felt of pictures, expecting to find reliefs and +depressions, and was surprised to discover that they were flat surfaces. +If these patients had suddenly recovered the sight of _both_ eyes, +they would probably have learned to recognize solids more easily and +speedily. + +We can commonly tell whether an object is solid, readily enough with one +eye, but still better with two eyes, and sometimes _only_ by using both. +If we look at a square piece of ivory with one eye alone, we cannot tell +whether it is a scale of veneer, or the side of a cube, or the base of +a pyramid, or the end of a prism. But if we now open the other eye, we +shall see one or more of its sides, if it have any, and then know it to +be a solid, and what kind of a solid. + +We see something with the second eye which we did not see with the +first; in other words, the two eyes see different pictures of the same +thing, for the obvious reason that they look from points two or three +inches apart. By means of these two different views of an object, the +mind, as it were, _feels round it_ and gets an idea of its solidity. We +clasp an object with our eyes, as with our arms, or with our hands, or +with our thumb and finger, and then we know it to be something more than +a surface. This, of course, is an illustration of the fact, rather than +an explanation of its mechanism. + +Though, as we have seen, the two eyes look on two different pictures, we +perceive but one picture. The two have run together and become blended +in a third, which shows us everything we see in each. But, in order that +they should so run together, both the eye and the brain must be in a +natural state. Push one eye a little inward with the forefinger, and the +image is doubled, or at least confused. Only certain parts of the two +retinae work harmoniously together, and you have disturbed their natural +relations. Again, take two or three glasses more than temperance +permits, and you see double; the eyes are right enough, probably, but +the brain is in trouble, and does not report their telegraphic messages +correctly. These exceptions illustrate the every-day truth, that, when +we are in right condition, our two eyes see two somewhat different +pictures, which our perception combines to form one picture, +representing objects in all their dimensions, and not merely as +surfaces. + +Now, if we can get two artificial pictures of any given object, one as +we should see it with the right eye, the other as we should see it with +the left eye, and then, looking at the right picture, and that only, +with the right eye, and at the left picture, and that only, with the +left eye, contrive some way of making these pictures run together as we +have seen our two views of a natural object do, we shall get the sense +of solidity that natural objects give us. The arrangement which effects +it will be a _stereoscope_, according to our definition of that +instrument. How shall we attain these two ends? + +1. An artist can draw an object as he sees it, looking at it only with +his right eye. Then he can draw a second view of the same object as he +sees it with his left eye. It will not be hard to draw a cube or an +octahedron in this way; indeed, the first stereoscopic figures were +pairs of outlines, right and left, of solid bodies, thus drawn. But the +minute details of a portrait, a group, or a landscape, all so nearly +alike to the two eyes, yet not identical in each picture of our natural +double view, would defy any human skill to reproduce them exactly. +And just here comes in the photograph to meet the difficulty. A first +picture of an object is taken,--then the instrument is moved a couple +of inches or a little more, the distance between the human eyes, and a +second picture is taken. Better than this, two pictures are taken at +once in a double camera. + +We were just now stereographed, ourselves, at a moment's warning, as +if we were fugitives from justice. A skeleton shape, of about a man's +height, its head covered with a black veil, glided across the floor, +faced us, lifted its veil, and took a preliminary look. When we had +grown sufficiently rigid in our attitude of studied ease, and got +our umbrella into a position of thoughtful carelessness, and put our +features with much effort into an unconstrained aspect of cheerfulness +tempered with dignity, of manly firmness blended with womanly +sensibility, of courtesy, as much as to imply,--"You honor me, Sir," +toned or sized, as one may say, with something of the self-assertion of +a human soul which reflects proudly, "I am superior to all this,"--when, +I say, we were all right, the spectral Mokanna dropped his long veil, +and his waiting-slave put a sensitive tablet under its folds. The veil +was then again lifted, and the two great glassy eyes stared at us once +more for some thirty seconds. The veil then dropped again; but in the +mean time, the shrouded sorcerer had stolen our double image; we were +immortal. Posterity might thenceforth inspect us, (if not otherwise +engaged,) not as a surface only, but in all our dimensions as an +undisputed _solid_ man of Boston. + +2. We have now obtained the double-eyed or twin pictures, or +STEREOGRAPH, if we may coin a name. But the pictures are two, and we +want to slide them into each other, so to speak, as in natural vision, +that we may see them as one. How shall we make one picture out of two, +the corresponding parts of which are separated by a distance of two or +three inches? + +We can do this in two ways. First, by _squinting_ as we look at them. +But this is tedious, painful, and to some impossible, or at least very +difficult. We shall find it much easier to look through a couple of +glasses that _squint for us_. If at the same time they _magnify_ the +two pictures, we gain just so much in the distinctness of the picture, +which, if the figures on the slide are small, is a great advantage. One +of the easiest ways of accomplishing this double purpose is to cut a +convex lens through the middle, grind the curves of the two halves +down to straight lines, and join them by their thin edges. This is a +_squinting magnifier_, and if arranged so that with its right half we +see the right picture on the slide, and with its left half the left +picture, it squints them both inward so that they run together and form +a single picture. + +Such are the stereoscope and the photograph, by the aid of which _form_ +is henceforth to make itself seen through the world of intelligence, as +thought has long made itself heard by means of the art of printing. The +_morphotype_, or form-print, must hereafter take its place by the side +of the _logotype_, or word-print. The _stereograph_, as we have called +the double picture designed for the stereoscope, is to be the card of +introduction to make all mankind acquaintances. + +The first effect of looking at a good photograph through the stereoscope +is a surprise such as no painting ever produced. The mind feels its way +into the very depths of the picture. The scraggy branches of a tree in +the foreground run out at us as if they would scratch our eyes out. The +elbow of a figure stands forth so as to make us almost uncomfortable. +Then there is such a frightful amount of detail, that we have the same +sense of infinite complexity which Nature gives us. A painter shows us +masses; the stereoscopic figure spares us nothing,--all must be there, +every stick, straw, scratch, as faithfully as the dome of St. Peter's, +or the summit of Mont Blanc, or the ever-moving stillness of Niagara. +The sun is no respecter of persons or of things. + +This is one infinite charm of the photographic delineation. +Theoretically, a perfect photograph is absolutely inexhaustible. In a +picture you can find nothing which the artist has not seen before you; +but in a perfect photograph there will be as many beauties lurking, +unobserved, as there are flowers that blush unseen in forests and +meadows. It is a mistake to suppose one knows a stereoscopic picture +when he has studied it a hundred times by the aid of the best of our +common instruments. Do we know all that there is in a landscape +by looking out at it from our parlor-windows? In one of the glass +stereoscopic views of Table Rock, two figures, so minute as to be +mere objects of comparison with the surrounding vastness, may be seen +standing side by side. Look at the two faces with a strong magnifier, +and you could identify their owners, if you met them in a court of law. + +Many persons suppose that they are looking on _miniatures_ of the +objects represented, when they see them in the stereoscope. They will be +surprised to be told that they see most objects as large as they appear +in Nature. A few simple experiments will show how what we see in +ordinary vision is modified in our perceptions by what we think we see. +We made a sham stereoscope, the other day, with no glasses, and an +opening in the place where the pictures belong, about the size of one of +the common stereoscopic pictures. Through this we got a very ample view +of the town of Cambridge, including Mount Auburn and the Colleges, in a +single field of vision. We do not recognize how minute distant objects +really look to us, without something to bring the fact home to our +conceptions. A man does not deceive us as to his real size when we see +him at the distance of the length of Cambridge Bridge. But hold a common +black pin before the eyes at the distance of distinct vision, and +one-twentieth of its length, nearest the point, is enough to cover him +so that he cannot be seen. The head of the same pin will cover one of +the Cambridge horse-cars at the same distance, and conceal the tower of +Mount Auburn, as seen from Boston. + +We are near enough to an edifice to see it well, when we can easily +read an inscription upon it. The stereoscopic views of the arches +of Constantine and of Titus give not only every letter of the old +inscriptions, but render the grain of the stone itself. On the pediment +of the Pantheon may be read, not only the words traced by Agrippa, but a +rough inscription above it, scratched or hacked into the stone by some +wanton hand during an insurrectionary tumult. + +This distinctness of the lesser details of a building or a landscape +often gives us incidental truths which interest us more than the central +object of the picture. Here is Alloway Kirk, in the churchyard of which +you may read a real story by the side of the ruin that tells of more +romantic fiction. There stands the stone "Erected by James Russell, +seedsman, Ayr, in memory of his children,"--three little boys, James, +and Thomas, and John, all snatched away from him in the space of three +successive summer-days, and lying under the matted grass in the shadow +of the old witch-haunted walls. It was Burns's Alloway Kirk we paid +for, and we find we have bought a share in the griefs of James Russell, +seedsman; for is not the stone that tells this blinding sorrow of real +life the true centre of the picture, and not the roofless pile which +reminds us of an idle legend? + +We have often found these incidental glimpses of life and death running +away with us from the main object the picture was meant to delineate. +The more evidently accidental their introduction, the more trivial they +are in themselves, the more they take hold of the imagination. It is +common to find an object in one of the twin pictures which we miss in +the other; the person or the vehicle having moved in the interval of +taking the two photographs. There is before us a view of the Pool of +David at Hebron, in which a shadowy figure appears at the water's edge, +in the right-hand farther corner of the right-hand picture only. This +muffled shape stealing silently into the solemn scene has already +written a hundred biographies in our imagination. In the lovely glass +stereograph of the Lake of Brienz, on the left-hand side, a vaguely +hinted female figure stands by the margin of the fair water; on the +other side of the picture she is not seen. This is life; we seem to see +her come and go. All the longings, passions, experiences, possibilities +of womanhood animate that gliding shadow which has flitted through our +consciousness, nameless, dateless, featureless, yet more profoundly +real than the sharpest of portraits traced by a human hand. Here is +the Fountain of the Ogre, at Berne. In the right picture two women are +chatting, with arms akimbo, over its basin; before the plate for the +left picture is got ready, "one shall be taken and the other left"; +look! on the left side there is but one woman, and you may see the blur +where the other is melting into thin air as she fades forever from your +eyes. + +Oh, infinite volumes of poems that I treasure in this small library of +glass and pasteboard! I creep over the vast features of Rameses, on the +face of his rock-hewn Nubian temple; I scale the huge mountain-crystal +that calls itself the Pyramid of Cheops. I pace the length of the three +Titanic stones of the wall of Baalbee,--mightiest masses of quarried +rock that man has lifted into the air; and then I dive into some mass +of foliage with my microscope, and trace the veinings of a leaf so +delicately wrought in the painting not made with hands, that I can +almost see its down and the green aphis that sucks its juices. I +look into the eyes of the caged tiger, and on the scaly train of the +crocodile, stretched on the sands of the river that has mirrored a +hundred dynasties. I stroll through Rhenish vineyards, I sit under Roman +arches, I walk the streets of once buried cities, I look into the chasms +of Alpine glaciers, and on the rush of wasteful cataracts. I pass, in +a moment, from the banks of the Charles to the ford of the Jordan, and +leave my outward frame in the arm-chair at my table, while in spirit I +am looking down upon Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. + +"Give me the full tide of life at Charing Cross," said Dr. Johnson. Here +is Charing Cross, but without the full tide of life. A perpetual stream +of figures leaves no definite shapes upon the picture. But on one side +of this stereoscopic doublet a little London "gent" is leaning pensively +against a post; on the other side he is seen sitting at the foot of the +next post;--what is the matter with the little "gent"? + +The very things which an artist would leave out, or render imperfectly, +the photograph takes infinite care with, and so makes its illusions +perfect. What is the picture of a drum without the marks on its head +where the beating of the sticks has darkened the parchment? In three +pictures of the Ann Hathaway Cottage, before us,--the most perfect, +perhaps, of all the paper stereographs we have seen,--the door at the +farther end of the cottage is open, and we see the marks left by the +rubbing of hands and shoulders as the good people came through the +entry, or leaned against it, or felt for the latch. It is not impossible +that scales from the epidermis of the trembling hand of Ann Hathaway's +young suitor, Will Shakspeare, are still adherent about the old latch +and door, and that they contribute to the stains we see in our picture. + +Among the accidents of life, as delineated in the stereograph, there is +one that rarely fails in any extended view which shows us the details of +streets and buildings. There may be neither man nor beast nor vehicle to +be seen. You may be looking down on a place in such a way that none of +the ordinary marks of its being actually inhabited show themselves. But +in the rawest Western settlement and the oldest Eastern city, in +the midst of the shanties at Pike's Peak and stretching across the +court-yards as you look into them from above the clay-plastered roofs of +Damascus, wherever man lives with any of the decencies of civilization, +you will find the _clothes-line_. It may be a fence, (in Ireland,)--it +may be a tree, (if the Irish license is still allowed us,)--but +clothes-drying, or a place to dry clothes on, the stereoscopic +photograph insists on finding, wherever it gives us a group of houses. +This is the city of Berne. How it brings the people who sleep under that +roof before us to see their sheets drying on that fence! and how real it +makes the men in that house to look at their shirts hanging, arms down, +from yonder line! + +The reader will, perhaps, thank us for a few hints as to the choice +of stereoscopes and stereoscopic pictures. The only way to be sure of +getting a good instrument is to try a number of them, but it may be well +to know which are worth trying. Those made with achromatic glasses may +be as much better as they are dearer, but we have not been able to +satisfy ourselves of the fact. We do not commonly find any trouble from +chromatic aberration (or false color in the image). It is an excellent +thing to have the glasses adjust by pulling out and pushing in, either +by the hand, or, more conveniently, by a screw. The large instruments, +holding twenty-five slides, are best adapted to the use of those who +wish to show their views often to friends; the owner is a little apt +to get tired of the unvarying round in which they present themselves. +Perhaps we relish them more for having a little trouble in placing them, +as we do nuts that we crack better than those we buy cracked. In optical +effect, there is not much difference between them and the best ordinary +instruments. We employ one stereoscope with adjusting glasses for the +hand, and another common one upon a broad rosewood stand. The stand may +be added to any instrument, and is a great convenience. + +Some will have none but glass stereoscopic pictures; paper ones are not +good enough for them. Wisdom dwells not with such. It is true that +there is a brilliancy in a glass picture, with a flood of light pouring +through it, which no paper one, with the light necessarily falling _on_ +it, can approach. But this brilliancy fatigues the eye much more than +the quiet reflected light of the paper stereograph. Twenty-five glass +slides, well inspected in a strong light, are _good_ for one headache, +if a person is disposed to that trouble. + +Again, a good paper photograph is infinitely better than a bad glass +one. We have a glass stereograph of Bethlehem, which looks as if the +ground were covered with snow,--and paper ones of Jerusalem colored and +uncolored, much superior to it both in effect and detail. The Oriental +pictures, we think, are apt to have this white, patchy look; possibly we +do not get the best in this country. + +A good view on glass or paper is, as a rule, best uncolored. But some +of the American views of Niagara on glass are greatly improved by being +colored; the water being rendered vastly more suggestive of the reality +by the deep green tinge. _Per contra_, we have seen some American views +so carelessly colored that they were all the worse for having been +meddled with. The views of the Hathaway Cottage, before referred to, are +not only admirable in themselves, but some of them are admirably colored +also. Few glass stereographs compare with them as real representatives +of Nature. + +In choosing stereoscopic pictures, beware of investing largely in +_groups_. The owner soon gets tired to death of them. Two or three +of the most striking among them are worth having, but mostly they +detestable,--vulgar repetitions of vulgar models, shamming grace, +gentility, and emotion, by the aid of costumes, attitudes, expressions, +and accessories worthy only of a Thespian society of candle-snuffers. In +buying brides under veils, and such figures, look at the lady's _hands_. +You will very probably find the young countess is a maid-of-all-work. +The presence of a human figure adds greatly to the interest of all +architectural views, by giving us a standard of size, and should often +decide our choice out of a variety of such pictures. No view pleases the +eye which has glaring patches in it,--a perfectly white-looking river, +for instance,--or trees and shrubs in full leaf, but looking as if they +were covered with snow,--or glaring roads, or frosted-looking stones and +pebbles. As for composition in landscape, each person must consult his +own taste. All have agreed in admiring many of the Irish views, as those +about the Lakes of Killarney, for instance, which are beautiful alike in +general effect and in nicety of detail. The glass views on the Rhine, +and of the Pyrenees in Spain, are of consummate beauty. As a specimen of +the most perfect, in its truth and union of harmony and contrast, the +view of the Circus of Gavarni, with the female figure on horseback in +the front ground, is not surpassed by any we remember to have seen. + + * * * * * + +What is to come of the stereoscope and the photograph we are almost +afraid to guess, lest we should seem extravagant. But, premising that we +are to give a _colored_ stereoscopic mental view of their prospects, +we will venture on a few glimpses at a conceivable, if not a possible +future. + +_Form is henceforth divorced from matter._ In fact, matter as a visible +object is of no great use any longer, except as the mould on which form +is shaped. Give us a few negatives of a thing worth seeing, taken from +different points of view, and that is all we want of it. Pull it down or +burn it up, if you please. We must, perhaps, sacrifice some luxury in +the loss of color; but form and light, and shade are the great things, +and even color can be added, and perhaps by and by may be got direct +from Nature. + +There is only one Coliseum or Pantheon; but how many millions of +potential negatives have they shed,--representatives of billions of +pictures,--since they were erected! Matter in large masses must always +be fixed and dear; form is cheap and transportable. We have got the +fruit of creation now, and need not trouble ourselves with the core. +Every conceivable object of Nature and Art will soon scale off its +surface for us. Men will hunt all curious, beautiful, grand objects, as +they hunt the cattle in South America, for their _skins_, and leave the +carcasses as of little worth. + +The consequence of this will soon be such an enormous collection +of forms that they will have to be classified and arranged in vast +libraries, as books are now. The time will come when a man who wishes +to see any object, natural or artificial, will go to the Imperial, +National, or City Stereographic Library and call for its skin or form, +as he would for a book at any common library. We do now distinctly +propose the creation of a comprehensive and systematic stereographic +library, where all men can find the special forms they particularly +desire to see as artists, or as scholars, or as mechanics, or in any +other capacity. Already a workman has been travelling about the country +with stereographic views of furniture, showing his employer's patterns +in this way, and taking orders for them. This is a mere hint of what is +coming before long. + +Again, we must have special stereographic collections, just as we have +professional and other special libraries. And as a means of facilitating +the formation of public and private stereographic collections, there +must be arranged a comprehensive system of exchanges, so that there may +grow up something like a universal currency of these bank-notes, or +promises to pay in solid substance, which the sun has engraved for the +great Bank of Nature. + +To render comparison of similar objects, or of any that we may wish to +see side by side, easy, there should be a stereographic _metre_ or +fixed standard of focal length for the camera lens, to furnish by its +multiples or fractions, if necessary, the scale of distances, and the +standard of power in the stereoscope-lens. In this way the eye can +make the most rapid and exact comparisons. If the "great elm" and the +Cowthorpe oak, if the State-House and St. Peter's, were taken on the +same scale, and looked at with the same magnifying power, we should +compare them without the possibility of being misled by those +partialities which might tend to make us overrate the indigenous +vegetable and the dome of our native Michel Angelo. + +The next European war will send us stereographs of battles. It is +asserted that a bursting shell can be photographed. The time is perhaps +at hand when a flash of light, as sudden and brief as that of the +lightning which shows a whirling wheel standing stock still, shall +preserve the very instant of the shock of contact of the mighty armies +that are even now gathering. The lightning from heaven does actually +photograph natural objects on the bodies of those it has just +blasted,--so we are told by many witnesses. The lightning of clashing +sabres and bayonets may be forced to stereotype itself in a stillness +as complete as that of the tumbling tide of Niagara as we see it +self-pictured. + +We should be led on too far, if we developed our belief as to the +transformations to be wrought by this greatest of human triumphs over +earthly conditions, the divorce of form and substance. Let our readers +fill out a blank check on the future as they like,--we give our +indorsement to their imaginations beforehand. We are looking into +stereoscopes as pretty toys, and wondering over the photograph as a +charming novelty; but before another generation has passed away, it will +be recognized that a new epoch in the history of human progress dates +from the time when He who + + ----never but in uncreated light + Dwelt from eternity-- + +took a pencil of fire from the hand of the "angel standing in the sun," +and placed it in the hands of a mortal. + + + + +THE MINISTER'S WOOING. + +[Continued.] + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +At the period of which we are speaking, no name in the New Republic was +associated with ideas of more brilliant promise, and invested with a +greater _prestige_ of popularity and success, than that of Colonel Aaron +Burr. + +Sprung of a line distinguished for intellectual ability, the grandson of +a man whose genius has swayed New England from that day to this, the son +of parents eminent in their day for influential and popular talents, he +united in himself the quickest perceptions and keenest delicacy of +fibre with the most diamond hardness and unflinching steadiness of +purpose;--apt, subtle, adroit, dazzling, no man in his time ever began +life with fairer chances of success and fame. + +His name, as it fell on the ear of our heroine, carried with it the +suggestion of all this; and when, with his peculiarly engaging smile, he +offered his arm, she felt a little of the flutter natural to a modest +young person unexpectedly honored with the notice of one of the great +ones of the earth, whom it is seldom the lot of humble individuals to +know, except by distant report. + +But, although Mary was a blushing and sensitive person, she was not +what is commonly called a diffident girl;--her nerves had that healthy, +steady poise which gave her presence of mind in the most unwonted +circumstances. + +The first few sentences addressed to her by her new companion were in a +tone and style altogether different from any in which she had ever been +approached,--different from the dashing frankness of her sailor lover, +and from the rustic gallantry of her other admirers. + +That indescribable mixture of ease and deference, guided by refined +tact, which shows the practised, high-bred man of the world, made +its impression on her immediately, as the breeze on the chords of a +wind-harp. She felt herself pleasantly swayed and breathed upon;--it was +as if an atmosphere were around her in which she felt a perfect ease and +freedom, an assurance that her lightest word might launch forth safely, +as a tiny boat, on the smooth, glassy mirror of her listener's pleased +attention. + +"I came to Newport only on a visit of business," he said, after a few +moments of introductory conversation. "I was not prepared for its many +attractions." + +"Newport has a great deal of beautiful scenery," said Mary. + +"I have heard that it was celebrated for the beauty of its scenery, and +of its ladies," he answered; "but," he added, with a quick flash of his +dark eye, "I never realized the fact before." + +The glance of the eye pointed and limited the compliment, and, at the +same time, there was a wary shrewdness in it;--he was measuring how deep +his shaft had sunk, as he always instinctively measured the person he +talked with. + +Mary had been told of her beauty since her childhood, notwithstanding +her mother had essayed all that transparent, respectable hoaxing by +which discreet mothers endeavor to blind their daughters to the real +facts of such cases; but, in her own calm, balanced mind, she had +accepted what she was so often told, as a quiet verity; and therefore +she neither fluttered nor blushed on this occasion, but regarded her +auditor with a pleased attention, as one who was saying obliging things. + +"Cool!" he thought to himself,--"hum!--a little rustic belle, I +suppose,--well aware of her own value;--rather piquant, on my word!" + +"Shall we walk in the garden?" he said,--"the evening is so beautiful." + +They passed out of the door and began promenading the long walk. At the +bottom of the alley he stopped, and, turning, looked up the vista of box +ending in the brilliantly-lighted rooms, where gentlemen, with powdered +heads, lace ruffles, and glittering knee-buckles, were handing ladies in +stiff brocades, whose towering heads were shaded by ostrich-feathers and +sparkling with gems. + +"Quite court-like, on my word!" he said. "Tell me, do you often have +such brilliant entertainments as this?" + +"I suppose they do," said Mary. "I never was at one before, but I +sometimes hear of them." + +"And _you_ do not attend?" said the gentleman, with an accent which made +the inquiry a marked compliment. + +"No, I do not," said Mary; "these people generally do not visit us." + +"What a pity," he said, "that their parties should want such an +ornament! But," he added, "this night must make them aware of their +oversight;--if you are not always in society after this, it will surely +not be for want of solicitation." + +"You are very kind to think so," replied Mary; "but even if it were +to be so, I should not see my way clear to be often in such scenes as +this." + +Her companion looked at her with a glance a little doubtful and amused, +and said, "And pray, why not? if the inquiry be not too presumptuous." + +"Because," said Mary, "I should be afraid they would take too much time +and thought, and lead me to forget the great object of life." + +The simple gravity with which this was said, as if quite assured of the +sympathy of her auditor, appeared to give him a secret amusement. His +bright, dark eyes danced, as if he suppressed some quick repartee; but, +drooping his long lashes deferentially, he said, in gentle tones, "I +should like to know what so beautiful a young lady considers the great +object of life." + +Mary answered reverentially, in those words then familiar from infancy +to every Puritan child, "To glorify God, and enjoy Him forever." + +"_Really?_" he said, looking straight into her eyes with that +penetrating glance with which he was accustomed to take the gauge of +every one with whom he conversed. + +"Is it _not_?" said Mary, looking back, calm and firm, into the +sparkling, restless depths of his eyes. + +At that moment, two souls, going with the whole force of their being in +opposite directions, looked out of their windows at each other with a +fixed and earnest recognition. + +Burr was practised in every art of gallantry,--he had made womankind +a study,--he never saw a beautiful face and form without a sort of +restless desire to experiment upon it and try his power over the +interior inhabitant; but, just at this moment, something streamed into +his soul from those blue, earnest eyes, which brought back to his mind +what pious people had so often told him of his mother, the beautiful +and early-sainted Esther Burr. He was one of those persons who +systematically managed and played upon himself and others, as a skilful +musician, on an instrument. Yet one secret of his fascination was the +_naivete_ with which, at certain moments, he would abandon himself to +some little impulse of a nature originally sensitive and tender. Had the +strain of feeling which now awoke in him come over him elsewhere, he +would have shut down some spring in his mind, and excluded it in a +moment; but, talking with a beautiful creature whom he wished to please, +he gave way at once to the emotion:--real tears stood in his fine eyes, +and he raised Mary's hand to his lips, and kissed it, saying-- + +"Thank you, my beautiful child, for so good a thought. It is truly a +noble sentiment, though practicable only to those gifted with angelic +natures." + +"Oh, I trust not," said Mary, earnestly touched and wrought upon, more +than she herself knew, by the beautiful eyes, the modulated voice, the +charm of manner, which seemed to enfold her like an Italian summer. + +Burr sighed,--a real sigh of his better nature, but passed out with all +the more freedom that he felt it would interest his fair companion, who, +for the time being, was the one woman of the world to him. + +"Pure and artless souls like yours," he said, "cannot measure the +temptations of those who are called to the real battle of life in a +world like this. How many nobler aspirations fall withered in the fierce +heat and struggle of the conflict!" + +He was saying then what he really felt, often bitterly felt,--but +_using_ this real feeling advisedly, and with skilful tact, for the +purpose of the hour. + +What was this purpose? To win the regard, the esteem, the tenderness of +a religious, exalted nature shrined in a beautiful form,--to gain and +hold ascendency. It was a life-long habit,--one of those forms of +refined self-indulgence which he pursued, thoughtless and reckless of +consequences. He had found now the key-note of the character; it was a +beautiful instrument, and he was well pleased to play on it. + +"I think, Sir," said Mary, modestly, "that you forget the great +provision made for our weakness." + +"How?" he said. + +"They that _wait on the Lord_ shall renew their strength," she replied, +gently. + +He looked at her, as she spoke these words, with a pleased, artistic +perception of the contrast between her worldly attire and the simple, +religious earnestness of her words. + +"She is entrancing!" he thought to himself,--"so altogether fresh and +_naive_!" + +"My sweet saint," he said, "such as you are the appointed guardians of +us coarser beings. The prayers of souls given up to worldliness and +ambition effect little. You must intercede for us. I am very orthodox, +you see," he added, with that subtle smile which sometimes irradiated +his features. "I am fully aware of all that your reverend doctor tells +you of the worthlessness of unregenerate doings; and so, when I see +angels walking below, I try to secure 'a friend at court.'" + +He saw that Mary looked embarrassed and pained at this banter, and +therefore added, with a delicate shading of earnestness,-- + +"In truth, my fair young friend, I hope you _will_ sometimes pray for +me. I am sure, if I have any chance of good, it will come in such a +way." + +"Indeed I will," said Mary, fervently,--her little heart full, tears +in her eyes, her breath coming quick,--and she added, with a deepening +color, "I am sure, Mr. Burr, that there should be a covenant blessing +for you, if for any one, for you are the son of a holy ancestry." + +"_Eh, bien, mon ami, qu'est ce que tu fais ici_?" said a gay voice +behind a clump of box; and immediately there started out, like a French +picture from its frame, a dark-eyed figure, dressed like a Marquise of +Louis XIV.'s time, with powdered hair, sparkling with diamonds. + +"_Rien que m'amuser_," he replied, with ready presence of mind, in the +same tone, and then added,--"Permit me, Madame, to present to you a +charming specimen of our genuine New England flowers. Miss Scudder, +I have the honor to present you to the acquaintance of Madame de +Frontignac." + +"I am very happy," said the lady, with that sweet, lisping accentuation +of English which well became her lovely mouth. "Miss Scudder, I hope, is +very well." + +Mary replied in the affirmative,--her eyes resting the while with +pleased admiration on the graceful, animated face and diamond-bright +eyes which seemed looking her through. + +"_Monsieur la trouve bien seduisante apparemment_" said the stranger, +in a low, rapid voice, to the gentleman, in a manner which showed a +mingling of pique and admiration. + +"_Petite jalouse! rassure-toi_," he replied, with a look and manner into +which, with that mobile force which was peculiar to him, he threw the +most tender and passionate devotion. "_Ne suis-je pas a toi tout a +fait_?"--and as he spoke, he offered her his other arm. "Allow me to be +an unworthy link between the beauty of France and America." + +The lady swept a proud curtsy backward, bridled her beautiful neck, and +signed for them to pass her. "I am waiting here for a friend," she said. + +"Whatever is your will is mine," replied Burr, bowing with proud +humility, and passing on with Mary to the supper-room. + +Here the company were fast assembling, in that high tide of good-humor +which generally sets in at this crisis of the evening. + +The scene, in truth, was a specimen of a range of society which in those +times could have been assembled nowhere else but in Newport. There stood +Dr. H. in the tranquil majesty of his lordly form, and by his side, the +alert, compact figure of his contemporary and theological opponent, Dr. +Stiles, who, animated by the social spirit of the hour, was dispensing +courtesies to right and left with the debonair grace of the trained +gentleman of the old school. Near by, and engaging from time to time in +conversation with them, stood a Jewish Rabbin, whose olive complexion, +keen eye, and flowing beard gave a picturesque and foreign grace to the +scene. Colonel Burr, one of the most brilliant and distinguished men of +the New Republic, and Colonel de Frontignac, who had won for himself +laurels in the corps of La Fayette, during the recent revolutionary +struggle, with his brilliant, accomplished wife, were all unexpected and +distinguished additions to the circle. + +Burr gently cleared the way for his fair companion, and, purposely +placing her where the full light of the wax chandeliers set off her +beauty to the best advantage, devoted himself to her with a subserviency +as deferential as if she had been a goddess. + +For all that, he was not unobservant, when, a few moments after, Madame +de Frontignac was led in, on the arm of a Senator, with whom she was +presently in full flirtation. + +He observed, with a quiet, furtive smile, that, while she rattled and +fanned herself, and listened with apparent attention to the flatteries +addressed to her, she darted every now and then a glance keen as a steel +blade towards him and his companion. He was perfectly adroit in playing +off one woman against another, and it struck him with a pleasant sense +of oddity, how perfectly unconscious his sweet and saintly neighbor was +of the position in which she was supposed to stand by her rival; and +poor Mary, all this while, in her simplicity, really thought that she +had seen traces of what she would have called the "strivings of the +spirit" in his soul. Alas! that a phrase weighed down with such +mysterious truth and meaning should ever come to fall on the ear as mere +empty cant! + +With Mary it was a living form,--as were all her words; for in nothing +was the Puritan education more marked than in the earnest _reality_ and +truthfulness which it gave to language; and even now, as she stands by +his side, her large blue eye is occasionally fixed in dreamy reverie as +she thinks what a triumph of Divine grace it would be, if these inward +movings of her companion's mind _should_ lead him, as all the pious of +New England hoped, to follow in the footsteps of President Edwards, and +forms wishes that she could see him some time when she could talk to him +undisturbed. + +She was too humble and too modest fully to accept the delicious flattery +which he had breathed, in implying that her hand had had power to unseal +the fountains of good in his soul; but still it thrilled through all the +sensitive strings of her nature a tremulous flutter of suggestion. + +She had read instances of striking and wonderful conversions from words +dropped by children and women,--and suppose some such thing should +happen to her! and that this so charming and distinguished and powerful +being should be called into the fold of Christ's Church by her means! +No! it was too much to be hoped,--but the very possibility was +thrilling. + +When, after supper, Mrs. Scudder and the Doctor made their adieus, +Burr's devotion was still unabated. With an enchanting mixture +of reverence and fatherly protection, he waited on her to the +last,--shawled her with delicate care, and handed her into the small, +one-horse wagon,--as if it had been the coach of a duchess. + +"I have pleasant recollections connected with this kind of +establishment," he said, as, after looking carefully at the harness, +he passed the reins into Mrs. Scudder's hands. "It reminds me of +school-days and old times. I hope your horse is quite safe, Madam." + +"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Scudder, "I perfectly understand him." + +"Pardon the suggestion," he replied;--"what is there that a New England +matron does _not_ understand? Doctor, I must call by-and-by and have +a little talk with you,--my theology, you know, needs a little +straightening." + +"We should all be happy to see you, Colonel Burr," said Mrs. Scudder; +"we live in a very plain way, it is true,"-- + +"But can always find place for a friend,--that, I trust, is what you +meant to say," he replied, bowing, with his own peculiar grace, as the +carriage drove off. + +"Really, a most charming person is this Colonel Burr," said Mrs. +Scudder. + +"He seems a very frank, ingenuous young person," said the Doctor; "one +cannot but mourn that the son of such gracious parents should be left to +wander into infidelity." + +"Oh, he is not an infidel," said Mary; "he is far from it, though I +think his mind is a little darkened on some points." + +"Ah," said the Doctor, "have you had any special religious conversation +with him?" + +"A little," said Mary, blushing; "and it seems to me that his mind is +perplexed somewhat in regard to the doings of the unregenerate,--I fear +that it has rather proved a stumbling-block in his way; but he showed so +much feeling!--I could really see the tears in his eyes!" + +"His mother was a most godly woman, Mary," said the Doctor. "She was +called from her youth, and her beautiful person became a temple for the +indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Aaron Burr is a child of many prayers, +and therefore there is hope that he may yet be effectually called. He +studied awhile with Bellamy," he added, musingly, "and I have often +doubted whether Bellamy took just the right course with him." + +"I hope he _will_ call and talk with you," said Mary, earnestly; "what +a blessing to the world, if such talents as his could become wholly +consecrated!" + +"Not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble are called," said the +Doctor; "yet if it would please the Lord to employ my instrumentality +and prayers, how much should I rejoice! I was struck," he added, +"to-night, when I saw those Jews present, with the thought that it was, +as it were, a type of that last ingathering, when both Jew and Gentile +shall sit down lovingly together to the gospel feast. It is only by +passing over and forgetting these present years, when so few are called +and the gospel makes such slow progress, and looking unto that +glorious time, that I find comfort. If the Lord but use me as a dumb +stepping-stone to that heavenly Jerusalem, I shall be content." + +Thus they talked while the wagon jogged soberly homeward, and the +frogs and the turtles and the distant ripple of the sea made a drowsy, +mingling concert in the summer-evening air. + +Meanwhile Colonel Burr had returned to the lighted rooms, and it was not +long before his quick eye espied Madame de Frontignac standing pensively +in a window-recess, half hid by the curtain. He stole softly up behind +her and whispered something in her ear. + +In a moment she turned on him a face glowing--with anger, and drew back +haughtily; but Burr remarked the glitter of tears, not quite dried even +by the angry flush of her eyes. + +"In what have I had the misfortune to offend?" he said, crossing his +arms upon his breast. "I stand at the bar, and plead, Not guilty." + +He spoke in French, and she replied in the same smooth accents,-- + +"It was not for her to dispute Monsieur's right to amuse himself." + +Burr drew nearer, and spoke in those persuasive, pleading tones which he +had ever at command, and in that language whose very structure in its +delicate _tutoiment_ gives such opportunity for gliding on through shade +after shade of intimacy and tenderness, till gradually the haughty fire +of the eyes was quenched in tears, and, in the sudden revulsion of a +strong, impulsive nature, she said what she called words of friendship, +but which carried with them all the warmth of that sacred fire which is +given to woman to light and warm the temple of home, and which sears and +scars when kindled for any other shrine. + +And yet this woman was the wife of his friend and associate! + +Colonel de Frontignac was a grave and dignified man of forty-five. +Virginie de Frontignac had been given him to wife when but eighteen,--a +beautiful, generous, impulsive, wilful girl. She had accepted him +gladly, for very substantial reasons. First, that she might come out of +the convent where she was kept for the very purpose of educating her in +ignorance of the world she was to live in. Second, that she might wear +velvet, lace, cashmere, and jewels. Third, that she might be a Madame, +free to go and come, ride, walk, and talk, without surveillance. +Fourth,--and consequent upon this,--that she might go into company and +have admirers and adorers. + +She supposed, of course, that she loved her husband;--whom else should +she love? He was the only man, except her father and brothers, that she +had ever known; and in the fortnight that preceded their marriage did he +not send her the most splendid _bons-bons_ every day, with bouquets of +every pattern that ever taxed the brain of a Parisian _artiste_?--was +not the _corbeille de mariage_ a wonder and an envy to all her +acquaintance?--and after marriage had she not found him always a steady, +indulgent friend, easy to be coaxed as any grave papa? + +On his part, Monsieur de Frontignac cherished his young wife as a +beautiful, though somewhat absurd little pet, and amused himself with +her frolics and gambols, as the gravest person often will with those of +a kitten. + +It was not until she knew Aaron Burr that poor Virginie de Frontignac +came to that great awakening of her being which teaches woman what +she is, and transforms her from a careless child to a deep-hearted, +thinking, suffering human being. + +For the first time, in his society she became aware of the charm of a +polished and cultivated mind, able with exquisite tact to adapt itself +to hers, to draw forth her inquiries, to excite her tastes, to stimulate +her observation. A new world awoke around her,--the world of literature +and taste, of art and of sentiment; she felt, somehow, as if she had +gained the growth of years in a few months. She felt within herself the +stirring of dim aspiration, the uprising of a new power of self-devotion +and self-sacrifice, a trance of hero-worship, a cloud of high ideal +images,--the lighting up, in short, of all that God has laid, ready to +be enkindled, in a woman's nature, when the time comes to sanctify her +as the pure priestess of a domestic temple. But, alas! it was kindled +by one who did it only for an experiment, because he felt an artistic +pleasure in the beautiful light and heat, and cared not, though it +burned a soul away. + +Burr was one of those men willing to play with any charming woman the +game of those navigators who give to simple natives glass beads and +feathers in return for gold and diamonds,--to accept from a woman her +heart's blood in return for such odds and ends and clippings as he can +afford her from the serious ambition of life. + +Look in with us one moment, now that the party is over, and the busy +hum of voices and blaze of lights has died down to midnight silence and +darkness; we make you clairvoyant, and you may look through the walls of +this stately old mansion, still known as that where Rochambeau held his +head-quarters, into this room, where two wax candles are burning on a +toilette table, before an old-fashioned mirror. The slumberous folds +of the curtains are drawn with stately gloom around a high bed, where +Colonel de Frontignac has been for many hours quietly asleep; but +opposite, resting with one elbow on the toilette table, her long black +hair hanging down over her night-dress, and the brush lying listlessly +in her hand, sits Virginie, looking fixedly into the dreamy depths of +the mirror. + +Scarcely twenty yet, all unwarned of the world of power and passion that +lay slumbering in her girl's heart, led in the meshes of custom and +society to utter vows and take responsibilities of whose nature she was +no more apprised than is a slumbering babe, and now at last fully awake, +feeling the whole power of that mysterious and awful force which we call +love, yet shuddering to call it by its name, but by its light beginning +to understand all she is capable of, and all that marriage should have +been to her! She struggles feebly and confusedly with her fate, still +clinging to the name of duty, and baptizing as friendship this strange +new feeling which makes her tremble through all her being. How can she +dream of danger in such a feeling, when it seems to her the awakening +of all that is highest and noblest within her? She remembers when she +thought of nothing beyond an opera-ticket or a new dress; and now she +feels that there might be to her a friend for whose sake she would try +to be noble and great and good,--for whom all self-denial, all high +endeavor, all difficult virtue would become possible,--who would be to +her life, inspiration, order, beauty. + +She sees him as woman always sees the man she loves,--noble, great, and +good;--for when did a loving woman ever believe a man otherwise?--too +noble, too great, too high, too good, she thinks, for her,--poor, +trivial, ignorant coquette,--poor, childish, trifling Virginie! Has he +not commanded armies? she thinks,--is he not eloquent in the senate? +and yet, what interest he has taken in her, a poor, unformed, ignorant +creature!--she never tried to improve herself till since she knew him. +And he is so considerate, too,--so respectful, so thoughtful and kind, +so manly and honorable, and has such a tender friendship for her, such +a brotherly and fatherly solicitude! and yet, if she is haughty or +imperious or severe, how humbled and grieved he looks! How strange that +she could have power over such a man! + +It is one of the saddest truths of this sad mystery of life, that woman +is, often, never so much an angel as just the moment before she falls +into an unsounded depth of perdition. And what shall we say of the man +who leads her on as an experiment,--who amuses himself with taking +woman after woman up these dazzling, delusive heights, knowing, as he +certainly must, where they lead? + +We have been told, in extenuation of the course of Aaron Burr, that he +was not a man of gross passions or of coarse indulgence, but, in the +most consummate and refined sense, _a man of gallantry_. This, then, is +the descriptive name which polite society has invented for the man who +does this thing! + +Of old, it was thought that one who administered poison in the +sacramental bread and wine had touched the very height of impious +sacrilege; but this crime is white, by the side of his who poisons +God's eternal sacrament of love and destroys a woman's soul through her +noblest and purest affections. + +We have given you the after-view of most of the actors of our little +scene to-night, and therefore it is but fair that you should have a peep +over the Colonel's shoulder, as he sums up the evening in a letter to a +friend. + +"MY DEAR ---- + +"As to the business, it gets on rather slowly. L---- and S---- are away, +and the coalition cannot be formed without them; they set out a week ago +from Philadelphia, and are yet on the road. + +"Meanwhile, we have some providential alleviations,--as, for example, +a wedding-party to-night, at the Wilcoxes', which was really quite an +affair. I saw the prettiest little Puritan there that I have set eyes on +for many a day. I really couldn't help getting up a flirtation with her, +although it was much like flirting with a small copy of the 'Assembly's +Catechism,'--of which last I had enough years ago, Heaven knows. + +"But, really, such a _naive_, earnest little saint, who has such real +deadly belief, and opens such pitying blue eyes on one, is quite a +stimulating novelty. I got myself well scolded by the fair Madame, (as +angels scold,) and had to plead like a lawyer to make my peace;--after +all, that woman really enchains me. Don't shake your head wisely,--' +What's going to be the end of it?' I'm sure I don't know; we'll see, +when the time comes. + +"Meanwhile, push the business ahead with all your might. I shall not be +idle. D---- must canvass the Senate thoroughly. I wish I could be in two +places at once,--I would do it myself. _Au revoir_. + +"Ever yours, + +"Burr." + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +"And now, Mary," said Mrs. Scudder, at five o'clock the next morning, +"to-day, you know, is the Doctor's fast; so we won't get any regular +dinner, and it will be a good time to do up all our little odd jobs. +Miss Prissy promised to come in for two or three hours this morning, to +alter the waist of that black silk; and I shouldn't be surprised if we +should get it all done and ready to wear by Sunday." + +We will remark, by way of explanation to a part of this conversation, +that our Doctor, who was a specimen of life in earnest, made a practice, +through the greater part of his pulpit course, of spending every +Saturday as a day of fasting and retirement, in preparation for the +duties of the Sabbath. + +Accordingly, the early breakfast things were no sooner disposed of than +Miss Prissy's quick footsteps might have been heard pattering in the +kitchen. + +"Well, Miss Scudder, how do you do this morning? and how do you do, +Mary? Well, if you a'n't the beaters! up just as early as ever, and +everything cleared away! I was telling Miss Wilcox there didn't ever +seem to be anything done in Miss Scudder's kitchen, and I did verily +believe you made your beds before you got up in the morning. + +"Well, well, wasn't that a party last night?" she said, as she sat down +with the black silk and prepared her ripping-knife.--"I must rip this +myself, Miss Scudder; for there's a great deal in ripping silk so as not +to let anybody know where it has been sewed.--You didn't know that I was +at the party, did you? Well, I was. You see, I thought I'd just step +round there, to see about that money to get the Doctor's shirt with, and +there I found Miss Wilcox with so many things on her mind, and says she, +'Miss Prissy, you don't know how much it would help me if I had somebody +like you just to look after things a little here.' And says I, 'Miss +Wilcox, you just go right to your room and dress, and don't you give +yourself one minute's thought about anything, and you see if I don't +have everything just right.' And so, there I was, in for it; and I just +staid through, and it was well I did,--for Dinah, she wouldn't have put +near enough egg into the coffee, if it hadn't been for me; why, I just +went and beat up four eggs with my own hands and stirred 'em into the +grounds. + +"Well,--but, really, wasn't I behind the door, and didn't I peep into +the supper-room? I saw who was a-waitin' on Miss Mary. Well, they do say +he's the handsomest, most fascinating man. Why, they say all the ladies +in Philadelphia are in a perfect quarrel about him; and I heard he said +he hadn't seen such a beauty he didn't remember when." + +"We all know that beauty is of small consequence," said Mrs. Scudder. "I +hope Mary has been brought up to feel that." + +"Oh, of course," said Miss Prissy, "it's just like a fading flower; all +is to be good and useful,--and that's what she is. I told 'em that her +beauty was the least part of her; though I must say, that dress did fit +like a biscuit,--if 'twas my own fitting. + +"But, Miss Scudder, what do you think I heard 'em saying about the good +Doctor?" + +"I'm sure I don't know," said Mrs. Scudder; "I only know they couldn't +say anything bad." + +"Well, not bad exactly," said Miss Prissy,--"but they say he's getting +such strange notions in his head. Why, I heard some of 'em say, he's +going to come out and preach against the slave-trade; and I'm sure I +don't know what Newport folks will do, if that's wicked. There a'n't +hardly any money here that's made any other way; and I hope the Doctor +a'n't a-going to do anything of that sort." + +"I believe he is," said Mrs. Scudder; "he thinks it's a great sin, that +ought to be rebuked;--and I think so too," she added, bracing herself +resolutely; "that was Mr. Scudder's opinion when I first married him, +and it's mine." + +"Oh,--ah,--yes,--well,--if it's a sin, of course," said Miss Prissy; +"but then--dear me!--it don't seem as if it could be. Why, just think +how many great houses are living on it;--why, there's General Wilcox +himself, and he's a very nice man; and then there's Major Seaforth; why, +I could count you off a dozen,--all our very first people. Why, Doctor +Stiles doesn't think so, and I'm sure he's a good Christian. Doctor +Stiles thinks it's a dispensation for giving the light of the gospel +to the Africans. Why, now I'm sure, when I was a-workin' at Deacon +Stebbins', I stopped over Sunday once 'cause Miss Stebbins she was +weakly,--'twas when she was getting up, after Samuel was born,--no, on +the whole, I believe it was Nehemiah,--but, any way, I remember I staid +there, and I remember, as plain as if 'twas yesterday, just after +breakfast, how a man went driving by in a chaise, and the Deacon he went +out and stopped him ('cause you know he was justice of the peace) for +travelling on the Lord's day, and who should it be but Tom Seaforth?--he +told the Deacon his father had got a ship-load of negroes just come +in,--and the Deacon he just let him go; 'cause I remember he said that +was a plain work of necessity and mercy.[A] Well, now who would 'a' +thought it? I believe the Doctor is better than most folks, but then the +best people may be mistaken, you know." + +[Footnote A: A fact.] + +"The Doctor has made up his mind that it's his duty," said Mrs. Scudder. +"I'm afraid it will make him very unpopular; but I, for one, shall stand +by him." + +"Oh, certainly, Miss Scudder, you are doing just right exactly. Well, +there's one comfort, he'll have a great crowd to hear him preach; +'cause, as I was going round through the entries last night, I heard 'em +talking about it,--and Colonel Burr said he should be there, and so did +the General, and so did Mr. What's-his-name there, that Senator from +Philadelphia. I tell you, you'll have a full house." + +It was to be confessed that Mrs. Scudder's heart rather sunk than +otherwise at this announcement; and those who have felt what it is to +stand almost alone in the right, in the face of all the first families +of their acquaintance, may perhaps find some compassion for her,--since, +after all, truth is invisible, but "first families" are very evident. +First families are often very agreeable, undeniably respectable, +fearfully virtuous, and it takes great faith to resist an evil principle +which incarnates itself in the suavities of their breeding and +amiability; and therefore it was that Mrs. Scudder felt her heart heavy +within her, and could with a very good grace have joined in the Doctor's +Saturday fast. + +As for the Doctor, he sat the while tranquil in his study, with his +great Bible and his Concordance open before him, culling, with that +patient assiduity for which he was remarkable, all the terrible texts +which that very unceremonious and old-fashioned book rains down so +unsparingly on the sin of oppressing the weak. + +First families, whether in Newport or elsewhere, were as invisible to +him as they were to Moses during the forty days that he spent with God +on the mount; he was merely thinking of his message,--thinking only how +he should shape it, so as not to leave one word of it unsaid,--not even +imagining in the least what the result of it was to be. He was but a +voice, but an instrument,--the passive instrument through which an +almighty will was to reveal itself; and the sublime fatalism of his +faith made him as dead to all human considerations as if he had been a +portion of the immutable laws of Nature herself. + +So, the next morning, although all his friends trembled for him when he +rose in the pulpit, he never thought of trembling for himself; he had +come in the covered way of silence from the secret place of the Most +High, and felt himself still abiding under the shadow of the Almighty. +It was alike to him, whether the house was full or empty,--whoever were +decreed to hear the message would be there; whether they would hear or +forbear was already settled in the counsels of a mightier will than +his,--he had the simple duty of utterance. + +The ruinous old meeting-house was never so radiant with station and +gentility as on that morning. A June sun shone brightly; the sea +sparkled with a thousand little eyes; the birds sang all along the +way; and all the notables turned out to hear the Doctor. Mrs. Scudder +received into her pew, with dignified politeness, Colonel Burr and +Colonel and Madame de Frontignac. General Wilcox and his portly dame, +Major Seaforth, and we know not what of Vernons and De Wolfs, and other +grand old names, were represented there; stiff silks rustled, Chinese +fans fluttered, and the last court fashions stood revealed in bonnets. + +Everybody was looking fresh and amiable,--a charming and respectable set +of sinners, come to hear what the Doctor would find to tell them about +their transgressions. + +Mrs. Scudder was calculating consequences; and, shutting her eyes on the +too evident world about her, prayed that the Lord would overrule all for +good. The Doctor prayed that he might have grace to speak the truth, +and the whole truth. We have yet on record, in his published works, the +great argument of that day, through which he moved with that calm appeal +to the reason which made his results always so weighty. + +"If these things be true," he said, after a condensed statement of the +facts of the case, "then the following terrible consequences, which may +well make all shudder and tremble who realize them, force themselves +upon us, namely: that all who have had any hand in this iniquitous +business, whether directly or indirectly, or have used their influence +to promote it, or have consented to it, or even connived at it, or have +not opposed it by all proper exertions of which they are capable,--all +these are, in a greater or less degree, chargeable with the injuries and +miseries which millions have suffered and are suffering, and are guilty +of the blood of millions who have lost their lives by this traffic in +the human species. Not only the merchants who have been engaged in this +trade, and the captains who have been tempted by the love of money to +engage in this cruel work, and the slave-holders of every description, +are guilty of shedding rivers of blood, but all the legislatures who +have authorized, encouraged, or even neglected to suppress it to the +utmost of their power, and all the individuals in private stations who +have in any way aided in this business, consented to it, or have not +opposed it to the utmost of their ability, have a share in this guilt. + +"This trade in the human species has been the first wheel of commerce in +Newport, on which every other movement in business has chiefly depended; +this town has been built up, and flourished in times past, at the +expense of the blood, the liberty, and the happiness of the poor +Africans; and the inhabitants have lived on this, and by it have gotten +most of their wealth and riches. If a bitter woe is pronounced on him +'that buildeth his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by wrong,' +Jer. xxii. 13,--to him 'that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth +a city by iniquity,' Hab. ii. 12,--to 'the bloody city,' Ezek. xxiv. +6,--what a heavy, dreadful woe hangs over the heads of all those +whose hands are defiled by the blood of the Africans, especially the +inhabitants of this State and this town, who have had a distinguished +share in this unrighteous and bloody commerce!" + +He went over the recent history of the country, expatiated on the +national declaration so lately made, that all men are born equally free +and independent and have natural and inalienable rights to liberty, and +asked with what face a nation declaring such things could continue to +hold thousands of their fellowmen in abject slavery. He pointed out +signs of national disaster which foreboded the wrath of Heaven,--the +increase of public and private debts, the spirit of murmuring and +jealousy of rulers among the people, divisions and contentions and +bitter party alienations, the jealous irritation of England constantly +endeavoring to hamper our trade, the Indians making war on the +frontiers, the Algerines taking captive our ships and making slaves +of our citizens,--all evident tokens of the displeasure and impending +judgment of an offended Justice. + +The sermon rolled over the heads of the gay audience, deep and dark as a +thunder-cloud, which in a few moments changes a summer sky into heaviest +gloom. Gradually an expression of intense interest and deep concern +spread over the listeners; it was the magnetism of a strong mind, which +held them for a time under the shadow of his own awful sense of God's +almighty justice. + +It is said that a little child once described his appearance in the +pulpit by saying, "I saw God there, and I was afraid." + +Something of the same effect was produced on his audience now; and it +was not till after sermon, prayer, and benediction were all over, that +the respectables of Newport began gradually to unstiffen themselves +from the spell, and to look into each other's eyes for comfort, and to +reassure themselves that after all they were the first families, and +going on the way the world had always gone, and that the Doctor, of +course, was a radical and a fanatic. + +When the audience streamed out, crowding the broad aisle, Mary descended +from the singers, and stood with her psalm-book in hand, waiting at the +door to be joined by her mother and the Doctor. She overheard many +hard words from people who, an evening or two before, had smiled so +graciously upon them. It was therefore with no little determination of +manner that she advanced and took the Doctor's arm, as if anxious to +associate herself with his well-earned unpopularity,--and just at +this moment she caught the eye and smile of Colonel Burr, as he bowed +gracefully, yet not without a suggestion of something sarcastic in his +eye. + +[To be continued.] + + + + +THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. + +WHAT HE SAID, WHAT HE HEARD, AND WHAT HE SAW. + + +You don't look so dreadful poor in the face as you did a while back. +Bloated some, I expect. + +This was the cheerful and encouraging remark with which the Poor +Relation greeted the divinity-student one morning. + +Of course every good man considers it a great sacrifice on his part to +continue living in this transitory, unsatisfactory, and particularly +unpleasant world. This is so much a matter of course, that I was +surprised to see the divinity-student change color. He took a look at a +small and uncertain-minded glass which hung slanting forward over the +chapped sideboard. The image it returned to him had the color of a very +young pea somewhat over-boiled. The scenery of a long tragic drama +flashed through his mind as the lightning-express-train _whishes_ by a +station: the gradual dismantling process of disease; friends looking on, +sympathetic, but secretly chuckling over their own stomachs of iron and +lungs of caoutchouc; nurses attentive, but calculating their crop, and +thinking how soon it will be ripe, so that they can go to your neighbor, +who is good for a year or so longer; doctors assiduous, but giving +themselves a mental shake, as they go out of your door, that throws +off your particular grief as a duck sheds a rain-drop from his oily +feathers; undertakers solemn, but happy; then the great subsoil +cultivator, who plants, but never looks for fruit in his garden; then +the stone-cutter, who finds the lie that has been waiting for you on a +slab ever since the birds or beasts made their tracks on the new red +sandstone; then the grass and the dandelions and the buttercups,--Earth +saying to the mortal body, with her sweet symbolism, "You have scarred +my bosom, but you are forgiven"; then a glimpse of the soul as a +floating consciousness without very definite form or place, but dimly +conceived of as an upright column of vapor or mist several times larger +than life-size, so far as it could be said to have any size at all, +wandering about and living a thin and half-awake life for want of good +old-fashioned solid _matter_ to come down upon with foot and fist,--in +fact, having neither foot nor fist, nor conveniences for taking the +sitting posture. + +And yet the divinity-student was a good Christian, and those heathen +images which remind one of the childlike fancies of the dying Adrian +were only the efforts of his imagination to give shape to the formless +and position to the placeless. Neither did his thoughts spread +themselves out and link themselves as I have displayed them. They came +confusedly into his mind like a heap of broken mosaics,--sometimes a +part of the picture complete in itself, sometimes connected fragments, +and sometimes only single severed stones. + +They did not diffuse a light of celestial joy over his countenance. On +the contrary, the Poor Relation's remark turned him pale, as I have +said; and when the terrible wrinkled and jaundiced looking-glass turned +him green in addition, and he saw himself in it, it seemed to him as +if it were all settled, and his book of life were to be shut not yet +half-read, and go back to the dust of the under-ground archives. He +coughed a mild short cough, as if to point the direction in which his +downward path was tending. It was an honest little cough enough, so far +as appearances went. But coughs are ungrateful things. You find one out +in the cold, take it up and nurse it and make everything of it, dress it +up warm, give it all sorts of balsams and other food it likes, and carry +it round in your bosom as if it were a miniature lapdog. And by-and-by +its little bark grows sharp and savage, and--confound the thing!--you +find it is a wolf's whelp that you have got there, and he is gnawing in +the breast where he has been nestling so long.--The Poor Relation said +that somebody's surrup was good for folks that were gettin' into a +bad way. The landlady had heard of desperate cases cured by +cherry-pictorial. + +Whiskey's the fellah,--said the young man John.--Make it into punch, +cold at dinner-time 'n' hot at bed-time. I'll come up 'n' show you how +to mix it. Haven't any of you seen the wonderful fat man exhibitin' down +in Hanover Street? + +Master Benjamin Franklin rushed into the dialogue with a breezy +exclamation, that he had seen a great picter outside of the place where +the fat man was exhibitin'. Tried to get in at half-price, but the man +at the door looked at his teeth and said he was more'n ten year old. + +It isn't two years,--said the young man John,--since that fat fellah +was exhibitin' here as the Livin' Skeleton. Whiskey--that's what did +it,--real Burbon's the stuff. Hot water, sugar, 'n' jest a little +shavin' of lemon-skin in it,--_skin_, mind you, none o' your juice; take +it off thin,--shape of one of them flat curls the factory-girls wear on +the sides of their foreheads. + +But I am a teetotaller,--said the divinity-student, in a subdued +tone;--not noticing the enormous length of the bow-string the young +fellow had just drawn. + +He took up his hat and went out. + +I think you have worried that young man more than you meant,--I said.--I +don't believe he will jump off of one of the bridges, for he has too +much principle; but I mean to follow him and see where he goes, for he +looks as if his mind were made up to something. + +I followed him at a reasonable distance. He walked doggedly along, +looking neither to the right nor the left, turned into State Street, and +made for a well-known Life-Insurance Office. Luckily, the doctor was +there and overhauled him on the spot. There was nothing the matter with +him, he said, and he could have his life insured as a sound one. He came +out in good spirits, and told me this soon after. + +This led me to make some remarks the next morning on the manners of +well-bred and ill-bred people. + +I began,--The whole essence of true gentle-breeding (one does not +like to say gentility) lies in the wish and the art to be agreeable. +Good-breeding is _surface-Christianity_. Every look, movement, tone, +expression, subject of discourse, that may give pain to another is +habitually excluded from conversational intercourse. This is the reason +why rich people are apt to be so much more agreeable than others. + +--I thought you were a great champion of equality,--said the discreet +and severe lady who had accompanied our young friend, the Latin Tutor's +daughter. + +I go politically for _e_quality,--I said,--and socially for _the_ +quality. + +Who are the "quality,"--said the Model, etc.,--in a community like ours? + +I confess I find this question a little difficult to answer,--I +said.--Nothing is better known than the distinction of social ranks +which exists in every community, and nothing is harder to define. The +great gentlemen and ladies of a place are its real lords and masters and +mistresses; they are the _quality_, whether in a monarchy or a republic; +mayors and governors and generals and senators and ex-presidents are +nothing to them. How well we know this, and how seldom it finds a +distinct expression! Now I tell you truly, I believe in man as man, and +I disbelieve in all distinctions except such as follow the natural lines +of cleavage in a society which has crystallized according to its own +true laws. But the essence of equality is to be able to say the truth; +and there is nothing more curious than these truths relating to the +stratification of society. + +Of all the facts in this world that do not take hold of immortality, +there is not one so intensely real, permanent, and engrossing as this of +social position,--as you see by the circumstance that the core of all +the great social orders the world has seen has been, and is still, for +the most part, a privileged class of gentlemen and ladies arranged in a +regular scale of precedence among themselves, but superior as a body to +all else. + +Nothing but an ideal Christian equality, which we have been getting +farther away from since the days of the Primitive Church, can +prevent this subdivision of society into classes from taking place +everywhere,--in the great centres of our republic as much as in +old European monarchies. Only there position is more absolutely +hereditary,--here it is more completely elective. + +--Where is the election held? and what are the qualifications? and who +are the electors?--said the Model. + +Nobody ever sees when the vote is taken; there never is a formal vote. +The women settle it mostly; and they know wonderfully well what is +presentable, and what can't stand the blaze of the chandeliers and the +critical eye and ear of people trained to know a staring shade in a +ribbon, a false light in a jewel, an ill-bred tone, an angular movement, +everything that betrays a coarse fibre and cheap training. As a general +thing, you do not get elegance short of two or three removes from the +soil, out of which our best blood doubtless comes,--quite as good, no +doubt, as if it came from those old prize-fighters with iron pots on +their heads, to whom some great people are so fond of tracing their +descent through a line of small artisans and petty shopkeepers whose +veins have held base fluid enough to fill the Cloaca Maxima! + +Does not money go everywhere?--said the Model. + +Almost. And with good reason. For though there are numerous exceptions, +rich people are, as I said, commonly altogether the most agreeable +companions. The influence of a fine house, graceful furniture, good +libraries, well-ordered tables, trim servants, and, above all, a +position so secure that one becomes unconscious of it, gives a harmony +and refinement to the character and manners which we feel, even if +we cannot explain their charm. Yet we can get at the reason of it by +thinking a little. + +All these appliances are to shield the sensibility from disagreeable +contacts, and to soothe it by varied natural and artificial influences. +In this way the mind, the taste, the feelings, grow delicate, just as +the hands grow white and soft when saved from toil and incased in soft +gloves. The whole nature becomes subdued into suavity. I confess I like +the quality-ladies better than the common kind even of literary ones. +They haven't read the last book, perhaps, but they attend better to you +when you are talking to them. If they are never learned, they make up +for it in tact and elegance. Besides, I think, on the whole, there is +less self-assertion in diamonds than in dogmas. I don't know where +you will find a sweeter portrait of humility than in Esther, the poor +play-girl of King Ahasuerus; yet Esther put on her royal apparel when +she went before her lord. I have no doubt she was a more gracious and +agreeable person than Deborah, who judged the people and wrote the story +of Sisera. The wisest woman you talk with is ignorant of something that +you know, but an elegant woman never forgets her elegance. + +Dowdyism is clearly an expression of imperfect vitality. The highest +fashion is intensely alive,--not alive necessarily to the truest and +best things, but with its blood tingling, as it were, in all its +extremities and to the farthest point of its surface, so that the +feather in its bonnet is as fresh as the crest of a fighting-cock, and +the rosette on its slipper as clean-cut and _pimpant_ (pronounce it +English fashion,--it is a good word) as a dahlia. As a general rule, +that society where flattery is acted is much more agreeable than that +where it is spoken. Don't you see why? Attention and deference don't +require you to make fine speeches expressing your sense of unworthiness +(lies) and returning all the compliments paid you. This is one reason. + +--A woman of sense ought to be above flattering any man,--said the +Model. + +[_My reflection._ Oh! oh! no wonder you didn't get married. Served you +right.] _My remark._ Surely, Madam,--if you mean by flattery telling +people boldly to their faces that they are this or that, which they are +not. But a woman who does not carry a halo of good feeling and desire +to make everybody contented about with her wherever she goes,--an +atmosphere of grace, mercy, and peace, of at least six feet radius, +which wraps every human being upon whom she voluntarily bestows her +presence, and so flatters him with the comfortable thought that she +is rather glad he is alive than otherwise, isn't worth the trouble of +talking to, _as a woman_; she may do well enough to hold discussions +with. + +--I don't think the Model exactly liked this. She said,--a little +spitefully, I thought,--that a sensible man might stand a little praise, +but would of course soon get sick of it, if he were in the habit of +getting much. + +Oh, yes,--I replied,--just as men get sick of tobacco. It is notorious +how apt they are to get tired of that vegetable. + +--That's so!--said the young fellow John.--I've got tired of my cigars +and burnt 'em all up. + +I am heartily glad to hear it,--said the Model.--I wish they were all +disposed of in the same way. + +So do I,--said the young fellow John. + +Can't you get your friends to unite with you in committing those odious +instruments of debauchery to the flames in which you have consumed your +own? + +I wish I could,--said the young fellow John. + +It would be a noble sacrifice,--said the Model,--and every American +woman would be grateful to you. Let us burn them all in a heap out in +the yard. + +That a'n't my way,--said the young fellow John;--I burn 'em one 't' +time,--little end in my mouth and big end outside. + +--I watched for the effect of this sudden change of programme, when it +should reach the calm stillness of the Model's interior apprehension, +as a boy watches for the splash of a stone which he has dropped into a +well. But before it had fairly reached the water, poor Iris, who had +followed the conversation with a certain interest until it turned this +sharp corner, (for she seems rather to fancy the young fellow John,) +laughed out such a clear, loud laugh, that it started us all off, as the +locust-cry of some full-throated soprano drags a multitudinous chorus +after it. It was plain that some dam or other had broken in the soul of +this young girl, and she was squaring up old scores of laughter, out of +which she had been cheated, with a grand flood of merriment that +swept all before it. So we had a great laugh all round, in which the +Model--who, if she had as many virtues as there are spokes to a wheel, +all compacted with a personality as round and complete as its tire, yet +wanted that one little addition of grace, which seems so small, and +is as important as the linchpin in trundling over the rough ways of +life--had not the tact to join. She seemed to be "stuffy" about it, as +the young fellow John said. In fact, I was afraid the joke would have +cost us both our new lady-boarders. It had no effect, however, except, +perhaps, to hasten the departure of the elder of the two, who could, on +the whole, be spared. + +--I had meant to make this note of our conversation a text for a few +axioms on the matter of breeding. But it so happened, that, exactly at +this point of my record, a very distinguished philosopher, whom several +of our boarders and myself go to hear, and whom no doubt many of my +readers follow habitually, treated this matter of _manners_. Up to this +point, if I have been so fortunate as to coincide with him in opinion, +and so unfortunate as to try to express what he has more felicitously +said, nobody is to blame; for what has been given thus far was all +written before the lecture was delivered. But what shall I do now? He +told us it was childish to lay down rules for deportment,--but he could +not help laying down a few. + +Thus,--_Nothing so vulgar as to be in a hurry._--True, but hard of +application. People with short legs step quickly, because legs are +pendulums, and swing more times in a minute the shorter they are. +Generally a natural rhythm runs through the whole organization: quick +pulse, fast breathing, hasty speech, rapid trains of thought, excitable +temper. _Stillness_ of person and steadiness of features are signal +marks of good-breeding. Vulgar persons can't sit still, or, at least, +they must work their limbs--or features. + +_Talking of one's own ails and grievances._--Bad enough, but not so bad +as insulting the person you talk with by remarking on his ill-looks, or +appearing to notice any of his personal peculiarities. + +_Apologizing._--A very desperate habit,--one that is rarely cured. +Apology is only egotism wrong side out. Nine times out of ten, the first +thing a man's companion knows of his shortcoming is from his apology. It +is mighty presumptuous on your part to suppose your small failures of so +much consequence that you must make a talk about them. + +Good dressing, quiet ways, low tones of voice, lips that can wait, and +eyes that do not wander,--shyness of personalities, except in certain +intimate communions,--to be _light in hand_ in conversation, to have +ideas, but to be able to make talk, if necessary, without them,--to +belong to the company you are in, and not to yourself,--to have nothing +in your dress or furniture so fine that you cannot afford to spoil it +and get another like it, yet to preserve the harmonies throughout your +person and dwelling: I should say that this was a fair capital of +manners to begin with. + +Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies very commonly an +overestimate of our special individuality, as distinguished from our +generic humanity. It is just here that the very highest society asserts +its superior breeding. Among truly elegant people of the highest _ton_, +you will find more real equality in social intercourse than in a country +village. As nuns drop their birth-names and become Sister Margaret and +Sister Mary, so high-bred people drop their personal distinctions +and become brothers and sisters of conversational charity. Nor are +fashionable people without their heroism. I believe there are men that +have shown as much self-devotion in carrying a lone wall-flower down to +the supper-table as ever saint or martyr in the act that has canonized +his name. There are Florence Nightingales of the ballroom, whom nothing +can hold back from their errands of mercy. They find out the red-handed, +gloveless undergraduate of bucolic antecedents, as he squirms in his +corner, and distil their soft words upon him like dew upon the green +herb. They reach even the poor relation, whose dreary apparition saddens +the perfumed atmosphere of the sumptuous drawing-room. I have known one +of these angels ask, _of her own accord_, that a desolate middle-aged +man, whom nobody seemed to know, should be presented to her by the +hostess. He wore no shirt-collar,--he had on black gloves,--and was +flourishing a red bandanna handkerchief! Match me this, ye proud +children of poverty, who boast of your paltry sacrifices for each other! +Virtue in humble life! What is that to the glorious self-renunciation +of a martyr in pearls and diamonds? As I saw this noble woman bending +gracefully before the social mendicant,--the white billows of her beauty +heaving under the foam of the traitorous laces that half revealed +them,--I should have wept with sympathetic emotion, but that tears, +except as a private demonstration, are an ill-disguised expression of +self-consciousness and vanity, which is inadmissible in good society. + +I have sometimes thought, with a pang, of the position in which +political chance or contrivance might hereafter place some one of +our fellow-citizens. It has happened hitherto, so far as my limited +knowledge goes, that the President of the United States has always been +what might be called in general terms a gentleman. But what if at some +future time the choice of the people should fall upon one on whom that +lofty title could not, by any stretch of charity, be bestowed? This may +happen,--how soon the future only knows. Think of this miserable man +of coming political possibilities,--an unpresentable boor, sucked into +office by one of those eddies in the flow of popular sentiment which +carry straws and chips into the public harbor, while the prostrate +trunks of the monarchs of the forest hurry down on the senseless stream +to the gulf of political oblivion! Think of him, I say, and of the +concentrated gaze of good society through its thousand eyes, all +confluent, as it were, in one great burning-glass of ice that shrivels +its wretched object in fiery torture, itself cold as the glacier of an +unsunned cavern! No,--there will be angels of good-breeding then as now, +to shield the victim of free institutions from himself and from his +torturers. I can fancy a lovely woman playfully withdrawing the knife +which he would abuse by making it an instrument for the conveyance +of food,--or, failing in this kind artifice, sacrificing herself by +imitating his use of that implement; how much harder than to plunge it +into her bosom, like Lucretia! I can see her studying his provincial +dialect until she becomes the Champollion of New England or Western or +Southern barbarisms. She has learned that _haeow_ means _what_; that +_thinkin'_ is the same thing as _thinking_; or she has found out the +meaning of that extraordinary monosyllable, which no single-tongued +phonographer can make legible, prevailing on the banks of the Hudson and +at its embouchure, and elsewhere,--what they say when they think they +say _first_, (_fe-eest,--fe_ as in the French _le_),--or that _cheer_ +means _chair_,--or that _urritation_ means _irritation_,--and so of +other enormities. Nothing surprises her. The highest breeding, you know, +comes round to the Indian standard,--to take everything coolly,--_nil +admirari_,--if you happen to be learned and like the Roman phrase for +the same thing. + +If you like the company of people that stare at you from head to foot to +see if there is a hole in your coat, or if you have not grown a little +older, or if your eyes are not yellow with jaundice, or if your +complexion is not a little faded, and so on, and then convey the fact +to you, in the style in which the Poor Relation addressed the +divinity-student,--go with them as much as you like. I hate the sight +of the wretches. Don't for mercy's sake think I hate _them_; the +distinction is one my friend or I drew long ago. No matter where you +find such people; they are clowns. The rich woman who looks and talks in +this way is not half so much a lady as her Irish servant, whose pretty +"saving your presence," when she has to say something which offends +her natural sense of good manners, has a hint in it of the breeding of +courts, and the blood of old Milesian kings, which very likely runs in +her veins,--thinned by two hundred years of potato, which, being an +underground fruit, tends to drag down the generations that are made +of it to the earth from which it came, and, filling their veins with +starch, turn them into a kind of human vegetable. + +I say, if you like such people, go with them. But I am going to make a +practical application of the example at the beginning of this particular +record, which some young people who are going to choose professional +advisers by-and-by may remember and thank me for. If you are making +choice of a physician, be sure you get one, if possible, with a cheerful +and serene countenance. A physician is not--at least, ought not to +be--an executioner; and a sentence of death on his face is as bad as a +warrant for execution signed by the Governor. As a general rule, no man +has a right to tell another by word or look that he is going to die. It +may be necessary in some extreme cases; but as a rule, it is the last +extreme of impertinence which one human being can offer to another. "You +have killed me," said a patient once to a physician who had rashly told +him he was incurable. He ought to have lived six months, but he was dead +in six weeks. If we will only let Nature and the God of Nature alone, +persons will commonly learn their condition as early as they ought to +know it, and not be cheated out of their natural birthright of hope of +recovery, which is intended to accompany sick people as long as life is +comfortable, and is graciously replaced by the hope of heaven, or at +least of rest, when life has become a burden which the bearer is ready +to let fall. + +Underbred people tease their sick and dying friends to death. The chance +of a gentleman or lady with a given mortal ailment to live a certain +time is as good again as that of the common sort of coarse people. As +you go down the social scale, you reach a point at length where the +common talk in sick rooms is of churchyards and sepulchres, and a kind +of perpetual vivisection is forever carried on, upon the person of the +miserable sufferer. + +And so, in choosing your clergyman, other things being equal, prefer the +one of a wholesome and cheerful habit of mind and body. If you can get +along with people who carry a certificate in their faces that their +goodness is so great as to make them very miserable, your children +cannot. And whatever offends one of these little ones cannot be right in +the eyes of Him who loved them so well. + +After all, as _you_ are a gentleman or a lady, you will probably select +gentlemen for your bodily and spiritual advisers, and then all will be +right. + +This repetition of the above words,--_gentleman and lady_,--which could +not be conveniently avoided, reminds me how much use is made of them by +those who ought to know what they mean. Thus, at a marriage ceremony, +once, of two very excellent persons who had been at service, instead +of, Do you take this man, etc.? and, Do you take this woman? how do you +think the officiating clergyman put the questions? It was, Do you, MISS +So and So, take this GENTLEMAN? and, Do you, MR. This or That, take +this LADY?! What would any English duchess, ay, or the Queen of England +herself, have thought, if the Archbishop of Canterbury had called her +and her bridegroom anything but plain woman and man at such a time? + +I don't doubt the Poor Relation thought it was all very fine, if she +happened to have been in the church; but if the worthy man who uttered +these monstrous words--monstrous in such a connection--had known the +ludicrous surprise, the convulsion of inward disgust and contempt, that +seized upon many of the persons who were present,--had guessed what a +sudden flash of light it threw on the Dutch gilding, the pinchbeck, +the shabby, perking pretension belonging to certain social layers,--so +inherent in their whole mode of being, that the holiest offices of +religion cannot exclude its impertinences,--the good man would have +given his marriage-fee twice over to recall that superb and full-blown +vulgarism. Any persons whom it could please have no better notion of +what the words referred to signify than of the meaning of _apsides_ and +_asymptotes_. + +MAN! Sir! WOMAN! Sir! Gentility is a fine thing, not to be undervalued, +as I have been trying to explain; but humanity comes before that. + + "When Adam delved and Eve span, + Where was then the gentleman?" + +The beauty of that plainness of speech and manners which comes from the +finest training is not to be understood by those whose _habitat_ is +below a certain level. Just as the exquisite sea-anemones and all the +graceful ocean-flowers die out at some fathoms below the surface, the +elegances and suavities of life die out one by one as we sink through +the social scale. Fortunately, the virtues are more tenacious of life, +and last pretty well until we get down to the mud of absolute pauperism, +where they do not flourish greatly. + +--I had almost forgotten about our boarders. As the Model of all the +Virtues is about to leave us, I find myself wondering what is the reason +we are not all very sorry. Surely we all like good persons. She is a +good person. Therefore we like her.--Only we don't. + +This brief syllogism, and its briefer negative, involving the principle +which some English conveyancer borrowed from a French wit and embodied +in the lines by which _Dr. Fell_ is made unamiably immortal,--this +syllogism, I say, is one that most persons have had occasion to +construct and demolish, respecting somebody or other, as I have done for +the Model. "Pious and painefull." Why has that excellent old phrase gone +out of use? Simply because these good _painefull_ or painstaking persons +proved to be such nuisances in the long run, that the word "painefull" +came, before people thought of it, to mean _paingiving_ instead of +_painstaking_. + +--So, the old fellah's off to-morrah,--said the young man John. + +Old fellow?--said I,--whom do you mean? + +Why, the chap that came with our little beauty,--the old boy in +petticoats. + +--Now that means something,--said I to myself.--These rough young +rascals very often hit the nail on the head, if they do strike with +their eyes shut. A real woman does a great many things without knowing +why she does them; but these pattern machines mix up their intellects +with everything they do, just like men. They can't help it, no doubt; +but we can't help getting sick of them, either. Intellect is to a +woman's nature what her watch-spring skirt is to her dress; it ought +to underlie her silks and embroideries, but not to show itself too +staringly on the outside.--You don't know, perhaps, but I will tell +you;--the brain is the palest of all the internal organs, and the heart +the reddest. Whatever comes from the brain carries the hue of the place +it came from, and whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and +color of its birthplace. + +The young man John did not hear my _soliloque_, of course, but sent +up one more bubble from our sinking conversation, in the form of a +statement, that she was at liberty to go to a personage who receives no +visits, as is commonly supposed, from virtuous people. + +Why, I ask again, (of my reader,) should a person who never did anybody +any wrong, but, on the contrary, is an estimable and intelligent, nay, +a particularly enlightened and exemplary member of society, fail to +inspire interest, love, and devotion? Because of the _reversed current_ +in the flow of thought and emotion. The red heart sends all its +instincts up to the white brain to be analyzed, chilled, blanched, and +so become pure reason, which is just exactly what we do not want of +woman as woman. The current should run the other way. The nice, calm, +cold thought, which in women shapes itself so rapidly that they hardly +know it as thought, should always travel to the lips _via_ the heart. It +does so in those women whom all love and admire. It travels the wrong +way in the Model. That is the reason why the Little Gentleman said, "I +hate her, I hate her." That is the reason why the young man John called +her the "old fellah," and banished her to the company of the great +Unpresentable. That is the reason why I, the Professor, am picking her +to pieces with scalpel and forceps. That is the reason why the young +girl whom she has befriended repays her kindness with gratitude and +respect, rather than with the devotion and passionate fondness which lie +sleeping beneath the calmness of her amber eyes. I can see her, as she +sits between this estimable and most correct of personages and the +misshapen, crotchety, often violent and explosive little man on the +other side of her, leaning and swaying towards him as she speaks, and +looking into his sad eyes as if she found some fountain in them at which +her soul could quiet its thirst. + +Women like the Model are a natural product of a chilly climate and high +culture. It is not + + "The frolic wind that breathes the spring, + Zephyr with Aurora playing," + +when the two meet + + ----"on beds of violets blue, + And fresh-blown roses washed in dew," + +that claim such women as their offspring. It is rather the east wind, as +it blows out of the fogs of Newfoundland, and clasps a clear-eyed wintry +noon on the chill bridal couch of a New England ice-quarry.--Don't throw +up your cap now, and hurrah as if this were giving up everything, and +turning against the best growth of our latitudes,--the daughters of the +soil. The brain-women never interest us like the heart-women; white +roses please less than red. But our Northern seasons have a narrow green +streak of spring, as well as a broad white zone of winter,--they have +a glowing band of summer and a golden stripe of autumn in their +many-colored wardrobe; and women are born to us that wear all these hues +of earth and heaven in their souls. Our ice-eyed brain-women are really +admirable, if we only ask of them just what they can give, and no more. +Only compare them, talking or writing, with one of those babbling, +chattering dolls, of warmer latitudes, who do not know enough even to +keep out of print, and who are interesting to us only as specimens of +_arrest of development_ for our psychological cabinets. + +Good-bye, Model of all the Virtues! We can spare you now. A little clear +perfection, undiluted with human weakness, goes a great way. Go! be +useful, be honorable and honored, be just, be charitable, talk pure +reason, and help to disenchant the world by the light of an achromatic +understanding. Good-bye! Where is my Beranger? I must read "Fretillon." + +Fair play for all. But don't claim incompatible qualities for anybody. +Justice is a very rare virtue in our community. Everything that public +sentiment cares about is put into a Papin's digester, and boiled under +high pressure till all is turned into one homogeneous pulp, and the very +bones give up their jelly. What are all the strongest epithets of our +dictionary to us now? The critics and politicians, and especially +the philanthropists, have chewed them, till they are mere wads of +syllable-fibre, without a suggestion of their old pungency and power. + +Justice! A good man respects the rights even of brute matter and +arbitrary symbols. If he writes the same word twice in succession, by +accident, he always erases the one that stands _second_; has not the +first-comer the prior right? This act of abstract justice, which I trust +many of my readers, like myself, have often performed, is a curious +anti-illustration, by the way, of the absolute wickedness of human +dispositions. Why doesn't a man always strike out the _first_ of the two +words, to gratify his diabolical love of _in_justice? + +So, I say, we owe a genuine, substantial tribute of respect to these +filtered intellects which have left their womanhood on the strainer. +They are so clear that it is a pleasure at times to look at the world of +thought through them. But the rose and purple tints of richer natures +they cannot give us, and it is not just to them to ask it. + +Fashionable society gets at these rich natures very often in a way one +would hardly at first think of. It loves vitality above all things, +sometimes disguised by affected languor, always well kept under by the +laws of good-breeding,--but still it loves abundant life, opulent and +showy organizations,--the spherical rather than the plane trigonometry +of female architecture,--plenty of red blood, flashing eyes, tropical +voices, and forms that bear the splendors of dress without growing pale +beneath their lustre. Among these you will find the most delicious women +you will ever meet,--women whom dress and flattery and the round of city +gayeties cannot spoil,--talking with whom, you forget their diamonds +and laces,--and around whom all the nice details of elegance, which +the cold-blooded beauty next them is scanning so nicely, blend in one +harmonious whole, too perfect to be disturbed by the petulant sparkle of +a jewel, or the yellow glare of a bangle, or the gay toss of a feather. + +There are many things that I, personally, love better than fashion or +wealth. Not to speak of those highest objects of our love and loyalty, +I think I love ease and independence better than the golden slavery of +perpetual _matinees_ and _soirees_, or the pleasures of accumulation. + +But fashion and wealth are two very solemn realities, which the +frivolous class of moralists have talked a great deal of silly stuff +about. Fashion is only the attempt to realize Art in living forms and +social intercourse. What business has a man who knows nothing about the +beautiful, and cannot pronounce the word _view_, to talk about fashion +to a set of people who, if one of the quality left a card at their +doors, would contrive to keep it on the very top of their heap of the +names of their two-story acquaintances, till it was as yellow as the +Codex Vaticanus? + +Wealth, too,--what an endless repetition of the same foolish +trivialities about it! Take the single fact of its alleged uncertain +tenure and transitory character. In old times, when men were all the +time fighting and robbing each other,--in those tropical countries where +the Sabeans and the Chaldeans stole all a man's cattle and camels, and +there were frightful tornadoes and rains of fire from heaven, it was +true enough that riches took wings to themselves not unfrequently in a +very unexpected way. But, with common prudence in investments, it is not +so now. In fact, there is nothing earthly that lasts so well, on the +whole, as money. A man's learning dies with him; even his virtues fade +out of remembrance; but the dividends on the stocks he bequeathes to his +children live and keep his memory green. + +I do not think there is much courage or originality in giving utterance +to truths that everybody knows, but which get overlaid by conventional +trumpery. The only distinction which it is necessary to point out to +feeble-minded folk is this: that, in asserting the breadth and depth of +that significance which gives to fashion and fortune their tremendous +power, we do not indorse the extravagances which often disgrace the one, +nor the meanness which often degrades the other. + +A remark which seems to contradict a universally current opinion is not +generally to be taken "neat," but watered with the ideas of common-sense +and commonplace people. So, if any of my young friends should be tempted +to waste their substance on white kids and "all-rounds," or to insist +on becoming millionnaires at once, by anything I have said, I will give +them references to some of the class referred to, well known to the +public as literary diluents, who will weaken any truth so that there is +not an old woman in the land who cannot take it with perfect impunity. + +I am afraid some of the blessed saints in diamonds will think I mean to +flatter them. I hope not;--if I do, set it down as a weakness. But there +is so much foolish talk about wealth and fashion, (which, of course, +draw a good many heartless and essentially vulgar people into the glare +of their candelabra, but which have a real respectability and meaning, +if we will only look at them stereoscopically, with both eyes instead of +one,) that I thought it a duty to speak a few words for them. Why can't +somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, +and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks? + +Lest my parish should suppose we have forgotten graver matters in these +lesser topics, I beg them to drop these trifles and read the following +lesson for the day. + + + + +THE TWO STREAMS. + + + Behold the rocky wall + That down its sloping sides + Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, + In rushing river-tides! + + Yon stream, whose sources run + Turned by a pebble's edge, + Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun + Through the cleft mountain-ledge. + + The slender rill had strayed, + But for the slanting stone, + To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid + Of foam-flecked Oregon. + + So from the heights of Will + Life's parting stream descends, + And, as a moment turns its slender rill, + Each widening torrent bends,-- + + From the same cradle's side, + From the same mother's knee,-- + One to long darkness and the frozen tide, + One to the Peaceful Sea! + + * * * * * + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Sixty Years' Gleanings from Life's Harvest._ A Genuine Autobiography. +By JOHN BROWN, Proprietor of the University Billiard-Rooms, Cambridge. +New York: Appleton & Company. 1859. + +We are all familiar with that John Brown whom the minstrel has +immortalized as being the possessor of a diminutive youth of the +aboriginal American race, who, in the course of the ditty, is multiplied +from "one little Injun" into "ten little Injuns," and who, in a +succeeding stanza, by an ingenious amphisbaenic process, is again +reduced to the singular number. As far as we are aware, the author of +this "genuine autobiography" claims no relationship with the famous +owner of tender redskins. The multiplicity of adventures of which he +has been the hero demands for him, however, the same notice that a +multiplicity of "Injuns" has insured to his illustrious namesake. + +We have always had a pet theory, that a plain and minute narrative +of any ordinary man's life, stated with simplicity and without any +reference to dramatic effect or the elegances of composition, would +possess an immediate interest for the public. We cannot know too much +about men. No man's life is so uneventful as to be incapable of amusing +and instructing. The same event is never the same to more than one +person; no two see it from the same point of view. And as we want to +know more of men than of incidents, every one's record of trifles +is useful. A book written by a Cornish miner, whose life passes in +subterranean monotony, sparing none of the petty and ever-recurring +details that make up his routined existence, would, if set down in the +baldest language, be a valuable contribution to literature. But we +rarely, if ever, find a man sufficiently free from vanity and the demon +of composition to tell us plainly what has happened to him. The moment +the working-man gets a pen into his hand, he is, as it were, possessed. +He is no longer himself. He has not the courage to come out naked +and show himself in all his grime and strength. The instant that he +conceives the idea of putting himself on paper he borrows somebody +else's clothes, and, instead of a free, manly figure, we have a wretched +scarecrow in a coat too small or too large for him,--generally the +latter. For it is a curious fact, that the more uneducated a man +is,--in which condition his ordinary language must of necessity be +proportionately idiomatic,--the greater pains he takes, when he has +formed the resolution of composing, to be splendid and expansive in his +style. He racks his brains until he rummages out imperfect memories of +the turgid paragraphs of cheap newspapers and novels which he has +some time or other read, and forthwith struts off with all the finest +feathers in the dictionary rustling about him. + +Mr. John Brown, the hero of the Autobiography before us, is no exception +to this unhappy rule. The son of a butcher, he became in boyhood a +sheep-driver, was then apprenticed to a shoemaker, got into trouble and +a prison, enlisted as a soldier, deserted, turned strolling player, +shipped on board a man-of-war, tried again to desert, was flogged at the +gratings, beheld Napoleon on board the Bellerophon, was discharged from +the navy, consorted with thieves and prize-fighters, appeared on the +London stage with success, married and starved, became the pet of the +Cambridge students, whom he assisted in amateur theatricals, started a +stage-coach line to London and failed, set up a billiard-room, got into +innumerable street-fights and always came off conqueror, was elected +town-councillor of Cambridge and made a fortune, which it is to be hoped +he is now enjoying. + +Here was material for a book. From the glimpses of his _personnel_ which +we occasionally catch through all Mr. Brown's splendid writing, we +should say that he was a man of a strong, hearty nature, full of +indomitable energy, and possessed with a truly Saxon predilection for +the use of his fists. The number of physical contests in which he was +chief actor renders his volume almost epical in character. Invulnerable +as Achilles and quarrelsome as Hector, he strides over the bodies of +innumerable foes. If some of his friends, the Seniors, at Cambridge, +would only put his adventures into Greek verse, he might descend to +posterity in sounding hexameters with the sons of Telamon and Thetis. + +The plain narrative portions of Mr. Brown's volume possess much real +interest. His adventures with the strolling players, the insight he +gives us into the life of a journeyman shoemaker, and his reminiscences +of his friends, the Jew old-clothes-men, the pick-pockets, and the +prize-fighters, are so many steaks cut warm from the living world, and +are good, substantial food for thought. But he seldom forgets himself +long, and is natural only by fits and starts. After he has been striding +along for a short time with a free, manly gait, he suddenly bethinks +himself that he is writing a book. The malign influences of Cambridge +University begin to work upon him. The loose stride is contracted; the +swing of the vigorous shoulders is restrained, and, instead of an honest +fellow tramping sturdily after his own fashion through the paths of +literature, we are treated to an imitation of Dr. Johnson, done by an +illiterate butcher's son. We are afraid that the Cantabs have been at +the bottom of John Brown's fine writing. How valuable, for instance, are +the following philosophical reflections upon Napoleon, which John Brown +makes when he beholds the dethroned Emperor standing sadly upon the poop +of the Bellerophon! + +"Here, then," remarks John, "had ended his dream of universal conquest; +here he lay prostrate at the foot of the altar," (we are informed a few +lines before this that he had taken his stand on the poop,) "on which he +sacrificed, not hecatombs, but pyramids, of human victims." (Beautiful +antithesis!) "As his ambition was boundless, posterity will not weep at +his fall. But that he insinuated himself into the hearts of a generous +people is too true; they worshipped him as a demi-god, until," etc. +Farther on, we learn the startling intelligence, that "for a time his +adopted country was enriched by the spoils and plunder of other lands." +(Did Alison know this?) "He formed the bulk of the population into an +organized banditti, and led them forth in martial pomp to do the unholy +work of bloodshed and robbery.... All the independent states of Europe +leagued together to put down this infamous system of national plunder." +(Russia among the rest of the independent states, we suppose.)... "Had +he been desirous of establishing just principles on earth, and crushing +despotism, the sympathies of the entire human race would have been +enlisted on his side." Certainly, John. Two and two make four, and +things that are equal to the same are equal to each other. + +After having in a street-fight pommelled an unhappy Cambridge student +into jelly, and reduced him to a state which he picturesquely describes +as resembling that of "a dog in a coal-box," he picks him up and +philosophically informs him that "all the different styles of fence were +invented and established for man's protection, not for his destruction. +Besides," he adds, with much profundity, "the laws thereto appertaining +are based on certain strict principles of honor, which you have +unquestionably violated in this case. Now, take my advice, never again +engage in fight without having some just cause of quarrel. Thus, at +least, you will always come off with credit, if not with victory." And +having delivered himself of this stupendous moral lesson, Dr. Samuel +Johnson Mendoza John Brown puts on his hat (he surely ought to have +had a full-bottomed wig under it) and walks off, leaving his opponent +doubtless more like a dog in a coal-box than ever. He sees Dr. +Abernethy, and rises into this inspired strain: "To me, who have ever +held genius and talent in veneration, as being + + "'Olympus-high above all earthly things,' + +the sight of this plain, unostentatious man afforded more pleasurable +feelings than could all the gilded pomp beneath the sun." One can fancy, +if John had communicated this reflection to the Doctor, what would have +been the reply of that suave practitioner. He goes to low dance-houses, +and the interesting result of his reflections on what he beheld there +is, "that vice, however gilded over, is still a hideous monster; in +which conviction, I resigned myself to that power that 'must delight in +virtue.'" When he speaks of his billiard-pupils, he loftily denominates +them "hundreds of the best gentlemen-players scattered over the earth's +surface," from which we draw the pleasing inference that none of John +Brown's scholars are addicted to subterranean billiards. + +In spite of these rags of old college-gowns, in which John so funnily +arrays himself on occasions, his book is worth reading. If it has not +the muscular, unaffected morality of his namesake's unsurpassable +"School-Days at Rugby," it is at least the production of an honest, +hearty Englishman, and teaches an excellent lesson on the value of pluck +and perseverance. + + +_Colton's Illustrated Cabinet Atlas and Descriptive Geography._ Maps by +G.W. COLTON. Text by R.S. FISHER. New YORK: J.H. Colton & Co. 4to. pp. +400. + +This work meets an acknowledged want; it combines in one convenient +volume most of the desirable features of the larger atlases, being full +enough in detail for all ordinary purposes, without being cumbersome and +costly. It is prefaced by a clear and well-digested statement of the +laws of Physical Geography, "based," as the publishers say, "upon the +excellent treatise on the same subject found in the Atlas of Milner and +Petermann, recently published in London." The maps are one hundred and +sixteen in number, admirably engraved, and, what especially enhances +their value, they are draughted on easily-convertible scales,--one inch +always representing ten, twenty-five, fifty, one hundred, or other +number of miles readily comparable. They include the results of the +latest explorations of travellers, and the newest settlements made by +the English and Americans. + +The descriptions are full and accurate, and the statistics of +population, trade, public and private institutions, etc., are convenient +for reference. This department is illustrated by over six hundred +wood-cuts. + +This Atlas may, therefore, fairly claim rank as a Cyclopaedia of +Geography, and for the household and school it is one of the most useful +publications of our time. The attention now everywhere excited by +proposed or impending changes in the boundary-lines of European States, +by the inroads of Western civilization in the East, by the settlement of +the Pacific Islands, and by the growth of empire on the western coast of +our own country, renders the publication of a compendious work like this +very timely. + + +_Poems._ By OWEN MEREDITH. The Wanderer and Clytemnestra. Boston: +Ticknor & Fields. 18mo. + +The author of these poems is Robert Bulwer Lytton, the son of the +eminent novelist. Though still very young, he has reached the honor of +being arrayed in Ticknor and Fields's "blue and gold," the paradisiacal +condition of contemporary poets; and his works occupy, in words, though +not in matter, as much space as Tennyson's. The volume includes all the +poems which Lytton has published up to the present time. The general +characteristics of his Muse are fluency, fancy, melody, and sensibility. +The diligent reader will detect, throughout the volume, the traces of +the author's sympathy with other poets, especially Tennyson, and, +amid all the opulence of expression and intensity of feeling, will be +sensible of the lack of decided original genius and character. There is +evidence of intellect and imagination, but they are at present tossed +somewhat wildly about in a tumult of sensations and passions, and have +not yet mastered their instruments. But the poems, as they are the +product of a young man, so they possess all the attractions which allure +young readers. It would not be surprising, if they obtained a popularity +equal to those of Alexander Smith; for they give even more musical +utterance to the loves, hopes, exultations, regrets, and despairs of +youth, and indicate the same hot blood. They are also characterized by +similar vagueness of thought and vividness of fancy, in those passages +where sensibility turns theorist and philosophizes on its gratified or +battled sensations,--while they generally evince wider culture, larger +superficial experience of life, a more controlling sense of the +beautiful, and an equal facility of self-abandonment to the passion of +the moment. + +Leaving out those poems which are repetitions or imitations, a thin +volume might be made containing some striking examples of original +perception and original experience. Among these the charming little +piece entitled "Madame La Marquise" would hold a prominent place. After +making, however, all deductions from the pretensions of the volume, it +may be said, that the father, at the same age, did not indicate so much +talent as the son. + + +_Symbols of the Capital; or Civilization in New York._ By A.D. MAYO. +12mo. + +This is a clear and forcibly written exposition of the tendencies of +American society, as surveyed from the point of view of an earnest, +practical, and dispassionate reformer. The essays on Town and Country +Life, those on Education, Art, and Religion, the Forces of Free Labor, +and the Gold Dollar, exhibit equal independence of thought and extent +of information. In the essay on the Position of Woman in America, a +difficult theme is discussed with candor and sagacity. We have rarely +seen a volume to which the conscientious adversaries of the reforms of +the day could go for a more lucid statement of the opinions they oppose; +and it is admirably calculated to effect the purpose the author had in +view, namely, "to aid the young men and women of our land in their +attempt to realize a character that shall justify our professions of +republicanism, and to establish a civilization which, in becoming +national, shall illustrate every principle of a pure Christianity." + + +_The Avenger, a Narrative; and other Papers._ By THOMAS DE QUINCEY, +Author of "Confessions of an Opium-Eater," etc. Boston: Ticknor & +Fields. 16mo. + +This is the twenty-first volume of De Quincey's miscellaneous writings, +collected by the indefatigable American editor, Mr. James T. Fields. +It contains "The Avenger," a powerful story of wrong and revenge; +"Additions to the Confessions of an Opium-Eater"; "Supplementary Note +on the Essenes," in which the theory of the original paper is supported +against objections by some new arguments; a long paper on "China," +published in 1857, and full of information in regard to that empire; and +"Traditions of the Rabbins," one of the most exquisite papers in the +list of the author's writings. + + +_The Life of George Herbert. _By GEORGE L. DUYCKINCK. New York: 1858. +pp. 197. + +We have too long neglected to do our share in bringing this delightful +little book to the notice of the lovers of holy George Herbert, +among whom we may safely reckon a large number of the readers of the +"Atlantic." It is based on the life by Izaak Walton, but contains much +new matter, either out of Walton's reach or beyond the range of his +sympathy. Notices are given of Nicholas Ferrar and other friends +of Herbert. There is a very agreeable sketch of Bemerton and its +neighborhood, as it now is, and the neat illustrations are of the kind +that really illustrate. The Brothers Duyckinck are well known for their +unpretentious and valuable labors in the cause of good letters and +American literary history, and this is precisely such a book as we +should expect from the taste, scholarship, and purity of mind which +distinguish both of them. It is much the best account of Herbert with +which we are acquainted. + + +_Lectures on Metaphysics._ By SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, BART., Professor of +Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. Edited by the +Rev. Henry Longueville Mansel, B.D., Oxford, and John Veitch, M.A., +Edinburgh. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 8vo. + +Few persons, with any pretensions to a knowledge of the metaphysicians +of the century, are unacquainted with Sir William Hamilton. His articles +in the "Edinburgh Review" on Cousin and Dr. Brown, and his Dissertations +on Reid, are the most important contributions to philosophy made in +Great Britain for many years. The present volume contains his Course +of Lectures, forty-six in number, which he delivered as Professor +of Metaphysics; and being intended for young students, they are, as +compared with his other works, more comprehensible without being less +comprehensive. The most conclusive proof of the excellence of these +Lectures is to be found in their influence on the successive classes of +students before whom they were pronounced. The universal testimony of +the young men who were fortunate enough to listen to Hamilton has been, +that his teaching not only inspired them with an enthusiasm for the +science, and gave them clear ideas and accurate information, but +directly aided them in the discipline of their minds. Some of his +students became, later in life, champions of his system; others became +its opponents; but opponents as well as champions warmly professed their +obligations to their instructor, and dated their interest in philosophy +from the period when they were brought by these Lectures within the +contagious sphere of his powerful intellect. So numerous were these +testimonials, that they gradually roused public curiosity to see +and read what was so effective as spoken. That curiosity has now an +opportunity of being gratified, and we do not doubt that these Lectures +will have a greater popularity than usually attends philosophical +publications. The American publishers deserve thanks for the cheap, +compact, and elegant form of their reprint. + +We have no space to present here an exposition of Hamilton's system, or +to discuss any of its leading principles. We can merely allude to some +characteristics of his mode of thinking and writing which make his +Lectures of especial value to those who propose to begin the study of +metaphysics, or whose knowledge of the science is superficial. Hamilton +has the immense advantage of being a scholar in that large sense which +implies the exercise, not merely of attention and memory, but of every +faculty of the mind, in the acquisition and arrangement of knowledge. +His erudition is great, but it is also critical and interpretative. He +knows intimately every philosophical writer from the dawn of speculation +to the last German thinker, including the somewhat neglected Schoolmen +of the Middle Ages; and in this volume, every important question that +arises is historically as well as analytically treated, and the names +are given of the thinkers on both sides. In the course of one or two +sentences, he often places the reader in a position to view a principle, +not only in itself, but in relation to the controversies which have +raged round it for two thousand years. Hamilton's erudition is +also displayed in the quotations with which his pages are +sprinkled,--fragrant sentences, which came originally from the +imagination or character of the writers he quotes, and which relieve his +own abstract propositions and reasonings with concrete beauty or truth. +Most of these quotations will be novel even to advanced students. + +Hamilton is also admirable in statement. Confusion, vacillation, +obscurity, uncertainty, are as foreign to his style as to his mind. He +is almost rigid in his precision. Every word has its meaning, and +every idea its stern, sure, decisive statement. His masterly powers +of analysis, of reasoning, of generalization, are always adequately +exhibited by a corresponding mastery of expression. The study of such a +volume as the present is itself an education in statement and logic; and +that it will be studied by thousands, in the colleges and out of the +colleges of the country, we cannot but hope. + + +_Allibone's Dictionary of Authors._ Philadelphia: Childs & Peterson, +1858. Vol. I. pp. 1005. + +Leigh Hunt, in one of his Essays, speaks of the wishful thrill with +which, in looking over an index, he wondered if ever his name would +appear under the letter H in the reversed order (Hunt, Leigh) peculiar +to that useful and too much neglected field of literary achievement. In +Mr. Allibone's Dictionary he would see his wish more than satisfied; for +if he turn up "Hunt, Leigh," he will find a reference to "Hunt, James +Henry Leigh," and under that head a list of his works, more complete, +perhaps, than he himself could easily have drawn up. + +In glancing along the leaves of a collection like this, one's heart is +touched with something of the same vague pathos that dims the eye in a +graveyard. What a necrology of notability! How many a controversialist +who made a great stir in his day, how many a once rising genius, how +many a withering satirist, lies here shrunk all away to the tombstone +immortality of a name and date! Think of the aspirations, the dreams, +the hopes, the toil, the confidence (of himself and wife) in an +impartial and generous posterity;--and then read "Smith J.(ohn?) +1713-1784(?). The Vision of Immortality, an Epic Poem in Twelve Books, +1740, 4to. _See Lowndes._" The time of his own death less certain than +that of his poem, which we may fix pretty safely in 1740,--and the only +posterity that took any interest in him the indefatigable Lowndes! Well, +even a bibliographic indemnity for contemporary neglect, to have so +much as your title-page read after it is a century old, and to enjoy a +posthumous public of one, is better than nothing. + +A volume like Mr. Allibone's--so largely a hospital for incurable +forgottenhoods--is better than any course of philosophy to the young +author. Let him reckon how many of the ten thousand or so names here +recorded he has ever heard of before, let him make this myriad the +denominator of a fraction to which the dozen perennial fames shall +be the numerator, and he will find that his dividend of a chance at +escaping speedy extinction is not worth making himself unhappy about. +Should some statistician make such a book the basis for constructing the +tables of a fame-insurance company, the rates at which alone policies +could be safely issued would put them beyond the reach of all except +those who did not need them. After all, perhaps, the next best thing to +being famous or infamous is to be utterly forgotten; for that, at least, +is to accomplish a decisive result by living. To hang on the perilous +edge of immortality by the nails, liable at any moment to drop into the +waters of Oblivion, is at best a questionable beatitude. + +But if a dictionary of this kind give rise to some melancholy +reflections, it is not without suggestions of a more soothing character. +We are reminded by it of the tender-heartedness of Chaucer, who, in the +"House of Fame," after speaking of Orpheus and Arion, (Mr. Tyrwhitt +calls him Orion,) and Cheiron and Glasgerion, has a kind word for the +lesser minstrels that play on pipes made of straw,-- + + "Such as have the little herd-groomes + That keepen beastes in the broomes." + +This is the true Valhalla of Mediocrity, the _libra d'oro_ of the +_onymi-anonymi_, of the never-named authors who exist only in +name,--Parson Adams would be here, had he found a printer for his +sermons, Mr. Primrose for his tracts on Monogamy,--and not merely +such _nominum umbroe_ of the past, but that still stranger class of +ancient-moderns, preterite-presents, dead (and something more) as +authors, but still to be met with in the flesh as solid men and +brethren,--privileged, alas, to outstay cockcrow when they drop in of an +evening to give you their views on the aims and tendencies of periodical +literature. Will it be nothing, if we should be untimely snatched +away from our present sphere of usefulness, to those shadowy [Greek: +pleiones] who lived too soon to enjoy their monthly dip in the +ATLANTIC,--will it be nothing, we say, that our orphaned Papyrorcetes, +junior, will be able to read the name of his lamented parent on the +nine-hundredth page of Allibone,--occupying, at least, an entire line, +and therefore (as we gather from a hasty calculation) sure forever of +1/360,000th of the attention of whoever reads the book through? This +is a handy and inexpensive substitute for the _imagines_ of the Roman +nobles; for those were inconvenient to pack on a change of lodgings, +liable to melt in warm weather,--even the elder Brutus himself might +soften in August,--and not readily salable, unless to a _novus homo_ who +wished to buy a set of ancestors ready-made, as some of our enthusiastic +genealogists are said to order a family-tree from the heraldic +nursery-man skilled to graft a slip of Scroggins on a stock of De Vere +or Montmorenci. Contemporary glory is comparatively dear; it is sold by +the column,--for columns have got over their Horatian antipathies; but +the bibliographer will thank you for the name of any man that has ever +printed a book, nay, his gratitude will glow in exact proportion to the +obscurity of the author, and one may thus confer perpetuity at +least (which is a kind of Tithonus-immortality) upon some respected +progenitor, or assure it to himself, with little trouble and at the cost +of a postage-stamp. + +The benignity of Providence is nowhere more strongly marked than in its +compensations; and what can be more beautiful than the arrangement by +which the same harmless disinterestedness of matter and style that once +made an author the favorite of trunk-makers and grocers should, by +thus leading to the quiet absorption of his works, make them sure of +commemoration by Brunet or Lowndes and of commanding famine-prices under +the hammer? Fame, like electricity, is thus positive and negative; and +if a writer must be Somebody to make himself of permanent interest to +the world at large, he must not less be Nobody--like Junius--to have his +namelessness embalmed by Mons. Guerard. Take comfort, therefore, all ye +who either make paper invaluable or worthless by the addition of your +autograph! for your dice (as the Abbe Galiani said of Nature's) are +always loaded, and you may make your book the heir of Memory in two +ways,--by contriving to get the fire of genius into it, or to get it +into the fire by the hands of the hangman. Milton's "Areopagitica" is an +example of one method, and the "Philostratus" of Blount (who pillaged +the "Areopagitica") of the other. And yet, again, how perverse is human +nature! how more perverse is literary taste! There is a large class +of men madly desirous to read cuneiform and runic inscriptions simply +because of their unreadableness, adding to our compulsory stock of +knowledge about the royal Smiths and Joneses of to-day much conjectural +and conflicting information concerning their royal prototypes of an +antiquity unknown, and, as we fondly hoped, unknowable. Were there only +a compensatory arrangement for this also in another class who should be +driven by a like irresistible instinct to unreadable books, the heart +of the political economist would be gladdened at seeing the substantial +rewards of authorship so much more equally distributed by means of a +demand adapted to the always abundant supply. + +We should like Mr. Allibone's book better, if it were more exclusively a +dictionary of names, facts, editions, and dates, and allowed less +space (or none at all) to opinions. The contemporaneous judgments of +individual critics upon writers of original power are commonly of little +value, and are absolutely worthless when an author's fame has struck its +roots down into the kindly soil of national or European appreciation, +when his work has won that "perfect witness of all-judging Jove" which +cannot be begged or bought. When the criticism is anonymous, (as are +many of those cited by Mr. Allibone,) it has not even the reflected +interest, as a measure of the critic himself, which we find sometimes +in the incapacity of a strong nature to appreciate a great one, as in +Johnson's opinion of Milton, for instance,--or of a delicate mind to +comprehend an imaginative one, as in Addison's of Bunyan. In the article +"Carlyle," for example, (by the way, John A. Carlyle is omitted,) we +should have been better content, if Mr. Allibone (instead of letting us +know what "Blackwood's Magazine" thinks of a writer who, whatever his +faults of style, has probably influenced the thought of his generation +more than any other man) had given us the date of the first publication +of "Cromwell's Letters and Speeches," and had mentioned that the +original collection of the "Miscellanies" was made in America. (This +last we have since found alluded to under "De Quincey.") Sometimes the +editor himself intrudes remarks which are quite out of keeping with the +character of such a work. We will give an instance which caught our +eye in turning over the leaves. After giving the title of "The Rare +Trauailes" of Job Hortop, Mr. Allibone adds, "We trust that in the +home-relation of his 'Rare Trauails among wilde and sauage people' the +_raconteur_ did not yield to the temptation of 'pulling the long bow,' +for the purpose of increasing the amazement of his wondering auditors." +Now if Mr. Allibone knew nothing about Hortop, he should have said +nothing. If the edition of 1591 was inaccessible to him, he could have +found out what kind of a story-teller our ancient mariner was in the +third volume of Hakluyt. We resent this slur upon Job the more because +he happens to be a favorite of ours, and saw no more wonders than +travellers of that day had the happy gift of seeing. We remember he got +sight of a very fine merman in the neighborhood of the Bermudas; but +then stout Sir John Hawkins was as lucky. + +The two criticisms we have made touch, one of them the plan of the work, +and the other its manner. We have one more to make, which, perhaps, +should properly have come under the former of these two heads;--it +is that Mr. Allibone allows a disproportionate space to the smaller +celebrities of the day in comparison with those of the past. In such +an undertaking, the amount of interest which the general public may be +supposed to take in comparatively local notabilities should, it seems to +us, be measured on a scale whose degrees are generations. + +Mr. Allibone's good-nature has misled him in some cases to the allowance +of manifest disproportions. Twice as much room, for instance, is allowed +to Mr. Dallas as to Emerson. Mr. Dallas has been Vice-President of the +United States; Emerson is one of the few masters of the English tongue, +and both by teaching and practical example has done more to make the +life of the scholar beautiful, and the career of the man of letters a +reproof to all low aims and an inspiration to all high ones, than any +other man in America. + +What we have said has been predicated upon the general impression left +on our minds after dipping into the book here and there almost at +random. But on opening it again, we find so much that is interesting, +even in those articles which are most expansive and gossiping, that we +are almost inclined to draw our pen through what we have written in the +way of objection, and merely express our gratitude to Mr. Allibone for +what he has done. We have been led to speak of what we consider the +defects, or rather the redundancies, of the "Dictionary," because we +believe, that, if less bulky, it would be more certain of the +wide distribution it so highly deserves. It is a shrewd saying of +Vauvenargues, that it is "_un grand signe de mediocrite de louer +toujours moderement_," and we have no desire to expose the "Atlantic" to +a charge so fatal by showing ourselves cold to the uncommon merits of +Mr. Allibone's achievement. The book is rather entitled to be called an +Encyclopaedia than a Dictionary. As the work of a single man, it is one +of the wonders of literary industry. The amount of labor implied in it +is enormous, and its general accuracy, considering the immense number +and variety of particulars, remarkable. A kindly and impartial spirit +makes itself felt everywhere,--by no means an easy or inconsiderable +merit. We have already had occasion several times to test its practical +value by use, and can recommend it from actual experiment. Every man +who ever owned an English book, or ever means to own one, will find +something here to his purpose. + +That a volume so comprehensive in its scope and so multitudinous in its +details should be wholly without errors and omissions is impossible; and +we trust that any of our readers who detect such will discharge a part +of the obligation they are under to Mr. Allibone by communicating them +to him for the benefit of a second edition. + + +1. _Truebner's Bibliographical Guide to American Literature._ London: +TRUEBNER & CO. 1859. pp. cxlix., 554. 8vo. + +2. _Index to the Catalogue of a Portion of the Public Library of the +City of Boston._ 1858. pp. 204. + +Next to knowledge itself, perhaps the best thing is to know where to +find it. To make an index that shall combine completeness, succinctness, +and clearness,--how much intelligence this demands is proved by the +number of failures. Mr. Truebner's volume contains, 1st, some valuable +bibliographical prolegomena by the editor himself; 2d, an historical +sketch of American literature, which is not very well done by Mr. Moran, +and would have been admirably done by Mr. Duyckinck; 3d, a full and very +interesting account of American libraries by Mr. Edwards; and 4th, a +classed list of books written and published in the United States during +the last forty years, arranged in thirty-one appropriate departments, +with a supplementary thirty-second of _Addenda_. In some instances,--as +in giving tables of the proceedings of learned societies,--the period +embraced is nearly a century. A general alphabetical index completes +the volume. The several heads are, Bibliography, Collections, Theology, +Jurisprudence, Medicine and Surgery, Natural History (in five +subdivisions), Chemistry and Pharmacy, Natural Philosophy, Mathematics +and Astronomy, Philosophy, Education (in three subdivisions), Modern +Languages, Philology, American Antiquities, Indians and Languages, +History (in three subdivisions), Geography, Useful Arts, Military +Science, Naval Science, Rural and Domestic Economy, Politics, Commerce, +Belles Lettres, Fine Arts, Music, Freemasonry, Mormonism, Spiritualism, +Guide Books, Maps and Atlases, Periodicals. This list is enough to show +the great value of the "Guide" to students and collectors. The volume +will serve to give both Americans and Europeans a juster notion of the +range and tendency, as well as amount, of literary activity in the +United States. As the work of a cultivated and intelligent foreigner, it +has all the more claim to our acknowledgment, and also to our indulgence +where we discover omissions or inaccuracies. + +The second volume whose title stands at the head of our article would +demand no special notice from us, were it not for the admirable manner +in which it is executed and the judgment evinced in the selection of the +books which it catalogues. The Boston Library may well be congratulated +on having at its head a gentleman so experienced and competent as +Professor Jewett. He has hitherto distinguished himself in a department +of literature in which little notoriety is to be won, his labors +in which, however, are appreciated by the few whose quiet suffrage +outvalues the noisy applause of the moment. His little work on the +"Construction of Library Catalogues" is a truly valuable contribution to +letters, rendering, as it does, the work of classification more easy, +and increasing the chances of our getting good general directories to +the books already in our libraries, without which the number of volumes +we gather is only an increase of incumbrance. It is a great detriment to +sound and exhaustive scholarship, that the books for students to read +should be left to chance; and we owe a great deal more than we are apt +to acknowledge to men who, like Mr. Jewett, enable us to find out the +books that will really help us. Dr. Johnson, to be sure, commends the +habit of "browsing" in libraries; and this will do very well for those +whose memory clinches, like the tentacula of zooephytes, around every +particle of nourishment that comes within its reach. But the habit tends +rather to make ready talkers than thorough scholars; and he who is left +to his chances in a collection of books grasps like a child in the +"grab-bag" at a fair, and gets, in nine cases out of ten, precisely what +he does not want. + +We think that a great mistake is made in the multiplying of libraries +in the same neighborhood, unless for some specialty, such as Natural +History or the like. It is sad to think of the money thus wasted in +duplicates and triplicates. Rivalry in such cases is detrimental rather +than advantageous to the interests of scholarship. Instead of one good +library, we get three poor ones; and so, instead of twenty men of real +learning, we are vexed with a score of sciolists, who are so through +no fault of their own. We hope that the movement now on foot, to give +something like adequacy to the University Library at Cambridge, will +receive the aid it deserves, not only from graduates of the College, but +from all persons interested in the literary advancement of the country. +So there be one really good library in the United States, it matters +little where it is, for students will find it,--and they should at least +be spared the necessity of going abroad in order to master any branch of +learning. + +A great library is of incalculable benefit to any community. It saves +infinite waste of time to the thinker by enabling him to know what has +already been thought. It is of greater advantage (and that advantage is +of a higher kind) than any seminary of learning, for it supplies the +climate and atmosphere, without which good seed is sown in vain. It is +not merely that books are the "precious life-blood of master-spirits," +and to be prized for what they contain, but they are still more useful +for what they prevent. The more a man knows, the less will he be apt to +think he knows, the less rash will he be in conclusion, and the less +hasty in utterance. It is of great consequence to the minds of most +men how they _begin_ to think, and many an intellect has been lamed +irretrievably for steady and lofty flight by toppling out into the +helpless void of opinion with wings yet callow. The gross and carnal +hallucinations of what is called "Spiritualism"--the weakest-kneed of +all whimsies that have come upon the parish from the days of the augurs +down to our own--would be disenchanted at once in a neighborhood +familiar with Del Rio, Wierus, Bodin, Scot, Glanvil, Webster, Casaubon, +and the Mathers. Good books are the enemies of delusion, the most +effectual extinguishers of self-conceit. Impersonal, dispassionate, +self-possessed, they reason without temper, and remain forever of the +same mind without obstinacy. The man who has the freedom of a great +library lengthens his own life without the weariness of living; he may +include all past generations in his experience without risk of senility; +not yet fifty, he may have made himself the contemporary of "the +world's gray fathers"; and with no advantages of birth or person, he may +have been admitted to the selectest society of all times and lands. + +We live in the hope of seeing, if not a great library somewhere on this +continent, at least the foundations of such a one, laid broad enough and +deep enough to change hope into a not too remote certainty. Hitherto +America has erected but one statue in commemoration of a scholar, and we +cannot help wishing that the money that has been wasted in setting up +in effigy one or two departed celebrities we could mention had been +appropriated to a means of culture which, perhaps more than any other, +would be likely to give us men worthy of bronze or marble, but above the +necessity of them for memory. + + * * * * * + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS. + + +The Poetical Works of William Motherwell; with a Memoir of his Life. +Fourth Edition, greatly Enlarged. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 32mo. pp. +308. 75 cts. + +The Avenger, a Narrative; and other Papers. By Thomas De Quincey. +Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. 327. 75 cts. + +Life of William Pitt. By Lord Macaulay. Preceded by the Life of the Earl +of Chatham. New York. Delisser & Proctor. 32mo. pp. 227. 50 cts. + +Shakspeare's Legal Acquirements Considered. By John Lord Campbell, +LL.D., F.R.S.E. In a Letter to J. Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A. New York. +D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 146. 75 cts. + +The Pillar of Fire; or, Israel in Bondage. By Rev. J.H. Ingraham, Author +of "The Prince of the House of David." New York. Pudney & Russell. 12mo. +pp. 600. $1.25. + +The Life of North American Insects. By B. Jaeger, Assisted by H.E. +Preston, M.D. With Numerous Illustrations from Specimens in the Cabinet +of the Author. New York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 319. $1.25. + +Life of Frederick the Great. By Macaulay. New York. Delisser & Proctor. +32mo. pp. 277. 50 cts. + +Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic. By Sir William Hamilton, Bart. Edited +by the Rev. Henry Longueville Mansel, B.D., Oxford, and John Veitch, +M.A., Edinburgh. 2 vols. Vol. I. Metaphysics. Boston. Gould & Lincoln. +8vo. pp. 718. $3.00. + +India and the Indian Mutiny. Comprising the Complete History of +Hindostan, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day; with Full +Particulars of the Recent Mutiny in India. By Henry Frederick Malcolm. +Illustrated with Numerous Engravings. Philadelphia. J.W. Bradley. 12mo. +pp. 426. $1.25. + +Frank Elliott; or, Walks in the Desert. By James Challen. Philadelphia. +J. Challen & Son. 12mo. pp. 349. $1.00. + +Border War. A Tale of Disunion. By J.B. Jones, Author of "Wild Western +Scenes." New York. Rudd & Carleton. 12mo. pp. 502. $1.25. + +Mothers and Infants, Nurses and Nursing. A Translation from the French +of a Treatise on Nursing, Weaning, and the General Treatment of Young +Children. By Dr. A.L. Donne. Boston. Phillips, Sampson, & Co. 12mo. pp. +303. $1.00. + +Poems and Ballads of Goethe. Translated by W. Edmonstoune Aytoun, +D.C.L., and Theodore Martin. New York. Delisser & Proctor. 12mo. pp. +240. 75 cts. + +On the Probable Fall of the Value of Gold; the Commercial and Social +Consequences which may Ensue, and the Measures which it Invites. By +Michel Chevalier. Translated from the French, with a Preface by Richard +Cobden, Esq. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 217. $1.25. + +A Treatise on Theism and on the Modern Skeptical Theories. By Francis +Wheaton. Philadelphia. J.B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 395. $1.25. + +The Precious Stones of the Heavenly Foundation; with Illustrations +Selected in Prose and Verse. By Augusta Browne Garrett. New York. +Sheldon & Co. 12mo. pp. 328. $1.00. + +The Convalescent. By N. Parker Willis. New York. Charles Scribner. 12mo. +pp. 456. $1.25. + +Plan of the Creation; or, Other Worlds, and who Inhabit them. By Rev. +C.L. Hequembourg. Boston. Phillips, Sampson, & Co. 12mo. pp. 391. $1.25. + +Five Essays. By John Kearsley Mitchell, M.D. Edited by S. Weir Mitchell, +M.D. Philadelphia. J.B. Lippincott & Co. 12mo. pp. 371. $1.25. + +Hope Marshall; or, Government and its Offices. By William N.O. Lasselle. +Washington. H. Lasselle. 12mo. pp. 326. $1.00. + +Sermons Preached and Revised by the Rev. C.H. Spurgeon. Fifth Series. +New York. Sheldon & Co. 12mo. pp. 454. $1.00. + +Hours with my Pupils; or, Educational Addresses, etc. The Young Lady's +Guide and Parents' and Teachers' Assistant. By Mrs. Lincoln Phelps. New +York. C. Scribner. 12mo. $1.25. + +"Love me Little, Love me Long." By Charles Reade. New York. Harper & +Brothers. 12mo. pp. 435. 75 cts. + +The Christian Law of Amusement. By James Leonard Corning, Pastor of the +Westminster Presbyterian Church. Buffalo, N.Y. Phinney & Co. 16mo. pp. +162. 50 cts. + +Scenes and Adventures in the Army; or, Romance of Military Life. By P. +St. G. Cooke, Colonel Second Dragoons, U.S.A. Philadelphia. Lindsay & +Blakiston. 12mo. pp. 432. $1.00. + +Infant Salvation In its Relation to Infant Depravity, Infant +Regeneration, and Infant Baptism. By J.H. Bomberger. Philadelphia. +Lindsay & Blakiston. 16mo. pp. 192. 50 cts. + +Popular Geology. A Series of Lectures read before the Philosophical +Institution of Edinburgh; with Descriptive Sketches from a Geologist's +Portfolio. By Hugh Miller. With an Introductory _Resume_, of the +Progress of Geological Science within the last Two Years, by Mrs. +Miller. Boston. Gould & Lincoln. 12mo. pp. 423. $1.25. + +Poems of Owen Meredith. The Wanderer and Clytemnestra. Boston. Ticknor & +Fields. 32mo. pp. 514. 75 cts. + +Memoir of Theophilus Parsons, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial +Court of Massachusetts; with Notices of Some of his Contemporaries. By +his Son, Theophilus Parsons. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 12mo. pp. 476. +$1.50. + +The Life of James Watt; with Selections from his Correspondence. By +James Patrick Muirhead, M.A. Illustrated with Wood-Cuts. New York. D. +Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 424. $1.25. + +The Spy. A Tale of the Neutral Ground. By J. Fenimore Cooper. +Illustrated from Drawings by F.O.C. Barley. New York. W.A. Townsend & +Co. crown 8vo. pp. 463. $1.50. + +Internal Relations of the Cities, Towns, Villages, Counties, and States +of the Union; or, the Municipalist. A highly Useful Book for Voters, +Tax-Payers, Statesmen, Politicians, and Families. Second Edition. New +York. Ross & Tousey, etc., and Wm. Radde. 12mo. pp. 302. $1.00. + +Farm Drainage. The Principles, Processes, and Effects of Draining Land, +etc., etc. Including Tables of Rain-Fall, etc., and more than One +Hundred Illustrations. By Henry F. French. New York. A.O. Moore & Co. +12mo. pp. 381. $1.00. + +The Jealous Husband. A Story of the Heart. By Annette Marie Maillard. +Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 375. $1.25. + +A Practical Treatise on the Hive and Honey-Bee. By L.L. Langstroth. With +an Introduction by Rev. Robert Baird, D.D. Third Edition. Revised, with +Illustrations. New York. A.O. Moore & Co. 12mo. pp. 405. $1.25. + +From Wall Street to Cashmere. A Journal of Five Years in Asia, Africa, +and Europe; comprising Visits, during 1851-2-3-4-5-6, to the Danemona +Iron-Mines, etc., etc. By John B. Ireland. With nearly One Hundred +Illustrations from Sketches made on the Spot, by the Author. New York. +S.A. Rollo. 8vo. pp. 526. $3.50. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 3, NO. 20, +JUNE, 1859*** + + +******* This file should be named 11751.txt or 11751.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/7/5/11751 + + +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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