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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/12310-0.txt b/12310-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..de63c27 --- /dev/null +++ b/12310-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8980 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12310 *** + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + + * * * * * + +VOL. IX.--JUNE, 1862.--NO. LVI. + + * * * * * + + + + +WALKING. + + +I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as +contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,--to regard man as +an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member +of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an +emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the +minister, and the school-committee, and every one of you will take care +of that. + + +I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who +understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,--who had a +genius, so to speak, for _sauntering_: which word is beautifully derived +"from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and +asked charity, under pretence of going _à la Sainte Terre_," to the Holy +Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a _Sainte-Terrer_" a +Saunterer,--a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their +walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they +who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, +however, would derive the word from _sans terre_, without land or +a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no +particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret +of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may +be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, +is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while +sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the +first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is +a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth +and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels. + +It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, +nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our +expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old +hearth-side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our +steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit +of undying adventure, never to return,--prepared to send back our +embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are +ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and +child and friends, and never see them again,--if you have paid your +debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free +man, then you are ready for a walk. + +To come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for I sometimes +have a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselves knights of a new, +or rather an old, order,--not Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Ritters or +Riders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable class, I trust. +The chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the Rider seems +now to reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the Walker,--not +the Knight, but Walker Errant. He is a sort of fourth estate, outside of +Church and State and People. + +We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts practised this noble art; +though, to tell the truth, at least, if their own assertions are to be +received, most of my townsmen would fain walk sometimes, as I do, but +they cannot. No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and +independence, which are the capital in this profession. It comes only +by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven +to become a walker. You must be born into the family of the Walkers. +_Ambulator nascitur, non fit_. Some of my townsmen, it is true, can +remember and have described to me some walks which they took ten years +ago, in which they were so blessed as to lose themselves for half +an hour in the woods; but I know very well that they have confined +themselves to the highway ever since, whatever pretensions they may make +to belong to this select class. No doubt they were elevated for a moment +as by the reminiscence of a previous state of existence, when even they +were foresters and outlaws. + + "When he came to grene wode, + In a mery mornynge, + There he herde the notes small + Of byrdes mery syngynge. + + "It is ferre gone, sayd Robyn, + That I was last here; + Me lyste a lytell for to shote + At the donne dere." + +I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend +four hours a day at least--and it is commonly more than that--sauntering +through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from +all worldly engagements. You may safely say, A penny for your thoughts, +or a thousand pounds. When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics +and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all +the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them,--as if +the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon,--I think +that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long +ago. + +I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring some +rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk at the eleventh +hour of four o'clock in the afternoon, too late to redeem the day, +when the shades of night were already beginning to be mingled with the +daylight, have felt as if I had committed some sin to be atoned for,--I +confess that I am astonished at the power of endurance, to say nothing +of the moral insensibility, of my neighbors who confine themselves to +shops and offices the whole day for weeks and months, ay, and years +almost together. I know not what manner of stuff they are of,--sitting +there now at three o'clock in the afternoon, as if it were three o'clock +in the morning. Bonaparte may talk of the three-o'clock-in-the-morning +courage, but it is nothing to the courage which can sit down cheerfully +at this hour in the afternoon over against one's self whom you have +known all the morning, to starve out a garrison to whom you are bound +by such strong ties of sympathy. I wonder that about this time, or say +between four and five o'clock in the afternoon, too late for the morning +papers and too early for the evening ones, there is not a general +explosion heard up and down the street, scattering a legion of +antiquated and house-bred notions and whims to the four winds for an +airing,--and so the evil cure itself. + +How womankind, who are confined to the house still more than men, stand +it I do not know; but I have ground to suspect that most of them do +not _stand_ it at all. When, early in a summer afternoon, we have been +shaking the dust of the village from the skirts of our garments, making +haste past those houses with purely Doric or Gothic fronts, which have +such an air of repose about them, my companion whispers that probably +about these times their occupants are all gone to bed. Then it is that I +appreciate the beauty and the glory of architecture, which itself never +turns in, but forever stands out and erect, keeping watch over the +slumberers. + +No doubt temperament, and, above all, age, have a good deal to do with +it. As a man grows older, his ability to sit still and follow in-door +occupations increases. He grows vespertinal in his habits as the evening +of life approaches, till at last he comes forth only just before +sundown, and gets all the walk that he requires in half an hour. + +But the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking +exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated +hours,--as the swinging of dumb-bells or chairs; but is itself the +enterprise and adventure of the day. If you would get exercise, go in +search of the springs of life. Think of a man's swinging dumb-bells +for his health, when those springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures +unsought by him! + +Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only +beast which ruminates when walking. When a traveller asked Wordsworth's +servant to show him her master's study, she answered, "Here is his +library, but his study is out of doors." + +Living much out of doors, in the sun and wind, will no doubt produce a +certain roughness of character,--will cause a thicker cuticle to grow +over some of the finer qualities of our nature, as on the face and +hands, or as severe manual labor robs the hands of some of their +delicacy of touch. So staying in the house, on the other hand, may +produce a softness and smoothness, not to say thinness of skin, +accompanied by an increased sensibility to certain impressions. Perhaps +we should be more susceptible to some influences important to our +intellectual and moral growth, if the sun had shone and the wind blown +on us a little less; and no doubt it is a nice matter to proportion +rightly the thick and thin skin. But methinks that is a scurf that will +fall off fast enough,--that the natural remedy is to be found in the +proportion which the night bears to the day, the winter to the summer, +thought to experience. There will be so much the more air and sunshine +in our thoughts. The callous palms of the laborer are conversant with +finer tissues of self-respect and heroism, whose touch thrills the +heart, than the languid fingers of idleness. That is mere sentimentality +that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and +callus of experience. + +When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become +of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall? Even some sects +of philosophers have felt the necessity of importing the woods to +themselves, since they did not go to the woods. "They planted groves and +walks of Platanes," where they took _subdiales ambulationes_ in porticos +open to the air. Of course it is of no use to direct our steps to the +woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am alarmed when it happens +that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there +in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning +occupations and my obligations to society. But it sometimes happens that +I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run +in my head, and I am not where my body is,--I am out of my senses. In +my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the +woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods? I suspect myself, +and cannot help a shudder, when I find myself so implicated even in what +are called good works,--for this may sometimes happen. + +My vicinity affords many good walks; and though for so many years I have +walked almost every day, and sometimes for several days together, I have +not yet exhausted them. An absolutely new prospect is a great happiness, +and I can still get this any afternoon. Two or three hours' walking +will carry me to as strange a country as I expect ever to see. A single +farm-house which I had not seen before is sometimes as good as the +dominions of the King of Dahomey. There is in fact a sort of harmony +discoverable between the capabilities of the landscape within a circle +of ten miles' radius, or the limits of an afternoon walk, and the +threescore years and ten of human life. It will never become quite +familiar to you. + +Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the building of +houses, and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, +simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap. A +people who would begin by burning the fences and let the forest stand! +I saw the fences half consumed, their ends lost in the middle of the +prairie, and some worldly miser with a surveyor looking after his +bounds, while heaven had taken place around him, and he did not see the +angels going to and fro, but was looking for an old post-hole in the +midst of paradise. I looked again, and saw him standing in the middle of +a boggy, stygian fen, surrounded by devils, and he had found his bounds +without a doubt, three little stones, where a stake had been driven, and +looking nearer, I saw that the Prince of Darkness was his surveyor. + +I can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any number of miles, commencing +at my own door, without going by any house, without crossing a road +except where the fox and the mink do: first along by the river, and then +the brook, and then the meadow and the wood-side. There are square miles +in my vicinity which have no inhabitant. From many a hill I can see +civilization and the abodes of man afar. The farmers and their works are +scarcely more obvious than woodchucks and their burrows. Man and +his affairs, church and state and school, trade and commerce, and +manufactures and agriculture, even politics, the most alarming of +them all,--I am pleased to see how little space they occupy in the +landscape. Politics is but a narrow field, and that still narrower +highway yonder leads to it. I sometimes direct the traveller thither. If +you would go to the political world, follow the great road,--follow that +market-man, keep his dust in your eyes, and it will lead you straight to +it; for it, too, has its place merely, and does not occupy all space. I +pass from it as from a beanfield into the forest, and it is forgotten. +In one half-hour I can walk off to some portion of the earth's surface +where a man does not stand from one year's end to another, and there, +consequently, politics are not, for they are but as the cigar-smoke of a +man. + +The village is the place to which the roads tend, a sort of expansion of +the highway, as a lake of a river. It is the body of which roads are +the arms and legs,--a trivial or quadrivial place, the thoroughfare +and ordinary of travellers. The word is from the Latin _villa_, which, +together with _via_, a way, or more anciently _ved_ and _vella_, Varro +derives from _veho_, to carry, because the villa is the place to and +from which things are carried. They who got their living by teaming were +said _vellaturam facere_. Hence, too, apparently, the Latin word _vilis_ +and our vile; also _villain_. This suggests what kind of degeneracy +villagers are liable to. They are wayworn by the travel that goes by and +over them, without travelling themselves. + +Some do not walk at all; others walk in the highways; a few walk across +lots. Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel +in them much, comparatively, because I am not in a hurry to get to any +tavern or grocery or livery-stable or depot to which they lead. I am +a good horse to travel, but not from choice a roadster. The +landscape-painter uses the figures of men to mark a road. He would not +make that use of my figure. I walk out into a Nature such as the old +prophets and poets, Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in. You may +name it America, but it is not America: neither Americus Vespucius, nor +Columbus, nor the rest were the discoverers of it. There is a truer +account of it in mythology than in any history of America, so called, +that I have seen. + +However, there are a few old roads that may be trodden with profit, as +if they led somewhere now that they are nearly discontinued. There +is the Old Marlborough Road, which does not go to Marlborough now, +methinks, unless that is Marlborough where it carries me. I am the +bolder to speak of it here, because I presume that there are one or two +such roads in every town. + +THE OLD MARLBOROUGH ROAD. + + Where they once dug for money, + But never found any; + Where sometimes Martial Miles + Singly files, + And Elijah Wood, + I fear for no good: + No other man, + Save Elisha Dugan,-- + O man of wild habits, + Partridges and rabbits, + Who hast no cares + Only to set snares, + Who liv'st all alone, + Close to the bone, + And where life is sweetest + Constantly eatest. + When the spring stirs my blood + With the instinct to travel, + I can get enough gravel + On the Old Marlborough Road. + Nobody repairs it, + For nobody wears it; + It is a living way, + As the Christians say. + Not many there be + Who enter therein, + Only the guests of the + Irishman Quin. + What is it, what is it, + But a direction out there, + And the bare possibility + Of going somewhere? + Great guide-boards of stone, + But travellers none; + Cenotaphs of the towns + Named on their crowns. + It is worth going to see + Where you _might_ be. + What king + Did the thing, + Set up how or when, + By what selectmen, + Gourgas or Lee, + Clark or Darby? + They're a great endeavor + To be something forever; + Blank tablets of stone, + Where a traveller might groan, + And in one sentence + Grave all that is known; + Which another might read, + In his extreme need. + I know one or two + Lines that would do, + Literature that might stand + All over the land, + Which a man could remember + Till next December, + And road again in the spring, + After the thawing. + If with fancy unfurled + You leave your abode, + You may go round the world + By the Old Marlborough Road. + +At present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is not private +property; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative +freedom. But possibly the day will come when it will be partitioned off +into so-called pleasure-grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and +exclusive pleasure only,--when fences shall be multiplied, and man-traps +and other engines invented to confine men to the _public_ road, and +walking over the surface of God's earth shall be construed to mean +trespassing on some gentleman's grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively +is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us +improve our opportunities, then, before the evil days come. + +What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we will +walk? + +I believe that there is a subtile magnetism in Nature, which, if we +unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not indifferent +to us which way we walk. There is a right way; but we are very liable +from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one. We would fain +take that walk, never yet taken by us through this actual world, which +is perfectly symbolical of the path which we love to travel in the +interior and ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we find it difficult +to choose our direction, because it does not yet exist distinctly in our +idea. + +When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I will +bend my steps, and submit myself to my instinct to decide for me, +I find, strange and whimsical as it may seem, that I finally and +inevitably settle southwest, toward some particular wood or meadow +or deserted pasture or hill in that direction. My needle is slow to +settle,--varies a few degrees, and does not always point due southwest, +it is true, and it has good authority for this variation, but it always +settles between west and south-southwest. The future lies that way to +me, and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side. +The outline which would bound my walks would be, not a circle, but a +parabola, or rather like one of those cometary orbits which have been +thought to be non-returning curves, in this case opening westward, in +which my house occupies the place of the sun. I turn round and round +irresolute sometimes for a quarter of an hour, until I decide, for the +thousandth time, that I will walk into the southwest or west. Eastward I +go only by force; but westward I go free. Thither no business leads +me. It is hard for me to believe that I shall find fair landscapes or +sufficient wildness and freedom behind the eastern horizon. I am not +excited by the prospect of a walk thither; but I believe that the forest +which I see in the western horizon stretches uninterruptedly towards +the setting sun, and that there are no towns nor cities in it of enough +consequence to disturb me. Let me live where I will, on this side is the +city, on that the wilderness, and ever I am leaving the city more and +more, and withdrawing into the wilderness. I should not lay so much +stress on this fact, if I did not believe that something like this is +the prevailing tendency of my countrymen. I must walk toward Oregon, and +not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that +mankind progress from east to west. Within a few years we have witnessed +the phenomenon of a southeastward migration, in the settlement of +Australia; but this affects us as a retrograde movement, and, judging +from the moral and physical character of the first generation of +Australians, has not yet proved a successful experiment. The eastern +Tartars think that there is nothing west beyond Thibet. "The world ends +there," say they; "beyond there is nothing but a shoreless sea." It is +unmitigated East where they live. + +We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and +literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the +future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure. The Atlantic is a +Lethean stream, in our passage over which we have had an opportunity to +forget the Old World and its institutions. If we do not succeed this +time, there is perhaps one more chance for the race left before it +arrives on the banks of the Styx; and that is in the Lethe of the +Pacific, which is three times as wide. + +I know not how significant it is, or how far it is an evidence of +singularity, that an individual should thus consent in his pettiest walk +with the general movement of the race; but I know that something akin +to the migratory instinct in birds and quadrupeds,--which, in some +instances, is known to have affected the squirrel tribe, impelling them +to a general and mysterious movement, in which they were seen, say some, +crossing the broadest rivers, each on its particular chip, with its tail +raised for a sail, and bridging narrower streams with their dead,--that +something like the _furor_ which affects the domestic cattle in the +spring, and which is referred to a worm in their tails,--affects both +nations and individuals, either perennially or from time to time. Not +a flock of wild geese cackles over our town, but it to some extent +unsettles the value of real estate here, and, if I were a broker, I +should probably take that disturbance into account. + + "Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages, + And palmeres for to seken strange strondes." + +Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to a West +as distant and as fair as that into which the sun goes down. He appears +to migrate westward daily, and tempt us to follow him. He is the Great +Western Pioneer whom the nations follow. We dream all night of those +mountain-ridges in the horizon, though they may be of vapor only, which +were last gilded by his rays. The island of Atlantis, and the islands +and gardens of the Hesperides, a sort of terrestrial paradise, appear +to have been the Great West of the ancients, enveloped in mystery and +poetry. Who has not seen in imagination, when looking into the sunset +sky, the gardens of the Hesperides, and the foundation of all those +fables? + +Columbus felt the westward tendency more strongly than any before. He +obeyed it, and found a New World for Castile and Leon. The herd of men +in those days scented fresh pastures from afar. + + "And now the sun had stretched out all the + hills, + And now was dropped into the western bay; + At last _he_ rose, and twitched his mantle blue; + To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new." + +Where on the globe can there be found an area of equal extent with that +occupied by the bulk of our States, so fertile and so rich and varied in +its productions, and at the same time so habitable by the European, as +this is? Michaux, who knew but part of them, says that "the species of +large trees are much more numerous in North America than in Europe; in +the United States there are more than one hundred and forty species that +exceed thirty feet in height; in France there are but thirty that attain +this size." Later botanists more than confirm his observations. Humboldt +came to America to realize his youthful dreams of a tropical vegetation, +and he beheld it in its greatest perfection in the primitive forests of +the Amazon, the most gigantic wilderness on the earth, which he has so +eloquently described. The geographer Guyot, himself a European, goes +farther,--farther than I am ready to follow him; yet not when he +says,--"As the plant is made for the animal, as the vegetable world is +made for the animal world, America is made for the man of the Old +World .... The man of the Old World sets out upon his way. Leaving the +highlands of Asia, he descends from station to station towards Europe. +Each of his steps is marked by a new civilization superior to the +preceding, by a greater power of development. Arrived at the Atlantic, +he pauses on the shore of this unknown ocean, the bounds of which he +knows not, and turns upon his footprints for an instant." When he has +exhausted the rich soil of Europe, and reinvigorated himself, "then +recommences his adventurous career westward as in the earliest ages." So +far Guyot. + +From this western impulse coming in contact with the barrier of the +Atlantic sprang the commerce and enterprise of modern times. The younger +Michaux, in his "Travels West of the Alleghanies in 1802," says that the +common inquiry in the newly settled West was, "'From what part of +the world have you come?' As if these vast and fertile regions would +naturally be the place of meeting and common country of all the +inhabitants of the globe." + +To use an obsolete Latin word, I might say, _Ex Oriente lux; ex +Occidente_ FRUX. From the East light; from the West fruit. + +Sir Francis Head, an English traveller and a Governor-General of Canada, +tells us that "in both the northern and southern hemispheres of the New +World, Nature has not only outlined her works on a larger scale, but has +painted the whole picture with brighter and more costly colors than she +used in delineating and in beautifying the Old World.... The heavens of +America appear infinitely higher, the sky is bluer, the air is fresher, +the cold is intenser, the moon looks larger, the stars are brighter, the +thunder is louder, the lightning is vivider, the wind is stronger, +the rain is heavier, the mountains are higher, the rivers longer, the +forests bigger, the plains broader." This statement will do at least +to set against Buffon's account of this part of the world and its +productions. + +Linnaeus said long ago, "Nescio quae facies _laeta, glabra_ plantis +Americanis: I know not what there is of joyous and smooth in the aspect +of American plants"; and I think that in this country there are no, or +at most very few, _Africanae bestice_, African beasts, as the Romans +called them, and that in this respect also it is peculiarly fitted for +the habitation of man. We are told that within three miles of the centre +of the East-Indian city of Singapore, some of the inhabitants are +annually carried off by tigers; but the traveller can lie down in the +woods at night almost anywhere in North America without fear of wild +beasts. + +These are encouraging testimonies. If the moon looks larger here than in +Europe, probably the sun looks larger also. If the heavens of America +appear infinitely higher, and the stars brighter, I trust that these +facts are symbolical of the height to which the philosophy and poetry +and religion of her inhabitants may one day soar. At length, perchance, +the immaterial heaven will appear as much higher to the American mind, +and the intimations that star it as much brighter. For I believe +that climate does thus react on man,--as there is something in the +mountain-air that feeds the spirit and inspires. Will not man grow to +greater perfection intellectually as well as physically under these +influences? Or is it unimportant how many foggy days there are in his +life? I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will +be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky,--our understanding +more comprehensive and broader, like our plains,--our intellect +generally on a grander scale, like our thunder and lightning, our rivers +and mountains and forests,--and our hearts shall even correspond in +breadth and depth and grandeur to our inland seas. Perchance there will +appear to the traveller something, he knows not what, of _laeta_ and +_glabra_, of joyous and serene, in our very faces. Else to what end does +the world go on, and why was America discovered? + +To Americans I hardly need to say,-- + +"Westward the star of empire takes its way." + +As a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam in paradise +was more favorably situated on the whole than the backwoodsman in this +country. + +Our sympathies in Massachusetts are not confined to New England; though +we may be estranged from the South, we sympathize with the West. There +is the home of the younger sons, as among the Scandinavians they took to +the sea for their inheritance. It is too late to be studying Hebrew; it +is more important to understand even the slang of to-day. + +Some months ago I went to see a panorama of the Rhine. It was like +a dream of the Middle Ages. I floated down its historic stream in +something more than imagination, under bridges built by the Romans, and +repaired by later heroes, past cities and castles whose very names were +music to my ears, and each of which was the subject of a legend. There +were Ehrenbreitstein and Rolandseck and Coblentz, which I knew only in +history. They were ruins that interested me chiefly. There seemed to +come up from its waters and its vine-clad hills and valleys a hushed +music as of Crusaders departing for the Holy Land. I floated along under +the spell of enchantment, as if I had been transported to an heroic age, +and breathed an atmosphere of chivalry. + +Soon after, I went to see a panorama of the Mississippi, and as I worked +my way up the river in the light of to-day, and saw the steamboats +wooding up, counted the rising cities, gazed on the fresh ruins of +Nauvoo, beheld the Indians moving west across the stream, and, as before +I had looked up the Moselle, now looked up the Ohio and the Missouri, +and heard the legends of Dubuque and of Wenona's Cliff,--still thinking +more of the future than of the past or present,--I saw that this was a +Rhine stream of a different kind; that the foundations of castles were +yet to be laid, and the famous bridges were yet to be thrown over the +river; and I felt that _this was the heroic age itself_, though we know +it not, for the hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men. + +The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I +have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of +the world. Every tree sends its fibres forth in search of the Wild. The +cities import it at any price. Men plough and sail for it. From the +forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind. Our +ancestors were savages. The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by +a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every State which has +risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar +wild source. It was because the children of the Empire were not suckled +by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the children of +the Northern forests who were. + +I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which +the corn grows. We require an infusion of hemlock-spruce or arbor-vitae +in our tea. There is a difference between eating and drinking for +strength and from mere gluttony. The Hottentots eagerly devour the +marrow of the koodoo and other antelopes raw, as a matter of course. +Some of our Northern Indians eat raw the marrow of the Arctic reindeer, +as well as various other parts, including the summits of the antlers, as +long as they are soft. And herein, perchance, they have stolen a march +on the cooks of Paris. They get what usually goes to feed the fire. This +is probably better than stall-fed beef and slaughter-house pork to +make a man of. Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization can +endure,--as if we lived on the marrow of koodoos devoured raw. + +There are some intervals which border the strain of the wood-thrush, to +which I would migrate,--wild lands where no settler has squatted; to +which, methinks, I am already acclimated. + +The African hunter Cummings tells us that the skin of the eland, as well +as that of most other antelopes just killed, emits the most delicious +perfume of trees and grass. I would have every man so much like a wild +antelope, so much a part and parcel of Nature, that his very person +should thus sweetly advertise our senses of his presence, and remind us +of those parts of Nature which he most haunts. I feel no disposition to +be satirical, when the trapper's coat emits the odor of musquash even; +it is a sweeter scent to me than that which commonly exhales from the +merchant's or the scholar's garments. When I go into their wardrobes and +handle their vestments, I am reminded of no grassy plains and flowery +meads which they have frequented, but of dusty merchants' exchanges and +libraries rather. + +A tanned skin is something more than respectable, and perhaps olive is +a fitter color than white for a man,--a denizen of the woods. "The pale +white man!" I do not wonder that the African pitied him. Darwin the +naturalist says, "A white man bathing by the side of a Tahitian was like +a plant bleached by the gardener's art, compared with a fine, dark green +one, growing vigorously in the open fields." + + Ben Jonson exclaims,-- + + "How near to good is what is fair!" + + So I would say,-- + + How near to good is what is _wild!_ + +Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet +subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One who pressed forward +incessantly and never rested from his labors, who grew fast and made +infinite demands on life, would always find himself in a new country +or wilderness, and surrounded by the raw material of life. He would be +climbing over the prostrate stems of primitive forest-trees. + +Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not +in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps. When, +formerly, I have analyzed my partiality for some farm which I had +contemplated purchasing, I have frequently found that I was attracted +solely by a few square rods of impermeable and unfathomable bog,--a +natural sink in one corner of it. That was the jewel which dazzled me. I +derive more of my subsistence from the swamps which surround my native +town than from the cultivated gardens in the village. There are no +richer parterres to my eyes than the dense beds of dwarf andromeda +(_Cassandra calyculata_) which cover these tender places on the earth's +surface. Botany cannot go farther than tell me the names of the shrubs +which grow there,--the high-blueberry, panicled andromeda, lamb-kill, +azalea, and rhodora,--all standing in the quaking sphagnum. I often +think that I should like to have my house front on this mass of dull red +bushes, omitting other flower plots and borders, transplanted spruce +and trim box, even gravelled walks,--to have this fertile spot under my +windows, not a few imported barrow-fulls of soil only to cover the sand +which was thrown out in digging the cellar. Why not put my house, my +parlor, behind this plot, instead of behind that meagre assemblage of +curiosities, that poor apology for a Nature and Art, which I call my +front-yard? It is an effort to clear up and make a decent appearance +when the carpenter and mason have departed, though done as much for the +passer-by as the dweller within. The most tasteful front-yard fence was +never an agreeable object of study to me; the most elaborate ornaments, +acorn-tops, or what not, soon wearied and disgusted me. Bring your sills +up to the very edge of the swamp, then, (though it may not be the best +place for a dry cellar,) so that there be no access on that side to +citizens. Front-yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, +and you could go in the back way. + +Yes, though you may think me perverse, if it were proposed to me to +dwell in the neighborhood of the most beautiful garden that ever human +art contrived, or else of a dismal swamp, I should certainly decide for +the swamp. How vain, then, have been all your labors, citizens, for me! + +My spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the outward dreariness. Give +me the ocean, the desert, or the wilderness! In the desert, pure air and +solitude compensate for want of moisture and fertility. The traveller +Burton says of it,--"Your _morale_ improves; you become frank and +cordial, hospitable and single-minded.... In the desert, spirituous +liquors excite only disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in a mere animal +existence." They who have been travelling long on the steppes of Tartary +say,--"On reëntering cultivated lands, the agitation, perplexity, and +turmoil of civilization oppressed and suffocated us; the air seemed to +fail us, and we felt every moment as if about to die of asphyxia." When +I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most +interminable, and, to the citizen, most dismal swamp. I enter a swamp +as a sacred place,--a _sanctum sanctorum_. There is the strength, the +marrow of Nature. The wild-wood covers the virgin mould,--and the same +soil is good for men and for trees. A man's health requires as many +acres of meadow to his prospect as his farm does loads of muck. There +are the strong meats on which he feeds. A town is saved, not more by the +righteous men in it than by the woods and swamps that surround it. A +township where one primitive forest waves above, while another primitive +forest rots below,--such a town is fitted to raise not only corn and +potatoes, but poets and philosophers for the coming ages. In such a soil +grew Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of such a wilderness +comes the Reformer eating locusts and wild honey. + +To preserve wild animals implies generally the creation of a forest for +them to dwell in or resort to. So is it with man. A hundred years ago +they sold bark in our streets peeled from our own woods. In the very +aspect of those primitive and rugged trees, there was, methinks, a +tanning principle which hardened and consolidated the fibres of men's +thoughts. Ah! already I shudder for these comparatively degenerate days +of my native village, when you cannot collect a load of bark of good +thickness,--and we no longer produce tar and turpentine. + +The civilized nations--Greece, Rome, England--have been sustained by the +primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They survive +as long as the soil is not exhausted. Alas for human culture! little is +to be expected of a nation, when the vegetable mould is exhausted, and +it is compelled to make manure of the bones of its fathers. There +the poet sustains himself merely by his own superfluous fat, and the +philosopher comes down on his marrow-bones. + +It is said to be the task of the American "to work the virgin soil," and +that "agriculture here already assumes proportions unknown everywhere +else." I think that the farmer displaces the Indian even because he +redeems the meadow, and so makes himself stronger and in some respects +more natural. I was surveying for a man the other day a single straight +line one hundred and thirty-two rods long, through a swamp, at whose +entrance might have been written the words which Dante read over +the entrance to the infernal regions,--"Leave all hope, ye that +enter,"--that is, of ever getting out again; where at one time I saw +my employer actually up to his neck and swimming for his life in his +property, though it was still winter. He had another similar swamp which +I could not survey at all, because it was completely under water, and +nevertheless, with regard to a third swamp, which I did _survey_ from a +distance, he remarked to me, true to his instincts, that he would not +part with it for any consideration, on account of the mud which it +contained. And that man intends to put a girdling ditch round the whole +in the course of forty months, and so redeem it by the magic of his +spade. I refer to him only as the type of a class. + +The weapons with which we have gained our most important victories, +which should be handed down as heirlooms from father to son, are not the +sword and the lance, but the bush-whack, the turf-cutter, the spade, and +the bog-hoe, rusted with the blood of many a meadow, and begrimed with +the dust of many a hard-fought field. The very winds blew the Indian's +cornfield into the meadow, and pointed out the way which he had not +the skill to follow. He had no better implement with which to intrench +himself in the land than a clamshell. But the farmer is armed with +plough and spade. + +In Literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dulness is but +another name for lameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild thinking +in "Hamlet" and the "Iliad," in all the Scriptures and Mythologies, not +learned in the schools, that delights us. As the wild duck is more swift +and beautiful than the tame, so is the wild--the mallard--thought, which +'mid falling dews wings its way above the fens. A truly good book is +something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and +perfect, as a wild flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in +the jungles of the East. Genius is a light which makes the darkness +visible, like the lightning's flash, which perchance shatters the temple +of knowledge itself,--and not a taper lighted at the hearth-stone of the +race, which pales before the light of common day. + +English literature, from the days of the minstrels to the Lake +Poets,--Chaucer and Spenser and Milton, and even Shakespeare, +included,--breathes no quite fresh and in this sense wild strain. It +is an essentially tame and civilized literature, reflecting Greece and +Rome. Her wilderness is a green-wood,--her wild man a Robin Hood. There +is plenty of genial love of Nature, but not so much of Nature herself. +Her chronicles inform us when her wild animals, but not when the wild +man in her, became extinct. + +The science of Humboldt is one thing, poetry is another thing. The +poet to-day, notwithstanding all the discoveries of science, and the +accumulated learning of mankind, enjoys no advantage over Homer. + +Where is the literature which gives expression to Nature? He would be a +poet who could impress the winds and streams into his service, to speak +for him; who nailed words to their primitive senses, as farmers drive +down stakes in the spring, which the frost has heaved; who derived his +words as often as he used them,--transplanted them to his page with +earth adhering to their roots; whose words were so true and fresh and +natural that they would appear to expand like the buds at the approach +of spring, though they lay half-smothered between two musty leaves in a +library,--ay, to bloom and bear fruit there, after their kind, annually, +for the faithful reader, in sympathy with surrounding Nature. + +I do not know of any poetry to quote which adequately expresses this +yearning for the Wild. Approached from this side, the best poetry is +tame. I do not know where to find in any literature, ancient or modern, +any account which contents me of that Nature with which even I am +acquainted. You will perceive that I demand something which no Augustan +nor Elizabethan age, which no _culture_, in short, can give. Mythology +comes nearer to it than anything. How much more fertile a Nature, at +least, has Grecian mythology its root in than English literature! +Mythology is the crop which the Old World bore before its soil was +exhausted, before the fancy and imagination were affected with blight; +and which it still bears, wherever its pristine vigor is unabated. All +other literatures endure only as the elms which overshadow our houses; +but this is like the great dragon-tree of the Western Isles, as old as +mankind, and, whether that does or not, will endure as long; for the +decay of other literatures makes the soil in which it thrives. + +The West is preparing to add its fables to those of the East. The +valleys of the Ganges, the Nile, and the Rhine, having yielded their +crop, it remains to be seen what the valleys of the Amazon, the Plate, +the Orinoco, the St. Lawrence, and the Mississippi will produce. +Perchance, when, in the course of ages, American liberty has become +a fiction of the past,--as it is to some extent a fiction of the +present,--the poets of the world will be inspired by American mythology. + +The wildest dreams of wild men, even, are not the less true, though they +may not recommend themselves to the sense which is most common among +Englishmen and Americans to-day. It is not every truth that recommends +itself to the common sense. Nature has a place for the wild clematis +as well as for the cabbage. Some expressions of truth are +reminiscent,--others merely sensible, as the phrase is,--others +prophetic. Some forms of disease, even, may prophesy forms of health. +The geologist has discovered that the figures of serpents, griffins, +flying dragons, and other fanciful embellishments of heraldry, have +their prototypes in the forms of fossil species which were extinct +before man was created, and hence "indicate a faint and shadowy +knowledge of a previous state of organic existence." The Hindoos dreamed +that the earth rested on an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, +and the tortoise on a serpent; and though it may be an unimportant +coincidence, it will not be out of place here to state, that a fossil +tortoise has lately been discovered in Asia large enough to support +an elephant. I confess that I am partial to these wild fancies, which +transcend the order of time and development. They are the sublimest +recreation of the intellect. The partridge loves peas, but not those +that go with her into the pot. + +In short, all good things are wild and free. There is something in a +strain of music, whether produced by an instrument or by the +human voice,--take the sound of a bugle in a summer night, for +instance,--which by its wildness, to speak without satire, reminds me of +the cries emitted by wild beasts in their native forests. It is so +much of their wildness as I can understand. Give me for my friends and +neighbors wild men, not tame ones. The wildness of the savage is but a +faint symbol of the awful ferity with which good men and lovers meet. + +I love even to see the domestic animals reassert their native +rights,--any evidence that they have not wholly lost their original wild +habits and vigor; as when my neighbor's cow breaks out of her pasture +early in the spring and boldly swims the river, a cold, gray tide, +twenty-five or thirty rods wide, swollen by the melted snow. It is the +buffalo crossing the Mississippi. This exploit confers some dignity +on the herd in my eyes,--already dignified. The seeds of instinct are +preserved under the thick hides of cattle and horses, like seeds in the +bowels of the earth, an indefinite period. + +Any sportiveness in cattle is unexpected. I saw one day a herd of a +dozen bullocks and cows running about and frisking in unwieldy sport, +like huge rats, even like kittens. They shook their heads, raised their +tails, and rushed up and down a hill, and I perceived by their horns, as +well as by their activity, their relation to the deer tribe. But, alas! +a sudden loud _Whoa!_ would have damped their ardor at once, reduced +them from venison to beef, and stiffened their sides and sinews like the +locomotive. Who but the Evil One has cried, "Whoa!" to mankind? +Indeed, the life of cattle, like that of many men, is but a sort of +locomotiveness; they move a side at a time, and man, by his machinery, +is meeting the horse and ox half-way. Whatever part the whip has touched +is thenceforth palsied. Who would ever think of a _side_ of any of the +supple cat tribe, as we speak of a _side_ of beef? + +I rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be +made the slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats +still left to sow before they become submissive members of society. +Undoubtedly, all men are not equally fit subjects for civilization; +and because the majority, like dogs and sheep, are tame by inherited +disposition, this is no reason why the others should have their natures +broken that they may be reduced to the same level. Men are in the main +alike, but they were made several in order that they might be various. +If a low use is to be served, one man will do nearly or quite as well as +another; if a high one, individual excellence is to be regarded. Any man +can stop a hole to keep the wind away, but no other man could serve so +rare a use as the author of this illustration did. Confucius says,--"The +skins of the tiger and the leopard, when they are tanned, are as the +skins of the dog and the sheep tanned." But it is not the part of a true +culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious; and +tanning their skins for shoes is not the best use to which they can be +put. + +When looking over a list of men's names in a foreign language, as of +military officers, or of authors who have written on a particular +subject, I am reminded once more that there is nothing in a name. The +name Menschikoff, for instance, has nothing in it to my ears more human +than a whisker, and it may belong to a rat. As the names of the Poles +and Russians are to us, so are ours to them. It is as if they had +been named by the child's rigmarole,--_Iery wiery ichery van, +tittle-tol-tan_. I see in my mind a herd of wild creatures swarming over +the earth, and to each the herdsman has affixed some barbarous sound in +his own dialect. The names of men are of course as cheap and meaningless +as _Bose_ and _Tray_, the names of dogs. + +Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy, if men were named +merely in the gross, as they are known. It would be necessary only to +know the genus, and perhaps the race or variety, to know the individual. +We are not prepared to believe that every private soldier in a Roman +army had a name of his own,--because we have not supposed that he had a +character of his own. At present our only true names are nicknames. I +knew a boy who, from his peculiar energy, was called "Buster" by +his playmates, and this rightly supplanted his Christian name. Some +travellers tell us that an Indian had no name given him at first, but +earned it, and his name was his fame; and among some tribes he acquired +a new name with every new exploit. It is pitiful when a man bears a name +for convenience merely, who has earned neither name nor fame. + +I will not allow mere names to make distinctions for me, but still +see men in herds for all them. A familiar name cannot make a man less +strange to me. It may be given to a savage who retains in secret his +own wild title earned in the woods. We have a wild savage in us, and +a savage name is perchance somewhere recorded as ours. I see that my +neighbor, who bears the familiar epithet William, or Edwin, takes it off +with his jacket. It does not adhere to him when asleep or in anger, or +aroused by any passion or inspiration. I seem to hear pronounced by some +of his kin at such a time his original wild name in some jaw-breaking or +else melodious tongue. + +Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all +around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children, as the +leopard; and yet we are so early weaned from her breast to society, to +that culture which is exclusively an interaction of man on man,--a sort +of breeding in and in, which produces at most a merely English nobility, +a civilization destined to have a speedy limit. + +In society, in the best institutions of men, it is easy to detect a +certain precocity. When we should still be growing children, we are +already little men. Give me a culture which imports much muck from +the meadows, and deepens the soil,--not that which trusts to heating +manures, and improved implements and modes of culture only! + +Many a poor sore-eyed student that I have heard of would grow faster, +both intellectually and physically, if, instead of sitting up so very +late, he honestly slumbered a fool's allowance. + +There may be an excess even of informing light. Niépce, a Frenchman, +discovered "actinism," that power in the sun's rays which produces a +chemical effect,--that granite rocks, and stone structures, and statues +of metal, "are all alike destructively acted upon during the hours of +sunshine, and, but for provisions of Nature no less wonderful, would +soon perish under the delicate touch of the most subtile of the agencies +of the universe." But he observed that "those bodies which underwent +this change during the daylight possessed the power of restoring +themselves to their original conditions during the hours of night, when +this excitement was no longer influencing them." Hence it has been +inferred that "the hours of darkness are as necessary to the inorganic +creation as we know night and sleep are to the organic kingdom." Not +even does the moon shine every night, but gives place to darkness. + +I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more +than I would have every acre of earth cultivated: part will be tillage, +but the greater part will be meadow and forest, not only serving an +immediate use, but preparing a mould against a distant future, by the +annual decay of the vegetation which it supports. + +There are other letters for the child to learn than those which Cadmus +invented. The Spaniards have a good term to express this wild and dusky +knowledge,--_Gramática parda_, tawny grammar,--a kind of mother-wit +derived from that same leopard to which I have referred. + +We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It is +said that knowledge is power; and the like. Methinks there is equal need +of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance, what we will call +Beautiful Knowledge, a knowledge useful in a higher sense: for what +is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know +something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance? +What we call knowledge is often our positive ignorance; ignorance our +negative knowledge. By long years of patient industry and reading of +the newspapers--for what are the libraries of science but files of +newspapers?--a man accumulates a myriad facts, lays them up in his +memory, and then when in some spring of his life he saunters abroad into +the Great Fields of thought, he, as it were, goes to grass like a horse, +and leaves all his harness behind in the stable. I would say to the +Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, sometimes,----Go to +grass. You have eaten hay long enough. The spring has come with its +green crop. The very cows are driven to their country pastures before +the end of May; though I have heard of one unnatural farmer who kept his +cow in the barn and fed her on hay all the year round. So, frequently, +the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge treats its cattle. + +A man's ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful,--while +his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides +being ugly. Which is the best man to deal with,--he who knows nothing +about a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows +nothing, or be who really knows something about it, but thinks that he +knows all? + +My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head +in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest +that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. +I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more +definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the +insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before,--a discovery that +there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our +philosophy. It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. Man cannot +_know_ in any higher sense than this, any more than he can look serenely +and with impunity in the face of the sun: [Greek: Os thi noon, on +kehinon nohaeseis,]--"You will not perceive that, as perceiving a +particular thing," say the Chaldean Oracles. + +There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we +may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, +but a successful life knows no law. It is an unfortunate discovery +certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before +that we were bound. Live free, child of the mist,--and with respect to +knowledge we are all children of the mist. The man who takes the liberty +to live is superior to all the laws, by virtue of his relation to the +law-maker. "That is active duty," says the Vishnu Purana, "which is not +for our bondage; that is knowledge which is for our liberation: all +other duty is good only unto weariness; all other knowledge is only the +cleverness of an artist." + +It is remarkable how few events or crises there are in our histories; +how little exercised we have been in our minds; how few experiences we +have had. I would fain be assured that I am growing apace and rankly, +though my very growth disturb this dull equanimity,--though it be with +struggle through long, dark, muggy nights or seasons of gloom. It would +be well, if all our lives were a divine tragedy even, instead of this +trivial comedy or farce. Dante, Bunyan, and others, appear to have been +exercised in their minds more than we: they were subjected to a kind of +culture such as our district schools and colleges do not contemplate. +Even Mahomet, though many may scream at his name, had a good deal more +to live for, ay, and to die for, than they have commonly. + +When, at rare intervals, some thought visits one, as perchance he is +walking on a railroad, then indeed the cars go by without his hearing +them. But soon, by some inexorable law, our life goes by and the cars +return. + + "Gentle breeze, that wanderest unseen, + And bendest the thistles round Loira of storms, + Traveller of the windy glens, + Why hast thou left my ear so soon?" + +While almost all men feel an attraction drawing them to society, few are +attracted strongly to Nature. In their relation to Nature men appear +to me for the most part, notwithstanding their arts, lower than the +animals. It is not often a beautiful relation, as in the case of the +animals. How little appreciation of the beauty of the landscape there is +among us! We have to be told that the Greeks called the world [Greek: +Kosmos], Beauty, or Order, but we do not see clearly why they did so, +and we esteem it at best only a curious philological fact. + +For my part, I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sort of border +life, on the confines of a world into which I make occasional and +transient forays only, and my patriotism and allegiance to the State +into whose territories I seem to retreat are those of a moss-trooper. +Unto a life which I call natural I would gladly follow even a +will-o'-the-wisp through bogs and sloughs unimaginable, but no moon nor +fire-fly has shown me the causeway to it. Nature is a personality so +vast and universal that we have never seen one of her features. The +walker in the familiar fields which stretch around my native town +sometimes finds himself in another land than is described in their +owners' deeds, as it were in some far-away field on the confines of the +actual Concord, where her jurisdiction ceases, and the idea which the +word Concord suggests ceases to be suggested. These farms which I have +myself surveyed, these bounds which I have set up appear dimly still as +through a mist; but they have no chemistry to fix them; they fade from +the surface of the glass; and the picture which the painter painted +stands out dimly from beneath. The world with which we are commonly +acquainted leaves no trace, and it will have no anniversary. + +I took a walk on Spaulding's Farm the other afternoon. I saw the setting +sun lighting up the opposite side of a stately pine wood. Its golden +rays straggled into the aisles of the wood as into some noble hall. I +was impressed as if some ancient and altogether admirable and shining +family had settled there in that part of the land called Concord, +unknown to me,--to whom the sun was servant,--who had not gone into +society in the village,--who had not been called on. I saw their +park, their pleasure-ground, beyond through the wood, in Spaulding's +cranberry-meadow. The pines furnished them with gables as they grew. +Their house was not obvious to vision; the trees grew through it. I do +not know whether I heard the sounds of a suppressed hilarity or not. +They seemed to recline on the sunbeams. They have sons and daughters. +They are quite well. The farmer's cart-path, which leads directly +through their hall, does not in the least put them out,--as the muddy +bottom of a pool is sometimes seen through the reflected skies. +They never heard of Spaulding, and do not know that he is their +neighbor,--notwithstanding I heard him whistle as he drove his team +through the house. Nothing can equal the serenity of their lives. Their +coat of arms is simply a lichen. I saw it painted on the pines and oaks. +Their attics were in the tops of the trees. They are of no politics. +There was no noise of labor. I did not perceive that they were weaving +or spinning. Yet I did detect, when the wind lulled and hearing was done +away, the finest imaginable sweet musical hum,--as of a distant hive in +May, which perchance was the sound of their thinking. They had no idle +thoughts, and no one without could see their work, for their industry +was not as in knots and excrescences embayed. + +But I find it difficult to remember them. They fade irrevocably out +of my mind even now while I speak and endeavor to recall them, and +recollect myself. It is only after a long and serious effort to +recollect my best thoughts that I become again aware of their +cohabitancy. If it were not for such families as this, I think I should +move out of Concord. + +We are accustomed to say in New England that few and fewer pigeons visit +us every year. Our forests furnish no mast for them. So, it would seem, +few and fewer thoughts visit each growing man from year to year, for the +grove in our minds is laid waste,--sold to feed unnecessary fires of +ambition, or sent to mill, and there is scarcely a twig left for them to +perch on. They no longer build nor breed with us. In some more genial +season, perchance, a faint shadow flits across the landscape of the +mind, cast by the _wings_ of some thought in its vernal or autumnal +migration, but, looking up, we are unable to detect the substance of +the thought itself. Our winged thoughts are turned to poultry. They +no longer soar, and they attain only to a Shanghai and Cochin-China +grandeur. Those _gra-a-ate thoughts_, those _gra-a-ate men_ you hear of! + +We hug the earth,--how rarely we mount! Methinks we might elevate +ourselves a little more. We might climb a tree, at least. I found my +account in climbing a tree once. It was a tall white pine, on the top +of a hill; and though I got well pitched, I was well paid for it, for I +discovered new mountains in the horizon which I had never seen before,-- +so much more of the earth and the heavens. I might have walked about +the foot of the tree for threescore years and ten, and yet I certainly +should never have seen them. But, above all, I discovered around me,--it +was near the end of June,--on the ends of the topmost branches only, a +few minute and delicate red cone-like blossoms, the fertile flower of +the white pine looking heavenward. I carried straightway to the village +the topmost spire, and showed it to stranger jurymen who walked the +streets,--for it was court-week,--and to farmers and lumber-dealers and +wood-choppers and hunters, and not one had ever seen the like before, +but they wondered as at a star dropped down. Tell of ancient architects +finishing their works on the tops of columns as perfectly as on the +lower and more visible parts! Nature has from the first expanded the +minute blossoms of the forest only toward the heavens, above men's heads +and unobserved by them. We see only the flowers that are under our feet +in the meadows. The pines have developed their delicate blossoms on the +highest twigs of the wood every summer for ages, as well over the heads +of Nature's red children as of her white ones; yet scarcely a farmer or +hunter in the land has ever seen them. + +Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed +over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering +the past. Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in every barn-yard +within our horizon, it is belated. That sound commonly reminds us that +we are growing rusty and antique in our employments and habits of +thought. His philosophy comes down to a more recent time than ours. +There is something suggested by it that is a newer testament,--the +gospel according to this moment. He has not fallen astern; he has got up +early, and kept up early, and to be where he is is to be in season, +in the foremost rank of time. It is an expression of the health and +soundness of Nature, a brag for all the world,--healthiness as of a +spring burst forth, a new fountain of the Muses, to celebrate this last +instant of time. Where he lives no fugitive slave laws are passed. Who +has not betrayed his master many times since last he heard that note? + +The merit of this bird's strain is in its freedom from all +plaintiveness. The singer can easily move us to tears or to laughter, +but where is he who can excite in us a pure morning joy? When, in +doleful dumps, breaking the awful stillness of our wooden sidewalk on +a Sunday, or, perchance, a watcher in the house of mourning, I hear a +cockerel crow far or near, I think to myself, "There is one of us well, +at any rate,"--and with a sudden gush return to my senses. + +We had a remarkable sunset one day last November. I was walking in a +meadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before +setting, after a cold gray day, reached a clear stratum in the horizon, +and the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry grass and on +the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon, and on the leaves of the +shrub-oaks on the hill-side, while our shadows stretched long over the +meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its beams. It was such +a light as we could not have imagined a moment before, and the air also +was so warm and serene that nothing was wanting to make a paradise of +that meadow. When we reflected that this was not a solitary phenomenon, +never to happen again, but that it would happen forever and ever an +infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the latest child +that walked there, it was more glorious still. + +The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with all +the glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities, and, perchance, as it +has never set before,--where there is but a solitary marsh-hawk to have +his wings gilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his cabin, and +there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the marsh, just +beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying stump. We walked +in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered grass and leaves, +so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never bathed in such a +golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The west side of every +wood and rising ground gleamed like the boundary of Elysium, and the sun +on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman driving us home at evening. + +So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine +more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our +minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening +light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bank-side in autumn. + + + + +WAR AND LITERATURE. + + +It would be a task worthy of a volume, and requiring that space in order +to be creditably performed, to show how war affects literature, at what +points they meet, where they are at variance, if any wars stimulate, and +what kinds depress the intellectual life of nations. The subject is very +wide. It would embrace a discussion of the effects of war when it occurs +during a period of great literary and artistic splendor, as in Athens +and in the Italian Republics; whether intellectual decline is postponed +or accelerated by the interests and passions of the strife; whether the +preliminary concentration of the popular heart may claim the merit of +adding either power or beauty to the intellectual forms which bloom +together with the war. + +These things are not entirely clear, and the experience of different +countries is conflicting. The Thirty Years' War, though it commenced +with the inspiration of great political and religious ideas, did not +lift the German mind to any new demonstrations of truth or impassioned +utterances of the imagination. The nation sank away from it into a +barren and trivial life, although the war itself occasioned a multitude +of poems, songs, hymns, and political disquisitions. The hymns of this +period, which are filled with a sense of dependence, of the greatness +and awfulness of an invisible eternity, and breathe a desire for the +peaceful traits of a remote religious life, are at once a confession of +the weariness of the best minds at the turmoil and uncertainty of the +contest and a permanent contribution of the finest kind to that form of +sacred literature. But princes and electors were fighting as much for +the designation and establishment of their petty nationalities, which +first checkered the map of Europe after the imperial Catholic power was +rolled southwardly, as they were for the pure interest of Protestantism. +The German intellect did eventually gain something from this political +result, because it interrupted the literary absolutism which reigned at +Vienna; no doubt literature grew more popular and German, but it did +not very strikingly improve the great advantage, for there was at last +exhaustion instead of a generously nourishing enthusiasm, and the great +ideas of the period became the pieces with which diplomatists carried on +their game. The _Volkslied_ (popular song) came into vogue again, but it +was not so fresh and natural as before; Opitz, one of the best poets of +this period, is worth reading chiefly when he depicts his sources of +consolation in the troubles of the time. Long poetical bulletins were +written, in the epical form, to describe the battles and transactions +of the war. They had an immense circulation, and served the place of +newspapers. They were bright and characteristic enough for that; and +indeed newspapers in Germany date from this time, and from the doggerel +broadsides of satire and description which then supplanted minstrels +of whatsoever name or guild, as they were carried by post, and read in +every hamlet.[A] But the best of these poems were pompous, dull, and +tediously elaborated. They have met the fate of newspapers, and are now +on file. The more considerable poets themselves appeared to be jealous +of the war; they complained bitterly that Mars had displaced Apollo; but +later readers regret the ferocious sack of Magdeburg, or the death of +Gustavus Adolphus, more than the silencing of all those pens. + +[Footnote A: Newspapers proper appeared as early as 1615 in Germany. But +these rhymed gazettes were very numerous. They were more or less bulky +pamphlets, with pithy sarcastic programmes for titles, and sometimes a +wood or copper cut prefixed. A few of them were of Catholic origin, and +one, entitled _Post-Bole_, (_The Express_,) is quite as good as anything +issued by the opposite party.] + +On the other hand, Spain, while fighting for religion and a secure +nationality, had her Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Calderon, all of whom +saw service in the field, and other distinguished names, originators +of literary forms and successful cultivators of established ones. They +created brilliant epochs for a bigoted and cruel country. All that was +noble or graceful in the Spanish spirit survives in works which that +country once stimulated through all the various fortunes of popular +wars. But they were not wars for the sake of the people; the country has +therefore sunk away from the literature which foretold so well how great +she might have become, if she had been fortunate enough to represent, or +to sympathize with, a period of moral and spiritual ideas. Her literary +forms do not describe growth, but arrested development. + +A different period culminated in the genius of Milton, whose roots were +in that golden age when England was flowering into popular freedom. He +finally spoke for the true England, and expressed the vigorous thoughts +which a bloody epoch cannot quench. Some of his noblest things were +inspired by the exigencies of the Commonwealth, which he saw "as an +eagle nursing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the +full mid-day beam." + +The Dutch people, in their great struggle against Philip II., seemed to +find a stimulus in the very exhaustions of war. The protesting ideas for +which they fought drew fresh tenacity from the soil, wet with blood and +tears, into which generous passion and resolution sank with every death. +Here it is plain that a milder conflict, carried on by intrigue and +diplomatic forms alone, for peaceable separation from the Catholic +interest, would not have so quickened the intelligence which afterwards +nourished so many English exiles and helped to freight the Mayflower. +And we see the German mind first beginning to blossom with a language +and a manifold literature during and after the Seven Years' War, which +developed a powerful Protestant State and a native German feeling. +Frederic's Gallic predilections did not infect the country which his +arms had rendered forever anti-Gallic and anti-Austrian. The popular +enthusiasm for himself, which his splendid victories mainly created, was +the first instinctive form of the coming German sense of independence. +The nation's fairest period coincided with the French Revolution and +the aggressions of the Empire. "Hermann and Dorothea" felt the people's +pulse, which soon beat so high at Jena and Leipsic with rage and hope. +The hope departed with the Peace of 1815, and pamphleteering, pragmatic +writing, theological investigation, historical research, followed the +period of creative genius, whose flowers did not wither while the fields +ran red. + +A war must be the last resort of truly noble and popular ideas, if it +would do more than stimulate the intelligence of a few men, who write +best with draughts of glory and success. It must be the long-repressed +understanding of a nation suffused with strong primitive emotions, +that flies to arms to secure the precious privilege of owning and +entertaining its knowledge and its national advantages. And in +proportion as any war has ever been leavened with the fine excitement of +religion or humanity, however imperfectly, and though tyrannized over +by political selfishness, we can see that the honest feeling has done +something to obliterate the traces of violence, to offer the comfort of +worth in the cause to wounded lips. + +When the people themselves take to fighting, not for dynastic objects, +to secure the succession of an Infant to the throne, to fix a Pope in +his chair, or to horse a runaway monarch around their necks, not to +extort some commercial advantage, or to resist a tampering with the +traditional balance of power, but to drive back the billows of Huns or +Turks from fields where cities and a middle class must rise, to oppose +citizen-right to feudal-right, and inoculate with the lance-head Society +with the popular element, to assert the industrial against the baronial +interest, or to expel the invader who forages among their rights to +sweep them clean and to plant a system which the ground cannot receive, +then we find that the intense conviction, which has been long gathering +and brooding in the soul, thunders and lightens through the whole brain, +and quickens the germs of Art, Beauty and Knowledge. Then war is only a +process of development, which threatens terribly and shakes the locks +upon its aegis in the face of the brutes which infest its path. Minerva +is aware that wisdom and common sense will have to fight for recognition +and a world: she fends blows from her tranquil forehead with the +lowering crest; the shield is not always by her side, nor the +sword-point resting on the ground. What is so vital as this armed and +conscious intelligence? The pen, thus tempered to a sword, becomes a pen +again, but flows with more iron than before. + +But the original intellectual life begins while the pen is becoming +tempered in the fires of a great national controversy, before it is hard +enough to draw blood. Magnetic streams attract each slender point to a +centre of prophesying thought long before the blood-red aurora stains +suddenly the midnight sky and betrays the influence which has been none +the less mighty because it has been colorless. Sometimes a people says +all that it has in its mind to say, during that comfortless period +while the storm is in the air and has not yet precipitated its cutting +crystals. The most sensitive minds are goaded to express emphatically +their moral feeling and expectation in such a rude climate, which +stimulates rather than depresses, but which is apt to fall away into +languor and content. This only shows that the people have no commanding +place in history, but are only bent upon relieving themselves from +sundry annoyances, or are talking about great principles which they are +not in a position, from ethnical or political disability, to develop. +Such is all the Panslavic literature which is not Russian.[B] +But sometimes a people whose intellect passes through a noble +pre-revolutionary period, illustrating it by impetuous eloquence, +indignant lyrics, and the stern lines which a protesting conscience +makes upon the faces of the men who are lifted above the crowd, finds +that its ideas reach beyond the crisis in its life into a century of +power and beauty, during which its emancipated tendency springs forward, +with graceful gestures, to seize every spiritual advantage. Its +movements were grand and impressive while it struggled for the +opportunity to make known the divine intent that inspired it; but when +the fetters burst, and every limb enjoys the victory and the release, +the movements become unbounded, yet rhythmical, like Nature's, and +smite, or flow, or penetrate, like hers. To such a people war comes +as the disturbance of the earth's crust which helps it to a habitable +surface and lifts fair slopes to ripen wine and grain. + +[Footnote B: Some cultivated Bohemians who can recall the glories of +Ziska and his chiefs, and who comprehend the value of the tendency which +they strove to represent, think that there would have grown a Bohemian +people, a great centre of Protestant and Slavonic influence, if it +had not been for the Battle of Weissenberg in 1620, when the Catholic +Imperialists defeated their King Frederic. A verse of a popular song, +_The Patriot's Lament_, runs thus, in Wratislaw's translation:-- + + "Cursed mountain, mountain white! + Upon thee was crushed our might; + What in thee lies covered o'er + Ages cannot back restore." + +If there had been a Bohemian people, preserving a real vital tendency, +the Battle of the White Mountain would have resulted differently, even +had it been a defeat. + +Other patriots, cultivated enough to be Panslavists, indulge a more +cheerful vein. They see a good time coming, and raise the cry of _Hej +Slované_! + + "Hey, Slavonians! our Slavonic language still is living, + Long as our true loyal heart is for our nation striving; + Lives, lives the Slavonic spirit, and 't will live forever: + Hell and thunder! vain against us all your rage shall shiver." + +This is nothing but a frontier feeling. The true Slavonic centre is +at St. Petersburg; thence will roll a people and a language over all +kindred ground.] + +After all, then, we must carefully discover what a war was about, before +we can trace it, either for good or for evil, into the subsequent life +of a nation. There can be no such thing as exhaustion or deterioration, +if the eternal laws have won the laurel of a fight; for they are +fountains of youth, from which new blood comes rushing through the +depleted veins. And it soon mantles on the surface, to mend the +financial and industrial distress. Its blush of pride and victory +announces no heady passion. It is the signal which Truth waves from the +hearts of her children. + +If we wish directly to consider the effect of war upon our own +intellectual development, we must begin by asking what ideas of +consequence are suggested by our copious use of the word Country. What a +phrase is that--Our Country--which we have been accustomed for eighty +years to use upon all festivals that commemorate civic rights, with +flattering and pompous hopes! We never understood what it meant, till +this moment which threatens to deprive us of the ideas and privileges +which it really represents. We never appreciated till now its depth and +preciousness. Orators have built up, sentence by sentence, a magnificent +estimate of the elements which make our material success, and they +thought it was a patriotic chord which they touched with the climax of +their fine periods. It was such patriotism as thrives in the midst of +content and satisfactory circumstances, which loves to have an inventory +made of all the fixtures and conveniences and the crude splendor of a +country's housekeeping,--things which are not indeed to be despised, for +they show what a people can do when cast upon their own resources, at a +distance from Governmental interference, free to select their own way +of living, to be fervent in business, in charities, in the cause of +education, in the explorations which lay open new regions to the +emigration of a world, in the inventiveness which gives labor new +pursuits and increases the chances of poor men, in the enterprise which +has made foundries, mines, workshops, manufactories, and granaries of +independent States. We have loved to linger over the praises of our +common schools and our voluntary system of congregational worship, to +count the spires which mark every place that man clears to earn his +living in. It has been pleasant to trace upon the map the great arteries +of intercommunication, flowing east and west, churned by countless +paddle-wheels, as they force a vast freight of wealth, material, social, +intellectual, to and fro, a freshet of fertilizing life to swell every +stream. We love to repeat the names which self-taught men have hewn out +in rude places, with the only advantage of being members of Mankind, +holding their own share in the great heart and soul of it, and making +that itself more illustrious than lineage and fortune. Every element of +an unexhausted soil, and all the achievements of a people let loose upon +it to settle, build, sow, and reap, with no master but ambition and no +dread but of poverty, and a long list of rights thrust suddenly into +their hands, with liberty to exercise them,--the right to vote, to +speak, to print, to be tried by jury,--all this margin for unfettered +action, even the corresponding vastness of the country itself, whose +ruggedest features and greatest distances were playthings of the popular +energy,--to love and extol these things were held by us equivalent to +having a native land and feeding a patriotic flame. But now all at once +this catalogue of advantages, which we were accustomed to call "our +country," is stripped of all its value, because we begin to feel that it +depends upon something else, more interior and less easy to appraise, +which we had not noticed much before. Just as when suddenly, in a +favorite child, endowed with strength, beauty, and effective gifts of +every member, of whom we were proud and expected great things, and whom +we took unlimited comfort in calling our own, there appears the solemn +intention of a soul to use this fine body to express its invisible truth +and honor, a wonderful revelation of a high mind filled with aspirations +which we had not suspected,--a sudden lifting of the whole body like an +eyelid before an inner eye, and we are astonished at the look it gives +us: so this body of comfort and success, which we worshipped as our +country, is suddenly possessed by great passions and ideas, by a +consciousness that providential laws demand the use of it, and will not +be restrained from inspiring the whole frame, and directing every member +of it with a new plan of Unity, and a finer feeling for Liberty, and a +more generous sense of Fraternity than ever before. Lately we did as we +pleased, but now we are going to be real children of Liberty. Formerly +we had a Union which transacted business for us, secured the payment of +our debts, and made us appear formidable abroad while it corrupted and +betrayed us at home,--a Union of colporteurs, and caucuses, and drummers +of Southern houses; not a Union, but a long coffle of patriotic laymen, +southerly clergymen, and slaves. Now the soul of a Democracy, gazing +terribly through eyes that are weeping for the dead and for indignation +at the cause of their dying, holds the thing which we call Union, and +determines to keep its mighty hold till it can be informed with Unity, +of which justice is the prime condition. See a Country at last, that +is, a Republican Soul, making the limbs of free states shiver with the +excitement of its great ideas, turning all our comfortable and excellent +institutions into ministers to execute its will, resolved, to wring the +great sinews of the body with the stress of its awakening, and to tax, +for a spiritual purpose, all the material resources and those forms +of liberty which we had pompously called our native land. A people in +earnest, smarting with the wounds of war and the deeper inflictions of +treachery, is abroad seeking after a country. It has been repeating with +annual congratulations for eighty years the self-evident truths of the +document which declared its independence; now it discovers that more +evidence of it is needed than successful trading and building can +bring, and it sends it forth afresh, with half a million of glittering +specialities to enforce its doctrines, while trade, and speculation, and +all the ambitions of prosperous men, and delicately nurtured lives, and +other lives as dearly cherished and nursed to maturity, are sent out +with an imperative commission to buy, at all hazards, a real country, to +exchange what is precious for the sake of having finally what we dreamed +we had before,--the most precious of all earthly things,--a Commonwealth +of God. Yes, our best things go, like wads for guns, to bid our purpose +speak more emphatically, as it expresses the overruling inspiration of +the hour. + +Is this really the character of our war, or is it only an ideal picture +of what the war might be? That depends solely upon ourselves. + +Our soldiers kindle nightly their bivouac fires from East to West, and +set their watch. They are the advance posts of the great idea, which is +destined to make a country as it advances southwardly, and to settle +it with republicans. If we put it in a single sentence, "Freedom of +industry for hand and brain to all men," we must think awhile upon it +before we can see what truths and temporal advantages it involves. We +see them best, in this night of our distress and trial, by the soldiers' +watch-fires. They encroach upon the gloom, and open it for us with +hopes. They shine like the stare of a deeper sky than day affords, and +we can see a land stretching to the Gulf, and lying expectant between +either sea, whose surface is given to a Republic to people and civilize +for the sake of Man. Whoever is born here, or whoever comes here, +brought by poverty or violence, an exile from misery or from power, +and whatever be his ethnological distinction, is a republican of this +country because he is a man. Here he is to find safety, cooperation, +and welcome. His very ignorance and debasement are to be welcomed by +a country eager to exhibit the plastic power of its divine idea,--how +animal restrictions can be gradually obliterated, how superstition and +prejudice must die out of stolid countenances before the steady gaze of +republican good-will, how ethnic peculiarities shall subserve the +great plan and be absorbed by it. The country no longer will have a +conventional creed, that men are more important than circumstances and +governments; we always said so, but our opinion was at the mercy of a +Know-Nothing club, a slaveholding cabal, a selfish democracy: it will +have a living faith, born with the pangs of battle, that nothing on +earth is so precious as the different kinds of men. It will want them, +to illustrate its preeminent idea, and it will go looking for them +through all the neglected places of the world, to invite them in from +the by-lanes and foul quarters of every race, expressly to show that +man is superior to his accidents, by bringing their bodies into a place +where their souls can get the better of them. Where can that be except +where a democracy has been waging a religious war against its own great +evil, and has repented in blood for having used all kinds of men as the +white and black pawns in its games of selfish politics, with its own +country for the board, and her peace and happiness lying in the pool for +stakes? Where can man be respected best except here, where he has +been undervalued most, and bitterness and blood have sprung from that +contempt? + +This is the first truly religious war ever waged. Can there be such a +thing as a religious war? There can be wars in the interest of different +theologies, and mixed wars of diplomacy and confessions of belief, wars +to transfer the tradition of infallibility from a pope to a book, wars +of Puritans against the divine right of kings in the Old World and the +natural rights of Indians in the New, in all of which the name of God +has been invoked for sanction, and Scripture has been quoted, and Psalms +uplifted on the battle-field for encouragement. And it is true that +every conflict, in which there are ideas that claim their necessary +development against usage and authority, has a religious character so +far as the ideas vindicate God by being good for man. But a purely +religious war must be one to restore the attributes and prerogatives of +manhood, to confirm primitive rights that are given to finite souls as +fast as they are created, to proclaim the creed of humanity, which is so +far from containing a single article of theology, that it is solely and +distinctively religious without it, because it proclaims one Father in +heaven and one blood upon the earth. Manhood is always worth fighting +for, to resist and put down whatever evil tendency impairs the full +ability to be a man, with a healthy soul conscious of rights and duties, +owning its gifts, and valuing above everything else the liberty to place +its happiness in being noble and good. Every man wages a religious war, +when he attacks his own passions in the interest of his own humanity. +The most truly religious thing that a man can do is to fight his way +through habits and deficiencies back to the pure manlike elements of his +nature, which are the ineffaceable traces of the Divine workmanship, and +alone really worth fighting for. And when a nation imitates this private +warfare, and attacks its own gigantic evils, lighted through past +deficiencies and immediate temptations by its best ideas, as its human +part rallies against its inhuman, and all the kingly attributes of a +freeborn individual rise up in final indignation against its slavish +attributes, then commences the true and only war of a people, and the +only war of which we dare say, though it have the repulsive features +that belong to all wars, that it is religious. But that we do say; for +it is to win and keep the unity of a country for the great purposes of +mankind, a place where souls can have their chances to work, with the +largest freedom and under the fewest disabilities, at the divine image +stamped upon them,--to get here the tools, both temporal and spiritual, +with which to strike poverty and misery out of those glorious traces, +and to chisel deep and fresh the handwriting where God says, This is a +Man! + +Here is a sufficient ground for expecting that intellectual as well as +political enlargement will succeed this trial of our country. It is well +to think of all the approaching advantages, even those remote ones which +will wear the forms of knowledge and art. For it is undeniable, that a +war cannot be so just as to bring no evils in its train,--not only the +disturbance of all kinds of industry, the suppression of some, the +difficulty of diverting, at a moment's notice, labor towards new +objects,--not only financial embarrassment and exhaustion, and the +shadow of a coming debt,--not the maiming of strong men and their +violent removal from the future labors of peace, nor the emotional +suffering of thousands of families whose hearts are in the field with +their dear ones, tossed to and fro in every skirmish, where the balls +slay more than the bodies which are pierced: not these evils alone,--nor +the feverish excitement of eighteen millions of people, whose gifts +and intelligence are all distraught, and at the mercy of every +bulletin,--nor yet the possible violations of private rights, and the +overriding of legal defences, which, when once attempted in a state of +war, is not always relinquished on the return of peace. These do not +strike us so much as the moral injury which many weak and passionate +minds sustain from the necessity of destroying life, of ravaging and +burning, of inflicting upon the enemy politic distresses. There will be +a taint in the army and the community which will endure in the relations +of pacific life. And more than half a million of men, who have tasted +the fierce joy of battle, have suffered the moral privations and dangers +of the camp, are to be returned suddenly to us, and cast adrift, with no +hope of finding immediate employment, and hankering for some excitements +to replace those of the distant field. If little truth and little +conscience have been at stake, these are the reasons which make wars so +demoralizing: they leave society restored to peace, but still at war +within itself, infested by those strange cravings, and tempted by a +new ambition, that of waging successful wars. This will be the most +dangerous country on the face of the earth, after the termination of +this war; for it will see its own ideas more clearly than ever before, +and long to propagate them with its battle-ardors and its scorn of +hypocritical foreign neutralities. We have the elements to make the most +martial nation in the world, with a peculiar combination of patience and +impulse, coldness and daring, the capacity to lie in watchful calm and +to move with the vibrations of the earthquake. And if ever the voice of +our brother, crying out to us from the ground of any country, shall sigh +among the drums which are then gathering dust in our arsenals, the long +roll would wake again, and the arms would rattle in that sound, which is +part of the speech of Liberty. But it is useless to affirm or to deny +such possibilities. It is plain, however, that we are organizing most +formidable elements, and learning how to forge them into bolts. The +spirit of the people, therefore, must be high and pure. The more +emphatically we declare, in accordance with the truth, that this war is +for a religious purpose, to prepare a country for the growing of souls, +a place where every element of material success and all the ambitions of +an enthusiastic people shall only provide fortunate circumstances, so +that men can be educated in the freedom which faith, knowledge, and awe +before the Invisible secure, the better will it be for us when peace +returns. A great believing people will more readily absorb the hurts of +war. Spiritual vitality will throw off vigorously the malaria which must +arise from deserted fields of battle. It must be our daily supplication +to feel the religious purport of the truths for which we fight. We must +disavow vindictiveness, and purge our hearts of it. There must be no +vulgar passion illustrated by our glorious arms. And when we say that we +are fighting for mankind, to release souls and bodies from bondage, +we must understand, without affectation, that we are fighting for the +slaveholder himself, who knows it not, as he hurls his iron disbelief +and hatred against us. For we are to have one country, all of whose +children, shall repeat in unison its noble creed, which the features of +the land itself proclaim, and whose railroads and telegraphs are its +running-hand. + +How often we have enumerated and deprecated the evils of war! The +Mexican War, in which Slavery herself involved us, (using the power of +the Republic against which she conspired to further her conspiracy,) +gave us occasion to extol the benefits of peace, and to draw up a +formidable indictment against the spirit which lusted for the appeal to +arms. We have not lusted for it, and the benefits of peace seem greater +than ever; but the benefits of equity and truth seem greater than all. +Show me justice, or try to make me unjust,--force upon me at the point +of the sword the unspeakable degradation of abetting villany, and I will +seize the hilt, if I can, and write my protest clear with the blade, and +while I have it in my hand I will reap what advantages are possible in +the desolation which it makes. + +Among these advantages of a war waged to secure the rights of +citizenship to all souls will be the excitement of a national +intellectual life, which will take on the various forms of a national +literature. This is to be expected for two reasons. First, because our +arms will achieve unity. By this is meant not only that there will be a +real union of all the States, consequent upon an eventual agreement in +great political and moral ideas, but also that this very consent will +bring the different characteristic groups of the country so near +together, in feeling and mutual appreciation, and with a free +interchange of traits, that we shall begin to have a nationality. And +there can be no literature until there is a nation; when the varieties +of the popular life begin to coalesce, as all sections are drawn +together towards the centre of great political ideas which the people +themselves establish, there will be such a rich development of +intellectual action as the Old World has not seen. Without this unity, +literature may be cultivated by cliques of men of talent, who are +chiefly stimulated to express themselves by observing the thought and +beauty which foreign intellects and past times produced; but their +productions will not spring from the country's manifold life, nor +express its mighty individuality. The sections of the country which are +nearest to the intelligence of the Old World will furnish the readiest +writers and the most polished thinkers, until the New World dwarfs the +Old World by its unity, and inspires the best brains with the collected +richness of the popular heart. Up to the period of this war the +country's most original men have been those who, by protesting against +its evils and displaying a genius emancipated from the prescriptions of +Church and State, have prophesied the revolution, and given to America +the first rich foretaste of her growing mind. The thunder rolled up the +sky in the orator's great periods, the lightning began to gleam in the +preacher's moral indignation, the glittering steel slumbered uneasily +and showed its half-drawn menace from the subtle lines of poets and +essayists who have been carrying weapons these twenty years; their souls +thirsted for an opportunity to rescue fair Liberty from the obscene rout +who had her in durance for their purposes, and to hail her accession to +a lawful throne with the rich gifts of knowledge, use, and beauty, a +homage that only free minds can pay, and only when freedom claims it. +We do not forget the literary activity with which a thousand ready +intellects have furnished convenient food for the people: there has been +no lack of books, nor of the ambition to attempt all the intellectual +forms. Some of this pabulum was not good for a growing frame; the excuse +for offering it may be found in the exigencies of squatter-life. We are +a notable people for our attachment to the frying-pan, and there is no +doubt that it is a shifty utensil: it can be slung at the saddle-bow or +carried in a valise, it will bear the jolting of a corduroy road, and +furnish a camp-mess in the minimum of time out of material that was +perhaps but a moment before sniffing or pecking at its rim. A very +little blaze sets the piece of cold fat swimming, and the black cavity +soon glows and splutters with extemporaneous content. But what dreams +howl about the camp-fires, what hideous scalping-humor creeps from the +leathery supper into the limbs and blood of the adventurous pioneer! + +No better, and quite as scrofulous, has been the nourishment furnished +by the rhetorical time-servers and polished conventionalists, whose +gifts have been all directed against the highest good of the country's +mind, to offer sweets to its crying conscience, and draughts of fierce +or languid cordials to lull the uneasy moods of this fast-growing child +of Liberty. Such men are fabricators of smooth speech; they have brought +their gilding to put upon the rising pillars of the country, instead +of strength to plant them firmly in their places and to spread the +protecting roof. This period of storm will wash off their dainty +work. When the clean granite stands where it should to shelter the +four-and-thirty States as they walk the vast colonnades together, intent +upon the great interchanges of the country's thought and work, this +tinsel will not be missed; as men look upon the grave lines that +assure them of security, they will rejoice that the time for the truly +beautiful has arrived, and hasten to relieve the solid space with shapes +as durable as the imagination which conceives. + +There must be a great people before there can be a great character in +its books, its instructions, or its works of art. This character is +prophesied only in part by what is said and thought while the people is +becoming great, and the molten constituents are sparkling as they run +into their future form. We have been so dependent upon traditional ideas +that we suppose an epic, for instance, to be the essential proof that +a people is alive and has something to express. Let us cease to wonder +whether there will ever be an American poem, an American symphony, or an +American Novum Organon. It is a sign of weakness and subservience: and +this is a period crowded with acts of emancipation. We cannot escape +from the past, if we would; we have a right to inherit all the previous +life of men that does not surfeit us and impede our proper work, but +let us stop our unavailing sighs for Iliads. The newspaper gathers and +circulates all true achievements faster than blind poets can plod round +with the story. The special form of the epic answered to a state of +society when the harper connected cities with his golden wire, slowly +unrolling its burden as he went. Vibrations travel faster now; men would +be foolish to expect that the new life will go journeying in classic +vehicles. When the imagination becomes free, it can invent forms equally +surprising and better adapted to the face of the country. + +There is no part of this country which has not its broad characters and +tendencies, different from anything ever seen before, imperfect while +they are doomed to isolation, during which they show only a maimed and +grotesque vitality. The religious tendency is different, the humor is +different, the imagination differs from anything beyond the Atlantic. +And the East differs from the West, the North from the South; and +the Pacific States will have also to contribute gifts peculiar to +themselves, as the silt of the Sacramento glitters unlike that of the +Merrimac or the Potomac. We are not yet a People; but we have great, +vivid masses of popular life, which a century of literary expression +will not exhaust. All these passionate characters are running together +in this general danger, having seized a weapon: they have found an idea +in common, they are pervaded by their first really solemn feeling, they +issue the same word for the night from East to West. The nationality +thus commenced will introduce the tendency to blend in place of the +tendency to keep apart, and each other's gifts will pass sympathetically +from hand to hand. + +The heightened life of this epoch is another cause which shall prepare +a great development of intellectual forms. Excitement and enthusiasm +pervade all classes of the people. All the primitive emotions of +the human heart--friendship, scorn, sympathy, human and religious +love--break into the liveliest expression, penetrate every quarter of +society; a great river is let loose from the rugged mountain-recesses of +the people; its waters, saturated with Nature's simple fertility, cover +the whole country, and will not retire without depositing their renewing +elements. A sincere and humble people Is feeling the exigency. A million +families have fitted out their volunteers with the most sumptuous of all +equipments, which no Government could furnish, love, tears of anxiety +and pride, last kisses and farewells, and prayers more heaven-cleaving +than a time of peace can breathe. What an invisible cloud of domestic +pathos overhung for a year the course of the Potomac, and settled upon +those huts and tents where the best part of home resided! what an ebb +and flow of letters, bearing solemnity and love upon their surface! what +anxiety among us, with all its brave housekeeping shifts, to keep want +from the door while labor is paralyzed, and the strong arms have beaten +their ploughshares into swords! What self-sacrifice of millions of +humble wives and daughters whose works and sorrows are now refining the +history of their country, and lifting the popular nobleness: they are +giving _all that they are_ to keep their volunteers in the field. The +flag waves over no such faithfulness; its stars sparkle not like this +sincerity. The feeling and heroism of women are enough to refresh and +to remould the generation. Like subtle lightning, the womanly nature +is penetrating the life of the age. From every railroad-station the +ponderous train bore off its freight of living valor, amid the cheers +of sympathizing thousands who clustered upon every shed and pillar, and +yearned forward as if to make their tumultuous feelings the motive +power to carry those dear friends away. What an ardent and unquenchable +emotion! Drums do not throb like these hearts, bullets do not patter +like these tears. There is not a power of the soul which is not +vitalized and expanded by these scenes. But long after the crowd +vanishes, there stands a woman at the corner, with a tired child asleep +upon her shoulder; the bosom does not heave so strongly as to break its +sleep. There are no regrets in the calm, proud face; no, indeed!--for it +is the face of our country, waiting to suffer and be strong for liberty, +and to put resolutely the dearest thing where it can serve mankind. In +her face read the history of the future as it shall be sung and written +by pens which shall not know whence their sharpened impulse springs; the +page shall reflect the working of that woman's face, daughter of the +people; and when exulting posterity shall draw new patriotism from it, +and declare that it is proud, pathetic, resolved, sublime, they shall +not yet call it by its Christian name, for that will be concealed with +moss upon her forgotten head-stone. + + * * * * * + + +AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE. + + + O good painter, tell me true, + Has your hand the cunning to draw + Shapes of things that you never saw? + Ay? Well, here is an order for you. + + Woods and cornfields, a little brown,-- + The picture must not be over-bright,-- + Yet all in the golden and gracious light + Of a cloud, when the summer sun is down. + + Alway and alway, night and morn, + Woods upon woods, with fields of corn + Lying between them, not quite sere, + And not in the full, thick, leafy bloom, + When the wind can hardly find breathing-room + Under their tassels,--cattle near, + Biting shorter the short green grass, + And a hedge of sumach and sassafras, + With bluebirds twittering all around,-- + (Ah, good painter, you can't paint sound!)-- + These, and the house where I was born, + Low and little, and black and old, + With children, many as it can hold, + All at the windows, open wide,-- + Heads and shoulders clear outside, + And fair young faces all ablush: + Perhaps you may have seen, some day, + Roses crowding the self-same way, + Out of a wilding, way-side bush. + + Listen closer. When you have done + With woods and cornfields and grazing herds, + A lady, the loveliest ever the sun + Looked down upon, you must paint for me: + Oh, if I only could make you see + The clear blue eyes, the tender smile, + The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace, + The woman's soul, and the angel's face + That are beaming on me all the while! + I need not speak these foolish words: + Yet one word tells you all I would say,-- + She is my mother: you will agree + That all the rest may be thrown away. + + Two little urchins at her knee + You must paint, Sir: one like me,-- + The other with a clearer brow, + And the light of his adventurous eyes + Flashing with boldest enterprise: + At ten years old he went to sea,-- + God knoweth if he be living now,-- + He sailed in the good ship "Commodore,"-- + Nobody ever crossed her track + To bring us news, and she never came back. + Ah, 'tis twenty long years and more + Since that old ship went out of the bay + With my great-hearted brother on her deck: + I watched him till he shrank to a speck, + And his face was toward me all the way. + + Bright his hair was, a golden brown, + The time we stood at our mother's knee: + That beauteous head, if it did go down, + Carried sunshine into the sea! + + Out in the fields one summer night + We were together, half afraid + Of the corn-leaves' rustling, and of the shade + Of the high hills, stretching so still and far,-- + Loitering till after the low little light + Of the candle shone through the open door, + And over the hay-stack's pointed top, + All of a tremble, and ready to drop, + The first half-hour, the great yellow star, + That we, with staring, ignorant eyes, + Had often and often watched to see + Propped and held in its place in the skies + + By the fork of a tall red mulberry-tree, + Which close in the edge of our flax-field grew,-- + Dead at the top,--just one branch full + Of leaves, notched round, and lined with wool, + From which it tenderly shook the dew + Over our heads, when we came to play + In its handbreadth of shadow, day after day. + Afraid to go home, Sir; for one of us bore + A nest full of speckled and thin-shelled eggs,-- + The other, a bird, held fast by the legs, + Not so big as a straw of wheat: + The berries we gave her she wouldn't eat, + But cried and cried, till we held her bill, + So slim and shining, to keep her still. + + At last we stood at our mother's knee. + Do you think, Sir, if you try, + You can paint the look of a lie? + If you can, pray have the grace + To put it solely in the face + Of the urchin that is likest me: + I think't was solely mine, indeed: + But that's no matter,--paint it so; + The eyes of our mother--(take good heed)-- + Looking not on the nest-full of eggs, + Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs, + But straight through our faces down to our lies, + And, oh, with such injured, reproachful surprise! + I felt my heart bleed where that glance went, as though + A sharp blade struck through it. + You, Sir, know, + That you on the canvas are to repeat + Things that are fairest, things most sweet,-- + Woods and cornfields and mulberry-tree,-- + The mother,--the lads, with their bird, at her knee: + But, oh, that look of reproachful woe! + High as the heavens your name I'll shout, + If you paint me the picture, and leave that out. + + + + +THE SOUTH BREAKER. + +IN TWO PARTS + + +PART II. + + +Blue-fish were about done with, when one day Dan brought in some +mackerel from Boon Island: they hadn't been in the harbor for some time, +though now there was a probability of their return. So they were going +out when the tide served--the two boys--at midnight for mackerel, and +Dan had heard me wish for the experience so often, a long while ago, +that he said, Why shouldn't they take the girls? and Faith snatched at +the idea, and with that Mr. Gabriel agreed to fetch me at the hour, and +so we parted. I was kind of sorry, but there was no help for it. + +When we started, it was in that clear crystal dark that looks as if you +could see through it forever till you reached infinite things, and we +seemed to be in a great hollow sphere, and the stars were like living +beings who had the night to themselves. Always, when I'm up late, I feel +as if it were something unlawful, as if affairs were in progress which +I had no right to witness, a kind of grand freemasonry. I've felt it +nights when I've been watching with mother, and there has come up across +the heavens the great caravan of constellations, and a star that I'd +pulled away the curtain on the east side to see came by-and-by and +looked in at the south window; but I never felt it as I did this night. +The tide was near the full, and so we went slipping down the dark water +by the starlight; and as we saw them shining above us, and then looked +down and saw them sparkling up from below,--the stars,--it really seemed +as if Dan's oars must be two long wings, as if we swam on them through a +motionless air. By-and-by we were in the island creek, and far ahead, +in a streak of wind that didn't reach us, we could see a pointed sail +skimming along between the banks, as if some ghost went before to show +us the way; and when the first hush and mystery wore off, Mr. Gabriel +was singing little French songs in tunes like the rise and fall of the +tide. While he sang, he rowed, and Dan was gangeing the hooks. At length +Dan took the oars again, and every now and then he paused to let us +float along with the tide as it slacked, and take the sense of the +night. And all the tall grass that edged the side began to wave in a +strange light, and there blew on a little breeze, and over the rim of +the world tipped up a waning moon. If there'd been anything needed to +make us feel as if we were going to find the Witch of Endor, it was +this. It was such a strange moon, pointing such a strange way, with such +a strange color, so remote, and so glassy,--it was like a dead moon, or +the spirit of one, and was perfectly awful. + +"She has come to look at Faith," said Mr. Gabriel; for Faith, who once +would have been nodding here and there all about the boat, was sitting +up pale and sad, like another spirit, to confront it. But Dan and I both +felt a difference. + +Mr. Gabriel, he stepped across and went and sat down behind Faith, and +laid his hand lightly on her arm. Perhaps he didn't mind that he touched +her,--he had a kind of absent air; but if any one had looked at the +nervous pressure of the slender fingers, they would have seen as much +meaning in that touch as in many an embrace; and Faith lifted her face +to his, and they forgot that I was looking at them, and into the eyes of +both there stole a strange deep smile,--and my soul groaned within me. +It made no odds to me then that the air blew warm off the land from +scented hay-ricks, that the moon hung like some exhumed jewel in the +sky, that all the perfect night was widening into dawn. I saw and felt +nothing but the wretchedness that must break one day on Dan's head. +Should I warn him? I couldn't do that. And what then? + +The sail was up, we had left the headland and the hills, and when they +furled it and cast anchor we were swinging far out on the back of the +great monster that was frolicking to itself and thinking no more of us +than we do of a mote in the air. Elder Snow, he says that it's singular +we regard day as illumination and night as darkness,--day that really +hems us in with narrow light and shuts us upon ourselves, night that +sets us free and reveals to us all the secrets of the sky. I thought of +that when one by one the stars melted and the moon became a breath, and +up over the wide grayness crept color and radiance and the sun himself, +--the sky soaring higher and higher, like a great thin bubble of flaky +hues,--and, all about, nothing but the everlasting wash of waters +broke the sacred hush. And it seemed as if God had been with us, and +withdrawing we saw the trail of His splendid garments,--and I remembered +the words mother had spoken to Dan once before, and why couldn't I leave +him in heavenly hands? And then it came into my heart to pray. I knew I +hadn't any right to pray expecting to be heard; but yet mine would be +the prayer of the humble, and wasn't Faith of as much consequence as a +sparrow? By-and-by, as we all sat leaning over the gunwale, the words +of a hymn that I'd heard at camp-meetings came into my mind, and I sang +them out, loud and clear. I always had a good voice, though Dan 'd never +heard me do anything with it except hum little low things, putting +mother to sleep; but here I had a whole sky to sing in, and the hymns +were trumpet-calls. And one after another they kept thronging up, and +there was a rush of feeling in them that made you shiver, and as I sang +them they thrilled me through and through. Wide as the way before us +was, it seemed to widen; I felt myself journeying with some vast host +towards the city of God, and its light poured over us, and there was +nothing but joy and love and praise and exulting expectancy in my heart. +And when the hymn died on my lips because the words were too faint and +the tune was too weak for the ecstasy, and when the silence had soothed +me back again, I turned and saw Dan's lips bitten, and his cheek white, +and his eyes like stars, and Mr. Gabriel's face fallen forward in his +hands, and he shaking with quick sobs; and as for Faith,--Faith, she +had dropped asleep, and one arm was thrown above her head, and the other +lay where it had slipped from Mr. Gabriel's loosened grasp. There's a +contagion, you know, in such things, but Faith was never of the catching +kind. + +Well, this wasn't what we'd come for,--turning all out-doors into a +church,--though what's a church but a place of God's presence? and for +my part, I never see high blue sky and sunshine without feeling that. +And all of a sudden there came a school of mackerel splashing and +darkening and curling round the boat, after the bait we'd thrown out on +anchoring. 'Twould have done you good to see Dan just at that moment; +you'd have realized what it was to have a calling. He started up, +forgetting everything else, his face all flushed, his eyes like coals, +his mouth tight and his tongue silent; and how many hooks he had out I'm +sure I don't know, but he kept jerking them in by twos and threes, and +finally they bit at the bare barb and were taken without any bait at +all, just as if they'd come and asked to be caught. Mr. Gabriel, he +didn't pay any attention at first, but Dan called to him to stir +himself, and so gradually he worked back into his old mood; but he was +more still and something sad all the rest of the morning. Well, when +we'd gotten about enough, and they were dying in the boat there, as they +cast their scales, like the iris, we put in-shore; and building a fire, +we cooked our own dinner and boiled our own coffee. Many's the icy +winter-night I've wrapped up Dan's bottle of hot coffee in rolls on +rolls of flannel, that he might drink it hot and strong far out at sea +in a wherry at daybreak! + +But as I was saying,--all this time, Mr. Gabriel, he scarcely looked at +Faith. At first she didn't comprehend, and then something swam all over +her face as if the very blood in her veins had grown darker, and there +was such danger in her eye that before we stepped into the boat again +I wished to goodness I had a life-preserver. But in the beginning the +religious impression lasted and gave him great resolutions; and then +strolling off and along the beach, he fell in with some men there and +did as he always did, scraped acquaintance. I verily believe that these +men were total strangers, that he'd never laid eyes on them before, and +after a few words he wheeled about. As he did so, his glance fell on +Faith standing there alone against the pale sky, for the weather 'd +thickened, and watching the surf break at her feet. He was motionless, +gazing at her long, and then, when he had turned once or twice +irresolutely, he ground his heel into the sand and went back. The men +rose and wandered on with him, and they talked together for a while, and +I saw money pass; and pretty soon Mr. Gabriel returned, his face vividly +pallid, but smiling, and he had in his hand some little bright shells +that you don't often find on these Northern beaches, and he said he had +bought them of those men. And all this time he'd not spoken with Faith, +and there was the danger yet in her eye. But nothing came of it, and I +had accused myself of nearly every crime in the Decalogue, and on the +way back we had put up the lines, and Mr. Gabriel had hauled in the +lobster-net for the last time. He liked that branch of the business; +he said it had all the excitement of gambling,--the slow settling +downwards, the fading of the last ripple, the impenetrable depth and +shade and the mystery of the work below, five minutes of expectation, +and it might bring up a scale of the sea-serpent, or the king of the +crabs might have crept in for a nap in the folds, or it might come up +as if you'd dredged for pearls, or it might hold the great +backward-crawling lobsters, or a tangle of seaweed, or the long yellow +locks of some drowned girl,--or nothing at all. So he always drew in +that net, and it needed muscle, and his was like steel,--not good for +much in the long pull, but just for a breathing could handle the biggest +boatman in the harbor. Well,--and we'd hoisted the sail and were in the +creek once more, for the creek was only to be used at high-water, and +I'd told Dan I couldn't be away from mother over another tide and so we +mustn't get aground, and he'd told me not to fret, there was nothing too +shallow for us on the coast--"This boat," said Dan, "she'll float in a +heavy dew." And he began singing a song he liked:-- + + "I cast my line in Largo Bay, + And fishes I caught nine: + There's three to boil, and three to fry, + And three to bait the line." + +And Mr. Gabriel 'd never heard it before, and he made him sing it again +and again. + + "The boatie rows, the boatie rows, + The boatie rows indeed," + +repeated Mr. Gabriel, and he said it was the only song he knew that held +the click of the oar in the rowlock. + +The little birds went skimming by us, as we sailed, their breasts upon +the water, and we could see the gunners creeping through the marshes +beside them. + +"The wind changes," said Mr. Gabriel. "The equinox treads close behind +us. Sst! Is it that you do not feel its breath? And you hear nothing?" + +"It's the Soul of the Bar," said Dan; and he fell to telling us one +of the wild stories that fishermen can tell each other by the lantern +rocking outside at night in the dory. + +The wind was dead east, and now we flew before it, and now we tacked in +it, up and up the winding stream, and always a little pointed sail came +skimming on in suit. + +"What sail is that, Dan?" asked I. "It looks like the one that flitted +ahead this morning." + +"It is the one," said Dan,--for he'd brought up a whole horde of +superstitious memories, and a gloom that had been hovering off and on +his face settled there for good. "As much of a one as that was. It's no +sail at all. It's a death-sign. And I've never been down here and seen +it but trouble was on its heels. Georgie! there's two of them!" + +We all looked, but it was hidden in a curve, and when it stole in sight +again there _were_ two of them, filmy and faint as spirits' wings,--and +while we gazed they vanished, whether supernaturally or in the mist that +was rising mast-high I never thought, for my blood was frozen as it ran. + +"You have fear?" asked Mr. Gabriel,--his face perfectly pale, and his +eye almost lost in darkness. "If it is a phantom, it can do you no +harm." + +Faith's teeth chattered,--I saw them. He turned to her, and as their +look met, a spot of carnation burned into his cheek almost as a brand +would have burned. He seemed to be balancing some point, to be searching +her and sifting her; and Faith half rose, proudly, and pale, as if his +look pierced her with pain. The look was long,--but before it fell, a +glow and sparkle filled the eyes, and over his face there curled the +deep, strange smile of the morning, till the long lids and heavy lashes +dropped and made it sad. And Faith,--she started in a new surprise, the +darkness gathered and crept off her face as cream wrinkles from milk, +and spleen or venom or what-not became absorbed again and lost, and +there was nothing in her glance but passionate forgetfulness. Some souls +are like the white river-lilies,--fixed, yet floating; but Mr. Gabriel +had no firm root anywhere, and was blown about with every breeze, like a +leaf on the flood. His purposes melted and made with his moods. + +The wind got round more to the north, the mist fell upon the waters or +blew away over the meadows, and it was cold. Mr. Gabriel wrapped the +cloak about Faith and fastened it, and tied her bonnet. Just now Dan was +so busy handling the boat--and it's rather risky, you have to wriggle up +the creek so--that he took little notice of us. Then Mr. Gabriel stood +up, as if to change his position; and taking off his hat, he held it +aloft, while he passed the other hand across his forehead. And leaning +against the mast, he stood so, many minutes. + +"Dan," I said, "did your spiritual craft ever hang out a purple +pennant?" + +"No," said Dan. + +"Well," says I. And we all saw a little purple ribbon running up the +rope and streaming on the air behind us. + +"And why do we not hoist our own?" said Mr. Gabriel, putting on his hat. +And suiting the action to the word, a little green signal curled up and +flaunted above us like a bunch of the weed floating there in the water +beneath and dyeing all the shallows so that they looked like caves of +cool emerald, and wide off and over them the west burned smoulderingly +red like a furnace. Many a time since, I've felt the magical color +between those banks and along those meadows, but then I felt none of it; +every wit I had was too awake and alert and fast-fixed in watching. + +"Is it that the phantoms can be flesh and blood?" said Mr. Gabriel +laughingly; and lifting his arm again, he hailed the foremost. + +"Boat ahoy! What names?" said he. + +The answer came back on the wind full and round. + +"'Speed,' and 'Follow.'" + +"Where from?" asked Dan, with just a glint in his eye,--for usually he +knew every boat on the river, but he didn't know these. + +"From the schooner Flyaway, taking in sand over at Black Rocks." + +Then Mr. Gabriel spoke again, as they drew near,--but whether he spoke +so fast that I couldn't understand, or whether he spoke French, I never +knew; and Dan, with some kind of feeling that it was Mr. Gabriel's +acquaintance, suffered the one we spoke to pass us. + +Once or twice Mr. Gabriel had begun some question to Dan about the +approaching weather, but had turned it off again before anybody could +answer. You see he had some little nobility left, and didn't want the +very man he was going to injure to show him how to do it. Now, however, +he asked him that was steering the Speed by, if it was going to storm. + +The man thought it was. + +"How is it, then, that your schooner prepares to sail?" + +"Oh, wind's backed in; we'll be on blue water before the gale breaks, I +reckon, and then beat off where there's plenty of sea-room." + +"But she shall make shipwreck!" + +"'Not if the court know herself, and he think she do,'" was the reply +from another, as they passed. + +Somehow I began to hate myself, I was so full of poisonous suspicions. +How did Mr. Gabriel know the schooner prepared to sail? And this man, +could he tell boom from bowsprit? I didn't believe it; he had the hang +of the up-river folks. But there stood Mr. Gabriel, so quiet and easy, +his eyelids down, and he humming an underbreath of song; and there sat +Faith, so pale and so pretty, a trifle sad, a trifle that her conscience +would brew for her, whether or no. Yet, after all, there was an odd +expression in Mr. Gabriel's face, an eager, restless expectation; and if +his lids were lowered, it was only to hide the spark that flushed and +quenched in his eye like a beating pulse. + +We had reached the draw, it was lifted for the Speed, she had passed, +and the wind was in her sail once more. Yet, somehow, she hung back. And +then I saw that the men in her were of those with whom Mr. Gabriel had +spoken at noon. Dan's sail fell slack, and we drifted slowly through, +while he poled us along with an oar. + +"Look out, Georgie!" said Dan, for he thought I was going to graze my +shoulder upon the side there. I looked; and when I turned again, Mr. +Gabriel was rising up from some earnest and hurried sentence to Faith. +And Faith, too, was standing, standing and swaying with indecision, and +gazing away out before her,--so flushed and so beautiful,--so loath and +so willing. Poor thing! poor thing! as if her rising in itself were not +the whole! + +Mr. Gabriel stepped across the boat, stooped a minute, and then also +took an oar. How perfect he was, as he stood there that moment!--perfect +like a statue, I mean,--so slender, so clean-limbed, his dark face pale +to transparency in the green light that filtered through the draw! and +then a ray from the sunset came creeping over the edge of the high +fields and smote his eyes sidelong so that they glowed like jewels, and +he with his oar planted firmly hung there bending far back with it, +completely full of strength and grace. + +"It is not the _bateaux_ in the rapids," said he. + +"What are you about?" asked Dan, with sudden hoarseness. "You are +pulling the wrong way!" + +Mr. Gabriel laughed, and threw down his oar, and stepped back again; +gave his hand to Faith, and half led, half lifted her, over the side, +and into the Speed, followed, and never looked behind him. They let +go something they had held, the Speed put her nose in the water and +sprinkled us with spray, plunged, and dashed off like an arrow. + +It was like him,--daring and insolent coolness! Just like him! Always +the soul of defiance! None but one so reckless and impetuous as he would +have dreamed of flying into the teeth of the tempest in that shell of a +schooner. But he was mad with love, and they--there wasn't a man among +them but was the worse for liquor. + +For a moment Dan took it, as Mr. Gabriel had expected him to do, as a +joke, and went to trim the boat for racing, not meaning they should +reach town first. But I--I saw It all. + +"Dan!" I sung out, "save her! She's not coming back! They'll make for +the schooner at Black Rocks! Oh, Dan, he's taken her off!" + +Now one whose intelligence has never been trained, who shells his five +wits and gets rid of the pods as best he can, mayn't be so quick as +another, but, like an animal, he feels long before he sees; and a vague +sense of this had been upon Dan all day. Yet now he stood thunderstruck, +and the thing went on before his very eyes. It was more than he could +believe at once,--and perhaps his first feeling was, Why should he +hinder? And then the flood fell. No thought of his loss,--though loss it +wa'n't,--only of his friend,--of such stunning treachery, that, if +the sun fell hissing into the sea at noon, it would have mattered +less,--only of _that_ loss that tore his heart out with it. + +"Gabriel!" he shouted,--"Gabriel!" And his voice was heart-rending. I +know that Mr. Gabriel felt it, for he never turned nor stirred. + +Then I don't know what came over Dan: a blind rage swelling in his heart +seemed to make him larger in every limb; he towered like a flame. He +sprang to the tiller, but, as he did so, saw with one flash of his eye +that Mr. Gabriel had unshipped the rudder and thrown it away. He seized +an oar to steer with in its place; he saw that they, in their ignorance +fast edging on the flats, would shortly be aground; more fisherman than +sailor, he knew a thousand tricks of boat-craft that they had never +heard of. We flew, we flew through cloven ridges, we became a wind +ourselves, and while I tell it he was beside them, had gathered himself +as if to leap the chasm between time and eternity, and had landed among +them in the Speed. The wherry careened with the shock and the water +poured into her, and she flung headlong and away as his foot spurned +her. Heaven knows why she didn't upset, for I thought of nothing but the +scene before me as I drifted off from it. I shut the eyes in my soul +now, that I mayn't see that horrid scuffle twice. Mr. Gabriel, he rose, +he turned. If Dan was the giant beside him, he himself was so well-knit, +so supple, so adroit, that his power was like the blade in the hand. +Dan's strength was lying round loose, but Mr. Gabriel's was trained, it +hid like springs of steel between brain and wrist, and from him the clap +fell with the bolt. And then, besides, Dan did not love Faith, and he +did love Gabriel. Any one could see how it would go. I screamed. I +cried, "Faith! Faith!" And some natural instinct stirred in Faith's +heart, for she clung to Mr. Gabriel's arm to pull him off from Dan. But +he shook her away like rain. Then such a mortal weakness took possession +of me that I saw everything black, and, when it was clean gone, I +looked, and they were locked in each other's arms, fierce, fierce and +fell, a death-grip. They were staggering to the boat's edge: only this I +saw, that Mr. Gabriel was inside: suddenly the helmsman interposed with +an oar, and broke their grasps. Mr. Gabriel reeled away, free, for a +second; then, the passion, the fury, the hate in his heart feeding his +strength as youth fed the locks of Samson, he darted, and lifted Dan in +his two arms and threw him like a stone into the water. Stiffened to +ice, I waited for Dan to rise; the other craft, the Follow, skimmed +between us, and one man managing her that she shouldn't heel, the rest +drew Dan in,--it's not the depth of two foot there,--tacked about, and +after a minute came along-side, seized our painter, and dropped him +gently into his own boat. Then--for the Speed had got afloat again--the +thing stretched her two sails wing and wing, and went ploughing up a +great furrow of foam before her. + +I sprang to Dan. He was not senseless, but in a kind of stupor: his head +had struck the fluke of a half-sunk anchor and it had stunned him, but +as the wound bled he recovered slowly and opened his eyes. Ah, what +misery was in them! I turned to the fugitives. They were yet in sight, +Mr. Gabriel sitting and seeming to adjure Faith, whose skirts he +held; but she stood, and her arms were outstretched, and, pale as a +foam-wreath her face, and piercing as a night-wind her voice, I heard +her cry, "Oh, Georgie! Georgie!" It was too late for her to cry or to +wring her hands now. She should have thought of that before. But Mr. +Gabriel rose and drew her down, and hid her face in his arms and bent +over it; and so they fled up the basin and round the long line of sand, +and out into the gloom and the curdling mists. + +I bound up Dan's head. I couldn't steer with an oar,--that was out of +the question,--but, as luck would have it, could row tolerably; so I got +down the little mast, and at length reached the wharves. The town-lights +flickered up in the darkness and flickered back from the black rushing +river, and then out blazed the great mills; and as I felt along, I +remembered times when we'd put in by the tender sunset, as the rose +faded out of the water and the orange ebbed down the west, and one by +one the sweet evening-bells chimed forth, so clear and high, and each +with a different tone, that it seemed as if the stars must flock, +tinkling, into the sky. And here were the bells ringing out again, +ringing out of the gray and the gloom, dull and brazen, as if they rang +from some cavern of shadows, or from the mouth of hell,--but no, _that_ +was down-river! Well, I made my way, and the men on the landing took up +Dan, and helped him in and got him on my little bed, and no sooner there +than the heavy sleep with which he had struggled fell on him like lead. + +The story flew from mouth to mouth, the region rang with it; nobody had +any need to add to it, or to make it out a griffin or a dragon that had +gripped Faith and carried her off in his talons. But everybody declared +that those boats could be no ship's yawls at all, but must belong to +parties from up-river camping out on the beach, and that a parcel of +such must have gone sailing with some of the hands of a sand-droger: +there was one in the stream now, that had got off with the tide, said +the Jerdan boys, who'd been down there that afternoon, though there was +no such name as "Flyaway" on her stern, and they were waiting for the +master of her, who'd gone off on a spree,--a dare-devil fellow, that +used to run a smuggler between Bordeaux and Bristol, as they'd heard +say: and all agreed that Mr. Gabriel could never have had to do with +them before that day, or he'd have known what a place a sand-droger +would be for a woman; and everybody made excuses for Gabriel, and +everybody was down on Faith. So there things lay. It was raw and chill +when the last neighbor left us, the sky was black as a cloak, not a star +to be seen, the wind had edged back to the east again and came in wet +and wild from the sea and fringed with its thunder. Oh, poor little +Faith, what a night! what a night for her! + +I went back and sat down by Dan, and tried to keep his head cool. Father +was up walking the kitchen-floor till late, but at length he lay down +across the foot of mother's bed, as if expecting to be called. The +lights were put out, there was no noise in the town, every one +slept,--every one, except they watched like me, on that terrible night. +No noise in the town, did I say? Ah, but there was! It came creeping +round the corners, it poured rushing up the street, it rose from +everywhere,--a voice, a voice of woe, the heavy booming rote of the +sea. I looked out, but it was pitch-dark, light had forsaken the world, +we were beleaguered by blackness. It grew colder, as if one felt a fog +fall, and the wind, mounting slowly, now blew a gale. It eddied in +clouds of dead and whirling leaves, and sent big torn branches flying +aloft; it took the house by the four corners and shook it to loosening +the rafters, and I felt the chair rock under me; it rumbled down the +chimney as if it would tear the life out of us. And with every fresh +gust of the gale the rain slapped against the wall, the rain that fell +in rivers, and went before the wind in sheets,--and sheltered as I was, +the torrents seemed to pour over me like cataracts, and every drop +pierced me like a needle, and I put my fingers in my ears to shut out +the howl of the wind and the waves. I couldn't keep my thoughts away +from Faith. Oh, poor girl, this wasn't what she'd expected! As plainly +as if I were aboard-ship I felt the scene, the hurrying feet, the +slippery deck, the hoarse cries, the creaking cordage, the heaving and +plunging and straining, and the wide wild night. And I was beating +off those dreadful lines with them, two dreadful lines of white froth +through the blackness, two lines where the horns of breakers guard the +harbor,--all night long beating off the lee with them, my life in my +teeth, and chill, blank, shivering horror before me. My whole soul, my +whole being, was fixed in that one spot, that little vessel driving on +the rocks: it seemed as if a madness took possession of me, I reeled +as I walked, I forefelt the shivering shock, I waited till she should +strike. And then I thought I heard cries, and I ran out in the storm, +and down upon the causeway, but nothing met me but the hollow night and +the roaring sea and the wind. I came back, and hurried up and down and +wrung my hands in an agony. Pictures of summer nights flashed upon me +and faded,--where out of deep-blue vaults the stars hung like lamps, +great and golden,--or where soft films just hazing heaven caught the +rays, till all above gleamed like gauze faintly powdered and spangled +with silver,--or heavy with heat, slipping over silent waters, through +scented airs, under purple skies. And then storms rolled in and rose +before my eyes, distinct for a moment, and breaking,--such as I'd seen +them from the Shoals in broad daylight, when tempestuous columns +scooped themselves up from the green gulfs and shattered in loam on +the shuddering rock,--ah! but that was day, and this was midnight and +murk!--storms as I'd heard tell of them off Cape Race, when great +steamers went down with but one cry, and the waters crowded them out of +sight,--storms where, out of the wilderness of waves that far and wide +wasted white around, a single one came ploughing on straight to the +mark, gathering its grinding masses mast-high, poising, plunging, and +swamping and crashing them into bottomless pits of destruction,--storms +where waves toss and breakers gore, where, hanging on crests that slip +from under, reefs impale the hull, and drowning wretches cling to the +crags with stiffening hands, and the sleet ices them, and the spray, and +the sea lashes and beats them with great strokes and sucks them down +to death: and right in the midst of it all there burst a gun,--one, +another, and no more. "Oh, Faith! Faith!" I cried again, and I ran and +hid my head in the bed. + +How long did I stay so? An hour, or maybe two. Dan was still dead with +sleep, but mother had no more closed an eye than I. There was no rain +now, the wind had fallen, the dark had lifted; I looked out once more, +and could just see dimly the great waters swinging in the river from +bank to bank. I drew the bucket fresh, and bound the cloths cold on +Dan's head again. I hadn't a thought in my head, and I fell to counting +the meshes in the net that hung from the wall, but in my ears there was +the everlasting rustle of the sea and shore. It grew clearer,--it got +to being a universal gray; there'd been no sunrise, but it was day. +Dan stirred,--he turned over heavily; then he opened his eyes wide and +looked about him. + +"I've had such a fright!" he said. "Georgie! is that you?" + +With that it swept over him afresh, and he fell back. In a moment or two +he tried to rise, but he was weak as a child. He contrived to keep on +his elbow a moment, though, and to give a look out of the window. + +"It came on to blow, didn't it?" he asked; but there he sank down again. + +"I can't stay so!" he murmured soon. "I can't stay so! Here,--I must +tell you. Georgie, get out the spy-glass, and go up on the roof and +look over. I've had a dream, I tell you! I've had a dream. Not that +either,--but it's just stamped on me! It was like a storm,--and I +dreamed that that schooner--the Flyaway--had parted. And the half of +her's crashed down just as she broke, and Faith and that man are high +up on the bows in the middle of the South Breaker! Make haste, Georgie! +Christ! make haste!" + +I flew to the drawers and opened them, and began to put the spy-glass +together. Suddenly he cried out again,-- + +"Oh, here's where the fault was! What right had I ever to marry the +child, not loving her? I bound her! I crushed her! I stifled her! If she +lives, it is my sin; if she dies, I murder her!" + +He hid his face, as he spoke, so that his voice came thick, and great +choking groans rent their way up from his heart. + +All at once, as I looked up, there stood mother, in her long white gown, +beside the bed, and bending over and taking Dan's hot head in her two +hands. + +"Behold, He cometh with clouds!" she whispered. + +It always did seem to me as if mother had the imposition of +hands,--perhaps every one feels just so about their mother,--but only +her touch always lightens an ache for me, whether it's in the heart or +the head. + +"Oh, Aunt Rhody," said Dan, looking up in her face with his distracted +eyes, "can't you help me?" + +"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help," +said mother. + +"There's no help, there!" called Dan. "There's no God there! He wouldn't +have let a little child run into her damnation!" + +"Hush, hush, Dan!" murmured mother. "Faith never can have been at sea in +such a night as this, and not have felt God's hand snatching her out of +sin. If she lives, she's a changed woman; and if she dies, her soul is +whitened and fit to walk with saints. Through much tribulation." + +"Yes, yes," muttered father, in the room beyond, spitting on his hands, +as if he were going to take hold of the truth by the handle,--"it's best +to clean up a thing with the first spot, and not wait for it to get all +rusty with crime." + +"And he!" said Dan,--"and he,--that man,--Gabriel!" + + "Between the saddle and the ground + If mercy's asked, mercy's found," + +said I. + +"Are you there yet, Georgie?" he cried, turning to me. "Here! I'll go +myself!" But he only stumbled and fell on the bed again. + +"In all the terror and the tempest of these long hours,--for there's +been a fearful storm, though you haven't felt it," said mother,--"in all +that, Mr. Gabriel can't have slept. But at first it must have been that +great dread appalled him, and he may have been beset with sorrow. He'd +brought her to this. But at last, for he's no coward, he has looked +death in the face and not flinched; and the danger, and the grandeur +there is in despair, have lifted his spirit to great heights,--heights +found now in an hour, but which in a whole life long he never would have +gained,--heights from which he has seen the light of God's face and been +transfigured in it,--heights where the soul dilates to a stature it can +never lose. Oh, Dan, there's a moment, a moment when the dross strikes +off, and the impurities, and the grain sets, and there comes out the +great white diamond. For by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that +not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,--of Him that maketh the seven +stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning. Oh, I +_will_ believe that Mr. Gabriel hadn't any need to grope as we do, but +that suddenly he saw the Heavenly Arm and clung to it, and the grasp +closed round him, and death and hell can have no power over him now. +Dan, poor boy, is it better to lie in the earth with the ore than to +be forged in the furnace and beaten to a blade fit for the hands of +archangels?" + +And mother stopped, trembling like a leaf. + +I'd been wiping and screwing the glass, and I'd waited a breath, for +mother always talked so like a preacher; but when she'd finished, after +a second or two Dan looked up, and said, as if he'd just come in-- + +"Aunt Rhody! how come you out of bed?" + +And then mother, she got upon the bed, and she took Dan's head on her +breast and fell to stroking his brows, laying her cool palms on his +temples and on his eyelids, as once I'd have given my ears to do,--and I +slipped out of the room. + +Oh, I hated to go up those stairs, to mount that ladder, to open the +scuttle! And once there, I waited and waited before I dared to look. The +night had unnerved me. At length I fixed the glass. I swept the broad +swollen stream, to the yellowing woods, and over the meadows, where a +pale transient beam crept under and pried up the hay-cocks,--the smoke +that began to curl from the chimneys and fall as soon,--the mists +blowing off from Indian Hill, but brooding blue and dense down the +turnpike, and burying the red spark of the moon, that smothered like a +half-dead coal in her ashes,--anywhere, anywhere but that spot! I don't +know why it was, but I couldn't level the glass there,--my arm would +fall, my eye haze. Finally I brought it round nearer and tried again. +Everywhere, as far as your eye could reach, the sea was yeasty and white +with froth, and great streaks of it were setting up the inky river, +and against it there were the twin light-houses quivering their little +yellow rays as if to mock the dawn, and far out on the edge of day the +great light at the Isles of Shoals blinked and blinked, crimson and +gold, fainter and fainter, and lost at last. It was no use, I didn't +dare point it, my hand trembled so I could see nothing plain, when +suddenly an engine went thundering over the bridge and startled me into +stillness. The tube slung in my hold and steadied against the chimney, +and there----What was it in the field? what ghastly picture? + +The glass crashed from my hand, and I staggered shrieking down the +ladder. + +The sound wasn't well through my lips, when the door slammed, and Dan +had darted out of the house and to the shore. I after him. There was a +knot sitting and standing round there in the gray, shivering, with their +hands in their pockets and their pipes set in their teeth; but the gloom +was on them as well, and the pipes went out between the puffs. + +"Where's Dennis's boat?" Dan demanded, as he strode. + +"The six-oar's all the one not"---- + +"The six-oar I want. Who goes with me?" + +There wasn't a soul in the ward but would have followed Dan's lead to +the end of the world and jumped off; and before I could tell their names +there were three men on the thwarts, six oars in the air, Dan stood in +the bows, a word from him, and they shot away. + +I watched while I could see, and then in and up to the attic, forgetting +to put mother in her bed, forgetting all things but the one. And there +lay the glass broken. I sat awhile with the pieces in my hand, as if I'd +lost a kingdom; then down, and mechanically put things to rights, and +made mother comfortable,--and she's never stood on her feet from that +day to this. At last I seated myself before the fire, and stared into it +to blinding. + +"Won't some one lend you a glass, Georgie?" said mother. + +"Of course they will!" I cried,--for, you see, I hadn't a wit of my +own,--and I ran out. + +There's a glass behind every door in the street, you should know, and +there's no day in the year that you'll go by and not see one stretching +from some roof where the heart of the house is out on the sea. Oh, +sometimes I think all the romance of the town is clustered down here on +the Flats and written in pale cheeks and starting eyes. But what's the +use? After one winter, one, I gave mine away, and never got another. +It's just an emblem of despair. Look, and look again, and look till your +soul sinks, and the thing you want never crosses it; but you're down in +the kitchen stirring a porridge, or you're off at a neighbor's asking +the news, and somebody shouts at you round the corner, and there, black +and dirty and dearer than gold, she lies between the piers. + +All the world was up on their house-tops spying, that morning, but there +was nobody would keep their glass while I had none; so I went back +armed, and part of it all I saw, and part of it father told me. + +I waited till I thought they were 'most across, and then I rubbed the +lens. At first I saw nothing, and I began to quake with a greater fear +than any that had yet taken root in me. But with the next moment there +they were, pulling close up. I shut my eyes for a flash with some kind +of a prayer that was most like an imprecation, and when I looked again +they had dashed over and dashed over, taking the rise of the long roll, +and were in the midst of the South Breaker. O God! that terrible South +Breaker! The oars bent lithe as willow-switches, a moment they +skimmed on the caps, a moment were hid in the snow of the spray. Dan, +red-shirted, still stood there, his whole soul on the aim before him, +like that of some leaper flying through the air; he swayed to the +stroke, he bowed, he rose, perfectly balanced, and flexile as the wave. +The boat behaved beneath their hands like a live creature: she bounded +so that you almost saw the light under her; her whole steal lifted +itself slowly out of the water, caught the back of a roller and rode +over upon the next; the very things that came rushing in with their +white rage to devour her bent their necks and bore her up like a bubble. +Constantly she drew nearer that dark and shattered heap up to which the +fierce surf raced, and over which it leaped. And there all the time, all +the time, they had been clinging, far out on the bowsprit, those two +figures, her arms close-knit about him, he clasping her with one, the +other twisted in the hawser, whose harsh thrilling must have filled +their ears like an organ-note as it swung them to and fro,--clinging +to life,--clinging to each other more than to life. The wreck scarcely +heaved with the stoutest blow of the tremendous surge; here and there, +only, a plank shivered off and was bowled on and thrown high upon the +beach beside fragments of beams broken and bruised to a powder; it +seemed to be as firmly planted there as the breaker itself. Great +feathers of foam flew across it, great waves shook themselves thin +around it and veiled it in shrouds, and with their every breath the +smothering sheets dashed over them,--the two. And constantly the boat +drew nearer, as I said; they were almost within hail; Dan saw her hair +streaming on the wind; he waited only for the long wave. On it came, +that long wave,--oh! I can see it now!--plunging and rearing and +swelling, a monstrous billow, sweeping and swooning and rocking in. Its +hollows gaped with slippery darkness, it towered and sent the scuds +before its trembling crest, breaking with a mighty rainbow as the sun +burst forth, it fell in a white blindness everywhere, rushed seething up +the sand,--and the bowsprit was bare!---- + +When father came home, the rack had driven down the harbor and left +clear sky; it was near nightfall; they'd been searching the shore all +day,--to no purpose. But that rainbow,--I always took it for a sign. +Father was worn out, yet he sat in the chimney-side, cutting off great +quids and chewing and thinking and sighing. At last he went and wound up +the clock,--it was the stroke of twelve,--and then he turned to me and +said,-- + +"Dan sent you this, Georgie. He hailed a pilot-boat, and's gone to the +Cape to join the fall fleet to the fish'ries; and he sent you this." + +It was just a great hand-grip to make your nails purple, but there was +heart's-blood in it. See, there's the mark to-day. + +So there was Dan off in the Bay of Chaleur. It was the best place for +him. And I went about my work once more. There was a great gap in my +life, but I tried not to look at it. I durstn't think of Dan, and I +wouldn't think of them,--the two. Always in such times it's as if a +breath had come and blown across the pool and you could see down its +dark depths and into the very bottom, but time scums it all over again. +And I tell you it's best to look trouble in the face: if you don't, +you'll have more of it. So I got a lot of shoes to bind, and what part +of my spare time I wa'n't at my books the needle flew. But I turned no +more to the past than I could help, and the future trembled too much to +be seen. + +Well, the two months dragged away, it got to be Thanksgiving-week, and +at length the fleet was due. I mind me I made a great baking that +week; and I put brandy into the mince for once, instead of vinegar and +dried-apple juice,--and there were the fowls stuffed and trussed on +the shelf,--and the pumpkin-pies like slices of split gold,--and the +cranberry-tarts, plats of crimson and puffs of snow,--and I was brewing +in my mind a right-royal red Indian-pudding to come out of the oven +smoking hot and be soused with thick clots of yellow cream,--when one of +the boys ran in and told us the fleet'd got back, but no Dan with it, +--he'd changed over to a fore-and-after, and wouldn't be home at all, +but was to stay down in the Georges all winter, and he'd sent us word. +Well, the baking went to the dogs, or the Thanksgiving beggars, which is +the same thing. + +Then days went by, as days will, and it was well into the New Year. +I used to sit there at the window, reading,--but the lines would run +together, and I'd forget what 'twas all about, and gather no sense, and +the image of the little fore-and-after, the "Feather," raked in between +the leaves, and at last I had to put all that aside; and then I sat +stitching, stitching, but got into a sad habit of looking up and looking +out each time I drew the thread. I felt it was a shame of me to be so +glum, and mother missed my voice; but I could no more talk than I could +have given conundrums to King Solomon, and as for singing--Oh, I used to +long so for just a word from Dan! + +We'd had dry fine weeks all along, and father said he'd known we should +have just such a season, because the goose's breast-bone was so white; +but St. Valentine's day the weather broke, broke in a chain of storms +that the September gale was a whisper to. Ah, it was a dreadful winter, +that! You've surely heard of it. It made forty widows in our town. Of +the dead that were found on Prince Edward's Island's shores there were +four corpses in the next house yonder, and two in the one behind. And +what waiting and watching and cruel pangs of suspense for them that +couldn't have even the peace of certainty! And I was one of those. + +The days crept on, I say, and got bright again; no June days ever +stretched themselves to half such length; there was perfect stillness in +the house,--it seemed to me that I counted every tick of the clock. In +the evenings the neighbors used to drop in and sit mumbling over their +fearful memories till the flesh crawled on my bones. Father, then, he +wanted cheer, and he'd get me to singing "Caller Herrin'." Once, I'd +sung the first part, but as I reached the lines,-- + + "When ye were sleepin' on your pillows, + Dreamt ye aught o' our puir fellows + Darklin' as they face the billows, + A' to fill our woven willows,"-- + +as I reached those lines, my voice trembled so's to shake the tears out +of my eyes, and Jim Jerdan took it up himself and sung it through for +me to words of his own invention. He was always a kindly fellow, and he +knew a little how the land lay between me and Dan. + +"When I was down in the Georges," said Jim Jerdan---- + +"You? When was you down there?" asked father. + +"Well,--once I was. There's worse places." + +"Can't tell me nothing about the Georges," said father. "'Ta'n't the +rivers of Damascus exactly, but 'ta'n't the Marlstrom neither." + +"Ever ben there, Cap'n?" + +"A few. Spent more nights under cover roundabouts than Georgie'll have +white hairs in her head,--for all she's washing the color out of her +eyes now." + +You see, father knew I set by my hair,--for in those days I rolled it +thick as a cable, almost as long, black as that cat's back,--and he +thought he'd touch me up a little. + +"Wash the red from her cheek and the light from her look, and she'll +still have the queen's own tread," said Jim. + +"If Loisy Currier'd heern that, you'd wish your cake was dough," says +father. + +"I'll resk it," says Jim. "Loisy knows who's second choice, as well as +if you told her." + +"But what about the Georges, Jim?" I asked; for though I hated to hear, +I could listen to nothing else. + +"Georges? Oh, not much. Just like any other place." + +"But what do you do down there?" + +"Do? Why, we fish,--in the pleasant weather." + +"And when it's not pleasant?" + +"Oh, then we make things taut, hoist fores'l, clap the hellum into the +lee becket, and go below and amuse ourselves." + +"How?" I asked, as if I hadn't heard it all a hundred times. + +"One way 'n' another. Pipes, and mugs, and poker, if it a'n't too rough; +and if it is, we just bunk and snooze till it gets smooth." + +"Why, Jim,--how do you know when that is?" + +"Well, you can jedge,--'f the pipe falls out of your pocket and don't +light on the ceiling." + +"And who's on deck?" + +"There's no one on deck. There's no danger, no trouble, no nothing. +Can't drive ashore, if you was to try: hundred miles off, in the first +place. Hatches are closed, she's light as a cork, rolls over and over +just like any other log in the water, and there can't a drop get into +her, if she turns bottom-side up." + +"But she never can right herself!" + +"Can't she? You just try her. Why, I've known 'em to keel over and rake +bottom and bring up the weed on the topmast. I tell you now! there was +one time we knowed she'd turned a somerset, pretty well. Why? Because, +when it cleared and we come up, there was her two masts broke short +off!" + +And Jim went home thinking he'd given me a night's sleep. But it was +cold comfort; the Georges seemed to me a worse place than the Hellgate. +And mother she kept murmuring,--"He layeth the beams of His chambers in +the waters, His pavilion round about Him is dark waters and thick clouds +of the skies." And I knew by that she thought it pretty bad. + +So the days went in cloud and wind. The owners of the Feather 'd been +looking for her a month and more, and there were strange kind of rumors +afloat; and nobody mentioned Dan's name, unless they tripped. I went +glowering like a wild thing. I knew I'd never see Dan now nor hear his +voice again, but I hated the Lord that had done it, and I made my heart +like the nether millstone. I used to try and get out of folks's sight; +and roaming about the back-streets one day, as the snow went off, I +stumbled on Miss Catharine. "Old Miss Catharine" everybody called her, +though she was but a pauper, and had black blood in her veins. Eighty +years had withered her,--a little woman at best, and now bent so that +her head and shoulders hung forward and she couldn't lift them, and she +never saw the sky. Her face to the ground as no beast's face is turned +even, she walked with a cane, and fixing it every few steps she would +throw herself back, and so get a glimpse of her way and go on. I looked +after her, and for the first time in weeks my heart ached for somebody +beside myself. The next day mother sent me with a dish to Miss +Catharine's room, and I went in and sat down. I didn't like her at +first; she'd got a way of looking sidelong that gave her an evil air; +but soon she tilted herself backward, and I saw her face,--such a happy +one! + +"What's the matter of ye, honey?" said she. "D'ye read your Bible?" + +Read my Bible! + +"Is that what makes you happy, Miss Catharine?" I asked. + +"Well, I can't read much myself, I don't know the letters," says she; +"but I've got the blessed promises in my heart." + +"Do you want me to read to you?" + +"No, not to-day. Next time you come, maybe." + +So I sat awhile and listened to her little humming voice, and we fell to +talking about mother's ailments, and she said how fine it would be, if +we could only afford to take mother to Bethesda. + +"There's no angel there now," said I. + +"I know it, dear,--but then there might be, you know. At any rate, +there's always the living waters running to make us whole: I often think +of that." + +"And what else do you think of, Miss Catharine?" + +"Me?" said she. "Oh, I ha'n't got no husband nor no child to think about +and hope for, and so I think of myself, and what I should like, honey. +And sometimes I remember them varses,--here! you read 'em now,--Luke +xiii. 11." + +So I read:-- + +"And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen +years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself. And +when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, 'Woman, +thou art loosed from thine infirmity.' And he laid his hands on her: and +immediately she was made straight, and glorified God." + +"Ay, honey, I see that all as if it was me. And I think, as I'm setting +here, What if the latch should lift, and the gracious stranger should +come in, His gown a-sweepin' behind Him and a-sweet'nin' the air, and He +should look down on me with His heavenly eyes, and He should smile, and +lay His hands on my head, warm?--and I say to myself, 'Lord, I am not +worthy,'--and He says, 'Miss Catharine, thou art loosed from thine +infirmity!' And the latch lifts, as I think, and I wait,--but it's not +Him." + +Well, when I went out of that place I wasn't the same girl that had +gone in. My will gave way; I came home and took up my burden and was in +peace. Still I couldn't help my thoughts,--and they ran perpetually to +the sea. I hadn't need to go up on the house-tops, for I didn't shut my +eyes but there it stretched before me. I stirred about the rooms and +tried to make them glad once more; but I was thin and blanched as if I'd +been rising from a fever. Father said it was the salt air I wanted; and +one day he was going out for frost-fish, and he took me with him, and +left me and my basket on the sands while he was away. It was this side +of the South Breaker that he put me out, but I walked there; and where +the surf was breaking in the light, I went and sat down and looked over +it. I could do that now. + +There was the Cape sparkling miles and miles across the way, unconcerned +that he whose firm foot had rung last on its flints should ring there no +more; there was the beautiful town lying large and warm along the river; +here gay craft went darting about like gulls, and there up the channel +sped a larger one, with all her canvas flashing in the sun, and +shivering a little spritsail in the shadow, as she went; and fawning in +upon my feet came the foam from the South Breaker, that still perhaps +cradled Faith and Gabriel. But as I looked, my eye fell, and there came +the sea-scenes again,--other scenes than this, coves and corners of +other coasts, sky-girt regions of other waters. The air was soft, that +April day, and I thought of the summer calms; and with that rose long +sheets of stillness, far out from any strand, purple beneath the noon; +fields slipping close in-shore, emerald-backed and scaled with sunshine; +long sleepy swells that hid the light in their hollows, and came +creaming along the cliffs. And if upon these broke suddenly a wild +glimpse of some storm careering over a merciless mid-ocean, of a dear +dead face tossing up on the surge and snatched back again into the +depths, of mad wastes rushing to tear themselves to fleece above clear +shallows and turbid sand-bars,--they melted and were lost in peaceful +glimmers of the moon on distant flying foam-wreaths, in solemn midnight +tides chanting in under hushed heavens, in twilight stretches kissing +twilight slopes, in rosy morning waves flocking up the singing shores. +And sitting so, with my lids still fallen, I heard a quick step on the +beach, and a voice that said, "Georgie!" And I looked, and a figure, +red-shirted, towered beside me, and a face, brown and bearded and +tender, bent above me. + +Oh! it was Dan! + + + + +THE SAM ADAMS REGIMENTS IN THE TOWN OF BOSTON.[A] + +[Footnote A: This monograph, has been prepared almost entirely from +original authorities. Citations will be found in it from letters written +by General Gage, Governor Bernard, John Pownall, Lord Barrington, and +Lord Hillsborough, which have not been heretofore printed or used. They +are from the rich historical collections of JARED SPARKS,--who has +liberally permitted the writer to use original papers as freely as +though they were his own. Among other sources from which the narrative +has been drawn is an unfinished Life of Samuel Adams, in manuscript, by +Samuel Adams Wells, for the liberal use of which, and for other papers, +the writer is indebted to GEORGE BANCROFT. The materials have been +mostly taken, however, from a compilation which the writer has had for +several years in manuscript, entitled, "The Life and Times of Joseph +Warren."] + + +THE LANDING. + + +As John Adams, in the evening of his life, and in the retirement of +Quincy, looked back on the scenes through which he had passed, he dwelt +on the removal of the British troops from Boston in the month of March, +1770, as an event that profoundly stirred the public mind, and thus +contributed to promote that radical change in affections and principles +on the paramount subject of sovereignty, which he regarded as +constituting the real American Revolution. + +The more this chapter of history is examined, the more there will be +found in it to justify the judgment of the venerable patriot. It is +fragrant with the political aroma of the time; and the event seems +worthy to stand out in the American Revolution, like the Arrest of the +Five Members in the English Revolution. It is identified with a great +principle. It formed the crisis of an issue of the deepest moment. It +culminated in the triumph of the people when roused by passion and high +resolve to heroic manhood. The trial-scene was on so important a stage, +was so richly dramatic, had actors of such dignity of character, and was +so instinct with the national life, as "to deserve to be painted as much +as the Surrender of Burgoyne." It was the moment when Samuel Adams, in +the name of a resolute people, made the demand, as an ultimatum, for an +immediate removal of the troops. The close connection of this patriot +with the whole transaction led Lord North, ever after, to call these +troops by the title of "Sam Adams's Two Regiments." + +The story of the introduction of these troops into Boston, also, is rich +in matter illustrative of the springs of political action. The narrative +soon shows that it relates to far more than an ordinary transfer of +a military force from one station to another. Such transfers are not +preceded by long hesitation in cabinets, or by long torture of peaceful +communities in expectation of their arrival. Yet such was the preface +to the landing of this force in Boston. It was sent on an uncommon +service,--a service insulting to a loyal people; and though this people +had hailed the flag that waved over it with enthusiasm from the fields +of Louisburg and Quebec, they now looked upon it with sorrowing eyes as +the symbol of arbitrary power. + +These troops were ordered to Boston at an interesting period of the +American struggle. The movement against the Stamp Act, noble as it +was in the main, had phases that were deeply deplored by reflecting +patriots. Such were the riots, attended by destruction of property and +personal outrage, which, though common in England, were violative of +that reverence for law that was thoroughly ingrained in the American +character; and they were, besides, rather in the spirit of hasty and +irregular insurrection than of the slow and majestic development of +revolution. "We are not able in this way," wrote Jonathan Mayhew, "to +contend against Great Britain." + +On the repeal of the Stamp Act, there was an expression of general joy, +and controversy subsided. When fresh aggressions, in, the passage of +the Revenue Acts of 1767, required a new movement, the popular leaders, +profiting by past sad experience, strove to prevent excesses, and +patiently labored to build up their cause in the growth of an +intelligent public opinion. Even in reference to obnoxious local +officials, the word ran through the ranks,--"Let there be no mobs, no +riots. Let not the hair of their scalps be touched." Hard as it is to +restrain the rash, when the popular passion is excited, not a life was +sacrificed, not a limb even was dislocated, by the patriots of Boston in +political action, until the ripe hour of the Lexington rising. + +In this way Massachusetts, when called upon to stand by old customs and +rights, acted not only in a spirit of fidelity to liberty, but also in a +spirit of loyalty to law and order. Her conduct in the Stamp Act crisis +turned towards her the eyes and drew towards her the hearts of the other +Colonies, and elevated her into what was then a perilous, but is now a +proud, pre-eminence; and the call was made on her (1767) in the journals +of other Colonies, and copied into the Boston papers, as "the liberties +of a common country were again in danger," "to kindle the sacred flame +that should warm and illuminate the continent." So instinctively did the +common peril suggest the thought and expression of a common country. + +The Loyalists, for years, put Boston as in a pillory for punishment. It +was (they said) the head-quarters of sedition. It was the fountain of +opposition to the Government. It was under the rule of a trained mob. +It was swayed to and fro by a few popular leaders. It was the nest of a +faction. James Otis and Samuel Adams were the two consuls. Joseph Warren +was one of the chiefs. John Hancock was possessed of great wealth and of +large social and commercial influence. Such leaders, bankrupts on the +exchange or in character, controlled everything. They controlled the +clubs,--and there was not a social company or political club that +did not claim to have to do with the Government: they controlled the +town-meetings,--and these were the instrumentalities of rebellion: and +the town-meetings controlled the legislature, and this controlled the +Province. Then the local press was filled with incendiary matter from +the cabinet of the faction. Thus the spirits who led in the clubs, the +town-meetings, and the legislature supplied the seditious writing that +was scattered broadcast over the Colonies, and poisoned as it spread. + +There was some truth in this Loyalist strain. Patriotic rays gathered +and drew to a focus in Boston, and there became intensified with a +steady power. The town had jealousies to encounter and prejudices to +overcome; but, as if to the manner born, it acted in a spirit of such +comprehensive patriotism that it came to be regarded as an exponent of +the feelings of the whole country. Its key-note was Union. In fitting +words Philadelphia (1768) grandly said to Boston,--"Let us never forget +that our strength depends on our union, and our liberty on our strength; +united we conquer, divided we die." Boston returned the pledge, "warmly +to recommend and industriously to promote that union among the several +Colonies which is so indispensably necessary for the security of the +whole." + +Boston at this period is usually described as a noted and opulent +trading town,--the Great Town,--the Metropolis of New England,--the +best situated for commerce in North America,--the largest city in +the American British Empire. It had the air of an English city. Its +commodious residences had spacious lawns and gardens and fields; while +the contents of its stores, as seen in advertisements that sometimes +cover a broadside of the journals, and the number of ship-yards that +are shown by the maps to have girdled the town, betoken its business +activity. Its population of sixteen thousand, with its three thousand +voters, and no pauper class, had carefully nurtured the common school, +and was characterized not only by love of order, but by enterprise, +intelligence, and public spirit. It early welcomed the doctrine of a +right in the people to interpret the religious law and to fashion, the +political law, and thus practically welcomed freedom of thought and of +utterance, and acknowledged allegiance only to truth. It had tested for +more than a century the working of this principle, as it was carried out +in the congregation and in the municipality, in the Church and in the +State. By it each citizen was made deeply interested in the support of +liberty; and thus the town had not only a public, but a public life, +quietly nurtured as worthy citizens were successively called to manage +the local affairs. It furnished the instance of a community composed of +men of small estates who very rarely had to use a mark for their name, +and imbued by the spirit of individual independence toned into a respect +for law, which, on the decline of feudalism, began to play a part on +the national stage. Thus the political character of Boston was sharply +defined and firmly fixed. It started in the republican way, went on for +over a century in republican habits, and had the priceless heirloom of +principles and traditions that were certainly life-giving, and may not +inaptly be termed national. The prediction was publicly uttered here, +two centuries ago, and printed, that a day would come when "those that +were branded before for Huguenots and Lollards and Hereticks, they +should be thought the only men to be fit to have crowns upon their +heads, and independent government committed to them"; and the crown that +shone with superior lustre was progress in things that elevate and adorn +humanity. + +Such a government, so far as it regarded local affairs, the people +substantially enjoyed under the protecting wing of a proud nationality. +They loved the old flag. They claimed its history as their history, and +its glory as their glory. It gave security to their rights as men, as +Christians, and as Englishmen. It thus sheltered the precious body of +civil and religious liberties which they were in the habit of speaking +of as the rights of mankind. For this they were attached to the +English Constitution. For this they said, "Dear England!" Their strong +expressions in favor of the union with Great Britain were sincere. The +turn of the words showed the honest bent of the mind. No man respected +the English Constitution more than Samuel Adams, and his strong language +now (1768) was,--"I pray God that harmony may be cultivated between +Great Britain and the Colonies, and that they may long flourish in one +undivided empire." His resolution was no less strong to stand for +local self-government. As the idea began to be entertained that the +preservation of this right might require a new nationality, nothing legs +worthy for country was thought of than a union of all the Colonies in an +American commonwealth, with one constitution, which should be supreme +over all in questions common to country, and have one flag. The great +idea was expressed by New Jersey, that the continent must protect the +continent. + +This idea of creating a new nationality was forced on the Colonies by +wanton aggressions on the local self-government. There was far from +unanimity of opinion as to the acts, much less as to the ascribed +purposes of the Ministry. Setting aside a class of no-party men in peace +and of non-combatants in war, the people of Boston, as of other places, +were divided into the friends and the opponents of the Administration, +Loyalists and Whigs. The Whigs held that the new policy was flat +aggression on the old republican way, hostile to their normal political +life,--in a word, unconstitutional: the Loyalists maintained that the +new policy was required to preserve the dependence on Great Britain, and +therefore a necessity. The Whigs, zealous as they were for the local +government, claimed to be loyal to the King: the Loyalists, however +zealous for the independence of Parliament, claimed, in supporting the +supremacy of law, to be friends of freedom. As it was not the original +purpose of the Loyalists to invoke for their country the curse of +arbitrary power, so it was not the original purpose of the Whigs +to sever relations with the British crown. Men, however, are but +instruments in the hands of Providence. Both parties drifted into +measures which neither party originally proposed or even desired; and +thus the Loyalist, to maintain the sovereignty of Parliament, grew into +the defender of arbitrary power, and the Whig, to preserve the local +government, grew into the asserter of national independence. + +Nor was there unanimity among the Patriots themselves as to the way in +which the Revenue Acts ought to be opposed; indeed, some were averse to +making any opposition to them; but at length the policy of uniting the +Colonies in the non-importation agreement, after being talked over +at one of the political clubs in Boston, was agreed upon at a public +meeting, and sent out to the country. Hence this was the period +fixed upon by the Ministry as the time when the popular leaders made +themselves liable to the penalties of violated law. When, in England, +the idea was entertained and acted upon, that nothing would restore the +authority of the Government but the arrest and transportation to +London of the originators of the opposition to the Revenue Acts, +Lord Hillsborough's instructions to the Massachusetts Executive ran +thus:--"The King has thought fit to direct me to signify to you his +Majesty's commands that you do take the most effectual methods for +procuring the fullest information that can be obtained touching all +treasons or misprisions of treason committed within your government +since the 30th day of December, 1767, and transmit the same to me, +together with the names of persons who were most active in the +commission of such offences." + +This language was addressed to Francis Bernard, who was at this time the +highest representative of British power in Boston. He was a native of +England, an Oxford graduate, and, from the training of Solicitor +of Doctors Commons, was sent over, by the favor of aristocratic +relationship, to be the Governor of New Jersey, and now for eight years +had been Governor of Massachusetts. He was a scholar, and kept his +memory of Alma Mater fresh. He loved literature and science, could write +elegies in Latin and Greek, used to say that he could repeat the whole +of Shakspeare, and had such gifts of conversation as to charm the social +circle. His politics were of the Oxford school, and old at that. He +looked upon the people with distrust, and upon the king with veneration: +the people had good claim to be well governed, and British Imperialism +had the divine right to govern them well. He was a good hater of +republican institutions; habitually spoke of the local self-government +as a trained mob; and to it (he was not far from right here) he ascribed +the temper of the community which he was set to care for and to rule. It +was vexatious to his Tory spirit to see the democratic element, which +had excluded primogeniture and the hereditary principle and large landed +estates, so firmly bedded here, as if for a mighty superstructure; and +his reform plans tended to a change to centralization. It was a marvel +to him, that this work, which he deemed essential to the maintenance of +British power here, had not been begun long before,--that Charles II. +had not made a clean sweep of the little New England republics. He urged +that this ought to be done now,--that more general governments ought +to take their place, with executives having vice-regal powers; and of +course, being English, he urged that they should be moulded by England +into a shape as nearly as possible like England and for the benefit of +England, and thus be made homogeneous. He sighed to impose the dazzle of +a miniature St. James on reality-loving New England: as though the soil +which had been furrowed for a race of sovereigns could grow a crop of +lords; as though the Norman _rôle_ of privilege could be engrafted on a +society imbued with the Saxon spirit of equality: and he clinched the +absurdity of his thought by uttering the prediction, that, though the +people might bluster a little when such reform was proposed, yet they +never would resist by force; and if they did, a demonstration of British +power, such as the presence of the King's troops in a few coast-towns +and the occupation of a few harbors by the royal navy, would soon settle +the contest. + +As such an arrogant official, from yet unsealed Oxford heights, thus +paternally looked down over Boston and New England, he could see in +the little self-directing communities that clustered about the village +church and the public school but a race of nobodies. He may be pardoned +for not finding greatness in art, literature, or science in the circle +that has been called the Athens of America; he could not be expected to +measure the rich and enduring fame of a Jonathan Edwards; and it was an +article in the then Oxford creed, that there could not be, unmoulded by +the influences of an hereditary nobility, such a general product as a +people lifted up by education and religion into a self-directing race of +high-minded men, as the basis of a State. But a small class of British +observers, who had other principles and other eyes, saw now in Boston +the most orderly town and the most intelligent and moral people on the +face of the earth; and said--the words were printed (1768) in London, +and reproduced in the local press here--that no people since the ruin of +the Roman Commonwealth seemed to entertain more just ideas of liberty +or breathed forth a truer spirit of independence than these American +colonists. Now Governor Bernard and his political friends regarded the +chafings of such a people at what they held to be palpable aggressions +on their established system of local government as the acts of a trained +mob, and proofs of a long-matured design to cast off allegiance to the +British crown and of an immediate purpose of insurrection; and for years +they systematically urged, and attempted to fortify their policy by the +most unscrupulous misrepresentations, that nothing could check this +anarchical element and traitorous design but the abrogation of +fundamental parts of the local constitution and the implanting of a +feudal exotic by military power. The people claimed to be as free as the +English were, and the calumnies were heaped on them of being anarchists +and rebels. + +This theory of insurrection was acted upon by the Governor as long as +he remained in the Province. Every hasty word of the violent, and every +public deliberation of the wise as well, were made to nurture this +theory. By acting on such premises, besides doing gross injustice to the +people, he made himself ridiculous. Still he clung tenaciously to his +error and his plans as long as he remained in office; and even after he +returned to England, the course of the Patriots continued to strengthen +his convictions, and he wrote back that it was "plainly the design of +the chiefs of the Boston faction to measure swords with Great Britain." + +Though Governor Bernard had long thought a military force necessary to +sustain the new measures, yet he refused to make a requisition for it. +He expected the Government, of its own motion, would order troops to +Boston in the time of the Stamp Act, and looked for trouble on their +arrival. "The crisis," he wrote, (September 1, 1766,) "which I apprehend +most danger from, is the introduction of King's troops into this town, +which, having become necessary to the support of the Government, will be +placed to the account of the Governor." But no troops were ordered then. +He never was able to get his Council, even when he supposed a majority +agreed with him in politics, to recommend their introduction; for no +policy or measure which even such a Council indorsed required troops to +enforce it. The Governor, however, was a zealous advocate of the new +policy of the Ministry, which he judged could not be carried out +without military force; but his point was, that, along with the stiff +instructions to carry that policy out, the Ministry ought to supply +force enough to do it. + +The new Revenue Acts provided for a Board called the Commissioners of +Customs, who were empowered to collect duties along a truly imperial +line of coast, extending from Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico. They were +appointed to reside in Boston. They were five in number,--Charles +Paxton, Henry Hulton, William Burch, John Robinson, and John Temple. Not +much is said of Hulton and Burch, who appear to have been simply zealous +partisans; Robinson's violent temper is seen in his savage assault on +Otis; Temple was not in favor of the creation of the Board, and won its +enmity by taking exceptions to its doings; Paxton was charged with being +the father of the Board and its chief. He was a zealous official, with a +clean Tory record, of bland, courtlike ways, and certificated to England +as Bernard's confidential friend. There he is said to have "whined, +cried, professed, swore, and made his will in favor of that great man," +Charles Townshend, whom, when in Boston, he had supplied with funds, and +thus gained his objects. This Board soon became a severe and chronic +local irritant. The foreign ways of its members, for most of them were +strangers, supplied the wits of the town with material for satire, while +its main acts were as iron to the soul of a high-spirited community. As +it was created to collect taxes held to be unconstitutional, it could +not have been popular; but it discharged an ungracious task in an +ungracious way; and so singularly ill-judged was its action, that, while +it excited odium here, it elicited censure in England. + +The Commissioners were full believers in the theory that the popular +leaders designed insurrection. The Governor, in a letter to Lord +Barrington, (March 8, 1768,) relates that they would ask him what +support he could give them, "if there should be insurrection." "I +answer," Bernard says, "'None at all.' They then desire me to apply to +the General for troops. I tell them I cannot do it; for I am directed to +consult the Council about requiring troops, and they will never advise +it, let the case be ever so desperate. Indeed, I no more dare apply +for troops than the Council dare advise me to it. Ever since I have +perceived that the wickedness of some and the folly of others will in +the end bring troops here, I have conducted myself so as to be able to +say, and swear to it, if the Sons of Liberty shall require it, that +I have never applied for troops; and therefore, my Lord, I beg that +nothing I now write may be considered such an application." This is a +fair show for this royal official. He begins his letter by telling how, +within ten days just passed, nights have been twice fixed upon for a +mob; at the close, he returns to the matter of a mob, and tells how he +has promised the Commissioners an asylum at the Castle in case of a +mob; and he warns his superior that a mob, unchecked, "might put the +Commissioners and all their officers on board ship, and send them back +to England." This was the Governor's method of not asking for troops. +The Commissioners, at least, asked for troops in a manly way. "About a +fortnight ago," Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson writes, (March 23, 1768,) +"I was in consultation with the Commissioners. They were very desirous +the Governor should----for a R----. If he had done it, by some means +or other it would have transpired, and there is no saying to what +lengths the people would have gone in their resentment." The letter just +cited explains why the Governor did not send for a regiment. + +A few days after this consultation the Patriots celebrated the +anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act by a day of general +rejoicing. There were things that could be perverted, and were +perverted, into signs of mob-rule and disloyalty. Daylight revealed +hanging on the Liberty Tree effigies of Commissioner Paxton and +Inspector Williams, the latter of whom, being a cabinet-maker, had a +glue-pot by his side, but by order of the popular leaders they were +soon removed; there were salutes, liberty toasts, and other joyful +demonstrations, and in the evening a procession, which was quite +harmless, though, as it went along the street by the Province House, +somewhat noisy, so that the Governor said that he and his family were +disturbed. But there was an allegation that ran deeper than processions, +and which went to the meaning of these rejoicings. The Loyalists said +that the Patriots congratulated one another on their glorious victory +over England in the repeal of the Stamp Act; and if the Tory relations +may be believed, there were men in Boston who were so foolish as +to say,--We have shown our spirit; we have convinced them of our +resentment; they repealed their foolish act; they durst not do +otherwise; if they had, we should have ruined them. And the Loyalists +said, that, when the mother-country had a right to look for gratitude, +she actually met with insult. + +With such views of the day, it is easy to see how its proceedings might +be perverted. They were represented to the Ministry by Governor Bernard +as signs of a rebellious spirit; and were made the ground by the +Commissioners of a direct application to Commodore Hood, at Halifax, for +the protection of a naval force,--he being advised that the conduct +and temper of the people, the adverse aspect of things in general, the +security of the revenue, the safety of its officers, and the honor of +Government required immediate aid; and the hope being expressed that he +would find it consistent with the King's other service to afford such +assistance. The Commodore ordered the Romney to be fitted out with all +possible despatch, and, accompanied by two armed schooners, she sailed +for Boston. As they came into the harbor, being short of men, a +press-gang landed from them, who impressed on board Massachusetts +citizens. Ever since the revival of the aggressions on Colonial rights, +"Hyperion" (Josiah Quincy, Jr.) says, the Loyalists publicly threatened +the defenders of the rights of America with halters, fire, and fagots; +but there was nothing more serious than threats, or more authentic than +rumors, until this appearance of the Romney and her two tenders. + +This show of naval force, though no troops came, was irritating, and +multiplied the sayings of the violent, which appear to have been +reported to the Governor, who advised the Ministry that he was "well +assured that it was the intention of the faction in Boston to cause an +insurrection against the crown officers." At this time he favored Lord +Hillsborough with a lucid explanation of a paradox,--how a few leaders +of bankrupt reputation ruled with a rod of iron the most virtuous town +in the world. "It has been a subject of wonder," are the Governor's +words, (May 19,1768,) "how the faction which harasses this town, and +through it the whole continent, which is known to consist of very few +of the lowest kind of gentry, and is directed by three or four persons, +bankrupts in reputation as well as in property, should be able to keep +in subjection the inhabitants of such a town as this, who possess a +hundred times the credit and property (I might say much more) of those +who rule them with a rod of iron. This paradox is at once solved by +showing that this town is governed by the lowest of the people, and from +the time of the Stamp Act to this hour has been and is in the hands +of the mob." He represented the friends of the Government as very +desponding, on seeing, unchecked, the imperial power treated with a +contempt not only indecent, but almost treasonable. Of such cast were +letters read to George III. in his closet, and made the basis of royal +instructions which it was claimed had the force of law. + +This was an anxious hour in Boston. The journals carried into every +circle the reports, private and public, that the Ministry were resolved +upon new and decisive measures; and thus this show of force had a +painful significance. It was the common talk, that the people were +doomed to be taxed to maintain a parcel of sycophants, court +favorites, and hungry dependants; that needy lawyers from abroad +or tools of power at home would be their judges; and that +their governors, if natives, would be partisans rewarded for +mercenary service, or if foreigners, would be nobles of wasted fortunes +and greedy for salaries to replenish them. Kindling-matter from abroad +was thrown on this inflammable public mind at home; for after each +arrival the journals would be filled with the enthusiasm of the Wilkes +controversy, which then was at its height in England; and if "London +resounded the word Liberty from every corner and every voice," there was +an echo in every street and every home in Boston. The people knew they +were misrepresented and ill-used, and were sullen. They knew they were +in the right, and they were resolute. + +In about a month after Governor Bernard had solved the problem how such +bankrupts in reputation as Joseph Warren, James Otis, John Hancock, and +Samuel Adams ruled the town as with a rod of iron, there was (June 10, +1768) a real mob. The Board of Customs directed the revenue officers, +for alleged violations of the revenue laws, to seize the sloop Liberty, +owned by Hancock, which they did on a Friday, near the hour of sunset, +as the men were going home from their day's work. And as though the +people contemplated forcible resistance to the law, and would refuse to +respect the arrest, the sloop, after the broad arrow was put upon her, +contrary to the advice of the Collector, was moved, with vulgar and +rough words by the officers, from the wharf where she lay, and moored +under the guns of the Romney. This was the beginning of a war of +epithets, in the usual way of brawls, between the crowd, which kept +increasing, and the custom-house officers,--and, by a sort of natural +law of mobs, grew into a riot, in which the offending officials were +severely pelted with dirt and stones. It is related, that, while Warren, +Hancock, and Samuel Adams were in consultation, the mob broke the +windows of the residences of the Comptroller and Inspector, and dragged +the pleasure-boat of the Collector to the Common, where they burned +it. But here Hancock and other popular leaders went among them, and +succeeded in restoring quiet. These were outrages, and could not be +justified, though the parents of them were the brutal words of the +captain of the Romney and the mob procedure of the officers in taking +the vessel, which was detained three days without any legal process +being filed against her. After all, this was a very slight affair when +compared with the contemporary terrific mobs of London and elsewhere, +which did not spare the highest officials, and, instead of stopping at +breaking glass, pushed into the most costly houses, made complete havoc +of furniture, destroyed life, and were checked only by military force +and bloodshed. In view of these, Colonel Barre might truly say in the +House of Commons, that, in this riot, "Boston was only mimicking the +mother-country." + +But the officials, and especially the Commissioners, all but Temple, +chose to consider the mob as quite original and American, and as proof +that the people of Boston were ripe for open revolt. They regarded the +excitement that arose as confirming this view. The Commissioners, who +had not been harmed and were not threatened, were the most violent and +unreasonable; and though the Governor all Saturday and Sunday endeavored +to persuade them "to come into some pacific measures," yet it was all +to no purpose. On Monday morning, they, with the exception of Temple, +notified the Governor by a card that they were going on board the +Romney, and desired the necessary orders for them to use the Castle; and +they took their families with them. They immediately sent Hallowell off +to England, and advised the Lords of the Treasury,--"Nothing but the +immediate exertion of military power will prevent an open revolt of this +town, which may probably spread throughout the Colonies." Temple, and +a number of the subordinates of the Board, remained in town, were not +molested, and gathered in the revenue which importers continued to pay. + +The town regarded the manner of the seizure of the Liberty as a gross +affront, and coupled with it the recent cases impressment; and on +Monday things looked threatening. But the popular leaders came out, put +themselves at the head of the movement, and guided the indignation along +the safe channels of law, in such a manner that it resulted in nothing +more violent than petition and remonstrance, calmly, but strongly, +expressed through the town-meeting. It is not necessary to detail what +took place at the Liberty Tree, in Faneuil Hall, and in the Old South, +where the Patriots held the greatest meetings, so it is written, that +were ever seen on the American continent At their commencement, on +Tuesday morning, at the Liberty Tree, the Governor, whose town-residence +was the Province House, was at his country-seat at Jamaica Plain, in +Roxbury. He received such startling advices from his friends, as to the +doings of the Sons of Liberty, that he sent one of his own sons +into town with a message desiring the immediate presence of +Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, as he was "in expectation of very +important news from town," and such as would make it necessary for +him to withdraw. While with perturbed nerves he awaited Hutchinson's +arrival, he must have been surprised to see moving towards his house, +not a Parisian populace, pell-mell, flourishing liberty-caps and pikes, +or even a growling London mob, but a peaceful train of eleven cozy +chaises, conveying a very respectable committee from a public meeting, +at the head of which were Warren, Otis, and Samuel Adams. They bore a +petition to the Governor from the town, which protested against the +right of Parliament to tax the Colonies, and denied the legality of +press-gangs in Massachusetts. "I received them," are the Governor's +words, "with all possible civility, and having heard their petition, I +talked very freely with them, but postponed giving a formal answer till +the next day, as it should be in writing. I then had wine handed round, +and they left me highly pleased with their reception, especially +that part of them which had not been used to an interview with me." +Considering the Governor's state of mind, the committee could not have +been more highly pleased when they left than he was when they arrived; +but his perturbations were over when Hutchinson came in, and there was +no occasion for unusual political action. + +The Governor's reply to the town, on the next day, was conciliatory. The +petition which the committee presented to him was regarded by Hutchinson +as going beyond anything that had yet been advanced in the way of a +practical denial of Parliamentary authority; but the Governor wisely +declined to argue the vexed question of that day, and as wisely promised +redress for the press-gang outrage, all of which was highly satisfactory +to the meeting. The chairman, James Otis, made the reply more +satisfactory by acknowledging the Governor's hospitality. Still the +men who filled the Old South to overflowing did not omit the duty of +stern-worded protest against the aggressions of Parliament; and in an +elaborate and admirable paper, marked with Joseph Warren's energy of +soul, they alleged the unconstitutional imposition of taxes as the +groundwork of the recent troubles. It was oppression, and it "came down +upon the people like an armed man, though they were the subjects of an +empire which was the toast of the nations for freedom and liberty." + +It was now the current rumor that this and other aggressions were to be +enforced by arms. The idea was abhorrent to the people. A committee, to +whom was referred the subject of the rumored introduction of troops, +reported to the meeting a resolve to the effect that whoever had urged +this measure was "a tyrant in his heart, a traitor and an open enemy to +his country"; but though this resolve was advocated by William Cooper, +the faithful and intrepid town-clerk, and by others, the resolution +finally adopted declared only that any person who should solicit or +promote the importation of any troops at this time was an enemy to the +town and the Province, and a disturber of the peace and good order of +both. + +The Governor was now on good terms with the people. He was in the habit +of saying that nothing which he had done would bring troops into the +town,--that he was desirous of promoting harmony between the Province +and the mother-country,--and the memorial to the Ministry in their +behalf contained the assurance that they bore "the same sentiments of +loyalty and duty towards their gracious King, and the same reverence for +the great council of the nation, the British Parliament, as ever." This +was the truth, touchingly expressed. The Bostonians never considered +the Parliament to be such an embodiment of Imperialism that it +could rightfully mould their local institutions, or control their +congregations and their town-meetings, their highways and their homes; +and always looked upon the Crown as the symbol of a national power that +would shield their precious body of customs and rights. Thus what the +Governor said on the paramount point of nationality met with an honest +response from those to whom it was addressed. "I am myself," he wrote, +(June 18,) "on better terms with the people than usual. A civil +treatment of a petition of the town to me, a plain and friendly answer +thereto, and some real service by interposing with the men-of-war, have +given me a little popularity. But it won't last a week. As soon as I +have executed the orders I have just received from the Secretary of +State, in the General Assembly, there will be an end of my popularity; +and I don't know whether I sha'n't be obliged to act like the captain of +a fire-ship,--provide for my retreat before I light my fusee." + +But he quietly lighted his fusee, when the horizon became all aglow with +what to the Loyalists was the lurid flame of destruction, but to the +Patriots was as light from heaven. The occasion is too well known to +need more than a glance. The House of Representatives, on the eleventh +of February, had sent its famous Circular Letter to the other Colonies, +proposing, that, in the present crisis, there should be unity of action +among them. The Loyalists charged that this was an attempt to organize a +Confederacy, and therefore was revolutionary; the Patriots averred that +its sole object was to unite in petition and remonstrance for redress +of grievances, and therefore that it was constitutional; the Ministry +regarded the act as in the last degree dangerous to the prerogative, and +ordered Governor Bernard to demand of the House to recall or rescind +this Circular Letter. The communication of this order was what the +Governor called lighting his fusee. His daily letters show precisely his +state of mind as he touched it off. He saw a determination to resist +Great Britain; he was told that the people were making preparations to +do it; and he wrote to his relative, Viscount Barrington, who had the +_entrée_ of the royal closet,--sending the letter by Hallowell,--with +rather more than the usual emphasis of error,--"I am sure that things +are coming apace to a crisis, and I fear the Bostonians will get the +start of you." In this mood the Governor sent in the arrogant British +demand. The House, (June 26, 1768,) by the memorable vote of ninety-two +to seventeen, flatly refused to comply with the royal order; whereupon +the Governor, as the punishment, dissolved the General Court; and for +many months Massachusetts was without a legislature. + +These were of the order of events that take fast hold of the public +mind. Far and wide and profound was the sensation; and the unity of the +response from abroad, made known to the people through the press, was +truly inspiring. "We all rejoice," says a letter, "in what your Assembly +has done, and join in acclamations to the glorious Ninety-Two. 'Twas +certainly the most important case an American assembly ever acted upon." +This brief narrative is uncommonly suggestive. The letter of Bernard is +a testimony to the kindly disposition of the people, who were ready to +return much gratitude for little service, and who only asked to be left +to the measure of freedom that was enjoyed by their brethren in England; +the magnificent No which the House gave to the royal command shows +how they could maintain their self-respect, and stand by their local +government; and the general indorsement of the action of the House +in other Colonies indicates a community of interest in each other's +destiny. + +The replies of local legislatures, as they were printed from time to +time in the journals, filled the hearts of the Boston patriots with joy. +Hutchinson, who kept constant watch of these things, and who rightly +estimated the importance of the formation of public opinion, +wrote,--"The action of the other Colonies keeps up the spirit of our +demagogues. I am told Adams and Cooper say it is the most glorious day +they ever saw." They saw a general manifestation of a spirit of unity in +the support of common rights. Without union they knew they were nothing; +with union they felt equal to all things. Thus here were working two of +the elements of our political system, local self-government and American +nationality. + +The June mob, the public meetings, the vote of the House of +Representatives, and the union feeling supplied zealous Loyalists with +rich material to pervert into fresh argument for the necessity of +troops to keep the people in order. It was promptly seized upon. The +Commissioners set out the Boston tumults as the heralds of a rebellion +that had begun its course over the continent. They not only sent a batch +of falsehoods to England by Hallowell, but they also sent letters to +General Gage, the Commander-in-Chief, whose head-quarters were in New +York, with a request for troops, and to Commodore Hood at Halifax asking +for more ships. General Gage was surprised at not receiving letters +from the Governor, but with a soldier's promptness he at once (June 24) +tendered to Governor Bernard all the force he might need to preserve the +public peace; yet regarding it as improper to order the King's forces +into a Province to quell a riot without a requisition from the +Executive, he frankly advised the Governor to this effect. But the +Governor did not want troops to quell a riot, and said so; and in answer +to the tender, returned a long and heavy disquisition, showing why, +though he considered troops essential to the promotion of the good of +his country, he did not and would not make a formal requisition for any, +and thus, all unconsciously, betrayed and condemned himself at every +word,--for while he was talking of country, he was thinking of self. +Commodore Hood, believing that the good people of Boston were actually +on the eve of a revolt, and that the precious lives of the Commissioners +were hardly safe in Castle William, where they now were, "immediately +sent two more ships," which, he says, "secured the Castle from all +attempts at surprising it." But, according to Hutchinson, though the +people were mad, yet they were not Don Quixotes, and though a few might +have talked of attacking it, yet the Castle was in no danger, even +though no one of His Majesty's ships had been in the harbor. + +The ships promptly arrived, and were moored about Castle William; but no +troops appeared, though early in July the Governor felt sure they were +ordered here from Halifax, from the fact that General Gage sent a batch +of despatches, under cover to him, addressed to Lieutenant-Colonel +Dalrymple, the senior British officer in command at that station. On +forwarding these despatches, Bernard wrote to Dalrymple,--"You know that +my situation requires that I should appear to know as little in the +proceedings of this kind as can well be. I should, therefore, be obliged +to you, if in conducting a business of this kind you would let me appear +a stranger to it until it becomes necessary to communicate it to me +officially. In the mean time any private hints, conveyed to me by a safe +hand, will be acceptable." + +A straightforward British officer must have conceived contempt for such +an official, even before subsequent action on the part of this official +elicited an expression of it. + +The Governor was doomed to disappointment. The orders which he +transmitted merely placed troops in readiness to proceed to Boston on +his requisition, which requisition he steadily refused to make, and he +wrote,--"The crisis awaits the arrival of the troops, and I now learn +they are not coming." He next officially laid the tender of the +Commanding General before the Council, when he found that its members +were unanimously of the opinion that troops were not required. Now this +body contained decided Loyalists; and this unanimity of opinion appears +to have amazed the Governor. He advised Lord Barrington, that the fact +convinced him that he could "no longer depend upon the Council for the +support of the small remains of royal and parliamentary power now +left, the whole of which had been gradually impeached, arraigned, and +condemned under his eye"; which was arrant party-misrepresentation. He +further expressed the opinion that the sending of troops to Boston ought +to be a business of quartering and cantonment. "It is no secret," he +said, "that this ought to have been done two years and a half ago. If it +had, there would have been no opposition to Parliament now, and above +all, no such combinations as threaten (but I hope vainly) the overthrow +of the British Empire. If provision was to have been made against +faction and sedition, the head-quarters should have been secured." +Instead of this, "Boston has been left under a trained mob from August +14, 1765, to this present July 23, 1768." + +While these things had been going on here, the die as to Massachusetts +and Boston had been cast in the British cabinet, by the conclusion to +place a military force at the command of the Governor. This decision was +reached before the June meeting or the June riot; and it is quite in +vain to seek the real reason for it in what appears on paper about the +processions on the eighteenth of March or the equally insignificant +prior manifestations. Hutchinson and Gage and other Loyalists admitted +that all these were trifles. The Ministers were no strangers to mobs; +even if there had been as violent ones in Boston as there were in +London, they could not have acted upon them as proofs of disloyalty. +Besides the calumnies that made out the popular leaders to be +anarchists, that perverted love of the local government into a +desire for independence, there was one that touched the pride of the +mother-country; for the Loyalists said of the Bostonians,--(there +is nothing like the language of the time to embody the spirit of +the time,)--that "every dirty fellow, just risen from his kennel, +congratulated his neighbor on their glorious victory over England; and +they were so intoxicated with their own vast importance, that the lowest +wretch among them conceived himself superior to the first English +merchant." This was falsehood; for it is certain that the joy for +the repeal of the Stamp Act was joy for harmony restored between the +Colonies and Great Britain. + +Thus, owing to such representations, while the people of Boston were +deliberating in the great town-meetings of June, orders were on their +way to General Gage, whose head-quarters were in New York, to place +troops in Castle William, to station a detachment in Boston, and to +keep a naval force in the harbor. The despatch of Lord Hillsborough, +addressed to Governor Bernard, communicating this conclusion, was +elaborate and able, and laid down in full the policy of the Government. +The instructions were based on the pretence that Boston was "in +possession of a licentious and unrestrained mob"; that it was animated +by a disposition "to resist the laws and to deny the authority of +Parliament"; and that the alleged "illegal and unwarrantable measures +which had been pursued in opposing the officers of the revenue in the +execution of their duty, and for intimidating the civil magistrates, +showed the necessity of strengthening the hands of the Government." +This despatch refers to five of Bernard's letters as containing such +representations. It is worthy of remark, that Lord Hillsborough sharply +rebuked the Governor for having all along asked the advice of the +Council as to the introduction of the troops; for to admit such a +function in the Council, he said, was to concede a power inconsistent +with the Constitution. "It is you," are the official words, "to whom the +Crown has delegated its authority, and you alone are responsible for the +best use of it." + +This action was unknown to the popular leaders, and the month of August +passed in doubt as to whether the Ministers would be persuaded to +quarter troops in Boston. The town was remarkably quiet, when the +Governor issued (August 3, 1768) a proclamation against riots, and +calling all magistrates to suppress tumults and unlawful assemblies, and +to restore vigor and firmness to the Government. "It cannot be wondered +at," said "Determinatus," (August 8,) in the "Gazette," "if the +mother-country should think that we are in a state of confusion equal +to what we hear from the orderly and very polite cities of London and +Westminster. There, we are told, is the weavers' mob, the seamen's mob, +the tailors' mob, the coal-miners' mob, and some say the clergy's mob; +and, in short, it is to be feared the whole kingdom, always excepting +the * * * * and P----t, will unite in one general scene of tumult. +I sincerely pray for the peace and prosperity of the nation and her +colonies, whose interest, if she would open her eyes, she would clearly +discern to be undivided." The journals during this month have full +details of these mobs. The coal-heavers of Wapping destroyed property +and committed murders, and two thousand keel-men and sailors of +Sunderland fairly beat off the King's troops that were sent against them +from Newcastle. Happily such want of reverence for law was unknown in +Boston or the Province. Still the Governor kept on representing that he +was under the control of a mob; and another day of rejoicing gave +him another opportunity of misrepresenting the people. This was the +fourteenth of August, being the third celebration of the uprising +against the Stamp Act. In the procession on this occasion there was one +man who had had a hand in the attack on the Lieutenant-Governor's house +on the twenty-sixth of August, and had in consequence incurred the +penalty of death, and who was now celebrating his mob-exploits; and at +the head of the procession were two Boston merchants, who thus were +charged with countenancing mobs. The Governor well knew that the +Patriots abhorred the outrages of the twenty-sixth of August as much as +they gloried in the uprising against the stamp-duty on the fourteenth of +August. Hutchinson, moreover, was a good deal disturbed by the public +affronts put upon the Commissioners, who were still at the Castle, +though their subordinates were in town collecting the revenue. The +Cadets, on motion of Hancock, voted to exclude them from the usual +public dinner; and the town voted to refuse the use of Faneuil Hall for +the dinner, unless with the stipulation that the Commissioners were not +to be invited. Such proceedings, with petitions and resolutions, made +nearly the whole outrage of the Boston "trained mob" that the Governor +talked about. Yet he affected to be in fear of an insurrection, and on +the last day of the month whiningly wrote,--"The town is at present just +as defensible as it was two years ago,--not a sergeant's guard of real +soldiers within two hundred miles of it." + +In a few days after, on a Saturday night, William Sheriff, aide-de-camp +to General Gage, arrived in town from New York, which he left on +Wednesday morning, bearing the following letter to Governor Bernard, the +original of which is indorsed, "Received Sept. 3." + + * * * * * + + +THOMAS GAGE TO FRANCIS BERNARD. + + +"New York, Aug. 31,1768. + +"Sir,--It is not necessary to trouble you with any answers to your +letters, and I only acknowledge the receipt of them. + +"I am now to acquaint you that I have received orders to send forces +to Boston, and would regulate the number to be sent agreeable to your +opinion of the number that will be necessary. Captain Sheriff, my +aide-de-camp, goes to Boston under pretence of private business, and +will deliver you this letter. He is directed to settle this matter with +you; and you may rely on his discretion, prudence, and secrecy. I have +intrusted him with a letter of orders to the commander of his Majesty's +forces at Halifax to embark with the 14th Regiment, and left a blank in +the letter for Captain Sheriff to fill up with the like order for the +29th Regiment, in case you shall judge it proper to have the whole or +any part of the 29th Regiment, as well as the 14th, and not think one +regiment a sufficient force. When you shall have fixed the matter with +Captain Sheriff, you will be so good as to send me immediate notice, +that I may without delay write you a public letter to demand quarters +for the numbers that will be ordered into your Province. The contents of +this, as well as your answer, and everything I now transact with you, +will be kept a profound secret, at least on this side of the Atlantic. + +"It is submitted in my letters, whether it would not be advisable, as +troops will probably continue at Boston, to take possession of Castle +William, which, being a place of some strength, may in case of emergency +be of great service, and it is said to belong to the Crown. + +"You will be so good as to fix with Captain Sheriff, whether you would +have the whole, or any part of the troops ordered to Boston, quartered +in Castle William. If you should be of opinion that troops stationed +there will not answer the intention of sending them to Boston, for the +purposes of enforcing a due obedience to the laws, and protecting and +supporting the civil magistrates and the officers of the Crown in the +execution of their duty, part may be stationed there, and part in the +town. Should you require both the regiments from Halifax, one of them, +or three or four companies of one of them, might be quartered in the +Castle, and you would then have an entire regiment and five companies of +another in the city. I mention this, but leave it to your determination; +and you will regulate this matter with Captain Sheriff according to the +number of troops you think necessary to be sent to Boston. You will be +pleased to give me notice of your resolves on this head. + +"I don't know if you can supply bedding for such of the troops as you +would choose to be lodged in the Castle; if not, Captain Sheriff will +write to Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple to bring bedding with him from +Halifax, sufficient for the number of men you shall fix upon for the +garrison of Castle William. + +"I have the honor to be with great regard, + + "Sir, + "Your most obedient, + "Humble servant, + "TH'S. GAGE." + +Such was the mode in which the Sam Adams Regiments were ushered into +Boston According to this letter, the Governor himself, substantially, +gave the order that brought all but the Fourteenth Regiment,--an order +which was to "be kept a profound secret, at least on this side of the +Atlantic." + +At this time the mass of the citizens Boston were very bitter and +suspicious towards all who were in any way supposed to be concerned in +urging the introduction of troops among them; because troops had come to +be looked upon as means of subjugating them to laws to which they never +would give their consent through their representatives. The fiery Josiah +Quincy, Jr., would say,--"Before the freeborn sons of the North will +yield a general and united submission to any tyrannic power on earth, +fire and sword, desolation and ruin, will ravage the land." The intrepid +Samuel Adams would say,--"Before the King and Parliament shall dragoon +us, and we become slaves, we will take up arms and our last drop of +blood." The calm Andrew Eliot would say,--"You cannot conceive of our +distress: to have a standing army! What can be worse to a people who +have tasted the sweets of liberty?" Hutchinson wrote,--"Many of the +common people were in a frenzy, and talked of dying in defence of their +liberties," while "too many above the vulgar countenanced and encouraged +them." Such was the intensity of the public feeling; such the +earnestness with which liberty was ranked above material prosperity. It +was now to be seen whether the American cause was to suffer shipwreck on +the rock of premature insurrection, or whether it was to be led on by +such cautious and wise steps as develop into the majesty of revolution. + +The present public alarm was occasioned by vague statements from abroad +or rumors started at home as to the coming of a military force. Troops +were ordered in from the outposts of Canada to Halifax; an unusual naval +force was gathering at that station; it was said that the destination of +both was Boston: but the Governor persisted in denying that he had +done anything that would bring troops here, and kept on playing the +know-nothing. This created a painful suspense, and, to cool observers, +the policy of the Government appeared inexplicable. But however deep +may have been the indignation of the people at the prospect of military +rule, it was no part of the plan of the popular leaders, if troops came +here, to resist the landing, or to allow the rash spirits, who are ever +ready for any imprudence, to do so; but their object was to fix in the +public mind a just sense of the rights thus violated, to guide the +general indignation into a safe channel of action, and thus turn the +insult to the benefit of the general cause. + +Two days after the Governor received the letter of General Gage, a +communication appeared in the "Boston Gazette," under the head of +"READER! ATTEND!" which arraigned, with uncommon spirit and boldness, +the course of the officials who were urging the policy of arbitrary +power, as having a direct tendency "to dissolve the union between Great +Britain and her colonies." It proposed to remonstrate against this +policy to the King, and at the same time to declare that "there was +nothing this side eternity they dreaded more than being broken off +from his government." In urging resistance to this course the author +said,--"We will put our lives in our hands, and cry to the Judge of all +the Earth, who will do right." + +This paper, like many similar appeals in that well-stored Liberty +arsenal, the "Boston Gazette," had the genuine Liberty ring, yet there +was in it nothing very unusual; but the royal circle at the Province +House lived in an unusual atmosphere, and this article came sounding in +among them like a great moral Dahlgren. "In the Boston Gazette of the +fifth instant," the Governor, with his usual acuteness, wrote to the +Secretary of State, "appeared a paper containing a system of politics +exceeding all former exceedings. Some took it for the casual ravings of +an occasional enthusiast. But I persuaded myself that it came out of the +cabinet of the faction, and was preparatory to some actual operations +against the Government. In this persuasion, I considered, that, if the +troops from Halifax were to come here on a sudden, there would be no +avoiding an insurrection, which would at least fall upon the crown +officers, if it did not amount to an opposition to the troops. I +therefore thought it would be best that the expectation of the troops +should be gradually communicated, that the heads of the faction might +have time to consider well what they were about, and prudent men +opportunity to interpose their advice." Accordingly (September 8) he +"took an occasion to mention to one of the Council, in the way of +discourse, that he had private advice that troops were ordered to +Boston, but had no public orders about it"; and before night, the +Governor adds, the intelligence was all over the town. + +Before night, too, a petition, addressed to the Selectmen, was +circulating all over the town, and large numbers were affixing their +names to it. It prayed that the town might be legally convened to +require of the Governor the reasons for his declaration that three +regiments might be daily expected, and "to consider of the most wise, +consistent, and salutary measure suitable to meet the occasion." The +Selectmen acted promptly, (John Hancock was on the Board,) and summoned +the citizens to meet on the Monday following. In this way, openly before +men, not covertly like a body of conspirators, did the solid men and +prudent men of Boston prepare for council. + +Though the Governor averred that his object, in his verbal +communication, was to give a chance for an interposition of such sound +advice, yet to Lord Hillsborough he actually represented the call +and the movement of these men as proofs that the long-contemplated +insurrection was now at hand. He informed the Secretary, that on the +next evening (Friday) there was a large private meeting, where "it was +the general opinion that they should raise the country and oppose the +troops"; and that on the succeeding evening (Saturday) there was a very +small private meeting at the house of one of the chiefs, where it was +resolved "to surprise and take the Castle the Monday night following." +The Governor evidently had misgivings about its being the fact that such +an object was planned. "I don't," he said, "relate these as facts, +but only as reported and believed." I have found no account of the +Friday-evening meeting, which undoubtedly was a meeting of one of the +political clubs of the time; but on Saturday evening James Otis and +Samuel Adams met at Warren's residence in Hanover Street (on the site +of the American House) for conference as to Monday's meeting,--for +instance, to draw up the resolves and decide upon the action that might +be expedient: whatever may have been the warmth of expression of popular +leaders, or the wishes of extremists among the people, the whole object +of this conference was to concentrate and use only the moral force of +public opinion; and there is not a trace of a design of insurrection in +all the known private correspondence of these patriots. + +However, the belief in insurrection, at this time, appears to have been +as strongly rooted in the minds of prominent Loyalists as it was in the +mind of the again perturbed Governor. Signs of what is thought to be +near at hand are apt to be seen or fancied; and it was so in this case. +Somebody had put a turpentine barrel in the skillet that hung at the top +of the beacon-pole on Beacon Hill. Now it had been designed, for a +long time, by such a mode of bonfire, to alarm the country, in case of +invasion. This fact was put with another fact, namely, that the beacon +had been newly repaired; and from the two facts was drawn the startling +inference, that matters were ready for a rising in the town, and for +giving the concerted signal to summon in the country to aid this +rising,--and this, too, when the Governor had not a sergeant's guard +of real soldiers nearer than two hundred miles. And now members of the +Council flocked to the Governor and demanded a meeting of this imposing +body; and a meeting was promptly held at a gentleman's residence +half-way between Boston and Jamaica Plain, where, after grave debate +about taking down the barrel, it was finally voted to make a formal +demand on the Board of Selectmen to order it to be done. On the next +day, (Sunday,) the Fathers of the Town held a special meeting to +consider the vote of the Council, which resulted in declining to act on +this matter of taking down the barrel as too trivial. About the hour of +dining, on this day, however, Sheriff Greenleaf gave some peace to the +frightened officials by repairing to Beacon Hill with half a dozen +others and removing the obnoxious barrel, which proved to be empty. The +public did not hear the last of this affair for months, as may be seen +in the affidavits about it, afterwards, in the journals. + +There was really no ground for all this alarm. The popular leaders, from +the excited state of the public mind, might have been apprehensive of an +explosion from the rash, which they meant, if possible, to prevent, and +if it came, to repress; but the Loyalist leaders would have it that +there was a deep-laid plot even for a revolution. "It is now known," is +Governor Bernard's malicious misrepresentation, as he reviewed these +scenes and justified the introduction of the troops, "that the plan was +to seize the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor and take possession of the +treasury, and then set up their standard." He said that five hundred men +had been enrolled to take the Castle, and it was likely that the names, +at least of the chief of them, would be discovered. There is no such +list in thirteen folio volumes of his correspondence. Hutchinson's +misrepresentation was as mischievous, but more cautious; for he assured +his British correspondents that at the time when the troops landed in +Boston the Province was on the brink of ruin, and that their arrival +prevented the most extravagant measures,--though, he said, he did not +certainly know what the dark designs of the heads of the opposition +were. + +On the morning of the town-meeting, (September 12,) Governor Bernard +believed that the popular leaders were resolved not merely to capture +the crown officials, but to resume the first charter, which, he said, +had not a single ingredient of royalty in it. But while he was looking +for insurrection, a committee of the highest respectability waited on +him, and asked him to be pleased to communicate to the town the grounds +and assurances on which he had intimated his apprehensions that one or +more regiments might he daily expected. On the next day the Governor +replied in writing,--"My apprehensions that some of his Majesty's troops +are to be expected in Boston arise from information of a private nature; +I have received no public letters notifying to me the coming of such +troops." The information came by letter from the only official in the +country who could order troops into Boston, and yet he said it was +private; according to this letter, he must have decided on the number of +troops that were to come, and yet he prattled about apprehensions. Such +was the way in which a royal Governor of the Stuart school dealt with +a people filled with patriotic concern for their country. It is the +dealing of a small man. If he can escape the charge of deliberate +falsehood, it is only, on demurrer, by the plea of a contemptible +quibble. + +It is not necessary here to follow the noble popular demonstrations that +rounded off by a delegate convention, which, at the simple request of +Boston, assembled in Faneuil Hall. The officials, who had long played +falsely with a liberty-loving, yet loyal people, now fairly quailed +before the whirlwind of their righteous indignation. Two days after +Bernard had "intimated his apprehensions," as though steps had +been taken to countermand the order for the troops, the following +semi-official doubt appeared in the "News-Letter":--"It is conjectured +that there are troops to come here; but at present we can find no +authentic accounts of it, nor that any person has declared that they +actually are, though there is great probability that they will soon be +here, if ever." This, from a Loyalist source, is a singularly worded +paragraph, and is richly Delphic. + +The circular letter which Boston addressed (September 14) to the towns, +calling a Convention, accurately states the object of the military force +that was now expected:--"The design of these troops is, in every one's +apprehension, nothing short of enforcing by military power the execution +of Acts of Parliament, in the forming of which the Colonies have not, +and cannot have, any constitutional influence. This is one of the +greatest distresses to which a free people can be reduced." The object +of the Convention is as accurately stated to be, "to prevent any sudden +and unconnected measures," and to act in every constitutional way for +the preservation of invaluable rights. The Governor, as usual, acting +on his theory of insurrection, held that the Convention was designed to +mature plans for it; and he wrote (September l6) to Lord Hillsborough as +to his own plans,--"For my own part, if I had any place of protection +to resort to, I would publish a proclamation against the assembling of +the Convention, but I dare not take so spirited a step without first +securing my retreat"; and, with unusual good sense, he expressed "much +doubt whether the force already ordered by General Gage, namely, two +regiments, would be sufficient" to fight off the original charter, and +to keep the crown officers in their places. There was a small party who +were in favor of resuming the old charter; but the union of the towns of +Massachusetts, and then the union of all the Colonies, for the sake of +continued union with Great Britain, was the key of the action of the +leaders who were the exponents of the Patriots. They did not contemplate +going into acts of government; and neither now nor in the future did +they ever contemplate "sudden and unconnected measures." + +Three days later (September 19) Governor Bernard threw off all disguise. +He formally announced to the Council that troops were coming, and asked +this body to provide them quarters. And now began a long, irritating, +and arrogant endeavor on the part of the Executive to browbeat the local +authorities in the matter of providing quarters for the troops. The +official record is voluminous. The Patriots kept strictly to the law, +and won a moral victory: the royal officials persisted in virtually +urging burly British will as law, and suffered the shame of an +ignominious defeat. The Governor thought the Government had received +a blow that made it reel; and, in a garrulous, complaining letter, +supplies not only a vivid idea of the whole of this struggle, but an +idea of his well-deserved individual mortification. "The account up +to this time," (October 30, 1768,) he wrote, "will end in my having +employed myself from September nineteenth to October twenty-sixth, that +is, thirty-eight days, in endeavoring to procure quarters for the two +regiments here to no purpose. For having during this time been bandied +about from one to another, I at length got positive refusals from every +one that I could apply to, that is, the Council, the Selectmen, and the +Justices of the Peace; upon which the General, [Gage,] who came here on +purpose, has found himself obliged to hire and fit up buildings at the +expense of the Crown, by which means the two regiments are at length got +into good occasional barracks." + +The new scene of an American States-General in Faneuil Hall,--so the +royal Governor and Parliamentary orators termed the Convention,--a +manifestation of the rising power of the people, was followed by the +spectacle of an imposing naval force in the harbor. The Sam Adams +Regiments, sent on the mission of warring against the republican idea, +were proudly borne to Boston by fifteen British men-of-war, which were +moored (September 29) in well-chosen fighting positions around the +north end of the quiet, but glorious town. In the evening the curious +Bostonians put out in their boats from the wharves to get a near view of +the ships. There were great rejoicings on board. The sky was brilliant +with the rockets that were shot off from the decks, and the air +resounded with the music of the bands. It was noticed that the favorite +piece seemed to be "the Yankee tune": it was played by the regimental +bands when Earl Percy led a British force out of Boston on Lexington +morning, but no mention is made of its being performed when this force +returned in the evening of that famous day, or when the Sam Adams +Regiments left the town. + +The King's troops landed on the first day of October. Though it had +been printed in England that ten thousand men were enrolled to oppose +them,--though the local officials had predicted that the event would +occasion a crisis in affairs,--though John Bull had been so abominably +imposed upon that he as much expected to see a mob resist the landing as +he lately expected the mob would resist the delivery of the Confederate +Commissioners,--and though not merely ministerial circles, but all +England, were looking forward with serious apprehensions to the +result,--yet the day was so tame that little history was made worth +relating. As the spectators on board the ships, about noon, were looking +for a battle-scene, they saw only a naval and military show. The ships +of war were prepared for action by loading the guns and putting springs +on the cables. The troops, after sixteen rounds of powder and ball had +been served out to them, entered the boats. Rude artists were looking +on, and sketching the peaceful display, setting down each boat and ship +and island, with view undisturbed by the smoke of battle or even of +salute. They did not notice, however, that the commander of the land +force, Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple, went ashore privately, at about +eleven o'clock, and sauntered over the town. He met no local militia; +he saw nor horns nor hoofs of insurrection; he saw not even the royal +Governor, for he had retired to Jamaica Plain; and instead of a cordial +Executive greeting and proper directions as to what to do, he found that +everything was left to himself. He knew that neither the Council nor the +Governor had provided quarters for his command; but from the doings +or non-doings of this day he conceived feelings towards the runaway +official which he expressed by words, at the time, "full as plain as +pleasant," and afterwards officially in writing to his superiors. +Bernard met Dalrymple's intimations of cowardice by the truthful +allegation that there was not the least danger of insurrection, and of +want of attention by the mean allegation that the Colonel was chagrined +because he was not complimented with a dinner. + +An hour after the Commander made his reconnoissance, about noon, the +boats moved in fine order towards the Long Wharf, so termed as being a +noble commercial pier running far out into the Bay. Here the Fourteenth +Regiment, under Colonel Dalrymple, landed, and, having formed, marched, +in the words of the time, with drums beating, fifes playing, and colors +flying, up King Street (now State Street) to the Town-House, where it +halted. It is not said that the troops were complimented by the presence +of the people, who, on holidays then as on holidays now, usually +appeared, having an air of self-respect, well-dressed, well-behaved, +with nothing moving among them more threatening than the baton of the +police as the sign of law and authority, but respecting that as the +symbol of their own law. What Tory writers and officials say warrants +the inference that the Patriots kept away. Dalrymple said that the +Convention was planet-stricken; "Sagittarius," a Tory scribbler, says +the Convention ran, and tells how they ran:--"The courage of the +faithful only consisted in blustering, for the morning that the troops +landed they broke up, and rushed out of town like a herd of scalded +hogs." If the Patriots generally were absent, it was from design. The +Fourteenth Regiment remained near the Town-House until the Twenty-Ninth +joined it, when the column marched to the Common. About four o'clock +these troops were joined by the Fifty-Ninth Regiment, and a train +of artillery with two field-pieces. This made a force of a thousand +fine-appearing and well-disciplined regulars. + +Colonel Dalrymple ordered the Twenty-Ninth Regiment to encamp +immediately, which, as it had field-equipage, it was enabled to do, and +pitched its tents on the Common; but he had no cover for the Fourteenth +Regiment, and he now endeavored to obtain quarters for it. He was +directed to the Manufactory House, a large building owned by the +Province, in what is now Hamilton Place, near the Common, which was +hired by a zealous Patriot, who declined to let the troops occupy it; +whereupon he applied to the Selectmen for Faneuil Hall, promising that +the utmost care should be taken not to injure the property. "About +twilight," in the words of the "Gazette," "the Fourteenth Regiment +marched down to the Hall, where they stood under arms till near nine +o'clock, when the door, by some means or other, being opened, they took +up their lodgings there that night." The Colonel exultingly wrote,--"By +tolerable management I got possession of Faneuil Hall, the School of +Liberty, from the Sons thereof, without force, and thereby secured all +their arms": about four hundred had been recently placed there to be +cleaned. + +Such was the day, so long looked forward to, of the landing of the +King's troops. The people were indignant, but were silent and preserved +their self-respect; but the object of the popular leaders had been +accomplished, so far as the reception of the military force was +concerned. A candid British observer, who was in Boston, saw the truth +and printed it in England:--"The Patriot leaders of the Opposition +were much more concerned at any mobs that happened than the Government +people. These last seem pleased with them, as countenancing their +representations,--the necessity of sending soldiers to keep them in +order." On this occasion, in the words of the "Gazette," "Not the least +attempt was made or contemplated to oppose the landing of the King's +troops or their encampment on the Common." There is no mention made of +even hisses or groans, as the colors that symbolized arbitrary power +were proudly borne up King Street. The peace and good order that marked +the day much chagrined the Loyalists, and fairly astonished "the +gentlemen of the military." + +These gentlemen might have read in the next issues of the journals the +temper of the public mind, in the comments freely made on their mission +and on the events that were said to have occasioned their presence. +The pretext, the obnoxious proceedings of the eighteenth of March, was +characterized as the trifling hallooing of a harmless procession; the +mob of the tenth of June was more serious, but was soon over; but on +the all-important and vital point of allegiance, they might have seen +expressed, in the weighty words of the Council, infinite regret at the +reflection which that show of force implied on the loyalty of the people +to their sovereign, who had not in his wide-extended dominions any more +faithful subjects than in the town of Boston. And what really was the +offence of the Patriots? They had resolved, they had petitioned, they +had agreed not to import or to buy British goods. But they were not +law-breakers, for they could triumphantly challenge their opponents to +produce a single instance since the tenth of June of an interruption of +the public peace or of resistance to law; and they were not political +heretics, for the principles of colonial administration which they stood +on were such as their countrymen unanimously now indorse, and British +statesmanship is now pleased to accept. Yet they were threatened in the +streets with the whipping-post and the pillory, with the loss of their +ears or their heads,--and in official instructions, printed in the +journals, with transportation to England for trial. This last threat was +serious. The Government proposed to make arrests under a statute of the +reign of Henry VIII.: actually designed (Lord Mahon's words) "to draw +forth the mouldering edict of a tyrant from the dust where it had long +lain, and where it ever deserved to lie, and to fling it" against a band +of popular leaders who were wisely and well supporting a most sacred +cause. But these leaders were not actuated by the fanaticism that is +always blind and often cruel, nor by the ambition that is unworthy and +is then reckless and criminal; but, with a clear apprehension of their +ground and definite notions of policy, they went forward with no +faltering step. Their calm and true statement through the press +was,--"It is the part this town has taken on the side of Liberty, +and its noble exertions in favor of the rights of America, that have +rendered it so obnoxious to the tools of arbitrary power." "We are now +[October 3, 1768] become a spectacle to all North America. May our +conduct be such as not to disgrace ourselves or injure the common +cause!" + +Thus wove the solid men of Boston their mantle of enduring glory. + + + + +OUT OF THE BODY TO GOD. + + + Wearily, wearily, wearily: + Sobbing through space like a south-wind, + Floating in limitless ether, + Ether unbounded, unfathomed, + Where is no upward nor downward, + Island, nor shallow, nor shore: + Wearily floating and sobbing, + Out of the body to God! + + Lost in the spaces of blankness, + Lost in the deepening abysses, + Haunted and tracked by the past: + No more sweet human caresses, + No more the springing of morning, + Never again from the present + Into a future beguiled: + Lonely, defiled, and despairing, + Out of the body to God! + + Reeling, and tearless, and desperate, + On through the quiet of ether, + Helpless, alone, and forsaken, + Faithless in ignorant anguish, + Faithless of gasping repentance, + Measuring Him by thy measure,-- + Measure of need and desert,-- + Out of the body to God! + + Soft through the starless abysses, + Soft as the breath of the summer + Loosens the chains of the river, + Sweeping it free to the sea, + Murmurs a murmur of peace:-- + "Soul! in the deepness of heaven + Findest thou shallow or shore? + Hast thou beat madly on limit? + Hast thou been stayed in thy fleeing + Out of the body to God? + + "Thou that hast known Me in spaces + Boundless, untraversed, unfathomed, + Hast thou not known Me in love? + Am I, Creator and Guider, + Less than My kingdom and work? + Come, O thou weary and desolate! + Come to the heart of thy Father + Home from thy wanderings weary, + Home from the lost to the Loving, + Out of the body to God!" + + + + +THE HEALTH OF OUR GIRLS. + + +Among the lower animals, so far as the facts have been noticed, there +seems no great inequality, as to strength or endurance, between the +sexes. In migratory tribes, as of birds or buffaloes, the males are not +observed to slacken or shorten their journeys from any gallant +deference to female weakness, nor are the females found to perish +disproportionately through exhaustion. It is the English experience +that among coursing-dogs and race-horses there is no serious sexual +inequality. Aelian says that Semiramis did not exult when in the chase +she captured a lion, but was proud when she took a lioness, the dangers +of the feat being far greater. Hunters as willingly encounter the male +as the female of most savage beasts; and if an adventurous fowler, +plundering an eagle's nest, has his eyes assaulted by the parent-bird, +it is no matter whether the discourtesy proceeds from the gentleman or +the lady of the household. + +Passing to the ranks of humanity, it is the general rule, that, wherever +the physical nature has a fair chance, the woman shows no extreme +deficiency of endurance or strength. Even the sentimental physiology +of Michelet is compelled to own that his elaborate theories of lovely +invalidism have no application to the peasant-women of France, that +is, to nineteen-twentieths of the population. Among human beings, +the disparities of race and training far outweigh those of sex. The +sedentary philosopher, turning from his demonstration of the hopeless +inferiority of woman, finds with dismay that his Irish or negro +handmaiden can lift a heavy coal-hod more easily than he. And while the +dream is vanishing of the superiority of savage races on every other +point, it still remains unquestionable that in every distinctive +attribute of physical womanhood the barbarian has the advantage. + +The truth is, that in all countries female health and strength go with +peasant habits. In Italy, for instance, About says, that, of all useful +animals, the woman is the one that the Roman peasant employs with the +most profit. "She makes the bread and the cake of Turkish corn; she +spins, she weaves, she sews; she goes every day three miles for wood and +a mile for water; she carries on her head the load of a mule; she toils +from sunrise to sunset without resisting or even complaining. The +children, which she brings forth in great numbers, and which she nurses +herself, are a great resource; from the age of four years they can be +employed in guarding other animals." + +Beside this may be placed the experience of Moffat, the African +missionary, who, seeing a party of native women engaged in their usual +labor of house-building, and just ready to put the roof on, suggested +that some of the men who stood by should lend a hand. It was received +with general laughter; but Mahuto, the queen, declared that the plan, +though hopeless of execution, was in itself a good one, and that men, +though excused from lighter labors, ought to take an equal share in the +severer,--adding, that she wished the missionaries would give their +husbands medicine and make them work. + +The health of educated womanhood in the different European nations seems +to depend mainly upon the degree of conformity to these rustic habits +of air and exercise. In Italy, Spain, Portugal, the women of the upper +classes lead secluded and unhealthy lives, and hence their physical +condition is not superior to our own. In the Northern nations, women of +refinement do more to emulate the active habits of the peasantry,--only +substituting out-door relaxations for out-door toil,--and so they share +their health. This is especially the case in England, which accordingly +seems to furnish the representative types of vigorous womanhood. + +"The nervous system of the female sex in England seems to be of a much +stronger mould than that of other nations," says Dr. Merei, a medical +practitioner of English and Continental experience. "They bear a degree +of irritation in their systems, without the issue of fits, which in +other races is not so easily tolerated." So Professor Tyndall, watching +female pedestrianism among the Alps, exults in his countrywomen:--"The +contrast in regard to energy between the maidens of the British Isles +and those of the Continent and of America is astonishing." When Catlin's +Indians first walked the streets of London, they reported with wonder +that they had seen many handsome squaws holding to the arms of men, "and +they did not look sick either";--a remark which no complimentary savage +was ever heard to make in any Cisatlantic metropolis. + +There is undoubtedly an impression in this country that the English +vigor is bought at some sacrifice,--that it implies a nervous +organization less fine and artistic, features and limbs more rudely +moulded, and something more coarse and peasant-like in the whole average +texture. Making all due allowance for national vanity, it is yet easy to +see that superiority may be had more cheaply by lowering the plane of +attainment. The physique of a healthy day-laborer is a thing of inferior +mould to the physique of a healthy artist. Muscular power needs also +nervous power to bring out its finest quality. Lightness and grace are +not incompatible with vigor, but are its crowning illustration. +Apollo is above Hercules; Hebe and Diana are winged, not weighty. The +physiologist must never forget that Nature is aiming at a keener and +subtiler temperament in framing the American,--as beneath our drier +atmosphere the whole scale of sounds and hues and odors is tuned to a +higher key,--and that for us an equal state of health may yet produce +a higher type of humanity. To make up the arrears of past neglect, +therefore, is a matter of absolute necessity, if we wish this experiment +of national temperament to have any chance; since rude health, however +obtuse, will in the end overmatch disease, however finely strung. + +But the fact must always be kept in mind that the whole problem +of female health is most closely intertwined with that of social +conditions. The Anglo-Saxon organization is being modified not only in +America, but also in England, with the changing habits of the people. In +the days of Henry VIII. it was "a wyve's occupation to winnow all manner +of cornes, to make malte, to wash and ironyng, to make hay, shere corne, +and in time of nede to help her husband fill the muchpayne, drive the +plough, load hay, corne, and such other, and go or ride to the market to +sell butter, cheese, egges, chekyns, capons, hens, pigs, geese, and all +manner of cornes." But now there is everywhere complaint of the growing +delicacy and fragility of the English female population, even in rural +regions; and the king of sanitary reformers, Edwin Chadwick, has lately +made this complaint the subject of a special report before the National +Association. He assumes, as a matter settled by medical authority, that +the proportion of mothers who can suckle their children is decidedly +diminishing among the upper and middle classes, that deaths from +childbirth are eight times as great among these classes as among the +peasantry, and that spinal distortion, hysteria, and painful disorders +are on the increase. Nine-tenths of the evil he attributes to the long +hours of school study, and to the neglect of physical exercises for +girls. + +This shows that the symptoms of ill-health among women are not a matter +of climate only, but indicate a change in social conditions, producing +a change of personal habits. It is something which reaches all; for the +standard of health in the farm-houses is with us no higher than in the +cities. It is something which, unless removed, stands as a bar to any +substantial progress in civilization. It is a mere mockery for the +millionnaire to create galleries of Art, bringing from Italy a Venus on +canvas or a stone Diana, if meanwhile a lovelier bloom than ever artist +painted is fading from his own child's cheek, and a firmer vigor than +that of marble is vanishing from her enfeebled arms. What use to found +colleges for girls whom even the high-school breaks down, or to induct +them into new industrial pursuits when they have not strength to stand +behind a counter? How appeal to any woman to enlarge her thoughts beyond +the mere drudgery of the household, when she "dies daily" beneath the +exhaustion of even that? + +And the perplexity lies beyond the disease, in the perils involved even +in the remedy. No person can be long conversant with physical training, +without learning to shrink from the responsibility of the health of +girls. The panacea for boyish health is commonly simple, even for +delicate cases. Removal from books, if necessary, and the substitution +of farm-life,--with good food, pure air, dogs, horses, oxen, hens, +rabbits,--and fresh or salt water within walking distance. Secure these +conditions, and then let him alone; he will not hurt himself. Nor +will, during mere childhood, his little sister experience anything but +benefit, under the same circumstances. But at the epoch of womanhood, +precisely when the constitution should be acquiring robust strength, her +perils begin; she then needs not merely to be allured to exertion, but +to be protected against over-exertion; experience shows that she cannot +be turned loose, cannot be safely left with boyish freedom to take her +fill of running, rowing, riding, swimming, skating,--because life-long +injury may be the penalty of a single excess. This necessity for caution +cannot be the normal condition, for such caution cannot be exerted for +the female peasant or savage, but it seems the necessary condition for +American young women. It is a fact not to be ignored, that some of the +strongest and most athletic girls among us have lost their health and +become invalids for years, simply by being allowed to live the robust, +careless, indiscreet life on which boys thrive so wonderfully. It is +fatal, if they do too little, and disastrous, if they do too much; +and between these two opposing perils the process of steering is so +difficult that the majority of parents end in letting go the helm and +leaving the fragile vessel to steer itself. + +Everything that follows in these pages must therefore be construed in +the light of this admitted difficulty. The health of boys is a matter +not hard to treat, on purely physiological grounds; but in dealing with +that of girls caution is necessary. Yet, after all, the perplexities can +only obscure the details of the prescription, while the main substance +is unquestionable. Nowhere in the universe, save in improved habits, can +we ever find health for our girls. Special delicacy in the conditions of +the problem only implies more sedulous care in the solution. The great +laws of exercise, of respiration, of digestion are essentially the same +for all human beings; and greater sensitiveness in the patient should +not relax, but only stimulate, our efforts after cure. And the +unquestionable fact that there are among us, after the worst is said, +large numbers of robust and healthy women, should keep up our courage +until we can apply their standard to the whole sex. + +In presence of an evil so great, it is inevitable that there should be +some fantastic theories of cure. But extremes are quite pardonable, +where it is so important to explore all the sources of danger. Special +ills should have special assailants, at whatever risk of exaggeration. +As water-cures and vegetarian boarding-houses are the necessary defence +of humanity against dirt and over-eating, so is the most ungainly +Bloomer that ever drifted on bare poles across the continent a +providential protest against the fashion-plates. It is probable, that, +on the whole, there is a gradual amelioration in female costume. These +hooded water-proof cloaks, equalizing all womankind,--these thick soles +and heavy heels, proclaiming themselves with such masculine emphasis +on the pavement,--these priceless india-rubber boots, emancipating all +juvenile femineity from the terrors of mud and snow,--all these indicate +an approaching era of good sense; for they are the requisite machinery +of air, exercise, and health, so far as they go. + +The weight of skirts and the constraints of corsets are still properly +made the theme of indignant declamation. Yet let us be just. It is +impossible to make costume the prime culprit, when we recall what robust +generations have been reared beneath the same formidable panoply. For +instance, it seems as if no woman could habitually walk uninjured with a +weight of twelve pounds of skirts suspended at her hips,--Dr. Coale is +responsible for the statistics,--and as if salvation must therefore lie +in shoulder-straps. Yet the practice cannot be sheer suicide, when the +Dutch peasant-girl plods bloomingly through her daily duties beneath a +dozen successive involucres of flannel. So in regard to tight lacing, +no one can doubt its ill effects, since even a man's loose garments +are known to diminish by one-fourth his capacity for respiration. Yet +inspect in the shop-windows (where the facts of female costume are +obtruded too pertinaciously for the public to remain in ignorance) +the light and flexible corsets of these days, and then contemplate at +Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth the stout buckram stays that once incased the +stouter heart of Alice Bradford. Those, again, were to those of a still +earlier epoch as leather to chain-armor. The Countess of Buchan was +confined in an iron cage for life for assisting to crown Robert the +Bruce, but her only loss by the incarceration was that her iron cage +ceased to be portable. + +Passing from costume, it must be noticed that there are many physical +evils which the American woman shares with the other sex, but which bear +with far greater severity on her finer organization. There is improper +food, for instance. The fried or salted meat, the heavy bread, the +perennial pork, the disastrous mince-pies of our farmers' houses are +sometimes pardoned by Nature to the men of the family, in consideration +of twelve or more hours of out-door labor. For the more sedentary and +delicate daughter there is no such atonement, and she vibrates between +dyspepsia and starvation. The only locality in America where I have ever +found the farming population living habitually on wholesome diet is the +Quaker region in Eastern Pennsylvania, and I have never seen anywhere +else such a healthy race of women. Yet here, again, it is not safe to +be hasty, or to lay the whole responsibility upon the kitchen, when we +recall the astounding diet on which healthy Englishwomen subsisted two +centuries ago. Consider, for instance, the housekeeping of the Duke of +Northumberland. "My lord and lady have for breakfast, at seven o'clock, +a quart of beer, as much wine, two pieces of salt fish, six red herring, +four white ones, and a dish of sprats." Digestive resources which +could, entertain this bill of fare might safely be trusted to travel in +America. + +The educational excesses of our schools, also, though shared by both +sexes, tell much more formidably upon girls, in proportion as they are +keener students, more submissive pupils, and are given to studying their +lessons at recess-time, instead of shouting and racing in the open +air. They are also easily coerced into devoting Wednesday and Saturday +afternoons to the added atrocity of music-lessons, and in general, but +for the recent blessed innovation of skating, would undoubtedly submit +to having every atom of air and exercise eliminated from their lives. It +is rare to find an American mother who habitually ranks physical vigor +first, in rearing her daughters, and intellectual culture only second; +indeed, they are commonly satisfied with a merely negative condition of +health. The girl is considered to be well, if she is not too ill to go +to school; and she therefore lives from hand to mouth, as respects her +constitution, and lays up nothing for emergencies. From this negative +condition proceeds her inability to endure accidents which to an active +boy would be trivial. Who ever hears of a boy's incurring a lame knee +for a year by slipping on the ice, or spinal disease for a lifetime by +a fall from a sled? And if a girl has not enough of surplus vitality to +overcome such trifles as these, how is she fitted to meet the coming +fatigues of wife and mother? + +These are important, if superficial, suggestions; but there are other +considerations which go deeper. I take the special provocatives of +disease among American women to be in great part social. The one marked +step achieved thus far by our civilization appears to be the abolition +of the peasant class, among the native-born, and the elevation of the +mass of women to the social zone of music-lessons and silk gowns. This +implies the disappearance of field-labor for women, and, unfortunately, +of that rustic health also which in other countries is a standing +exemplar for all classes. Wherever the majority of women work in the +fields, the privileged minority are constantly reminded that they also +hold their health by the tenure of some substituted activity. With +us, all women have been relieved from out-door labor,--and are being +sacrificed in the process, until they learn to supply its place. Except +the graceful and vanishing pursuit of hop-picking, there is in New +England no agricultural labor in which women can be said to be +habitually engaged. Most persons never saw an American woman making hay, +unless in the highly imaginative cantata of "The Hay-Makers"; and Dolly +the Dairy-Maid is becoming to our children as purely ideal a being as +Cinderella. We thus lose not only the immediate effect, but the indirect +example, of these out-door toils. + +This influence of the social transition bears upon all women: there +is another which especially touches wives and mothers. In European +countries, the aim at anything like gentility implies keeping one or +more domestics to perform house-hold labors; but in our Free States +every family aims at gentility, while not one in five keeps a domestic. +The aim is not a foolish one, though follies may accompany it,--for the +average ambition of our people includes a certain amount of refined +cultivation;--it is only that the process is exhausting. Every +woman must have a best-parlor with hair-cloth furniture and a +photograph--book; she must have a piano, or some cheaper substitute; +her little girls must have embroidered skirts and much mathematical +knowledge; her husband must have two or even three hot meals every day +of his life; and yet her house must be in perfect order early in the +afternoon, and she prepared to go out and pay calls, with a black silk +dress and a card-case. In the evening she will go to a concert or a +lecture, and then, at the end of all, she will very possibly sit up +after midnight with her sewing-machine, doing extra shop-work to pay for +little Ella's music-lessons. All this every "capable" New-England woman +will do, or die. She does it, and dies; and then we are astonished +that her vital energy gives out sooner than that of an Irishwoman in a +shanty, with no ambition on earth but to supply her young Patricks with +adequate potatoes. + +Now it is useless to attempt to set back the great social flood. The +New-England housekeeper will never be killed by idleness, at any rate; +and if she is exposed to the opposite danger, we must fit her for it, +that is all. There is reason to be hopeful; the human race as a whole is +tending upward, even physically, and if we cannot make our girls healthy +quite yet, we shall learn to do it by-and-by. Meanwhile we must hold +hard to the conviction, that not merely decent health, but even a high +physical training, is a thing thoroughly practicable for both sexes. If +a young girl can tire out her partner in the dance, if a delicate wife +can carry her baby twice as long as her athletic husband, (for certainly +there is nothing in the gymnasium more amazing than the mother's left +arm,) then it is evident that the female frame contains muscular power, +or its equivalent, though it may take music or maternity to bring it +out. But other inducements have proved sufficient, and the results do +not admit of question. The Oriental _bayadères_, for instance, are +trained from childhood as gymnasts: they carry heavy jars on their +heads, to improve strength, gait, and figure; they fly kites, to acquire +"statuesque attitudes and graceful surprises"; they must learn to lay +the back of the hand flat against the wrist, to partially bend the +arm in both directions at the elbow, and, inclining the whole person +backward from the waist, to sweep the floor with the hair. So, among +ourselves, the great athletic resources of the female frame are +vindicated by every equestrian goddess of the circus, every pet of the +ballet. Those airy nymphs have been educated for their vocation by an +amount of physical fatigue which their dandy admirers may well prefer to +contemplate through the safe remoteness of an opera-glass. + +Dr. Gardner, of New York, has lately contributed very important +professional observations upon this class of his patients; he describes +their physique as infinitely superior to that of ordinary women, +wonderfully adapting them not only to the extraordinary, but to the +common perils of their sex, "with that happy union of power and +pliability most to be desired." "Their occupation demands in its daily +study and subsequent practice an amount of long-continued muscular +energy of the severest character, little recognized or understood by +the community"; and his description of their habitual immunity in the +ordeals of womanhood reminds one of the descriptions of savage tribes. +But it is really a singular retribution for our prolonged offences +against the body, when our saints are thus compelled to take their +models from the reputed sinners,--prize-fighters being propounded as +missionaries for the men, and opera-dancers for the women. + +Are we literally to infer, then, that dancing must be the primary +prescription? It would not be a bad one. It was an invaluable hint of +Hippocrates, that the second-best remedy is better than the best, if the +patient likes it best. Beyond all other merits of the remedy in question +is this crowning advantage, that the patient likes it. Has any form of +exercise ever yet been invented which a young girl would not leave for +dancing? + +"Women, it is well known," says Jean Paul, "cannot run, but only dance, +and every one could more easily reach a given point by dancing than by +walking." It is practised in this country under immense disadvantages: +first, because of late hours and heated rooms; and secondly, because +some of the current dances seem equally questionable to the mamma and +the physiologist. But it is doubtful whether any possible gymnastic +arrangement for a high-school would be on the whole so provocative +of the wholesome exercise as a special hall for dancing, thoroughly +ventilated, and provided with piano and spring-floor. The spontaneous +festivals of every recess-time would then rival those German +public-rooms, where it is said you may see a whole company waltzing like +teetotums, with the windows wide open, at four o'clock in the afternoon. + +Skating is dancing in another form; both aim at flying, and skating +comes nearest to success. The triumph of this art has been so +astonishing, in the universality of its introduction among our girls +within the short space of four winters, that it is hardly necessary to +speak of it, except to deduce the hope that other out-door enjoyments, +equally within the reach of the girls, may be as easily popularized. + +For any form of locomotion less winged than skating and dancing the feet +of American girls have hitherto seemed somehow unfitted by Nature. There +is every abstract reason why they should love walking, on this side of +the Atlantic: there is plenty of room for it, the continent is large; +the exercise, moreover, brightens the eye and purifies the complexion, +--so the physiologists declare: so that an English chemist classifies +red cheeks as being merely oxygen in another form, and advises young +ladies who wish for a pair to seek them where the roses get them, +out-of-doors,--upon which an impertinent damsel writes to ask "Punch" +if they might not as well carry the imitation of the roses a little +farther, and remain in their beds all the time? But it is a lamentable +fact, that walking, for the mere love of it, is a rare habit among our +young women, and rarer probably in the country than in the city; it is +uncommon to hear of one who walks habitually as much as two miles a day. +There are, of course, many exceptional instances: I know maidens who +love steep paths and mountain rains, like Wordsworth's Louisa, and I +have even heard of eight young ladies who walked from Andover to Boston, +twenty-three miles, in six hours, and of two who did forty-five miles in +two days. Moreover, with our impulsive temperaments, a special object +will always operate as a strong allurement. A confectioner's shop, for +instance. A camp somewhere in the suburbs, with dress-parades, and +available lieutenants. A new article of dress: a real ermine cape may be +counted as good for three miles a day, for the season. A dearest friend +within pedestrian distance: so that it would seem well to plant a circle +of delightful families just in the outskirts of every town, merely to +serve as magnets. Indeed, so desperate has the emergency become, that +one might take even ladies' hoops to be a secret device of Nature to +secure more exercise for the occupants by compelling them thus to make +the circuit of each other, as the two fat noblemen at the French court +vindicated themselves from the charge of indolence by declaring that +each promenaded twice round his friend every morning. + +In view of this distaste for pedestrian exercise, it seems strange +that the present revival of athletic exercises has not yet reached to +horsemanship, the traditional type of all noble training, _chevalerie_, +chivalry. Certainly it is not for the want of horse-flesh, for never +perhaps was so much of that costly commodity owned in this community; +yet in New England you shall find private individuals who keep a +half-dozen horses each, and livery-stables possessing fifty, and never a +proper saddle-horse among them. In some countries, riding does half the +work of physical training, for both sexes; Sir Walter Scott, when at +Abbotsford, never omitted his daily ride, and took his little daughter +with him, from the time she could sit on horseback; but what New-England +man, in purchasing a steed, selects with a view to a side-saddle? This +seems a sad result of the wheel-maker's trade, and one grudges St. +Willegis the wheel on his coat-of-arms, if it has thus served to tame +down freeborn men and women to the slouching and indolent practice +of driving,--a practice in which the human figure appears at such +disadvantage, that one can hardly wonder at Horace Walpole's coachman, +who had laid up a small fortune by driving the maids-of-honor, and +left it all to his son upon condition that he never should take a +maid-of-honor for his wife. + +An exercise to which girls take almost as naturally as to dancing is +that of rowing, an accomplishment thoroughly feminine, learned with +great facility, and on the whole safer than most other sports. Yet until +within a few years no one thought of it in connection with women, unless +with semi-mythical beings, like Ellen Douglas or Grace Darling. Even now +it is chiefly a city accomplishment, and you rarely find at rural or +sea-side places a village damsel who has ever handled an oar. But once +having acquired the art, girls will readily fatigue themselves with its +practice, unsolicited, careless of tan and freckles. At Dove Harbor it +is far easier at any time to induce the young ladies to row for two +hours than to walk in the beautiful wood-paths for fifteen minutes;--the +walking tires them. No matter; for a special exercise the rowing is the +most valuable of the two, and furnishes just what the dancing-school +omits. Unfortunately, the element of water is not quite a universal +possession, and no one can train Naiads on dry land. + +One of the merits of boating is that it suggests indirectly the +attendant accomplishment of swimming, and this is some thing of +such priceless importance that no trouble can be too great for its +acquisition. Parents are uneasy until their children are vaccinated, and +yet leave them to incur a risk as great and almost as easily averted. +The barbarian mother, who, lowering her baby into the water by her +girdle, teaches it to swim ere it can walk, is before us in this duty. +Swimming, moreover, is not one of those arts in which a little learning +is a dangerous thing; on the contrary, a little may be as useful in +an emergency as a great deal, if it gives those few moments of +self-possession amid danger which will commonly keep a person from +drowning until assistance comes. Women are naturally as well fitted for +swimming as men, since specific buoyancy is here more than a match +for strength; but effort is often needed to secure for them those +opportunities of instruction and practice which the unrestrained +wanderings of boys secure for them so easily. For this purpose, +swimming-schools for ladies are now established in many places, at home +and abroad; and the newspapers have lately chronicled a swimming-match +at a girls' school in Berlin, where thirty-three competitors were +entered for the prize,--and another among titled ladies in Paris, where +each fashionable swimmer was allowed the use of the left hand only, the +right hand sustaining an open parasol. Our own waters have, it may be, +exhibited spectacles as graceful, though less known to fame. Never may I +forget the bevy of bright maidens who under my pilotage buffeted on many +a summer's day the surges of Cape Ann, learning a wholly new delight in +trusting the buoyancy of the kind old ocean and the vigor of their +own fair arms. Ah, my pupils, some of you have since been a prince's +partners in the ball-room; but in those days, among the dancing waves, +it was King Neptune who placed on you his crown. + +Other out-door habits depend upon the personal tastes of the individual, +in certain directions, and are best cultivated by educating these. If a +young girl is born and bred with a love of any branch of natural history +or of horticulture, happy is she; for the mere unconscious interest of +the pursuit is an added lease of life to her. It is the same with all +branches of Art whose pursuit leads into the open air. Rosa Bonheur, +with her wanderings among mountains and pastures, alternating with the +vigorous work of the studio, needed no other appliances for health. The +same advantages come to many, in spite of delinquent mothers, in +the bracing habits of household labor, at least where mechanical +improvements have not rendered it too easy. Improved cooking-stoves and +Mrs. Cornelius have made the culinary art such a path of roses that +it is hardly now included in early training, but deferred till after +matrimony. Yet bread-making in well-ventilated kitchens and sweeping in +open-windowed rooms are calisthenics so bracing that one grudges them to +the Irish maidens, whose round and comely arms betray so much less need +of their tonic influence than the shrunken muscles exhibited so freely +by our short-sleeved belles. + +Perhaps even well-developed arms are not so essential to female beauty +as erectness of figure, a trait on which our low school-desks have made +sad havoc. The only sure panacea for round shoulders in boys appears to +be the military drill, and Miss Mitford records that in her youth it was +the custom in girls' schools to apply the same remedy. Dr. Lewis relies +greatly on the carrying of moderate weights upon a padded wooden cap +which he has devised for this purpose; and certainly the straightest +female figure with which I am acquainted--aged seventy-four--is said to +have been formed by the youthful habit of pacing the floor for half an +hour dally, with a book upon the head, under rigid maternal discipline. +Another traditional method is to insist that the damsel shall sit erect, +without leaning against the chair, for a certain number of hours daily; +and Sir Walter Scott says that his mother, in her eightieth year, took +as much care to avoid giving any support to her back as if she had been +still under the stern eye of Mrs. Ogilvie, her early teacher. Such +simple methods may not be enough to check diseased curvatures or +inequalities when already formed: these are best met by Ling's system +of medical gymnastics, or "movement-cure," as applied by Dr. Lewis, Dr. +Taylor, and others. + +The ordinary gymnastic apparatus has also been employed extensively by +women, and that very successfully, wherever the exercises have been +systematically organized, with agreeable classes and competent teachers. +If the gymnasium often fails to interest girls as much as boys, it is +probably from deficiency in these respects,--and also because the female +pupils, beginning on a lower plane of strength, do not command so great +a variety of exercises, and so tire of the affair more readily. But +hundreds, if not thousands, of American women have practised in these +institutions during the last ten years,--single establishments in large +cities having sometimes several hundred pupils,--and many have attained +a high degree of skill in climbing, vaulting, swinging, and the like; +nor can I find that any undue proportion of accidents has occurred. +Wherever Dr. Lewis's methods have been introduced, important advantages +have followed. He has invented an astonishing variety of games and +well-studied movements,--with the lightest and cheapest apparatus, +balls, bags, rings, wands, wooden dumb-bells, small clubs, and other +instrumentalities,--which are all gracefully and effectually used by his +classes, to the sound of music, and in a way to spare the weakest when +lightly administered, or to fatigue the strongest when applied in force. +Being adapted for united use by both sexes, they make more thorough +appeal to the social element than the ordinary gymnastics; and evening +classes, to meet several evenings in a week, have proved exceedingly +popular in some of our towns. These exercises do not require fixed +apparatus or a special hall. For this and other reasons they are +peculiarly adapted for use in schools, and it would be well if they +could be regularly taught in our normal institutions. Dr. Lewis himself +is now training regular teachers to carry on the same good work, and his +movement is undoubtedly the most important single step yet taken for the +physical education of American women. + +There is withal a variety of agreeable minor exercises, dating back +farther than gymnastic professors, which must not be omitted. Archery, +still in fashion in England, has never fairly taken root among us, and +seems almost hopeless: the clubs formed for its promotion die out almost +as speedily as cricket-clubs, and leave no trace behind; though this may +not always be. Bowling and billiards are, however, practised by lady +amateurs, just so far as they find opportunity, which is not very far; +desirable public or private facilities being obtainable by few only, +except at the summer watering-places. Battledoor-and-shuttlecock seems +likely to come again into favor, and that under eminent auspices: +Dr. Windship holding it in high esteem, as occupying the mind while +employing every part of the body, harmonizing the muscular system, +giving quickness to eye and hand, and improving the balancing power. +The English, who systematize all amusements so much more than we, have +developed this simple entertainment into several different games, +arduous and complicated as their games of ball. The mere multiplication +of the missiles also lends an additional stimulus, and the statistics +of success in this way appear almost fabulous. A zealous English +battledoorean informs me that the highest scores yet recorded in the +game are as follows: five thousand strokes for a single shuttlecock, +five hundred when employing two, one hundred and fifty with three, and +fifty-two when four airy messengers are kept flying simultaneously. + +It may seem trivial to urge upon rational beings the use of a +shuttlecock as a duty; but this is surely better than that one's health +should become a thing as perishable, and fly away as easily. There is +no danger that our educational systems will soon grow too careless of +intellect and too careful of health. Reforms, whether in physiology or +in smaller things, move slowly, when prejudice or habit bars the way. +Paris is the head-quarters of medical science; yet in Paris, to this +day, the poor babies in the great hospital of La Maternité are so +tortured in tight swathings that not a limb can move. Progress is not +in proportion to the amount of scientific knowledge on deposit in any +country, but to the extent of its diffusion. No nation in the world +grapples with its own evils so promptly as ours. It is but a few years +since there was a general croaking about the physical deterioration of +young men in our cities,--and now already the cities and the colleges +are beginning to lead the rural districts in this respect. The guaranty +of reform in American female health is to be found in the growing +popular conviction that reform is needed. The community is tired of +the reproaches of foreigners, and of the more serious evils of homes +desolated by disease, and lives turned to tragedies. Morbid anatomy has +long enough served as a type of feminine loveliness; our polite society +has long enough been a series of soirées of incurables. Health is coming +into fashion. A mercantile parent lately told me that already in his +town, if a girl could vault a five-barred gate, her prospects for a +husband were considered to be improved ten per cent.; and every one +knows that there is no metre of public sentiment so infallible as the +stock-market. Now that the country is becoming safe, we must again turn +our attention to the health of our girls. Unless they are healthy, +the country is not safe. No where can their physical condition be so +important as in a republic. The utmost attention was paid to the bodily +training of Victoria, because she was to be a queen and the mother of +kings. By the theory of our government, however imperfectly applied as +yet, this is the precise position of every American girl. Voltaire +said that the fate of nations had often depended on the gout of a +prime-minister; and the fate of our institutions may hang on the precise +temperament which our next President shall have inherited from his +mother. + + * * * * * + + +SONNET. + + + The starry flower, the flower-like stars that fade + And brighten with the daylight and the dark, + The bluet in the green I faintly mark, + And glimmering crags with laurel overlaid, + Even to the Lord of light, the Lamp of shade, + Shine one to me,--the least still glorious made + As crownèd moon or heaven's great hierarch. + And, so, dim grassy flower and night-lit spark + Still move me on and upward for the True; + Seeking, through change, growth, death, in new and old, + The full in few, the statelier in the less, + With patient pain; always remembering this,-- + His hand, who touched the sod with showers of gold, + Stippled Orion on the midnight blue. + + + + +THE HORRORS OF SAN DOMINGO. + + +CHAPTER I. + +INTRODUCTION. + + +Among the stock fallacies which belong to public writers and thinkers, +and which exercise a kind of conventional influence as often as they are +paraded, there is none greater than this,--that History always repeats +herself, because Human Nature never changes. The Tories of all ages and +countries content themselves and alarm their neighbors by an adroit +interpolation of this formula in their speech. They create the alarm +because they are contented and intend to remain so. Successive audiences +yield, as to the circus-jokes of the clown, who hits his traditional +laugh in the same place so often that it is a wonder the place is not +worn through. But people of a finer wit are not so easily surprised. If +they bore a fair numerical proportion to the listeners of _doctrinaires_ +and alarmists, the repetition would be eventually resisted, with an +indignation equal to the amount of literary and political damage which +it had effected. + +If people mean, when they say that Human Nature is always the same, that +a few primitive impulses appear through the disguise of all ages and +races, which can be modified, but never extinguished, which work and +are worked upon, are capable of doing good or harm according to +circumstances, but are at all events the conditions of life and motion, +it is fortunately true. That is to say, it is very fortunate that men +and women inhabit the earth. Their great, simple features uplift and +keep all landscapes in their places, and prevent life from falling +through into the molten and chaotic forces underneath. These rugged +water-sheds inclose, configure, temper, fertilize, and also perturb, +the great scenes and stretches of history. They hold the moisture, the +metal, the gem, the seeds of alternating forests and the patient routine +of countless harvests. Superficially it is a great way round from +the lichen to the vine, but not so far by way of the centre. The +many-colored and astonishing life conceals a few simple motives. +Certainly it is a grand and lucky thing that there are so many people +grouped along the lines of divine consistency. + +Men will not starve, if they can help it, nor thirst, if water can be +gathered in the palm or reached by digging. If they succeed in making a +cup, they betray a tendency to ornament its rim or stem, or to emboss a +story on its side. They are not disposed to become food for animals, +or to remain unprotected from the climate. They like to have the +opportunity of supplying their own wants and luxuries, and will resist +any tyrannical interference with the methods they prefer. They propagate +their race, and collect in communities for defence and social advantage. +When thus collected, they will learn to talk, to write, to symbolize, +to construct something, be it a medicine-lodge or a Parthenon. Their +primitive sense of an invisible and spiritual agency assumes the forms +of their ignorance and of their disposition: dread and cruelty, awe and +size, fancy and proportion, gentleness and simplicity, will be found +together in the rites and constructions of religion. They like to make +the whole tribe or generation conform; and it is dangerous to oppose +this tendency to preserve the shape of society from within and to +protect it against assaults from without. These are motives originally +independent of circumstances, and which made the first circumstances by +coming in contact with the elements of the physical world. + +But these circumstances are not always and everywhere as invariable +as the primitive wants which first set them in motion. Enlargement of +knowledge, of political and human relations, of the tenure of the earth, +increases the number and variety of circumstances, and combines them +so unexpectedly that it is a science to discover their laws, and the +conditions of action and reaction between men and things that happen. We +can depend upon Human Nature, but the problem always remains, What shall +be expected of Human Nature under this or that modification of its +external environment? Great laws from without act as well as great +laws from within. If we knew all the laws, we should know what average +consequences to expect. But in the mean time we shall commit the error +of supposing that History does nothing but repeat itself, fretfully +crooning into the "dull ear" of age a twice-told tale, if we do not +allow for the modifications amid which the primitive impulses find +themselves at work. + +And besides, there is a difference in individuals; one set of people +alone is too poor to furnish us with an idea of human nature. It is +natural for Themistocles, Pausanias, or Benedict Arnold, under suspicion +or ill-treatment, to desert to the enemy, and propose crushing his +country for a balm to apply to wounded feelings. But General Fremont, +in similar circumstances, will derive comfort from his loyal heart, and +wait in hopes that at least a musket may be put into his hands with +which to trust him against the foe. These are very simple variations; +they turn upon the proportion of selfish feeling which the men possess. +A self-seeking man will turn villain under the encroachment of other +people's egotism. The sight of too many trophies will convert a friend +into a covert enemy, who, without being treacherous, will nevertheless +betray a great cause by his jealousy of its great supporter. But the +latter will not always become a traitor to suit the expectations of an +envious friendship. And your own judgment of men and prophecy of events, +if based entirely upon selfish calculation, will entirely fail. + +Nations differ also, in spite of the similar things that they do in +analogous circumstances. Both Rome and England will not have too +ambitious neighbors. They hate a preponderating power, and find out +some way to get rid of the threat to their national egotism. The Romans +exterminate the Veians and Carthaginians; they want no colonizing or +commercial rivals. If England rules the sea, and uses its advantage to +create markets where it can buy at the cheapest and sell at the dearest +rates, we can understand its inexpensive sympathy for the people who can +manufacture little and therefore have to import a great deal, who are +thus the natural, disinterested lovers of free trade. It is very easy to +see why England turns red in the Crimea with the effort to lift up that +bag of rags called Turkey, to set it on the overland route to India; one +decayed nation makes a very good buffer to break the shock of natural +competition in the using up of another. It was the constant policy of +Rome to tolerate and patronize the various people in its provinces, to +respect, if not to understand, their religions, and to protect them from +the peculator. She was not so drunk with dominion as not to see that her +own comfort and safety were involved in this bearing to inferior and +half-effete races. On the other hand, England, with far stronger motives +of interest to imitate that policy, disregarding the prophecies of her +best minds, takes no pains to understand, and of course misgoverns and +outrages her poor nebulous Bengalese, and forces the opium which they +cultivate upon the Chinese whom it demoralizes. Is this difference +merely the difference between a pocket in a toga and one in the +trousers? But a nerve from the moral sense does, nevertheless, spread +into _papilloe_ over the surface of the tighter pocket, not entirely +blunted by yellow potations; so that the human as well as financial +advantage of Jamaica emancipation is perceived. Should we expect this +from the nation which undertook the destruction of the Danish fleet +before Copenhagen in 1801, without even the formality of a declaration +of war, on the suspicion that the Dane preferred to sympathize with +France? What moral clamor could have made the selfish exigency of that +act appear more damaging than a coalition of all the fleets of Europe? +Yet plantation fanaticism did not prevent the great act from which we +augured English hatred of a slaveholders' rebellion. Probably the lining +membrane of a pocket may have intermitted accesses of induration: +we must consult circumstances, if we would know what to expect. An +extraordinary vintage or a great fruit year will follow a long series of +scant or average crops; but we can count upon the average. + +But unless circumstances are constant, it matters little how constant +tempers and tendencies may be; and the expectations which we found upon +the general action of avarice, credulity, bigotry, self-seeking, or +any of the debased forms of legitimate human impulses, will often +be disappointed by results. Prepare the favorite climate, moisture, +exposure of a foreign plant, imitate its latitude and air and soil: it +will not necessarily grow at all, or, growing, it will only surprise you +by some alteration of its native features. Results are better chemists +than we, and their delicate root-fibres test the ground more accurately; +we shall find them languishing for some favorite elements, or colored +and persuaded by novel ones. History must remember the constants of +Man and of Nature, but be always expecting their variables, lest her +prophetic gift fall into ill-repute. + +Thus, give unlimited power to the Catholic, and he cannot anywhere set +up his old-fashioned absolutism, unless you can manage at the same time +to furnish him with Roman and Spanish people, and the fifteenth century. +Yet we, too, have trembled at the imaginary horrors of Popery. All the +power you can thrust and pile upon the Catholic in America will become +an instrument to further the country's tendency towards light, as it +drags the human impulses away from the despotic past. All the Jesuits, +and prize bulls by every steamer, relays of papal agents, and +Corpus-Christi processions in the streets of Boston, will hardly lift +the shoulders of the great protesting country, as it turns to stare from +its tilling, steaming, pioneering, emancipating task. + +It is not difficult to see why the revolts of peasants in the Middle +Ages were marked by horrible excesses,--why diplomatic Catholicism +prepared a St. Bartholomew's Eve for Paris,--why Dutch and Scotch +Protestants defaced and trampled under foot ecclesiastical Art,--why +German princes proclaimed a crusade against budding Protestantism and +Pan-slavism under Ziska and Procopius in Bohemia,--why the fagots were +fired at Constance, Prague, and Smithfield, and Pequod wigwams in New +England. All dreadful scenes, by simply taking place, show that they +have reason for it. But will they take place again? A Black Douglas did +undoubtedly live, and he was the nursery-threat for fractious Scotch +children during several generations; the Douglas never caught one of +them, but the threat did. So we are plied with stock-phrases, such as +"the Reign of Terror" and "the Horrors of San Domingo," and History is +abjectly conjured not to repeat herself, as she certainly will do, if +she goes on in the old way. Of course she will. But does she propose to +furnish a fac-simile of any critical epoch which haunts the imaginations +of mankind? That depends upon circumstances. The same barrel will play a +fresh tune by a hair's-breadth shifting of a spring. Two epochs may seem +to be exactly alike, and the men who only remember may seek to terrify +the men who hope by exposing the resemblance. But unless they can show +that all the circumstances are identical, they have no right to infect +the morning with their twilight fears. History insensibly modifies her +plan to secure the maximum of progress with the minimum of catastrophes, +and she repels the flippant insinuation that her children win all their +fresh advantages at the expense of the old crimes. + +The story of Hayti is worth telling, apart from its bearing upon +questions connected with the emancipation of slaves. It is a striking +record of the degradation of fine races and the elevation of inferior +ones, and shows with what ease Nature can transfer her good points from +her gifted children and unexpectedly endow with them her neglected +ones,--thus affording us a hint of something that is more permanent and +irreversible than ethnological distinctions, by repeating within our own +time her humane way with her old barbarians whose hair was long. From +them sprang the races which never could have dominated by cunning and +force alone, and which have to lay down their dominion when they have +exhausted everything but force and cunning. It is a story of the +desolation in which the avarice and wrath of man must always travel: +colonial prosperity was nothing but a howling war-path blazed directly +across stately and beautiful human nature. It shows the blood which the +fine hands of luxury never could wash off; the terrible secret at last +betrayed itself. In telling this story, the horrors of San Domingo are +accounted for, and whatever was exceptional in the circumstances is +at the same time marked, to prevent them from being applied without +discrimination to the present condition of America. But the story must +be told from the beginning, for its own sake; otherwise it will be a +bad story, without a moral. If the main features of it are carefully +preserved, it will make its own application. + +That, however, is fatal to any attempt to infect minds with the Haytian +bug-bear, now that political discussion threatens to ravage the country +which our arms are saving. It has been used before, when it was +necessary to save the Union and to render anti-slavery sentiment odious. +The weak and designing, and all who wait for the war to achieve a +constitutional recurrence of our national malady, will use it again to +defeat the great act of justice and the people's great necessity. + +Slavery is a continual conspiracy. Its life depends upon intrigue, +aggression, adroit combinations with other forms of human selfishness. +The people at the North who at this moment hate to hear the word +Emancipation mentioned, and who insist that the war shall merely restore +things to their original position, are the people who always hated the +phrase "Anti-Slavery," who will be ready to form a fresh coalition with +Slavery for the sake of recovering or creating political advantages, +and whom the South will know how to use again, by reviving ancient +prejudices, and making its very wounds a cause for sympathy. Slavery +will be the nucleus of political combinations so long as it can preserve +its constitutional and commercial advantages,--while it can sell its +cotton and recover its fugitives. Is the precious blood already +spilled in this war to become, as it congeals, nothing but cement to +fugitive-slave bills, and the basis of three-fifths, and the internal +slave-trade? For this we spend three millions a day, and lives whose +value cannot be expressed in dollars,--for this anguish will sit for +years at thousands of desolate hearths, and be the only legacy of +fatherless children. For what glory will they inherit whose fathers fell +to save still a chance or two for Slavery? It is for this we are willing +to incur the moral and financial hazards of a great struggle,--to +furnish an Anti-Republican party of reconstructionists with a bridge +for Slavery to reach a Northern platform, to frown at us again from the +chair of State. The Federal picket who perchance fell last night upon +some obscure outpost of our great line of Freedom has gone up to Heaven +protesting against such cruel expectations, wherever they exist; and +they exist wherever apathy exists, and old hatred lingers, and wherever +minds are cowed and demoralized by the difficulties of this question. In +his body is a bullet run by Slavery, and sent by its unerring purpose; +his comrades will raise over him a little hillock upon which Slavery +will creep to look out for future chances,--ruthlessly scanning the +political horizon from the graves of our unnamed heroes. This, and eight +dollars a month, will his wife inherit; and if she ever sees his grave, +she will see a redoubt which the breast of her husband raises for some +future defence of Slavery. The People, who are waging this war, and +who are actually getting at the foe through the bristling ranks of +politicians and contractors, must have such a moral opinion upon this +question as to defeat these dreadful possibilities. Let us be patient, +because we see some difficulties; but let us give up the war itself +sooner than our resolution, that, either by this war, or after it, +Slavery shall be stripped of its insignia, and turned out to cold and +irretrievable disgrace, weaponless, fangless, and with no object in the +world worthy of its cunning. We can be patient, but we must also be +instant and unanimous in insisting that the whole of Slavery shall pay +the whole of Freedom's bill. Then the dear names whose sound summons +imperatively our tears shall be proudly handed in by us to History, as +we bid her go with us from grave to grave to see how the faith of a +people watched them against the great American Body Snatcher, and kept +them inviolate to be her memorials. We feel our hearts reinforced by the +precious blood which trickled from Ball's Bluff into the Potomac, and +was carried thence into the great sea of our conscience, tumultuous with +pride, anger, and resolve. The drops feed the country's future, wherever +they are caught first by our free convictions ere they sink into the +beloved soil. Let us be instant, be incisive with our resolution, that +peace may not be the mother of another war, and our own victory rout +ourselves. + +Blow, North-wind, blow! Keep that bearded field of bayonets levelled +southward! Rustle, robes of Liberty, who art walking terribly over the +land, with sombre countenance, and garments rolled in blood! See, she +advances with one hand armed with Justice, while the other points to +that exquisite symmetry half revealed, as if beckoning thitherward her +children back again to the pure founts of life! "Be not afraid," she +cries, "of the noise of my garments and their blood-stains; for this is +the blood of a new covenant of Freedom, shed to redeem and perpetuate a +chosen land." + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE PLACE--THE CLIMATE--NATIVES--SETTLERS. + + +This old haunted house of Hayti had many occupants, who left as +heirlooms generation upon generation of hateful memories. Their dreams, +their deeds, their terrific tempers, lurked for the newcomers, and +harried them forth or made them kin. It is a cumulative story of dire +and fateful proceedings, like the story of the family of Pelops. It must +be told with deliberation. So the place, the climate, the aborigines, +the early atrocities, the importation of new races and characteristics, +command consideration as inevitable elements of the narrative. + +This spot of the New World was the first to ache beneath the white man's +greedy and superstitious tread. A tenacious Gothic race, after its long +blockade by Moors in the northern mountains of the Iberian Peninsula, +had lately succeeded in recovering the last stronghold of Arab power and +learning. Fresh from the atrocities of that contest, its natural bigotry +deepened by its own struggle for national existence, sombre, fanatical, +cruel, and avaricious, but enterprising and indomitable, it is wafted +across the ocean by Columbus, to expend its propensities unchecked +against a weaker and less characteristic barbarism. What might be +expected, when a few noble men succeed in transporting the worst +features of their own country, in such numbers of intractable people, +the raking of seaports, with little on board in the way of religion, +save the traditions of the Church and the materials for exhibiting the +drama of the Mass! This is the contingent which civilization detaches +for the settlement of another world. It effaces a smiling barbarism by a +saturnine and gloomy one, as when a great forest slides from some height +over a wild gay meadow. These capable, cruel men went sailing among the +Bahamas, soothed by the novelty and delight of finding land, and tried +to behave at first as men do among artless children who measure every +thing by their own scantiness; for they compelled themselves to be very +mild and condescending, till, after various mischances and rebuffs by +sea and land, the temper breaks forth in rage at disappointments, and +Hayti is the first place which is blasted by that frightful Spanish +scowl. The change was as sudden as that from calm weather to one of her +tempests. The whole subsequent history seems as if it were the revenge +of Columbus's own imagination, when the sober truth was discovered +instead of Cipango and the King of India. Thus was the New World +unsettled, and the horrors of San Domingo committed to the soil. + +Nearly the whole of Hayti lies between the eighteenth and twentieth +degrees of latitude, and the sixty-ninth, and seventy-fifth of +longitude. Its greatest length is three hundred and forty miles, its +greatest breadth, one hundred and thirty-two. It has a surface of +somewhat more than twenty-seven thousand square miles, or about eighteen +million square acres. The greater part of this is mountain-land. There +are three extensive plains,--La Vega in the east, Santiago in the +north, and Les Plaines in the southeast. These are distinct from the +Savannas.[A] The island is about the size of the State of Maine. Its +shape is peculiar, as it widens gradually from its southeastern end to +nearly the centre of its greatest length, whence the southern coast +trends rapidly to the north and west and stretches into a peninsula, +like a long mandible, corresponding to which on the northern coast is +another half as long, like a broken one, and between these lies a great +bay with the uncultivated island of Gonaive. The eastern part of the +island has also the small peninsula of Saniana, lying along the bay of +that name. The surface is covered by mountains which appear at first to +be tossed together wildly, without system or mutual relation, but they +can be described, upon closer inspection, as four ranges, with a general +parallelism, extending nearly east and west, but broken in the centre +by the Cibao ridge, which radiates in every direction from two or three +peaks, the highest in the island. Their height is reputed to be nine +thousand feet, but they have not yet been accurately measured. The +mountains of La Hotte, which form the long southern tongue of land, +rise to the height of seven thousand feet. They are all of calcareous +formation, and abound in the caverns which are found in limestone +regions. Some of these have their openings on the coast, and are +supposed to extend very far inland; they receive the tide, and reject it +with a bellowing noise, as the pent air struggles with it under their +arched roofs. These were called by the Spaniards _baxos roncadores_, +droning or snoring basses. The French had a name, _le gouffre_, the +gulf, to describe these noises; but they also applied it to the +subterranean rumbling, accompanied with explosions and violent +vibrations of the ground, which is caused by the heavy rains soaking +through the porous stone, after the dry season has heated the whole +surface of the island. The steaming water makes the earth groan and +shake as it forces its way through the crevices, feeling for an outlet, +or thrown back upon its own increasing current. These mysterious noises +filled with awe the native priests who managed the superstition of the +island before the Spaniards introduced another kind: no doubt they +served for omens, to incite or to deter, voices of Chthonian deities, +which needed interpreting in the interest of some great cacique who +would not budge upon his business without the sanction of religion. Many +a buccaneer, in after-times, who quailed before no mortal thunders made +by French or Spanish navies, was soundly frightened by the gigantic +snoring beneath his feet into reviewing his career, and calculating the +thickness of the crust between himself and his impatient retribution. + +[Footnote A: Savanna was a Haytian word spelt and pronounced by +Spaniards. It is a plain of grass, affording pasturage in the rainy +season; but a few shrubs also grow upon it. _Pampas_ are vast plains +without vegetation except during three months of the rainy season, when +they yield fine grass. The word is Peruvian; was originally applied to +the plains at the mouth of the La Plata. But the plains of Guiana and +tropical America, which the Spaniards called _Llanos_, are also pampas. +The Hungarian pasture-lands, called _Puszta_, are savannas. A _Steppe_ +is properly a vast extent of country, slightly rolling, without woods, +but not without large plants and herbs. In Russia there are sometimes +thickets eight or ten feet high. The salt deserts in Russia are not +called steppes, but _Solniye_. Pampas and deserts are found alternating +with steppes. A _Desert_ may have a sparing vegetation, and so differ +from pampas: if it has any plants, they are scrubby and fibrous, with +few leaves, and of a grayish color, and so it differs from steppes and +savannas. But there are rocky and gravelly, sandy and salt deserts: +gravelly, for instance, in Asia Minor, principally in the district known +to the ancients as the [Greek: katakekaumegae]. A _Heath_ is a level +covered with the plants to which that name has been applied. Finally, a +_Prairie_ differs from a savanna only in being under a zone where the +seasons are not marked as wet and dry, but where the herbage corresponds +to a variable moisture.] + +The words _crête_, _pic_, and _montagne_ are sometimes applied to the +peaks and ridges of the island, but the word _morne_, which is a Creole +corruption of _montagne_, is in common use to designate all the elevated +land, the extended ridges which serve as water-sheds for the torrents +of the rainy season, as well as the isolated hillocks, clothed in wood, +which look like huge hay-cocks,--those, for instance, which rise in the +rear of Cap Haytien. The aspect of the higher hills in the interior +might mislead an etymologist to derive the word _morne_ from the French +adjective which means _gloomy_, they are so marked by the ravages of the +hurricane and earthquake, so ploughed up into decrepit features by the +rains, the pitiless vertical heat, the fires, and the landslides. The +soft rock cannot preserve its outlines beneath all these influences; its +thin covering of soil is carried off to make the river-silt, and then +it crumbles away beneath the weather. Great ruts are scored through the +forests where the rock has let whole acres of trees and rubbish slip; +they sometimes cover the negro-cabins and the coffee-walks below. These +mountains are capricious and disordered masses of grayish stone; there +are no sustained lines which sweep upward from the green plantations and +cut sharply across the sky, no unchangeable walls of cool shadow, no +delicate curves, as in other hills, where the symmetry itself seems +to protect the material from the wear and tear of the atmosphere. The +_mornes_ are decaying hills; they look as if they emerged first from the +ocean and were the oldest parts of the earth, not merely weather-beaten, +but profligately used up with a too tropical career, which deprives +their age of all grandeur: they bewilder and depress. + +There are delightful valleys below these sullen hills. In the dry season +their torrents are stony bridle-paths, with only two or three inches +of water, along which the traveller can pass from the flourishing +plantations, where all the forms of a torrid vegetation are displayed, +into this upper region of decay. The transition is sudden and +unpleasant. Everything below is stately, exuberant: the sugar-cane, the +cotton-tree, the coffee-shrub are suggestive of luxury; the orange +and lemon shine through the glossy leaves; the palm-tree, the elegant +_papayo_, the dark green candle-wood, the feathery bamboo, the fig, +the banana, the mahogany, the enormous _Bombax ceiba_, the sablier,[B] +display their various shapes; shrubs and bushes, such as the green +and red pimento, the vanilla, the pomegranate, the citron, the +sweet-smelling acacia, and the red jasmine, contest the claim to delight +one's senses; and various flowers cover the meadows and cluster along +the shallow water-courses. No venomous reptiles lurk in these fragrant +places: the seed-tick, mosquito, and a spiteful little fly are the +greatest annoyances. The horned lizard, which the Indians esteemed so +delicate, and the ferocious crocodile, or caiman, haunt the secluded +sands and large streams, and the lagoons which form in marshy places. + +[Footnote B: _Hura crepitans_, one of the handsomest trees in the West +Indies, called _sablier_ because its fruit makes a very convenient +sandbox, when not fully ripe, by removing the seeds. It is of a +horn-color, about three and a half inches wide and two high, and looks +like a little striped melon. The ripe fruit, on taking out one of the +twelve woody cells which compose it, will explode with a noise like a +pistol, each cell giving a double report. This sometimes takes place +while the fruit is hanging on the tree, and sometimes when it stands +upon the table filled with sand. To prevent this, it is prettily hooped +with gold, silver, or ivory.] + +The trees and thickets do not glitter with fruits alone: gay birds fill +them with shifting colors, and a confusion of odd, plaintive, or excited +notes. Several kinds of pigeons, paroquets, thrushes, bright violet +and scarlet tanagras go foraging among the bananas, the rice, and +the millet. The ponds of the savannas are frequented by six or eight +varieties of wild ducks, and the wild goose; woodcock and plover abound +in the marshy neighborhoods; and the white crane, the swan, different +kinds of herons, and an ibis are found near the sea. On the shores +stand pelicans and cormorants absorbed in fishing enterprises, and the +flamingo,[C] whose note of alarm sounds like a trumpet. + +[Footnote C: When the English were meditating a descent upon the coast +of Gonaive, a negro happened to see a prodigious number of these +red-coated birds ranked on the savanna near the sea, as their habit is, +in companies. He rushed into the town, shouting, _"Z'Anglais, yo après +veni, yo en pile dans savanne l'Hôpital!"_ "The English, they are after +coming, they are drawn up on l'Hôpital savanna!" The _générale_ +was beaten, the posts doubled, and a strong party was sent out to +reconnoitre. + +The pelican is a source of great amusement to the negroes. They call +this bird _blague à diable_, because of the incredible number of fish it +can stow away in its pouch. They call the cormorant _grand gosier_, big +gullet; and they make use of the membranous pocket which is found under +the lower mandible of its beak to carry their smoking tobacco, fancying +that it enhances the quality and keeps it fresh. Among the queer birds +is the _cra-cra_, or crocodile's valet, a bold and restless bird with +a harsh cry, represented in its name, which it uses to advertise the +dozing crocodile of any hostile approach. It is a great annoyance to the +sportsman by mixing with the wild ducks and alarming them with the same +nervous cry.] + +Charming valleys open to sight from the coast, where the limestone +bluffs let in the bays. The eye follows the rivulets as they wind +through green, sequestered places, till the hills bar the view, but do +not prevent the fancy from exploring farther, and losing itself in a +surmise of glens filled with rare vegetation and kept quiet by the +inclosing shadows. From the sea this picture is especially refreshing, +with the heat left out which is reflected with great power from the +sandy rocks and every denuded surface. Below all appears beautiful, +luxurious, and new; but above the signs of decrepitude appear, and the +broad wastes stretch where little grows except the _bayaonde_, (_Mimosa +urens_,) with its long murderous spines and ugly pods. Sudden contrasts +and absence of delicate gradations mark the whole face of the island. +All is extreme; and the mind grows disquieted amid these isolated +effects. + +The climate also corresponds to this region of luxury and desolation. +From November to April everything is parched with heat; some of the +trees lose their leaves, the rest become brown, and all growth ceases. +From April to November everything is wet; vegetation revives without a +spring, and the slender streams suddenly become furious rivers, which +often sweep away the improvements of man, and change the face of the +country in a single night. During the dry season the inhabitants depend +upon the sea-breeze which blows in over the heated land to replace +the rarefied air. It blows from six in the morning to three in the +afternoon, in the eastern part of the island; in other parts, from +nine to three. But frequently a furious northeast wind interrupts +this refreshing arrangement: the air becomes hard and cold; thick, +wintry-looking clouds sweep over the hills; the inhabitants shut +themselves up in their houses to escape the rheumatism, which is a +prevalent infliction; a March weather which was apparently destined for +New England seems to have got entangled and lost among these fervid +hills. The languid Creole life is overtaken by universal discomfort. + +Great fires break out over the elevated plateaus and hill-sides, during +the dry season. They sweep with incredible rapidity across great tracts, +levelling everything in the way. The mountains seem tipped with volcanic +flames. The angry glow spreads over the night, and its smoke mixes with +the parched air by day. These fires commence by some carelessness, +though they are sometimes attributed to the action of the son's rays, +concentrated by the gray cliffs upon great masses of vegetation dried to +tinder. + +In the rainy season the earthquakes occur; and not a year passes without +the experience of several shocks in different parts of the island. The +northern part is exempt from them.[D] Those which take place in the +west, around the shores of the great bay upon which Port-au-Prince is +situated, are severe, and sometimes very disastrous. At mid-day the +wind falls instantly, there is a dead calm on land and sea, the heat +is consequently more intense, and the atmosphere suffocating; then the +vibrations occur, after which the wind begins to blow again. Sometimes, +at an interval of ten or twelve hours, there is a supplementary shock, +less violent than the first one. It is said that the coast-caves bellow +just before an earthquake. Their noise probably seems more emphatic In +the sudden calm which is the real announcement of the earth's shudder. + +[Footnote D: Not entirely. The great earthquake of the 7th of May, 1842, +was very destructive at Cap Haytien. On this occasion Port-au-Prince +escaped with little injury.] + +Port-au-Prince was entirely destroyed by an earthquake in June, 1770. +The Inhabitants built the new town upon the edge of the gulf which had +just swallowed up their old one, convinced that the same disaster would +not recur in the same spot. But that region is peculiarly sensitive: the +subterranean connections with the Mexican and South-American volcanic +districts chronicle disturbances whose centre is remote. + +The rains are short and frequent showers, very heavy, and almost always +accompanied by violent electric phenomena. By June they are at their +height. Then the land-slides take place, which often affect seriously +the cultivation, not only by their direct ravages, but by the changes +which they make in the water-courses: large tracts of good soil are +turned into swamp-land, the rivers are forced to bend out of their +direction and to desert places which depended upon them for irrigation. +These damages were seldom repaired, for the indolent planter would not +undertake the work of draining and of permanently securing the tillable +surface of his land. It is good luck, if a land-slide, instead of +creating a new morass, fills up an old one. + +As if completely to unsettle any claim that this Creole climate might +make to character, the hurricane leaves its awful trace upon the island. +This rotating storm of wind has its origin to the east of the Caribbee +Islands; its long parabolic curve sweeps over them, and bends to the +northeast below Florida. In its centre, as it moves, it carries a lull +whose breadth varies from five to thirty miles. This dreadful calm comes +suddenly in the height of the storm, and is as suddenly interrupted, +after lasting sometimes for half an hour, by the revolving edge of the +wind. Torrents of rain go with it, and heavy thunder, and it brings from +the sea an enormous wave, which sweeps harbors clean of their ships, and +runs up, like an earthquake-wave, upon the shore. This vortex, moving +often a hundred miles an hour, takes hold of the _Bombax ceiba_ like an +enormous proboscis, pulls it from the thin soil of the tropics despite +the great lateral clutch of its knotty roots, and swallows it up. +Houses, cultivated fields, men and animals, are obliterated by its heavy +foot. + +In some years no less than three hurricanes have occurred in the West +Indies. Father Du Tertre, a French missionary in St. Christophe, +describes one which he witnessed in 1642,--a year memorable for three. +During the second of these, more than twenty vessels, laden with +colonial produce and just ready to sail for Europe, were wrecked in the +harbor, including the ship of De Ruyter, the Dutch Admiral. The island +was swept of houses, trees, cattle, and birds; the manioc and tobacco +plants were destroyed, and only one cotton shrub survived. The shores +were covered with dead fishes blown out of the water, and the bodies of +ship-wrecked men. The salt-works were flooded and spoiled, and all the +provisions on the island were so damaged that the inhabitants were put +on rations of biscuit till the arrival of vessels from France. + +Another storm like this desolated Martinique in 1657; and the annals of +most of the islands abound in similar narratives. They are less severe +in Hayti, and seldom sweep violently over Cuba. The word _hurricane_ is +a European adaptation of a Carib word, borrowed by the Haytian Indians +from the natives of the Antilles. + +The inhabitants of Hayti do not agree in the statements which they make +concerning their climate. The commencement of the two seasons, the range +of the thermometer, the duration of the different winds, the liability +to earthquakes, are subjects upon which the North is at variance with +the East, and the West with both. The most trustworthy notices of these +phenomena are held to represent that portion of the island which +was formerly occupied by the French. Still the variations cannot be +important over so small an area: the petty and fitful changes of every +day are more noticeable, but the climate has its average within which +these local caprices occur. + +In another climate the mountains would present a gradation of vegetable +growth, from the tropical through the temperate to the northern zone. +And this can be traced in some quarters, where the palm and mahogany are +succeeded by resinous trees, of which there are several varieties, till +the bare summits show only lichens and stunted shrubs. But the seasons +do not harmonize with this graduated rise of the mountain-chains, and +the temperate forms are interrupted, or confined to a few localities. +Yet the people who live upon the _mornes_, those for instance which are +drained by Trois-Rivières in the northwestern part of the island, are +healthier and plumper, and the Creoles have a fresher look, than the +inhabitants of the plains. In the still more elevated regions the cold +is frequently so great that people do not like to live there. Newly +imported negroes frequently perished, if they were carried up into the +southern range of mountains; and the dependent Creole was forced to +abandon places where the slave could not go. + +It would be singular, if a place of such marked natural features, and +with such phenomena of climate, should have no perceptible effects upon +the Eastern races of all kinds which have been transported there. We +shall expect that the Creole will betray a certain harmony with his +petulant and capricious skies, and imitate the grace and exuberance of +the tropical forms amid which he lives, the languor of the air that +broods over them, its flattering calms and fierce transitions; he will +mature early and wilt at maturity with passions that despise moderation +and impulses that are incapable of continuity. In Hayti the day itself +rushes precipitately into the sky, and is gone as suddenly: there is no +calm broadening of dawn, and no lingering hours of twilight. The light +itself is a passion which fiercely revels among the fruits and flowers +that exhale for it ardently; it gluts, and then suddenly spurns them +for new conquests. Nothing can live and flourish here which has not the +innate temperament of the place. + +One would not expect to find great wealth in these gray-looking +mountains of simple and uniform structure; yet they abound in stones and +metals. Besides the different kinds of marble, which it is not strange +to find, diamonds also, jasper, agates, onyx, topaz, and other stones, a +kind of jade and of malachite, are found in a great many places. Copper +exists in considerable quantities in the neighborhood of Dondon and +Jacmel, and in the Cibao; silver is found near San Domingo, and in +various places in the Cibao, together with cinnabar, cobalt, bismuth, +zinc, antimony, and lead in the Cibao, near Dondon and Azua, blue cobalt +that serves for painting on porcelain, the gray, black specular nickel, +etc.; native iron near the Bay of Samana, in the Mornes-du-Cap, and at +Haut-and Bas-Moustique; other forms of that metal abound in numerous +places, crystallized, spathic, micaceous, etc. Nitre can be procured in +the Cibao, that great storehouse which has specimens of almost every +metal, salt, and mineral; borax at Jacmel and Dondon, native alum at +Dondon, and aluminous earth near Port-au-Prince; vitriol, of various +forms, in a dozen places; naphtha, petroleum, and asphaltum at Banique, +and sulphur in different shapes at Marmalade, La Soufrière, etc. The +catalogue of this wealth would be tedious to draw up. + +The reports concerning gold do not agree. It is maintained that there +are mines and washings which have been neglected, or improperly worked, +and that a vigorous exploration would reopen this source of wealth; but +it is also said as confidently that the Spaniards took off all the gold, +and were reduced to working mines of copper, before the middle of the +sixteenth century. It is certain, however, that great quantities of gold +were taken from the island by the Spaniards, while they had the natives +to perform the labor. The principal sources from which gold can be +procured are in the part of the island formerly occupied by the +Spaniards; and when their power decayed, all important labors came to an +end. But Oviedo records several lumps of gold of considerable size: one +was Bobadilla's lump, found, during his government, at Bonne Aventure, +which was worth thirty-six hundred _castellanos_, or $19,153. This was +lost at sea on the way to Spain. The finding of pieces in the River +Yaqui weighing nine ounces was occasionally recorded, and pieces of +pure gold, without the least mixture, more than three inches in +circumference, in the River Verte: they were undoubtedly found much +oftener than recorded. Good authorities, writing at the close of the +last century, declare that the mines of Cibao alone furnished more gold +than all Europe had in circulation at that time. All the larger streams, +and the basins near their sources, furnished gold. + +Bobadilla's lump was found by a slave of Francisco de Garay, afterwards +Governor of Jamaica. He and the famous Diaz worked a mine together in +San Domingo. His slave was poking about with a pike in the shallows of +the River Hayna, when the head struck the metal. Garay was so rejoiced +that he sacrificed a pig, which was served upon this extemporaneous +platter, and he boasted that there was no such dish in Europe. Twenty +other ships with gold on board went down in the storm which swallowed up +Garay's waif.[E] + +[Footnote E: Great quantities of gold were embezzled by the Spanish +officials. Las Casas in his lively arguments with the Council of State +in behalf of the Indians, always insisted that his plan for controlling +them would be more profitable as well as humane. He promised large +increase of treasure, and showed how the royal officers appropriated the +gold which they extorted from the natives. Piedro Arias, for instance, +spent six years at Castilla-du-Oro, at a cost to the Government of +fifty-four thousand ducats, during which time he divided a million's +worth of gold with his officers, at the expense of thousands of natives, +whose lives were the flux of the metallic ore, while he paid only three +thousand _pesos_ for the king's fifth.--Llorente: _Oeuvres de Las +Casas_, Tom. II--p.472.] + +Many French writers have maintained that the Indians procured their +golden ornaments from Yucatan and other points of the main-land, by way +of traffic. But they had nothing to barter, and their ornaments were +numerous. Besides, the Spaniards found in various places near the rivers +the holes and slight diggings whence the gold had been procured. It is +said that the Haytian natives only washed for gold, but the Caribs had +frequented the island long previously, and they without doubt earned +gold away from it. The Spaniards were deceived by the Haytians, who +did not wish to dig gold under the lash to glitter on the velvet of +_hidalgos_. + +It is difficult, as Humboldt says, to distinguish, in the calculations +by the Spanish writers of the amount of gold sent to Spain, "between +that obtained by washings and that which had been accumulated for ages +in the hands of the natives, who were pillaged at will." He inclines, +however, to the opinion, that a scientific system of mining would renew +the supply of gold, which may not be represented by the scanty washings +that have been occasionally tried in Hayti and Cuba. In Hayti, "as well +as at Brazil, it would be more profitable to attempt subterraneous +workings, on veins, in primitive and intermediary soils, than to renew +the gold-washings which were abandoned in the ages of barbarism, rapine, +and carnage."[F] + +[Footnote F: _Personal Narrative_, Vol. III. p. 163, note. Bohn's +Series.] + +But the chief interest which Spain took in Hayti was derived from +the collars and bracelets which shone dully against the skins of the +caciques and native women in the streets of Seville. It did not require +an exhausted treasury, and the clamor of a Neapolitan war for sinews, +to stimulate the appetite of a nation whose sensibility for gold was as +great as its superstition. Columbus triumphed over the imaginations of +men through their avarice; the procession of his dusky captives to the +feet of Isabella was as if the Earth-Spirit, holding a masque to tempt +Catholic majesties to the ruin of the mine, sent his familiars, "with +the earth-tint yet so freshly embrowned," to flatter with heron-crests, +the plumes of parrots, and the yellow ore. Behind that naked pomp the +well-doubleted nobles of Castile and Aragon trooped gayly with priests +and crosses, the pyx and the pax, and all the symbols of a holy Passion, +to crime and death. + +Columbus discovered Guanahani, which he named San Salvador, on the +morning of the 12th of October, 1492. After cruising among these Lucayan +Islands, or Bahamas, for some time, he reached Cuba on the 28th of the +same month. His Lucayan interpreters were understood by the natives of +Cuba, notwithstanding they spoke a different dialect. They were also +understood at Hayti, which was reached on the 6th of December; but here +the Cuban interpreter was found to be more useful. Each island appeared +to have a dialect of a language whose origin has been variously +attributed to Florida, to Central America, and to the Caribbee Islands. +But the Indians of Central America could not understand the Cubans and +Haytians, and they in turn spoke a different language from the Caribs, +some of whose words they had borrowed. A favorite theory is, that the +_Ygneris_ were ancient inhabitants of the West Indian Islands, distinct +from the Caribs, who made their way from Florida by the Lucayan Islands, +leaving Hayti to the right, and reaching South America by that fringe of +islands that stretches from Porto Rico to Trinidad, through which the +great current is strained into the Caribbean Sea. Humboldt says,[G] in +noticing the difference between the language of the Carib men and their +women, that perhaps the women descended from the female captives made +in this movement, the men being as usual slain. But the Haytians also +claimed to have come from Florida. Perhaps, then, an emigration from +Florida, which may be called, for want of any historical data, that of +the Ygneris, covered all the West Indian Islands at a very early period, +to be overlapped, in part, by a succeeding emigration of Caribs who were +pressed out of Florida by the Appalachians.[H] + +[Footnote G: _Personal Narrative_, Vol. III. p. 78, where see the +subject discussed at length.] + +[Footnote H: _Histoire Générale des Antilles_, par Du Tertre, Paris, +1667, Tom. II. p. 360.] + +The Caribs are supposed to have derived the compliment of their name, +which means "valiant men," from the Appalachians, who had great trouble +in dislodging them. They were very different from the Haytians: they cut +their hair very short in front, leaving a tuft upon the crown, bandaged +the legs of their children to make a calf that Mr. Thackeray's Jeames +would have envied, pulled out their beard hair by hair, and then +polished the chin, with rough leaves. A grand toilet included a coat of +scarlet paint, which protected them from the burning effect of the sun +and from the bites of insects. It also saved their skins from the scurf +and chapping which the sea-water occasioned. A Carib chief, in a full +suit of scarlet, excited once the anger of Madame Aubert, wife of a +French governor of Dominica, because he sat upon her couch, which had a +snowy dimity cover, and left there the larger portion of his pantaloons. +But afterwards, upon being invited to dine at the Government-House, he +determined to respect the furniture, and, seeing nothing so appropriate +as his plate, he removed it to his chair before he took his seat. The +Caribs, however, had such an inveterate preference for dining _au +naturel_, that they frequently served up natives themselves, whenever +that expensive luxury could be obtained. The Spaniards brought home the +word _Cannibal_, which was a Haytian pronunciation of Cariba (Galiba); +and it gradually came into use to express the well-known idea of a +man-eater. The South-American Caribs preserve this vicious taste. + +The Caribs had not overrun the island of Hayti, but it was never free +from their incursions. That hardy and warlike race was feared by the +milder Haytians, who had been compelled, especially in the southern +provinces of the island, to study the arts of defence, which do not +appear to have been much esteemed by them. Their arms were of the +simplest description: wood pointed and hardened in the fire, arrows +tipped with fish-bone or turtle-shell, and clubs of the toughest +kinds of wood. The Caribs used arrows poisoned with the juice of the +manchineel, or pointed with formidable shark's-teeth, their clubs of +Brazil-wood were three feet long, and their lances of hardened wood +were thrown with great adroitness and to a great distance. The southern +Haytians learned, warlike habits from these encroaching Caribs, and were +less gentle than the natives whom Columbus first met along the northern +coast. + +But they were all gentler, fairer, more graceful and simple than the +Caribs, or the natives of the main. Their ambition found its limit when +the necessaries of daily life were procured. The greatest achievement +of their manual dexterity was the hollowing of a great trunk by fire to +fashion a canoe.[I] Their huts were neatly made of stakes and reeds, +and covered with a plaited roof, beneath which the _hamaca_, (hammock,) +coarsely knitted of cotton, swung. Every collection of huts had also one +of larger dimensions, like a lodge, open at the sides, where the natives +used to gather for their public business or amusement. This was called +_bohio_, a word improperly applied to the huts, and used by the +Spaniards to designate their villages. In the southern districts, the +_bohios_, and the dwellings of the caciques, were furnished with +stools wrought with considerable skill from hard wood, and sometimes +ornamented. But they could not have been made by the natives, who had +neither iron nor copper in use. Their golden ornaments were nothing more +than pieces of the metal, rudely turned, by pounding and rubbing, into +rings for the nose and ears, and necklace-plates. Whatever they had, for +use or ornament, which was more elaborate, came by way of trade from +Yucatan and the contiguous coasts. It is difficult to conjecture what +their medium of barter was, for they prepared nothing but cassava-cakes +for food and the fermented juice for drink, and raised only the pimento, +(red pepper,) the _agi_, (sweet pepper,) the _yuca_, whence the +cassava or manioc meal was obtained, and sweet potatoes; and all these +productions were common to the tribes along the coast. Tobacco may have +been cultivated by them and neglected by other tribes. The Haytian word +_tabaco_, which designated the pipe from which they sucked the smoke +into their nostrils, and also the roll of leaves,--for they employed +both methods,--has passed over to the weed. The pipe was a hollow tube +in the shape of a Y, the mystic letter of Pythagoras: the two branches +were applied to the nose, and the stem was held over the burning leaves. +The weed itself was called _cohiba_. + +[Footnote I: _Canoa_ is Haytian, and is like enough to _Kayak_, +Esquimaux, to _Caïque_, Turkish and to _Kahn_, German, to unsettle an +etymologist with a theory of origin.] + +At the time of the discovery, five principal caciques ruled the island, +which was divided into as many provinces, with inferior caciques, who +appear to have been the chiefs of settlements. We find, for instance, +that Guatiguana was cacique of a large town in the province of which +Guarionex was the chief cacique. The power of each cacique was supreme, +but nothing like a league existed between the different provinces. +When the Haytians in desperation tried the fortune of war against the +Spaniards, Caonabo, the cacique of the central province in the South, +like another Pontiac, rallied the natives from all quarters, and held +them together long enough to fight a great battle on the Vega. But he +was a Carib. His brother who succeeded him was also a Carib, and he +maintained a union of several caciques till his defeat by Ojeda. Then +the less warlike chiefs of the North readily submitted to the Spaniards, +and the bolder caciques of the South were compelled to ask for peace.[J] + +[Footnote J: In Mr. Irving's _Life of Columbus_, the characters of the +different Indian chieftains are finely drawn, and the history of their +intercourse and warfare with the Spaniards admirably told.] + +Thus were the natives bound together by the polity of instinct and +consanguinity alone. They had no laws, but only natural customs. The +cacique was an arbitrator: if his decision did not appease a litigant, +the parties had an appeal to arms in his presence. Their cacique +received unbounded reverence, and for him they would freely die. +Polygamy was permitted only to him, but not always practised by him. The +Spaniards were so surprised at the readiness with which the natives gave +them everything, both food and ornaments, that they declared them to be +defective in the sense of property, and to have everything in common. +This was a mistake: each man had his little possessions; stealing was +punished with death, as the crime that did the greatest violence to +the natural order; and crimes against domestic purity were severely +punished, till the people became demoralized by their conquerors, who +mistook the childish freedom of the women, for lustful invitation, and +imputed to the native disposition something which belonged to their +own.[K] + +[Footnote K: They even accused the natives of communicating that +loathsome disease which results from promiscuous intercourse, when +in fact the _virus_ was shipped at Palos, with the other elements of +civilization, to give a new world to Castile and Leon! Nations appear to +be particularly sensitive upon this point, and accuse each other. But +the first time a disorder is observed is not the date of its origin. See +the European opinion in the fifteenth century, in Roscoe's _Lorenzo de' +Medici_, p. 350, and note, Bohn's edition. It has probably existed from +the earliest times, wherever population was dense and habits depraved. +The Romans suffered from it, but, like the Europeans of the Middle Ages, +did not always attribute it to its proper source. What did Persius mean +in one or two places in his _Third Satire, e.g._, 113-115? And see also +Celaus, _Medicina_, Lib. V. §3. + +When the fighting-man of Europe became a mercenary, (soldier, +_soldner, paid-man_,) he carried this tinder from country to country, +and kindled the fire afresh. The Spaniards bore it to Hayti, and it +stung like a snake beneath that fervid sky.] + +They were timid, credulous, extravagantly friendly, affected easily to +tears, not cunning enough for their own good, and little capable of +concealing or of planning anything. Yet when their eyes were opened, and +they understood at last that the strangers had not descended from the +skies, their indignation and loathing were well sustained, with a +frankness, indeed, which only embittered their condition. They suffered, +but could not dissimulate. + +But they were at once volatile and of a languid frame, which could not +long repel the enticements of wine and passionate excess, liable to +petty rages, incapable of concentration, with no power of remembering +anything but a benefit, lavish fawners, but not hearty haters, easily +persuaded, and easily repenting of everything but hospitality. No abuse +of that put the drop of savage blood in motion, till the Spaniards began +to regard their women with indiscriminate desire. That was the first +outrage for which a Spanish life had to atone. But neither treachery nor +cruelty lurked beneath their flowery ways; it was sullen despair which +broke their gayety, brief spasms of wrath followed by melancholy. But +they could not keep their ideas well enough in hand to lay a plot. + +These graceful children, with their curious prognostics of a Creole +temper, were not devoid of religion. The Creator has set none of His +children in the sun, to work or play, without keeping this hold +upon them. They defer to this restraint, with motions more or less +instinctive, but can never, in their wildest gambols, break entirely +loose. It is not easy to separate the real beliefs of the Haytians +from the conjectures of Catholic and Jewish observers. The former were +interested to discover analogies which would make it appear that they +had been foreordained to conversion; the latter were infested with the +notion that they were descendants of one of the Lost Tribes. What, for +instance, can be made of the assertion that the Haytian Supreme had a +mother? The natives were gentle enough to love such a conception, and to +be pleased with the Catholic presentation of it, but this is the only +proof we have that they originated it. It would be pleasant to believe +that they referred, in some dim way, their sense of the womanly quality +back to the great Source of Life. + +But the Hebrew coincidences were as eagerly sought.[L] If a cacique +remarked to Columbus that he thought good men would be transported to a +place of delights, and bad men to a foul and dismal place where darkness +reigned, it was deemed to be a reminiscence of Sheol and a later Jewish +idea of Paradise. If Anacaona, the charming wife of Caonabo, came +forth to meet the _Adelantado_, at the head of thirty maidens of her +household, dancing and singing their native songs, and waving branches +of the palm-tree, a variety of Old and New Testament pictures occurred +to the mind. Their hospitality and pertinacious sheltering of fugitives +was another Oriental trait. But, above all, the horrible oppression +to which the Spaniards subjected them, the indignities and sufferings +heaped upon them, were considered to fulfil the divine curse which +rested upon Jews! What a choice morsel of theology is this! + +[Footnote L: Consult a curious book, _The Ten Tribes of Israel +historically identified with the Aborigines of the Western Hemisphere_. +By Mrs. Simon. 1836.] + +Cabrera found at Cuba, says Humboldt, a variation of the story +respecting the first inebriation of Noah. A wild grape grew in all the +West India Islands. The natives of Cuba preserved also the tradition of +a great terrestrial disturbance, in which water played the chief part. +This was probably held by the Haytians also, for we find it again among +the Caribs beyond, especially in South America. But Cabrera, mounting +with the waters of the Deluge, was not content till he had found in Cuba +the ark, the raven and dove, the uncovering of Noah, and his curse; in +fact, the Indians were descended from this unfortunate son whom Noah's +malediction reduced to nudity, but the Spaniards, descending from +another son, inherited his clothes. "Why do you call me a dog?" said an +old Indian of seventy years to Cabrera, who had been insulting him. +"Did we not both come out of the same large ship that saved us from the +waters?"[M] + +[Footnote M: _Notes on Cuba, containing an Account of its Discovery and +Early History_. By Dr. Wurdemann. 1844.] + +It is certain that the Haytians believed in continued existence after +death, and pointed, as all men do, to the sky, when talking of that +subject. They held, indefinitely, that there was some overruling Spirit; +but they believed also in malignant influences which it was advisable to +propitiate. Their worship was connected with the caverns of the island, +those mysterious formations beneath which the strange sounds were heard. +The walls of these caverns were covered with pictured distortions, +half man, half animal, which yielded to the priests, or _butios_, +interpretations according to the light and shadow. Some of these vaults +are lighted through a natural fissure in the roof, and the worship or +augury commenced at the moment the sun struck through it. There were +movable idols, called _Zemés_, which represented inferior deities. The +Catholic writers call them messengers and mediators, having their own +saints in mind. But their forms were sometimes merely animal, a toad, a +tortoise with a sun upon its back, and upon each side a star with the +moon in her first change; another was a monstrous figure in basalt, +representing a head surmounting a female bosom, diminishing to a ball; +another was a human figure made from a gypseous stalactite.[N] + +[Footnote N: The savages of Martinique kept in their caverns idols +made of cotton, in the form of a man, with shining black seeds of the +soap-berry (_Sapindus_) for eyes, and a cotton helmet. These were the +original deities of the island. It cannot now be decided whether the +cotton thus worshipped was long-staple or upland; but the tendency +of the savage mind to make a fetich of its chief thing appears to be +universal.] + +The cacique took precedence of the _butios_, in theory, at least, and +designated the days for public worship. He led the procession of men +and women festively adorned, beating on a drum, to the cavern where the +priests awaited them. Presents were offered, and old dances and songs +repeated in honor of the Zemés, and of departed caciques. Then the +priests broke cakes and distributed the pieces to the heads of +families, who carefully kept them till the next festival as amulets and +preservatives against disease. + +They had an original way of expressing their vague instinct that the +Supreme Being loves truth and cleanliness in the inward parts. Each +person presented himself, with singing, before the chief idol, and there +thrust a stick into his throat till the gorge rose, in order, as they +said, to appear before the Divinity with a heart clean and upon the +lips.[O] + +[Footnote O: _Histoire d'Hayti_, par M. Placide Justin, p. 8.] + +The priests were diviners and doctors. If their predictions failed, they +did not want the usual cunning of mediums and spiritual quacks of all +ages, who are never known to be caught. But it became a more serious +affair for them in the case of a death. Friends consulted the soul at +the moment of its leaving the body, and if it could give no sign, or if +no omen of fair play appeared from any quarter, the _butio_ was held +to be the author of the death, and, if he was not a very popular +individual, he incurred the vengeance of the family. If at such a +time an animal was seen creeping near, the worst suspicions were +confirmed.[P] + +[Footnote P: _Voyages d'un Naturaliste_, etc., par M.E. Descourtilz, +Tom. II. p. 19, et seq. 1809.] + +The natives had a legend that the sun and moon issued from one of these +caverns, which Mr. Irving says is the Voûte-à -Minguet, about eight +leagues from Cap Haytien. + +They were very nervous, and did not like to go about after dark. Many +people of all races have this vague disquiet as soon as the sun goes +down. It is the absence of light which accounts for all the tremors and +tales of superstition. How these sunflowers of Hayti must have shuddered +and shrunk together at the touch of darkness! But they had a graceful +custom of carrying the _cocujos_[Q] in a perforated calabash, and +keeping them, in their huts, when the sudden twilight fell. + +[Footnote Q: A Haytian word appropriated by the Spaniards, (_cocuyos_); +_Elater noctilucus_. Their light is brilliant enough to read by.] + +Their festivals and public gatherings were more refined than those of +the Caribs, who held but one meeting, called a _Vin_, for consultation +upon war-matters and a debauch upon cassava-beer.[R] The Haytians loved +music, and possessed one or two simple instruments; their _maguey_ was +like a timbrel, made of the shells of certain fishes. Their speech, +with its Italian terminations, flowed easily into singing, and they +extemporized, as the negroes do, the slightest incidents in rhythmical +language. They possessed national ballads, called _areytos_, and held in +high repute the happy composers of fresh ones. Altogether their life was +full of innocence and grace. + +[Footnote R: Father Du Tertre enjoys relating, that a Carib orator, +wishing to make his speech more impressive, invested his scarlet +splendor in a _jupe_ which he had lately taken from an Englishwoman, +tying it where persons of the same liturgical tendency tie their +cambric. But though his garrulity was thereby increased, the charms of +the liquor drew his audience away.] + +Such were the aborigines of Hayti, the "Mountain-land." But as our +narrative does not propose a minute and consecutive survey, it will +detain us too long from certain essential points which deserve to be +made clear, if we follow step by step the dealings of the Spaniards with +these natives. All this can be found delightfully told by Mr. Irving +in his "Life of Columbus," in such a way as to render an attempt at +repeating it hazardous and useless. Our task is different,--to make +prominent first, the character of the natives, which we have just +striven to do, and next, the style of treatment in converting and in +enslaving them, which gave its first chapter of horrors to San Domingo, +and laid violent hands on the whole sequence of her history. + +What influence could the noble elements of the Spanish character have, +when theology, avarice, and lust controlled the conquest? Pure minds and +magnanimous intentions went in the same ships with adventurers, diseased +soldiers, cold and superstitious men of business, and shaven monks with +their villanous low brows and thin inquisitorial smile. The average +character speedily obtained ascendency, because the best men were to +some extent partakers of it. Columbus was eager to make his great +discovery pay well, to preserve the means of continued exploration. In +one hand he lifted high the banner of possession with its promise of a +cross, which direful irony fulfilled; with the other he kept feeding the +ravenous nation with gold, to preserve its sympathy and admiration, that +the supply of men and vessels should not fail. Las Casas himself, a just +and noble man, the first advocate of the natural rights of men in the +New World, soon found that the situation was too strong and cruel; his +wishes and struggles went under before the flood of evil passions which +swept the island. He maintained his fight against Indian slavery by not +discountenancing negro slavery. And his fight was unavailing, because +mercy had no legitimate place upon the new soil. The logic of events +was with the evil majority, which was obliged at last to maintain its +atrocious consistency in self-defence. He might as well have preached +the benefits of Lenten diet to shipwrecked men upon a raft, insane with +thirst and the taste of comrade's flesh. It was a Devil's problem, which +is the kind that cannot hold back from its devilish conclusion. + +But bad passions were not alone to blame. The Spanish notion of +conversion desolated like avarice. The religious bodies which from time +to time controlled the affairs of the island differed in their humanity +and general policy: the Dominicans were friends of the Indian and haters +of the turbulent oppressor; the Franciscans were the instruments of the +bad men whose only ambition was to wring pleasure and fortune out of the +Indian's heart; the monks of St. Jerome undertook in vain a neutral +and reconciling policy. But they all agreed that the Indians must be +baptized, catechized, and more or less chastised into the spirit of the +gospel and conformity to Rome. The _conquistadores_ drove with a whip, +the missionaries with a dogma. The spirit of the nation and of the age +sternly asked for theological conformity: it was seriously understood +that a man should believe or burn. For one of those two things he was +preordained. Everybody was convinced that a drop of water on the dusky +forehead of these natives quenched the flames of hell. The methods used +to get that holy drop applied lighted flames, to escape from which +anybody would take his chance of the remoter kind. + +The cacique Hatuey understood the Spaniards. He was the first man in +the New World who saw by instinct what an after-age perceived by +philosophical reflection. He should have been the historian of the +Conquest. The Spaniards had destroyed his people, and forced him to fly +to Cuba for safety. There he also undertook a conversion of the natives. +"Do you expect to defend yourselves against this people," he said, +"while you do not worship the same God? This God I know; he is more +powerful than ours, and I reveal him to you." With this he shows them a +little piece of gold. "Here he is; let us celebrate a festival to honor +him, that his favor may be extended to us." The natives hold a solemn +smoking around the Spanish God, which is followed by singing and +dancing, as to one of their own Zemés. Having adroitly concentrated +their attention in this way upon the article of gold, Hatuey the next +morning reassembles the people and finishes his missionary labors. "My +mind is not at ease. There can be no safety for us while the God of the +Spaniard is in our midst. They seek him everywhere. Their devotion is so +great that they settle in a place only for the convenience of worship. +It is useless to attempt to hide him from their eyes. If you should +swallow him, they would disembowel you in the name of religion. Even the +bottom of the sea may not be too far, but there it is that we must throw +him. When he can no longer be found with us, they will leave us in +peace." + +Admirable counsel, if the gold in veins, or their own blood, were not +also the object of search. The natives collected all their gold and +threw it into the sea. A party of Spaniards landing upon the island not +long after, Hatuey was taken prisoner, and condemned to be burnt alive +because he refused to be converted! + + "Was conduct ever more affronting? + With all the ceremony settled! + With the towel ready"-- + +and all the other apparatus for a first-class baptism, and the +annexation to Rome and heaven of a tribe! When he was tied to the stake, +and a priest conjured him to profess Christianity and make a sure thing +of paradise, he cut him short with,-- + +"Are there Spaniards in this place of delights of which you speak?" + +"There are indeed, but only good ones." + +"The best of them is good for nothing," said the cacique. "I would +rather not go where I might have to meet them." + +Dying, he had his preference. + +It seems to be one that is innate in the savage mind. An Ojibbeway was +apparently pleased with the new religion that was proffered to him, +and thought of being baptized, but, dreaming that he went up to a fair +prairie covered with numerous trails of white men, without the print +of a single moccasin, was cured of his desire. The Frisian Radbod also +expressed his disgust at the converting methods of Charles the Hammer. +"He had already immersed one of his royal legs in the baptismal font, +when a thought struck him. 'Where are my dead forefathers at present?' +he said, turning suddenly upon Bishop Wolfran. 'In hell, with all other +unbelievers,' was the imprudent answer. 'Mighty well!' replied Radbod, +removing his leg; 'then will I rather feast with my ancestors in the +halls of Woden than dwell with your little starveling band of Christians +in heaven.'"[S] And if he, too, died a heathen, it is certain that one +continued to live in Bishop Wolfran. For it is men of his narrow and +brutal theology who are not yet converted to Christianity, but who get a +dispensation to disgust men with that glorious name. + +[Footnote S: Motley's _Dutch Republic_, Vol. I. p. 20.] + +So it went on at Hayti. Catholic fetiches vied with the native ones for +ascendency. Ecclesiastics were charged with the management of secular as +well as spiritual matters, for it was the genius of Spain to govern +by the priest. A very few of them understood men, and had a head for +affairs; of these, some were pure, the rest were base, and readily +fraternized with the soldiers and politicians in their selfish policy. A +bad and cruel theology, a narrow priestly mind, became the instruments +of lust and murder. + +Guarionex was the chief cacique of a province which comprised the middle +part of the Vega Real. His conversion was undertaken by Friar Roman, +a St. Jeromite, and Joan Borognon, a Franciscan. The cacique listened +attentively to their instructions, but the natives, already alienated +by the excesses of the Spaniards, would neither attend mass nor be +catechized, except upon compulsion. It was the policy of Guarionex to +offer no resistance to the addresses of the priests. But an outrage +committed upon his wife hindered the progress of religion in his +province. He dashed the cross to the ground in fury, and scattered the +utensils. The affrighted priests fled, leaving behind a chapel with some +pictures which they had instructed the converts to regard in offering up +their prayers. Guarionex buried all the pictures, and said over them, +instead of a Pater, "Now you will begin to bear fruit!" Friar Roman says +that a catechumen, digging his _agis_ (sweet pepper) in that field, +found two or three of them grown together in the shape of a cross. The +miracle and the outrage were reported at once, and the six natives who +had buried the pictures at the command of Guarionex were burnt alive! +This was the first _auto-da-fé_ on Haytian soil. + +The preaching and the lust went on. But the preaching sometimes +addressed the sinner also. Montesino, a Dominican preacher, attacked the +cruelty of the colonists from the pulpit of San Domingo. He was accused +of treason; that is to say, the king was held to represent the policy +which enslaved and destroyed the Indian. The authorities threatened to +expel the Dominicans from the island, if the preacher did not apologize +and withdraw his charges. Montesino promised soon to preach in another +style. Having filled the church with his malignant audience, he bravely +maintained his position with fresh facts and arguments; he showed that +the system of _repartimientos,_ or partition of the Indians among the +colonists, was more disastrous than the first system, which imposed upon +each cacique a tax and left him to extort it from his subjects. He +urged the policy of interest; for the Indians, unused to labor, died in +droves: they dropped in the fields beneath the whip; they escaped by +whole families to the mountains, and there perished with hunger; they +threw themselves into the water, and killed each other in the forests; +families committed suicide in concert;--there would soon be no laborers, +and the Spaniard could rob and murder, but would not toil. Brave +preacher, worthy mouth-piece of the humane Las Casas, what could he +effect against the terrible exigency of the situation? For here was a +colony, into which all the prisons of Spain had just been emptied to +repair a failing emigration,--men bred in crime coalescing with men +whose awakened passions made them candidates for prison,--the whole +community, with the exception of the preacher and his scattered +sympathizers, animated by one desire, to get the gold, to exhaust the +soil, to glut voluptuous immunity, to fill the veins with a fiery +climate, and to hurry back with wealth enough to feed it more safely in +the privacies of Madrid and Seville. What were preaching and benevolent +intention, where shaven superstition was inculcating the cross by its +weight alone, and bearded ferocity desolated with the sword what the +cross could spare? The discussion which Montesino raised went home to +Spain; but when a board of commissioners, charged to investigate the +subject, advised that all Indians granted to Spanish courtiers, and to +all other persons who did not reside upon the island, should be set +at liberty, the colonists saw the entering wedge of emancipation. The +discontent was so great, and the alternative of slavery or ruin was +so passionately offered to the Government at home, that the system of +_repartimientos_ remained untouched; for the Government felt that it +must choose between the abandonment of the island and the destruction of +those who alone, if judiciously protected, could make it profitable to +retain it. + +Protection and amelioration, then, became the cry. In consequence of the +great increase of cattle in the island, it was considered no more than +just that the Indians should no longer be used as beasts of burden. They +were also to have one day in the seven, besides the Church festivals, +for their own use; and intendants were appointed who were to have a +general supervision of their affairs, and to protect them from barbarous +punishments. These regulations were a weir of reeds thrown across a +turbid and tumultuous Amazon. + +Las Casas was an eye-witness of the cruelties which he exposed in his +memoirs to the Government, those uncompromising indictments of his own +nation and of the spirit of the age. He had seen the natives slaughtered +like sheep in a pen, and the butchers laid bets with each other upon +their dexterity in cleaving them asunder at a stroke. Children, torn +from the bosoms of their mothers, were brained against the stones, or +thrown into the water with mocking cries,--"That will refresh you!" A +favorite mode of immolation, which had the merit of exciting theological +associations, was to bind thirteen of the natives to as many stakes, +one for each apostle and one for the Saviour, and then to make a +burnt-offering of them. Others were smeared with pitch and lighted. +Sometimes a fugitive who had been recaptured was sent into the forest +with his severed hand,--"Go, carry this letter to the others who have +escaped, with our compliments." + +"I have seen," says Las Casas, "five chiefs and several other Indians +roasting together upon hurdles, and the Spanish captain was enraged +because their cries disturbed his _siesta_. He ordered them to be +strangled, that he might hear no more of it. But the superintendent, +whom I know, as well as his family, which is from Seville, more cruel +than the officer, refused to end their torture." He would not be +cheated of his after-dinner luxury, so he gagged them with sticks, and +replenished the fires.[T] + +[Footnote T: Llorente's _Oeuvres de Las Casas; Première Mémoire, +contenant la Relation des Cruautés_, etc.] + +Columbus first made use of dogs against the Indians, but merely to +intimidate. They were swift dogs of chase, impetuous and dangerous, but +did not yet deserve to be called blood-hounds. The Spaniards, however, +by frequently using them in the pursuit of escaping natives, without +thinking it worth while to restrain their motions, gradually educated +them to a taste for human blood. From the breed, thus modified, the +West-Indian blood-hound descended, possibly not without admixture with +other savage dogs of French and English breeds which were brought to the +island by their scarcely less savage owners. Many of the dogs which the +Spaniards carried to South America roamed at large and degenerated into +beasts of prey. Soldiers at one time were detailed to hunt them, and +were then nicknamed _Mataperros_, or dog-slayers. + +But if the dogs fed upon the Indian's body, the monk was ever vigilant +to save his soul. A woman was holding her child of twelve months, says +Las Casas, when she perceived the approach of the hounds in full cry +after a party of natives. Feeling that she could not escape, she +instantly tied her babe to her leg and then suspended herself from a +beam. The dogs came up at the moment that a monk was baptizing the +child, thus luckily cutting off its purgatory just behind the jaws that +devoured it. + +Spaniards were known to feed their dogs, when short of meat, by chopping +off a native's arm and throwing it to them; and a few fed their dogs +exclusively upon native-meat. We have the authority of Las Casas for the +fact, which he took care to have well attested from various sources, +that a Spaniard would borrow a quarter of native from a friend for his +hounds, promising to return it at a favorable opportunity. Somebody +asked one of these generous livers how his housekeeping flourished. +"Well enough," was the reply; "I have killed twenty of these rascally +Indians, and now, thank God, my dogs have something to eat." + +The Spaniards paid their gambling debts in natives. If a governor lost +heavily at cards, he would give the winner an order upon some cacique +for a corresponding amount of gold, or natives in default of the metal, +knowing that the gold could no longer be procured. Sometimes the lucky +gambler made the levy without applying to the cacique. The stakes were +not unfrequently for three and four hundred Indians in the early days of +the colonies, when natives were so plenty that one could be bought for +a cheese, or an _arroba_ of vinegar, wine, or lard. Eighty natives were +swapped for a mare, and a hundred for a lame horse. When it began to be +difficult to lay hands upon them, it was only necessary to send for a +missionary, who would gradually collect them for purposes of instruction +and worship. When the habit of attending a chapel was pretty well +confirmed, the building was surrounded, the young and stout ones were +seized and branded, and carried away, with the most attractive females, +for further indoctrination in the Christian arts. + +A device of the caciques which was practised in Nicaragua might easily +have been pursued in Hayti. But the account of Las Casas refers to the +former province. When a demand was made upon one cacique to supply +laborers, he would repair to another, and say, "The devil who has me in +his power wants so many men and women. I have no doubt that your devil +will say the same thing to you. Let us arrange the matter. Give me the +facility of procuring my quota in your tribe, and you shall take yours +from my tribe." "It is agreed; for my devil has just made a similar +demand of me." Each cacique would then swear to the Commanders, who were +very nice upon the technicality so long as slaves were plenty, that the +men furnished came from his own district, thus saving his life and his +credit with his people. This was a great convenience; for in all savage +exigencies and dire perils men must study how they can best arrange with +the inevitable. + +But it will be too painful to recount the various inventions for +punishing these unhappy children of Nature. The dogs, perhaps, were +merciful, for they killed and ate a native on the spot. Cutting off the +ear and nose was an ordinary barbarity,--in its origin it was a way to +save time in collecting ornaments; shutting fifty or more into a house +and setting it in flames was a favorite method of extemporizing a +bonfire; pricking a crowd of insurgent natives over a precipice into the +sea was an exceptional act of mercy,--they would place one hand over +their eyes and take the plunge. It was a common sport to match +stout Indians with the hounds, and bet upon their wrestling. In the +pearl-fisheries, in rowing galleys, in agriculture, in the mines, in +carrying ship-timber, anchors, and pieces of ordnance, in transporting +produce, the Spaniards wasted the natives as if they were wind-and +water-power which Nature would supply without limit. How can this +ferocity be accounted for? It consulted neither interest nor personal +safety. They raged like men stung to madness by poisonous clouds of +insects; the future received no consideration; plans for improving the +methods of cultivating different crops, or for introducing new staples, +could not be carried out. Once having tasted native blood, like their +own dogs, the hunting mania possessed them, till two millions of +Haytians alone had perished. The population had become so reduced as +early as 1508 that they were obliged to organize great Indian chases on +the main-land, and a Coolie trade sprang up in the Lucayan Islands, +to keep the Haytian mines and plantations supplied with hands. Forty +thousand of these Lucayans were transported, on the assurance of the +Spaniards that they would be restored to the souls of their ancestry, +who had gone to reside in that Mountain-land of the West. Was there +a touch of grim Spanish humor in this inducement to emigrate? For +certainly the Lucayans did very soon rejoin those departed souls. + +Wine and the climate maddened these unbridled Europeans. Avarice is a +calculating passion; but here were aimless and exhausting horrors, like +those which swarm in the drunkard's corrupted brain. What were vices at +home became transformed into manias here. The representatives of other +nations were not slow to imitate the example of the possessors of Hayti. +Venezuela was ceded to a company of Germans in 1526, whose object was +simply to strip the country of its treasures. Las Casas tries to believe +that the Spaniards seemed like just men by the side of these new +speculators; but it was not possible to destroy natives faster than was +done in the countries under Spanish rule. The Germans, after all, were +forced to employ Spaniards to pursue the Indians when they attempted +to escape from this new system of farming into the mountains, and they +profited so well by the lessons of their Catholic hunters, that, upon +their departure, they hit upon new expedients for making the natives +productive. The German Governor constructed a great palisaded park, into +which he managed to drive all the Indians of the neighborhood, and then +informed them that they could issue from it only as slaves, unless they +paid a certain ransom, whose value he fixed. They were deliberately +starved into adopting one or the other alternative. Those who could +procure gold were let out to collect it, leaving their wives and +children as pledges of their return. Many of the others preferred to +die of hunger and thirst. When the ransomed natives departed with their +families, the Governor had them pursued, reparked, and subjected to +a repetition of this sponging process, and again a third time, so +admirably did it work. This strikes Las Casas as a refinement of +cruelty, which can be attributed only to the fact that these Germans +were Lutheran heretics, and never assisted at the mass. "This is +the way," he says, "that they conformed to the royal intention of +establishing Christianity in these countries!" + +How did the Spaniards conform to it? Rude soldiers became the managers +of the different working gangs into which the Indians had been divided, +and it devolved upon them to superintend their spiritual welfare. Enough +has been said about their brutality; but their ignorance was no less +remarkable. Las Casas complains that they could not repeat the _Credo_, +nor the Ten Commandments. Their ignorance of the former would have been +bliss, if they had been practically instructed in the latter. John +Colmenero was one of these common soldiers who became installed in a +Commandery (_Encomienda_). When the missionaries visited his plantation, +they found that the laborers had not the slightest notions of +Christianity. They examined John upon the subject, and discovered to +their horror that he did not know even how to make the sign of the +cross. "What have you been teaching these poor Indians?" they asked him. +"Why, that they are all going to the Devil! Won't your _signin santin +cruces_ help to teach them that?"[U] + +[Footnote U: Llorente, Tom. I. p. 180.] + +No doubt it would; for we know how serviceable in that way Ovando found +it, when he plotted to seize the beautiful Anacaona, who governed the +province of Xaragua in Hayti. This he did, and also gave the signal for +a dreadful massacre of her subjects, whom he had beguiled to a military +spectacle, by lifting his hand to the cross of Alcantara that was +embroidered on his dress. + +Colmenero had not a head for business like that other Spaniard who +baptized all the inhabitants of a village and took away their idols +of gold, for which he substituted copper ones, and then compelled the +natives to purchase them of him at so many slaves per idol. + +"Come, then, caciques and Indians, come!" This was the ordinary style of +proclamation. "Abandon your false gods, adore the God of the Christians, +profess their religion, believe in the gospel, receive the sacrament of +baptism, recognize the King of Castile for your king and master. If you +refuse, we declare war upon you to kill you, to make you slaves, to +spoil you of your goods, and to cause you to suffer as long and as often +as we shall judge convenient,"[V] and for the good of your souls. + +[Footnote V: Llorente, Tom. I. p. 28.] + +In 1542, Charles V. procured a bull from Pope Paul III. restoring the +Indians to their natural freedom: this he confirmed and despatched to +the island. Las Casas, the Protector of the Indians, had carried his +point at last, but the Indians were beyond protection. The miserable +remnant were no longer of consequence, for the African had begun to till +the soil enriched by so much native blood. Thus ends the first chapter +of the Horrors of San Domingo. + +Schoelcher reminds us that the traveller may read upon the tomb of +Columbus at Seville: "Known worlds were not enough for him: he added a +new to the old, _and gave to heaven innumerable souls_." + + +[To be continued.] + + + + +METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY. + + +A few miles from the southern extremity of Florida, separated from it by +a channel, narrow at the eastern end, but widening gradually toward the +west, and rendered every year more and more shallow by the accumulation +of materials constantly collecting within it, there lies a line of +islands called the Florida Keys. They are at different distances from +the shore, stretching gradually seaward in the form of an open crescent, +from Virginia Key and Key Biscayne, almost adjoining the main-land, to +Key West, at a distance of twelve miles from the coast, which does not, +however, close the series, for sixty miles farther west stands the +group of the Tortugas, isolated in the Gulf of Mexico. Though they +seem disconnected, these islands are parts of a submerged Coral Reef, +concentric with the shore of the peninsula and continuous underneath the +water, but visible above the surface at such points of the summit as +have fully completed their growth. + +This demands some explanation, since I have already said that no Coral +growth can continue after it has reached the line of high-water. But we +have not finished the history of a Coral wall, when we have followed it +to the surface of the ocean. It is true that its normal growth ceases +there, but already a process of partial decay as begun that insures its +further increase. Here, as elsewhere, destruction and construction go +hand in hand, and the materials that are broken or worn away from one +part of the Reef help to build it up elsewhere. The Corals which form +the Reef are not the only beings that find their home there: many other +animals--Shells, Worms, Crabs, Star-Fishes, Sea-Urchins--establish +themselves upon it, work their way into its interstices, and seek a +shelter in every little hole and cranny made by the irregularities of +its surface. In the Zoological Museum at Cambridge there are some large +fragments of Coral Reef which give one a good idea of the populous +aspect that such a Reef would present, could we see it as it actually +exists beneath the water. Some of these fragments consist of a +succession of terraces, as it were, in which are many little miniature +caves, where may still be seen the Shells or Sea-Urchins which made +their snug and sheltered homes in these recesses of the Reef. + +We must not consider the Reef as a solid, massive structure throughout. +The compact kinds of Corals, giving strength and solidity to the wall, +may be compared to the larger trees in a forest, which give it shade and +density; but between these grow all kinds of trailing vines, ferns and +mosses, wild flowers and low shrubs, that till the spaces between the +larger trees with a thick underbrush. The Coral Reef also has its +underbrush of the lighter, branching, more brittle kinds, that fill its +interstices and fringe the summit and the sides with their delicate, +graceful forms. Such an intricate underbrush of Coral growth affords an +excellent retreat for many animals that like its protection better than +exposure to the open sea, just as many land-animals prefer the close and +shaded woods to the open plain: a forest is not more thickly peopled +with Birds, Squirrels, Martens, and the like, than is the Coral Reef +with a variety of animals that do not contribute in any way to its +growth, but find shelter in its crevices or in its near neighborhood. + +But these larger animals are not the only ones that haunt the forest. +There is a host of parasites besides, principally Insects and their +larvae, which bore their way into the very heart of the tree, making +their home in the bark and pith, and not the less numerous because +hidden from sight. These also have their counterparts in the Reef, where +numbers of boring Shells and marine Worms work their way into the solid +substance of the wall, piercing it, with holes in every direction, till +large portions become insecure, and the next storm suffices to break off +the fragments so loosened. Once detached, they are tossed about in the +water, crumbled into Coral sand, crushed, often ground to powder by the +friction of the rocks and the constant action of the sea. + +After a time, an immense quantity of such materials is formed about a +Coral Reef; tides and storms constantly throw them up on its surface, +and at last a soil collects on the top of the Reef, wherever it has +reached the surface of the water, formed chiefly of its own _débris_, of +Coral sand, Coral fragments, even large masses of Coral rock, mingled +with the remains of the animals that have had their home about the +Reef, with sea-weeds, with mud from the neighboring land, and with the +thousand loose substances always floating about in the vicinity of a +coast and thrown upon the rocks or shore with every wave that breaks +against them. Add to this the presence of a lime-cement in the water, +resulting from the decomposition of some of these materials, and we have +all that is needed to make a very compact deposit and fertile soil, on +which a vegetation may spring up, whenever seeds floating from the +shore or dropped by birds in their flight take root on the newly formed +island. + +There is one plant belonging to tropical or sub-tropical climates +that is peculiarly adapted by its mode of growth to the soil of these +islands, and contributes greatly to their increase. This is the +Mangrove-tree. Its seeds germinate in the calyx of the flower, and, +before they drop, grow to be little brown stems, some six or seven +inches long and about as thick as a finger, with little rootlets at one +end. Such Mangrove-seedlings, looking more like cigars than anything +else, float in large numbers about the Reef. I have sometimes seen them +in the water about the Florida Reef in such quantities that one would +have said some vessel laden with Havana cigars had been wrecked there, +and its precious cargo scattered in the ocean. + +In consequence of their shape and the development of the root, one end +is a little heavier than the other, so that they float unevenly, with +the loaded end a little lower than the lighter one. When they are +brought by the tide against such a cap of soil as I have described, +they become stranded upon it by their heavier end, the rootlets attach +themselves slightly to the soil, the advancing and retreating waves move +the little plant up and down, till it works a hole in the sand, and +having thus established itself more firmly, steadied itself as it were, +it now stands upright, and, as it grows, throws out numerous roots, even +from a height of several feet above the ground, till it has surrounded +the lower part of its stem with a close net-work of roots. Against this +natural trellis or screen all sorts of materials collect; sand, mud, +and shells are caught in it; and as these Mangrove-trees grow in large +numbers and to the height of thirty feet, they contribute greatly to the +solidity and compactness of the shores on which they are stranded. + +Such caps of soil on the summit of a Coral Reef are of course very +insecure till they are consolidated by a long period of accumulation, +and they may even be swept completely away by a violent storm. It is +not many years since the light-house built on Sand Key for the greater +security of navigation along the Reef was swept away with the +whole island on which it stood. Thanks to the admirably conducted +Investigations of the Coast-Survey, this part of our seaboard, formerly +so dangerous on account of the Coral Reefs, is now better understood, +and every precaution has been taken to insure the safety of vessels +sailing along the coast of Florida. + +I cannot deny myself the pleasure of paying a tribute here to the high +scientific character of the distinguished superintendent of this survey, +who has known so well how to combine the most important scientific aims +with the most valuable practical results in his direction of it. If +some have hitherto doubted the practical value of such researches,--and +unhappily there are always those who estimate intellectual efforts only +by their material results,--one would think that these doubts must be +satisfied now that the Coast-Survey is seen to be the right arm of our +navy. Most of the leaders in our late naval expeditions have been men +trained in its service, and familiar with all the harbors, with every +bay and inlet of our Southern coasts, from having been engaged in the +extensive researches undertaken by Dr. Bache and carried out under his +guidance. Many, even, of the pilots of our Southern fleets are men who +have been employed upon this work, and owe their knowledge of the coast +to their former occupation. It is a singular fact, that at this very +time, when the whole country feels its obligation to the men who +have devoted so many years of their lives to these investigations, +a proposition should have been brought forward in Congress for the +suspension of the Coast-Survey on economical grounds. Happily, +the almost unanimous rejection of this proposition has shown the +appreciation in which the work is held by our national legislature. Even +without reference to their practical usefulness, it is a sad sign, when, +in the hour of her distress, a nation sacrifices first her intellectual +institutions. Then more than ever, when she needs all the culture, all +the wisdom, all the comprehensiveness of her best intellects, should she +foster the institution that have fostered them, in which they have been +trained to do good service to their country in her time of need. + +Several of the Florida Keys, such as Key West and Indian Key, are +already large, inhabited islands, several miles in extent. The interval +between them and the main-land is gradually filling up by a process +similar to that by which the islands themselves were formed. The gentle +landward slope of the Reef and the channel between it and the shore are +covered with a growth of the more branching lighter Corals, such as +Sea-Fans, Coral-lines, etc., answering the same purpose as the intricate +roots of the Mangrove-tree. All the _débris_ of the Reef, as well as the +sand and mud washed from the shore, collect in this net-work of Coral +growth within the channel, and soon transform it into a continuous +mass, with a certain degree of consistence and solidity. This forms the +foundation of the mud-flats which are now rapidly filling the channel +and must eventually connect the Keys of Florida with the present shore +of the peninsula. + +Outside the Keys, but not separated from them by so great a distance as +that which intervenes between them and the main-land, there stretches +beneath the water another Reef, abrupt, like the first, on its seaward +side, but sloping gently toward the inner Reef, and divided from it by +a channel. This outer Reef and channel are, however, in a much less +advanced state than the preceding ones; only here and there a sand-flat +large enough to afford a foundation for a beacon or a lighthouse shows +that this Reef also is gradually coming to the surface, and that a +series of islands corresponding to the Keys must eventually be formed +upon its summit. Some of my readers may ask why the Reef does not rise +evenly to the level of the sea, and form a continuous line of land, +instead of here and there an island. This is accounted for by the +sensitiveness of the Corals to any unfavorable circumstances impeding +their growth, as well as by the different rates of increase of the +different kinds. Wherever any current from the shore flows over the +Reef, bringing with it impurities from the land, there the growth of the +Corals will be less rapid, and consequently that portion of the Reef +will not reach the surface so soon as other parts, where no such +unfavorable influences have interrupted the growth. But in the course +of time the outer Reef will reach the surface for its whole length and +become united to the inner one by the filling up of the channel between +them, while the inner one will long before that time become solidly +united to the present shore-bluffs of Florida by the consolidation of +the mud-flats, which will one day transform the inner channel into dry +land. + +What is now the rate of growth of these Coral Reefs? We cannot, perhaps, +estimate it with absolute accuracy, since they are now so nearly +completed; but Coral growth is constantly springing up wherever it can +find a foothold, and it is not difficult to ascertain approximately the +rate of growth of the different kinds. Even this, however, would give +us far too high a standard; for the rise of the Coral Reef is not in +proportion to the height of the living Corals, but to their solid parts +which never decompose. Add to this that there are many brittle delicate +kinds that have a considerable height when alive, but contribute to the +increase of the Reef only so much additional thickness as they would +have when broken and crushed down upon its surface. A forest in its +decay does not add to the soil of the earth a thickness corresponding to +the height of its trees, but only such a thin layer as would be left by +the decomposition of its whole vegetation. In the Coral Reef, also, we +must allow not only for the deduction of the soft parts, but also for +the comminution of all these brittle branches, which would be broken and +crushed by the action of the storms and tides, and add, therefore, but +little to the Reef in proportion to their size when alive. + +The foundations of Fort Jefferson, which is built entirely of Coral +rock, were laid on the Tortugas Islands in the year 1846. A very +intelligent head-work man watched the growth of certain Corals that +established themselves on these foundations, and recorded their rate of +increase. He has shown me the rocks on which Corals had been growing for +some dozen years, during which they had increased at the rate of about +half an inch in ten years. I have collected facts from a variety of +sources and localities that confirm this testimony. A brick placed under +water in the year 1850 by Captain Woodbury of Tortugas, with the view of +determining the rate of growth of Corals, when taken up in 1858 had +a crust of Maeandrina upon it a little more than half an inch in +thickness. Mr. Allen also sent me from Key West a number of fragments +of Maeandrina from the breakwater at Fort Taylor; they had been growing +from twelve to fifteen years, and have an average thickness of about an +inch. The specimens vary in this respect,--some of them being a little +more than an inch in thickness, others not more than half an inch. +Fragments of Oculina gathered at the same place and of the same age are +from one to three inches in length; but these belong to the lighter, +more branching kinds of Corals, which, as we have seen, cannot, from +their brittle character, be supposed to add their whole height to the +solid mass of the Coral wall. Millepore gives a similar result. + +Estimating the growth of the Coral Reef according to these and other +data of the same character, it should be about half a foot in a century; +and a careful comparison which I have made of the condition of the Reef +as recorded in an English survey made about a century ago with its +present state would justify this conclusion. But allowing a wide margin +for inaccuracy of observation or for any circumstances that might +accelerate the growth, and leaving out of consideration the decay of the +soft parts and the comminution of the brittle ones, which would subtract +so largely from the actual rate of growth, let us double this estimate +and call the average increase a foot for every century. In so doing, we +are no doubt greatly overrating the rapidity of the progress, and our +calculation of the period that must have elapsed in the formation of the +Reef will be far within the truth. + +The outer Reef, still incomplete, as I have stated, and therefore of +course somewhat lower than the inner one, measures about seventy feet in +height. Allowing a foot of growth for every century, not less than seven +thousand years must have elapsed since this Reef began to grow. Some +miles nearer the main-land are the Keys, or the inner Reef; and though +this must have been longer in the process of formation than the outer +one, since its growth is completed, and nearly the whole extent of its +surface is transformed into islands, with here and there a narrow break +separating them, yet, in order to keep fully within the evidence of the +facts, I will allow only seven thousand years for the formation of this +Reef also, making fourteen thousand for the two. + +This brings us to the shore-bluffs, consisting simply of another Reef +exactly like those already described, except that the lapse of time has +united it to the main-land by the complete filling up and consolidation +of the channel which once divided it from the extremity of the +peninsula, as a channel now separates the Keys from the shore-bluffs, +and the outer Reef, again, from the Keys. These three concentric Reefs, +then, the outer Reef, the Keys, and the shore-bluffs, if we measure +the growth of the two latter on the same low estimate by which I have +calculated the rate of progress of the former, cannot have reached their +present condition in less than twenty thousand years. Their growth must +have been successive, since, as we have seen, all Corals need the fresh +action of the open sea upon them, and if either of the outer Reefs had +begun to grow before the completion of the inner one, it would have +effectually checked the growth of the latter. The absence of an +incipient Reef outside of the outer Reef shows these conclusions to be +well founded. The islands capping these three do not exceed in height +the level to which the fragments accumulated upon their summits may have +been thrown by the heaviest storms. The highest hills of this part of +Florida are not over ten or twelve feet above the level of the sea, and +yet the luxuriant vegetation with which they are covered gives them an +imposing appearance. + +But this is not the end of the story. Travelling inland from the +shore-bluffs, we cross a low, flat expanse of land, the Indian +hunting-ground, which brings us to a row of elevations called the +Hummocks. This hunting-ground, or Everglade as it is also called, is an +old channel, changed first to mud-flats and then to dry land by the same +kind of accumulation that is filling up the present channels, and the +row of hummocks is but an old Coral Reef with the Keys or islands of +past days upon its summit. Seven such Reefs and channels of former times +have already been traced between the shore-bluffs and Lake Okee-cho-bee, +adding some fifty thousand years to our previous estimate. Indeed, upon +the lowest calculation, based upon the facts thus far ascertained as to +their growth, we cannot suppose that less than seventy thousand years +have elapsed since the Coral Reefs already known to exist in Florida +began to grow. When we remember that this is but a small portion of the +peninsula, and that, though we have not yet any accurate information as +to the nature of its interior, yet the facts already ascertained in the +northern part of this State, formed like its Southern extremity of Coral +growth, justify the inference that the whole peninsula is formed of +successive concentric Reefs, we must believe that hundreds of thousands +of years have elapsed since its formation began. Leaving aside, however, +all that part of its history which is not susceptible of positive +demonstration in the present state of our knowledge, I will limit my +results to the evidence of facts already within our possession; and +these give us as the lowest possible estimate a period of seventy +thousand years for the formation of that part of the peninsula which +extends south of Lake Okee-cho-bee to the present outer Reef. + +So much for the duration of the Reefs themselves. What, now, do they +tell us of the permanence of the Species by which they were formed? In +these seventy thousand years has there been any change in the Corals +living in the Gulf of Mexico? I answer, most emphatically, _No_. +Astraeans, Porites, Maeandrinas, and Madrepores were represented by +exactly the same Species seventy thousand years ago as they are now. +Were we to classify the Florida Corals from the Reefs of the interior, +the result would correspond exactly to a classification founded upon +the living Corals of the outer Reef to-day. There would be among the +Astraeans the different species of Astraea proper, forming the close +round heads,--the Mussa, growing in smaller stocks, where the mouths +coalesce and run into each other as in the Brain-Corals, but in +which the depressions formed by the mouths are deeper,--and the +Caryophyllians, in which the single individuals stand out more +distinctly from the stock; among Porites, the P. Astroïdes, with pits +resembling those of the Astraeans in form, though smaller in size, +and growing also in solid heads, though these masses are covered with +club-shaped protrusions, instead of presenting a smooth, even surface +like the Astraeans,--and the P. Clavaria, in which the stocks are +divided in short, stumpy branches, with club-shaped ends, instead of +growing in close, compact heads; among the Maeandrinas we should have +the round heads we know as Brain-Corals, with their wavy lines over the +surface, and the Manacina, differing again from the preceding by certain +details of structure; among the Madrepores we should have the Madrepora +prolifera, with its small, short branches, broken up by very frequent +ramifications, the M. cervicornis, with longer and stouter branches and +less frequent ramifications, and the cup-like M. palmata, resembling +an open sponge in form. Every Species, in short, that lives upon the +present Reef is found in the more ancient ones. They all belong to our +own geological period, and we cannot, upon the evidence before us, +estimate its duration at less than seventy thousand years, during which +time we have no evidence of any change in Species, but on the contrary +the strongest proof of the absolute permanence of those Species whose +past history we have been able to trace. + +Before leaving the subject of the Coral Reefs, I would add a few words +on the succession of the different kinds of Polyp Corals on a Reef as +compared with their structural rank and also with their succession in +time, because we have here another of those correspondences of thought, +those intellectual links in Creation, which give such coherence and +consistency to the whole, and make it intelligible to man. + +The lowest in structure among the Polyps are not Corals, but the single, +soft-bodied Actiniae. They have no solid parts, and are independent in +their mode of existence, never forming communities, like the higher +members of the class. It might at first seem strange that independence, +considered a sign of superiority in the higher animals, should here be +looked upon as a mark of inferiority. But independence may mean either +simple isolation, or independence of action; and the life of a single +Polyp is no more independent in the sense of action than that of a +community of Polyps. It is simply not connected with or related to the +life of any others. The mode of development of these animals tells us +something of the relative inferiority and superiority of the single ones +and of those that grow in communities. When the little Polyp Coral, the +Astraean or Madrepore, for instance, is born from the egg, it is as free +as the Actinia, which remains free all its life. It is only at a later +period, as its development goes on, that it becomes solidly attached to +the ground, and begins its compound life by putting forth new beings +like itself as buds from its side. Since we cannot suppose that the +normal development of any being can have a retrograde action, we are +justified in believing that the loss of freedom is in fact a stage of +progress in these lower animals, and their more intimate dependence on +each other a sign of maturity. + +There are, however, structural features by which the relative +superiority of these animals may be determined. In proportion as the +number of their parts is limited and permanent, their structure is more +complicated; and the indefinite multiplication of identical parts is +connected with inferiority of structure. Now in these lowest Polyps, the +Actiniae, the tentacles increase with age indefinitely, never ceasing to +grow while life lasts, new chambers being constantly added to correspond +with them, till it becomes impossible to count their numbers. Next to +these come the true Fungidae. They are also single, and though they are +stony Corals, they have no share in the formation of Reefs. In these, +also, the tentacles multiply throughout life, though they are usually +not so numerous as in the Actiniae. But a new feature is added to the +complication of their structure, as compared with Actiniae, in the +transverse beams which connect their vertical partitions, though they do +not stretch across the animal so as to form perfect floors, as in some +of the higher Polyps. These transverse beams or floors must not be +confounded with the horizontal floors alluded to in a former article +as characteristic of the ancient Acalephian Corals, the Rugosa and +Tabulata. For in the latter these floors stretch completely across the +body, uninterrupted by vertical partitions, which, if they exist at all, +pass only from floor to floor, instead of extending unbroken through +the whole height of the body, as in all Polyps. Where, on the contrary, +transverse floors exist in true Polyps, they never cut the vertical +partitions in their length, but simply connect their walls, stretching +wholly or partially from wall to wall. + +In the Astraeans, the multiplication of tentacles is more definite and +limited, rising sometimes to ninety and more, though often limited to +forty-eight in number, and the transverse floors between the vertical +partitions are more complete than in the Fungidae. The Porites have +twelve tentacles only, never more and never less; and in them the whole +solid frame presents a complicated system of connected beams. The +Madrepores have also twelve tentacles, but they have a more definite +character than those of the Porites, on account of their regular +alternation in six smaller and six larger ones; in these also the +transverse floors are perfect, but exceedingly delicate. Another +remarkable feature among the Madrepores consists in the prominence of +one of the Polyps on the summit of the branches, showing a kind of +subordination of the whole community to these larger individuals, and +thus sustaining the view expressed above, that the combination of many +individuals into a connected community is among Polyps a character of +superiority when contrasted with the isolation of the Actiniae;. In the +Sea-Fans, the Halcyonoids, as they are called in our classification, the +number of tentacles is always eight, four of which are already present +at the time of their birth, arranged in pairs, while the other four are +added later. Their tentacles are lobed all around the margin, and are +much more complicated in structure than those of the preceding Polyps. + +According to the relative complication of their structure, these animals +are classified in the following order:-- + + +STRUCTURAL SERIES. + + +Halcyonoids: eight tentacles in pairs, lobed around the margin; always +combined in large communities, some of which are free and movable like +single animals. + +Madrepores: twelve tentacles, alternating in six larger and six smaller +ones; frequently a larger top animal standing prominent in the whole +community, or on the summit of its branches. + +Porites: twelve tentacles, not alternating in size; system of connected +beams. + +Astraeans: tentacles not definitely limited in number, though usually +not exceeding one hundred, and generally much below this number; +transverse floors. Maeandrines, generally referred to Astraeans, are +higher than the true Astraeans, on account of their compound Polyps. + +Fungidae: indefinite multiplication of tentacles; imperfect transverse +beams. + +Actiniae: indefinite multiplication of tentacles; soft bodies and no +transverse beams. + +If, now, we compare this structural gradation among Polyps with their +geological succession, we shall find that they correspond exactly. The +following table gives the geological order in which they have been +introduced upon the surface of the earth. + + GEOLOGICAL SUCCESSION. + + Present, Halcyonoids. + Pliocene, \ + Miocene, } Madrepores. + Eocene, / + Cretaceous, \ Porites + Jurassic, } and + Triassic, } Astraeans. + Permian, / + Carboniferous, \ + Devonian, } Fungidae + Silurian, / + +With regard to the geological position of the Actiniae we can say +nothing, because, if their soft, gelatinous bodies have left any +impressions in the rocks, none such have ever been found; but their +absence is no proof that they did not exist, since it is exceedingly +improbable that animals destitute of any hard parts could be preserved. + +The position of the Corals on a Reef accords with these series of +structural gradation and geological succession. It is true that we do +not find the Actiniae in the Reef any more than in the crust of the +earth, for the absence of hard parts in their bodies makes them quite +unfit to serve as Reef-Builders. Neither do we find the Fungidae, for +they, like all low forms, are single, and not confined to one level, +having a wider range in depth and extent than other stony Polyps. But +the true Reef-Building Polyps follow each other on the Reef in the same +order as prevails in their structural gradation and their geological +succession; and whether we classify them according to their position on +the Reef, or their introduction upon the earth in the course of time, or +their relative rank, the result is the same. + +[Illustration: SUCCESSION ON THE REEF.] + +It would require an amount of details that would be tedious to many +of my readers, were I to add here the evidence to prove that the +embryological development of these animals, so far as it is known, and +their geographical distribution over the whole surface of our globe, +show the same correspondence with the other three series. But this +recurrence of the same thought in the history of animals of the same +Type, so that, from whatever side we consider them, their creation and +existence seem to be guided by one Mind, is so important in the study +of Nature, that I shall constantly refer to it in the course of +these papers, even though I may sometimes be accused of unnecessary +repetition. + +What is the significance of these coincidences? They were not sought for +by the different investigators, who have worked quite independently, +while ascertaining all these facts, without even knowing that there was +any relation between the objects of their studies. The succession +of fossil Corals has been found in the rocks by the geologist,--the +embryologist has followed the changes in the growth of the living +Corals,--the zoölogist has traced the geographical distribution and the +structural relations of the full-grown animals; but it is only after the +results of their separate investigations are collected and compared that +the coincidence is perceived, and alt find that they have been working +unconsciously to one end. These thoughts in Nature, which we are +too prone to call simply facts, when in reality they are the ideal +conception antecedent to the very existence of all created beings, are +expressed in the objects of our study. It is not the zoölogist who +invents the structural relations establishing a gradation between all +Polyps,--it is not the geologist who places them in the succession +in which he finds them in the rocks,--it is not the embryologist who +devises the changes through which the living Polyps pass as he watches +their growth; they only read what they see, and when they compare their +results they all tell the same story. He who reads most correctly +from the original is the best naturalist. What unites all their +investigations and makes them perfectly coherent with each other is +the coincidence of thought expressed in the facts themselves. In other +words, it is the working of the same Intellect through all time, +everywhere. + +When we observe the practical results of this sequence in the position +of Corals on the Reef, we cannot fail to see that it is not a mere +accidental difference of structure and relation, but that it bears +direct reference to the part these little beings were to play in +Creation. It places the solid part of the structure at the base of the +Reef,--it fills in the interstices with a lighter growth,--it crowns the +summit with the more delicate kinds, that yield to the action of the +tides and are easily crushed into the fine sand that forms the soil,--it +makes a masonry solid, compact, time-defying, such a masonry as was +needed by the great Architect, who meant that these smallest creatures +of His hand should help to build His islands and His continents. + + + + +THE AUTHOR OF "CHARLES AUCHESTER." + + +When Mr. Disraeli congratulated himself that in the "Wondrous Tale of +Alroy" he had invented a new style, he scarcely deemed that he had but +spun the thread which was to vibrate with melody under the hand of +another. For in none of his magical sentences is the spell exactly +complete, and nowhere do they drop into the memory with that long slow +rhythm and sweet delay which mark every distinct utterance of Elizabeth +Sheppard. Yet at his torch she lit her fires, over his stories she +dreamed, his "Contarini Fleming" she declared to be the touchstone of +all romantic truth, and with the great freights of thought argosied +along his pages she enriched herself. "Destiny is our will, and our +will is our nature," he says. Behold the key-note of those strangely +beautiful Romances of Temperament of which for ten years we have been +cutting the leaves! + +In "Venetia," hint and example were given of working the great ores that +lie in the fields about us; and when Elizabeth Sheppard in turn took up +the divining-rod, it sought no clods of baser metal, but gold-veined +masses of crystal and the clear currents of pure water-streams;--beneath +her compelling power, Mendelssohn--Beethoven--Shelley--lived again and +forever. + +The musician who perhaps inspired a profounder enthusiasm during his +lifetime than any other ever did had been missed among men but a few +years, when a little book was quietly laid upon his shrine, and he +received, as it were, an apotheosis. Half the world broke into acclaim +over this outpouring of fervid worship. But it was private acclaim, and +not to be found in the newspapers. To those who, like the most of us in +America, vainly hunger and thirst after the sweets of sound, the book +was an initiation into the very _penetralia_ of music, we mounted and +rested in that sphere from the distastes of too practical life, long +afterwards we seemed to hear the immortal Song of which it spoke, and +our souls were refreshed. There followed this in a year--inscribed +to Mrs. Disraeli, as the other had been to that lady's +husband--"Counterparts": a novel which, it is not too much to say, it is +impossible for human hand to excel;--superior to its predecessor, since +that was but a memorial, while this was the elaboration of an Idea. Here +the real author ceased awhile. Three succeeding books were but fancies +wrought out, grafts, happy thoughts, very possibly enforced work; but +there were no more spontaneous affairs of her own individuality, until +the one entitled "Almost a Heroine." In this work, which treated of the +possible perfection of marriage, the whole womanly nature of the writer +asserted itself by virtue of the mere fact of humanity. After this came +a number of juvenile stories, some commonplace, others infiltrated with +that subtile charm which breathes, with a single exception, through all +her larger books like the perfume of an exotic. Thus in the three novels +mentioned we have all that can be had of Elizabeth Sheppard herself: +in the third, her theory of life; in the second, her aspirations and +opinions; in the first, her passion. + +The orphaned daughter of an English clergyman, and self-dependent, +in 1853 she translated her name into French and published "Charles +Auchester,"--a book written at the age of sixteen. That name of hers is +not the most attractive in the tongue, but all must love it who love +her; for, if any theory of transmission be true, does she not owe +something of her own oneness with Nature, of her intimacy with its +depths, of her love of fields and flowers and skies, to that ancestry +who won the name as, like the princely Hebrew boy, they tended the +flocks upon the hills, under sunlight and starlight and ill every wind +that blew? Never was there a more characteristic device than this +signature of "E. Berger"; and nobody learned anything by it. At first it +was presumed that some member of the house of Rothschild had experienced +a softening of the brain to the extent implied by such effusion of +genuine emotion, and it was rather gladly hailed as evidence of the +weakness shared in common with ordinary mortals by that more than +imperial family, the uncrowned potentates of the world,--the subject +and method of the book being just sufficiently remote from every-day +to preserve the unities of the supposition. Gradually this theory was +sought to be displaced by one concerning a German baroness acquainted +neither with Jews nor with music, humored as it was by that foreign +trick in the book, the idioms of another tongue; but the latter theory +was too false on its face to be tenable, and then people left off +caring about it. It is perhaps an idle infirmity, this request for the +personality of authors; yet it is indeed a response to the fact that +there never was one who did not prefer to be esteemed for himself rather +than for his writing,--and, ascending, may we love the works of God and +not the Lord himself? However, none were a whit the wiser for knowing +Miss Sheppard's name. It came to be accepted that we were to have +the books,--whence was no matter; they were so new, so strange, so +puzzling,--the beautiful, the quaint, and the faulty were so interwoven, +that nobody cared to separate these elements, to take the trouble to +criticize or to thank; and thus, though we all gladly enough received, +we kept our miserly voices to ourselves, and she never met with any +adequate recognition. After her first book, England quietly ignored +her,--they could not afford to be so startled; as Sir Leicester Dedlock +said, "It was really--really--"; she did very well for the circulating +libraries; and because Mr. Mudie insists on his three volumes or none +at all, she was forced to extend her rich webs to thinness. It is this +alone that injures "Counterparts" for many;--not that they would not +gladly accept the clippings in a little supplementary pamphlet, but +dissertations, they say, delay the action. In this case, though, that +is not true; for, besides the incompleteness of the book without the +objectionable dissertation, (that long conversation between Miss +Dudleigh and Sarona,) it answers the purpose of very necessary by-play +on the stage during preparation for the last and greatest scene. But had +this been a fault, it was not so much hers as the publishers'. Subject +to the whims of those in London, and receiving no reply to the +communication of her wishes from those in Edinburgh, she must have +experienced much injustice at the hands of her booksellers, and her +title-pages show them to have been perpetually changed. She herself +accepts with delight propositions from another quarter of the globe; the +prospect of writing for those across the water was very enticing to her; +and in one of her letters she says,--"It is my greatest ambition to +publish in America,--to have no more to do personally with English +publishers"; and finding it, after serious illness, impossible to +fulfil this engagement in season, the anxiety, regret, and subsequent +gratitude, which she expressed, evinced that she had been unaccustomed +to the courteous consideration then received. + +Working constantly for so many years, she had yet known nothing of her +readers, had felt her literary life to be an utter failure, had thrown a +voice into the world and heard no echo; and when for the first time told +of the admiration she elicited in this country and of one who rejoiced +in her, her face kindled and she desired to come and be among her own +people. Those who have failed to appreciate her can hardly be blamed, as +it is owing entirely to their deficiency; but the cavillers--those who +have ears and hear not--are less excusable. Almost a recluse,--declining +even an interview with her publishers,--in ill-health, in poverty, and +with waning youth, she poured out her precious ointment from alabaster +boxes, and there were not wanting Pharisees. But hampered by precedent +and somewhat barren of enthusiasms as are almost all productions now, +how could we do aught but welcome this spontaneous and ever-fresh +fountain bubbling into the sunlight, albeit without geometrical +restrictions, and bringing as it did such treasures from its secret +sources? Yet, welcomed or not, there is no record of any female +prose-writer's ever having lived who possessed more than a portion +of that genius which permeated Elizabeth Sheppard's whole being. +Genius,--the very word expresses her: in harmony with the great +undertone of the universe, the soul suffused with light. Flower-warmth +and fragrance are on her page, the soft low summer wind seems to be +speaking with you as you read, her characters are like the stars +impersonated, and still, however lofty her nature, always and forever +genial. You catch her own idiosyncrasy throughout, and believe, that, +like Evelyn Hope, she was made of spirit, fire, and dew. When we +remember the very slight effect ever visible to her of all her labor, +there is something sad in the thought of this young soul, thrilled with +its own fervors and buoyant in anticipation, sending forth the first +venture. But then we recognize as well, that she was one of those few to +whom creation is a necessity, that in truth she scarcely needed human +response, and that when men were silent God replied. + +Miss Sheppard's style was something very novel. Based, perhaps, on an +admiration of one whose later exploits have dwarfed his earlier in the +general estimation, there was yet no more resemblance than between the +string-courses of a building and its sculptured friezes. Indeed, writing +was not her virtual expression: this may be learned even in her peculiar +way of loving Nature, for it was not so much Nature itself as Nature's +effects that she prized; and between the work now performed and that +awaiting her in some further life one feels the difference that exists +between the soft clay model with its mild majesty, its power clogged and +covered, and the same when it issues in the white radiance of marble. +She does not seem to have been an extensive reader, and certainly no +student, while she totally disregarded all rules and revision. Her +sentences were so long that one got lost in them, and had finally to go +back and clutch a nominative case and drag it down the page with him; +there were ambiguities and obscurities in plenty: her thoughts were so +bright that they darkened her words; one must go through a process of +initiation,--but having mastered the style, one knew the writer. It +was well worth while, this shrouding rhetoric, for beneath it were no +reserves; superficially no one ever kept more out of sight, but the +real reader could not fail to know that here he had the freedom of the +author's nature: and although she somewhere said that a woman "thus +intensely feminine, thus proud and modest, betraying herself to the +world in her writings, is an exception, and one in the whole world the +most rare," she knew not that she sketched herself in that exception. +But there are not elsewhere to be found pages so drenched with beauty as +hers; and for all her vague abstractions of language, and wide, suffused +effects, she possessed yet the skill to present a picture, keenly etched +and vividly colored, in the fewest words, when she chose. Not to mention +Rose and Bernard, who, oddly enough, are a series of the most exquisite +pictures in themselves, bathed in changing and ever-living light, let +us take, for instance, Maria Cerinthia walking in the streets of Paris, +having worn out her mantilla, and with only a wreath of ivy on her +head,--or Clotilda at her books, "looking very much like an old picture +of a young person sitting there,"--or the charming one of Laura's _pas_, +which the little boy afterwards describes in saying, "She quite swam, +and turned her eyes upward,"--or, better, yet, that portrait of a +Romagnese woman: "of the ancient Roman beauty, rare now, if still +remembered, with hair to her knees, wrapping her form in a veil vivid as +woven gold, with the emerald eyes of Dante's Beatrice, a skin of yellow +whiteness, and that mould of figure in which undulating softness +quenches majesty,--the mould of the mystical Lucretia." There are +sea-sketches scattered among these leaves which no painter's brush will +ever equal, and morning and twilight gain new splendor and tenderness +beneath her touch. + +But, after all, this was not her style's chief excellence; she cared +little for such pictorial achievements, and in presenting her fancies +she often sacrificed outline to melody; it is necessary for you to feel +rather than to see her meaning. What distinguished her yet more was the +ability by means of this style to interpret music into words. Although +this may not be correct practice, there was never a musical critic who +did not now and then attempt it: musicians themselves never do, because +music is to them nothing to see or to describe, but the air they +breathe, and in fact a state of being. Do you remember that tone-wreath +of heather and honeysuckle? "It was a movement of such intense meaning +that it was but one sigh of unblended and unfaltering melody isolated as +the fragrance of a single flower, and only the perfumes of Nature exhale +a bliss as sweet, how far more unexpressed! This short movement, that in +its oneness was complete, grew, as it were, by fragmentary harmonies, +intricate, but most gradual, into another,--a prestissimo so delicately +fitful that it was like moonlight dancing upon crested ripples; or, for +a better similitude, like quivering sprays in a summer wind. And in less +than fifty bars of regularly broken time--how ravishingly sweet I say +not--the first subject in refrain flowed through the second, and they, +interwoven even as creepers and flowers densely tangled, closed together +simultaneously." And if you have not the book by you, will you pardon +another,--the awful and eternal flow of the Mer de Glace? + +"At first awoke the strange, smooth wind-notes of the opening adagio; +the fetterless chains of ice seemed to close around my heart. The +movement had no blandness in its solemnity; and so still and shiftless +was the grouping of the harmonies, that a frigidity, actual as well as +ideal, passed over my pores and hushed my pulses. After a hundred such +tense yet clinging chords, the sustaining calm was illustrated, not +broken, by a serpentine phrase of one lone oboë, pianissimo over the +piano-surface, which it crisped not, but on and above which it breathed +like the track of a sunbeam aslant from a parted cloud. The slightest +possible retardation at its close brought us to the refrain of the +simple adagio, interrupted again by a rush of violoncello-notes, rapid +and low, like some sudden under-current striving to burst through the +frozen sweetness. Then spread wide the subject, as plains upon plains of +_water-land_; though the time was gradually increased. Amplifications of +the same harmonies introduced a fresh accession of violoncelli and oboi +contrasted artfully in syncopation, till at length the strides of the +accelerando gave a glittering precipitation to the entrance of the +second and longest movement. + +"Then Anastase turned upon me, and with the first bar we fell into a +tumultuous presto. Far beyond all power to analyze as it was just then, +the complete idea embraced me as instantaneously as had the picturesque +chillness of the first. I have called it tumultuous,--but merely in +respect of rhythm:--the harmonies were as clear and evolved as the +modulation itself was sharp, keen, and unapproachable. Through every bar +reigned that vividly enunciated ideal, whose expression pertains to +the one will alone in any age,--the ideal, that, binding together in +suggestive imagery every form of beauty, symbolizes and represents +something beyond them all. + +"Here over the surge-like, but fast-bound motivo--only like those tost +ice-waves, dead still in their heaped-up crests--were certain swelling +crescendos of a second subject, so unutterably if vaguely sweet, that +the souls of all deep blue Alp-flowers, the clarity of all high blue +skies, had surely passed into them, and was passing from them again.... + +"It was not until the very submerging climax that the playing of +Anastase was recalled to me. Then, amidst long ringing notes of the wild +horns, and intermittent sighs of the milder wood, swept from the violins +a torrent of coruscant arpeggi, and above them all I heard his tone, +keen but solvent, as his bow seemed to divide the very strings with +fire, and I felt as if some spark had fallen upon my fingers to kindle +mine. As soon as it was over, I looked up and laughed in his face with +sheer pleasure." + +Nothing of the kind was ever half so delightful, if one excepts Mr. +Dwight's translation of a _Gondel-lied_. As literal description it is +wondrous, but as imagination it equals the music itself. Let us pause +for an instant here and recall the singular inventive and combining +grace with which a Spectacle is always given in these stories. It is +well known that Mendelssohn contemplated an opera upon the "Tempest," +although he did not live to execute the idea; but how charmingly is +that taken and mingled with what he had already done in the +"Midsummer-Night's Dream," at the festival of the Silver Wedding, when +the lonely tones from age to age frozen on the cups of lilies, the orbed +harmonies bound burning within the roses, the dreaming song thrilled +along the veins of violets, intricate sounds hushed under green gloom +of myrtle-leaves, mourning chords with which the cedars stood +charged,--were all disenchanted and stole forth on longing +wind-instruments and on the splendor of violins, "accumulating in +orchestral richness, as if flower after flower of music were unsheathing +to the sun"! + +Yet the unlovely is not to be found within these covers: there was a +quality in the writer's mind like that fervid, all-vivifying sunshine +which so illumines the cities of the desert, so steeps the pavements, +so soaks through the pores of solids, so sharpens angles and softens +curves, as Fromentin tells us, that even squalor borrows brilliant dyes, +and rags and filth lighten into picturesque and burnished glory. And +this is well for the reader, as all have not time for philosophy, nor +can all transmute pain into treasure. But for her, sweet sounds and +sights abound in everything; bird and breeze and bee alike are winged +with melody; the music of the sea satisfies her heart, and there +"the artist-ear,--which makes a spectrum for all sounds that are +not separate, distinguishes the self-same harmonies that govern the +gradations of the orchestra, from deep to deep descending, until sounds +are lost in sound as lights in light";--the trains have their thunderous +music in her hearing; and the bells to which Cecilia listens seem to be +ringing in the last day:--"The ravishing and awful sound of them, which +is only heard by the few,--the passion in their rise and fall,--their +wavering,--their rushing fulness,--drew off all consciousness: most like +the latest and last passion,--the passion of death." + +There seems to be no subject which this woman has not pondered deeply. +Her theory of Temperament is an attendant fairy that does marvellous +things for her, and not only apportions natures, but corresponding +bodies, so that we can easily see how the golden age is to return again, +when peradventure deceits shall be impossible, and all the virtues +thrive by mere necessity under the reign of this perfected Science of +the Soul. Yet, roam where she would, there were always two mysteries +that allured her back again, as Thoné's curt sentence told,--"_Tonkunst +und Arzenei_"; and to these might be added Race, in defiance of Mr. +Buckle. Assuredly the Hebrew owes acknowledgment to her, and not George +Borrow, with all his weird learning, enters more deeply into the Burden +of Egypt; Browning's appreciation of the gypsy standing alone beside +hers,--Browning, between whose writings and her own a rich sympathy +exists, both being so possessed of fulness. Yet verse could not chain +her wide eloquence in its fetters; and whenever she attempted it, its +music made her thought shapeless. There is one exception to this, +however, and we give it below,--for, inartistic as this mould may seem, +and amorphous as its ideas may be, it is the only instance of any rhymes +fully translating the meaning of music, and it is as full of clinging +pathos and melody as the great creation it paraphrases, and to which no +words will quite respond. + + "In gardens where the languid roses keep + Perpetual sweetness for the hearts that smile, + Perpetual sadness for the hearts that weep, + Lonely, unseen, I wander, to beguile + The day that only shines to show thee bright, + The night whose stars burn wan beside thy light, + Adelaïda! + + "Adelaïda! all the birds are singing + Low, as thou passest, where in leaves they lie; + With timid chirp unto their soft mates clinging, + They greet that presence without which they die,-- + Die, even with Nature's universal heart, + When thou, her queen, dost in thy pride depart, + Adelaïda! + + "Depart! and dim her beauty evermore; + Go, from the shivering leaves and lily-flowers, + That, white as saints on the eternal shore, + Stand wavering, beckoning, in the moony bowers,-- + Beckon me on where their moist feet are laid + In the dark mould, fast by the alder-shade, + Adelaïda! + + "Adelaïda! 'tis the Grave or Love + Must fight for this great first, last mastery. + I feed in faith on spicy gales above, + Where all along that blue unchanging sky + Thy name is traced;--its sweetness never fails + To sound in streams of peace in spicy gales, + Adelaïda! + + "Adelaïda! woe is me, woe, woe! + Not only in the sky, in starry gold, + I see thy name,--where peaceful rivers flow, + Not only hear its sweetness manifold; + On every white and purple flower 'tis written, + Its echo every aspen-quake hath smitten, + Adelaïda! + + "Go farther! let me leave thee! I depart!-- + Who whispered I would linger by thy side? + Who said it beat so warm, my feeble heart? + Who told, I dared to claim thee as my bride? + Who cried, I roamed without thee all the day + And clasped thee in my dreams? Away, away, + Adelaïda! + + "I die, but thou shall live; in the loud noon + Thy feet shall crush the long grass o'er my head, + Not rudely, rudely,--gently, gently, soon + Shall tread me heavier down in that dark bed; + And thou shalt know not on whose head they pass, + Whose silent hands, whose frozen heart!--Alas, + Adelaïda!" + +There are those who in "Charles Auchester," charmed by the simplicity +and truth of that first part called "Choral Life," objected to the rest +on the score of extravagance. But this book records the adoration of +music, and in an age replete with the _dilettanti_ of indifference may +we not thank God for one enthusiast? Yet, indeed, everything about +Mendelssohn was itself extravagant,--his childhood, his youth, his life, +his beauty, his power: should the instrument, then, be tuned lower than +such key-note? And again, to us who live a somewhat commonplace routine, +the life of musical artists, especially abroad, must necessarily seem +redundant; yet it is only that life, natural and actual, into which we +are here inducted. The same is possible to no other class of artists: +even the scholar, buried in his profound studies, must descend from his +abstraction; the poet, the painter, cannot share it: for the latter, +however much he clubs and cliques, is seldom sufficiently dispossessed +of himself; and the other, though he strike out of his heat poems as +immortal as stars, may yet live among clods and feel no thrill returning +on himself. But the musician cannot dwell alone: his art requires that +he should cluster, and the orchestra enforces it; therefore he acts and +reacts like the vibrations ridged within a Stradivarius, he is kept in +his art's atmosphere till it becomes his life, its aura bathes every +trivial thing, and existence which might otherwise be meagre is raised +and glorified. Thus yet more, when we recall that even were the +musician's life not so, still it ought to be, and it is the right of +the author to idealize, one can believe "Charles Auchester" to be but a +faithful transcript. "In proportion to our appreciation of music is also +our appreciation of what is not music," Sarona says; and so faithfully +does this writer prove it, by her attention to minute and usual +circumstances, that one might certainly allow her some exaltation +when touching on one theme,--yet how this exaltation can be called in +question by any who espouse Bettine von Arnim's sublime ravings the +morning after entering Vienna is mysterious. Were the real condition +of these natures--which certainly exist--bared to view, many from their +phlegmatic experience might deem all the nerves to be in a state of +excitation, when in fact they saw only normal and healthy play. It is +true that the power of modulated tones arouses everything most ethereal +and lofty in our composition, and it must therefore be wrong to charge +with extravagance any description of a life in music, which is a life in +the highest, because truly it cannot be extravagant enough, since all +words fail before that of which it discourses,--while it gives you the +sense of the universe and of the eternities, and is to the other arts +what the soul is to the body. And is it not, moreover, the voice of +Nature, the murmur of wind and tree, the thrill of all the dropping +influences of the heavens, the medium of spiritual communication, the +universal language in which all can exchange thought and feeling, and +through which the whole world becomes one nation? Out of the spirit +blossom spirits, Bettine tells us, and we subject ourselves to their +power: "Ah, wonderful mediation of the ineffable, which oppresses the +bosom! Ah, music!" To go further, there is certainly no exaggeration +in Charles Auchester's treatment of his hero; for, reading the +contemporaneous articles of musical journals, you will find them one and +all speaking in even more unrestrained profligacy of praise, recognizing +in the cloud of composers but nine worthy the name of Master, of whom +Mendelssohn was one, and declaring that under his baton the orchestra +was electrified. We all remember the solemnly pathetic and passionate +beauty of Seraphael's burial by night, with the music winding up among +the stars; but did it in reality exceed the actual progress of the dead +Master's ashes from city to city, met in the twilight and the evening by +music, gray-headed Capellmeisters receiving him with singing in the open +midnight, and fresh songs being flung upon his coffin like wreaths with +the sunrise? + +There is a wonderful strength exhibited in the sketch of Seraphael from +first to last: not to mention the happiness of the name, of which +this is by no means a single instance, and the fact of his having no +_pramomen_, both of which so insignificant atoms in themselves lift him +at once a line above the level in the reader's sympathy,--it was a most +difficult thing to present such delicacy and lightness, and yet to +preserve "the awful greatness of his lonely genius," as somewhere else +she calls it; but all must confess that it is done, and perfectly. It +is not alone in Seraphael that this strength is shown; a new mould of +character in fiction is given us,--masculine characters which, though +light and airy, are yet brilliant and strong, most sweet, and surcharged +with loveliness. It is this perfect sweetness that constitutes half +the charm of her books,--for in the only one where it is deficient, +"Beatrice Reynolds," the whole fails. One feels sure that it was never +deficient in herself, that her own heart must have been overflowing with +warm and cordial tenderness,--and if any testimony were wanting, we +should have it in her evident love of children. It is only by love that +understanding comes, and no one ever understood children better or +painted them half so well: they are no mites of puny perfection, no +angels astray, no Psyches in all the agonies of the bursting chrysalis, +but real little flesh-and-blood people in pinafores, approached by +nobody's hand so nearly as George Eliot's. They are flawless: the boy +who, having swung himself giddy, felt "the world turning round, as +papa says it does, nurse,"--the other boy, who, immured in studies and +dreams, found all life to be "a fairy-tale book with half the leaves +uncut,"--the charming little snow-drop of a Carlotta, "who would sit +next him, would stick her tiny fork into his face, with a morsel of +turkey at the end of it, would poke crumbs into his mouth with her +finger, would put up her lips to kiss him, would say, every moment, 'I +like you much,--much!' with all Davy's earnestness, though with just +so much of her mother's modesty as made her turn pink and shy, and put +herself completely over the chair into Seraphael's lap when we laughed +at her." And Philippa, and Philippa's conversation, capers, and cat! +an impossibility to those who have never experienced her whirlwinds of +exuberance,--and to those who have, a reproduction of the drollest days +of their existence. Never was there a personage so perfectly drawn, +never such a grotesque storm of noisy health,--the matchless Philippa! +After reading Miss Sheppard's juveniles, you feel that you have been in +most good and innocent company all day; and since it is necessary for +an author to become for the moment that nature of which he writes, this +author must have been something very good and innocent in herself in +order to uphold this strain so long. Of those accessible, the best is +that entitled, "Round the Fire,"--a series of tales purporting to be +told by little girls, and each of extraordinary interest; but the +one she herself preferred is yet with four others in the hands of an +Edinburgh publisher, and perhaps yet in manuscript,--the name of +this being "Prince Gentil, Prince Joujou, and Prince Bonbon, or the +Children's Cities." This reminds one that cities, in the abstract, seem +to have been with her a subject of unceasing wonder and pleasure,--from +Venice, with its shadowy, slippery, silent water-ways to X, that ideal +city of the North; and where is there anything to excel the Picture of +Paris, drawn minutely and colored, his prison-prophecy, Paris as it was +to be created, rather than restored, by Louis Napoleon? "Then he took +from his pocket a strong magnifying-glass, and put it gently into +Rodomant's hand. Rodomant grasped it, and through it gazed long and +eagerly. And from that hieroglyphic mist there started, sudden and +distinct as morn without a cloud, a brilliant bird's-eye view of a +superb and stupendous city, a dream of imaginative architecture, almost +in itself a poem. Each house of each street, each lamp and fountain, +each line of road and pavement, marked as vividly as the glorious +domes, the pointing pillars, grand gates and arches, proud palaces in +inclosures of solemn leafage, the bridges traced like webs of shadow, +the stately terraces and dim cathedrals. Green groves and avenues and +vivid gardens interlaced and divided the city within the walls; and +without, masses of delicate shrubbery, as perfectly defined, were +studded with fair villas of every varied form, melting gradually and +peacefully, as it seemed, to a bright champaign embroidered with fence +and hedge-row.... A sort of visionary pageant unrolled to him, partly +memorial, in part prophetic. He knew he had seen something like it,--but +when and where? What planet boasted that star of cities for strength +and lustre that must surpass new London and old Thebes? For Rodomant had +the mathematical gift of all the highest harmonists, and his brain could +magnify and actualize the elfin-sized images under his eye to their just +and proper proportion in the real." It must have been like heaven, this +city so stilly and so fair,--for, you see, there were no people there. + +Miss Sheppard's plots are not conspicuous, for her characters make +circumstance and are their own fate; still her capacity in that line is +finely exhibited by the plot of the opera of "Alarcos." In mere filling +up, having excepted the incident,--always original and delightful,--the +lofty imagination, and the descriptions of wind and weather,--one of her +best points will be found to be costume, a minor thing, but then there +are few who excel in modern millinery. "Salome was beautiful. Her +splendid delicate dress, all rosy folds, skirt over skirt of drapery +falling softly into each other, made her clear skin dazzle in the midst +of them; and the masses of vivid geraniums here and there without their +leaves were not too gorgeous for her bearing,--nor for her hair, in +whose rich darkness geraniums also glowed, long wreaths curling down +into her neck." Rose in white, with wreaths of rubies weighing down her +slender arms;--Adelaïda, with her lace robe like woven light on satin +like woven moon-beams, and large water-lilies in her golden hair;--my +Lady Barres, whose dress "consisted almost always of levantine, with +demi-train and under-petticoat of white brocaded silk peeping through +its open front; the hair showing the shape of the head, and confined by +a narrow band of black velvet across the brow, fastened in the morning +with onyx or agate, in the evening with a brilliant only; she always +wore upon her wrists delicate bands of cambric embroidered with +seed-pearl so minutely that it seemed a pattern wrought out of the +threads of the stuff, and little pearl tassels drooped there scarcely +eclipsing her hands in fairness." + +But a far stronger point is the power of portraiture. Seraphael having +been identified, people turned their attention to the other cipher. +Disregarding the orchestral similitude of sound in his name, which, by +the way, nobody pronounces as Aronach instructed, they chose to infer +that Charles Auchester himself was the Herr Joachim, that Starwood +Burney stood for Sterndale Bennett, that Diamid Albany meant Disraeli, +that Zelter figured as Aronach, and that Jenny Lind, of whom Mendelssohn +himself said there would not in a whole century be born another being so +gifted, and whom the Italians, those lovers of fair pseudonymes, called +"La Benedetta," is no other than Clara Benette. But these are trivial, +compared with Rodomant and Porphyro. It was daring enough, when +Beckendorf mimicked Prince Metternich; but to undertake and to contrast +Louis Napoleon and Beethoven, without belittling either, pales every +other performance. They tower before us grand and immutable as if cast +in bronze, and so veritable that they throw shadows; the prison-gloom is +sealed on Porphyro's face,--power and purpose indomitable; just as the +"gruesome Emperor" is to-day, we find him in that book,--dark in the +midst of his glory, as enduring as a Ninevite sculpture, strong and +inscrutable as the Sphinx. But his heights topple over with this world's +decline, while the other builds for the eternal aeons. Rodomant,--did +one fail to find his identity, they would yet recognize him in those old +prints, the listening head bent forwards, the features like discords +melting info chords; it is hard to tell how such strength was given in +such slight sentences,--but from the time when he contemptuously tossed +out his tune-fooleries, through the hour when with moonlight fancies "a +serene ecstatic serenade was rippling silently beneath his pen," to that +when the organ burst upon his ear in thunders quenchless and everlasting +as the sea's, he is still Beethoven, gigantic in pride, purity, and +passion. "I dream now," said Rodomant; "like the Spirit of God moving +upon the face of the waters, so stir my shadows, dim shapes of sound, +across the chaos of my fathomless intention." This "Rumour" has never +been reprinted in America; it will, then, be excusable to give here a +scene which Is indeed its climax. + +"A spiritual nature has for its highest and hardest temptation a +disposition to outrage, precedent,--sometimes propriety. It is sure +of itself--very likely--but it may endanger the machinery, moral or +tangible, which it employs for agent. Again, who has not dreamed of a +dream? who has not remembered dimly what yet experience contradicts? who +does not confound fact and imagination, to the damage of his reputation +for truth? + +"Rodomant was in a lawless frame, a frame he had fixed on himself by his +outrage on precedent; his subsequent excitement had enchanted him more +wildly, and any number of imps and elves were ready to rush at his +silent word from the caverns of his haunted brain. Again, he felt +he must spend his energy, his long idleness reacted on a sudden in +prodigious strength of intellect, it stirred like a giant refreshed. +Long time ago he had dreamed--he had entirely forgotten it was a fact +that he had been told--that, if the whole force of that organ were put +out, the result would be tremendous. He had also _dreamed_--that is, +been assured--that there was a law made to the purpose that the whole +force of the organ was never to be employed. The law had never been +broken, except once;--but there his memories waxed dim and indistinct; +he was at the mercy of his own volition, which resolved on recalling +nothing that could dissuade him from his rash and forbidden longing. +Unknown to himself, perhaps the failure of his design to escape, of +which the princess had assured him, drove him to the crisis of a more +desperate endeavor. But, whether it was so or not, he was unconscious of +it,--so far innocent. He sat down, believing himself alone.... 'Softly, +softly,' mocked his whisper--to himself,--and he touched alone the +whispering reeds, Adelaïda held her breath, and chid the beating of her +heart, which seemed louder than the mellow pulse that throbbed in tune +above. The symphony that followed fell like a mighty universal +hush, through which the clarionet-stop chanted, unuttered but +articulate,--'Give to us peace.' Then the hush dissolved into a sea +of sighs: 'Peace, peace!' they yearned, and the mild deep diapason +muttered, 'Peace.' She, the one listener, felt, as it were, her brain +fill soft with tears, her eyes rained them, and her heart, whose pulses +had dropped as calm as dew, echoed the peaceful longing of the whole +heart of humanity. A longing as peaceful in its expression as the peace +it longed for; the creation's travail seemed spent to the edge of joy. + +"Suddenly, as light swept chaos, this peaceful fancy was disrupted,--her +heart ravished from its rest, its calm torn from it. Down went the pedal +which forced the whole first organ out at once, and as if shouted by +hosts of men and by myriad angels echoed, pealed the great Hosanna. The +mighty rapture of the princess won her instantly from regret; no peace +could be so glorious as that praise; and vast as was the volume +of sound, the hands that invoked it had it so completely under +control--voluntary control as yet--that it did not swamp her sense; her +spirit floated on the wide stream with harmonious waves towards the +measureless immensity of music at its source. To reach that centre +without a circle,--that perfection which imperfection shadows not,--that +unborn, undying principle, which art tries humbly, falteringly, to +illustrate,--was never given to man on earth; and tries he to attain it, +some fate, of which the chained Prometheus is at once the symbol and the +warning, fastens to his soul for life. + +"The princess had bowed her head, and the soft and plenteous waters +of her eyes had dried like dew under the midsummer sun; yet still she +closed her eyes, for her brain felt fixed and alight with a nameless +awe, such as passion lends presentiment. + +"Suddenly, in the words of Albericus, there burst overhead a noise like +the roaring of 'enormous artificial golden lions,'--that was the drum: +less, in this instance, like smitten parchment than the crackling roll +of clouds that embrace in thunder. The noise amazed himself,--yet +Rodomant exulted in it, his audacity expanded with it, broke down the +last barrier of reason. He added stop after stop,--at the last and +sixtieth stop, he unfettered the whole volume of the wind. That instant +was a blast, not to speak irreverently, which sounded like the crack +of doom. To her standing stricken underneath, it seemed to explode +somewhere in the roof with a shock beyond all artillery,--to tear up the +ground under her feet, like the spasm of an earthquake,--to rend the +walls, like lightning's electric finger; and to shriek in her ringing +brain the advent of some implacable and dreadful judgment, but not the +doom of all men,--only one, which doom, alas! she felt might be also +hers _in_ his. + +"All men and women within a mile had heard the shock, or rather felt it, +and interpreted it in various ways. Only the prince himself--who was +standing on the terrace, and had distinctly perceived the rich vibration +of the strong, but calm, _Hosanna_--interpreted it rightly and directly; +more than that, his animal sagacity told him it was Rodomant, who, +having amused himself, was now _indulging_ the same individual.... + +"To Adelaïda there was something more terrible in the succeeding silence +than in the shock of sound; it had ceased directly, died first into a +discordant groan, which, rising to a scream, was still. She listened +intensely: there was no fall of rattling fragments, the vibration had +been insufficient, or not prolonged enough, to injure the window,--that +had been her first, chief fear. This removed, however, she felt doubly, +desperately anxious. Why did he not come down, or speak, or stir? The +men employed to feed the monstrous machine with wind had all rushed away +together by the back-ladder through which they entered: hence the cause +of the shrieking groan and silence. He was there alone,--for he knew not +that she was there. Oh that he would give some sign! + +"In a few minutes a sign was given, but not from him. The princess heard +the grinding of the immense door near the altar; it was opened; +steps entered hurriedly. She heard, next instant, her father's +voice,--impregnated with icy ire, low with smothered hatred, distinct +with the only purpose he ever entertained,--punishment. She flew, with +feet that gave no echo, up the stair on her side of the lobby. Rodomant +was sitting dead-still, with his face in his hands; they looked rigid; +the veins in his forehead, as it showed above his hands, were swollen +and stood out, but colorless as the keys that stretched beneath. His +calmness chilled her blood. She thought him dead, and all within her +that lived seemed to pass out of her in the will, nay, the power also, +to restore him. She grasped his arm. He was not dead, then, for he +sighed,--an awful sigh; it shook him like a light reed in the tempest, +he shuddered from head to foot; he leaned towards her, as if about to +faint, but never removed his close-locked hands from his eyes.... She +had only clasped his arm before; as hand met hand, or touch thrilled +touch, he shivered, his grasping fingers relaxed in their hold on each +other, but closed on hers.... She waited long,--she listened to his +breathing, intermittent with tearless sobs. At last he gasped violently, +a cold tear dropped on her hand, and he thrust it rudely from him. + +"'God has taken my punishment into Hiss own hands: yet I defied not Him, +only something made by man, and man himself.' He spoke loudly, yet in +halting words, with gaps of silence between each phrase; then stared +wildly round him, and clapped both his hands upon his ears,--withdrew +them,--closed his ears with his fingers, then dropped his hands, and +cast on her a glance that implored--that demanded--the whole pity of her +heart. 'Have mercy!' were his words; 'I have lost my hearing, and it is +forever!'" + +The discrimination of character exercised by Miss Sheppard is very +wonderful. Many as are the figures on her stage, they are never +repeated, and they are all as separate, as finely edged and bevelled, +as gems. The people grow under her pen,--whether you take Auchester, +developing so when first thrown on himself in Germany, and becoming at +length the rare type of manhood which he presents,--or the one change +wrought by years in Miss Benette, just the addition of something that +would have been impossible in any child, a deepened sweetness, that +completest touch of the perfect woman, "like perfume from unseen +flowers, diffusing itself when the wind awakens, while we know neither +whence the windy fragrance comes nor whither it flows." Perhaps this +characterization is most noticeable in "Counterparts," which she called +her small party of opposing temperaments: Salome, so gracious; Rose, +like the spirit of a sunbeam; Sarona, so keen and incisive, his passion +confronting Bernard's sweetness; and Cecilia, who, it is easy to +conjecture, wrote the book. I have always fancied that some mystic +trine was chorded by three beings who, with all their separate gifts, +possessed an equal power and sweetness,--Raphael, Shelley, and +Mendelssohn. And perhaps the same occurred more emphatically to Miss +Sheppard, for after Seraphael she drew Bernard,--Bernard, who is +exceeded by none in the whole range of romance. "Counterparts" is a +novel of ideal life; it is the land of one's dreams and one's delights; +its dwellers are more real to us than the men and women into whose eyes +we look upon the street, they haunt us and enrapture us, they breathe +about us an atmosphere of gentle and delicious melancholy like the soft +azure haze spread over meadow and hills by the faint south-wind. With +fresh incident on every leaf, with a charm in every scene, its spell is +enthralling, and its chapters are enchanted. There is no fault in +it; nothing can be more perfect, nothing more beautiful. One may put +"Consuelo" side by side with "Charles Auchester," but what novel in +the wide world deserves a place by "Counterparts"? It was worth having +lived, to have once thrown broadcast such handfuls of beauty. + +Between the publication of Miss Sheppard's second book and "Rumour" two +others were issued,--"Beatrice Reynolds" and "The Double Coronet,"--for +which one wishes there were some younger sister, some Acton or Ellis, to +whom to impute them,--evidently the result of illness, weariness, and +physical weakness, perhaps wrung from her by inexorable necessity, but +which should never have been written. In the last, in spite of its very +Radcliffean air, there are truly terrible things, as Gutilyn and his +green-eyed child bear witness; but the other reminds one, as nearly as a +modern book may do so, of no less a model than the redoubtable "Thaddeus +of Warsaw!" But Miss Sheppard had already written all that at present +there was to say; rest was imperative till the intermittent springs +again overflowed. "Rumour," which approached the old excellence, was no +result of a soul's ardor,--merely very choice work. Notwithstanding, +everything is precious that filters through such a medium, and in +these three publications she found opportunity for expressing many a +conviction and for weaving many a fancy; moreover, she was afraid of +no one, and never minced matters, therefore they are interspersed +with criticisms: she praised Charlotte Bronté, condemned George Sand, +ridiculed Chopin, reproved Elizabeth Browning, and satirized "Punch." In +her last book there was a great, but scarcely a good change of style, +she having been obliged by its thinness to pepper the page with Italics; +still these are only marks of a period of transition, and in spite of +them the book is priceless. Judging from internal evidence, she here +appears to have frequented more society, and the contact of this +carelessly marrying world with her own pure perception of right struck +the spark which kindled into "Almost a Heroine." Here awakens again that +graceful humor which is the infallible sign of health, and which was so +lightly inwrought through the earlier volumes. Reading it over, one is +struck with its earnestness, its truth and noble courage,--one feels +that lofty social novels, which might have infused life and principle +and beauty into the mass of custom, were promised in this, and are now +no longer a possibility. And herein are the readers of this magazine +especially affected; since there is no reason to suppose that the work +promised and begun by her for these pages would not have been the peer +of her best production, some bold and beautiful elucidation of one of +the many mysteries in life; for the lack of appreciation in England was +no longer to concern her, and, unshackled and unrestrained, she could +feel herself surrounded by the genial atmosphere of loving listeners. +But perhaps it was not lawful that she should further impart these great +secrets which she had learned. "I sometimes think," she murmurs, "when +women try to rise too high either in their deeds or their desires, that +the spirit which bade them so rise sinks back beneath the weakness of +their earthly constitution, and never appeals again,--or else that the +spirit, being too strong, does away with the mortal altogether,--they +die, or rather they live again." It was like forecasting her own +horoscope. All suffering seems to have descended upon her,--and there +are some natures whose power of enjoyment, so infinite, yet so deep as +to be hidden, is balanced only by as infinite a power to endure; she +learned anew, as she says, and intensely, "what a long dream of misery +is life from which health's bloom has been brushed,--that irreparable +bloom,--and how far more terrible is the doom of those in whom the +nerve-life has been untoned." Sun-stroke and fever, vibration between +opiates at night and tonics at noon,--but the flame was too strong +to fan away lightly, it must burn itself out, the spirit was too +quenchless,--pain, wretchedness, exhaustion. On one of those delicious +days that came in the middle of this year's April,--warmth and fresh +earth-smells breathing all about,--the wide sprays of the lofty boughs +lying tinged in rosy purple, a web-like tracery upon the sky whose azure +was divine,--the air itself lucid and mellow, as if some star had been +dissolved within it,--on such a day the little foreign letter +came, telling that at length balm had dropped upon the weary +eyelids,--Elizabeth Sheppard was dead. + +But in the midst of regret,--since all lovely examples lend their +strength, since they give such grace even to the stern facts of +suffering and death, and since there are too few such records on +Heaven's scroll,--be glad to know that for every throb of anguish, for +every swooning lapse of pain, there was one beside her with tenderest +hands, most careful eyes, most yearning and revering heart,--one into +whose sacred grief our intrusion is denied, but the remembrance of whose +long and deep devotion shall endure while there are any to tell how +Severn watched the Roman death-bed of Keats! + +It is impossible to estimate our loss, because it draws upon infinitude; +there was so much growth yet possible to this soul; to all that she was +not she might yet have enlarged; and while at first her audience had +limits, she would in a calm and prosperous future have become that which +she herself described in saying that a really vast genius who is as vast +an artist will affect all classes, "touch even the uninitiated with +trembling and delight, and penetrate even the ignorant with strong, if +transient spell, as the galvanic energy binds each and all who embrace +in the chain-circle of grasping hands, in the shock of perfect +sympathy." Nevertheless, she has served Art incalculably,--Art, which +is the interpretation of God in Nature. And if, as she believed, in +spiritual things Beauty is the gage of immortality, the pledge may yet +be redeemed on earth, ever forbidding her memory to die. + + + + +ASTRAEA AT THE CAPITOL. + + +ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 1862. + + When first I saw our banner wave + Above the nation's council-hall, + I heard beneath its marble wall + The clanking fetters of the slave! + + In the foul market-place I stood, + And saw the Christian mother sold, + And childhood with its locks of gold, + Blue-eyed and fair with Saxon blood. + + I shut my eyes, I held my breath, + And, smothering down the wrath and shame + That set my Northern blood aflame, + Stood silent--where to speak was death. + + Beside me gloomed the prison-cell + Where wasted one in slow decline + For uttering simple words of mine, + And loving freedom all too well. + + The flag that floated from the dome + Flapped menace in the morning air; + I stood, a perilled stranger, where + The human broker made his home. + + For crime was virtue: Gown and Sword + And Law their threefold sanction gave, + And to the quarry of the slave + Went hawking with our symbol-bird. + + On the oppressor's side was power; + And yet I knew that every wrong, + However old, however strong, + But waited God's avenging hour. + + I knew that truth would crush the lie,-- + Somehow, sometime, the end would be; + Yet scarcely dared I hope to see + The triumph with my mortal eye. + + But now I see it! In the sun + A free flag floats from yonder dome, + And at the nation's hearth and home + The justice long delayed is done. + + Not as we hoped, in calm of prayer, + The message of deliverance comes, + But heralded by roll of drums + On waves of battle-troubled air!-- + + 'Midst sounds that madden and appall, + The song that Bethlehem's shepherds knew!-- + The harp of David melting through + The demon-agonies of Saul! + + Not as we hoped;--but what are we? + Above our broken dreams and plans + God lays, with wiser hand than man's, + The corner-stones of liberty. + + I cavil not with Him: the voice + That freedom's blessed gospel tells + Is sweet to me as silver bells, + Rejoicing!--yea, I will rejoice! + + Dear friends still toiling in the sun,-- + Ye dearer ones who, gone before, + Are watching from the eternal shore + The slow work by your hands begun,-- + + Rejoice with me! The chastening rod + Blossoms with love; the furnace heat + Grows cool beneath His blessed feet + Whose form is as the Son of God! + + Rejoice! Our Marah's bitter springs + Are sweetened; on our ground of grief + Rise day by day in strong relief + The prophecies of better things. + + Rejoice in hope! The day and night + Are one with God, and one with them + Who see by faith the cloudy hem + Of Judgment fringed with Mercy's light! + + + + +PÈRE ANTOINE'S DATE-PALM. + +A LEGEND OF NEW ORLEANS. + + +I. + +MISS BADEAU. + + +It is useless to disguise the fact: Miss Badeau is a Rebel. + +Mr. Beauregard's cannon had not done battering the walls of Sumter, +when Miss Badeau was packed up, labelled, and sent North, where she +has remained ever since in a sort of aromatic, rose-colored state of +rebellion. + +She is not one of your blood-thirsty Rebels, you know; she has the good +sense to shrink with horror from the bare mention of those heathen who, +at Manassas and elsewhere, wreaked their unmanly spite on the bodies +of dead heroes: still she is a bitter little Rebel, with blonde hair, +superb eyelashes, and two brothers in the Confederate service,--if I may +be allowed to club the statements. When I look across the narrow strait +of our boarding-house table, and observe what a handsome wretch she +is, I begin to think that if Mr. Seward doesn't presently take her in +charge, _I_ shall. + +The preceding paragraphs have little or nothing to do with what I am +going to relate: they merely illustrate how wildly a fellow will write, +when the eyelashes of a pretty woman get tangled with his pen. So I let +them stand,--as a warning. + +My exordium should have taken this shape:-- + +"I hope and trust," remarked Miss Badeau, in that remarkably scathing +tone which she assumes in alluding to the U.S.V., "I hope and trust, +that, when your five hundred thousand, more or less, men capture my New +Orleans, they will have the good taste not to injure Père Antoine's +Date-Palm." + +"Not a hair of its head shall be touched," I replied, without having the +faintest idea of what I was talking about. + +"Ah! I hope not," she said. + +There was a certain tenderness in her voice which struck me. + +"Who is Père Antoine?" I ventured to ask. "And what is this tree that +seems to interest you so?" + +"I will tell you." + +Then Miss Badeau told me the following legend, which I think worth +writing down. If it should appear tame to the reader, it will be because +I haven't a black ribbed-silk dress, and a strip of point-lace around my +throat, like Miss Badeau; it will be because I haven't her eyes and lips +and music to tell it with, confound me! + + +II. + +THE LEGEND. + + +Near the _levée_ (quay) and not far from the old French Cathedral, in +New Orleans, stands a fine date-palm, some thirty feet high, growing out +in the open air as sturdily as if its roots were sucking sap from their +native earth. Sir Charles Lyell, in his "Second Visit to the United +States," mentions this exotic:--"The tree is seventy or eighty years +old; for Père Antoine, a Roman Catholic priest, who died about twenty +years ago, told Mr. Bringier that he planted it himself, when he was +young. In his will he provided that they who succeeded to this lot of +ground should forfeit it, if they cut down the palm." + +Wishing to learn something of Père Antoine's history, Sir Charles Lyell +made inquiries among the ancient Creole inhabitants of the _faubourg_. +That the old priest, in his last days, became very much emaciated, that +he walked about the streets like a mummy, that he gradually dried +up, and finally blew away, was the meagre result of the tourist's +investigations. + +This is all that is generally known of Père Antoine. Miss Badeau's story +clothes these bare facts. + +When Père Antoine was a very young man, he had a friend whom he loved as +he loved his eyes. Émile Jardin returned his passion, and the two, on +account of their friendship, became the marvel of the city where they +dwelt. One was never seen without the other; for they studied, walked, +ate, and slept together. + +Antoine and Émile were preparing to enter the Church; indeed, they had +taken the preliminary steps, when a circumstance occurred which changed +the color of their lives. + +A foreign lady, from some far-off island in the Pacific, had a few +months before moved into their neighborhood. The lady died suddenly, +leaving a girl of sixteen or seventeen entirely friendless and +unprovided for. The young men had been kind to the woman during her +illness, and at her death, melting with pity at the forlorn situation of +Anglice, the daughter, swore between themselves to love and watch over +her as if she were their sister. + +Now Anglice had a wild, strange beauty, that made other women seem tame +beside her; and in the course of time the young men found themselves +regarding their ward not so much like brothers as at first. They +struggled with their destiny manfully, for the holy orders which they +were about to assume precluded the idea of love. + +But every day taught them to be more fond of her. So they drifted on. +The weak like to temporize. + +One night Émile Jardin and Anglice were not to be found. They had +flown,--but whither nobody knew, and nobody, save Antoine, cared. + +It was a heavy blow to Antoine,--for he had half made up his mind to run +away with her himself. + +A strip of paper slipped from a volume on Antoine's desk, and fluttered +to his feet. + +"_Do not be angry_" said the bit of paper, piteously; "_forgive us, for +we love_." + +Three years went by. Antoine had entered the Church, and was already +looked upon as a rising man; but his face was pale and his heart leaden, +for there was no sweetness in life for him. + +Four years had elapsed, when a letter, covered with outlandish stamps, +was brought to the young priest,--a letter from Anglice. She was dying; +would he forgive her? Émile, the year previous, had fallen a victim to +the fever that raged on the island; and their child, little Anglice, was +likely to follow him. In pitiful terms she begged Antoine to take charge +of the child until she was old enough to enter a convent. The epistle +was finished by another hand, informing Antoine of Madame Jardin's +death; it also told him that Anglice had been placed on a vessel shortly +to leave the island for some Western port. + +The letter was hardly read and wept over, when little Anglice arrived. +On beholding her, Antoine uttered a cry of joy and surprise,--she was so +like the woman he had worshipped. + +As a man's tears are more pathetic than a woman's, so is his love more +intense,--not more enduring, or half so subtile, but intenser. + +The passion that had been crowded down in his heart broke out and +lavished its richness on this child, who was to him, not only the +Anglice of years ago, but his friend Émile Jardin also. + +Anglice possessed the wild, strange beauty of her mother,--the bending, +willowy form, the rich tint of skin, the large tropical eyes, that had +almost made Antoine's sacred robes a mockery to him. + +For a month or two Anglice was wildly unhappy in her new home. She +talked continually of the bright country where she was born, the fruits +and flowers and blue skies. Antoine could not pacify her. By-and-by she +ceased to weep, and went about the cottage with a dreary, disconsolate +air that cut Antoine to the heart. Before the year ended, he noticed +that the ruddy tinge had fled from her cheek, that her eyes had grown +languid, and her slight figure more willowy than ever. + +A physician was called. He could discover nothing wrong with the child, +except this fading and drooping. He failed to account for that. It was +some vague disease of the mind, he said, beyond his skill. + +So Anglice faded day after day. She seldom left the room now. Antoine +could not shut out the fact that the child was passing away. He had +learned to love her so! + +"Dear heart," he said once, "what is't ails thee?" + +"Nothing, _mon père_"--for so she called him. + +The winter passed, the balmy spring air had come, and Anglice seemed to +revive. In her little bamboo chair, on the porch, she swayed to and +fro in the fragrant breeze, with a peculiar undulating motion, like a +graceful tree. + +At times something seemed to weigh upon her mind. Antoine noticed it, +and waited. At length she spoke. + +"Near our house," said little Anglice, "near our house, on the island, +the palm-trees are waving under the blue sky. Oh, how beautiful! I seem +to lie beneath them all day long. I am very, very happy. I yearned for +them until I grew sick,--don't you think so, _mon père_?" + +"_Mon Dieu_, yes!" exclaimed Antoine, suddenly. "Let us hasten to those +pleasant islands where the palms are waving." + +Anglice smiled. + +"I am going there, _mon père!_" + +Ay, indeed. A week from that evening the wax candles burned at her feet +and forehead, lighting her on the journey. + +All was over. Now was Antoine's heart empty. He had nothing to do but to +lay the blighted flower away. + +Père Antoine made a shallow grave in his garden, and heaped the fresh +brown mould over his idol. + +In the genial spring evenings the priest was seen sitting by the mound, +his finger closed in the unread prayer-book. + +The summer broke on that sunny land; and in the cool morning twilight, +and after nightfall, Antoine lingered by the grave. He could never be +with it enough. + +One morning he observed a delicate stem, with two curiously shaped +emerald leaves, springing up from the centre of the mound. At first he +merely noticed it casually; but at length the plant grew so tall, and +was so strangely unlike anything he had ever seen before, that he +examined it with care. + +How straight and graceful and exquisite it was! When it swung to and fro +with the summer wind, in the twilight, it seemed to Antoine as if little +Anglice were standing there in the garden! + +The days stole by, and Antoine tended the fragile shoot, wondering what +sort of blossom it would unfold, white, or scarlet, or golden. One +Sunday, a stranger, with a bronzed, weather-beaten face like a sailor's, +leaned over the garden-rail, and said to him,-- + +"What a fine young date-palm you have there, Sir!" + +"_Mon Dieu!_" cried Père Antoine, "and is it a palm?" + +"Yes, indeed," returned the man. "I had no idea the tree would flourish +in this climate." + +"_Mon Dieu!_" was all the priest could say. + +If Père Antoine loved the tree before, he worshipped it now. He watered +it, and nurtured it, and could have clasped it in his arms. Here were +Émile and Anglice and the child, all in one! + +The years flew by, and the date-palm and the priest grew together,--only +one became vigorous and the other feeble. Père Antoine had long passed +the meridian of life. The tree was in its youth. It no longer stood in +an isolated garden; for homely brick and wooden houses had clustered +about Antoine's cottage. They looked down scowling on the humble +thatched roof. The city was edging up, trying to crowd him off his land. +But he clung to it, and wouldn't sell. Speculators piled gold on his +door-step, and he laughed at them. Sometimes he was hungry, but he +laughed none the less. + +"Get thee behind me, Satan!" said the old priest's smile. + +Père Antoine was very old now, scarcely able to walk; but he could sit +under the pliant, caressing leaves of his tree, and there he sat until +the grimmest of speculators came to him. But even in death Père Antoine +was faithful to his trust. The owner of that land loses it, if he harms +the date-tree. + +And there it stands in the narrow, dingy street, a beautiful, dreamy +stranger, an exquisite foreign lady whose grace is a joy to the eye, the +incense of whose breath makes the air enamored. A precious boon is she +to the wretched city; and when loyal men again walk those streets, may +the hand wither that touches her ungently! + +"Because it grew from the heart of little Anglice," said Miss Badeau, +tenderly. + + * * * * * + + +"SOLID OPERATIONS IN VIRGINIA": + +OR, 'T IS EIGHTY YEARS SINCE. + + +I have never had many personal interviews with Princes. Setting aside a +few with different Excellencies of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I +never had but one such interview, which prolonged itself far enough to +deserve a place in these memoirs of our time. This was with a President +of the then United States,--with him who was, I fear, the Last of the +Virginians. At least, I know no one on the line of promotion just now +who seems to me likely to succeed him. + +"Have ye travelled in Virginia, Mr. Larkin?" said the President to me. + +I said I had not, but that I hoped to see the Valley of Virginia before +I went home. That is the name given, in those regions, to the district +west of the Blue Ridge. The President listened, but expressed himself +dissatisfied with my plan. + +"Ah, Sah!" he said, "ye sh'd see Jeems River. Every American sh'd see +Jeems River. Ye'll not see the appearance of a large population, +to which ye're used in Massachusetts,--the--customs,--the +--arrangements,--the habits--of--our--laboring people--are +such--that--that--their residences--are--are--more distant--from the +highway than with you;--but--but--ye'll be greatly interested in +seeing Jeems River. We've not the cities to show that ye have in +Massachusetts,--but--there are great historical associations with Jeems +River." + +I bowed assent,--and when the President spoke again with some +depreciation of their productions, I made up my mouth to say, in courtly +vein, + + "Man is the nobler growth your realms supply," + +when I recollected that that remark was too literally true to be +complimentary to a State which made its chief business the growing of +men and women for a distant market. So I did what it is always wise to +do,--I said nothing. And the President, warming with his theme, said,-- + +"Yes, Sah, ye sh'd see Jeems River. There, at Jeemst'n, America first +gave a home to the European,--and hard by, at Yorkt'n, the tie with +Europe was sundered. There ye may see Williamsburg,--and our oldest +college. There ye may see the birthplaces of four Presidents,--and there +the capital of Virginia!" + +With such, and other temptations, did he direct me on my journey. + +I have been thinking how little the poor man foresaw that the time would +come when in the valley of "Jeems River" the traveller would see the +grave of the only President of the United States who ever in his old age +turned rebel to the country which had honored him. How little he foresaw +that other campaigns were impending, which would give more historical +interest to the valley than even Cornwallis's marchings and +countermarchings! how little he dreamed of Monitors and Merrimacks in +fierce _méleé_ before his own little Hampton! how little, while he sowed +the wind that winter, he looked forward to the whirlwind-reaping,--of +which, indeed, he lived to hear only the first fierce sigh! + +This valley of "Jeems River," and the three other valleys which radiate +like the four fingers of an open hand, and send their waters down into +the great conduit of Chesapeake Bay, which is the palm to these four +fingers, are in this very month of April, when I write, to become the +great battle-field of the continent. How strangely history repeats +itself, that, after eighty-one years, we should be looking out on +the map the Rapid Ann and the Chickahominy, and Williamsburg +and Fredericksburg, just as our fathers did in 1781,--that the +grandchildren of the men who marched under Lafayette from Baltimore to +Richmond, by the forced march which saved that infant capital from the +enemy, should be marching now, with a more Fabian tread, to save the +same Richmond from worse enemies! Does the Comte de Paris trace the +footprints of the young Marquis-General, who afterwards, among other +things, made his grandfather King? How strange it all is! While I wait +to know where Fabius is hidden, and where those army-corps of hundreds +of thousands are, which seem to have sunk into the ground at Warrenton +the other day, you and I, Reader, will familiarize ourselves with the +geography a little, by brushing the dust off those old campaigns. + +They began by mere predatory excursions, which occupied, for a few weeks +at a time, the English forces which could be detached from New York. "We +march up and down the country," said Cornwallis, not overmuch +pleased, "stealing tobacco." As early as 1779, on the 8th of May, the +Raisonnable, sixty-four, five smaller ships of the English navy, and a +number of privateers acting as convoy to a cloud of transports, entered +the Capes of the Chesapeake. The Raisonnable drew too much water to go +farther than Hampton Roads: they probably did not know the channel +as well as the Merrimack's pilots do. But the rest of them went up +Elizabeth River, as one Pawnee did afterwards,--and there, at Gosport, +found the State's navy-yard, as the Pawnee found a nation's. There was +a vessel of war, unfinished, of twenty-eight guns, and many smaller +vessels,--and they burned them all. How exactly it begins as the history +of another war begins! Different branches of this expedition destroyed +one hundred and thirty-seven vessels, and tobacco beyond account,--and +they were all snugly back in New York in twenty-four days after they +started. + +It is the second campaign which is the most picturesque, varied, and +exciting of the campaigns of the American Revolution,--and which was +fought on ground which will have been made sacred by another campaign, +perhaps even before these words meet the reader's eye. The men engaged +in it were men who have left their mark. Cornwallis and Baron Steuben +share with each other the honor of inventing the present light-infantry +tactics of the world. Cornwallis. in Carolina, had seen the necessity of +divesting his troops of their impediments. Steuben had been doing the +same with the American line, ever since he began his instructions on the +29th of March, 1778. The discipline thus invented was carried back to +Europe by English and by French officers; and when the wars of the +French Revolution began, the rapid movement of the new light infantry +approved itself to military men of all the great warring nations, and +the old tactics of the heavy infantry of the last century died away in +face of the American improvement. Besides Cornwallis, and for a time +under him, here figured the traitor Arnold. Against them, besides +Steuben, were Wayne and Lafayette,--the last in his maiden campaign, in +which, indeed, he earned his military reputation, "never but once," +says Tarleton, his enemy "committing himself during a very difficult +campaign." In the beginning, General Phillips, the same who had been +captured at Saratoga, had the chief command of the English army. +Lafayette notes grimly that General Phillips had commanded at Minden the +battery by which the Marquis de Lafayette, his father, was killed. He +makes this memorandum in mentioning the fact that one of his cannon-shot +passed through the room in which Phillips was dying in Petersburg. Such +were the prominent actors in the campaign. It is not till within a few +years that the full key to it has been given in the publication of some +additional letters of Lord Cornwall. Until that time, a part of his +movements were always shrouded in mystery. + +In October, 1780, the English General Leslie entered Chesapeake Bay +again, and established himself for a while at Portsmouth, opposite +Norfolk. But Colonel Ferguson, with whom Leslie was to cooperate, +had been defeated at King's Mountain, and when Leslie learned of the +consequent change in Cornwallis's plans, he returned to New York on the +24th of November. His departure was regarded as a victory by General +Muhlenberg, and the Virginia militia, who were called out to meet him. + +They had scarcely been disbanded, however, when a second expedition, +which had been intrusted to the traitor Arnold, arrived from New York in +James River. Baron Steuben, the Prussian officer, who had "brought the +foreign arts from far," was at this time in command, but with really +little or no army. Steuben was, at the best, an irritable person, and +his descriptions of the Virginia militia are probably tinged by his +indignation at constant failure. General Nelson, who was the Governor of +the State, behaved with spirit, but neither he nor Steuben could make +the militia stand against Arnold. They could not create a corps +of cavalry among the Virginia Cavaliers, and Arnold's expedition, +therefore, marched twenty-five miles and back without so much as a +shot being fired at them. He established himself at Portsmouth, where +Muhlenberg watched him, and he there waited a reinforcement. + +Just at this juncture a little gleam of hope shot across the darkened +landscape, in the arrival of three French vessel's of war at the mouth +of James River. The American officers all hated Arnold with such +thorough hatred that they tried to persuade the French officers to shut +up Elizabeth River by sea, while they attacked him at Portsmouth from +the land; but the Frenchmen declined cooperation, and Steuben was always +left to boast of what he might have done. As he had but eight rounds +of ammunition a man for troops who had but just now failed him so +lamentably, we can scarcely suppose that Arnold was in much danger. + +Washington, meanwhile, had persuaded the French Admiral, at Newport, +to send his whole fleet to act against Portsmouth; and by land he sent +Lafayette, with twelve hundred light infantry, to take command in +Virginia. Lafayette left Peekskill, feigned an attack upon Staten +Island in passing, marched rapidly by Philadelphia to the head of the +Chesapeake,--they all call it the "head of Elk,"--crowded his men on +such boats as he found there, and, like General Butler after him, went +down to Annapolis. At Annapolis, with some of his officers, he took +a little vessel, in which he ran down to Williamsburg to confer with +Steuben. He then crossed the James River, and reached the camp of +Muhlenberg near Suffolk on the 19th of March. The reader has only to +imagine General Burnside shutting up Norfolk on the south and west just +now, to conceive of Lafayette's position, as he supposed it to be, when, +on the 20th, he was told that the French fleet had arrived within the +Capes. But, alas! on the 23d, it proved that this was not the French +fleet, but the English, which had so far injured the French fleet in an +action that they had returned to Newport; so that it was Arbuthnot, and +not Destouches, whose fleet had arrived at Hampton Roads. Under their +protection the English General Phillips relieved Arnold with two +thousand more men; and it is at this moment that the active campaign of +1781 may be said to begin. + +General Phillips immediately took command of the English army, for which +he had sufficient force of light transports, and proceeded up James +River. He landed first at Burrel's Ferry, opposite Williamsburg, into +which city, till lately the capital of the State, he marched unmolested. +His different marauding parties had entire success in their operations; +and it is to be observed that his command of the navigation was an +essential element of that success. "There is no fighting here," wrote +Lafayette, "unless you have a naval superiority, or an army mounted on +race-horses." Under almost all circumstances a corps embarked on boats +could be pushed along these rivers faster than an enemy marching on the +land. This remark, constantly verified then, will be much more important +in the campaign now pending, in which these streams will, of course, +be navigated by steam. It must be remembered, also, that the State of +Virginia was at this time the storehouse from which General Greene's +army in Carolina was supplied. To destroy the stores collected here, +and thus directly to break down the American army in the South, was Sir +Henry Clinton's object in sending out General Phillips. To protect these +stores and the lines of communication with the Southern army was the +object of the American generals. Had these designs been left unchanged, +however, I should not now be writing this history. Indeed, the whole +history of the United States would have had another beginning, and the +valley of the James River would have had as little critical interest, +in the close of the American Revolution, as have the valleys of the +Connecticut and the Penobscot. The important change came, when Lord +Cornwallis, at Wilmington, North Carolina, took the responsibility of +the dashing, but fatal plan by which he crossed North Carolina with his +own army, joined Phillips's army in Virginia, and with this large force, +with no considerable enemy opposed, was in a position to go anywhere or +to do anything unmolested. Cornwallis was an admirable officer, quite +the ablest the English employed in America. He was young, spirited, and +successful,--and, which was of much more importance in England, he had +plenty of friends at Court. He conceived the great insubordination, +therefore, of this great movement, which must compromise Sir Henry +Clinton's plans, although Sir Henry was his commander. He wrote to +the Secretary for the Colonies in London, and to General Phillips in +Virginia, that he was satisfied that a "serious attempt" on that State, +or "solid operations in Virginia," made the proper plan. So he abandoned +Carolina, to which he had been sent, to General Greene; and with the +idea that Sir Henry Clinton, his superior in command, ought to quit New +York and establish himself in Virginia, without waiting that officer's +views, he marched thither himself in such wise as to compel him to come. +In that movement the great game was really lost. And it is to that act +of insubordination, that, until this eventful April, 1862, the valley of +James River has owed its historical interest. + +He wrote from North Carolina, directing General Phillips to join him in +Petersburg, Virginia; and thither Phillips called in his different corps +who were "stealing tobacco," and there he himself arrived, in a dying +condition, on the 9th of May. "I procured a post-chaise to convey him," +says Arnold, his second in command. The town is familiar to travellers, +as being the end of the first railroad-link south of Richmond. They +still show the old house in which poor Phillips lay sick, while +Lafayette, from the other side of the river, cannonaded the town with +his light field-pieces. One of his balls entered the house, killed an +old negro-woman who was reviling the American troops, and passed through +the room where Phillips lay. "Will they not let me die in peace?" he +asked. Arnold was also in danger, one of the balls passing near him; +and, by his orders, Phillips and all the household were removed into the +cellar. General Phillips was afterwards taken to another house, where he +died on the 13th. It is in his memoranda of this affair at Petersburg +that Lafayette records the fact that his father died at Minden from one +of the shots of Phillips's batteries. + +We left Lafayette at Williamsburg, which, my readers will remember, is +on the neck of land of which Fort Monroe forms the southeast corner: it +is about twenty-six miles northwest of that post, and ten miles west +of Yorktown. If they do not remember this, they had better learn it +now,--for, on this second of April, the appearances are that they will +need to know it before long. If any one of them does not care to look at +a map, he may take my figure which called Chesapeake Bay the palm of the +hand,--to which the James, York, Rappahannock, and Potomac Rivers are +the four fingers. Lay down on the page your right hand, upon its back, +with the fingers slightly apart. The thumb is a meridian which points +north. The forefinger is the Potomac as far as Washington. The middle +finger is the Rappahannock,--with Fredericksburg about the first joint. +The ring-finger is York River, with Williamsburg and Yorktown just above +and below the knuckle line. The little finger is the James River, as far +as Richmond. Fort Monroe is at the parting of the last two fingers. We +left Lafayette at Williamsburg, disappointed at the failure to entrap +Arnold. He returned at once to Annapolis by water, and transported his +troops back to the head of Chesapeake Bay,--expecting to return to New +York, now that his mission had failed. But Washington had learned, +meanwhile, that General Phillips had been sent from New York to +reinforce Arnold,--and so Lafayette met orders at the head of the +Chesapeake to return, take command in Virginia, and foil the English as +he might. Wayne, in Pennsylvania, was to join him with eight hundred of +the mutinous Pennsylvania line. Were they the grandfathers of the men +who deserted before Bull's Run? They retrieved themselves at James +Island afterwards,--as the Bull's Run Pennsylvanians did at Newbern the +other day. "How Lafayette or Wayne can march without money or credit," +wrote Washington to Laurens, "is more than I can tell," But he did his +part, which was to command,--and they did theirs, which was to obey. + +Lafayette did his part thus. His troops, twelve hundred light infantry, +the best soldiers in the world, he said at the end of the summer, had +left Peekskill for a short expedition only. They had no supplies for a +summer campaign, and seemed likely to desert him. Lafayette issued a +spirited order of the day, in which he took the tone of Henry V. before +the Battle of Agincourt, and offered a pass back to the North River to +any man who did not dare share with him the perils of the summer against +a superior force. He also hanged one deserter whom he caught after this +order, and pardoned another who was less to blame. By such varied means +he so far "encouraged the rest" that he wholly stopped desertion. He +crossed the Susquehanna on the 13th of April, was in Baltimore on the +18th, and it was here that the ladies gave him the ball where he said, +"My soldiers have no shirts." He borrowed two thousand guineas on his +own personal security, promising to pay at the end of two years, when +the French law would make him master of his estates. He bought +material with the money, made the Baltimore belles, who were not then +Secessionists, make the shirts, and started on his forced march again, +with his troops clothed and partly shod, on the 20th. He passed the +hills where Washington stands, unconscious of the city that was to be +there, and of the Long Bridge which shakes under McClellan's columns. +He halted to buy shoes in Alexandria, which he reached in two days. He +pressed on to Fredericksburg, and was at Richmond on the 29th. So that a +light column can march in nine days from Baltimore to Richmond, though +there be no railroad in working order. + +This was the first march "Forward to Richmond" in history. For the +moment, it saved the city and its magazines from General Phillips, who +had reached Manchester, on the opposite side of James River. Phillips +retired down the river, hoping to decoy Lafayette after him, on that +neck of land, now, as then, a point so critical, between the James and +York Rivers,--and then to return by his vessels on the first change of +wind, get in Lafayette's rear, and shut him up there. But it was another +general who was to be shut up on that neck. Phillips was called south to +Petersburg, where, as we have seen, he died. "Will they not let me die +in peace?" + +Cornwallis arrived at Petersburg with his Southern troops, including +Tarleton's horse, on the 20th of May. He then had nearly six thousand +men under his orders. Lafayette had about thirty-two hundred, of whom +only a few were cavalry, a volunteer body of Baltimore young gentlemen +being the most of them. The Virginia gentry had hesitated about giving +up their fine blood-horses to mount cavalry on. But Tarleton had +no hesitation in stealing them for his troopers, nor Simcoe, his +fellow-partisan, for his,--so that Cornwallis had the invaluable aid of +two bodies of cavalry thus admirably mounted, against an enemy almost +destitute. Both armies marched without tents, with the very lightest +baggage. It purely a light-infantry campaign, excepting the dashing +raids of Tarleton and Simcoe. + +Lafayette felt his inferiority of force,--and as soon as Cornwallis +joined, crossed back over James River at Osborn's (say the bottom of +the little-finger nail on our extempore map). Cornwallis crossed at +Westover, also marked now on the maps as Ruffin's, some twenty miles +lower down the river. Lafayette felt the necessity of meeting Wayne, who +was supposed to be coming from Pennsylvania; he therefore retraced +his march of a few weeks before, followed by Cornwallis with his +infantry;--the cavalry had been on more distant service. Cornwallis +would have crushed Lafayette, if he had overtaken him; but Lafayette +knew this as well as we do,--marched nearly up to Fredericksburg +again,--protected it till its stores were removed,--and then, after +five days' march more, westward, met Wayne with his eight hundred +Pennsylvanians at Raccoon Ford (head of the middle finger on the +hand-map). The reader has, in just such way, marched a knight across the +chess-board to escort back a necessary pawn, to make desperate fight +against some Cornwallis of a castle. Cornwallis passed through Hanover +Court-House to Chesterfield Court-House, "stealing tobacco," in the +whole to the amount of two thousand hogsheads,--then, satisfying himself +that he could not prevent the junction of the knight and pawn, and that +Hunter's iron-works, at Fredericksburg, which he had threatened, were +not of so much import as the stores in the western part of the country, +he turned south and west again, and awaited Lafayette's movements, +threatening Albemarle County, just west of where we are beginning to get +acquainted with Gordonsville,--a place then uncreated. Cornwallis was +all along unwilling to engage in extensive operations till he should +hear from Sir Henry Clinton, whom he knew he had insulted and offended. +His detachments of horse had been sent, meanwhile, up the line of James +River above Richmond. Tarleton penetrated as far as Charlottesville, +marching seventy miles in twenty-four hours, hoping to take the +Legislature by surprise. The story is, that he would have succeeded, but +for his eagerness to get his breakfast on the last day. He had waited +long for it,--and finally asked, in some heat, where it was. Dr. Walker, +whose guest he had made himself, replied, that Tarleton's soldiers had +already taken two of the breakfasts which had been prepared for him that +morning, and suggested a guard for the security of the third. + +While the third breakfast was being cooked, the legislators escaped. +Jefferson was among them. Tarleton took seven, however, who told him +that the country was tired of the war,--and that, if no treaty for a +loan were made with France that summer, Congress would negotiate with +England before winter. They were eighty-one years in advance of their +time! Tarleton returned down the Rivanna River to its junction with the +James, where he assisted Simcoe in driving out Baron Steuben, who with a +few militia was trying to protect some arms there. Poor Steuben had but +few to protect, nothing to protect them with, and lost them all. At this +point the cavalry rejoined the main army under Cornwallis. + +In all these movements of both parties, the character of the "laboring +people," of which, as I have said, President Tyler spoke to me, was +illustrated. These people swarmed to Cornwallis with information, with +horses and supplies. They did not swell the ranks of the Virginia +militia. "He took away thirty thousand of our slaves," says Mr. +Jefferson. "Many of your negroes joined the enemy," says Lafayette +to Washington; "the news did not trouble me much, for that sort of +interests touch me very little." This is in the letter where he tells +the General how his agent, Lund Washington, had been disgracefully +treating with the invaders. This disposition of the "laboring people," +away from the high-roads, indeed, as Mr. Tyler said, explains the +difference between Southern and Northern Revolutionary campaigns. The +English forces never marched a day's march inland in the Northern +States, excepting the three marches of two days or three, when they +came to Bennington, to Saratoga, and to Trenton,--three memorable +stopping-places. But in a country where the "laboring people" did not +bear arms, they went to and fro, for months, as they chose. The Southern +militia was small in numbers, and not trustworthy. The troops whom +Lafayette relied upon, "the best troops in the world, far superior, in +equal numbers, to the English," were his two thousand Northern men of +the Continental line. Lord Cornwallis reunited all his forces at Elk +Island, about forty miles above Richmond on James River. His own +head-quarters were at "Jefferson's Plantation." He proposed another +blow, on the stores collected in Old Albemarle Court-House, behind the +mountains; and on the 9th of June he ordered Tarleton to march thither +at daybreak, but recalled the order. He seems to have preferred waiting +till he could attack "the Marquis," as they all called Lafayette, to +advantage, to risking any considerable division in the mountains. And +as he lay, the road by which he supposed Lafayette must come down from +Raccoon Ford to protect Albemarle would expose him to a flank attack +as he passed the head of Byrd's River. It was at this time, that, in a +despatch which was intercepted, he wrote, "The boy cannot escape +me." Lafayette tells the story with great gusto. "The boy" found a +mountain-road which crossed farther west than that which he was expected +to march upon. It had been long disused, but he pressed through it,--and +at Burwell's Ordinary, in a neighborhood where our troops will find +villages with the promising names of Union Town and Everettsville, he +formed, on the 12th and 13th, in a strong position between Cornwallis +and the coveted magazines. Cornwallis affected to suppose that the +stores had been withdrawn; but, as he had given up Fredericksburg +that he might destroy these very stores, Lafayette had good reason to +congratulate himself that he had foiled him in the two special objects +of the campaign, and had reduced him to the business which he did not +like, of "stealing tobacco." For whatever reason, Cornwallis did not +press his enterprise. With a force so formidable and a leader so +enterprising before him, he did not care to entangle himself in the +passes of the Blue Ridge. We shall know from General Banks's column, by +the time this paper is printed, what are the facilities they afford for +cover to an enemy. Leaving the Albemarle stores, therefore, and the road +to Greene behind the mountains, he retraced his steps down the valley +of the James River, and, passing Richmond, descended as low as +Williamsburg, the point from which we have been tracing Lafayette's +movements. + +Lafayette followed him with delight, not to say amazement. "The enemy is +so obliging as to withdraw before us," he writes,--and probably, to the +end of his life, he did not fully understand why Lord Cornwallis did so. +Their forces were numerically about equal, each commanding now rather +more than five thousand men. But of Lafayette's only fifty were cavalry, +a very important arm in that campaign, while Cornwallis had now eight +hundred men mounted on the blood horses of Virginia. It was not true, as +Lafayette thought possible, that the English exaggerated his force. It +appears from Tarleton's memoirs that they estimated it very precisely. +But we now know from Cornwallis's letters, that he had promised Clinton +to be at Williamsburg on the 26th of June, ready for any operations +he might then and there propose. He hoped that Clinton would largely +reinforce him, so that his favorite scheme of "solid operations in +Virginia" might be carried on. At all events, he had promised to have +his army at Williamsburg to join any force which Clinton might send to +him. To make this imagined junction, which never took place, he began +his retreat. Lafayette again offered him battle; but Cornwallis did +not accept the opportunity, and on the 25th of June he arrived at +Williamsburg. Lafayette was always one day's march behind him, and +encamped at last at Tyre's Plantation, one day beyond Williamsburg, +which may become famous again in a few days. Colonel Butler, of +Pennsylvania, with his riflemen, attacked Colonel Simcoe, of the English +corps of refugees, at the Fords of the Chickahominy, about six miles +west of Williamsburg. We shall be hearing of these fords again. + +At Williamsburg poor Cornwallis met his fate. He had, perhaps, been +dreading the arrival of his despatches from Clinton, through all the +month he had been in Virginia. At last they came. Clinton was sorry he +was there, expressed his regret that Cornwallis did not favor his plan +for marching on Philadelphia, gave him _carte blanche_ for Baltimore or +Delaware,--but, instead of reinforcing him, asked for two thousand men, +if he could spare them. The letter is, on the whole, a manly letter, +from a superior to an inferior, who had social rank higher than himself, +and more of the confidence of their Government. It gives Cornwallis +great latitude; but it does not "abandon New York and bring our whole +force into Virginia," which was Cornwallis's pet plan. + +His Lordship behaved ill,--and, in a pet, threw away the British empire +in America. He sulked, to speak simply. He took the sullen policy +of literal obedience to orders, though he knew he should "break his +owners." He marched at once, crossed James River at Jamestown, where +Lafayette attacked his rear,--and, if his Lordship had been in +fighting humor, would have got well beaten for his pains,--withdrew to +Portsmouth, and put on vessels the two thousand men asked for by Sir +Henry. Just then new despatches came from Clinton, who had received +later news, and who was always trying to humor this spoiled child. He +told him to keep all his men in Virginia, where he would take command +himself as soon as the hot season was over. The "solid operations" were +to begin. Very unstable they proved, even in the beginning! + +Clinton ordered him to take post at Old Point Comfort,--where Fort +Monroe is. But the engineer officers reported that they could not +protect the fleet there against the French; and, to the delight of +Lafayette and of all good angels, Cornwallis selected Yorktown for his +summer position. Our neighborhood to it at Fort Monroe has made the +position again familiar. + +When Lafayette heard that the troops had sailed up the +Chesapeake,--instead of to New York, which he had very correctly +supposed to be their destination,--he thought Cornwallis was going to +strike at Baltimore, and that he must "cut across" to Fredericksburg. +That way he marched with his light infantry. His amazement hardly +concealed itself when he found the enemy stopped at Yorktown. Back he +came to Williamsburg, and wrote to Washington,--"If a fleet should +arrive at this moment, our affairs will take a very fortunate turn." +This was on the 6th of August. On the 1st of September he could +write,--"From the bottom of my heart, my dear General, I felicitate you +on the arrival of the French fleet.... Thanks to you, my dear General, +I am in a charming situation, and I find myself at the head of a superb +corps." The Marquis of St. Simon joined him with three thousand French +infantry from the fleet,--and at Williamsburg they effectually kept +Cornwallis from escape by land, as the French fleet did by sea. + +The only proposal which Cornwallis made to save his corps after this was +carefully considered, and, it is said, at one time determined on; but it +was finally rejected, in expectation of relief from Clinton. Just now +that we are beginning "solid operations in Virginia," and may have +occasion to move a hundred thousand men, more or less, up the long neck +of land between York and James Rivers, the passage is an interesting +one. Washington had not yet arrived. The English plan was to attack and +beat Lafayette and St. Simon before Washington joined them. The English +columns were to move from Yorktown so as to attack Williamsburg before +daybreak. "That time was deemed eligible," says Tarleton, "because the +ground near and in Williamsburg is cut by several ravines, and because +the British column, in advancing in the long and straight road through +the town, would not be so much exposed to the enemy's cannon under cover +of the night as during the day." Let the reader remember these defiles, +as he traces the march of another column from Fort Monroe through +Yorktown to Williamsburg, with some General Magruder falling back +before it, watching his chances to strike. Cornwallis gave up the plan, +however, and waited for the help from Clinton, which never came. On the +15th of September Washington and Rochambeau joined Lafayette; on the +18th of October Cornwallis capitulated, and for eighty years the +Virginian campaigns were over. + +There is not one subdivision of them but is touched by the movements of +to-day. Everything is changed, indeed, except Virginia. But Raccoon Ford +and Bottom's Bridge are where they were then. The division which marches +on Gordonsville may send a party down the "Marquis's Road," as the +people still call the wood-road which Lafayette opened; and all the +battles of the next month,[A] in short, will be fought on the ground +familiar to the soldiers of eighty years ago. + + +[Footnote A: By "the next month" the writer meant May. It will be +observed that his article was finally prepared for the press on the +second of April. It has not since been changed. The references to +Williamsburg, the Chickahominy, and the "neck between the rivers" are +not "prophecies after the fact."] + + + + +SUNTHIN' IN THE PASTORAL LINE. + + +_To the Editors of the_ ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +Jaalam, 17th May, 1862. + +Gentlemen,--At the special request of Mr. Biglow, I intended to inclose, +together with his own contribution, (into which, at my suggestion, +he has thrown a little more of pastoral sentiment than usual,) some +passages from my sermon on the day of the National Fast, from the text, +"Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them," _Heb_. xiii. 3. +But I have not leisure sufficient at present for the copying of them, +even were I altogether satisfied with the production as it stands. I +should prefer, I confess, to contribute the entire discourse to the +pages of your respectable miscellany, if it should be found acceptable +upon perusal, especially as I find the difficulty of selection of +greater magnitude than I had anticipated. What passes without challenge +in the fervour of oral delivery cannot always stand the colder criticism +of the closet. I am not so great an enemy of Eloquence as my friend Mr. +Biglow would appear to be from some passages in his contribution for +the current month. I would not, indeed, hastily suspect him of covertly +glancing at myself in his somewhat caustick animadversions, albeit some +of the phrases he girds at are not entire strangers to my lips. I am a +more hearty admirer of the Puritans than seems now to be the fashion, +and believe, that, if they Hebraized a little too much in their speech, +they showed remarkable practical sagacity as statesmen and founders. But +such phenomena as Puritanism are the results rather of great religious +than merely social convulsions, and do not long survive them. So soon as +an earnest conviction has cooled into a phrase, its work is over, and +the best that can be done with it is to bury it. _Ite, missa est_. I +am inclined to agree with Mr. Biglow that we cannot settle the great +political questions which are now presenting themselves to the nation by +the opinions of Jeremiah or Ezekiel as to the wants and duties of the +Jews in their time, nor do I believe that an entire community with their +feelings and views would be practicable or even agreeable at the present +day. At the same time I could wish that their habit of subordinating +the actual to the moral, the flesh to the spirit, and this world to the +other were more common. They had found out, at least, the great military +secret that soul weighs more than body.--But I am suddenly called to a +sick-bed in the household of a valued parishioner. + +With esteem and respect. Your ob't serv't HOMER WILBUR. + + Once git a smell o' musk into a draw + An' it clings hold like precerdents in law: + Your gran'ma'am put it there,--when, goodness knows,-- + To jes' this-worldify her Sunday-clo'es; + But the old chist wun't sarve her gran'son's wife, + (For, 'thout new funnitoor, wut good in life?) + An' so ole clawfoot, from the precinks dread + O' the spare-chamber, slinks into the shed, + Where, dim with dust, it fust or last subsides + To holdin' seeds an' fifty things besides; + But better days stick fast in heart an' husk, + An' all you keep in't gits a scent o' musk. + + Jes' so with poets: wut they've airly read + Gits kind o' worked into their heart an' head, + So's 't they can't seem to write but jest on sheers + With furrin countries or played-out ideers, + Nor hev a feelin', ef it doosn't smack + O' wut some critter chose to feel 'way back: + This makes 'em talk o' daisies, larks, an' things, + Ez though we 'd nothin' here that blows an' sings,-- + + (Why, I'd give more for one live bobolink + Than a square mile o' larks in printer's ink,)-- + This makes 'em think our fust o' May is May, + Which 't ain't, for all the almanicks can say. + + O little city-gals, don't never go it + Blind on the word o' noospaper or poet! + They 're apt to puff, an' May-day seldom looks + Up in the country ez it doos in books; + They 're no more like than hornets'-nests an' hives, + Or printed sarmons be to holy lives. + I, with my trouses perched on cow-hide boots, + Tuggin' my foundered feet out by the roots, + Hev seen ye come to fling on April's hearse + Your muslin nosegays from the milliner's, + Puzzlin' to find dry ground your queen to choose, + An' dance your throats sore in morocker shoes: + I've seen ye an' felt proud, thet, come wut would, + Our Pilgrim stock wuz pithed with hardihood. + Pleasure doos make us Yankees kind o' winch, + Ez though 't wuz sunthin' paid for by the inch; + But yit we du contrive to worry thru, + Ef Dooty tells us thet the thing's to du, + An' kerry a hollerday, ef we set out, + Ez stiddily ez though 't wuz a redoubt. + + I, country-born an' bred, know where to find + Some blooms thet make the season suit the mind, + An' seem to metch the doubtin' bluebird's notes,-- + Half-vent'rin' liverworts in furry coats, + Bloodroots, whose rolled-up leaves ef you oncurl, + Each on 'em's cradle to a baby-pearl,-- + But these are jes' Spring's pickets; sure ez sin, + The rebble frosts 'll try to drive 'em in; + For half our May's so awfully like Mayn't, + 'T would rile a Shaker or an evrige saint; + Though I own up I like our back'ard springs + Thet kind o' haggle with their greens an' things, + An' when you 'most give up, without more words + Toss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, an' birds: + Thet's Northun natur', slow an' apt to doubt, + But when it _doos_ git stirred, ther's no gin-out! + + Fust come the blackbirds clatt'rin' in tall trees, + An' settlin' things in windy Congresses,-- + Queer politicians, though, for I'll be skinned, + Ef all on 'em don't head aginst the wind. + 'Fore long the trees begin to show belief,-- + The maple crimsons to a coral-reef, + Then saffern swarms swing off from all the willers + So plump they look like yaller caterpillars, + Then gray hossches'nuts leetle hands unfold + + Softer 'n a baby's be at three days old: + This is the robin's almanick; he knows + Thet arter this ther' 's only blossom-snows; + So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse, + He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house. + + Then seems to come a hitch,--things lag behind, + Till some fine mornin' Spring makes up her mind, + An' ez, when snow-swelled rivers cresh their dams + Heaped-up with ice thet dovetails in an' jams, + A leak comes spirtin' thru some pin-hole cleft, + Grows stronger, fercer, tears out right an' left, + Then all the waters bow themselves an' come, + Suddin, in one gret slope o' shedderin' foam, + Jes' so our Spring gits everythin' in tune + An' gives one leap from April into June: + Then all comes crowdin' in; afore you think, + The oak-buds mist the side-hill woods with pink, + The catbird in the laylock-bush is loud, + The orchards turn to heaps o' rosy cloud, + In ellum-shrouds the flashin' hangbird clings + An' for the summer vy'ge his hammock slings, + All down the loose-walled lanes in archin' bowers + The barb'ry droops its strings o' golden flowers, + Whose shrinkin' hearts the school-gals love to try + With pins,--they 'll worry yourn so, boys, bimeby! + But I don't love your cat'logue style,--do you?-- + Ez ef to sell all Natur' by vendoo; + One word with blood in 't's twice ez good ez two: + 'Nuff sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the year, + Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here; + Half-hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings, + Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings, + Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair, + Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air. + + I ollus feel the sap start in my veins + In spring, with curus heats an' prickly pains, + Thet drive me, when I git a chance, to walk + Off by myself to hev a privit talk + With a queer critter thet can't seem to 'gree + Along o' me like most folks,--Mister Me. + Ther' 's times when I'm unsoshle ez a stone, + An' sort o' suffocate to be alone,-- + I'm crowded jes' to think thet folks are nigh, + An' can't bear nothin' closer than the sky; + Now the wind's full ez shifty in the mind + Ez wut it is ou'-doors, ef I ain't blind, + An' sometimes, in the fairest sou'west weather, + My innard vane pints east for weeks together, + My natur' gits all goose-flesh, an' my sins + Come drizzlin' on my conscience sharp ez pins: + + Wal, et sech times I jes' slip out o' sight + An' take it out in a fair stan'-up fight + With the one cuss I can't lay on the shelf, + The crook'dest stick in all the heap,--Myself. + + 'T wuz so las' Sabbath arter meetin'-time: + Findin' my feelins wouldn't noways rhyme + With nobody's, but off the hendle flew + An' took things from an east-wind pint o' view, + I started off to lose me in the hills + Where the pines be, up back o' 'Siah's Mills: + Pines, ef you're blue, are the best friends I know, + They mope an' sigh an' sheer your feelins so,-- + They hesh the ground beneath so, tu, I swan, + You half-forgit you 'we gut a body on. + + Ther's a small school'us' there where four roads meet, + The door-steps hollered out by little feet, + An' side-posts carved with names whose owners grew + To gret men, some on 'em, an' deacons, tu; + 'T ain't used no longer, coz the town hez gut + A high-school, where they teach the Lord knows wut: + Three-story larnin' 's pop'lar now; I guess + We thriv' ez wal on jes' two stories less, + For it strikes me ther' 's sech a thing ez sinnin' + By overloadin' children's underpitmin': + Wal, here it wuz I larned my A B C, + An' it's a kind o' favorite spot with me. + + We 're curus critters: Now ain't jes' the minute + Thet ever fits us easy while we 're in it; + Long ez 't wuz futur', 't would be perfect bliss,-- + Soon ez it's past, _thet_ time's wuth ten o' this; + An' yit there ain't a man thet need be told + Thet Now's the only bird lays eggs o' gold. + A knee-high lad, I used to plot an' plan + An' think 't wuz life's cap-sheaf to be a man; + Now, gittin' gray, there's nothin' I enjoy + Like dreamin' back along into a boy: + So the ole school'us' is a place I choose + Afore all others, ef I want to muse; + I set down where I used to set, an' git + My boyhood back, an' better things with it,-- + Faith, Hope, an' sunthin', ef it isn't Cherrity, + It's want o' guile, an' thet's ez gret a rerrity. + + Now, 'fore I knowed, thet Sabbath arternoon + Thet I sot out to tramp myself in tune, + I found me in the school'us' on my seat, + Drummin' the march to No-wheres with my feet. + Thinkin' o' nothin', I've heerd ole folks say, + Is a hard kind o' dooty in its way: + It's thinkin' everythin' you ever knew, + Or ever hearn, to make your feelins blue. + I sot there tryin' thet on for a spell: + I thought o' the Rebellion, then o' Hell, + Which some folks tell ye now is jest a metterfor + (A the'ry, p'raps, it wun't _feel_ none the better for); + I thought o' Reconstruction, wut we 'd win + Patchin' our patent self-blow-up agin; + I thought ef tins 'ere milkin' o' the wits, + So much, a month, warn't givin' Natur' fits,-- + Ef folks warn't druv, findin' their own milk fail, + To work the cow thet hez an iron tail, + An' ef idees 'thout ripenin' in the pan + Would send up cream to humor ary man: + From this to thet I let my worryin' creep, + Till finally I must ha' fell asleep. + + Our lives in sleep are some like streams thet glide + 'Twixt flesh an' sperrit boundin' on each side, + Where both shores' shadders kind o' mix an' mingle + In sunthin' thet ain't jes' like either single; + An' when you cast off' moorins from To-day, + An' down towards To-morrer drift away, + The imiges thet tengle on the stream + Make a new upside-down'ard world o' dream: + Sometimes they seem like sunrise-streaks an' warnins + O' wut 'll be in Heaven on Sabbath-mornins, + An', mixed right in ez ef jest out o' spite, + Sunthin' thet says your supper ain't gone right. + I'm gret on dreams, an' often, when I wake, + I've lived so much it makes my mem'ry ache, + An' can't skurce take a cat-nap in my cheer + 'Thout hevin' 'em, some good, some bad, all queer. + + Now I wuz settin' where I 'd ben, it seemed, + An' ain't sure yit whether I r'ally dreamed, + Nor, ef I did, how long I might ha' slep', + When I hearn some un stompin' up the step, + An' lookin' round, ef two an' two make four, + I see a Pilgrim Father in the door. + He wore a steeple-hat, tall boots, an' spurs + With rowels to 'em big ez ches'nut-burrs, + An' his gret sword behind him sloped away + Long 'z a man's speech thet dunno wut to say.-- + "Ef your name's Biglow, an' your given-name + Hosee," sez he, "it's arter you I came; + I'm your gret-gran'ther multiplied by three."-- + "My _wut_?" sez I.--"Your gret-gret-gret," sez he: + "You wouldn't ha' never ben here but for me. + Two hunderd an' three year ago this May + The ship I come in sailed up Boston Bay; + I 'd ben a cunnle in our Civil War,-- + But wut on airth hev _you_ gut up one for? + I'm told you write in public prints: ef true, + It's nateral you should know a thing or two."-- + "Thet air's an argymunt I can't endorse,-- + 'T would prove, coz you wear spurs, you kep' a horse: + For brains," sez I, "wutever you may think, + Ain't boun' to cash the draft o' pen-an'-ink,-- + Though mos' folks write ez ef they hoped jes' quickenin' + The churn would argoo skim-milk into thickenin'; + But skim-milk ain't a thing to change its view + O' usefleness, no more 'n a smoky flue. + But du pray tell me, 'fore we furder go, + How in all Natur' did you come to know + 'Bout our affairs," sez I, "in Kingdom-Come?"-- + "Wal, I worked round at sperrit-rappin' some, + In hopes o' larnin' wut wuz goin' on," + Sez he, "but mejums lie so like all-split + Thet I concluded it wuz best to quit. + But, come now, ef you wun't confess to knowin', + You 've some conjecturs how the thing's a-goin'."-- + "Gran'ther," sez I, "a vane warn't never known + Nor asked to hev a jedgment of its own; + An' yit, ef 't ain't gut rusty in the jints, + It 'a safe to trust its say on certin pints: + It knows the wind's opinions to a T, + An' the wind settles wut the weather 'll be-"-- + "I never thought a scion of our stock + Could grow the wood to make a weathercock; + When I wuz younger 'n you, skurce more 'n a shaver, + No airthly wind," sez he, "could make me waver!" + (Ez he said this, he clinched his jaw an' forehead, + Hitchin' his belt to bring his sword-hilt forrard.)-- + "Jes' so it wuz with me," sez I, "I swow, + When _I_ wuz younger 'n wut you see me now,-- + Nothin', from Adam's fall to Huldy's bonnet, + Thet I warn't full-cocked with my jedgement on it; + But now I'm gittin' on in life, I find + It's a sight harder to make up my mind,-- + Nor I don't often try tu, when events + Will du it for me free of all expense. + The moral question's ollus plain enough,-- + It's jes' the human-natur' side thet's tough; + Wut's best to think mayn't puzzle me nor you,--. + The pinch comes in decidin' wut to _du_; + Ef you _read_ History, all runs smooth ez grease, + Coz there the men ain't nothin more 'n idees,-- + But come to _make_ it, ez we must to-day, + Th' idees hev arms an' legs an' stop the way: + It's easy fixin' things in facts an' figgers,-- + They can't resist, nor warn't brought up with niggers; + But come to try your the'ry on,--why, then + Your facts an' figgers change to ign'ant men + Actin' ez ugly"----"Smite 'em hip an' thigh!" + Sez gran'ther, "an' let every man-child die! + Oh for three weeks o' Crommle an' the Lord! + O Israel, to your tents an' grind the sword!"-- + "Thet kind o' thing worked wal in ole Judee, + But yon forgit how long It's ben A.D.; + You think thet's ellerkence,--I call it shoddy, + A thing," sez I, "wun't cover sonl nor body; + I like the plain all-wool o' common-sense, + Thet warms ye now, an' will a twelvemonth hence. + _You_ took to follerin' where the Prophets beckoned, + An', fust you knowed on, back come Charles the Second; + Now wut I want's to hev all _we_ gain stick, + An' not to start Millennium too quick; + We hain't to punish only, but to keep, + An' the cure's gut to go a cent'ry deep."-- + "Wal, milk-an'-water ain't a good cement," + Sez he, "an' so you 'll find it in th' event; + Ef reshness venters sunthin', shilly-shally + Loses ez often wut's ten times the vally. + Thet exe of ourn, when Charles's neck gut split, + Opened a gap thet ain't bridged over yit: + Slav'ry's your Charles, the Lord hez gin the exe,"-- + "Our Charles," sez I, "hez gut eight million necks. + The hardest question ain't the black man's right,-- + The trouble is to'mancipate the white; + One's chained in body an' can be sot free,-- + The other's chained in soul to an idee: + It's a long job, but we shall worry thru it; + Ef bag'nets fail, the spellin'-book must do it."-- + "Hosee," sez he, "I think you 're goin' to fail: + The rettlesnake ain't dangerous in the tail; + This 'ere rebellion's nothin' but the rettle,-- + You 'll stomp on thet an' think you 've won the bettle; + It's Slavery thet's the fangs an' thinkin' head, + An' ef you want selvation, cresh it dead,-- + An' crash it suddin, or you 'll larn by waitin' + Thet Chance wun't stop to listen to debatin'!"-- + "God's truth!" sez I,--"an' ef _I_ held the club, + An' knowed jes' where to strike,--but there's the rub!"-- + "Strike soon," sez he, "or you 'll be deadly ailin',-- + Folks thet's afeared to fail are sure o' failin'; + God hates your sneakin' creturs thet believe + He 'II settle things they run away an' leave!" + He brought his foot down fercely, ez he spoke, + An' give me sech a startle thet I woke. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, +June, 1862, by Various + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12310 *** 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..66666a3 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #12310 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12310) diff --git a/old/12310-8.txt b/old/12310-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2074c5c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12310-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9403 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: May 10, 2004 [EBook #12310] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NO. 56 *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders. Produced from page scans provided by Cornell University. + + + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + + * * * * * + +VOL. IX.--JUNE, 1862.--NO. LVI. + + * * * * * + + + + +WALKING. + + +I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as +contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,--to regard man as +an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member +of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an +emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the +minister, and the school-committee, and every one of you will take care +of that. + + +I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who +understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,--who had a +genius, so to speak, for _sauntering_: which word is beautifully derived +"from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and +asked charity, under pretence of going _à la Sainte Terre_," to the Holy +Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a _Sainte-Terrer_" a +Saunterer,--a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their +walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they +who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, +however, would derive the word from _sans terre_, without land or +a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no +particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret +of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may +be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, +is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while +sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the +first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is +a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth +and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels. + +It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, +nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our +expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old +hearth-side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our +steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit +of undying adventure, never to return,--prepared to send back our +embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are +ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and +child and friends, and never see them again,--if you have paid your +debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free +man, then you are ready for a walk. + +To come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for I sometimes +have a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselves knights of a new, +or rather an old, order,--not Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Ritters or +Riders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable class, I trust. +The chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the Rider seems +now to reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the Walker,--not +the Knight, but Walker Errant. He is a sort of fourth estate, outside of +Church and State and People. + +We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts practised this noble art; +though, to tell the truth, at least, if their own assertions are to be +received, most of my townsmen would fain walk sometimes, as I do, but +they cannot. No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and +independence, which are the capital in this profession. It comes only +by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven +to become a walker. You must be born into the family of the Walkers. +_Ambulator nascitur, non fit_. Some of my townsmen, it is true, can +remember and have described to me some walks which they took ten years +ago, in which they were so blessed as to lose themselves for half +an hour in the woods; but I know very well that they have confined +themselves to the highway ever since, whatever pretensions they may make +to belong to this select class. No doubt they were elevated for a moment +as by the reminiscence of a previous state of existence, when even they +were foresters and outlaws. + + "When he came to grene wode, + In a mery mornynge, + There he herde the notes small + Of byrdes mery syngynge. + + "It is ferre gone, sayd Robyn, + That I was last here; + Me lyste a lytell for to shote + At the donne dere." + +I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend +four hours a day at least--and it is commonly more than that--sauntering +through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from +all worldly engagements. You may safely say, A penny for your thoughts, +or a thousand pounds. When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics +and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all +the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them,--as if +the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon,--I think +that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long +ago. + +I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring some +rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk at the eleventh +hour of four o'clock in the afternoon, too late to redeem the day, +when the shades of night were already beginning to be mingled with the +daylight, have felt as if I had committed some sin to be atoned for,--I +confess that I am astonished at the power of endurance, to say nothing +of the moral insensibility, of my neighbors who confine themselves to +shops and offices the whole day for weeks and months, ay, and years +almost together. I know not what manner of stuff they are of,--sitting +there now at three o'clock in the afternoon, as if it were three o'clock +in the morning. Bonaparte may talk of the three-o'clock-in-the-morning +courage, but it is nothing to the courage which can sit down cheerfully +at this hour in the afternoon over against one's self whom you have +known all the morning, to starve out a garrison to whom you are bound +by such strong ties of sympathy. I wonder that about this time, or say +between four and five o'clock in the afternoon, too late for the morning +papers and too early for the evening ones, there is not a general +explosion heard up and down the street, scattering a legion of +antiquated and house-bred notions and whims to the four winds for an +airing,--and so the evil cure itself. + +How womankind, who are confined to the house still more than men, stand +it I do not know; but I have ground to suspect that most of them do +not _stand_ it at all. When, early in a summer afternoon, we have been +shaking the dust of the village from the skirts of our garments, making +haste past those houses with purely Doric or Gothic fronts, which have +such an air of repose about them, my companion whispers that probably +about these times their occupants are all gone to bed. Then it is that I +appreciate the beauty and the glory of architecture, which itself never +turns in, but forever stands out and erect, keeping watch over the +slumberers. + +No doubt temperament, and, above all, age, have a good deal to do with +it. As a man grows older, his ability to sit still and follow in-door +occupations increases. He grows vespertinal in his habits as the evening +of life approaches, till at last he comes forth only just before +sundown, and gets all the walk that he requires in half an hour. + +But the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking +exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated +hours,--as the swinging of dumb-bells or chairs; but is itself the +enterprise and adventure of the day. If you would get exercise, go in +search of the springs of life. Think of a man's swinging dumb-bells +for his health, when those springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures +unsought by him! + +Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only +beast which ruminates when walking. When a traveller asked Wordsworth's +servant to show him her master's study, she answered, "Here is his +library, but his study is out of doors." + +Living much out of doors, in the sun and wind, will no doubt produce a +certain roughness of character,--will cause a thicker cuticle to grow +over some of the finer qualities of our nature, as on the face and +hands, or as severe manual labor robs the hands of some of their +delicacy of touch. So staying in the house, on the other hand, may +produce a softness and smoothness, not to say thinness of skin, +accompanied by an increased sensibility to certain impressions. Perhaps +we should be more susceptible to some influences important to our +intellectual and moral growth, if the sun had shone and the wind blown +on us a little less; and no doubt it is a nice matter to proportion +rightly the thick and thin skin. But methinks that is a scurf that will +fall off fast enough,--that the natural remedy is to be found in the +proportion which the night bears to the day, the winter to the summer, +thought to experience. There will be so much the more air and sunshine +in our thoughts. The callous palms of the laborer are conversant with +finer tissues of self-respect and heroism, whose touch thrills the +heart, than the languid fingers of idleness. That is mere sentimentality +that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and +callus of experience. + +When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become +of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall? Even some sects +of philosophers have felt the necessity of importing the woods to +themselves, since they did not go to the woods. "They planted groves and +walks of Platanes," where they took _subdiales ambulationes_ in porticos +open to the air. Of course it is of no use to direct our steps to the +woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am alarmed when it happens +that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there +in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning +occupations and my obligations to society. But it sometimes happens that +I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run +in my head, and I am not where my body is,--I am out of my senses. In +my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the +woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods? I suspect myself, +and cannot help a shudder, when I find myself so implicated even in what +are called good works,--for this may sometimes happen. + +My vicinity affords many good walks; and though for so many years I have +walked almost every day, and sometimes for several days together, I have +not yet exhausted them. An absolutely new prospect is a great happiness, +and I can still get this any afternoon. Two or three hours' walking +will carry me to as strange a country as I expect ever to see. A single +farm-house which I had not seen before is sometimes as good as the +dominions of the King of Dahomey. There is in fact a sort of harmony +discoverable between the capabilities of the landscape within a circle +of ten miles' radius, or the limits of an afternoon walk, and the +threescore years and ten of human life. It will never become quite +familiar to you. + +Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the building of +houses, and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, +simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap. A +people who would begin by burning the fences and let the forest stand! +I saw the fences half consumed, their ends lost in the middle of the +prairie, and some worldly miser with a surveyor looking after his +bounds, while heaven had taken place around him, and he did not see the +angels going to and fro, but was looking for an old post-hole in the +midst of paradise. I looked again, and saw him standing in the middle of +a boggy, stygian fen, surrounded by devils, and he had found his bounds +without a doubt, three little stones, where a stake had been driven, and +looking nearer, I saw that the Prince of Darkness was his surveyor. + +I can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any number of miles, commencing +at my own door, without going by any house, without crossing a road +except where the fox and the mink do: first along by the river, and then +the brook, and then the meadow and the wood-side. There are square miles +in my vicinity which have no inhabitant. From many a hill I can see +civilization and the abodes of man afar. The farmers and their works are +scarcely more obvious than woodchucks and their burrows. Man and +his affairs, church and state and school, trade and commerce, and +manufactures and agriculture, even politics, the most alarming of +them all,--I am pleased to see how little space they occupy in the +landscape. Politics is but a narrow field, and that still narrower +highway yonder leads to it. I sometimes direct the traveller thither. If +you would go to the political world, follow the great road,--follow that +market-man, keep his dust in your eyes, and it will lead you straight to +it; for it, too, has its place merely, and does not occupy all space. I +pass from it as from a beanfield into the forest, and it is forgotten. +In one half-hour I can walk off to some portion of the earth's surface +where a man does not stand from one year's end to another, and there, +consequently, politics are not, for they are but as the cigar-smoke of a +man. + +The village is the place to which the roads tend, a sort of expansion of +the highway, as a lake of a river. It is the body of which roads are +the arms and legs,--a trivial or quadrivial place, the thoroughfare +and ordinary of travellers. The word is from the Latin _villa_, which, +together with _via_, a way, or more anciently _ved_ and _vella_, Varro +derives from _veho_, to carry, because the villa is the place to and +from which things are carried. They who got their living by teaming were +said _vellaturam facere_. Hence, too, apparently, the Latin word _vilis_ +and our vile; also _villain_. This suggests what kind of degeneracy +villagers are liable to. They are wayworn by the travel that goes by and +over them, without travelling themselves. + +Some do not walk at all; others walk in the highways; a few walk across +lots. Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel +in them much, comparatively, because I am not in a hurry to get to any +tavern or grocery or livery-stable or depot to which they lead. I am +a good horse to travel, but not from choice a roadster. The +landscape-painter uses the figures of men to mark a road. He would not +make that use of my figure. I walk out into a Nature such as the old +prophets and poets, Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in. You may +name it America, but it is not America: neither Americus Vespucius, nor +Columbus, nor the rest were the discoverers of it. There is a truer +account of it in mythology than in any history of America, so called, +that I have seen. + +However, there are a few old roads that may be trodden with profit, as +if they led somewhere now that they are nearly discontinued. There +is the Old Marlborough Road, which does not go to Marlborough now, +methinks, unless that is Marlborough where it carries me. I am the +bolder to speak of it here, because I presume that there are one or two +such roads in every town. + +THE OLD MARLBOROUGH ROAD. + + Where they once dug for money, + But never found any; + Where sometimes Martial Miles + Singly files, + And Elijah Wood, + I fear for no good: + No other man, + Save Elisha Dugan,-- + O man of wild habits, + Partridges and rabbits, + Who hast no cares + Only to set snares, + Who liv'st all alone, + Close to the bone, + And where life is sweetest + Constantly eatest. + When the spring stirs my blood + With the instinct to travel, + I can get enough gravel + On the Old Marlborough Road. + Nobody repairs it, + For nobody wears it; + It is a living way, + As the Christians say. + Not many there be + Who enter therein, + Only the guests of the + Irishman Quin. + What is it, what is it, + But a direction out there, + And the bare possibility + Of going somewhere? + Great guide-boards of stone, + But travellers none; + Cenotaphs of the towns + Named on their crowns. + It is worth going to see + Where you _might_ be. + What king + Did the thing, + Set up how or when, + By what selectmen, + Gourgas or Lee, + Clark or Darby? + They're a great endeavor + To be something forever; + Blank tablets of stone, + Where a traveller might groan, + And in one sentence + Grave all that is known; + Which another might read, + In his extreme need. + I know one or two + Lines that would do, + Literature that might stand + All over the land, + Which a man could remember + Till next December, + And road again in the spring, + After the thawing. + If with fancy unfurled + You leave your abode, + You may go round the world + By the Old Marlborough Road. + +At present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is not private +property; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative +freedom. But possibly the day will come when it will be partitioned off +into so-called pleasure-grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and +exclusive pleasure only,--when fences shall be multiplied, and man-traps +and other engines invented to confine men to the _public_ road, and +walking over the surface of God's earth shall be construed to mean +trespassing on some gentleman's grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively +is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us +improve our opportunities, then, before the evil days come. + +What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we will +walk? + +I believe that there is a subtile magnetism in Nature, which, if we +unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not indifferent +to us which way we walk. There is a right way; but we are very liable +from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one. We would fain +take that walk, never yet taken by us through this actual world, which +is perfectly symbolical of the path which we love to travel in the +interior and ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we find it difficult +to choose our direction, because it does not yet exist distinctly in our +idea. + +When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I will +bend my steps, and submit myself to my instinct to decide for me, +I find, strange and whimsical as it may seem, that I finally and +inevitably settle southwest, toward some particular wood or meadow +or deserted pasture or hill in that direction. My needle is slow to +settle,--varies a few degrees, and does not always point due southwest, +it is true, and it has good authority for this variation, but it always +settles between west and south-southwest. The future lies that way to +me, and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side. +The outline which would bound my walks would be, not a circle, but a +parabola, or rather like one of those cometary orbits which have been +thought to be non-returning curves, in this case opening westward, in +which my house occupies the place of the sun. I turn round and round +irresolute sometimes for a quarter of an hour, until I decide, for the +thousandth time, that I will walk into the southwest or west. Eastward I +go only by force; but westward I go free. Thither no business leads +me. It is hard for me to believe that I shall find fair landscapes or +sufficient wildness and freedom behind the eastern horizon. I am not +excited by the prospect of a walk thither; but I believe that the forest +which I see in the western horizon stretches uninterruptedly towards +the setting sun, and that there are no towns nor cities in it of enough +consequence to disturb me. Let me live where I will, on this side is the +city, on that the wilderness, and ever I am leaving the city more and +more, and withdrawing into the wilderness. I should not lay so much +stress on this fact, if I did not believe that something like this is +the prevailing tendency of my countrymen. I must walk toward Oregon, and +not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that +mankind progress from east to west. Within a few years we have witnessed +the phenomenon of a southeastward migration, in the settlement of +Australia; but this affects us as a retrograde movement, and, judging +from the moral and physical character of the first generation of +Australians, has not yet proved a successful experiment. The eastern +Tartars think that there is nothing west beyond Thibet. "The world ends +there," say they; "beyond there is nothing but a shoreless sea." It is +unmitigated East where they live. + +We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and +literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the +future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure. The Atlantic is a +Lethean stream, in our passage over which we have had an opportunity to +forget the Old World and its institutions. If we do not succeed this +time, there is perhaps one more chance for the race left before it +arrives on the banks of the Styx; and that is in the Lethe of the +Pacific, which is three times as wide. + +I know not how significant it is, or how far it is an evidence of +singularity, that an individual should thus consent in his pettiest walk +with the general movement of the race; but I know that something akin +to the migratory instinct in birds and quadrupeds,--which, in some +instances, is known to have affected the squirrel tribe, impelling them +to a general and mysterious movement, in which they were seen, say some, +crossing the broadest rivers, each on its particular chip, with its tail +raised for a sail, and bridging narrower streams with their dead,--that +something like the _furor_ which affects the domestic cattle in the +spring, and which is referred to a worm in their tails,--affects both +nations and individuals, either perennially or from time to time. Not +a flock of wild geese cackles over our town, but it to some extent +unsettles the value of real estate here, and, if I were a broker, I +should probably take that disturbance into account. + + "Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages, + And palmeres for to seken strange strondes." + +Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to a West +as distant and as fair as that into which the sun goes down. He appears +to migrate westward daily, and tempt us to follow him. He is the Great +Western Pioneer whom the nations follow. We dream all night of those +mountain-ridges in the horizon, though they may be of vapor only, which +were last gilded by his rays. The island of Atlantis, and the islands +and gardens of the Hesperides, a sort of terrestrial paradise, appear +to have been the Great West of the ancients, enveloped in mystery and +poetry. Who has not seen in imagination, when looking into the sunset +sky, the gardens of the Hesperides, and the foundation of all those +fables? + +Columbus felt the westward tendency more strongly than any before. He +obeyed it, and found a New World for Castile and Leon. The herd of men +in those days scented fresh pastures from afar. + + "And now the sun had stretched out all the + hills, + And now was dropped into the western bay; + At last _he_ rose, and twitched his mantle blue; + To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new." + +Where on the globe can there be found an area of equal extent with that +occupied by the bulk of our States, so fertile and so rich and varied in +its productions, and at the same time so habitable by the European, as +this is? Michaux, who knew but part of them, says that "the species of +large trees are much more numerous in North America than in Europe; in +the United States there are more than one hundred and forty species that +exceed thirty feet in height; in France there are but thirty that attain +this size." Later botanists more than confirm his observations. Humboldt +came to America to realize his youthful dreams of a tropical vegetation, +and he beheld it in its greatest perfection in the primitive forests of +the Amazon, the most gigantic wilderness on the earth, which he has so +eloquently described. The geographer Guyot, himself a European, goes +farther,--farther than I am ready to follow him; yet not when he +says,--"As the plant is made for the animal, as the vegetable world is +made for the animal world, America is made for the man of the Old +World .... The man of the Old World sets out upon his way. Leaving the +highlands of Asia, he descends from station to station towards Europe. +Each of his steps is marked by a new civilization superior to the +preceding, by a greater power of development. Arrived at the Atlantic, +he pauses on the shore of this unknown ocean, the bounds of which he +knows not, and turns upon his footprints for an instant." When he has +exhausted the rich soil of Europe, and reinvigorated himself, "then +recommences his adventurous career westward as in the earliest ages." So +far Guyot. + +From this western impulse coming in contact with the barrier of the +Atlantic sprang the commerce and enterprise of modern times. The younger +Michaux, in his "Travels West of the Alleghanies in 1802," says that the +common inquiry in the newly settled West was, "'From what part of +the world have you come?' As if these vast and fertile regions would +naturally be the place of meeting and common country of all the +inhabitants of the globe." + +To use an obsolete Latin word, I might say, _Ex Oriente lux; ex +Occidente_ FRUX. From the East light; from the West fruit. + +Sir Francis Head, an English traveller and a Governor-General of Canada, +tells us that "in both the northern and southern hemispheres of the New +World, Nature has not only outlined her works on a larger scale, but has +painted the whole picture with brighter and more costly colors than she +used in delineating and in beautifying the Old World.... The heavens of +America appear infinitely higher, the sky is bluer, the air is fresher, +the cold is intenser, the moon looks larger, the stars are brighter, the +thunder is louder, the lightning is vivider, the wind is stronger, +the rain is heavier, the mountains are higher, the rivers longer, the +forests bigger, the plains broader." This statement will do at least +to set against Buffon's account of this part of the world and its +productions. + +Linnaeus said long ago, "Nescio quae facies _laeta, glabra_ plantis +Americanis: I know not what there is of joyous and smooth in the aspect +of American plants"; and I think that in this country there are no, or +at most very few, _Africanae bestice_, African beasts, as the Romans +called them, and that in this respect also it is peculiarly fitted for +the habitation of man. We are told that within three miles of the centre +of the East-Indian city of Singapore, some of the inhabitants are +annually carried off by tigers; but the traveller can lie down in the +woods at night almost anywhere in North America without fear of wild +beasts. + +These are encouraging testimonies. If the moon looks larger here than in +Europe, probably the sun looks larger also. If the heavens of America +appear infinitely higher, and the stars brighter, I trust that these +facts are symbolical of the height to which the philosophy and poetry +and religion of her inhabitants may one day soar. At length, perchance, +the immaterial heaven will appear as much higher to the American mind, +and the intimations that star it as much brighter. For I believe +that climate does thus react on man,--as there is something in the +mountain-air that feeds the spirit and inspires. Will not man grow to +greater perfection intellectually as well as physically under these +influences? Or is it unimportant how many foggy days there are in his +life? I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will +be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky,--our understanding +more comprehensive and broader, like our plains,--our intellect +generally on a grander scale, like our thunder and lightning, our rivers +and mountains and forests,--and our hearts shall even correspond in +breadth and depth and grandeur to our inland seas. Perchance there will +appear to the traveller something, he knows not what, of _laeta_ and +_glabra_, of joyous and serene, in our very faces. Else to what end does +the world go on, and why was America discovered? + +To Americans I hardly need to say,-- + +"Westward the star of empire takes its way." + +As a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam in paradise +was more favorably situated on the whole than the backwoodsman in this +country. + +Our sympathies in Massachusetts are not confined to New England; though +we may be estranged from the South, we sympathize with the West. There +is the home of the younger sons, as among the Scandinavians they took to +the sea for their inheritance. It is too late to be studying Hebrew; it +is more important to understand even the slang of to-day. + +Some months ago I went to see a panorama of the Rhine. It was like +a dream of the Middle Ages. I floated down its historic stream in +something more than imagination, under bridges built by the Romans, and +repaired by later heroes, past cities and castles whose very names were +music to my ears, and each of which was the subject of a legend. There +were Ehrenbreitstein and Rolandseck and Coblentz, which I knew only in +history. They were ruins that interested me chiefly. There seemed to +come up from its waters and its vine-clad hills and valleys a hushed +music as of Crusaders departing for the Holy Land. I floated along under +the spell of enchantment, as if I had been transported to an heroic age, +and breathed an atmosphere of chivalry. + +Soon after, I went to see a panorama of the Mississippi, and as I worked +my way up the river in the light of to-day, and saw the steamboats +wooding up, counted the rising cities, gazed on the fresh ruins of +Nauvoo, beheld the Indians moving west across the stream, and, as before +I had looked up the Moselle, now looked up the Ohio and the Missouri, +and heard the legends of Dubuque and of Wenona's Cliff,--still thinking +more of the future than of the past or present,--I saw that this was a +Rhine stream of a different kind; that the foundations of castles were +yet to be laid, and the famous bridges were yet to be thrown over the +river; and I felt that _this was the heroic age itself_, though we know +it not, for the hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men. + +The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I +have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of +the world. Every tree sends its fibres forth in search of the Wild. The +cities import it at any price. Men plough and sail for it. From the +forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind. Our +ancestors were savages. The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by +a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every State which has +risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar +wild source. It was because the children of the Empire were not suckled +by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the children of +the Northern forests who were. + +I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which +the corn grows. We require an infusion of hemlock-spruce or arbor-vitae +in our tea. There is a difference between eating and drinking for +strength and from mere gluttony. The Hottentots eagerly devour the +marrow of the koodoo and other antelopes raw, as a matter of course. +Some of our Northern Indians eat raw the marrow of the Arctic reindeer, +as well as various other parts, including the summits of the antlers, as +long as they are soft. And herein, perchance, they have stolen a march +on the cooks of Paris. They get what usually goes to feed the fire. This +is probably better than stall-fed beef and slaughter-house pork to +make a man of. Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization can +endure,--as if we lived on the marrow of koodoos devoured raw. + +There are some intervals which border the strain of the wood-thrush, to +which I would migrate,--wild lands where no settler has squatted; to +which, methinks, I am already acclimated. + +The African hunter Cummings tells us that the skin of the eland, as well +as that of most other antelopes just killed, emits the most delicious +perfume of trees and grass. I would have every man so much like a wild +antelope, so much a part and parcel of Nature, that his very person +should thus sweetly advertise our senses of his presence, and remind us +of those parts of Nature which he most haunts. I feel no disposition to +be satirical, when the trapper's coat emits the odor of musquash even; +it is a sweeter scent to me than that which commonly exhales from the +merchant's or the scholar's garments. When I go into their wardrobes and +handle their vestments, I am reminded of no grassy plains and flowery +meads which they have frequented, but of dusty merchants' exchanges and +libraries rather. + +A tanned skin is something more than respectable, and perhaps olive is +a fitter color than white for a man,--a denizen of the woods. "The pale +white man!" I do not wonder that the African pitied him. Darwin the +naturalist says, "A white man bathing by the side of a Tahitian was like +a plant bleached by the gardener's art, compared with a fine, dark green +one, growing vigorously in the open fields." + + Ben Jonson exclaims,-- + + "How near to good is what is fair!" + + So I would say,-- + + How near to good is what is _wild!_ + +Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet +subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One who pressed forward +incessantly and never rested from his labors, who grew fast and made +infinite demands on life, would always find himself in a new country +or wilderness, and surrounded by the raw material of life. He would be +climbing over the prostrate stems of primitive forest-trees. + +Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not +in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps. When, +formerly, I have analyzed my partiality for some farm which I had +contemplated purchasing, I have frequently found that I was attracted +solely by a few square rods of impermeable and unfathomable bog,--a +natural sink in one corner of it. That was the jewel which dazzled me. I +derive more of my subsistence from the swamps which surround my native +town than from the cultivated gardens in the village. There are no +richer parterres to my eyes than the dense beds of dwarf andromeda +(_Cassandra calyculata_) which cover these tender places on the earth's +surface. Botany cannot go farther than tell me the names of the shrubs +which grow there,--the high-blueberry, panicled andromeda, lamb-kill, +azalea, and rhodora,--all standing in the quaking sphagnum. I often +think that I should like to have my house front on this mass of dull red +bushes, omitting other flower plots and borders, transplanted spruce +and trim box, even gravelled walks,--to have this fertile spot under my +windows, not a few imported barrow-fulls of soil only to cover the sand +which was thrown out in digging the cellar. Why not put my house, my +parlor, behind this plot, instead of behind that meagre assemblage of +curiosities, that poor apology for a Nature and Art, which I call my +front-yard? It is an effort to clear up and make a decent appearance +when the carpenter and mason have departed, though done as much for the +passer-by as the dweller within. The most tasteful front-yard fence was +never an agreeable object of study to me; the most elaborate ornaments, +acorn-tops, or what not, soon wearied and disgusted me. Bring your sills +up to the very edge of the swamp, then, (though it may not be the best +place for a dry cellar,) so that there be no access on that side to +citizens. Front-yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, +and you could go in the back way. + +Yes, though you may think me perverse, if it were proposed to me to +dwell in the neighborhood of the most beautiful garden that ever human +art contrived, or else of a dismal swamp, I should certainly decide for +the swamp. How vain, then, have been all your labors, citizens, for me! + +My spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the outward dreariness. Give +me the ocean, the desert, or the wilderness! In the desert, pure air and +solitude compensate for want of moisture and fertility. The traveller +Burton says of it,--"Your _morale_ improves; you become frank and +cordial, hospitable and single-minded.... In the desert, spirituous +liquors excite only disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in a mere animal +existence." They who have been travelling long on the steppes of Tartary +say,--"On reëntering cultivated lands, the agitation, perplexity, and +turmoil of civilization oppressed and suffocated us; the air seemed to +fail us, and we felt every moment as if about to die of asphyxia." When +I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most +interminable, and, to the citizen, most dismal swamp. I enter a swamp +as a sacred place,--a _sanctum sanctorum_. There is the strength, the +marrow of Nature. The wild-wood covers the virgin mould,--and the same +soil is good for men and for trees. A man's health requires as many +acres of meadow to his prospect as his farm does loads of muck. There +are the strong meats on which he feeds. A town is saved, not more by the +righteous men in it than by the woods and swamps that surround it. A +township where one primitive forest waves above, while another primitive +forest rots below,--such a town is fitted to raise not only corn and +potatoes, but poets and philosophers for the coming ages. In such a soil +grew Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of such a wilderness +comes the Reformer eating locusts and wild honey. + +To preserve wild animals implies generally the creation of a forest for +them to dwell in or resort to. So is it with man. A hundred years ago +they sold bark in our streets peeled from our own woods. In the very +aspect of those primitive and rugged trees, there was, methinks, a +tanning principle which hardened and consolidated the fibres of men's +thoughts. Ah! already I shudder for these comparatively degenerate days +of my native village, when you cannot collect a load of bark of good +thickness,--and we no longer produce tar and turpentine. + +The civilized nations--Greece, Rome, England--have been sustained by the +primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They survive +as long as the soil is not exhausted. Alas for human culture! little is +to be expected of a nation, when the vegetable mould is exhausted, and +it is compelled to make manure of the bones of its fathers. There +the poet sustains himself merely by his own superfluous fat, and the +philosopher comes down on his marrow-bones. + +It is said to be the task of the American "to work the virgin soil," and +that "agriculture here already assumes proportions unknown everywhere +else." I think that the farmer displaces the Indian even because he +redeems the meadow, and so makes himself stronger and in some respects +more natural. I was surveying for a man the other day a single straight +line one hundred and thirty-two rods long, through a swamp, at whose +entrance might have been written the words which Dante read over +the entrance to the infernal regions,--"Leave all hope, ye that +enter,"--that is, of ever getting out again; where at one time I saw +my employer actually up to his neck and swimming for his life in his +property, though it was still winter. He had another similar swamp which +I could not survey at all, because it was completely under water, and +nevertheless, with regard to a third swamp, which I did _survey_ from a +distance, he remarked to me, true to his instincts, that he would not +part with it for any consideration, on account of the mud which it +contained. And that man intends to put a girdling ditch round the whole +in the course of forty months, and so redeem it by the magic of his +spade. I refer to him only as the type of a class. + +The weapons with which we have gained our most important victories, +which should be handed down as heirlooms from father to son, are not the +sword and the lance, but the bush-whack, the turf-cutter, the spade, and +the bog-hoe, rusted with the blood of many a meadow, and begrimed with +the dust of many a hard-fought field. The very winds blew the Indian's +cornfield into the meadow, and pointed out the way which he had not +the skill to follow. He had no better implement with which to intrench +himself in the land than a clamshell. But the farmer is armed with +plough and spade. + +In Literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dulness is but +another name for lameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild thinking +in "Hamlet" and the "Iliad," in all the Scriptures and Mythologies, not +learned in the schools, that delights us. As the wild duck is more swift +and beautiful than the tame, so is the wild--the mallard--thought, which +'mid falling dews wings its way above the fens. A truly good book is +something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and +perfect, as a wild flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in +the jungles of the East. Genius is a light which makes the darkness +visible, like the lightning's flash, which perchance shatters the temple +of knowledge itself,--and not a taper lighted at the hearth-stone of the +race, which pales before the light of common day. + +English literature, from the days of the minstrels to the Lake +Poets,--Chaucer and Spenser and Milton, and even Shakespeare, +included,--breathes no quite fresh and in this sense wild strain. It +is an essentially tame and civilized literature, reflecting Greece and +Rome. Her wilderness is a green-wood,--her wild man a Robin Hood. There +is plenty of genial love of Nature, but not so much of Nature herself. +Her chronicles inform us when her wild animals, but not when the wild +man in her, became extinct. + +The science of Humboldt is one thing, poetry is another thing. The +poet to-day, notwithstanding all the discoveries of science, and the +accumulated learning of mankind, enjoys no advantage over Homer. + +Where is the literature which gives expression to Nature? He would be a +poet who could impress the winds and streams into his service, to speak +for him; who nailed words to their primitive senses, as farmers drive +down stakes in the spring, which the frost has heaved; who derived his +words as often as he used them,--transplanted them to his page with +earth adhering to their roots; whose words were so true and fresh and +natural that they would appear to expand like the buds at the approach +of spring, though they lay half-smothered between two musty leaves in a +library,--ay, to bloom and bear fruit there, after their kind, annually, +for the faithful reader, in sympathy with surrounding Nature. + +I do not know of any poetry to quote which adequately expresses this +yearning for the Wild. Approached from this side, the best poetry is +tame. I do not know where to find in any literature, ancient or modern, +any account which contents me of that Nature with which even I am +acquainted. You will perceive that I demand something which no Augustan +nor Elizabethan age, which no _culture_, in short, can give. Mythology +comes nearer to it than anything. How much more fertile a Nature, at +least, has Grecian mythology its root in than English literature! +Mythology is the crop which the Old World bore before its soil was +exhausted, before the fancy and imagination were affected with blight; +and which it still bears, wherever its pristine vigor is unabated. All +other literatures endure only as the elms which overshadow our houses; +but this is like the great dragon-tree of the Western Isles, as old as +mankind, and, whether that does or not, will endure as long; for the +decay of other literatures makes the soil in which it thrives. + +The West is preparing to add its fables to those of the East. The +valleys of the Ganges, the Nile, and the Rhine, having yielded their +crop, it remains to be seen what the valleys of the Amazon, the Plate, +the Orinoco, the St. Lawrence, and the Mississippi will produce. +Perchance, when, in the course of ages, American liberty has become +a fiction of the past,--as it is to some extent a fiction of the +present,--the poets of the world will be inspired by American mythology. + +The wildest dreams of wild men, even, are not the less true, though they +may not recommend themselves to the sense which is most common among +Englishmen and Americans to-day. It is not every truth that recommends +itself to the common sense. Nature has a place for the wild clematis +as well as for the cabbage. Some expressions of truth are +reminiscent,--others merely sensible, as the phrase is,--others +prophetic. Some forms of disease, even, may prophesy forms of health. +The geologist has discovered that the figures of serpents, griffins, +flying dragons, and other fanciful embellishments of heraldry, have +their prototypes in the forms of fossil species which were extinct +before man was created, and hence "indicate a faint and shadowy +knowledge of a previous state of organic existence." The Hindoos dreamed +that the earth rested on an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, +and the tortoise on a serpent; and though it may be an unimportant +coincidence, it will not be out of place here to state, that a fossil +tortoise has lately been discovered in Asia large enough to support +an elephant. I confess that I am partial to these wild fancies, which +transcend the order of time and development. They are the sublimest +recreation of the intellect. The partridge loves peas, but not those +that go with her into the pot. + +In short, all good things are wild and free. There is something in a +strain of music, whether produced by an instrument or by the +human voice,--take the sound of a bugle in a summer night, for +instance,--which by its wildness, to speak without satire, reminds me of +the cries emitted by wild beasts in their native forests. It is so +much of their wildness as I can understand. Give me for my friends and +neighbors wild men, not tame ones. The wildness of the savage is but a +faint symbol of the awful ferity with which good men and lovers meet. + +I love even to see the domestic animals reassert their native +rights,--any evidence that they have not wholly lost their original wild +habits and vigor; as when my neighbor's cow breaks out of her pasture +early in the spring and boldly swims the river, a cold, gray tide, +twenty-five or thirty rods wide, swollen by the melted snow. It is the +buffalo crossing the Mississippi. This exploit confers some dignity +on the herd in my eyes,--already dignified. The seeds of instinct are +preserved under the thick hides of cattle and horses, like seeds in the +bowels of the earth, an indefinite period. + +Any sportiveness in cattle is unexpected. I saw one day a herd of a +dozen bullocks and cows running about and frisking in unwieldy sport, +like huge rats, even like kittens. They shook their heads, raised their +tails, and rushed up and down a hill, and I perceived by their horns, as +well as by their activity, their relation to the deer tribe. But, alas! +a sudden loud _Whoa!_ would have damped their ardor at once, reduced +them from venison to beef, and stiffened their sides and sinews like the +locomotive. Who but the Evil One has cried, "Whoa!" to mankind? +Indeed, the life of cattle, like that of many men, is but a sort of +locomotiveness; they move a side at a time, and man, by his machinery, +is meeting the horse and ox half-way. Whatever part the whip has touched +is thenceforth palsied. Who would ever think of a _side_ of any of the +supple cat tribe, as we speak of a _side_ of beef? + +I rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be +made the slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats +still left to sow before they become submissive members of society. +Undoubtedly, all men are not equally fit subjects for civilization; +and because the majority, like dogs and sheep, are tame by inherited +disposition, this is no reason why the others should have their natures +broken that they may be reduced to the same level. Men are in the main +alike, but they were made several in order that they might be various. +If a low use is to be served, one man will do nearly or quite as well as +another; if a high one, individual excellence is to be regarded. Any man +can stop a hole to keep the wind away, but no other man could serve so +rare a use as the author of this illustration did. Confucius says,--"The +skins of the tiger and the leopard, when they are tanned, are as the +skins of the dog and the sheep tanned." But it is not the part of a true +culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious; and +tanning their skins for shoes is not the best use to which they can be +put. + +When looking over a list of men's names in a foreign language, as of +military officers, or of authors who have written on a particular +subject, I am reminded once more that there is nothing in a name. The +name Menschikoff, for instance, has nothing in it to my ears more human +than a whisker, and it may belong to a rat. As the names of the Poles +and Russians are to us, so are ours to them. It is as if they had +been named by the child's rigmarole,--_Iery wiery ichery van, +tittle-tol-tan_. I see in my mind a herd of wild creatures swarming over +the earth, and to each the herdsman has affixed some barbarous sound in +his own dialect. The names of men are of course as cheap and meaningless +as _Bose_ and _Tray_, the names of dogs. + +Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy, if men were named +merely in the gross, as they are known. It would be necessary only to +know the genus, and perhaps the race or variety, to know the individual. +We are not prepared to believe that every private soldier in a Roman +army had a name of his own,--because we have not supposed that he had a +character of his own. At present our only true names are nicknames. I +knew a boy who, from his peculiar energy, was called "Buster" by +his playmates, and this rightly supplanted his Christian name. Some +travellers tell us that an Indian had no name given him at first, but +earned it, and his name was his fame; and among some tribes he acquired +a new name with every new exploit. It is pitiful when a man bears a name +for convenience merely, who has earned neither name nor fame. + +I will not allow mere names to make distinctions for me, but still +see men in herds for all them. A familiar name cannot make a man less +strange to me. It may be given to a savage who retains in secret his +own wild title earned in the woods. We have a wild savage in us, and +a savage name is perchance somewhere recorded as ours. I see that my +neighbor, who bears the familiar epithet William, or Edwin, takes it off +with his jacket. It does not adhere to him when asleep or in anger, or +aroused by any passion or inspiration. I seem to hear pronounced by some +of his kin at such a time his original wild name in some jaw-breaking or +else melodious tongue. + +Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all +around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children, as the +leopard; and yet we are so early weaned from her breast to society, to +that culture which is exclusively an interaction of man on man,--a sort +of breeding in and in, which produces at most a merely English nobility, +a civilization destined to have a speedy limit. + +In society, in the best institutions of men, it is easy to detect a +certain precocity. When we should still be growing children, we are +already little men. Give me a culture which imports much muck from +the meadows, and deepens the soil,--not that which trusts to heating +manures, and improved implements and modes of culture only! + +Many a poor sore-eyed student that I have heard of would grow faster, +both intellectually and physically, if, instead of sitting up so very +late, he honestly slumbered a fool's allowance. + +There may be an excess even of informing light. Niépce, a Frenchman, +discovered "actinism," that power in the sun's rays which produces a +chemical effect,--that granite rocks, and stone structures, and statues +of metal, "are all alike destructively acted upon during the hours of +sunshine, and, but for provisions of Nature no less wonderful, would +soon perish under the delicate touch of the most subtile of the agencies +of the universe." But he observed that "those bodies which underwent +this change during the daylight possessed the power of restoring +themselves to their original conditions during the hours of night, when +this excitement was no longer influencing them." Hence it has been +inferred that "the hours of darkness are as necessary to the inorganic +creation as we know night and sleep are to the organic kingdom." Not +even does the moon shine every night, but gives place to darkness. + +I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more +than I would have every acre of earth cultivated: part will be tillage, +but the greater part will be meadow and forest, not only serving an +immediate use, but preparing a mould against a distant future, by the +annual decay of the vegetation which it supports. + +There are other letters for the child to learn than those which Cadmus +invented. The Spaniards have a good term to express this wild and dusky +knowledge,--_Gramática parda_, tawny grammar,--a kind of mother-wit +derived from that same leopard to which I have referred. + +We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It is +said that knowledge is power; and the like. Methinks there is equal need +of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance, what we will call +Beautiful Knowledge, a knowledge useful in a higher sense: for what +is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know +something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance? +What we call knowledge is often our positive ignorance; ignorance our +negative knowledge. By long years of patient industry and reading of +the newspapers--for what are the libraries of science but files of +newspapers?--a man accumulates a myriad facts, lays them up in his +memory, and then when in some spring of his life he saunters abroad into +the Great Fields of thought, he, as it were, goes to grass like a horse, +and leaves all his harness behind in the stable. I would say to the +Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, sometimes,----Go to +grass. You have eaten hay long enough. The spring has come with its +green crop. The very cows are driven to their country pastures before +the end of May; though I have heard of one unnatural farmer who kept his +cow in the barn and fed her on hay all the year round. So, frequently, +the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge treats its cattle. + +A man's ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful,--while +his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides +being ugly. Which is the best man to deal with,--he who knows nothing +about a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows +nothing, or be who really knows something about it, but thinks that he +knows all? + +My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head +in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest +that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. +I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more +definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the +insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before,--a discovery that +there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our +philosophy. It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. Man cannot +_know_ in any higher sense than this, any more than he can look serenely +and with impunity in the face of the sun: [Greek: Os thi noon, on +kehinon nohaeseis,]--"You will not perceive that, as perceiving a +particular thing," say the Chaldean Oracles. + +There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we +may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, +but a successful life knows no law. It is an unfortunate discovery +certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before +that we were bound. Live free, child of the mist,--and with respect to +knowledge we are all children of the mist. The man who takes the liberty +to live is superior to all the laws, by virtue of his relation to the +law-maker. "That is active duty," says the Vishnu Purana, "which is not +for our bondage; that is knowledge which is for our liberation: all +other duty is good only unto weariness; all other knowledge is only the +cleverness of an artist." + +It is remarkable how few events or crises there are in our histories; +how little exercised we have been in our minds; how few experiences we +have had. I would fain be assured that I am growing apace and rankly, +though my very growth disturb this dull equanimity,--though it be with +struggle through long, dark, muggy nights or seasons of gloom. It would +be well, if all our lives were a divine tragedy even, instead of this +trivial comedy or farce. Dante, Bunyan, and others, appear to have been +exercised in their minds more than we: they were subjected to a kind of +culture such as our district schools and colleges do not contemplate. +Even Mahomet, though many may scream at his name, had a good deal more +to live for, ay, and to die for, than they have commonly. + +When, at rare intervals, some thought visits one, as perchance he is +walking on a railroad, then indeed the cars go by without his hearing +them. But soon, by some inexorable law, our life goes by and the cars +return. + + "Gentle breeze, that wanderest unseen, + And bendest the thistles round Loira of storms, + Traveller of the windy glens, + Why hast thou left my ear so soon?" + +While almost all men feel an attraction drawing them to society, few are +attracted strongly to Nature. In their relation to Nature men appear +to me for the most part, notwithstanding their arts, lower than the +animals. It is not often a beautiful relation, as in the case of the +animals. How little appreciation of the beauty of the landscape there is +among us! We have to be told that the Greeks called the world [Greek: +Kosmos], Beauty, or Order, but we do not see clearly why they did so, +and we esteem it at best only a curious philological fact. + +For my part, I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sort of border +life, on the confines of a world into which I make occasional and +transient forays only, and my patriotism and allegiance to the State +into whose territories I seem to retreat are those of a moss-trooper. +Unto a life which I call natural I would gladly follow even a +will-o'-the-wisp through bogs and sloughs unimaginable, but no moon nor +fire-fly has shown me the causeway to it. Nature is a personality so +vast and universal that we have never seen one of her features. The +walker in the familiar fields which stretch around my native town +sometimes finds himself in another land than is described in their +owners' deeds, as it were in some far-away field on the confines of the +actual Concord, where her jurisdiction ceases, and the idea which the +word Concord suggests ceases to be suggested. These farms which I have +myself surveyed, these bounds which I have set up appear dimly still as +through a mist; but they have no chemistry to fix them; they fade from +the surface of the glass; and the picture which the painter painted +stands out dimly from beneath. The world with which we are commonly +acquainted leaves no trace, and it will have no anniversary. + +I took a walk on Spaulding's Farm the other afternoon. I saw the setting +sun lighting up the opposite side of a stately pine wood. Its golden +rays straggled into the aisles of the wood as into some noble hall. I +was impressed as if some ancient and altogether admirable and shining +family had settled there in that part of the land called Concord, +unknown to me,--to whom the sun was servant,--who had not gone into +society in the village,--who had not been called on. I saw their +park, their pleasure-ground, beyond through the wood, in Spaulding's +cranberry-meadow. The pines furnished them with gables as they grew. +Their house was not obvious to vision; the trees grew through it. I do +not know whether I heard the sounds of a suppressed hilarity or not. +They seemed to recline on the sunbeams. They have sons and daughters. +They are quite well. The farmer's cart-path, which leads directly +through their hall, does not in the least put them out,--as the muddy +bottom of a pool is sometimes seen through the reflected skies. +They never heard of Spaulding, and do not know that he is their +neighbor,--notwithstanding I heard him whistle as he drove his team +through the house. Nothing can equal the serenity of their lives. Their +coat of arms is simply a lichen. I saw it painted on the pines and oaks. +Their attics were in the tops of the trees. They are of no politics. +There was no noise of labor. I did not perceive that they were weaving +or spinning. Yet I did detect, when the wind lulled and hearing was done +away, the finest imaginable sweet musical hum,--as of a distant hive in +May, which perchance was the sound of their thinking. They had no idle +thoughts, and no one without could see their work, for their industry +was not as in knots and excrescences embayed. + +But I find it difficult to remember them. They fade irrevocably out +of my mind even now while I speak and endeavor to recall them, and +recollect myself. It is only after a long and serious effort to +recollect my best thoughts that I become again aware of their +cohabitancy. If it were not for such families as this, I think I should +move out of Concord. + +We are accustomed to say in New England that few and fewer pigeons visit +us every year. Our forests furnish no mast for them. So, it would seem, +few and fewer thoughts visit each growing man from year to year, for the +grove in our minds is laid waste,--sold to feed unnecessary fires of +ambition, or sent to mill, and there is scarcely a twig left for them to +perch on. They no longer build nor breed with us. In some more genial +season, perchance, a faint shadow flits across the landscape of the +mind, cast by the _wings_ of some thought in its vernal or autumnal +migration, but, looking up, we are unable to detect the substance of +the thought itself. Our winged thoughts are turned to poultry. They +no longer soar, and they attain only to a Shanghai and Cochin-China +grandeur. Those _gra-a-ate thoughts_, those _gra-a-ate men_ you hear of! + +We hug the earth,--how rarely we mount! Methinks we might elevate +ourselves a little more. We might climb a tree, at least. I found my +account in climbing a tree once. It was a tall white pine, on the top +of a hill; and though I got well pitched, I was well paid for it, for I +discovered new mountains in the horizon which I had never seen before,-- +so much more of the earth and the heavens. I might have walked about +the foot of the tree for threescore years and ten, and yet I certainly +should never have seen them. But, above all, I discovered around me,--it +was near the end of June,--on the ends of the topmost branches only, a +few minute and delicate red cone-like blossoms, the fertile flower of +the white pine looking heavenward. I carried straightway to the village +the topmost spire, and showed it to stranger jurymen who walked the +streets,--for it was court-week,--and to farmers and lumber-dealers and +wood-choppers and hunters, and not one had ever seen the like before, +but they wondered as at a star dropped down. Tell of ancient architects +finishing their works on the tops of columns as perfectly as on the +lower and more visible parts! Nature has from the first expanded the +minute blossoms of the forest only toward the heavens, above men's heads +and unobserved by them. We see only the flowers that are under our feet +in the meadows. The pines have developed their delicate blossoms on the +highest twigs of the wood every summer for ages, as well over the heads +of Nature's red children as of her white ones; yet scarcely a farmer or +hunter in the land has ever seen them. + +Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed +over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering +the past. Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in every barn-yard +within our horizon, it is belated. That sound commonly reminds us that +we are growing rusty and antique in our employments and habits of +thought. His philosophy comes down to a more recent time than ours. +There is something suggested by it that is a newer testament,--the +gospel according to this moment. He has not fallen astern; he has got up +early, and kept up early, and to be where he is is to be in season, +in the foremost rank of time. It is an expression of the health and +soundness of Nature, a brag for all the world,--healthiness as of a +spring burst forth, a new fountain of the Muses, to celebrate this last +instant of time. Where he lives no fugitive slave laws are passed. Who +has not betrayed his master many times since last he heard that note? + +The merit of this bird's strain is in its freedom from all +plaintiveness. The singer can easily move us to tears or to laughter, +but where is he who can excite in us a pure morning joy? When, in +doleful dumps, breaking the awful stillness of our wooden sidewalk on +a Sunday, or, perchance, a watcher in the house of mourning, I hear a +cockerel crow far or near, I think to myself, "There is one of us well, +at any rate,"--and with a sudden gush return to my senses. + +We had a remarkable sunset one day last November. I was walking in a +meadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before +setting, after a cold gray day, reached a clear stratum in the horizon, +and the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry grass and on +the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon, and on the leaves of the +shrub-oaks on the hill-side, while our shadows stretched long over the +meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its beams. It was such +a light as we could not have imagined a moment before, and the air also +was so warm and serene that nothing was wanting to make a paradise of +that meadow. When we reflected that this was not a solitary phenomenon, +never to happen again, but that it would happen forever and ever an +infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the latest child +that walked there, it was more glorious still. + +The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with all +the glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities, and, perchance, as it +has never set before,--where there is but a solitary marsh-hawk to have +his wings gilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his cabin, and +there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the marsh, just +beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying stump. We walked +in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered grass and leaves, +so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never bathed in such a +golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The west side of every +wood and rising ground gleamed like the boundary of Elysium, and the sun +on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman driving us home at evening. + +So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine +more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our +minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening +light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bank-side in autumn. + + + + +WAR AND LITERATURE. + + +It would be a task worthy of a volume, and requiring that space in order +to be creditably performed, to show how war affects literature, at what +points they meet, where they are at variance, if any wars stimulate, and +what kinds depress the intellectual life of nations. The subject is very +wide. It would embrace a discussion of the effects of war when it occurs +during a period of great literary and artistic splendor, as in Athens +and in the Italian Republics; whether intellectual decline is postponed +or accelerated by the interests and passions of the strife; whether the +preliminary concentration of the popular heart may claim the merit of +adding either power or beauty to the intellectual forms which bloom +together with the war. + +These things are not entirely clear, and the experience of different +countries is conflicting. The Thirty Years' War, though it commenced +with the inspiration of great political and religious ideas, did not +lift the German mind to any new demonstrations of truth or impassioned +utterances of the imagination. The nation sank away from it into a +barren and trivial life, although the war itself occasioned a multitude +of poems, songs, hymns, and political disquisitions. The hymns of this +period, which are filled with a sense of dependence, of the greatness +and awfulness of an invisible eternity, and breathe a desire for the +peaceful traits of a remote religious life, are at once a confession of +the weariness of the best minds at the turmoil and uncertainty of the +contest and a permanent contribution of the finest kind to that form of +sacred literature. But princes and electors were fighting as much for +the designation and establishment of their petty nationalities, which +first checkered the map of Europe after the imperial Catholic power was +rolled southwardly, as they were for the pure interest of Protestantism. +The German intellect did eventually gain something from this political +result, because it interrupted the literary absolutism which reigned at +Vienna; no doubt literature grew more popular and German, but it did +not very strikingly improve the great advantage, for there was at last +exhaustion instead of a generously nourishing enthusiasm, and the great +ideas of the period became the pieces with which diplomatists carried on +their game. The _Volkslied_ (popular song) came into vogue again, but it +was not so fresh and natural as before; Opitz, one of the best poets of +this period, is worth reading chiefly when he depicts his sources of +consolation in the troubles of the time. Long poetical bulletins were +written, in the epical form, to describe the battles and transactions +of the war. They had an immense circulation, and served the place of +newspapers. They were bright and characteristic enough for that; and +indeed newspapers in Germany date from this time, and from the doggerel +broadsides of satire and description which then supplanted minstrels +of whatsoever name or guild, as they were carried by post, and read in +every hamlet.[A] But the best of these poems were pompous, dull, and +tediously elaborated. They have met the fate of newspapers, and are now +on file. The more considerable poets themselves appeared to be jealous +of the war; they complained bitterly that Mars had displaced Apollo; but +later readers regret the ferocious sack of Magdeburg, or the death of +Gustavus Adolphus, more than the silencing of all those pens. + +[Footnote A: Newspapers proper appeared as early as 1615 in Germany. But +these rhymed gazettes were very numerous. They were more or less bulky +pamphlets, with pithy sarcastic programmes for titles, and sometimes a +wood or copper cut prefixed. A few of them were of Catholic origin, and +one, entitled _Post-Bole_, (_The Express_,) is quite as good as anything +issued by the opposite party.] + +On the other hand, Spain, while fighting for religion and a secure +nationality, had her Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Calderon, all of whom +saw service in the field, and other distinguished names, originators +of literary forms and successful cultivators of established ones. They +created brilliant epochs for a bigoted and cruel country. All that was +noble or graceful in the Spanish spirit survives in works which that +country once stimulated through all the various fortunes of popular +wars. But they were not wars for the sake of the people; the country has +therefore sunk away from the literature which foretold so well how great +she might have become, if she had been fortunate enough to represent, or +to sympathize with, a period of moral and spiritual ideas. Her literary +forms do not describe growth, but arrested development. + +A different period culminated in the genius of Milton, whose roots were +in that golden age when England was flowering into popular freedom. He +finally spoke for the true England, and expressed the vigorous thoughts +which a bloody epoch cannot quench. Some of his noblest things were +inspired by the exigencies of the Commonwealth, which he saw "as an +eagle nursing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the +full mid-day beam." + +The Dutch people, in their great struggle against Philip II., seemed to +find a stimulus in the very exhaustions of war. The protesting ideas for +which they fought drew fresh tenacity from the soil, wet with blood and +tears, into which generous passion and resolution sank with every death. +Here it is plain that a milder conflict, carried on by intrigue and +diplomatic forms alone, for peaceable separation from the Catholic +interest, would not have so quickened the intelligence which afterwards +nourished so many English exiles and helped to freight the Mayflower. +And we see the German mind first beginning to blossom with a language +and a manifold literature during and after the Seven Years' War, which +developed a powerful Protestant State and a native German feeling. +Frederic's Gallic predilections did not infect the country which his +arms had rendered forever anti-Gallic and anti-Austrian. The popular +enthusiasm for himself, which his splendid victories mainly created, was +the first instinctive form of the coming German sense of independence. +The nation's fairest period coincided with the French Revolution and +the aggressions of the Empire. "Hermann and Dorothea" felt the people's +pulse, which soon beat so high at Jena and Leipsic with rage and hope. +The hope departed with the Peace of 1815, and pamphleteering, pragmatic +writing, theological investigation, historical research, followed the +period of creative genius, whose flowers did not wither while the fields +ran red. + +A war must be the last resort of truly noble and popular ideas, if it +would do more than stimulate the intelligence of a few men, who write +best with draughts of glory and success. It must be the long-repressed +understanding of a nation suffused with strong primitive emotions, +that flies to arms to secure the precious privilege of owning and +entertaining its knowledge and its national advantages. And in +proportion as any war has ever been leavened with the fine excitement of +religion or humanity, however imperfectly, and though tyrannized over +by political selfishness, we can see that the honest feeling has done +something to obliterate the traces of violence, to offer the comfort of +worth in the cause to wounded lips. + +When the people themselves take to fighting, not for dynastic objects, +to secure the succession of an Infant to the throne, to fix a Pope in +his chair, or to horse a runaway monarch around their necks, not to +extort some commercial advantage, or to resist a tampering with the +traditional balance of power, but to drive back the billows of Huns or +Turks from fields where cities and a middle class must rise, to oppose +citizen-right to feudal-right, and inoculate with the lance-head Society +with the popular element, to assert the industrial against the baronial +interest, or to expel the invader who forages among their rights to +sweep them clean and to plant a system which the ground cannot receive, +then we find that the intense conviction, which has been long gathering +and brooding in the soul, thunders and lightens through the whole brain, +and quickens the germs of Art, Beauty and Knowledge. Then war is only a +process of development, which threatens terribly and shakes the locks +upon its aegis in the face of the brutes which infest its path. Minerva +is aware that wisdom and common sense will have to fight for recognition +and a world: she fends blows from her tranquil forehead with the +lowering crest; the shield is not always by her side, nor the +sword-point resting on the ground. What is so vital as this armed and +conscious intelligence? The pen, thus tempered to a sword, becomes a pen +again, but flows with more iron than before. + +But the original intellectual life begins while the pen is becoming +tempered in the fires of a great national controversy, before it is hard +enough to draw blood. Magnetic streams attract each slender point to a +centre of prophesying thought long before the blood-red aurora stains +suddenly the midnight sky and betrays the influence which has been none +the less mighty because it has been colorless. Sometimes a people says +all that it has in its mind to say, during that comfortless period +while the storm is in the air and has not yet precipitated its cutting +crystals. The most sensitive minds are goaded to express emphatically +their moral feeling and expectation in such a rude climate, which +stimulates rather than depresses, but which is apt to fall away into +languor and content. This only shows that the people have no commanding +place in history, but are only bent upon relieving themselves from +sundry annoyances, or are talking about great principles which they are +not in a position, from ethnical or political disability, to develop. +Such is all the Panslavic literature which is not Russian.[B] +But sometimes a people whose intellect passes through a noble +pre-revolutionary period, illustrating it by impetuous eloquence, +indignant lyrics, and the stern lines which a protesting conscience +makes upon the faces of the men who are lifted above the crowd, finds +that its ideas reach beyond the crisis in its life into a century of +power and beauty, during which its emancipated tendency springs forward, +with graceful gestures, to seize every spiritual advantage. Its +movements were grand and impressive while it struggled for the +opportunity to make known the divine intent that inspired it; but when +the fetters burst, and every limb enjoys the victory and the release, +the movements become unbounded, yet rhythmical, like Nature's, and +smite, or flow, or penetrate, like hers. To such a people war comes +as the disturbance of the earth's crust which helps it to a habitable +surface and lifts fair slopes to ripen wine and grain. + +[Footnote B: Some cultivated Bohemians who can recall the glories of +Ziska and his chiefs, and who comprehend the value of the tendency which +they strove to represent, think that there would have grown a Bohemian +people, a great centre of Protestant and Slavonic influence, if it +had not been for the Battle of Weissenberg in 1620, when the Catholic +Imperialists defeated their King Frederic. A verse of a popular song, +_The Patriot's Lament_, runs thus, in Wratislaw's translation:-- + + "Cursed mountain, mountain white! + Upon thee was crushed our might; + What in thee lies covered o'er + Ages cannot back restore." + +If there had been a Bohemian people, preserving a real vital tendency, +the Battle of the White Mountain would have resulted differently, even +had it been a defeat. + +Other patriots, cultivated enough to be Panslavists, indulge a more +cheerful vein. They see a good time coming, and raise the cry of _Hej +Slované_! + + "Hey, Slavonians! our Slavonic language still is living, + Long as our true loyal heart is for our nation striving; + Lives, lives the Slavonic spirit, and 't will live forever: + Hell and thunder! vain against us all your rage shall shiver." + +This is nothing but a frontier feeling. The true Slavonic centre is +at St. Petersburg; thence will roll a people and a language over all +kindred ground.] + +After all, then, we must carefully discover what a war was about, before +we can trace it, either for good or for evil, into the subsequent life +of a nation. There can be no such thing as exhaustion or deterioration, +if the eternal laws have won the laurel of a fight; for they are +fountains of youth, from which new blood comes rushing through the +depleted veins. And it soon mantles on the surface, to mend the +financial and industrial distress. Its blush of pride and victory +announces no heady passion. It is the signal which Truth waves from the +hearts of her children. + +If we wish directly to consider the effect of war upon our own +intellectual development, we must begin by asking what ideas of +consequence are suggested by our copious use of the word Country. What a +phrase is that--Our Country--which we have been accustomed for eighty +years to use upon all festivals that commemorate civic rights, with +flattering and pompous hopes! We never understood what it meant, till +this moment which threatens to deprive us of the ideas and privileges +which it really represents. We never appreciated till now its depth and +preciousness. Orators have built up, sentence by sentence, a magnificent +estimate of the elements which make our material success, and they +thought it was a patriotic chord which they touched with the climax of +their fine periods. It was such patriotism as thrives in the midst of +content and satisfactory circumstances, which loves to have an inventory +made of all the fixtures and conveniences and the crude splendor of a +country's housekeeping,--things which are not indeed to be despised, for +they show what a people can do when cast upon their own resources, at a +distance from Governmental interference, free to select their own way +of living, to be fervent in business, in charities, in the cause of +education, in the explorations which lay open new regions to the +emigration of a world, in the inventiveness which gives labor new +pursuits and increases the chances of poor men, in the enterprise which +has made foundries, mines, workshops, manufactories, and granaries of +independent States. We have loved to linger over the praises of our +common schools and our voluntary system of congregational worship, to +count the spires which mark every place that man clears to earn his +living in. It has been pleasant to trace upon the map the great arteries +of intercommunication, flowing east and west, churned by countless +paddle-wheels, as they force a vast freight of wealth, material, social, +intellectual, to and fro, a freshet of fertilizing life to swell every +stream. We love to repeat the names which self-taught men have hewn out +in rude places, with the only advantage of being members of Mankind, +holding their own share in the great heart and soul of it, and making +that itself more illustrious than lineage and fortune. Every element of +an unexhausted soil, and all the achievements of a people let loose upon +it to settle, build, sow, and reap, with no master but ambition and no +dread but of poverty, and a long list of rights thrust suddenly into +their hands, with liberty to exercise them,--the right to vote, to +speak, to print, to be tried by jury,--all this margin for unfettered +action, even the corresponding vastness of the country itself, whose +ruggedest features and greatest distances were playthings of the popular +energy,--to love and extol these things were held by us equivalent to +having a native land and feeding a patriotic flame. But now all at once +this catalogue of advantages, which we were accustomed to call "our +country," is stripped of all its value, because we begin to feel that it +depends upon something else, more interior and less easy to appraise, +which we had not noticed much before. Just as when suddenly, in a +favorite child, endowed with strength, beauty, and effective gifts of +every member, of whom we were proud and expected great things, and whom +we took unlimited comfort in calling our own, there appears the solemn +intention of a soul to use this fine body to express its invisible truth +and honor, a wonderful revelation of a high mind filled with aspirations +which we had not suspected,--a sudden lifting of the whole body like an +eyelid before an inner eye, and we are astonished at the look it gives +us: so this body of comfort and success, which we worshipped as our +country, is suddenly possessed by great passions and ideas, by a +consciousness that providential laws demand the use of it, and will not +be restrained from inspiring the whole frame, and directing every member +of it with a new plan of Unity, and a finer feeling for Liberty, and a +more generous sense of Fraternity than ever before. Lately we did as we +pleased, but now we are going to be real children of Liberty. Formerly +we had a Union which transacted business for us, secured the payment of +our debts, and made us appear formidable abroad while it corrupted and +betrayed us at home,--a Union of colporteurs, and caucuses, and drummers +of Southern houses; not a Union, but a long coffle of patriotic laymen, +southerly clergymen, and slaves. Now the soul of a Democracy, gazing +terribly through eyes that are weeping for the dead and for indignation +at the cause of their dying, holds the thing which we call Union, and +determines to keep its mighty hold till it can be informed with Unity, +of which justice is the prime condition. See a Country at last, that +is, a Republican Soul, making the limbs of free states shiver with the +excitement of its great ideas, turning all our comfortable and excellent +institutions into ministers to execute its will, resolved, to wring the +great sinews of the body with the stress of its awakening, and to tax, +for a spiritual purpose, all the material resources and those forms +of liberty which we had pompously called our native land. A people in +earnest, smarting with the wounds of war and the deeper inflictions of +treachery, is abroad seeking after a country. It has been repeating with +annual congratulations for eighty years the self-evident truths of the +document which declared its independence; now it discovers that more +evidence of it is needed than successful trading and building can +bring, and it sends it forth afresh, with half a million of glittering +specialities to enforce its doctrines, while trade, and speculation, and +all the ambitions of prosperous men, and delicately nurtured lives, and +other lives as dearly cherished and nursed to maturity, are sent out +with an imperative commission to buy, at all hazards, a real country, to +exchange what is precious for the sake of having finally what we dreamed +we had before,--the most precious of all earthly things,--a Commonwealth +of God. Yes, our best things go, like wads for guns, to bid our purpose +speak more emphatically, as it expresses the overruling inspiration of +the hour. + +Is this really the character of our war, or is it only an ideal picture +of what the war might be? That depends solely upon ourselves. + +Our soldiers kindle nightly their bivouac fires from East to West, and +set their watch. They are the advance posts of the great idea, which is +destined to make a country as it advances southwardly, and to settle +it with republicans. If we put it in a single sentence, "Freedom of +industry for hand and brain to all men," we must think awhile upon it +before we can see what truths and temporal advantages it involves. We +see them best, in this night of our distress and trial, by the soldiers' +watch-fires. They encroach upon the gloom, and open it for us with +hopes. They shine like the stare of a deeper sky than day affords, and +we can see a land stretching to the Gulf, and lying expectant between +either sea, whose surface is given to a Republic to people and civilize +for the sake of Man. Whoever is born here, or whoever comes here, +brought by poverty or violence, an exile from misery or from power, +and whatever be his ethnological distinction, is a republican of this +country because he is a man. Here he is to find safety, cooperation, +and welcome. His very ignorance and debasement are to be welcomed by +a country eager to exhibit the plastic power of its divine idea,--how +animal restrictions can be gradually obliterated, how superstition and +prejudice must die out of stolid countenances before the steady gaze of +republican good-will, how ethnic peculiarities shall subserve the +great plan and be absorbed by it. The country no longer will have a +conventional creed, that men are more important than circumstances and +governments; we always said so, but our opinion was at the mercy of a +Know-Nothing club, a slaveholding cabal, a selfish democracy: it will +have a living faith, born with the pangs of battle, that nothing on +earth is so precious as the different kinds of men. It will want them, +to illustrate its preeminent idea, and it will go looking for them +through all the neglected places of the world, to invite them in from +the by-lanes and foul quarters of every race, expressly to show that +man is superior to his accidents, by bringing their bodies into a place +where their souls can get the better of them. Where can that be except +where a democracy has been waging a religious war against its own great +evil, and has repented in blood for having used all kinds of men as the +white and black pawns in its games of selfish politics, with its own +country for the board, and her peace and happiness lying in the pool for +stakes? Where can man be respected best except here, where he has +been undervalued most, and bitterness and blood have sprung from that +contempt? + +This is the first truly religious war ever waged. Can there be such a +thing as a religious war? There can be wars in the interest of different +theologies, and mixed wars of diplomacy and confessions of belief, wars +to transfer the tradition of infallibility from a pope to a book, wars +of Puritans against the divine right of kings in the Old World and the +natural rights of Indians in the New, in all of which the name of God +has been invoked for sanction, and Scripture has been quoted, and Psalms +uplifted on the battle-field for encouragement. And it is true that +every conflict, in which there are ideas that claim their necessary +development against usage and authority, has a religious character so +far as the ideas vindicate God by being good for man. But a purely +religious war must be one to restore the attributes and prerogatives of +manhood, to confirm primitive rights that are given to finite souls as +fast as they are created, to proclaim the creed of humanity, which is so +far from containing a single article of theology, that it is solely and +distinctively religious without it, because it proclaims one Father in +heaven and one blood upon the earth. Manhood is always worth fighting +for, to resist and put down whatever evil tendency impairs the full +ability to be a man, with a healthy soul conscious of rights and duties, +owning its gifts, and valuing above everything else the liberty to place +its happiness in being noble and good. Every man wages a religious war, +when he attacks his own passions in the interest of his own humanity. +The most truly religious thing that a man can do is to fight his way +through habits and deficiencies back to the pure manlike elements of his +nature, which are the ineffaceable traces of the Divine workmanship, and +alone really worth fighting for. And when a nation imitates this private +warfare, and attacks its own gigantic evils, lighted through past +deficiencies and immediate temptations by its best ideas, as its human +part rallies against its inhuman, and all the kingly attributes of a +freeborn individual rise up in final indignation against its slavish +attributes, then commences the true and only war of a people, and the +only war of which we dare say, though it have the repulsive features +that belong to all wars, that it is religious. But that we do say; for +it is to win and keep the unity of a country for the great purposes of +mankind, a place where souls can have their chances to work, with the +largest freedom and under the fewest disabilities, at the divine image +stamped upon them,--to get here the tools, both temporal and spiritual, +with which to strike poverty and misery out of those glorious traces, +and to chisel deep and fresh the handwriting where God says, This is a +Man! + +Here is a sufficient ground for expecting that intellectual as well as +political enlargement will succeed this trial of our country. It is well +to think of all the approaching advantages, even those remote ones which +will wear the forms of knowledge and art. For it is undeniable, that a +war cannot be so just as to bring no evils in its train,--not only the +disturbance of all kinds of industry, the suppression of some, the +difficulty of diverting, at a moment's notice, labor towards new +objects,--not only financial embarrassment and exhaustion, and the +shadow of a coming debt,--not the maiming of strong men and their +violent removal from the future labors of peace, nor the emotional +suffering of thousands of families whose hearts are in the field with +their dear ones, tossed to and fro in every skirmish, where the balls +slay more than the bodies which are pierced: not these evils alone,--nor +the feverish excitement of eighteen millions of people, whose gifts +and intelligence are all distraught, and at the mercy of every +bulletin,--nor yet the possible violations of private rights, and the +overriding of legal defences, which, when once attempted in a state of +war, is not always relinquished on the return of peace. These do not +strike us so much as the moral injury which many weak and passionate +minds sustain from the necessity of destroying life, of ravaging and +burning, of inflicting upon the enemy politic distresses. There will be +a taint in the army and the community which will endure in the relations +of pacific life. And more than half a million of men, who have tasted +the fierce joy of battle, have suffered the moral privations and dangers +of the camp, are to be returned suddenly to us, and cast adrift, with no +hope of finding immediate employment, and hankering for some excitements +to replace those of the distant field. If little truth and little +conscience have been at stake, these are the reasons which make wars so +demoralizing: they leave society restored to peace, but still at war +within itself, infested by those strange cravings, and tempted by a +new ambition, that of waging successful wars. This will be the most +dangerous country on the face of the earth, after the termination of +this war; for it will see its own ideas more clearly than ever before, +and long to propagate them with its battle-ardors and its scorn of +hypocritical foreign neutralities. We have the elements to make the most +martial nation in the world, with a peculiar combination of patience and +impulse, coldness and daring, the capacity to lie in watchful calm and +to move with the vibrations of the earthquake. And if ever the voice of +our brother, crying out to us from the ground of any country, shall sigh +among the drums which are then gathering dust in our arsenals, the long +roll would wake again, and the arms would rattle in that sound, which is +part of the speech of Liberty. But it is useless to affirm or to deny +such possibilities. It is plain, however, that we are organizing most +formidable elements, and learning how to forge them into bolts. The +spirit of the people, therefore, must be high and pure. The more +emphatically we declare, in accordance with the truth, that this war is +for a religious purpose, to prepare a country for the growing of souls, +a place where every element of material success and all the ambitions of +an enthusiastic people shall only provide fortunate circumstances, so +that men can be educated in the freedom which faith, knowledge, and awe +before the Invisible secure, the better will it be for us when peace +returns. A great believing people will more readily absorb the hurts of +war. Spiritual vitality will throw off vigorously the malaria which must +arise from deserted fields of battle. It must be our daily supplication +to feel the religious purport of the truths for which we fight. We must +disavow vindictiveness, and purge our hearts of it. There must be no +vulgar passion illustrated by our glorious arms. And when we say that we +are fighting for mankind, to release souls and bodies from bondage, +we must understand, without affectation, that we are fighting for the +slaveholder himself, who knows it not, as he hurls his iron disbelief +and hatred against us. For we are to have one country, all of whose +children, shall repeat in unison its noble creed, which the features of +the land itself proclaim, and whose railroads and telegraphs are its +running-hand. + +How often we have enumerated and deprecated the evils of war! The +Mexican War, in which Slavery herself involved us, (using the power of +the Republic against which she conspired to further her conspiracy,) +gave us occasion to extol the benefits of peace, and to draw up a +formidable indictment against the spirit which lusted for the appeal to +arms. We have not lusted for it, and the benefits of peace seem greater +than ever; but the benefits of equity and truth seem greater than all. +Show me justice, or try to make me unjust,--force upon me at the point +of the sword the unspeakable degradation of abetting villany, and I will +seize the hilt, if I can, and write my protest clear with the blade, and +while I have it in my hand I will reap what advantages are possible in +the desolation which it makes. + +Among these advantages of a war waged to secure the rights of +citizenship to all souls will be the excitement of a national +intellectual life, which will take on the various forms of a national +literature. This is to be expected for two reasons. First, because our +arms will achieve unity. By this is meant not only that there will be a +real union of all the States, consequent upon an eventual agreement in +great political and moral ideas, but also that this very consent will +bring the different characteristic groups of the country so near +together, in feeling and mutual appreciation, and with a free +interchange of traits, that we shall begin to have a nationality. And +there can be no literature until there is a nation; when the varieties +of the popular life begin to coalesce, as all sections are drawn +together towards the centre of great political ideas which the people +themselves establish, there will be such a rich development of +intellectual action as the Old World has not seen. Without this unity, +literature may be cultivated by cliques of men of talent, who are +chiefly stimulated to express themselves by observing the thought and +beauty which foreign intellects and past times produced; but their +productions will not spring from the country's manifold life, nor +express its mighty individuality. The sections of the country which are +nearest to the intelligence of the Old World will furnish the readiest +writers and the most polished thinkers, until the New World dwarfs the +Old World by its unity, and inspires the best brains with the collected +richness of the popular heart. Up to the period of this war the +country's most original men have been those who, by protesting against +its evils and displaying a genius emancipated from the prescriptions of +Church and State, have prophesied the revolution, and given to America +the first rich foretaste of her growing mind. The thunder rolled up the +sky in the orator's great periods, the lightning began to gleam in the +preacher's moral indignation, the glittering steel slumbered uneasily +and showed its half-drawn menace from the subtle lines of poets and +essayists who have been carrying weapons these twenty years; their souls +thirsted for an opportunity to rescue fair Liberty from the obscene rout +who had her in durance for their purposes, and to hail her accession to +a lawful throne with the rich gifts of knowledge, use, and beauty, a +homage that only free minds can pay, and only when freedom claims it. +We do not forget the literary activity with which a thousand ready +intellects have furnished convenient food for the people: there has been +no lack of books, nor of the ambition to attempt all the intellectual +forms. Some of this pabulum was not good for a growing frame; the excuse +for offering it may be found in the exigencies of squatter-life. We are +a notable people for our attachment to the frying-pan, and there is no +doubt that it is a shifty utensil: it can be slung at the saddle-bow or +carried in a valise, it will bear the jolting of a corduroy road, and +furnish a camp-mess in the minimum of time out of material that was +perhaps but a moment before sniffing or pecking at its rim. A very +little blaze sets the piece of cold fat swimming, and the black cavity +soon glows and splutters with extemporaneous content. But what dreams +howl about the camp-fires, what hideous scalping-humor creeps from the +leathery supper into the limbs and blood of the adventurous pioneer! + +No better, and quite as scrofulous, has been the nourishment furnished +by the rhetorical time-servers and polished conventionalists, whose +gifts have been all directed against the highest good of the country's +mind, to offer sweets to its crying conscience, and draughts of fierce +or languid cordials to lull the uneasy moods of this fast-growing child +of Liberty. Such men are fabricators of smooth speech; they have brought +their gilding to put upon the rising pillars of the country, instead +of strength to plant them firmly in their places and to spread the +protecting roof. This period of storm will wash off their dainty +work. When the clean granite stands where it should to shelter the +four-and-thirty States as they walk the vast colonnades together, intent +upon the great interchanges of the country's thought and work, this +tinsel will not be missed; as men look upon the grave lines that +assure them of security, they will rejoice that the time for the truly +beautiful has arrived, and hasten to relieve the solid space with shapes +as durable as the imagination which conceives. + +There must be a great people before there can be a great character in +its books, its instructions, or its works of art. This character is +prophesied only in part by what is said and thought while the people is +becoming great, and the molten constituents are sparkling as they run +into their future form. We have been so dependent upon traditional ideas +that we suppose an epic, for instance, to be the essential proof that +a people is alive and has something to express. Let us cease to wonder +whether there will ever be an American poem, an American symphony, or an +American Novum Organon. It is a sign of weakness and subservience: and +this is a period crowded with acts of emancipation. We cannot escape +from the past, if we would; we have a right to inherit all the previous +life of men that does not surfeit us and impede our proper work, but +let us stop our unavailing sighs for Iliads. The newspaper gathers and +circulates all true achievements faster than blind poets can plod round +with the story. The special form of the epic answered to a state of +society when the harper connected cities with his golden wire, slowly +unrolling its burden as he went. Vibrations travel faster now; men would +be foolish to expect that the new life will go journeying in classic +vehicles. When the imagination becomes free, it can invent forms equally +surprising and better adapted to the face of the country. + +There is no part of this country which has not its broad characters and +tendencies, different from anything ever seen before, imperfect while +they are doomed to isolation, during which they show only a maimed and +grotesque vitality. The religious tendency is different, the humor is +different, the imagination differs from anything beyond the Atlantic. +And the East differs from the West, the North from the South; and +the Pacific States will have also to contribute gifts peculiar to +themselves, as the silt of the Sacramento glitters unlike that of the +Merrimac or the Potomac. We are not yet a People; but we have great, +vivid masses of popular life, which a century of literary expression +will not exhaust. All these passionate characters are running together +in this general danger, having seized a weapon: they have found an idea +in common, they are pervaded by their first really solemn feeling, they +issue the same word for the night from East to West. The nationality +thus commenced will introduce the tendency to blend in place of the +tendency to keep apart, and each other's gifts will pass sympathetically +from hand to hand. + +The heightened life of this epoch is another cause which shall prepare +a great development of intellectual forms. Excitement and enthusiasm +pervade all classes of the people. All the primitive emotions of +the human heart--friendship, scorn, sympathy, human and religious +love--break into the liveliest expression, penetrate every quarter of +society; a great river is let loose from the rugged mountain-recesses of +the people; its waters, saturated with Nature's simple fertility, cover +the whole country, and will not retire without depositing their renewing +elements. A sincere and humble people Is feeling the exigency. A million +families have fitted out their volunteers with the most sumptuous of all +equipments, which no Government could furnish, love, tears of anxiety +and pride, last kisses and farewells, and prayers more heaven-cleaving +than a time of peace can breathe. What an invisible cloud of domestic +pathos overhung for a year the course of the Potomac, and settled upon +those huts and tents where the best part of home resided! what an ebb +and flow of letters, bearing solemnity and love upon their surface! what +anxiety among us, with all its brave housekeeping shifts, to keep want +from the door while labor is paralyzed, and the strong arms have beaten +their ploughshares into swords! What self-sacrifice of millions of +humble wives and daughters whose works and sorrows are now refining the +history of their country, and lifting the popular nobleness: they are +giving _all that they are_ to keep their volunteers in the field. The +flag waves over no such faithfulness; its stars sparkle not like this +sincerity. The feeling and heroism of women are enough to refresh and +to remould the generation. Like subtle lightning, the womanly nature +is penetrating the life of the age. From every railroad-station the +ponderous train bore off its freight of living valor, amid the cheers +of sympathizing thousands who clustered upon every shed and pillar, and +yearned forward as if to make their tumultuous feelings the motive +power to carry those dear friends away. What an ardent and unquenchable +emotion! Drums do not throb like these hearts, bullets do not patter +like these tears. There is not a power of the soul which is not +vitalized and expanded by these scenes. But long after the crowd +vanishes, there stands a woman at the corner, with a tired child asleep +upon her shoulder; the bosom does not heave so strongly as to break its +sleep. There are no regrets in the calm, proud face; no, indeed!--for it +is the face of our country, waiting to suffer and be strong for liberty, +and to put resolutely the dearest thing where it can serve mankind. In +her face read the history of the future as it shall be sung and written +by pens which shall not know whence their sharpened impulse springs; the +page shall reflect the working of that woman's face, daughter of the +people; and when exulting posterity shall draw new patriotism from it, +and declare that it is proud, pathetic, resolved, sublime, they shall +not yet call it by its Christian name, for that will be concealed with +moss upon her forgotten head-stone. + + * * * * * + + +AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE. + + + O good painter, tell me true, + Has your hand the cunning to draw + Shapes of things that you never saw? + Ay? Well, here is an order for you. + + Woods and cornfields, a little brown,-- + The picture must not be over-bright,-- + Yet all in the golden and gracious light + Of a cloud, when the summer sun is down. + + Alway and alway, night and morn, + Woods upon woods, with fields of corn + Lying between them, not quite sere, + And not in the full, thick, leafy bloom, + When the wind can hardly find breathing-room + Under their tassels,--cattle near, + Biting shorter the short green grass, + And a hedge of sumach and sassafras, + With bluebirds twittering all around,-- + (Ah, good painter, you can't paint sound!)-- + These, and the house where I was born, + Low and little, and black and old, + With children, many as it can hold, + All at the windows, open wide,-- + Heads and shoulders clear outside, + And fair young faces all ablush: + Perhaps you may have seen, some day, + Roses crowding the self-same way, + Out of a wilding, way-side bush. + + Listen closer. When you have done + With woods and cornfields and grazing herds, + A lady, the loveliest ever the sun + Looked down upon, you must paint for me: + Oh, if I only could make you see + The clear blue eyes, the tender smile, + The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace, + The woman's soul, and the angel's face + That are beaming on me all the while! + I need not speak these foolish words: + Yet one word tells you all I would say,-- + She is my mother: you will agree + That all the rest may be thrown away. + + Two little urchins at her knee + You must paint, Sir: one like me,-- + The other with a clearer brow, + And the light of his adventurous eyes + Flashing with boldest enterprise: + At ten years old he went to sea,-- + God knoweth if he be living now,-- + He sailed in the good ship "Commodore,"-- + Nobody ever crossed her track + To bring us news, and she never came back. + Ah, 'tis twenty long years and more + Since that old ship went out of the bay + With my great-hearted brother on her deck: + I watched him till he shrank to a speck, + And his face was toward me all the way. + + Bright his hair was, a golden brown, + The time we stood at our mother's knee: + That beauteous head, if it did go down, + Carried sunshine into the sea! + + Out in the fields one summer night + We were together, half afraid + Of the corn-leaves' rustling, and of the shade + Of the high hills, stretching so still and far,-- + Loitering till after the low little light + Of the candle shone through the open door, + And over the hay-stack's pointed top, + All of a tremble, and ready to drop, + The first half-hour, the great yellow star, + That we, with staring, ignorant eyes, + Had often and often watched to see + Propped and held in its place in the skies + + By the fork of a tall red mulberry-tree, + Which close in the edge of our flax-field grew,-- + Dead at the top,--just one branch full + Of leaves, notched round, and lined with wool, + From which it tenderly shook the dew + Over our heads, when we came to play + In its handbreadth of shadow, day after day. + Afraid to go home, Sir; for one of us bore + A nest full of speckled and thin-shelled eggs,-- + The other, a bird, held fast by the legs, + Not so big as a straw of wheat: + The berries we gave her she wouldn't eat, + But cried and cried, till we held her bill, + So slim and shining, to keep her still. + + At last we stood at our mother's knee. + Do you think, Sir, if you try, + You can paint the look of a lie? + If you can, pray have the grace + To put it solely in the face + Of the urchin that is likest me: + I think't was solely mine, indeed: + But that's no matter,--paint it so; + The eyes of our mother--(take good heed)-- + Looking not on the nest-full of eggs, + Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs, + But straight through our faces down to our lies, + And, oh, with such injured, reproachful surprise! + I felt my heart bleed where that glance went, as though + A sharp blade struck through it. + You, Sir, know, + That you on the canvas are to repeat + Things that are fairest, things most sweet,-- + Woods and cornfields and mulberry-tree,-- + The mother,--the lads, with their bird, at her knee: + But, oh, that look of reproachful woe! + High as the heavens your name I'll shout, + If you paint me the picture, and leave that out. + + + + +THE SOUTH BREAKER. + +IN TWO PARTS + + +PART II. + + +Blue-fish were about done with, when one day Dan brought in some +mackerel from Boon Island: they hadn't been in the harbor for some time, +though now there was a probability of their return. So they were going +out when the tide served--the two boys--at midnight for mackerel, and +Dan had heard me wish for the experience so often, a long while ago, +that he said, Why shouldn't they take the girls? and Faith snatched at +the idea, and with that Mr. Gabriel agreed to fetch me at the hour, and +so we parted. I was kind of sorry, but there was no help for it. + +When we started, it was in that clear crystal dark that looks as if you +could see through it forever till you reached infinite things, and we +seemed to be in a great hollow sphere, and the stars were like living +beings who had the night to themselves. Always, when I'm up late, I feel +as if it were something unlawful, as if affairs were in progress which +I had no right to witness, a kind of grand freemasonry. I've felt it +nights when I've been watching with mother, and there has come up across +the heavens the great caravan of constellations, and a star that I'd +pulled away the curtain on the east side to see came by-and-by and +looked in at the south window; but I never felt it as I did this night. +The tide was near the full, and so we went slipping down the dark water +by the starlight; and as we saw them shining above us, and then looked +down and saw them sparkling up from below,--the stars,--it really seemed +as if Dan's oars must be two long wings, as if we swam on them through a +motionless air. By-and-by we were in the island creek, and far ahead, +in a streak of wind that didn't reach us, we could see a pointed sail +skimming along between the banks, as if some ghost went before to show +us the way; and when the first hush and mystery wore off, Mr. Gabriel +was singing little French songs in tunes like the rise and fall of the +tide. While he sang, he rowed, and Dan was gangeing the hooks. At length +Dan took the oars again, and every now and then he paused to let us +float along with the tide as it slacked, and take the sense of the +night. And all the tall grass that edged the side began to wave in a +strange light, and there blew on a little breeze, and over the rim of +the world tipped up a waning moon. If there'd been anything needed to +make us feel as if we were going to find the Witch of Endor, it was +this. It was such a strange moon, pointing such a strange way, with such +a strange color, so remote, and so glassy,--it was like a dead moon, or +the spirit of one, and was perfectly awful. + +"She has come to look at Faith," said Mr. Gabriel; for Faith, who once +would have been nodding here and there all about the boat, was sitting +up pale and sad, like another spirit, to confront it. But Dan and I both +felt a difference. + +Mr. Gabriel, he stepped across and went and sat down behind Faith, and +laid his hand lightly on her arm. Perhaps he didn't mind that he touched +her,--he had a kind of absent air; but if any one had looked at the +nervous pressure of the slender fingers, they would have seen as much +meaning in that touch as in many an embrace; and Faith lifted her face +to his, and they forgot that I was looking at them, and into the eyes of +both there stole a strange deep smile,--and my soul groaned within me. +It made no odds to me then that the air blew warm off the land from +scented hay-ricks, that the moon hung like some exhumed jewel in the +sky, that all the perfect night was widening into dawn. I saw and felt +nothing but the wretchedness that must break one day on Dan's head. +Should I warn him? I couldn't do that. And what then? + +The sail was up, we had left the headland and the hills, and when they +furled it and cast anchor we were swinging far out on the back of the +great monster that was frolicking to itself and thinking no more of us +than we do of a mote in the air. Elder Snow, he says that it's singular +we regard day as illumination and night as darkness,--day that really +hems us in with narrow light and shuts us upon ourselves, night that +sets us free and reveals to us all the secrets of the sky. I thought of +that when one by one the stars melted and the moon became a breath, and +up over the wide grayness crept color and radiance and the sun himself, +--the sky soaring higher and higher, like a great thin bubble of flaky +hues,--and, all about, nothing but the everlasting wash of waters +broke the sacred hush. And it seemed as if God had been with us, and +withdrawing we saw the trail of His splendid garments,--and I remembered +the words mother had spoken to Dan once before, and why couldn't I leave +him in heavenly hands? And then it came into my heart to pray. I knew I +hadn't any right to pray expecting to be heard; but yet mine would be +the prayer of the humble, and wasn't Faith of as much consequence as a +sparrow? By-and-by, as we all sat leaning over the gunwale, the words +of a hymn that I'd heard at camp-meetings came into my mind, and I sang +them out, loud and clear. I always had a good voice, though Dan 'd never +heard me do anything with it except hum little low things, putting +mother to sleep; but here I had a whole sky to sing in, and the hymns +were trumpet-calls. And one after another they kept thronging up, and +there was a rush of feeling in them that made you shiver, and as I sang +them they thrilled me through and through. Wide as the way before us +was, it seemed to widen; I felt myself journeying with some vast host +towards the city of God, and its light poured over us, and there was +nothing but joy and love and praise and exulting expectancy in my heart. +And when the hymn died on my lips because the words were too faint and +the tune was too weak for the ecstasy, and when the silence had soothed +me back again, I turned and saw Dan's lips bitten, and his cheek white, +and his eyes like stars, and Mr. Gabriel's face fallen forward in his +hands, and he shaking with quick sobs; and as for Faith,--Faith, she +had dropped asleep, and one arm was thrown above her head, and the other +lay where it had slipped from Mr. Gabriel's loosened grasp. There's a +contagion, you know, in such things, but Faith was never of the catching +kind. + +Well, this wasn't what we'd come for,--turning all out-doors into a +church,--though what's a church but a place of God's presence? and for +my part, I never see high blue sky and sunshine without feeling that. +And all of a sudden there came a school of mackerel splashing and +darkening and curling round the boat, after the bait we'd thrown out on +anchoring. 'Twould have done you good to see Dan just at that moment; +you'd have realized what it was to have a calling. He started up, +forgetting everything else, his face all flushed, his eyes like coals, +his mouth tight and his tongue silent; and how many hooks he had out I'm +sure I don't know, but he kept jerking them in by twos and threes, and +finally they bit at the bare barb and were taken without any bait at +all, just as if they'd come and asked to be caught. Mr. Gabriel, he +didn't pay any attention at first, but Dan called to him to stir +himself, and so gradually he worked back into his old mood; but he was +more still and something sad all the rest of the morning. Well, when +we'd gotten about enough, and they were dying in the boat there, as they +cast their scales, like the iris, we put in-shore; and building a fire, +we cooked our own dinner and boiled our own coffee. Many's the icy +winter-night I've wrapped up Dan's bottle of hot coffee in rolls on +rolls of flannel, that he might drink it hot and strong far out at sea +in a wherry at daybreak! + +But as I was saying,--all this time, Mr. Gabriel, he scarcely looked at +Faith. At first she didn't comprehend, and then something swam all over +her face as if the very blood in her veins had grown darker, and there +was such danger in her eye that before we stepped into the boat again +I wished to goodness I had a life-preserver. But in the beginning the +religious impression lasted and gave him great resolutions; and then +strolling off and along the beach, he fell in with some men there and +did as he always did, scraped acquaintance. I verily believe that these +men were total strangers, that he'd never laid eyes on them before, and +after a few words he wheeled about. As he did so, his glance fell on +Faith standing there alone against the pale sky, for the weather 'd +thickened, and watching the surf break at her feet. He was motionless, +gazing at her long, and then, when he had turned once or twice +irresolutely, he ground his heel into the sand and went back. The men +rose and wandered on with him, and they talked together for a while, and +I saw money pass; and pretty soon Mr. Gabriel returned, his face vividly +pallid, but smiling, and he had in his hand some little bright shells +that you don't often find on these Northern beaches, and he said he had +bought them of those men. And all this time he'd not spoken with Faith, +and there was the danger yet in her eye. But nothing came of it, and I +had accused myself of nearly every crime in the Decalogue, and on the +way back we had put up the lines, and Mr. Gabriel had hauled in the +lobster-net for the last time. He liked that branch of the business; +he said it had all the excitement of gambling,--the slow settling +downwards, the fading of the last ripple, the impenetrable depth and +shade and the mystery of the work below, five minutes of expectation, +and it might bring up a scale of the sea-serpent, or the king of the +crabs might have crept in for a nap in the folds, or it might come up +as if you'd dredged for pearls, or it might hold the great +backward-crawling lobsters, or a tangle of seaweed, or the long yellow +locks of some drowned girl,--or nothing at all. So he always drew in +that net, and it needed muscle, and his was like steel,--not good for +much in the long pull, but just for a breathing could handle the biggest +boatman in the harbor. Well,--and we'd hoisted the sail and were in the +creek once more, for the creek was only to be used at high-water, and +I'd told Dan I couldn't be away from mother over another tide and so we +mustn't get aground, and he'd told me not to fret, there was nothing too +shallow for us on the coast--"This boat," said Dan, "she'll float in a +heavy dew." And he began singing a song he liked:-- + + "I cast my line in Largo Bay, + And fishes I caught nine: + There's three to boil, and three to fry, + And three to bait the line." + +And Mr. Gabriel 'd never heard it before, and he made him sing it again +and again. + + "The boatie rows, the boatie rows, + The boatie rows indeed," + +repeated Mr. Gabriel, and he said it was the only song he knew that held +the click of the oar in the rowlock. + +The little birds went skimming by us, as we sailed, their breasts upon +the water, and we could see the gunners creeping through the marshes +beside them. + +"The wind changes," said Mr. Gabriel. "The equinox treads close behind +us. Sst! Is it that you do not feel its breath? And you hear nothing?" + +"It's the Soul of the Bar," said Dan; and he fell to telling us one +of the wild stories that fishermen can tell each other by the lantern +rocking outside at night in the dory. + +The wind was dead east, and now we flew before it, and now we tacked in +it, up and up the winding stream, and always a little pointed sail came +skimming on in suit. + +"What sail is that, Dan?" asked I. "It looks like the one that flitted +ahead this morning." + +"It is the one," said Dan,--for he'd brought up a whole horde of +superstitious memories, and a gloom that had been hovering off and on +his face settled there for good. "As much of a one as that was. It's no +sail at all. It's a death-sign. And I've never been down here and seen +it but trouble was on its heels. Georgie! there's two of them!" + +We all looked, but it was hidden in a curve, and when it stole in sight +again there _were_ two of them, filmy and faint as spirits' wings,--and +while we gazed they vanished, whether supernaturally or in the mist that +was rising mast-high I never thought, for my blood was frozen as it ran. + +"You have fear?" asked Mr. Gabriel,--his face perfectly pale, and his +eye almost lost in darkness. "If it is a phantom, it can do you no +harm." + +Faith's teeth chattered,--I saw them. He turned to her, and as their +look met, a spot of carnation burned into his cheek almost as a brand +would have burned. He seemed to be balancing some point, to be searching +her and sifting her; and Faith half rose, proudly, and pale, as if his +look pierced her with pain. The look was long,--but before it fell, a +glow and sparkle filled the eyes, and over his face there curled the +deep, strange smile of the morning, till the long lids and heavy lashes +dropped and made it sad. And Faith,--she started in a new surprise, the +darkness gathered and crept off her face as cream wrinkles from milk, +and spleen or venom or what-not became absorbed again and lost, and +there was nothing in her glance but passionate forgetfulness. Some souls +are like the white river-lilies,--fixed, yet floating; but Mr. Gabriel +had no firm root anywhere, and was blown about with every breeze, like a +leaf on the flood. His purposes melted and made with his moods. + +The wind got round more to the north, the mist fell upon the waters or +blew away over the meadows, and it was cold. Mr. Gabriel wrapped the +cloak about Faith and fastened it, and tied her bonnet. Just now Dan was +so busy handling the boat--and it's rather risky, you have to wriggle up +the creek so--that he took little notice of us. Then Mr. Gabriel stood +up, as if to change his position; and taking off his hat, he held it +aloft, while he passed the other hand across his forehead. And leaning +against the mast, he stood so, many minutes. + +"Dan," I said, "did your spiritual craft ever hang out a purple +pennant?" + +"No," said Dan. + +"Well," says I. And we all saw a little purple ribbon running up the +rope and streaming on the air behind us. + +"And why do we not hoist our own?" said Mr. Gabriel, putting on his hat. +And suiting the action to the word, a little green signal curled up and +flaunted above us like a bunch of the weed floating there in the water +beneath and dyeing all the shallows so that they looked like caves of +cool emerald, and wide off and over them the west burned smoulderingly +red like a furnace. Many a time since, I've felt the magical color +between those banks and along those meadows, but then I felt none of it; +every wit I had was too awake and alert and fast-fixed in watching. + +"Is it that the phantoms can be flesh and blood?" said Mr. Gabriel +laughingly; and lifting his arm again, he hailed the foremost. + +"Boat ahoy! What names?" said he. + +The answer came back on the wind full and round. + +"'Speed,' and 'Follow.'" + +"Where from?" asked Dan, with just a glint in his eye,--for usually he +knew every boat on the river, but he didn't know these. + +"From the schooner Flyaway, taking in sand over at Black Rocks." + +Then Mr. Gabriel spoke again, as they drew near,--but whether he spoke +so fast that I couldn't understand, or whether he spoke French, I never +knew; and Dan, with some kind of feeling that it was Mr. Gabriel's +acquaintance, suffered the one we spoke to pass us. + +Once or twice Mr. Gabriel had begun some question to Dan about the +approaching weather, but had turned it off again before anybody could +answer. You see he had some little nobility left, and didn't want the +very man he was going to injure to show him how to do it. Now, however, +he asked him that was steering the Speed by, if it was going to storm. + +The man thought it was. + +"How is it, then, that your schooner prepares to sail?" + +"Oh, wind's backed in; we'll be on blue water before the gale breaks, I +reckon, and then beat off where there's plenty of sea-room." + +"But she shall make shipwreck!" + +"'Not if the court know herself, and he think she do,'" was the reply +from another, as they passed. + +Somehow I began to hate myself, I was so full of poisonous suspicions. +How did Mr. Gabriel know the schooner prepared to sail? And this man, +could he tell boom from bowsprit? I didn't believe it; he had the hang +of the up-river folks. But there stood Mr. Gabriel, so quiet and easy, +his eyelids down, and he humming an underbreath of song; and there sat +Faith, so pale and so pretty, a trifle sad, a trifle that her conscience +would brew for her, whether or no. Yet, after all, there was an odd +expression in Mr. Gabriel's face, an eager, restless expectation; and if +his lids were lowered, it was only to hide the spark that flushed and +quenched in his eye like a beating pulse. + +We had reached the draw, it was lifted for the Speed, she had passed, +and the wind was in her sail once more. Yet, somehow, she hung back. And +then I saw that the men in her were of those with whom Mr. Gabriel had +spoken at noon. Dan's sail fell slack, and we drifted slowly through, +while he poled us along with an oar. + +"Look out, Georgie!" said Dan, for he thought I was going to graze my +shoulder upon the side there. I looked; and when I turned again, Mr. +Gabriel was rising up from some earnest and hurried sentence to Faith. +And Faith, too, was standing, standing and swaying with indecision, and +gazing away out before her,--so flushed and so beautiful,--so loath and +so willing. Poor thing! poor thing! as if her rising in itself were not +the whole! + +Mr. Gabriel stepped across the boat, stooped a minute, and then also +took an oar. How perfect he was, as he stood there that moment!--perfect +like a statue, I mean,--so slender, so clean-limbed, his dark face pale +to transparency in the green light that filtered through the draw! and +then a ray from the sunset came creeping over the edge of the high +fields and smote his eyes sidelong so that they glowed like jewels, and +he with his oar planted firmly hung there bending far back with it, +completely full of strength and grace. + +"It is not the _bateaux_ in the rapids," said he. + +"What are you about?" asked Dan, with sudden hoarseness. "You are +pulling the wrong way!" + +Mr. Gabriel laughed, and threw down his oar, and stepped back again; +gave his hand to Faith, and half led, half lifted her, over the side, +and into the Speed, followed, and never looked behind him. They let +go something they had held, the Speed put her nose in the water and +sprinkled us with spray, plunged, and dashed off like an arrow. + +It was like him,--daring and insolent coolness! Just like him! Always +the soul of defiance! None but one so reckless and impetuous as he would +have dreamed of flying into the teeth of the tempest in that shell of a +schooner. But he was mad with love, and they--there wasn't a man among +them but was the worse for liquor. + +For a moment Dan took it, as Mr. Gabriel had expected him to do, as a +joke, and went to trim the boat for racing, not meaning they should +reach town first. But I--I saw It all. + +"Dan!" I sung out, "save her! She's not coming back! They'll make for +the schooner at Black Rocks! Oh, Dan, he's taken her off!" + +Now one whose intelligence has never been trained, who shells his five +wits and gets rid of the pods as best he can, mayn't be so quick as +another, but, like an animal, he feels long before he sees; and a vague +sense of this had been upon Dan all day. Yet now he stood thunderstruck, +and the thing went on before his very eyes. It was more than he could +believe at once,--and perhaps his first feeling was, Why should he +hinder? And then the flood fell. No thought of his loss,--though loss it +wa'n't,--only of his friend,--of such stunning treachery, that, if +the sun fell hissing into the sea at noon, it would have mattered +less,--only of _that_ loss that tore his heart out with it. + +"Gabriel!" he shouted,--"Gabriel!" And his voice was heart-rending. I +know that Mr. Gabriel felt it, for he never turned nor stirred. + +Then I don't know what came over Dan: a blind rage swelling in his heart +seemed to make him larger in every limb; he towered like a flame. He +sprang to the tiller, but, as he did so, saw with one flash of his eye +that Mr. Gabriel had unshipped the rudder and thrown it away. He seized +an oar to steer with in its place; he saw that they, in their ignorance +fast edging on the flats, would shortly be aground; more fisherman than +sailor, he knew a thousand tricks of boat-craft that they had never +heard of. We flew, we flew through cloven ridges, we became a wind +ourselves, and while I tell it he was beside them, had gathered himself +as if to leap the chasm between time and eternity, and had landed among +them in the Speed. The wherry careened with the shock and the water +poured into her, and she flung headlong and away as his foot spurned +her. Heaven knows why she didn't upset, for I thought of nothing but the +scene before me as I drifted off from it. I shut the eyes in my soul +now, that I mayn't see that horrid scuffle twice. Mr. Gabriel, he rose, +he turned. If Dan was the giant beside him, he himself was so well-knit, +so supple, so adroit, that his power was like the blade in the hand. +Dan's strength was lying round loose, but Mr. Gabriel's was trained, it +hid like springs of steel between brain and wrist, and from him the clap +fell with the bolt. And then, besides, Dan did not love Faith, and he +did love Gabriel. Any one could see how it would go. I screamed. I +cried, "Faith! Faith!" And some natural instinct stirred in Faith's +heart, for she clung to Mr. Gabriel's arm to pull him off from Dan. But +he shook her away like rain. Then such a mortal weakness took possession +of me that I saw everything black, and, when it was clean gone, I +looked, and they were locked in each other's arms, fierce, fierce and +fell, a death-grip. They were staggering to the boat's edge: only this I +saw, that Mr. Gabriel was inside: suddenly the helmsman interposed with +an oar, and broke their grasps. Mr. Gabriel reeled away, free, for a +second; then, the passion, the fury, the hate in his heart feeding his +strength as youth fed the locks of Samson, he darted, and lifted Dan in +his two arms and threw him like a stone into the water. Stiffened to +ice, I waited for Dan to rise; the other craft, the Follow, skimmed +between us, and one man managing her that she shouldn't heel, the rest +drew Dan in,--it's not the depth of two foot there,--tacked about, and +after a minute came along-side, seized our painter, and dropped him +gently into his own boat. Then--for the Speed had got afloat again--the +thing stretched her two sails wing and wing, and went ploughing up a +great furrow of foam before her. + +I sprang to Dan. He was not senseless, but in a kind of stupor: his head +had struck the fluke of a half-sunk anchor and it had stunned him, but +as the wound bled he recovered slowly and opened his eyes. Ah, what +misery was in them! I turned to the fugitives. They were yet in sight, +Mr. Gabriel sitting and seeming to adjure Faith, whose skirts he +held; but she stood, and her arms were outstretched, and, pale as a +foam-wreath her face, and piercing as a night-wind her voice, I heard +her cry, "Oh, Georgie! Georgie!" It was too late for her to cry or to +wring her hands now. She should have thought of that before. But Mr. +Gabriel rose and drew her down, and hid her face in his arms and bent +over it; and so they fled up the basin and round the long line of sand, +and out into the gloom and the curdling mists. + +I bound up Dan's head. I couldn't steer with an oar,--that was out of +the question,--but, as luck would have it, could row tolerably; so I got +down the little mast, and at length reached the wharves. The town-lights +flickered up in the darkness and flickered back from the black rushing +river, and then out blazed the great mills; and as I felt along, I +remembered times when we'd put in by the tender sunset, as the rose +faded out of the water and the orange ebbed down the west, and one by +one the sweet evening-bells chimed forth, so clear and high, and each +with a different tone, that it seemed as if the stars must flock, +tinkling, into the sky. And here were the bells ringing out again, +ringing out of the gray and the gloom, dull and brazen, as if they rang +from some cavern of shadows, or from the mouth of hell,--but no, _that_ +was down-river! Well, I made my way, and the men on the landing took up +Dan, and helped him in and got him on my little bed, and no sooner there +than the heavy sleep with which he had struggled fell on him like lead. + +The story flew from mouth to mouth, the region rang with it; nobody had +any need to add to it, or to make it out a griffin or a dragon that had +gripped Faith and carried her off in his talons. But everybody declared +that those boats could be no ship's yawls at all, but must belong to +parties from up-river camping out on the beach, and that a parcel of +such must have gone sailing with some of the hands of a sand-droger: +there was one in the stream now, that had got off with the tide, said +the Jerdan boys, who'd been down there that afternoon, though there was +no such name as "Flyaway" on her stern, and they were waiting for the +master of her, who'd gone off on a spree,--a dare-devil fellow, that +used to run a smuggler between Bordeaux and Bristol, as they'd heard +say: and all agreed that Mr. Gabriel could never have had to do with +them before that day, or he'd have known what a place a sand-droger +would be for a woman; and everybody made excuses for Gabriel, and +everybody was down on Faith. So there things lay. It was raw and chill +when the last neighbor left us, the sky was black as a cloak, not a star +to be seen, the wind had edged back to the east again and came in wet +and wild from the sea and fringed with its thunder. Oh, poor little +Faith, what a night! what a night for her! + +I went back and sat down by Dan, and tried to keep his head cool. Father +was up walking the kitchen-floor till late, but at length he lay down +across the foot of mother's bed, as if expecting to be called. The +lights were put out, there was no noise in the town, every one +slept,--every one, except they watched like me, on that terrible night. +No noise in the town, did I say? Ah, but there was! It came creeping +round the corners, it poured rushing up the street, it rose from +everywhere,--a voice, a voice of woe, the heavy booming rote of the +sea. I looked out, but it was pitch-dark, light had forsaken the world, +we were beleaguered by blackness. It grew colder, as if one felt a fog +fall, and the wind, mounting slowly, now blew a gale. It eddied in +clouds of dead and whirling leaves, and sent big torn branches flying +aloft; it took the house by the four corners and shook it to loosening +the rafters, and I felt the chair rock under me; it rumbled down the +chimney as if it would tear the life out of us. And with every fresh +gust of the gale the rain slapped against the wall, the rain that fell +in rivers, and went before the wind in sheets,--and sheltered as I was, +the torrents seemed to pour over me like cataracts, and every drop +pierced me like a needle, and I put my fingers in my ears to shut out +the howl of the wind and the waves. I couldn't keep my thoughts away +from Faith. Oh, poor girl, this wasn't what she'd expected! As plainly +as if I were aboard-ship I felt the scene, the hurrying feet, the +slippery deck, the hoarse cries, the creaking cordage, the heaving and +plunging and straining, and the wide wild night. And I was beating +off those dreadful lines with them, two dreadful lines of white froth +through the blackness, two lines where the horns of breakers guard the +harbor,--all night long beating off the lee with them, my life in my +teeth, and chill, blank, shivering horror before me. My whole soul, my +whole being, was fixed in that one spot, that little vessel driving on +the rocks: it seemed as if a madness took possession of me, I reeled +as I walked, I forefelt the shivering shock, I waited till she should +strike. And then I thought I heard cries, and I ran out in the storm, +and down upon the causeway, but nothing met me but the hollow night and +the roaring sea and the wind. I came back, and hurried up and down and +wrung my hands in an agony. Pictures of summer nights flashed upon me +and faded,--where out of deep-blue vaults the stars hung like lamps, +great and golden,--or where soft films just hazing heaven caught the +rays, till all above gleamed like gauze faintly powdered and spangled +with silver,--or heavy with heat, slipping over silent waters, through +scented airs, under purple skies. And then storms rolled in and rose +before my eyes, distinct for a moment, and breaking,--such as I'd seen +them from the Shoals in broad daylight, when tempestuous columns +scooped themselves up from the green gulfs and shattered in loam on +the shuddering rock,--ah! but that was day, and this was midnight and +murk!--storms as I'd heard tell of them off Cape Race, when great +steamers went down with but one cry, and the waters crowded them out of +sight,--storms where, out of the wilderness of waves that far and wide +wasted white around, a single one came ploughing on straight to the +mark, gathering its grinding masses mast-high, poising, plunging, and +swamping and crashing them into bottomless pits of destruction,--storms +where waves toss and breakers gore, where, hanging on crests that slip +from under, reefs impale the hull, and drowning wretches cling to the +crags with stiffening hands, and the sleet ices them, and the spray, and +the sea lashes and beats them with great strokes and sucks them down +to death: and right in the midst of it all there burst a gun,--one, +another, and no more. "Oh, Faith! Faith!" I cried again, and I ran and +hid my head in the bed. + +How long did I stay so? An hour, or maybe two. Dan was still dead with +sleep, but mother had no more closed an eye than I. There was no rain +now, the wind had fallen, the dark had lifted; I looked out once more, +and could just see dimly the great waters swinging in the river from +bank to bank. I drew the bucket fresh, and bound the cloths cold on +Dan's head again. I hadn't a thought in my head, and I fell to counting +the meshes in the net that hung from the wall, but in my ears there was +the everlasting rustle of the sea and shore. It grew clearer,--it got +to being a universal gray; there'd been no sunrise, but it was day. +Dan stirred,--he turned over heavily; then he opened his eyes wide and +looked about him. + +"I've had such a fright!" he said. "Georgie! is that you?" + +With that it swept over him afresh, and he fell back. In a moment or two +he tried to rise, but he was weak as a child. He contrived to keep on +his elbow a moment, though, and to give a look out of the window. + +"It came on to blow, didn't it?" he asked; but there he sank down again. + +"I can't stay so!" he murmured soon. "I can't stay so! Here,--I must +tell you. Georgie, get out the spy-glass, and go up on the roof and +look over. I've had a dream, I tell you! I've had a dream. Not that +either,--but it's just stamped on me! It was like a storm,--and I +dreamed that that schooner--the Flyaway--had parted. And the half of +her's crashed down just as she broke, and Faith and that man are high +up on the bows in the middle of the South Breaker! Make haste, Georgie! +Christ! make haste!" + +I flew to the drawers and opened them, and began to put the spy-glass +together. Suddenly he cried out again,-- + +"Oh, here's where the fault was! What right had I ever to marry the +child, not loving her? I bound her! I crushed her! I stifled her! If she +lives, it is my sin; if she dies, I murder her!" + +He hid his face, as he spoke, so that his voice came thick, and great +choking groans rent their way up from his heart. + +All at once, as I looked up, there stood mother, in her long white gown, +beside the bed, and bending over and taking Dan's hot head in her two +hands. + +"Behold, He cometh with clouds!" she whispered. + +It always did seem to me as if mother had the imposition of +hands,--perhaps every one feels just so about their mother,--but only +her touch always lightens an ache for me, whether it's in the heart or +the head. + +"Oh, Aunt Rhody," said Dan, looking up in her face with his distracted +eyes, "can't you help me?" + +"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help," +said mother. + +"There's no help, there!" called Dan. "There's no God there! He wouldn't +have let a little child run into her damnation!" + +"Hush, hush, Dan!" murmured mother. "Faith never can have been at sea in +such a night as this, and not have felt God's hand snatching her out of +sin. If she lives, she's a changed woman; and if she dies, her soul is +whitened and fit to walk with saints. Through much tribulation." + +"Yes, yes," muttered father, in the room beyond, spitting on his hands, +as if he were going to take hold of the truth by the handle,--"it's best +to clean up a thing with the first spot, and not wait for it to get all +rusty with crime." + +"And he!" said Dan,--"and he,--that man,--Gabriel!" + + "Between the saddle and the ground + If mercy's asked, mercy's found," + +said I. + +"Are you there yet, Georgie?" he cried, turning to me. "Here! I'll go +myself!" But he only stumbled and fell on the bed again. + +"In all the terror and the tempest of these long hours,--for there's +been a fearful storm, though you haven't felt it," said mother,--"in all +that, Mr. Gabriel can't have slept. But at first it must have been that +great dread appalled him, and he may have been beset with sorrow. He'd +brought her to this. But at last, for he's no coward, he has looked +death in the face and not flinched; and the danger, and the grandeur +there is in despair, have lifted his spirit to great heights,--heights +found now in an hour, but which in a whole life long he never would have +gained,--heights from which he has seen the light of God's face and been +transfigured in it,--heights where the soul dilates to a stature it can +never lose. Oh, Dan, there's a moment, a moment when the dross strikes +off, and the impurities, and the grain sets, and there comes out the +great white diamond. For by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that +not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,--of Him that maketh the seven +stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning. Oh, I +_will_ believe that Mr. Gabriel hadn't any need to grope as we do, but +that suddenly he saw the Heavenly Arm and clung to it, and the grasp +closed round him, and death and hell can have no power over him now. +Dan, poor boy, is it better to lie in the earth with the ore than to +be forged in the furnace and beaten to a blade fit for the hands of +archangels?" + +And mother stopped, trembling like a leaf. + +I'd been wiping and screwing the glass, and I'd waited a breath, for +mother always talked so like a preacher; but when she'd finished, after +a second or two Dan looked up, and said, as if he'd just come in-- + +"Aunt Rhody! how come you out of bed?" + +And then mother, she got upon the bed, and she took Dan's head on her +breast and fell to stroking his brows, laying her cool palms on his +temples and on his eyelids, as once I'd have given my ears to do,--and I +slipped out of the room. + +Oh, I hated to go up those stairs, to mount that ladder, to open the +scuttle! And once there, I waited and waited before I dared to look. The +night had unnerved me. At length I fixed the glass. I swept the broad +swollen stream, to the yellowing woods, and over the meadows, where a +pale transient beam crept under and pried up the hay-cocks,--the smoke +that began to curl from the chimneys and fall as soon,--the mists +blowing off from Indian Hill, but brooding blue and dense down the +turnpike, and burying the red spark of the moon, that smothered like a +half-dead coal in her ashes,--anywhere, anywhere but that spot! I don't +know why it was, but I couldn't level the glass there,--my arm would +fall, my eye haze. Finally I brought it round nearer and tried again. +Everywhere, as far as your eye could reach, the sea was yeasty and white +with froth, and great streaks of it were setting up the inky river, +and against it there were the twin light-houses quivering their little +yellow rays as if to mock the dawn, and far out on the edge of day the +great light at the Isles of Shoals blinked and blinked, crimson and +gold, fainter and fainter, and lost at last. It was no use, I didn't +dare point it, my hand trembled so I could see nothing plain, when +suddenly an engine went thundering over the bridge and startled me into +stillness. The tube slung in my hold and steadied against the chimney, +and there----What was it in the field? what ghastly picture? + +The glass crashed from my hand, and I staggered shrieking down the +ladder. + +The sound wasn't well through my lips, when the door slammed, and Dan +had darted out of the house and to the shore. I after him. There was a +knot sitting and standing round there in the gray, shivering, with their +hands in their pockets and their pipes set in their teeth; but the gloom +was on them as well, and the pipes went out between the puffs. + +"Where's Dennis's boat?" Dan demanded, as he strode. + +"The six-oar's all the one not"---- + +"The six-oar I want. Who goes with me?" + +There wasn't a soul in the ward but would have followed Dan's lead to +the end of the world and jumped off; and before I could tell their names +there were three men on the thwarts, six oars in the air, Dan stood in +the bows, a word from him, and they shot away. + +I watched while I could see, and then in and up to the attic, forgetting +to put mother in her bed, forgetting all things but the one. And there +lay the glass broken. I sat awhile with the pieces in my hand, as if I'd +lost a kingdom; then down, and mechanically put things to rights, and +made mother comfortable,--and she's never stood on her feet from that +day to this. At last I seated myself before the fire, and stared into it +to blinding. + +"Won't some one lend you a glass, Georgie?" said mother. + +"Of course they will!" I cried,--for, you see, I hadn't a wit of my +own,--and I ran out. + +There's a glass behind every door in the street, you should know, and +there's no day in the year that you'll go by and not see one stretching +from some roof where the heart of the house is out on the sea. Oh, +sometimes I think all the romance of the town is clustered down here on +the Flats and written in pale cheeks and starting eyes. But what's the +use? After one winter, one, I gave mine away, and never got another. +It's just an emblem of despair. Look, and look again, and look till your +soul sinks, and the thing you want never crosses it; but you're down in +the kitchen stirring a porridge, or you're off at a neighbor's asking +the news, and somebody shouts at you round the corner, and there, black +and dirty and dearer than gold, she lies between the piers. + +All the world was up on their house-tops spying, that morning, but there +was nobody would keep their glass while I had none; so I went back +armed, and part of it all I saw, and part of it father told me. + +I waited till I thought they were 'most across, and then I rubbed the +lens. At first I saw nothing, and I began to quake with a greater fear +than any that had yet taken root in me. But with the next moment there +they were, pulling close up. I shut my eyes for a flash with some kind +of a prayer that was most like an imprecation, and when I looked again +they had dashed over and dashed over, taking the rise of the long roll, +and were in the midst of the South Breaker. O God! that terrible South +Breaker! The oars bent lithe as willow-switches, a moment they +skimmed on the caps, a moment were hid in the snow of the spray. Dan, +red-shirted, still stood there, his whole soul on the aim before him, +like that of some leaper flying through the air; he swayed to the +stroke, he bowed, he rose, perfectly balanced, and flexile as the wave. +The boat behaved beneath their hands like a live creature: she bounded +so that you almost saw the light under her; her whole steal lifted +itself slowly out of the water, caught the back of a roller and rode +over upon the next; the very things that came rushing in with their +white rage to devour her bent their necks and bore her up like a bubble. +Constantly she drew nearer that dark and shattered heap up to which the +fierce surf raced, and over which it leaped. And there all the time, all +the time, they had been clinging, far out on the bowsprit, those two +figures, her arms close-knit about him, he clasping her with one, the +other twisted in the hawser, whose harsh thrilling must have filled +their ears like an organ-note as it swung them to and fro,--clinging +to life,--clinging to each other more than to life. The wreck scarcely +heaved with the stoutest blow of the tremendous surge; here and there, +only, a plank shivered off and was bowled on and thrown high upon the +beach beside fragments of beams broken and bruised to a powder; it +seemed to be as firmly planted there as the breaker itself. Great +feathers of foam flew across it, great waves shook themselves thin +around it and veiled it in shrouds, and with their every breath the +smothering sheets dashed over them,--the two. And constantly the boat +drew nearer, as I said; they were almost within hail; Dan saw her hair +streaming on the wind; he waited only for the long wave. On it came, +that long wave,--oh! I can see it now!--plunging and rearing and +swelling, a monstrous billow, sweeping and swooning and rocking in. Its +hollows gaped with slippery darkness, it towered and sent the scuds +before its trembling crest, breaking with a mighty rainbow as the sun +burst forth, it fell in a white blindness everywhere, rushed seething up +the sand,--and the bowsprit was bare!---- + +When father came home, the rack had driven down the harbor and left +clear sky; it was near nightfall; they'd been searching the shore all +day,--to no purpose. But that rainbow,--I always took it for a sign. +Father was worn out, yet he sat in the chimney-side, cutting off great +quids and chewing and thinking and sighing. At last he went and wound up +the clock,--it was the stroke of twelve,--and then he turned to me and +said,-- + +"Dan sent you this, Georgie. He hailed a pilot-boat, and's gone to the +Cape to join the fall fleet to the fish'ries; and he sent you this." + +It was just a great hand-grip to make your nails purple, but there was +heart's-blood in it. See, there's the mark to-day. + +So there was Dan off in the Bay of Chaleur. It was the best place for +him. And I went about my work once more. There was a great gap in my +life, but I tried not to look at it. I durstn't think of Dan, and I +wouldn't think of them,--the two. Always in such times it's as if a +breath had come and blown across the pool and you could see down its +dark depths and into the very bottom, but time scums it all over again. +And I tell you it's best to look trouble in the face: if you don't, +you'll have more of it. So I got a lot of shoes to bind, and what part +of my spare time I wa'n't at my books the needle flew. But I turned no +more to the past than I could help, and the future trembled too much to +be seen. + +Well, the two months dragged away, it got to be Thanksgiving-week, and +at length the fleet was due. I mind me I made a great baking that +week; and I put brandy into the mince for once, instead of vinegar and +dried-apple juice,--and there were the fowls stuffed and trussed on +the shelf,--and the pumpkin-pies like slices of split gold,--and the +cranberry-tarts, plats of crimson and puffs of snow,--and I was brewing +in my mind a right-royal red Indian-pudding to come out of the oven +smoking hot and be soused with thick clots of yellow cream,--when one of +the boys ran in and told us the fleet'd got back, but no Dan with it, +--he'd changed over to a fore-and-after, and wouldn't be home at all, +but was to stay down in the Georges all winter, and he'd sent us word. +Well, the baking went to the dogs, or the Thanksgiving beggars, which is +the same thing. + +Then days went by, as days will, and it was well into the New Year. +I used to sit there at the window, reading,--but the lines would run +together, and I'd forget what 'twas all about, and gather no sense, and +the image of the little fore-and-after, the "Feather," raked in between +the leaves, and at last I had to put all that aside; and then I sat +stitching, stitching, but got into a sad habit of looking up and looking +out each time I drew the thread. I felt it was a shame of me to be so +glum, and mother missed my voice; but I could no more talk than I could +have given conundrums to King Solomon, and as for singing--Oh, I used to +long so for just a word from Dan! + +We'd had dry fine weeks all along, and father said he'd known we should +have just such a season, because the goose's breast-bone was so white; +but St. Valentine's day the weather broke, broke in a chain of storms +that the September gale was a whisper to. Ah, it was a dreadful winter, +that! You've surely heard of it. It made forty widows in our town. Of +the dead that were found on Prince Edward's Island's shores there were +four corpses in the next house yonder, and two in the one behind. And +what waiting and watching and cruel pangs of suspense for them that +couldn't have even the peace of certainty! And I was one of those. + +The days crept on, I say, and got bright again; no June days ever +stretched themselves to half such length; there was perfect stillness in +the house,--it seemed to me that I counted every tick of the clock. In +the evenings the neighbors used to drop in and sit mumbling over their +fearful memories till the flesh crawled on my bones. Father, then, he +wanted cheer, and he'd get me to singing "Caller Herrin'." Once, I'd +sung the first part, but as I reached the lines,-- + + "When ye were sleepin' on your pillows, + Dreamt ye aught o' our puir fellows + Darklin' as they face the billows, + A' to fill our woven willows,"-- + +as I reached those lines, my voice trembled so's to shake the tears out +of my eyes, and Jim Jerdan took it up himself and sung it through for +me to words of his own invention. He was always a kindly fellow, and he +knew a little how the land lay between me and Dan. + +"When I was down in the Georges," said Jim Jerdan---- + +"You? When was you down there?" asked father. + +"Well,--once I was. There's worse places." + +"Can't tell me nothing about the Georges," said father. "'Ta'n't the +rivers of Damascus exactly, but 'ta'n't the Marlstrom neither." + +"Ever ben there, Cap'n?" + +"A few. Spent more nights under cover roundabouts than Georgie'll have +white hairs in her head,--for all she's washing the color out of her +eyes now." + +You see, father knew I set by my hair,--for in those days I rolled it +thick as a cable, almost as long, black as that cat's back,--and he +thought he'd touch me up a little. + +"Wash the red from her cheek and the light from her look, and she'll +still have the queen's own tread," said Jim. + +"If Loisy Currier'd heern that, you'd wish your cake was dough," says +father. + +"I'll resk it," says Jim. "Loisy knows who's second choice, as well as +if you told her." + +"But what about the Georges, Jim?" I asked; for though I hated to hear, +I could listen to nothing else. + +"Georges? Oh, not much. Just like any other place." + +"But what do you do down there?" + +"Do? Why, we fish,--in the pleasant weather." + +"And when it's not pleasant?" + +"Oh, then we make things taut, hoist fores'l, clap the hellum into the +lee becket, and go below and amuse ourselves." + +"How?" I asked, as if I hadn't heard it all a hundred times. + +"One way 'n' another. Pipes, and mugs, and poker, if it a'n't too rough; +and if it is, we just bunk and snooze till it gets smooth." + +"Why, Jim,--how do you know when that is?" + +"Well, you can jedge,--'f the pipe falls out of your pocket and don't +light on the ceiling." + +"And who's on deck?" + +"There's no one on deck. There's no danger, no trouble, no nothing. +Can't drive ashore, if you was to try: hundred miles off, in the first +place. Hatches are closed, she's light as a cork, rolls over and over +just like any other log in the water, and there can't a drop get into +her, if she turns bottom-side up." + +"But she never can right herself!" + +"Can't she? You just try her. Why, I've known 'em to keel over and rake +bottom and bring up the weed on the topmast. I tell you now! there was +one time we knowed she'd turned a somerset, pretty well. Why? Because, +when it cleared and we come up, there was her two masts broke short +off!" + +And Jim went home thinking he'd given me a night's sleep. But it was +cold comfort; the Georges seemed to me a worse place than the Hellgate. +And mother she kept murmuring,--"He layeth the beams of His chambers in +the waters, His pavilion round about Him is dark waters and thick clouds +of the skies." And I knew by that she thought it pretty bad. + +So the days went in cloud and wind. The owners of the Feather 'd been +looking for her a month and more, and there were strange kind of rumors +afloat; and nobody mentioned Dan's name, unless they tripped. I went +glowering like a wild thing. I knew I'd never see Dan now nor hear his +voice again, but I hated the Lord that had done it, and I made my heart +like the nether millstone. I used to try and get out of folks's sight; +and roaming about the back-streets one day, as the snow went off, I +stumbled on Miss Catharine. "Old Miss Catharine" everybody called her, +though she was but a pauper, and had black blood in her veins. Eighty +years had withered her,--a little woman at best, and now bent so that +her head and shoulders hung forward and she couldn't lift them, and she +never saw the sky. Her face to the ground as no beast's face is turned +even, she walked with a cane, and fixing it every few steps she would +throw herself back, and so get a glimpse of her way and go on. I looked +after her, and for the first time in weeks my heart ached for somebody +beside myself. The next day mother sent me with a dish to Miss +Catharine's room, and I went in and sat down. I didn't like her at +first; she'd got a way of looking sidelong that gave her an evil air; +but soon she tilted herself backward, and I saw her face,--such a happy +one! + +"What's the matter of ye, honey?" said she. "D'ye read your Bible?" + +Read my Bible! + +"Is that what makes you happy, Miss Catharine?" I asked. + +"Well, I can't read much myself, I don't know the letters," says she; +"but I've got the blessed promises in my heart." + +"Do you want me to read to you?" + +"No, not to-day. Next time you come, maybe." + +So I sat awhile and listened to her little humming voice, and we fell to +talking about mother's ailments, and she said how fine it would be, if +we could only afford to take mother to Bethesda. + +"There's no angel there now," said I. + +"I know it, dear,--but then there might be, you know. At any rate, +there's always the living waters running to make us whole: I often think +of that." + +"And what else do you think of, Miss Catharine?" + +"Me?" said she. "Oh, I ha'n't got no husband nor no child to think about +and hope for, and so I think of myself, and what I should like, honey. +And sometimes I remember them varses,--here! you read 'em now,--Luke +xiii. 11." + +So I read:-- + +"And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen +years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself. And +when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, 'Woman, +thou art loosed from thine infirmity.' And he laid his hands on her: and +immediately she was made straight, and glorified God." + +"Ay, honey, I see that all as if it was me. And I think, as I'm setting +here, What if the latch should lift, and the gracious stranger should +come in, His gown a-sweepin' behind Him and a-sweet'nin' the air, and He +should look down on me with His heavenly eyes, and He should smile, and +lay His hands on my head, warm?--and I say to myself, 'Lord, I am not +worthy,'--and He says, 'Miss Catharine, thou art loosed from thine +infirmity!' And the latch lifts, as I think, and I wait,--but it's not +Him." + +Well, when I went out of that place I wasn't the same girl that had +gone in. My will gave way; I came home and took up my burden and was in +peace. Still I couldn't help my thoughts,--and they ran perpetually to +the sea. I hadn't need to go up on the house-tops, for I didn't shut my +eyes but there it stretched before me. I stirred about the rooms and +tried to make them glad once more; but I was thin and blanched as if I'd +been rising from a fever. Father said it was the salt air I wanted; and +one day he was going out for frost-fish, and he took me with him, and +left me and my basket on the sands while he was away. It was this side +of the South Breaker that he put me out, but I walked there; and where +the surf was breaking in the light, I went and sat down and looked over +it. I could do that now. + +There was the Cape sparkling miles and miles across the way, unconcerned +that he whose firm foot had rung last on its flints should ring there no +more; there was the beautiful town lying large and warm along the river; +here gay craft went darting about like gulls, and there up the channel +sped a larger one, with all her canvas flashing in the sun, and +shivering a little spritsail in the shadow, as she went; and fawning in +upon my feet came the foam from the South Breaker, that still perhaps +cradled Faith and Gabriel. But as I looked, my eye fell, and there came +the sea-scenes again,--other scenes than this, coves and corners of +other coasts, sky-girt regions of other waters. The air was soft, that +April day, and I thought of the summer calms; and with that rose long +sheets of stillness, far out from any strand, purple beneath the noon; +fields slipping close in-shore, emerald-backed and scaled with sunshine; +long sleepy swells that hid the light in their hollows, and came +creaming along the cliffs. And if upon these broke suddenly a wild +glimpse of some storm careering over a merciless mid-ocean, of a dear +dead face tossing up on the surge and snatched back again into the +depths, of mad wastes rushing to tear themselves to fleece above clear +shallows and turbid sand-bars,--they melted and were lost in peaceful +glimmers of the moon on distant flying foam-wreaths, in solemn midnight +tides chanting in under hushed heavens, in twilight stretches kissing +twilight slopes, in rosy morning waves flocking up the singing shores. +And sitting so, with my lids still fallen, I heard a quick step on the +beach, and a voice that said, "Georgie!" And I looked, and a figure, +red-shirted, towered beside me, and a face, brown and bearded and +tender, bent above me. + +Oh! it was Dan! + + + + +THE SAM ADAMS REGIMENTS IN THE TOWN OF BOSTON.[A] + +[Footnote A: This monograph, has been prepared almost entirely from +original authorities. Citations will be found in it from letters written +by General Gage, Governor Bernard, John Pownall, Lord Barrington, and +Lord Hillsborough, which have not been heretofore printed or used. They +are from the rich historical collections of JARED SPARKS,--who has +liberally permitted the writer to use original papers as freely as +though they were his own. Among other sources from which the narrative +has been drawn is an unfinished Life of Samuel Adams, in manuscript, by +Samuel Adams Wells, for the liberal use of which, and for other papers, +the writer is indebted to GEORGE BANCROFT. The materials have been +mostly taken, however, from a compilation which the writer has had for +several years in manuscript, entitled, "The Life and Times of Joseph +Warren."] + + +THE LANDING. + + +As John Adams, in the evening of his life, and in the retirement of +Quincy, looked back on the scenes through which he had passed, he dwelt +on the removal of the British troops from Boston in the month of March, +1770, as an event that profoundly stirred the public mind, and thus +contributed to promote that radical change in affections and principles +on the paramount subject of sovereignty, which he regarded as +constituting the real American Revolution. + +The more this chapter of history is examined, the more there will be +found in it to justify the judgment of the venerable patriot. It is +fragrant with the political aroma of the time; and the event seems +worthy to stand out in the American Revolution, like the Arrest of the +Five Members in the English Revolution. It is identified with a great +principle. It formed the crisis of an issue of the deepest moment. It +culminated in the triumph of the people when roused by passion and high +resolve to heroic manhood. The trial-scene was on so important a stage, +was so richly dramatic, had actors of such dignity of character, and was +so instinct with the national life, as "to deserve to be painted as much +as the Surrender of Burgoyne." It was the moment when Samuel Adams, in +the name of a resolute people, made the demand, as an ultimatum, for an +immediate removal of the troops. The close connection of this patriot +with the whole transaction led Lord North, ever after, to call these +troops by the title of "Sam Adams's Two Regiments." + +The story of the introduction of these troops into Boston, also, is rich +in matter illustrative of the springs of political action. The narrative +soon shows that it relates to far more than an ordinary transfer of +a military force from one station to another. Such transfers are not +preceded by long hesitation in cabinets, or by long torture of peaceful +communities in expectation of their arrival. Yet such was the preface +to the landing of this force in Boston. It was sent on an uncommon +service,--a service insulting to a loyal people; and though this people +had hailed the flag that waved over it with enthusiasm from the fields +of Louisburg and Quebec, they now looked upon it with sorrowing eyes as +the symbol of arbitrary power. + +These troops were ordered to Boston at an interesting period of the +American struggle. The movement against the Stamp Act, noble as it +was in the main, had phases that were deeply deplored by reflecting +patriots. Such were the riots, attended by destruction of property and +personal outrage, which, though common in England, were violative of +that reverence for law that was thoroughly ingrained in the American +character; and they were, besides, rather in the spirit of hasty and +irregular insurrection than of the slow and majestic development of +revolution. "We are not able in this way," wrote Jonathan Mayhew, "to +contend against Great Britain." + +On the repeal of the Stamp Act, there was an expression of general joy, +and controversy subsided. When fresh aggressions, in, the passage of +the Revenue Acts of 1767, required a new movement, the popular leaders, +profiting by past sad experience, strove to prevent excesses, and +patiently labored to build up their cause in the growth of an +intelligent public opinion. Even in reference to obnoxious local +officials, the word ran through the ranks,--"Let there be no mobs, no +riots. Let not the hair of their scalps be touched." Hard as it is to +restrain the rash, when the popular passion is excited, not a life was +sacrificed, not a limb even was dislocated, by the patriots of Boston in +political action, until the ripe hour of the Lexington rising. + +In this way Massachusetts, when called upon to stand by old customs and +rights, acted not only in a spirit of fidelity to liberty, but also in a +spirit of loyalty to law and order. Her conduct in the Stamp Act crisis +turned towards her the eyes and drew towards her the hearts of the other +Colonies, and elevated her into what was then a perilous, but is now a +proud, pre-eminence; and the call was made on her (1767) in the journals +of other Colonies, and copied into the Boston papers, as "the liberties +of a common country were again in danger," "to kindle the sacred flame +that should warm and illuminate the continent." So instinctively did the +common peril suggest the thought and expression of a common country. + +The Loyalists, for years, put Boston as in a pillory for punishment. It +was (they said) the head-quarters of sedition. It was the fountain of +opposition to the Government. It was under the rule of a trained mob. +It was swayed to and fro by a few popular leaders. It was the nest of a +faction. James Otis and Samuel Adams were the two consuls. Joseph Warren +was one of the chiefs. John Hancock was possessed of great wealth and of +large social and commercial influence. Such leaders, bankrupts on the +exchange or in character, controlled everything. They controlled the +clubs,--and there was not a social company or political club that +did not claim to have to do with the Government: they controlled the +town-meetings,--and these were the instrumentalities of rebellion: and +the town-meetings controlled the legislature, and this controlled the +Province. Then the local press was filled with incendiary matter from +the cabinet of the faction. Thus the spirits who led in the clubs, the +town-meetings, and the legislature supplied the seditious writing that +was scattered broadcast over the Colonies, and poisoned as it spread. + +There was some truth in this Loyalist strain. Patriotic rays gathered +and drew to a focus in Boston, and there became intensified with a +steady power. The town had jealousies to encounter and prejudices to +overcome; but, as if to the manner born, it acted in a spirit of such +comprehensive patriotism that it came to be regarded as an exponent of +the feelings of the whole country. Its key-note was Union. In fitting +words Philadelphia (1768) grandly said to Boston,--"Let us never forget +that our strength depends on our union, and our liberty on our strength; +united we conquer, divided we die." Boston returned the pledge, "warmly +to recommend and industriously to promote that union among the several +Colonies which is so indispensably necessary for the security of the +whole." + +Boston at this period is usually described as a noted and opulent +trading town,--the Great Town,--the Metropolis of New England,--the +best situated for commerce in North America,--the largest city in +the American British Empire. It had the air of an English city. Its +commodious residences had spacious lawns and gardens and fields; while +the contents of its stores, as seen in advertisements that sometimes +cover a broadside of the journals, and the number of ship-yards that +are shown by the maps to have girdled the town, betoken its business +activity. Its population of sixteen thousand, with its three thousand +voters, and no pauper class, had carefully nurtured the common school, +and was characterized not only by love of order, but by enterprise, +intelligence, and public spirit. It early welcomed the doctrine of a +right in the people to interpret the religious law and to fashion, the +political law, and thus practically welcomed freedom of thought and of +utterance, and acknowledged allegiance only to truth. It had tested for +more than a century the working of this principle, as it was carried out +in the congregation and in the municipality, in the Church and in the +State. By it each citizen was made deeply interested in the support of +liberty; and thus the town had not only a public, but a public life, +quietly nurtured as worthy citizens were successively called to manage +the local affairs. It furnished the instance of a community composed of +men of small estates who very rarely had to use a mark for their name, +and imbued by the spirit of individual independence toned into a respect +for law, which, on the decline of feudalism, began to play a part on +the national stage. Thus the political character of Boston was sharply +defined and firmly fixed. It started in the republican way, went on for +over a century in republican habits, and had the priceless heirloom of +principles and traditions that were certainly life-giving, and may not +inaptly be termed national. The prediction was publicly uttered here, +two centuries ago, and printed, that a day would come when "those that +were branded before for Huguenots and Lollards and Hereticks, they +should be thought the only men to be fit to have crowns upon their +heads, and independent government committed to them"; and the crown that +shone with superior lustre was progress in things that elevate and adorn +humanity. + +Such a government, so far as it regarded local affairs, the people +substantially enjoyed under the protecting wing of a proud nationality. +They loved the old flag. They claimed its history as their history, and +its glory as their glory. It gave security to their rights as men, as +Christians, and as Englishmen. It thus sheltered the precious body of +civil and religious liberties which they were in the habit of speaking +of as the rights of mankind. For this they were attached to the +English Constitution. For this they said, "Dear England!" Their strong +expressions in favor of the union with Great Britain were sincere. The +turn of the words showed the honest bent of the mind. No man respected +the English Constitution more than Samuel Adams, and his strong language +now (1768) was,--"I pray God that harmony may be cultivated between +Great Britain and the Colonies, and that they may long flourish in one +undivided empire." His resolution was no less strong to stand for +local self-government. As the idea began to be entertained that the +preservation of this right might require a new nationality, nothing legs +worthy for country was thought of than a union of all the Colonies in an +American commonwealth, with one constitution, which should be supreme +over all in questions common to country, and have one flag. The great +idea was expressed by New Jersey, that the continent must protect the +continent. + +This idea of creating a new nationality was forced on the Colonies by +wanton aggressions on the local self-government. There was far from +unanimity of opinion as to the acts, much less as to the ascribed +purposes of the Ministry. Setting aside a class of no-party men in peace +and of non-combatants in war, the people of Boston, as of other places, +were divided into the friends and the opponents of the Administration, +Loyalists and Whigs. The Whigs held that the new policy was flat +aggression on the old republican way, hostile to their normal political +life,--in a word, unconstitutional: the Loyalists maintained that the +new policy was required to preserve the dependence on Great Britain, and +therefore a necessity. The Whigs, zealous as they were for the local +government, claimed to be loyal to the King: the Loyalists, however +zealous for the independence of Parliament, claimed, in supporting the +supremacy of law, to be friends of freedom. As it was not the original +purpose of the Loyalists to invoke for their country the curse of +arbitrary power, so it was not the original purpose of the Whigs +to sever relations with the British crown. Men, however, are but +instruments in the hands of Providence. Both parties drifted into +measures which neither party originally proposed or even desired; and +thus the Loyalist, to maintain the sovereignty of Parliament, grew into +the defender of arbitrary power, and the Whig, to preserve the local +government, grew into the asserter of national independence. + +Nor was there unanimity among the Patriots themselves as to the way in +which the Revenue Acts ought to be opposed; indeed, some were averse to +making any opposition to them; but at length the policy of uniting the +Colonies in the non-importation agreement, after being talked over +at one of the political clubs in Boston, was agreed upon at a public +meeting, and sent out to the country. Hence this was the period +fixed upon by the Ministry as the time when the popular leaders made +themselves liable to the penalties of violated law. When, in England, +the idea was entertained and acted upon, that nothing would restore the +authority of the Government but the arrest and transportation to +London of the originators of the opposition to the Revenue Acts, +Lord Hillsborough's instructions to the Massachusetts Executive ran +thus:--"The King has thought fit to direct me to signify to you his +Majesty's commands that you do take the most effectual methods for +procuring the fullest information that can be obtained touching all +treasons or misprisions of treason committed within your government +since the 30th day of December, 1767, and transmit the same to me, +together with the names of persons who were most active in the +commission of such offences." + +This language was addressed to Francis Bernard, who was at this time the +highest representative of British power in Boston. He was a native of +England, an Oxford graduate, and, from the training of Solicitor +of Doctors Commons, was sent over, by the favor of aristocratic +relationship, to be the Governor of New Jersey, and now for eight years +had been Governor of Massachusetts. He was a scholar, and kept his +memory of Alma Mater fresh. He loved literature and science, could write +elegies in Latin and Greek, used to say that he could repeat the whole +of Shakspeare, and had such gifts of conversation as to charm the social +circle. His politics were of the Oxford school, and old at that. He +looked upon the people with distrust, and upon the king with veneration: +the people had good claim to be well governed, and British Imperialism +had the divine right to govern them well. He was a good hater of +republican institutions; habitually spoke of the local self-government +as a trained mob; and to it (he was not far from right here) he ascribed +the temper of the community which he was set to care for and to rule. It +was vexatious to his Tory spirit to see the democratic element, which +had excluded primogeniture and the hereditary principle and large landed +estates, so firmly bedded here, as if for a mighty superstructure; and +his reform plans tended to a change to centralization. It was a marvel +to him, that this work, which he deemed essential to the maintenance of +British power here, had not been begun long before,--that Charles II. +had not made a clean sweep of the little New England republics. He urged +that this ought to be done now,--that more general governments ought +to take their place, with executives having vice-regal powers; and of +course, being English, he urged that they should be moulded by England +into a shape as nearly as possible like England and for the benefit of +England, and thus be made homogeneous. He sighed to impose the dazzle of +a miniature St. James on reality-loving New England: as though the soil +which had been furrowed for a race of sovereigns could grow a crop of +lords; as though the Norman _rôle_ of privilege could be engrafted on a +society imbued with the Saxon spirit of equality: and he clinched the +absurdity of his thought by uttering the prediction, that, though the +people might bluster a little when such reform was proposed, yet they +never would resist by force; and if they did, a demonstration of British +power, such as the presence of the King's troops in a few coast-towns +and the occupation of a few harbors by the royal navy, would soon settle +the contest. + +As such an arrogant official, from yet unsealed Oxford heights, thus +paternally looked down over Boston and New England, he could see in +the little self-directing communities that clustered about the village +church and the public school but a race of nobodies. He may be pardoned +for not finding greatness in art, literature, or science in the circle +that has been called the Athens of America; he could not be expected to +measure the rich and enduring fame of a Jonathan Edwards; and it was an +article in the then Oxford creed, that there could not be, unmoulded by +the influences of an hereditary nobility, such a general product as a +people lifted up by education and religion into a self-directing race of +high-minded men, as the basis of a State. But a small class of British +observers, who had other principles and other eyes, saw now in Boston +the most orderly town and the most intelligent and moral people on the +face of the earth; and said--the words were printed (1768) in London, +and reproduced in the local press here--that no people since the ruin of +the Roman Commonwealth seemed to entertain more just ideas of liberty +or breathed forth a truer spirit of independence than these American +colonists. Now Governor Bernard and his political friends regarded the +chafings of such a people at what they held to be palpable aggressions +on their established system of local government as the acts of a trained +mob, and proofs of a long-matured design to cast off allegiance to the +British crown and of an immediate purpose of insurrection; and for years +they systematically urged, and attempted to fortify their policy by the +most unscrupulous misrepresentations, that nothing could check this +anarchical element and traitorous design but the abrogation of +fundamental parts of the local constitution and the implanting of a +feudal exotic by military power. The people claimed to be as free as the +English were, and the calumnies were heaped on them of being anarchists +and rebels. + +This theory of insurrection was acted upon by the Governor as long as +he remained in the Province. Every hasty word of the violent, and every +public deliberation of the wise as well, were made to nurture this +theory. By acting on such premises, besides doing gross injustice to the +people, he made himself ridiculous. Still he clung tenaciously to his +error and his plans as long as he remained in office; and even after he +returned to England, the course of the Patriots continued to strengthen +his convictions, and he wrote back that it was "plainly the design of +the chiefs of the Boston faction to measure swords with Great Britain." + +Though Governor Bernard had long thought a military force necessary to +sustain the new measures, yet he refused to make a requisition for it. +He expected the Government, of its own motion, would order troops to +Boston in the time of the Stamp Act, and looked for trouble on their +arrival. "The crisis," he wrote, (September 1, 1766,) "which I apprehend +most danger from, is the introduction of King's troops into this town, +which, having become necessary to the support of the Government, will be +placed to the account of the Governor." But no troops were ordered then. +He never was able to get his Council, even when he supposed a majority +agreed with him in politics, to recommend their introduction; for no +policy or measure which even such a Council indorsed required troops to +enforce it. The Governor, however, was a zealous advocate of the new +policy of the Ministry, which he judged could not be carried out +without military force; but his point was, that, along with the stiff +instructions to carry that policy out, the Ministry ought to supply +force enough to do it. + +The new Revenue Acts provided for a Board called the Commissioners of +Customs, who were empowered to collect duties along a truly imperial +line of coast, extending from Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico. They were +appointed to reside in Boston. They were five in number,--Charles +Paxton, Henry Hulton, William Burch, John Robinson, and John Temple. Not +much is said of Hulton and Burch, who appear to have been simply zealous +partisans; Robinson's violent temper is seen in his savage assault on +Otis; Temple was not in favor of the creation of the Board, and won its +enmity by taking exceptions to its doings; Paxton was charged with being +the father of the Board and its chief. He was a zealous official, with a +clean Tory record, of bland, courtlike ways, and certificated to England +as Bernard's confidential friend. There he is said to have "whined, +cried, professed, swore, and made his will in favor of that great man," +Charles Townshend, whom, when in Boston, he had supplied with funds, and +thus gained his objects. This Board soon became a severe and chronic +local irritant. The foreign ways of its members, for most of them were +strangers, supplied the wits of the town with material for satire, while +its main acts were as iron to the soul of a high-spirited community. As +it was created to collect taxes held to be unconstitutional, it could +not have been popular; but it discharged an ungracious task in an +ungracious way; and so singularly ill-judged was its action, that, while +it excited odium here, it elicited censure in England. + +The Commissioners were full believers in the theory that the popular +leaders designed insurrection. The Governor, in a letter to Lord +Barrington, (March 8, 1768,) relates that they would ask him what +support he could give them, "if there should be insurrection." "I +answer," Bernard says, "'None at all.' They then desire me to apply to +the General for troops. I tell them I cannot do it; for I am directed to +consult the Council about requiring troops, and they will never advise +it, let the case be ever so desperate. Indeed, I no more dare apply +for troops than the Council dare advise me to it. Ever since I have +perceived that the wickedness of some and the folly of others will in +the end bring troops here, I have conducted myself so as to be able to +say, and swear to it, if the Sons of Liberty shall require it, that +I have never applied for troops; and therefore, my Lord, I beg that +nothing I now write may be considered such an application." This is a +fair show for this royal official. He begins his letter by telling how, +within ten days just passed, nights have been twice fixed upon for a +mob; at the close, he returns to the matter of a mob, and tells how he +has promised the Commissioners an asylum at the Castle in case of a +mob; and he warns his superior that a mob, unchecked, "might put the +Commissioners and all their officers on board ship, and send them back +to England." This was the Governor's method of not asking for troops. +The Commissioners, at least, asked for troops in a manly way. "About a +fortnight ago," Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson writes, (March 23, 1768,) +"I was in consultation with the Commissioners. They were very desirous +the Governor should----for a R----. If he had done it, by some means +or other it would have transpired, and there is no saying to what +lengths the people would have gone in their resentment." The letter just +cited explains why the Governor did not send for a regiment. + +A few days after this consultation the Patriots celebrated the +anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act by a day of general +rejoicing. There were things that could be perverted, and were +perverted, into signs of mob-rule and disloyalty. Daylight revealed +hanging on the Liberty Tree effigies of Commissioner Paxton and +Inspector Williams, the latter of whom, being a cabinet-maker, had a +glue-pot by his side, but by order of the popular leaders they were +soon removed; there were salutes, liberty toasts, and other joyful +demonstrations, and in the evening a procession, which was quite +harmless, though, as it went along the street by the Province House, +somewhat noisy, so that the Governor said that he and his family were +disturbed. But there was an allegation that ran deeper than processions, +and which went to the meaning of these rejoicings. The Loyalists said +that the Patriots congratulated one another on their glorious victory +over England in the repeal of the Stamp Act; and if the Tory relations +may be believed, there were men in Boston who were so foolish as +to say,--We have shown our spirit; we have convinced them of our +resentment; they repealed their foolish act; they durst not do +otherwise; if they had, we should have ruined them. And the Loyalists +said, that, when the mother-country had a right to look for gratitude, +she actually met with insult. + +With such views of the day, it is easy to see how its proceedings might +be perverted. They were represented to the Ministry by Governor Bernard +as signs of a rebellious spirit; and were made the ground by the +Commissioners of a direct application to Commodore Hood, at Halifax, for +the protection of a naval force,--he being advised that the conduct +and temper of the people, the adverse aspect of things in general, the +security of the revenue, the safety of its officers, and the honor of +Government required immediate aid; and the hope being expressed that he +would find it consistent with the King's other service to afford such +assistance. The Commodore ordered the Romney to be fitted out with all +possible despatch, and, accompanied by two armed schooners, she sailed +for Boston. As they came into the harbor, being short of men, a +press-gang landed from them, who impressed on board Massachusetts +citizens. Ever since the revival of the aggressions on Colonial rights, +"Hyperion" (Josiah Quincy, Jr.) says, the Loyalists publicly threatened +the defenders of the rights of America with halters, fire, and fagots; +but there was nothing more serious than threats, or more authentic than +rumors, until this appearance of the Romney and her two tenders. + +This show of naval force, though no troops came, was irritating, and +multiplied the sayings of the violent, which appear to have been +reported to the Governor, who advised the Ministry that he was "well +assured that it was the intention of the faction in Boston to cause an +insurrection against the crown officers." At this time he favored Lord +Hillsborough with a lucid explanation of a paradox,--how a few leaders +of bankrupt reputation ruled with a rod of iron the most virtuous town +in the world. "It has been a subject of wonder," are the Governor's +words, (May 19,1768,) "how the faction which harasses this town, and +through it the whole continent, which is known to consist of very few +of the lowest kind of gentry, and is directed by three or four persons, +bankrupts in reputation as well as in property, should be able to keep +in subjection the inhabitants of such a town as this, who possess a +hundred times the credit and property (I might say much more) of those +who rule them with a rod of iron. This paradox is at once solved by +showing that this town is governed by the lowest of the people, and from +the time of the Stamp Act to this hour has been and is in the hands +of the mob." He represented the friends of the Government as very +desponding, on seeing, unchecked, the imperial power treated with a +contempt not only indecent, but almost treasonable. Of such cast were +letters read to George III. in his closet, and made the basis of royal +instructions which it was claimed had the force of law. + +This was an anxious hour in Boston. The journals carried into every +circle the reports, private and public, that the Ministry were resolved +upon new and decisive measures; and thus this show of force had a +painful significance. It was the common talk, that the people were +doomed to be taxed to maintain a parcel of sycophants, court +favorites, and hungry dependants; that needy lawyers from abroad +or tools of power at home would be their judges; and that +their governors, if natives, would be partisans rewarded for +mercenary service, or if foreigners, would be nobles of wasted fortunes +and greedy for salaries to replenish them. Kindling-matter from abroad +was thrown on this inflammable public mind at home; for after each +arrival the journals would be filled with the enthusiasm of the Wilkes +controversy, which then was at its height in England; and if "London +resounded the word Liberty from every corner and every voice," there was +an echo in every street and every home in Boston. The people knew they +were misrepresented and ill-used, and were sullen. They knew they were +in the right, and they were resolute. + +In about a month after Governor Bernard had solved the problem how such +bankrupts in reputation as Joseph Warren, James Otis, John Hancock, and +Samuel Adams ruled the town as with a rod of iron, there was (June 10, +1768) a real mob. The Board of Customs directed the revenue officers, +for alleged violations of the revenue laws, to seize the sloop Liberty, +owned by Hancock, which they did on a Friday, near the hour of sunset, +as the men were going home from their day's work. And as though the +people contemplated forcible resistance to the law, and would refuse to +respect the arrest, the sloop, after the broad arrow was put upon her, +contrary to the advice of the Collector, was moved, with vulgar and +rough words by the officers, from the wharf where she lay, and moored +under the guns of the Romney. This was the beginning of a war of +epithets, in the usual way of brawls, between the crowd, which kept +increasing, and the custom-house officers,--and, by a sort of natural +law of mobs, grew into a riot, in which the offending officials were +severely pelted with dirt and stones. It is related, that, while Warren, +Hancock, and Samuel Adams were in consultation, the mob broke the +windows of the residences of the Comptroller and Inspector, and dragged +the pleasure-boat of the Collector to the Common, where they burned +it. But here Hancock and other popular leaders went among them, and +succeeded in restoring quiet. These were outrages, and could not be +justified, though the parents of them were the brutal words of the +captain of the Romney and the mob procedure of the officers in taking +the vessel, which was detained three days without any legal process +being filed against her. After all, this was a very slight affair when +compared with the contemporary terrific mobs of London and elsewhere, +which did not spare the highest officials, and, instead of stopping at +breaking glass, pushed into the most costly houses, made complete havoc +of furniture, destroyed life, and were checked only by military force +and bloodshed. In view of these, Colonel Barre might truly say in the +House of Commons, that, in this riot, "Boston was only mimicking the +mother-country." + +But the officials, and especially the Commissioners, all but Temple, +chose to consider the mob as quite original and American, and as proof +that the people of Boston were ripe for open revolt. They regarded the +excitement that arose as confirming this view. The Commissioners, who +had not been harmed and were not threatened, were the most violent and +unreasonable; and though the Governor all Saturday and Sunday endeavored +to persuade them "to come into some pacific measures," yet it was all +to no purpose. On Monday morning, they, with the exception of Temple, +notified the Governor by a card that they were going on board the +Romney, and desired the necessary orders for them to use the Castle; and +they took their families with them. They immediately sent Hallowell off +to England, and advised the Lords of the Treasury,--"Nothing but the +immediate exertion of military power will prevent an open revolt of this +town, which may probably spread throughout the Colonies." Temple, and +a number of the subordinates of the Board, remained in town, were not +molested, and gathered in the revenue which importers continued to pay. + +The town regarded the manner of the seizure of the Liberty as a gross +affront, and coupled with it the recent cases impressment; and on +Monday things looked threatening. But the popular leaders came out, put +themselves at the head of the movement, and guided the indignation along +the safe channels of law, in such a manner that it resulted in nothing +more violent than petition and remonstrance, calmly, but strongly, +expressed through the town-meeting. It is not necessary to detail what +took place at the Liberty Tree, in Faneuil Hall, and in the Old South, +where the Patriots held the greatest meetings, so it is written, that +were ever seen on the American continent At their commencement, on +Tuesday morning, at the Liberty Tree, the Governor, whose town-residence +was the Province House, was at his country-seat at Jamaica Plain, in +Roxbury. He received such startling advices from his friends, as to the +doings of the Sons of Liberty, that he sent one of his own sons +into town with a message desiring the immediate presence of +Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, as he was "in expectation of very +important news from town," and such as would make it necessary for +him to withdraw. While with perturbed nerves he awaited Hutchinson's +arrival, he must have been surprised to see moving towards his house, +not a Parisian populace, pell-mell, flourishing liberty-caps and pikes, +or even a growling London mob, but a peaceful train of eleven cozy +chaises, conveying a very respectable committee from a public meeting, +at the head of which were Warren, Otis, and Samuel Adams. They bore a +petition to the Governor from the town, which protested against the +right of Parliament to tax the Colonies, and denied the legality of +press-gangs in Massachusetts. "I received them," are the Governor's +words, "with all possible civility, and having heard their petition, I +talked very freely with them, but postponed giving a formal answer till +the next day, as it should be in writing. I then had wine handed round, +and they left me highly pleased with their reception, especially +that part of them which had not been used to an interview with me." +Considering the Governor's state of mind, the committee could not have +been more highly pleased when they left than he was when they arrived; +but his perturbations were over when Hutchinson came in, and there was +no occasion for unusual political action. + +The Governor's reply to the town, on the next day, was conciliatory. The +petition which the committee presented to him was regarded by Hutchinson +as going beyond anything that had yet been advanced in the way of a +practical denial of Parliamentary authority; but the Governor wisely +declined to argue the vexed question of that day, and as wisely promised +redress for the press-gang outrage, all of which was highly satisfactory +to the meeting. The chairman, James Otis, made the reply more +satisfactory by acknowledging the Governor's hospitality. Still the +men who filled the Old South to overflowing did not omit the duty of +stern-worded protest against the aggressions of Parliament; and in an +elaborate and admirable paper, marked with Joseph Warren's energy of +soul, they alleged the unconstitutional imposition of taxes as the +groundwork of the recent troubles. It was oppression, and it "came down +upon the people like an armed man, though they were the subjects of an +empire which was the toast of the nations for freedom and liberty." + +It was now the current rumor that this and other aggressions were to be +enforced by arms. The idea was abhorrent to the people. A committee, to +whom was referred the subject of the rumored introduction of troops, +reported to the meeting a resolve to the effect that whoever had urged +this measure was "a tyrant in his heart, a traitor and an open enemy to +his country"; but though this resolve was advocated by William Cooper, +the faithful and intrepid town-clerk, and by others, the resolution +finally adopted declared only that any person who should solicit or +promote the importation of any troops at this time was an enemy to the +town and the Province, and a disturber of the peace and good order of +both. + +The Governor was now on good terms with the people. He was in the habit +of saying that nothing which he had done would bring troops into the +town,--that he was desirous of promoting harmony between the Province +and the mother-country,--and the memorial to the Ministry in their +behalf contained the assurance that they bore "the same sentiments of +loyalty and duty towards their gracious King, and the same reverence for +the great council of the nation, the British Parliament, as ever." This +was the truth, touchingly expressed. The Bostonians never considered +the Parliament to be such an embodiment of Imperialism that it +could rightfully mould their local institutions, or control their +congregations and their town-meetings, their highways and their homes; +and always looked upon the Crown as the symbol of a national power that +would shield their precious body of customs and rights. Thus what the +Governor said on the paramount point of nationality met with an honest +response from those to whom it was addressed. "I am myself," he wrote, +(June 18,) "on better terms with the people than usual. A civil +treatment of a petition of the town to me, a plain and friendly answer +thereto, and some real service by interposing with the men-of-war, have +given me a little popularity. But it won't last a week. As soon as I +have executed the orders I have just received from the Secretary of +State, in the General Assembly, there will be an end of my popularity; +and I don't know whether I sha'n't be obliged to act like the captain of +a fire-ship,--provide for my retreat before I light my fusee." + +But he quietly lighted his fusee, when the horizon became all aglow with +what to the Loyalists was the lurid flame of destruction, but to the +Patriots was as light from heaven. The occasion is too well known to +need more than a glance. The House of Representatives, on the eleventh +of February, had sent its famous Circular Letter to the other Colonies, +proposing, that, in the present crisis, there should be unity of action +among them. The Loyalists charged that this was an attempt to organize a +Confederacy, and therefore was revolutionary; the Patriots averred that +its sole object was to unite in petition and remonstrance for redress +of grievances, and therefore that it was constitutional; the Ministry +regarded the act as in the last degree dangerous to the prerogative, and +ordered Governor Bernard to demand of the House to recall or rescind +this Circular Letter. The communication of this order was what the +Governor called lighting his fusee. His daily letters show precisely his +state of mind as he touched it off. He saw a determination to resist +Great Britain; he was told that the people were making preparations to +do it; and he wrote to his relative, Viscount Barrington, who had the +_entrée_ of the royal closet,--sending the letter by Hallowell,--with +rather more than the usual emphasis of error,--"I am sure that things +are coming apace to a crisis, and I fear the Bostonians will get the +start of you." In this mood the Governor sent in the arrogant British +demand. The House, (June 26, 1768,) by the memorable vote of ninety-two +to seventeen, flatly refused to comply with the royal order; whereupon +the Governor, as the punishment, dissolved the General Court; and for +many months Massachusetts was without a legislature. + +These were of the order of events that take fast hold of the public +mind. Far and wide and profound was the sensation; and the unity of the +response from abroad, made known to the people through the press, was +truly inspiring. "We all rejoice," says a letter, "in what your Assembly +has done, and join in acclamations to the glorious Ninety-Two. 'Twas +certainly the most important case an American assembly ever acted upon." +This brief narrative is uncommonly suggestive. The letter of Bernard is +a testimony to the kindly disposition of the people, who were ready to +return much gratitude for little service, and who only asked to be left +to the measure of freedom that was enjoyed by their brethren in England; +the magnificent No which the House gave to the royal command shows +how they could maintain their self-respect, and stand by their local +government; and the general indorsement of the action of the House +in other Colonies indicates a community of interest in each other's +destiny. + +The replies of local legislatures, as they were printed from time to +time in the journals, filled the hearts of the Boston patriots with joy. +Hutchinson, who kept constant watch of these things, and who rightly +estimated the importance of the formation of public opinion, +wrote,--"The action of the other Colonies keeps up the spirit of our +demagogues. I am told Adams and Cooper say it is the most glorious day +they ever saw." They saw a general manifestation of a spirit of unity in +the support of common rights. Without union they knew they were nothing; +with union they felt equal to all things. Thus here were working two of +the elements of our political system, local self-government and American +nationality. + +The June mob, the public meetings, the vote of the House of +Representatives, and the union feeling supplied zealous Loyalists with +rich material to pervert into fresh argument for the necessity of +troops to keep the people in order. It was promptly seized upon. The +Commissioners set out the Boston tumults as the heralds of a rebellion +that had begun its course over the continent. They not only sent a batch +of falsehoods to England by Hallowell, but they also sent letters to +General Gage, the Commander-in-Chief, whose head-quarters were in New +York, with a request for troops, and to Commodore Hood at Halifax asking +for more ships. General Gage was surprised at not receiving letters +from the Governor, but with a soldier's promptness he at once (June 24) +tendered to Governor Bernard all the force he might need to preserve the +public peace; yet regarding it as improper to order the King's forces +into a Province to quell a riot without a requisition from the +Executive, he frankly advised the Governor to this effect. But the +Governor did not want troops to quell a riot, and said so; and in answer +to the tender, returned a long and heavy disquisition, showing why, +though he considered troops essential to the promotion of the good of +his country, he did not and would not make a formal requisition for any, +and thus, all unconsciously, betrayed and condemned himself at every +word,--for while he was talking of country, he was thinking of self. +Commodore Hood, believing that the good people of Boston were actually +on the eve of a revolt, and that the precious lives of the Commissioners +were hardly safe in Castle William, where they now were, "immediately +sent two more ships," which, he says, "secured the Castle from all +attempts at surprising it." But, according to Hutchinson, though the +people were mad, yet they were not Don Quixotes, and though a few might +have talked of attacking it, yet the Castle was in no danger, even +though no one of His Majesty's ships had been in the harbor. + +The ships promptly arrived, and were moored about Castle William; but no +troops appeared, though early in July the Governor felt sure they were +ordered here from Halifax, from the fact that General Gage sent a batch +of despatches, under cover to him, addressed to Lieutenant-Colonel +Dalrymple, the senior British officer in command at that station. On +forwarding these despatches, Bernard wrote to Dalrymple,--"You know that +my situation requires that I should appear to know as little in the +proceedings of this kind as can well be. I should, therefore, be obliged +to you, if in conducting a business of this kind you would let me appear +a stranger to it until it becomes necessary to communicate it to me +officially. In the mean time any private hints, conveyed to me by a safe +hand, will be acceptable." + +A straightforward British officer must have conceived contempt for such +an official, even before subsequent action on the part of this official +elicited an expression of it. + +The Governor was doomed to disappointment. The orders which he +transmitted merely placed troops in readiness to proceed to Boston on +his requisition, which requisition he steadily refused to make, and he +wrote,--"The crisis awaits the arrival of the troops, and I now learn +they are not coming." He next officially laid the tender of the +Commanding General before the Council, when he found that its members +were unanimously of the opinion that troops were not required. Now this +body contained decided Loyalists; and this unanimity of opinion appears +to have amazed the Governor. He advised Lord Barrington, that the fact +convinced him that he could "no longer depend upon the Council for the +support of the small remains of royal and parliamentary power now +left, the whole of which had been gradually impeached, arraigned, and +condemned under his eye"; which was arrant party-misrepresentation. He +further expressed the opinion that the sending of troops to Boston ought +to be a business of quartering and cantonment. "It is no secret," he +said, "that this ought to have been done two years and a half ago. If it +had, there would have been no opposition to Parliament now, and above +all, no such combinations as threaten (but I hope vainly) the overthrow +of the British Empire. If provision was to have been made against +faction and sedition, the head-quarters should have been secured." +Instead of this, "Boston has been left under a trained mob from August +14, 1765, to this present July 23, 1768." + +While these things had been going on here, the die as to Massachusetts +and Boston had been cast in the British cabinet, by the conclusion to +place a military force at the command of the Governor. This decision was +reached before the June meeting or the June riot; and it is quite in +vain to seek the real reason for it in what appears on paper about the +processions on the eighteenth of March or the equally insignificant +prior manifestations. Hutchinson and Gage and other Loyalists admitted +that all these were trifles. The Ministers were no strangers to mobs; +even if there had been as violent ones in Boston as there were in +London, they could not have acted upon them as proofs of disloyalty. +Besides the calumnies that made out the popular leaders to be +anarchists, that perverted love of the local government into a +desire for independence, there was one that touched the pride of the +mother-country; for the Loyalists said of the Bostonians,--(there +is nothing like the language of the time to embody the spirit of +the time,)--that "every dirty fellow, just risen from his kennel, +congratulated his neighbor on their glorious victory over England; and +they were so intoxicated with their own vast importance, that the lowest +wretch among them conceived himself superior to the first English +merchant." This was falsehood; for it is certain that the joy for +the repeal of the Stamp Act was joy for harmony restored between the +Colonies and Great Britain. + +Thus, owing to such representations, while the people of Boston were +deliberating in the great town-meetings of June, orders were on their +way to General Gage, whose head-quarters were in New York, to place +troops in Castle William, to station a detachment in Boston, and to +keep a naval force in the harbor. The despatch of Lord Hillsborough, +addressed to Governor Bernard, communicating this conclusion, was +elaborate and able, and laid down in full the policy of the Government. +The instructions were based on the pretence that Boston was "in +possession of a licentious and unrestrained mob"; that it was animated +by a disposition "to resist the laws and to deny the authority of +Parliament"; and that the alleged "illegal and unwarrantable measures +which had been pursued in opposing the officers of the revenue in the +execution of their duty, and for intimidating the civil magistrates, +showed the necessity of strengthening the hands of the Government." +This despatch refers to five of Bernard's letters as containing such +representations. It is worthy of remark, that Lord Hillsborough sharply +rebuked the Governor for having all along asked the advice of the +Council as to the introduction of the troops; for to admit such a +function in the Council, he said, was to concede a power inconsistent +with the Constitution. "It is you," are the official words, "to whom the +Crown has delegated its authority, and you alone are responsible for the +best use of it." + +This action was unknown to the popular leaders, and the month of August +passed in doubt as to whether the Ministers would be persuaded to +quarter troops in Boston. The town was remarkably quiet, when the +Governor issued (August 3, 1768) a proclamation against riots, and +calling all magistrates to suppress tumults and unlawful assemblies, and +to restore vigor and firmness to the Government. "It cannot be wondered +at," said "Determinatus," (August 8,) in the "Gazette," "if the +mother-country should think that we are in a state of confusion equal +to what we hear from the orderly and very polite cities of London and +Westminster. There, we are told, is the weavers' mob, the seamen's mob, +the tailors' mob, the coal-miners' mob, and some say the clergy's mob; +and, in short, it is to be feared the whole kingdom, always excepting +the * * * * and P----t, will unite in one general scene of tumult. +I sincerely pray for the peace and prosperity of the nation and her +colonies, whose interest, if she would open her eyes, she would clearly +discern to be undivided." The journals during this month have full +details of these mobs. The coal-heavers of Wapping destroyed property +and committed murders, and two thousand keel-men and sailors of +Sunderland fairly beat off the King's troops that were sent against them +from Newcastle. Happily such want of reverence for law was unknown in +Boston or the Province. Still the Governor kept on representing that he +was under the control of a mob; and another day of rejoicing gave +him another opportunity of misrepresenting the people. This was the +fourteenth of August, being the third celebration of the uprising +against the Stamp Act. In the procession on this occasion there was one +man who had had a hand in the attack on the Lieutenant-Governor's house +on the twenty-sixth of August, and had in consequence incurred the +penalty of death, and who was now celebrating his mob-exploits; and at +the head of the procession were two Boston merchants, who thus were +charged with countenancing mobs. The Governor well knew that the +Patriots abhorred the outrages of the twenty-sixth of August as much as +they gloried in the uprising against the stamp-duty on the fourteenth of +August. Hutchinson, moreover, was a good deal disturbed by the public +affronts put upon the Commissioners, who were still at the Castle, +though their subordinates were in town collecting the revenue. The +Cadets, on motion of Hancock, voted to exclude them from the usual +public dinner; and the town voted to refuse the use of Faneuil Hall for +the dinner, unless with the stipulation that the Commissioners were not +to be invited. Such proceedings, with petitions and resolutions, made +nearly the whole outrage of the Boston "trained mob" that the Governor +talked about. Yet he affected to be in fear of an insurrection, and on +the last day of the month whiningly wrote,--"The town is at present just +as defensible as it was two years ago,--not a sergeant's guard of real +soldiers within two hundred miles of it." + +In a few days after, on a Saturday night, William Sheriff, aide-de-camp +to General Gage, arrived in town from New York, which he left on +Wednesday morning, bearing the following letter to Governor Bernard, the +original of which is indorsed, "Received Sept. 3." + + * * * * * + + +THOMAS GAGE TO FRANCIS BERNARD. + + +"New York, Aug. 31,1768. + +"Sir,--It is not necessary to trouble you with any answers to your +letters, and I only acknowledge the receipt of them. + +"I am now to acquaint you that I have received orders to send forces +to Boston, and would regulate the number to be sent agreeable to your +opinion of the number that will be necessary. Captain Sheriff, my +aide-de-camp, goes to Boston under pretence of private business, and +will deliver you this letter. He is directed to settle this matter with +you; and you may rely on his discretion, prudence, and secrecy. I have +intrusted him with a letter of orders to the commander of his Majesty's +forces at Halifax to embark with the 14th Regiment, and left a blank in +the letter for Captain Sheriff to fill up with the like order for the +29th Regiment, in case you shall judge it proper to have the whole or +any part of the 29th Regiment, as well as the 14th, and not think one +regiment a sufficient force. When you shall have fixed the matter with +Captain Sheriff, you will be so good as to send me immediate notice, +that I may without delay write you a public letter to demand quarters +for the numbers that will be ordered into your Province. The contents of +this, as well as your answer, and everything I now transact with you, +will be kept a profound secret, at least on this side of the Atlantic. + +"It is submitted in my letters, whether it would not be advisable, as +troops will probably continue at Boston, to take possession of Castle +William, which, being a place of some strength, may in case of emergency +be of great service, and it is said to belong to the Crown. + +"You will be so good as to fix with Captain Sheriff, whether you would +have the whole, or any part of the troops ordered to Boston, quartered +in Castle William. If you should be of opinion that troops stationed +there will not answer the intention of sending them to Boston, for the +purposes of enforcing a due obedience to the laws, and protecting and +supporting the civil magistrates and the officers of the Crown in the +execution of their duty, part may be stationed there, and part in the +town. Should you require both the regiments from Halifax, one of them, +or three or four companies of one of them, might be quartered in the +Castle, and you would then have an entire regiment and five companies of +another in the city. I mention this, but leave it to your determination; +and you will regulate this matter with Captain Sheriff according to the +number of troops you think necessary to be sent to Boston. You will be +pleased to give me notice of your resolves on this head. + +"I don't know if you can supply bedding for such of the troops as you +would choose to be lodged in the Castle; if not, Captain Sheriff will +write to Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple to bring bedding with him from +Halifax, sufficient for the number of men you shall fix upon for the +garrison of Castle William. + +"I have the honor to be with great regard, + + "Sir, + "Your most obedient, + "Humble servant, + "TH'S. GAGE." + +Such was the mode in which the Sam Adams Regiments were ushered into +Boston According to this letter, the Governor himself, substantially, +gave the order that brought all but the Fourteenth Regiment,--an order +which was to "be kept a profound secret, at least on this side of the +Atlantic." + +At this time the mass of the citizens Boston were very bitter and +suspicious towards all who were in any way supposed to be concerned in +urging the introduction of troops among them; because troops had come to +be looked upon as means of subjugating them to laws to which they never +would give their consent through their representatives. The fiery Josiah +Quincy, Jr., would say,--"Before the freeborn sons of the North will +yield a general and united submission to any tyrannic power on earth, +fire and sword, desolation and ruin, will ravage the land." The intrepid +Samuel Adams would say,--"Before the King and Parliament shall dragoon +us, and we become slaves, we will take up arms and our last drop of +blood." The calm Andrew Eliot would say,--"You cannot conceive of our +distress: to have a standing army! What can be worse to a people who +have tasted the sweets of liberty?" Hutchinson wrote,--"Many of the +common people were in a frenzy, and talked of dying in defence of their +liberties," while "too many above the vulgar countenanced and encouraged +them." Such was the intensity of the public feeling; such the +earnestness with which liberty was ranked above material prosperity. It +was now to be seen whether the American cause was to suffer shipwreck on +the rock of premature insurrection, or whether it was to be led on by +such cautious and wise steps as develop into the majesty of revolution. + +The present public alarm was occasioned by vague statements from abroad +or rumors started at home as to the coming of a military force. Troops +were ordered in from the outposts of Canada to Halifax; an unusual naval +force was gathering at that station; it was said that the destination of +both was Boston: but the Governor persisted in denying that he had +done anything that would bring troops here, and kept on playing the +know-nothing. This created a painful suspense, and, to cool observers, +the policy of the Government appeared inexplicable. But however deep +may have been the indignation of the people at the prospect of military +rule, it was no part of the plan of the popular leaders, if troops came +here, to resist the landing, or to allow the rash spirits, who are ever +ready for any imprudence, to do so; but their object was to fix in the +public mind a just sense of the rights thus violated, to guide the +general indignation into a safe channel of action, and thus turn the +insult to the benefit of the general cause. + +Two days after the Governor received the letter of General Gage, a +communication appeared in the "Boston Gazette," under the head of +"READER! ATTEND!" which arraigned, with uncommon spirit and boldness, +the course of the officials who were urging the policy of arbitrary +power, as having a direct tendency "to dissolve the union between Great +Britain and her colonies." It proposed to remonstrate against this +policy to the King, and at the same time to declare that "there was +nothing this side eternity they dreaded more than being broken off +from his government." In urging resistance to this course the author +said,--"We will put our lives in our hands, and cry to the Judge of all +the Earth, who will do right." + +This paper, like many similar appeals in that well-stored Liberty +arsenal, the "Boston Gazette," had the genuine Liberty ring, yet there +was in it nothing very unusual; but the royal circle at the Province +House lived in an unusual atmosphere, and this article came sounding in +among them like a great moral Dahlgren. "In the Boston Gazette of the +fifth instant," the Governor, with his usual acuteness, wrote to the +Secretary of State, "appeared a paper containing a system of politics +exceeding all former exceedings. Some took it for the casual ravings of +an occasional enthusiast. But I persuaded myself that it came out of the +cabinet of the faction, and was preparatory to some actual operations +against the Government. In this persuasion, I considered, that, if the +troops from Halifax were to come here on a sudden, there would be no +avoiding an insurrection, which would at least fall upon the crown +officers, if it did not amount to an opposition to the troops. I +therefore thought it would be best that the expectation of the troops +should be gradually communicated, that the heads of the faction might +have time to consider well what they were about, and prudent men +opportunity to interpose their advice." Accordingly (September 8) he +"took an occasion to mention to one of the Council, in the way of +discourse, that he had private advice that troops were ordered to +Boston, but had no public orders about it"; and before night, the +Governor adds, the intelligence was all over the town. + +Before night, too, a petition, addressed to the Selectmen, was +circulating all over the town, and large numbers were affixing their +names to it. It prayed that the town might be legally convened to +require of the Governor the reasons for his declaration that three +regiments might be daily expected, and "to consider of the most wise, +consistent, and salutary measure suitable to meet the occasion." The +Selectmen acted promptly, (John Hancock was on the Board,) and summoned +the citizens to meet on the Monday following. In this way, openly before +men, not covertly like a body of conspirators, did the solid men and +prudent men of Boston prepare for council. + +Though the Governor averred that his object, in his verbal +communication, was to give a chance for an interposition of such sound +advice, yet to Lord Hillsborough he actually represented the call +and the movement of these men as proofs that the long-contemplated +insurrection was now at hand. He informed the Secretary, that on the +next evening (Friday) there was a large private meeting, where "it was +the general opinion that they should raise the country and oppose the +troops"; and that on the succeeding evening (Saturday) there was a very +small private meeting at the house of one of the chiefs, where it was +resolved "to surprise and take the Castle the Monday night following." +The Governor evidently had misgivings about its being the fact that such +an object was planned. "I don't," he said, "relate these as facts, +but only as reported and believed." I have found no account of the +Friday-evening meeting, which undoubtedly was a meeting of one of the +political clubs of the time; but on Saturday evening James Otis and +Samuel Adams met at Warren's residence in Hanover Street (on the site +of the American House) for conference as to Monday's meeting,--for +instance, to draw up the resolves and decide upon the action that might +be expedient: whatever may have been the warmth of expression of popular +leaders, or the wishes of extremists among the people, the whole object +of this conference was to concentrate and use only the moral force of +public opinion; and there is not a trace of a design of insurrection in +all the known private correspondence of these patriots. + +However, the belief in insurrection, at this time, appears to have been +as strongly rooted in the minds of prominent Loyalists as it was in the +mind of the again perturbed Governor. Signs of what is thought to be +near at hand are apt to be seen or fancied; and it was so in this case. +Somebody had put a turpentine barrel in the skillet that hung at the top +of the beacon-pole on Beacon Hill. Now it had been designed, for a +long time, by such a mode of bonfire, to alarm the country, in case of +invasion. This fact was put with another fact, namely, that the beacon +had been newly repaired; and from the two facts was drawn the startling +inference, that matters were ready for a rising in the town, and for +giving the concerted signal to summon in the country to aid this +rising,--and this, too, when the Governor had not a sergeant's guard +of real soldiers nearer than two hundred miles. And now members of the +Council flocked to the Governor and demanded a meeting of this imposing +body; and a meeting was promptly held at a gentleman's residence +half-way between Boston and Jamaica Plain, where, after grave debate +about taking down the barrel, it was finally voted to make a formal +demand on the Board of Selectmen to order it to be done. On the next +day, (Sunday,) the Fathers of the Town held a special meeting to +consider the vote of the Council, which resulted in declining to act on +this matter of taking down the barrel as too trivial. About the hour of +dining, on this day, however, Sheriff Greenleaf gave some peace to the +frightened officials by repairing to Beacon Hill with half a dozen +others and removing the obnoxious barrel, which proved to be empty. The +public did not hear the last of this affair for months, as may be seen +in the affidavits about it, afterwards, in the journals. + +There was really no ground for all this alarm. The popular leaders, from +the excited state of the public mind, might have been apprehensive of an +explosion from the rash, which they meant, if possible, to prevent, and +if it came, to repress; but the Loyalist leaders would have it that +there was a deep-laid plot even for a revolution. "It is now known," is +Governor Bernard's malicious misrepresentation, as he reviewed these +scenes and justified the introduction of the troops, "that the plan was +to seize the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor and take possession of the +treasury, and then set up their standard." He said that five hundred men +had been enrolled to take the Castle, and it was likely that the names, +at least of the chief of them, would be discovered. There is no such +list in thirteen folio volumes of his correspondence. Hutchinson's +misrepresentation was as mischievous, but more cautious; for he assured +his British correspondents that at the time when the troops landed in +Boston the Province was on the brink of ruin, and that their arrival +prevented the most extravagant measures,--though, he said, he did not +certainly know what the dark designs of the heads of the opposition +were. + +On the morning of the town-meeting, (September 12,) Governor Bernard +believed that the popular leaders were resolved not merely to capture +the crown officials, but to resume the first charter, which, he said, +had not a single ingredient of royalty in it. But while he was looking +for insurrection, a committee of the highest respectability waited on +him, and asked him to be pleased to communicate to the town the grounds +and assurances on which he had intimated his apprehensions that one or +more regiments might he daily expected. On the next day the Governor +replied in writing,--"My apprehensions that some of his Majesty's troops +are to be expected in Boston arise from information of a private nature; +I have received no public letters notifying to me the coming of such +troops." The information came by letter from the only official in the +country who could order troops into Boston, and yet he said it was +private; according to this letter, he must have decided on the number of +troops that were to come, and yet he prattled about apprehensions. Such +was the way in which a royal Governor of the Stuart school dealt with +a people filled with patriotic concern for their country. It is the +dealing of a small man. If he can escape the charge of deliberate +falsehood, it is only, on demurrer, by the plea of a contemptible +quibble. + +It is not necessary here to follow the noble popular demonstrations that +rounded off by a delegate convention, which, at the simple request of +Boston, assembled in Faneuil Hall. The officials, who had long played +falsely with a liberty-loving, yet loyal people, now fairly quailed +before the whirlwind of their righteous indignation. Two days after +Bernard had "intimated his apprehensions," as though steps had +been taken to countermand the order for the troops, the following +semi-official doubt appeared in the "News-Letter":--"It is conjectured +that there are troops to come here; but at present we can find no +authentic accounts of it, nor that any person has declared that they +actually are, though there is great probability that they will soon be +here, if ever." This, from a Loyalist source, is a singularly worded +paragraph, and is richly Delphic. + +The circular letter which Boston addressed (September 14) to the towns, +calling a Convention, accurately states the object of the military force +that was now expected:--"The design of these troops is, in every one's +apprehension, nothing short of enforcing by military power the execution +of Acts of Parliament, in the forming of which the Colonies have not, +and cannot have, any constitutional influence. This is one of the +greatest distresses to which a free people can be reduced." The object +of the Convention is as accurately stated to be, "to prevent any sudden +and unconnected measures," and to act in every constitutional way for +the preservation of invaluable rights. The Governor, as usual, acting +on his theory of insurrection, held that the Convention was designed to +mature plans for it; and he wrote (September l6) to Lord Hillsborough as +to his own plans,--"For my own part, if I had any place of protection +to resort to, I would publish a proclamation against the assembling of +the Convention, but I dare not take so spirited a step without first +securing my retreat"; and, with unusual good sense, he expressed "much +doubt whether the force already ordered by General Gage, namely, two +regiments, would be sufficient" to fight off the original charter, and +to keep the crown officers in their places. There was a small party who +were in favor of resuming the old charter; but the union of the towns of +Massachusetts, and then the union of all the Colonies, for the sake of +continued union with Great Britain, was the key of the action of the +leaders who were the exponents of the Patriots. They did not contemplate +going into acts of government; and neither now nor in the future did +they ever contemplate "sudden and unconnected measures." + +Three days later (September 19) Governor Bernard threw off all disguise. +He formally announced to the Council that troops were coming, and asked +this body to provide them quarters. And now began a long, irritating, +and arrogant endeavor on the part of the Executive to browbeat the local +authorities in the matter of providing quarters for the troops. The +official record is voluminous. The Patriots kept strictly to the law, +and won a moral victory: the royal officials persisted in virtually +urging burly British will as law, and suffered the shame of an +ignominious defeat. The Governor thought the Government had received +a blow that made it reel; and, in a garrulous, complaining letter, +supplies not only a vivid idea of the whole of this struggle, but an +idea of his well-deserved individual mortification. "The account up +to this time," (October 30, 1768,) he wrote, "will end in my having +employed myself from September nineteenth to October twenty-sixth, that +is, thirty-eight days, in endeavoring to procure quarters for the two +regiments here to no purpose. For having during this time been bandied +about from one to another, I at length got positive refusals from every +one that I could apply to, that is, the Council, the Selectmen, and the +Justices of the Peace; upon which the General, [Gage,] who came here on +purpose, has found himself obliged to hire and fit up buildings at the +expense of the Crown, by which means the two regiments are at length got +into good occasional barracks." + +The new scene of an American States-General in Faneuil Hall,--so the +royal Governor and Parliamentary orators termed the Convention,--a +manifestation of the rising power of the people, was followed by the +spectacle of an imposing naval force in the harbor. The Sam Adams +Regiments, sent on the mission of warring against the republican idea, +were proudly borne to Boston by fifteen British men-of-war, which were +moored (September 29) in well-chosen fighting positions around the +north end of the quiet, but glorious town. In the evening the curious +Bostonians put out in their boats from the wharves to get a near view of +the ships. There were great rejoicings on board. The sky was brilliant +with the rockets that were shot off from the decks, and the air +resounded with the music of the bands. It was noticed that the favorite +piece seemed to be "the Yankee tune": it was played by the regimental +bands when Earl Percy led a British force out of Boston on Lexington +morning, but no mention is made of its being performed when this force +returned in the evening of that famous day, or when the Sam Adams +Regiments left the town. + +The King's troops landed on the first day of October. Though it had +been printed in England that ten thousand men were enrolled to oppose +them,--though the local officials had predicted that the event would +occasion a crisis in affairs,--though John Bull had been so abominably +imposed upon that he as much expected to see a mob resist the landing as +he lately expected the mob would resist the delivery of the Confederate +Commissioners,--and though not merely ministerial circles, but all +England, were looking forward with serious apprehensions to the +result,--yet the day was so tame that little history was made worth +relating. As the spectators on board the ships, about noon, were looking +for a battle-scene, they saw only a naval and military show. The ships +of war were prepared for action by loading the guns and putting springs +on the cables. The troops, after sixteen rounds of powder and ball had +been served out to them, entered the boats. Rude artists were looking +on, and sketching the peaceful display, setting down each boat and ship +and island, with view undisturbed by the smoke of battle or even of +salute. They did not notice, however, that the commander of the land +force, Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple, went ashore privately, at about +eleven o'clock, and sauntered over the town. He met no local militia; +he saw nor horns nor hoofs of insurrection; he saw not even the royal +Governor, for he had retired to Jamaica Plain; and instead of a cordial +Executive greeting and proper directions as to what to do, he found that +everything was left to himself. He knew that neither the Council nor the +Governor had provided quarters for his command; but from the doings +or non-doings of this day he conceived feelings towards the runaway +official which he expressed by words, at the time, "full as plain as +pleasant," and afterwards officially in writing to his superiors. +Bernard met Dalrymple's intimations of cowardice by the truthful +allegation that there was not the least danger of insurrection, and of +want of attention by the mean allegation that the Colonel was chagrined +because he was not complimented with a dinner. + +An hour after the Commander made his reconnoissance, about noon, the +boats moved in fine order towards the Long Wharf, so termed as being a +noble commercial pier running far out into the Bay. Here the Fourteenth +Regiment, under Colonel Dalrymple, landed, and, having formed, marched, +in the words of the time, with drums beating, fifes playing, and colors +flying, up King Street (now State Street) to the Town-House, where it +halted. It is not said that the troops were complimented by the presence +of the people, who, on holidays then as on holidays now, usually +appeared, having an air of self-respect, well-dressed, well-behaved, +with nothing moving among them more threatening than the baton of the +police as the sign of law and authority, but respecting that as the +symbol of their own law. What Tory writers and officials say warrants +the inference that the Patriots kept away. Dalrymple said that the +Convention was planet-stricken; "Sagittarius," a Tory scribbler, says +the Convention ran, and tells how they ran:--"The courage of the +faithful only consisted in blustering, for the morning that the troops +landed they broke up, and rushed out of town like a herd of scalded +hogs." If the Patriots generally were absent, it was from design. The +Fourteenth Regiment remained near the Town-House until the Twenty-Ninth +joined it, when the column marched to the Common. About four o'clock +these troops were joined by the Fifty-Ninth Regiment, and a train +of artillery with two field-pieces. This made a force of a thousand +fine-appearing and well-disciplined regulars. + +Colonel Dalrymple ordered the Twenty-Ninth Regiment to encamp +immediately, which, as it had field-equipage, it was enabled to do, and +pitched its tents on the Common; but he had no cover for the Fourteenth +Regiment, and he now endeavored to obtain quarters for it. He was +directed to the Manufactory House, a large building owned by the +Province, in what is now Hamilton Place, near the Common, which was +hired by a zealous Patriot, who declined to let the troops occupy it; +whereupon he applied to the Selectmen for Faneuil Hall, promising that +the utmost care should be taken not to injure the property. "About +twilight," in the words of the "Gazette," "the Fourteenth Regiment +marched down to the Hall, where they stood under arms till near nine +o'clock, when the door, by some means or other, being opened, they took +up their lodgings there that night." The Colonel exultingly wrote,--"By +tolerable management I got possession of Faneuil Hall, the School of +Liberty, from the Sons thereof, without force, and thereby secured all +their arms": about four hundred had been recently placed there to be +cleaned. + +Such was the day, so long looked forward to, of the landing of the +King's troops. The people were indignant, but were silent and preserved +their self-respect; but the object of the popular leaders had been +accomplished, so far as the reception of the military force was +concerned. A candid British observer, who was in Boston, saw the truth +and printed it in England:--"The Patriot leaders of the Opposition +were much more concerned at any mobs that happened than the Government +people. These last seem pleased with them, as countenancing their +representations,--the necessity of sending soldiers to keep them in +order." On this occasion, in the words of the "Gazette," "Not the least +attempt was made or contemplated to oppose the landing of the King's +troops or their encampment on the Common." There is no mention made of +even hisses or groans, as the colors that symbolized arbitrary power +were proudly borne up King Street. The peace and good order that marked +the day much chagrined the Loyalists, and fairly astonished "the +gentlemen of the military." + +These gentlemen might have read in the next issues of the journals the +temper of the public mind, in the comments freely made on their mission +and on the events that were said to have occasioned their presence. +The pretext, the obnoxious proceedings of the eighteenth of March, was +characterized as the trifling hallooing of a harmless procession; the +mob of the tenth of June was more serious, but was soon over; but on +the all-important and vital point of allegiance, they might have seen +expressed, in the weighty words of the Council, infinite regret at the +reflection which that show of force implied on the loyalty of the people +to their sovereign, who had not in his wide-extended dominions any more +faithful subjects than in the town of Boston. And what really was the +offence of the Patriots? They had resolved, they had petitioned, they +had agreed not to import or to buy British goods. But they were not +law-breakers, for they could triumphantly challenge their opponents to +produce a single instance since the tenth of June of an interruption of +the public peace or of resistance to law; and they were not political +heretics, for the principles of colonial administration which they stood +on were such as their countrymen unanimously now indorse, and British +statesmanship is now pleased to accept. Yet they were threatened in the +streets with the whipping-post and the pillory, with the loss of their +ears or their heads,--and in official instructions, printed in the +journals, with transportation to England for trial. This last threat was +serious. The Government proposed to make arrests under a statute of the +reign of Henry VIII.: actually designed (Lord Mahon's words) "to draw +forth the mouldering edict of a tyrant from the dust where it had long +lain, and where it ever deserved to lie, and to fling it" against a band +of popular leaders who were wisely and well supporting a most sacred +cause. But these leaders were not actuated by the fanaticism that is +always blind and often cruel, nor by the ambition that is unworthy and +is then reckless and criminal; but, with a clear apprehension of their +ground and definite notions of policy, they went forward with no +faltering step. Their calm and true statement through the press +was,--"It is the part this town has taken on the side of Liberty, +and its noble exertions in favor of the rights of America, that have +rendered it so obnoxious to the tools of arbitrary power." "We are now +[October 3, 1768] become a spectacle to all North America. May our +conduct be such as not to disgrace ourselves or injure the common +cause!" + +Thus wove the solid men of Boston their mantle of enduring glory. + + + + +OUT OF THE BODY TO GOD. + + + Wearily, wearily, wearily: + Sobbing through space like a south-wind, + Floating in limitless ether, + Ether unbounded, unfathomed, + Where is no upward nor downward, + Island, nor shallow, nor shore: + Wearily floating and sobbing, + Out of the body to God! + + Lost in the spaces of blankness, + Lost in the deepening abysses, + Haunted and tracked by the past: + No more sweet human caresses, + No more the springing of morning, + Never again from the present + Into a future beguiled: + Lonely, defiled, and despairing, + Out of the body to God! + + Reeling, and tearless, and desperate, + On through the quiet of ether, + Helpless, alone, and forsaken, + Faithless in ignorant anguish, + Faithless of gasping repentance, + Measuring Him by thy measure,-- + Measure of need and desert,-- + Out of the body to God! + + Soft through the starless abysses, + Soft as the breath of the summer + Loosens the chains of the river, + Sweeping it free to the sea, + Murmurs a murmur of peace:-- + "Soul! in the deepness of heaven + Findest thou shallow or shore? + Hast thou beat madly on limit? + Hast thou been stayed in thy fleeing + Out of the body to God? + + "Thou that hast known Me in spaces + Boundless, untraversed, unfathomed, + Hast thou not known Me in love? + Am I, Creator and Guider, + Less than My kingdom and work? + Come, O thou weary and desolate! + Come to the heart of thy Father + Home from thy wanderings weary, + Home from the lost to the Loving, + Out of the body to God!" + + + + +THE HEALTH OF OUR GIRLS. + + +Among the lower animals, so far as the facts have been noticed, there +seems no great inequality, as to strength or endurance, between the +sexes. In migratory tribes, as of birds or buffaloes, the males are not +observed to slacken or shorten their journeys from any gallant +deference to female weakness, nor are the females found to perish +disproportionately through exhaustion. It is the English experience +that among coursing-dogs and race-horses there is no serious sexual +inequality. Aelian says that Semiramis did not exult when in the chase +she captured a lion, but was proud when she took a lioness, the dangers +of the feat being far greater. Hunters as willingly encounter the male +as the female of most savage beasts; and if an adventurous fowler, +plundering an eagle's nest, has his eyes assaulted by the parent-bird, +it is no matter whether the discourtesy proceeds from the gentleman or +the lady of the household. + +Passing to the ranks of humanity, it is the general rule, that, wherever +the physical nature has a fair chance, the woman shows no extreme +deficiency of endurance or strength. Even the sentimental physiology +of Michelet is compelled to own that his elaborate theories of lovely +invalidism have no application to the peasant-women of France, that +is, to nineteen-twentieths of the population. Among human beings, +the disparities of race and training far outweigh those of sex. The +sedentary philosopher, turning from his demonstration of the hopeless +inferiority of woman, finds with dismay that his Irish or negro +handmaiden can lift a heavy coal-hod more easily than he. And while the +dream is vanishing of the superiority of savage races on every other +point, it still remains unquestionable that in every distinctive +attribute of physical womanhood the barbarian has the advantage. + +The truth is, that in all countries female health and strength go with +peasant habits. In Italy, for instance, About says, that, of all useful +animals, the woman is the one that the Roman peasant employs with the +most profit. "She makes the bread and the cake of Turkish corn; she +spins, she weaves, she sews; she goes every day three miles for wood and +a mile for water; she carries on her head the load of a mule; she toils +from sunrise to sunset without resisting or even complaining. The +children, which she brings forth in great numbers, and which she nurses +herself, are a great resource; from the age of four years they can be +employed in guarding other animals." + +Beside this may be placed the experience of Moffat, the African +missionary, who, seeing a party of native women engaged in their usual +labor of house-building, and just ready to put the roof on, suggested +that some of the men who stood by should lend a hand. It was received +with general laughter; but Mahuto, the queen, declared that the plan, +though hopeless of execution, was in itself a good one, and that men, +though excused from lighter labors, ought to take an equal share in the +severer,--adding, that she wished the missionaries would give their +husbands medicine and make them work. + +The health of educated womanhood in the different European nations seems +to depend mainly upon the degree of conformity to these rustic habits +of air and exercise. In Italy, Spain, Portugal, the women of the upper +classes lead secluded and unhealthy lives, and hence their physical +condition is not superior to our own. In the Northern nations, women of +refinement do more to emulate the active habits of the peasantry,--only +substituting out-door relaxations for out-door toil,--and so they share +their health. This is especially the case in England, which accordingly +seems to furnish the representative types of vigorous womanhood. + +"The nervous system of the female sex in England seems to be of a much +stronger mould than that of other nations," says Dr. Merei, a medical +practitioner of English and Continental experience. "They bear a degree +of irritation in their systems, without the issue of fits, which in +other races is not so easily tolerated." So Professor Tyndall, watching +female pedestrianism among the Alps, exults in his countrywomen:--"The +contrast in regard to energy between the maidens of the British Isles +and those of the Continent and of America is astonishing." When Catlin's +Indians first walked the streets of London, they reported with wonder +that they had seen many handsome squaws holding to the arms of men, "and +they did not look sick either";--a remark which no complimentary savage +was ever heard to make in any Cisatlantic metropolis. + +There is undoubtedly an impression in this country that the English +vigor is bought at some sacrifice,--that it implies a nervous +organization less fine and artistic, features and limbs more rudely +moulded, and something more coarse and peasant-like in the whole average +texture. Making all due allowance for national vanity, it is yet easy to +see that superiority may be had more cheaply by lowering the plane of +attainment. The physique of a healthy day-laborer is a thing of inferior +mould to the physique of a healthy artist. Muscular power needs also +nervous power to bring out its finest quality. Lightness and grace are +not incompatible with vigor, but are its crowning illustration. +Apollo is above Hercules; Hebe and Diana are winged, not weighty. The +physiologist must never forget that Nature is aiming at a keener and +subtiler temperament in framing the American,--as beneath our drier +atmosphere the whole scale of sounds and hues and odors is tuned to a +higher key,--and that for us an equal state of health may yet produce +a higher type of humanity. To make up the arrears of past neglect, +therefore, is a matter of absolute necessity, if we wish this experiment +of national temperament to have any chance; since rude health, however +obtuse, will in the end overmatch disease, however finely strung. + +But the fact must always be kept in mind that the whole problem +of female health is most closely intertwined with that of social +conditions. The Anglo-Saxon organization is being modified not only in +America, but also in England, with the changing habits of the people. In +the days of Henry VIII. it was "a wyve's occupation to winnow all manner +of cornes, to make malte, to wash and ironyng, to make hay, shere corne, +and in time of nede to help her husband fill the muchpayne, drive the +plough, load hay, corne, and such other, and go or ride to the market to +sell butter, cheese, egges, chekyns, capons, hens, pigs, geese, and all +manner of cornes." But now there is everywhere complaint of the growing +delicacy and fragility of the English female population, even in rural +regions; and the king of sanitary reformers, Edwin Chadwick, has lately +made this complaint the subject of a special report before the National +Association. He assumes, as a matter settled by medical authority, that +the proportion of mothers who can suckle their children is decidedly +diminishing among the upper and middle classes, that deaths from +childbirth are eight times as great among these classes as among the +peasantry, and that spinal distortion, hysteria, and painful disorders +are on the increase. Nine-tenths of the evil he attributes to the long +hours of school study, and to the neglect of physical exercises for +girls. + +This shows that the symptoms of ill-health among women are not a matter +of climate only, but indicate a change in social conditions, producing +a change of personal habits. It is something which reaches all; for the +standard of health in the farm-houses is with us no higher than in the +cities. It is something which, unless removed, stands as a bar to any +substantial progress in civilization. It is a mere mockery for the +millionnaire to create galleries of Art, bringing from Italy a Venus on +canvas or a stone Diana, if meanwhile a lovelier bloom than ever artist +painted is fading from his own child's cheek, and a firmer vigor than +that of marble is vanishing from her enfeebled arms. What use to found +colleges for girls whom even the high-school breaks down, or to induct +them into new industrial pursuits when they have not strength to stand +behind a counter? How appeal to any woman to enlarge her thoughts beyond +the mere drudgery of the household, when she "dies daily" beneath the +exhaustion of even that? + +And the perplexity lies beyond the disease, in the perils involved even +in the remedy. No person can be long conversant with physical training, +without learning to shrink from the responsibility of the health of +girls. The panacea for boyish health is commonly simple, even for +delicate cases. Removal from books, if necessary, and the substitution +of farm-life,--with good food, pure air, dogs, horses, oxen, hens, +rabbits,--and fresh or salt water within walking distance. Secure these +conditions, and then let him alone; he will not hurt himself. Nor +will, during mere childhood, his little sister experience anything but +benefit, under the same circumstances. But at the epoch of womanhood, +precisely when the constitution should be acquiring robust strength, her +perils begin; she then needs not merely to be allured to exertion, but +to be protected against over-exertion; experience shows that she cannot +be turned loose, cannot be safely left with boyish freedom to take her +fill of running, rowing, riding, swimming, skating,--because life-long +injury may be the penalty of a single excess. This necessity for caution +cannot be the normal condition, for such caution cannot be exerted for +the female peasant or savage, but it seems the necessary condition for +American young women. It is a fact not to be ignored, that some of the +strongest and most athletic girls among us have lost their health and +become invalids for years, simply by being allowed to live the robust, +careless, indiscreet life on which boys thrive so wonderfully. It is +fatal, if they do too little, and disastrous, if they do too much; +and between these two opposing perils the process of steering is so +difficult that the majority of parents end in letting go the helm and +leaving the fragile vessel to steer itself. + +Everything that follows in these pages must therefore be construed in +the light of this admitted difficulty. The health of boys is a matter +not hard to treat, on purely physiological grounds; but in dealing with +that of girls caution is necessary. Yet, after all, the perplexities can +only obscure the details of the prescription, while the main substance +is unquestionable. Nowhere in the universe, save in improved habits, can +we ever find health for our girls. Special delicacy in the conditions of +the problem only implies more sedulous care in the solution. The great +laws of exercise, of respiration, of digestion are essentially the same +for all human beings; and greater sensitiveness in the patient should +not relax, but only stimulate, our efforts after cure. And the +unquestionable fact that there are among us, after the worst is said, +large numbers of robust and healthy women, should keep up our courage +until we can apply their standard to the whole sex. + +In presence of an evil so great, it is inevitable that there should be +some fantastic theories of cure. But extremes are quite pardonable, +where it is so important to explore all the sources of danger. Special +ills should have special assailants, at whatever risk of exaggeration. +As water-cures and vegetarian boarding-houses are the necessary defence +of humanity against dirt and over-eating, so is the most ungainly +Bloomer that ever drifted on bare poles across the continent a +providential protest against the fashion-plates. It is probable, that, +on the whole, there is a gradual amelioration in female costume. These +hooded water-proof cloaks, equalizing all womankind,--these thick soles +and heavy heels, proclaiming themselves with such masculine emphasis +on the pavement,--these priceless india-rubber boots, emancipating all +juvenile femineity from the terrors of mud and snow,--all these indicate +an approaching era of good sense; for they are the requisite machinery +of air, exercise, and health, so far as they go. + +The weight of skirts and the constraints of corsets are still properly +made the theme of indignant declamation. Yet let us be just. It is +impossible to make costume the prime culprit, when we recall what robust +generations have been reared beneath the same formidable panoply. For +instance, it seems as if no woman could habitually walk uninjured with a +weight of twelve pounds of skirts suspended at her hips,--Dr. Coale is +responsible for the statistics,--and as if salvation must therefore lie +in shoulder-straps. Yet the practice cannot be sheer suicide, when the +Dutch peasant-girl plods bloomingly through her daily duties beneath a +dozen successive involucres of flannel. So in regard to tight lacing, +no one can doubt its ill effects, since even a man's loose garments +are known to diminish by one-fourth his capacity for respiration. Yet +inspect in the shop-windows (where the facts of female costume are +obtruded too pertinaciously for the public to remain in ignorance) +the light and flexible corsets of these days, and then contemplate at +Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth the stout buckram stays that once incased the +stouter heart of Alice Bradford. Those, again, were to those of a still +earlier epoch as leather to chain-armor. The Countess of Buchan was +confined in an iron cage for life for assisting to crown Robert the +Bruce, but her only loss by the incarceration was that her iron cage +ceased to be portable. + +Passing from costume, it must be noticed that there are many physical +evils which the American woman shares with the other sex, but which bear +with far greater severity on her finer organization. There is improper +food, for instance. The fried or salted meat, the heavy bread, the +perennial pork, the disastrous mince-pies of our farmers' houses are +sometimes pardoned by Nature to the men of the family, in consideration +of twelve or more hours of out-door labor. For the more sedentary and +delicate daughter there is no such atonement, and she vibrates between +dyspepsia and starvation. The only locality in America where I have ever +found the farming population living habitually on wholesome diet is the +Quaker region in Eastern Pennsylvania, and I have never seen anywhere +else such a healthy race of women. Yet here, again, it is not safe to +be hasty, or to lay the whole responsibility upon the kitchen, when we +recall the astounding diet on which healthy Englishwomen subsisted two +centuries ago. Consider, for instance, the housekeeping of the Duke of +Northumberland. "My lord and lady have for breakfast, at seven o'clock, +a quart of beer, as much wine, two pieces of salt fish, six red herring, +four white ones, and a dish of sprats." Digestive resources which +could, entertain this bill of fare might safely be trusted to travel in +America. + +The educational excesses of our schools, also, though shared by both +sexes, tell much more formidably upon girls, in proportion as they are +keener students, more submissive pupils, and are given to studying their +lessons at recess-time, instead of shouting and racing in the open +air. They are also easily coerced into devoting Wednesday and Saturday +afternoons to the added atrocity of music-lessons, and in general, but +for the recent blessed innovation of skating, would undoubtedly submit +to having every atom of air and exercise eliminated from their lives. It +is rare to find an American mother who habitually ranks physical vigor +first, in rearing her daughters, and intellectual culture only second; +indeed, they are commonly satisfied with a merely negative condition of +health. The girl is considered to be well, if she is not too ill to go +to school; and she therefore lives from hand to mouth, as respects her +constitution, and lays up nothing for emergencies. From this negative +condition proceeds her inability to endure accidents which to an active +boy would be trivial. Who ever hears of a boy's incurring a lame knee +for a year by slipping on the ice, or spinal disease for a lifetime by +a fall from a sled? And if a girl has not enough of surplus vitality to +overcome such trifles as these, how is she fitted to meet the coming +fatigues of wife and mother? + +These are important, if superficial, suggestions; but there are other +considerations which go deeper. I take the special provocatives of +disease among American women to be in great part social. The one marked +step achieved thus far by our civilization appears to be the abolition +of the peasant class, among the native-born, and the elevation of the +mass of women to the social zone of music-lessons and silk gowns. This +implies the disappearance of field-labor for women, and, unfortunately, +of that rustic health also which in other countries is a standing +exemplar for all classes. Wherever the majority of women work in the +fields, the privileged minority are constantly reminded that they also +hold their health by the tenure of some substituted activity. With +us, all women have been relieved from out-door labor,--and are being +sacrificed in the process, until they learn to supply its place. Except +the graceful and vanishing pursuit of hop-picking, there is in New +England no agricultural labor in which women can be said to be +habitually engaged. Most persons never saw an American woman making hay, +unless in the highly imaginative cantata of "The Hay-Makers"; and Dolly +the Dairy-Maid is becoming to our children as purely ideal a being as +Cinderella. We thus lose not only the immediate effect, but the indirect +example, of these out-door toils. + +This influence of the social transition bears upon all women: there +is another which especially touches wives and mothers. In European +countries, the aim at anything like gentility implies keeping one or +more domestics to perform house-hold labors; but in our Free States +every family aims at gentility, while not one in five keeps a domestic. +The aim is not a foolish one, though follies may accompany it,--for the +average ambition of our people includes a certain amount of refined +cultivation;--it is only that the process is exhausting. Every +woman must have a best-parlor with hair-cloth furniture and a +photograph--book; she must have a piano, or some cheaper substitute; +her little girls must have embroidered skirts and much mathematical +knowledge; her husband must have two or even three hot meals every day +of his life; and yet her house must be in perfect order early in the +afternoon, and she prepared to go out and pay calls, with a black silk +dress and a card-case. In the evening she will go to a concert or a +lecture, and then, at the end of all, she will very possibly sit up +after midnight with her sewing-machine, doing extra shop-work to pay for +little Ella's music-lessons. All this every "capable" New-England woman +will do, or die. She does it, and dies; and then we are astonished +that her vital energy gives out sooner than that of an Irishwoman in a +shanty, with no ambition on earth but to supply her young Patricks with +adequate potatoes. + +Now it is useless to attempt to set back the great social flood. The +New-England housekeeper will never be killed by idleness, at any rate; +and if she is exposed to the opposite danger, we must fit her for it, +that is all. There is reason to be hopeful; the human race as a whole is +tending upward, even physically, and if we cannot make our girls healthy +quite yet, we shall learn to do it by-and-by. Meanwhile we must hold +hard to the conviction, that not merely decent health, but even a high +physical training, is a thing thoroughly practicable for both sexes. If +a young girl can tire out her partner in the dance, if a delicate wife +can carry her baby twice as long as her athletic husband, (for certainly +there is nothing in the gymnasium more amazing than the mother's left +arm,) then it is evident that the female frame contains muscular power, +or its equivalent, though it may take music or maternity to bring it +out. But other inducements have proved sufficient, and the results do +not admit of question. The Oriental _bayadères_, for instance, are +trained from childhood as gymnasts: they carry heavy jars on their +heads, to improve strength, gait, and figure; they fly kites, to acquire +"statuesque attitudes and graceful surprises"; they must learn to lay +the back of the hand flat against the wrist, to partially bend the +arm in both directions at the elbow, and, inclining the whole person +backward from the waist, to sweep the floor with the hair. So, among +ourselves, the great athletic resources of the female frame are +vindicated by every equestrian goddess of the circus, every pet of the +ballet. Those airy nymphs have been educated for their vocation by an +amount of physical fatigue which their dandy admirers may well prefer to +contemplate through the safe remoteness of an opera-glass. + +Dr. Gardner, of New York, has lately contributed very important +professional observations upon this class of his patients; he describes +their physique as infinitely superior to that of ordinary women, +wonderfully adapting them not only to the extraordinary, but to the +common perils of their sex, "with that happy union of power and +pliability most to be desired." "Their occupation demands in its daily +study and subsequent practice an amount of long-continued muscular +energy of the severest character, little recognized or understood by +the community"; and his description of their habitual immunity in the +ordeals of womanhood reminds one of the descriptions of savage tribes. +But it is really a singular retribution for our prolonged offences +against the body, when our saints are thus compelled to take their +models from the reputed sinners,--prize-fighters being propounded as +missionaries for the men, and opera-dancers for the women. + +Are we literally to infer, then, that dancing must be the primary +prescription? It would not be a bad one. It was an invaluable hint of +Hippocrates, that the second-best remedy is better than the best, if the +patient likes it best. Beyond all other merits of the remedy in question +is this crowning advantage, that the patient likes it. Has any form of +exercise ever yet been invented which a young girl would not leave for +dancing? + +"Women, it is well known," says Jean Paul, "cannot run, but only dance, +and every one could more easily reach a given point by dancing than by +walking." It is practised in this country under immense disadvantages: +first, because of late hours and heated rooms; and secondly, because +some of the current dances seem equally questionable to the mamma and +the physiologist. But it is doubtful whether any possible gymnastic +arrangement for a high-school would be on the whole so provocative +of the wholesome exercise as a special hall for dancing, thoroughly +ventilated, and provided with piano and spring-floor. The spontaneous +festivals of every recess-time would then rival those German +public-rooms, where it is said you may see a whole company waltzing like +teetotums, with the windows wide open, at four o'clock in the afternoon. + +Skating is dancing in another form; both aim at flying, and skating +comes nearest to success. The triumph of this art has been so +astonishing, in the universality of its introduction among our girls +within the short space of four winters, that it is hardly necessary to +speak of it, except to deduce the hope that other out-door enjoyments, +equally within the reach of the girls, may be as easily popularized. + +For any form of locomotion less winged than skating and dancing the feet +of American girls have hitherto seemed somehow unfitted by Nature. There +is every abstract reason why they should love walking, on this side of +the Atlantic: there is plenty of room for it, the continent is large; +the exercise, moreover, brightens the eye and purifies the complexion, +--so the physiologists declare: so that an English chemist classifies +red cheeks as being merely oxygen in another form, and advises young +ladies who wish for a pair to seek them where the roses get them, +out-of-doors,--upon which an impertinent damsel writes to ask "Punch" +if they might not as well carry the imitation of the roses a little +farther, and remain in their beds all the time? But it is a lamentable +fact, that walking, for the mere love of it, is a rare habit among our +young women, and rarer probably in the country than in the city; it is +uncommon to hear of one who walks habitually as much as two miles a day. +There are, of course, many exceptional instances: I know maidens who +love steep paths and mountain rains, like Wordsworth's Louisa, and I +have even heard of eight young ladies who walked from Andover to Boston, +twenty-three miles, in six hours, and of two who did forty-five miles in +two days. Moreover, with our impulsive temperaments, a special object +will always operate as a strong allurement. A confectioner's shop, for +instance. A camp somewhere in the suburbs, with dress-parades, and +available lieutenants. A new article of dress: a real ermine cape may be +counted as good for three miles a day, for the season. A dearest friend +within pedestrian distance: so that it would seem well to plant a circle +of delightful families just in the outskirts of every town, merely to +serve as magnets. Indeed, so desperate has the emergency become, that +one might take even ladies' hoops to be a secret device of Nature to +secure more exercise for the occupants by compelling them thus to make +the circuit of each other, as the two fat noblemen at the French court +vindicated themselves from the charge of indolence by declaring that +each promenaded twice round his friend every morning. + +In view of this distaste for pedestrian exercise, it seems strange +that the present revival of athletic exercises has not yet reached to +horsemanship, the traditional type of all noble training, _chevalerie_, +chivalry. Certainly it is not for the want of horse-flesh, for never +perhaps was so much of that costly commodity owned in this community; +yet in New England you shall find private individuals who keep a +half-dozen horses each, and livery-stables possessing fifty, and never a +proper saddle-horse among them. In some countries, riding does half the +work of physical training, for both sexes; Sir Walter Scott, when at +Abbotsford, never omitted his daily ride, and took his little daughter +with him, from the time she could sit on horseback; but what New-England +man, in purchasing a steed, selects with a view to a side-saddle? This +seems a sad result of the wheel-maker's trade, and one grudges St. +Willegis the wheel on his coat-of-arms, if it has thus served to tame +down freeborn men and women to the slouching and indolent practice +of driving,--a practice in which the human figure appears at such +disadvantage, that one can hardly wonder at Horace Walpole's coachman, +who had laid up a small fortune by driving the maids-of-honor, and +left it all to his son upon condition that he never should take a +maid-of-honor for his wife. + +An exercise to which girls take almost as naturally as to dancing is +that of rowing, an accomplishment thoroughly feminine, learned with +great facility, and on the whole safer than most other sports. Yet until +within a few years no one thought of it in connection with women, unless +with semi-mythical beings, like Ellen Douglas or Grace Darling. Even now +it is chiefly a city accomplishment, and you rarely find at rural or +sea-side places a village damsel who has ever handled an oar. But once +having acquired the art, girls will readily fatigue themselves with its +practice, unsolicited, careless of tan and freckles. At Dove Harbor it +is far easier at any time to induce the young ladies to row for two +hours than to walk in the beautiful wood-paths for fifteen minutes;--the +walking tires them. No matter; for a special exercise the rowing is the +most valuable of the two, and furnishes just what the dancing-school +omits. Unfortunately, the element of water is not quite a universal +possession, and no one can train Naiads on dry land. + +One of the merits of boating is that it suggests indirectly the +attendant accomplishment of swimming, and this is some thing of +such priceless importance that no trouble can be too great for its +acquisition. Parents are uneasy until their children are vaccinated, and +yet leave them to incur a risk as great and almost as easily averted. +The barbarian mother, who, lowering her baby into the water by her +girdle, teaches it to swim ere it can walk, is before us in this duty. +Swimming, moreover, is not one of those arts in which a little learning +is a dangerous thing; on the contrary, a little may be as useful in +an emergency as a great deal, if it gives those few moments of +self-possession amid danger which will commonly keep a person from +drowning until assistance comes. Women are naturally as well fitted for +swimming as men, since specific buoyancy is here more than a match +for strength; but effort is often needed to secure for them those +opportunities of instruction and practice which the unrestrained +wanderings of boys secure for them so easily. For this purpose, +swimming-schools for ladies are now established in many places, at home +and abroad; and the newspapers have lately chronicled a swimming-match +at a girls' school in Berlin, where thirty-three competitors were +entered for the prize,--and another among titled ladies in Paris, where +each fashionable swimmer was allowed the use of the left hand only, the +right hand sustaining an open parasol. Our own waters have, it may be, +exhibited spectacles as graceful, though less known to fame. Never may I +forget the bevy of bright maidens who under my pilotage buffeted on many +a summer's day the surges of Cape Ann, learning a wholly new delight in +trusting the buoyancy of the kind old ocean and the vigor of their +own fair arms. Ah, my pupils, some of you have since been a prince's +partners in the ball-room; but in those days, among the dancing waves, +it was King Neptune who placed on you his crown. + +Other out-door habits depend upon the personal tastes of the individual, +in certain directions, and are best cultivated by educating these. If a +young girl is born and bred with a love of any branch of natural history +or of horticulture, happy is she; for the mere unconscious interest of +the pursuit is an added lease of life to her. It is the same with all +branches of Art whose pursuit leads into the open air. Rosa Bonheur, +with her wanderings among mountains and pastures, alternating with the +vigorous work of the studio, needed no other appliances for health. The +same advantages come to many, in spite of delinquent mothers, in +the bracing habits of household labor, at least where mechanical +improvements have not rendered it too easy. Improved cooking-stoves and +Mrs. Cornelius have made the culinary art such a path of roses that +it is hardly now included in early training, but deferred till after +matrimony. Yet bread-making in well-ventilated kitchens and sweeping in +open-windowed rooms are calisthenics so bracing that one grudges them to +the Irish maidens, whose round and comely arms betray so much less need +of their tonic influence than the shrunken muscles exhibited so freely +by our short-sleeved belles. + +Perhaps even well-developed arms are not so essential to female beauty +as erectness of figure, a trait on which our low school-desks have made +sad havoc. The only sure panacea for round shoulders in boys appears to +be the military drill, and Miss Mitford records that in her youth it was +the custom in girls' schools to apply the same remedy. Dr. Lewis relies +greatly on the carrying of moderate weights upon a padded wooden cap +which he has devised for this purpose; and certainly the straightest +female figure with which I am acquainted--aged seventy-four--is said to +have been formed by the youthful habit of pacing the floor for half an +hour dally, with a book upon the head, under rigid maternal discipline. +Another traditional method is to insist that the damsel shall sit erect, +without leaning against the chair, for a certain number of hours daily; +and Sir Walter Scott says that his mother, in her eightieth year, took +as much care to avoid giving any support to her back as if she had been +still under the stern eye of Mrs. Ogilvie, her early teacher. Such +simple methods may not be enough to check diseased curvatures or +inequalities when already formed: these are best met by Ling's system +of medical gymnastics, or "movement-cure," as applied by Dr. Lewis, Dr. +Taylor, and others. + +The ordinary gymnastic apparatus has also been employed extensively by +women, and that very successfully, wherever the exercises have been +systematically organized, with agreeable classes and competent teachers. +If the gymnasium often fails to interest girls as much as boys, it is +probably from deficiency in these respects,--and also because the female +pupils, beginning on a lower plane of strength, do not command so great +a variety of exercises, and so tire of the affair more readily. But +hundreds, if not thousands, of American women have practised in these +institutions during the last ten years,--single establishments in large +cities having sometimes several hundred pupils,--and many have attained +a high degree of skill in climbing, vaulting, swinging, and the like; +nor can I find that any undue proportion of accidents has occurred. +Wherever Dr. Lewis's methods have been introduced, important advantages +have followed. He has invented an astonishing variety of games and +well-studied movements,--with the lightest and cheapest apparatus, +balls, bags, rings, wands, wooden dumb-bells, small clubs, and other +instrumentalities,--which are all gracefully and effectually used by his +classes, to the sound of music, and in a way to spare the weakest when +lightly administered, or to fatigue the strongest when applied in force. +Being adapted for united use by both sexes, they make more thorough +appeal to the social element than the ordinary gymnastics; and evening +classes, to meet several evenings in a week, have proved exceedingly +popular in some of our towns. These exercises do not require fixed +apparatus or a special hall. For this and other reasons they are +peculiarly adapted for use in schools, and it would be well if they +could be regularly taught in our normal institutions. Dr. Lewis himself +is now training regular teachers to carry on the same good work, and his +movement is undoubtedly the most important single step yet taken for the +physical education of American women. + +There is withal a variety of agreeable minor exercises, dating back +farther than gymnastic professors, which must not be omitted. Archery, +still in fashion in England, has never fairly taken root among us, and +seems almost hopeless: the clubs formed for its promotion die out almost +as speedily as cricket-clubs, and leave no trace behind; though this may +not always be. Bowling and billiards are, however, practised by lady +amateurs, just so far as they find opportunity, which is not very far; +desirable public or private facilities being obtainable by few only, +except at the summer watering-places. Battledoor-and-shuttlecock seems +likely to come again into favor, and that under eminent auspices: +Dr. Windship holding it in high esteem, as occupying the mind while +employing every part of the body, harmonizing the muscular system, +giving quickness to eye and hand, and improving the balancing power. +The English, who systematize all amusements so much more than we, have +developed this simple entertainment into several different games, +arduous and complicated as their games of ball. The mere multiplication +of the missiles also lends an additional stimulus, and the statistics +of success in this way appear almost fabulous. A zealous English +battledoorean informs me that the highest scores yet recorded in the +game are as follows: five thousand strokes for a single shuttlecock, +five hundred when employing two, one hundred and fifty with three, and +fifty-two when four airy messengers are kept flying simultaneously. + +It may seem trivial to urge upon rational beings the use of a +shuttlecock as a duty; but this is surely better than that one's health +should become a thing as perishable, and fly away as easily. There is +no danger that our educational systems will soon grow too careless of +intellect and too careful of health. Reforms, whether in physiology or +in smaller things, move slowly, when prejudice or habit bars the way. +Paris is the head-quarters of medical science; yet in Paris, to this +day, the poor babies in the great hospital of La Maternité are so +tortured in tight swathings that not a limb can move. Progress is not +in proportion to the amount of scientific knowledge on deposit in any +country, but to the extent of its diffusion. No nation in the world +grapples with its own evils so promptly as ours. It is but a few years +since there was a general croaking about the physical deterioration of +young men in our cities,--and now already the cities and the colleges +are beginning to lead the rural districts in this respect. The guaranty +of reform in American female health is to be found in the growing +popular conviction that reform is needed. The community is tired of +the reproaches of foreigners, and of the more serious evils of homes +desolated by disease, and lives turned to tragedies. Morbid anatomy has +long enough served as a type of feminine loveliness; our polite society +has long enough been a series of soirées of incurables. Health is coming +into fashion. A mercantile parent lately told me that already in his +town, if a girl could vault a five-barred gate, her prospects for a +husband were considered to be improved ten per cent.; and every one +knows that there is no metre of public sentiment so infallible as the +stock-market. Now that the country is becoming safe, we must again turn +our attention to the health of our girls. Unless they are healthy, +the country is not safe. No where can their physical condition be so +important as in a republic. The utmost attention was paid to the bodily +training of Victoria, because she was to be a queen and the mother of +kings. By the theory of our government, however imperfectly applied as +yet, this is the precise position of every American girl. Voltaire +said that the fate of nations had often depended on the gout of a +prime-minister; and the fate of our institutions may hang on the precise +temperament which our next President shall have inherited from his +mother. + + * * * * * + + +SONNET. + + + The starry flower, the flower-like stars that fade + And brighten with the daylight and the dark, + The bluet in the green I faintly mark, + And glimmering crags with laurel overlaid, + Even to the Lord of light, the Lamp of shade, + Shine one to me,--the least still glorious made + As crownèd moon or heaven's great hierarch. + And, so, dim grassy flower and night-lit spark + Still move me on and upward for the True; + Seeking, through change, growth, death, in new and old, + The full in few, the statelier in the less, + With patient pain; always remembering this,-- + His hand, who touched the sod with showers of gold, + Stippled Orion on the midnight blue. + + + + +THE HORRORS OF SAN DOMINGO. + + +CHAPTER I. + +INTRODUCTION. + + +Among the stock fallacies which belong to public writers and thinkers, +and which exercise a kind of conventional influence as often as they are +paraded, there is none greater than this,--that History always repeats +herself, because Human Nature never changes. The Tories of all ages and +countries content themselves and alarm their neighbors by an adroit +interpolation of this formula in their speech. They create the alarm +because they are contented and intend to remain so. Successive audiences +yield, as to the circus-jokes of the clown, who hits his traditional +laugh in the same place so often that it is a wonder the place is not +worn through. But people of a finer wit are not so easily surprised. If +they bore a fair numerical proportion to the listeners of _doctrinaires_ +and alarmists, the repetition would be eventually resisted, with an +indignation equal to the amount of literary and political damage which +it had effected. + +If people mean, when they say that Human Nature is always the same, that +a few primitive impulses appear through the disguise of all ages and +races, which can be modified, but never extinguished, which work and +are worked upon, are capable of doing good or harm according to +circumstances, but are at all events the conditions of life and motion, +it is fortunately true. That is to say, it is very fortunate that men +and women inhabit the earth. Their great, simple features uplift and +keep all landscapes in their places, and prevent life from falling +through into the molten and chaotic forces underneath. These rugged +water-sheds inclose, configure, temper, fertilize, and also perturb, +the great scenes and stretches of history. They hold the moisture, the +metal, the gem, the seeds of alternating forests and the patient routine +of countless harvests. Superficially it is a great way round from +the lichen to the vine, but not so far by way of the centre. The +many-colored and astonishing life conceals a few simple motives. +Certainly it is a grand and lucky thing that there are so many people +grouped along the lines of divine consistency. + +Men will not starve, if they can help it, nor thirst, if water can be +gathered in the palm or reached by digging. If they succeed in making a +cup, they betray a tendency to ornament its rim or stem, or to emboss a +story on its side. They are not disposed to become food for animals, +or to remain unprotected from the climate. They like to have the +opportunity of supplying their own wants and luxuries, and will resist +any tyrannical interference with the methods they prefer. They propagate +their race, and collect in communities for defence and social advantage. +When thus collected, they will learn to talk, to write, to symbolize, +to construct something, be it a medicine-lodge or a Parthenon. Their +primitive sense of an invisible and spiritual agency assumes the forms +of their ignorance and of their disposition: dread and cruelty, awe and +size, fancy and proportion, gentleness and simplicity, will be found +together in the rites and constructions of religion. They like to make +the whole tribe or generation conform; and it is dangerous to oppose +this tendency to preserve the shape of society from within and to +protect it against assaults from without. These are motives originally +independent of circumstances, and which made the first circumstances by +coming in contact with the elements of the physical world. + +But these circumstances are not always and everywhere as invariable +as the primitive wants which first set them in motion. Enlargement of +knowledge, of political and human relations, of the tenure of the earth, +increases the number and variety of circumstances, and combines them +so unexpectedly that it is a science to discover their laws, and the +conditions of action and reaction between men and things that happen. We +can depend upon Human Nature, but the problem always remains, What shall +be expected of Human Nature under this or that modification of its +external environment? Great laws from without act as well as great +laws from within. If we knew all the laws, we should know what average +consequences to expect. But in the mean time we shall commit the error +of supposing that History does nothing but repeat itself, fretfully +crooning into the "dull ear" of age a twice-told tale, if we do not +allow for the modifications amid which the primitive impulses find +themselves at work. + +And besides, there is a difference in individuals; one set of people +alone is too poor to furnish us with an idea of human nature. It is +natural for Themistocles, Pausanias, or Benedict Arnold, under suspicion +or ill-treatment, to desert to the enemy, and propose crushing his +country for a balm to apply to wounded feelings. But General Fremont, +in similar circumstances, will derive comfort from his loyal heart, and +wait in hopes that at least a musket may be put into his hands with +which to trust him against the foe. These are very simple variations; +they turn upon the proportion of selfish feeling which the men possess. +A self-seeking man will turn villain under the encroachment of other +people's egotism. The sight of too many trophies will convert a friend +into a covert enemy, who, without being treacherous, will nevertheless +betray a great cause by his jealousy of its great supporter. But the +latter will not always become a traitor to suit the expectations of an +envious friendship. And your own judgment of men and prophecy of events, +if based entirely upon selfish calculation, will entirely fail. + +Nations differ also, in spite of the similar things that they do in +analogous circumstances. Both Rome and England will not have too +ambitious neighbors. They hate a preponderating power, and find out +some way to get rid of the threat to their national egotism. The Romans +exterminate the Veians and Carthaginians; they want no colonizing or +commercial rivals. If England rules the sea, and uses its advantage to +create markets where it can buy at the cheapest and sell at the dearest +rates, we can understand its inexpensive sympathy for the people who can +manufacture little and therefore have to import a great deal, who are +thus the natural, disinterested lovers of free trade. It is very easy to +see why England turns red in the Crimea with the effort to lift up that +bag of rags called Turkey, to set it on the overland route to India; one +decayed nation makes a very good buffer to break the shock of natural +competition in the using up of another. It was the constant policy of +Rome to tolerate and patronize the various people in its provinces, to +respect, if not to understand, their religions, and to protect them from +the peculator. She was not so drunk with dominion as not to see that her +own comfort and safety were involved in this bearing to inferior and +half-effete races. On the other hand, England, with far stronger motives +of interest to imitate that policy, disregarding the prophecies of her +best minds, takes no pains to understand, and of course misgoverns and +outrages her poor nebulous Bengalese, and forces the opium which they +cultivate upon the Chinese whom it demoralizes. Is this difference +merely the difference between a pocket in a toga and one in the +trousers? But a nerve from the moral sense does, nevertheless, spread +into _papilloe_ over the surface of the tighter pocket, not entirely +blunted by yellow potations; so that the human as well as financial +advantage of Jamaica emancipation is perceived. Should we expect this +from the nation which undertook the destruction of the Danish fleet +before Copenhagen in 1801, without even the formality of a declaration +of war, on the suspicion that the Dane preferred to sympathize with +France? What moral clamor could have made the selfish exigency of that +act appear more damaging than a coalition of all the fleets of Europe? +Yet plantation fanaticism did not prevent the great act from which we +augured English hatred of a slaveholders' rebellion. Probably the lining +membrane of a pocket may have intermitted accesses of induration: +we must consult circumstances, if we would know what to expect. An +extraordinary vintage or a great fruit year will follow a long series of +scant or average crops; but we can count upon the average. + +But unless circumstances are constant, it matters little how constant +tempers and tendencies may be; and the expectations which we found upon +the general action of avarice, credulity, bigotry, self-seeking, or +any of the debased forms of legitimate human impulses, will often +be disappointed by results. Prepare the favorite climate, moisture, +exposure of a foreign plant, imitate its latitude and air and soil: it +will not necessarily grow at all, or, growing, it will only surprise you +by some alteration of its native features. Results are better chemists +than we, and their delicate root-fibres test the ground more accurately; +we shall find them languishing for some favorite elements, or colored +and persuaded by novel ones. History must remember the constants of +Man and of Nature, but be always expecting their variables, lest her +prophetic gift fall into ill-repute. + +Thus, give unlimited power to the Catholic, and he cannot anywhere set +up his old-fashioned absolutism, unless you can manage at the same time +to furnish him with Roman and Spanish people, and the fifteenth century. +Yet we, too, have trembled at the imaginary horrors of Popery. All the +power you can thrust and pile upon the Catholic in America will become +an instrument to further the country's tendency towards light, as it +drags the human impulses away from the despotic past. All the Jesuits, +and prize bulls by every steamer, relays of papal agents, and +Corpus-Christi processions in the streets of Boston, will hardly lift +the shoulders of the great protesting country, as it turns to stare from +its tilling, steaming, pioneering, emancipating task. + +It is not difficult to see why the revolts of peasants in the Middle +Ages were marked by horrible excesses,--why diplomatic Catholicism +prepared a St. Bartholomew's Eve for Paris,--why Dutch and Scotch +Protestants defaced and trampled under foot ecclesiastical Art,--why +German princes proclaimed a crusade against budding Protestantism and +Pan-slavism under Ziska and Procopius in Bohemia,--why the fagots were +fired at Constance, Prague, and Smithfield, and Pequod wigwams in New +England. All dreadful scenes, by simply taking place, show that they +have reason for it. But will they take place again? A Black Douglas did +undoubtedly live, and he was the nursery-threat for fractious Scotch +children during several generations; the Douglas never caught one of +them, but the threat did. So we are plied with stock-phrases, such as +"the Reign of Terror" and "the Horrors of San Domingo," and History is +abjectly conjured not to repeat herself, as she certainly will do, if +she goes on in the old way. Of course she will. But does she propose to +furnish a fac-simile of any critical epoch which haunts the imaginations +of mankind? That depends upon circumstances. The same barrel will play a +fresh tune by a hair's-breadth shifting of a spring. Two epochs may seem +to be exactly alike, and the men who only remember may seek to terrify +the men who hope by exposing the resemblance. But unless they can show +that all the circumstances are identical, they have no right to infect +the morning with their twilight fears. History insensibly modifies her +plan to secure the maximum of progress with the minimum of catastrophes, +and she repels the flippant insinuation that her children win all their +fresh advantages at the expense of the old crimes. + +The story of Hayti is worth telling, apart from its bearing upon +questions connected with the emancipation of slaves. It is a striking +record of the degradation of fine races and the elevation of inferior +ones, and shows with what ease Nature can transfer her good points from +her gifted children and unexpectedly endow with them her neglected +ones,--thus affording us a hint of something that is more permanent and +irreversible than ethnological distinctions, by repeating within our own +time her humane way with her old barbarians whose hair was long. From +them sprang the races which never could have dominated by cunning and +force alone, and which have to lay down their dominion when they have +exhausted everything but force and cunning. It is a story of the +desolation in which the avarice and wrath of man must always travel: +colonial prosperity was nothing but a howling war-path blazed directly +across stately and beautiful human nature. It shows the blood which the +fine hands of luxury never could wash off; the terrible secret at last +betrayed itself. In telling this story, the horrors of San Domingo are +accounted for, and whatever was exceptional in the circumstances is +at the same time marked, to prevent them from being applied without +discrimination to the present condition of America. But the story must +be told from the beginning, for its own sake; otherwise it will be a +bad story, without a moral. If the main features of it are carefully +preserved, it will make its own application. + +That, however, is fatal to any attempt to infect minds with the Haytian +bug-bear, now that political discussion threatens to ravage the country +which our arms are saving. It has been used before, when it was +necessary to save the Union and to render anti-slavery sentiment odious. +The weak and designing, and all who wait for the war to achieve a +constitutional recurrence of our national malady, will use it again to +defeat the great act of justice and the people's great necessity. + +Slavery is a continual conspiracy. Its life depends upon intrigue, +aggression, adroit combinations with other forms of human selfishness. +The people at the North who at this moment hate to hear the word +Emancipation mentioned, and who insist that the war shall merely restore +things to their original position, are the people who always hated the +phrase "Anti-Slavery," who will be ready to form a fresh coalition with +Slavery for the sake of recovering or creating political advantages, +and whom the South will know how to use again, by reviving ancient +prejudices, and making its very wounds a cause for sympathy. Slavery +will be the nucleus of political combinations so long as it can preserve +its constitutional and commercial advantages,--while it can sell its +cotton and recover its fugitives. Is the precious blood already +spilled in this war to become, as it congeals, nothing but cement to +fugitive-slave bills, and the basis of three-fifths, and the internal +slave-trade? For this we spend three millions a day, and lives whose +value cannot be expressed in dollars,--for this anguish will sit for +years at thousands of desolate hearths, and be the only legacy of +fatherless children. For what glory will they inherit whose fathers fell +to save still a chance or two for Slavery? It is for this we are willing +to incur the moral and financial hazards of a great struggle,--to +furnish an Anti-Republican party of reconstructionists with a bridge +for Slavery to reach a Northern platform, to frown at us again from the +chair of State. The Federal picket who perchance fell last night upon +some obscure outpost of our great line of Freedom has gone up to Heaven +protesting against such cruel expectations, wherever they exist; and +they exist wherever apathy exists, and old hatred lingers, and wherever +minds are cowed and demoralized by the difficulties of this question. In +his body is a bullet run by Slavery, and sent by its unerring purpose; +his comrades will raise over him a little hillock upon which Slavery +will creep to look out for future chances,--ruthlessly scanning the +political horizon from the graves of our unnamed heroes. This, and eight +dollars a month, will his wife inherit; and if she ever sees his grave, +she will see a redoubt which the breast of her husband raises for some +future defence of Slavery. The People, who are waging this war, and +who are actually getting at the foe through the bristling ranks of +politicians and contractors, must have such a moral opinion upon this +question as to defeat these dreadful possibilities. Let us be patient, +because we see some difficulties; but let us give up the war itself +sooner than our resolution, that, either by this war, or after it, +Slavery shall be stripped of its insignia, and turned out to cold and +irretrievable disgrace, weaponless, fangless, and with no object in the +world worthy of its cunning. We can be patient, but we must also be +instant and unanimous in insisting that the whole of Slavery shall pay +the whole of Freedom's bill. Then the dear names whose sound summons +imperatively our tears shall be proudly handed in by us to History, as +we bid her go with us from grave to grave to see how the faith of a +people watched them against the great American Body Snatcher, and kept +them inviolate to be her memorials. We feel our hearts reinforced by the +precious blood which trickled from Ball's Bluff into the Potomac, and +was carried thence into the great sea of our conscience, tumultuous with +pride, anger, and resolve. The drops feed the country's future, wherever +they are caught first by our free convictions ere they sink into the +beloved soil. Let us be instant, be incisive with our resolution, that +peace may not be the mother of another war, and our own victory rout +ourselves. + +Blow, North-wind, blow! Keep that bearded field of bayonets levelled +southward! Rustle, robes of Liberty, who art walking terribly over the +land, with sombre countenance, and garments rolled in blood! See, she +advances with one hand armed with Justice, while the other points to +that exquisite symmetry half revealed, as if beckoning thitherward her +children back again to the pure founts of life! "Be not afraid," she +cries, "of the noise of my garments and their blood-stains; for this is +the blood of a new covenant of Freedom, shed to redeem and perpetuate a +chosen land." + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE PLACE--THE CLIMATE--NATIVES--SETTLERS. + + +This old haunted house of Hayti had many occupants, who left as +heirlooms generation upon generation of hateful memories. Their dreams, +their deeds, their terrific tempers, lurked for the newcomers, and +harried them forth or made them kin. It is a cumulative story of dire +and fateful proceedings, like the story of the family of Pelops. It must +be told with deliberation. So the place, the climate, the aborigines, +the early atrocities, the importation of new races and characteristics, +command consideration as inevitable elements of the narrative. + +This spot of the New World was the first to ache beneath the white man's +greedy and superstitious tread. A tenacious Gothic race, after its long +blockade by Moors in the northern mountains of the Iberian Peninsula, +had lately succeeded in recovering the last stronghold of Arab power and +learning. Fresh from the atrocities of that contest, its natural bigotry +deepened by its own struggle for national existence, sombre, fanatical, +cruel, and avaricious, but enterprising and indomitable, it is wafted +across the ocean by Columbus, to expend its propensities unchecked +against a weaker and less characteristic barbarism. What might be +expected, when a few noble men succeed in transporting the worst +features of their own country, in such numbers of intractable people, +the raking of seaports, with little on board in the way of religion, +save the traditions of the Church and the materials for exhibiting the +drama of the Mass! This is the contingent which civilization detaches +for the settlement of another world. It effaces a smiling barbarism by a +saturnine and gloomy one, as when a great forest slides from some height +over a wild gay meadow. These capable, cruel men went sailing among the +Bahamas, soothed by the novelty and delight of finding land, and tried +to behave at first as men do among artless children who measure every +thing by their own scantiness; for they compelled themselves to be very +mild and condescending, till, after various mischances and rebuffs by +sea and land, the temper breaks forth in rage at disappointments, and +Hayti is the first place which is blasted by that frightful Spanish +scowl. The change was as sudden as that from calm weather to one of her +tempests. The whole subsequent history seems as if it were the revenge +of Columbus's own imagination, when the sober truth was discovered +instead of Cipango and the King of India. Thus was the New World +unsettled, and the horrors of San Domingo committed to the soil. + +Nearly the whole of Hayti lies between the eighteenth and twentieth +degrees of latitude, and the sixty-ninth, and seventy-fifth of +longitude. Its greatest length is three hundred and forty miles, its +greatest breadth, one hundred and thirty-two. It has a surface of +somewhat more than twenty-seven thousand square miles, or about eighteen +million square acres. The greater part of this is mountain-land. There +are three extensive plains,--La Vega in the east, Santiago in the +north, and Les Plaines in the southeast. These are distinct from the +Savannas.[A] The island is about the size of the State of Maine. Its +shape is peculiar, as it widens gradually from its southeastern end to +nearly the centre of its greatest length, whence the southern coast +trends rapidly to the north and west and stretches into a peninsula, +like a long mandible, corresponding to which on the northern coast is +another half as long, like a broken one, and between these lies a great +bay with the uncultivated island of Gonaive. The eastern part of the +island has also the small peninsula of Saniana, lying along the bay of +that name. The surface is covered by mountains which appear at first to +be tossed together wildly, without system or mutual relation, but they +can be described, upon closer inspection, as four ranges, with a general +parallelism, extending nearly east and west, but broken in the centre +by the Cibao ridge, which radiates in every direction from two or three +peaks, the highest in the island. Their height is reputed to be nine +thousand feet, but they have not yet been accurately measured. The +mountains of La Hotte, which form the long southern tongue of land, +rise to the height of seven thousand feet. They are all of calcareous +formation, and abound in the caverns which are found in limestone +regions. Some of these have their openings on the coast, and are +supposed to extend very far inland; they receive the tide, and reject it +with a bellowing noise, as the pent air struggles with it under their +arched roofs. These were called by the Spaniards _baxos roncadores_, +droning or snoring basses. The French had a name, _le gouffre_, the +gulf, to describe these noises; but they also applied it to the +subterranean rumbling, accompanied with explosions and violent +vibrations of the ground, which is caused by the heavy rains soaking +through the porous stone, after the dry season has heated the whole +surface of the island. The steaming water makes the earth groan and +shake as it forces its way through the crevices, feeling for an outlet, +or thrown back upon its own increasing current. These mysterious noises +filled with awe the native priests who managed the superstition of the +island before the Spaniards introduced another kind: no doubt they +served for omens, to incite or to deter, voices of Chthonian deities, +which needed interpreting in the interest of some great cacique who +would not budge upon his business without the sanction of religion. Many +a buccaneer, in after-times, who quailed before no mortal thunders made +by French or Spanish navies, was soundly frightened by the gigantic +snoring beneath his feet into reviewing his career, and calculating the +thickness of the crust between himself and his impatient retribution. + +[Footnote A: Savanna was a Haytian word spelt and pronounced by +Spaniards. It is a plain of grass, affording pasturage in the rainy +season; but a few shrubs also grow upon it. _Pampas_ are vast plains +without vegetation except during three months of the rainy season, when +they yield fine grass. The word is Peruvian; was originally applied to +the plains at the mouth of the La Plata. But the plains of Guiana and +tropical America, which the Spaniards called _Llanos_, are also pampas. +The Hungarian pasture-lands, called _Puszta_, are savannas. A _Steppe_ +is properly a vast extent of country, slightly rolling, without woods, +but not without large plants and herbs. In Russia there are sometimes +thickets eight or ten feet high. The salt deserts in Russia are not +called steppes, but _Solniye_. Pampas and deserts are found alternating +with steppes. A _Desert_ may have a sparing vegetation, and so differ +from pampas: if it has any plants, they are scrubby and fibrous, with +few leaves, and of a grayish color, and so it differs from steppes and +savannas. But there are rocky and gravelly, sandy and salt deserts: +gravelly, for instance, in Asia Minor, principally in the district known +to the ancients as the [Greek: katakekaumegae]. A _Heath_ is a level +covered with the plants to which that name has been applied. Finally, a +_Prairie_ differs from a savanna only in being under a zone where the +seasons are not marked as wet and dry, but where the herbage corresponds +to a variable moisture.] + +The words _crête_, _pic_, and _montagne_ are sometimes applied to the +peaks and ridges of the island, but the word _morne_, which is a Creole +corruption of _montagne_, is in common use to designate all the elevated +land, the extended ridges which serve as water-sheds for the torrents +of the rainy season, as well as the isolated hillocks, clothed in wood, +which look like huge hay-cocks,--those, for instance, which rise in the +rear of Cap Haytien. The aspect of the higher hills in the interior +might mislead an etymologist to derive the word _morne_ from the French +adjective which means _gloomy_, they are so marked by the ravages of the +hurricane and earthquake, so ploughed up into decrepit features by the +rains, the pitiless vertical heat, the fires, and the landslides. The +soft rock cannot preserve its outlines beneath all these influences; its +thin covering of soil is carried off to make the river-silt, and then +it crumbles away beneath the weather. Great ruts are scored through the +forests where the rock has let whole acres of trees and rubbish slip; +they sometimes cover the negro-cabins and the coffee-walks below. These +mountains are capricious and disordered masses of grayish stone; there +are no sustained lines which sweep upward from the green plantations and +cut sharply across the sky, no unchangeable walls of cool shadow, no +delicate curves, as in other hills, where the symmetry itself seems +to protect the material from the wear and tear of the atmosphere. The +_mornes_ are decaying hills; they look as if they emerged first from the +ocean and were the oldest parts of the earth, not merely weather-beaten, +but profligately used up with a too tropical career, which deprives +their age of all grandeur: they bewilder and depress. + +There are delightful valleys below these sullen hills. In the dry season +their torrents are stony bridle-paths, with only two or three inches +of water, along which the traveller can pass from the flourishing +plantations, where all the forms of a torrid vegetation are displayed, +into this upper region of decay. The transition is sudden and +unpleasant. Everything below is stately, exuberant: the sugar-cane, the +cotton-tree, the coffee-shrub are suggestive of luxury; the orange +and lemon shine through the glossy leaves; the palm-tree, the elegant +_papayo_, the dark green candle-wood, the feathery bamboo, the fig, +the banana, the mahogany, the enormous _Bombax ceiba_, the sablier,[B] +display their various shapes; shrubs and bushes, such as the green +and red pimento, the vanilla, the pomegranate, the citron, the +sweet-smelling acacia, and the red jasmine, contest the claim to delight +one's senses; and various flowers cover the meadows and cluster along +the shallow water-courses. No venomous reptiles lurk in these fragrant +places: the seed-tick, mosquito, and a spiteful little fly are the +greatest annoyances. The horned lizard, which the Indians esteemed so +delicate, and the ferocious crocodile, or caiman, haunt the secluded +sands and large streams, and the lagoons which form in marshy places. + +[Footnote B: _Hura crepitans_, one of the handsomest trees in the West +Indies, called _sablier_ because its fruit makes a very convenient +sandbox, when not fully ripe, by removing the seeds. It is of a +horn-color, about three and a half inches wide and two high, and looks +like a little striped melon. The ripe fruit, on taking out one of the +twelve woody cells which compose it, will explode with a noise like a +pistol, each cell giving a double report. This sometimes takes place +while the fruit is hanging on the tree, and sometimes when it stands +upon the table filled with sand. To prevent this, it is prettily hooped +with gold, silver, or ivory.] + +The trees and thickets do not glitter with fruits alone: gay birds fill +them with shifting colors, and a confusion of odd, plaintive, or excited +notes. Several kinds of pigeons, paroquets, thrushes, bright violet +and scarlet tanagras go foraging among the bananas, the rice, and +the millet. The ponds of the savannas are frequented by six or eight +varieties of wild ducks, and the wild goose; woodcock and plover abound +in the marshy neighborhoods; and the white crane, the swan, different +kinds of herons, and an ibis are found near the sea. On the shores +stand pelicans and cormorants absorbed in fishing enterprises, and the +flamingo,[C] whose note of alarm sounds like a trumpet. + +[Footnote C: When the English were meditating a descent upon the coast +of Gonaive, a negro happened to see a prodigious number of these +red-coated birds ranked on the savanna near the sea, as their habit is, +in companies. He rushed into the town, shouting, _"Z'Anglais, yo après +veni, yo en pile dans savanne l'Hôpital!"_ "The English, they are after +coming, they are drawn up on l'Hôpital savanna!" The _générale_ +was beaten, the posts doubled, and a strong party was sent out to +reconnoitre. + +The pelican is a source of great amusement to the negroes. They call +this bird _blague à diable_, because of the incredible number of fish it +can stow away in its pouch. They call the cormorant _grand gosier_, big +gullet; and they make use of the membranous pocket which is found under +the lower mandible of its beak to carry their smoking tobacco, fancying +that it enhances the quality and keeps it fresh. Among the queer birds +is the _cra-cra_, or crocodile's valet, a bold and restless bird with +a harsh cry, represented in its name, which it uses to advertise the +dozing crocodile of any hostile approach. It is a great annoyance to the +sportsman by mixing with the wild ducks and alarming them with the same +nervous cry.] + +Charming valleys open to sight from the coast, where the limestone +bluffs let in the bays. The eye follows the rivulets as they wind +through green, sequestered places, till the hills bar the view, but do +not prevent the fancy from exploring farther, and losing itself in a +surmise of glens filled with rare vegetation and kept quiet by the +inclosing shadows. From the sea this picture is especially refreshing, +with the heat left out which is reflected with great power from the +sandy rocks and every denuded surface. Below all appears beautiful, +luxurious, and new; but above the signs of decrepitude appear, and the +broad wastes stretch where little grows except the _bayaonde_, (_Mimosa +urens_,) with its long murderous spines and ugly pods. Sudden contrasts +and absence of delicate gradations mark the whole face of the island. +All is extreme; and the mind grows disquieted amid these isolated +effects. + +The climate also corresponds to this region of luxury and desolation. +From November to April everything is parched with heat; some of the +trees lose their leaves, the rest become brown, and all growth ceases. +From April to November everything is wet; vegetation revives without a +spring, and the slender streams suddenly become furious rivers, which +often sweep away the improvements of man, and change the face of the +country in a single night. During the dry season the inhabitants depend +upon the sea-breeze which blows in over the heated land to replace +the rarefied air. It blows from six in the morning to three in the +afternoon, in the eastern part of the island; in other parts, from +nine to three. But frequently a furious northeast wind interrupts +this refreshing arrangement: the air becomes hard and cold; thick, +wintry-looking clouds sweep over the hills; the inhabitants shut +themselves up in their houses to escape the rheumatism, which is a +prevalent infliction; a March weather which was apparently destined for +New England seems to have got entangled and lost among these fervid +hills. The languid Creole life is overtaken by universal discomfort. + +Great fires break out over the elevated plateaus and hill-sides, during +the dry season. They sweep with incredible rapidity across great tracts, +levelling everything in the way. The mountains seem tipped with volcanic +flames. The angry glow spreads over the night, and its smoke mixes with +the parched air by day. These fires commence by some carelessness, +though they are sometimes attributed to the action of the son's rays, +concentrated by the gray cliffs upon great masses of vegetation dried to +tinder. + +In the rainy season the earthquakes occur; and not a year passes without +the experience of several shocks in different parts of the island. The +northern part is exempt from them.[D] Those which take place in the +west, around the shores of the great bay upon which Port-au-Prince is +situated, are severe, and sometimes very disastrous. At mid-day the +wind falls instantly, there is a dead calm on land and sea, the heat +is consequently more intense, and the atmosphere suffocating; then the +vibrations occur, after which the wind begins to blow again. Sometimes, +at an interval of ten or twelve hours, there is a supplementary shock, +less violent than the first one. It is said that the coast-caves bellow +just before an earthquake. Their noise probably seems more emphatic In +the sudden calm which is the real announcement of the earth's shudder. + +[Footnote D: Not entirely. The great earthquake of the 7th of May, 1842, +was very destructive at Cap Haytien. On this occasion Port-au-Prince +escaped with little injury.] + +Port-au-Prince was entirely destroyed by an earthquake in June, 1770. +The Inhabitants built the new town upon the edge of the gulf which had +just swallowed up their old one, convinced that the same disaster would +not recur in the same spot. But that region is peculiarly sensitive: the +subterranean connections with the Mexican and South-American volcanic +districts chronicle disturbances whose centre is remote. + +The rains are short and frequent showers, very heavy, and almost always +accompanied by violent electric phenomena. By June they are at their +height. Then the land-slides take place, which often affect seriously +the cultivation, not only by their direct ravages, but by the changes +which they make in the water-courses: large tracts of good soil are +turned into swamp-land, the rivers are forced to bend out of their +direction and to desert places which depended upon them for irrigation. +These damages were seldom repaired, for the indolent planter would not +undertake the work of draining and of permanently securing the tillable +surface of his land. It is good luck, if a land-slide, instead of +creating a new morass, fills up an old one. + +As if completely to unsettle any claim that this Creole climate might +make to character, the hurricane leaves its awful trace upon the island. +This rotating storm of wind has its origin to the east of the Caribbee +Islands; its long parabolic curve sweeps over them, and bends to the +northeast below Florida. In its centre, as it moves, it carries a lull +whose breadth varies from five to thirty miles. This dreadful calm comes +suddenly in the height of the storm, and is as suddenly interrupted, +after lasting sometimes for half an hour, by the revolving edge of the +wind. Torrents of rain go with it, and heavy thunder, and it brings from +the sea an enormous wave, which sweeps harbors clean of their ships, and +runs up, like an earthquake-wave, upon the shore. This vortex, moving +often a hundred miles an hour, takes hold of the _Bombax ceiba_ like an +enormous proboscis, pulls it from the thin soil of the tropics despite +the great lateral clutch of its knotty roots, and swallows it up. +Houses, cultivated fields, men and animals, are obliterated by its heavy +foot. + +In some years no less than three hurricanes have occurred in the West +Indies. Father Du Tertre, a French missionary in St. Christophe, +describes one which he witnessed in 1642,--a year memorable for three. +During the second of these, more than twenty vessels, laden with +colonial produce and just ready to sail for Europe, were wrecked in the +harbor, including the ship of De Ruyter, the Dutch Admiral. The island +was swept of houses, trees, cattle, and birds; the manioc and tobacco +plants were destroyed, and only one cotton shrub survived. The shores +were covered with dead fishes blown out of the water, and the bodies of +ship-wrecked men. The salt-works were flooded and spoiled, and all the +provisions on the island were so damaged that the inhabitants were put +on rations of biscuit till the arrival of vessels from France. + +Another storm like this desolated Martinique in 1657; and the annals of +most of the islands abound in similar narratives. They are less severe +in Hayti, and seldom sweep violently over Cuba. The word _hurricane_ is +a European adaptation of a Carib word, borrowed by the Haytian Indians +from the natives of the Antilles. + +The inhabitants of Hayti do not agree in the statements which they make +concerning their climate. The commencement of the two seasons, the range +of the thermometer, the duration of the different winds, the liability +to earthquakes, are subjects upon which the North is at variance with +the East, and the West with both. The most trustworthy notices of these +phenomena are held to represent that portion of the island which +was formerly occupied by the French. Still the variations cannot be +important over so small an area: the petty and fitful changes of every +day are more noticeable, but the climate has its average within which +these local caprices occur. + +In another climate the mountains would present a gradation of vegetable +growth, from the tropical through the temperate to the northern zone. +And this can be traced in some quarters, where the palm and mahogany are +succeeded by resinous trees, of which there are several varieties, till +the bare summits show only lichens and stunted shrubs. But the seasons +do not harmonize with this graduated rise of the mountain-chains, and +the temperate forms are interrupted, or confined to a few localities. +Yet the people who live upon the _mornes_, those for instance which are +drained by Trois-Rivières in the northwestern part of the island, are +healthier and plumper, and the Creoles have a fresher look, than the +inhabitants of the plains. In the still more elevated regions the cold +is frequently so great that people do not like to live there. Newly +imported negroes frequently perished, if they were carried up into the +southern range of mountains; and the dependent Creole was forced to +abandon places where the slave could not go. + +It would be singular, if a place of such marked natural features, and +with such phenomena of climate, should have no perceptible effects upon +the Eastern races of all kinds which have been transported there. We +shall expect that the Creole will betray a certain harmony with his +petulant and capricious skies, and imitate the grace and exuberance of +the tropical forms amid which he lives, the languor of the air that +broods over them, its flattering calms and fierce transitions; he will +mature early and wilt at maturity with passions that despise moderation +and impulses that are incapable of continuity. In Hayti the day itself +rushes precipitately into the sky, and is gone as suddenly: there is no +calm broadening of dawn, and no lingering hours of twilight. The light +itself is a passion which fiercely revels among the fruits and flowers +that exhale for it ardently; it gluts, and then suddenly spurns them +for new conquests. Nothing can live and flourish here which has not the +innate temperament of the place. + +One would not expect to find great wealth in these gray-looking +mountains of simple and uniform structure; yet they abound in stones and +metals. Besides the different kinds of marble, which it is not strange +to find, diamonds also, jasper, agates, onyx, topaz, and other stones, a +kind of jade and of malachite, are found in a great many places. Copper +exists in considerable quantities in the neighborhood of Dondon and +Jacmel, and in the Cibao; silver is found near San Domingo, and in +various places in the Cibao, together with cinnabar, cobalt, bismuth, +zinc, antimony, and lead in the Cibao, near Dondon and Azua, blue cobalt +that serves for painting on porcelain, the gray, black specular nickel, +etc.; native iron near the Bay of Samana, in the Mornes-du-Cap, and at +Haut-and Bas-Moustique; other forms of that metal abound in numerous +places, crystallized, spathic, micaceous, etc. Nitre can be procured in +the Cibao, that great storehouse which has specimens of almost every +metal, salt, and mineral; borax at Jacmel and Dondon, native alum at +Dondon, and aluminous earth near Port-au-Prince; vitriol, of various +forms, in a dozen places; naphtha, petroleum, and asphaltum at Banique, +and sulphur in different shapes at Marmalade, La Soufrière, etc. The +catalogue of this wealth would be tedious to draw up. + +The reports concerning gold do not agree. It is maintained that there +are mines and washings which have been neglected, or improperly worked, +and that a vigorous exploration would reopen this source of wealth; but +it is also said as confidently that the Spaniards took off all the gold, +and were reduced to working mines of copper, before the middle of the +sixteenth century. It is certain, however, that great quantities of gold +were taken from the island by the Spaniards, while they had the natives +to perform the labor. The principal sources from which gold can be +procured are in the part of the island formerly occupied by the +Spaniards; and when their power decayed, all important labors came to an +end. But Oviedo records several lumps of gold of considerable size: one +was Bobadilla's lump, found, during his government, at Bonne Aventure, +which was worth thirty-six hundred _castellanos_, or $19,153. This was +lost at sea on the way to Spain. The finding of pieces in the River +Yaqui weighing nine ounces was occasionally recorded, and pieces of +pure gold, without the least mixture, more than three inches in +circumference, in the River Verte: they were undoubtedly found much +oftener than recorded. Good authorities, writing at the close of the +last century, declare that the mines of Cibao alone furnished more gold +than all Europe had in circulation at that time. All the larger streams, +and the basins near their sources, furnished gold. + +Bobadilla's lump was found by a slave of Francisco de Garay, afterwards +Governor of Jamaica. He and the famous Diaz worked a mine together in +San Domingo. His slave was poking about with a pike in the shallows of +the River Hayna, when the head struck the metal. Garay was so rejoiced +that he sacrificed a pig, which was served upon this extemporaneous +platter, and he boasted that there was no such dish in Europe. Twenty +other ships with gold on board went down in the storm which swallowed up +Garay's waif.[E] + +[Footnote E: Great quantities of gold were embezzled by the Spanish +officials. Las Casas in his lively arguments with the Council of State +in behalf of the Indians, always insisted that his plan for controlling +them would be more profitable as well as humane. He promised large +increase of treasure, and showed how the royal officers appropriated the +gold which they extorted from the natives. Piedro Arias, for instance, +spent six years at Castilla-du-Oro, at a cost to the Government of +fifty-four thousand ducats, during which time he divided a million's +worth of gold with his officers, at the expense of thousands of natives, +whose lives were the flux of the metallic ore, while he paid only three +thousand _pesos_ for the king's fifth.--Llorente: _Oeuvres de Las +Casas_, Tom. II--p.472.] + +Many French writers have maintained that the Indians procured their +golden ornaments from Yucatan and other points of the main-land, by way +of traffic. But they had nothing to barter, and their ornaments were +numerous. Besides, the Spaniards found in various places near the rivers +the holes and slight diggings whence the gold had been procured. It is +said that the Haytian natives only washed for gold, but the Caribs had +frequented the island long previously, and they without doubt earned +gold away from it. The Spaniards were deceived by the Haytians, who +did not wish to dig gold under the lash to glitter on the velvet of +_hidalgos_. + +It is difficult, as Humboldt says, to distinguish, in the calculations +by the Spanish writers of the amount of gold sent to Spain, "between +that obtained by washings and that which had been accumulated for ages +in the hands of the natives, who were pillaged at will." He inclines, +however, to the opinion, that a scientific system of mining would renew +the supply of gold, which may not be represented by the scanty washings +that have been occasionally tried in Hayti and Cuba. In Hayti, "as well +as at Brazil, it would be more profitable to attempt subterraneous +workings, on veins, in primitive and intermediary soils, than to renew +the gold-washings which were abandoned in the ages of barbarism, rapine, +and carnage."[F] + +[Footnote F: _Personal Narrative_, Vol. III. p. 163, note. Bohn's +Series.] + +But the chief interest which Spain took in Hayti was derived from +the collars and bracelets which shone dully against the skins of the +caciques and native women in the streets of Seville. It did not require +an exhausted treasury, and the clamor of a Neapolitan war for sinews, +to stimulate the appetite of a nation whose sensibility for gold was as +great as its superstition. Columbus triumphed over the imaginations of +men through their avarice; the procession of his dusky captives to the +feet of Isabella was as if the Earth-Spirit, holding a masque to tempt +Catholic majesties to the ruin of the mine, sent his familiars, "with +the earth-tint yet so freshly embrowned," to flatter with heron-crests, +the plumes of parrots, and the yellow ore. Behind that naked pomp the +well-doubleted nobles of Castile and Aragon trooped gayly with priests +and crosses, the pyx and the pax, and all the symbols of a holy Passion, +to crime and death. + +Columbus discovered Guanahani, which he named San Salvador, on the +morning of the 12th of October, 1492. After cruising among these Lucayan +Islands, or Bahamas, for some time, he reached Cuba on the 28th of the +same month. His Lucayan interpreters were understood by the natives of +Cuba, notwithstanding they spoke a different dialect. They were also +understood at Hayti, which was reached on the 6th of December; but here +the Cuban interpreter was found to be more useful. Each island appeared +to have a dialect of a language whose origin has been variously +attributed to Florida, to Central America, and to the Caribbee Islands. +But the Indians of Central America could not understand the Cubans and +Haytians, and they in turn spoke a different language from the Caribs, +some of whose words they had borrowed. A favorite theory is, that the +_Ygneris_ were ancient inhabitants of the West Indian Islands, distinct +from the Caribs, who made their way from Florida by the Lucayan Islands, +leaving Hayti to the right, and reaching South America by that fringe of +islands that stretches from Porto Rico to Trinidad, through which the +great current is strained into the Caribbean Sea. Humboldt says,[G] in +noticing the difference between the language of the Carib men and their +women, that perhaps the women descended from the female captives made +in this movement, the men being as usual slain. But the Haytians also +claimed to have come from Florida. Perhaps, then, an emigration from +Florida, which may be called, for want of any historical data, that of +the Ygneris, covered all the West Indian Islands at a very early period, +to be overlapped, in part, by a succeeding emigration of Caribs who were +pressed out of Florida by the Appalachians.[H] + +[Footnote G: _Personal Narrative_, Vol. III. p. 78, where see the +subject discussed at length.] + +[Footnote H: _Histoire Générale des Antilles_, par Du Tertre, Paris, +1667, Tom. II. p. 360.] + +The Caribs are supposed to have derived the compliment of their name, +which means "valiant men," from the Appalachians, who had great trouble +in dislodging them. They were very different from the Haytians: they cut +their hair very short in front, leaving a tuft upon the crown, bandaged +the legs of their children to make a calf that Mr. Thackeray's Jeames +would have envied, pulled out their beard hair by hair, and then +polished the chin, with rough leaves. A grand toilet included a coat of +scarlet paint, which protected them from the burning effect of the sun +and from the bites of insects. It also saved their skins from the scurf +and chapping which the sea-water occasioned. A Carib chief, in a full +suit of scarlet, excited once the anger of Madame Aubert, wife of a +French governor of Dominica, because he sat upon her couch, which had a +snowy dimity cover, and left there the larger portion of his pantaloons. +But afterwards, upon being invited to dine at the Government-House, he +determined to respect the furniture, and, seeing nothing so appropriate +as his plate, he removed it to his chair before he took his seat. The +Caribs, however, had such an inveterate preference for dining _au +naturel_, that they frequently served up natives themselves, whenever +that expensive luxury could be obtained. The Spaniards brought home the +word _Cannibal_, which was a Haytian pronunciation of Cariba (Galiba); +and it gradually came into use to express the well-known idea of a +man-eater. The South-American Caribs preserve this vicious taste. + +The Caribs had not overrun the island of Hayti, but it was never free +from their incursions. That hardy and warlike race was feared by the +milder Haytians, who had been compelled, especially in the southern +provinces of the island, to study the arts of defence, which do not +appear to have been much esteemed by them. Their arms were of the +simplest description: wood pointed and hardened in the fire, arrows +tipped with fish-bone or turtle-shell, and clubs of the toughest +kinds of wood. The Caribs used arrows poisoned with the juice of the +manchineel, or pointed with formidable shark's-teeth, their clubs of +Brazil-wood were three feet long, and their lances of hardened wood +were thrown with great adroitness and to a great distance. The southern +Haytians learned, warlike habits from these encroaching Caribs, and were +less gentle than the natives whom Columbus first met along the northern +coast. + +But they were all gentler, fairer, more graceful and simple than the +Caribs, or the natives of the main. Their ambition found its limit when +the necessaries of daily life were procured. The greatest achievement +of their manual dexterity was the hollowing of a great trunk by fire to +fashion a canoe.[I] Their huts were neatly made of stakes and reeds, +and covered with a plaited roof, beneath which the _hamaca_, (hammock,) +coarsely knitted of cotton, swung. Every collection of huts had also one +of larger dimensions, like a lodge, open at the sides, where the natives +used to gather for their public business or amusement. This was called +_bohio_, a word improperly applied to the huts, and used by the +Spaniards to designate their villages. In the southern districts, the +_bohios_, and the dwellings of the caciques, were furnished with +stools wrought with considerable skill from hard wood, and sometimes +ornamented. But they could not have been made by the natives, who had +neither iron nor copper in use. Their golden ornaments were nothing more +than pieces of the metal, rudely turned, by pounding and rubbing, into +rings for the nose and ears, and necklace-plates. Whatever they had, for +use or ornament, which was more elaborate, came by way of trade from +Yucatan and the contiguous coasts. It is difficult to conjecture what +their medium of barter was, for they prepared nothing but cassava-cakes +for food and the fermented juice for drink, and raised only the pimento, +(red pepper,) the _agi_, (sweet pepper,) the _yuca_, whence the +cassava or manioc meal was obtained, and sweet potatoes; and all these +productions were common to the tribes along the coast. Tobacco may have +been cultivated by them and neglected by other tribes. The Haytian word +_tabaco_, which designated the pipe from which they sucked the smoke +into their nostrils, and also the roll of leaves,--for they employed +both methods,--has passed over to the weed. The pipe was a hollow tube +in the shape of a Y, the mystic letter of Pythagoras: the two branches +were applied to the nose, and the stem was held over the burning leaves. +The weed itself was called _cohiba_. + +[Footnote I: _Canoa_ is Haytian, and is like enough to _Kayak_, +Esquimaux, to _Caïque_, Turkish and to _Kahn_, German, to unsettle an +etymologist with a theory of origin.] + +At the time of the discovery, five principal caciques ruled the island, +which was divided into as many provinces, with inferior caciques, who +appear to have been the chiefs of settlements. We find, for instance, +that Guatiguana was cacique of a large town in the province of which +Guarionex was the chief cacique. The power of each cacique was supreme, +but nothing like a league existed between the different provinces. +When the Haytians in desperation tried the fortune of war against the +Spaniards, Caonabo, the cacique of the central province in the South, +like another Pontiac, rallied the natives from all quarters, and held +them together long enough to fight a great battle on the Vega. But he +was a Carib. His brother who succeeded him was also a Carib, and he +maintained a union of several caciques till his defeat by Ojeda. Then +the less warlike chiefs of the North readily submitted to the Spaniards, +and the bolder caciques of the South were compelled to ask for peace.[J] + +[Footnote J: In Mr. Irving's _Life of Columbus_, the characters of the +different Indian chieftains are finely drawn, and the history of their +intercourse and warfare with the Spaniards admirably told.] + +Thus were the natives bound together by the polity of instinct and +consanguinity alone. They had no laws, but only natural customs. The +cacique was an arbitrator: if his decision did not appease a litigant, +the parties had an appeal to arms in his presence. Their cacique +received unbounded reverence, and for him they would freely die. +Polygamy was permitted only to him, but not always practised by him. The +Spaniards were so surprised at the readiness with which the natives gave +them everything, both food and ornaments, that they declared them to be +defective in the sense of property, and to have everything in common. +This was a mistake: each man had his little possessions; stealing was +punished with death, as the crime that did the greatest violence to +the natural order; and crimes against domestic purity were severely +punished, till the people became demoralized by their conquerors, who +mistook the childish freedom of the women, for lustful invitation, and +imputed to the native disposition something which belonged to their +own.[K] + +[Footnote K: They even accused the natives of communicating that +loathsome disease which results from promiscuous intercourse, when +in fact the _virus_ was shipped at Palos, with the other elements of +civilization, to give a new world to Castile and Leon! Nations appear to +be particularly sensitive upon this point, and accuse each other. But +the first time a disorder is observed is not the date of its origin. See +the European opinion in the fifteenth century, in Roscoe's _Lorenzo de' +Medici_, p. 350, and note, Bohn's edition. It has probably existed from +the earliest times, wherever population was dense and habits depraved. +The Romans suffered from it, but, like the Europeans of the Middle Ages, +did not always attribute it to its proper source. What did Persius mean +in one or two places in his _Third Satire, e.g._, 113-115? And see also +Celaus, _Medicina_, Lib. V. §3. + +When the fighting-man of Europe became a mercenary, (soldier, +_soldner, paid-man_,) he carried this tinder from country to country, +and kindled the fire afresh. The Spaniards bore it to Hayti, and it +stung like a snake beneath that fervid sky.] + +They were timid, credulous, extravagantly friendly, affected easily to +tears, not cunning enough for their own good, and little capable of +concealing or of planning anything. Yet when their eyes were opened, and +they understood at last that the strangers had not descended from the +skies, their indignation and loathing were well sustained, with a +frankness, indeed, which only embittered their condition. They suffered, +but could not dissimulate. + +But they were at once volatile and of a languid frame, which could not +long repel the enticements of wine and passionate excess, liable to +petty rages, incapable of concentration, with no power of remembering +anything but a benefit, lavish fawners, but not hearty haters, easily +persuaded, and easily repenting of everything but hospitality. No abuse +of that put the drop of savage blood in motion, till the Spaniards began +to regard their women with indiscriminate desire. That was the first +outrage for which a Spanish life had to atone. But neither treachery nor +cruelty lurked beneath their flowery ways; it was sullen despair which +broke their gayety, brief spasms of wrath followed by melancholy. But +they could not keep their ideas well enough in hand to lay a plot. + +These graceful children, with their curious prognostics of a Creole +temper, were not devoid of religion. The Creator has set none of His +children in the sun, to work or play, without keeping this hold +upon them. They defer to this restraint, with motions more or less +instinctive, but can never, in their wildest gambols, break entirely +loose. It is not easy to separate the real beliefs of the Haytians +from the conjectures of Catholic and Jewish observers. The former were +interested to discover analogies which would make it appear that they +had been foreordained to conversion; the latter were infested with the +notion that they were descendants of one of the Lost Tribes. What, for +instance, can be made of the assertion that the Haytian Supreme had a +mother? The natives were gentle enough to love such a conception, and to +be pleased with the Catholic presentation of it, but this is the only +proof we have that they originated it. It would be pleasant to believe +that they referred, in some dim way, their sense of the womanly quality +back to the great Source of Life. + +But the Hebrew coincidences were as eagerly sought.[L] If a cacique +remarked to Columbus that he thought good men would be transported to a +place of delights, and bad men to a foul and dismal place where darkness +reigned, it was deemed to be a reminiscence of Sheol and a later Jewish +idea of Paradise. If Anacaona, the charming wife of Caonabo, came +forth to meet the _Adelantado_, at the head of thirty maidens of her +household, dancing and singing their native songs, and waving branches +of the palm-tree, a variety of Old and New Testament pictures occurred +to the mind. Their hospitality and pertinacious sheltering of fugitives +was another Oriental trait. But, above all, the horrible oppression +to which the Spaniards subjected them, the indignities and sufferings +heaped upon them, were considered to fulfil the divine curse which +rested upon Jews! What a choice morsel of theology is this! + +[Footnote L: Consult a curious book, _The Ten Tribes of Israel +historically identified with the Aborigines of the Western Hemisphere_. +By Mrs. Simon. 1836.] + +Cabrera found at Cuba, says Humboldt, a variation of the story +respecting the first inebriation of Noah. A wild grape grew in all the +West India Islands. The natives of Cuba preserved also the tradition of +a great terrestrial disturbance, in which water played the chief part. +This was probably held by the Haytians also, for we find it again among +the Caribs beyond, especially in South America. But Cabrera, mounting +with the waters of the Deluge, was not content till he had found in Cuba +the ark, the raven and dove, the uncovering of Noah, and his curse; in +fact, the Indians were descended from this unfortunate son whom Noah's +malediction reduced to nudity, but the Spaniards, descending from +another son, inherited his clothes. "Why do you call me a dog?" said an +old Indian of seventy years to Cabrera, who had been insulting him. +"Did we not both come out of the same large ship that saved us from the +waters?"[M] + +[Footnote M: _Notes on Cuba, containing an Account of its Discovery and +Early History_. By Dr. Wurdemann. 1844.] + +It is certain that the Haytians believed in continued existence after +death, and pointed, as all men do, to the sky, when talking of that +subject. They held, indefinitely, that there was some overruling Spirit; +but they believed also in malignant influences which it was advisable to +propitiate. Their worship was connected with the caverns of the island, +those mysterious formations beneath which the strange sounds were heard. +The walls of these caverns were covered with pictured distortions, +half man, half animal, which yielded to the priests, or _butios_, +interpretations according to the light and shadow. Some of these vaults +are lighted through a natural fissure in the roof, and the worship or +augury commenced at the moment the sun struck through it. There were +movable idols, called _Zemés_, which represented inferior deities. The +Catholic writers call them messengers and mediators, having their own +saints in mind. But their forms were sometimes merely animal, a toad, a +tortoise with a sun upon its back, and upon each side a star with the +moon in her first change; another was a monstrous figure in basalt, +representing a head surmounting a female bosom, diminishing to a ball; +another was a human figure made from a gypseous stalactite.[N] + +[Footnote N: The savages of Martinique kept in their caverns idols +made of cotton, in the form of a man, with shining black seeds of the +soap-berry (_Sapindus_) for eyes, and a cotton helmet. These were the +original deities of the island. It cannot now be decided whether the +cotton thus worshipped was long-staple or upland; but the tendency +of the savage mind to make a fetich of its chief thing appears to be +universal.] + +The cacique took precedence of the _butios_, in theory, at least, and +designated the days for public worship. He led the procession of men +and women festively adorned, beating on a drum, to the cavern where the +priests awaited them. Presents were offered, and old dances and songs +repeated in honor of the Zemés, and of departed caciques. Then the +priests broke cakes and distributed the pieces to the heads of +families, who carefully kept them till the next festival as amulets and +preservatives against disease. + +They had an original way of expressing their vague instinct that the +Supreme Being loves truth and cleanliness in the inward parts. Each +person presented himself, with singing, before the chief idol, and there +thrust a stick into his throat till the gorge rose, in order, as they +said, to appear before the Divinity with a heart clean and upon the +lips.[O] + +[Footnote O: _Histoire d'Hayti_, par M. Placide Justin, p. 8.] + +The priests were diviners and doctors. If their predictions failed, they +did not want the usual cunning of mediums and spiritual quacks of all +ages, who are never known to be caught. But it became a more serious +affair for them in the case of a death. Friends consulted the soul at +the moment of its leaving the body, and if it could give no sign, or if +no omen of fair play appeared from any quarter, the _butio_ was held +to be the author of the death, and, if he was not a very popular +individual, he incurred the vengeance of the family. If at such a +time an animal was seen creeping near, the worst suspicions were +confirmed.[P] + +[Footnote P: _Voyages d'un Naturaliste_, etc., par M.E. Descourtilz, +Tom. II. p. 19, et seq. 1809.] + +The natives had a legend that the sun and moon issued from one of these +caverns, which Mr. Irving says is the Voûte-à-Minguet, about eight +leagues from Cap Haytien. + +They were very nervous, and did not like to go about after dark. Many +people of all races have this vague disquiet as soon as the sun goes +down. It is the absence of light which accounts for all the tremors and +tales of superstition. How these sunflowers of Hayti must have shuddered +and shrunk together at the touch of darkness! But they had a graceful +custom of carrying the _cocujos_[Q] in a perforated calabash, and +keeping them, in their huts, when the sudden twilight fell. + +[Footnote Q: A Haytian word appropriated by the Spaniards, (_cocuyos_); +_Elater noctilucus_. Their light is brilliant enough to read by.] + +Their festivals and public gatherings were more refined than those of +the Caribs, who held but one meeting, called a _Vin_, for consultation +upon war-matters and a debauch upon cassava-beer.[R] The Haytians loved +music, and possessed one or two simple instruments; their _maguey_ was +like a timbrel, made of the shells of certain fishes. Their speech, +with its Italian terminations, flowed easily into singing, and they +extemporized, as the negroes do, the slightest incidents in rhythmical +language. They possessed national ballads, called _areytos_, and held in +high repute the happy composers of fresh ones. Altogether their life was +full of innocence and grace. + +[Footnote R: Father Du Tertre enjoys relating, that a Carib orator, +wishing to make his speech more impressive, invested his scarlet +splendor in a _jupe_ which he had lately taken from an Englishwoman, +tying it where persons of the same liturgical tendency tie their +cambric. But though his garrulity was thereby increased, the charms of +the liquor drew his audience away.] + +Such were the aborigines of Hayti, the "Mountain-land." But as our +narrative does not propose a minute and consecutive survey, it will +detain us too long from certain essential points which deserve to be +made clear, if we follow step by step the dealings of the Spaniards with +these natives. All this can be found delightfully told by Mr. Irving +in his "Life of Columbus," in such a way as to render an attempt at +repeating it hazardous and useless. Our task is different,--to make +prominent first, the character of the natives, which we have just +striven to do, and next, the style of treatment in converting and in +enslaving them, which gave its first chapter of horrors to San Domingo, +and laid violent hands on the whole sequence of her history. + +What influence could the noble elements of the Spanish character have, +when theology, avarice, and lust controlled the conquest? Pure minds and +magnanimous intentions went in the same ships with adventurers, diseased +soldiers, cold and superstitious men of business, and shaven monks with +their villanous low brows and thin inquisitorial smile. The average +character speedily obtained ascendency, because the best men were to +some extent partakers of it. Columbus was eager to make his great +discovery pay well, to preserve the means of continued exploration. In +one hand he lifted high the banner of possession with its promise of a +cross, which direful irony fulfilled; with the other he kept feeding the +ravenous nation with gold, to preserve its sympathy and admiration, that +the supply of men and vessels should not fail. Las Casas himself, a just +and noble man, the first advocate of the natural rights of men in the +New World, soon found that the situation was too strong and cruel; his +wishes and struggles went under before the flood of evil passions which +swept the island. He maintained his fight against Indian slavery by not +discountenancing negro slavery. And his fight was unavailing, because +mercy had no legitimate place upon the new soil. The logic of events +was with the evil majority, which was obliged at last to maintain its +atrocious consistency in self-defence. He might as well have preached +the benefits of Lenten diet to shipwrecked men upon a raft, insane with +thirst and the taste of comrade's flesh. It was a Devil's problem, which +is the kind that cannot hold back from its devilish conclusion. + +But bad passions were not alone to blame. The Spanish notion of +conversion desolated like avarice. The religious bodies which from time +to time controlled the affairs of the island differed in their humanity +and general policy: the Dominicans were friends of the Indian and haters +of the turbulent oppressor; the Franciscans were the instruments of the +bad men whose only ambition was to wring pleasure and fortune out of the +Indian's heart; the monks of St. Jerome undertook in vain a neutral +and reconciling policy. But they all agreed that the Indians must be +baptized, catechized, and more or less chastised into the spirit of the +gospel and conformity to Rome. The _conquistadores_ drove with a whip, +the missionaries with a dogma. The spirit of the nation and of the age +sternly asked for theological conformity: it was seriously understood +that a man should believe or burn. For one of those two things he was +preordained. Everybody was convinced that a drop of water on the dusky +forehead of these natives quenched the flames of hell. The methods used +to get that holy drop applied lighted flames, to escape from which +anybody would take his chance of the remoter kind. + +The cacique Hatuey understood the Spaniards. He was the first man in +the New World who saw by instinct what an after-age perceived by +philosophical reflection. He should have been the historian of the +Conquest. The Spaniards had destroyed his people, and forced him to fly +to Cuba for safety. There he also undertook a conversion of the natives. +"Do you expect to defend yourselves against this people," he said, +"while you do not worship the same God? This God I know; he is more +powerful than ours, and I reveal him to you." With this he shows them a +little piece of gold. "Here he is; let us celebrate a festival to honor +him, that his favor may be extended to us." The natives hold a solemn +smoking around the Spanish God, which is followed by singing and +dancing, as to one of their own Zemés. Having adroitly concentrated +their attention in this way upon the article of gold, Hatuey the next +morning reassembles the people and finishes his missionary labors. "My +mind is not at ease. There can be no safety for us while the God of the +Spaniard is in our midst. They seek him everywhere. Their devotion is so +great that they settle in a place only for the convenience of worship. +It is useless to attempt to hide him from their eyes. If you should +swallow him, they would disembowel you in the name of religion. Even the +bottom of the sea may not be too far, but there it is that we must throw +him. When he can no longer be found with us, they will leave us in +peace." + +Admirable counsel, if the gold in veins, or their own blood, were not +also the object of search. The natives collected all their gold and +threw it into the sea. A party of Spaniards landing upon the island not +long after, Hatuey was taken prisoner, and condemned to be burnt alive +because he refused to be converted! + + "Was conduct ever more affronting? + With all the ceremony settled! + With the towel ready"-- + +and all the other apparatus for a first-class baptism, and the +annexation to Rome and heaven of a tribe! When he was tied to the stake, +and a priest conjured him to profess Christianity and make a sure thing +of paradise, he cut him short with,-- + +"Are there Spaniards in this place of delights of which you speak?" + +"There are indeed, but only good ones." + +"The best of them is good for nothing," said the cacique. "I would +rather not go where I might have to meet them." + +Dying, he had his preference. + +It seems to be one that is innate in the savage mind. An Ojibbeway was +apparently pleased with the new religion that was proffered to him, +and thought of being baptized, but, dreaming that he went up to a fair +prairie covered with numerous trails of white men, without the print +of a single moccasin, was cured of his desire. The Frisian Radbod also +expressed his disgust at the converting methods of Charles the Hammer. +"He had already immersed one of his royal legs in the baptismal font, +when a thought struck him. 'Where are my dead forefathers at present?' +he said, turning suddenly upon Bishop Wolfran. 'In hell, with all other +unbelievers,' was the imprudent answer. 'Mighty well!' replied Radbod, +removing his leg; 'then will I rather feast with my ancestors in the +halls of Woden than dwell with your little starveling band of Christians +in heaven.'"[S] And if he, too, died a heathen, it is certain that one +continued to live in Bishop Wolfran. For it is men of his narrow and +brutal theology who are not yet converted to Christianity, but who get a +dispensation to disgust men with that glorious name. + +[Footnote S: Motley's _Dutch Republic_, Vol. I. p. 20.] + +So it went on at Hayti. Catholic fetiches vied with the native ones for +ascendency. Ecclesiastics were charged with the management of secular as +well as spiritual matters, for it was the genius of Spain to govern +by the priest. A very few of them understood men, and had a head for +affairs; of these, some were pure, the rest were base, and readily +fraternized with the soldiers and politicians in their selfish policy. A +bad and cruel theology, a narrow priestly mind, became the instruments +of lust and murder. + +Guarionex was the chief cacique of a province which comprised the middle +part of the Vega Real. His conversion was undertaken by Friar Roman, +a St. Jeromite, and Joan Borognon, a Franciscan. The cacique listened +attentively to their instructions, but the natives, already alienated +by the excesses of the Spaniards, would neither attend mass nor be +catechized, except upon compulsion. It was the policy of Guarionex to +offer no resistance to the addresses of the priests. But an outrage +committed upon his wife hindered the progress of religion in his +province. He dashed the cross to the ground in fury, and scattered the +utensils. The affrighted priests fled, leaving behind a chapel with some +pictures which they had instructed the converts to regard in offering up +their prayers. Guarionex buried all the pictures, and said over them, +instead of a Pater, "Now you will begin to bear fruit!" Friar Roman says +that a catechumen, digging his _agis_ (sweet pepper) in that field, +found two or three of them grown together in the shape of a cross. The +miracle and the outrage were reported at once, and the six natives who +had buried the pictures at the command of Guarionex were burnt alive! +This was the first _auto-da-fé_ on Haytian soil. + +The preaching and the lust went on. But the preaching sometimes +addressed the sinner also. Montesino, a Dominican preacher, attacked the +cruelty of the colonists from the pulpit of San Domingo. He was accused +of treason; that is to say, the king was held to represent the policy +which enslaved and destroyed the Indian. The authorities threatened to +expel the Dominicans from the island, if the preacher did not apologize +and withdraw his charges. Montesino promised soon to preach in another +style. Having filled the church with his malignant audience, he bravely +maintained his position with fresh facts and arguments; he showed that +the system of _repartimientos,_ or partition of the Indians among the +colonists, was more disastrous than the first system, which imposed upon +each cacique a tax and left him to extort it from his subjects. He +urged the policy of interest; for the Indians, unused to labor, died in +droves: they dropped in the fields beneath the whip; they escaped by +whole families to the mountains, and there perished with hunger; they +threw themselves into the water, and killed each other in the forests; +families committed suicide in concert;--there would soon be no laborers, +and the Spaniard could rob and murder, but would not toil. Brave +preacher, worthy mouth-piece of the humane Las Casas, what could he +effect against the terrible exigency of the situation? For here was a +colony, into which all the prisons of Spain had just been emptied to +repair a failing emigration,--men bred in crime coalescing with men +whose awakened passions made them candidates for prison,--the whole +community, with the exception of the preacher and his scattered +sympathizers, animated by one desire, to get the gold, to exhaust the +soil, to glut voluptuous immunity, to fill the veins with a fiery +climate, and to hurry back with wealth enough to feed it more safely in +the privacies of Madrid and Seville. What were preaching and benevolent +intention, where shaven superstition was inculcating the cross by its +weight alone, and bearded ferocity desolated with the sword what the +cross could spare? The discussion which Montesino raised went home to +Spain; but when a board of commissioners, charged to investigate the +subject, advised that all Indians granted to Spanish courtiers, and to +all other persons who did not reside upon the island, should be set +at liberty, the colonists saw the entering wedge of emancipation. The +discontent was so great, and the alternative of slavery or ruin was +so passionately offered to the Government at home, that the system of +_repartimientos_ remained untouched; for the Government felt that it +must choose between the abandonment of the island and the destruction of +those who alone, if judiciously protected, could make it profitable to +retain it. + +Protection and amelioration, then, became the cry. In consequence of the +great increase of cattle in the island, it was considered no more than +just that the Indians should no longer be used as beasts of burden. They +were also to have one day in the seven, besides the Church festivals, +for their own use; and intendants were appointed who were to have a +general supervision of their affairs, and to protect them from barbarous +punishments. These regulations were a weir of reeds thrown across a +turbid and tumultuous Amazon. + +Las Casas was an eye-witness of the cruelties which he exposed in his +memoirs to the Government, those uncompromising indictments of his own +nation and of the spirit of the age. He had seen the natives slaughtered +like sheep in a pen, and the butchers laid bets with each other upon +their dexterity in cleaving them asunder at a stroke. Children, torn +from the bosoms of their mothers, were brained against the stones, or +thrown into the water with mocking cries,--"That will refresh you!" A +favorite mode of immolation, which had the merit of exciting theological +associations, was to bind thirteen of the natives to as many stakes, +one for each apostle and one for the Saviour, and then to make a +burnt-offering of them. Others were smeared with pitch and lighted. +Sometimes a fugitive who had been recaptured was sent into the forest +with his severed hand,--"Go, carry this letter to the others who have +escaped, with our compliments." + +"I have seen," says Las Casas, "five chiefs and several other Indians +roasting together upon hurdles, and the Spanish captain was enraged +because their cries disturbed his _siesta_. He ordered them to be +strangled, that he might hear no more of it. But the superintendent, +whom I know, as well as his family, which is from Seville, more cruel +than the officer, refused to end their torture." He would not be +cheated of his after-dinner luxury, so he gagged them with sticks, and +replenished the fires.[T] + +[Footnote T: Llorente's _Oeuvres de Las Casas; Première Mémoire, +contenant la Relation des Cruautés_, etc.] + +Columbus first made use of dogs against the Indians, but merely to +intimidate. They were swift dogs of chase, impetuous and dangerous, but +did not yet deserve to be called blood-hounds. The Spaniards, however, +by frequently using them in the pursuit of escaping natives, without +thinking it worth while to restrain their motions, gradually educated +them to a taste for human blood. From the breed, thus modified, the +West-Indian blood-hound descended, possibly not without admixture with +other savage dogs of French and English breeds which were brought to the +island by their scarcely less savage owners. Many of the dogs which the +Spaniards carried to South America roamed at large and degenerated into +beasts of prey. Soldiers at one time were detailed to hunt them, and +were then nicknamed _Mataperros_, or dog-slayers. + +But if the dogs fed upon the Indian's body, the monk was ever vigilant +to save his soul. A woman was holding her child of twelve months, says +Las Casas, when she perceived the approach of the hounds in full cry +after a party of natives. Feeling that she could not escape, she +instantly tied her babe to her leg and then suspended herself from a +beam. The dogs came up at the moment that a monk was baptizing the +child, thus luckily cutting off its purgatory just behind the jaws that +devoured it. + +Spaniards were known to feed their dogs, when short of meat, by chopping +off a native's arm and throwing it to them; and a few fed their dogs +exclusively upon native-meat. We have the authority of Las Casas for the +fact, which he took care to have well attested from various sources, +that a Spaniard would borrow a quarter of native from a friend for his +hounds, promising to return it at a favorable opportunity. Somebody +asked one of these generous livers how his housekeeping flourished. +"Well enough," was the reply; "I have killed twenty of these rascally +Indians, and now, thank God, my dogs have something to eat." + +The Spaniards paid their gambling debts in natives. If a governor lost +heavily at cards, he would give the winner an order upon some cacique +for a corresponding amount of gold, or natives in default of the metal, +knowing that the gold could no longer be procured. Sometimes the lucky +gambler made the levy without applying to the cacique. The stakes were +not unfrequently for three and four hundred Indians in the early days of +the colonies, when natives were so plenty that one could be bought for +a cheese, or an _arroba_ of vinegar, wine, or lard. Eighty natives were +swapped for a mare, and a hundred for a lame horse. When it began to be +difficult to lay hands upon them, it was only necessary to send for a +missionary, who would gradually collect them for purposes of instruction +and worship. When the habit of attending a chapel was pretty well +confirmed, the building was surrounded, the young and stout ones were +seized and branded, and carried away, with the most attractive females, +for further indoctrination in the Christian arts. + +A device of the caciques which was practised in Nicaragua might easily +have been pursued in Hayti. But the account of Las Casas refers to the +former province. When a demand was made upon one cacique to supply +laborers, he would repair to another, and say, "The devil who has me in +his power wants so many men and women. I have no doubt that your devil +will say the same thing to you. Let us arrange the matter. Give me the +facility of procuring my quota in your tribe, and you shall take yours +from my tribe." "It is agreed; for my devil has just made a similar +demand of me." Each cacique would then swear to the Commanders, who were +very nice upon the technicality so long as slaves were plenty, that the +men furnished came from his own district, thus saving his life and his +credit with his people. This was a great convenience; for in all savage +exigencies and dire perils men must study how they can best arrange with +the inevitable. + +But it will be too painful to recount the various inventions for +punishing these unhappy children of Nature. The dogs, perhaps, were +merciful, for they killed and ate a native on the spot. Cutting off the +ear and nose was an ordinary barbarity,--in its origin it was a way to +save time in collecting ornaments; shutting fifty or more into a house +and setting it in flames was a favorite method of extemporizing a +bonfire; pricking a crowd of insurgent natives over a precipice into the +sea was an exceptional act of mercy,--they would place one hand over +their eyes and take the plunge. It was a common sport to match +stout Indians with the hounds, and bet upon their wrestling. In the +pearl-fisheries, in rowing galleys, in agriculture, in the mines, in +carrying ship-timber, anchors, and pieces of ordnance, in transporting +produce, the Spaniards wasted the natives as if they were wind-and +water-power which Nature would supply without limit. How can this +ferocity be accounted for? It consulted neither interest nor personal +safety. They raged like men stung to madness by poisonous clouds of +insects; the future received no consideration; plans for improving the +methods of cultivating different crops, or for introducing new staples, +could not be carried out. Once having tasted native blood, like their +own dogs, the hunting mania possessed them, till two millions of +Haytians alone had perished. The population had become so reduced as +early as 1508 that they were obliged to organize great Indian chases on +the main-land, and a Coolie trade sprang up in the Lucayan Islands, +to keep the Haytian mines and plantations supplied with hands. Forty +thousand of these Lucayans were transported, on the assurance of the +Spaniards that they would be restored to the souls of their ancestry, +who had gone to reside in that Mountain-land of the West. Was there +a touch of grim Spanish humor in this inducement to emigrate? For +certainly the Lucayans did very soon rejoin those departed souls. + +Wine and the climate maddened these unbridled Europeans. Avarice is a +calculating passion; but here were aimless and exhausting horrors, like +those which swarm in the drunkard's corrupted brain. What were vices at +home became transformed into manias here. The representatives of other +nations were not slow to imitate the example of the possessors of Hayti. +Venezuela was ceded to a company of Germans in 1526, whose object was +simply to strip the country of its treasures. Las Casas tries to believe +that the Spaniards seemed like just men by the side of these new +speculators; but it was not possible to destroy natives faster than was +done in the countries under Spanish rule. The Germans, after all, were +forced to employ Spaniards to pursue the Indians when they attempted +to escape from this new system of farming into the mountains, and they +profited so well by the lessons of their Catholic hunters, that, upon +their departure, they hit upon new expedients for making the natives +productive. The German Governor constructed a great palisaded park, into +which he managed to drive all the Indians of the neighborhood, and then +informed them that they could issue from it only as slaves, unless they +paid a certain ransom, whose value he fixed. They were deliberately +starved into adopting one or the other alternative. Those who could +procure gold were let out to collect it, leaving their wives and +children as pledges of their return. Many of the others preferred to +die of hunger and thirst. When the ransomed natives departed with their +families, the Governor had them pursued, reparked, and subjected to +a repetition of this sponging process, and again a third time, so +admirably did it work. This strikes Las Casas as a refinement of +cruelty, which can be attributed only to the fact that these Germans +were Lutheran heretics, and never assisted at the mass. "This is +the way," he says, "that they conformed to the royal intention of +establishing Christianity in these countries!" + +How did the Spaniards conform to it? Rude soldiers became the managers +of the different working gangs into which the Indians had been divided, +and it devolved upon them to superintend their spiritual welfare. Enough +has been said about their brutality; but their ignorance was no less +remarkable. Las Casas complains that they could not repeat the _Credo_, +nor the Ten Commandments. Their ignorance of the former would have been +bliss, if they had been practically instructed in the latter. John +Colmenero was one of these common soldiers who became installed in a +Commandery (_Encomienda_). When the missionaries visited his plantation, +they found that the laborers had not the slightest notions of +Christianity. They examined John upon the subject, and discovered to +their horror that he did not know even how to make the sign of the +cross. "What have you been teaching these poor Indians?" they asked him. +"Why, that they are all going to the Devil! Won't your _signin santin +cruces_ help to teach them that?"[U] + +[Footnote U: Llorente, Tom. I. p. 180.] + +No doubt it would; for we know how serviceable in that way Ovando found +it, when he plotted to seize the beautiful Anacaona, who governed the +province of Xaragua in Hayti. This he did, and also gave the signal for +a dreadful massacre of her subjects, whom he had beguiled to a military +spectacle, by lifting his hand to the cross of Alcantara that was +embroidered on his dress. + +Colmenero had not a head for business like that other Spaniard who +baptized all the inhabitants of a village and took away their idols +of gold, for which he substituted copper ones, and then compelled the +natives to purchase them of him at so many slaves per idol. + +"Come, then, caciques and Indians, come!" This was the ordinary style of +proclamation. "Abandon your false gods, adore the God of the Christians, +profess their religion, believe in the gospel, receive the sacrament of +baptism, recognize the King of Castile for your king and master. If you +refuse, we declare war upon you to kill you, to make you slaves, to +spoil you of your goods, and to cause you to suffer as long and as often +as we shall judge convenient,"[V] and for the good of your souls. + +[Footnote V: Llorente, Tom. I. p. 28.] + +In 1542, Charles V. procured a bull from Pope Paul III. restoring the +Indians to their natural freedom: this he confirmed and despatched to +the island. Las Casas, the Protector of the Indians, had carried his +point at last, but the Indians were beyond protection. The miserable +remnant were no longer of consequence, for the African had begun to till +the soil enriched by so much native blood. Thus ends the first chapter +of the Horrors of San Domingo. + +Schoelcher reminds us that the traveller may read upon the tomb of +Columbus at Seville: "Known worlds were not enough for him: he added a +new to the old, _and gave to heaven innumerable souls_." + + +[To be continued.] + + + + +METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY. + + +A few miles from the southern extremity of Florida, separated from it by +a channel, narrow at the eastern end, but widening gradually toward the +west, and rendered every year more and more shallow by the accumulation +of materials constantly collecting within it, there lies a line of +islands called the Florida Keys. They are at different distances from +the shore, stretching gradually seaward in the form of an open crescent, +from Virginia Key and Key Biscayne, almost adjoining the main-land, to +Key West, at a distance of twelve miles from the coast, which does not, +however, close the series, for sixty miles farther west stands the +group of the Tortugas, isolated in the Gulf of Mexico. Though they +seem disconnected, these islands are parts of a submerged Coral Reef, +concentric with the shore of the peninsula and continuous underneath the +water, but visible above the surface at such points of the summit as +have fully completed their growth. + +This demands some explanation, since I have already said that no Coral +growth can continue after it has reached the line of high-water. But we +have not finished the history of a Coral wall, when we have followed it +to the surface of the ocean. It is true that its normal growth ceases +there, but already a process of partial decay as begun that insures its +further increase. Here, as elsewhere, destruction and construction go +hand in hand, and the materials that are broken or worn away from one +part of the Reef help to build it up elsewhere. The Corals which form +the Reef are not the only beings that find their home there: many other +animals--Shells, Worms, Crabs, Star-Fishes, Sea-Urchins--establish +themselves upon it, work their way into its interstices, and seek a +shelter in every little hole and cranny made by the irregularities of +its surface. In the Zoological Museum at Cambridge there are some large +fragments of Coral Reef which give one a good idea of the populous +aspect that such a Reef would present, could we see it as it actually +exists beneath the water. Some of these fragments consist of a +succession of terraces, as it were, in which are many little miniature +caves, where may still be seen the Shells or Sea-Urchins which made +their snug and sheltered homes in these recesses of the Reef. + +We must not consider the Reef as a solid, massive structure throughout. +The compact kinds of Corals, giving strength and solidity to the wall, +may be compared to the larger trees in a forest, which give it shade and +density; but between these grow all kinds of trailing vines, ferns and +mosses, wild flowers and low shrubs, that till the spaces between the +larger trees with a thick underbrush. The Coral Reef also has its +underbrush of the lighter, branching, more brittle kinds, that fill its +interstices and fringe the summit and the sides with their delicate, +graceful forms. Such an intricate underbrush of Coral growth affords an +excellent retreat for many animals that like its protection better than +exposure to the open sea, just as many land-animals prefer the close and +shaded woods to the open plain: a forest is not more thickly peopled +with Birds, Squirrels, Martens, and the like, than is the Coral Reef +with a variety of animals that do not contribute in any way to its +growth, but find shelter in its crevices or in its near neighborhood. + +But these larger animals are not the only ones that haunt the forest. +There is a host of parasites besides, principally Insects and their +larvae, which bore their way into the very heart of the tree, making +their home in the bark and pith, and not the less numerous because +hidden from sight. These also have their counterparts in the Reef, where +numbers of boring Shells and marine Worms work their way into the solid +substance of the wall, piercing it, with holes in every direction, till +large portions become insecure, and the next storm suffices to break off +the fragments so loosened. Once detached, they are tossed about in the +water, crumbled into Coral sand, crushed, often ground to powder by the +friction of the rocks and the constant action of the sea. + +After a time, an immense quantity of such materials is formed about a +Coral Reef; tides and storms constantly throw them up on its surface, +and at last a soil collects on the top of the Reef, wherever it has +reached the surface of the water, formed chiefly of its own _débris_, of +Coral sand, Coral fragments, even large masses of Coral rock, mingled +with the remains of the animals that have had their home about the +Reef, with sea-weeds, with mud from the neighboring land, and with the +thousand loose substances always floating about in the vicinity of a +coast and thrown upon the rocks or shore with every wave that breaks +against them. Add to this the presence of a lime-cement in the water, +resulting from the decomposition of some of these materials, and we have +all that is needed to make a very compact deposit and fertile soil, on +which a vegetation may spring up, whenever seeds floating from the +shore or dropped by birds in their flight take root on the newly formed +island. + +There is one plant belonging to tropical or sub-tropical climates +that is peculiarly adapted by its mode of growth to the soil of these +islands, and contributes greatly to their increase. This is the +Mangrove-tree. Its seeds germinate in the calyx of the flower, and, +before they drop, grow to be little brown stems, some six or seven +inches long and about as thick as a finger, with little rootlets at one +end. Such Mangrove-seedlings, looking more like cigars than anything +else, float in large numbers about the Reef. I have sometimes seen them +in the water about the Florida Reef in such quantities that one would +have said some vessel laden with Havana cigars had been wrecked there, +and its precious cargo scattered in the ocean. + +In consequence of their shape and the development of the root, one end +is a little heavier than the other, so that they float unevenly, with +the loaded end a little lower than the lighter one. When they are +brought by the tide against such a cap of soil as I have described, +they become stranded upon it by their heavier end, the rootlets attach +themselves slightly to the soil, the advancing and retreating waves move +the little plant up and down, till it works a hole in the sand, and +having thus established itself more firmly, steadied itself as it were, +it now stands upright, and, as it grows, throws out numerous roots, even +from a height of several feet above the ground, till it has surrounded +the lower part of its stem with a close net-work of roots. Against this +natural trellis or screen all sorts of materials collect; sand, mud, +and shells are caught in it; and as these Mangrove-trees grow in large +numbers and to the height of thirty feet, they contribute greatly to the +solidity and compactness of the shores on which they are stranded. + +Such caps of soil on the summit of a Coral Reef are of course very +insecure till they are consolidated by a long period of accumulation, +and they may even be swept completely away by a violent storm. It is +not many years since the light-house built on Sand Key for the greater +security of navigation along the Reef was swept away with the +whole island on which it stood. Thanks to the admirably conducted +Investigations of the Coast-Survey, this part of our seaboard, formerly +so dangerous on account of the Coral Reefs, is now better understood, +and every precaution has been taken to insure the safety of vessels +sailing along the coast of Florida. + +I cannot deny myself the pleasure of paying a tribute here to the high +scientific character of the distinguished superintendent of this survey, +who has known so well how to combine the most important scientific aims +with the most valuable practical results in his direction of it. If +some have hitherto doubted the practical value of such researches,--and +unhappily there are always those who estimate intellectual efforts only +by their material results,--one would think that these doubts must be +satisfied now that the Coast-Survey is seen to be the right arm of our +navy. Most of the leaders in our late naval expeditions have been men +trained in its service, and familiar with all the harbors, with every +bay and inlet of our Southern coasts, from having been engaged in the +extensive researches undertaken by Dr. Bache and carried out under his +guidance. Many, even, of the pilots of our Southern fleets are men who +have been employed upon this work, and owe their knowledge of the coast +to their former occupation. It is a singular fact, that at this very +time, when the whole country feels its obligation to the men who +have devoted so many years of their lives to these investigations, +a proposition should have been brought forward in Congress for the +suspension of the Coast-Survey on economical grounds. Happily, +the almost unanimous rejection of this proposition has shown the +appreciation in which the work is held by our national legislature. Even +without reference to their practical usefulness, it is a sad sign, when, +in the hour of her distress, a nation sacrifices first her intellectual +institutions. Then more than ever, when she needs all the culture, all +the wisdom, all the comprehensiveness of her best intellects, should she +foster the institution that have fostered them, in which they have been +trained to do good service to their country in her time of need. + +Several of the Florida Keys, such as Key West and Indian Key, are +already large, inhabited islands, several miles in extent. The interval +between them and the main-land is gradually filling up by a process +similar to that by which the islands themselves were formed. The gentle +landward slope of the Reef and the channel between it and the shore are +covered with a growth of the more branching lighter Corals, such as +Sea-Fans, Coral-lines, etc., answering the same purpose as the intricate +roots of the Mangrove-tree. All the _débris_ of the Reef, as well as the +sand and mud washed from the shore, collect in this net-work of Coral +growth within the channel, and soon transform it into a continuous +mass, with a certain degree of consistence and solidity. This forms the +foundation of the mud-flats which are now rapidly filling the channel +and must eventually connect the Keys of Florida with the present shore +of the peninsula. + +Outside the Keys, but not separated from them by so great a distance as +that which intervenes between them and the main-land, there stretches +beneath the water another Reef, abrupt, like the first, on its seaward +side, but sloping gently toward the inner Reef, and divided from it by +a channel. This outer Reef and channel are, however, in a much less +advanced state than the preceding ones; only here and there a sand-flat +large enough to afford a foundation for a beacon or a lighthouse shows +that this Reef also is gradually coming to the surface, and that a +series of islands corresponding to the Keys must eventually be formed +upon its summit. Some of my readers may ask why the Reef does not rise +evenly to the level of the sea, and form a continuous line of land, +instead of here and there an island. This is accounted for by the +sensitiveness of the Corals to any unfavorable circumstances impeding +their growth, as well as by the different rates of increase of the +different kinds. Wherever any current from the shore flows over the +Reef, bringing with it impurities from the land, there the growth of the +Corals will be less rapid, and consequently that portion of the Reef +will not reach the surface so soon as other parts, where no such +unfavorable influences have interrupted the growth. But in the course +of time the outer Reef will reach the surface for its whole length and +become united to the inner one by the filling up of the channel between +them, while the inner one will long before that time become solidly +united to the present shore-bluffs of Florida by the consolidation of +the mud-flats, which will one day transform the inner channel into dry +land. + +What is now the rate of growth of these Coral Reefs? We cannot, perhaps, +estimate it with absolute accuracy, since they are now so nearly +completed; but Coral growth is constantly springing up wherever it can +find a foothold, and it is not difficult to ascertain approximately the +rate of growth of the different kinds. Even this, however, would give +us far too high a standard; for the rise of the Coral Reef is not in +proportion to the height of the living Corals, but to their solid parts +which never decompose. Add to this that there are many brittle delicate +kinds that have a considerable height when alive, but contribute to the +increase of the Reef only so much additional thickness as they would +have when broken and crushed down upon its surface. A forest in its +decay does not add to the soil of the earth a thickness corresponding to +the height of its trees, but only such a thin layer as would be left by +the decomposition of its whole vegetation. In the Coral Reef, also, we +must allow not only for the deduction of the soft parts, but also for +the comminution of all these brittle branches, which would be broken and +crushed by the action of the storms and tides, and add, therefore, but +little to the Reef in proportion to their size when alive. + +The foundations of Fort Jefferson, which is built entirely of Coral +rock, were laid on the Tortugas Islands in the year 1846. A very +intelligent head-work man watched the growth of certain Corals that +established themselves on these foundations, and recorded their rate of +increase. He has shown me the rocks on which Corals had been growing for +some dozen years, during which they had increased at the rate of about +half an inch in ten years. I have collected facts from a variety of +sources and localities that confirm this testimony. A brick placed under +water in the year 1850 by Captain Woodbury of Tortugas, with the view of +determining the rate of growth of Corals, when taken up in 1858 had +a crust of Maeandrina upon it a little more than half an inch in +thickness. Mr. Allen also sent me from Key West a number of fragments +of Maeandrina from the breakwater at Fort Taylor; they had been growing +from twelve to fifteen years, and have an average thickness of about an +inch. The specimens vary in this respect,--some of them being a little +more than an inch in thickness, others not more than half an inch. +Fragments of Oculina gathered at the same place and of the same age are +from one to three inches in length; but these belong to the lighter, +more branching kinds of Corals, which, as we have seen, cannot, from +their brittle character, be supposed to add their whole height to the +solid mass of the Coral wall. Millepore gives a similar result. + +Estimating the growth of the Coral Reef according to these and other +data of the same character, it should be about half a foot in a century; +and a careful comparison which I have made of the condition of the Reef +as recorded in an English survey made about a century ago with its +present state would justify this conclusion. But allowing a wide margin +for inaccuracy of observation or for any circumstances that might +accelerate the growth, and leaving out of consideration the decay of the +soft parts and the comminution of the brittle ones, which would subtract +so largely from the actual rate of growth, let us double this estimate +and call the average increase a foot for every century. In so doing, we +are no doubt greatly overrating the rapidity of the progress, and our +calculation of the period that must have elapsed in the formation of the +Reef will be far within the truth. + +The outer Reef, still incomplete, as I have stated, and therefore of +course somewhat lower than the inner one, measures about seventy feet in +height. Allowing a foot of growth for every century, not less than seven +thousand years must have elapsed since this Reef began to grow. Some +miles nearer the main-land are the Keys, or the inner Reef; and though +this must have been longer in the process of formation than the outer +one, since its growth is completed, and nearly the whole extent of its +surface is transformed into islands, with here and there a narrow break +separating them, yet, in order to keep fully within the evidence of the +facts, I will allow only seven thousand years for the formation of this +Reef also, making fourteen thousand for the two. + +This brings us to the shore-bluffs, consisting simply of another Reef +exactly like those already described, except that the lapse of time has +united it to the main-land by the complete filling up and consolidation +of the channel which once divided it from the extremity of the +peninsula, as a channel now separates the Keys from the shore-bluffs, +and the outer Reef, again, from the Keys. These three concentric Reefs, +then, the outer Reef, the Keys, and the shore-bluffs, if we measure +the growth of the two latter on the same low estimate by which I have +calculated the rate of progress of the former, cannot have reached their +present condition in less than twenty thousand years. Their growth must +have been successive, since, as we have seen, all Corals need the fresh +action of the open sea upon them, and if either of the outer Reefs had +begun to grow before the completion of the inner one, it would have +effectually checked the growth of the latter. The absence of an +incipient Reef outside of the outer Reef shows these conclusions to be +well founded. The islands capping these three do not exceed in height +the level to which the fragments accumulated upon their summits may have +been thrown by the heaviest storms. The highest hills of this part of +Florida are not over ten or twelve feet above the level of the sea, and +yet the luxuriant vegetation with which they are covered gives them an +imposing appearance. + +But this is not the end of the story. Travelling inland from the +shore-bluffs, we cross a low, flat expanse of land, the Indian +hunting-ground, which brings us to a row of elevations called the +Hummocks. This hunting-ground, or Everglade as it is also called, is an +old channel, changed first to mud-flats and then to dry land by the same +kind of accumulation that is filling up the present channels, and the +row of hummocks is but an old Coral Reef with the Keys or islands of +past days upon its summit. Seven such Reefs and channels of former times +have already been traced between the shore-bluffs and Lake Okee-cho-bee, +adding some fifty thousand years to our previous estimate. Indeed, upon +the lowest calculation, based upon the facts thus far ascertained as to +their growth, we cannot suppose that less than seventy thousand years +have elapsed since the Coral Reefs already known to exist in Florida +began to grow. When we remember that this is but a small portion of the +peninsula, and that, though we have not yet any accurate information as +to the nature of its interior, yet the facts already ascertained in the +northern part of this State, formed like its Southern extremity of Coral +growth, justify the inference that the whole peninsula is formed of +successive concentric Reefs, we must believe that hundreds of thousands +of years have elapsed since its formation began. Leaving aside, however, +all that part of its history which is not susceptible of positive +demonstration in the present state of our knowledge, I will limit my +results to the evidence of facts already within our possession; and +these give us as the lowest possible estimate a period of seventy +thousand years for the formation of that part of the peninsula which +extends south of Lake Okee-cho-bee to the present outer Reef. + +So much for the duration of the Reefs themselves. What, now, do they +tell us of the permanence of the Species by which they were formed? In +these seventy thousand years has there been any change in the Corals +living in the Gulf of Mexico? I answer, most emphatically, _No_. +Astraeans, Porites, Maeandrinas, and Madrepores were represented by +exactly the same Species seventy thousand years ago as they are now. +Were we to classify the Florida Corals from the Reefs of the interior, +the result would correspond exactly to a classification founded upon +the living Corals of the outer Reef to-day. There would be among the +Astraeans the different species of Astraea proper, forming the close +round heads,--the Mussa, growing in smaller stocks, where the mouths +coalesce and run into each other as in the Brain-Corals, but in +which the depressions formed by the mouths are deeper,--and the +Caryophyllians, in which the single individuals stand out more +distinctly from the stock; among Porites, the P. Astroïdes, with pits +resembling those of the Astraeans in form, though smaller in size, +and growing also in solid heads, though these masses are covered with +club-shaped protrusions, instead of presenting a smooth, even surface +like the Astraeans,--and the P. Clavaria, in which the stocks are +divided in short, stumpy branches, with club-shaped ends, instead of +growing in close, compact heads; among the Maeandrinas we should have +the round heads we know as Brain-Corals, with their wavy lines over the +surface, and the Manacina, differing again from the preceding by certain +details of structure; among the Madrepores we should have the Madrepora +prolifera, with its small, short branches, broken up by very frequent +ramifications, the M. cervicornis, with longer and stouter branches and +less frequent ramifications, and the cup-like M. palmata, resembling +an open sponge in form. Every Species, in short, that lives upon the +present Reef is found in the more ancient ones. They all belong to our +own geological period, and we cannot, upon the evidence before us, +estimate its duration at less than seventy thousand years, during which +time we have no evidence of any change in Species, but on the contrary +the strongest proof of the absolute permanence of those Species whose +past history we have been able to trace. + +Before leaving the subject of the Coral Reefs, I would add a few words +on the succession of the different kinds of Polyp Corals on a Reef as +compared with their structural rank and also with their succession in +time, because we have here another of those correspondences of thought, +those intellectual links in Creation, which give such coherence and +consistency to the whole, and make it intelligible to man. + +The lowest in structure among the Polyps are not Corals, but the single, +soft-bodied Actiniae. They have no solid parts, and are independent in +their mode of existence, never forming communities, like the higher +members of the class. It might at first seem strange that independence, +considered a sign of superiority in the higher animals, should here be +looked upon as a mark of inferiority. But independence may mean either +simple isolation, or independence of action; and the life of a single +Polyp is no more independent in the sense of action than that of a +community of Polyps. It is simply not connected with or related to the +life of any others. The mode of development of these animals tells us +something of the relative inferiority and superiority of the single ones +and of those that grow in communities. When the little Polyp Coral, the +Astraean or Madrepore, for instance, is born from the egg, it is as free +as the Actinia, which remains free all its life. It is only at a later +period, as its development goes on, that it becomes solidly attached to +the ground, and begins its compound life by putting forth new beings +like itself as buds from its side. Since we cannot suppose that the +normal development of any being can have a retrograde action, we are +justified in believing that the loss of freedom is in fact a stage of +progress in these lower animals, and their more intimate dependence on +each other a sign of maturity. + +There are, however, structural features by which the relative +superiority of these animals may be determined. In proportion as the +number of their parts is limited and permanent, their structure is more +complicated; and the indefinite multiplication of identical parts is +connected with inferiority of structure. Now in these lowest Polyps, the +Actiniae, the tentacles increase with age indefinitely, never ceasing to +grow while life lasts, new chambers being constantly added to correspond +with them, till it becomes impossible to count their numbers. Next to +these come the true Fungidae. They are also single, and though they are +stony Corals, they have no share in the formation of Reefs. In these, +also, the tentacles multiply throughout life, though they are usually +not so numerous as in the Actiniae. But a new feature is added to the +complication of their structure, as compared with Actiniae, in the +transverse beams which connect their vertical partitions, though they do +not stretch across the animal so as to form perfect floors, as in some +of the higher Polyps. These transverse beams or floors must not be +confounded with the horizontal floors alluded to in a former article +as characteristic of the ancient Acalephian Corals, the Rugosa and +Tabulata. For in the latter these floors stretch completely across the +body, uninterrupted by vertical partitions, which, if they exist at all, +pass only from floor to floor, instead of extending unbroken through +the whole height of the body, as in all Polyps. Where, on the contrary, +transverse floors exist in true Polyps, they never cut the vertical +partitions in their length, but simply connect their walls, stretching +wholly or partially from wall to wall. + +In the Astraeans, the multiplication of tentacles is more definite and +limited, rising sometimes to ninety and more, though often limited to +forty-eight in number, and the transverse floors between the vertical +partitions are more complete than in the Fungidae. The Porites have +twelve tentacles only, never more and never less; and in them the whole +solid frame presents a complicated system of connected beams. The +Madrepores have also twelve tentacles, but they have a more definite +character than those of the Porites, on account of their regular +alternation in six smaller and six larger ones; in these also the +transverse floors are perfect, but exceedingly delicate. Another +remarkable feature among the Madrepores consists in the prominence of +one of the Polyps on the summit of the branches, showing a kind of +subordination of the whole community to these larger individuals, and +thus sustaining the view expressed above, that the combination of many +individuals into a connected community is among Polyps a character of +superiority when contrasted with the isolation of the Actiniae;. In the +Sea-Fans, the Halcyonoids, as they are called in our classification, the +number of tentacles is always eight, four of which are already present +at the time of their birth, arranged in pairs, while the other four are +added later. Their tentacles are lobed all around the margin, and are +much more complicated in structure than those of the preceding Polyps. + +According to the relative complication of their structure, these animals +are classified in the following order:-- + + +STRUCTURAL SERIES. + + +Halcyonoids: eight tentacles in pairs, lobed around the margin; always +combined in large communities, some of which are free and movable like +single animals. + +Madrepores: twelve tentacles, alternating in six larger and six smaller +ones; frequently a larger top animal standing prominent in the whole +community, or on the summit of its branches. + +Porites: twelve tentacles, not alternating in size; system of connected +beams. + +Astraeans: tentacles not definitely limited in number, though usually +not exceeding one hundred, and generally much below this number; +transverse floors. Maeandrines, generally referred to Astraeans, are +higher than the true Astraeans, on account of their compound Polyps. + +Fungidae: indefinite multiplication of tentacles; imperfect transverse +beams. + +Actiniae: indefinite multiplication of tentacles; soft bodies and no +transverse beams. + +If, now, we compare this structural gradation among Polyps with their +geological succession, we shall find that they correspond exactly. The +following table gives the geological order in which they have been +introduced upon the surface of the earth. + + GEOLOGICAL SUCCESSION. + + Present, Halcyonoids. + Pliocene, \ + Miocene, } Madrepores. + Eocene, / + Cretaceous, \ Porites + Jurassic, } and + Triassic, } Astraeans. + Permian, / + Carboniferous, \ + Devonian, } Fungidae + Silurian, / + +With regard to the geological position of the Actiniae we can say +nothing, because, if their soft, gelatinous bodies have left any +impressions in the rocks, none such have ever been found; but their +absence is no proof that they did not exist, since it is exceedingly +improbable that animals destitute of any hard parts could be preserved. + +The position of the Corals on a Reef accords with these series of +structural gradation and geological succession. It is true that we do +not find the Actiniae in the Reef any more than in the crust of the +earth, for the absence of hard parts in their bodies makes them quite +unfit to serve as Reef-Builders. Neither do we find the Fungidae, for +they, like all low forms, are single, and not confined to one level, +having a wider range in depth and extent than other stony Polyps. But +the true Reef-Building Polyps follow each other on the Reef in the same +order as prevails in their structural gradation and their geological +succession; and whether we classify them according to their position on +the Reef, or their introduction upon the earth in the course of time, or +their relative rank, the result is the same. + +[Illustration: SUCCESSION ON THE REEF.] + +It would require an amount of details that would be tedious to many +of my readers, were I to add here the evidence to prove that the +embryological development of these animals, so far as it is known, and +their geographical distribution over the whole surface of our globe, +show the same correspondence with the other three series. But this +recurrence of the same thought in the history of animals of the same +Type, so that, from whatever side we consider them, their creation and +existence seem to be guided by one Mind, is so important in the study +of Nature, that I shall constantly refer to it in the course of +these papers, even though I may sometimes be accused of unnecessary +repetition. + +What is the significance of these coincidences? They were not sought for +by the different investigators, who have worked quite independently, +while ascertaining all these facts, without even knowing that there was +any relation between the objects of their studies. The succession +of fossil Corals has been found in the rocks by the geologist,--the +embryologist has followed the changes in the growth of the living +Corals,--the zoölogist has traced the geographical distribution and the +structural relations of the full-grown animals; but it is only after the +results of their separate investigations are collected and compared that +the coincidence is perceived, and alt find that they have been working +unconsciously to one end. These thoughts in Nature, which we are +too prone to call simply facts, when in reality they are the ideal +conception antecedent to the very existence of all created beings, are +expressed in the objects of our study. It is not the zoölogist who +invents the structural relations establishing a gradation between all +Polyps,--it is not the geologist who places them in the succession +in which he finds them in the rocks,--it is not the embryologist who +devises the changes through which the living Polyps pass as he watches +their growth; they only read what they see, and when they compare their +results they all tell the same story. He who reads most correctly +from the original is the best naturalist. What unites all their +investigations and makes them perfectly coherent with each other is +the coincidence of thought expressed in the facts themselves. In other +words, it is the working of the same Intellect through all time, +everywhere. + +When we observe the practical results of this sequence in the position +of Corals on the Reef, we cannot fail to see that it is not a mere +accidental difference of structure and relation, but that it bears +direct reference to the part these little beings were to play in +Creation. It places the solid part of the structure at the base of the +Reef,--it fills in the interstices with a lighter growth,--it crowns the +summit with the more delicate kinds, that yield to the action of the +tides and are easily crushed into the fine sand that forms the soil,--it +makes a masonry solid, compact, time-defying, such a masonry as was +needed by the great Architect, who meant that these smallest creatures +of His hand should help to build His islands and His continents. + + + + +THE AUTHOR OF "CHARLES AUCHESTER." + + +When Mr. Disraeli congratulated himself that in the "Wondrous Tale of +Alroy" he had invented a new style, he scarcely deemed that he had but +spun the thread which was to vibrate with melody under the hand of +another. For in none of his magical sentences is the spell exactly +complete, and nowhere do they drop into the memory with that long slow +rhythm and sweet delay which mark every distinct utterance of Elizabeth +Sheppard. Yet at his torch she lit her fires, over his stories she +dreamed, his "Contarini Fleming" she declared to be the touchstone of +all romantic truth, and with the great freights of thought argosied +along his pages she enriched herself. "Destiny is our will, and our +will is our nature," he says. Behold the key-note of those strangely +beautiful Romances of Temperament of which for ten years we have been +cutting the leaves! + +In "Venetia," hint and example were given of working the great ores that +lie in the fields about us; and when Elizabeth Sheppard in turn took up +the divining-rod, it sought no clods of baser metal, but gold-veined +masses of crystal and the clear currents of pure water-streams;--beneath +her compelling power, Mendelssohn--Beethoven--Shelley--lived again and +forever. + +The musician who perhaps inspired a profounder enthusiasm during his +lifetime than any other ever did had been missed among men but a few +years, when a little book was quietly laid upon his shrine, and he +received, as it were, an apotheosis. Half the world broke into acclaim +over this outpouring of fervid worship. But it was private acclaim, and +not to be found in the newspapers. To those who, like the most of us in +America, vainly hunger and thirst after the sweets of sound, the book +was an initiation into the very _penetralia_ of music, we mounted and +rested in that sphere from the distastes of too practical life, long +afterwards we seemed to hear the immortal Song of which it spoke, and +our souls were refreshed. There followed this in a year--inscribed +to Mrs. Disraeli, as the other had been to that lady's +husband--"Counterparts": a novel which, it is not too much to say, it is +impossible for human hand to excel;--superior to its predecessor, since +that was but a memorial, while this was the elaboration of an Idea. Here +the real author ceased awhile. Three succeeding books were but fancies +wrought out, grafts, happy thoughts, very possibly enforced work; but +there were no more spontaneous affairs of her own individuality, until +the one entitled "Almost a Heroine." In this work, which treated of the +possible perfection of marriage, the whole womanly nature of the writer +asserted itself by virtue of the mere fact of humanity. After this came +a number of juvenile stories, some commonplace, others infiltrated with +that subtile charm which breathes, with a single exception, through all +her larger books like the perfume of an exotic. Thus in the three novels +mentioned we have all that can be had of Elizabeth Sheppard herself: +in the third, her theory of life; in the second, her aspirations and +opinions; in the first, her passion. + +The orphaned daughter of an English clergyman, and self-dependent, +in 1853 she translated her name into French and published "Charles +Auchester,"--a book written at the age of sixteen. That name of hers is +not the most attractive in the tongue, but all must love it who love +her; for, if any theory of transmission be true, does she not owe +something of her own oneness with Nature, of her intimacy with its +depths, of her love of fields and flowers and skies, to that ancestry +who won the name as, like the princely Hebrew boy, they tended the +flocks upon the hills, under sunlight and starlight and ill every wind +that blew? Never was there a more characteristic device than this +signature of "E. Berger"; and nobody learned anything by it. At first it +was presumed that some member of the house of Rothschild had experienced +a softening of the brain to the extent implied by such effusion of +genuine emotion, and it was rather gladly hailed as evidence of the +weakness shared in common with ordinary mortals by that more than +imperial family, the uncrowned potentates of the world,--the subject +and method of the book being just sufficiently remote from every-day +to preserve the unities of the supposition. Gradually this theory was +sought to be displaced by one concerning a German baroness acquainted +neither with Jews nor with music, humored as it was by that foreign +trick in the book, the idioms of another tongue; but the latter theory +was too false on its face to be tenable, and then people left off +caring about it. It is perhaps an idle infirmity, this request for the +personality of authors; yet it is indeed a response to the fact that +there never was one who did not prefer to be esteemed for himself rather +than for his writing,--and, ascending, may we love the works of God and +not the Lord himself? However, none were a whit the wiser for knowing +Miss Sheppard's name. It came to be accepted that we were to have +the books,--whence was no matter; they were so new, so strange, so +puzzling,--the beautiful, the quaint, and the faulty were so interwoven, +that nobody cared to separate these elements, to take the trouble to +criticize or to thank; and thus, though we all gladly enough received, +we kept our miserly voices to ourselves, and she never met with any +adequate recognition. After her first book, England quietly ignored +her,--they could not afford to be so startled; as Sir Leicester Dedlock +said, "It was really--really--"; she did very well for the circulating +libraries; and because Mr. Mudie insists on his three volumes or none +at all, she was forced to extend her rich webs to thinness. It is this +alone that injures "Counterparts" for many;--not that they would not +gladly accept the clippings in a little supplementary pamphlet, but +dissertations, they say, delay the action. In this case, though, that +is not true; for, besides the incompleteness of the book without the +objectionable dissertation, (that long conversation between Miss +Dudleigh and Sarona,) it answers the purpose of very necessary by-play +on the stage during preparation for the last and greatest scene. But had +this been a fault, it was not so much hers as the publishers'. Subject +to the whims of those in London, and receiving no reply to the +communication of her wishes from those in Edinburgh, she must have +experienced much injustice at the hands of her booksellers, and her +title-pages show them to have been perpetually changed. She herself +accepts with delight propositions from another quarter of the globe; the +prospect of writing for those across the water was very enticing to her; +and in one of her letters she says,--"It is my greatest ambition to +publish in America,--to have no more to do personally with English +publishers"; and finding it, after serious illness, impossible to +fulfil this engagement in season, the anxiety, regret, and subsequent +gratitude, which she expressed, evinced that she had been unaccustomed +to the courteous consideration then received. + +Working constantly for so many years, she had yet known nothing of her +readers, had felt her literary life to be an utter failure, had thrown a +voice into the world and heard no echo; and when for the first time told +of the admiration she elicited in this country and of one who rejoiced +in her, her face kindled and she desired to come and be among her own +people. Those who have failed to appreciate her can hardly be blamed, as +it is owing entirely to their deficiency; but the cavillers--those who +have ears and hear not--are less excusable. Almost a recluse,--declining +even an interview with her publishers,--in ill-health, in poverty, and +with waning youth, she poured out her precious ointment from alabaster +boxes, and there were not wanting Pharisees. But hampered by precedent +and somewhat barren of enthusiasms as are almost all productions now, +how could we do aught but welcome this spontaneous and ever-fresh +fountain bubbling into the sunlight, albeit without geometrical +restrictions, and bringing as it did such treasures from its secret +sources? Yet, welcomed or not, there is no record of any female +prose-writer's ever having lived who possessed more than a portion +of that genius which permeated Elizabeth Sheppard's whole being. +Genius,--the very word expresses her: in harmony with the great +undertone of the universe, the soul suffused with light. Flower-warmth +and fragrance are on her page, the soft low summer wind seems to be +speaking with you as you read, her characters are like the stars +impersonated, and still, however lofty her nature, always and forever +genial. You catch her own idiosyncrasy throughout, and believe, that, +like Evelyn Hope, she was made of spirit, fire, and dew. When we +remember the very slight effect ever visible to her of all her labor, +there is something sad in the thought of this young soul, thrilled with +its own fervors and buoyant in anticipation, sending forth the first +venture. But then we recognize as well, that she was one of those few to +whom creation is a necessity, that in truth she scarcely needed human +response, and that when men were silent God replied. + +Miss Sheppard's style was something very novel. Based, perhaps, on an +admiration of one whose later exploits have dwarfed his earlier in the +general estimation, there was yet no more resemblance than between the +string-courses of a building and its sculptured friezes. Indeed, writing +was not her virtual expression: this may be learned even in her peculiar +way of loving Nature, for it was not so much Nature itself as Nature's +effects that she prized; and between the work now performed and that +awaiting her in some further life one feels the difference that exists +between the soft clay model with its mild majesty, its power clogged and +covered, and the same when it issues in the white radiance of marble. +She does not seem to have been an extensive reader, and certainly no +student, while she totally disregarded all rules and revision. Her +sentences were so long that one got lost in them, and had finally to go +back and clutch a nominative case and drag it down the page with him; +there were ambiguities and obscurities in plenty: her thoughts were so +bright that they darkened her words; one must go through a process of +initiation,--but having mastered the style, one knew the writer. It +was well worth while, this shrouding rhetoric, for beneath it were no +reserves; superficially no one ever kept more out of sight, but the +real reader could not fail to know that here he had the freedom of the +author's nature: and although she somewhere said that a woman "thus +intensely feminine, thus proud and modest, betraying herself to the +world in her writings, is an exception, and one in the whole world the +most rare," she knew not that she sketched herself in that exception. +But there are not elsewhere to be found pages so drenched with beauty as +hers; and for all her vague abstractions of language, and wide, suffused +effects, she possessed yet the skill to present a picture, keenly etched +and vividly colored, in the fewest words, when she chose. Not to mention +Rose and Bernard, who, oddly enough, are a series of the most exquisite +pictures in themselves, bathed in changing and ever-living light, let +us take, for instance, Maria Cerinthia walking in the streets of Paris, +having worn out her mantilla, and with only a wreath of ivy on her +head,--or Clotilda at her books, "looking very much like an old picture +of a young person sitting there,"--or the charming one of Laura's _pas_, +which the little boy afterwards describes in saying, "She quite swam, +and turned her eyes upward,"--or, better, yet, that portrait of a +Romagnese woman: "of the ancient Roman beauty, rare now, if still +remembered, with hair to her knees, wrapping her form in a veil vivid as +woven gold, with the emerald eyes of Dante's Beatrice, a skin of yellow +whiteness, and that mould of figure in which undulating softness +quenches majesty,--the mould of the mystical Lucretia." There are +sea-sketches scattered among these leaves which no painter's brush will +ever equal, and morning and twilight gain new splendor and tenderness +beneath her touch. + +But, after all, this was not her style's chief excellence; she cared +little for such pictorial achievements, and in presenting her fancies +she often sacrificed outline to melody; it is necessary for you to feel +rather than to see her meaning. What distinguished her yet more was the +ability by means of this style to interpret music into words. Although +this may not be correct practice, there was never a musical critic who +did not now and then attempt it: musicians themselves never do, because +music is to them nothing to see or to describe, but the air they +breathe, and in fact a state of being. Do you remember that tone-wreath +of heather and honeysuckle? "It was a movement of such intense meaning +that it was but one sigh of unblended and unfaltering melody isolated as +the fragrance of a single flower, and only the perfumes of Nature exhale +a bliss as sweet, how far more unexpressed! This short movement, that in +its oneness was complete, grew, as it were, by fragmentary harmonies, +intricate, but most gradual, into another,--a prestissimo so delicately +fitful that it was like moonlight dancing upon crested ripples; or, for +a better similitude, like quivering sprays in a summer wind. And in less +than fifty bars of regularly broken time--how ravishingly sweet I say +not--the first subject in refrain flowed through the second, and they, +interwoven even as creepers and flowers densely tangled, closed together +simultaneously." And if you have not the book by you, will you pardon +another,--the awful and eternal flow of the Mer de Glace? + +"At first awoke the strange, smooth wind-notes of the opening adagio; +the fetterless chains of ice seemed to close around my heart. The +movement had no blandness in its solemnity; and so still and shiftless +was the grouping of the harmonies, that a frigidity, actual as well as +ideal, passed over my pores and hushed my pulses. After a hundred such +tense yet clinging chords, the sustaining calm was illustrated, not +broken, by a serpentine phrase of one lone oboë, pianissimo over the +piano-surface, which it crisped not, but on and above which it breathed +like the track of a sunbeam aslant from a parted cloud. The slightest +possible retardation at its close brought us to the refrain of the +simple adagio, interrupted again by a rush of violoncello-notes, rapid +and low, like some sudden under-current striving to burst through the +frozen sweetness. Then spread wide the subject, as plains upon plains of +_water-land_; though the time was gradually increased. Amplifications of +the same harmonies introduced a fresh accession of violoncelli and oboi +contrasted artfully in syncopation, till at length the strides of the +accelerando gave a glittering precipitation to the entrance of the +second and longest movement. + +"Then Anastase turned upon me, and with the first bar we fell into a +tumultuous presto. Far beyond all power to analyze as it was just then, +the complete idea embraced me as instantaneously as had the picturesque +chillness of the first. I have called it tumultuous,--but merely in +respect of rhythm:--the harmonies were as clear and evolved as the +modulation itself was sharp, keen, and unapproachable. Through every bar +reigned that vividly enunciated ideal, whose expression pertains to +the one will alone in any age,--the ideal, that, binding together in +suggestive imagery every form of beauty, symbolizes and represents +something beyond them all. + +"Here over the surge-like, but fast-bound motivo--only like those tost +ice-waves, dead still in their heaped-up crests--were certain swelling +crescendos of a second subject, so unutterably if vaguely sweet, that +the souls of all deep blue Alp-flowers, the clarity of all high blue +skies, had surely passed into them, and was passing from them again.... + +"It was not until the very submerging climax that the playing of +Anastase was recalled to me. Then, amidst long ringing notes of the wild +horns, and intermittent sighs of the milder wood, swept from the violins +a torrent of coruscant arpeggi, and above them all I heard his tone, +keen but solvent, as his bow seemed to divide the very strings with +fire, and I felt as if some spark had fallen upon my fingers to kindle +mine. As soon as it was over, I looked up and laughed in his face with +sheer pleasure." + +Nothing of the kind was ever half so delightful, if one excepts Mr. +Dwight's translation of a _Gondel-lied_. As literal description it is +wondrous, but as imagination it equals the music itself. Let us pause +for an instant here and recall the singular inventive and combining +grace with which a Spectacle is always given in these stories. It is +well known that Mendelssohn contemplated an opera upon the "Tempest," +although he did not live to execute the idea; but how charmingly is +that taken and mingled with what he had already done in the +"Midsummer-Night's Dream," at the festival of the Silver Wedding, when +the lonely tones from age to age frozen on the cups of lilies, the orbed +harmonies bound burning within the roses, the dreaming song thrilled +along the veins of violets, intricate sounds hushed under green gloom +of myrtle-leaves, mourning chords with which the cedars stood +charged,--were all disenchanted and stole forth on longing +wind-instruments and on the splendor of violins, "accumulating in +orchestral richness, as if flower after flower of music were unsheathing +to the sun"! + +Yet the unlovely is not to be found within these covers: there was a +quality in the writer's mind like that fervid, all-vivifying sunshine +which so illumines the cities of the desert, so steeps the pavements, +so soaks through the pores of solids, so sharpens angles and softens +curves, as Fromentin tells us, that even squalor borrows brilliant dyes, +and rags and filth lighten into picturesque and burnished glory. And +this is well for the reader, as all have not time for philosophy, nor +can all transmute pain into treasure. But for her, sweet sounds and +sights abound in everything; bird and breeze and bee alike are winged +with melody; the music of the sea satisfies her heart, and there +"the artist-ear,--which makes a spectrum for all sounds that are +not separate, distinguishes the self-same harmonies that govern the +gradations of the orchestra, from deep to deep descending, until sounds +are lost in sound as lights in light";--the trains have their thunderous +music in her hearing; and the bells to which Cecilia listens seem to be +ringing in the last day:--"The ravishing and awful sound of them, which +is only heard by the few,--the passion in their rise and fall,--their +wavering,--their rushing fulness,--drew off all consciousness: most like +the latest and last passion,--the passion of death." + +There seems to be no subject which this woman has not pondered deeply. +Her theory of Temperament is an attendant fairy that does marvellous +things for her, and not only apportions natures, but corresponding +bodies, so that we can easily see how the golden age is to return again, +when peradventure deceits shall be impossible, and all the virtues +thrive by mere necessity under the reign of this perfected Science of +the Soul. Yet, roam where she would, there were always two mysteries +that allured her back again, as Thoné's curt sentence told,--"_Tonkunst +und Arzenei_"; and to these might be added Race, in defiance of Mr. +Buckle. Assuredly the Hebrew owes acknowledgment to her, and not George +Borrow, with all his weird learning, enters more deeply into the Burden +of Egypt; Browning's appreciation of the gypsy standing alone beside +hers,--Browning, between whose writings and her own a rich sympathy +exists, both being so possessed of fulness. Yet verse could not chain +her wide eloquence in its fetters; and whenever she attempted it, its +music made her thought shapeless. There is one exception to this, +however, and we give it below,--for, inartistic as this mould may seem, +and amorphous as its ideas may be, it is the only instance of any rhymes +fully translating the meaning of music, and it is as full of clinging +pathos and melody as the great creation it paraphrases, and to which no +words will quite respond. + + "In gardens where the languid roses keep + Perpetual sweetness for the hearts that smile, + Perpetual sadness for the hearts that weep, + Lonely, unseen, I wander, to beguile + The day that only shines to show thee bright, + The night whose stars burn wan beside thy light, + Adelaïda! + + "Adelaïda! all the birds are singing + Low, as thou passest, where in leaves they lie; + With timid chirp unto their soft mates clinging, + They greet that presence without which they die,-- + Die, even with Nature's universal heart, + When thou, her queen, dost in thy pride depart, + Adelaïda! + + "Depart! and dim her beauty evermore; + Go, from the shivering leaves and lily-flowers, + That, white as saints on the eternal shore, + Stand wavering, beckoning, in the moony bowers,-- + Beckon me on where their moist feet are laid + In the dark mould, fast by the alder-shade, + Adelaïda! + + "Adelaïda! 'tis the Grave or Love + Must fight for this great first, last mastery. + I feed in faith on spicy gales above, + Where all along that blue unchanging sky + Thy name is traced;--its sweetness never fails + To sound in streams of peace in spicy gales, + Adelaïda! + + "Adelaïda! woe is me, woe, woe! + Not only in the sky, in starry gold, + I see thy name,--where peaceful rivers flow, + Not only hear its sweetness manifold; + On every white and purple flower 'tis written, + Its echo every aspen-quake hath smitten, + Adelaïda! + + "Go farther! let me leave thee! I depart!-- + Who whispered I would linger by thy side? + Who said it beat so warm, my feeble heart? + Who told, I dared to claim thee as my bride? + Who cried, I roamed without thee all the day + And clasped thee in my dreams? Away, away, + Adelaïda! + + "I die, but thou shall live; in the loud noon + Thy feet shall crush the long grass o'er my head, + Not rudely, rudely,--gently, gently, soon + Shall tread me heavier down in that dark bed; + And thou shalt know not on whose head they pass, + Whose silent hands, whose frozen heart!--Alas, + Adelaïda!" + +There are those who in "Charles Auchester," charmed by the simplicity +and truth of that first part called "Choral Life," objected to the rest +on the score of extravagance. But this book records the adoration of +music, and in an age replete with the _dilettanti_ of indifference may +we not thank God for one enthusiast? Yet, indeed, everything about +Mendelssohn was itself extravagant,--his childhood, his youth, his life, +his beauty, his power: should the instrument, then, be tuned lower than +such key-note? And again, to us who live a somewhat commonplace routine, +the life of musical artists, especially abroad, must necessarily seem +redundant; yet it is only that life, natural and actual, into which we +are here inducted. The same is possible to no other class of artists: +even the scholar, buried in his profound studies, must descend from his +abstraction; the poet, the painter, cannot share it: for the latter, +however much he clubs and cliques, is seldom sufficiently dispossessed +of himself; and the other, though he strike out of his heat poems as +immortal as stars, may yet live among clods and feel no thrill returning +on himself. But the musician cannot dwell alone: his art requires that +he should cluster, and the orchestra enforces it; therefore he acts and +reacts like the vibrations ridged within a Stradivarius, he is kept in +his art's atmosphere till it becomes his life, its aura bathes every +trivial thing, and existence which might otherwise be meagre is raised +and glorified. Thus yet more, when we recall that even were the +musician's life not so, still it ought to be, and it is the right of +the author to idealize, one can believe "Charles Auchester" to be but a +faithful transcript. "In proportion to our appreciation of music is also +our appreciation of what is not music," Sarona says; and so faithfully +does this writer prove it, by her attention to minute and usual +circumstances, that one might certainly allow her some exaltation +when touching on one theme,--yet how this exaltation can be called in +question by any who espouse Bettine von Arnim's sublime ravings the +morning after entering Vienna is mysterious. Were the real condition +of these natures--which certainly exist--bared to view, many from their +phlegmatic experience might deem all the nerves to be in a state of +excitation, when in fact they saw only normal and healthy play. It is +true that the power of modulated tones arouses everything most ethereal +and lofty in our composition, and it must therefore be wrong to charge +with extravagance any description of a life in music, which is a life in +the highest, because truly it cannot be extravagant enough, since all +words fail before that of which it discourses,--while it gives you the +sense of the universe and of the eternities, and is to the other arts +what the soul is to the body. And is it not, moreover, the voice of +Nature, the murmur of wind and tree, the thrill of all the dropping +influences of the heavens, the medium of spiritual communication, the +universal language in which all can exchange thought and feeling, and +through which the whole world becomes one nation? Out of the spirit +blossom spirits, Bettine tells us, and we subject ourselves to their +power: "Ah, wonderful mediation of the ineffable, which oppresses the +bosom! Ah, music!" To go further, there is certainly no exaggeration +in Charles Auchester's treatment of his hero; for, reading the +contemporaneous articles of musical journals, you will find them one and +all speaking in even more unrestrained profligacy of praise, recognizing +in the cloud of composers but nine worthy the name of Master, of whom +Mendelssohn was one, and declaring that under his baton the orchestra +was electrified. We all remember the solemnly pathetic and passionate +beauty of Seraphael's burial by night, with the music winding up among +the stars; but did it in reality exceed the actual progress of the dead +Master's ashes from city to city, met in the twilight and the evening by +music, gray-headed Capellmeisters receiving him with singing in the open +midnight, and fresh songs being flung upon his coffin like wreaths with +the sunrise? + +There is a wonderful strength exhibited in the sketch of Seraphael from +first to last: not to mention the happiness of the name, of which +this is by no means a single instance, and the fact of his having no +_pramomen_, both of which so insignificant atoms in themselves lift him +at once a line above the level in the reader's sympathy,--it was a most +difficult thing to present such delicacy and lightness, and yet to +preserve "the awful greatness of his lonely genius," as somewhere else +she calls it; but all must confess that it is done, and perfectly. It +is not alone in Seraphael that this strength is shown; a new mould of +character in fiction is given us,--masculine characters which, though +light and airy, are yet brilliant and strong, most sweet, and surcharged +with loveliness. It is this perfect sweetness that constitutes half +the charm of her books,--for in the only one where it is deficient, +"Beatrice Reynolds," the whole fails. One feels sure that it was never +deficient in herself, that her own heart must have been overflowing with +warm and cordial tenderness,--and if any testimony were wanting, we +should have it in her evident love of children. It is only by love that +understanding comes, and no one ever understood children better or +painted them half so well: they are no mites of puny perfection, no +angels astray, no Psyches in all the agonies of the bursting chrysalis, +but real little flesh-and-blood people in pinafores, approached by +nobody's hand so nearly as George Eliot's. They are flawless: the boy +who, having swung himself giddy, felt "the world turning round, as +papa says it does, nurse,"--the other boy, who, immured in studies and +dreams, found all life to be "a fairy-tale book with half the leaves +uncut,"--the charming little snow-drop of a Carlotta, "who would sit +next him, would stick her tiny fork into his face, with a morsel of +turkey at the end of it, would poke crumbs into his mouth with her +finger, would put up her lips to kiss him, would say, every moment, 'I +like you much,--much!' with all Davy's earnestness, though with just +so much of her mother's modesty as made her turn pink and shy, and put +herself completely over the chair into Seraphael's lap when we laughed +at her." And Philippa, and Philippa's conversation, capers, and cat! +an impossibility to those who have never experienced her whirlwinds of +exuberance,--and to those who have, a reproduction of the drollest days +of their existence. Never was there a personage so perfectly drawn, +never such a grotesque storm of noisy health,--the matchless Philippa! +After reading Miss Sheppard's juveniles, you feel that you have been in +most good and innocent company all day; and since it is necessary for +an author to become for the moment that nature of which he writes, this +author must have been something very good and innocent in herself in +order to uphold this strain so long. Of those accessible, the best is +that entitled, "Round the Fire,"--a series of tales purporting to be +told by little girls, and each of extraordinary interest; but the +one she herself preferred is yet with four others in the hands of an +Edinburgh publisher, and perhaps yet in manuscript,--the name of +this being "Prince Gentil, Prince Joujou, and Prince Bonbon, or the +Children's Cities." This reminds one that cities, in the abstract, seem +to have been with her a subject of unceasing wonder and pleasure,--from +Venice, with its shadowy, slippery, silent water-ways to X, that ideal +city of the North; and where is there anything to excel the Picture of +Paris, drawn minutely and colored, his prison-prophecy, Paris as it was +to be created, rather than restored, by Louis Napoleon? "Then he took +from his pocket a strong magnifying-glass, and put it gently into +Rodomant's hand. Rodomant grasped it, and through it gazed long and +eagerly. And from that hieroglyphic mist there started, sudden and +distinct as morn without a cloud, a brilliant bird's-eye view of a +superb and stupendous city, a dream of imaginative architecture, almost +in itself a poem. Each house of each street, each lamp and fountain, +each line of road and pavement, marked as vividly as the glorious +domes, the pointing pillars, grand gates and arches, proud palaces in +inclosures of solemn leafage, the bridges traced like webs of shadow, +the stately terraces and dim cathedrals. Green groves and avenues and +vivid gardens interlaced and divided the city within the walls; and +without, masses of delicate shrubbery, as perfectly defined, were +studded with fair villas of every varied form, melting gradually and +peacefully, as it seemed, to a bright champaign embroidered with fence +and hedge-row.... A sort of visionary pageant unrolled to him, partly +memorial, in part prophetic. He knew he had seen something like it,--but +when and where? What planet boasted that star of cities for strength +and lustre that must surpass new London and old Thebes? For Rodomant had +the mathematical gift of all the highest harmonists, and his brain could +magnify and actualize the elfin-sized images under his eye to their just +and proper proportion in the real." It must have been like heaven, this +city so stilly and so fair,--for, you see, there were no people there. + +Miss Sheppard's plots are not conspicuous, for her characters make +circumstance and are their own fate; still her capacity in that line is +finely exhibited by the plot of the opera of "Alarcos." In mere filling +up, having excepted the incident,--always original and delightful,--the +lofty imagination, and the descriptions of wind and weather,--one of her +best points will be found to be costume, a minor thing, but then there +are few who excel in modern millinery. "Salome was beautiful. Her +splendid delicate dress, all rosy folds, skirt over skirt of drapery +falling softly into each other, made her clear skin dazzle in the midst +of them; and the masses of vivid geraniums here and there without their +leaves were not too gorgeous for her bearing,--nor for her hair, in +whose rich darkness geraniums also glowed, long wreaths curling down +into her neck." Rose in white, with wreaths of rubies weighing down her +slender arms;--Adelaïda, with her lace robe like woven light on satin +like woven moon-beams, and large water-lilies in her golden hair;--my +Lady Barres, whose dress "consisted almost always of levantine, with +demi-train and under-petticoat of white brocaded silk peeping through +its open front; the hair showing the shape of the head, and confined by +a narrow band of black velvet across the brow, fastened in the morning +with onyx or agate, in the evening with a brilliant only; she always +wore upon her wrists delicate bands of cambric embroidered with +seed-pearl so minutely that it seemed a pattern wrought out of the +threads of the stuff, and little pearl tassels drooped there scarcely +eclipsing her hands in fairness." + +But a far stronger point is the power of portraiture. Seraphael having +been identified, people turned their attention to the other cipher. +Disregarding the orchestral similitude of sound in his name, which, by +the way, nobody pronounces as Aronach instructed, they chose to infer +that Charles Auchester himself was the Herr Joachim, that Starwood +Burney stood for Sterndale Bennett, that Diamid Albany meant Disraeli, +that Zelter figured as Aronach, and that Jenny Lind, of whom Mendelssohn +himself said there would not in a whole century be born another being so +gifted, and whom the Italians, those lovers of fair pseudonymes, called +"La Benedetta," is no other than Clara Benette. But these are trivial, +compared with Rodomant and Porphyro. It was daring enough, when +Beckendorf mimicked Prince Metternich; but to undertake and to contrast +Louis Napoleon and Beethoven, without belittling either, pales every +other performance. They tower before us grand and immutable as if cast +in bronze, and so veritable that they throw shadows; the prison-gloom is +sealed on Porphyro's face,--power and purpose indomitable; just as the +"gruesome Emperor" is to-day, we find him in that book,--dark in the +midst of his glory, as enduring as a Ninevite sculpture, strong and +inscrutable as the Sphinx. But his heights topple over with this world's +decline, while the other builds for the eternal aeons. Rodomant,--did +one fail to find his identity, they would yet recognize him in those old +prints, the listening head bent forwards, the features like discords +melting info chords; it is hard to tell how such strength was given in +such slight sentences,--but from the time when he contemptuously tossed +out his tune-fooleries, through the hour when with moonlight fancies "a +serene ecstatic serenade was rippling silently beneath his pen," to that +when the organ burst upon his ear in thunders quenchless and everlasting +as the sea's, he is still Beethoven, gigantic in pride, purity, and +passion. "I dream now," said Rodomant; "like the Spirit of God moving +upon the face of the waters, so stir my shadows, dim shapes of sound, +across the chaos of my fathomless intention." This "Rumour" has never +been reprinted in America; it will, then, be excusable to give here a +scene which Is indeed its climax. + +"A spiritual nature has for its highest and hardest temptation a +disposition to outrage, precedent,--sometimes propriety. It is sure +of itself--very likely--but it may endanger the machinery, moral or +tangible, which it employs for agent. Again, who has not dreamed of a +dream? who has not remembered dimly what yet experience contradicts? who +does not confound fact and imagination, to the damage of his reputation +for truth? + +"Rodomant was in a lawless frame, a frame he had fixed on himself by his +outrage on precedent; his subsequent excitement had enchanted him more +wildly, and any number of imps and elves were ready to rush at his +silent word from the caverns of his haunted brain. Again, he felt +he must spend his energy, his long idleness reacted on a sudden in +prodigious strength of intellect, it stirred like a giant refreshed. +Long time ago he had dreamed--he had entirely forgotten it was a fact +that he had been told--that, if the whole force of that organ were put +out, the result would be tremendous. He had also _dreamed_--that is, +been assured--that there was a law made to the purpose that the whole +force of the organ was never to be employed. The law had never been +broken, except once;--but there his memories waxed dim and indistinct; +he was at the mercy of his own volition, which resolved on recalling +nothing that could dissuade him from his rash and forbidden longing. +Unknown to himself, perhaps the failure of his design to escape, of +which the princess had assured him, drove him to the crisis of a more +desperate endeavor. But, whether it was so or not, he was unconscious of +it,--so far innocent. He sat down, believing himself alone.... 'Softly, +softly,' mocked his whisper--to himself,--and he touched alone the +whispering reeds, Adelaïda held her breath, and chid the beating of her +heart, which seemed louder than the mellow pulse that throbbed in tune +above. The symphony that followed fell like a mighty universal +hush, through which the clarionet-stop chanted, unuttered but +articulate,--'Give to us peace.' Then the hush dissolved into a sea +of sighs: 'Peace, peace!' they yearned, and the mild deep diapason +muttered, 'Peace.' She, the one listener, felt, as it were, her brain +fill soft with tears, her eyes rained them, and her heart, whose pulses +had dropped as calm as dew, echoed the peaceful longing of the whole +heart of humanity. A longing as peaceful in its expression as the peace +it longed for; the creation's travail seemed spent to the edge of joy. + +"Suddenly, as light swept chaos, this peaceful fancy was disrupted,--her +heart ravished from its rest, its calm torn from it. Down went the pedal +which forced the whole first organ out at once, and as if shouted by +hosts of men and by myriad angels echoed, pealed the great Hosanna. The +mighty rapture of the princess won her instantly from regret; no peace +could be so glorious as that praise; and vast as was the volume +of sound, the hands that invoked it had it so completely under +control--voluntary control as yet--that it did not swamp her sense; her +spirit floated on the wide stream with harmonious waves towards the +measureless immensity of music at its source. To reach that centre +without a circle,--that perfection which imperfection shadows not,--that +unborn, undying principle, which art tries humbly, falteringly, to +illustrate,--was never given to man on earth; and tries he to attain it, +some fate, of which the chained Prometheus is at once the symbol and the +warning, fastens to his soul for life. + +"The princess had bowed her head, and the soft and plenteous waters +of her eyes had dried like dew under the midsummer sun; yet still she +closed her eyes, for her brain felt fixed and alight with a nameless +awe, such as passion lends presentiment. + +"Suddenly, in the words of Albericus, there burst overhead a noise like +the roaring of 'enormous artificial golden lions,'--that was the drum: +less, in this instance, like smitten parchment than the crackling roll +of clouds that embrace in thunder. The noise amazed himself,--yet +Rodomant exulted in it, his audacity expanded with it, broke down the +last barrier of reason. He added stop after stop,--at the last and +sixtieth stop, he unfettered the whole volume of the wind. That instant +was a blast, not to speak irreverently, which sounded like the crack +of doom. To her standing stricken underneath, it seemed to explode +somewhere in the roof with a shock beyond all artillery,--to tear up the +ground under her feet, like the spasm of an earthquake,--to rend the +walls, like lightning's electric finger; and to shriek in her ringing +brain the advent of some implacable and dreadful judgment, but not the +doom of all men,--only one, which doom, alas! she felt might be also +hers _in_ his. + +"All men and women within a mile had heard the shock, or rather felt it, +and interpreted it in various ways. Only the prince himself--who was +standing on the terrace, and had distinctly perceived the rich vibration +of the strong, but calm, _Hosanna_--interpreted it rightly and directly; +more than that, his animal sagacity told him it was Rodomant, who, +having amused himself, was now _indulging_ the same individual.... + +"To Adelaïda there was something more terrible in the succeeding silence +than in the shock of sound; it had ceased directly, died first into a +discordant groan, which, rising to a scream, was still. She listened +intensely: there was no fall of rattling fragments, the vibration had +been insufficient, or not prolonged enough, to injure the window,--that +had been her first, chief fear. This removed, however, she felt doubly, +desperately anxious. Why did he not come down, or speak, or stir? The +men employed to feed the monstrous machine with wind had all rushed away +together by the back-ladder through which they entered: hence the cause +of the shrieking groan and silence. He was there alone,--for he knew not +that she was there. Oh that he would give some sign! + +"In a few minutes a sign was given, but not from him. The princess heard +the grinding of the immense door near the altar; it was opened; +steps entered hurriedly. She heard, next instant, her father's +voice,--impregnated with icy ire, low with smothered hatred, distinct +with the only purpose he ever entertained,--punishment. She flew, with +feet that gave no echo, up the stair on her side of the lobby. Rodomant +was sitting dead-still, with his face in his hands; they looked rigid; +the veins in his forehead, as it showed above his hands, were swollen +and stood out, but colorless as the keys that stretched beneath. His +calmness chilled her blood. She thought him dead, and all within her +that lived seemed to pass out of her in the will, nay, the power also, +to restore him. She grasped his arm. He was not dead, then, for he +sighed,--an awful sigh; it shook him like a light reed in the tempest, +he shuddered from head to foot; he leaned towards her, as if about to +faint, but never removed his close-locked hands from his eyes.... She +had only clasped his arm before; as hand met hand, or touch thrilled +touch, he shivered, his grasping fingers relaxed in their hold on each +other, but closed on hers.... She waited long,--she listened to his +breathing, intermittent with tearless sobs. At last he gasped violently, +a cold tear dropped on her hand, and he thrust it rudely from him. + +"'God has taken my punishment into Hiss own hands: yet I defied not Him, +only something made by man, and man himself.' He spoke loudly, yet in +halting words, with gaps of silence between each phrase; then stared +wildly round him, and clapped both his hands upon his ears,--withdrew +them,--closed his ears with his fingers, then dropped his hands, and +cast on her a glance that implored--that demanded--the whole pity of her +heart. 'Have mercy!' were his words; 'I have lost my hearing, and it is +forever!'" + +The discrimination of character exercised by Miss Sheppard is very +wonderful. Many as are the figures on her stage, they are never +repeated, and they are all as separate, as finely edged and bevelled, +as gems. The people grow under her pen,--whether you take Auchester, +developing so when first thrown on himself in Germany, and becoming at +length the rare type of manhood which he presents,--or the one change +wrought by years in Miss Benette, just the addition of something that +would have been impossible in any child, a deepened sweetness, that +completest touch of the perfect woman, "like perfume from unseen +flowers, diffusing itself when the wind awakens, while we know neither +whence the windy fragrance comes nor whither it flows." Perhaps this +characterization is most noticeable in "Counterparts," which she called +her small party of opposing temperaments: Salome, so gracious; Rose, +like the spirit of a sunbeam; Sarona, so keen and incisive, his passion +confronting Bernard's sweetness; and Cecilia, who, it is easy to +conjecture, wrote the book. I have always fancied that some mystic +trine was chorded by three beings who, with all their separate gifts, +possessed an equal power and sweetness,--Raphael, Shelley, and +Mendelssohn. And perhaps the same occurred more emphatically to Miss +Sheppard, for after Seraphael she drew Bernard,--Bernard, who is +exceeded by none in the whole range of romance. "Counterparts" is a +novel of ideal life; it is the land of one's dreams and one's delights; +its dwellers are more real to us than the men and women into whose eyes +we look upon the street, they haunt us and enrapture us, they breathe +about us an atmosphere of gentle and delicious melancholy like the soft +azure haze spread over meadow and hills by the faint south-wind. With +fresh incident on every leaf, with a charm in every scene, its spell is +enthralling, and its chapters are enchanted. There is no fault in +it; nothing can be more perfect, nothing more beautiful. One may put +"Consuelo" side by side with "Charles Auchester," but what novel in +the wide world deserves a place by "Counterparts"? It was worth having +lived, to have once thrown broadcast such handfuls of beauty. + +Between the publication of Miss Sheppard's second book and "Rumour" two +others were issued,--"Beatrice Reynolds" and "The Double Coronet,"--for +which one wishes there were some younger sister, some Acton or Ellis, to +whom to impute them,--evidently the result of illness, weariness, and +physical weakness, perhaps wrung from her by inexorable necessity, but +which should never have been written. In the last, in spite of its very +Radcliffean air, there are truly terrible things, as Gutilyn and his +green-eyed child bear witness; but the other reminds one, as nearly as a +modern book may do so, of no less a model than the redoubtable "Thaddeus +of Warsaw!" But Miss Sheppard had already written all that at present +there was to say; rest was imperative till the intermittent springs +again overflowed. "Rumour," which approached the old excellence, was no +result of a soul's ardor,--merely very choice work. Notwithstanding, +everything is precious that filters through such a medium, and in +these three publications she found opportunity for expressing many a +conviction and for weaving many a fancy; moreover, she was afraid of +no one, and never minced matters, therefore they are interspersed +with criticisms: she praised Charlotte Bronté, condemned George Sand, +ridiculed Chopin, reproved Elizabeth Browning, and satirized "Punch." In +her last book there was a great, but scarcely a good change of style, +she having been obliged by its thinness to pepper the page with Italics; +still these are only marks of a period of transition, and in spite of +them the book is priceless. Judging from internal evidence, she here +appears to have frequented more society, and the contact of this +carelessly marrying world with her own pure perception of right struck +the spark which kindled into "Almost a Heroine." Here awakens again that +graceful humor which is the infallible sign of health, and which was so +lightly inwrought through the earlier volumes. Reading it over, one is +struck with its earnestness, its truth and noble courage,--one feels +that lofty social novels, which might have infused life and principle +and beauty into the mass of custom, were promised in this, and are now +no longer a possibility. And herein are the readers of this magazine +especially affected; since there is no reason to suppose that the work +promised and begun by her for these pages would not have been the peer +of her best production, some bold and beautiful elucidation of one of +the many mysteries in life; for the lack of appreciation in England was +no longer to concern her, and, unshackled and unrestrained, she could +feel herself surrounded by the genial atmosphere of loving listeners. +But perhaps it was not lawful that she should further impart these great +secrets which she had learned. "I sometimes think," she murmurs, "when +women try to rise too high either in their deeds or their desires, that +the spirit which bade them so rise sinks back beneath the weakness of +their earthly constitution, and never appeals again,--or else that the +spirit, being too strong, does away with the mortal altogether,--they +die, or rather they live again." It was like forecasting her own +horoscope. All suffering seems to have descended upon her,--and there +are some natures whose power of enjoyment, so infinite, yet so deep as +to be hidden, is balanced only by as infinite a power to endure; she +learned anew, as she says, and intensely, "what a long dream of misery +is life from which health's bloom has been brushed,--that irreparable +bloom,--and how far more terrible is the doom of those in whom the +nerve-life has been untoned." Sun-stroke and fever, vibration between +opiates at night and tonics at noon,--but the flame was too strong +to fan away lightly, it must burn itself out, the spirit was too +quenchless,--pain, wretchedness, exhaustion. On one of those delicious +days that came in the middle of this year's April,--warmth and fresh +earth-smells breathing all about,--the wide sprays of the lofty boughs +lying tinged in rosy purple, a web-like tracery upon the sky whose azure +was divine,--the air itself lucid and mellow, as if some star had been +dissolved within it,--on such a day the little foreign letter +came, telling that at length balm had dropped upon the weary +eyelids,--Elizabeth Sheppard was dead. + +But in the midst of regret,--since all lovely examples lend their +strength, since they give such grace even to the stern facts of +suffering and death, and since there are too few such records on +Heaven's scroll,--be glad to know that for every throb of anguish, for +every swooning lapse of pain, there was one beside her with tenderest +hands, most careful eyes, most yearning and revering heart,--one into +whose sacred grief our intrusion is denied, but the remembrance of whose +long and deep devotion shall endure while there are any to tell how +Severn watched the Roman death-bed of Keats! + +It is impossible to estimate our loss, because it draws upon infinitude; +there was so much growth yet possible to this soul; to all that she was +not she might yet have enlarged; and while at first her audience had +limits, she would in a calm and prosperous future have become that which +she herself described in saying that a really vast genius who is as vast +an artist will affect all classes, "touch even the uninitiated with +trembling and delight, and penetrate even the ignorant with strong, if +transient spell, as the galvanic energy binds each and all who embrace +in the chain-circle of grasping hands, in the shock of perfect +sympathy." Nevertheless, she has served Art incalculably,--Art, which +is the interpretation of God in Nature. And if, as she believed, in +spiritual things Beauty is the gage of immortality, the pledge may yet +be redeemed on earth, ever forbidding her memory to die. + + + + +ASTRAEA AT THE CAPITOL. + + +ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 1862. + + When first I saw our banner wave + Above the nation's council-hall, + I heard beneath its marble wall + The clanking fetters of the slave! + + In the foul market-place I stood, + And saw the Christian mother sold, + And childhood with its locks of gold, + Blue-eyed and fair with Saxon blood. + + I shut my eyes, I held my breath, + And, smothering down the wrath and shame + That set my Northern blood aflame, + Stood silent--where to speak was death. + + Beside me gloomed the prison-cell + Where wasted one in slow decline + For uttering simple words of mine, + And loving freedom all too well. + + The flag that floated from the dome + Flapped menace in the morning air; + I stood, a perilled stranger, where + The human broker made his home. + + For crime was virtue: Gown and Sword + And Law their threefold sanction gave, + And to the quarry of the slave + Went hawking with our symbol-bird. + + On the oppressor's side was power; + And yet I knew that every wrong, + However old, however strong, + But waited God's avenging hour. + + I knew that truth would crush the lie,-- + Somehow, sometime, the end would be; + Yet scarcely dared I hope to see + The triumph with my mortal eye. + + But now I see it! In the sun + A free flag floats from yonder dome, + And at the nation's hearth and home + The justice long delayed is done. + + Not as we hoped, in calm of prayer, + The message of deliverance comes, + But heralded by roll of drums + On waves of battle-troubled air!-- + + 'Midst sounds that madden and appall, + The song that Bethlehem's shepherds knew!-- + The harp of David melting through + The demon-agonies of Saul! + + Not as we hoped;--but what are we? + Above our broken dreams and plans + God lays, with wiser hand than man's, + The corner-stones of liberty. + + I cavil not with Him: the voice + That freedom's blessed gospel tells + Is sweet to me as silver bells, + Rejoicing!--yea, I will rejoice! + + Dear friends still toiling in the sun,-- + Ye dearer ones who, gone before, + Are watching from the eternal shore + The slow work by your hands begun,-- + + Rejoice with me! The chastening rod + Blossoms with love; the furnace heat + Grows cool beneath His blessed feet + Whose form is as the Son of God! + + Rejoice! Our Marah's bitter springs + Are sweetened; on our ground of grief + Rise day by day in strong relief + The prophecies of better things. + + Rejoice in hope! The day and night + Are one with God, and one with them + Who see by faith the cloudy hem + Of Judgment fringed with Mercy's light! + + + + +PÈRE ANTOINE'S DATE-PALM. + +A LEGEND OF NEW ORLEANS. + + +I. + +MISS BADEAU. + + +It is useless to disguise the fact: Miss Badeau is a Rebel. + +Mr. Beauregard's cannon had not done battering the walls of Sumter, +when Miss Badeau was packed up, labelled, and sent North, where she +has remained ever since in a sort of aromatic, rose-colored state of +rebellion. + +She is not one of your blood-thirsty Rebels, you know; she has the good +sense to shrink with horror from the bare mention of those heathen who, +at Manassas and elsewhere, wreaked their unmanly spite on the bodies +of dead heroes: still she is a bitter little Rebel, with blonde hair, +superb eyelashes, and two brothers in the Confederate service,--if I may +be allowed to club the statements. When I look across the narrow strait +of our boarding-house table, and observe what a handsome wretch she +is, I begin to think that if Mr. Seward doesn't presently take her in +charge, _I_ shall. + +The preceding paragraphs have little or nothing to do with what I am +going to relate: they merely illustrate how wildly a fellow will write, +when the eyelashes of a pretty woman get tangled with his pen. So I let +them stand,--as a warning. + +My exordium should have taken this shape:-- + +"I hope and trust," remarked Miss Badeau, in that remarkably scathing +tone which she assumes in alluding to the U.S.V., "I hope and trust, +that, when your five hundred thousand, more or less, men capture my New +Orleans, they will have the good taste not to injure Père Antoine's +Date-Palm." + +"Not a hair of its head shall be touched," I replied, without having the +faintest idea of what I was talking about. + +"Ah! I hope not," she said. + +There was a certain tenderness in her voice which struck me. + +"Who is Père Antoine?" I ventured to ask. "And what is this tree that +seems to interest you so?" + +"I will tell you." + +Then Miss Badeau told me the following legend, which I think worth +writing down. If it should appear tame to the reader, it will be because +I haven't a black ribbed-silk dress, and a strip of point-lace around my +throat, like Miss Badeau; it will be because I haven't her eyes and lips +and music to tell it with, confound me! + + +II. + +THE LEGEND. + + +Near the _levée_ (quay) and not far from the old French Cathedral, in +New Orleans, stands a fine date-palm, some thirty feet high, growing out +in the open air as sturdily as if its roots were sucking sap from their +native earth. Sir Charles Lyell, in his "Second Visit to the United +States," mentions this exotic:--"The tree is seventy or eighty years +old; for Père Antoine, a Roman Catholic priest, who died about twenty +years ago, told Mr. Bringier that he planted it himself, when he was +young. In his will he provided that they who succeeded to this lot of +ground should forfeit it, if they cut down the palm." + +Wishing to learn something of Père Antoine's history, Sir Charles Lyell +made inquiries among the ancient Creole inhabitants of the _faubourg_. +That the old priest, in his last days, became very much emaciated, that +he walked about the streets like a mummy, that he gradually dried +up, and finally blew away, was the meagre result of the tourist's +investigations. + +This is all that is generally known of Père Antoine. Miss Badeau's story +clothes these bare facts. + +When Père Antoine was a very young man, he had a friend whom he loved as +he loved his eyes. Émile Jardin returned his passion, and the two, on +account of their friendship, became the marvel of the city where they +dwelt. One was never seen without the other; for they studied, walked, +ate, and slept together. + +Antoine and Émile were preparing to enter the Church; indeed, they had +taken the preliminary steps, when a circumstance occurred which changed +the color of their lives. + +A foreign lady, from some far-off island in the Pacific, had a few +months before moved into their neighborhood. The lady died suddenly, +leaving a girl of sixteen or seventeen entirely friendless and +unprovided for. The young men had been kind to the woman during her +illness, and at her death, melting with pity at the forlorn situation of +Anglice, the daughter, swore between themselves to love and watch over +her as if she were their sister. + +Now Anglice had a wild, strange beauty, that made other women seem tame +beside her; and in the course of time the young men found themselves +regarding their ward not so much like brothers as at first. They +struggled with their destiny manfully, for the holy orders which they +were about to assume precluded the idea of love. + +But every day taught them to be more fond of her. So they drifted on. +The weak like to temporize. + +One night Émile Jardin and Anglice were not to be found. They had +flown,--but whither nobody knew, and nobody, save Antoine, cared. + +It was a heavy blow to Antoine,--for he had half made up his mind to run +away with her himself. + +A strip of paper slipped from a volume on Antoine's desk, and fluttered +to his feet. + +"_Do not be angry_" said the bit of paper, piteously; "_forgive us, for +we love_." + +Three years went by. Antoine had entered the Church, and was already +looked upon as a rising man; but his face was pale and his heart leaden, +for there was no sweetness in life for him. + +Four years had elapsed, when a letter, covered with outlandish stamps, +was brought to the young priest,--a letter from Anglice. She was dying; +would he forgive her? Émile, the year previous, had fallen a victim to +the fever that raged on the island; and their child, little Anglice, was +likely to follow him. In pitiful terms she begged Antoine to take charge +of the child until she was old enough to enter a convent. The epistle +was finished by another hand, informing Antoine of Madame Jardin's +death; it also told him that Anglice had been placed on a vessel shortly +to leave the island for some Western port. + +The letter was hardly read and wept over, when little Anglice arrived. +On beholding her, Antoine uttered a cry of joy and surprise,--she was so +like the woman he had worshipped. + +As a man's tears are more pathetic than a woman's, so is his love more +intense,--not more enduring, or half so subtile, but intenser. + +The passion that had been crowded down in his heart broke out and +lavished its richness on this child, who was to him, not only the +Anglice of years ago, but his friend Émile Jardin also. + +Anglice possessed the wild, strange beauty of her mother,--the bending, +willowy form, the rich tint of skin, the large tropical eyes, that had +almost made Antoine's sacred robes a mockery to him. + +For a month or two Anglice was wildly unhappy in her new home. She +talked continually of the bright country where she was born, the fruits +and flowers and blue skies. Antoine could not pacify her. By-and-by she +ceased to weep, and went about the cottage with a dreary, disconsolate +air that cut Antoine to the heart. Before the year ended, he noticed +that the ruddy tinge had fled from her cheek, that her eyes had grown +languid, and her slight figure more willowy than ever. + +A physician was called. He could discover nothing wrong with the child, +except this fading and drooping. He failed to account for that. It was +some vague disease of the mind, he said, beyond his skill. + +So Anglice faded day after day. She seldom left the room now. Antoine +could not shut out the fact that the child was passing away. He had +learned to love her so! + +"Dear heart," he said once, "what is't ails thee?" + +"Nothing, _mon père_"--for so she called him. + +The winter passed, the balmy spring air had come, and Anglice seemed to +revive. In her little bamboo chair, on the porch, she swayed to and +fro in the fragrant breeze, with a peculiar undulating motion, like a +graceful tree. + +At times something seemed to weigh upon her mind. Antoine noticed it, +and waited. At length she spoke. + +"Near our house," said little Anglice, "near our house, on the island, +the palm-trees are waving under the blue sky. Oh, how beautiful! I seem +to lie beneath them all day long. I am very, very happy. I yearned for +them until I grew sick,--don't you think so, _mon père_?" + +"_Mon Dieu_, yes!" exclaimed Antoine, suddenly. "Let us hasten to those +pleasant islands where the palms are waving." + +Anglice smiled. + +"I am going there, _mon père!_" + +Ay, indeed. A week from that evening the wax candles burned at her feet +and forehead, lighting her on the journey. + +All was over. Now was Antoine's heart empty. He had nothing to do but to +lay the blighted flower away. + +Père Antoine made a shallow grave in his garden, and heaped the fresh +brown mould over his idol. + +In the genial spring evenings the priest was seen sitting by the mound, +his finger closed in the unread prayer-book. + +The summer broke on that sunny land; and in the cool morning twilight, +and after nightfall, Antoine lingered by the grave. He could never be +with it enough. + +One morning he observed a delicate stem, with two curiously shaped +emerald leaves, springing up from the centre of the mound. At first he +merely noticed it casually; but at length the plant grew so tall, and +was so strangely unlike anything he had ever seen before, that he +examined it with care. + +How straight and graceful and exquisite it was! When it swung to and fro +with the summer wind, in the twilight, it seemed to Antoine as if little +Anglice were standing there in the garden! + +The days stole by, and Antoine tended the fragile shoot, wondering what +sort of blossom it would unfold, white, or scarlet, or golden. One +Sunday, a stranger, with a bronzed, weather-beaten face like a sailor's, +leaned over the garden-rail, and said to him,-- + +"What a fine young date-palm you have there, Sir!" + +"_Mon Dieu!_" cried Père Antoine, "and is it a palm?" + +"Yes, indeed," returned the man. "I had no idea the tree would flourish +in this climate." + +"_Mon Dieu!_" was all the priest could say. + +If Père Antoine loved the tree before, he worshipped it now. He watered +it, and nurtured it, and could have clasped it in his arms. Here were +Émile and Anglice and the child, all in one! + +The years flew by, and the date-palm and the priest grew together,--only +one became vigorous and the other feeble. Père Antoine had long passed +the meridian of life. The tree was in its youth. It no longer stood in +an isolated garden; for homely brick and wooden houses had clustered +about Antoine's cottage. They looked down scowling on the humble +thatched roof. The city was edging up, trying to crowd him off his land. +But he clung to it, and wouldn't sell. Speculators piled gold on his +door-step, and he laughed at them. Sometimes he was hungry, but he +laughed none the less. + +"Get thee behind me, Satan!" said the old priest's smile. + +Père Antoine was very old now, scarcely able to walk; but he could sit +under the pliant, caressing leaves of his tree, and there he sat until +the grimmest of speculators came to him. But even in death Père Antoine +was faithful to his trust. The owner of that land loses it, if he harms +the date-tree. + +And there it stands in the narrow, dingy street, a beautiful, dreamy +stranger, an exquisite foreign lady whose grace is a joy to the eye, the +incense of whose breath makes the air enamored. A precious boon is she +to the wretched city; and when loyal men again walk those streets, may +the hand wither that touches her ungently! + +"Because it grew from the heart of little Anglice," said Miss Badeau, +tenderly. + + * * * * * + + +"SOLID OPERATIONS IN VIRGINIA": + +OR, 'T IS EIGHTY YEARS SINCE. + + +I have never had many personal interviews with Princes. Setting aside a +few with different Excellencies of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I +never had but one such interview, which prolonged itself far enough to +deserve a place in these memoirs of our time. This was with a President +of the then United States,--with him who was, I fear, the Last of the +Virginians. At least, I know no one on the line of promotion just now +who seems to me likely to succeed him. + +"Have ye travelled in Virginia, Mr. Larkin?" said the President to me. + +I said I had not, but that I hoped to see the Valley of Virginia before +I went home. That is the name given, in those regions, to the district +west of the Blue Ridge. The President listened, but expressed himself +dissatisfied with my plan. + +"Ah, Sah!" he said, "ye sh'd see Jeems River. Every American sh'd see +Jeems River. Ye'll not see the appearance of a large population, +to which ye're used in Massachusetts,--the--customs,--the +--arrangements,--the habits--of--our--laboring people--are +such--that--that--their residences--are--are--more distant--from the +highway than with you;--but--but--ye'll be greatly interested in +seeing Jeems River. We've not the cities to show that ye have in +Massachusetts,--but--there are great historical associations with Jeems +River." + +I bowed assent,--and when the President spoke again with some +depreciation of their productions, I made up my mouth to say, in courtly +vein, + + "Man is the nobler growth your realms supply," + +when I recollected that that remark was too literally true to be +complimentary to a State which made its chief business the growing of +men and women for a distant market. So I did what it is always wise to +do,--I said nothing. And the President, warming with his theme, said,-- + +"Yes, Sah, ye sh'd see Jeems River. There, at Jeemst'n, America first +gave a home to the European,--and hard by, at Yorkt'n, the tie with +Europe was sundered. There ye may see Williamsburg,--and our oldest +college. There ye may see the birthplaces of four Presidents,--and there +the capital of Virginia!" + +With such, and other temptations, did he direct me on my journey. + +I have been thinking how little the poor man foresaw that the time would +come when in the valley of "Jeems River" the traveller would see the +grave of the only President of the United States who ever in his old age +turned rebel to the country which had honored him. How little he foresaw +that other campaigns were impending, which would give more historical +interest to the valley than even Cornwallis's marchings and +countermarchings! how little he dreamed of Monitors and Merrimacks in +fierce _méleé_ before his own little Hampton! how little, while he sowed +the wind that winter, he looked forward to the whirlwind-reaping,--of +which, indeed, he lived to hear only the first fierce sigh! + +This valley of "Jeems River," and the three other valleys which radiate +like the four fingers of an open hand, and send their waters down into +the great conduit of Chesapeake Bay, which is the palm to these four +fingers, are in this very month of April, when I write, to become the +great battle-field of the continent. How strangely history repeats +itself, that, after eighty-one years, we should be looking out on +the map the Rapid Ann and the Chickahominy, and Williamsburg +and Fredericksburg, just as our fathers did in 1781,--that the +grandchildren of the men who marched under Lafayette from Baltimore to +Richmond, by the forced march which saved that infant capital from the +enemy, should be marching now, with a more Fabian tread, to save the +same Richmond from worse enemies! Does the Comte de Paris trace the +footprints of the young Marquis-General, who afterwards, among other +things, made his grandfather King? How strange it all is! While I wait +to know where Fabius is hidden, and where those army-corps of hundreds +of thousands are, which seem to have sunk into the ground at Warrenton +the other day, you and I, Reader, will familiarize ourselves with the +geography a little, by brushing the dust off those old campaigns. + +They began by mere predatory excursions, which occupied, for a few weeks +at a time, the English forces which could be detached from New York. "We +march up and down the country," said Cornwallis, not overmuch +pleased, "stealing tobacco." As early as 1779, on the 8th of May, the +Raisonnable, sixty-four, five smaller ships of the English navy, and a +number of privateers acting as convoy to a cloud of transports, entered +the Capes of the Chesapeake. The Raisonnable drew too much water to go +farther than Hampton Roads: they probably did not know the channel +as well as the Merrimack's pilots do. But the rest of them went up +Elizabeth River, as one Pawnee did afterwards,--and there, at Gosport, +found the State's navy-yard, as the Pawnee found a nation's. There was +a vessel of war, unfinished, of twenty-eight guns, and many smaller +vessels,--and they burned them all. How exactly it begins as the history +of another war begins! Different branches of this expedition destroyed +one hundred and thirty-seven vessels, and tobacco beyond account,--and +they were all snugly back in New York in twenty-four days after they +started. + +It is the second campaign which is the most picturesque, varied, and +exciting of the campaigns of the American Revolution,--and which was +fought on ground which will have been made sacred by another campaign, +perhaps even before these words meet the reader's eye. The men engaged +in it were men who have left their mark. Cornwallis and Baron Steuben +share with each other the honor of inventing the present light-infantry +tactics of the world. Cornwallis. in Carolina, had seen the necessity of +divesting his troops of their impediments. Steuben had been doing the +same with the American line, ever since he began his instructions on the +29th of March, 1778. The discipline thus invented was carried back to +Europe by English and by French officers; and when the wars of the +French Revolution began, the rapid movement of the new light infantry +approved itself to military men of all the great warring nations, and +the old tactics of the heavy infantry of the last century died away in +face of the American improvement. Besides Cornwallis, and for a time +under him, here figured the traitor Arnold. Against them, besides +Steuben, were Wayne and Lafayette,--the last in his maiden campaign, in +which, indeed, he earned his military reputation, "never but once," +says Tarleton, his enemy "committing himself during a very difficult +campaign." In the beginning, General Phillips, the same who had been +captured at Saratoga, had the chief command of the English army. +Lafayette notes grimly that General Phillips had commanded at Minden the +battery by which the Marquis de Lafayette, his father, was killed. He +makes this memorandum in mentioning the fact that one of his cannon-shot +passed through the room in which Phillips was dying in Petersburg. Such +were the prominent actors in the campaign. It is not till within a few +years that the full key to it has been given in the publication of some +additional letters of Lord Cornwall. Until that time, a part of his +movements were always shrouded in mystery. + +In October, 1780, the English General Leslie entered Chesapeake Bay +again, and established himself for a while at Portsmouth, opposite +Norfolk. But Colonel Ferguson, with whom Leslie was to cooperate, +had been defeated at King's Mountain, and when Leslie learned of the +consequent change in Cornwallis's plans, he returned to New York on the +24th of November. His departure was regarded as a victory by General +Muhlenberg, and the Virginia militia, who were called out to meet him. + +They had scarcely been disbanded, however, when a second expedition, +which had been intrusted to the traitor Arnold, arrived from New York in +James River. Baron Steuben, the Prussian officer, who had "brought the +foreign arts from far," was at this time in command, but with really +little or no army. Steuben was, at the best, an irritable person, and +his descriptions of the Virginia militia are probably tinged by his +indignation at constant failure. General Nelson, who was the Governor of +the State, behaved with spirit, but neither he nor Steuben could make +the militia stand against Arnold. They could not create a corps +of cavalry among the Virginia Cavaliers, and Arnold's expedition, +therefore, marched twenty-five miles and back without so much as a +shot being fired at them. He established himself at Portsmouth, where +Muhlenberg watched him, and he there waited a reinforcement. + +Just at this juncture a little gleam of hope shot across the darkened +landscape, in the arrival of three French vessel's of war at the mouth +of James River. The American officers all hated Arnold with such +thorough hatred that they tried to persuade the French officers to shut +up Elizabeth River by sea, while they attacked him at Portsmouth from +the land; but the Frenchmen declined cooperation, and Steuben was always +left to boast of what he might have done. As he had but eight rounds +of ammunition a man for troops who had but just now failed him so +lamentably, we can scarcely suppose that Arnold was in much danger. + +Washington, meanwhile, had persuaded the French Admiral, at Newport, +to send his whole fleet to act against Portsmouth; and by land he sent +Lafayette, with twelve hundred light infantry, to take command in +Virginia. Lafayette left Peekskill, feigned an attack upon Staten +Island in passing, marched rapidly by Philadelphia to the head of the +Chesapeake,--they all call it the "head of Elk,"--crowded his men on +such boats as he found there, and, like General Butler after him, went +down to Annapolis. At Annapolis, with some of his officers, he took +a little vessel, in which he ran down to Williamsburg to confer with +Steuben. He then crossed the James River, and reached the camp of +Muhlenberg near Suffolk on the 19th of March. The reader has only to +imagine General Burnside shutting up Norfolk on the south and west just +now, to conceive of Lafayette's position, as he supposed it to be, when, +on the 20th, he was told that the French fleet had arrived within the +Capes. But, alas! on the 23d, it proved that this was not the French +fleet, but the English, which had so far injured the French fleet in an +action that they had returned to Newport; so that it was Arbuthnot, and +not Destouches, whose fleet had arrived at Hampton Roads. Under their +protection the English General Phillips relieved Arnold with two +thousand more men; and it is at this moment that the active campaign of +1781 may be said to begin. + +General Phillips immediately took command of the English army, for which +he had sufficient force of light transports, and proceeded up James +River. He landed first at Burrel's Ferry, opposite Williamsburg, into +which city, till lately the capital of the State, he marched unmolested. +His different marauding parties had entire success in their operations; +and it is to be observed that his command of the navigation was an +essential element of that success. "There is no fighting here," wrote +Lafayette, "unless you have a naval superiority, or an army mounted on +race-horses." Under almost all circumstances a corps embarked on boats +could be pushed along these rivers faster than an enemy marching on the +land. This remark, constantly verified then, will be much more important +in the campaign now pending, in which these streams will, of course, +be navigated by steam. It must be remembered, also, that the State of +Virginia was at this time the storehouse from which General Greene's +army in Carolina was supplied. To destroy the stores collected here, +and thus directly to break down the American army in the South, was Sir +Henry Clinton's object in sending out General Phillips. To protect these +stores and the lines of communication with the Southern army was the +object of the American generals. Had these designs been left unchanged, +however, I should not now be writing this history. Indeed, the whole +history of the United States would have had another beginning, and the +valley of the James River would have had as little critical interest, +in the close of the American Revolution, as have the valleys of the +Connecticut and the Penobscot. The important change came, when Lord +Cornwallis, at Wilmington, North Carolina, took the responsibility of +the dashing, but fatal plan by which he crossed North Carolina with his +own army, joined Phillips's army in Virginia, and with this large force, +with no considerable enemy opposed, was in a position to go anywhere or +to do anything unmolested. Cornwallis was an admirable officer, quite +the ablest the English employed in America. He was young, spirited, and +successful,--and, which was of much more importance in England, he had +plenty of friends at Court. He conceived the great insubordination, +therefore, of this great movement, which must compromise Sir Henry +Clinton's plans, although Sir Henry was his commander. He wrote to +the Secretary for the Colonies in London, and to General Phillips in +Virginia, that he was satisfied that a "serious attempt" on that State, +or "solid operations in Virginia," made the proper plan. So he abandoned +Carolina, to which he had been sent, to General Greene; and with the +idea that Sir Henry Clinton, his superior in command, ought to quit New +York and establish himself in Virginia, without waiting that officer's +views, he marched thither himself in such wise as to compel him to come. +In that movement the great game was really lost. And it is to that act +of insubordination, that, until this eventful April, 1862, the valley of +James River has owed its historical interest. + +He wrote from North Carolina, directing General Phillips to join him in +Petersburg, Virginia; and thither Phillips called in his different corps +who were "stealing tobacco," and there he himself arrived, in a dying +condition, on the 9th of May. "I procured a post-chaise to convey him," +says Arnold, his second in command. The town is familiar to travellers, +as being the end of the first railroad-link south of Richmond. They +still show the old house in which poor Phillips lay sick, while +Lafayette, from the other side of the river, cannonaded the town with +his light field-pieces. One of his balls entered the house, killed an +old negro-woman who was reviling the American troops, and passed through +the room where Phillips lay. "Will they not let me die in peace?" he +asked. Arnold was also in danger, one of the balls passing near him; +and, by his orders, Phillips and all the household were removed into the +cellar. General Phillips was afterwards taken to another house, where he +died on the 13th. It is in his memoranda of this affair at Petersburg +that Lafayette records the fact that his father died at Minden from one +of the shots of Phillips's batteries. + +We left Lafayette at Williamsburg, which, my readers will remember, is +on the neck of land of which Fort Monroe forms the southeast corner: it +is about twenty-six miles northwest of that post, and ten miles west +of Yorktown. If they do not remember this, they had better learn it +now,--for, on this second of April, the appearances are that they will +need to know it before long. If any one of them does not care to look at +a map, he may take my figure which called Chesapeake Bay the palm of the +hand,--to which the James, York, Rappahannock, and Potomac Rivers are +the four fingers. Lay down on the page your right hand, upon its back, +with the fingers slightly apart. The thumb is a meridian which points +north. The forefinger is the Potomac as far as Washington. The middle +finger is the Rappahannock,--with Fredericksburg about the first joint. +The ring-finger is York River, with Williamsburg and Yorktown just above +and below the knuckle line. The little finger is the James River, as far +as Richmond. Fort Monroe is at the parting of the last two fingers. We +left Lafayette at Williamsburg, disappointed at the failure to entrap +Arnold. He returned at once to Annapolis by water, and transported his +troops back to the head of Chesapeake Bay,--expecting to return to New +York, now that his mission had failed. But Washington had learned, +meanwhile, that General Phillips had been sent from New York to +reinforce Arnold,--and so Lafayette met orders at the head of the +Chesapeake to return, take command in Virginia, and foil the English as +he might. Wayne, in Pennsylvania, was to join him with eight hundred of +the mutinous Pennsylvania line. Were they the grandfathers of the men +who deserted before Bull's Run? They retrieved themselves at James +Island afterwards,--as the Bull's Run Pennsylvanians did at Newbern the +other day. "How Lafayette or Wayne can march without money or credit," +wrote Washington to Laurens, "is more than I can tell," But he did his +part, which was to command,--and they did theirs, which was to obey. + +Lafayette did his part thus. His troops, twelve hundred light infantry, +the best soldiers in the world, he said at the end of the summer, had +left Peekskill for a short expedition only. They had no supplies for a +summer campaign, and seemed likely to desert him. Lafayette issued a +spirited order of the day, in which he took the tone of Henry V. before +the Battle of Agincourt, and offered a pass back to the North River to +any man who did not dare share with him the perils of the summer against +a superior force. He also hanged one deserter whom he caught after this +order, and pardoned another who was less to blame. By such varied means +he so far "encouraged the rest" that he wholly stopped desertion. He +crossed the Susquehanna on the 13th of April, was in Baltimore on the +18th, and it was here that the ladies gave him the ball where he said, +"My soldiers have no shirts." He borrowed two thousand guineas on his +own personal security, promising to pay at the end of two years, when +the French law would make him master of his estates. He bought +material with the money, made the Baltimore belles, who were not then +Secessionists, make the shirts, and started on his forced march again, +with his troops clothed and partly shod, on the 20th. He passed the +hills where Washington stands, unconscious of the city that was to be +there, and of the Long Bridge which shakes under McClellan's columns. +He halted to buy shoes in Alexandria, which he reached in two days. He +pressed on to Fredericksburg, and was at Richmond on the 29th. So that a +light column can march in nine days from Baltimore to Richmond, though +there be no railroad in working order. + +This was the first march "Forward to Richmond" in history. For the +moment, it saved the city and its magazines from General Phillips, who +had reached Manchester, on the opposite side of James River. Phillips +retired down the river, hoping to decoy Lafayette after him, on that +neck of land, now, as then, a point so critical, between the James and +York Rivers,--and then to return by his vessels on the first change of +wind, get in Lafayette's rear, and shut him up there. But it was another +general who was to be shut up on that neck. Phillips was called south to +Petersburg, where, as we have seen, he died. "Will they not let me die +in peace?" + +Cornwallis arrived at Petersburg with his Southern troops, including +Tarleton's horse, on the 20th of May. He then had nearly six thousand +men under his orders. Lafayette had about thirty-two hundred, of whom +only a few were cavalry, a volunteer body of Baltimore young gentlemen +being the most of them. The Virginia gentry had hesitated about giving +up their fine blood-horses to mount cavalry on. But Tarleton had +no hesitation in stealing them for his troopers, nor Simcoe, his +fellow-partisan, for his,--so that Cornwallis had the invaluable aid of +two bodies of cavalry thus admirably mounted, against an enemy almost +destitute. Both armies marched without tents, with the very lightest +baggage. It purely a light-infantry campaign, excepting the dashing +raids of Tarleton and Simcoe. + +Lafayette felt his inferiority of force,--and as soon as Cornwallis +joined, crossed back over James River at Osborn's (say the bottom of +the little-finger nail on our extempore map). Cornwallis crossed at +Westover, also marked now on the maps as Ruffin's, some twenty miles +lower down the river. Lafayette felt the necessity of meeting Wayne, who +was supposed to be coming from Pennsylvania; he therefore retraced +his march of a few weeks before, followed by Cornwallis with his +infantry;--the cavalry had been on more distant service. Cornwallis +would have crushed Lafayette, if he had overtaken him; but Lafayette +knew this as well as we do,--marched nearly up to Fredericksburg +again,--protected it till its stores were removed,--and then, after +five days' march more, westward, met Wayne with his eight hundred +Pennsylvanians at Raccoon Ford (head of the middle finger on the +hand-map). The reader has, in just such way, marched a knight across the +chess-board to escort back a necessary pawn, to make desperate fight +against some Cornwallis of a castle. Cornwallis passed through Hanover +Court-House to Chesterfield Court-House, "stealing tobacco," in the +whole to the amount of two thousand hogsheads,--then, satisfying himself +that he could not prevent the junction of the knight and pawn, and that +Hunter's iron-works, at Fredericksburg, which he had threatened, were +not of so much import as the stores in the western part of the country, +he turned south and west again, and awaited Lafayette's movements, +threatening Albemarle County, just west of where we are beginning to get +acquainted with Gordonsville,--a place then uncreated. Cornwallis was +all along unwilling to engage in extensive operations till he should +hear from Sir Henry Clinton, whom he knew he had insulted and offended. +His detachments of horse had been sent, meanwhile, up the line of James +River above Richmond. Tarleton penetrated as far as Charlottesville, +marching seventy miles in twenty-four hours, hoping to take the +Legislature by surprise. The story is, that he would have succeeded, but +for his eagerness to get his breakfast on the last day. He had waited +long for it,--and finally asked, in some heat, where it was. Dr. Walker, +whose guest he had made himself, replied, that Tarleton's soldiers had +already taken two of the breakfasts which had been prepared for him that +morning, and suggested a guard for the security of the third. + +While the third breakfast was being cooked, the legislators escaped. +Jefferson was among them. Tarleton took seven, however, who told him +that the country was tired of the war,--and that, if no treaty for a +loan were made with France that summer, Congress would negotiate with +England before winter. They were eighty-one years in advance of their +time! Tarleton returned down the Rivanna River to its junction with the +James, where he assisted Simcoe in driving out Baron Steuben, who with a +few militia was trying to protect some arms there. Poor Steuben had but +few to protect, nothing to protect them with, and lost them all. At this +point the cavalry rejoined the main army under Cornwallis. + +In all these movements of both parties, the character of the "laboring +people," of which, as I have said, President Tyler spoke to me, was +illustrated. These people swarmed to Cornwallis with information, with +horses and supplies. They did not swell the ranks of the Virginia +militia. "He took away thirty thousand of our slaves," says Mr. +Jefferson. "Many of your negroes joined the enemy," says Lafayette +to Washington; "the news did not trouble me much, for that sort of +interests touch me very little." This is in the letter where he tells +the General how his agent, Lund Washington, had been disgracefully +treating with the invaders. This disposition of the "laboring people," +away from the high-roads, indeed, as Mr. Tyler said, explains the +difference between Southern and Northern Revolutionary campaigns. The +English forces never marched a day's march inland in the Northern +States, excepting the three marches of two days or three, when they +came to Bennington, to Saratoga, and to Trenton,--three memorable +stopping-places. But in a country where the "laboring people" did not +bear arms, they went to and fro, for months, as they chose. The Southern +militia was small in numbers, and not trustworthy. The troops whom +Lafayette relied upon, "the best troops in the world, far superior, in +equal numbers, to the English," were his two thousand Northern men of +the Continental line. Lord Cornwallis reunited all his forces at Elk +Island, about forty miles above Richmond on James River. His own +head-quarters were at "Jefferson's Plantation." He proposed another +blow, on the stores collected in Old Albemarle Court-House, behind the +mountains; and on the 9th of June he ordered Tarleton to march thither +at daybreak, but recalled the order. He seems to have preferred waiting +till he could attack "the Marquis," as they all called Lafayette, to +advantage, to risking any considerable division in the mountains. And +as he lay, the road by which he supposed Lafayette must come down from +Raccoon Ford to protect Albemarle would expose him to a flank attack +as he passed the head of Byrd's River. It was at this time, that, in a +despatch which was intercepted, he wrote, "The boy cannot escape +me." Lafayette tells the story with great gusto. "The boy" found a +mountain-road which crossed farther west than that which he was expected +to march upon. It had been long disused, but he pressed through it,--and +at Burwell's Ordinary, in a neighborhood where our troops will find +villages with the promising names of Union Town and Everettsville, he +formed, on the 12th and 13th, in a strong position between Cornwallis +and the coveted magazines. Cornwallis affected to suppose that the +stores had been withdrawn; but, as he had given up Fredericksburg +that he might destroy these very stores, Lafayette had good reason to +congratulate himself that he had foiled him in the two special objects +of the campaign, and had reduced him to the business which he did not +like, of "stealing tobacco." For whatever reason, Cornwallis did not +press his enterprise. With a force so formidable and a leader so +enterprising before him, he did not care to entangle himself in the +passes of the Blue Ridge. We shall know from General Banks's column, by +the time this paper is printed, what are the facilities they afford for +cover to an enemy. Leaving the Albemarle stores, therefore, and the road +to Greene behind the mountains, he retraced his steps down the valley +of the James River, and, passing Richmond, descended as low as +Williamsburg, the point from which we have been tracing Lafayette's +movements. + +Lafayette followed him with delight, not to say amazement. "The enemy is +so obliging as to withdraw before us," he writes,--and probably, to the +end of his life, he did not fully understand why Lord Cornwallis did so. +Their forces were numerically about equal, each commanding now rather +more than five thousand men. But of Lafayette's only fifty were cavalry, +a very important arm in that campaign, while Cornwallis had now eight +hundred men mounted on the blood horses of Virginia. It was not true, as +Lafayette thought possible, that the English exaggerated his force. It +appears from Tarleton's memoirs that they estimated it very precisely. +But we now know from Cornwallis's letters, that he had promised Clinton +to be at Williamsburg on the 26th of June, ready for any operations +he might then and there propose. He hoped that Clinton would largely +reinforce him, so that his favorite scheme of "solid operations in +Virginia" might be carried on. At all events, he had promised to have +his army at Williamsburg to join any force which Clinton might send to +him. To make this imagined junction, which never took place, he began +his retreat. Lafayette again offered him battle; but Cornwallis did +not accept the opportunity, and on the 25th of June he arrived at +Williamsburg. Lafayette was always one day's march behind him, and +encamped at last at Tyre's Plantation, one day beyond Williamsburg, +which may become famous again in a few days. Colonel Butler, of +Pennsylvania, with his riflemen, attacked Colonel Simcoe, of the English +corps of refugees, at the Fords of the Chickahominy, about six miles +west of Williamsburg. We shall be hearing of these fords again. + +At Williamsburg poor Cornwallis met his fate. He had, perhaps, been +dreading the arrival of his despatches from Clinton, through all the +month he had been in Virginia. At last they came. Clinton was sorry he +was there, expressed his regret that Cornwallis did not favor his plan +for marching on Philadelphia, gave him _carte blanche_ for Baltimore or +Delaware,--but, instead of reinforcing him, asked for two thousand men, +if he could spare them. The letter is, on the whole, a manly letter, +from a superior to an inferior, who had social rank higher than himself, +and more of the confidence of their Government. It gives Cornwallis +great latitude; but it does not "abandon New York and bring our whole +force into Virginia," which was Cornwallis's pet plan. + +His Lordship behaved ill,--and, in a pet, threw away the British empire +in America. He sulked, to speak simply. He took the sullen policy +of literal obedience to orders, though he knew he should "break his +owners." He marched at once, crossed James River at Jamestown, where +Lafayette attacked his rear,--and, if his Lordship had been in +fighting humor, would have got well beaten for his pains,--withdrew to +Portsmouth, and put on vessels the two thousand men asked for by Sir +Henry. Just then new despatches came from Clinton, who had received +later news, and who was always trying to humor this spoiled child. He +told him to keep all his men in Virginia, where he would take command +himself as soon as the hot season was over. The "solid operations" were +to begin. Very unstable they proved, even in the beginning! + +Clinton ordered him to take post at Old Point Comfort,--where Fort +Monroe is. But the engineer officers reported that they could not +protect the fleet there against the French; and, to the delight of +Lafayette and of all good angels, Cornwallis selected Yorktown for his +summer position. Our neighborhood to it at Fort Monroe has made the +position again familiar. + +When Lafayette heard that the troops had sailed up the +Chesapeake,--instead of to New York, which he had very correctly +supposed to be their destination,--he thought Cornwallis was going to +strike at Baltimore, and that he must "cut across" to Fredericksburg. +That way he marched with his light infantry. His amazement hardly +concealed itself when he found the enemy stopped at Yorktown. Back he +came to Williamsburg, and wrote to Washington,--"If a fleet should +arrive at this moment, our affairs will take a very fortunate turn." +This was on the 6th of August. On the 1st of September he could +write,--"From the bottom of my heart, my dear General, I felicitate you +on the arrival of the French fleet.... Thanks to you, my dear General, +I am in a charming situation, and I find myself at the head of a superb +corps." The Marquis of St. Simon joined him with three thousand French +infantry from the fleet,--and at Williamsburg they effectually kept +Cornwallis from escape by land, as the French fleet did by sea. + +The only proposal which Cornwallis made to save his corps after this was +carefully considered, and, it is said, at one time determined on; but it +was finally rejected, in expectation of relief from Clinton. Just now +that we are beginning "solid operations in Virginia," and may have +occasion to move a hundred thousand men, more or less, up the long neck +of land between York and James Rivers, the passage is an interesting +one. Washington had not yet arrived. The English plan was to attack and +beat Lafayette and St. Simon before Washington joined them. The English +columns were to move from Yorktown so as to attack Williamsburg before +daybreak. "That time was deemed eligible," says Tarleton, "because the +ground near and in Williamsburg is cut by several ravines, and because +the British column, in advancing in the long and straight road through +the town, would not be so much exposed to the enemy's cannon under cover +of the night as during the day." Let the reader remember these defiles, +as he traces the march of another column from Fort Monroe through +Yorktown to Williamsburg, with some General Magruder falling back +before it, watching his chances to strike. Cornwallis gave up the plan, +however, and waited for the help from Clinton, which never came. On the +15th of September Washington and Rochambeau joined Lafayette; on the +18th of October Cornwallis capitulated, and for eighty years the +Virginian campaigns were over. + +There is not one subdivision of them but is touched by the movements of +to-day. Everything is changed, indeed, except Virginia. But Raccoon Ford +and Bottom's Bridge are where they were then. The division which marches +on Gordonsville may send a party down the "Marquis's Road," as the +people still call the wood-road which Lafayette opened; and all the +battles of the next month,[A] in short, will be fought on the ground +familiar to the soldiers of eighty years ago. + + +[Footnote A: By "the next month" the writer meant May. It will be +observed that his article was finally prepared for the press on the +second of April. It has not since been changed. The references to +Williamsburg, the Chickahominy, and the "neck between the rivers" are +not "prophecies after the fact."] + + + + +SUNTHIN' IN THE PASTORAL LINE. + + +_To the Editors of the_ ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +Jaalam, 17th May, 1862. + +Gentlemen,--At the special request of Mr. Biglow, I intended to inclose, +together with his own contribution, (into which, at my suggestion, +he has thrown a little more of pastoral sentiment than usual,) some +passages from my sermon on the day of the National Fast, from the text, +"Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them," _Heb_. xiii. 3. +But I have not leisure sufficient at present for the copying of them, +even were I altogether satisfied with the production as it stands. I +should prefer, I confess, to contribute the entire discourse to the +pages of your respectable miscellany, if it should be found acceptable +upon perusal, especially as I find the difficulty of selection of +greater magnitude than I had anticipated. What passes without challenge +in the fervour of oral delivery cannot always stand the colder criticism +of the closet. I am not so great an enemy of Eloquence as my friend Mr. +Biglow would appear to be from some passages in his contribution for +the current month. I would not, indeed, hastily suspect him of covertly +glancing at myself in his somewhat caustick animadversions, albeit some +of the phrases he girds at are not entire strangers to my lips. I am a +more hearty admirer of the Puritans than seems now to be the fashion, +and believe, that, if they Hebraized a little too much in their speech, +they showed remarkable practical sagacity as statesmen and founders. But +such phenomena as Puritanism are the results rather of great religious +than merely social convulsions, and do not long survive them. So soon as +an earnest conviction has cooled into a phrase, its work is over, and +the best that can be done with it is to bury it. _Ite, missa est_. I +am inclined to agree with Mr. Biglow that we cannot settle the great +political questions which are now presenting themselves to the nation by +the opinions of Jeremiah or Ezekiel as to the wants and duties of the +Jews in their time, nor do I believe that an entire community with their +feelings and views would be practicable or even agreeable at the present +day. At the same time I could wish that their habit of subordinating +the actual to the moral, the flesh to the spirit, and this world to the +other were more common. They had found out, at least, the great military +secret that soul weighs more than body.--But I am suddenly called to a +sick-bed in the household of a valued parishioner. + +With esteem and respect. Your ob't serv't HOMER WILBUR. + + Once git a smell o' musk into a draw + An' it clings hold like precerdents in law: + Your gran'ma'am put it there,--when, goodness knows,-- + To jes' this-worldify her Sunday-clo'es; + But the old chist wun't sarve her gran'son's wife, + (For, 'thout new funnitoor, wut good in life?) + An' so ole clawfoot, from the precinks dread + O' the spare-chamber, slinks into the shed, + Where, dim with dust, it fust or last subsides + To holdin' seeds an' fifty things besides; + But better days stick fast in heart an' husk, + An' all you keep in't gits a scent o' musk. + + Jes' so with poets: wut they've airly read + Gits kind o' worked into their heart an' head, + So's 't they can't seem to write but jest on sheers + With furrin countries or played-out ideers, + Nor hev a feelin', ef it doosn't smack + O' wut some critter chose to feel 'way back: + This makes 'em talk o' daisies, larks, an' things, + Ez though we 'd nothin' here that blows an' sings,-- + + (Why, I'd give more for one live bobolink + Than a square mile o' larks in printer's ink,)-- + This makes 'em think our fust o' May is May, + Which 't ain't, for all the almanicks can say. + + O little city-gals, don't never go it + Blind on the word o' noospaper or poet! + They 're apt to puff, an' May-day seldom looks + Up in the country ez it doos in books; + They 're no more like than hornets'-nests an' hives, + Or printed sarmons be to holy lives. + I, with my trouses perched on cow-hide boots, + Tuggin' my foundered feet out by the roots, + Hev seen ye come to fling on April's hearse + Your muslin nosegays from the milliner's, + Puzzlin' to find dry ground your queen to choose, + An' dance your throats sore in morocker shoes: + I've seen ye an' felt proud, thet, come wut would, + Our Pilgrim stock wuz pithed with hardihood. + Pleasure doos make us Yankees kind o' winch, + Ez though 't wuz sunthin' paid for by the inch; + But yit we du contrive to worry thru, + Ef Dooty tells us thet the thing's to du, + An' kerry a hollerday, ef we set out, + Ez stiddily ez though 't wuz a redoubt. + + I, country-born an' bred, know where to find + Some blooms thet make the season suit the mind, + An' seem to metch the doubtin' bluebird's notes,-- + Half-vent'rin' liverworts in furry coats, + Bloodroots, whose rolled-up leaves ef you oncurl, + Each on 'em's cradle to a baby-pearl,-- + But these are jes' Spring's pickets; sure ez sin, + The rebble frosts 'll try to drive 'em in; + For half our May's so awfully like Mayn't, + 'T would rile a Shaker or an evrige saint; + Though I own up I like our back'ard springs + Thet kind o' haggle with their greens an' things, + An' when you 'most give up, without more words + Toss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, an' birds: + Thet's Northun natur', slow an' apt to doubt, + But when it _doos_ git stirred, ther's no gin-out! + + Fust come the blackbirds clatt'rin' in tall trees, + An' settlin' things in windy Congresses,-- + Queer politicians, though, for I'll be skinned, + Ef all on 'em don't head aginst the wind. + 'Fore long the trees begin to show belief,-- + The maple crimsons to a coral-reef, + Then saffern swarms swing off from all the willers + So plump they look like yaller caterpillars, + Then gray hossches'nuts leetle hands unfold + + Softer 'n a baby's be at three days old: + This is the robin's almanick; he knows + Thet arter this ther' 's only blossom-snows; + So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse, + He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house. + + Then seems to come a hitch,--things lag behind, + Till some fine mornin' Spring makes up her mind, + An' ez, when snow-swelled rivers cresh their dams + Heaped-up with ice thet dovetails in an' jams, + A leak comes spirtin' thru some pin-hole cleft, + Grows stronger, fercer, tears out right an' left, + Then all the waters bow themselves an' come, + Suddin, in one gret slope o' shedderin' foam, + Jes' so our Spring gits everythin' in tune + An' gives one leap from April into June: + Then all comes crowdin' in; afore you think, + The oak-buds mist the side-hill woods with pink, + The catbird in the laylock-bush is loud, + The orchards turn to heaps o' rosy cloud, + In ellum-shrouds the flashin' hangbird clings + An' for the summer vy'ge his hammock slings, + All down the loose-walled lanes in archin' bowers + The barb'ry droops its strings o' golden flowers, + Whose shrinkin' hearts the school-gals love to try + With pins,--they 'll worry yourn so, boys, bimeby! + But I don't love your cat'logue style,--do you?-- + Ez ef to sell all Natur' by vendoo; + One word with blood in 't's twice ez good ez two: + 'Nuff sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the year, + Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here; + Half-hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings, + Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings, + Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair, + Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air. + + I ollus feel the sap start in my veins + In spring, with curus heats an' prickly pains, + Thet drive me, when I git a chance, to walk + Off by myself to hev a privit talk + With a queer critter thet can't seem to 'gree + Along o' me like most folks,--Mister Me. + Ther' 's times when I'm unsoshle ez a stone, + An' sort o' suffocate to be alone,-- + I'm crowded jes' to think thet folks are nigh, + An' can't bear nothin' closer than the sky; + Now the wind's full ez shifty in the mind + Ez wut it is ou'-doors, ef I ain't blind, + An' sometimes, in the fairest sou'west weather, + My innard vane pints east for weeks together, + My natur' gits all goose-flesh, an' my sins + Come drizzlin' on my conscience sharp ez pins: + + Wal, et sech times I jes' slip out o' sight + An' take it out in a fair stan'-up fight + With the one cuss I can't lay on the shelf, + The crook'dest stick in all the heap,--Myself. + + 'T wuz so las' Sabbath arter meetin'-time: + Findin' my feelins wouldn't noways rhyme + With nobody's, but off the hendle flew + An' took things from an east-wind pint o' view, + I started off to lose me in the hills + Where the pines be, up back o' 'Siah's Mills: + Pines, ef you're blue, are the best friends I know, + They mope an' sigh an' sheer your feelins so,-- + They hesh the ground beneath so, tu, I swan, + You half-forgit you 'we gut a body on. + + Ther's a small school'us' there where four roads meet, + The door-steps hollered out by little feet, + An' side-posts carved with names whose owners grew + To gret men, some on 'em, an' deacons, tu; + 'T ain't used no longer, coz the town hez gut + A high-school, where they teach the Lord knows wut: + Three-story larnin' 's pop'lar now; I guess + We thriv' ez wal on jes' two stories less, + For it strikes me ther' 's sech a thing ez sinnin' + By overloadin' children's underpitmin': + Wal, here it wuz I larned my A B C, + An' it's a kind o' favorite spot with me. + + We 're curus critters: Now ain't jes' the minute + Thet ever fits us easy while we 're in it; + Long ez 't wuz futur', 't would be perfect bliss,-- + Soon ez it's past, _thet_ time's wuth ten o' this; + An' yit there ain't a man thet need be told + Thet Now's the only bird lays eggs o' gold. + A knee-high lad, I used to plot an' plan + An' think 't wuz life's cap-sheaf to be a man; + Now, gittin' gray, there's nothin' I enjoy + Like dreamin' back along into a boy: + So the ole school'us' is a place I choose + Afore all others, ef I want to muse; + I set down where I used to set, an' git + My boyhood back, an' better things with it,-- + Faith, Hope, an' sunthin', ef it isn't Cherrity, + It's want o' guile, an' thet's ez gret a rerrity. + + Now, 'fore I knowed, thet Sabbath arternoon + Thet I sot out to tramp myself in tune, + I found me in the school'us' on my seat, + Drummin' the march to No-wheres with my feet. + Thinkin' o' nothin', I've heerd ole folks say, + Is a hard kind o' dooty in its way: + It's thinkin' everythin' you ever knew, + Or ever hearn, to make your feelins blue. + I sot there tryin' thet on for a spell: + I thought o' the Rebellion, then o' Hell, + Which some folks tell ye now is jest a metterfor + (A the'ry, p'raps, it wun't _feel_ none the better for); + I thought o' Reconstruction, wut we 'd win + Patchin' our patent self-blow-up agin; + I thought ef tins 'ere milkin' o' the wits, + So much, a month, warn't givin' Natur' fits,-- + Ef folks warn't druv, findin' their own milk fail, + To work the cow thet hez an iron tail, + An' ef idees 'thout ripenin' in the pan + Would send up cream to humor ary man: + From this to thet I let my worryin' creep, + Till finally I must ha' fell asleep. + + Our lives in sleep are some like streams thet glide + 'Twixt flesh an' sperrit boundin' on each side, + Where both shores' shadders kind o' mix an' mingle + In sunthin' thet ain't jes' like either single; + An' when you cast off' moorins from To-day, + An' down towards To-morrer drift away, + The imiges thet tengle on the stream + Make a new upside-down'ard world o' dream: + Sometimes they seem like sunrise-streaks an' warnins + O' wut 'll be in Heaven on Sabbath-mornins, + An', mixed right in ez ef jest out o' spite, + Sunthin' thet says your supper ain't gone right. + I'm gret on dreams, an' often, when I wake, + I've lived so much it makes my mem'ry ache, + An' can't skurce take a cat-nap in my cheer + 'Thout hevin' 'em, some good, some bad, all queer. + + Now I wuz settin' where I 'd ben, it seemed, + An' ain't sure yit whether I r'ally dreamed, + Nor, ef I did, how long I might ha' slep', + When I hearn some un stompin' up the step, + An' lookin' round, ef two an' two make four, + I see a Pilgrim Father in the door. + He wore a steeple-hat, tall boots, an' spurs + With rowels to 'em big ez ches'nut-burrs, + An' his gret sword behind him sloped away + Long 'z a man's speech thet dunno wut to say.-- + "Ef your name's Biglow, an' your given-name + Hosee," sez he, "it's arter you I came; + I'm your gret-gran'ther multiplied by three."-- + "My _wut_?" sez I.--"Your gret-gret-gret," sez he: + "You wouldn't ha' never ben here but for me. + Two hunderd an' three year ago this May + The ship I come in sailed up Boston Bay; + I 'd ben a cunnle in our Civil War,-- + But wut on airth hev _you_ gut up one for? + I'm told you write in public prints: ef true, + It's nateral you should know a thing or two."-- + "Thet air's an argymunt I can't endorse,-- + 'T would prove, coz you wear spurs, you kep' a horse: + For brains," sez I, "wutever you may think, + Ain't boun' to cash the draft o' pen-an'-ink,-- + Though mos' folks write ez ef they hoped jes' quickenin' + The churn would argoo skim-milk into thickenin'; + But skim-milk ain't a thing to change its view + O' usefleness, no more 'n a smoky flue. + But du pray tell me, 'fore we furder go, + How in all Natur' did you come to know + 'Bout our affairs," sez I, "in Kingdom-Come?"-- + "Wal, I worked round at sperrit-rappin' some, + In hopes o' larnin' wut wuz goin' on," + Sez he, "but mejums lie so like all-split + Thet I concluded it wuz best to quit. + But, come now, ef you wun't confess to knowin', + You 've some conjecturs how the thing's a-goin'."-- + "Gran'ther," sez I, "a vane warn't never known + Nor asked to hev a jedgment of its own; + An' yit, ef 't ain't gut rusty in the jints, + It 'a safe to trust its say on certin pints: + It knows the wind's opinions to a T, + An' the wind settles wut the weather 'll be-"-- + "I never thought a scion of our stock + Could grow the wood to make a weathercock; + When I wuz younger 'n you, skurce more 'n a shaver, + No airthly wind," sez he, "could make me waver!" + (Ez he said this, he clinched his jaw an' forehead, + Hitchin' his belt to bring his sword-hilt forrard.)-- + "Jes' so it wuz with me," sez I, "I swow, + When _I_ wuz younger 'n wut you see me now,-- + Nothin', from Adam's fall to Huldy's bonnet, + Thet I warn't full-cocked with my jedgement on it; + But now I'm gittin' on in life, I find + It's a sight harder to make up my mind,-- + Nor I don't often try tu, when events + Will du it for me free of all expense. + The moral question's ollus plain enough,-- + It's jes' the human-natur' side thet's tough; + Wut's best to think mayn't puzzle me nor you,--. + The pinch comes in decidin' wut to _du_; + Ef you _read_ History, all runs smooth ez grease, + Coz there the men ain't nothin more 'n idees,-- + But come to _make_ it, ez we must to-day, + Th' idees hev arms an' legs an' stop the way: + It's easy fixin' things in facts an' figgers,-- + They can't resist, nor warn't brought up with niggers; + But come to try your the'ry on,--why, then + Your facts an' figgers change to ign'ant men + Actin' ez ugly"----"Smite 'em hip an' thigh!" + Sez gran'ther, "an' let every man-child die! + Oh for three weeks o' Crommle an' the Lord! + O Israel, to your tents an' grind the sword!"-- + "Thet kind o' thing worked wal in ole Judee, + But yon forgit how long It's ben A.D.; + You think thet's ellerkence,--I call it shoddy, + A thing," sez I, "wun't cover sonl nor body; + I like the plain all-wool o' common-sense, + Thet warms ye now, an' will a twelvemonth hence. + _You_ took to follerin' where the Prophets beckoned, + An', fust you knowed on, back come Charles the Second; + Now wut I want's to hev all _we_ gain stick, + An' not to start Millennium too quick; + We hain't to punish only, but to keep, + An' the cure's gut to go a cent'ry deep."-- + "Wal, milk-an'-water ain't a good cement," + Sez he, "an' so you 'll find it in th' event; + Ef reshness venters sunthin', shilly-shally + Loses ez often wut's ten times the vally. + Thet exe of ourn, when Charles's neck gut split, + Opened a gap thet ain't bridged over yit: + Slav'ry's your Charles, the Lord hez gin the exe,"-- + "Our Charles," sez I, "hez gut eight million necks. + The hardest question ain't the black man's right,-- + The trouble is to'mancipate the white; + One's chained in body an' can be sot free,-- + The other's chained in soul to an idee: + It's a long job, but we shall worry thru it; + Ef bag'nets fail, the spellin'-book must do it."-- + "Hosee," sez he, "I think you 're goin' to fail: + The rettlesnake ain't dangerous in the tail; + This 'ere rebellion's nothin' but the rettle,-- + You 'll stomp on thet an' think you 've won the bettle; + It's Slavery thet's the fangs an' thinkin' head, + An' ef you want selvation, cresh it dead,-- + An' crash it suddin, or you 'll larn by waitin' + Thet Chance wun't stop to listen to debatin'!"-- + "God's truth!" sez I,--"an' ef _I_ held the club, + An' knowed jes' where to strike,--but there's the rub!"-- + "Strike soon," sez he, "or you 'll be deadly ailin',-- + Folks thet's afeared to fail are sure o' failin'; + God hates your sneakin' creturs thet believe + He 'II settle things they run away an' leave!" + He brought his foot down fercely, ez he spoke, + An' give me sech a startle thet I woke. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, +June, 1862, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NO. 56 *** + +***** This file should be named 12310-8.txt or 12310-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/3/1/12310/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: May 10, 2004 [EBook #12310] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NO. 56 *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders. Produced from page scans provided by Cornell University. + + + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + + * * * * * + +VOL. IX.--JUNE, 1862.--NO. LVI. + + * * * * * + + + + +WALKING. + + +I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as +contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,--to regard man as +an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member +of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an +emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the +minister, and the school-committee, and every one of you will take care +of that. + + +I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who +understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,--who had a +genius, so to speak, for _sauntering_: which word is beautifully derived +"from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and +asked charity, under pretence of going _a la Sainte Terre_," to the Holy +Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a _Sainte-Terrer_" a +Saunterer,--a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their +walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they +who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, +however, would derive the word from _sans terre_, without land or +a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no +particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret +of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may +be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, +is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while +sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the +first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is +a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth +and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels. + +It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, +nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our +expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old +hearth-side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our +steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit +of undying adventure, never to return,--prepared to send back our +embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are +ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and +child and friends, and never see them again,--if you have paid your +debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free +man, then you are ready for a walk. + +To come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for I sometimes +have a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselves knights of a new, +or rather an old, order,--not Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Ritters or +Riders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable class, I trust. +The chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the Rider seems +now to reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the Walker,--not +the Knight, but Walker Errant. He is a sort of fourth estate, outside of +Church and State and People. + +We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts practised this noble art; +though, to tell the truth, at least, if their own assertions are to be +received, most of my townsmen would fain walk sometimes, as I do, but +they cannot. No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and +independence, which are the capital in this profession. It comes only +by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven +to become a walker. You must be born into the family of the Walkers. +_Ambulator nascitur, non fit_. Some of my townsmen, it is true, can +remember and have described to me some walks which they took ten years +ago, in which they were so blessed as to lose themselves for half +an hour in the woods; but I know very well that they have confined +themselves to the highway ever since, whatever pretensions they may make +to belong to this select class. No doubt they were elevated for a moment +as by the reminiscence of a previous state of existence, when even they +were foresters and outlaws. + + "When he came to grene wode, + In a mery mornynge, + There he herde the notes small + Of byrdes mery syngynge. + + "It is ferre gone, sayd Robyn, + That I was last here; + Me lyste a lytell for to shote + At the donne dere." + +I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend +four hours a day at least--and it is commonly more than that--sauntering +through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from +all worldly engagements. You may safely say, A penny for your thoughts, +or a thousand pounds. When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics +and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all +the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them,--as if +the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon,--I think +that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long +ago. + +I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring some +rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk at the eleventh +hour of four o'clock in the afternoon, too late to redeem the day, +when the shades of night were already beginning to be mingled with the +daylight, have felt as if I had committed some sin to be atoned for,--I +confess that I am astonished at the power of endurance, to say nothing +of the moral insensibility, of my neighbors who confine themselves to +shops and offices the whole day for weeks and months, ay, and years +almost together. I know not what manner of stuff they are of,--sitting +there now at three o'clock in the afternoon, as if it were three o'clock +in the morning. Bonaparte may talk of the three-o'clock-in-the-morning +courage, but it is nothing to the courage which can sit down cheerfully +at this hour in the afternoon over against one's self whom you have +known all the morning, to starve out a garrison to whom you are bound +by such strong ties of sympathy. I wonder that about this time, or say +between four and five o'clock in the afternoon, too late for the morning +papers and too early for the evening ones, there is not a general +explosion heard up and down the street, scattering a legion of +antiquated and house-bred notions and whims to the four winds for an +airing,--and so the evil cure itself. + +How womankind, who are confined to the house still more than men, stand +it I do not know; but I have ground to suspect that most of them do +not _stand_ it at all. When, early in a summer afternoon, we have been +shaking the dust of the village from the skirts of our garments, making +haste past those houses with purely Doric or Gothic fronts, which have +such an air of repose about them, my companion whispers that probably +about these times their occupants are all gone to bed. Then it is that I +appreciate the beauty and the glory of architecture, which itself never +turns in, but forever stands out and erect, keeping watch over the +slumberers. + +No doubt temperament, and, above all, age, have a good deal to do with +it. As a man grows older, his ability to sit still and follow in-door +occupations increases. He grows vespertinal in his habits as the evening +of life approaches, till at last he comes forth only just before +sundown, and gets all the walk that he requires in half an hour. + +But the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking +exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated +hours,--as the swinging of dumb-bells or chairs; but is itself the +enterprise and adventure of the day. If you would get exercise, go in +search of the springs of life. Think of a man's swinging dumb-bells +for his health, when those springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures +unsought by him! + +Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only +beast which ruminates when walking. When a traveller asked Wordsworth's +servant to show him her master's study, she answered, "Here is his +library, but his study is out of doors." + +Living much out of doors, in the sun and wind, will no doubt produce a +certain roughness of character,--will cause a thicker cuticle to grow +over some of the finer qualities of our nature, as on the face and +hands, or as severe manual labor robs the hands of some of their +delicacy of touch. So staying in the house, on the other hand, may +produce a softness and smoothness, not to say thinness of skin, +accompanied by an increased sensibility to certain impressions. Perhaps +we should be more susceptible to some influences important to our +intellectual and moral growth, if the sun had shone and the wind blown +on us a little less; and no doubt it is a nice matter to proportion +rightly the thick and thin skin. But methinks that is a scurf that will +fall off fast enough,--that the natural remedy is to be found in the +proportion which the night bears to the day, the winter to the summer, +thought to experience. There will be so much the more air and sunshine +in our thoughts. The callous palms of the laborer are conversant with +finer tissues of self-respect and heroism, whose touch thrills the +heart, than the languid fingers of idleness. That is mere sentimentality +that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and +callus of experience. + +When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become +of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall? Even some sects +of philosophers have felt the necessity of importing the woods to +themselves, since they did not go to the woods. "They planted groves and +walks of Platanes," where they took _subdiales ambulationes_ in porticos +open to the air. Of course it is of no use to direct our steps to the +woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am alarmed when it happens +that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there +in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning +occupations and my obligations to society. But it sometimes happens that +I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run +in my head, and I am not where my body is,--I am out of my senses. In +my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the +woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods? I suspect myself, +and cannot help a shudder, when I find myself so implicated even in what +are called good works,--for this may sometimes happen. + +My vicinity affords many good walks; and though for so many years I have +walked almost every day, and sometimes for several days together, I have +not yet exhausted them. An absolutely new prospect is a great happiness, +and I can still get this any afternoon. Two or three hours' walking +will carry me to as strange a country as I expect ever to see. A single +farm-house which I had not seen before is sometimes as good as the +dominions of the King of Dahomey. There is in fact a sort of harmony +discoverable between the capabilities of the landscape within a circle +of ten miles' radius, or the limits of an afternoon walk, and the +threescore years and ten of human life. It will never become quite +familiar to you. + +Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the building of +houses, and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, +simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap. A +people who would begin by burning the fences and let the forest stand! +I saw the fences half consumed, their ends lost in the middle of the +prairie, and some worldly miser with a surveyor looking after his +bounds, while heaven had taken place around him, and he did not see the +angels going to and fro, but was looking for an old post-hole in the +midst of paradise. I looked again, and saw him standing in the middle of +a boggy, stygian fen, surrounded by devils, and he had found his bounds +without a doubt, three little stones, where a stake had been driven, and +looking nearer, I saw that the Prince of Darkness was his surveyor. + +I can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any number of miles, commencing +at my own door, without going by any house, without crossing a road +except where the fox and the mink do: first along by the river, and then +the brook, and then the meadow and the wood-side. There are square miles +in my vicinity which have no inhabitant. From many a hill I can see +civilization and the abodes of man afar. The farmers and their works are +scarcely more obvious than woodchucks and their burrows. Man and +his affairs, church and state and school, trade and commerce, and +manufactures and agriculture, even politics, the most alarming of +them all,--I am pleased to see how little space they occupy in the +landscape. Politics is but a narrow field, and that still narrower +highway yonder leads to it. I sometimes direct the traveller thither. If +you would go to the political world, follow the great road,--follow that +market-man, keep his dust in your eyes, and it will lead you straight to +it; for it, too, has its place merely, and does not occupy all space. I +pass from it as from a beanfield into the forest, and it is forgotten. +In one half-hour I can walk off to some portion of the earth's surface +where a man does not stand from one year's end to another, and there, +consequently, politics are not, for they are but as the cigar-smoke of a +man. + +The village is the place to which the roads tend, a sort of expansion of +the highway, as a lake of a river. It is the body of which roads are +the arms and legs,--a trivial or quadrivial place, the thoroughfare +and ordinary of travellers. The word is from the Latin _villa_, which, +together with _via_, a way, or more anciently _ved_ and _vella_, Varro +derives from _veho_, to carry, because the villa is the place to and +from which things are carried. They who got their living by teaming were +said _vellaturam facere_. Hence, too, apparently, the Latin word _vilis_ +and our vile; also _villain_. This suggests what kind of degeneracy +villagers are liable to. They are wayworn by the travel that goes by and +over them, without travelling themselves. + +Some do not walk at all; others walk in the highways; a few walk across +lots. Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel +in them much, comparatively, because I am not in a hurry to get to any +tavern or grocery or livery-stable or depot to which they lead. I am +a good horse to travel, but not from choice a roadster. The +landscape-painter uses the figures of men to mark a road. He would not +make that use of my figure. I walk out into a Nature such as the old +prophets and poets, Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in. You may +name it America, but it is not America: neither Americus Vespucius, nor +Columbus, nor the rest were the discoverers of it. There is a truer +account of it in mythology than in any history of America, so called, +that I have seen. + +However, there are a few old roads that may be trodden with profit, as +if they led somewhere now that they are nearly discontinued. There +is the Old Marlborough Road, which does not go to Marlborough now, +methinks, unless that is Marlborough where it carries me. I am the +bolder to speak of it here, because I presume that there are one or two +such roads in every town. + +THE OLD MARLBOROUGH ROAD. + + Where they once dug for money, + But never found any; + Where sometimes Martial Miles + Singly files, + And Elijah Wood, + I fear for no good: + No other man, + Save Elisha Dugan,-- + O man of wild habits, + Partridges and rabbits, + Who hast no cares + Only to set snares, + Who liv'st all alone, + Close to the bone, + And where life is sweetest + Constantly eatest. + When the spring stirs my blood + With the instinct to travel, + I can get enough gravel + On the Old Marlborough Road. + Nobody repairs it, + For nobody wears it; + It is a living way, + As the Christians say. + Not many there be + Who enter therein, + Only the guests of the + Irishman Quin. + What is it, what is it, + But a direction out there, + And the bare possibility + Of going somewhere? + Great guide-boards of stone, + But travellers none; + Cenotaphs of the towns + Named on their crowns. + It is worth going to see + Where you _might_ be. + What king + Did the thing, + Set up how or when, + By what selectmen, + Gourgas or Lee, + Clark or Darby? + They're a great endeavor + To be something forever; + Blank tablets of stone, + Where a traveller might groan, + And in one sentence + Grave all that is known; + Which another might read, + In his extreme need. + I know one or two + Lines that would do, + Literature that might stand + All over the land, + Which a man could remember + Till next December, + And road again in the spring, + After the thawing. + If with fancy unfurled + You leave your abode, + You may go round the world + By the Old Marlborough Road. + +At present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is not private +property; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative +freedom. But possibly the day will come when it will be partitioned off +into so-called pleasure-grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and +exclusive pleasure only,--when fences shall be multiplied, and man-traps +and other engines invented to confine men to the _public_ road, and +walking over the surface of God's earth shall be construed to mean +trespassing on some gentleman's grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively +is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us +improve our opportunities, then, before the evil days come. + +What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we will +walk? + +I believe that there is a subtile magnetism in Nature, which, if we +unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not indifferent +to us which way we walk. There is a right way; but we are very liable +from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one. We would fain +take that walk, never yet taken by us through this actual world, which +is perfectly symbolical of the path which we love to travel in the +interior and ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we find it difficult +to choose our direction, because it does not yet exist distinctly in our +idea. + +When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I will +bend my steps, and submit myself to my instinct to decide for me, +I find, strange and whimsical as it may seem, that I finally and +inevitably settle southwest, toward some particular wood or meadow +or deserted pasture or hill in that direction. My needle is slow to +settle,--varies a few degrees, and does not always point due southwest, +it is true, and it has good authority for this variation, but it always +settles between west and south-southwest. The future lies that way to +me, and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side. +The outline which would bound my walks would be, not a circle, but a +parabola, or rather like one of those cometary orbits which have been +thought to be non-returning curves, in this case opening westward, in +which my house occupies the place of the sun. I turn round and round +irresolute sometimes for a quarter of an hour, until I decide, for the +thousandth time, that I will walk into the southwest or west. Eastward I +go only by force; but westward I go free. Thither no business leads +me. It is hard for me to believe that I shall find fair landscapes or +sufficient wildness and freedom behind the eastern horizon. I am not +excited by the prospect of a walk thither; but I believe that the forest +which I see in the western horizon stretches uninterruptedly towards +the setting sun, and that there are no towns nor cities in it of enough +consequence to disturb me. Let me live where I will, on this side is the +city, on that the wilderness, and ever I am leaving the city more and +more, and withdrawing into the wilderness. I should not lay so much +stress on this fact, if I did not believe that something like this is +the prevailing tendency of my countrymen. I must walk toward Oregon, and +not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that +mankind progress from east to west. Within a few years we have witnessed +the phenomenon of a southeastward migration, in the settlement of +Australia; but this affects us as a retrograde movement, and, judging +from the moral and physical character of the first generation of +Australians, has not yet proved a successful experiment. The eastern +Tartars think that there is nothing west beyond Thibet. "The world ends +there," say they; "beyond there is nothing but a shoreless sea." It is +unmitigated East where they live. + +We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and +literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the +future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure. The Atlantic is a +Lethean stream, in our passage over which we have had an opportunity to +forget the Old World and its institutions. If we do not succeed this +time, there is perhaps one more chance for the race left before it +arrives on the banks of the Styx; and that is in the Lethe of the +Pacific, which is three times as wide. + +I know not how significant it is, or how far it is an evidence of +singularity, that an individual should thus consent in his pettiest walk +with the general movement of the race; but I know that something akin +to the migratory instinct in birds and quadrupeds,--which, in some +instances, is known to have affected the squirrel tribe, impelling them +to a general and mysterious movement, in which they were seen, say some, +crossing the broadest rivers, each on its particular chip, with its tail +raised for a sail, and bridging narrower streams with their dead,--that +something like the _furor_ which affects the domestic cattle in the +spring, and which is referred to a worm in their tails,--affects both +nations and individuals, either perennially or from time to time. Not +a flock of wild geese cackles over our town, but it to some extent +unsettles the value of real estate here, and, if I were a broker, I +should probably take that disturbance into account. + + "Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages, + And palmeres for to seken strange strondes." + +Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to a West +as distant and as fair as that into which the sun goes down. He appears +to migrate westward daily, and tempt us to follow him. He is the Great +Western Pioneer whom the nations follow. We dream all night of those +mountain-ridges in the horizon, though they may be of vapor only, which +were last gilded by his rays. The island of Atlantis, and the islands +and gardens of the Hesperides, a sort of terrestrial paradise, appear +to have been the Great West of the ancients, enveloped in mystery and +poetry. Who has not seen in imagination, when looking into the sunset +sky, the gardens of the Hesperides, and the foundation of all those +fables? + +Columbus felt the westward tendency more strongly than any before. He +obeyed it, and found a New World for Castile and Leon. The herd of men +in those days scented fresh pastures from afar. + + "And now the sun had stretched out all the + hills, + And now was dropped into the western bay; + At last _he_ rose, and twitched his mantle blue; + To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new." + +Where on the globe can there be found an area of equal extent with that +occupied by the bulk of our States, so fertile and so rich and varied in +its productions, and at the same time so habitable by the European, as +this is? Michaux, who knew but part of them, says that "the species of +large trees are much more numerous in North America than in Europe; in +the United States there are more than one hundred and forty species that +exceed thirty feet in height; in France there are but thirty that attain +this size." Later botanists more than confirm his observations. Humboldt +came to America to realize his youthful dreams of a tropical vegetation, +and he beheld it in its greatest perfection in the primitive forests of +the Amazon, the most gigantic wilderness on the earth, which he has so +eloquently described. The geographer Guyot, himself a European, goes +farther,--farther than I am ready to follow him; yet not when he +says,--"As the plant is made for the animal, as the vegetable world is +made for the animal world, America is made for the man of the Old +World .... The man of the Old World sets out upon his way. Leaving the +highlands of Asia, he descends from station to station towards Europe. +Each of his steps is marked by a new civilization superior to the +preceding, by a greater power of development. Arrived at the Atlantic, +he pauses on the shore of this unknown ocean, the bounds of which he +knows not, and turns upon his footprints for an instant." When he has +exhausted the rich soil of Europe, and reinvigorated himself, "then +recommences his adventurous career westward as in the earliest ages." So +far Guyot. + +From this western impulse coming in contact with the barrier of the +Atlantic sprang the commerce and enterprise of modern times. The younger +Michaux, in his "Travels West of the Alleghanies in 1802," says that the +common inquiry in the newly settled West was, "'From what part of +the world have you come?' As if these vast and fertile regions would +naturally be the place of meeting and common country of all the +inhabitants of the globe." + +To use an obsolete Latin word, I might say, _Ex Oriente lux; ex +Occidente_ FRUX. From the East light; from the West fruit. + +Sir Francis Head, an English traveller and a Governor-General of Canada, +tells us that "in both the northern and southern hemispheres of the New +World, Nature has not only outlined her works on a larger scale, but has +painted the whole picture with brighter and more costly colors than she +used in delineating and in beautifying the Old World.... The heavens of +America appear infinitely higher, the sky is bluer, the air is fresher, +the cold is intenser, the moon looks larger, the stars are brighter, the +thunder is louder, the lightning is vivider, the wind is stronger, +the rain is heavier, the mountains are higher, the rivers longer, the +forests bigger, the plains broader." This statement will do at least +to set against Buffon's account of this part of the world and its +productions. + +Linnaeus said long ago, "Nescio quae facies _laeta, glabra_ plantis +Americanis: I know not what there is of joyous and smooth in the aspect +of American plants"; and I think that in this country there are no, or +at most very few, _Africanae bestice_, African beasts, as the Romans +called them, and that in this respect also it is peculiarly fitted for +the habitation of man. We are told that within three miles of the centre +of the East-Indian city of Singapore, some of the inhabitants are +annually carried off by tigers; but the traveller can lie down in the +woods at night almost anywhere in North America without fear of wild +beasts. + +These are encouraging testimonies. If the moon looks larger here than in +Europe, probably the sun looks larger also. If the heavens of America +appear infinitely higher, and the stars brighter, I trust that these +facts are symbolical of the height to which the philosophy and poetry +and religion of her inhabitants may one day soar. At length, perchance, +the immaterial heaven will appear as much higher to the American mind, +and the intimations that star it as much brighter. For I believe +that climate does thus react on man,--as there is something in the +mountain-air that feeds the spirit and inspires. Will not man grow to +greater perfection intellectually as well as physically under these +influences? Or is it unimportant how many foggy days there are in his +life? I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will +be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky,--our understanding +more comprehensive and broader, like our plains,--our intellect +generally on a grander scale, like our thunder and lightning, our rivers +and mountains and forests,--and our hearts shall even correspond in +breadth and depth and grandeur to our inland seas. Perchance there will +appear to the traveller something, he knows not what, of _laeta_ and +_glabra_, of joyous and serene, in our very faces. Else to what end does +the world go on, and why was America discovered? + +To Americans I hardly need to say,-- + +"Westward the star of empire takes its way." + +As a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam in paradise +was more favorably situated on the whole than the backwoodsman in this +country. + +Our sympathies in Massachusetts are not confined to New England; though +we may be estranged from the South, we sympathize with the West. There +is the home of the younger sons, as among the Scandinavians they took to +the sea for their inheritance. It is too late to be studying Hebrew; it +is more important to understand even the slang of to-day. + +Some months ago I went to see a panorama of the Rhine. It was like +a dream of the Middle Ages. I floated down its historic stream in +something more than imagination, under bridges built by the Romans, and +repaired by later heroes, past cities and castles whose very names were +music to my ears, and each of which was the subject of a legend. There +were Ehrenbreitstein and Rolandseck and Coblentz, which I knew only in +history. They were ruins that interested me chiefly. There seemed to +come up from its waters and its vine-clad hills and valleys a hushed +music as of Crusaders departing for the Holy Land. I floated along under +the spell of enchantment, as if I had been transported to an heroic age, +and breathed an atmosphere of chivalry. + +Soon after, I went to see a panorama of the Mississippi, and as I worked +my way up the river in the light of to-day, and saw the steamboats +wooding up, counted the rising cities, gazed on the fresh ruins of +Nauvoo, beheld the Indians moving west across the stream, and, as before +I had looked up the Moselle, now looked up the Ohio and the Missouri, +and heard the legends of Dubuque and of Wenona's Cliff,--still thinking +more of the future than of the past or present,--I saw that this was a +Rhine stream of a different kind; that the foundations of castles were +yet to be laid, and the famous bridges were yet to be thrown over the +river; and I felt that _this was the heroic age itself_, though we know +it not, for the hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men. + +The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I +have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of +the world. Every tree sends its fibres forth in search of the Wild. The +cities import it at any price. Men plough and sail for it. From the +forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind. Our +ancestors were savages. The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by +a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every State which has +risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar +wild source. It was because the children of the Empire were not suckled +by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the children of +the Northern forests who were. + +I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which +the corn grows. We require an infusion of hemlock-spruce or arbor-vitae +in our tea. There is a difference between eating and drinking for +strength and from mere gluttony. The Hottentots eagerly devour the +marrow of the koodoo and other antelopes raw, as a matter of course. +Some of our Northern Indians eat raw the marrow of the Arctic reindeer, +as well as various other parts, including the summits of the antlers, as +long as they are soft. And herein, perchance, they have stolen a march +on the cooks of Paris. They get what usually goes to feed the fire. This +is probably better than stall-fed beef and slaughter-house pork to +make a man of. Give me a wildness whose glance no civilization can +endure,--as if we lived on the marrow of koodoos devoured raw. + +There are some intervals which border the strain of the wood-thrush, to +which I would migrate,--wild lands where no settler has squatted; to +which, methinks, I am already acclimated. + +The African hunter Cummings tells us that the skin of the eland, as well +as that of most other antelopes just killed, emits the most delicious +perfume of trees and grass. I would have every man so much like a wild +antelope, so much a part and parcel of Nature, that his very person +should thus sweetly advertise our senses of his presence, and remind us +of those parts of Nature which he most haunts. I feel no disposition to +be satirical, when the trapper's coat emits the odor of musquash even; +it is a sweeter scent to me than that which commonly exhales from the +merchant's or the scholar's garments. When I go into their wardrobes and +handle their vestments, I am reminded of no grassy plains and flowery +meads which they have frequented, but of dusty merchants' exchanges and +libraries rather. + +A tanned skin is something more than respectable, and perhaps olive is +a fitter color than white for a man,--a denizen of the woods. "The pale +white man!" I do not wonder that the African pitied him. Darwin the +naturalist says, "A white man bathing by the side of a Tahitian was like +a plant bleached by the gardener's art, compared with a fine, dark green +one, growing vigorously in the open fields." + + Ben Jonson exclaims,-- + + "How near to good is what is fair!" + + So I would say,-- + + How near to good is what is _wild!_ + +Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet +subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One who pressed forward +incessantly and never rested from his labors, who grew fast and made +infinite demands on life, would always find himself in a new country +or wilderness, and surrounded by the raw material of life. He would be +climbing over the prostrate stems of primitive forest-trees. + +Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not +in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps. When, +formerly, I have analyzed my partiality for some farm which I had +contemplated purchasing, I have frequently found that I was attracted +solely by a few square rods of impermeable and unfathomable bog,--a +natural sink in one corner of it. That was the jewel which dazzled me. I +derive more of my subsistence from the swamps which surround my native +town than from the cultivated gardens in the village. There are no +richer parterres to my eyes than the dense beds of dwarf andromeda +(_Cassandra calyculata_) which cover these tender places on the earth's +surface. Botany cannot go farther than tell me the names of the shrubs +which grow there,--the high-blueberry, panicled andromeda, lamb-kill, +azalea, and rhodora,--all standing in the quaking sphagnum. I often +think that I should like to have my house front on this mass of dull red +bushes, omitting other flower plots and borders, transplanted spruce +and trim box, even gravelled walks,--to have this fertile spot under my +windows, not a few imported barrow-fulls of soil only to cover the sand +which was thrown out in digging the cellar. Why not put my house, my +parlor, behind this plot, instead of behind that meagre assemblage of +curiosities, that poor apology for a Nature and Art, which I call my +front-yard? It is an effort to clear up and make a decent appearance +when the carpenter and mason have departed, though done as much for the +passer-by as the dweller within. The most tasteful front-yard fence was +never an agreeable object of study to me; the most elaborate ornaments, +acorn-tops, or what not, soon wearied and disgusted me. Bring your sills +up to the very edge of the swamp, then, (though it may not be the best +place for a dry cellar,) so that there be no access on that side to +citizens. Front-yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, +and you could go in the back way. + +Yes, though you may think me perverse, if it were proposed to me to +dwell in the neighborhood of the most beautiful garden that ever human +art contrived, or else of a dismal swamp, I should certainly decide for +the swamp. How vain, then, have been all your labors, citizens, for me! + +My spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the outward dreariness. Give +me the ocean, the desert, or the wilderness! In the desert, pure air and +solitude compensate for want of moisture and fertility. The traveller +Burton says of it,--"Your _morale_ improves; you become frank and +cordial, hospitable and single-minded.... In the desert, spirituous +liquors excite only disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in a mere animal +existence." They who have been travelling long on the steppes of Tartary +say,--"On reentering cultivated lands, the agitation, perplexity, and +turmoil of civilization oppressed and suffocated us; the air seemed to +fail us, and we felt every moment as if about to die of asphyxia." When +I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most +interminable, and, to the citizen, most dismal swamp. I enter a swamp +as a sacred place,--a _sanctum sanctorum_. There is the strength, the +marrow of Nature. The wild-wood covers the virgin mould,--and the same +soil is good for men and for trees. A man's health requires as many +acres of meadow to his prospect as his farm does loads of muck. There +are the strong meats on which he feeds. A town is saved, not more by the +righteous men in it than by the woods and swamps that surround it. A +township where one primitive forest waves above, while another primitive +forest rots below,--such a town is fitted to raise not only corn and +potatoes, but poets and philosophers for the coming ages. In such a soil +grew Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of such a wilderness +comes the Reformer eating locusts and wild honey. + +To preserve wild animals implies generally the creation of a forest for +them to dwell in or resort to. So is it with man. A hundred years ago +they sold bark in our streets peeled from our own woods. In the very +aspect of those primitive and rugged trees, there was, methinks, a +tanning principle which hardened and consolidated the fibres of men's +thoughts. Ah! already I shudder for these comparatively degenerate days +of my native village, when you cannot collect a load of bark of good +thickness,--and we no longer produce tar and turpentine. + +The civilized nations--Greece, Rome, England--have been sustained by the +primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They survive +as long as the soil is not exhausted. Alas for human culture! little is +to be expected of a nation, when the vegetable mould is exhausted, and +it is compelled to make manure of the bones of its fathers. There +the poet sustains himself merely by his own superfluous fat, and the +philosopher comes down on his marrow-bones. + +It is said to be the task of the American "to work the virgin soil," and +that "agriculture here already assumes proportions unknown everywhere +else." I think that the farmer displaces the Indian even because he +redeems the meadow, and so makes himself stronger and in some respects +more natural. I was surveying for a man the other day a single straight +line one hundred and thirty-two rods long, through a swamp, at whose +entrance might have been written the words which Dante read over +the entrance to the infernal regions,--"Leave all hope, ye that +enter,"--that is, of ever getting out again; where at one time I saw +my employer actually up to his neck and swimming for his life in his +property, though it was still winter. He had another similar swamp which +I could not survey at all, because it was completely under water, and +nevertheless, with regard to a third swamp, which I did _survey_ from a +distance, he remarked to me, true to his instincts, that he would not +part with it for any consideration, on account of the mud which it +contained. And that man intends to put a girdling ditch round the whole +in the course of forty months, and so redeem it by the magic of his +spade. I refer to him only as the type of a class. + +The weapons with which we have gained our most important victories, +which should be handed down as heirlooms from father to son, are not the +sword and the lance, but the bush-whack, the turf-cutter, the spade, and +the bog-hoe, rusted with the blood of many a meadow, and begrimed with +the dust of many a hard-fought field. The very winds blew the Indian's +cornfield into the meadow, and pointed out the way which he had not +the skill to follow. He had no better implement with which to intrench +himself in the land than a clamshell. But the farmer is armed with +plough and spade. + +In Literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dulness is but +another name for lameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild thinking +in "Hamlet" and the "Iliad," in all the Scriptures and Mythologies, not +learned in the schools, that delights us. As the wild duck is more swift +and beautiful than the tame, so is the wild--the mallard--thought, which +'mid falling dews wings its way above the fens. A truly good book is +something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and +perfect, as a wild flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in +the jungles of the East. Genius is a light which makes the darkness +visible, like the lightning's flash, which perchance shatters the temple +of knowledge itself,--and not a taper lighted at the hearth-stone of the +race, which pales before the light of common day. + +English literature, from the days of the minstrels to the Lake +Poets,--Chaucer and Spenser and Milton, and even Shakespeare, +included,--breathes no quite fresh and in this sense wild strain. It +is an essentially tame and civilized literature, reflecting Greece and +Rome. Her wilderness is a green-wood,--her wild man a Robin Hood. There +is plenty of genial love of Nature, but not so much of Nature herself. +Her chronicles inform us when her wild animals, but not when the wild +man in her, became extinct. + +The science of Humboldt is one thing, poetry is another thing. The +poet to-day, notwithstanding all the discoveries of science, and the +accumulated learning of mankind, enjoys no advantage over Homer. + +Where is the literature which gives expression to Nature? He would be a +poet who could impress the winds and streams into his service, to speak +for him; who nailed words to their primitive senses, as farmers drive +down stakes in the spring, which the frost has heaved; who derived his +words as often as he used them,--transplanted them to his page with +earth adhering to their roots; whose words were so true and fresh and +natural that they would appear to expand like the buds at the approach +of spring, though they lay half-smothered between two musty leaves in a +library,--ay, to bloom and bear fruit there, after their kind, annually, +for the faithful reader, in sympathy with surrounding Nature. + +I do not know of any poetry to quote which adequately expresses this +yearning for the Wild. Approached from this side, the best poetry is +tame. I do not know where to find in any literature, ancient or modern, +any account which contents me of that Nature with which even I am +acquainted. You will perceive that I demand something which no Augustan +nor Elizabethan age, which no _culture_, in short, can give. Mythology +comes nearer to it than anything. How much more fertile a Nature, at +least, has Grecian mythology its root in than English literature! +Mythology is the crop which the Old World bore before its soil was +exhausted, before the fancy and imagination were affected with blight; +and which it still bears, wherever its pristine vigor is unabated. All +other literatures endure only as the elms which overshadow our houses; +but this is like the great dragon-tree of the Western Isles, as old as +mankind, and, whether that does or not, will endure as long; for the +decay of other literatures makes the soil in which it thrives. + +The West is preparing to add its fables to those of the East. The +valleys of the Ganges, the Nile, and the Rhine, having yielded their +crop, it remains to be seen what the valleys of the Amazon, the Plate, +the Orinoco, the St. Lawrence, and the Mississippi will produce. +Perchance, when, in the course of ages, American liberty has become +a fiction of the past,--as it is to some extent a fiction of the +present,--the poets of the world will be inspired by American mythology. + +The wildest dreams of wild men, even, are not the less true, though they +may not recommend themselves to the sense which is most common among +Englishmen and Americans to-day. It is not every truth that recommends +itself to the common sense. Nature has a place for the wild clematis +as well as for the cabbage. Some expressions of truth are +reminiscent,--others merely sensible, as the phrase is,--others +prophetic. Some forms of disease, even, may prophesy forms of health. +The geologist has discovered that the figures of serpents, griffins, +flying dragons, and other fanciful embellishments of heraldry, have +their prototypes in the forms of fossil species which were extinct +before man was created, and hence "indicate a faint and shadowy +knowledge of a previous state of organic existence." The Hindoos dreamed +that the earth rested on an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, +and the tortoise on a serpent; and though it may be an unimportant +coincidence, it will not be out of place here to state, that a fossil +tortoise has lately been discovered in Asia large enough to support +an elephant. I confess that I am partial to these wild fancies, which +transcend the order of time and development. They are the sublimest +recreation of the intellect. The partridge loves peas, but not those +that go with her into the pot. + +In short, all good things are wild and free. There is something in a +strain of music, whether produced by an instrument or by the +human voice,--take the sound of a bugle in a summer night, for +instance,--which by its wildness, to speak without satire, reminds me of +the cries emitted by wild beasts in their native forests. It is so +much of their wildness as I can understand. Give me for my friends and +neighbors wild men, not tame ones. The wildness of the savage is but a +faint symbol of the awful ferity with which good men and lovers meet. + +I love even to see the domestic animals reassert their native +rights,--any evidence that they have not wholly lost their original wild +habits and vigor; as when my neighbor's cow breaks out of her pasture +early in the spring and boldly swims the river, a cold, gray tide, +twenty-five or thirty rods wide, swollen by the melted snow. It is the +buffalo crossing the Mississippi. This exploit confers some dignity +on the herd in my eyes,--already dignified. The seeds of instinct are +preserved under the thick hides of cattle and horses, like seeds in the +bowels of the earth, an indefinite period. + +Any sportiveness in cattle is unexpected. I saw one day a herd of a +dozen bullocks and cows running about and frisking in unwieldy sport, +like huge rats, even like kittens. They shook their heads, raised their +tails, and rushed up and down a hill, and I perceived by their horns, as +well as by their activity, their relation to the deer tribe. But, alas! +a sudden loud _Whoa!_ would have damped their ardor at once, reduced +them from venison to beef, and stiffened their sides and sinews like the +locomotive. Who but the Evil One has cried, "Whoa!" to mankind? +Indeed, the life of cattle, like that of many men, is but a sort of +locomotiveness; they move a side at a time, and man, by his machinery, +is meeting the horse and ox half-way. Whatever part the whip has touched +is thenceforth palsied. Who would ever think of a _side_ of any of the +supple cat tribe, as we speak of a _side_ of beef? + +I rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be +made the slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats +still left to sow before they become submissive members of society. +Undoubtedly, all men are not equally fit subjects for civilization; +and because the majority, like dogs and sheep, are tame by inherited +disposition, this is no reason why the others should have their natures +broken that they may be reduced to the same level. Men are in the main +alike, but they were made several in order that they might be various. +If a low use is to be served, one man will do nearly or quite as well as +another; if a high one, individual excellence is to be regarded. Any man +can stop a hole to keep the wind away, but no other man could serve so +rare a use as the author of this illustration did. Confucius says,--"The +skins of the tiger and the leopard, when they are tanned, are as the +skins of the dog and the sheep tanned." But it is not the part of a true +culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious; and +tanning their skins for shoes is not the best use to which they can be +put. + +When looking over a list of men's names in a foreign language, as of +military officers, or of authors who have written on a particular +subject, I am reminded once more that there is nothing in a name. The +name Menschikoff, for instance, has nothing in it to my ears more human +than a whisker, and it may belong to a rat. As the names of the Poles +and Russians are to us, so are ours to them. It is as if they had +been named by the child's rigmarole,--_Iery wiery ichery van, +tittle-tol-tan_. I see in my mind a herd of wild creatures swarming over +the earth, and to each the herdsman has affixed some barbarous sound in +his own dialect. The names of men are of course as cheap and meaningless +as _Bose_ and _Tray_, the names of dogs. + +Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy, if men were named +merely in the gross, as they are known. It would be necessary only to +know the genus, and perhaps the race or variety, to know the individual. +We are not prepared to believe that every private soldier in a Roman +army had a name of his own,--because we have not supposed that he had a +character of his own. At present our only true names are nicknames. I +knew a boy who, from his peculiar energy, was called "Buster" by +his playmates, and this rightly supplanted his Christian name. Some +travellers tell us that an Indian had no name given him at first, but +earned it, and his name was his fame; and among some tribes he acquired +a new name with every new exploit. It is pitiful when a man bears a name +for convenience merely, who has earned neither name nor fame. + +I will not allow mere names to make distinctions for me, but still +see men in herds for all them. A familiar name cannot make a man less +strange to me. It may be given to a savage who retains in secret his +own wild title earned in the woods. We have a wild savage in us, and +a savage name is perchance somewhere recorded as ours. I see that my +neighbor, who bears the familiar epithet William, or Edwin, takes it off +with his jacket. It does not adhere to him when asleep or in anger, or +aroused by any passion or inspiration. I seem to hear pronounced by some +of his kin at such a time his original wild name in some jaw-breaking or +else melodious tongue. + +Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all +around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children, as the +leopard; and yet we are so early weaned from her breast to society, to +that culture which is exclusively an interaction of man on man,--a sort +of breeding in and in, which produces at most a merely English nobility, +a civilization destined to have a speedy limit. + +In society, in the best institutions of men, it is easy to detect a +certain precocity. When we should still be growing children, we are +already little men. Give me a culture which imports much muck from +the meadows, and deepens the soil,--not that which trusts to heating +manures, and improved implements and modes of culture only! + +Many a poor sore-eyed student that I have heard of would grow faster, +both intellectually and physically, if, instead of sitting up so very +late, he honestly slumbered a fool's allowance. + +There may be an excess even of informing light. Niepce, a Frenchman, +discovered "actinism," that power in the sun's rays which produces a +chemical effect,--that granite rocks, and stone structures, and statues +of metal, "are all alike destructively acted upon during the hours of +sunshine, and, but for provisions of Nature no less wonderful, would +soon perish under the delicate touch of the most subtile of the agencies +of the universe." But he observed that "those bodies which underwent +this change during the daylight possessed the power of restoring +themselves to their original conditions during the hours of night, when +this excitement was no longer influencing them." Hence it has been +inferred that "the hours of darkness are as necessary to the inorganic +creation as we know night and sleep are to the organic kingdom." Not +even does the moon shine every night, but gives place to darkness. + +I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more +than I would have every acre of earth cultivated: part will be tillage, +but the greater part will be meadow and forest, not only serving an +immediate use, but preparing a mould against a distant future, by the +annual decay of the vegetation which it supports. + +There are other letters for the child to learn than those which Cadmus +invented. The Spaniards have a good term to express this wild and dusky +knowledge,--_Gramatica parda_, tawny grammar,--a kind of mother-wit +derived from that same leopard to which I have referred. + +We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It is +said that knowledge is power; and the like. Methinks there is equal need +of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance, what we will call +Beautiful Knowledge, a knowledge useful in a higher sense: for what +is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know +something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance? +What we call knowledge is often our positive ignorance; ignorance our +negative knowledge. By long years of patient industry and reading of +the newspapers--for what are the libraries of science but files of +newspapers?--a man accumulates a myriad facts, lays them up in his +memory, and then when in some spring of his life he saunters abroad into +the Great Fields of thought, he, as it were, goes to grass like a horse, +and leaves all his harness behind in the stable. I would say to the +Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, sometimes,----Go to +grass. You have eaten hay long enough. The spring has come with its +green crop. The very cows are driven to their country pastures before +the end of May; though I have heard of one unnatural farmer who kept his +cow in the barn and fed her on hay all the year round. So, frequently, +the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge treats its cattle. + +A man's ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful,--while +his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides +being ugly. Which is the best man to deal with,--he who knows nothing +about a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows +nothing, or be who really knows something about it, but thinks that he +knows all? + +My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head +in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant. The highest +that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence. +I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more +definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the +insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before,--a discovery that +there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our +philosophy. It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. Man cannot +_know_ in any higher sense than this, any more than he can look serenely +and with impunity in the face of the sun: [Greek: Os thi noon, on +kehinon nohaeseis,]--"You will not perceive that, as perceiving a +particular thing," say the Chaldean Oracles. + +There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we +may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, +but a successful life knows no law. It is an unfortunate discovery +certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before +that we were bound. Live free, child of the mist,--and with respect to +knowledge we are all children of the mist. The man who takes the liberty +to live is superior to all the laws, by virtue of his relation to the +law-maker. "That is active duty," says the Vishnu Purana, "which is not +for our bondage; that is knowledge which is for our liberation: all +other duty is good only unto weariness; all other knowledge is only the +cleverness of an artist." + +It is remarkable how few events or crises there are in our histories; +how little exercised we have been in our minds; how few experiences we +have had. I would fain be assured that I am growing apace and rankly, +though my very growth disturb this dull equanimity,--though it be with +struggle through long, dark, muggy nights or seasons of gloom. It would +be well, if all our lives were a divine tragedy even, instead of this +trivial comedy or farce. Dante, Bunyan, and others, appear to have been +exercised in their minds more than we: they were subjected to a kind of +culture such as our district schools and colleges do not contemplate. +Even Mahomet, though many may scream at his name, had a good deal more +to live for, ay, and to die for, than they have commonly. + +When, at rare intervals, some thought visits one, as perchance he is +walking on a railroad, then indeed the cars go by without his hearing +them. But soon, by some inexorable law, our life goes by and the cars +return. + + "Gentle breeze, that wanderest unseen, + And bendest the thistles round Loira of storms, + Traveller of the windy glens, + Why hast thou left my ear so soon?" + +While almost all men feel an attraction drawing them to society, few are +attracted strongly to Nature. In their relation to Nature men appear +to me for the most part, notwithstanding their arts, lower than the +animals. It is not often a beautiful relation, as in the case of the +animals. How little appreciation of the beauty of the landscape there is +among us! We have to be told that the Greeks called the world [Greek: +Kosmos], Beauty, or Order, but we do not see clearly why they did so, +and we esteem it at best only a curious philological fact. + +For my part, I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sort of border +life, on the confines of a world into which I make occasional and +transient forays only, and my patriotism and allegiance to the State +into whose territories I seem to retreat are those of a moss-trooper. +Unto a life which I call natural I would gladly follow even a +will-o'-the-wisp through bogs and sloughs unimaginable, but no moon nor +fire-fly has shown me the causeway to it. Nature is a personality so +vast and universal that we have never seen one of her features. The +walker in the familiar fields which stretch around my native town +sometimes finds himself in another land than is described in their +owners' deeds, as it were in some far-away field on the confines of the +actual Concord, where her jurisdiction ceases, and the idea which the +word Concord suggests ceases to be suggested. These farms which I have +myself surveyed, these bounds which I have set up appear dimly still as +through a mist; but they have no chemistry to fix them; they fade from +the surface of the glass; and the picture which the painter painted +stands out dimly from beneath. The world with which we are commonly +acquainted leaves no trace, and it will have no anniversary. + +I took a walk on Spaulding's Farm the other afternoon. I saw the setting +sun lighting up the opposite side of a stately pine wood. Its golden +rays straggled into the aisles of the wood as into some noble hall. I +was impressed as if some ancient and altogether admirable and shining +family had settled there in that part of the land called Concord, +unknown to me,--to whom the sun was servant,--who had not gone into +society in the village,--who had not been called on. I saw their +park, their pleasure-ground, beyond through the wood, in Spaulding's +cranberry-meadow. The pines furnished them with gables as they grew. +Their house was not obvious to vision; the trees grew through it. I do +not know whether I heard the sounds of a suppressed hilarity or not. +They seemed to recline on the sunbeams. They have sons and daughters. +They are quite well. The farmer's cart-path, which leads directly +through their hall, does not in the least put them out,--as the muddy +bottom of a pool is sometimes seen through the reflected skies. +They never heard of Spaulding, and do not know that he is their +neighbor,--notwithstanding I heard him whistle as he drove his team +through the house. Nothing can equal the serenity of their lives. Their +coat of arms is simply a lichen. I saw it painted on the pines and oaks. +Their attics were in the tops of the trees. They are of no politics. +There was no noise of labor. I did not perceive that they were weaving +or spinning. Yet I did detect, when the wind lulled and hearing was done +away, the finest imaginable sweet musical hum,--as of a distant hive in +May, which perchance was the sound of their thinking. They had no idle +thoughts, and no one without could see their work, for their industry +was not as in knots and excrescences embayed. + +But I find it difficult to remember them. They fade irrevocably out +of my mind even now while I speak and endeavor to recall them, and +recollect myself. It is only after a long and serious effort to +recollect my best thoughts that I become again aware of their +cohabitancy. If it were not for such families as this, I think I should +move out of Concord. + +We are accustomed to say in New England that few and fewer pigeons visit +us every year. Our forests furnish no mast for them. So, it would seem, +few and fewer thoughts visit each growing man from year to year, for the +grove in our minds is laid waste,--sold to feed unnecessary fires of +ambition, or sent to mill, and there is scarcely a twig left for them to +perch on. They no longer build nor breed with us. In some more genial +season, perchance, a faint shadow flits across the landscape of the +mind, cast by the _wings_ of some thought in its vernal or autumnal +migration, but, looking up, we are unable to detect the substance of +the thought itself. Our winged thoughts are turned to poultry. They +no longer soar, and they attain only to a Shanghai and Cochin-China +grandeur. Those _gra-a-ate thoughts_, those _gra-a-ate men_ you hear of! + +We hug the earth,--how rarely we mount! Methinks we might elevate +ourselves a little more. We might climb a tree, at least. I found my +account in climbing a tree once. It was a tall white pine, on the top +of a hill; and though I got well pitched, I was well paid for it, for I +discovered new mountains in the horizon which I had never seen before,-- +so much more of the earth and the heavens. I might have walked about +the foot of the tree for threescore years and ten, and yet I certainly +should never have seen them. But, above all, I discovered around me,--it +was near the end of June,--on the ends of the topmost branches only, a +few minute and delicate red cone-like blossoms, the fertile flower of +the white pine looking heavenward. I carried straightway to the village +the topmost spire, and showed it to stranger jurymen who walked the +streets,--for it was court-week,--and to farmers and lumber-dealers and +wood-choppers and hunters, and not one had ever seen the like before, +but they wondered as at a star dropped down. Tell of ancient architects +finishing their works on the tops of columns as perfectly as on the +lower and more visible parts! Nature has from the first expanded the +minute blossoms of the forest only toward the heavens, above men's heads +and unobserved by them. We see only the flowers that are under our feet +in the meadows. The pines have developed their delicate blossoms on the +highest twigs of the wood every summer for ages, as well over the heads +of Nature's red children as of her white ones; yet scarcely a farmer or +hunter in the land has ever seen them. + +Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed +over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering +the past. Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in every barn-yard +within our horizon, it is belated. That sound commonly reminds us that +we are growing rusty and antique in our employments and habits of +thought. His philosophy comes down to a more recent time than ours. +There is something suggested by it that is a newer testament,--the +gospel according to this moment. He has not fallen astern; he has got up +early, and kept up early, and to be where he is is to be in season, +in the foremost rank of time. It is an expression of the health and +soundness of Nature, a brag for all the world,--healthiness as of a +spring burst forth, a new fountain of the Muses, to celebrate this last +instant of time. Where he lives no fugitive slave laws are passed. Who +has not betrayed his master many times since last he heard that note? + +The merit of this bird's strain is in its freedom from all +plaintiveness. The singer can easily move us to tears or to laughter, +but where is he who can excite in us a pure morning joy? When, in +doleful dumps, breaking the awful stillness of our wooden sidewalk on +a Sunday, or, perchance, a watcher in the house of mourning, I hear a +cockerel crow far or near, I think to myself, "There is one of us well, +at any rate,"--and with a sudden gush return to my senses. + +We had a remarkable sunset one day last November. I was walking in a +meadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before +setting, after a cold gray day, reached a clear stratum in the horizon, +and the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry grass and on +the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon, and on the leaves of the +shrub-oaks on the hill-side, while our shadows stretched long over the +meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its beams. It was such +a light as we could not have imagined a moment before, and the air also +was so warm and serene that nothing was wanting to make a paradise of +that meadow. When we reflected that this was not a solitary phenomenon, +never to happen again, but that it would happen forever and ever an +infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the latest child +that walked there, it was more glorious still. + +The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with all +the glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities, and, perchance, as it +has never set before,--where there is but a solitary marsh-hawk to have +his wings gilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his cabin, and +there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the marsh, just +beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying stump. We walked +in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered grass and leaves, +so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never bathed in such a +golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The west side of every +wood and rising ground gleamed like the boundary of Elysium, and the sun +on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman driving us home at evening. + +So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine +more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our +minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening +light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bank-side in autumn. + + + + +WAR AND LITERATURE. + + +It would be a task worthy of a volume, and requiring that space in order +to be creditably performed, to show how war affects literature, at what +points they meet, where they are at variance, if any wars stimulate, and +what kinds depress the intellectual life of nations. The subject is very +wide. It would embrace a discussion of the effects of war when it occurs +during a period of great literary and artistic splendor, as in Athens +and in the Italian Republics; whether intellectual decline is postponed +or accelerated by the interests and passions of the strife; whether the +preliminary concentration of the popular heart may claim the merit of +adding either power or beauty to the intellectual forms which bloom +together with the war. + +These things are not entirely clear, and the experience of different +countries is conflicting. The Thirty Years' War, though it commenced +with the inspiration of great political and religious ideas, did not +lift the German mind to any new demonstrations of truth or impassioned +utterances of the imagination. The nation sank away from it into a +barren and trivial life, although the war itself occasioned a multitude +of poems, songs, hymns, and political disquisitions. The hymns of this +period, which are filled with a sense of dependence, of the greatness +and awfulness of an invisible eternity, and breathe a desire for the +peaceful traits of a remote religious life, are at once a confession of +the weariness of the best minds at the turmoil and uncertainty of the +contest and a permanent contribution of the finest kind to that form of +sacred literature. But princes and electors were fighting as much for +the designation and establishment of their petty nationalities, which +first checkered the map of Europe after the imperial Catholic power was +rolled southwardly, as they were for the pure interest of Protestantism. +The German intellect did eventually gain something from this political +result, because it interrupted the literary absolutism which reigned at +Vienna; no doubt literature grew more popular and German, but it did +not very strikingly improve the great advantage, for there was at last +exhaustion instead of a generously nourishing enthusiasm, and the great +ideas of the period became the pieces with which diplomatists carried on +their game. The _Volkslied_ (popular song) came into vogue again, but it +was not so fresh and natural as before; Opitz, one of the best poets of +this period, is worth reading chiefly when he depicts his sources of +consolation in the troubles of the time. Long poetical bulletins were +written, in the epical form, to describe the battles and transactions +of the war. They had an immense circulation, and served the place of +newspapers. They were bright and characteristic enough for that; and +indeed newspapers in Germany date from this time, and from the doggerel +broadsides of satire and description which then supplanted minstrels +of whatsoever name or guild, as they were carried by post, and read in +every hamlet.[A] But the best of these poems were pompous, dull, and +tediously elaborated. They have met the fate of newspapers, and are now +on file. The more considerable poets themselves appeared to be jealous +of the war; they complained bitterly that Mars had displaced Apollo; but +later readers regret the ferocious sack of Magdeburg, or the death of +Gustavus Adolphus, more than the silencing of all those pens. + +[Footnote A: Newspapers proper appeared as early as 1615 in Germany. But +these rhymed gazettes were very numerous. They were more or less bulky +pamphlets, with pithy sarcastic programmes for titles, and sometimes a +wood or copper cut prefixed. A few of them were of Catholic origin, and +one, entitled _Post-Bole_, (_The Express_,) is quite as good as anything +issued by the opposite party.] + +On the other hand, Spain, while fighting for religion and a secure +nationality, had her Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Calderon, all of whom +saw service in the field, and other distinguished names, originators +of literary forms and successful cultivators of established ones. They +created brilliant epochs for a bigoted and cruel country. All that was +noble or graceful in the Spanish spirit survives in works which that +country once stimulated through all the various fortunes of popular +wars. But they were not wars for the sake of the people; the country has +therefore sunk away from the literature which foretold so well how great +she might have become, if she had been fortunate enough to represent, or +to sympathize with, a period of moral and spiritual ideas. Her literary +forms do not describe growth, but arrested development. + +A different period culminated in the genius of Milton, whose roots were +in that golden age when England was flowering into popular freedom. He +finally spoke for the true England, and expressed the vigorous thoughts +which a bloody epoch cannot quench. Some of his noblest things were +inspired by the exigencies of the Commonwealth, which he saw "as an +eagle nursing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the +full mid-day beam." + +The Dutch people, in their great struggle against Philip II., seemed to +find a stimulus in the very exhaustions of war. The protesting ideas for +which they fought drew fresh tenacity from the soil, wet with blood and +tears, into which generous passion and resolution sank with every death. +Here it is plain that a milder conflict, carried on by intrigue and +diplomatic forms alone, for peaceable separation from the Catholic +interest, would not have so quickened the intelligence which afterwards +nourished so many English exiles and helped to freight the Mayflower. +And we see the German mind first beginning to blossom with a language +and a manifold literature during and after the Seven Years' War, which +developed a powerful Protestant State and a native German feeling. +Frederic's Gallic predilections did not infect the country which his +arms had rendered forever anti-Gallic and anti-Austrian. The popular +enthusiasm for himself, which his splendid victories mainly created, was +the first instinctive form of the coming German sense of independence. +The nation's fairest period coincided with the French Revolution and +the aggressions of the Empire. "Hermann and Dorothea" felt the people's +pulse, which soon beat so high at Jena and Leipsic with rage and hope. +The hope departed with the Peace of 1815, and pamphleteering, pragmatic +writing, theological investigation, historical research, followed the +period of creative genius, whose flowers did not wither while the fields +ran red. + +A war must be the last resort of truly noble and popular ideas, if it +would do more than stimulate the intelligence of a few men, who write +best with draughts of glory and success. It must be the long-repressed +understanding of a nation suffused with strong primitive emotions, +that flies to arms to secure the precious privilege of owning and +entertaining its knowledge and its national advantages. And in +proportion as any war has ever been leavened with the fine excitement of +religion or humanity, however imperfectly, and though tyrannized over +by political selfishness, we can see that the honest feeling has done +something to obliterate the traces of violence, to offer the comfort of +worth in the cause to wounded lips. + +When the people themselves take to fighting, not for dynastic objects, +to secure the succession of an Infant to the throne, to fix a Pope in +his chair, or to horse a runaway monarch around their necks, not to +extort some commercial advantage, or to resist a tampering with the +traditional balance of power, but to drive back the billows of Huns or +Turks from fields where cities and a middle class must rise, to oppose +citizen-right to feudal-right, and inoculate with the lance-head Society +with the popular element, to assert the industrial against the baronial +interest, or to expel the invader who forages among their rights to +sweep them clean and to plant a system which the ground cannot receive, +then we find that the intense conviction, which has been long gathering +and brooding in the soul, thunders and lightens through the whole brain, +and quickens the germs of Art, Beauty and Knowledge. Then war is only a +process of development, which threatens terribly and shakes the locks +upon its aegis in the face of the brutes which infest its path. Minerva +is aware that wisdom and common sense will have to fight for recognition +and a world: she fends blows from her tranquil forehead with the +lowering crest; the shield is not always by her side, nor the +sword-point resting on the ground. What is so vital as this armed and +conscious intelligence? The pen, thus tempered to a sword, becomes a pen +again, but flows with more iron than before. + +But the original intellectual life begins while the pen is becoming +tempered in the fires of a great national controversy, before it is hard +enough to draw blood. Magnetic streams attract each slender point to a +centre of prophesying thought long before the blood-red aurora stains +suddenly the midnight sky and betrays the influence which has been none +the less mighty because it has been colorless. Sometimes a people says +all that it has in its mind to say, during that comfortless period +while the storm is in the air and has not yet precipitated its cutting +crystals. The most sensitive minds are goaded to express emphatically +their moral feeling and expectation in such a rude climate, which +stimulates rather than depresses, but which is apt to fall away into +languor and content. This only shows that the people have no commanding +place in history, but are only bent upon relieving themselves from +sundry annoyances, or are talking about great principles which they are +not in a position, from ethnical or political disability, to develop. +Such is all the Panslavic literature which is not Russian.[B] +But sometimes a people whose intellect passes through a noble +pre-revolutionary period, illustrating it by impetuous eloquence, +indignant lyrics, and the stern lines which a protesting conscience +makes upon the faces of the men who are lifted above the crowd, finds +that its ideas reach beyond the crisis in its life into a century of +power and beauty, during which its emancipated tendency springs forward, +with graceful gestures, to seize every spiritual advantage. Its +movements were grand and impressive while it struggled for the +opportunity to make known the divine intent that inspired it; but when +the fetters burst, and every limb enjoys the victory and the release, +the movements become unbounded, yet rhythmical, like Nature's, and +smite, or flow, or penetrate, like hers. To such a people war comes +as the disturbance of the earth's crust which helps it to a habitable +surface and lifts fair slopes to ripen wine and grain. + +[Footnote B: Some cultivated Bohemians who can recall the glories of +Ziska and his chiefs, and who comprehend the value of the tendency which +they strove to represent, think that there would have grown a Bohemian +people, a great centre of Protestant and Slavonic influence, if it +had not been for the Battle of Weissenberg in 1620, when the Catholic +Imperialists defeated their King Frederic. A verse of a popular song, +_The Patriot's Lament_, runs thus, in Wratislaw's translation:-- + + "Cursed mountain, mountain white! + Upon thee was crushed our might; + What in thee lies covered o'er + Ages cannot back restore." + +If there had been a Bohemian people, preserving a real vital tendency, +the Battle of the White Mountain would have resulted differently, even +had it been a defeat. + +Other patriots, cultivated enough to be Panslavists, indulge a more +cheerful vein. They see a good time coming, and raise the cry of _Hej +Slovane_! + + "Hey, Slavonians! our Slavonic language still is living, + Long as our true loyal heart is for our nation striving; + Lives, lives the Slavonic spirit, and 't will live forever: + Hell and thunder! vain against us all your rage shall shiver." + +This is nothing but a frontier feeling. The true Slavonic centre is +at St. Petersburg; thence will roll a people and a language over all +kindred ground.] + +After all, then, we must carefully discover what a war was about, before +we can trace it, either for good or for evil, into the subsequent life +of a nation. There can be no such thing as exhaustion or deterioration, +if the eternal laws have won the laurel of a fight; for they are +fountains of youth, from which new blood comes rushing through the +depleted veins. And it soon mantles on the surface, to mend the +financial and industrial distress. Its blush of pride and victory +announces no heady passion. It is the signal which Truth waves from the +hearts of her children. + +If we wish directly to consider the effect of war upon our own +intellectual development, we must begin by asking what ideas of +consequence are suggested by our copious use of the word Country. What a +phrase is that--Our Country--which we have been accustomed for eighty +years to use upon all festivals that commemorate civic rights, with +flattering and pompous hopes! We never understood what it meant, till +this moment which threatens to deprive us of the ideas and privileges +which it really represents. We never appreciated till now its depth and +preciousness. Orators have built up, sentence by sentence, a magnificent +estimate of the elements which make our material success, and they +thought it was a patriotic chord which they touched with the climax of +their fine periods. It was such patriotism as thrives in the midst of +content and satisfactory circumstances, which loves to have an inventory +made of all the fixtures and conveniences and the crude splendor of a +country's housekeeping,--things which are not indeed to be despised, for +they show what a people can do when cast upon their own resources, at a +distance from Governmental interference, free to select their own way +of living, to be fervent in business, in charities, in the cause of +education, in the explorations which lay open new regions to the +emigration of a world, in the inventiveness which gives labor new +pursuits and increases the chances of poor men, in the enterprise which +has made foundries, mines, workshops, manufactories, and granaries of +independent States. We have loved to linger over the praises of our +common schools and our voluntary system of congregational worship, to +count the spires which mark every place that man clears to earn his +living in. It has been pleasant to trace upon the map the great arteries +of intercommunication, flowing east and west, churned by countless +paddle-wheels, as they force a vast freight of wealth, material, social, +intellectual, to and fro, a freshet of fertilizing life to swell every +stream. We love to repeat the names which self-taught men have hewn out +in rude places, with the only advantage of being members of Mankind, +holding their own share in the great heart and soul of it, and making +that itself more illustrious than lineage and fortune. Every element of +an unexhausted soil, and all the achievements of a people let loose upon +it to settle, build, sow, and reap, with no master but ambition and no +dread but of poverty, and a long list of rights thrust suddenly into +their hands, with liberty to exercise them,--the right to vote, to +speak, to print, to be tried by jury,--all this margin for unfettered +action, even the corresponding vastness of the country itself, whose +ruggedest features and greatest distances were playthings of the popular +energy,--to love and extol these things were held by us equivalent to +having a native land and feeding a patriotic flame. But now all at once +this catalogue of advantages, which we were accustomed to call "our +country," is stripped of all its value, because we begin to feel that it +depends upon something else, more interior and less easy to appraise, +which we had not noticed much before. Just as when suddenly, in a +favorite child, endowed with strength, beauty, and effective gifts of +every member, of whom we were proud and expected great things, and whom +we took unlimited comfort in calling our own, there appears the solemn +intention of a soul to use this fine body to express its invisible truth +and honor, a wonderful revelation of a high mind filled with aspirations +which we had not suspected,--a sudden lifting of the whole body like an +eyelid before an inner eye, and we are astonished at the look it gives +us: so this body of comfort and success, which we worshipped as our +country, is suddenly possessed by great passions and ideas, by a +consciousness that providential laws demand the use of it, and will not +be restrained from inspiring the whole frame, and directing every member +of it with a new plan of Unity, and a finer feeling for Liberty, and a +more generous sense of Fraternity than ever before. Lately we did as we +pleased, but now we are going to be real children of Liberty. Formerly +we had a Union which transacted business for us, secured the payment of +our debts, and made us appear formidable abroad while it corrupted and +betrayed us at home,--a Union of colporteurs, and caucuses, and drummers +of Southern houses; not a Union, but a long coffle of patriotic laymen, +southerly clergymen, and slaves. Now the soul of a Democracy, gazing +terribly through eyes that are weeping for the dead and for indignation +at the cause of their dying, holds the thing which we call Union, and +determines to keep its mighty hold till it can be informed with Unity, +of which justice is the prime condition. See a Country at last, that +is, a Republican Soul, making the limbs of free states shiver with the +excitement of its great ideas, turning all our comfortable and excellent +institutions into ministers to execute its will, resolved, to wring the +great sinews of the body with the stress of its awakening, and to tax, +for a spiritual purpose, all the material resources and those forms +of liberty which we had pompously called our native land. A people in +earnest, smarting with the wounds of war and the deeper inflictions of +treachery, is abroad seeking after a country. It has been repeating with +annual congratulations for eighty years the self-evident truths of the +document which declared its independence; now it discovers that more +evidence of it is needed than successful trading and building can +bring, and it sends it forth afresh, with half a million of glittering +specialities to enforce its doctrines, while trade, and speculation, and +all the ambitions of prosperous men, and delicately nurtured lives, and +other lives as dearly cherished and nursed to maturity, are sent out +with an imperative commission to buy, at all hazards, a real country, to +exchange what is precious for the sake of having finally what we dreamed +we had before,--the most precious of all earthly things,--a Commonwealth +of God. Yes, our best things go, like wads for guns, to bid our purpose +speak more emphatically, as it expresses the overruling inspiration of +the hour. + +Is this really the character of our war, or is it only an ideal picture +of what the war might be? That depends solely upon ourselves. + +Our soldiers kindle nightly their bivouac fires from East to West, and +set their watch. They are the advance posts of the great idea, which is +destined to make a country as it advances southwardly, and to settle +it with republicans. If we put it in a single sentence, "Freedom of +industry for hand and brain to all men," we must think awhile upon it +before we can see what truths and temporal advantages it involves. We +see them best, in this night of our distress and trial, by the soldiers' +watch-fires. They encroach upon the gloom, and open it for us with +hopes. They shine like the stare of a deeper sky than day affords, and +we can see a land stretching to the Gulf, and lying expectant between +either sea, whose surface is given to a Republic to people and civilize +for the sake of Man. Whoever is born here, or whoever comes here, +brought by poverty or violence, an exile from misery or from power, +and whatever be his ethnological distinction, is a republican of this +country because he is a man. Here he is to find safety, cooperation, +and welcome. His very ignorance and debasement are to be welcomed by +a country eager to exhibit the plastic power of its divine idea,--how +animal restrictions can be gradually obliterated, how superstition and +prejudice must die out of stolid countenances before the steady gaze of +republican good-will, how ethnic peculiarities shall subserve the +great plan and be absorbed by it. The country no longer will have a +conventional creed, that men are more important than circumstances and +governments; we always said so, but our opinion was at the mercy of a +Know-Nothing club, a slaveholding cabal, a selfish democracy: it will +have a living faith, born with the pangs of battle, that nothing on +earth is so precious as the different kinds of men. It will want them, +to illustrate its preeminent idea, and it will go looking for them +through all the neglected places of the world, to invite them in from +the by-lanes and foul quarters of every race, expressly to show that +man is superior to his accidents, by bringing their bodies into a place +where their souls can get the better of them. Where can that be except +where a democracy has been waging a religious war against its own great +evil, and has repented in blood for having used all kinds of men as the +white and black pawns in its games of selfish politics, with its own +country for the board, and her peace and happiness lying in the pool for +stakes? Where can man be respected best except here, where he has +been undervalued most, and bitterness and blood have sprung from that +contempt? + +This is the first truly religious war ever waged. Can there be such a +thing as a religious war? There can be wars in the interest of different +theologies, and mixed wars of diplomacy and confessions of belief, wars +to transfer the tradition of infallibility from a pope to a book, wars +of Puritans against the divine right of kings in the Old World and the +natural rights of Indians in the New, in all of which the name of God +has been invoked for sanction, and Scripture has been quoted, and Psalms +uplifted on the battle-field for encouragement. And it is true that +every conflict, in which there are ideas that claim their necessary +development against usage and authority, has a religious character so +far as the ideas vindicate God by being good for man. But a purely +religious war must be one to restore the attributes and prerogatives of +manhood, to confirm primitive rights that are given to finite souls as +fast as they are created, to proclaim the creed of humanity, which is so +far from containing a single article of theology, that it is solely and +distinctively religious without it, because it proclaims one Father in +heaven and one blood upon the earth. Manhood is always worth fighting +for, to resist and put down whatever evil tendency impairs the full +ability to be a man, with a healthy soul conscious of rights and duties, +owning its gifts, and valuing above everything else the liberty to place +its happiness in being noble and good. Every man wages a religious war, +when he attacks his own passions in the interest of his own humanity. +The most truly religious thing that a man can do is to fight his way +through habits and deficiencies back to the pure manlike elements of his +nature, which are the ineffaceable traces of the Divine workmanship, and +alone really worth fighting for. And when a nation imitates this private +warfare, and attacks its own gigantic evils, lighted through past +deficiencies and immediate temptations by its best ideas, as its human +part rallies against its inhuman, and all the kingly attributes of a +freeborn individual rise up in final indignation against its slavish +attributes, then commences the true and only war of a people, and the +only war of which we dare say, though it have the repulsive features +that belong to all wars, that it is religious. But that we do say; for +it is to win and keep the unity of a country for the great purposes of +mankind, a place where souls can have their chances to work, with the +largest freedom and under the fewest disabilities, at the divine image +stamped upon them,--to get here the tools, both temporal and spiritual, +with which to strike poverty and misery out of those glorious traces, +and to chisel deep and fresh the handwriting where God says, This is a +Man! + +Here is a sufficient ground for expecting that intellectual as well as +political enlargement will succeed this trial of our country. It is well +to think of all the approaching advantages, even those remote ones which +will wear the forms of knowledge and art. For it is undeniable, that a +war cannot be so just as to bring no evils in its train,--not only the +disturbance of all kinds of industry, the suppression of some, the +difficulty of diverting, at a moment's notice, labor towards new +objects,--not only financial embarrassment and exhaustion, and the +shadow of a coming debt,--not the maiming of strong men and their +violent removal from the future labors of peace, nor the emotional +suffering of thousands of families whose hearts are in the field with +their dear ones, tossed to and fro in every skirmish, where the balls +slay more than the bodies which are pierced: not these evils alone,--nor +the feverish excitement of eighteen millions of people, whose gifts +and intelligence are all distraught, and at the mercy of every +bulletin,--nor yet the possible violations of private rights, and the +overriding of legal defences, which, when once attempted in a state of +war, is not always relinquished on the return of peace. These do not +strike us so much as the moral injury which many weak and passionate +minds sustain from the necessity of destroying life, of ravaging and +burning, of inflicting upon the enemy politic distresses. There will be +a taint in the army and the community which will endure in the relations +of pacific life. And more than half a million of men, who have tasted +the fierce joy of battle, have suffered the moral privations and dangers +of the camp, are to be returned suddenly to us, and cast adrift, with no +hope of finding immediate employment, and hankering for some excitements +to replace those of the distant field. If little truth and little +conscience have been at stake, these are the reasons which make wars so +demoralizing: they leave society restored to peace, but still at war +within itself, infested by those strange cravings, and tempted by a +new ambition, that of waging successful wars. This will be the most +dangerous country on the face of the earth, after the termination of +this war; for it will see its own ideas more clearly than ever before, +and long to propagate them with its battle-ardors and its scorn of +hypocritical foreign neutralities. We have the elements to make the most +martial nation in the world, with a peculiar combination of patience and +impulse, coldness and daring, the capacity to lie in watchful calm and +to move with the vibrations of the earthquake. And if ever the voice of +our brother, crying out to us from the ground of any country, shall sigh +among the drums which are then gathering dust in our arsenals, the long +roll would wake again, and the arms would rattle in that sound, which is +part of the speech of Liberty. But it is useless to affirm or to deny +such possibilities. It is plain, however, that we are organizing most +formidable elements, and learning how to forge them into bolts. The +spirit of the people, therefore, must be high and pure. The more +emphatically we declare, in accordance with the truth, that this war is +for a religious purpose, to prepare a country for the growing of souls, +a place where every element of material success and all the ambitions of +an enthusiastic people shall only provide fortunate circumstances, so +that men can be educated in the freedom which faith, knowledge, and awe +before the Invisible secure, the better will it be for us when peace +returns. A great believing people will more readily absorb the hurts of +war. Spiritual vitality will throw off vigorously the malaria which must +arise from deserted fields of battle. It must be our daily supplication +to feel the religious purport of the truths for which we fight. We must +disavow vindictiveness, and purge our hearts of it. There must be no +vulgar passion illustrated by our glorious arms. And when we say that we +are fighting for mankind, to release souls and bodies from bondage, +we must understand, without affectation, that we are fighting for the +slaveholder himself, who knows it not, as he hurls his iron disbelief +and hatred against us. For we are to have one country, all of whose +children, shall repeat in unison its noble creed, which the features of +the land itself proclaim, and whose railroads and telegraphs are its +running-hand. + +How often we have enumerated and deprecated the evils of war! The +Mexican War, in which Slavery herself involved us, (using the power of +the Republic against which she conspired to further her conspiracy,) +gave us occasion to extol the benefits of peace, and to draw up a +formidable indictment against the spirit which lusted for the appeal to +arms. We have not lusted for it, and the benefits of peace seem greater +than ever; but the benefits of equity and truth seem greater than all. +Show me justice, or try to make me unjust,--force upon me at the point +of the sword the unspeakable degradation of abetting villany, and I will +seize the hilt, if I can, and write my protest clear with the blade, and +while I have it in my hand I will reap what advantages are possible in +the desolation which it makes. + +Among these advantages of a war waged to secure the rights of +citizenship to all souls will be the excitement of a national +intellectual life, which will take on the various forms of a national +literature. This is to be expected for two reasons. First, because our +arms will achieve unity. By this is meant not only that there will be a +real union of all the States, consequent upon an eventual agreement in +great political and moral ideas, but also that this very consent will +bring the different characteristic groups of the country so near +together, in feeling and mutual appreciation, and with a free +interchange of traits, that we shall begin to have a nationality. And +there can be no literature until there is a nation; when the varieties +of the popular life begin to coalesce, as all sections are drawn +together towards the centre of great political ideas which the people +themselves establish, there will be such a rich development of +intellectual action as the Old World has not seen. Without this unity, +literature may be cultivated by cliques of men of talent, who are +chiefly stimulated to express themselves by observing the thought and +beauty which foreign intellects and past times produced; but their +productions will not spring from the country's manifold life, nor +express its mighty individuality. The sections of the country which are +nearest to the intelligence of the Old World will furnish the readiest +writers and the most polished thinkers, until the New World dwarfs the +Old World by its unity, and inspires the best brains with the collected +richness of the popular heart. Up to the period of this war the +country's most original men have been those who, by protesting against +its evils and displaying a genius emancipated from the prescriptions of +Church and State, have prophesied the revolution, and given to America +the first rich foretaste of her growing mind. The thunder rolled up the +sky in the orator's great periods, the lightning began to gleam in the +preacher's moral indignation, the glittering steel slumbered uneasily +and showed its half-drawn menace from the subtle lines of poets and +essayists who have been carrying weapons these twenty years; their souls +thirsted for an opportunity to rescue fair Liberty from the obscene rout +who had her in durance for their purposes, and to hail her accession to +a lawful throne with the rich gifts of knowledge, use, and beauty, a +homage that only free minds can pay, and only when freedom claims it. +We do not forget the literary activity with which a thousand ready +intellects have furnished convenient food for the people: there has been +no lack of books, nor of the ambition to attempt all the intellectual +forms. Some of this pabulum was not good for a growing frame; the excuse +for offering it may be found in the exigencies of squatter-life. We are +a notable people for our attachment to the frying-pan, and there is no +doubt that it is a shifty utensil: it can be slung at the saddle-bow or +carried in a valise, it will bear the jolting of a corduroy road, and +furnish a camp-mess in the minimum of time out of material that was +perhaps but a moment before sniffing or pecking at its rim. A very +little blaze sets the piece of cold fat swimming, and the black cavity +soon glows and splutters with extemporaneous content. But what dreams +howl about the camp-fires, what hideous scalping-humor creeps from the +leathery supper into the limbs and blood of the adventurous pioneer! + +No better, and quite as scrofulous, has been the nourishment furnished +by the rhetorical time-servers and polished conventionalists, whose +gifts have been all directed against the highest good of the country's +mind, to offer sweets to its crying conscience, and draughts of fierce +or languid cordials to lull the uneasy moods of this fast-growing child +of Liberty. Such men are fabricators of smooth speech; they have brought +their gilding to put upon the rising pillars of the country, instead +of strength to plant them firmly in their places and to spread the +protecting roof. This period of storm will wash off their dainty +work. When the clean granite stands where it should to shelter the +four-and-thirty States as they walk the vast colonnades together, intent +upon the great interchanges of the country's thought and work, this +tinsel will not be missed; as men look upon the grave lines that +assure them of security, they will rejoice that the time for the truly +beautiful has arrived, and hasten to relieve the solid space with shapes +as durable as the imagination which conceives. + +There must be a great people before there can be a great character in +its books, its instructions, or its works of art. This character is +prophesied only in part by what is said and thought while the people is +becoming great, and the molten constituents are sparkling as they run +into their future form. We have been so dependent upon traditional ideas +that we suppose an epic, for instance, to be the essential proof that +a people is alive and has something to express. Let us cease to wonder +whether there will ever be an American poem, an American symphony, or an +American Novum Organon. It is a sign of weakness and subservience: and +this is a period crowded with acts of emancipation. We cannot escape +from the past, if we would; we have a right to inherit all the previous +life of men that does not surfeit us and impede our proper work, but +let us stop our unavailing sighs for Iliads. The newspaper gathers and +circulates all true achievements faster than blind poets can plod round +with the story. The special form of the epic answered to a state of +society when the harper connected cities with his golden wire, slowly +unrolling its burden as he went. Vibrations travel faster now; men would +be foolish to expect that the new life will go journeying in classic +vehicles. When the imagination becomes free, it can invent forms equally +surprising and better adapted to the face of the country. + +There is no part of this country which has not its broad characters and +tendencies, different from anything ever seen before, imperfect while +they are doomed to isolation, during which they show only a maimed and +grotesque vitality. The religious tendency is different, the humor is +different, the imagination differs from anything beyond the Atlantic. +And the East differs from the West, the North from the South; and +the Pacific States will have also to contribute gifts peculiar to +themselves, as the silt of the Sacramento glitters unlike that of the +Merrimac or the Potomac. We are not yet a People; but we have great, +vivid masses of popular life, which a century of literary expression +will not exhaust. All these passionate characters are running together +in this general danger, having seized a weapon: they have found an idea +in common, they are pervaded by their first really solemn feeling, they +issue the same word for the night from East to West. The nationality +thus commenced will introduce the tendency to blend in place of the +tendency to keep apart, and each other's gifts will pass sympathetically +from hand to hand. + +The heightened life of this epoch is another cause which shall prepare +a great development of intellectual forms. Excitement and enthusiasm +pervade all classes of the people. All the primitive emotions of +the human heart--friendship, scorn, sympathy, human and religious +love--break into the liveliest expression, penetrate every quarter of +society; a great river is let loose from the rugged mountain-recesses of +the people; its waters, saturated with Nature's simple fertility, cover +the whole country, and will not retire without depositing their renewing +elements. A sincere and humble people Is feeling the exigency. A million +families have fitted out their volunteers with the most sumptuous of all +equipments, which no Government could furnish, love, tears of anxiety +and pride, last kisses and farewells, and prayers more heaven-cleaving +than a time of peace can breathe. What an invisible cloud of domestic +pathos overhung for a year the course of the Potomac, and settled upon +those huts and tents where the best part of home resided! what an ebb +and flow of letters, bearing solemnity and love upon their surface! what +anxiety among us, with all its brave housekeeping shifts, to keep want +from the door while labor is paralyzed, and the strong arms have beaten +their ploughshares into swords! What self-sacrifice of millions of +humble wives and daughters whose works and sorrows are now refining the +history of their country, and lifting the popular nobleness: they are +giving _all that they are_ to keep their volunteers in the field. The +flag waves over no such faithfulness; its stars sparkle not like this +sincerity. The feeling and heroism of women are enough to refresh and +to remould the generation. Like subtle lightning, the womanly nature +is penetrating the life of the age. From every railroad-station the +ponderous train bore off its freight of living valor, amid the cheers +of sympathizing thousands who clustered upon every shed and pillar, and +yearned forward as if to make their tumultuous feelings the motive +power to carry those dear friends away. What an ardent and unquenchable +emotion! Drums do not throb like these hearts, bullets do not patter +like these tears. There is not a power of the soul which is not +vitalized and expanded by these scenes. But long after the crowd +vanishes, there stands a woman at the corner, with a tired child asleep +upon her shoulder; the bosom does not heave so strongly as to break its +sleep. There are no regrets in the calm, proud face; no, indeed!--for it +is the face of our country, waiting to suffer and be strong for liberty, +and to put resolutely the dearest thing where it can serve mankind. In +her face read the history of the future as it shall be sung and written +by pens which shall not know whence their sharpened impulse springs; the +page shall reflect the working of that woman's face, daughter of the +people; and when exulting posterity shall draw new patriotism from it, +and declare that it is proud, pathetic, resolved, sublime, they shall +not yet call it by its Christian name, for that will be concealed with +moss upon her forgotten head-stone. + + * * * * * + + +AN ORDER FOR A PICTURE. + + + O good painter, tell me true, + Has your hand the cunning to draw + Shapes of things that you never saw? + Ay? Well, here is an order for you. + + Woods and cornfields, a little brown,-- + The picture must not be over-bright,-- + Yet all in the golden and gracious light + Of a cloud, when the summer sun is down. + + Alway and alway, night and morn, + Woods upon woods, with fields of corn + Lying between them, not quite sere, + And not in the full, thick, leafy bloom, + When the wind can hardly find breathing-room + Under their tassels,--cattle near, + Biting shorter the short green grass, + And a hedge of sumach and sassafras, + With bluebirds twittering all around,-- + (Ah, good painter, you can't paint sound!)-- + These, and the house where I was born, + Low and little, and black and old, + With children, many as it can hold, + All at the windows, open wide,-- + Heads and shoulders clear outside, + And fair young faces all ablush: + Perhaps you may have seen, some day, + Roses crowding the self-same way, + Out of a wilding, way-side bush. + + Listen closer. When you have done + With woods and cornfields and grazing herds, + A lady, the loveliest ever the sun + Looked down upon, you must paint for me: + Oh, if I only could make you see + The clear blue eyes, the tender smile, + The sovereign sweetness, the gentle grace, + The woman's soul, and the angel's face + That are beaming on me all the while! + I need not speak these foolish words: + Yet one word tells you all I would say,-- + She is my mother: you will agree + That all the rest may be thrown away. + + Two little urchins at her knee + You must paint, Sir: one like me,-- + The other with a clearer brow, + And the light of his adventurous eyes + Flashing with boldest enterprise: + At ten years old he went to sea,-- + God knoweth if he be living now,-- + He sailed in the good ship "Commodore,"-- + Nobody ever crossed her track + To bring us news, and she never came back. + Ah, 'tis twenty long years and more + Since that old ship went out of the bay + With my great-hearted brother on her deck: + I watched him till he shrank to a speck, + And his face was toward me all the way. + + Bright his hair was, a golden brown, + The time we stood at our mother's knee: + That beauteous head, if it did go down, + Carried sunshine into the sea! + + Out in the fields one summer night + We were together, half afraid + Of the corn-leaves' rustling, and of the shade + Of the high hills, stretching so still and far,-- + Loitering till after the low little light + Of the candle shone through the open door, + And over the hay-stack's pointed top, + All of a tremble, and ready to drop, + The first half-hour, the great yellow star, + That we, with staring, ignorant eyes, + Had often and often watched to see + Propped and held in its place in the skies + + By the fork of a tall red mulberry-tree, + Which close in the edge of our flax-field grew,-- + Dead at the top,--just one branch full + Of leaves, notched round, and lined with wool, + From which it tenderly shook the dew + Over our heads, when we came to play + In its handbreadth of shadow, day after day. + Afraid to go home, Sir; for one of us bore + A nest full of speckled and thin-shelled eggs,-- + The other, a bird, held fast by the legs, + Not so big as a straw of wheat: + The berries we gave her she wouldn't eat, + But cried and cried, till we held her bill, + So slim and shining, to keep her still. + + At last we stood at our mother's knee. + Do you think, Sir, if you try, + You can paint the look of a lie? + If you can, pray have the grace + To put it solely in the face + Of the urchin that is likest me: + I think't was solely mine, indeed: + But that's no matter,--paint it so; + The eyes of our mother--(take good heed)-- + Looking not on the nest-full of eggs, + Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs, + But straight through our faces down to our lies, + And, oh, with such injured, reproachful surprise! + I felt my heart bleed where that glance went, as though + A sharp blade struck through it. + You, Sir, know, + That you on the canvas are to repeat + Things that are fairest, things most sweet,-- + Woods and cornfields and mulberry-tree,-- + The mother,--the lads, with their bird, at her knee: + But, oh, that look of reproachful woe! + High as the heavens your name I'll shout, + If you paint me the picture, and leave that out. + + + + +THE SOUTH BREAKER. + +IN TWO PARTS + + +PART II. + + +Blue-fish were about done with, when one day Dan brought in some +mackerel from Boon Island: they hadn't been in the harbor for some time, +though now there was a probability of their return. So they were going +out when the tide served--the two boys--at midnight for mackerel, and +Dan had heard me wish for the experience so often, a long while ago, +that he said, Why shouldn't they take the girls? and Faith snatched at +the idea, and with that Mr. Gabriel agreed to fetch me at the hour, and +so we parted. I was kind of sorry, but there was no help for it. + +When we started, it was in that clear crystal dark that looks as if you +could see through it forever till you reached infinite things, and we +seemed to be in a great hollow sphere, and the stars were like living +beings who had the night to themselves. Always, when I'm up late, I feel +as if it were something unlawful, as if affairs were in progress which +I had no right to witness, a kind of grand freemasonry. I've felt it +nights when I've been watching with mother, and there has come up across +the heavens the great caravan of constellations, and a star that I'd +pulled away the curtain on the east side to see came by-and-by and +looked in at the south window; but I never felt it as I did this night. +The tide was near the full, and so we went slipping down the dark water +by the starlight; and as we saw them shining above us, and then looked +down and saw them sparkling up from below,--the stars,--it really seemed +as if Dan's oars must be two long wings, as if we swam on them through a +motionless air. By-and-by we were in the island creek, and far ahead, +in a streak of wind that didn't reach us, we could see a pointed sail +skimming along between the banks, as if some ghost went before to show +us the way; and when the first hush and mystery wore off, Mr. Gabriel +was singing little French songs in tunes like the rise and fall of the +tide. While he sang, he rowed, and Dan was gangeing the hooks. At length +Dan took the oars again, and every now and then he paused to let us +float along with the tide as it slacked, and take the sense of the +night. And all the tall grass that edged the side began to wave in a +strange light, and there blew on a little breeze, and over the rim of +the world tipped up a waning moon. If there'd been anything needed to +make us feel as if we were going to find the Witch of Endor, it was +this. It was such a strange moon, pointing such a strange way, with such +a strange color, so remote, and so glassy,--it was like a dead moon, or +the spirit of one, and was perfectly awful. + +"She has come to look at Faith," said Mr. Gabriel; for Faith, who once +would have been nodding here and there all about the boat, was sitting +up pale and sad, like another spirit, to confront it. But Dan and I both +felt a difference. + +Mr. Gabriel, he stepped across and went and sat down behind Faith, and +laid his hand lightly on her arm. Perhaps he didn't mind that he touched +her,--he had a kind of absent air; but if any one had looked at the +nervous pressure of the slender fingers, they would have seen as much +meaning in that touch as in many an embrace; and Faith lifted her face +to his, and they forgot that I was looking at them, and into the eyes of +both there stole a strange deep smile,--and my soul groaned within me. +It made no odds to me then that the air blew warm off the land from +scented hay-ricks, that the moon hung like some exhumed jewel in the +sky, that all the perfect night was widening into dawn. I saw and felt +nothing but the wretchedness that must break one day on Dan's head. +Should I warn him? I couldn't do that. And what then? + +The sail was up, we had left the headland and the hills, and when they +furled it and cast anchor we were swinging far out on the back of the +great monster that was frolicking to itself and thinking no more of us +than we do of a mote in the air. Elder Snow, he says that it's singular +we regard day as illumination and night as darkness,--day that really +hems us in with narrow light and shuts us upon ourselves, night that +sets us free and reveals to us all the secrets of the sky. I thought of +that when one by one the stars melted and the moon became a breath, and +up over the wide grayness crept color and radiance and the sun himself, +--the sky soaring higher and higher, like a great thin bubble of flaky +hues,--and, all about, nothing but the everlasting wash of waters +broke the sacred hush. And it seemed as if God had been with us, and +withdrawing we saw the trail of His splendid garments,--and I remembered +the words mother had spoken to Dan once before, and why couldn't I leave +him in heavenly hands? And then it came into my heart to pray. I knew I +hadn't any right to pray expecting to be heard; but yet mine would be +the prayer of the humble, and wasn't Faith of as much consequence as a +sparrow? By-and-by, as we all sat leaning over the gunwale, the words +of a hymn that I'd heard at camp-meetings came into my mind, and I sang +them out, loud and clear. I always had a good voice, though Dan 'd never +heard me do anything with it except hum little low things, putting +mother to sleep; but here I had a whole sky to sing in, and the hymns +were trumpet-calls. And one after another they kept thronging up, and +there was a rush of feeling in them that made you shiver, and as I sang +them they thrilled me through and through. Wide as the way before us +was, it seemed to widen; I felt myself journeying with some vast host +towards the city of God, and its light poured over us, and there was +nothing but joy and love and praise and exulting expectancy in my heart. +And when the hymn died on my lips because the words were too faint and +the tune was too weak for the ecstasy, and when the silence had soothed +me back again, I turned and saw Dan's lips bitten, and his cheek white, +and his eyes like stars, and Mr. Gabriel's face fallen forward in his +hands, and he shaking with quick sobs; and as for Faith,--Faith, she +had dropped asleep, and one arm was thrown above her head, and the other +lay where it had slipped from Mr. Gabriel's loosened grasp. There's a +contagion, you know, in such things, but Faith was never of the catching +kind. + +Well, this wasn't what we'd come for,--turning all out-doors into a +church,--though what's a church but a place of God's presence? and for +my part, I never see high blue sky and sunshine without feeling that. +And all of a sudden there came a school of mackerel splashing and +darkening and curling round the boat, after the bait we'd thrown out on +anchoring. 'Twould have done you good to see Dan just at that moment; +you'd have realized what it was to have a calling. He started up, +forgetting everything else, his face all flushed, his eyes like coals, +his mouth tight and his tongue silent; and how many hooks he had out I'm +sure I don't know, but he kept jerking them in by twos and threes, and +finally they bit at the bare barb and were taken without any bait at +all, just as if they'd come and asked to be caught. Mr. Gabriel, he +didn't pay any attention at first, but Dan called to him to stir +himself, and so gradually he worked back into his old mood; but he was +more still and something sad all the rest of the morning. Well, when +we'd gotten about enough, and they were dying in the boat there, as they +cast their scales, like the iris, we put in-shore; and building a fire, +we cooked our own dinner and boiled our own coffee. Many's the icy +winter-night I've wrapped up Dan's bottle of hot coffee in rolls on +rolls of flannel, that he might drink it hot and strong far out at sea +in a wherry at daybreak! + +But as I was saying,--all this time, Mr. Gabriel, he scarcely looked at +Faith. At first she didn't comprehend, and then something swam all over +her face as if the very blood in her veins had grown darker, and there +was such danger in her eye that before we stepped into the boat again +I wished to goodness I had a life-preserver. But in the beginning the +religious impression lasted and gave him great resolutions; and then +strolling off and along the beach, he fell in with some men there and +did as he always did, scraped acquaintance. I verily believe that these +men were total strangers, that he'd never laid eyes on them before, and +after a few words he wheeled about. As he did so, his glance fell on +Faith standing there alone against the pale sky, for the weather 'd +thickened, and watching the surf break at her feet. He was motionless, +gazing at her long, and then, when he had turned once or twice +irresolutely, he ground his heel into the sand and went back. The men +rose and wandered on with him, and they talked together for a while, and +I saw money pass; and pretty soon Mr. Gabriel returned, his face vividly +pallid, but smiling, and he had in his hand some little bright shells +that you don't often find on these Northern beaches, and he said he had +bought them of those men. And all this time he'd not spoken with Faith, +and there was the danger yet in her eye. But nothing came of it, and I +had accused myself of nearly every crime in the Decalogue, and on the +way back we had put up the lines, and Mr. Gabriel had hauled in the +lobster-net for the last time. He liked that branch of the business; +he said it had all the excitement of gambling,--the slow settling +downwards, the fading of the last ripple, the impenetrable depth and +shade and the mystery of the work below, five minutes of expectation, +and it might bring up a scale of the sea-serpent, or the king of the +crabs might have crept in for a nap in the folds, or it might come up +as if you'd dredged for pearls, or it might hold the great +backward-crawling lobsters, or a tangle of seaweed, or the long yellow +locks of some drowned girl,--or nothing at all. So he always drew in +that net, and it needed muscle, and his was like steel,--not good for +much in the long pull, but just for a breathing could handle the biggest +boatman in the harbor. Well,--and we'd hoisted the sail and were in the +creek once more, for the creek was only to be used at high-water, and +I'd told Dan I couldn't be away from mother over another tide and so we +mustn't get aground, and he'd told me not to fret, there was nothing too +shallow for us on the coast--"This boat," said Dan, "she'll float in a +heavy dew." And he began singing a song he liked:-- + + "I cast my line in Largo Bay, + And fishes I caught nine: + There's three to boil, and three to fry, + And three to bait the line." + +And Mr. Gabriel 'd never heard it before, and he made him sing it again +and again. + + "The boatie rows, the boatie rows, + The boatie rows indeed," + +repeated Mr. Gabriel, and he said it was the only song he knew that held +the click of the oar in the rowlock. + +The little birds went skimming by us, as we sailed, their breasts upon +the water, and we could see the gunners creeping through the marshes +beside them. + +"The wind changes," said Mr. Gabriel. "The equinox treads close behind +us. Sst! Is it that you do not feel its breath? And you hear nothing?" + +"It's the Soul of the Bar," said Dan; and he fell to telling us one +of the wild stories that fishermen can tell each other by the lantern +rocking outside at night in the dory. + +The wind was dead east, and now we flew before it, and now we tacked in +it, up and up the winding stream, and always a little pointed sail came +skimming on in suit. + +"What sail is that, Dan?" asked I. "It looks like the one that flitted +ahead this morning." + +"It is the one," said Dan,--for he'd brought up a whole horde of +superstitious memories, and a gloom that had been hovering off and on +his face settled there for good. "As much of a one as that was. It's no +sail at all. It's a death-sign. And I've never been down here and seen +it but trouble was on its heels. Georgie! there's two of them!" + +We all looked, but it was hidden in a curve, and when it stole in sight +again there _were_ two of them, filmy and faint as spirits' wings,--and +while we gazed they vanished, whether supernaturally or in the mist that +was rising mast-high I never thought, for my blood was frozen as it ran. + +"You have fear?" asked Mr. Gabriel,--his face perfectly pale, and his +eye almost lost in darkness. "If it is a phantom, it can do you no +harm." + +Faith's teeth chattered,--I saw them. He turned to her, and as their +look met, a spot of carnation burned into his cheek almost as a brand +would have burned. He seemed to be balancing some point, to be searching +her and sifting her; and Faith half rose, proudly, and pale, as if his +look pierced her with pain. The look was long,--but before it fell, a +glow and sparkle filled the eyes, and over his face there curled the +deep, strange smile of the morning, till the long lids and heavy lashes +dropped and made it sad. And Faith,--she started in a new surprise, the +darkness gathered and crept off her face as cream wrinkles from milk, +and spleen or venom or what-not became absorbed again and lost, and +there was nothing in her glance but passionate forgetfulness. Some souls +are like the white river-lilies,--fixed, yet floating; but Mr. Gabriel +had no firm root anywhere, and was blown about with every breeze, like a +leaf on the flood. His purposes melted and made with his moods. + +The wind got round more to the north, the mist fell upon the waters or +blew away over the meadows, and it was cold. Mr. Gabriel wrapped the +cloak about Faith and fastened it, and tied her bonnet. Just now Dan was +so busy handling the boat--and it's rather risky, you have to wriggle up +the creek so--that he took little notice of us. Then Mr. Gabriel stood +up, as if to change his position; and taking off his hat, he held it +aloft, while he passed the other hand across his forehead. And leaning +against the mast, he stood so, many minutes. + +"Dan," I said, "did your spiritual craft ever hang out a purple +pennant?" + +"No," said Dan. + +"Well," says I. And we all saw a little purple ribbon running up the +rope and streaming on the air behind us. + +"And why do we not hoist our own?" said Mr. Gabriel, putting on his hat. +And suiting the action to the word, a little green signal curled up and +flaunted above us like a bunch of the weed floating there in the water +beneath and dyeing all the shallows so that they looked like caves of +cool emerald, and wide off and over them the west burned smoulderingly +red like a furnace. Many a time since, I've felt the magical color +between those banks and along those meadows, but then I felt none of it; +every wit I had was too awake and alert and fast-fixed in watching. + +"Is it that the phantoms can be flesh and blood?" said Mr. Gabriel +laughingly; and lifting his arm again, he hailed the foremost. + +"Boat ahoy! What names?" said he. + +The answer came back on the wind full and round. + +"'Speed,' and 'Follow.'" + +"Where from?" asked Dan, with just a glint in his eye,--for usually he +knew every boat on the river, but he didn't know these. + +"From the schooner Flyaway, taking in sand over at Black Rocks." + +Then Mr. Gabriel spoke again, as they drew near,--but whether he spoke +so fast that I couldn't understand, or whether he spoke French, I never +knew; and Dan, with some kind of feeling that it was Mr. Gabriel's +acquaintance, suffered the one we spoke to pass us. + +Once or twice Mr. Gabriel had begun some question to Dan about the +approaching weather, but had turned it off again before anybody could +answer. You see he had some little nobility left, and didn't want the +very man he was going to injure to show him how to do it. Now, however, +he asked him that was steering the Speed by, if it was going to storm. + +The man thought it was. + +"How is it, then, that your schooner prepares to sail?" + +"Oh, wind's backed in; we'll be on blue water before the gale breaks, I +reckon, and then beat off where there's plenty of sea-room." + +"But she shall make shipwreck!" + +"'Not if the court know herself, and he think she do,'" was the reply +from another, as they passed. + +Somehow I began to hate myself, I was so full of poisonous suspicions. +How did Mr. Gabriel know the schooner prepared to sail? And this man, +could he tell boom from bowsprit? I didn't believe it; he had the hang +of the up-river folks. But there stood Mr. Gabriel, so quiet and easy, +his eyelids down, and he humming an underbreath of song; and there sat +Faith, so pale and so pretty, a trifle sad, a trifle that her conscience +would brew for her, whether or no. Yet, after all, there was an odd +expression in Mr. Gabriel's face, an eager, restless expectation; and if +his lids were lowered, it was only to hide the spark that flushed and +quenched in his eye like a beating pulse. + +We had reached the draw, it was lifted for the Speed, she had passed, +and the wind was in her sail once more. Yet, somehow, she hung back. And +then I saw that the men in her were of those with whom Mr. Gabriel had +spoken at noon. Dan's sail fell slack, and we drifted slowly through, +while he poled us along with an oar. + +"Look out, Georgie!" said Dan, for he thought I was going to graze my +shoulder upon the side there. I looked; and when I turned again, Mr. +Gabriel was rising up from some earnest and hurried sentence to Faith. +And Faith, too, was standing, standing and swaying with indecision, and +gazing away out before her,--so flushed and so beautiful,--so loath and +so willing. Poor thing! poor thing! as if her rising in itself were not +the whole! + +Mr. Gabriel stepped across the boat, stooped a minute, and then also +took an oar. How perfect he was, as he stood there that moment!--perfect +like a statue, I mean,--so slender, so clean-limbed, his dark face pale +to transparency in the green light that filtered through the draw! and +then a ray from the sunset came creeping over the edge of the high +fields and smote his eyes sidelong so that they glowed like jewels, and +he with his oar planted firmly hung there bending far back with it, +completely full of strength and grace. + +"It is not the _bateaux_ in the rapids," said he. + +"What are you about?" asked Dan, with sudden hoarseness. "You are +pulling the wrong way!" + +Mr. Gabriel laughed, and threw down his oar, and stepped back again; +gave his hand to Faith, and half led, half lifted her, over the side, +and into the Speed, followed, and never looked behind him. They let +go something they had held, the Speed put her nose in the water and +sprinkled us with spray, plunged, and dashed off like an arrow. + +It was like him,--daring and insolent coolness! Just like him! Always +the soul of defiance! None but one so reckless and impetuous as he would +have dreamed of flying into the teeth of the tempest in that shell of a +schooner. But he was mad with love, and they--there wasn't a man among +them but was the worse for liquor. + +For a moment Dan took it, as Mr. Gabriel had expected him to do, as a +joke, and went to trim the boat for racing, not meaning they should +reach town first. But I--I saw It all. + +"Dan!" I sung out, "save her! She's not coming back! They'll make for +the schooner at Black Rocks! Oh, Dan, he's taken her off!" + +Now one whose intelligence has never been trained, who shells his five +wits and gets rid of the pods as best he can, mayn't be so quick as +another, but, like an animal, he feels long before he sees; and a vague +sense of this had been upon Dan all day. Yet now he stood thunderstruck, +and the thing went on before his very eyes. It was more than he could +believe at once,--and perhaps his first feeling was, Why should he +hinder? And then the flood fell. No thought of his loss,--though loss it +wa'n't,--only of his friend,--of such stunning treachery, that, if +the sun fell hissing into the sea at noon, it would have mattered +less,--only of _that_ loss that tore his heart out with it. + +"Gabriel!" he shouted,--"Gabriel!" And his voice was heart-rending. I +know that Mr. Gabriel felt it, for he never turned nor stirred. + +Then I don't know what came over Dan: a blind rage swelling in his heart +seemed to make him larger in every limb; he towered like a flame. He +sprang to the tiller, but, as he did so, saw with one flash of his eye +that Mr. Gabriel had unshipped the rudder and thrown it away. He seized +an oar to steer with in its place; he saw that they, in their ignorance +fast edging on the flats, would shortly be aground; more fisherman than +sailor, he knew a thousand tricks of boat-craft that they had never +heard of. We flew, we flew through cloven ridges, we became a wind +ourselves, and while I tell it he was beside them, had gathered himself +as if to leap the chasm between time and eternity, and had landed among +them in the Speed. The wherry careened with the shock and the water +poured into her, and she flung headlong and away as his foot spurned +her. Heaven knows why she didn't upset, for I thought of nothing but the +scene before me as I drifted off from it. I shut the eyes in my soul +now, that I mayn't see that horrid scuffle twice. Mr. Gabriel, he rose, +he turned. If Dan was the giant beside him, he himself was so well-knit, +so supple, so adroit, that his power was like the blade in the hand. +Dan's strength was lying round loose, but Mr. Gabriel's was trained, it +hid like springs of steel between brain and wrist, and from him the clap +fell with the bolt. And then, besides, Dan did not love Faith, and he +did love Gabriel. Any one could see how it would go. I screamed. I +cried, "Faith! Faith!" And some natural instinct stirred in Faith's +heart, for she clung to Mr. Gabriel's arm to pull him off from Dan. But +he shook her away like rain. Then such a mortal weakness took possession +of me that I saw everything black, and, when it was clean gone, I +looked, and they were locked in each other's arms, fierce, fierce and +fell, a death-grip. They were staggering to the boat's edge: only this I +saw, that Mr. Gabriel was inside: suddenly the helmsman interposed with +an oar, and broke their grasps. Mr. Gabriel reeled away, free, for a +second; then, the passion, the fury, the hate in his heart feeding his +strength as youth fed the locks of Samson, he darted, and lifted Dan in +his two arms and threw him like a stone into the water. Stiffened to +ice, I waited for Dan to rise; the other craft, the Follow, skimmed +between us, and one man managing her that she shouldn't heel, the rest +drew Dan in,--it's not the depth of two foot there,--tacked about, and +after a minute came along-side, seized our painter, and dropped him +gently into his own boat. Then--for the Speed had got afloat again--the +thing stretched her two sails wing and wing, and went ploughing up a +great furrow of foam before her. + +I sprang to Dan. He was not senseless, but in a kind of stupor: his head +had struck the fluke of a half-sunk anchor and it had stunned him, but +as the wound bled he recovered slowly and opened his eyes. Ah, what +misery was in them! I turned to the fugitives. They were yet in sight, +Mr. Gabriel sitting and seeming to adjure Faith, whose skirts he +held; but she stood, and her arms were outstretched, and, pale as a +foam-wreath her face, and piercing as a night-wind her voice, I heard +her cry, "Oh, Georgie! Georgie!" It was too late for her to cry or to +wring her hands now. She should have thought of that before. But Mr. +Gabriel rose and drew her down, and hid her face in his arms and bent +over it; and so they fled up the basin and round the long line of sand, +and out into the gloom and the curdling mists. + +I bound up Dan's head. I couldn't steer with an oar,--that was out of +the question,--but, as luck would have it, could row tolerably; so I got +down the little mast, and at length reached the wharves. The town-lights +flickered up in the darkness and flickered back from the black rushing +river, and then out blazed the great mills; and as I felt along, I +remembered times when we'd put in by the tender sunset, as the rose +faded out of the water and the orange ebbed down the west, and one by +one the sweet evening-bells chimed forth, so clear and high, and each +with a different tone, that it seemed as if the stars must flock, +tinkling, into the sky. And here were the bells ringing out again, +ringing out of the gray and the gloom, dull and brazen, as if they rang +from some cavern of shadows, or from the mouth of hell,--but no, _that_ +was down-river! Well, I made my way, and the men on the landing took up +Dan, and helped him in and got him on my little bed, and no sooner there +than the heavy sleep with which he had struggled fell on him like lead. + +The story flew from mouth to mouth, the region rang with it; nobody had +any need to add to it, or to make it out a griffin or a dragon that had +gripped Faith and carried her off in his talons. But everybody declared +that those boats could be no ship's yawls at all, but must belong to +parties from up-river camping out on the beach, and that a parcel of +such must have gone sailing with some of the hands of a sand-droger: +there was one in the stream now, that had got off with the tide, said +the Jerdan boys, who'd been down there that afternoon, though there was +no such name as "Flyaway" on her stern, and they were waiting for the +master of her, who'd gone off on a spree,--a dare-devil fellow, that +used to run a smuggler between Bordeaux and Bristol, as they'd heard +say: and all agreed that Mr. Gabriel could never have had to do with +them before that day, or he'd have known what a place a sand-droger +would be for a woman; and everybody made excuses for Gabriel, and +everybody was down on Faith. So there things lay. It was raw and chill +when the last neighbor left us, the sky was black as a cloak, not a star +to be seen, the wind had edged back to the east again and came in wet +and wild from the sea and fringed with its thunder. Oh, poor little +Faith, what a night! what a night for her! + +I went back and sat down by Dan, and tried to keep his head cool. Father +was up walking the kitchen-floor till late, but at length he lay down +across the foot of mother's bed, as if expecting to be called. The +lights were put out, there was no noise in the town, every one +slept,--every one, except they watched like me, on that terrible night. +No noise in the town, did I say? Ah, but there was! It came creeping +round the corners, it poured rushing up the street, it rose from +everywhere,--a voice, a voice of woe, the heavy booming rote of the +sea. I looked out, but it was pitch-dark, light had forsaken the world, +we were beleaguered by blackness. It grew colder, as if one felt a fog +fall, and the wind, mounting slowly, now blew a gale. It eddied in +clouds of dead and whirling leaves, and sent big torn branches flying +aloft; it took the house by the four corners and shook it to loosening +the rafters, and I felt the chair rock under me; it rumbled down the +chimney as if it would tear the life out of us. And with every fresh +gust of the gale the rain slapped against the wall, the rain that fell +in rivers, and went before the wind in sheets,--and sheltered as I was, +the torrents seemed to pour over me like cataracts, and every drop +pierced me like a needle, and I put my fingers in my ears to shut out +the howl of the wind and the waves. I couldn't keep my thoughts away +from Faith. Oh, poor girl, this wasn't what she'd expected! As plainly +as if I were aboard-ship I felt the scene, the hurrying feet, the +slippery deck, the hoarse cries, the creaking cordage, the heaving and +plunging and straining, and the wide wild night. And I was beating +off those dreadful lines with them, two dreadful lines of white froth +through the blackness, two lines where the horns of breakers guard the +harbor,--all night long beating off the lee with them, my life in my +teeth, and chill, blank, shivering horror before me. My whole soul, my +whole being, was fixed in that one spot, that little vessel driving on +the rocks: it seemed as if a madness took possession of me, I reeled +as I walked, I forefelt the shivering shock, I waited till she should +strike. And then I thought I heard cries, and I ran out in the storm, +and down upon the causeway, but nothing met me but the hollow night and +the roaring sea and the wind. I came back, and hurried up and down and +wrung my hands in an agony. Pictures of summer nights flashed upon me +and faded,--where out of deep-blue vaults the stars hung like lamps, +great and golden,--or where soft films just hazing heaven caught the +rays, till all above gleamed like gauze faintly powdered and spangled +with silver,--or heavy with heat, slipping over silent waters, through +scented airs, under purple skies. And then storms rolled in and rose +before my eyes, distinct for a moment, and breaking,--such as I'd seen +them from the Shoals in broad daylight, when tempestuous columns +scooped themselves up from the green gulfs and shattered in loam on +the shuddering rock,--ah! but that was day, and this was midnight and +murk!--storms as I'd heard tell of them off Cape Race, when great +steamers went down with but one cry, and the waters crowded them out of +sight,--storms where, out of the wilderness of waves that far and wide +wasted white around, a single one came ploughing on straight to the +mark, gathering its grinding masses mast-high, poising, plunging, and +swamping and crashing them into bottomless pits of destruction,--storms +where waves toss and breakers gore, where, hanging on crests that slip +from under, reefs impale the hull, and drowning wretches cling to the +crags with stiffening hands, and the sleet ices them, and the spray, and +the sea lashes and beats them with great strokes and sucks them down +to death: and right in the midst of it all there burst a gun,--one, +another, and no more. "Oh, Faith! Faith!" I cried again, and I ran and +hid my head in the bed. + +How long did I stay so? An hour, or maybe two. Dan was still dead with +sleep, but mother had no more closed an eye than I. There was no rain +now, the wind had fallen, the dark had lifted; I looked out once more, +and could just see dimly the great waters swinging in the river from +bank to bank. I drew the bucket fresh, and bound the cloths cold on +Dan's head again. I hadn't a thought in my head, and I fell to counting +the meshes in the net that hung from the wall, but in my ears there was +the everlasting rustle of the sea and shore. It grew clearer,--it got +to being a universal gray; there'd been no sunrise, but it was day. +Dan stirred,--he turned over heavily; then he opened his eyes wide and +looked about him. + +"I've had such a fright!" he said. "Georgie! is that you?" + +With that it swept over him afresh, and he fell back. In a moment or two +he tried to rise, but he was weak as a child. He contrived to keep on +his elbow a moment, though, and to give a look out of the window. + +"It came on to blow, didn't it?" he asked; but there he sank down again. + +"I can't stay so!" he murmured soon. "I can't stay so! Here,--I must +tell you. Georgie, get out the spy-glass, and go up on the roof and +look over. I've had a dream, I tell you! I've had a dream. Not that +either,--but it's just stamped on me! It was like a storm,--and I +dreamed that that schooner--the Flyaway--had parted. And the half of +her's crashed down just as she broke, and Faith and that man are high +up on the bows in the middle of the South Breaker! Make haste, Georgie! +Christ! make haste!" + +I flew to the drawers and opened them, and began to put the spy-glass +together. Suddenly he cried out again,-- + +"Oh, here's where the fault was! What right had I ever to marry the +child, not loving her? I bound her! I crushed her! I stifled her! If she +lives, it is my sin; if she dies, I murder her!" + +He hid his face, as he spoke, so that his voice came thick, and great +choking groans rent their way up from his heart. + +All at once, as I looked up, there stood mother, in her long white gown, +beside the bed, and bending over and taking Dan's hot head in her two +hands. + +"Behold, He cometh with clouds!" she whispered. + +It always did seem to me as if mother had the imposition of +hands,--perhaps every one feels just so about their mother,--but only +her touch always lightens an ache for me, whether it's in the heart or +the head. + +"Oh, Aunt Rhody," said Dan, looking up in her face with his distracted +eyes, "can't you help me?" + +"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help," +said mother. + +"There's no help, there!" called Dan. "There's no God there! He wouldn't +have let a little child run into her damnation!" + +"Hush, hush, Dan!" murmured mother. "Faith never can have been at sea in +such a night as this, and not have felt God's hand snatching her out of +sin. If she lives, she's a changed woman; and if she dies, her soul is +whitened and fit to walk with saints. Through much tribulation." + +"Yes, yes," muttered father, in the room beyond, spitting on his hands, +as if he were going to take hold of the truth by the handle,--"it's best +to clean up a thing with the first spot, and not wait for it to get all +rusty with crime." + +"And he!" said Dan,--"and he,--that man,--Gabriel!" + + "Between the saddle and the ground + If mercy's asked, mercy's found," + +said I. + +"Are you there yet, Georgie?" he cried, turning to me. "Here! I'll go +myself!" But he only stumbled and fell on the bed again. + +"In all the terror and the tempest of these long hours,--for there's +been a fearful storm, though you haven't felt it," said mother,--"in all +that, Mr. Gabriel can't have slept. But at first it must have been that +great dread appalled him, and he may have been beset with sorrow. He'd +brought her to this. But at last, for he's no coward, he has looked +death in the face and not flinched; and the danger, and the grandeur +there is in despair, have lifted his spirit to great heights,--heights +found now in an hour, but which in a whole life long he never would have +gained,--heights from which he has seen the light of God's face and been +transfigured in it,--heights where the soul dilates to a stature it can +never lose. Oh, Dan, there's a moment, a moment when the dross strikes +off, and the impurities, and the grain sets, and there comes out the +great white diamond. For by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that +not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,--of Him that maketh the seven +stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning. Oh, I +_will_ believe that Mr. Gabriel hadn't any need to grope as we do, but +that suddenly he saw the Heavenly Arm and clung to it, and the grasp +closed round him, and death and hell can have no power over him now. +Dan, poor boy, is it better to lie in the earth with the ore than to +be forged in the furnace and beaten to a blade fit for the hands of +archangels?" + +And mother stopped, trembling like a leaf. + +I'd been wiping and screwing the glass, and I'd waited a breath, for +mother always talked so like a preacher; but when she'd finished, after +a second or two Dan looked up, and said, as if he'd just come in-- + +"Aunt Rhody! how come you out of bed?" + +And then mother, she got upon the bed, and she took Dan's head on her +breast and fell to stroking his brows, laying her cool palms on his +temples and on his eyelids, as once I'd have given my ears to do,--and I +slipped out of the room. + +Oh, I hated to go up those stairs, to mount that ladder, to open the +scuttle! And once there, I waited and waited before I dared to look. The +night had unnerved me. At length I fixed the glass. I swept the broad +swollen stream, to the yellowing woods, and over the meadows, where a +pale transient beam crept under and pried up the hay-cocks,--the smoke +that began to curl from the chimneys and fall as soon,--the mists +blowing off from Indian Hill, but brooding blue and dense down the +turnpike, and burying the red spark of the moon, that smothered like a +half-dead coal in her ashes,--anywhere, anywhere but that spot! I don't +know why it was, but I couldn't level the glass there,--my arm would +fall, my eye haze. Finally I brought it round nearer and tried again. +Everywhere, as far as your eye could reach, the sea was yeasty and white +with froth, and great streaks of it were setting up the inky river, +and against it there were the twin light-houses quivering their little +yellow rays as if to mock the dawn, and far out on the edge of day the +great light at the Isles of Shoals blinked and blinked, crimson and +gold, fainter and fainter, and lost at last. It was no use, I didn't +dare point it, my hand trembled so I could see nothing plain, when +suddenly an engine went thundering over the bridge and startled me into +stillness. The tube slung in my hold and steadied against the chimney, +and there----What was it in the field? what ghastly picture? + +The glass crashed from my hand, and I staggered shrieking down the +ladder. + +The sound wasn't well through my lips, when the door slammed, and Dan +had darted out of the house and to the shore. I after him. There was a +knot sitting and standing round there in the gray, shivering, with their +hands in their pockets and their pipes set in their teeth; but the gloom +was on them as well, and the pipes went out between the puffs. + +"Where's Dennis's boat?" Dan demanded, as he strode. + +"The six-oar's all the one not"---- + +"The six-oar I want. Who goes with me?" + +There wasn't a soul in the ward but would have followed Dan's lead to +the end of the world and jumped off; and before I could tell their names +there were three men on the thwarts, six oars in the air, Dan stood in +the bows, a word from him, and they shot away. + +I watched while I could see, and then in and up to the attic, forgetting +to put mother in her bed, forgetting all things but the one. And there +lay the glass broken. I sat awhile with the pieces in my hand, as if I'd +lost a kingdom; then down, and mechanically put things to rights, and +made mother comfortable,--and she's never stood on her feet from that +day to this. At last I seated myself before the fire, and stared into it +to blinding. + +"Won't some one lend you a glass, Georgie?" said mother. + +"Of course they will!" I cried,--for, you see, I hadn't a wit of my +own,--and I ran out. + +There's a glass behind every door in the street, you should know, and +there's no day in the year that you'll go by and not see one stretching +from some roof where the heart of the house is out on the sea. Oh, +sometimes I think all the romance of the town is clustered down here on +the Flats and written in pale cheeks and starting eyes. But what's the +use? After one winter, one, I gave mine away, and never got another. +It's just an emblem of despair. Look, and look again, and look till your +soul sinks, and the thing you want never crosses it; but you're down in +the kitchen stirring a porridge, or you're off at a neighbor's asking +the news, and somebody shouts at you round the corner, and there, black +and dirty and dearer than gold, she lies between the piers. + +All the world was up on their house-tops spying, that morning, but there +was nobody would keep their glass while I had none; so I went back +armed, and part of it all I saw, and part of it father told me. + +I waited till I thought they were 'most across, and then I rubbed the +lens. At first I saw nothing, and I began to quake with a greater fear +than any that had yet taken root in me. But with the next moment there +they were, pulling close up. I shut my eyes for a flash with some kind +of a prayer that was most like an imprecation, and when I looked again +they had dashed over and dashed over, taking the rise of the long roll, +and were in the midst of the South Breaker. O God! that terrible South +Breaker! The oars bent lithe as willow-switches, a moment they +skimmed on the caps, a moment were hid in the snow of the spray. Dan, +red-shirted, still stood there, his whole soul on the aim before him, +like that of some leaper flying through the air; he swayed to the +stroke, he bowed, he rose, perfectly balanced, and flexile as the wave. +The boat behaved beneath their hands like a live creature: she bounded +so that you almost saw the light under her; her whole steal lifted +itself slowly out of the water, caught the back of a roller and rode +over upon the next; the very things that came rushing in with their +white rage to devour her bent their necks and bore her up like a bubble. +Constantly she drew nearer that dark and shattered heap up to which the +fierce surf raced, and over which it leaped. And there all the time, all +the time, they had been clinging, far out on the bowsprit, those two +figures, her arms close-knit about him, he clasping her with one, the +other twisted in the hawser, whose harsh thrilling must have filled +their ears like an organ-note as it swung them to and fro,--clinging +to life,--clinging to each other more than to life. The wreck scarcely +heaved with the stoutest blow of the tremendous surge; here and there, +only, a plank shivered off and was bowled on and thrown high upon the +beach beside fragments of beams broken and bruised to a powder; it +seemed to be as firmly planted there as the breaker itself. Great +feathers of foam flew across it, great waves shook themselves thin +around it and veiled it in shrouds, and with their every breath the +smothering sheets dashed over them,--the two. And constantly the boat +drew nearer, as I said; they were almost within hail; Dan saw her hair +streaming on the wind; he waited only for the long wave. On it came, +that long wave,--oh! I can see it now!--plunging and rearing and +swelling, a monstrous billow, sweeping and swooning and rocking in. Its +hollows gaped with slippery darkness, it towered and sent the scuds +before its trembling crest, breaking with a mighty rainbow as the sun +burst forth, it fell in a white blindness everywhere, rushed seething up +the sand,--and the bowsprit was bare!---- + +When father came home, the rack had driven down the harbor and left +clear sky; it was near nightfall; they'd been searching the shore all +day,--to no purpose. But that rainbow,--I always took it for a sign. +Father was worn out, yet he sat in the chimney-side, cutting off great +quids and chewing and thinking and sighing. At last he went and wound up +the clock,--it was the stroke of twelve,--and then he turned to me and +said,-- + +"Dan sent you this, Georgie. He hailed a pilot-boat, and's gone to the +Cape to join the fall fleet to the fish'ries; and he sent you this." + +It was just a great hand-grip to make your nails purple, but there was +heart's-blood in it. See, there's the mark to-day. + +So there was Dan off in the Bay of Chaleur. It was the best place for +him. And I went about my work once more. There was a great gap in my +life, but I tried not to look at it. I durstn't think of Dan, and I +wouldn't think of them,--the two. Always in such times it's as if a +breath had come and blown across the pool and you could see down its +dark depths and into the very bottom, but time scums it all over again. +And I tell you it's best to look trouble in the face: if you don't, +you'll have more of it. So I got a lot of shoes to bind, and what part +of my spare time I wa'n't at my books the needle flew. But I turned no +more to the past than I could help, and the future trembled too much to +be seen. + +Well, the two months dragged away, it got to be Thanksgiving-week, and +at length the fleet was due. I mind me I made a great baking that +week; and I put brandy into the mince for once, instead of vinegar and +dried-apple juice,--and there were the fowls stuffed and trussed on +the shelf,--and the pumpkin-pies like slices of split gold,--and the +cranberry-tarts, plats of crimson and puffs of snow,--and I was brewing +in my mind a right-royal red Indian-pudding to come out of the oven +smoking hot and be soused with thick clots of yellow cream,--when one of +the boys ran in and told us the fleet'd got back, but no Dan with it, +--he'd changed over to a fore-and-after, and wouldn't be home at all, +but was to stay down in the Georges all winter, and he'd sent us word. +Well, the baking went to the dogs, or the Thanksgiving beggars, which is +the same thing. + +Then days went by, as days will, and it was well into the New Year. +I used to sit there at the window, reading,--but the lines would run +together, and I'd forget what 'twas all about, and gather no sense, and +the image of the little fore-and-after, the "Feather," raked in between +the leaves, and at last I had to put all that aside; and then I sat +stitching, stitching, but got into a sad habit of looking up and looking +out each time I drew the thread. I felt it was a shame of me to be so +glum, and mother missed my voice; but I could no more talk than I could +have given conundrums to King Solomon, and as for singing--Oh, I used to +long so for just a word from Dan! + +We'd had dry fine weeks all along, and father said he'd known we should +have just such a season, because the goose's breast-bone was so white; +but St. Valentine's day the weather broke, broke in a chain of storms +that the September gale was a whisper to. Ah, it was a dreadful winter, +that! You've surely heard of it. It made forty widows in our town. Of +the dead that were found on Prince Edward's Island's shores there were +four corpses in the next house yonder, and two in the one behind. And +what waiting and watching and cruel pangs of suspense for them that +couldn't have even the peace of certainty! And I was one of those. + +The days crept on, I say, and got bright again; no June days ever +stretched themselves to half such length; there was perfect stillness in +the house,--it seemed to me that I counted every tick of the clock. In +the evenings the neighbors used to drop in and sit mumbling over their +fearful memories till the flesh crawled on my bones. Father, then, he +wanted cheer, and he'd get me to singing "Caller Herrin'." Once, I'd +sung the first part, but as I reached the lines,-- + + "When ye were sleepin' on your pillows, + Dreamt ye aught o' our puir fellows + Darklin' as they face the billows, + A' to fill our woven willows,"-- + +as I reached those lines, my voice trembled so's to shake the tears out +of my eyes, and Jim Jerdan took it up himself and sung it through for +me to words of his own invention. He was always a kindly fellow, and he +knew a little how the land lay between me and Dan. + +"When I was down in the Georges," said Jim Jerdan---- + +"You? When was you down there?" asked father. + +"Well,--once I was. There's worse places." + +"Can't tell me nothing about the Georges," said father. "'Ta'n't the +rivers of Damascus exactly, but 'ta'n't the Marlstrom neither." + +"Ever ben there, Cap'n?" + +"A few. Spent more nights under cover roundabouts than Georgie'll have +white hairs in her head,--for all she's washing the color out of her +eyes now." + +You see, father knew I set by my hair,--for in those days I rolled it +thick as a cable, almost as long, black as that cat's back,--and he +thought he'd touch me up a little. + +"Wash the red from her cheek and the light from her look, and she'll +still have the queen's own tread," said Jim. + +"If Loisy Currier'd heern that, you'd wish your cake was dough," says +father. + +"I'll resk it," says Jim. "Loisy knows who's second choice, as well as +if you told her." + +"But what about the Georges, Jim?" I asked; for though I hated to hear, +I could listen to nothing else. + +"Georges? Oh, not much. Just like any other place." + +"But what do you do down there?" + +"Do? Why, we fish,--in the pleasant weather." + +"And when it's not pleasant?" + +"Oh, then we make things taut, hoist fores'l, clap the hellum into the +lee becket, and go below and amuse ourselves." + +"How?" I asked, as if I hadn't heard it all a hundred times. + +"One way 'n' another. Pipes, and mugs, and poker, if it a'n't too rough; +and if it is, we just bunk and snooze till it gets smooth." + +"Why, Jim,--how do you know when that is?" + +"Well, you can jedge,--'f the pipe falls out of your pocket and don't +light on the ceiling." + +"And who's on deck?" + +"There's no one on deck. There's no danger, no trouble, no nothing. +Can't drive ashore, if you was to try: hundred miles off, in the first +place. Hatches are closed, she's light as a cork, rolls over and over +just like any other log in the water, and there can't a drop get into +her, if she turns bottom-side up." + +"But she never can right herself!" + +"Can't she? You just try her. Why, I've known 'em to keel over and rake +bottom and bring up the weed on the topmast. I tell you now! there was +one time we knowed she'd turned a somerset, pretty well. Why? Because, +when it cleared and we come up, there was her two masts broke short +off!" + +And Jim went home thinking he'd given me a night's sleep. But it was +cold comfort; the Georges seemed to me a worse place than the Hellgate. +And mother she kept murmuring,--"He layeth the beams of His chambers in +the waters, His pavilion round about Him is dark waters and thick clouds +of the skies." And I knew by that she thought it pretty bad. + +So the days went in cloud and wind. The owners of the Feather 'd been +looking for her a month and more, and there were strange kind of rumors +afloat; and nobody mentioned Dan's name, unless they tripped. I went +glowering like a wild thing. I knew I'd never see Dan now nor hear his +voice again, but I hated the Lord that had done it, and I made my heart +like the nether millstone. I used to try and get out of folks's sight; +and roaming about the back-streets one day, as the snow went off, I +stumbled on Miss Catharine. "Old Miss Catharine" everybody called her, +though she was but a pauper, and had black blood in her veins. Eighty +years had withered her,--a little woman at best, and now bent so that +her head and shoulders hung forward and she couldn't lift them, and she +never saw the sky. Her face to the ground as no beast's face is turned +even, she walked with a cane, and fixing it every few steps she would +throw herself back, and so get a glimpse of her way and go on. I looked +after her, and for the first time in weeks my heart ached for somebody +beside myself. The next day mother sent me with a dish to Miss +Catharine's room, and I went in and sat down. I didn't like her at +first; she'd got a way of looking sidelong that gave her an evil air; +but soon she tilted herself backward, and I saw her face,--such a happy +one! + +"What's the matter of ye, honey?" said she. "D'ye read your Bible?" + +Read my Bible! + +"Is that what makes you happy, Miss Catharine?" I asked. + +"Well, I can't read much myself, I don't know the letters," says she; +"but I've got the blessed promises in my heart." + +"Do you want me to read to you?" + +"No, not to-day. Next time you come, maybe." + +So I sat awhile and listened to her little humming voice, and we fell to +talking about mother's ailments, and she said how fine it would be, if +we could only afford to take mother to Bethesda. + +"There's no angel there now," said I. + +"I know it, dear,--but then there might be, you know. At any rate, +there's always the living waters running to make us whole: I often think +of that." + +"And what else do you think of, Miss Catharine?" + +"Me?" said she. "Oh, I ha'n't got no husband nor no child to think about +and hope for, and so I think of myself, and what I should like, honey. +And sometimes I remember them varses,--here! you read 'em now,--Luke +xiii. 11." + +So I read:-- + +"And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen +years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself. And +when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, 'Woman, +thou art loosed from thine infirmity.' And he laid his hands on her: and +immediately she was made straight, and glorified God." + +"Ay, honey, I see that all as if it was me. And I think, as I'm setting +here, What if the latch should lift, and the gracious stranger should +come in, His gown a-sweepin' behind Him and a-sweet'nin' the air, and He +should look down on me with His heavenly eyes, and He should smile, and +lay His hands on my head, warm?--and I say to myself, 'Lord, I am not +worthy,'--and He says, 'Miss Catharine, thou art loosed from thine +infirmity!' And the latch lifts, as I think, and I wait,--but it's not +Him." + +Well, when I went out of that place I wasn't the same girl that had +gone in. My will gave way; I came home and took up my burden and was in +peace. Still I couldn't help my thoughts,--and they ran perpetually to +the sea. I hadn't need to go up on the house-tops, for I didn't shut my +eyes but there it stretched before me. I stirred about the rooms and +tried to make them glad once more; but I was thin and blanched as if I'd +been rising from a fever. Father said it was the salt air I wanted; and +one day he was going out for frost-fish, and he took me with him, and +left me and my basket on the sands while he was away. It was this side +of the South Breaker that he put me out, but I walked there; and where +the surf was breaking in the light, I went and sat down and looked over +it. I could do that now. + +There was the Cape sparkling miles and miles across the way, unconcerned +that he whose firm foot had rung last on its flints should ring there no +more; there was the beautiful town lying large and warm along the river; +here gay craft went darting about like gulls, and there up the channel +sped a larger one, with all her canvas flashing in the sun, and +shivering a little spritsail in the shadow, as she went; and fawning in +upon my feet came the foam from the South Breaker, that still perhaps +cradled Faith and Gabriel. But as I looked, my eye fell, and there came +the sea-scenes again,--other scenes than this, coves and corners of +other coasts, sky-girt regions of other waters. The air was soft, that +April day, and I thought of the summer calms; and with that rose long +sheets of stillness, far out from any strand, purple beneath the noon; +fields slipping close in-shore, emerald-backed and scaled with sunshine; +long sleepy swells that hid the light in their hollows, and came +creaming along the cliffs. And if upon these broke suddenly a wild +glimpse of some storm careering over a merciless mid-ocean, of a dear +dead face tossing up on the surge and snatched back again into the +depths, of mad wastes rushing to tear themselves to fleece above clear +shallows and turbid sand-bars,--they melted and were lost in peaceful +glimmers of the moon on distant flying foam-wreaths, in solemn midnight +tides chanting in under hushed heavens, in twilight stretches kissing +twilight slopes, in rosy morning waves flocking up the singing shores. +And sitting so, with my lids still fallen, I heard a quick step on the +beach, and a voice that said, "Georgie!" And I looked, and a figure, +red-shirted, towered beside me, and a face, brown and bearded and +tender, bent above me. + +Oh! it was Dan! + + + + +THE SAM ADAMS REGIMENTS IN THE TOWN OF BOSTON.[A] + +[Footnote A: This monograph, has been prepared almost entirely from +original authorities. Citations will be found in it from letters written +by General Gage, Governor Bernard, John Pownall, Lord Barrington, and +Lord Hillsborough, which have not been heretofore printed or used. They +are from the rich historical collections of JARED SPARKS,--who has +liberally permitted the writer to use original papers as freely as +though they were his own. Among other sources from which the narrative +has been drawn is an unfinished Life of Samuel Adams, in manuscript, by +Samuel Adams Wells, for the liberal use of which, and for other papers, +the writer is indebted to GEORGE BANCROFT. The materials have been +mostly taken, however, from a compilation which the writer has had for +several years in manuscript, entitled, "The Life and Times of Joseph +Warren."] + + +THE LANDING. + + +As John Adams, in the evening of his life, and in the retirement of +Quincy, looked back on the scenes through which he had passed, he dwelt +on the removal of the British troops from Boston in the month of March, +1770, as an event that profoundly stirred the public mind, and thus +contributed to promote that radical change in affections and principles +on the paramount subject of sovereignty, which he regarded as +constituting the real American Revolution. + +The more this chapter of history is examined, the more there will be +found in it to justify the judgment of the venerable patriot. It is +fragrant with the political aroma of the time; and the event seems +worthy to stand out in the American Revolution, like the Arrest of the +Five Members in the English Revolution. It is identified with a great +principle. It formed the crisis of an issue of the deepest moment. It +culminated in the triumph of the people when roused by passion and high +resolve to heroic manhood. The trial-scene was on so important a stage, +was so richly dramatic, had actors of such dignity of character, and was +so instinct with the national life, as "to deserve to be painted as much +as the Surrender of Burgoyne." It was the moment when Samuel Adams, in +the name of a resolute people, made the demand, as an ultimatum, for an +immediate removal of the troops. The close connection of this patriot +with the whole transaction led Lord North, ever after, to call these +troops by the title of "Sam Adams's Two Regiments." + +The story of the introduction of these troops into Boston, also, is rich +in matter illustrative of the springs of political action. The narrative +soon shows that it relates to far more than an ordinary transfer of +a military force from one station to another. Such transfers are not +preceded by long hesitation in cabinets, or by long torture of peaceful +communities in expectation of their arrival. Yet such was the preface +to the landing of this force in Boston. It was sent on an uncommon +service,--a service insulting to a loyal people; and though this people +had hailed the flag that waved over it with enthusiasm from the fields +of Louisburg and Quebec, they now looked upon it with sorrowing eyes as +the symbol of arbitrary power. + +These troops were ordered to Boston at an interesting period of the +American struggle. The movement against the Stamp Act, noble as it +was in the main, had phases that were deeply deplored by reflecting +patriots. Such were the riots, attended by destruction of property and +personal outrage, which, though common in England, were violative of +that reverence for law that was thoroughly ingrained in the American +character; and they were, besides, rather in the spirit of hasty and +irregular insurrection than of the slow and majestic development of +revolution. "We are not able in this way," wrote Jonathan Mayhew, "to +contend against Great Britain." + +On the repeal of the Stamp Act, there was an expression of general joy, +and controversy subsided. When fresh aggressions, in, the passage of +the Revenue Acts of 1767, required a new movement, the popular leaders, +profiting by past sad experience, strove to prevent excesses, and +patiently labored to build up their cause in the growth of an +intelligent public opinion. Even in reference to obnoxious local +officials, the word ran through the ranks,--"Let there be no mobs, no +riots. Let not the hair of their scalps be touched." Hard as it is to +restrain the rash, when the popular passion is excited, not a life was +sacrificed, not a limb even was dislocated, by the patriots of Boston in +political action, until the ripe hour of the Lexington rising. + +In this way Massachusetts, when called upon to stand by old customs and +rights, acted not only in a spirit of fidelity to liberty, but also in a +spirit of loyalty to law and order. Her conduct in the Stamp Act crisis +turned towards her the eyes and drew towards her the hearts of the other +Colonies, and elevated her into what was then a perilous, but is now a +proud, pre-eminence; and the call was made on her (1767) in the journals +of other Colonies, and copied into the Boston papers, as "the liberties +of a common country were again in danger," "to kindle the sacred flame +that should warm and illuminate the continent." So instinctively did the +common peril suggest the thought and expression of a common country. + +The Loyalists, for years, put Boston as in a pillory for punishment. It +was (they said) the head-quarters of sedition. It was the fountain of +opposition to the Government. It was under the rule of a trained mob. +It was swayed to and fro by a few popular leaders. It was the nest of a +faction. James Otis and Samuel Adams were the two consuls. Joseph Warren +was one of the chiefs. John Hancock was possessed of great wealth and of +large social and commercial influence. Such leaders, bankrupts on the +exchange or in character, controlled everything. They controlled the +clubs,--and there was not a social company or political club that +did not claim to have to do with the Government: they controlled the +town-meetings,--and these were the instrumentalities of rebellion: and +the town-meetings controlled the legislature, and this controlled the +Province. Then the local press was filled with incendiary matter from +the cabinet of the faction. Thus the spirits who led in the clubs, the +town-meetings, and the legislature supplied the seditious writing that +was scattered broadcast over the Colonies, and poisoned as it spread. + +There was some truth in this Loyalist strain. Patriotic rays gathered +and drew to a focus in Boston, and there became intensified with a +steady power. The town had jealousies to encounter and prejudices to +overcome; but, as if to the manner born, it acted in a spirit of such +comprehensive patriotism that it came to be regarded as an exponent of +the feelings of the whole country. Its key-note was Union. In fitting +words Philadelphia (1768) grandly said to Boston,--"Let us never forget +that our strength depends on our union, and our liberty on our strength; +united we conquer, divided we die." Boston returned the pledge, "warmly +to recommend and industriously to promote that union among the several +Colonies which is so indispensably necessary for the security of the +whole." + +Boston at this period is usually described as a noted and opulent +trading town,--the Great Town,--the Metropolis of New England,--the +best situated for commerce in North America,--the largest city in +the American British Empire. It had the air of an English city. Its +commodious residences had spacious lawns and gardens and fields; while +the contents of its stores, as seen in advertisements that sometimes +cover a broadside of the journals, and the number of ship-yards that +are shown by the maps to have girdled the town, betoken its business +activity. Its population of sixteen thousand, with its three thousand +voters, and no pauper class, had carefully nurtured the common school, +and was characterized not only by love of order, but by enterprise, +intelligence, and public spirit. It early welcomed the doctrine of a +right in the people to interpret the religious law and to fashion, the +political law, and thus practically welcomed freedom of thought and of +utterance, and acknowledged allegiance only to truth. It had tested for +more than a century the working of this principle, as it was carried out +in the congregation and in the municipality, in the Church and in the +State. By it each citizen was made deeply interested in the support of +liberty; and thus the town had not only a public, but a public life, +quietly nurtured as worthy citizens were successively called to manage +the local affairs. It furnished the instance of a community composed of +men of small estates who very rarely had to use a mark for their name, +and imbued by the spirit of individual independence toned into a respect +for law, which, on the decline of feudalism, began to play a part on +the national stage. Thus the political character of Boston was sharply +defined and firmly fixed. It started in the republican way, went on for +over a century in republican habits, and had the priceless heirloom of +principles and traditions that were certainly life-giving, and may not +inaptly be termed national. The prediction was publicly uttered here, +two centuries ago, and printed, that a day would come when "those that +were branded before for Huguenots and Lollards and Hereticks, they +should be thought the only men to be fit to have crowns upon their +heads, and independent government committed to them"; and the crown that +shone with superior lustre was progress in things that elevate and adorn +humanity. + +Such a government, so far as it regarded local affairs, the people +substantially enjoyed under the protecting wing of a proud nationality. +They loved the old flag. They claimed its history as their history, and +its glory as their glory. It gave security to their rights as men, as +Christians, and as Englishmen. It thus sheltered the precious body of +civil and religious liberties which they were in the habit of speaking +of as the rights of mankind. For this they were attached to the +English Constitution. For this they said, "Dear England!" Their strong +expressions in favor of the union with Great Britain were sincere. The +turn of the words showed the honest bent of the mind. No man respected +the English Constitution more than Samuel Adams, and his strong language +now (1768) was,--"I pray God that harmony may be cultivated between +Great Britain and the Colonies, and that they may long flourish in one +undivided empire." His resolution was no less strong to stand for +local self-government. As the idea began to be entertained that the +preservation of this right might require a new nationality, nothing legs +worthy for country was thought of than a union of all the Colonies in an +American commonwealth, with one constitution, which should be supreme +over all in questions common to country, and have one flag. The great +idea was expressed by New Jersey, that the continent must protect the +continent. + +This idea of creating a new nationality was forced on the Colonies by +wanton aggressions on the local self-government. There was far from +unanimity of opinion as to the acts, much less as to the ascribed +purposes of the Ministry. Setting aside a class of no-party men in peace +and of non-combatants in war, the people of Boston, as of other places, +were divided into the friends and the opponents of the Administration, +Loyalists and Whigs. The Whigs held that the new policy was flat +aggression on the old republican way, hostile to their normal political +life,--in a word, unconstitutional: the Loyalists maintained that the +new policy was required to preserve the dependence on Great Britain, and +therefore a necessity. The Whigs, zealous as they were for the local +government, claimed to be loyal to the King: the Loyalists, however +zealous for the independence of Parliament, claimed, in supporting the +supremacy of law, to be friends of freedom. As it was not the original +purpose of the Loyalists to invoke for their country the curse of +arbitrary power, so it was not the original purpose of the Whigs +to sever relations with the British crown. Men, however, are but +instruments in the hands of Providence. Both parties drifted into +measures which neither party originally proposed or even desired; and +thus the Loyalist, to maintain the sovereignty of Parliament, grew into +the defender of arbitrary power, and the Whig, to preserve the local +government, grew into the asserter of national independence. + +Nor was there unanimity among the Patriots themselves as to the way in +which the Revenue Acts ought to be opposed; indeed, some were averse to +making any opposition to them; but at length the policy of uniting the +Colonies in the non-importation agreement, after being talked over +at one of the political clubs in Boston, was agreed upon at a public +meeting, and sent out to the country. Hence this was the period +fixed upon by the Ministry as the time when the popular leaders made +themselves liable to the penalties of violated law. When, in England, +the idea was entertained and acted upon, that nothing would restore the +authority of the Government but the arrest and transportation to +London of the originators of the opposition to the Revenue Acts, +Lord Hillsborough's instructions to the Massachusetts Executive ran +thus:--"The King has thought fit to direct me to signify to you his +Majesty's commands that you do take the most effectual methods for +procuring the fullest information that can be obtained touching all +treasons or misprisions of treason committed within your government +since the 30th day of December, 1767, and transmit the same to me, +together with the names of persons who were most active in the +commission of such offences." + +This language was addressed to Francis Bernard, who was at this time the +highest representative of British power in Boston. He was a native of +England, an Oxford graduate, and, from the training of Solicitor +of Doctors Commons, was sent over, by the favor of aristocratic +relationship, to be the Governor of New Jersey, and now for eight years +had been Governor of Massachusetts. He was a scholar, and kept his +memory of Alma Mater fresh. He loved literature and science, could write +elegies in Latin and Greek, used to say that he could repeat the whole +of Shakspeare, and had such gifts of conversation as to charm the social +circle. His politics were of the Oxford school, and old at that. He +looked upon the people with distrust, and upon the king with veneration: +the people had good claim to be well governed, and British Imperialism +had the divine right to govern them well. He was a good hater of +republican institutions; habitually spoke of the local self-government +as a trained mob; and to it (he was not far from right here) he ascribed +the temper of the community which he was set to care for and to rule. It +was vexatious to his Tory spirit to see the democratic element, which +had excluded primogeniture and the hereditary principle and large landed +estates, so firmly bedded here, as if for a mighty superstructure; and +his reform plans tended to a change to centralization. It was a marvel +to him, that this work, which he deemed essential to the maintenance of +British power here, had not been begun long before,--that Charles II. +had not made a clean sweep of the little New England republics. He urged +that this ought to be done now,--that more general governments ought +to take their place, with executives having vice-regal powers; and of +course, being English, he urged that they should be moulded by England +into a shape as nearly as possible like England and for the benefit of +England, and thus be made homogeneous. He sighed to impose the dazzle of +a miniature St. James on reality-loving New England: as though the soil +which had been furrowed for a race of sovereigns could grow a crop of +lords; as though the Norman _role_ of privilege could be engrafted on a +society imbued with the Saxon spirit of equality: and he clinched the +absurdity of his thought by uttering the prediction, that, though the +people might bluster a little when such reform was proposed, yet they +never would resist by force; and if they did, a demonstration of British +power, such as the presence of the King's troops in a few coast-towns +and the occupation of a few harbors by the royal navy, would soon settle +the contest. + +As such an arrogant official, from yet unsealed Oxford heights, thus +paternally looked down over Boston and New England, he could see in +the little self-directing communities that clustered about the village +church and the public school but a race of nobodies. He may be pardoned +for not finding greatness in art, literature, or science in the circle +that has been called the Athens of America; he could not be expected to +measure the rich and enduring fame of a Jonathan Edwards; and it was an +article in the then Oxford creed, that there could not be, unmoulded by +the influences of an hereditary nobility, such a general product as a +people lifted up by education and religion into a self-directing race of +high-minded men, as the basis of a State. But a small class of British +observers, who had other principles and other eyes, saw now in Boston +the most orderly town and the most intelligent and moral people on the +face of the earth; and said--the words were printed (1768) in London, +and reproduced in the local press here--that no people since the ruin of +the Roman Commonwealth seemed to entertain more just ideas of liberty +or breathed forth a truer spirit of independence than these American +colonists. Now Governor Bernard and his political friends regarded the +chafings of such a people at what they held to be palpable aggressions +on their established system of local government as the acts of a trained +mob, and proofs of a long-matured design to cast off allegiance to the +British crown and of an immediate purpose of insurrection; and for years +they systematically urged, and attempted to fortify their policy by the +most unscrupulous misrepresentations, that nothing could check this +anarchical element and traitorous design but the abrogation of +fundamental parts of the local constitution and the implanting of a +feudal exotic by military power. The people claimed to be as free as the +English were, and the calumnies were heaped on them of being anarchists +and rebels. + +This theory of insurrection was acted upon by the Governor as long as +he remained in the Province. Every hasty word of the violent, and every +public deliberation of the wise as well, were made to nurture this +theory. By acting on such premises, besides doing gross injustice to the +people, he made himself ridiculous. Still he clung tenaciously to his +error and his plans as long as he remained in office; and even after he +returned to England, the course of the Patriots continued to strengthen +his convictions, and he wrote back that it was "plainly the design of +the chiefs of the Boston faction to measure swords with Great Britain." + +Though Governor Bernard had long thought a military force necessary to +sustain the new measures, yet he refused to make a requisition for it. +He expected the Government, of its own motion, would order troops to +Boston in the time of the Stamp Act, and looked for trouble on their +arrival. "The crisis," he wrote, (September 1, 1766,) "which I apprehend +most danger from, is the introduction of King's troops into this town, +which, having become necessary to the support of the Government, will be +placed to the account of the Governor." But no troops were ordered then. +He never was able to get his Council, even when he supposed a majority +agreed with him in politics, to recommend their introduction; for no +policy or measure which even such a Council indorsed required troops to +enforce it. The Governor, however, was a zealous advocate of the new +policy of the Ministry, which he judged could not be carried out +without military force; but his point was, that, along with the stiff +instructions to carry that policy out, the Ministry ought to supply +force enough to do it. + +The new Revenue Acts provided for a Board called the Commissioners of +Customs, who were empowered to collect duties along a truly imperial +line of coast, extending from Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico. They were +appointed to reside in Boston. They were five in number,--Charles +Paxton, Henry Hulton, William Burch, John Robinson, and John Temple. Not +much is said of Hulton and Burch, who appear to have been simply zealous +partisans; Robinson's violent temper is seen in his savage assault on +Otis; Temple was not in favor of the creation of the Board, and won its +enmity by taking exceptions to its doings; Paxton was charged with being +the father of the Board and its chief. He was a zealous official, with a +clean Tory record, of bland, courtlike ways, and certificated to England +as Bernard's confidential friend. There he is said to have "whined, +cried, professed, swore, and made his will in favor of that great man," +Charles Townshend, whom, when in Boston, he had supplied with funds, and +thus gained his objects. This Board soon became a severe and chronic +local irritant. The foreign ways of its members, for most of them were +strangers, supplied the wits of the town with material for satire, while +its main acts were as iron to the soul of a high-spirited community. As +it was created to collect taxes held to be unconstitutional, it could +not have been popular; but it discharged an ungracious task in an +ungracious way; and so singularly ill-judged was its action, that, while +it excited odium here, it elicited censure in England. + +The Commissioners were full believers in the theory that the popular +leaders designed insurrection. The Governor, in a letter to Lord +Barrington, (March 8, 1768,) relates that they would ask him what +support he could give them, "if there should be insurrection." "I +answer," Bernard says, "'None at all.' They then desire me to apply to +the General for troops. I tell them I cannot do it; for I am directed to +consult the Council about requiring troops, and they will never advise +it, let the case be ever so desperate. Indeed, I no more dare apply +for troops than the Council dare advise me to it. Ever since I have +perceived that the wickedness of some and the folly of others will in +the end bring troops here, I have conducted myself so as to be able to +say, and swear to it, if the Sons of Liberty shall require it, that +I have never applied for troops; and therefore, my Lord, I beg that +nothing I now write may be considered such an application." This is a +fair show for this royal official. He begins his letter by telling how, +within ten days just passed, nights have been twice fixed upon for a +mob; at the close, he returns to the matter of a mob, and tells how he +has promised the Commissioners an asylum at the Castle in case of a +mob; and he warns his superior that a mob, unchecked, "might put the +Commissioners and all their officers on board ship, and send them back +to England." This was the Governor's method of not asking for troops. +The Commissioners, at least, asked for troops in a manly way. "About a +fortnight ago," Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson writes, (March 23, 1768,) +"I was in consultation with the Commissioners. They were very desirous +the Governor should----for a R----. If he had done it, by some means +or other it would have transpired, and there is no saying to what +lengths the people would have gone in their resentment." The letter just +cited explains why the Governor did not send for a regiment. + +A few days after this consultation the Patriots celebrated the +anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act by a day of general +rejoicing. There were things that could be perverted, and were +perverted, into signs of mob-rule and disloyalty. Daylight revealed +hanging on the Liberty Tree effigies of Commissioner Paxton and +Inspector Williams, the latter of whom, being a cabinet-maker, had a +glue-pot by his side, but by order of the popular leaders they were +soon removed; there were salutes, liberty toasts, and other joyful +demonstrations, and in the evening a procession, which was quite +harmless, though, as it went along the street by the Province House, +somewhat noisy, so that the Governor said that he and his family were +disturbed. But there was an allegation that ran deeper than processions, +and which went to the meaning of these rejoicings. The Loyalists said +that the Patriots congratulated one another on their glorious victory +over England in the repeal of the Stamp Act; and if the Tory relations +may be believed, there were men in Boston who were so foolish as +to say,--We have shown our spirit; we have convinced them of our +resentment; they repealed their foolish act; they durst not do +otherwise; if they had, we should have ruined them. And the Loyalists +said, that, when the mother-country had a right to look for gratitude, +she actually met with insult. + +With such views of the day, it is easy to see how its proceedings might +be perverted. They were represented to the Ministry by Governor Bernard +as signs of a rebellious spirit; and were made the ground by the +Commissioners of a direct application to Commodore Hood, at Halifax, for +the protection of a naval force,--he being advised that the conduct +and temper of the people, the adverse aspect of things in general, the +security of the revenue, the safety of its officers, and the honor of +Government required immediate aid; and the hope being expressed that he +would find it consistent with the King's other service to afford such +assistance. The Commodore ordered the Romney to be fitted out with all +possible despatch, and, accompanied by two armed schooners, she sailed +for Boston. As they came into the harbor, being short of men, a +press-gang landed from them, who impressed on board Massachusetts +citizens. Ever since the revival of the aggressions on Colonial rights, +"Hyperion" (Josiah Quincy, Jr.) says, the Loyalists publicly threatened +the defenders of the rights of America with halters, fire, and fagots; +but there was nothing more serious than threats, or more authentic than +rumors, until this appearance of the Romney and her two tenders. + +This show of naval force, though no troops came, was irritating, and +multiplied the sayings of the violent, which appear to have been +reported to the Governor, who advised the Ministry that he was "well +assured that it was the intention of the faction in Boston to cause an +insurrection against the crown officers." At this time he favored Lord +Hillsborough with a lucid explanation of a paradox,--how a few leaders +of bankrupt reputation ruled with a rod of iron the most virtuous town +in the world. "It has been a subject of wonder," are the Governor's +words, (May 19,1768,) "how the faction which harasses this town, and +through it the whole continent, which is known to consist of very few +of the lowest kind of gentry, and is directed by three or four persons, +bankrupts in reputation as well as in property, should be able to keep +in subjection the inhabitants of such a town as this, who possess a +hundred times the credit and property (I might say much more) of those +who rule them with a rod of iron. This paradox is at once solved by +showing that this town is governed by the lowest of the people, and from +the time of the Stamp Act to this hour has been and is in the hands +of the mob." He represented the friends of the Government as very +desponding, on seeing, unchecked, the imperial power treated with a +contempt not only indecent, but almost treasonable. Of such cast were +letters read to George III. in his closet, and made the basis of royal +instructions which it was claimed had the force of law. + +This was an anxious hour in Boston. The journals carried into every +circle the reports, private and public, that the Ministry were resolved +upon new and decisive measures; and thus this show of force had a +painful significance. It was the common talk, that the people were +doomed to be taxed to maintain a parcel of sycophants, court +favorites, and hungry dependants; that needy lawyers from abroad +or tools of power at home would be their judges; and that +their governors, if natives, would be partisans rewarded for +mercenary service, or if foreigners, would be nobles of wasted fortunes +and greedy for salaries to replenish them. Kindling-matter from abroad +was thrown on this inflammable public mind at home; for after each +arrival the journals would be filled with the enthusiasm of the Wilkes +controversy, which then was at its height in England; and if "London +resounded the word Liberty from every corner and every voice," there was +an echo in every street and every home in Boston. The people knew they +were misrepresented and ill-used, and were sullen. They knew they were +in the right, and they were resolute. + +In about a month after Governor Bernard had solved the problem how such +bankrupts in reputation as Joseph Warren, James Otis, John Hancock, and +Samuel Adams ruled the town as with a rod of iron, there was (June 10, +1768) a real mob. The Board of Customs directed the revenue officers, +for alleged violations of the revenue laws, to seize the sloop Liberty, +owned by Hancock, which they did on a Friday, near the hour of sunset, +as the men were going home from their day's work. And as though the +people contemplated forcible resistance to the law, and would refuse to +respect the arrest, the sloop, after the broad arrow was put upon her, +contrary to the advice of the Collector, was moved, with vulgar and +rough words by the officers, from the wharf where she lay, and moored +under the guns of the Romney. This was the beginning of a war of +epithets, in the usual way of brawls, between the crowd, which kept +increasing, and the custom-house officers,--and, by a sort of natural +law of mobs, grew into a riot, in which the offending officials were +severely pelted with dirt and stones. It is related, that, while Warren, +Hancock, and Samuel Adams were in consultation, the mob broke the +windows of the residences of the Comptroller and Inspector, and dragged +the pleasure-boat of the Collector to the Common, where they burned +it. But here Hancock and other popular leaders went among them, and +succeeded in restoring quiet. These were outrages, and could not be +justified, though the parents of them were the brutal words of the +captain of the Romney and the mob procedure of the officers in taking +the vessel, which was detained three days without any legal process +being filed against her. After all, this was a very slight affair when +compared with the contemporary terrific mobs of London and elsewhere, +which did not spare the highest officials, and, instead of stopping at +breaking glass, pushed into the most costly houses, made complete havoc +of furniture, destroyed life, and were checked only by military force +and bloodshed. In view of these, Colonel Barre might truly say in the +House of Commons, that, in this riot, "Boston was only mimicking the +mother-country." + +But the officials, and especially the Commissioners, all but Temple, +chose to consider the mob as quite original and American, and as proof +that the people of Boston were ripe for open revolt. They regarded the +excitement that arose as confirming this view. The Commissioners, who +had not been harmed and were not threatened, were the most violent and +unreasonable; and though the Governor all Saturday and Sunday endeavored +to persuade them "to come into some pacific measures," yet it was all +to no purpose. On Monday morning, they, with the exception of Temple, +notified the Governor by a card that they were going on board the +Romney, and desired the necessary orders for them to use the Castle; and +they took their families with them. They immediately sent Hallowell off +to England, and advised the Lords of the Treasury,--"Nothing but the +immediate exertion of military power will prevent an open revolt of this +town, which may probably spread throughout the Colonies." Temple, and +a number of the subordinates of the Board, remained in town, were not +molested, and gathered in the revenue which importers continued to pay. + +The town regarded the manner of the seizure of the Liberty as a gross +affront, and coupled with it the recent cases impressment; and on +Monday things looked threatening. But the popular leaders came out, put +themselves at the head of the movement, and guided the indignation along +the safe channels of law, in such a manner that it resulted in nothing +more violent than petition and remonstrance, calmly, but strongly, +expressed through the town-meeting. It is not necessary to detail what +took place at the Liberty Tree, in Faneuil Hall, and in the Old South, +where the Patriots held the greatest meetings, so it is written, that +were ever seen on the American continent At their commencement, on +Tuesday morning, at the Liberty Tree, the Governor, whose town-residence +was the Province House, was at his country-seat at Jamaica Plain, in +Roxbury. He received such startling advices from his friends, as to the +doings of the Sons of Liberty, that he sent one of his own sons +into town with a message desiring the immediate presence of +Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, as he was "in expectation of very +important news from town," and such as would make it necessary for +him to withdraw. While with perturbed nerves he awaited Hutchinson's +arrival, he must have been surprised to see moving towards his house, +not a Parisian populace, pell-mell, flourishing liberty-caps and pikes, +or even a growling London mob, but a peaceful train of eleven cozy +chaises, conveying a very respectable committee from a public meeting, +at the head of which were Warren, Otis, and Samuel Adams. They bore a +petition to the Governor from the town, which protested against the +right of Parliament to tax the Colonies, and denied the legality of +press-gangs in Massachusetts. "I received them," are the Governor's +words, "with all possible civility, and having heard their petition, I +talked very freely with them, but postponed giving a formal answer till +the next day, as it should be in writing. I then had wine handed round, +and they left me highly pleased with their reception, especially +that part of them which had not been used to an interview with me." +Considering the Governor's state of mind, the committee could not have +been more highly pleased when they left than he was when they arrived; +but his perturbations were over when Hutchinson came in, and there was +no occasion for unusual political action. + +The Governor's reply to the town, on the next day, was conciliatory. The +petition which the committee presented to him was regarded by Hutchinson +as going beyond anything that had yet been advanced in the way of a +practical denial of Parliamentary authority; but the Governor wisely +declined to argue the vexed question of that day, and as wisely promised +redress for the press-gang outrage, all of which was highly satisfactory +to the meeting. The chairman, James Otis, made the reply more +satisfactory by acknowledging the Governor's hospitality. Still the +men who filled the Old South to overflowing did not omit the duty of +stern-worded protest against the aggressions of Parliament; and in an +elaborate and admirable paper, marked with Joseph Warren's energy of +soul, they alleged the unconstitutional imposition of taxes as the +groundwork of the recent troubles. It was oppression, and it "came down +upon the people like an armed man, though they were the subjects of an +empire which was the toast of the nations for freedom and liberty." + +It was now the current rumor that this and other aggressions were to be +enforced by arms. The idea was abhorrent to the people. A committee, to +whom was referred the subject of the rumored introduction of troops, +reported to the meeting a resolve to the effect that whoever had urged +this measure was "a tyrant in his heart, a traitor and an open enemy to +his country"; but though this resolve was advocated by William Cooper, +the faithful and intrepid town-clerk, and by others, the resolution +finally adopted declared only that any person who should solicit or +promote the importation of any troops at this time was an enemy to the +town and the Province, and a disturber of the peace and good order of +both. + +The Governor was now on good terms with the people. He was in the habit +of saying that nothing which he had done would bring troops into the +town,--that he was desirous of promoting harmony between the Province +and the mother-country,--and the memorial to the Ministry in their +behalf contained the assurance that they bore "the same sentiments of +loyalty and duty towards their gracious King, and the same reverence for +the great council of the nation, the British Parliament, as ever." This +was the truth, touchingly expressed. The Bostonians never considered +the Parliament to be such an embodiment of Imperialism that it +could rightfully mould their local institutions, or control their +congregations and their town-meetings, their highways and their homes; +and always looked upon the Crown as the symbol of a national power that +would shield their precious body of customs and rights. Thus what the +Governor said on the paramount point of nationality met with an honest +response from those to whom it was addressed. "I am myself," he wrote, +(June 18,) "on better terms with the people than usual. A civil +treatment of a petition of the town to me, a plain and friendly answer +thereto, and some real service by interposing with the men-of-war, have +given me a little popularity. But it won't last a week. As soon as I +have executed the orders I have just received from the Secretary of +State, in the General Assembly, there will be an end of my popularity; +and I don't know whether I sha'n't be obliged to act like the captain of +a fire-ship,--provide for my retreat before I light my fusee." + +But he quietly lighted his fusee, when the horizon became all aglow with +what to the Loyalists was the lurid flame of destruction, but to the +Patriots was as light from heaven. The occasion is too well known to +need more than a glance. The House of Representatives, on the eleventh +of February, had sent its famous Circular Letter to the other Colonies, +proposing, that, in the present crisis, there should be unity of action +among them. The Loyalists charged that this was an attempt to organize a +Confederacy, and therefore was revolutionary; the Patriots averred that +its sole object was to unite in petition and remonstrance for redress +of grievances, and therefore that it was constitutional; the Ministry +regarded the act as in the last degree dangerous to the prerogative, and +ordered Governor Bernard to demand of the House to recall or rescind +this Circular Letter. The communication of this order was what the +Governor called lighting his fusee. His daily letters show precisely his +state of mind as he touched it off. He saw a determination to resist +Great Britain; he was told that the people were making preparations to +do it; and he wrote to his relative, Viscount Barrington, who had the +_entree_ of the royal closet,--sending the letter by Hallowell,--with +rather more than the usual emphasis of error,--"I am sure that things +are coming apace to a crisis, and I fear the Bostonians will get the +start of you." In this mood the Governor sent in the arrogant British +demand. The House, (June 26, 1768,) by the memorable vote of ninety-two +to seventeen, flatly refused to comply with the royal order; whereupon +the Governor, as the punishment, dissolved the General Court; and for +many months Massachusetts was without a legislature. + +These were of the order of events that take fast hold of the public +mind. Far and wide and profound was the sensation; and the unity of the +response from abroad, made known to the people through the press, was +truly inspiring. "We all rejoice," says a letter, "in what your Assembly +has done, and join in acclamations to the glorious Ninety-Two. 'Twas +certainly the most important case an American assembly ever acted upon." +This brief narrative is uncommonly suggestive. The letter of Bernard is +a testimony to the kindly disposition of the people, who were ready to +return much gratitude for little service, and who only asked to be left +to the measure of freedom that was enjoyed by their brethren in England; +the magnificent No which the House gave to the royal command shows +how they could maintain their self-respect, and stand by their local +government; and the general indorsement of the action of the House +in other Colonies indicates a community of interest in each other's +destiny. + +The replies of local legislatures, as they were printed from time to +time in the journals, filled the hearts of the Boston patriots with joy. +Hutchinson, who kept constant watch of these things, and who rightly +estimated the importance of the formation of public opinion, +wrote,--"The action of the other Colonies keeps up the spirit of our +demagogues. I am told Adams and Cooper say it is the most glorious day +they ever saw." They saw a general manifestation of a spirit of unity in +the support of common rights. Without union they knew they were nothing; +with union they felt equal to all things. Thus here were working two of +the elements of our political system, local self-government and American +nationality. + +The June mob, the public meetings, the vote of the House of +Representatives, and the union feeling supplied zealous Loyalists with +rich material to pervert into fresh argument for the necessity of +troops to keep the people in order. It was promptly seized upon. The +Commissioners set out the Boston tumults as the heralds of a rebellion +that had begun its course over the continent. They not only sent a batch +of falsehoods to England by Hallowell, but they also sent letters to +General Gage, the Commander-in-Chief, whose head-quarters were in New +York, with a request for troops, and to Commodore Hood at Halifax asking +for more ships. General Gage was surprised at not receiving letters +from the Governor, but with a soldier's promptness he at once (June 24) +tendered to Governor Bernard all the force he might need to preserve the +public peace; yet regarding it as improper to order the King's forces +into a Province to quell a riot without a requisition from the +Executive, he frankly advised the Governor to this effect. But the +Governor did not want troops to quell a riot, and said so; and in answer +to the tender, returned a long and heavy disquisition, showing why, +though he considered troops essential to the promotion of the good of +his country, he did not and would not make a formal requisition for any, +and thus, all unconsciously, betrayed and condemned himself at every +word,--for while he was talking of country, he was thinking of self. +Commodore Hood, believing that the good people of Boston were actually +on the eve of a revolt, and that the precious lives of the Commissioners +were hardly safe in Castle William, where they now were, "immediately +sent two more ships," which, he says, "secured the Castle from all +attempts at surprising it." But, according to Hutchinson, though the +people were mad, yet they were not Don Quixotes, and though a few might +have talked of attacking it, yet the Castle was in no danger, even +though no one of His Majesty's ships had been in the harbor. + +The ships promptly arrived, and were moored about Castle William; but no +troops appeared, though early in July the Governor felt sure they were +ordered here from Halifax, from the fact that General Gage sent a batch +of despatches, under cover to him, addressed to Lieutenant-Colonel +Dalrymple, the senior British officer in command at that station. On +forwarding these despatches, Bernard wrote to Dalrymple,--"You know that +my situation requires that I should appear to know as little in the +proceedings of this kind as can well be. I should, therefore, be obliged +to you, if in conducting a business of this kind you would let me appear +a stranger to it until it becomes necessary to communicate it to me +officially. In the mean time any private hints, conveyed to me by a safe +hand, will be acceptable." + +A straightforward British officer must have conceived contempt for such +an official, even before subsequent action on the part of this official +elicited an expression of it. + +The Governor was doomed to disappointment. The orders which he +transmitted merely placed troops in readiness to proceed to Boston on +his requisition, which requisition he steadily refused to make, and he +wrote,--"The crisis awaits the arrival of the troops, and I now learn +they are not coming." He next officially laid the tender of the +Commanding General before the Council, when he found that its members +were unanimously of the opinion that troops were not required. Now this +body contained decided Loyalists; and this unanimity of opinion appears +to have amazed the Governor. He advised Lord Barrington, that the fact +convinced him that he could "no longer depend upon the Council for the +support of the small remains of royal and parliamentary power now +left, the whole of which had been gradually impeached, arraigned, and +condemned under his eye"; which was arrant party-misrepresentation. He +further expressed the opinion that the sending of troops to Boston ought +to be a business of quartering and cantonment. "It is no secret," he +said, "that this ought to have been done two years and a half ago. If it +had, there would have been no opposition to Parliament now, and above +all, no such combinations as threaten (but I hope vainly) the overthrow +of the British Empire. If provision was to have been made against +faction and sedition, the head-quarters should have been secured." +Instead of this, "Boston has been left under a trained mob from August +14, 1765, to this present July 23, 1768." + +While these things had been going on here, the die as to Massachusetts +and Boston had been cast in the British cabinet, by the conclusion to +place a military force at the command of the Governor. This decision was +reached before the June meeting or the June riot; and it is quite in +vain to seek the real reason for it in what appears on paper about the +processions on the eighteenth of March or the equally insignificant +prior manifestations. Hutchinson and Gage and other Loyalists admitted +that all these were trifles. The Ministers were no strangers to mobs; +even if there had been as violent ones in Boston as there were in +London, they could not have acted upon them as proofs of disloyalty. +Besides the calumnies that made out the popular leaders to be +anarchists, that perverted love of the local government into a +desire for independence, there was one that touched the pride of the +mother-country; for the Loyalists said of the Bostonians,--(there +is nothing like the language of the time to embody the spirit of +the time,)--that "every dirty fellow, just risen from his kennel, +congratulated his neighbor on their glorious victory over England; and +they were so intoxicated with their own vast importance, that the lowest +wretch among them conceived himself superior to the first English +merchant." This was falsehood; for it is certain that the joy for +the repeal of the Stamp Act was joy for harmony restored between the +Colonies and Great Britain. + +Thus, owing to such representations, while the people of Boston were +deliberating in the great town-meetings of June, orders were on their +way to General Gage, whose head-quarters were in New York, to place +troops in Castle William, to station a detachment in Boston, and to +keep a naval force in the harbor. The despatch of Lord Hillsborough, +addressed to Governor Bernard, communicating this conclusion, was +elaborate and able, and laid down in full the policy of the Government. +The instructions were based on the pretence that Boston was "in +possession of a licentious and unrestrained mob"; that it was animated +by a disposition "to resist the laws and to deny the authority of +Parliament"; and that the alleged "illegal and unwarrantable measures +which had been pursued in opposing the officers of the revenue in the +execution of their duty, and for intimidating the civil magistrates, +showed the necessity of strengthening the hands of the Government." +This despatch refers to five of Bernard's letters as containing such +representations. It is worthy of remark, that Lord Hillsborough sharply +rebuked the Governor for having all along asked the advice of the +Council as to the introduction of the troops; for to admit such a +function in the Council, he said, was to concede a power inconsistent +with the Constitution. "It is you," are the official words, "to whom the +Crown has delegated its authority, and you alone are responsible for the +best use of it." + +This action was unknown to the popular leaders, and the month of August +passed in doubt as to whether the Ministers would be persuaded to +quarter troops in Boston. The town was remarkably quiet, when the +Governor issued (August 3, 1768) a proclamation against riots, and +calling all magistrates to suppress tumults and unlawful assemblies, and +to restore vigor and firmness to the Government. "It cannot be wondered +at," said "Determinatus," (August 8,) in the "Gazette," "if the +mother-country should think that we are in a state of confusion equal +to what we hear from the orderly and very polite cities of London and +Westminster. There, we are told, is the weavers' mob, the seamen's mob, +the tailors' mob, the coal-miners' mob, and some say the clergy's mob; +and, in short, it is to be feared the whole kingdom, always excepting +the * * * * and P----t, will unite in one general scene of tumult. +I sincerely pray for the peace and prosperity of the nation and her +colonies, whose interest, if she would open her eyes, she would clearly +discern to be undivided." The journals during this month have full +details of these mobs. The coal-heavers of Wapping destroyed property +and committed murders, and two thousand keel-men and sailors of +Sunderland fairly beat off the King's troops that were sent against them +from Newcastle. Happily such want of reverence for law was unknown in +Boston or the Province. Still the Governor kept on representing that he +was under the control of a mob; and another day of rejoicing gave +him another opportunity of misrepresenting the people. This was the +fourteenth of August, being the third celebration of the uprising +against the Stamp Act. In the procession on this occasion there was one +man who had had a hand in the attack on the Lieutenant-Governor's house +on the twenty-sixth of August, and had in consequence incurred the +penalty of death, and who was now celebrating his mob-exploits; and at +the head of the procession were two Boston merchants, who thus were +charged with countenancing mobs. The Governor well knew that the +Patriots abhorred the outrages of the twenty-sixth of August as much as +they gloried in the uprising against the stamp-duty on the fourteenth of +August. Hutchinson, moreover, was a good deal disturbed by the public +affronts put upon the Commissioners, who were still at the Castle, +though their subordinates were in town collecting the revenue. The +Cadets, on motion of Hancock, voted to exclude them from the usual +public dinner; and the town voted to refuse the use of Faneuil Hall for +the dinner, unless with the stipulation that the Commissioners were not +to be invited. Such proceedings, with petitions and resolutions, made +nearly the whole outrage of the Boston "trained mob" that the Governor +talked about. Yet he affected to be in fear of an insurrection, and on +the last day of the month whiningly wrote,--"The town is at present just +as defensible as it was two years ago,--not a sergeant's guard of real +soldiers within two hundred miles of it." + +In a few days after, on a Saturday night, William Sheriff, aide-de-camp +to General Gage, arrived in town from New York, which he left on +Wednesday morning, bearing the following letter to Governor Bernard, the +original of which is indorsed, "Received Sept. 3." + + * * * * * + + +THOMAS GAGE TO FRANCIS BERNARD. + + +"New York, Aug. 31,1768. + +"Sir,--It is not necessary to trouble you with any answers to your +letters, and I only acknowledge the receipt of them. + +"I am now to acquaint you that I have received orders to send forces +to Boston, and would regulate the number to be sent agreeable to your +opinion of the number that will be necessary. Captain Sheriff, my +aide-de-camp, goes to Boston under pretence of private business, and +will deliver you this letter. He is directed to settle this matter with +you; and you may rely on his discretion, prudence, and secrecy. I have +intrusted him with a letter of orders to the commander of his Majesty's +forces at Halifax to embark with the 14th Regiment, and left a blank in +the letter for Captain Sheriff to fill up with the like order for the +29th Regiment, in case you shall judge it proper to have the whole or +any part of the 29th Regiment, as well as the 14th, and not think one +regiment a sufficient force. When you shall have fixed the matter with +Captain Sheriff, you will be so good as to send me immediate notice, +that I may without delay write you a public letter to demand quarters +for the numbers that will be ordered into your Province. The contents of +this, as well as your answer, and everything I now transact with you, +will be kept a profound secret, at least on this side of the Atlantic. + +"It is submitted in my letters, whether it would not be advisable, as +troops will probably continue at Boston, to take possession of Castle +William, which, being a place of some strength, may in case of emergency +be of great service, and it is said to belong to the Crown. + +"You will be so good as to fix with Captain Sheriff, whether you would +have the whole, or any part of the troops ordered to Boston, quartered +in Castle William. If you should be of opinion that troops stationed +there will not answer the intention of sending them to Boston, for the +purposes of enforcing a due obedience to the laws, and protecting and +supporting the civil magistrates and the officers of the Crown in the +execution of their duty, part may be stationed there, and part in the +town. Should you require both the regiments from Halifax, one of them, +or three or four companies of one of them, might be quartered in the +Castle, and you would then have an entire regiment and five companies of +another in the city. I mention this, but leave it to your determination; +and you will regulate this matter with Captain Sheriff according to the +number of troops you think necessary to be sent to Boston. You will be +pleased to give me notice of your resolves on this head. + +"I don't know if you can supply bedding for such of the troops as you +would choose to be lodged in the Castle; if not, Captain Sheriff will +write to Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple to bring bedding with him from +Halifax, sufficient for the number of men you shall fix upon for the +garrison of Castle William. + +"I have the honor to be with great regard, + + "Sir, + "Your most obedient, + "Humble servant, + "TH'S. GAGE." + +Such was the mode in which the Sam Adams Regiments were ushered into +Boston According to this letter, the Governor himself, substantially, +gave the order that brought all but the Fourteenth Regiment,--an order +which was to "be kept a profound secret, at least on this side of the +Atlantic." + +At this time the mass of the citizens Boston were very bitter and +suspicious towards all who were in any way supposed to be concerned in +urging the introduction of troops among them; because troops had come to +be looked upon as means of subjugating them to laws to which they never +would give their consent through their representatives. The fiery Josiah +Quincy, Jr., would say,--"Before the freeborn sons of the North will +yield a general and united submission to any tyrannic power on earth, +fire and sword, desolation and ruin, will ravage the land." The intrepid +Samuel Adams would say,--"Before the King and Parliament shall dragoon +us, and we become slaves, we will take up arms and our last drop of +blood." The calm Andrew Eliot would say,--"You cannot conceive of our +distress: to have a standing army! What can be worse to a people who +have tasted the sweets of liberty?" Hutchinson wrote,--"Many of the +common people were in a frenzy, and talked of dying in defence of their +liberties," while "too many above the vulgar countenanced and encouraged +them." Such was the intensity of the public feeling; such the +earnestness with which liberty was ranked above material prosperity. It +was now to be seen whether the American cause was to suffer shipwreck on +the rock of premature insurrection, or whether it was to be led on by +such cautious and wise steps as develop into the majesty of revolution. + +The present public alarm was occasioned by vague statements from abroad +or rumors started at home as to the coming of a military force. Troops +were ordered in from the outposts of Canada to Halifax; an unusual naval +force was gathering at that station; it was said that the destination of +both was Boston: but the Governor persisted in denying that he had +done anything that would bring troops here, and kept on playing the +know-nothing. This created a painful suspense, and, to cool observers, +the policy of the Government appeared inexplicable. But however deep +may have been the indignation of the people at the prospect of military +rule, it was no part of the plan of the popular leaders, if troops came +here, to resist the landing, or to allow the rash spirits, who are ever +ready for any imprudence, to do so; but their object was to fix in the +public mind a just sense of the rights thus violated, to guide the +general indignation into a safe channel of action, and thus turn the +insult to the benefit of the general cause. + +Two days after the Governor received the letter of General Gage, a +communication appeared in the "Boston Gazette," under the head of +"READER! ATTEND!" which arraigned, with uncommon spirit and boldness, +the course of the officials who were urging the policy of arbitrary +power, as having a direct tendency "to dissolve the union between Great +Britain and her colonies." It proposed to remonstrate against this +policy to the King, and at the same time to declare that "there was +nothing this side eternity they dreaded more than being broken off +from his government." In urging resistance to this course the author +said,--"We will put our lives in our hands, and cry to the Judge of all +the Earth, who will do right." + +This paper, like many similar appeals in that well-stored Liberty +arsenal, the "Boston Gazette," had the genuine Liberty ring, yet there +was in it nothing very unusual; but the royal circle at the Province +House lived in an unusual atmosphere, and this article came sounding in +among them like a great moral Dahlgren. "In the Boston Gazette of the +fifth instant," the Governor, with his usual acuteness, wrote to the +Secretary of State, "appeared a paper containing a system of politics +exceeding all former exceedings. Some took it for the casual ravings of +an occasional enthusiast. But I persuaded myself that it came out of the +cabinet of the faction, and was preparatory to some actual operations +against the Government. In this persuasion, I considered, that, if the +troops from Halifax were to come here on a sudden, there would be no +avoiding an insurrection, which would at least fall upon the crown +officers, if it did not amount to an opposition to the troops. I +therefore thought it would be best that the expectation of the troops +should be gradually communicated, that the heads of the faction might +have time to consider well what they were about, and prudent men +opportunity to interpose their advice." Accordingly (September 8) he +"took an occasion to mention to one of the Council, in the way of +discourse, that he had private advice that troops were ordered to +Boston, but had no public orders about it"; and before night, the +Governor adds, the intelligence was all over the town. + +Before night, too, a petition, addressed to the Selectmen, was +circulating all over the town, and large numbers were affixing their +names to it. It prayed that the town might be legally convened to +require of the Governor the reasons for his declaration that three +regiments might be daily expected, and "to consider of the most wise, +consistent, and salutary measure suitable to meet the occasion." The +Selectmen acted promptly, (John Hancock was on the Board,) and summoned +the citizens to meet on the Monday following. In this way, openly before +men, not covertly like a body of conspirators, did the solid men and +prudent men of Boston prepare for council. + +Though the Governor averred that his object, in his verbal +communication, was to give a chance for an interposition of such sound +advice, yet to Lord Hillsborough he actually represented the call +and the movement of these men as proofs that the long-contemplated +insurrection was now at hand. He informed the Secretary, that on the +next evening (Friday) there was a large private meeting, where "it was +the general opinion that they should raise the country and oppose the +troops"; and that on the succeeding evening (Saturday) there was a very +small private meeting at the house of one of the chiefs, where it was +resolved "to surprise and take the Castle the Monday night following." +The Governor evidently had misgivings about its being the fact that such +an object was planned. "I don't," he said, "relate these as facts, +but only as reported and believed." I have found no account of the +Friday-evening meeting, which undoubtedly was a meeting of one of the +political clubs of the time; but on Saturday evening James Otis and +Samuel Adams met at Warren's residence in Hanover Street (on the site +of the American House) for conference as to Monday's meeting,--for +instance, to draw up the resolves and decide upon the action that might +be expedient: whatever may have been the warmth of expression of popular +leaders, or the wishes of extremists among the people, the whole object +of this conference was to concentrate and use only the moral force of +public opinion; and there is not a trace of a design of insurrection in +all the known private correspondence of these patriots. + +However, the belief in insurrection, at this time, appears to have been +as strongly rooted in the minds of prominent Loyalists as it was in the +mind of the again perturbed Governor. Signs of what is thought to be +near at hand are apt to be seen or fancied; and it was so in this case. +Somebody had put a turpentine barrel in the skillet that hung at the top +of the beacon-pole on Beacon Hill. Now it had been designed, for a +long time, by such a mode of bonfire, to alarm the country, in case of +invasion. This fact was put with another fact, namely, that the beacon +had been newly repaired; and from the two facts was drawn the startling +inference, that matters were ready for a rising in the town, and for +giving the concerted signal to summon in the country to aid this +rising,--and this, too, when the Governor had not a sergeant's guard +of real soldiers nearer than two hundred miles. And now members of the +Council flocked to the Governor and demanded a meeting of this imposing +body; and a meeting was promptly held at a gentleman's residence +half-way between Boston and Jamaica Plain, where, after grave debate +about taking down the barrel, it was finally voted to make a formal +demand on the Board of Selectmen to order it to be done. On the next +day, (Sunday,) the Fathers of the Town held a special meeting to +consider the vote of the Council, which resulted in declining to act on +this matter of taking down the barrel as too trivial. About the hour of +dining, on this day, however, Sheriff Greenleaf gave some peace to the +frightened officials by repairing to Beacon Hill with half a dozen +others and removing the obnoxious barrel, which proved to be empty. The +public did not hear the last of this affair for months, as may be seen +in the affidavits about it, afterwards, in the journals. + +There was really no ground for all this alarm. The popular leaders, from +the excited state of the public mind, might have been apprehensive of an +explosion from the rash, which they meant, if possible, to prevent, and +if it came, to repress; but the Loyalist leaders would have it that +there was a deep-laid plot even for a revolution. "It is now known," is +Governor Bernard's malicious misrepresentation, as he reviewed these +scenes and justified the introduction of the troops, "that the plan was +to seize the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor and take possession of the +treasury, and then set up their standard." He said that five hundred men +had been enrolled to take the Castle, and it was likely that the names, +at least of the chief of them, would be discovered. There is no such +list in thirteen folio volumes of his correspondence. Hutchinson's +misrepresentation was as mischievous, but more cautious; for he assured +his British correspondents that at the time when the troops landed in +Boston the Province was on the brink of ruin, and that their arrival +prevented the most extravagant measures,--though, he said, he did not +certainly know what the dark designs of the heads of the opposition +were. + +On the morning of the town-meeting, (September 12,) Governor Bernard +believed that the popular leaders were resolved not merely to capture +the crown officials, but to resume the first charter, which, he said, +had not a single ingredient of royalty in it. But while he was looking +for insurrection, a committee of the highest respectability waited on +him, and asked him to be pleased to communicate to the town the grounds +and assurances on which he had intimated his apprehensions that one or +more regiments might he daily expected. On the next day the Governor +replied in writing,--"My apprehensions that some of his Majesty's troops +are to be expected in Boston arise from information of a private nature; +I have received no public letters notifying to me the coming of such +troops." The information came by letter from the only official in the +country who could order troops into Boston, and yet he said it was +private; according to this letter, he must have decided on the number of +troops that were to come, and yet he prattled about apprehensions. Such +was the way in which a royal Governor of the Stuart school dealt with +a people filled with patriotic concern for their country. It is the +dealing of a small man. If he can escape the charge of deliberate +falsehood, it is only, on demurrer, by the plea of a contemptible +quibble. + +It is not necessary here to follow the noble popular demonstrations that +rounded off by a delegate convention, which, at the simple request of +Boston, assembled in Faneuil Hall. The officials, who had long played +falsely with a liberty-loving, yet loyal people, now fairly quailed +before the whirlwind of their righteous indignation. Two days after +Bernard had "intimated his apprehensions," as though steps had +been taken to countermand the order for the troops, the following +semi-official doubt appeared in the "News-Letter":--"It is conjectured +that there are troops to come here; but at present we can find no +authentic accounts of it, nor that any person has declared that they +actually are, though there is great probability that they will soon be +here, if ever." This, from a Loyalist source, is a singularly worded +paragraph, and is richly Delphic. + +The circular letter which Boston addressed (September 14) to the towns, +calling a Convention, accurately states the object of the military force +that was now expected:--"The design of these troops is, in every one's +apprehension, nothing short of enforcing by military power the execution +of Acts of Parliament, in the forming of which the Colonies have not, +and cannot have, any constitutional influence. This is one of the +greatest distresses to which a free people can be reduced." The object +of the Convention is as accurately stated to be, "to prevent any sudden +and unconnected measures," and to act in every constitutional way for +the preservation of invaluable rights. The Governor, as usual, acting +on his theory of insurrection, held that the Convention was designed to +mature plans for it; and he wrote (September l6) to Lord Hillsborough as +to his own plans,--"For my own part, if I had any place of protection +to resort to, I would publish a proclamation against the assembling of +the Convention, but I dare not take so spirited a step without first +securing my retreat"; and, with unusual good sense, he expressed "much +doubt whether the force already ordered by General Gage, namely, two +regiments, would be sufficient" to fight off the original charter, and +to keep the crown officers in their places. There was a small party who +were in favor of resuming the old charter; but the union of the towns of +Massachusetts, and then the union of all the Colonies, for the sake of +continued union with Great Britain, was the key of the action of the +leaders who were the exponents of the Patriots. They did not contemplate +going into acts of government; and neither now nor in the future did +they ever contemplate "sudden and unconnected measures." + +Three days later (September 19) Governor Bernard threw off all disguise. +He formally announced to the Council that troops were coming, and asked +this body to provide them quarters. And now began a long, irritating, +and arrogant endeavor on the part of the Executive to browbeat the local +authorities in the matter of providing quarters for the troops. The +official record is voluminous. The Patriots kept strictly to the law, +and won a moral victory: the royal officials persisted in virtually +urging burly British will as law, and suffered the shame of an +ignominious defeat. The Governor thought the Government had received +a blow that made it reel; and, in a garrulous, complaining letter, +supplies not only a vivid idea of the whole of this struggle, but an +idea of his well-deserved individual mortification. "The account up +to this time," (October 30, 1768,) he wrote, "will end in my having +employed myself from September nineteenth to October twenty-sixth, that +is, thirty-eight days, in endeavoring to procure quarters for the two +regiments here to no purpose. For having during this time been bandied +about from one to another, I at length got positive refusals from every +one that I could apply to, that is, the Council, the Selectmen, and the +Justices of the Peace; upon which the General, [Gage,] who came here on +purpose, has found himself obliged to hire and fit up buildings at the +expense of the Crown, by which means the two regiments are at length got +into good occasional barracks." + +The new scene of an American States-General in Faneuil Hall,--so the +royal Governor and Parliamentary orators termed the Convention,--a +manifestation of the rising power of the people, was followed by the +spectacle of an imposing naval force in the harbor. The Sam Adams +Regiments, sent on the mission of warring against the republican idea, +were proudly borne to Boston by fifteen British men-of-war, which were +moored (September 29) in well-chosen fighting positions around the +north end of the quiet, but glorious town. In the evening the curious +Bostonians put out in their boats from the wharves to get a near view of +the ships. There were great rejoicings on board. The sky was brilliant +with the rockets that were shot off from the decks, and the air +resounded with the music of the bands. It was noticed that the favorite +piece seemed to be "the Yankee tune": it was played by the regimental +bands when Earl Percy led a British force out of Boston on Lexington +morning, but no mention is made of its being performed when this force +returned in the evening of that famous day, or when the Sam Adams +Regiments left the town. + +The King's troops landed on the first day of October. Though it had +been printed in England that ten thousand men were enrolled to oppose +them,--though the local officials had predicted that the event would +occasion a crisis in affairs,--though John Bull had been so abominably +imposed upon that he as much expected to see a mob resist the landing as +he lately expected the mob would resist the delivery of the Confederate +Commissioners,--and though not merely ministerial circles, but all +England, were looking forward with serious apprehensions to the +result,--yet the day was so tame that little history was made worth +relating. As the spectators on board the ships, about noon, were looking +for a battle-scene, they saw only a naval and military show. The ships +of war were prepared for action by loading the guns and putting springs +on the cables. The troops, after sixteen rounds of powder and ball had +been served out to them, entered the boats. Rude artists were looking +on, and sketching the peaceful display, setting down each boat and ship +and island, with view undisturbed by the smoke of battle or even of +salute. They did not notice, however, that the commander of the land +force, Lieutenant-Colonel Dalrymple, went ashore privately, at about +eleven o'clock, and sauntered over the town. He met no local militia; +he saw nor horns nor hoofs of insurrection; he saw not even the royal +Governor, for he had retired to Jamaica Plain; and instead of a cordial +Executive greeting and proper directions as to what to do, he found that +everything was left to himself. He knew that neither the Council nor the +Governor had provided quarters for his command; but from the doings +or non-doings of this day he conceived feelings towards the runaway +official which he expressed by words, at the time, "full as plain as +pleasant," and afterwards officially in writing to his superiors. +Bernard met Dalrymple's intimations of cowardice by the truthful +allegation that there was not the least danger of insurrection, and of +want of attention by the mean allegation that the Colonel was chagrined +because he was not complimented with a dinner. + +An hour after the Commander made his reconnoissance, about noon, the +boats moved in fine order towards the Long Wharf, so termed as being a +noble commercial pier running far out into the Bay. Here the Fourteenth +Regiment, under Colonel Dalrymple, landed, and, having formed, marched, +in the words of the time, with drums beating, fifes playing, and colors +flying, up King Street (now State Street) to the Town-House, where it +halted. It is not said that the troops were complimented by the presence +of the people, who, on holidays then as on holidays now, usually +appeared, having an air of self-respect, well-dressed, well-behaved, +with nothing moving among them more threatening than the baton of the +police as the sign of law and authority, but respecting that as the +symbol of their own law. What Tory writers and officials say warrants +the inference that the Patriots kept away. Dalrymple said that the +Convention was planet-stricken; "Sagittarius," a Tory scribbler, says +the Convention ran, and tells how they ran:--"The courage of the +faithful only consisted in blustering, for the morning that the troops +landed they broke up, and rushed out of town like a herd of scalded +hogs." If the Patriots generally were absent, it was from design. The +Fourteenth Regiment remained near the Town-House until the Twenty-Ninth +joined it, when the column marched to the Common. About four o'clock +these troops were joined by the Fifty-Ninth Regiment, and a train +of artillery with two field-pieces. This made a force of a thousand +fine-appearing and well-disciplined regulars. + +Colonel Dalrymple ordered the Twenty-Ninth Regiment to encamp +immediately, which, as it had field-equipage, it was enabled to do, and +pitched its tents on the Common; but he had no cover for the Fourteenth +Regiment, and he now endeavored to obtain quarters for it. He was +directed to the Manufactory House, a large building owned by the +Province, in what is now Hamilton Place, near the Common, which was +hired by a zealous Patriot, who declined to let the troops occupy it; +whereupon he applied to the Selectmen for Faneuil Hall, promising that +the utmost care should be taken not to injure the property. "About +twilight," in the words of the "Gazette," "the Fourteenth Regiment +marched down to the Hall, where they stood under arms till near nine +o'clock, when the door, by some means or other, being opened, they took +up their lodgings there that night." The Colonel exultingly wrote,--"By +tolerable management I got possession of Faneuil Hall, the School of +Liberty, from the Sons thereof, without force, and thereby secured all +their arms": about four hundred had been recently placed there to be +cleaned. + +Such was the day, so long looked forward to, of the landing of the +King's troops. The people were indignant, but were silent and preserved +their self-respect; but the object of the popular leaders had been +accomplished, so far as the reception of the military force was +concerned. A candid British observer, who was in Boston, saw the truth +and printed it in England:--"The Patriot leaders of the Opposition +were much more concerned at any mobs that happened than the Government +people. These last seem pleased with them, as countenancing their +representations,--the necessity of sending soldiers to keep them in +order." On this occasion, in the words of the "Gazette," "Not the least +attempt was made or contemplated to oppose the landing of the King's +troops or their encampment on the Common." There is no mention made of +even hisses or groans, as the colors that symbolized arbitrary power +were proudly borne up King Street. The peace and good order that marked +the day much chagrined the Loyalists, and fairly astonished "the +gentlemen of the military." + +These gentlemen might have read in the next issues of the journals the +temper of the public mind, in the comments freely made on their mission +and on the events that were said to have occasioned their presence. +The pretext, the obnoxious proceedings of the eighteenth of March, was +characterized as the trifling hallooing of a harmless procession; the +mob of the tenth of June was more serious, but was soon over; but on +the all-important and vital point of allegiance, they might have seen +expressed, in the weighty words of the Council, infinite regret at the +reflection which that show of force implied on the loyalty of the people +to their sovereign, who had not in his wide-extended dominions any more +faithful subjects than in the town of Boston. And what really was the +offence of the Patriots? They had resolved, they had petitioned, they +had agreed not to import or to buy British goods. But they were not +law-breakers, for they could triumphantly challenge their opponents to +produce a single instance since the tenth of June of an interruption of +the public peace or of resistance to law; and they were not political +heretics, for the principles of colonial administration which they stood +on were such as their countrymen unanimously now indorse, and British +statesmanship is now pleased to accept. Yet they were threatened in the +streets with the whipping-post and the pillory, with the loss of their +ears or their heads,--and in official instructions, printed in the +journals, with transportation to England for trial. This last threat was +serious. The Government proposed to make arrests under a statute of the +reign of Henry VIII.: actually designed (Lord Mahon's words) "to draw +forth the mouldering edict of a tyrant from the dust where it had long +lain, and where it ever deserved to lie, and to fling it" against a band +of popular leaders who were wisely and well supporting a most sacred +cause. But these leaders were not actuated by the fanaticism that is +always blind and often cruel, nor by the ambition that is unworthy and +is then reckless and criminal; but, with a clear apprehension of their +ground and definite notions of policy, they went forward with no +faltering step. Their calm and true statement through the press +was,--"It is the part this town has taken on the side of Liberty, +and its noble exertions in favor of the rights of America, that have +rendered it so obnoxious to the tools of arbitrary power." "We are now +[October 3, 1768] become a spectacle to all North America. May our +conduct be such as not to disgrace ourselves or injure the common +cause!" + +Thus wove the solid men of Boston their mantle of enduring glory. + + + + +OUT OF THE BODY TO GOD. + + + Wearily, wearily, wearily: + Sobbing through space like a south-wind, + Floating in limitless ether, + Ether unbounded, unfathomed, + Where is no upward nor downward, + Island, nor shallow, nor shore: + Wearily floating and sobbing, + Out of the body to God! + + Lost in the spaces of blankness, + Lost in the deepening abysses, + Haunted and tracked by the past: + No more sweet human caresses, + No more the springing of morning, + Never again from the present + Into a future beguiled: + Lonely, defiled, and despairing, + Out of the body to God! + + Reeling, and tearless, and desperate, + On through the quiet of ether, + Helpless, alone, and forsaken, + Faithless in ignorant anguish, + Faithless of gasping repentance, + Measuring Him by thy measure,-- + Measure of need and desert,-- + Out of the body to God! + + Soft through the starless abysses, + Soft as the breath of the summer + Loosens the chains of the river, + Sweeping it free to the sea, + Murmurs a murmur of peace:-- + "Soul! in the deepness of heaven + Findest thou shallow or shore? + Hast thou beat madly on limit? + Hast thou been stayed in thy fleeing + Out of the body to God? + + "Thou that hast known Me in spaces + Boundless, untraversed, unfathomed, + Hast thou not known Me in love? + Am I, Creator and Guider, + Less than My kingdom and work? + Come, O thou weary and desolate! + Come to the heart of thy Father + Home from thy wanderings weary, + Home from the lost to the Loving, + Out of the body to God!" + + + + +THE HEALTH OF OUR GIRLS. + + +Among the lower animals, so far as the facts have been noticed, there +seems no great inequality, as to strength or endurance, between the +sexes. In migratory tribes, as of birds or buffaloes, the males are not +observed to slacken or shorten their journeys from any gallant +deference to female weakness, nor are the females found to perish +disproportionately through exhaustion. It is the English experience +that among coursing-dogs and race-horses there is no serious sexual +inequality. Aelian says that Semiramis did not exult when in the chase +she captured a lion, but was proud when she took a lioness, the dangers +of the feat being far greater. Hunters as willingly encounter the male +as the female of most savage beasts; and if an adventurous fowler, +plundering an eagle's nest, has his eyes assaulted by the parent-bird, +it is no matter whether the discourtesy proceeds from the gentleman or +the lady of the household. + +Passing to the ranks of humanity, it is the general rule, that, wherever +the physical nature has a fair chance, the woman shows no extreme +deficiency of endurance or strength. Even the sentimental physiology +of Michelet is compelled to own that his elaborate theories of lovely +invalidism have no application to the peasant-women of France, that +is, to nineteen-twentieths of the population. Among human beings, +the disparities of race and training far outweigh those of sex. The +sedentary philosopher, turning from his demonstration of the hopeless +inferiority of woman, finds with dismay that his Irish or negro +handmaiden can lift a heavy coal-hod more easily than he. And while the +dream is vanishing of the superiority of savage races on every other +point, it still remains unquestionable that in every distinctive +attribute of physical womanhood the barbarian has the advantage. + +The truth is, that in all countries female health and strength go with +peasant habits. In Italy, for instance, About says, that, of all useful +animals, the woman is the one that the Roman peasant employs with the +most profit. "She makes the bread and the cake of Turkish corn; she +spins, she weaves, she sews; she goes every day three miles for wood and +a mile for water; she carries on her head the load of a mule; she toils +from sunrise to sunset without resisting or even complaining. The +children, which she brings forth in great numbers, and which she nurses +herself, are a great resource; from the age of four years they can be +employed in guarding other animals." + +Beside this may be placed the experience of Moffat, the African +missionary, who, seeing a party of native women engaged in their usual +labor of house-building, and just ready to put the roof on, suggested +that some of the men who stood by should lend a hand. It was received +with general laughter; but Mahuto, the queen, declared that the plan, +though hopeless of execution, was in itself a good one, and that men, +though excused from lighter labors, ought to take an equal share in the +severer,--adding, that she wished the missionaries would give their +husbands medicine and make them work. + +The health of educated womanhood in the different European nations seems +to depend mainly upon the degree of conformity to these rustic habits +of air and exercise. In Italy, Spain, Portugal, the women of the upper +classes lead secluded and unhealthy lives, and hence their physical +condition is not superior to our own. In the Northern nations, women of +refinement do more to emulate the active habits of the peasantry,--only +substituting out-door relaxations for out-door toil,--and so they share +their health. This is especially the case in England, which accordingly +seems to furnish the representative types of vigorous womanhood. + +"The nervous system of the female sex in England seems to be of a much +stronger mould than that of other nations," says Dr. Merei, a medical +practitioner of English and Continental experience. "They bear a degree +of irritation in their systems, without the issue of fits, which in +other races is not so easily tolerated." So Professor Tyndall, watching +female pedestrianism among the Alps, exults in his countrywomen:--"The +contrast in regard to energy between the maidens of the British Isles +and those of the Continent and of America is astonishing." When Catlin's +Indians first walked the streets of London, they reported with wonder +that they had seen many handsome squaws holding to the arms of men, "and +they did not look sick either";--a remark which no complimentary savage +was ever heard to make in any Cisatlantic metropolis. + +There is undoubtedly an impression in this country that the English +vigor is bought at some sacrifice,--that it implies a nervous +organization less fine and artistic, features and limbs more rudely +moulded, and something more coarse and peasant-like in the whole average +texture. Making all due allowance for national vanity, it is yet easy to +see that superiority may be had more cheaply by lowering the plane of +attainment. The physique of a healthy day-laborer is a thing of inferior +mould to the physique of a healthy artist. Muscular power needs also +nervous power to bring out its finest quality. Lightness and grace are +not incompatible with vigor, but are its crowning illustration. +Apollo is above Hercules; Hebe and Diana are winged, not weighty. The +physiologist must never forget that Nature is aiming at a keener and +subtiler temperament in framing the American,--as beneath our drier +atmosphere the whole scale of sounds and hues and odors is tuned to a +higher key,--and that for us an equal state of health may yet produce +a higher type of humanity. To make up the arrears of past neglect, +therefore, is a matter of absolute necessity, if we wish this experiment +of national temperament to have any chance; since rude health, however +obtuse, will in the end overmatch disease, however finely strung. + +But the fact must always be kept in mind that the whole problem +of female health is most closely intertwined with that of social +conditions. The Anglo-Saxon organization is being modified not only in +America, but also in England, with the changing habits of the people. In +the days of Henry VIII. it was "a wyve's occupation to winnow all manner +of cornes, to make malte, to wash and ironyng, to make hay, shere corne, +and in time of nede to help her husband fill the muchpayne, drive the +plough, load hay, corne, and such other, and go or ride to the market to +sell butter, cheese, egges, chekyns, capons, hens, pigs, geese, and all +manner of cornes." But now there is everywhere complaint of the growing +delicacy and fragility of the English female population, even in rural +regions; and the king of sanitary reformers, Edwin Chadwick, has lately +made this complaint the subject of a special report before the National +Association. He assumes, as a matter settled by medical authority, that +the proportion of mothers who can suckle their children is decidedly +diminishing among the upper and middle classes, that deaths from +childbirth are eight times as great among these classes as among the +peasantry, and that spinal distortion, hysteria, and painful disorders +are on the increase. Nine-tenths of the evil he attributes to the long +hours of school study, and to the neglect of physical exercises for +girls. + +This shows that the symptoms of ill-health among women are not a matter +of climate only, but indicate a change in social conditions, producing +a change of personal habits. It is something which reaches all; for the +standard of health in the farm-houses is with us no higher than in the +cities. It is something which, unless removed, stands as a bar to any +substantial progress in civilization. It is a mere mockery for the +millionnaire to create galleries of Art, bringing from Italy a Venus on +canvas or a stone Diana, if meanwhile a lovelier bloom than ever artist +painted is fading from his own child's cheek, and a firmer vigor than +that of marble is vanishing from her enfeebled arms. What use to found +colleges for girls whom even the high-school breaks down, or to induct +them into new industrial pursuits when they have not strength to stand +behind a counter? How appeal to any woman to enlarge her thoughts beyond +the mere drudgery of the household, when she "dies daily" beneath the +exhaustion of even that? + +And the perplexity lies beyond the disease, in the perils involved even +in the remedy. No person can be long conversant with physical training, +without learning to shrink from the responsibility of the health of +girls. The panacea for boyish health is commonly simple, even for +delicate cases. Removal from books, if necessary, and the substitution +of farm-life,--with good food, pure air, dogs, horses, oxen, hens, +rabbits,--and fresh or salt water within walking distance. Secure these +conditions, and then let him alone; he will not hurt himself. Nor +will, during mere childhood, his little sister experience anything but +benefit, under the same circumstances. But at the epoch of womanhood, +precisely when the constitution should be acquiring robust strength, her +perils begin; she then needs not merely to be allured to exertion, but +to be protected against over-exertion; experience shows that she cannot +be turned loose, cannot be safely left with boyish freedom to take her +fill of running, rowing, riding, swimming, skating,--because life-long +injury may be the penalty of a single excess. This necessity for caution +cannot be the normal condition, for such caution cannot be exerted for +the female peasant or savage, but it seems the necessary condition for +American young women. It is a fact not to be ignored, that some of the +strongest and most athletic girls among us have lost their health and +become invalids for years, simply by being allowed to live the robust, +careless, indiscreet life on which boys thrive so wonderfully. It is +fatal, if they do too little, and disastrous, if they do too much; +and between these two opposing perils the process of steering is so +difficult that the majority of parents end in letting go the helm and +leaving the fragile vessel to steer itself. + +Everything that follows in these pages must therefore be construed in +the light of this admitted difficulty. The health of boys is a matter +not hard to treat, on purely physiological grounds; but in dealing with +that of girls caution is necessary. Yet, after all, the perplexities can +only obscure the details of the prescription, while the main substance +is unquestionable. Nowhere in the universe, save in improved habits, can +we ever find health for our girls. Special delicacy in the conditions of +the problem only implies more sedulous care in the solution. The great +laws of exercise, of respiration, of digestion are essentially the same +for all human beings; and greater sensitiveness in the patient should +not relax, but only stimulate, our efforts after cure. And the +unquestionable fact that there are among us, after the worst is said, +large numbers of robust and healthy women, should keep up our courage +until we can apply their standard to the whole sex. + +In presence of an evil so great, it is inevitable that there should be +some fantastic theories of cure. But extremes are quite pardonable, +where it is so important to explore all the sources of danger. Special +ills should have special assailants, at whatever risk of exaggeration. +As water-cures and vegetarian boarding-houses are the necessary defence +of humanity against dirt and over-eating, so is the most ungainly +Bloomer that ever drifted on bare poles across the continent a +providential protest against the fashion-plates. It is probable, that, +on the whole, there is a gradual amelioration in female costume. These +hooded water-proof cloaks, equalizing all womankind,--these thick soles +and heavy heels, proclaiming themselves with such masculine emphasis +on the pavement,--these priceless india-rubber boots, emancipating all +juvenile femineity from the terrors of mud and snow,--all these indicate +an approaching era of good sense; for they are the requisite machinery +of air, exercise, and health, so far as they go. + +The weight of skirts and the constraints of corsets are still properly +made the theme of indignant declamation. Yet let us be just. It is +impossible to make costume the prime culprit, when we recall what robust +generations have been reared beneath the same formidable panoply. For +instance, it seems as if no woman could habitually walk uninjured with a +weight of twelve pounds of skirts suspended at her hips,--Dr. Coale is +responsible for the statistics,--and as if salvation must therefore lie +in shoulder-straps. Yet the practice cannot be sheer suicide, when the +Dutch peasant-girl plods bloomingly through her daily duties beneath a +dozen successive involucres of flannel. So in regard to tight lacing, +no one can doubt its ill effects, since even a man's loose garments +are known to diminish by one-fourth his capacity for respiration. Yet +inspect in the shop-windows (where the facts of female costume are +obtruded too pertinaciously for the public to remain in ignorance) +the light and flexible corsets of these days, and then contemplate at +Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth the stout buckram stays that once incased the +stouter heart of Alice Bradford. Those, again, were to those of a still +earlier epoch as leather to chain-armor. The Countess of Buchan was +confined in an iron cage for life for assisting to crown Robert the +Bruce, but her only loss by the incarceration was that her iron cage +ceased to be portable. + +Passing from costume, it must be noticed that there are many physical +evils which the American woman shares with the other sex, but which bear +with far greater severity on her finer organization. There is improper +food, for instance. The fried or salted meat, the heavy bread, the +perennial pork, the disastrous mince-pies of our farmers' houses are +sometimes pardoned by Nature to the men of the family, in consideration +of twelve or more hours of out-door labor. For the more sedentary and +delicate daughter there is no such atonement, and she vibrates between +dyspepsia and starvation. The only locality in America where I have ever +found the farming population living habitually on wholesome diet is the +Quaker region in Eastern Pennsylvania, and I have never seen anywhere +else such a healthy race of women. Yet here, again, it is not safe to +be hasty, or to lay the whole responsibility upon the kitchen, when we +recall the astounding diet on which healthy Englishwomen subsisted two +centuries ago. Consider, for instance, the housekeeping of the Duke of +Northumberland. "My lord and lady have for breakfast, at seven o'clock, +a quart of beer, as much wine, two pieces of salt fish, six red herring, +four white ones, and a dish of sprats." Digestive resources which +could, entertain this bill of fare might safely be trusted to travel in +America. + +The educational excesses of our schools, also, though shared by both +sexes, tell much more formidably upon girls, in proportion as they are +keener students, more submissive pupils, and are given to studying their +lessons at recess-time, instead of shouting and racing in the open +air. They are also easily coerced into devoting Wednesday and Saturday +afternoons to the added atrocity of music-lessons, and in general, but +for the recent blessed innovation of skating, would undoubtedly submit +to having every atom of air and exercise eliminated from their lives. It +is rare to find an American mother who habitually ranks physical vigor +first, in rearing her daughters, and intellectual culture only second; +indeed, they are commonly satisfied with a merely negative condition of +health. The girl is considered to be well, if she is not too ill to go +to school; and she therefore lives from hand to mouth, as respects her +constitution, and lays up nothing for emergencies. From this negative +condition proceeds her inability to endure accidents which to an active +boy would be trivial. Who ever hears of a boy's incurring a lame knee +for a year by slipping on the ice, or spinal disease for a lifetime by +a fall from a sled? And if a girl has not enough of surplus vitality to +overcome such trifles as these, how is she fitted to meet the coming +fatigues of wife and mother? + +These are important, if superficial, suggestions; but there are other +considerations which go deeper. I take the special provocatives of +disease among American women to be in great part social. The one marked +step achieved thus far by our civilization appears to be the abolition +of the peasant class, among the native-born, and the elevation of the +mass of women to the social zone of music-lessons and silk gowns. This +implies the disappearance of field-labor for women, and, unfortunately, +of that rustic health also which in other countries is a standing +exemplar for all classes. Wherever the majority of women work in the +fields, the privileged minority are constantly reminded that they also +hold their health by the tenure of some substituted activity. With +us, all women have been relieved from out-door labor,--and are being +sacrificed in the process, until they learn to supply its place. Except +the graceful and vanishing pursuit of hop-picking, there is in New +England no agricultural labor in which women can be said to be +habitually engaged. Most persons never saw an American woman making hay, +unless in the highly imaginative cantata of "The Hay-Makers"; and Dolly +the Dairy-Maid is becoming to our children as purely ideal a being as +Cinderella. We thus lose not only the immediate effect, but the indirect +example, of these out-door toils. + +This influence of the social transition bears upon all women: there +is another which especially touches wives and mothers. In European +countries, the aim at anything like gentility implies keeping one or +more domestics to perform house-hold labors; but in our Free States +every family aims at gentility, while not one in five keeps a domestic. +The aim is not a foolish one, though follies may accompany it,--for the +average ambition of our people includes a certain amount of refined +cultivation;--it is only that the process is exhausting. Every +woman must have a best-parlor with hair-cloth furniture and a +photograph--book; she must have a piano, or some cheaper substitute; +her little girls must have embroidered skirts and much mathematical +knowledge; her husband must have two or even three hot meals every day +of his life; and yet her house must be in perfect order early in the +afternoon, and she prepared to go out and pay calls, with a black silk +dress and a card-case. In the evening she will go to a concert or a +lecture, and then, at the end of all, she will very possibly sit up +after midnight with her sewing-machine, doing extra shop-work to pay for +little Ella's music-lessons. All this every "capable" New-England woman +will do, or die. She does it, and dies; and then we are astonished +that her vital energy gives out sooner than that of an Irishwoman in a +shanty, with no ambition on earth but to supply her young Patricks with +adequate potatoes. + +Now it is useless to attempt to set back the great social flood. The +New-England housekeeper will never be killed by idleness, at any rate; +and if she is exposed to the opposite danger, we must fit her for it, +that is all. There is reason to be hopeful; the human race as a whole is +tending upward, even physically, and if we cannot make our girls healthy +quite yet, we shall learn to do it by-and-by. Meanwhile we must hold +hard to the conviction, that not merely decent health, but even a high +physical training, is a thing thoroughly practicable for both sexes. If +a young girl can tire out her partner in the dance, if a delicate wife +can carry her baby twice as long as her athletic husband, (for certainly +there is nothing in the gymnasium more amazing than the mother's left +arm,) then it is evident that the female frame contains muscular power, +or its equivalent, though it may take music or maternity to bring it +out. But other inducements have proved sufficient, and the results do +not admit of question. The Oriental _bayaderes_, for instance, are +trained from childhood as gymnasts: they carry heavy jars on their +heads, to improve strength, gait, and figure; they fly kites, to acquire +"statuesque attitudes and graceful surprises"; they must learn to lay +the back of the hand flat against the wrist, to partially bend the +arm in both directions at the elbow, and, inclining the whole person +backward from the waist, to sweep the floor with the hair. So, among +ourselves, the great athletic resources of the female frame are +vindicated by every equestrian goddess of the circus, every pet of the +ballet. Those airy nymphs have been educated for their vocation by an +amount of physical fatigue which their dandy admirers may well prefer to +contemplate through the safe remoteness of an opera-glass. + +Dr. Gardner, of New York, has lately contributed very important +professional observations upon this class of his patients; he describes +their physique as infinitely superior to that of ordinary women, +wonderfully adapting them not only to the extraordinary, but to the +common perils of their sex, "with that happy union of power and +pliability most to be desired." "Their occupation demands in its daily +study and subsequent practice an amount of long-continued muscular +energy of the severest character, little recognized or understood by +the community"; and his description of their habitual immunity in the +ordeals of womanhood reminds one of the descriptions of savage tribes. +But it is really a singular retribution for our prolonged offences +against the body, when our saints are thus compelled to take their +models from the reputed sinners,--prize-fighters being propounded as +missionaries for the men, and opera-dancers for the women. + +Are we literally to infer, then, that dancing must be the primary +prescription? It would not be a bad one. It was an invaluable hint of +Hippocrates, that the second-best remedy is better than the best, if the +patient likes it best. Beyond all other merits of the remedy in question +is this crowning advantage, that the patient likes it. Has any form of +exercise ever yet been invented which a young girl would not leave for +dancing? + +"Women, it is well known," says Jean Paul, "cannot run, but only dance, +and every one could more easily reach a given point by dancing than by +walking." It is practised in this country under immense disadvantages: +first, because of late hours and heated rooms; and secondly, because +some of the current dances seem equally questionable to the mamma and +the physiologist. But it is doubtful whether any possible gymnastic +arrangement for a high-school would be on the whole so provocative +of the wholesome exercise as a special hall for dancing, thoroughly +ventilated, and provided with piano and spring-floor. The spontaneous +festivals of every recess-time would then rival those German +public-rooms, where it is said you may see a whole company waltzing like +teetotums, with the windows wide open, at four o'clock in the afternoon. + +Skating is dancing in another form; both aim at flying, and skating +comes nearest to success. The triumph of this art has been so +astonishing, in the universality of its introduction among our girls +within the short space of four winters, that it is hardly necessary to +speak of it, except to deduce the hope that other out-door enjoyments, +equally within the reach of the girls, may be as easily popularized. + +For any form of locomotion less winged than skating and dancing the feet +of American girls have hitherto seemed somehow unfitted by Nature. There +is every abstract reason why they should love walking, on this side of +the Atlantic: there is plenty of room for it, the continent is large; +the exercise, moreover, brightens the eye and purifies the complexion, +--so the physiologists declare: so that an English chemist classifies +red cheeks as being merely oxygen in another form, and advises young +ladies who wish for a pair to seek them where the roses get them, +out-of-doors,--upon which an impertinent damsel writes to ask "Punch" +if they might not as well carry the imitation of the roses a little +farther, and remain in their beds all the time? But it is a lamentable +fact, that walking, for the mere love of it, is a rare habit among our +young women, and rarer probably in the country than in the city; it is +uncommon to hear of one who walks habitually as much as two miles a day. +There are, of course, many exceptional instances: I know maidens who +love steep paths and mountain rains, like Wordsworth's Louisa, and I +have even heard of eight young ladies who walked from Andover to Boston, +twenty-three miles, in six hours, and of two who did forty-five miles in +two days. Moreover, with our impulsive temperaments, a special object +will always operate as a strong allurement. A confectioner's shop, for +instance. A camp somewhere in the suburbs, with dress-parades, and +available lieutenants. A new article of dress: a real ermine cape may be +counted as good for three miles a day, for the season. A dearest friend +within pedestrian distance: so that it would seem well to plant a circle +of delightful families just in the outskirts of every town, merely to +serve as magnets. Indeed, so desperate has the emergency become, that +one might take even ladies' hoops to be a secret device of Nature to +secure more exercise for the occupants by compelling them thus to make +the circuit of each other, as the two fat noblemen at the French court +vindicated themselves from the charge of indolence by declaring that +each promenaded twice round his friend every morning. + +In view of this distaste for pedestrian exercise, it seems strange +that the present revival of athletic exercises has not yet reached to +horsemanship, the traditional type of all noble training, _chevalerie_, +chivalry. Certainly it is not for the want of horse-flesh, for never +perhaps was so much of that costly commodity owned in this community; +yet in New England you shall find private individuals who keep a +half-dozen horses each, and livery-stables possessing fifty, and never a +proper saddle-horse among them. In some countries, riding does half the +work of physical training, for both sexes; Sir Walter Scott, when at +Abbotsford, never omitted his daily ride, and took his little daughter +with him, from the time she could sit on horseback; but what New-England +man, in purchasing a steed, selects with a view to a side-saddle? This +seems a sad result of the wheel-maker's trade, and one grudges St. +Willegis the wheel on his coat-of-arms, if it has thus served to tame +down freeborn men and women to the slouching and indolent practice +of driving,--a practice in which the human figure appears at such +disadvantage, that one can hardly wonder at Horace Walpole's coachman, +who had laid up a small fortune by driving the maids-of-honor, and +left it all to his son upon condition that he never should take a +maid-of-honor for his wife. + +An exercise to which girls take almost as naturally as to dancing is +that of rowing, an accomplishment thoroughly feminine, learned with +great facility, and on the whole safer than most other sports. Yet until +within a few years no one thought of it in connection with women, unless +with semi-mythical beings, like Ellen Douglas or Grace Darling. Even now +it is chiefly a city accomplishment, and you rarely find at rural or +sea-side places a village damsel who has ever handled an oar. But once +having acquired the art, girls will readily fatigue themselves with its +practice, unsolicited, careless of tan and freckles. At Dove Harbor it +is far easier at any time to induce the young ladies to row for two +hours than to walk in the beautiful wood-paths for fifteen minutes;--the +walking tires them. No matter; for a special exercise the rowing is the +most valuable of the two, and furnishes just what the dancing-school +omits. Unfortunately, the element of water is not quite a universal +possession, and no one can train Naiads on dry land. + +One of the merits of boating is that it suggests indirectly the +attendant accomplishment of swimming, and this is some thing of +such priceless importance that no trouble can be too great for its +acquisition. Parents are uneasy until their children are vaccinated, and +yet leave them to incur a risk as great and almost as easily averted. +The barbarian mother, who, lowering her baby into the water by her +girdle, teaches it to swim ere it can walk, is before us in this duty. +Swimming, moreover, is not one of those arts in which a little learning +is a dangerous thing; on the contrary, a little may be as useful in +an emergency as a great deal, if it gives those few moments of +self-possession amid danger which will commonly keep a person from +drowning until assistance comes. Women are naturally as well fitted for +swimming as men, since specific buoyancy is here more than a match +for strength; but effort is often needed to secure for them those +opportunities of instruction and practice which the unrestrained +wanderings of boys secure for them so easily. For this purpose, +swimming-schools for ladies are now established in many places, at home +and abroad; and the newspapers have lately chronicled a swimming-match +at a girls' school in Berlin, where thirty-three competitors were +entered for the prize,--and another among titled ladies in Paris, where +each fashionable swimmer was allowed the use of the left hand only, the +right hand sustaining an open parasol. Our own waters have, it may be, +exhibited spectacles as graceful, though less known to fame. Never may I +forget the bevy of bright maidens who under my pilotage buffeted on many +a summer's day the surges of Cape Ann, learning a wholly new delight in +trusting the buoyancy of the kind old ocean and the vigor of their +own fair arms. Ah, my pupils, some of you have since been a prince's +partners in the ball-room; but in those days, among the dancing waves, +it was King Neptune who placed on you his crown. + +Other out-door habits depend upon the personal tastes of the individual, +in certain directions, and are best cultivated by educating these. If a +young girl is born and bred with a love of any branch of natural history +or of horticulture, happy is she; for the mere unconscious interest of +the pursuit is an added lease of life to her. It is the same with all +branches of Art whose pursuit leads into the open air. Rosa Bonheur, +with her wanderings among mountains and pastures, alternating with the +vigorous work of the studio, needed no other appliances for health. The +same advantages come to many, in spite of delinquent mothers, in +the bracing habits of household labor, at least where mechanical +improvements have not rendered it too easy. Improved cooking-stoves and +Mrs. Cornelius have made the culinary art such a path of roses that +it is hardly now included in early training, but deferred till after +matrimony. Yet bread-making in well-ventilated kitchens and sweeping in +open-windowed rooms are calisthenics so bracing that one grudges them to +the Irish maidens, whose round and comely arms betray so much less need +of their tonic influence than the shrunken muscles exhibited so freely +by our short-sleeved belles. + +Perhaps even well-developed arms are not so essential to female beauty +as erectness of figure, a trait on which our low school-desks have made +sad havoc. The only sure panacea for round shoulders in boys appears to +be the military drill, and Miss Mitford records that in her youth it was +the custom in girls' schools to apply the same remedy. Dr. Lewis relies +greatly on the carrying of moderate weights upon a padded wooden cap +which he has devised for this purpose; and certainly the straightest +female figure with which I am acquainted--aged seventy-four--is said to +have been formed by the youthful habit of pacing the floor for half an +hour dally, with a book upon the head, under rigid maternal discipline. +Another traditional method is to insist that the damsel shall sit erect, +without leaning against the chair, for a certain number of hours daily; +and Sir Walter Scott says that his mother, in her eightieth year, took +as much care to avoid giving any support to her back as if she had been +still under the stern eye of Mrs. Ogilvie, her early teacher. Such +simple methods may not be enough to check diseased curvatures or +inequalities when already formed: these are best met by Ling's system +of medical gymnastics, or "movement-cure," as applied by Dr. Lewis, Dr. +Taylor, and others. + +The ordinary gymnastic apparatus has also been employed extensively by +women, and that very successfully, wherever the exercises have been +systematically organized, with agreeable classes and competent teachers. +If the gymnasium often fails to interest girls as much as boys, it is +probably from deficiency in these respects,--and also because the female +pupils, beginning on a lower plane of strength, do not command so great +a variety of exercises, and so tire of the affair more readily. But +hundreds, if not thousands, of American women have practised in these +institutions during the last ten years,--single establishments in large +cities having sometimes several hundred pupils,--and many have attained +a high degree of skill in climbing, vaulting, swinging, and the like; +nor can I find that any undue proportion of accidents has occurred. +Wherever Dr. Lewis's methods have been introduced, important advantages +have followed. He has invented an astonishing variety of games and +well-studied movements,--with the lightest and cheapest apparatus, +balls, bags, rings, wands, wooden dumb-bells, small clubs, and other +instrumentalities,--which are all gracefully and effectually used by his +classes, to the sound of music, and in a way to spare the weakest when +lightly administered, or to fatigue the strongest when applied in force. +Being adapted for united use by both sexes, they make more thorough +appeal to the social element than the ordinary gymnastics; and evening +classes, to meet several evenings in a week, have proved exceedingly +popular in some of our towns. These exercises do not require fixed +apparatus or a special hall. For this and other reasons they are +peculiarly adapted for use in schools, and it would be well if they +could be regularly taught in our normal institutions. Dr. Lewis himself +is now training regular teachers to carry on the same good work, and his +movement is undoubtedly the most important single step yet taken for the +physical education of American women. + +There is withal a variety of agreeable minor exercises, dating back +farther than gymnastic professors, which must not be omitted. Archery, +still in fashion in England, has never fairly taken root among us, and +seems almost hopeless: the clubs formed for its promotion die out almost +as speedily as cricket-clubs, and leave no trace behind; though this may +not always be. Bowling and billiards are, however, practised by lady +amateurs, just so far as they find opportunity, which is not very far; +desirable public or private facilities being obtainable by few only, +except at the summer watering-places. Battledoor-and-shuttlecock seems +likely to come again into favor, and that under eminent auspices: +Dr. Windship holding it in high esteem, as occupying the mind while +employing every part of the body, harmonizing the muscular system, +giving quickness to eye and hand, and improving the balancing power. +The English, who systematize all amusements so much more than we, have +developed this simple entertainment into several different games, +arduous and complicated as their games of ball. The mere multiplication +of the missiles also lends an additional stimulus, and the statistics +of success in this way appear almost fabulous. A zealous English +battledoorean informs me that the highest scores yet recorded in the +game are as follows: five thousand strokes for a single shuttlecock, +five hundred when employing two, one hundred and fifty with three, and +fifty-two when four airy messengers are kept flying simultaneously. + +It may seem trivial to urge upon rational beings the use of a +shuttlecock as a duty; but this is surely better than that one's health +should become a thing as perishable, and fly away as easily. There is +no danger that our educational systems will soon grow too careless of +intellect and too careful of health. Reforms, whether in physiology or +in smaller things, move slowly, when prejudice or habit bars the way. +Paris is the head-quarters of medical science; yet in Paris, to this +day, the poor babies in the great hospital of La Maternite are so +tortured in tight swathings that not a limb can move. Progress is not +in proportion to the amount of scientific knowledge on deposit in any +country, but to the extent of its diffusion. No nation in the world +grapples with its own evils so promptly as ours. It is but a few years +since there was a general croaking about the physical deterioration of +young men in our cities,--and now already the cities and the colleges +are beginning to lead the rural districts in this respect. The guaranty +of reform in American female health is to be found in the growing +popular conviction that reform is needed. The community is tired of +the reproaches of foreigners, and of the more serious evils of homes +desolated by disease, and lives turned to tragedies. Morbid anatomy has +long enough served as a type of feminine loveliness; our polite society +has long enough been a series of soirees of incurables. Health is coming +into fashion. A mercantile parent lately told me that already in his +town, if a girl could vault a five-barred gate, her prospects for a +husband were considered to be improved ten per cent.; and every one +knows that there is no metre of public sentiment so infallible as the +stock-market. Now that the country is becoming safe, we must again turn +our attention to the health of our girls. Unless they are healthy, +the country is not safe. No where can their physical condition be so +important as in a republic. The utmost attention was paid to the bodily +training of Victoria, because she was to be a queen and the mother of +kings. By the theory of our government, however imperfectly applied as +yet, this is the precise position of every American girl. Voltaire +said that the fate of nations had often depended on the gout of a +prime-minister; and the fate of our institutions may hang on the precise +temperament which our next President shall have inherited from his +mother. + + * * * * * + + +SONNET. + + + The starry flower, the flower-like stars that fade + And brighten with the daylight and the dark, + The bluet in the green I faintly mark, + And glimmering crags with laurel overlaid, + Even to the Lord of light, the Lamp of shade, + Shine one to me,--the least still glorious made + As crowned moon or heaven's great hierarch. + And, so, dim grassy flower and night-lit spark + Still move me on and upward for the True; + Seeking, through change, growth, death, in new and old, + The full in few, the statelier in the less, + With patient pain; always remembering this,-- + His hand, who touched the sod with showers of gold, + Stippled Orion on the midnight blue. + + + + +THE HORRORS OF SAN DOMINGO. + + +CHAPTER I. + +INTRODUCTION. + + +Among the stock fallacies which belong to public writers and thinkers, +and which exercise a kind of conventional influence as often as they are +paraded, there is none greater than this,--that History always repeats +herself, because Human Nature never changes. The Tories of all ages and +countries content themselves and alarm their neighbors by an adroit +interpolation of this formula in their speech. They create the alarm +because they are contented and intend to remain so. Successive audiences +yield, as to the circus-jokes of the clown, who hits his traditional +laugh in the same place so often that it is a wonder the place is not +worn through. But people of a finer wit are not so easily surprised. If +they bore a fair numerical proportion to the listeners of _doctrinaires_ +and alarmists, the repetition would be eventually resisted, with an +indignation equal to the amount of literary and political damage which +it had effected. + +If people mean, when they say that Human Nature is always the same, that +a few primitive impulses appear through the disguise of all ages and +races, which can be modified, but never extinguished, which work and +are worked upon, are capable of doing good or harm according to +circumstances, but are at all events the conditions of life and motion, +it is fortunately true. That is to say, it is very fortunate that men +and women inhabit the earth. Their great, simple features uplift and +keep all landscapes in their places, and prevent life from falling +through into the molten and chaotic forces underneath. These rugged +water-sheds inclose, configure, temper, fertilize, and also perturb, +the great scenes and stretches of history. They hold the moisture, the +metal, the gem, the seeds of alternating forests and the patient routine +of countless harvests. Superficially it is a great way round from +the lichen to the vine, but not so far by way of the centre. The +many-colored and astonishing life conceals a few simple motives. +Certainly it is a grand and lucky thing that there are so many people +grouped along the lines of divine consistency. + +Men will not starve, if they can help it, nor thirst, if water can be +gathered in the palm or reached by digging. If they succeed in making a +cup, they betray a tendency to ornament its rim or stem, or to emboss a +story on its side. They are not disposed to become food for animals, +or to remain unprotected from the climate. They like to have the +opportunity of supplying their own wants and luxuries, and will resist +any tyrannical interference with the methods they prefer. They propagate +their race, and collect in communities for defence and social advantage. +When thus collected, they will learn to talk, to write, to symbolize, +to construct something, be it a medicine-lodge or a Parthenon. Their +primitive sense of an invisible and spiritual agency assumes the forms +of their ignorance and of their disposition: dread and cruelty, awe and +size, fancy and proportion, gentleness and simplicity, will be found +together in the rites and constructions of religion. They like to make +the whole tribe or generation conform; and it is dangerous to oppose +this tendency to preserve the shape of society from within and to +protect it against assaults from without. These are motives originally +independent of circumstances, and which made the first circumstances by +coming in contact with the elements of the physical world. + +But these circumstances are not always and everywhere as invariable +as the primitive wants which first set them in motion. Enlargement of +knowledge, of political and human relations, of the tenure of the earth, +increases the number and variety of circumstances, and combines them +so unexpectedly that it is a science to discover their laws, and the +conditions of action and reaction between men and things that happen. We +can depend upon Human Nature, but the problem always remains, What shall +be expected of Human Nature under this or that modification of its +external environment? Great laws from without act as well as great +laws from within. If we knew all the laws, we should know what average +consequences to expect. But in the mean time we shall commit the error +of supposing that History does nothing but repeat itself, fretfully +crooning into the "dull ear" of age a twice-told tale, if we do not +allow for the modifications amid which the primitive impulses find +themselves at work. + +And besides, there is a difference in individuals; one set of people +alone is too poor to furnish us with an idea of human nature. It is +natural for Themistocles, Pausanias, or Benedict Arnold, under suspicion +or ill-treatment, to desert to the enemy, and propose crushing his +country for a balm to apply to wounded feelings. But General Fremont, +in similar circumstances, will derive comfort from his loyal heart, and +wait in hopes that at least a musket may be put into his hands with +which to trust him against the foe. These are very simple variations; +they turn upon the proportion of selfish feeling which the men possess. +A self-seeking man will turn villain under the encroachment of other +people's egotism. The sight of too many trophies will convert a friend +into a covert enemy, who, without being treacherous, will nevertheless +betray a great cause by his jealousy of its great supporter. But the +latter will not always become a traitor to suit the expectations of an +envious friendship. And your own judgment of men and prophecy of events, +if based entirely upon selfish calculation, will entirely fail. + +Nations differ also, in spite of the similar things that they do in +analogous circumstances. Both Rome and England will not have too +ambitious neighbors. They hate a preponderating power, and find out +some way to get rid of the threat to their national egotism. The Romans +exterminate the Veians and Carthaginians; they want no colonizing or +commercial rivals. If England rules the sea, and uses its advantage to +create markets where it can buy at the cheapest and sell at the dearest +rates, we can understand its inexpensive sympathy for the people who can +manufacture little and therefore have to import a great deal, who are +thus the natural, disinterested lovers of free trade. It is very easy to +see why England turns red in the Crimea with the effort to lift up that +bag of rags called Turkey, to set it on the overland route to India; one +decayed nation makes a very good buffer to break the shock of natural +competition in the using up of another. It was the constant policy of +Rome to tolerate and patronize the various people in its provinces, to +respect, if not to understand, their religions, and to protect them from +the peculator. She was not so drunk with dominion as not to see that her +own comfort and safety were involved in this bearing to inferior and +half-effete races. On the other hand, England, with far stronger motives +of interest to imitate that policy, disregarding the prophecies of her +best minds, takes no pains to understand, and of course misgoverns and +outrages her poor nebulous Bengalese, and forces the opium which they +cultivate upon the Chinese whom it demoralizes. Is this difference +merely the difference between a pocket in a toga and one in the +trousers? But a nerve from the moral sense does, nevertheless, spread +into _papilloe_ over the surface of the tighter pocket, not entirely +blunted by yellow potations; so that the human as well as financial +advantage of Jamaica emancipation is perceived. Should we expect this +from the nation which undertook the destruction of the Danish fleet +before Copenhagen in 1801, without even the formality of a declaration +of war, on the suspicion that the Dane preferred to sympathize with +France? What moral clamor could have made the selfish exigency of that +act appear more damaging than a coalition of all the fleets of Europe? +Yet plantation fanaticism did not prevent the great act from which we +augured English hatred of a slaveholders' rebellion. Probably the lining +membrane of a pocket may have intermitted accesses of induration: +we must consult circumstances, if we would know what to expect. An +extraordinary vintage or a great fruit year will follow a long series of +scant or average crops; but we can count upon the average. + +But unless circumstances are constant, it matters little how constant +tempers and tendencies may be; and the expectations which we found upon +the general action of avarice, credulity, bigotry, self-seeking, or +any of the debased forms of legitimate human impulses, will often +be disappointed by results. Prepare the favorite climate, moisture, +exposure of a foreign plant, imitate its latitude and air and soil: it +will not necessarily grow at all, or, growing, it will only surprise you +by some alteration of its native features. Results are better chemists +than we, and their delicate root-fibres test the ground more accurately; +we shall find them languishing for some favorite elements, or colored +and persuaded by novel ones. History must remember the constants of +Man and of Nature, but be always expecting their variables, lest her +prophetic gift fall into ill-repute. + +Thus, give unlimited power to the Catholic, and he cannot anywhere set +up his old-fashioned absolutism, unless you can manage at the same time +to furnish him with Roman and Spanish people, and the fifteenth century. +Yet we, too, have trembled at the imaginary horrors of Popery. All the +power you can thrust and pile upon the Catholic in America will become +an instrument to further the country's tendency towards light, as it +drags the human impulses away from the despotic past. All the Jesuits, +and prize bulls by every steamer, relays of papal agents, and +Corpus-Christi processions in the streets of Boston, will hardly lift +the shoulders of the great protesting country, as it turns to stare from +its tilling, steaming, pioneering, emancipating task. + +It is not difficult to see why the revolts of peasants in the Middle +Ages were marked by horrible excesses,--why diplomatic Catholicism +prepared a St. Bartholomew's Eve for Paris,--why Dutch and Scotch +Protestants defaced and trampled under foot ecclesiastical Art,--why +German princes proclaimed a crusade against budding Protestantism and +Pan-slavism under Ziska and Procopius in Bohemia,--why the fagots were +fired at Constance, Prague, and Smithfield, and Pequod wigwams in New +England. All dreadful scenes, by simply taking place, show that they +have reason for it. But will they take place again? A Black Douglas did +undoubtedly live, and he was the nursery-threat for fractious Scotch +children during several generations; the Douglas never caught one of +them, but the threat did. So we are plied with stock-phrases, such as +"the Reign of Terror" and "the Horrors of San Domingo," and History is +abjectly conjured not to repeat herself, as she certainly will do, if +she goes on in the old way. Of course she will. But does she propose to +furnish a fac-simile of any critical epoch which haunts the imaginations +of mankind? That depends upon circumstances. The same barrel will play a +fresh tune by a hair's-breadth shifting of a spring. Two epochs may seem +to be exactly alike, and the men who only remember may seek to terrify +the men who hope by exposing the resemblance. But unless they can show +that all the circumstances are identical, they have no right to infect +the morning with their twilight fears. History insensibly modifies her +plan to secure the maximum of progress with the minimum of catastrophes, +and she repels the flippant insinuation that her children win all their +fresh advantages at the expense of the old crimes. + +The story of Hayti is worth telling, apart from its bearing upon +questions connected with the emancipation of slaves. It is a striking +record of the degradation of fine races and the elevation of inferior +ones, and shows with what ease Nature can transfer her good points from +her gifted children and unexpectedly endow with them her neglected +ones,--thus affording us a hint of something that is more permanent and +irreversible than ethnological distinctions, by repeating within our own +time her humane way with her old barbarians whose hair was long. From +them sprang the races which never could have dominated by cunning and +force alone, and which have to lay down their dominion when they have +exhausted everything but force and cunning. It is a story of the +desolation in which the avarice and wrath of man must always travel: +colonial prosperity was nothing but a howling war-path blazed directly +across stately and beautiful human nature. It shows the blood which the +fine hands of luxury never could wash off; the terrible secret at last +betrayed itself. In telling this story, the horrors of San Domingo are +accounted for, and whatever was exceptional in the circumstances is +at the same time marked, to prevent them from being applied without +discrimination to the present condition of America. But the story must +be told from the beginning, for its own sake; otherwise it will be a +bad story, without a moral. If the main features of it are carefully +preserved, it will make its own application. + +That, however, is fatal to any attempt to infect minds with the Haytian +bug-bear, now that political discussion threatens to ravage the country +which our arms are saving. It has been used before, when it was +necessary to save the Union and to render anti-slavery sentiment odious. +The weak and designing, and all who wait for the war to achieve a +constitutional recurrence of our national malady, will use it again to +defeat the great act of justice and the people's great necessity. + +Slavery is a continual conspiracy. Its life depends upon intrigue, +aggression, adroit combinations with other forms of human selfishness. +The people at the North who at this moment hate to hear the word +Emancipation mentioned, and who insist that the war shall merely restore +things to their original position, are the people who always hated the +phrase "Anti-Slavery," who will be ready to form a fresh coalition with +Slavery for the sake of recovering or creating political advantages, +and whom the South will know how to use again, by reviving ancient +prejudices, and making its very wounds a cause for sympathy. Slavery +will be the nucleus of political combinations so long as it can preserve +its constitutional and commercial advantages,--while it can sell its +cotton and recover its fugitives. Is the precious blood already +spilled in this war to become, as it congeals, nothing but cement to +fugitive-slave bills, and the basis of three-fifths, and the internal +slave-trade? For this we spend three millions a day, and lives whose +value cannot be expressed in dollars,--for this anguish will sit for +years at thousands of desolate hearths, and be the only legacy of +fatherless children. For what glory will they inherit whose fathers fell +to save still a chance or two for Slavery? It is for this we are willing +to incur the moral and financial hazards of a great struggle,--to +furnish an Anti-Republican party of reconstructionists with a bridge +for Slavery to reach a Northern platform, to frown at us again from the +chair of State. The Federal picket who perchance fell last night upon +some obscure outpost of our great line of Freedom has gone up to Heaven +protesting against such cruel expectations, wherever they exist; and +they exist wherever apathy exists, and old hatred lingers, and wherever +minds are cowed and demoralized by the difficulties of this question. In +his body is a bullet run by Slavery, and sent by its unerring purpose; +his comrades will raise over him a little hillock upon which Slavery +will creep to look out for future chances,--ruthlessly scanning the +political horizon from the graves of our unnamed heroes. This, and eight +dollars a month, will his wife inherit; and if she ever sees his grave, +she will see a redoubt which the breast of her husband raises for some +future defence of Slavery. The People, who are waging this war, and +who are actually getting at the foe through the bristling ranks of +politicians and contractors, must have such a moral opinion upon this +question as to defeat these dreadful possibilities. Let us be patient, +because we see some difficulties; but let us give up the war itself +sooner than our resolution, that, either by this war, or after it, +Slavery shall be stripped of its insignia, and turned out to cold and +irretrievable disgrace, weaponless, fangless, and with no object in the +world worthy of its cunning. We can be patient, but we must also be +instant and unanimous in insisting that the whole of Slavery shall pay +the whole of Freedom's bill. Then the dear names whose sound summons +imperatively our tears shall be proudly handed in by us to History, as +we bid her go with us from grave to grave to see how the faith of a +people watched them against the great American Body Snatcher, and kept +them inviolate to be her memorials. We feel our hearts reinforced by the +precious blood which trickled from Ball's Bluff into the Potomac, and +was carried thence into the great sea of our conscience, tumultuous with +pride, anger, and resolve. The drops feed the country's future, wherever +they are caught first by our free convictions ere they sink into the +beloved soil. Let us be instant, be incisive with our resolution, that +peace may not be the mother of another war, and our own victory rout +ourselves. + +Blow, North-wind, blow! Keep that bearded field of bayonets levelled +southward! Rustle, robes of Liberty, who art walking terribly over the +land, with sombre countenance, and garments rolled in blood! See, she +advances with one hand armed with Justice, while the other points to +that exquisite symmetry half revealed, as if beckoning thitherward her +children back again to the pure founts of life! "Be not afraid," she +cries, "of the noise of my garments and their blood-stains; for this is +the blood of a new covenant of Freedom, shed to redeem and perpetuate a +chosen land." + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE PLACE--THE CLIMATE--NATIVES--SETTLERS. + + +This old haunted house of Hayti had many occupants, who left as +heirlooms generation upon generation of hateful memories. Their dreams, +their deeds, their terrific tempers, lurked for the newcomers, and +harried them forth or made them kin. It is a cumulative story of dire +and fateful proceedings, like the story of the family of Pelops. It must +be told with deliberation. So the place, the climate, the aborigines, +the early atrocities, the importation of new races and characteristics, +command consideration as inevitable elements of the narrative. + +This spot of the New World was the first to ache beneath the white man's +greedy and superstitious tread. A tenacious Gothic race, after its long +blockade by Moors in the northern mountains of the Iberian Peninsula, +had lately succeeded in recovering the last stronghold of Arab power and +learning. Fresh from the atrocities of that contest, its natural bigotry +deepened by its own struggle for national existence, sombre, fanatical, +cruel, and avaricious, but enterprising and indomitable, it is wafted +across the ocean by Columbus, to expend its propensities unchecked +against a weaker and less characteristic barbarism. What might be +expected, when a few noble men succeed in transporting the worst +features of their own country, in such numbers of intractable people, +the raking of seaports, with little on board in the way of religion, +save the traditions of the Church and the materials for exhibiting the +drama of the Mass! This is the contingent which civilization detaches +for the settlement of another world. It effaces a smiling barbarism by a +saturnine and gloomy one, as when a great forest slides from some height +over a wild gay meadow. These capable, cruel men went sailing among the +Bahamas, soothed by the novelty and delight of finding land, and tried +to behave at first as men do among artless children who measure every +thing by their own scantiness; for they compelled themselves to be very +mild and condescending, till, after various mischances and rebuffs by +sea and land, the temper breaks forth in rage at disappointments, and +Hayti is the first place which is blasted by that frightful Spanish +scowl. The change was as sudden as that from calm weather to one of her +tempests. The whole subsequent history seems as if it were the revenge +of Columbus's own imagination, when the sober truth was discovered +instead of Cipango and the King of India. Thus was the New World +unsettled, and the horrors of San Domingo committed to the soil. + +Nearly the whole of Hayti lies between the eighteenth and twentieth +degrees of latitude, and the sixty-ninth, and seventy-fifth of +longitude. Its greatest length is three hundred and forty miles, its +greatest breadth, one hundred and thirty-two. It has a surface of +somewhat more than twenty-seven thousand square miles, or about eighteen +million square acres. The greater part of this is mountain-land. There +are three extensive plains,--La Vega in the east, Santiago in the +north, and Les Plaines in the southeast. These are distinct from the +Savannas.[A] The island is about the size of the State of Maine. Its +shape is peculiar, as it widens gradually from its southeastern end to +nearly the centre of its greatest length, whence the southern coast +trends rapidly to the north and west and stretches into a peninsula, +like a long mandible, corresponding to which on the northern coast is +another half as long, like a broken one, and between these lies a great +bay with the uncultivated island of Gonaive. The eastern part of the +island has also the small peninsula of Saniana, lying along the bay of +that name. The surface is covered by mountains which appear at first to +be tossed together wildly, without system or mutual relation, but they +can be described, upon closer inspection, as four ranges, with a general +parallelism, extending nearly east and west, but broken in the centre +by the Cibao ridge, which radiates in every direction from two or three +peaks, the highest in the island. Their height is reputed to be nine +thousand feet, but they have not yet been accurately measured. The +mountains of La Hotte, which form the long southern tongue of land, +rise to the height of seven thousand feet. They are all of calcareous +formation, and abound in the caverns which are found in limestone +regions. Some of these have their openings on the coast, and are +supposed to extend very far inland; they receive the tide, and reject it +with a bellowing noise, as the pent air struggles with it under their +arched roofs. These were called by the Spaniards _baxos roncadores_, +droning or snoring basses. The French had a name, _le gouffre_, the +gulf, to describe these noises; but they also applied it to the +subterranean rumbling, accompanied with explosions and violent +vibrations of the ground, which is caused by the heavy rains soaking +through the porous stone, after the dry season has heated the whole +surface of the island. The steaming water makes the earth groan and +shake as it forces its way through the crevices, feeling for an outlet, +or thrown back upon its own increasing current. These mysterious noises +filled with awe the native priests who managed the superstition of the +island before the Spaniards introduced another kind: no doubt they +served for omens, to incite or to deter, voices of Chthonian deities, +which needed interpreting in the interest of some great cacique who +would not budge upon his business without the sanction of religion. Many +a buccaneer, in after-times, who quailed before no mortal thunders made +by French or Spanish navies, was soundly frightened by the gigantic +snoring beneath his feet into reviewing his career, and calculating the +thickness of the crust between himself and his impatient retribution. + +[Footnote A: Savanna was a Haytian word spelt and pronounced by +Spaniards. It is a plain of grass, affording pasturage in the rainy +season; but a few shrubs also grow upon it. _Pampas_ are vast plains +without vegetation except during three months of the rainy season, when +they yield fine grass. The word is Peruvian; was originally applied to +the plains at the mouth of the La Plata. But the plains of Guiana and +tropical America, which the Spaniards called _Llanos_, are also pampas. +The Hungarian pasture-lands, called _Puszta_, are savannas. A _Steppe_ +is properly a vast extent of country, slightly rolling, without woods, +but not without large plants and herbs. In Russia there are sometimes +thickets eight or ten feet high. The salt deserts in Russia are not +called steppes, but _Solniye_. Pampas and deserts are found alternating +with steppes. A _Desert_ may have a sparing vegetation, and so differ +from pampas: if it has any plants, they are scrubby and fibrous, with +few leaves, and of a grayish color, and so it differs from steppes and +savannas. But there are rocky and gravelly, sandy and salt deserts: +gravelly, for instance, in Asia Minor, principally in the district known +to the ancients as the [Greek: katakekaumegae]. A _Heath_ is a level +covered with the plants to which that name has been applied. Finally, a +_Prairie_ differs from a savanna only in being under a zone where the +seasons are not marked as wet and dry, but where the herbage corresponds +to a variable moisture.] + +The words _crete_, _pic_, and _montagne_ are sometimes applied to the +peaks and ridges of the island, but the word _morne_, which is a Creole +corruption of _montagne_, is in common use to designate all the elevated +land, the extended ridges which serve as water-sheds for the torrents +of the rainy season, as well as the isolated hillocks, clothed in wood, +which look like huge hay-cocks,--those, for instance, which rise in the +rear of Cap Haytien. The aspect of the higher hills in the interior +might mislead an etymologist to derive the word _morne_ from the French +adjective which means _gloomy_, they are so marked by the ravages of the +hurricane and earthquake, so ploughed up into decrepit features by the +rains, the pitiless vertical heat, the fires, and the landslides. The +soft rock cannot preserve its outlines beneath all these influences; its +thin covering of soil is carried off to make the river-silt, and then +it crumbles away beneath the weather. Great ruts are scored through the +forests where the rock has let whole acres of trees and rubbish slip; +they sometimes cover the negro-cabins and the coffee-walks below. These +mountains are capricious and disordered masses of grayish stone; there +are no sustained lines which sweep upward from the green plantations and +cut sharply across the sky, no unchangeable walls of cool shadow, no +delicate curves, as in other hills, where the symmetry itself seems +to protect the material from the wear and tear of the atmosphere. The +_mornes_ are decaying hills; they look as if they emerged first from the +ocean and were the oldest parts of the earth, not merely weather-beaten, +but profligately used up with a too tropical career, which deprives +their age of all grandeur: they bewilder and depress. + +There are delightful valleys below these sullen hills. In the dry season +their torrents are stony bridle-paths, with only two or three inches +of water, along which the traveller can pass from the flourishing +plantations, where all the forms of a torrid vegetation are displayed, +into this upper region of decay. The transition is sudden and +unpleasant. Everything below is stately, exuberant: the sugar-cane, the +cotton-tree, the coffee-shrub are suggestive of luxury; the orange +and lemon shine through the glossy leaves; the palm-tree, the elegant +_papayo_, the dark green candle-wood, the feathery bamboo, the fig, +the banana, the mahogany, the enormous _Bombax ceiba_, the sablier,[B] +display their various shapes; shrubs and bushes, such as the green +and red pimento, the vanilla, the pomegranate, the citron, the +sweet-smelling acacia, and the red jasmine, contest the claim to delight +one's senses; and various flowers cover the meadows and cluster along +the shallow water-courses. No venomous reptiles lurk in these fragrant +places: the seed-tick, mosquito, and a spiteful little fly are the +greatest annoyances. The horned lizard, which the Indians esteemed so +delicate, and the ferocious crocodile, or caiman, haunt the secluded +sands and large streams, and the lagoons which form in marshy places. + +[Footnote B: _Hura crepitans_, one of the handsomest trees in the West +Indies, called _sablier_ because its fruit makes a very convenient +sandbox, when not fully ripe, by removing the seeds. It is of a +horn-color, about three and a half inches wide and two high, and looks +like a little striped melon. The ripe fruit, on taking out one of the +twelve woody cells which compose it, will explode with a noise like a +pistol, each cell giving a double report. This sometimes takes place +while the fruit is hanging on the tree, and sometimes when it stands +upon the table filled with sand. To prevent this, it is prettily hooped +with gold, silver, or ivory.] + +The trees and thickets do not glitter with fruits alone: gay birds fill +them with shifting colors, and a confusion of odd, plaintive, or excited +notes. Several kinds of pigeons, paroquets, thrushes, bright violet +and scarlet tanagras go foraging among the bananas, the rice, and +the millet. The ponds of the savannas are frequented by six or eight +varieties of wild ducks, and the wild goose; woodcock and plover abound +in the marshy neighborhoods; and the white crane, the swan, different +kinds of herons, and an ibis are found near the sea. On the shores +stand pelicans and cormorants absorbed in fishing enterprises, and the +flamingo,[C] whose note of alarm sounds like a trumpet. + +[Footnote C: When the English were meditating a descent upon the coast +of Gonaive, a negro happened to see a prodigious number of these +red-coated birds ranked on the savanna near the sea, as their habit is, +in companies. He rushed into the town, shouting, _"Z'Anglais, yo apres +veni, yo en pile dans savanne l'Hopital!"_ "The English, they are after +coming, they are drawn up on l'Hopital savanna!" The _generale_ +was beaten, the posts doubled, and a strong party was sent out to +reconnoitre. + +The pelican is a source of great amusement to the negroes. They call +this bird _blague a diable_, because of the incredible number of fish it +can stow away in its pouch. They call the cormorant _grand gosier_, big +gullet; and they make use of the membranous pocket which is found under +the lower mandible of its beak to carry their smoking tobacco, fancying +that it enhances the quality and keeps it fresh. Among the queer birds +is the _cra-cra_, or crocodile's valet, a bold and restless bird with +a harsh cry, represented in its name, which it uses to advertise the +dozing crocodile of any hostile approach. It is a great annoyance to the +sportsman by mixing with the wild ducks and alarming them with the same +nervous cry.] + +Charming valleys open to sight from the coast, where the limestone +bluffs let in the bays. The eye follows the rivulets as they wind +through green, sequestered places, till the hills bar the view, but do +not prevent the fancy from exploring farther, and losing itself in a +surmise of glens filled with rare vegetation and kept quiet by the +inclosing shadows. From the sea this picture is especially refreshing, +with the heat left out which is reflected with great power from the +sandy rocks and every denuded surface. Below all appears beautiful, +luxurious, and new; but above the signs of decrepitude appear, and the +broad wastes stretch where little grows except the _bayaonde_, (_Mimosa +urens_,) with its long murderous spines and ugly pods. Sudden contrasts +and absence of delicate gradations mark the whole face of the island. +All is extreme; and the mind grows disquieted amid these isolated +effects. + +The climate also corresponds to this region of luxury and desolation. +From November to April everything is parched with heat; some of the +trees lose their leaves, the rest become brown, and all growth ceases. +From April to November everything is wet; vegetation revives without a +spring, and the slender streams suddenly become furious rivers, which +often sweep away the improvements of man, and change the face of the +country in a single night. During the dry season the inhabitants depend +upon the sea-breeze which blows in over the heated land to replace +the rarefied air. It blows from six in the morning to three in the +afternoon, in the eastern part of the island; in other parts, from +nine to three. But frequently a furious northeast wind interrupts +this refreshing arrangement: the air becomes hard and cold; thick, +wintry-looking clouds sweep over the hills; the inhabitants shut +themselves up in their houses to escape the rheumatism, which is a +prevalent infliction; a March weather which was apparently destined for +New England seems to have got entangled and lost among these fervid +hills. The languid Creole life is overtaken by universal discomfort. + +Great fires break out over the elevated plateaus and hill-sides, during +the dry season. They sweep with incredible rapidity across great tracts, +levelling everything in the way. The mountains seem tipped with volcanic +flames. The angry glow spreads over the night, and its smoke mixes with +the parched air by day. These fires commence by some carelessness, +though they are sometimes attributed to the action of the son's rays, +concentrated by the gray cliffs upon great masses of vegetation dried to +tinder. + +In the rainy season the earthquakes occur; and not a year passes without +the experience of several shocks in different parts of the island. The +northern part is exempt from them.[D] Those which take place in the +west, around the shores of the great bay upon which Port-au-Prince is +situated, are severe, and sometimes very disastrous. At mid-day the +wind falls instantly, there is a dead calm on land and sea, the heat +is consequently more intense, and the atmosphere suffocating; then the +vibrations occur, after which the wind begins to blow again. Sometimes, +at an interval of ten or twelve hours, there is a supplementary shock, +less violent than the first one. It is said that the coast-caves bellow +just before an earthquake. Their noise probably seems more emphatic In +the sudden calm which is the real announcement of the earth's shudder. + +[Footnote D: Not entirely. The great earthquake of the 7th of May, 1842, +was very destructive at Cap Haytien. On this occasion Port-au-Prince +escaped with little injury.] + +Port-au-Prince was entirely destroyed by an earthquake in June, 1770. +The Inhabitants built the new town upon the edge of the gulf which had +just swallowed up their old one, convinced that the same disaster would +not recur in the same spot. But that region is peculiarly sensitive: the +subterranean connections with the Mexican and South-American volcanic +districts chronicle disturbances whose centre is remote. + +The rains are short and frequent showers, very heavy, and almost always +accompanied by violent electric phenomena. By June they are at their +height. Then the land-slides take place, which often affect seriously +the cultivation, not only by their direct ravages, but by the changes +which they make in the water-courses: large tracts of good soil are +turned into swamp-land, the rivers are forced to bend out of their +direction and to desert places which depended upon them for irrigation. +These damages were seldom repaired, for the indolent planter would not +undertake the work of draining and of permanently securing the tillable +surface of his land. It is good luck, if a land-slide, instead of +creating a new morass, fills up an old one. + +As if completely to unsettle any claim that this Creole climate might +make to character, the hurricane leaves its awful trace upon the island. +This rotating storm of wind has its origin to the east of the Caribbee +Islands; its long parabolic curve sweeps over them, and bends to the +northeast below Florida. In its centre, as it moves, it carries a lull +whose breadth varies from five to thirty miles. This dreadful calm comes +suddenly in the height of the storm, and is as suddenly interrupted, +after lasting sometimes for half an hour, by the revolving edge of the +wind. Torrents of rain go with it, and heavy thunder, and it brings from +the sea an enormous wave, which sweeps harbors clean of their ships, and +runs up, like an earthquake-wave, upon the shore. This vortex, moving +often a hundred miles an hour, takes hold of the _Bombax ceiba_ like an +enormous proboscis, pulls it from the thin soil of the tropics despite +the great lateral clutch of its knotty roots, and swallows it up. +Houses, cultivated fields, men and animals, are obliterated by its heavy +foot. + +In some years no less than three hurricanes have occurred in the West +Indies. Father Du Tertre, a French missionary in St. Christophe, +describes one which he witnessed in 1642,--a year memorable for three. +During the second of these, more than twenty vessels, laden with +colonial produce and just ready to sail for Europe, were wrecked in the +harbor, including the ship of De Ruyter, the Dutch Admiral. The island +was swept of houses, trees, cattle, and birds; the manioc and tobacco +plants were destroyed, and only one cotton shrub survived. The shores +were covered with dead fishes blown out of the water, and the bodies of +ship-wrecked men. The salt-works were flooded and spoiled, and all the +provisions on the island were so damaged that the inhabitants were put +on rations of biscuit till the arrival of vessels from France. + +Another storm like this desolated Martinique in 1657; and the annals of +most of the islands abound in similar narratives. They are less severe +in Hayti, and seldom sweep violently over Cuba. The word _hurricane_ is +a European adaptation of a Carib word, borrowed by the Haytian Indians +from the natives of the Antilles. + +The inhabitants of Hayti do not agree in the statements which they make +concerning their climate. The commencement of the two seasons, the range +of the thermometer, the duration of the different winds, the liability +to earthquakes, are subjects upon which the North is at variance with +the East, and the West with both. The most trustworthy notices of these +phenomena are held to represent that portion of the island which +was formerly occupied by the French. Still the variations cannot be +important over so small an area: the petty and fitful changes of every +day are more noticeable, but the climate has its average within which +these local caprices occur. + +In another climate the mountains would present a gradation of vegetable +growth, from the tropical through the temperate to the northern zone. +And this can be traced in some quarters, where the palm and mahogany are +succeeded by resinous trees, of which there are several varieties, till +the bare summits show only lichens and stunted shrubs. But the seasons +do not harmonize with this graduated rise of the mountain-chains, and +the temperate forms are interrupted, or confined to a few localities. +Yet the people who live upon the _mornes_, those for instance which are +drained by Trois-Rivieres in the northwestern part of the island, are +healthier and plumper, and the Creoles have a fresher look, than the +inhabitants of the plains. In the still more elevated regions the cold +is frequently so great that people do not like to live there. Newly +imported negroes frequently perished, if they were carried up into the +southern range of mountains; and the dependent Creole was forced to +abandon places where the slave could not go. + +It would be singular, if a place of such marked natural features, and +with such phenomena of climate, should have no perceptible effects upon +the Eastern races of all kinds which have been transported there. We +shall expect that the Creole will betray a certain harmony with his +petulant and capricious skies, and imitate the grace and exuberance of +the tropical forms amid which he lives, the languor of the air that +broods over them, its flattering calms and fierce transitions; he will +mature early and wilt at maturity with passions that despise moderation +and impulses that are incapable of continuity. In Hayti the day itself +rushes precipitately into the sky, and is gone as suddenly: there is no +calm broadening of dawn, and no lingering hours of twilight. The light +itself is a passion which fiercely revels among the fruits and flowers +that exhale for it ardently; it gluts, and then suddenly spurns them +for new conquests. Nothing can live and flourish here which has not the +innate temperament of the place. + +One would not expect to find great wealth in these gray-looking +mountains of simple and uniform structure; yet they abound in stones and +metals. Besides the different kinds of marble, which it is not strange +to find, diamonds also, jasper, agates, onyx, topaz, and other stones, a +kind of jade and of malachite, are found in a great many places. Copper +exists in considerable quantities in the neighborhood of Dondon and +Jacmel, and in the Cibao; silver is found near San Domingo, and in +various places in the Cibao, together with cinnabar, cobalt, bismuth, +zinc, antimony, and lead in the Cibao, near Dondon and Azua, blue cobalt +that serves for painting on porcelain, the gray, black specular nickel, +etc.; native iron near the Bay of Samana, in the Mornes-du-Cap, and at +Haut-and Bas-Moustique; other forms of that metal abound in numerous +places, crystallized, spathic, micaceous, etc. Nitre can be procured in +the Cibao, that great storehouse which has specimens of almost every +metal, salt, and mineral; borax at Jacmel and Dondon, native alum at +Dondon, and aluminous earth near Port-au-Prince; vitriol, of various +forms, in a dozen places; naphtha, petroleum, and asphaltum at Banique, +and sulphur in different shapes at Marmalade, La Soufriere, etc. The +catalogue of this wealth would be tedious to draw up. + +The reports concerning gold do not agree. It is maintained that there +are mines and washings which have been neglected, or improperly worked, +and that a vigorous exploration would reopen this source of wealth; but +it is also said as confidently that the Spaniards took off all the gold, +and were reduced to working mines of copper, before the middle of the +sixteenth century. It is certain, however, that great quantities of gold +were taken from the island by the Spaniards, while they had the natives +to perform the labor. The principal sources from which gold can be +procured are in the part of the island formerly occupied by the +Spaniards; and when their power decayed, all important labors came to an +end. But Oviedo records several lumps of gold of considerable size: one +was Bobadilla's lump, found, during his government, at Bonne Aventure, +which was worth thirty-six hundred _castellanos_, or $19,153. This was +lost at sea on the way to Spain. The finding of pieces in the River +Yaqui weighing nine ounces was occasionally recorded, and pieces of +pure gold, without the least mixture, more than three inches in +circumference, in the River Verte: they were undoubtedly found much +oftener than recorded. Good authorities, writing at the close of the +last century, declare that the mines of Cibao alone furnished more gold +than all Europe had in circulation at that time. All the larger streams, +and the basins near their sources, furnished gold. + +Bobadilla's lump was found by a slave of Francisco de Garay, afterwards +Governor of Jamaica. He and the famous Diaz worked a mine together in +San Domingo. His slave was poking about with a pike in the shallows of +the River Hayna, when the head struck the metal. Garay was so rejoiced +that he sacrificed a pig, which was served upon this extemporaneous +platter, and he boasted that there was no such dish in Europe. Twenty +other ships with gold on board went down in the storm which swallowed up +Garay's waif.[E] + +[Footnote E: Great quantities of gold were embezzled by the Spanish +officials. Las Casas in his lively arguments with the Council of State +in behalf of the Indians, always insisted that his plan for controlling +them would be more profitable as well as humane. He promised large +increase of treasure, and showed how the royal officers appropriated the +gold which they extorted from the natives. Piedro Arias, for instance, +spent six years at Castilla-du-Oro, at a cost to the Government of +fifty-four thousand ducats, during which time he divided a million's +worth of gold with his officers, at the expense of thousands of natives, +whose lives were the flux of the metallic ore, while he paid only three +thousand _pesos_ for the king's fifth.--Llorente: _Oeuvres de Las +Casas_, Tom. II--p.472.] + +Many French writers have maintained that the Indians procured their +golden ornaments from Yucatan and other points of the main-land, by way +of traffic. But they had nothing to barter, and their ornaments were +numerous. Besides, the Spaniards found in various places near the rivers +the holes and slight diggings whence the gold had been procured. It is +said that the Haytian natives only washed for gold, but the Caribs had +frequented the island long previously, and they without doubt earned +gold away from it. The Spaniards were deceived by the Haytians, who +did not wish to dig gold under the lash to glitter on the velvet of +_hidalgos_. + +It is difficult, as Humboldt says, to distinguish, in the calculations +by the Spanish writers of the amount of gold sent to Spain, "between +that obtained by washings and that which had been accumulated for ages +in the hands of the natives, who were pillaged at will." He inclines, +however, to the opinion, that a scientific system of mining would renew +the supply of gold, which may not be represented by the scanty washings +that have been occasionally tried in Hayti and Cuba. In Hayti, "as well +as at Brazil, it would be more profitable to attempt subterraneous +workings, on veins, in primitive and intermediary soils, than to renew +the gold-washings which were abandoned in the ages of barbarism, rapine, +and carnage."[F] + +[Footnote F: _Personal Narrative_, Vol. III. p. 163, note. Bohn's +Series.] + +But the chief interest which Spain took in Hayti was derived from +the collars and bracelets which shone dully against the skins of the +caciques and native women in the streets of Seville. It did not require +an exhausted treasury, and the clamor of a Neapolitan war for sinews, +to stimulate the appetite of a nation whose sensibility for gold was as +great as its superstition. Columbus triumphed over the imaginations of +men through their avarice; the procession of his dusky captives to the +feet of Isabella was as if the Earth-Spirit, holding a masque to tempt +Catholic majesties to the ruin of the mine, sent his familiars, "with +the earth-tint yet so freshly embrowned," to flatter with heron-crests, +the plumes of parrots, and the yellow ore. Behind that naked pomp the +well-doubleted nobles of Castile and Aragon trooped gayly with priests +and crosses, the pyx and the pax, and all the symbols of a holy Passion, +to crime and death. + +Columbus discovered Guanahani, which he named San Salvador, on the +morning of the 12th of October, 1492. After cruising among these Lucayan +Islands, or Bahamas, for some time, he reached Cuba on the 28th of the +same month. His Lucayan interpreters were understood by the natives of +Cuba, notwithstanding they spoke a different dialect. They were also +understood at Hayti, which was reached on the 6th of December; but here +the Cuban interpreter was found to be more useful. Each island appeared +to have a dialect of a language whose origin has been variously +attributed to Florida, to Central America, and to the Caribbee Islands. +But the Indians of Central America could not understand the Cubans and +Haytians, and they in turn spoke a different language from the Caribs, +some of whose words they had borrowed. A favorite theory is, that the +_Ygneris_ were ancient inhabitants of the West Indian Islands, distinct +from the Caribs, who made their way from Florida by the Lucayan Islands, +leaving Hayti to the right, and reaching South America by that fringe of +islands that stretches from Porto Rico to Trinidad, through which the +great current is strained into the Caribbean Sea. Humboldt says,[G] in +noticing the difference between the language of the Carib men and their +women, that perhaps the women descended from the female captives made +in this movement, the men being as usual slain. But the Haytians also +claimed to have come from Florida. Perhaps, then, an emigration from +Florida, which may be called, for want of any historical data, that of +the Ygneris, covered all the West Indian Islands at a very early period, +to be overlapped, in part, by a succeeding emigration of Caribs who were +pressed out of Florida by the Appalachians.[H] + +[Footnote G: _Personal Narrative_, Vol. III. p. 78, where see the +subject discussed at length.] + +[Footnote H: _Histoire Generale des Antilles_, par Du Tertre, Paris, +1667, Tom. II. p. 360.] + +The Caribs are supposed to have derived the compliment of their name, +which means "valiant men," from the Appalachians, who had great trouble +in dislodging them. They were very different from the Haytians: they cut +their hair very short in front, leaving a tuft upon the crown, bandaged +the legs of their children to make a calf that Mr. Thackeray's Jeames +would have envied, pulled out their beard hair by hair, and then +polished the chin, with rough leaves. A grand toilet included a coat of +scarlet paint, which protected them from the burning effect of the sun +and from the bites of insects. It also saved their skins from the scurf +and chapping which the sea-water occasioned. A Carib chief, in a full +suit of scarlet, excited once the anger of Madame Aubert, wife of a +French governor of Dominica, because he sat upon her couch, which had a +snowy dimity cover, and left there the larger portion of his pantaloons. +But afterwards, upon being invited to dine at the Government-House, he +determined to respect the furniture, and, seeing nothing so appropriate +as his plate, he removed it to his chair before he took his seat. The +Caribs, however, had such an inveterate preference for dining _au +naturel_, that they frequently served up natives themselves, whenever +that expensive luxury could be obtained. The Spaniards brought home the +word _Cannibal_, which was a Haytian pronunciation of Cariba (Galiba); +and it gradually came into use to express the well-known idea of a +man-eater. The South-American Caribs preserve this vicious taste. + +The Caribs had not overrun the island of Hayti, but it was never free +from their incursions. That hardy and warlike race was feared by the +milder Haytians, who had been compelled, especially in the southern +provinces of the island, to study the arts of defence, which do not +appear to have been much esteemed by them. Their arms were of the +simplest description: wood pointed and hardened in the fire, arrows +tipped with fish-bone or turtle-shell, and clubs of the toughest +kinds of wood. The Caribs used arrows poisoned with the juice of the +manchineel, or pointed with formidable shark's-teeth, their clubs of +Brazil-wood were three feet long, and their lances of hardened wood +were thrown with great adroitness and to a great distance. The southern +Haytians learned, warlike habits from these encroaching Caribs, and were +less gentle than the natives whom Columbus first met along the northern +coast. + +But they were all gentler, fairer, more graceful and simple than the +Caribs, or the natives of the main. Their ambition found its limit when +the necessaries of daily life were procured. The greatest achievement +of their manual dexterity was the hollowing of a great trunk by fire to +fashion a canoe.[I] Their huts were neatly made of stakes and reeds, +and covered with a plaited roof, beneath which the _hamaca_, (hammock,) +coarsely knitted of cotton, swung. Every collection of huts had also one +of larger dimensions, like a lodge, open at the sides, where the natives +used to gather for their public business or amusement. This was called +_bohio_, a word improperly applied to the huts, and used by the +Spaniards to designate their villages. In the southern districts, the +_bohios_, and the dwellings of the caciques, were furnished with +stools wrought with considerable skill from hard wood, and sometimes +ornamented. But they could not have been made by the natives, who had +neither iron nor copper in use. Their golden ornaments were nothing more +than pieces of the metal, rudely turned, by pounding and rubbing, into +rings for the nose and ears, and necklace-plates. Whatever they had, for +use or ornament, which was more elaborate, came by way of trade from +Yucatan and the contiguous coasts. It is difficult to conjecture what +their medium of barter was, for they prepared nothing but cassava-cakes +for food and the fermented juice for drink, and raised only the pimento, +(red pepper,) the _agi_, (sweet pepper,) the _yuca_, whence the +cassava or manioc meal was obtained, and sweet potatoes; and all these +productions were common to the tribes along the coast. Tobacco may have +been cultivated by them and neglected by other tribes. The Haytian word +_tabaco_, which designated the pipe from which they sucked the smoke +into their nostrils, and also the roll of leaves,--for they employed +both methods,--has passed over to the weed. The pipe was a hollow tube +in the shape of a Y, the mystic letter of Pythagoras: the two branches +were applied to the nose, and the stem was held over the burning leaves. +The weed itself was called _cohiba_. + +[Footnote I: _Canoa_ is Haytian, and is like enough to _Kayak_, +Esquimaux, to _Caique_, Turkish and to _Kahn_, German, to unsettle an +etymologist with a theory of origin.] + +At the time of the discovery, five principal caciques ruled the island, +which was divided into as many provinces, with inferior caciques, who +appear to have been the chiefs of settlements. We find, for instance, +that Guatiguana was cacique of a large town in the province of which +Guarionex was the chief cacique. The power of each cacique was supreme, +but nothing like a league existed between the different provinces. +When the Haytians in desperation tried the fortune of war against the +Spaniards, Caonabo, the cacique of the central province in the South, +like another Pontiac, rallied the natives from all quarters, and held +them together long enough to fight a great battle on the Vega. But he +was a Carib. His brother who succeeded him was also a Carib, and he +maintained a union of several caciques till his defeat by Ojeda. Then +the less warlike chiefs of the North readily submitted to the Spaniards, +and the bolder caciques of the South were compelled to ask for peace.[J] + +[Footnote J: In Mr. Irving's _Life of Columbus_, the characters of the +different Indian chieftains are finely drawn, and the history of their +intercourse and warfare with the Spaniards admirably told.] + +Thus were the natives bound together by the polity of instinct and +consanguinity alone. They had no laws, but only natural customs. The +cacique was an arbitrator: if his decision did not appease a litigant, +the parties had an appeal to arms in his presence. Their cacique +received unbounded reverence, and for him they would freely die. +Polygamy was permitted only to him, but not always practised by him. The +Spaniards were so surprised at the readiness with which the natives gave +them everything, both food and ornaments, that they declared them to be +defective in the sense of property, and to have everything in common. +This was a mistake: each man had his little possessions; stealing was +punished with death, as the crime that did the greatest violence to +the natural order; and crimes against domestic purity were severely +punished, till the people became demoralized by their conquerors, who +mistook the childish freedom of the women, for lustful invitation, and +imputed to the native disposition something which belonged to their +own.[K] + +[Footnote K: They even accused the natives of communicating that +loathsome disease which results from promiscuous intercourse, when +in fact the _virus_ was shipped at Palos, with the other elements of +civilization, to give a new world to Castile and Leon! Nations appear to +be particularly sensitive upon this point, and accuse each other. But +the first time a disorder is observed is not the date of its origin. See +the European opinion in the fifteenth century, in Roscoe's _Lorenzo de' +Medici_, p. 350, and note, Bohn's edition. It has probably existed from +the earliest times, wherever population was dense and habits depraved. +The Romans suffered from it, but, like the Europeans of the Middle Ages, +did not always attribute it to its proper source. What did Persius mean +in one or two places in his _Third Satire, e.g._, 113-115? And see also +Celaus, _Medicina_, Lib. V. Sec.3. + +When the fighting-man of Europe became a mercenary, (soldier, +_soldner, paid-man_,) he carried this tinder from country to country, +and kindled the fire afresh. The Spaniards bore it to Hayti, and it +stung like a snake beneath that fervid sky.] + +They were timid, credulous, extravagantly friendly, affected easily to +tears, not cunning enough for their own good, and little capable of +concealing or of planning anything. Yet when their eyes were opened, and +they understood at last that the strangers had not descended from the +skies, their indignation and loathing were well sustained, with a +frankness, indeed, which only embittered their condition. They suffered, +but could not dissimulate. + +But they were at once volatile and of a languid frame, which could not +long repel the enticements of wine and passionate excess, liable to +petty rages, incapable of concentration, with no power of remembering +anything but a benefit, lavish fawners, but not hearty haters, easily +persuaded, and easily repenting of everything but hospitality. No abuse +of that put the drop of savage blood in motion, till the Spaniards began +to regard their women with indiscriminate desire. That was the first +outrage for which a Spanish life had to atone. But neither treachery nor +cruelty lurked beneath their flowery ways; it was sullen despair which +broke their gayety, brief spasms of wrath followed by melancholy. But +they could not keep their ideas well enough in hand to lay a plot. + +These graceful children, with their curious prognostics of a Creole +temper, were not devoid of religion. The Creator has set none of His +children in the sun, to work or play, without keeping this hold +upon them. They defer to this restraint, with motions more or less +instinctive, but can never, in their wildest gambols, break entirely +loose. It is not easy to separate the real beliefs of the Haytians +from the conjectures of Catholic and Jewish observers. The former were +interested to discover analogies which would make it appear that they +had been foreordained to conversion; the latter were infested with the +notion that they were descendants of one of the Lost Tribes. What, for +instance, can be made of the assertion that the Haytian Supreme had a +mother? The natives were gentle enough to love such a conception, and to +be pleased with the Catholic presentation of it, but this is the only +proof we have that they originated it. It would be pleasant to believe +that they referred, in some dim way, their sense of the womanly quality +back to the great Source of Life. + +But the Hebrew coincidences were as eagerly sought.[L] If a cacique +remarked to Columbus that he thought good men would be transported to a +place of delights, and bad men to a foul and dismal place where darkness +reigned, it was deemed to be a reminiscence of Sheol and a later Jewish +idea of Paradise. If Anacaona, the charming wife of Caonabo, came +forth to meet the _Adelantado_, at the head of thirty maidens of her +household, dancing and singing their native songs, and waving branches +of the palm-tree, a variety of Old and New Testament pictures occurred +to the mind. Their hospitality and pertinacious sheltering of fugitives +was another Oriental trait. But, above all, the horrible oppression +to which the Spaniards subjected them, the indignities and sufferings +heaped upon them, were considered to fulfil the divine curse which +rested upon Jews! What a choice morsel of theology is this! + +[Footnote L: Consult a curious book, _The Ten Tribes of Israel +historically identified with the Aborigines of the Western Hemisphere_. +By Mrs. Simon. 1836.] + +Cabrera found at Cuba, says Humboldt, a variation of the story +respecting the first inebriation of Noah. A wild grape grew in all the +West India Islands. The natives of Cuba preserved also the tradition of +a great terrestrial disturbance, in which water played the chief part. +This was probably held by the Haytians also, for we find it again among +the Caribs beyond, especially in South America. But Cabrera, mounting +with the waters of the Deluge, was not content till he had found in Cuba +the ark, the raven and dove, the uncovering of Noah, and his curse; in +fact, the Indians were descended from this unfortunate son whom Noah's +malediction reduced to nudity, but the Spaniards, descending from +another son, inherited his clothes. "Why do you call me a dog?" said an +old Indian of seventy years to Cabrera, who had been insulting him. +"Did we not both come out of the same large ship that saved us from the +waters?"[M] + +[Footnote M: _Notes on Cuba, containing an Account of its Discovery and +Early History_. By Dr. Wurdemann. 1844.] + +It is certain that the Haytians believed in continued existence after +death, and pointed, as all men do, to the sky, when talking of that +subject. They held, indefinitely, that there was some overruling Spirit; +but they believed also in malignant influences which it was advisable to +propitiate. Their worship was connected with the caverns of the island, +those mysterious formations beneath which the strange sounds were heard. +The walls of these caverns were covered with pictured distortions, +half man, half animal, which yielded to the priests, or _butios_, +interpretations according to the light and shadow. Some of these vaults +are lighted through a natural fissure in the roof, and the worship or +augury commenced at the moment the sun struck through it. There were +movable idols, called _Zemes_, which represented inferior deities. The +Catholic writers call them messengers and mediators, having their own +saints in mind. But their forms were sometimes merely animal, a toad, a +tortoise with a sun upon its back, and upon each side a star with the +moon in her first change; another was a monstrous figure in basalt, +representing a head surmounting a female bosom, diminishing to a ball; +another was a human figure made from a gypseous stalactite.[N] + +[Footnote N: The savages of Martinique kept in their caverns idols +made of cotton, in the form of a man, with shining black seeds of the +soap-berry (_Sapindus_) for eyes, and a cotton helmet. These were the +original deities of the island. It cannot now be decided whether the +cotton thus worshipped was long-staple or upland; but the tendency +of the savage mind to make a fetich of its chief thing appears to be +universal.] + +The cacique took precedence of the _butios_, in theory, at least, and +designated the days for public worship. He led the procession of men +and women festively adorned, beating on a drum, to the cavern where the +priests awaited them. Presents were offered, and old dances and songs +repeated in honor of the Zemes, and of departed caciques. Then the +priests broke cakes and distributed the pieces to the heads of +families, who carefully kept them till the next festival as amulets and +preservatives against disease. + +They had an original way of expressing their vague instinct that the +Supreme Being loves truth and cleanliness in the inward parts. Each +person presented himself, with singing, before the chief idol, and there +thrust a stick into his throat till the gorge rose, in order, as they +said, to appear before the Divinity with a heart clean and upon the +lips.[O] + +[Footnote O: _Histoire d'Hayti_, par M. Placide Justin, p. 8.] + +The priests were diviners and doctors. If their predictions failed, they +did not want the usual cunning of mediums and spiritual quacks of all +ages, who are never known to be caught. But it became a more serious +affair for them in the case of a death. Friends consulted the soul at +the moment of its leaving the body, and if it could give no sign, or if +no omen of fair play appeared from any quarter, the _butio_ was held +to be the author of the death, and, if he was not a very popular +individual, he incurred the vengeance of the family. If at such a +time an animal was seen creeping near, the worst suspicions were +confirmed.[P] + +[Footnote P: _Voyages d'un Naturaliste_, etc., par M.E. Descourtilz, +Tom. II. p. 19, et seq. 1809.] + +The natives had a legend that the sun and moon issued from one of these +caverns, which Mr. Irving says is the Voute-a-Minguet, about eight +leagues from Cap Haytien. + +They were very nervous, and did not like to go about after dark. Many +people of all races have this vague disquiet as soon as the sun goes +down. It is the absence of light which accounts for all the tremors and +tales of superstition. How these sunflowers of Hayti must have shuddered +and shrunk together at the touch of darkness! But they had a graceful +custom of carrying the _cocujos_[Q] in a perforated calabash, and +keeping them, in their huts, when the sudden twilight fell. + +[Footnote Q: A Haytian word appropriated by the Spaniards, (_cocuyos_); +_Elater noctilucus_. Their light is brilliant enough to read by.] + +Their festivals and public gatherings were more refined than those of +the Caribs, who held but one meeting, called a _Vin_, for consultation +upon war-matters and a debauch upon cassava-beer.[R] The Haytians loved +music, and possessed one or two simple instruments; their _maguey_ was +like a timbrel, made of the shells of certain fishes. Their speech, +with its Italian terminations, flowed easily into singing, and they +extemporized, as the negroes do, the slightest incidents in rhythmical +language. They possessed national ballads, called _areytos_, and held in +high repute the happy composers of fresh ones. Altogether their life was +full of innocence and grace. + +[Footnote R: Father Du Tertre enjoys relating, that a Carib orator, +wishing to make his speech more impressive, invested his scarlet +splendor in a _jupe_ which he had lately taken from an Englishwoman, +tying it where persons of the same liturgical tendency tie their +cambric. But though his garrulity was thereby increased, the charms of +the liquor drew his audience away.] + +Such were the aborigines of Hayti, the "Mountain-land." But as our +narrative does not propose a minute and consecutive survey, it will +detain us too long from certain essential points which deserve to be +made clear, if we follow step by step the dealings of the Spaniards with +these natives. All this can be found delightfully told by Mr. Irving +in his "Life of Columbus," in such a way as to render an attempt at +repeating it hazardous and useless. Our task is different,--to make +prominent first, the character of the natives, which we have just +striven to do, and next, the style of treatment in converting and in +enslaving them, which gave its first chapter of horrors to San Domingo, +and laid violent hands on the whole sequence of her history. + +What influence could the noble elements of the Spanish character have, +when theology, avarice, and lust controlled the conquest? Pure minds and +magnanimous intentions went in the same ships with adventurers, diseased +soldiers, cold and superstitious men of business, and shaven monks with +their villanous low brows and thin inquisitorial smile. The average +character speedily obtained ascendency, because the best men were to +some extent partakers of it. Columbus was eager to make his great +discovery pay well, to preserve the means of continued exploration. In +one hand he lifted high the banner of possession with its promise of a +cross, which direful irony fulfilled; with the other he kept feeding the +ravenous nation with gold, to preserve its sympathy and admiration, that +the supply of men and vessels should not fail. Las Casas himself, a just +and noble man, the first advocate of the natural rights of men in the +New World, soon found that the situation was too strong and cruel; his +wishes and struggles went under before the flood of evil passions which +swept the island. He maintained his fight against Indian slavery by not +discountenancing negro slavery. And his fight was unavailing, because +mercy had no legitimate place upon the new soil. The logic of events +was with the evil majority, which was obliged at last to maintain its +atrocious consistency in self-defence. He might as well have preached +the benefits of Lenten diet to shipwrecked men upon a raft, insane with +thirst and the taste of comrade's flesh. It was a Devil's problem, which +is the kind that cannot hold back from its devilish conclusion. + +But bad passions were not alone to blame. The Spanish notion of +conversion desolated like avarice. The religious bodies which from time +to time controlled the affairs of the island differed in their humanity +and general policy: the Dominicans were friends of the Indian and haters +of the turbulent oppressor; the Franciscans were the instruments of the +bad men whose only ambition was to wring pleasure and fortune out of the +Indian's heart; the monks of St. Jerome undertook in vain a neutral +and reconciling policy. But they all agreed that the Indians must be +baptized, catechized, and more or less chastised into the spirit of the +gospel and conformity to Rome. The _conquistadores_ drove with a whip, +the missionaries with a dogma. The spirit of the nation and of the age +sternly asked for theological conformity: it was seriously understood +that a man should believe or burn. For one of those two things he was +preordained. Everybody was convinced that a drop of water on the dusky +forehead of these natives quenched the flames of hell. The methods used +to get that holy drop applied lighted flames, to escape from which +anybody would take his chance of the remoter kind. + +The cacique Hatuey understood the Spaniards. He was the first man in +the New World who saw by instinct what an after-age perceived by +philosophical reflection. He should have been the historian of the +Conquest. The Spaniards had destroyed his people, and forced him to fly +to Cuba for safety. There he also undertook a conversion of the natives. +"Do you expect to defend yourselves against this people," he said, +"while you do not worship the same God? This God I know; he is more +powerful than ours, and I reveal him to you." With this he shows them a +little piece of gold. "Here he is; let us celebrate a festival to honor +him, that his favor may be extended to us." The natives hold a solemn +smoking around the Spanish God, which is followed by singing and +dancing, as to one of their own Zemes. Having adroitly concentrated +their attention in this way upon the article of gold, Hatuey the next +morning reassembles the people and finishes his missionary labors. "My +mind is not at ease. There can be no safety for us while the God of the +Spaniard is in our midst. They seek him everywhere. Their devotion is so +great that they settle in a place only for the convenience of worship. +It is useless to attempt to hide him from their eyes. If you should +swallow him, they would disembowel you in the name of religion. Even the +bottom of the sea may not be too far, but there it is that we must throw +him. When he can no longer be found with us, they will leave us in +peace." + +Admirable counsel, if the gold in veins, or their own blood, were not +also the object of search. The natives collected all their gold and +threw it into the sea. A party of Spaniards landing upon the island not +long after, Hatuey was taken prisoner, and condemned to be burnt alive +because he refused to be converted! + + "Was conduct ever more affronting? + With all the ceremony settled! + With the towel ready"-- + +and all the other apparatus for a first-class baptism, and the +annexation to Rome and heaven of a tribe! When he was tied to the stake, +and a priest conjured him to profess Christianity and make a sure thing +of paradise, he cut him short with,-- + +"Are there Spaniards in this place of delights of which you speak?" + +"There are indeed, but only good ones." + +"The best of them is good for nothing," said the cacique. "I would +rather not go where I might have to meet them." + +Dying, he had his preference. + +It seems to be one that is innate in the savage mind. An Ojibbeway was +apparently pleased with the new religion that was proffered to him, +and thought of being baptized, but, dreaming that he went up to a fair +prairie covered with numerous trails of white men, without the print +of a single moccasin, was cured of his desire. The Frisian Radbod also +expressed his disgust at the converting methods of Charles the Hammer. +"He had already immersed one of his royal legs in the baptismal font, +when a thought struck him. 'Where are my dead forefathers at present?' +he said, turning suddenly upon Bishop Wolfran. 'In hell, with all other +unbelievers,' was the imprudent answer. 'Mighty well!' replied Radbod, +removing his leg; 'then will I rather feast with my ancestors in the +halls of Woden than dwell with your little starveling band of Christians +in heaven.'"[S] And if he, too, died a heathen, it is certain that one +continued to live in Bishop Wolfran. For it is men of his narrow and +brutal theology who are not yet converted to Christianity, but who get a +dispensation to disgust men with that glorious name. + +[Footnote S: Motley's _Dutch Republic_, Vol. I. p. 20.] + +So it went on at Hayti. Catholic fetiches vied with the native ones for +ascendency. Ecclesiastics were charged with the management of secular as +well as spiritual matters, for it was the genius of Spain to govern +by the priest. A very few of them understood men, and had a head for +affairs; of these, some were pure, the rest were base, and readily +fraternized with the soldiers and politicians in their selfish policy. A +bad and cruel theology, a narrow priestly mind, became the instruments +of lust and murder. + +Guarionex was the chief cacique of a province which comprised the middle +part of the Vega Real. His conversion was undertaken by Friar Roman, +a St. Jeromite, and Joan Borognon, a Franciscan. The cacique listened +attentively to their instructions, but the natives, already alienated +by the excesses of the Spaniards, would neither attend mass nor be +catechized, except upon compulsion. It was the policy of Guarionex to +offer no resistance to the addresses of the priests. But an outrage +committed upon his wife hindered the progress of religion in his +province. He dashed the cross to the ground in fury, and scattered the +utensils. The affrighted priests fled, leaving behind a chapel with some +pictures which they had instructed the converts to regard in offering up +their prayers. Guarionex buried all the pictures, and said over them, +instead of a Pater, "Now you will begin to bear fruit!" Friar Roman says +that a catechumen, digging his _agis_ (sweet pepper) in that field, +found two or three of them grown together in the shape of a cross. The +miracle and the outrage were reported at once, and the six natives who +had buried the pictures at the command of Guarionex were burnt alive! +This was the first _auto-da-fe_ on Haytian soil. + +The preaching and the lust went on. But the preaching sometimes +addressed the sinner also. Montesino, a Dominican preacher, attacked the +cruelty of the colonists from the pulpit of San Domingo. He was accused +of treason; that is to say, the king was held to represent the policy +which enslaved and destroyed the Indian. The authorities threatened to +expel the Dominicans from the island, if the preacher did not apologize +and withdraw his charges. Montesino promised soon to preach in another +style. Having filled the church with his malignant audience, he bravely +maintained his position with fresh facts and arguments; he showed that +the system of _repartimientos,_ or partition of the Indians among the +colonists, was more disastrous than the first system, which imposed upon +each cacique a tax and left him to extort it from his subjects. He +urged the policy of interest; for the Indians, unused to labor, died in +droves: they dropped in the fields beneath the whip; they escaped by +whole families to the mountains, and there perished with hunger; they +threw themselves into the water, and killed each other in the forests; +families committed suicide in concert;--there would soon be no laborers, +and the Spaniard could rob and murder, but would not toil. Brave +preacher, worthy mouth-piece of the humane Las Casas, what could he +effect against the terrible exigency of the situation? For here was a +colony, into which all the prisons of Spain had just been emptied to +repair a failing emigration,--men bred in crime coalescing with men +whose awakened passions made them candidates for prison,--the whole +community, with the exception of the preacher and his scattered +sympathizers, animated by one desire, to get the gold, to exhaust the +soil, to glut voluptuous immunity, to fill the veins with a fiery +climate, and to hurry back with wealth enough to feed it more safely in +the privacies of Madrid and Seville. What were preaching and benevolent +intention, where shaven superstition was inculcating the cross by its +weight alone, and bearded ferocity desolated with the sword what the +cross could spare? The discussion which Montesino raised went home to +Spain; but when a board of commissioners, charged to investigate the +subject, advised that all Indians granted to Spanish courtiers, and to +all other persons who did not reside upon the island, should be set +at liberty, the colonists saw the entering wedge of emancipation. The +discontent was so great, and the alternative of slavery or ruin was +so passionately offered to the Government at home, that the system of +_repartimientos_ remained untouched; for the Government felt that it +must choose between the abandonment of the island and the destruction of +those who alone, if judiciously protected, could make it profitable to +retain it. + +Protection and amelioration, then, became the cry. In consequence of the +great increase of cattle in the island, it was considered no more than +just that the Indians should no longer be used as beasts of burden. They +were also to have one day in the seven, besides the Church festivals, +for their own use; and intendants were appointed who were to have a +general supervision of their affairs, and to protect them from barbarous +punishments. These regulations were a weir of reeds thrown across a +turbid and tumultuous Amazon. + +Las Casas was an eye-witness of the cruelties which he exposed in his +memoirs to the Government, those uncompromising indictments of his own +nation and of the spirit of the age. He had seen the natives slaughtered +like sheep in a pen, and the butchers laid bets with each other upon +their dexterity in cleaving them asunder at a stroke. Children, torn +from the bosoms of their mothers, were brained against the stones, or +thrown into the water with mocking cries,--"That will refresh you!" A +favorite mode of immolation, which had the merit of exciting theological +associations, was to bind thirteen of the natives to as many stakes, +one for each apostle and one for the Saviour, and then to make a +burnt-offering of them. Others were smeared with pitch and lighted. +Sometimes a fugitive who had been recaptured was sent into the forest +with his severed hand,--"Go, carry this letter to the others who have +escaped, with our compliments." + +"I have seen," says Las Casas, "five chiefs and several other Indians +roasting together upon hurdles, and the Spanish captain was enraged +because their cries disturbed his _siesta_. He ordered them to be +strangled, that he might hear no more of it. But the superintendent, +whom I know, as well as his family, which is from Seville, more cruel +than the officer, refused to end their torture." He would not be +cheated of his after-dinner luxury, so he gagged them with sticks, and +replenished the fires.[T] + +[Footnote T: Llorente's _Oeuvres de Las Casas; Premiere Memoire, +contenant la Relation des Cruautes_, etc.] + +Columbus first made use of dogs against the Indians, but merely to +intimidate. They were swift dogs of chase, impetuous and dangerous, but +did not yet deserve to be called blood-hounds. The Spaniards, however, +by frequently using them in the pursuit of escaping natives, without +thinking it worth while to restrain their motions, gradually educated +them to a taste for human blood. From the breed, thus modified, the +West-Indian blood-hound descended, possibly not without admixture with +other savage dogs of French and English breeds which were brought to the +island by their scarcely less savage owners. Many of the dogs which the +Spaniards carried to South America roamed at large and degenerated into +beasts of prey. Soldiers at one time were detailed to hunt them, and +were then nicknamed _Mataperros_, or dog-slayers. + +But if the dogs fed upon the Indian's body, the monk was ever vigilant +to save his soul. A woman was holding her child of twelve months, says +Las Casas, when she perceived the approach of the hounds in full cry +after a party of natives. Feeling that she could not escape, she +instantly tied her babe to her leg and then suspended herself from a +beam. The dogs came up at the moment that a monk was baptizing the +child, thus luckily cutting off its purgatory just behind the jaws that +devoured it. + +Spaniards were known to feed their dogs, when short of meat, by chopping +off a native's arm and throwing it to them; and a few fed their dogs +exclusively upon native-meat. We have the authority of Las Casas for the +fact, which he took care to have well attested from various sources, +that a Spaniard would borrow a quarter of native from a friend for his +hounds, promising to return it at a favorable opportunity. Somebody +asked one of these generous livers how his housekeeping flourished. +"Well enough," was the reply; "I have killed twenty of these rascally +Indians, and now, thank God, my dogs have something to eat." + +The Spaniards paid their gambling debts in natives. If a governor lost +heavily at cards, he would give the winner an order upon some cacique +for a corresponding amount of gold, or natives in default of the metal, +knowing that the gold could no longer be procured. Sometimes the lucky +gambler made the levy without applying to the cacique. The stakes were +not unfrequently for three and four hundred Indians in the early days of +the colonies, when natives were so plenty that one could be bought for +a cheese, or an _arroba_ of vinegar, wine, or lard. Eighty natives were +swapped for a mare, and a hundred for a lame horse. When it began to be +difficult to lay hands upon them, it was only necessary to send for a +missionary, who would gradually collect them for purposes of instruction +and worship. When the habit of attending a chapel was pretty well +confirmed, the building was surrounded, the young and stout ones were +seized and branded, and carried away, with the most attractive females, +for further indoctrination in the Christian arts. + +A device of the caciques which was practised in Nicaragua might easily +have been pursued in Hayti. But the account of Las Casas refers to the +former province. When a demand was made upon one cacique to supply +laborers, he would repair to another, and say, "The devil who has me in +his power wants so many men and women. I have no doubt that your devil +will say the same thing to you. Let us arrange the matter. Give me the +facility of procuring my quota in your tribe, and you shall take yours +from my tribe." "It is agreed; for my devil has just made a similar +demand of me." Each cacique would then swear to the Commanders, who were +very nice upon the technicality so long as slaves were plenty, that the +men furnished came from his own district, thus saving his life and his +credit with his people. This was a great convenience; for in all savage +exigencies and dire perils men must study how they can best arrange with +the inevitable. + +But it will be too painful to recount the various inventions for +punishing these unhappy children of Nature. The dogs, perhaps, were +merciful, for they killed and ate a native on the spot. Cutting off the +ear and nose was an ordinary barbarity,--in its origin it was a way to +save time in collecting ornaments; shutting fifty or more into a house +and setting it in flames was a favorite method of extemporizing a +bonfire; pricking a crowd of insurgent natives over a precipice into the +sea was an exceptional act of mercy,--they would place one hand over +their eyes and take the plunge. It was a common sport to match +stout Indians with the hounds, and bet upon their wrestling. In the +pearl-fisheries, in rowing galleys, in agriculture, in the mines, in +carrying ship-timber, anchors, and pieces of ordnance, in transporting +produce, the Spaniards wasted the natives as if they were wind-and +water-power which Nature would supply without limit. How can this +ferocity be accounted for? It consulted neither interest nor personal +safety. They raged like men stung to madness by poisonous clouds of +insects; the future received no consideration; plans for improving the +methods of cultivating different crops, or for introducing new staples, +could not be carried out. Once having tasted native blood, like their +own dogs, the hunting mania possessed them, till two millions of +Haytians alone had perished. The population had become so reduced as +early as 1508 that they were obliged to organize great Indian chases on +the main-land, and a Coolie trade sprang up in the Lucayan Islands, +to keep the Haytian mines and plantations supplied with hands. Forty +thousand of these Lucayans were transported, on the assurance of the +Spaniards that they would be restored to the souls of their ancestry, +who had gone to reside in that Mountain-land of the West. Was there +a touch of grim Spanish humor in this inducement to emigrate? For +certainly the Lucayans did very soon rejoin those departed souls. + +Wine and the climate maddened these unbridled Europeans. Avarice is a +calculating passion; but here were aimless and exhausting horrors, like +those which swarm in the drunkard's corrupted brain. What were vices at +home became transformed into manias here. The representatives of other +nations were not slow to imitate the example of the possessors of Hayti. +Venezuela was ceded to a company of Germans in 1526, whose object was +simply to strip the country of its treasures. Las Casas tries to believe +that the Spaniards seemed like just men by the side of these new +speculators; but it was not possible to destroy natives faster than was +done in the countries under Spanish rule. The Germans, after all, were +forced to employ Spaniards to pursue the Indians when they attempted +to escape from this new system of farming into the mountains, and they +profited so well by the lessons of their Catholic hunters, that, upon +their departure, they hit upon new expedients for making the natives +productive. The German Governor constructed a great palisaded park, into +which he managed to drive all the Indians of the neighborhood, and then +informed them that they could issue from it only as slaves, unless they +paid a certain ransom, whose value he fixed. They were deliberately +starved into adopting one or the other alternative. Those who could +procure gold were let out to collect it, leaving their wives and +children as pledges of their return. Many of the others preferred to +die of hunger and thirst. When the ransomed natives departed with their +families, the Governor had them pursued, reparked, and subjected to +a repetition of this sponging process, and again a third time, so +admirably did it work. This strikes Las Casas as a refinement of +cruelty, which can be attributed only to the fact that these Germans +were Lutheran heretics, and never assisted at the mass. "This is +the way," he says, "that they conformed to the royal intention of +establishing Christianity in these countries!" + +How did the Spaniards conform to it? Rude soldiers became the managers +of the different working gangs into which the Indians had been divided, +and it devolved upon them to superintend their spiritual welfare. Enough +has been said about their brutality; but their ignorance was no less +remarkable. Las Casas complains that they could not repeat the _Credo_, +nor the Ten Commandments. Their ignorance of the former would have been +bliss, if they had been practically instructed in the latter. John +Colmenero was one of these common soldiers who became installed in a +Commandery (_Encomienda_). When the missionaries visited his plantation, +they found that the laborers had not the slightest notions of +Christianity. They examined John upon the subject, and discovered to +their horror that he did not know even how to make the sign of the +cross. "What have you been teaching these poor Indians?" they asked him. +"Why, that they are all going to the Devil! Won't your _signin santin +cruces_ help to teach them that?"[U] + +[Footnote U: Llorente, Tom. I. p. 180.] + +No doubt it would; for we know how serviceable in that way Ovando found +it, when he plotted to seize the beautiful Anacaona, who governed the +province of Xaragua in Hayti. This he did, and also gave the signal for +a dreadful massacre of her subjects, whom he had beguiled to a military +spectacle, by lifting his hand to the cross of Alcantara that was +embroidered on his dress. + +Colmenero had not a head for business like that other Spaniard who +baptized all the inhabitants of a village and took away their idols +of gold, for which he substituted copper ones, and then compelled the +natives to purchase them of him at so many slaves per idol. + +"Come, then, caciques and Indians, come!" This was the ordinary style of +proclamation. "Abandon your false gods, adore the God of the Christians, +profess their religion, believe in the gospel, receive the sacrament of +baptism, recognize the King of Castile for your king and master. If you +refuse, we declare war upon you to kill you, to make you slaves, to +spoil you of your goods, and to cause you to suffer as long and as often +as we shall judge convenient,"[V] and for the good of your souls. + +[Footnote V: Llorente, Tom. I. p. 28.] + +In 1542, Charles V. procured a bull from Pope Paul III. restoring the +Indians to their natural freedom: this he confirmed and despatched to +the island. Las Casas, the Protector of the Indians, had carried his +point at last, but the Indians were beyond protection. The miserable +remnant were no longer of consequence, for the African had begun to till +the soil enriched by so much native blood. Thus ends the first chapter +of the Horrors of San Domingo. + +Schoelcher reminds us that the traveller may read upon the tomb of +Columbus at Seville: "Known worlds were not enough for him: he added a +new to the old, _and gave to heaven innumerable souls_." + + +[To be continued.] + + + + +METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY. + + +A few miles from the southern extremity of Florida, separated from it by +a channel, narrow at the eastern end, but widening gradually toward the +west, and rendered every year more and more shallow by the accumulation +of materials constantly collecting within it, there lies a line of +islands called the Florida Keys. They are at different distances from +the shore, stretching gradually seaward in the form of an open crescent, +from Virginia Key and Key Biscayne, almost adjoining the main-land, to +Key West, at a distance of twelve miles from the coast, which does not, +however, close the series, for sixty miles farther west stands the +group of the Tortugas, isolated in the Gulf of Mexico. Though they +seem disconnected, these islands are parts of a submerged Coral Reef, +concentric with the shore of the peninsula and continuous underneath the +water, but visible above the surface at such points of the summit as +have fully completed their growth. + +This demands some explanation, since I have already said that no Coral +growth can continue after it has reached the line of high-water. But we +have not finished the history of a Coral wall, when we have followed it +to the surface of the ocean. It is true that its normal growth ceases +there, but already a process of partial decay as begun that insures its +further increase. Here, as elsewhere, destruction and construction go +hand in hand, and the materials that are broken or worn away from one +part of the Reef help to build it up elsewhere. The Corals which form +the Reef are not the only beings that find their home there: many other +animals--Shells, Worms, Crabs, Star-Fishes, Sea-Urchins--establish +themselves upon it, work their way into its interstices, and seek a +shelter in every little hole and cranny made by the irregularities of +its surface. In the Zoological Museum at Cambridge there are some large +fragments of Coral Reef which give one a good idea of the populous +aspect that such a Reef would present, could we see it as it actually +exists beneath the water. Some of these fragments consist of a +succession of terraces, as it were, in which are many little miniature +caves, where may still be seen the Shells or Sea-Urchins which made +their snug and sheltered homes in these recesses of the Reef. + +We must not consider the Reef as a solid, massive structure throughout. +The compact kinds of Corals, giving strength and solidity to the wall, +may be compared to the larger trees in a forest, which give it shade and +density; but between these grow all kinds of trailing vines, ferns and +mosses, wild flowers and low shrubs, that till the spaces between the +larger trees with a thick underbrush. The Coral Reef also has its +underbrush of the lighter, branching, more brittle kinds, that fill its +interstices and fringe the summit and the sides with their delicate, +graceful forms. Such an intricate underbrush of Coral growth affords an +excellent retreat for many animals that like its protection better than +exposure to the open sea, just as many land-animals prefer the close and +shaded woods to the open plain: a forest is not more thickly peopled +with Birds, Squirrels, Martens, and the like, than is the Coral Reef +with a variety of animals that do not contribute in any way to its +growth, but find shelter in its crevices or in its near neighborhood. + +But these larger animals are not the only ones that haunt the forest. +There is a host of parasites besides, principally Insects and their +larvae, which bore their way into the very heart of the tree, making +their home in the bark and pith, and not the less numerous because +hidden from sight. These also have their counterparts in the Reef, where +numbers of boring Shells and marine Worms work their way into the solid +substance of the wall, piercing it, with holes in every direction, till +large portions become insecure, and the next storm suffices to break off +the fragments so loosened. Once detached, they are tossed about in the +water, crumbled into Coral sand, crushed, often ground to powder by the +friction of the rocks and the constant action of the sea. + +After a time, an immense quantity of such materials is formed about a +Coral Reef; tides and storms constantly throw them up on its surface, +and at last a soil collects on the top of the Reef, wherever it has +reached the surface of the water, formed chiefly of its own _debris_, of +Coral sand, Coral fragments, even large masses of Coral rock, mingled +with the remains of the animals that have had their home about the +Reef, with sea-weeds, with mud from the neighboring land, and with the +thousand loose substances always floating about in the vicinity of a +coast and thrown upon the rocks or shore with every wave that breaks +against them. Add to this the presence of a lime-cement in the water, +resulting from the decomposition of some of these materials, and we have +all that is needed to make a very compact deposit and fertile soil, on +which a vegetation may spring up, whenever seeds floating from the +shore or dropped by birds in their flight take root on the newly formed +island. + +There is one plant belonging to tropical or sub-tropical climates +that is peculiarly adapted by its mode of growth to the soil of these +islands, and contributes greatly to their increase. This is the +Mangrove-tree. Its seeds germinate in the calyx of the flower, and, +before they drop, grow to be little brown stems, some six or seven +inches long and about as thick as a finger, with little rootlets at one +end. Such Mangrove-seedlings, looking more like cigars than anything +else, float in large numbers about the Reef. I have sometimes seen them +in the water about the Florida Reef in such quantities that one would +have said some vessel laden with Havana cigars had been wrecked there, +and its precious cargo scattered in the ocean. + +In consequence of their shape and the development of the root, one end +is a little heavier than the other, so that they float unevenly, with +the loaded end a little lower than the lighter one. When they are +brought by the tide against such a cap of soil as I have described, +they become stranded upon it by their heavier end, the rootlets attach +themselves slightly to the soil, the advancing and retreating waves move +the little plant up and down, till it works a hole in the sand, and +having thus established itself more firmly, steadied itself as it were, +it now stands upright, and, as it grows, throws out numerous roots, even +from a height of several feet above the ground, till it has surrounded +the lower part of its stem with a close net-work of roots. Against this +natural trellis or screen all sorts of materials collect; sand, mud, +and shells are caught in it; and as these Mangrove-trees grow in large +numbers and to the height of thirty feet, they contribute greatly to the +solidity and compactness of the shores on which they are stranded. + +Such caps of soil on the summit of a Coral Reef are of course very +insecure till they are consolidated by a long period of accumulation, +and they may even be swept completely away by a violent storm. It is +not many years since the light-house built on Sand Key for the greater +security of navigation along the Reef was swept away with the +whole island on which it stood. Thanks to the admirably conducted +Investigations of the Coast-Survey, this part of our seaboard, formerly +so dangerous on account of the Coral Reefs, is now better understood, +and every precaution has been taken to insure the safety of vessels +sailing along the coast of Florida. + +I cannot deny myself the pleasure of paying a tribute here to the high +scientific character of the distinguished superintendent of this survey, +who has known so well how to combine the most important scientific aims +with the most valuable practical results in his direction of it. If +some have hitherto doubted the practical value of such researches,--and +unhappily there are always those who estimate intellectual efforts only +by their material results,--one would think that these doubts must be +satisfied now that the Coast-Survey is seen to be the right arm of our +navy. Most of the leaders in our late naval expeditions have been men +trained in its service, and familiar with all the harbors, with every +bay and inlet of our Southern coasts, from having been engaged in the +extensive researches undertaken by Dr. Bache and carried out under his +guidance. Many, even, of the pilots of our Southern fleets are men who +have been employed upon this work, and owe their knowledge of the coast +to their former occupation. It is a singular fact, that at this very +time, when the whole country feels its obligation to the men who +have devoted so many years of their lives to these investigations, +a proposition should have been brought forward in Congress for the +suspension of the Coast-Survey on economical grounds. Happily, +the almost unanimous rejection of this proposition has shown the +appreciation in which the work is held by our national legislature. Even +without reference to their practical usefulness, it is a sad sign, when, +in the hour of her distress, a nation sacrifices first her intellectual +institutions. Then more than ever, when she needs all the culture, all +the wisdom, all the comprehensiveness of her best intellects, should she +foster the institution that have fostered them, in which they have been +trained to do good service to their country in her time of need. + +Several of the Florida Keys, such as Key West and Indian Key, are +already large, inhabited islands, several miles in extent. The interval +between them and the main-land is gradually filling up by a process +similar to that by which the islands themselves were formed. The gentle +landward slope of the Reef and the channel between it and the shore are +covered with a growth of the more branching lighter Corals, such as +Sea-Fans, Coral-lines, etc., answering the same purpose as the intricate +roots of the Mangrove-tree. All the _debris_ of the Reef, as well as the +sand and mud washed from the shore, collect in this net-work of Coral +growth within the channel, and soon transform it into a continuous +mass, with a certain degree of consistence and solidity. This forms the +foundation of the mud-flats which are now rapidly filling the channel +and must eventually connect the Keys of Florida with the present shore +of the peninsula. + +Outside the Keys, but not separated from them by so great a distance as +that which intervenes between them and the main-land, there stretches +beneath the water another Reef, abrupt, like the first, on its seaward +side, but sloping gently toward the inner Reef, and divided from it by +a channel. This outer Reef and channel are, however, in a much less +advanced state than the preceding ones; only here and there a sand-flat +large enough to afford a foundation for a beacon or a lighthouse shows +that this Reef also is gradually coming to the surface, and that a +series of islands corresponding to the Keys must eventually be formed +upon its summit. Some of my readers may ask why the Reef does not rise +evenly to the level of the sea, and form a continuous line of land, +instead of here and there an island. This is accounted for by the +sensitiveness of the Corals to any unfavorable circumstances impeding +their growth, as well as by the different rates of increase of the +different kinds. Wherever any current from the shore flows over the +Reef, bringing with it impurities from the land, there the growth of the +Corals will be less rapid, and consequently that portion of the Reef +will not reach the surface so soon as other parts, where no such +unfavorable influences have interrupted the growth. But in the course +of time the outer Reef will reach the surface for its whole length and +become united to the inner one by the filling up of the channel between +them, while the inner one will long before that time become solidly +united to the present shore-bluffs of Florida by the consolidation of +the mud-flats, which will one day transform the inner channel into dry +land. + +What is now the rate of growth of these Coral Reefs? We cannot, perhaps, +estimate it with absolute accuracy, since they are now so nearly +completed; but Coral growth is constantly springing up wherever it can +find a foothold, and it is not difficult to ascertain approximately the +rate of growth of the different kinds. Even this, however, would give +us far too high a standard; for the rise of the Coral Reef is not in +proportion to the height of the living Corals, but to their solid parts +which never decompose. Add to this that there are many brittle delicate +kinds that have a considerable height when alive, but contribute to the +increase of the Reef only so much additional thickness as they would +have when broken and crushed down upon its surface. A forest in its +decay does not add to the soil of the earth a thickness corresponding to +the height of its trees, but only such a thin layer as would be left by +the decomposition of its whole vegetation. In the Coral Reef, also, we +must allow not only for the deduction of the soft parts, but also for +the comminution of all these brittle branches, which would be broken and +crushed by the action of the storms and tides, and add, therefore, but +little to the Reef in proportion to their size when alive. + +The foundations of Fort Jefferson, which is built entirely of Coral +rock, were laid on the Tortugas Islands in the year 1846. A very +intelligent head-work man watched the growth of certain Corals that +established themselves on these foundations, and recorded their rate of +increase. He has shown me the rocks on which Corals had been growing for +some dozen years, during which they had increased at the rate of about +half an inch in ten years. I have collected facts from a variety of +sources and localities that confirm this testimony. A brick placed under +water in the year 1850 by Captain Woodbury of Tortugas, with the view of +determining the rate of growth of Corals, when taken up in 1858 had +a crust of Maeandrina upon it a little more than half an inch in +thickness. Mr. Allen also sent me from Key West a number of fragments +of Maeandrina from the breakwater at Fort Taylor; they had been growing +from twelve to fifteen years, and have an average thickness of about an +inch. The specimens vary in this respect,--some of them being a little +more than an inch in thickness, others not more than half an inch. +Fragments of Oculina gathered at the same place and of the same age are +from one to three inches in length; but these belong to the lighter, +more branching kinds of Corals, which, as we have seen, cannot, from +their brittle character, be supposed to add their whole height to the +solid mass of the Coral wall. Millepore gives a similar result. + +Estimating the growth of the Coral Reef according to these and other +data of the same character, it should be about half a foot in a century; +and a careful comparison which I have made of the condition of the Reef +as recorded in an English survey made about a century ago with its +present state would justify this conclusion. But allowing a wide margin +for inaccuracy of observation or for any circumstances that might +accelerate the growth, and leaving out of consideration the decay of the +soft parts and the comminution of the brittle ones, which would subtract +so largely from the actual rate of growth, let us double this estimate +and call the average increase a foot for every century. In so doing, we +are no doubt greatly overrating the rapidity of the progress, and our +calculation of the period that must have elapsed in the formation of the +Reef will be far within the truth. + +The outer Reef, still incomplete, as I have stated, and therefore of +course somewhat lower than the inner one, measures about seventy feet in +height. Allowing a foot of growth for every century, not less than seven +thousand years must have elapsed since this Reef began to grow. Some +miles nearer the main-land are the Keys, or the inner Reef; and though +this must have been longer in the process of formation than the outer +one, since its growth is completed, and nearly the whole extent of its +surface is transformed into islands, with here and there a narrow break +separating them, yet, in order to keep fully within the evidence of the +facts, I will allow only seven thousand years for the formation of this +Reef also, making fourteen thousand for the two. + +This brings us to the shore-bluffs, consisting simply of another Reef +exactly like those already described, except that the lapse of time has +united it to the main-land by the complete filling up and consolidation +of the channel which once divided it from the extremity of the +peninsula, as a channel now separates the Keys from the shore-bluffs, +and the outer Reef, again, from the Keys. These three concentric Reefs, +then, the outer Reef, the Keys, and the shore-bluffs, if we measure +the growth of the two latter on the same low estimate by which I have +calculated the rate of progress of the former, cannot have reached their +present condition in less than twenty thousand years. Their growth must +have been successive, since, as we have seen, all Corals need the fresh +action of the open sea upon them, and if either of the outer Reefs had +begun to grow before the completion of the inner one, it would have +effectually checked the growth of the latter. The absence of an +incipient Reef outside of the outer Reef shows these conclusions to be +well founded. The islands capping these three do not exceed in height +the level to which the fragments accumulated upon their summits may have +been thrown by the heaviest storms. The highest hills of this part of +Florida are not over ten or twelve feet above the level of the sea, and +yet the luxuriant vegetation with which they are covered gives them an +imposing appearance. + +But this is not the end of the story. Travelling inland from the +shore-bluffs, we cross a low, flat expanse of land, the Indian +hunting-ground, which brings us to a row of elevations called the +Hummocks. This hunting-ground, or Everglade as it is also called, is an +old channel, changed first to mud-flats and then to dry land by the same +kind of accumulation that is filling up the present channels, and the +row of hummocks is but an old Coral Reef with the Keys or islands of +past days upon its summit. Seven such Reefs and channels of former times +have already been traced between the shore-bluffs and Lake Okee-cho-bee, +adding some fifty thousand years to our previous estimate. Indeed, upon +the lowest calculation, based upon the facts thus far ascertained as to +their growth, we cannot suppose that less than seventy thousand years +have elapsed since the Coral Reefs already known to exist in Florida +began to grow. When we remember that this is but a small portion of the +peninsula, and that, though we have not yet any accurate information as +to the nature of its interior, yet the facts already ascertained in the +northern part of this State, formed like its Southern extremity of Coral +growth, justify the inference that the whole peninsula is formed of +successive concentric Reefs, we must believe that hundreds of thousands +of years have elapsed since its formation began. Leaving aside, however, +all that part of its history which is not susceptible of positive +demonstration in the present state of our knowledge, I will limit my +results to the evidence of facts already within our possession; and +these give us as the lowest possible estimate a period of seventy +thousand years for the formation of that part of the peninsula which +extends south of Lake Okee-cho-bee to the present outer Reef. + +So much for the duration of the Reefs themselves. What, now, do they +tell us of the permanence of the Species by which they were formed? In +these seventy thousand years has there been any change in the Corals +living in the Gulf of Mexico? I answer, most emphatically, _No_. +Astraeans, Porites, Maeandrinas, and Madrepores were represented by +exactly the same Species seventy thousand years ago as they are now. +Were we to classify the Florida Corals from the Reefs of the interior, +the result would correspond exactly to a classification founded upon +the living Corals of the outer Reef to-day. There would be among the +Astraeans the different species of Astraea proper, forming the close +round heads,--the Mussa, growing in smaller stocks, where the mouths +coalesce and run into each other as in the Brain-Corals, but in +which the depressions formed by the mouths are deeper,--and the +Caryophyllians, in which the single individuals stand out more +distinctly from the stock; among Porites, the P. Astroides, with pits +resembling those of the Astraeans in form, though smaller in size, +and growing also in solid heads, though these masses are covered with +club-shaped protrusions, instead of presenting a smooth, even surface +like the Astraeans,--and the P. Clavaria, in which the stocks are +divided in short, stumpy branches, with club-shaped ends, instead of +growing in close, compact heads; among the Maeandrinas we should have +the round heads we know as Brain-Corals, with their wavy lines over the +surface, and the Manacina, differing again from the preceding by certain +details of structure; among the Madrepores we should have the Madrepora +prolifera, with its small, short branches, broken up by very frequent +ramifications, the M. cervicornis, with longer and stouter branches and +less frequent ramifications, and the cup-like M. palmata, resembling +an open sponge in form. Every Species, in short, that lives upon the +present Reef is found in the more ancient ones. They all belong to our +own geological period, and we cannot, upon the evidence before us, +estimate its duration at less than seventy thousand years, during which +time we have no evidence of any change in Species, but on the contrary +the strongest proof of the absolute permanence of those Species whose +past history we have been able to trace. + +Before leaving the subject of the Coral Reefs, I would add a few words +on the succession of the different kinds of Polyp Corals on a Reef as +compared with their structural rank and also with their succession in +time, because we have here another of those correspondences of thought, +those intellectual links in Creation, which give such coherence and +consistency to the whole, and make it intelligible to man. + +The lowest in structure among the Polyps are not Corals, but the single, +soft-bodied Actiniae. They have no solid parts, and are independent in +their mode of existence, never forming communities, like the higher +members of the class. It might at first seem strange that independence, +considered a sign of superiority in the higher animals, should here be +looked upon as a mark of inferiority. But independence may mean either +simple isolation, or independence of action; and the life of a single +Polyp is no more independent in the sense of action than that of a +community of Polyps. It is simply not connected with or related to the +life of any others. The mode of development of these animals tells us +something of the relative inferiority and superiority of the single ones +and of those that grow in communities. When the little Polyp Coral, the +Astraean or Madrepore, for instance, is born from the egg, it is as free +as the Actinia, which remains free all its life. It is only at a later +period, as its development goes on, that it becomes solidly attached to +the ground, and begins its compound life by putting forth new beings +like itself as buds from its side. Since we cannot suppose that the +normal development of any being can have a retrograde action, we are +justified in believing that the loss of freedom is in fact a stage of +progress in these lower animals, and their more intimate dependence on +each other a sign of maturity. + +There are, however, structural features by which the relative +superiority of these animals may be determined. In proportion as the +number of their parts is limited and permanent, their structure is more +complicated; and the indefinite multiplication of identical parts is +connected with inferiority of structure. Now in these lowest Polyps, the +Actiniae, the tentacles increase with age indefinitely, never ceasing to +grow while life lasts, new chambers being constantly added to correspond +with them, till it becomes impossible to count their numbers. Next to +these come the true Fungidae. They are also single, and though they are +stony Corals, they have no share in the formation of Reefs. In these, +also, the tentacles multiply throughout life, though they are usually +not so numerous as in the Actiniae. But a new feature is added to the +complication of their structure, as compared with Actiniae, in the +transverse beams which connect their vertical partitions, though they do +not stretch across the animal so as to form perfect floors, as in some +of the higher Polyps. These transverse beams or floors must not be +confounded with the horizontal floors alluded to in a former article +as characteristic of the ancient Acalephian Corals, the Rugosa and +Tabulata. For in the latter these floors stretch completely across the +body, uninterrupted by vertical partitions, which, if they exist at all, +pass only from floor to floor, instead of extending unbroken through +the whole height of the body, as in all Polyps. Where, on the contrary, +transverse floors exist in true Polyps, they never cut the vertical +partitions in their length, but simply connect their walls, stretching +wholly or partially from wall to wall. + +In the Astraeans, the multiplication of tentacles is more definite and +limited, rising sometimes to ninety and more, though often limited to +forty-eight in number, and the transverse floors between the vertical +partitions are more complete than in the Fungidae. The Porites have +twelve tentacles only, never more and never less; and in them the whole +solid frame presents a complicated system of connected beams. The +Madrepores have also twelve tentacles, but they have a more definite +character than those of the Porites, on account of their regular +alternation in six smaller and six larger ones; in these also the +transverse floors are perfect, but exceedingly delicate. Another +remarkable feature among the Madrepores consists in the prominence of +one of the Polyps on the summit of the branches, showing a kind of +subordination of the whole community to these larger individuals, and +thus sustaining the view expressed above, that the combination of many +individuals into a connected community is among Polyps a character of +superiority when contrasted with the isolation of the Actiniae;. In the +Sea-Fans, the Halcyonoids, as they are called in our classification, the +number of tentacles is always eight, four of which are already present +at the time of their birth, arranged in pairs, while the other four are +added later. Their tentacles are lobed all around the margin, and are +much more complicated in structure than those of the preceding Polyps. + +According to the relative complication of their structure, these animals +are classified in the following order:-- + + +STRUCTURAL SERIES. + + +Halcyonoids: eight tentacles in pairs, lobed around the margin; always +combined in large communities, some of which are free and movable like +single animals. + +Madrepores: twelve tentacles, alternating in six larger and six smaller +ones; frequently a larger top animal standing prominent in the whole +community, or on the summit of its branches. + +Porites: twelve tentacles, not alternating in size; system of connected +beams. + +Astraeans: tentacles not definitely limited in number, though usually +not exceeding one hundred, and generally much below this number; +transverse floors. Maeandrines, generally referred to Astraeans, are +higher than the true Astraeans, on account of their compound Polyps. + +Fungidae: indefinite multiplication of tentacles; imperfect transverse +beams. + +Actiniae: indefinite multiplication of tentacles; soft bodies and no +transverse beams. + +If, now, we compare this structural gradation among Polyps with their +geological succession, we shall find that they correspond exactly. The +following table gives the geological order in which they have been +introduced upon the surface of the earth. + + GEOLOGICAL SUCCESSION. + + Present, Halcyonoids. + Pliocene, \ + Miocene, } Madrepores. + Eocene, / + Cretaceous, \ Porites + Jurassic, } and + Triassic, } Astraeans. + Permian, / + Carboniferous, \ + Devonian, } Fungidae + Silurian, / + +With regard to the geological position of the Actiniae we can say +nothing, because, if their soft, gelatinous bodies have left any +impressions in the rocks, none such have ever been found; but their +absence is no proof that they did not exist, since it is exceedingly +improbable that animals destitute of any hard parts could be preserved. + +The position of the Corals on a Reef accords with these series of +structural gradation and geological succession. It is true that we do +not find the Actiniae in the Reef any more than in the crust of the +earth, for the absence of hard parts in their bodies makes them quite +unfit to serve as Reef-Builders. Neither do we find the Fungidae, for +they, like all low forms, are single, and not confined to one level, +having a wider range in depth and extent than other stony Polyps. But +the true Reef-Building Polyps follow each other on the Reef in the same +order as prevails in their structural gradation and their geological +succession; and whether we classify them according to their position on +the Reef, or their introduction upon the earth in the course of time, or +their relative rank, the result is the same. + +[Illustration: SUCCESSION ON THE REEF.] + +It would require an amount of details that would be tedious to many +of my readers, were I to add here the evidence to prove that the +embryological development of these animals, so far as it is known, and +their geographical distribution over the whole surface of our globe, +show the same correspondence with the other three series. But this +recurrence of the same thought in the history of animals of the same +Type, so that, from whatever side we consider them, their creation and +existence seem to be guided by one Mind, is so important in the study +of Nature, that I shall constantly refer to it in the course of +these papers, even though I may sometimes be accused of unnecessary +repetition. + +What is the significance of these coincidences? They were not sought for +by the different investigators, who have worked quite independently, +while ascertaining all these facts, without even knowing that there was +any relation between the objects of their studies. The succession +of fossil Corals has been found in the rocks by the geologist,--the +embryologist has followed the changes in the growth of the living +Corals,--the zooelogist has traced the geographical distribution and the +structural relations of the full-grown animals; but it is only after the +results of their separate investigations are collected and compared that +the coincidence is perceived, and alt find that they have been working +unconsciously to one end. These thoughts in Nature, which we are +too prone to call simply facts, when in reality they are the ideal +conception antecedent to the very existence of all created beings, are +expressed in the objects of our study. It is not the zooelogist who +invents the structural relations establishing a gradation between all +Polyps,--it is not the geologist who places them in the succession +in which he finds them in the rocks,--it is not the embryologist who +devises the changes through which the living Polyps pass as he watches +their growth; they only read what they see, and when they compare their +results they all tell the same story. He who reads most correctly +from the original is the best naturalist. What unites all their +investigations and makes them perfectly coherent with each other is +the coincidence of thought expressed in the facts themselves. In other +words, it is the working of the same Intellect through all time, +everywhere. + +When we observe the practical results of this sequence in the position +of Corals on the Reef, we cannot fail to see that it is not a mere +accidental difference of structure and relation, but that it bears +direct reference to the part these little beings were to play in +Creation. It places the solid part of the structure at the base of the +Reef,--it fills in the interstices with a lighter growth,--it crowns the +summit with the more delicate kinds, that yield to the action of the +tides and are easily crushed into the fine sand that forms the soil,--it +makes a masonry solid, compact, time-defying, such a masonry as was +needed by the great Architect, who meant that these smallest creatures +of His hand should help to build His islands and His continents. + + + + +THE AUTHOR OF "CHARLES AUCHESTER." + + +When Mr. Disraeli congratulated himself that in the "Wondrous Tale of +Alroy" he had invented a new style, he scarcely deemed that he had but +spun the thread which was to vibrate with melody under the hand of +another. For in none of his magical sentences is the spell exactly +complete, and nowhere do they drop into the memory with that long slow +rhythm and sweet delay which mark every distinct utterance of Elizabeth +Sheppard. Yet at his torch she lit her fires, over his stories she +dreamed, his "Contarini Fleming" she declared to be the touchstone of +all romantic truth, and with the great freights of thought argosied +along his pages she enriched herself. "Destiny is our will, and our +will is our nature," he says. Behold the key-note of those strangely +beautiful Romances of Temperament of which for ten years we have been +cutting the leaves! + +In "Venetia," hint and example were given of working the great ores that +lie in the fields about us; and when Elizabeth Sheppard in turn took up +the divining-rod, it sought no clods of baser metal, but gold-veined +masses of crystal and the clear currents of pure water-streams;--beneath +her compelling power, Mendelssohn--Beethoven--Shelley--lived again and +forever. + +The musician who perhaps inspired a profounder enthusiasm during his +lifetime than any other ever did had been missed among men but a few +years, when a little book was quietly laid upon his shrine, and he +received, as it were, an apotheosis. Half the world broke into acclaim +over this outpouring of fervid worship. But it was private acclaim, and +not to be found in the newspapers. To those who, like the most of us in +America, vainly hunger and thirst after the sweets of sound, the book +was an initiation into the very _penetralia_ of music, we mounted and +rested in that sphere from the distastes of too practical life, long +afterwards we seemed to hear the immortal Song of which it spoke, and +our souls were refreshed. There followed this in a year--inscribed +to Mrs. Disraeli, as the other had been to that lady's +husband--"Counterparts": a novel which, it is not too much to say, it is +impossible for human hand to excel;--superior to its predecessor, since +that was but a memorial, while this was the elaboration of an Idea. Here +the real author ceased awhile. Three succeeding books were but fancies +wrought out, grafts, happy thoughts, very possibly enforced work; but +there were no more spontaneous affairs of her own individuality, until +the one entitled "Almost a Heroine." In this work, which treated of the +possible perfection of marriage, the whole womanly nature of the writer +asserted itself by virtue of the mere fact of humanity. After this came +a number of juvenile stories, some commonplace, others infiltrated with +that subtile charm which breathes, with a single exception, through all +her larger books like the perfume of an exotic. Thus in the three novels +mentioned we have all that can be had of Elizabeth Sheppard herself: +in the third, her theory of life; in the second, her aspirations and +opinions; in the first, her passion. + +The orphaned daughter of an English clergyman, and self-dependent, +in 1853 she translated her name into French and published "Charles +Auchester,"--a book written at the age of sixteen. That name of hers is +not the most attractive in the tongue, but all must love it who love +her; for, if any theory of transmission be true, does she not owe +something of her own oneness with Nature, of her intimacy with its +depths, of her love of fields and flowers and skies, to that ancestry +who won the name as, like the princely Hebrew boy, they tended the +flocks upon the hills, under sunlight and starlight and ill every wind +that blew? Never was there a more characteristic device than this +signature of "E. Berger"; and nobody learned anything by it. At first it +was presumed that some member of the house of Rothschild had experienced +a softening of the brain to the extent implied by such effusion of +genuine emotion, and it was rather gladly hailed as evidence of the +weakness shared in common with ordinary mortals by that more than +imperial family, the uncrowned potentates of the world,--the subject +and method of the book being just sufficiently remote from every-day +to preserve the unities of the supposition. Gradually this theory was +sought to be displaced by one concerning a German baroness acquainted +neither with Jews nor with music, humored as it was by that foreign +trick in the book, the idioms of another tongue; but the latter theory +was too false on its face to be tenable, and then people left off +caring about it. It is perhaps an idle infirmity, this request for the +personality of authors; yet it is indeed a response to the fact that +there never was one who did not prefer to be esteemed for himself rather +than for his writing,--and, ascending, may we love the works of God and +not the Lord himself? However, none were a whit the wiser for knowing +Miss Sheppard's name. It came to be accepted that we were to have +the books,--whence was no matter; they were so new, so strange, so +puzzling,--the beautiful, the quaint, and the faulty were so interwoven, +that nobody cared to separate these elements, to take the trouble to +criticize or to thank; and thus, though we all gladly enough received, +we kept our miserly voices to ourselves, and she never met with any +adequate recognition. After her first book, England quietly ignored +her,--they could not afford to be so startled; as Sir Leicester Dedlock +said, "It was really--really--"; she did very well for the circulating +libraries; and because Mr. Mudie insists on his three volumes or none +at all, she was forced to extend her rich webs to thinness. It is this +alone that injures "Counterparts" for many;--not that they would not +gladly accept the clippings in a little supplementary pamphlet, but +dissertations, they say, delay the action. In this case, though, that +is not true; for, besides the incompleteness of the book without the +objectionable dissertation, (that long conversation between Miss +Dudleigh and Sarona,) it answers the purpose of very necessary by-play +on the stage during preparation for the last and greatest scene. But had +this been a fault, it was not so much hers as the publishers'. Subject +to the whims of those in London, and receiving no reply to the +communication of her wishes from those in Edinburgh, she must have +experienced much injustice at the hands of her booksellers, and her +title-pages show them to have been perpetually changed. She herself +accepts with delight propositions from another quarter of the globe; the +prospect of writing for those across the water was very enticing to her; +and in one of her letters she says,--"It is my greatest ambition to +publish in America,--to have no more to do personally with English +publishers"; and finding it, after serious illness, impossible to +fulfil this engagement in season, the anxiety, regret, and subsequent +gratitude, which she expressed, evinced that she had been unaccustomed +to the courteous consideration then received. + +Working constantly for so many years, she had yet known nothing of her +readers, had felt her literary life to be an utter failure, had thrown a +voice into the world and heard no echo; and when for the first time told +of the admiration she elicited in this country and of one who rejoiced +in her, her face kindled and she desired to come and be among her own +people. Those who have failed to appreciate her can hardly be blamed, as +it is owing entirely to their deficiency; but the cavillers--those who +have ears and hear not--are less excusable. Almost a recluse,--declining +even an interview with her publishers,--in ill-health, in poverty, and +with waning youth, she poured out her precious ointment from alabaster +boxes, and there were not wanting Pharisees. But hampered by precedent +and somewhat barren of enthusiasms as are almost all productions now, +how could we do aught but welcome this spontaneous and ever-fresh +fountain bubbling into the sunlight, albeit without geometrical +restrictions, and bringing as it did such treasures from its secret +sources? Yet, welcomed or not, there is no record of any female +prose-writer's ever having lived who possessed more than a portion +of that genius which permeated Elizabeth Sheppard's whole being. +Genius,--the very word expresses her: in harmony with the great +undertone of the universe, the soul suffused with light. Flower-warmth +and fragrance are on her page, the soft low summer wind seems to be +speaking with you as you read, her characters are like the stars +impersonated, and still, however lofty her nature, always and forever +genial. You catch her own idiosyncrasy throughout, and believe, that, +like Evelyn Hope, she was made of spirit, fire, and dew. When we +remember the very slight effect ever visible to her of all her labor, +there is something sad in the thought of this young soul, thrilled with +its own fervors and buoyant in anticipation, sending forth the first +venture. But then we recognize as well, that she was one of those few to +whom creation is a necessity, that in truth she scarcely needed human +response, and that when men were silent God replied. + +Miss Sheppard's style was something very novel. Based, perhaps, on an +admiration of one whose later exploits have dwarfed his earlier in the +general estimation, there was yet no more resemblance than between the +string-courses of a building and its sculptured friezes. Indeed, writing +was not her virtual expression: this may be learned even in her peculiar +way of loving Nature, for it was not so much Nature itself as Nature's +effects that she prized; and between the work now performed and that +awaiting her in some further life one feels the difference that exists +between the soft clay model with its mild majesty, its power clogged and +covered, and the same when it issues in the white radiance of marble. +She does not seem to have been an extensive reader, and certainly no +student, while she totally disregarded all rules and revision. Her +sentences were so long that one got lost in them, and had finally to go +back and clutch a nominative case and drag it down the page with him; +there were ambiguities and obscurities in plenty: her thoughts were so +bright that they darkened her words; one must go through a process of +initiation,--but having mastered the style, one knew the writer. It +was well worth while, this shrouding rhetoric, for beneath it were no +reserves; superficially no one ever kept more out of sight, but the +real reader could not fail to know that here he had the freedom of the +author's nature: and although she somewhere said that a woman "thus +intensely feminine, thus proud and modest, betraying herself to the +world in her writings, is an exception, and one in the whole world the +most rare," she knew not that she sketched herself in that exception. +But there are not elsewhere to be found pages so drenched with beauty as +hers; and for all her vague abstractions of language, and wide, suffused +effects, she possessed yet the skill to present a picture, keenly etched +and vividly colored, in the fewest words, when she chose. Not to mention +Rose and Bernard, who, oddly enough, are a series of the most exquisite +pictures in themselves, bathed in changing and ever-living light, let +us take, for instance, Maria Cerinthia walking in the streets of Paris, +having worn out her mantilla, and with only a wreath of ivy on her +head,--or Clotilda at her books, "looking very much like an old picture +of a young person sitting there,"--or the charming one of Laura's _pas_, +which the little boy afterwards describes in saying, "She quite swam, +and turned her eyes upward,"--or, better, yet, that portrait of a +Romagnese woman: "of the ancient Roman beauty, rare now, if still +remembered, with hair to her knees, wrapping her form in a veil vivid as +woven gold, with the emerald eyes of Dante's Beatrice, a skin of yellow +whiteness, and that mould of figure in which undulating softness +quenches majesty,--the mould of the mystical Lucretia." There are +sea-sketches scattered among these leaves which no painter's brush will +ever equal, and morning and twilight gain new splendor and tenderness +beneath her touch. + +But, after all, this was not her style's chief excellence; she cared +little for such pictorial achievements, and in presenting her fancies +she often sacrificed outline to melody; it is necessary for you to feel +rather than to see her meaning. What distinguished her yet more was the +ability by means of this style to interpret music into words. Although +this may not be correct practice, there was never a musical critic who +did not now and then attempt it: musicians themselves never do, because +music is to them nothing to see or to describe, but the air they +breathe, and in fact a state of being. Do you remember that tone-wreath +of heather and honeysuckle? "It was a movement of such intense meaning +that it was but one sigh of unblended and unfaltering melody isolated as +the fragrance of a single flower, and only the perfumes of Nature exhale +a bliss as sweet, how far more unexpressed! This short movement, that in +its oneness was complete, grew, as it were, by fragmentary harmonies, +intricate, but most gradual, into another,--a prestissimo so delicately +fitful that it was like moonlight dancing upon crested ripples; or, for +a better similitude, like quivering sprays in a summer wind. And in less +than fifty bars of regularly broken time--how ravishingly sweet I say +not--the first subject in refrain flowed through the second, and they, +interwoven even as creepers and flowers densely tangled, closed together +simultaneously." And if you have not the book by you, will you pardon +another,--the awful and eternal flow of the Mer de Glace? + +"At first awoke the strange, smooth wind-notes of the opening adagio; +the fetterless chains of ice seemed to close around my heart. The +movement had no blandness in its solemnity; and so still and shiftless +was the grouping of the harmonies, that a frigidity, actual as well as +ideal, passed over my pores and hushed my pulses. After a hundred such +tense yet clinging chords, the sustaining calm was illustrated, not +broken, by a serpentine phrase of one lone oboe, pianissimo over the +piano-surface, which it crisped not, but on and above which it breathed +like the track of a sunbeam aslant from a parted cloud. The slightest +possible retardation at its close brought us to the refrain of the +simple adagio, interrupted again by a rush of violoncello-notes, rapid +and low, like some sudden under-current striving to burst through the +frozen sweetness. Then spread wide the subject, as plains upon plains of +_water-land_; though the time was gradually increased. Amplifications of +the same harmonies introduced a fresh accession of violoncelli and oboi +contrasted artfully in syncopation, till at length the strides of the +accelerando gave a glittering precipitation to the entrance of the +second and longest movement. + +"Then Anastase turned upon me, and with the first bar we fell into a +tumultuous presto. Far beyond all power to analyze as it was just then, +the complete idea embraced me as instantaneously as had the picturesque +chillness of the first. I have called it tumultuous,--but merely in +respect of rhythm:--the harmonies were as clear and evolved as the +modulation itself was sharp, keen, and unapproachable. Through every bar +reigned that vividly enunciated ideal, whose expression pertains to +the one will alone in any age,--the ideal, that, binding together in +suggestive imagery every form of beauty, symbolizes and represents +something beyond them all. + +"Here over the surge-like, but fast-bound motivo--only like those tost +ice-waves, dead still in their heaped-up crests--were certain swelling +crescendos of a second subject, so unutterably if vaguely sweet, that +the souls of all deep blue Alp-flowers, the clarity of all high blue +skies, had surely passed into them, and was passing from them again.... + +"It was not until the very submerging climax that the playing of +Anastase was recalled to me. Then, amidst long ringing notes of the wild +horns, and intermittent sighs of the milder wood, swept from the violins +a torrent of coruscant arpeggi, and above them all I heard his tone, +keen but solvent, as his bow seemed to divide the very strings with +fire, and I felt as if some spark had fallen upon my fingers to kindle +mine. As soon as it was over, I looked up and laughed in his face with +sheer pleasure." + +Nothing of the kind was ever half so delightful, if one excepts Mr. +Dwight's translation of a _Gondel-lied_. As literal description it is +wondrous, but as imagination it equals the music itself. Let us pause +for an instant here and recall the singular inventive and combining +grace with which a Spectacle is always given in these stories. It is +well known that Mendelssohn contemplated an opera upon the "Tempest," +although he did not live to execute the idea; but how charmingly is +that taken and mingled with what he had already done in the +"Midsummer-Night's Dream," at the festival of the Silver Wedding, when +the lonely tones from age to age frozen on the cups of lilies, the orbed +harmonies bound burning within the roses, the dreaming song thrilled +along the veins of violets, intricate sounds hushed under green gloom +of myrtle-leaves, mourning chords with which the cedars stood +charged,--were all disenchanted and stole forth on longing +wind-instruments and on the splendor of violins, "accumulating in +orchestral richness, as if flower after flower of music were unsheathing +to the sun"! + +Yet the unlovely is not to be found within these covers: there was a +quality in the writer's mind like that fervid, all-vivifying sunshine +which so illumines the cities of the desert, so steeps the pavements, +so soaks through the pores of solids, so sharpens angles and softens +curves, as Fromentin tells us, that even squalor borrows brilliant dyes, +and rags and filth lighten into picturesque and burnished glory. And +this is well for the reader, as all have not time for philosophy, nor +can all transmute pain into treasure. But for her, sweet sounds and +sights abound in everything; bird and breeze and bee alike are winged +with melody; the music of the sea satisfies her heart, and there +"the artist-ear,--which makes a spectrum for all sounds that are +not separate, distinguishes the self-same harmonies that govern the +gradations of the orchestra, from deep to deep descending, until sounds +are lost in sound as lights in light";--the trains have their thunderous +music in her hearing; and the bells to which Cecilia listens seem to be +ringing in the last day:--"The ravishing and awful sound of them, which +is only heard by the few,--the passion in their rise and fall,--their +wavering,--their rushing fulness,--drew off all consciousness: most like +the latest and last passion,--the passion of death." + +There seems to be no subject which this woman has not pondered deeply. +Her theory of Temperament is an attendant fairy that does marvellous +things for her, and not only apportions natures, but corresponding +bodies, so that we can easily see how the golden age is to return again, +when peradventure deceits shall be impossible, and all the virtues +thrive by mere necessity under the reign of this perfected Science of +the Soul. Yet, roam where she would, there were always two mysteries +that allured her back again, as Thone's curt sentence told,--"_Tonkunst +und Arzenei_"; and to these might be added Race, in defiance of Mr. +Buckle. Assuredly the Hebrew owes acknowledgment to her, and not George +Borrow, with all his weird learning, enters more deeply into the Burden +of Egypt; Browning's appreciation of the gypsy standing alone beside +hers,--Browning, between whose writings and her own a rich sympathy +exists, both being so possessed of fulness. Yet verse could not chain +her wide eloquence in its fetters; and whenever she attempted it, its +music made her thought shapeless. There is one exception to this, +however, and we give it below,--for, inartistic as this mould may seem, +and amorphous as its ideas may be, it is the only instance of any rhymes +fully translating the meaning of music, and it is as full of clinging +pathos and melody as the great creation it paraphrases, and to which no +words will quite respond. + + "In gardens where the languid roses keep + Perpetual sweetness for the hearts that smile, + Perpetual sadness for the hearts that weep, + Lonely, unseen, I wander, to beguile + The day that only shines to show thee bright, + The night whose stars burn wan beside thy light, + Adelaida! + + "Adelaida! all the birds are singing + Low, as thou passest, where in leaves they lie; + With timid chirp unto their soft mates clinging, + They greet that presence without which they die,-- + Die, even with Nature's universal heart, + When thou, her queen, dost in thy pride depart, + Adelaida! + + "Depart! and dim her beauty evermore; + Go, from the shivering leaves and lily-flowers, + That, white as saints on the eternal shore, + Stand wavering, beckoning, in the moony bowers,-- + Beckon me on where their moist feet are laid + In the dark mould, fast by the alder-shade, + Adelaida! + + "Adelaida! 'tis the Grave or Love + Must fight for this great first, last mastery. + I feed in faith on spicy gales above, + Where all along that blue unchanging sky + Thy name is traced;--its sweetness never fails + To sound in streams of peace in spicy gales, + Adelaida! + + "Adelaida! woe is me, woe, woe! + Not only in the sky, in starry gold, + I see thy name,--where peaceful rivers flow, + Not only hear its sweetness manifold; + On every white and purple flower 'tis written, + Its echo every aspen-quake hath smitten, + Adelaida! + + "Go farther! let me leave thee! I depart!-- + Who whispered I would linger by thy side? + Who said it beat so warm, my feeble heart? + Who told, I dared to claim thee as my bride? + Who cried, I roamed without thee all the day + And clasped thee in my dreams? Away, away, + Adelaida! + + "I die, but thou shall live; in the loud noon + Thy feet shall crush the long grass o'er my head, + Not rudely, rudely,--gently, gently, soon + Shall tread me heavier down in that dark bed; + And thou shalt know not on whose head they pass, + Whose silent hands, whose frozen heart!--Alas, + Adelaida!" + +There are those who in "Charles Auchester," charmed by the simplicity +and truth of that first part called "Choral Life," objected to the rest +on the score of extravagance. But this book records the adoration of +music, and in an age replete with the _dilettanti_ of indifference may +we not thank God for one enthusiast? Yet, indeed, everything about +Mendelssohn was itself extravagant,--his childhood, his youth, his life, +his beauty, his power: should the instrument, then, be tuned lower than +such key-note? And again, to us who live a somewhat commonplace routine, +the life of musical artists, especially abroad, must necessarily seem +redundant; yet it is only that life, natural and actual, into which we +are here inducted. The same is possible to no other class of artists: +even the scholar, buried in his profound studies, must descend from his +abstraction; the poet, the painter, cannot share it: for the latter, +however much he clubs and cliques, is seldom sufficiently dispossessed +of himself; and the other, though he strike out of his heat poems as +immortal as stars, may yet live among clods and feel no thrill returning +on himself. But the musician cannot dwell alone: his art requires that +he should cluster, and the orchestra enforces it; therefore he acts and +reacts like the vibrations ridged within a Stradivarius, he is kept in +his art's atmosphere till it becomes his life, its aura bathes every +trivial thing, and existence which might otherwise be meagre is raised +and glorified. Thus yet more, when we recall that even were the +musician's life not so, still it ought to be, and it is the right of +the author to idealize, one can believe "Charles Auchester" to be but a +faithful transcript. "In proportion to our appreciation of music is also +our appreciation of what is not music," Sarona says; and so faithfully +does this writer prove it, by her attention to minute and usual +circumstances, that one might certainly allow her some exaltation +when touching on one theme,--yet how this exaltation can be called in +question by any who espouse Bettine von Arnim's sublime ravings the +morning after entering Vienna is mysterious. Were the real condition +of these natures--which certainly exist--bared to view, many from their +phlegmatic experience might deem all the nerves to be in a state of +excitation, when in fact they saw only normal and healthy play. It is +true that the power of modulated tones arouses everything most ethereal +and lofty in our composition, and it must therefore be wrong to charge +with extravagance any description of a life in music, which is a life in +the highest, because truly it cannot be extravagant enough, since all +words fail before that of which it discourses,--while it gives you the +sense of the universe and of the eternities, and is to the other arts +what the soul is to the body. And is it not, moreover, the voice of +Nature, the murmur of wind and tree, the thrill of all the dropping +influences of the heavens, the medium of spiritual communication, the +universal language in which all can exchange thought and feeling, and +through which the whole world becomes one nation? Out of the spirit +blossom spirits, Bettine tells us, and we subject ourselves to their +power: "Ah, wonderful mediation of the ineffable, which oppresses the +bosom! Ah, music!" To go further, there is certainly no exaggeration +in Charles Auchester's treatment of his hero; for, reading the +contemporaneous articles of musical journals, you will find them one and +all speaking in even more unrestrained profligacy of praise, recognizing +in the cloud of composers but nine worthy the name of Master, of whom +Mendelssohn was one, and declaring that under his baton the orchestra +was electrified. We all remember the solemnly pathetic and passionate +beauty of Seraphael's burial by night, with the music winding up among +the stars; but did it in reality exceed the actual progress of the dead +Master's ashes from city to city, met in the twilight and the evening by +music, gray-headed Capellmeisters receiving him with singing in the open +midnight, and fresh songs being flung upon his coffin like wreaths with +the sunrise? + +There is a wonderful strength exhibited in the sketch of Seraphael from +first to last: not to mention the happiness of the name, of which +this is by no means a single instance, and the fact of his having no +_pramomen_, both of which so insignificant atoms in themselves lift him +at once a line above the level in the reader's sympathy,--it was a most +difficult thing to present such delicacy and lightness, and yet to +preserve "the awful greatness of his lonely genius," as somewhere else +she calls it; but all must confess that it is done, and perfectly. It +is not alone in Seraphael that this strength is shown; a new mould of +character in fiction is given us,--masculine characters which, though +light and airy, are yet brilliant and strong, most sweet, and surcharged +with loveliness. It is this perfect sweetness that constitutes half +the charm of her books,--for in the only one where it is deficient, +"Beatrice Reynolds," the whole fails. One feels sure that it was never +deficient in herself, that her own heart must have been overflowing with +warm and cordial tenderness,--and if any testimony were wanting, we +should have it in her evident love of children. It is only by love that +understanding comes, and no one ever understood children better or +painted them half so well: they are no mites of puny perfection, no +angels astray, no Psyches in all the agonies of the bursting chrysalis, +but real little flesh-and-blood people in pinafores, approached by +nobody's hand so nearly as George Eliot's. They are flawless: the boy +who, having swung himself giddy, felt "the world turning round, as +papa says it does, nurse,"--the other boy, who, immured in studies and +dreams, found all life to be "a fairy-tale book with half the leaves +uncut,"--the charming little snow-drop of a Carlotta, "who would sit +next him, would stick her tiny fork into his face, with a morsel of +turkey at the end of it, would poke crumbs into his mouth with her +finger, would put up her lips to kiss him, would say, every moment, 'I +like you much,--much!' with all Davy's earnestness, though with just +so much of her mother's modesty as made her turn pink and shy, and put +herself completely over the chair into Seraphael's lap when we laughed +at her." And Philippa, and Philippa's conversation, capers, and cat! +an impossibility to those who have never experienced her whirlwinds of +exuberance,--and to those who have, a reproduction of the drollest days +of their existence. Never was there a personage so perfectly drawn, +never such a grotesque storm of noisy health,--the matchless Philippa! +After reading Miss Sheppard's juveniles, you feel that you have been in +most good and innocent company all day; and since it is necessary for +an author to become for the moment that nature of which he writes, this +author must have been something very good and innocent in herself in +order to uphold this strain so long. Of those accessible, the best is +that entitled, "Round the Fire,"--a series of tales purporting to be +told by little girls, and each of extraordinary interest; but the +one she herself preferred is yet with four others in the hands of an +Edinburgh publisher, and perhaps yet in manuscript,--the name of +this being "Prince Gentil, Prince Joujou, and Prince Bonbon, or the +Children's Cities." This reminds one that cities, in the abstract, seem +to have been with her a subject of unceasing wonder and pleasure,--from +Venice, with its shadowy, slippery, silent water-ways to X, that ideal +city of the North; and where is there anything to excel the Picture of +Paris, drawn minutely and colored, his prison-prophecy, Paris as it was +to be created, rather than restored, by Louis Napoleon? "Then he took +from his pocket a strong magnifying-glass, and put it gently into +Rodomant's hand. Rodomant grasped it, and through it gazed long and +eagerly. And from that hieroglyphic mist there started, sudden and +distinct as morn without a cloud, a brilliant bird's-eye view of a +superb and stupendous city, a dream of imaginative architecture, almost +in itself a poem. Each house of each street, each lamp and fountain, +each line of road and pavement, marked as vividly as the glorious +domes, the pointing pillars, grand gates and arches, proud palaces in +inclosures of solemn leafage, the bridges traced like webs of shadow, +the stately terraces and dim cathedrals. Green groves and avenues and +vivid gardens interlaced and divided the city within the walls; and +without, masses of delicate shrubbery, as perfectly defined, were +studded with fair villas of every varied form, melting gradually and +peacefully, as it seemed, to a bright champaign embroidered with fence +and hedge-row.... A sort of visionary pageant unrolled to him, partly +memorial, in part prophetic. He knew he had seen something like it,--but +when and where? What planet boasted that star of cities for strength +and lustre that must surpass new London and old Thebes? For Rodomant had +the mathematical gift of all the highest harmonists, and his brain could +magnify and actualize the elfin-sized images under his eye to their just +and proper proportion in the real." It must have been like heaven, this +city so stilly and so fair,--for, you see, there were no people there. + +Miss Sheppard's plots are not conspicuous, for her characters make +circumstance and are their own fate; still her capacity in that line is +finely exhibited by the plot of the opera of "Alarcos." In mere filling +up, having excepted the incident,--always original and delightful,--the +lofty imagination, and the descriptions of wind and weather,--one of her +best points will be found to be costume, a minor thing, but then there +are few who excel in modern millinery. "Salome was beautiful. Her +splendid delicate dress, all rosy folds, skirt over skirt of drapery +falling softly into each other, made her clear skin dazzle in the midst +of them; and the masses of vivid geraniums here and there without their +leaves were not too gorgeous for her bearing,--nor for her hair, in +whose rich darkness geraniums also glowed, long wreaths curling down +into her neck." Rose in white, with wreaths of rubies weighing down her +slender arms;--Adelaida, with her lace robe like woven light on satin +like woven moon-beams, and large water-lilies in her golden hair;--my +Lady Barres, whose dress "consisted almost always of levantine, with +demi-train and under-petticoat of white brocaded silk peeping through +its open front; the hair showing the shape of the head, and confined by +a narrow band of black velvet across the brow, fastened in the morning +with onyx or agate, in the evening with a brilliant only; she always +wore upon her wrists delicate bands of cambric embroidered with +seed-pearl so minutely that it seemed a pattern wrought out of the +threads of the stuff, and little pearl tassels drooped there scarcely +eclipsing her hands in fairness." + +But a far stronger point is the power of portraiture. Seraphael having +been identified, people turned their attention to the other cipher. +Disregarding the orchestral similitude of sound in his name, which, by +the way, nobody pronounces as Aronach instructed, they chose to infer +that Charles Auchester himself was the Herr Joachim, that Starwood +Burney stood for Sterndale Bennett, that Diamid Albany meant Disraeli, +that Zelter figured as Aronach, and that Jenny Lind, of whom Mendelssohn +himself said there would not in a whole century be born another being so +gifted, and whom the Italians, those lovers of fair pseudonymes, called +"La Benedetta," is no other than Clara Benette. But these are trivial, +compared with Rodomant and Porphyro. It was daring enough, when +Beckendorf mimicked Prince Metternich; but to undertake and to contrast +Louis Napoleon and Beethoven, without belittling either, pales every +other performance. They tower before us grand and immutable as if cast +in bronze, and so veritable that they throw shadows; the prison-gloom is +sealed on Porphyro's face,--power and purpose indomitable; just as the +"gruesome Emperor" is to-day, we find him in that book,--dark in the +midst of his glory, as enduring as a Ninevite sculpture, strong and +inscrutable as the Sphinx. But his heights topple over with this world's +decline, while the other builds for the eternal aeons. Rodomant,--did +one fail to find his identity, they would yet recognize him in those old +prints, the listening head bent forwards, the features like discords +melting info chords; it is hard to tell how such strength was given in +such slight sentences,--but from the time when he contemptuously tossed +out his tune-fooleries, through the hour when with moonlight fancies "a +serene ecstatic serenade was rippling silently beneath his pen," to that +when the organ burst upon his ear in thunders quenchless and everlasting +as the sea's, he is still Beethoven, gigantic in pride, purity, and +passion. "I dream now," said Rodomant; "like the Spirit of God moving +upon the face of the waters, so stir my shadows, dim shapes of sound, +across the chaos of my fathomless intention." This "Rumour" has never +been reprinted in America; it will, then, be excusable to give here a +scene which Is indeed its climax. + +"A spiritual nature has for its highest and hardest temptation a +disposition to outrage, precedent,--sometimes propriety. It is sure +of itself--very likely--but it may endanger the machinery, moral or +tangible, which it employs for agent. Again, who has not dreamed of a +dream? who has not remembered dimly what yet experience contradicts? who +does not confound fact and imagination, to the damage of his reputation +for truth? + +"Rodomant was in a lawless frame, a frame he had fixed on himself by his +outrage on precedent; his subsequent excitement had enchanted him more +wildly, and any number of imps and elves were ready to rush at his +silent word from the caverns of his haunted brain. Again, he felt +he must spend his energy, his long idleness reacted on a sudden in +prodigious strength of intellect, it stirred like a giant refreshed. +Long time ago he had dreamed--he had entirely forgotten it was a fact +that he had been told--that, if the whole force of that organ were put +out, the result would be tremendous. He had also _dreamed_--that is, +been assured--that there was a law made to the purpose that the whole +force of the organ was never to be employed. The law had never been +broken, except once;--but there his memories waxed dim and indistinct; +he was at the mercy of his own volition, which resolved on recalling +nothing that could dissuade him from his rash and forbidden longing. +Unknown to himself, perhaps the failure of his design to escape, of +which the princess had assured him, drove him to the crisis of a more +desperate endeavor. But, whether it was so or not, he was unconscious of +it,--so far innocent. He sat down, believing himself alone.... 'Softly, +softly,' mocked his whisper--to himself,--and he touched alone the +whispering reeds, Adelaida held her breath, and chid the beating of her +heart, which seemed louder than the mellow pulse that throbbed in tune +above. The symphony that followed fell like a mighty universal +hush, through which the clarionet-stop chanted, unuttered but +articulate,--'Give to us peace.' Then the hush dissolved into a sea +of sighs: 'Peace, peace!' they yearned, and the mild deep diapason +muttered, 'Peace.' She, the one listener, felt, as it were, her brain +fill soft with tears, her eyes rained them, and her heart, whose pulses +had dropped as calm as dew, echoed the peaceful longing of the whole +heart of humanity. A longing as peaceful in its expression as the peace +it longed for; the creation's travail seemed spent to the edge of joy. + +"Suddenly, as light swept chaos, this peaceful fancy was disrupted,--her +heart ravished from its rest, its calm torn from it. Down went the pedal +which forced the whole first organ out at once, and as if shouted by +hosts of men and by myriad angels echoed, pealed the great Hosanna. The +mighty rapture of the princess won her instantly from regret; no peace +could be so glorious as that praise; and vast as was the volume +of sound, the hands that invoked it had it so completely under +control--voluntary control as yet--that it did not swamp her sense; her +spirit floated on the wide stream with harmonious waves towards the +measureless immensity of music at its source. To reach that centre +without a circle,--that perfection which imperfection shadows not,--that +unborn, undying principle, which art tries humbly, falteringly, to +illustrate,--was never given to man on earth; and tries he to attain it, +some fate, of which the chained Prometheus is at once the symbol and the +warning, fastens to his soul for life. + +"The princess had bowed her head, and the soft and plenteous waters +of her eyes had dried like dew under the midsummer sun; yet still she +closed her eyes, for her brain felt fixed and alight with a nameless +awe, such as passion lends presentiment. + +"Suddenly, in the words of Albericus, there burst overhead a noise like +the roaring of 'enormous artificial golden lions,'--that was the drum: +less, in this instance, like smitten parchment than the crackling roll +of clouds that embrace in thunder. The noise amazed himself,--yet +Rodomant exulted in it, his audacity expanded with it, broke down the +last barrier of reason. He added stop after stop,--at the last and +sixtieth stop, he unfettered the whole volume of the wind. That instant +was a blast, not to speak irreverently, which sounded like the crack +of doom. To her standing stricken underneath, it seemed to explode +somewhere in the roof with a shock beyond all artillery,--to tear up the +ground under her feet, like the spasm of an earthquake,--to rend the +walls, like lightning's electric finger; and to shriek in her ringing +brain the advent of some implacable and dreadful judgment, but not the +doom of all men,--only one, which doom, alas! she felt might be also +hers _in_ his. + +"All men and women within a mile had heard the shock, or rather felt it, +and interpreted it in various ways. Only the prince himself--who was +standing on the terrace, and had distinctly perceived the rich vibration +of the strong, but calm, _Hosanna_--interpreted it rightly and directly; +more than that, his animal sagacity told him it was Rodomant, who, +having amused himself, was now _indulging_ the same individual.... + +"To Adelaida there was something more terrible in the succeeding silence +than in the shock of sound; it had ceased directly, died first into a +discordant groan, which, rising to a scream, was still. She listened +intensely: there was no fall of rattling fragments, the vibration had +been insufficient, or not prolonged enough, to injure the window,--that +had been her first, chief fear. This removed, however, she felt doubly, +desperately anxious. Why did he not come down, or speak, or stir? The +men employed to feed the monstrous machine with wind had all rushed away +together by the back-ladder through which they entered: hence the cause +of the shrieking groan and silence. He was there alone,--for he knew not +that she was there. Oh that he would give some sign! + +"In a few minutes a sign was given, but not from him. The princess heard +the grinding of the immense door near the altar; it was opened; +steps entered hurriedly. She heard, next instant, her father's +voice,--impregnated with icy ire, low with smothered hatred, distinct +with the only purpose he ever entertained,--punishment. She flew, with +feet that gave no echo, up the stair on her side of the lobby. Rodomant +was sitting dead-still, with his face in his hands; they looked rigid; +the veins in his forehead, as it showed above his hands, were swollen +and stood out, but colorless as the keys that stretched beneath. His +calmness chilled her blood. She thought him dead, and all within her +that lived seemed to pass out of her in the will, nay, the power also, +to restore him. She grasped his arm. He was not dead, then, for he +sighed,--an awful sigh; it shook him like a light reed in the tempest, +he shuddered from head to foot; he leaned towards her, as if about to +faint, but never removed his close-locked hands from his eyes.... She +had only clasped his arm before; as hand met hand, or touch thrilled +touch, he shivered, his grasping fingers relaxed in their hold on each +other, but closed on hers.... She waited long,--she listened to his +breathing, intermittent with tearless sobs. At last he gasped violently, +a cold tear dropped on her hand, and he thrust it rudely from him. + +"'God has taken my punishment into Hiss own hands: yet I defied not Him, +only something made by man, and man himself.' He spoke loudly, yet in +halting words, with gaps of silence between each phrase; then stared +wildly round him, and clapped both his hands upon his ears,--withdrew +them,--closed his ears with his fingers, then dropped his hands, and +cast on her a glance that implored--that demanded--the whole pity of her +heart. 'Have mercy!' were his words; 'I have lost my hearing, and it is +forever!'" + +The discrimination of character exercised by Miss Sheppard is very +wonderful. Many as are the figures on her stage, they are never +repeated, and they are all as separate, as finely edged and bevelled, +as gems. The people grow under her pen,--whether you take Auchester, +developing so when first thrown on himself in Germany, and becoming at +length the rare type of manhood which he presents,--or the one change +wrought by years in Miss Benette, just the addition of something that +would have been impossible in any child, a deepened sweetness, that +completest touch of the perfect woman, "like perfume from unseen +flowers, diffusing itself when the wind awakens, while we know neither +whence the windy fragrance comes nor whither it flows." Perhaps this +characterization is most noticeable in "Counterparts," which she called +her small party of opposing temperaments: Salome, so gracious; Rose, +like the spirit of a sunbeam; Sarona, so keen and incisive, his passion +confronting Bernard's sweetness; and Cecilia, who, it is easy to +conjecture, wrote the book. I have always fancied that some mystic +trine was chorded by three beings who, with all their separate gifts, +possessed an equal power and sweetness,--Raphael, Shelley, and +Mendelssohn. And perhaps the same occurred more emphatically to Miss +Sheppard, for after Seraphael she drew Bernard,--Bernard, who is +exceeded by none in the whole range of romance. "Counterparts" is a +novel of ideal life; it is the land of one's dreams and one's delights; +its dwellers are more real to us than the men and women into whose eyes +we look upon the street, they haunt us and enrapture us, they breathe +about us an atmosphere of gentle and delicious melancholy like the soft +azure haze spread over meadow and hills by the faint south-wind. With +fresh incident on every leaf, with a charm in every scene, its spell is +enthralling, and its chapters are enchanted. There is no fault in +it; nothing can be more perfect, nothing more beautiful. One may put +"Consuelo" side by side with "Charles Auchester," but what novel in +the wide world deserves a place by "Counterparts"? It was worth having +lived, to have once thrown broadcast such handfuls of beauty. + +Between the publication of Miss Sheppard's second book and "Rumour" two +others were issued,--"Beatrice Reynolds" and "The Double Coronet,"--for +which one wishes there were some younger sister, some Acton or Ellis, to +whom to impute them,--evidently the result of illness, weariness, and +physical weakness, perhaps wrung from her by inexorable necessity, but +which should never have been written. In the last, in spite of its very +Radcliffean air, there are truly terrible things, as Gutilyn and his +green-eyed child bear witness; but the other reminds one, as nearly as a +modern book may do so, of no less a model than the redoubtable "Thaddeus +of Warsaw!" But Miss Sheppard had already written all that at present +there was to say; rest was imperative till the intermittent springs +again overflowed. "Rumour," which approached the old excellence, was no +result of a soul's ardor,--merely very choice work. Notwithstanding, +everything is precious that filters through such a medium, and in +these three publications she found opportunity for expressing many a +conviction and for weaving many a fancy; moreover, she was afraid of +no one, and never minced matters, therefore they are interspersed +with criticisms: she praised Charlotte Bronte, condemned George Sand, +ridiculed Chopin, reproved Elizabeth Browning, and satirized "Punch." In +her last book there was a great, but scarcely a good change of style, +she having been obliged by its thinness to pepper the page with Italics; +still these are only marks of a period of transition, and in spite of +them the book is priceless. Judging from internal evidence, she here +appears to have frequented more society, and the contact of this +carelessly marrying world with her own pure perception of right struck +the spark which kindled into "Almost a Heroine." Here awakens again that +graceful humor which is the infallible sign of health, and which was so +lightly inwrought through the earlier volumes. Reading it over, one is +struck with its earnestness, its truth and noble courage,--one feels +that lofty social novels, which might have infused life and principle +and beauty into the mass of custom, were promised in this, and are now +no longer a possibility. And herein are the readers of this magazine +especially affected; since there is no reason to suppose that the work +promised and begun by her for these pages would not have been the peer +of her best production, some bold and beautiful elucidation of one of +the many mysteries in life; for the lack of appreciation in England was +no longer to concern her, and, unshackled and unrestrained, she could +feel herself surrounded by the genial atmosphere of loving listeners. +But perhaps it was not lawful that she should further impart these great +secrets which she had learned. "I sometimes think," she murmurs, "when +women try to rise too high either in their deeds or their desires, that +the spirit which bade them so rise sinks back beneath the weakness of +their earthly constitution, and never appeals again,--or else that the +spirit, being too strong, does away with the mortal altogether,--they +die, or rather they live again." It was like forecasting her own +horoscope. All suffering seems to have descended upon her,--and there +are some natures whose power of enjoyment, so infinite, yet so deep as +to be hidden, is balanced only by as infinite a power to endure; she +learned anew, as she says, and intensely, "what a long dream of misery +is life from which health's bloom has been brushed,--that irreparable +bloom,--and how far more terrible is the doom of those in whom the +nerve-life has been untoned." Sun-stroke and fever, vibration between +opiates at night and tonics at noon,--but the flame was too strong +to fan away lightly, it must burn itself out, the spirit was too +quenchless,--pain, wretchedness, exhaustion. On one of those delicious +days that came in the middle of this year's April,--warmth and fresh +earth-smells breathing all about,--the wide sprays of the lofty boughs +lying tinged in rosy purple, a web-like tracery upon the sky whose azure +was divine,--the air itself lucid and mellow, as if some star had been +dissolved within it,--on such a day the little foreign letter +came, telling that at length balm had dropped upon the weary +eyelids,--Elizabeth Sheppard was dead. + +But in the midst of regret,--since all lovely examples lend their +strength, since they give such grace even to the stern facts of +suffering and death, and since there are too few such records on +Heaven's scroll,--be glad to know that for every throb of anguish, for +every swooning lapse of pain, there was one beside her with tenderest +hands, most careful eyes, most yearning and revering heart,--one into +whose sacred grief our intrusion is denied, but the remembrance of whose +long and deep devotion shall endure while there are any to tell how +Severn watched the Roman death-bed of Keats! + +It is impossible to estimate our loss, because it draws upon infinitude; +there was so much growth yet possible to this soul; to all that she was +not she might yet have enlarged; and while at first her audience had +limits, she would in a calm and prosperous future have become that which +she herself described in saying that a really vast genius who is as vast +an artist will affect all classes, "touch even the uninitiated with +trembling and delight, and penetrate even the ignorant with strong, if +transient spell, as the galvanic energy binds each and all who embrace +in the chain-circle of grasping hands, in the shock of perfect +sympathy." Nevertheless, she has served Art incalculably,--Art, which +is the interpretation of God in Nature. And if, as she believed, in +spiritual things Beauty is the gage of immortality, the pledge may yet +be redeemed on earth, ever forbidding her memory to die. + + + + +ASTRAEA AT THE CAPITOL. + + +ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 1862. + + When first I saw our banner wave + Above the nation's council-hall, + I heard beneath its marble wall + The clanking fetters of the slave! + + In the foul market-place I stood, + And saw the Christian mother sold, + And childhood with its locks of gold, + Blue-eyed and fair with Saxon blood. + + I shut my eyes, I held my breath, + And, smothering down the wrath and shame + That set my Northern blood aflame, + Stood silent--where to speak was death. + + Beside me gloomed the prison-cell + Where wasted one in slow decline + For uttering simple words of mine, + And loving freedom all too well. + + The flag that floated from the dome + Flapped menace in the morning air; + I stood, a perilled stranger, where + The human broker made his home. + + For crime was virtue: Gown and Sword + And Law their threefold sanction gave, + And to the quarry of the slave + Went hawking with our symbol-bird. + + On the oppressor's side was power; + And yet I knew that every wrong, + However old, however strong, + But waited God's avenging hour. + + I knew that truth would crush the lie,-- + Somehow, sometime, the end would be; + Yet scarcely dared I hope to see + The triumph with my mortal eye. + + But now I see it! In the sun + A free flag floats from yonder dome, + And at the nation's hearth and home + The justice long delayed is done. + + Not as we hoped, in calm of prayer, + The message of deliverance comes, + But heralded by roll of drums + On waves of battle-troubled air!-- + + 'Midst sounds that madden and appall, + The song that Bethlehem's shepherds knew!-- + The harp of David melting through + The demon-agonies of Saul! + + Not as we hoped;--but what are we? + Above our broken dreams and plans + God lays, with wiser hand than man's, + The corner-stones of liberty. + + I cavil not with Him: the voice + That freedom's blessed gospel tells + Is sweet to me as silver bells, + Rejoicing!--yea, I will rejoice! + + Dear friends still toiling in the sun,-- + Ye dearer ones who, gone before, + Are watching from the eternal shore + The slow work by your hands begun,-- + + Rejoice with me! The chastening rod + Blossoms with love; the furnace heat + Grows cool beneath His blessed feet + Whose form is as the Son of God! + + Rejoice! Our Marah's bitter springs + Are sweetened; on our ground of grief + Rise day by day in strong relief + The prophecies of better things. + + Rejoice in hope! The day and night + Are one with God, and one with them + Who see by faith the cloudy hem + Of Judgment fringed with Mercy's light! + + + + +PERE ANTOINE'S DATE-PALM. + +A LEGEND OF NEW ORLEANS. + + +I. + +MISS BADEAU. + + +It is useless to disguise the fact: Miss Badeau is a Rebel. + +Mr. Beauregard's cannon had not done battering the walls of Sumter, +when Miss Badeau was packed up, labelled, and sent North, where she +has remained ever since in a sort of aromatic, rose-colored state of +rebellion. + +She is not one of your blood-thirsty Rebels, you know; she has the good +sense to shrink with horror from the bare mention of those heathen who, +at Manassas and elsewhere, wreaked their unmanly spite on the bodies +of dead heroes: still she is a bitter little Rebel, with blonde hair, +superb eyelashes, and two brothers in the Confederate service,--if I may +be allowed to club the statements. When I look across the narrow strait +of our boarding-house table, and observe what a handsome wretch she +is, I begin to think that if Mr. Seward doesn't presently take her in +charge, _I_ shall. + +The preceding paragraphs have little or nothing to do with what I am +going to relate: they merely illustrate how wildly a fellow will write, +when the eyelashes of a pretty woman get tangled with his pen. So I let +them stand,--as a warning. + +My exordium should have taken this shape:-- + +"I hope and trust," remarked Miss Badeau, in that remarkably scathing +tone which she assumes in alluding to the U.S.V., "I hope and trust, +that, when your five hundred thousand, more or less, men capture my New +Orleans, they will have the good taste not to injure Pere Antoine's +Date-Palm." + +"Not a hair of its head shall be touched," I replied, without having the +faintest idea of what I was talking about. + +"Ah! I hope not," she said. + +There was a certain tenderness in her voice which struck me. + +"Who is Pere Antoine?" I ventured to ask. "And what is this tree that +seems to interest you so?" + +"I will tell you." + +Then Miss Badeau told me the following legend, which I think worth +writing down. If it should appear tame to the reader, it will be because +I haven't a black ribbed-silk dress, and a strip of point-lace around my +throat, like Miss Badeau; it will be because I haven't her eyes and lips +and music to tell it with, confound me! + + +II. + +THE LEGEND. + + +Near the _levee_ (quay) and not far from the old French Cathedral, in +New Orleans, stands a fine date-palm, some thirty feet high, growing out +in the open air as sturdily as if its roots were sucking sap from their +native earth. Sir Charles Lyell, in his "Second Visit to the United +States," mentions this exotic:--"The tree is seventy or eighty years +old; for Pere Antoine, a Roman Catholic priest, who died about twenty +years ago, told Mr. Bringier that he planted it himself, when he was +young. In his will he provided that they who succeeded to this lot of +ground should forfeit it, if they cut down the palm." + +Wishing to learn something of Pere Antoine's history, Sir Charles Lyell +made inquiries among the ancient Creole inhabitants of the _faubourg_. +That the old priest, in his last days, became very much emaciated, that +he walked about the streets like a mummy, that he gradually dried +up, and finally blew away, was the meagre result of the tourist's +investigations. + +This is all that is generally known of Pere Antoine. Miss Badeau's story +clothes these bare facts. + +When Pere Antoine was a very young man, he had a friend whom he loved as +he loved his eyes. Emile Jardin returned his passion, and the two, on +account of their friendship, became the marvel of the city where they +dwelt. One was never seen without the other; for they studied, walked, +ate, and slept together. + +Antoine and Emile were preparing to enter the Church; indeed, they had +taken the preliminary steps, when a circumstance occurred which changed +the color of their lives. + +A foreign lady, from some far-off island in the Pacific, had a few +months before moved into their neighborhood. The lady died suddenly, +leaving a girl of sixteen or seventeen entirely friendless and +unprovided for. The young men had been kind to the woman during her +illness, and at her death, melting with pity at the forlorn situation of +Anglice, the daughter, swore between themselves to love and watch over +her as if she were their sister. + +Now Anglice had a wild, strange beauty, that made other women seem tame +beside her; and in the course of time the young men found themselves +regarding their ward not so much like brothers as at first. They +struggled with their destiny manfully, for the holy orders which they +were about to assume precluded the idea of love. + +But every day taught them to be more fond of her. So they drifted on. +The weak like to temporize. + +One night Emile Jardin and Anglice were not to be found. They had +flown,--but whither nobody knew, and nobody, save Antoine, cared. + +It was a heavy blow to Antoine,--for he had half made up his mind to run +away with her himself. + +A strip of paper slipped from a volume on Antoine's desk, and fluttered +to his feet. + +"_Do not be angry_" said the bit of paper, piteously; "_forgive us, for +we love_." + +Three years went by. Antoine had entered the Church, and was already +looked upon as a rising man; but his face was pale and his heart leaden, +for there was no sweetness in life for him. + +Four years had elapsed, when a letter, covered with outlandish stamps, +was brought to the young priest,--a letter from Anglice. She was dying; +would he forgive her? Emile, the year previous, had fallen a victim to +the fever that raged on the island; and their child, little Anglice, was +likely to follow him. In pitiful terms she begged Antoine to take charge +of the child until she was old enough to enter a convent. The epistle +was finished by another hand, informing Antoine of Madame Jardin's +death; it also told him that Anglice had been placed on a vessel shortly +to leave the island for some Western port. + +The letter was hardly read and wept over, when little Anglice arrived. +On beholding her, Antoine uttered a cry of joy and surprise,--she was so +like the woman he had worshipped. + +As a man's tears are more pathetic than a woman's, so is his love more +intense,--not more enduring, or half so subtile, but intenser. + +The passion that had been crowded down in his heart broke out and +lavished its richness on this child, who was to him, not only the +Anglice of years ago, but his friend Emile Jardin also. + +Anglice possessed the wild, strange beauty of her mother,--the bending, +willowy form, the rich tint of skin, the large tropical eyes, that had +almost made Antoine's sacred robes a mockery to him. + +For a month or two Anglice was wildly unhappy in her new home. She +talked continually of the bright country where she was born, the fruits +and flowers and blue skies. Antoine could not pacify her. By-and-by she +ceased to weep, and went about the cottage with a dreary, disconsolate +air that cut Antoine to the heart. Before the year ended, he noticed +that the ruddy tinge had fled from her cheek, that her eyes had grown +languid, and her slight figure more willowy than ever. + +A physician was called. He could discover nothing wrong with the child, +except this fading and drooping. He failed to account for that. It was +some vague disease of the mind, he said, beyond his skill. + +So Anglice faded day after day. She seldom left the room now. Antoine +could not shut out the fact that the child was passing away. He had +learned to love her so! + +"Dear heart," he said once, "what is't ails thee?" + +"Nothing, _mon pere_"--for so she called him. + +The winter passed, the balmy spring air had come, and Anglice seemed to +revive. In her little bamboo chair, on the porch, she swayed to and +fro in the fragrant breeze, with a peculiar undulating motion, like a +graceful tree. + +At times something seemed to weigh upon her mind. Antoine noticed it, +and waited. At length she spoke. + +"Near our house," said little Anglice, "near our house, on the island, +the palm-trees are waving under the blue sky. Oh, how beautiful! I seem +to lie beneath them all day long. I am very, very happy. I yearned for +them until I grew sick,--don't you think so, _mon pere_?" + +"_Mon Dieu_, yes!" exclaimed Antoine, suddenly. "Let us hasten to those +pleasant islands where the palms are waving." + +Anglice smiled. + +"I am going there, _mon pere!_" + +Ay, indeed. A week from that evening the wax candles burned at her feet +and forehead, lighting her on the journey. + +All was over. Now was Antoine's heart empty. He had nothing to do but to +lay the blighted flower away. + +Pere Antoine made a shallow grave in his garden, and heaped the fresh +brown mould over his idol. + +In the genial spring evenings the priest was seen sitting by the mound, +his finger closed in the unread prayer-book. + +The summer broke on that sunny land; and in the cool morning twilight, +and after nightfall, Antoine lingered by the grave. He could never be +with it enough. + +One morning he observed a delicate stem, with two curiously shaped +emerald leaves, springing up from the centre of the mound. At first he +merely noticed it casually; but at length the plant grew so tall, and +was so strangely unlike anything he had ever seen before, that he +examined it with care. + +How straight and graceful and exquisite it was! When it swung to and fro +with the summer wind, in the twilight, it seemed to Antoine as if little +Anglice were standing there in the garden! + +The days stole by, and Antoine tended the fragile shoot, wondering what +sort of blossom it would unfold, white, or scarlet, or golden. One +Sunday, a stranger, with a bronzed, weather-beaten face like a sailor's, +leaned over the garden-rail, and said to him,-- + +"What a fine young date-palm you have there, Sir!" + +"_Mon Dieu!_" cried Pere Antoine, "and is it a palm?" + +"Yes, indeed," returned the man. "I had no idea the tree would flourish +in this climate." + +"_Mon Dieu!_" was all the priest could say. + +If Pere Antoine loved the tree before, he worshipped it now. He watered +it, and nurtured it, and could have clasped it in his arms. Here were +Emile and Anglice and the child, all in one! + +The years flew by, and the date-palm and the priest grew together,--only +one became vigorous and the other feeble. Pere Antoine had long passed +the meridian of life. The tree was in its youth. It no longer stood in +an isolated garden; for homely brick and wooden houses had clustered +about Antoine's cottage. They looked down scowling on the humble +thatched roof. The city was edging up, trying to crowd him off his land. +But he clung to it, and wouldn't sell. Speculators piled gold on his +door-step, and he laughed at them. Sometimes he was hungry, but he +laughed none the less. + +"Get thee behind me, Satan!" said the old priest's smile. + +Pere Antoine was very old now, scarcely able to walk; but he could sit +under the pliant, caressing leaves of his tree, and there he sat until +the grimmest of speculators came to him. But even in death Pere Antoine +was faithful to his trust. The owner of that land loses it, if he harms +the date-tree. + +And there it stands in the narrow, dingy street, a beautiful, dreamy +stranger, an exquisite foreign lady whose grace is a joy to the eye, the +incense of whose breath makes the air enamored. A precious boon is she +to the wretched city; and when loyal men again walk those streets, may +the hand wither that touches her ungently! + +"Because it grew from the heart of little Anglice," said Miss Badeau, +tenderly. + + * * * * * + + +"SOLID OPERATIONS IN VIRGINIA": + +OR, 'T IS EIGHTY YEARS SINCE. + + +I have never had many personal interviews with Princes. Setting aside a +few with different Excellencies of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I +never had but one such interview, which prolonged itself far enough to +deserve a place in these memoirs of our time. This was with a President +of the then United States,--with him who was, I fear, the Last of the +Virginians. At least, I know no one on the line of promotion just now +who seems to me likely to succeed him. + +"Have ye travelled in Virginia, Mr. Larkin?" said the President to me. + +I said I had not, but that I hoped to see the Valley of Virginia before +I went home. That is the name given, in those regions, to the district +west of the Blue Ridge. The President listened, but expressed himself +dissatisfied with my plan. + +"Ah, Sah!" he said, "ye sh'd see Jeems River. Every American sh'd see +Jeems River. Ye'll not see the appearance of a large population, +to which ye're used in Massachusetts,--the--customs,--the +--arrangements,--the habits--of--our--laboring people--are +such--that--that--their residences--are--are--more distant--from the +highway than with you;--but--but--ye'll be greatly interested in +seeing Jeems River. We've not the cities to show that ye have in +Massachusetts,--but--there are great historical associations with Jeems +River." + +I bowed assent,--and when the President spoke again with some +depreciation of their productions, I made up my mouth to say, in courtly +vein, + + "Man is the nobler growth your realms supply," + +when I recollected that that remark was too literally true to be +complimentary to a State which made its chief business the growing of +men and women for a distant market. So I did what it is always wise to +do,--I said nothing. And the President, warming with his theme, said,-- + +"Yes, Sah, ye sh'd see Jeems River. There, at Jeemst'n, America first +gave a home to the European,--and hard by, at Yorkt'n, the tie with +Europe was sundered. There ye may see Williamsburg,--and our oldest +college. There ye may see the birthplaces of four Presidents,--and there +the capital of Virginia!" + +With such, and other temptations, did he direct me on my journey. + +I have been thinking how little the poor man foresaw that the time would +come when in the valley of "Jeems River" the traveller would see the +grave of the only President of the United States who ever in his old age +turned rebel to the country which had honored him. How little he foresaw +that other campaigns were impending, which would give more historical +interest to the valley than even Cornwallis's marchings and +countermarchings! how little he dreamed of Monitors and Merrimacks in +fierce _melee_ before his own little Hampton! how little, while he sowed +the wind that winter, he looked forward to the whirlwind-reaping,--of +which, indeed, he lived to hear only the first fierce sigh! + +This valley of "Jeems River," and the three other valleys which radiate +like the four fingers of an open hand, and send their waters down into +the great conduit of Chesapeake Bay, which is the palm to these four +fingers, are in this very month of April, when I write, to become the +great battle-field of the continent. How strangely history repeats +itself, that, after eighty-one years, we should be looking out on +the map the Rapid Ann and the Chickahominy, and Williamsburg +and Fredericksburg, just as our fathers did in 1781,--that the +grandchildren of the men who marched under Lafayette from Baltimore to +Richmond, by the forced march which saved that infant capital from the +enemy, should be marching now, with a more Fabian tread, to save the +same Richmond from worse enemies! Does the Comte de Paris trace the +footprints of the young Marquis-General, who afterwards, among other +things, made his grandfather King? How strange it all is! While I wait +to know where Fabius is hidden, and where those army-corps of hundreds +of thousands are, which seem to have sunk into the ground at Warrenton +the other day, you and I, Reader, will familiarize ourselves with the +geography a little, by brushing the dust off those old campaigns. + +They began by mere predatory excursions, which occupied, for a few weeks +at a time, the English forces which could be detached from New York. "We +march up and down the country," said Cornwallis, not overmuch +pleased, "stealing tobacco." As early as 1779, on the 8th of May, the +Raisonnable, sixty-four, five smaller ships of the English navy, and a +number of privateers acting as convoy to a cloud of transports, entered +the Capes of the Chesapeake. The Raisonnable drew too much water to go +farther than Hampton Roads: they probably did not know the channel +as well as the Merrimack's pilots do. But the rest of them went up +Elizabeth River, as one Pawnee did afterwards,--and there, at Gosport, +found the State's navy-yard, as the Pawnee found a nation's. There was +a vessel of war, unfinished, of twenty-eight guns, and many smaller +vessels,--and they burned them all. How exactly it begins as the history +of another war begins! Different branches of this expedition destroyed +one hundred and thirty-seven vessels, and tobacco beyond account,--and +they were all snugly back in New York in twenty-four days after they +started. + +It is the second campaign which is the most picturesque, varied, and +exciting of the campaigns of the American Revolution,--and which was +fought on ground which will have been made sacred by another campaign, +perhaps even before these words meet the reader's eye. The men engaged +in it were men who have left their mark. Cornwallis and Baron Steuben +share with each other the honor of inventing the present light-infantry +tactics of the world. Cornwallis. in Carolina, had seen the necessity of +divesting his troops of their impediments. Steuben had been doing the +same with the American line, ever since he began his instructions on the +29th of March, 1778. The discipline thus invented was carried back to +Europe by English and by French officers; and when the wars of the +French Revolution began, the rapid movement of the new light infantry +approved itself to military men of all the great warring nations, and +the old tactics of the heavy infantry of the last century died away in +face of the American improvement. Besides Cornwallis, and for a time +under him, here figured the traitor Arnold. Against them, besides +Steuben, were Wayne and Lafayette,--the last in his maiden campaign, in +which, indeed, he earned his military reputation, "never but once," +says Tarleton, his enemy "committing himself during a very difficult +campaign." In the beginning, General Phillips, the same who had been +captured at Saratoga, had the chief command of the English army. +Lafayette notes grimly that General Phillips had commanded at Minden the +battery by which the Marquis de Lafayette, his father, was killed. He +makes this memorandum in mentioning the fact that one of his cannon-shot +passed through the room in which Phillips was dying in Petersburg. Such +were the prominent actors in the campaign. It is not till within a few +years that the full key to it has been given in the publication of some +additional letters of Lord Cornwall. Until that time, a part of his +movements were always shrouded in mystery. + +In October, 1780, the English General Leslie entered Chesapeake Bay +again, and established himself for a while at Portsmouth, opposite +Norfolk. But Colonel Ferguson, with whom Leslie was to cooperate, +had been defeated at King's Mountain, and when Leslie learned of the +consequent change in Cornwallis's plans, he returned to New York on the +24th of November. His departure was regarded as a victory by General +Muhlenberg, and the Virginia militia, who were called out to meet him. + +They had scarcely been disbanded, however, when a second expedition, +which had been intrusted to the traitor Arnold, arrived from New York in +James River. Baron Steuben, the Prussian officer, who had "brought the +foreign arts from far," was at this time in command, but with really +little or no army. Steuben was, at the best, an irritable person, and +his descriptions of the Virginia militia are probably tinged by his +indignation at constant failure. General Nelson, who was the Governor of +the State, behaved with spirit, but neither he nor Steuben could make +the militia stand against Arnold. They could not create a corps +of cavalry among the Virginia Cavaliers, and Arnold's expedition, +therefore, marched twenty-five miles and back without so much as a +shot being fired at them. He established himself at Portsmouth, where +Muhlenberg watched him, and he there waited a reinforcement. + +Just at this juncture a little gleam of hope shot across the darkened +landscape, in the arrival of three French vessel's of war at the mouth +of James River. The American officers all hated Arnold with such +thorough hatred that they tried to persuade the French officers to shut +up Elizabeth River by sea, while they attacked him at Portsmouth from +the land; but the Frenchmen declined cooperation, and Steuben was always +left to boast of what he might have done. As he had but eight rounds +of ammunition a man for troops who had but just now failed him so +lamentably, we can scarcely suppose that Arnold was in much danger. + +Washington, meanwhile, had persuaded the French Admiral, at Newport, +to send his whole fleet to act against Portsmouth; and by land he sent +Lafayette, with twelve hundred light infantry, to take command in +Virginia. Lafayette left Peekskill, feigned an attack upon Staten +Island in passing, marched rapidly by Philadelphia to the head of the +Chesapeake,--they all call it the "head of Elk,"--crowded his men on +such boats as he found there, and, like General Butler after him, went +down to Annapolis. At Annapolis, with some of his officers, he took +a little vessel, in which he ran down to Williamsburg to confer with +Steuben. He then crossed the James River, and reached the camp of +Muhlenberg near Suffolk on the 19th of March. The reader has only to +imagine General Burnside shutting up Norfolk on the south and west just +now, to conceive of Lafayette's position, as he supposed it to be, when, +on the 20th, he was told that the French fleet had arrived within the +Capes. But, alas! on the 23d, it proved that this was not the French +fleet, but the English, which had so far injured the French fleet in an +action that they had returned to Newport; so that it was Arbuthnot, and +not Destouches, whose fleet had arrived at Hampton Roads. Under their +protection the English General Phillips relieved Arnold with two +thousand more men; and it is at this moment that the active campaign of +1781 may be said to begin. + +General Phillips immediately took command of the English army, for which +he had sufficient force of light transports, and proceeded up James +River. He landed first at Burrel's Ferry, opposite Williamsburg, into +which city, till lately the capital of the State, he marched unmolested. +His different marauding parties had entire success in their operations; +and it is to be observed that his command of the navigation was an +essential element of that success. "There is no fighting here," wrote +Lafayette, "unless you have a naval superiority, or an army mounted on +race-horses." Under almost all circumstances a corps embarked on boats +could be pushed along these rivers faster than an enemy marching on the +land. This remark, constantly verified then, will be much more important +in the campaign now pending, in which these streams will, of course, +be navigated by steam. It must be remembered, also, that the State of +Virginia was at this time the storehouse from which General Greene's +army in Carolina was supplied. To destroy the stores collected here, +and thus directly to break down the American army in the South, was Sir +Henry Clinton's object in sending out General Phillips. To protect these +stores and the lines of communication with the Southern army was the +object of the American generals. Had these designs been left unchanged, +however, I should not now be writing this history. Indeed, the whole +history of the United States would have had another beginning, and the +valley of the James River would have had as little critical interest, +in the close of the American Revolution, as have the valleys of the +Connecticut and the Penobscot. The important change came, when Lord +Cornwallis, at Wilmington, North Carolina, took the responsibility of +the dashing, but fatal plan by which he crossed North Carolina with his +own army, joined Phillips's army in Virginia, and with this large force, +with no considerable enemy opposed, was in a position to go anywhere or +to do anything unmolested. Cornwallis was an admirable officer, quite +the ablest the English employed in America. He was young, spirited, and +successful,--and, which was of much more importance in England, he had +plenty of friends at Court. He conceived the great insubordination, +therefore, of this great movement, which must compromise Sir Henry +Clinton's plans, although Sir Henry was his commander. He wrote to +the Secretary for the Colonies in London, and to General Phillips in +Virginia, that he was satisfied that a "serious attempt" on that State, +or "solid operations in Virginia," made the proper plan. So he abandoned +Carolina, to which he had been sent, to General Greene; and with the +idea that Sir Henry Clinton, his superior in command, ought to quit New +York and establish himself in Virginia, without waiting that officer's +views, he marched thither himself in such wise as to compel him to come. +In that movement the great game was really lost. And it is to that act +of insubordination, that, until this eventful April, 1862, the valley of +James River has owed its historical interest. + +He wrote from North Carolina, directing General Phillips to join him in +Petersburg, Virginia; and thither Phillips called in his different corps +who were "stealing tobacco," and there he himself arrived, in a dying +condition, on the 9th of May. "I procured a post-chaise to convey him," +says Arnold, his second in command. The town is familiar to travellers, +as being the end of the first railroad-link south of Richmond. They +still show the old house in which poor Phillips lay sick, while +Lafayette, from the other side of the river, cannonaded the town with +his light field-pieces. One of his balls entered the house, killed an +old negro-woman who was reviling the American troops, and passed through +the room where Phillips lay. "Will they not let me die in peace?" he +asked. Arnold was also in danger, one of the balls passing near him; +and, by his orders, Phillips and all the household were removed into the +cellar. General Phillips was afterwards taken to another house, where he +died on the 13th. It is in his memoranda of this affair at Petersburg +that Lafayette records the fact that his father died at Minden from one +of the shots of Phillips's batteries. + +We left Lafayette at Williamsburg, which, my readers will remember, is +on the neck of land of which Fort Monroe forms the southeast corner: it +is about twenty-six miles northwest of that post, and ten miles west +of Yorktown. If they do not remember this, they had better learn it +now,--for, on this second of April, the appearances are that they will +need to know it before long. If any one of them does not care to look at +a map, he may take my figure which called Chesapeake Bay the palm of the +hand,--to which the James, York, Rappahannock, and Potomac Rivers are +the four fingers. Lay down on the page your right hand, upon its back, +with the fingers slightly apart. The thumb is a meridian which points +north. The forefinger is the Potomac as far as Washington. The middle +finger is the Rappahannock,--with Fredericksburg about the first joint. +The ring-finger is York River, with Williamsburg and Yorktown just above +and below the knuckle line. The little finger is the James River, as far +as Richmond. Fort Monroe is at the parting of the last two fingers. We +left Lafayette at Williamsburg, disappointed at the failure to entrap +Arnold. He returned at once to Annapolis by water, and transported his +troops back to the head of Chesapeake Bay,--expecting to return to New +York, now that his mission had failed. But Washington had learned, +meanwhile, that General Phillips had been sent from New York to +reinforce Arnold,--and so Lafayette met orders at the head of the +Chesapeake to return, take command in Virginia, and foil the English as +he might. Wayne, in Pennsylvania, was to join him with eight hundred of +the mutinous Pennsylvania line. Were they the grandfathers of the men +who deserted before Bull's Run? They retrieved themselves at James +Island afterwards,--as the Bull's Run Pennsylvanians did at Newbern the +other day. "How Lafayette or Wayne can march without money or credit," +wrote Washington to Laurens, "is more than I can tell," But he did his +part, which was to command,--and they did theirs, which was to obey. + +Lafayette did his part thus. His troops, twelve hundred light infantry, +the best soldiers in the world, he said at the end of the summer, had +left Peekskill for a short expedition only. They had no supplies for a +summer campaign, and seemed likely to desert him. Lafayette issued a +spirited order of the day, in which he took the tone of Henry V. before +the Battle of Agincourt, and offered a pass back to the North River to +any man who did not dare share with him the perils of the summer against +a superior force. He also hanged one deserter whom he caught after this +order, and pardoned another who was less to blame. By such varied means +he so far "encouraged the rest" that he wholly stopped desertion. He +crossed the Susquehanna on the 13th of April, was in Baltimore on the +18th, and it was here that the ladies gave him the ball where he said, +"My soldiers have no shirts." He borrowed two thousand guineas on his +own personal security, promising to pay at the end of two years, when +the French law would make him master of his estates. He bought +material with the money, made the Baltimore belles, who were not then +Secessionists, make the shirts, and started on his forced march again, +with his troops clothed and partly shod, on the 20th. He passed the +hills where Washington stands, unconscious of the city that was to be +there, and of the Long Bridge which shakes under McClellan's columns. +He halted to buy shoes in Alexandria, which he reached in two days. He +pressed on to Fredericksburg, and was at Richmond on the 29th. So that a +light column can march in nine days from Baltimore to Richmond, though +there be no railroad in working order. + +This was the first march "Forward to Richmond" in history. For the +moment, it saved the city and its magazines from General Phillips, who +had reached Manchester, on the opposite side of James River. Phillips +retired down the river, hoping to decoy Lafayette after him, on that +neck of land, now, as then, a point so critical, between the James and +York Rivers,--and then to return by his vessels on the first change of +wind, get in Lafayette's rear, and shut him up there. But it was another +general who was to be shut up on that neck. Phillips was called south to +Petersburg, where, as we have seen, he died. "Will they not let me die +in peace?" + +Cornwallis arrived at Petersburg with his Southern troops, including +Tarleton's horse, on the 20th of May. He then had nearly six thousand +men under his orders. Lafayette had about thirty-two hundred, of whom +only a few were cavalry, a volunteer body of Baltimore young gentlemen +being the most of them. The Virginia gentry had hesitated about giving +up their fine blood-horses to mount cavalry on. But Tarleton had +no hesitation in stealing them for his troopers, nor Simcoe, his +fellow-partisan, for his,--so that Cornwallis had the invaluable aid of +two bodies of cavalry thus admirably mounted, against an enemy almost +destitute. Both armies marched without tents, with the very lightest +baggage. It purely a light-infantry campaign, excepting the dashing +raids of Tarleton and Simcoe. + +Lafayette felt his inferiority of force,--and as soon as Cornwallis +joined, crossed back over James River at Osborn's (say the bottom of +the little-finger nail on our extempore map). Cornwallis crossed at +Westover, also marked now on the maps as Ruffin's, some twenty miles +lower down the river. Lafayette felt the necessity of meeting Wayne, who +was supposed to be coming from Pennsylvania; he therefore retraced +his march of a few weeks before, followed by Cornwallis with his +infantry;--the cavalry had been on more distant service. Cornwallis +would have crushed Lafayette, if he had overtaken him; but Lafayette +knew this as well as we do,--marched nearly up to Fredericksburg +again,--protected it till its stores were removed,--and then, after +five days' march more, westward, met Wayne with his eight hundred +Pennsylvanians at Raccoon Ford (head of the middle finger on the +hand-map). The reader has, in just such way, marched a knight across the +chess-board to escort back a necessary pawn, to make desperate fight +against some Cornwallis of a castle. Cornwallis passed through Hanover +Court-House to Chesterfield Court-House, "stealing tobacco," in the +whole to the amount of two thousand hogsheads,--then, satisfying himself +that he could not prevent the junction of the knight and pawn, and that +Hunter's iron-works, at Fredericksburg, which he had threatened, were +not of so much import as the stores in the western part of the country, +he turned south and west again, and awaited Lafayette's movements, +threatening Albemarle County, just west of where we are beginning to get +acquainted with Gordonsville,--a place then uncreated. Cornwallis was +all along unwilling to engage in extensive operations till he should +hear from Sir Henry Clinton, whom he knew he had insulted and offended. +His detachments of horse had been sent, meanwhile, up the line of James +River above Richmond. Tarleton penetrated as far as Charlottesville, +marching seventy miles in twenty-four hours, hoping to take the +Legislature by surprise. The story is, that he would have succeeded, but +for his eagerness to get his breakfast on the last day. He had waited +long for it,--and finally asked, in some heat, where it was. Dr. Walker, +whose guest he had made himself, replied, that Tarleton's soldiers had +already taken two of the breakfasts which had been prepared for him that +morning, and suggested a guard for the security of the third. + +While the third breakfast was being cooked, the legislators escaped. +Jefferson was among them. Tarleton took seven, however, who told him +that the country was tired of the war,--and that, if no treaty for a +loan were made with France that summer, Congress would negotiate with +England before winter. They were eighty-one years in advance of their +time! Tarleton returned down the Rivanna River to its junction with the +James, where he assisted Simcoe in driving out Baron Steuben, who with a +few militia was trying to protect some arms there. Poor Steuben had but +few to protect, nothing to protect them with, and lost them all. At this +point the cavalry rejoined the main army under Cornwallis. + +In all these movements of both parties, the character of the "laboring +people," of which, as I have said, President Tyler spoke to me, was +illustrated. These people swarmed to Cornwallis with information, with +horses and supplies. They did not swell the ranks of the Virginia +militia. "He took away thirty thousand of our slaves," says Mr. +Jefferson. "Many of your negroes joined the enemy," says Lafayette +to Washington; "the news did not trouble me much, for that sort of +interests touch me very little." This is in the letter where he tells +the General how his agent, Lund Washington, had been disgracefully +treating with the invaders. This disposition of the "laboring people," +away from the high-roads, indeed, as Mr. Tyler said, explains the +difference between Southern and Northern Revolutionary campaigns. The +English forces never marched a day's march inland in the Northern +States, excepting the three marches of two days or three, when they +came to Bennington, to Saratoga, and to Trenton,--three memorable +stopping-places. But in a country where the "laboring people" did not +bear arms, they went to and fro, for months, as they chose. The Southern +militia was small in numbers, and not trustworthy. The troops whom +Lafayette relied upon, "the best troops in the world, far superior, in +equal numbers, to the English," were his two thousand Northern men of +the Continental line. Lord Cornwallis reunited all his forces at Elk +Island, about forty miles above Richmond on James River. His own +head-quarters were at "Jefferson's Plantation." He proposed another +blow, on the stores collected in Old Albemarle Court-House, behind the +mountains; and on the 9th of June he ordered Tarleton to march thither +at daybreak, but recalled the order. He seems to have preferred waiting +till he could attack "the Marquis," as they all called Lafayette, to +advantage, to risking any considerable division in the mountains. And +as he lay, the road by which he supposed Lafayette must come down from +Raccoon Ford to protect Albemarle would expose him to a flank attack +as he passed the head of Byrd's River. It was at this time, that, in a +despatch which was intercepted, he wrote, "The boy cannot escape +me." Lafayette tells the story with great gusto. "The boy" found a +mountain-road which crossed farther west than that which he was expected +to march upon. It had been long disused, but he pressed through it,--and +at Burwell's Ordinary, in a neighborhood where our troops will find +villages with the promising names of Union Town and Everettsville, he +formed, on the 12th and 13th, in a strong position between Cornwallis +and the coveted magazines. Cornwallis affected to suppose that the +stores had been withdrawn; but, as he had given up Fredericksburg +that he might destroy these very stores, Lafayette had good reason to +congratulate himself that he had foiled him in the two special objects +of the campaign, and had reduced him to the business which he did not +like, of "stealing tobacco." For whatever reason, Cornwallis did not +press his enterprise. With a force so formidable and a leader so +enterprising before him, he did not care to entangle himself in the +passes of the Blue Ridge. We shall know from General Banks's column, by +the time this paper is printed, what are the facilities they afford for +cover to an enemy. Leaving the Albemarle stores, therefore, and the road +to Greene behind the mountains, he retraced his steps down the valley +of the James River, and, passing Richmond, descended as low as +Williamsburg, the point from which we have been tracing Lafayette's +movements. + +Lafayette followed him with delight, not to say amazement. "The enemy is +so obliging as to withdraw before us," he writes,--and probably, to the +end of his life, he did not fully understand why Lord Cornwallis did so. +Their forces were numerically about equal, each commanding now rather +more than five thousand men. But of Lafayette's only fifty were cavalry, +a very important arm in that campaign, while Cornwallis had now eight +hundred men mounted on the blood horses of Virginia. It was not true, as +Lafayette thought possible, that the English exaggerated his force. It +appears from Tarleton's memoirs that they estimated it very precisely. +But we now know from Cornwallis's letters, that he had promised Clinton +to be at Williamsburg on the 26th of June, ready for any operations +he might then and there propose. He hoped that Clinton would largely +reinforce him, so that his favorite scheme of "solid operations in +Virginia" might be carried on. At all events, he had promised to have +his army at Williamsburg to join any force which Clinton might send to +him. To make this imagined junction, which never took place, he began +his retreat. Lafayette again offered him battle; but Cornwallis did +not accept the opportunity, and on the 25th of June he arrived at +Williamsburg. Lafayette was always one day's march behind him, and +encamped at last at Tyre's Plantation, one day beyond Williamsburg, +which may become famous again in a few days. Colonel Butler, of +Pennsylvania, with his riflemen, attacked Colonel Simcoe, of the English +corps of refugees, at the Fords of the Chickahominy, about six miles +west of Williamsburg. We shall be hearing of these fords again. + +At Williamsburg poor Cornwallis met his fate. He had, perhaps, been +dreading the arrival of his despatches from Clinton, through all the +month he had been in Virginia. At last they came. Clinton was sorry he +was there, expressed his regret that Cornwallis did not favor his plan +for marching on Philadelphia, gave him _carte blanche_ for Baltimore or +Delaware,--but, instead of reinforcing him, asked for two thousand men, +if he could spare them. The letter is, on the whole, a manly letter, +from a superior to an inferior, who had social rank higher than himself, +and more of the confidence of their Government. It gives Cornwallis +great latitude; but it does not "abandon New York and bring our whole +force into Virginia," which was Cornwallis's pet plan. + +His Lordship behaved ill,--and, in a pet, threw away the British empire +in America. He sulked, to speak simply. He took the sullen policy +of literal obedience to orders, though he knew he should "break his +owners." He marched at once, crossed James River at Jamestown, where +Lafayette attacked his rear,--and, if his Lordship had been in +fighting humor, would have got well beaten for his pains,--withdrew to +Portsmouth, and put on vessels the two thousand men asked for by Sir +Henry. Just then new despatches came from Clinton, who had received +later news, and who was always trying to humor this spoiled child. He +told him to keep all his men in Virginia, where he would take command +himself as soon as the hot season was over. The "solid operations" were +to begin. Very unstable they proved, even in the beginning! + +Clinton ordered him to take post at Old Point Comfort,--where Fort +Monroe is. But the engineer officers reported that they could not +protect the fleet there against the French; and, to the delight of +Lafayette and of all good angels, Cornwallis selected Yorktown for his +summer position. Our neighborhood to it at Fort Monroe has made the +position again familiar. + +When Lafayette heard that the troops had sailed up the +Chesapeake,--instead of to New York, which he had very correctly +supposed to be their destination,--he thought Cornwallis was going to +strike at Baltimore, and that he must "cut across" to Fredericksburg. +That way he marched with his light infantry. His amazement hardly +concealed itself when he found the enemy stopped at Yorktown. Back he +came to Williamsburg, and wrote to Washington,--"If a fleet should +arrive at this moment, our affairs will take a very fortunate turn." +This was on the 6th of August. On the 1st of September he could +write,--"From the bottom of my heart, my dear General, I felicitate you +on the arrival of the French fleet.... Thanks to you, my dear General, +I am in a charming situation, and I find myself at the head of a superb +corps." The Marquis of St. Simon joined him with three thousand French +infantry from the fleet,--and at Williamsburg they effectually kept +Cornwallis from escape by land, as the French fleet did by sea. + +The only proposal which Cornwallis made to save his corps after this was +carefully considered, and, it is said, at one time determined on; but it +was finally rejected, in expectation of relief from Clinton. Just now +that we are beginning "solid operations in Virginia," and may have +occasion to move a hundred thousand men, more or less, up the long neck +of land between York and James Rivers, the passage is an interesting +one. Washington had not yet arrived. The English plan was to attack and +beat Lafayette and St. Simon before Washington joined them. The English +columns were to move from Yorktown so as to attack Williamsburg before +daybreak. "That time was deemed eligible," says Tarleton, "because the +ground near and in Williamsburg is cut by several ravines, and because +the British column, in advancing in the long and straight road through +the town, would not be so much exposed to the enemy's cannon under cover +of the night as during the day." Let the reader remember these defiles, +as he traces the march of another column from Fort Monroe through +Yorktown to Williamsburg, with some General Magruder falling back +before it, watching his chances to strike. Cornwallis gave up the plan, +however, and waited for the help from Clinton, which never came. On the +15th of September Washington and Rochambeau joined Lafayette; on the +18th of October Cornwallis capitulated, and for eighty years the +Virginian campaigns were over. + +There is not one subdivision of them but is touched by the movements of +to-day. Everything is changed, indeed, except Virginia. But Raccoon Ford +and Bottom's Bridge are where they were then. The division which marches +on Gordonsville may send a party down the "Marquis's Road," as the +people still call the wood-road which Lafayette opened; and all the +battles of the next month,[A] in short, will be fought on the ground +familiar to the soldiers of eighty years ago. + + +[Footnote A: By "the next month" the writer meant May. It will be +observed that his article was finally prepared for the press on the +second of April. It has not since been changed. The references to +Williamsburg, the Chickahominy, and the "neck between the rivers" are +not "prophecies after the fact."] + + + + +SUNTHIN' IN THE PASTORAL LINE. + + +_To the Editors of the_ ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +Jaalam, 17th May, 1862. + +Gentlemen,--At the special request of Mr. Biglow, I intended to inclose, +together with his own contribution, (into which, at my suggestion, +he has thrown a little more of pastoral sentiment than usual,) some +passages from my sermon on the day of the National Fast, from the text, +"Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them," _Heb_. xiii. 3. +But I have not leisure sufficient at present for the copying of them, +even were I altogether satisfied with the production as it stands. I +should prefer, I confess, to contribute the entire discourse to the +pages of your respectable miscellany, if it should be found acceptable +upon perusal, especially as I find the difficulty of selection of +greater magnitude than I had anticipated. What passes without challenge +in the fervour of oral delivery cannot always stand the colder criticism +of the closet. I am not so great an enemy of Eloquence as my friend Mr. +Biglow would appear to be from some passages in his contribution for +the current month. I would not, indeed, hastily suspect him of covertly +glancing at myself in his somewhat caustick animadversions, albeit some +of the phrases he girds at are not entire strangers to my lips. I am a +more hearty admirer of the Puritans than seems now to be the fashion, +and believe, that, if they Hebraized a little too much in their speech, +they showed remarkable practical sagacity as statesmen and founders. But +such phenomena as Puritanism are the results rather of great religious +than merely social convulsions, and do not long survive them. So soon as +an earnest conviction has cooled into a phrase, its work is over, and +the best that can be done with it is to bury it. _Ite, missa est_. I +am inclined to agree with Mr. Biglow that we cannot settle the great +political questions which are now presenting themselves to the nation by +the opinions of Jeremiah or Ezekiel as to the wants and duties of the +Jews in their time, nor do I believe that an entire community with their +feelings and views would be practicable or even agreeable at the present +day. At the same time I could wish that their habit of subordinating +the actual to the moral, the flesh to the spirit, and this world to the +other were more common. They had found out, at least, the great military +secret that soul weighs more than body.--But I am suddenly called to a +sick-bed in the household of a valued parishioner. + +With esteem and respect. Your ob't serv't HOMER WILBUR. + + Once git a smell o' musk into a draw + An' it clings hold like precerdents in law: + Your gran'ma'am put it there,--when, goodness knows,-- + To jes' this-worldify her Sunday-clo'es; + But the old chist wun't sarve her gran'son's wife, + (For, 'thout new funnitoor, wut good in life?) + An' so ole clawfoot, from the precinks dread + O' the spare-chamber, slinks into the shed, + Where, dim with dust, it fust or last subsides + To holdin' seeds an' fifty things besides; + But better days stick fast in heart an' husk, + An' all you keep in't gits a scent o' musk. + + Jes' so with poets: wut they've airly read + Gits kind o' worked into their heart an' head, + So's 't they can't seem to write but jest on sheers + With furrin countries or played-out ideers, + Nor hev a feelin', ef it doosn't smack + O' wut some critter chose to feel 'way back: + This makes 'em talk o' daisies, larks, an' things, + Ez though we 'd nothin' here that blows an' sings,-- + + (Why, I'd give more for one live bobolink + Than a square mile o' larks in printer's ink,)-- + This makes 'em think our fust o' May is May, + Which 't ain't, for all the almanicks can say. + + O little city-gals, don't never go it + Blind on the word o' noospaper or poet! + They 're apt to puff, an' May-day seldom looks + Up in the country ez it doos in books; + They 're no more like than hornets'-nests an' hives, + Or printed sarmons be to holy lives. + I, with my trouses perched on cow-hide boots, + Tuggin' my foundered feet out by the roots, + Hev seen ye come to fling on April's hearse + Your muslin nosegays from the milliner's, + Puzzlin' to find dry ground your queen to choose, + An' dance your throats sore in morocker shoes: + I've seen ye an' felt proud, thet, come wut would, + Our Pilgrim stock wuz pithed with hardihood. + Pleasure doos make us Yankees kind o' winch, + Ez though 't wuz sunthin' paid for by the inch; + But yit we du contrive to worry thru, + Ef Dooty tells us thet the thing's to du, + An' kerry a hollerday, ef we set out, + Ez stiddily ez though 't wuz a redoubt. + + I, country-born an' bred, know where to find + Some blooms thet make the season suit the mind, + An' seem to metch the doubtin' bluebird's notes,-- + Half-vent'rin' liverworts in furry coats, + Bloodroots, whose rolled-up leaves ef you oncurl, + Each on 'em's cradle to a baby-pearl,-- + But these are jes' Spring's pickets; sure ez sin, + The rebble frosts 'll try to drive 'em in; + For half our May's so awfully like Mayn't, + 'T would rile a Shaker or an evrige saint; + Though I own up I like our back'ard springs + Thet kind o' haggle with their greens an' things, + An' when you 'most give up, without more words + Toss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, an' birds: + Thet's Northun natur', slow an' apt to doubt, + But when it _doos_ git stirred, ther's no gin-out! + + Fust come the blackbirds clatt'rin' in tall trees, + An' settlin' things in windy Congresses,-- + Queer politicians, though, for I'll be skinned, + Ef all on 'em don't head aginst the wind. + 'Fore long the trees begin to show belief,-- + The maple crimsons to a coral-reef, + Then saffern swarms swing off from all the willers + So plump they look like yaller caterpillars, + Then gray hossches'nuts leetle hands unfold + + Softer 'n a baby's be at three days old: + This is the robin's almanick; he knows + Thet arter this ther' 's only blossom-snows; + So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse, + He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house. + + Then seems to come a hitch,--things lag behind, + Till some fine mornin' Spring makes up her mind, + An' ez, when snow-swelled rivers cresh their dams + Heaped-up with ice thet dovetails in an' jams, + A leak comes spirtin' thru some pin-hole cleft, + Grows stronger, fercer, tears out right an' left, + Then all the waters bow themselves an' come, + Suddin, in one gret slope o' shedderin' foam, + Jes' so our Spring gits everythin' in tune + An' gives one leap from April into June: + Then all comes crowdin' in; afore you think, + The oak-buds mist the side-hill woods with pink, + The catbird in the laylock-bush is loud, + The orchards turn to heaps o' rosy cloud, + In ellum-shrouds the flashin' hangbird clings + An' for the summer vy'ge his hammock slings, + All down the loose-walled lanes in archin' bowers + The barb'ry droops its strings o' golden flowers, + Whose shrinkin' hearts the school-gals love to try + With pins,--they 'll worry yourn so, boys, bimeby! + But I don't love your cat'logue style,--do you?-- + Ez ef to sell all Natur' by vendoo; + One word with blood in 't's twice ez good ez two: + 'Nuff sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the year, + Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here; + Half-hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings, + Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings, + Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair, + Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air. + + I ollus feel the sap start in my veins + In spring, with curus heats an' prickly pains, + Thet drive me, when I git a chance, to walk + Off by myself to hev a privit talk + With a queer critter thet can't seem to 'gree + Along o' me like most folks,--Mister Me. + Ther' 's times when I'm unsoshle ez a stone, + An' sort o' suffocate to be alone,-- + I'm crowded jes' to think thet folks are nigh, + An' can't bear nothin' closer than the sky; + Now the wind's full ez shifty in the mind + Ez wut it is ou'-doors, ef I ain't blind, + An' sometimes, in the fairest sou'west weather, + My innard vane pints east for weeks together, + My natur' gits all goose-flesh, an' my sins + Come drizzlin' on my conscience sharp ez pins: + + Wal, et sech times I jes' slip out o' sight + An' take it out in a fair stan'-up fight + With the one cuss I can't lay on the shelf, + The crook'dest stick in all the heap,--Myself. + + 'T wuz so las' Sabbath arter meetin'-time: + Findin' my feelins wouldn't noways rhyme + With nobody's, but off the hendle flew + An' took things from an east-wind pint o' view, + I started off to lose me in the hills + Where the pines be, up back o' 'Siah's Mills: + Pines, ef you're blue, are the best friends I know, + They mope an' sigh an' sheer your feelins so,-- + They hesh the ground beneath so, tu, I swan, + You half-forgit you 'we gut a body on. + + Ther's a small school'us' there where four roads meet, + The door-steps hollered out by little feet, + An' side-posts carved with names whose owners grew + To gret men, some on 'em, an' deacons, tu; + 'T ain't used no longer, coz the town hez gut + A high-school, where they teach the Lord knows wut: + Three-story larnin' 's pop'lar now; I guess + We thriv' ez wal on jes' two stories less, + For it strikes me ther' 's sech a thing ez sinnin' + By overloadin' children's underpitmin': + Wal, here it wuz I larned my A B C, + An' it's a kind o' favorite spot with me. + + We 're curus critters: Now ain't jes' the minute + Thet ever fits us easy while we 're in it; + Long ez 't wuz futur', 't would be perfect bliss,-- + Soon ez it's past, _thet_ time's wuth ten o' this; + An' yit there ain't a man thet need be told + Thet Now's the only bird lays eggs o' gold. + A knee-high lad, I used to plot an' plan + An' think 't wuz life's cap-sheaf to be a man; + Now, gittin' gray, there's nothin' I enjoy + Like dreamin' back along into a boy: + So the ole school'us' is a place I choose + Afore all others, ef I want to muse; + I set down where I used to set, an' git + My boyhood back, an' better things with it,-- + Faith, Hope, an' sunthin', ef it isn't Cherrity, + It's want o' guile, an' thet's ez gret a rerrity. + + Now, 'fore I knowed, thet Sabbath arternoon + Thet I sot out to tramp myself in tune, + I found me in the school'us' on my seat, + Drummin' the march to No-wheres with my feet. + Thinkin' o' nothin', I've heerd ole folks say, + Is a hard kind o' dooty in its way: + It's thinkin' everythin' you ever knew, + Or ever hearn, to make your feelins blue. + I sot there tryin' thet on for a spell: + I thought o' the Rebellion, then o' Hell, + Which some folks tell ye now is jest a metterfor + (A the'ry, p'raps, it wun't _feel_ none the better for); + I thought o' Reconstruction, wut we 'd win + Patchin' our patent self-blow-up agin; + I thought ef tins 'ere milkin' o' the wits, + So much, a month, warn't givin' Natur' fits,-- + Ef folks warn't druv, findin' their own milk fail, + To work the cow thet hez an iron tail, + An' ef idees 'thout ripenin' in the pan + Would send up cream to humor ary man: + From this to thet I let my worryin' creep, + Till finally I must ha' fell asleep. + + Our lives in sleep are some like streams thet glide + 'Twixt flesh an' sperrit boundin' on each side, + Where both shores' shadders kind o' mix an' mingle + In sunthin' thet ain't jes' like either single; + An' when you cast off' moorins from To-day, + An' down towards To-morrer drift away, + The imiges thet tengle on the stream + Make a new upside-down'ard world o' dream: + Sometimes they seem like sunrise-streaks an' warnins + O' wut 'll be in Heaven on Sabbath-mornins, + An', mixed right in ez ef jest out o' spite, + Sunthin' thet says your supper ain't gone right. + I'm gret on dreams, an' often, when I wake, + I've lived so much it makes my mem'ry ache, + An' can't skurce take a cat-nap in my cheer + 'Thout hevin' 'em, some good, some bad, all queer. + + Now I wuz settin' where I 'd ben, it seemed, + An' ain't sure yit whether I r'ally dreamed, + Nor, ef I did, how long I might ha' slep', + When I hearn some un stompin' up the step, + An' lookin' round, ef two an' two make four, + I see a Pilgrim Father in the door. + He wore a steeple-hat, tall boots, an' spurs + With rowels to 'em big ez ches'nut-burrs, + An' his gret sword behind him sloped away + Long 'z a man's speech thet dunno wut to say.-- + "Ef your name's Biglow, an' your given-name + Hosee," sez he, "it's arter you I came; + I'm your gret-gran'ther multiplied by three."-- + "My _wut_?" sez I.--"Your gret-gret-gret," sez he: + "You wouldn't ha' never ben here but for me. + Two hunderd an' three year ago this May + The ship I come in sailed up Boston Bay; + I 'd ben a cunnle in our Civil War,-- + But wut on airth hev _you_ gut up one for? + I'm told you write in public prints: ef true, + It's nateral you should know a thing or two."-- + "Thet air's an argymunt I can't endorse,-- + 'T would prove, coz you wear spurs, you kep' a horse: + For brains," sez I, "wutever you may think, + Ain't boun' to cash the draft o' pen-an'-ink,-- + Though mos' folks write ez ef they hoped jes' quickenin' + The churn would argoo skim-milk into thickenin'; + But skim-milk ain't a thing to change its view + O' usefleness, no more 'n a smoky flue. + But du pray tell me, 'fore we furder go, + How in all Natur' did you come to know + 'Bout our affairs," sez I, "in Kingdom-Come?"-- + "Wal, I worked round at sperrit-rappin' some, + In hopes o' larnin' wut wuz goin' on," + Sez he, "but mejums lie so like all-split + Thet I concluded it wuz best to quit. + But, come now, ef you wun't confess to knowin', + You 've some conjecturs how the thing's a-goin'."-- + "Gran'ther," sez I, "a vane warn't never known + Nor asked to hev a jedgment of its own; + An' yit, ef 't ain't gut rusty in the jints, + It 'a safe to trust its say on certin pints: + It knows the wind's opinions to a T, + An' the wind settles wut the weather 'll be-"-- + "I never thought a scion of our stock + Could grow the wood to make a weathercock; + When I wuz younger 'n you, skurce more 'n a shaver, + No airthly wind," sez he, "could make me waver!" + (Ez he said this, he clinched his jaw an' forehead, + Hitchin' his belt to bring his sword-hilt forrard.)-- + "Jes' so it wuz with me," sez I, "I swow, + When _I_ wuz younger 'n wut you see me now,-- + Nothin', from Adam's fall to Huldy's bonnet, + Thet I warn't full-cocked with my jedgement on it; + But now I'm gittin' on in life, I find + It's a sight harder to make up my mind,-- + Nor I don't often try tu, when events + Will du it for me free of all expense. + The moral question's ollus plain enough,-- + It's jes' the human-natur' side thet's tough; + Wut's best to think mayn't puzzle me nor you,--. + The pinch comes in decidin' wut to _du_; + Ef you _read_ History, all runs smooth ez grease, + Coz there the men ain't nothin more 'n idees,-- + But come to _make_ it, ez we must to-day, + Th' idees hev arms an' legs an' stop the way: + It's easy fixin' things in facts an' figgers,-- + They can't resist, nor warn't brought up with niggers; + But come to try your the'ry on,--why, then + Your facts an' figgers change to ign'ant men + Actin' ez ugly"----"Smite 'em hip an' thigh!" + Sez gran'ther, "an' let every man-child die! + Oh for three weeks o' Crommle an' the Lord! + O Israel, to your tents an' grind the sword!"-- + "Thet kind o' thing worked wal in ole Judee, + But yon forgit how long It's ben A.D.; + You think thet's ellerkence,--I call it shoddy, + A thing," sez I, "wun't cover sonl nor body; + I like the plain all-wool o' common-sense, + Thet warms ye now, an' will a twelvemonth hence. + _You_ took to follerin' where the Prophets beckoned, + An', fust you knowed on, back come Charles the Second; + Now wut I want's to hev all _we_ gain stick, + An' not to start Millennium too quick; + We hain't to punish only, but to keep, + An' the cure's gut to go a cent'ry deep."-- + "Wal, milk-an'-water ain't a good cement," + Sez he, "an' so you 'll find it in th' event; + Ef reshness venters sunthin', shilly-shally + Loses ez often wut's ten times the vally. + Thet exe of ourn, when Charles's neck gut split, + Opened a gap thet ain't bridged over yit: + Slav'ry's your Charles, the Lord hez gin the exe,"-- + "Our Charles," sez I, "hez gut eight million necks. + The hardest question ain't the black man's right,-- + The trouble is to'mancipate the white; + One's chained in body an' can be sot free,-- + The other's chained in soul to an idee: + It's a long job, but we shall worry thru it; + Ef bag'nets fail, the spellin'-book must do it."-- + "Hosee," sez he, "I think you 're goin' to fail: + The rettlesnake ain't dangerous in the tail; + This 'ere rebellion's nothin' but the rettle,-- + You 'll stomp on thet an' think you 've won the bettle; + It's Slavery thet's the fangs an' thinkin' head, + An' ef you want selvation, cresh it dead,-- + An' crash it suddin, or you 'll larn by waitin' + Thet Chance wun't stop to listen to debatin'!"-- + "God's truth!" sez I,--"an' ef _I_ held the club, + An' knowed jes' where to strike,--but there's the rub!"-- + "Strike soon," sez he, "or you 'll be deadly ailin',-- + Folks thet's afeared to fail are sure o' failin'; + God hates your sneakin' creturs thet believe + He 'II settle things they run away an' leave!" + He brought his foot down fercely, ez he spoke, + An' give me sech a startle thet I woke. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, +June, 1862, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, NO. 56 *** + +***** This file should be named 12310.txt or 12310.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/3/1/12310/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders. 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