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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/13026-0.txt b/13026-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..821fa32 --- /dev/null +++ b/13026-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8274 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13026 *** + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. XI.--MAY, 1863.--NO. LXVII. + + + + + + +CHARLES LAMB'S UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS. + + +I. + +What Southey says of Cottle's shop is true of the little bookstore in a +certain old town of New England, which I used to frequent years ago, and +where I got my first peep into Chaucer, and Spenser, and Fuller, and Sir +Thomas Browne, and other renowned old authors, from whom I now derive so +much pleasure and solacement. 'Twas a place where sundry lovers of good +books used to meet and descant eloquently and enthusiastically upon the +merits and demerits of their favorite authors. I, then a young man, with +a most praiseworthy desire of reading "books that are books," but with +a most lamentable ignorance of even the names of the principal +English authors, was both a pleased and a benefited listener to the +conversations of these bookish men. Hawthorne says that to hear the +old Inspector (whom he has immortalized in the quaint and genial +introduction to the "Scarlet Letter") expatiate on fish, poultry, and +butcher's-meat, and the most eligible methods of preparing the same for +the table, was as appetizing as a pickle or an oyster; and to hear these +literary gourmands talk with such gusto of this writer's delightful +style, or of that one's delicious humor, or t' other's brilliant wit +and merciless satire, gave one a taste and a relish for the authors so +lovingly and heartily commended. Certainly, after hearing the genial, +scholarly, gentlemanly lawyer S---- sweetly discourse on the old English +divines,--or bluff, burly, good-natured, wit-loving Master R---- +declaim, in his loud, bold, enthusiastic manner, on the old English +dramatists,--or queer, quaint, golden-hearted Dr. D---- mildly and +modestly, yet most pertinently, express himself about Old Burton and Old +Fuller,--or wise, thoughtful, ingenious Squire M---- ably, if not very +eloquently, hold forth on Shakspeare and Milton, I had (who but a dunce +or dunderhead would not have had?) a "greedy great desire" to look into +the works of + + "Such famous men, such worthies of the + earth." + +And after listening to the stout, brawny, two-fisted, whole-soled, +big-hearted, large-brained Parson A----, as he talked in his wise and +winsome manner about Charles Lamed and his writings, I could not refrain +from forthwith procuring and reading Elia's famous and immortal essays. +Since then I have been a constant reader of Elia, and a most zealous +admirer of Charles Lamb the author and Charles Lamb the man. Thackeray, +you remember, somewhere mentions a youthful admirer of Dickens, who, +when she is happy, reads "Nicholas Nickleby,"--when she is unhappy, +reads "Nicholas Nickleby,"--when she is in bed, reads "Nicholas +Nickleby,"--when she has nothing to do, reads "Nicholas Nickleby,"--and +when she has finished the book, reads "Nicholas Nickleby": and so do I +read and re-read the essays and letters of Charles Lamb; and the oftener +I read them, the better I like then, the higher I value them. Indeed, I +live upon the essays of Elia, as Hazlitt did upon "Tristram Shandy," as +a sort of food that simulates with my natural disposition. + +And yet, despite all my love and admiration of Charles Lamb,--nay, +rather in consequence of it,--I must blame him of what Mr. Barron Field +was please to eulogize him for,--writing so little. Undoubtedly in most +authors suppression in writing would be a virtue. In Lamb it was a +fault. There are a score or two of subjects which he, "no less from +temerity than felicity of his pen," should have written upon,--subjects +on which he had thought and ruminated for years, and which he, and none +but he, could do justice to. He who loved and admired before or since, +such sterling old writers as Burton, Browne, Fuller, and Walton, should +have given us an article on each of those worthies and their inditing. +Chaucer and Spenser, though proud and happy in having had such an +appreciating reader of there writings as Elia was, when denizen of this +earth, would, methinks, have given him a warmer, heartier, gladder +welcome to heaven, if he had done for them what he did for Hogarth and +the old dramatists,--pointed out to the would "with a finger of fire" +the truth and beauty contained in their works. Instead of writing only +two volumes of essays, Elia should have written a dozen. He had read, +heard, thought, and seen enough to furnish matter for twice that number. +He himself confesseth, in a letter written a year or two before his +death, that he felt as if he had a thousand essays swelling within him. +Oh that Elia, like Mr. Spectator, had printed himself out before he +died! + +But notwithstanding Lamb's fame and popularity, notwithstanding +all readers of his inimitable essays lament that one who wrote so +delightfully as Elia did should have written so little, their has not +yet be published a complete collection of his writings. The standard +edition of his works, edited by Talfourd, is far from being complete. +Surely the author of "Ion" was unwise in not publishing all of Lamb's +productions. Carlyle said he wanted to know all about Margaret Fuller, +even to the color of her stocking. And the admirers of Elia wanted +to possess every scrap and fragment of his inditing. They cannot let +oblivion have the lease "notelet" or "essaykin" of his. For, however +inferior to his best productions these uncollected articles may be, +they must contain more or less of Lamb's humor, sense, and observation. +Somewhat of his delightful individuality must be stamped upon them. In +brief, they cannot but contain much that would amuse and entertain all +admirers of their author. For myself, I would rather read the poorest of +these uncollected essays of Elia than the best productions of some of +the most popular of modern authors. "The king's chaff is as good as +other people's corn," saith the old proverb. "There is a pleasure +arising from the very bagatelles of men renowned for their knowledge and +genius," says Goldsmith; "and we receive with veneration those pieces, +after they are dead, which would lessen them in our estimation while +living: sensible that we shall enjoy them no more, we treasure up, as +precious relics, every saying and word that has escaped them; but their +writings, of every kind, we deem inestimable." + +For years I have been hopefully and patiently waiting for somebody to +collect and publish these scattered and all but forgotten articles of +Lamb's; but at last, seeing no likelihood of its being done at present, +if ever in my day, and fearing that I might else never have an +opportunity of perusing these strangely neglected writings of my +favorite author, I commenced the task of searching out and discovering +them myself for mine own delectation. And after a deal of fruitless and +aimless labor, (for, unlike Johannes Scotus Erigena, in his quest of a +treatise of Aristotle, I had no oracle to consult,) after spending as +many days in turning over the leaves of I know not how many volumes of +old, dusty, musty, fusty periodicals as Mr. Vernon ran miles after a +butterfly, I was amply rewarded for all my pains. For I not only found +all of Lamb's uncollected writings that are spoken of in his "Life and +Letters," but a goodly number of articles from his pen which neither +he nor his biographer has ever alluded to. As I read these (to me) +new essays of Elia, I could not but feel somewhat indignant that such +excellent productions of such an excellent writer should have been +"underkept and down supprest" so long. I was as much ravished with these +new-found essays of Lamb's as good old Nicholas Gerbelius (see Burton's +"Anatomy of Melancholy," Partition II., Section 2, Member 4) was with +a few Greek authors restored to light. If I had had one or two loving, +enthusiastic admirers of Charles Lamb to enjoy with me the delight of +perusing these uncollected Elias, I should have been "all felicity up to +the brim." For with me, as with Michael de Montaigne and Hans Andersen, +there is no pleasure without communication. + +And therefore, partly to please myself, and partly to please the +admirers of Charles Lamb, I herewith publish a part of Elia's +uncollected essays and sketches. To ninety-nine hundredths of their +author's readers they will be as good as MSS. And not only will they be +new to most readers, but they will be found to be not wholly unworthy of +him who wrote the immortal dissertation on "Roast Pig." Albeit not to be +compared with Elia's best and most finished productions, these articles +contain some of the best qualities and peculiarities of his genius. +Without doubt, all genuine admirers, all true lovers of the gentle, +genial, delightful Elia, will be mightily pleased with these productions +of his inimitable pen. + +Those who were so fortunate as to be personally acquainted with Charles +Lamb are lavish in their praise of his conversational powers. Hazlitt +says that no one ever stammered out such fine, piquant, deep, eloquent +things in a half-dozen half-sentences as he did. "He always made the +best pun and the best remark in the course of the evening." Lamb was +undoubtedly "matchless as a fireside companion," inimitable as a +table-talker, "great at the midnight hour." The "wit-combats" at his +Wednesday-evening parties were waged with scarcely inferior skill and +ability to those fought at the old Mermaid tavern between Shakspeare +and Ben Jonson. Hazlitt, in his delightful essay intituled "Persons One +would Wish to have Seen," gives a masterly report of the sayings and +doings at one of these parties. It is to be regretted that he did not +report the conversation at all of these weekly assemblages of wits, +humorists, and good-fellows. He made a capital book out of the +conversation of James Northcote: he could have made a better one out of +the conversation of Charles Lamb. Indeed, Elia himself seems to have +been conscious that many of his deepest, wisest, best thoughts and +ideas, as well as wildest, wittiest, airiest fancies and conceits, were +vented in conversation; and a few months before his death he noted down +for the entertainment of the readers of the London "Athenaeum," a few +specimens of his table-talk. Although these paragraphs of table-talk are +not transcripts of their author's actual conversation, they doubtless +contain the pith and substance of what he had really said in some of his +familiar discourses with friends and acquaintances. They contain none of +his "jests that scald like tears," none of his play upon words, none of +his flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar, but +some of his sweet, serious, beautiful thoughts and fancies. + +Strange that Talfourd neglected to print "Table-Talk" in his edition of +Lamb! He does not even mention it. It is certainly as good, if not +a great deal better than some things of Lamb's which he saw fit to +reprint. But the best way to praise Elia's "Table-Talk" is, as the +"Tatler" says of South's wise and witty discourse on the "Pleasures of +Religious Wisdom," to quote it; and therefore here followeth, without +further comment or introduction,-- + +"TABLE-TALK. BY THE LATE ELIA. + +"It is a desideratum in works that treat _de re culinariâ_, that we +have no rationale of sauces, or theory of mixed flavors: as to show why +cabbage is reprehensible with roast beef, laudable with bacon; why the +haunch of mutton seeks the alliance of currant-jelly, the shoulder +civilly declineth it; why loin of veal, (a pretty problem,) being itself +unctuous, seeketh the adventitious lubricity of melted butter,--and why +the same part in pork, not more oleaginous, abhorreth from it; why the +French bean sympathizes with the flesh of deer; why salt fish points to +parsnip, brawn makes a dead-set at mustard; why cats prefer valerian to +heart's-ease, old ladies _vice versâ_,--though this is rather travelling +out of the road of the dietetics, and may be thought a question more +curious than relevant; why salmon (a strong sapor _per se_) fortifieth +its condition with the mighty lobster-sauce, whose embraces are fatal to +the delicater relish of the turbot; why oysters in death rise up against +the contamination of brown sugar, while they are posthumously amorous +of vinegar; why the sour mango and the sweet jam by turns court and are +accepted by the compilable mutton-hash,--she not yet decidedly declaring +for either. We are as yet but in the empirical stage of cookery. We +feed ignorantly, and want to be able to give a reason of the relish that +is in us; so that, if Nature should furnish us with a new meat, or be +prodigally pleased to restore the phoenix, upon a _given_ flavor, we +might be able to pronounce instantly, on philosophical principles, what +the sauce to it should be,--what the curious adjuncts." + + * * * * * + +"The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth and to +have it found out by accident." + + * * * * * + +"'T is unpleasant to meet a beggar. It is painful to deny him; and if +you relieve him, it is so much out of your pocket." + + * * * * * + +"Men marry for fortune, and sometimes to please their fancy; but, much +oftener than is suspected, they consider what the world will say of +it, how such a woman in their friends' eyes will look at the head of a +table. Hence we see so many insipid beauties made wives of, that could +not have struck the particular fancy of any man that had any fancy at +all. These I call _furniture wives_; as men buy _furniture pictures_, +because they suit this or that niche in their dining-parlors. + +"Your universally cried-up beauties are the very last choice which a man +of taste would make. What pleases all cannot have that individual charm +which makes this or that countenance engaging to you, and to you +only perhaps, you know not why. What gained the fair Gunnings titled +husbands, who, after all, turned out very sorry wives? Popular repute." + + * * * * * + +"It is a sore trial, when a daughter shall marry against her father's +approbation. A little hard-heartedness, and aversion to a reconcilement, +is almost pardonable. After all, Will Dockwray's way is, perhaps, the +wisest. His best-loved daughter made a most imprudent match,--in fact, +eloped with the last man in the world that her father would have wished +her to marry. All the world said that he would never speak to her again. +For months she durst not write to him, much less come near him. But, in +a casual rencounter, he met her in the streets of Ware,--Ware, that will +long remember the mild virtues of William Dockwray, Esq. What said the +parent to his disobedient child, whose knees faltered under her at the +sight of him? 'Ha, Sukey, is it you?' with that benevolent aspect with +which he paced the streets of Ware, venerated as an angel,--'come and +dine with us on Sunday'; then turning away, and again turning back, as +if he had forgotten something, he added,--'and, Sukey, do you hear? +bring your husband with you.' This was all the reproof she ever heard +from him. Need it be added that the match turned out better for Susan +than the world expected?" + + * * * * * + +"'We read the "Paradise Lost" as a task,' says Dr. Johnson. Nay, rather +as a celestial recreation, of which the dullard mind is not at all hours +alike recipient. 'Nobody ever wished it longer';--nor the moon rounder, +he might have added. Why, 'tis the perfectness and completeness of +it which makes us imagine that not a line could be added to it, or +diminished from it, with advantage. Would we have a cubit added to the +stature of the Medicean Venus? Do we wish her taller?" + + * * * * * + +"Amidst the complaints of the wide spread of infidelity among us, it is +consolatory that a sect is sprung up in the heart of the metropolis, and +is daily on the increase, of teachers of that healing doctrine which +Pope upheld, and against which Voltaire directed his envenomed wit. We +mean those practical preachers of Optimism, or the belief that _Whatever +is best_, the cads of omnibuses, who, from their little back pulpits, +not once in three or four hours, as those proclaimers of 'God and His +prophet' in Mussulman countries, but every minute, at the entry or +exit of a brief passenger, are heard, in an almost prophetic tone, +to exclaim, (Wisdom crying out, as it were, in the streets,) 'ALL'S +RIGHT!'" + + * * * * * + +"Advice is not so commonly thrown away as is imagined. We seek it in +difficulties. But, in common speech, we are apt to confound with it +_admonition:_ as when a friend reminds one that drink is prejudicial to +the health, etc. We do not care to be told of that which we know better +than the good man that admonishes. M---- sent to his friend L----, who +is no water-drinker, a two-penny tract 'Against the Use of Fermented +Liquors.' L---- acknowledged the obligation, as far as to _twopence_. +Penotier's advice was the safest, after all:-- + +"'I advised him'-- + +"But I must tell you. The dear, good-meaning, no-thinking creature +had been dumbfounding a company of us with a detail of inextricable +difficulties in which the circumstances of an acquaintance of his were +involved. No clue of light offered itself. He grew more and more misty +as he proceeded. We pitied his friend, and thought,-- + + "'God help the man so wrapt in error's endless + maze!' + +"when, suddenly brightening up his placid countenance, like one that had +found out a riddle, and looked to have the solution admired,-- + +"'At last,' said he, 'I advised him'-- + +"Here he paused, and here we were again interminably thrown back. By no +possible guess could any of us aim at the drift of the meaning he was +about to be delivered of. + +"'I advised him,' he repeated, 'to have some _advice_ upon the subject.' + +"A general approbation followed; and it was unanimously agreed, that, +under all the circumstances of the case, no sounder or more judicious +counsel could have been given." + + * * * * * + +"A laxity pervades the popular use of words. + +"Parson W---- is not quite so continent as Diana, yet prettily +dissembleth his frailty. Is Parson W---- therefore a _hypocrite?_ I +think not. Where the concealment of a vice is less pernicious than the +barefaced publication of it would be, no additional delinquency is +incurred in the secrecy. + +"Parson W---- is simply an immoral clergyman. But if Parson W---- were +to be forever haranguing on the opposite virtue,--choosing for his +perpetual text, in preference to all other pulpit-topics, the remarkable +resistance recorded in the 89th of Exodus [Genesis?],--dwelling, +moreover, and dilating upon it,--then Parson W---- might be reasonably +suspected of hypocrisy. But Parson W---- rarely diverteth into such line +of argument, or toucheth it briefly. His ordinary topics are fetched +from 'obedience to the powers that are,'--'submission to the civil +magistrate in all commands that are not absolutely unlawful'; on which +he can delight to expatiate with equal fervor and sincerity. + +"Again. To _despise_ a person is properly to _look down_ upon him with +none or the least possible emotion. But when Clementina, who has lately +lost her lover, with bosom heaving, eyes flashing, and her whole frame +in agitation, pronounces with a peculiar emphasis that she '_despises_ +the fellow,' depend upon it that he is not quite so despicable in her +eyes as she would have us imagine. + +"One more instance. If we must naturalize that portentous phrase, _a +truism_, it were well that we limited the use of it. Every commonplace +or trite observation is not a truism. For example: A good name helps +a man on in the world. This is nothing but a simple truth, however +hackneyed. It has a distinct subject and predicate. But when the thing +predicated is involved in the term of the subject, and so necessarily +involved that by no possible conception they can be separated, then +it becomes a truism; as to say, A good name is a proof of a man's +estimation in the world. We seem to be saying something, when we say +nothing. I was describing to F---- some knavish tricks of a mutual +friend of ours. 'If he did so and so,' was the reply, 'he cannot be an +honest man.' Here was a genuine truism, truth upon truth, inference and +proposition identical,--or rather, a dictionary definition usurping the +place of an inference." + + * * * * * + +"We are ashamed at sight of a monkey,--somehow as we are shy of poor +relations." + + * * * * * + +"C---- imagined a Caledonian compartment in Hades, where there should be +fire without sulphur." + + * * * * * + +"Absurd images are sometimes irresistible. I will mention two. An +elephant in a coach-office gravely coming to have his trunk booked;--a +mermaid over a fish-kettle cooking her own tail." + + * * * * * + +"It is the praise of Shakspeare, with reference to the playwriters, his +contemporaries, that he has so few revolting characters. Yet be has one +that is singularly mean and disagreeable,--the King in 'Hamlet.' Neither +has he characters of insignificance, unless the phantom that stalks over +the stage as Julius Caesar, in the play of that name, may be accounted +one. Neither has he envious characters, excepting the short part of +Don John, in 'Much Ado about Nothing.' Neither has he unentertaining +characters, if we except Parolles, and the little that there is of the +Clown, in 'All's Well that Ends Well.'" + + * * * * * + +"It would settle the dispute as to whether Shakspeare intended Othello +for a jealous character, to consider how differently we are affected +towards him, and for Leontes in the 'Winter's Tale.' Leontes _is_ that +character. Othello's fault was simply credulity." + + * * * * * + +"Is it possible that Shakspeare should never have read Homer, in +Chapman's version at least? If he had read it, could he mean to +_travesty_ it in the parts of those big boobies, Ajax and Achilles? +Ulysses, Nestor, and Agamemnon are true to their parts in the 'Iliad +'; they are gentlemen at least. Thersites, though unamusing, is fairly +deducible from it. Troilus and Cressida are a fine graft upon it. But +those two big bulks"-- + + * * * * * + +Disraeli wrote a book on the Quarrels of Authors. Somebody should write +one on the Friendships of Literary Men. If such a work is ever written, +Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge will be honorably mentioned +therein. For among all the friendships celebrated in tale or history +there is none more admirable than that which existed between these two +eminent men. The "golden thread that tied their hearts together" was +never broken. Their friendship was never "chipt or diminished"; but the +longer they lived, the stronger it grew. Death could not destroy it. + +Lamb, after Coleridge's death, as if weary of "this green earth," as if +not caring if "sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer +holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juices of meats +and fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and candle-light, and +fireside conversations, and innocent vanities, and jests, and irony +itself," went out with life, willingly sought "Lavinian shores." + +"Lamb," as Mr. John Foster says, in his beautiful tribute to his memory, +"never fairly recovered the death of Coleridge. He thought of little +else (his sister was but another portion of himself) until his own great +spirit joined his friend. He had a habit of venting his melancholy in a +sort of mirth. He would, with nothing graver than a pun, 'cleanse his +bosom of the perilous stuff that weighed' upon it. In a jest, or a few +light phrases, he would lay open the last recesses of his heart. So in +respect of the death of Coleridge. Some old friends of his saw him two +or three weeks ago and remarked the constant turning and reference of +his mind. He interrupted-himself and them almost every instant with some +play of affected wonder, or astonishment, or humorous melancholy, on the +words, '_Coleridge is dead_.' Nothing could divert him from that, for +the thought of it never left him. About the same time, we had written +to him to request a few lines for the literary album of a gentleman who +entertained a fitting admiration of his genius. It was the last request +we were destined to make, the last kindness we were allowed to receive. +He wrote in Mr. Keymer's volume,--and wrote of Coleridge." + +And this is what he said of his friend: it would be, as Mr. Foster says, +impertinence to offer one remark on it:-- + +"When I heard of the death of Coleridge, it was without grief. It seemed +to me that he long had been on the confines of the next world,--that he +had a hunger for eternity. I grieved then that I could not grieve. But +since, I feel how great a part he was of me. His great and dear spirit +haunts me. I cannot think a thought, I cannot make a criticism on men or +books, without an ineffectual turning and reference to him. He was the +proof and touchstone of all my cogitations. He was a Grecian (or in the +first form) at Christ's Hospital, where I was Deputy-Grecian; and the +same subordination and deference to him I have preserved through a +life-long acquaintance. Great in his writings, he was greatest in his +conversation. In him was disproved that old maxim, that we should allow +every one his share of talk. He would talk from morn to dewy eve, nor +cease till far midnight; yet who ever would interrupt him? who would +obstruct that continuous flow of converse, fetched from Helicon or Zion? +He had the tact of making the unintelligible seem plain. Many who read +the abstruser parts of his 'Friend' would complain that his works did +not answer to his spoken wisdom. They were identical. But he had a +tone in oral delivery which seemed to convey sense to those who were +otherwise imperfect recipients. He was my fifty-years-old friend without +a dissension. Never saw I his likeness, nor probably the world can see +again. I seem to love the house he died at more passionately than when +he lived. I love the faithful Gilmans more than while they exercised +their virtues towards him living. What was his mansion is consecrated to +me a chapel. + +"CHS. LAMB. + +"EDMONTON, November 21, 1834." + + * * * * * + +Having seen what Charles Lamb says of Coleridge, perhaps the reader +would like to see what Charles Lamb says of himself. For he, (though +but few of his readers are aware of the fact,) like Lord Herbert +of Cherbury, Gibbon, Franklin, and other eminent men, wrote an +autobiography. It is certainly the briefest, and perhaps the wittiest +and most truthful autobiographical sketch in the language. It was +published in the "New Monthly Magazine" a few months after its author's +death, with the following preface or introduction from the pen of some +unknown admirer of Elia:-- + +"We have been favored, by the kindness of Mr. Upcott, with the following +sketch, written in one of his manuscript collections, by Charles Lamb. +It will be read with deep interest by all, but with the deepest interest +by those who had the honor and the happiness of knowing the writer. It +is so singularly characteristic, that we can scarcely persuade ourselves +we do not hear it, as we read, spoken from his living lips. Slight as +it is, it conveys the most exquisite and perfect notion of the personal +manner and habits of our friend. For the intellectual rest, we lift the +veil of its noble modesty, and can even here discern them. Mark its +humor, crammed into a few thinking words,--its pathetic sensibility in +the midst of contrast,--its wit, truth, and feeling,--and, above all, +its fanciful retreat at the close under a phantom cloud of death." + +CHARLES LAMB'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. + +"Charles Lamb, born in the Inner Temple, 10th February, 1775; educated +in Christ's Hospital; afterwards a clerk in the Accountants' Office, +East-India House; pensioned off from that service, 1825, after +thirty-three years' service; is now a gentleman at large;--can remember +few specialties in his life worth noting, except that he once caught a +swallow flying (_teste suâ manu_). Below the middle stature; cast of +face slightly Jewish, with no Judaic tinge in his complexional religion; +stammers abominably, and is therefore more apt to discharge his +occasional conversation in a quaint aphorism or a poor quibble than in +set and edifying speeches; has consequently been libelled as a person +always aiming at wit, which, as he told a dull fellow that charged him +with it, is at least as good as aiming at dulness. A small eater, +but not drinker; confesses a partiality for the production of the +juniper-berry; was a fierce smoker of tobacco, but may be resembled to +a volcano burnt out, emitting only now and then a casual puff. Has been +guilty of obtruding upon the public a tale in prose, called 'Rosamund +Gray,'--a dramatic sketch, named 'John Woodvil,'--a 'Farewell Ode to +Tobacco,'--with sundry other poems, and light prose matter, collected in +two slight crown octavos, and pompously christened his works, though in +fact they were his recreations, and his true works may be found on the +shelves of Leadenhall Street, filling some hundred folios. He is also +the true Elia, whose essays are extant in a little volume, published +a year or two since, and rather better known from that name without a +meaning than from anything he has done, or can hope to do, in his own. +He also was the first to draw the public attention to the old English +dramatists, in a work called 'Specimens of English Dramatic Writers +who lived about the Time of Shakspeare,' published about fifteen years +since. In short, all his merits and demerits to set forth would take to +the end of Mr. Upcott's book, and then not be told truly. + + "He died _____ 18__, much lamented.[A] + Witness his hand, + CHARLES LAMB. + + "18th April, 1827." + +[Footnote A: "_To Anybody_--Please to fill up these blanks."] + +Lamb, if he did not find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, +and sermons in stones, found good in everything. The soul of goodness in +things evil was visible to him. He had thought, felt, and suffered +so much, that, as Leigh Hunt says, he literally had intolerance for +nothing. Though he could see but little religion in many professing +Christians, he nevertheless saw that the motley players, "made up of +mimic laughter and tears, passing from the extremes of joy or woe at the +prompter's call," were not so godless and impious as the world believed +them to be. + +Writing to Bernard Barton in the spring of 1826, Lamb says, speaking +of his literary projects,--"A little thing without name will also be +printed on the Religion of the Actors, but it is out of your way; so I +recommend you, with true author's hypocrisy, to skip it." I wonder if +"good B.B." read the article, and, if he did, how he liked it. Quaker +though he was, he could not but have been pleased with it. Should you +like to read the "Religion of the Actors," reader? You will not find it +in any edition of Charles Lamb's writings. Here it is. + +THE RELIGION OF ACTORS. + +"The world has hitherto so little troubled its head with the points of +doctrine held by a community which contributes in other ways so largely +to its amusement, that, before the late mischance of a celebrated +tragic actor, it scarce condescended to look into the practice of any +individual player, much less to inquire into the hidden and abscondite +springs of his actions. Indeed, it is with some violence to the +imagination that we conceive of an actor as belonging to the relations +of private life, so closely do we identify these persons in our mind +with the characters which they assume upon the stage. How oddly does it +sound, when we are told that the late Miss Pope, for instance,--that +is to say, in our notion of her, Mrs. Candor,--was a good daughter, an +affectionate sister, and exemplary in all the parts of domestic life! +With still greater difficulty can we carry our notions to church, and +conceive of Liston kneeling upon a hassock, or Munden uttering a pious +ejaculation, 'making mouths at the invisible event.' But the times are +fast improving; and if the process of sanctity begun under the happy +auspices of the present licenser go on to its completion, it will be +as necessary for a comedian to give an account of his faith as of his +conduct. Fawcett must study the five points; and Dicky Suett, if he were +alive, would have had to rub up his catechism. Already the effects of it +begin to appear. A celebrated performer has thought fit to oblige the +world with a confession of his faith,--or, Br----'s 'Religio Dramatici.' +This gentleman, in his laudable attempt to shift from his person the +obloquy of Judaism, with the forwardness of a new convert, in trying to +prove too much, has, in the opinion of many, proved too little. A simple +declaration of his Christianity was sufficient; but, strange to say, +his apology has not a word about it. We are left to gather it from some +expressions which imply that he is a Protestant; but we did not wish to +inquire into the niceties of his orthodoxy. To his friends of the _old +persuasion_ the distinction was impertinent; for what cares Rabbi Ben +Kimchi for the differences which have split our novelty? To the great +body of Christians that hold the Pope's supremacy--that is to say, to +the major part of the Christian world--his religion will appear as +much to seek as ever. But perhaps he conceived that all Christians are +Protestants, as children, and the common people call all that are not +animals Christians. The mistake was not very considerable in so young a +proselyte. Or he might think the general (as logicians speak) involved +in the particular. All Protestants are Christians; but I am a +Protestant; _ergo_, etc.: as if a marmoset, contending to be a man, +overleaping that term as too generic and vulgar, should at once roundly +proclaim himself to be a gentleman. The argument would be, as we say, +_ex abundanti_. From whichever cause this _excessus in terminis_ +proceeded, we can do no less than congratulate the general state of +Christendom upon the accession of so extraordinary a convert. Who was +the happy instrument of the conversion we are yet to learn: it comes +nearest to the attempt of the late pious Doctor Watts to Christianize +the Psalms of the Old Testament. Something of the old Hebrew raciness is +lost in the transfusion; but much of its asperity is softened and pared +down in the adaptation. + +"The appearance of so singular a treatise at this conjuncture has set +us upon an inquiry into the present state of religion upon the stage +generally. By the favor of the church-wardens of Saint Martin's in the +Fields, and Saint Paul's, Covent Garden, who have very readily, and with +great kindness, assisted our pursuit, we are enabled to lay before the +public the following particulars. Strictly speaking, neither of the two +great bodies is collectively a religious institution. We had expected to +have found a chaplain among them, as at Saint Stephen's, and other Court +establishments; and were the more surprised at the omission, as the last +Mr. Bengough, at the one house, and Mr. Powell at the other, from a +gravity of speech and demeanor, and the habit of wearing black at their +first appearances in the beginning of _fifth_ or the conclusion of +_fourth acts_, so eminently pointed out their qualifications for such +office. These corporations, then, being not properly congregational, +we must seek the solution of our question in the tastes, attainments, +accidental breeding, and education of the individual members of them. +As we were prepared to expect, a majority at both houses adhere to the +religion of the Church Established, only that at one of them a pretty +strong leaven of Catholicism is suspected,--which, considering the +notorious education of the manager at a foreign seminary, is not so much +to be wondered at. Some have gone so far as to report that Mr. T----y, +in particular, belongs to an order lately restored on the Continent. We +can contradict this: that gentleman is a member of the Kirk of Scotland; +and his name is to be found, much to his honor, in the list of seceders +from the congregation of Mr. Fletcher. While the generality, as we have +said, are content to jog on in the safe trammels of national orthodoxy, +symptoms of a sectarian spirit have broken out in quarters where we +should least have looked for it. Some of the ladies at both houses are +deep in controverted points. Miss F----e, we are credibly informed, is +_Sub-_, and Madame V----a _Supra_-Lapsarian. Mr. Pope is the last of the +exploded sect of the Ranters. Mr. Sinclair has joined the Shakers. Mr. +Grimaldi, Senior, after being long a Jumper, has lately fallen into some +whimsical theories respecting the Fall of Man; which he understands, +not of an allegorical, but a _real tumble_, by which the whole body of +humanity became, as it were, lame to the performance of good works. +Pride he will have to be nothing but a stiff neck; irresolution, the +nerves shaken; an inclination to sinister paths, crookedness of the +joints; spiritual deadness, a paralysis; want of charity, a contraction +in the fingers; despising of government, a broken head; the plaster, a +sermon; the lint to bind it up, the text; the probers, the preachers; a +pair of crutches, the old and new law; a bandage, religious obligation: +a fanciful mode of illustration, derived from the accidents and habits +of his past calling _spiritualized_, rather than from any accurate +acquaintance with the Hebrew text, in which report speaks him but a raw +scholar. Mr. Elliston, from all that we can learn, has his religion yet +to choose; though some think him a Muggletonian." + + * * * * * + +Willis, in his "Pencillings by the Way," describing his interview with +Charles and Mary Lamb, says,--"Nothing could be more delightful than the +kindness and affection between the brother and the sister, though Lamb +was continually taking advantage of her deafness to mystify her with the +most singular gravity upon every topic that was started. 'Poor Mary!' +said he, 'she hears all of an epigram but the point.' 'What are you +saying of me, Charles?' she asked. 'Mr. Willis,' said he, raising his +voice, 'admires _your_ "Confessions of a Drunkard" very much, and I was +saying it was no merit of yours that you understood the subject.' We had +been speaking of this admirable essay (which is his own) half an hour +before." + +That essay has been strangely and purposely misunderstood. Elia, albeit +he loved the cheerful glass, was not a drunkard. The "poor nameless +egotist" of the Confessions is not Charles Lamb. In printing the article +in the "London Magazine," (it was originally contributed to a collection +of tracts published by Basil Montagu,) Elia introduced it to the readers +of that periodical in the following explanatory paragraphs. They should +be printed in all editions of Elia as a note to the article they explain +and comment on. For many persons, like a writer in the London "Quarterly +Review" for July, 1822, believe, or profess to believe, that this +"fearful picture of the consequences of intemperance" is a true tale. +"How far it was from actual truth," says Talfourd, "the essays of Elia, +the production of a later day, in which the maturity of his feeling, +humor, and reason is exhibited, may sufficiently show." + +ELIA ON HIS "CONFESSIONS OF A DRUNKARD." + +"Many are the sayings of Elia, painful and frequent his lucubrations, +set forth for the most part (such his modesty!) without a name, +scattered about in obscure periodicals and forgotten miscellanies. From +the dust of some of these it is our intention occasionally to revive a +tract or two that shall seem worthy of a better fate, especially at a +time like the present, when the pen of our industrious contributor, +engaged in a laborious digest of his recent Continental tour, may haply +want the leisure to expatiate in more miscellaneous speculations. We +have been induced, in the first instance, to reprint a thing which +he put forth in a friend's volume some years since, entitled 'The +Confessions of a Drunkard,' seeing that Messieurs the Quarterly +Reviewers have chosen to embellish their last dry pages with fruitful +quotations therefrom; adding, from their peculiar brains, the gratuitous +affirmation, that they have reason to believe that the describer (in his +delineations of a drunkard, forsooth!) partly sat for his own picture. +The truth is, that our friend had been reading among the essays of a +contemporary, who has perversely been confounded with him, a paper in +which Edax (or the Great Eater) humorously complaineth of an inordinate +appetite; and it struck him that a better paper--of deeper interest, and +wider usefulness--might be made out of the imagined experiences of a +Great Drinker. Accordingly he set to work, and, with that mock fervor +and counterfeit earnestness with which he is too apt to over-realize +his descriptions, has given us a frightful picture indeed, but no more +resembling the man Elia than the fictitious Edax may be supposed to +identify itself with Mr. L., its author. It is, indeed, a compound +extracted out of his long observations of the effects of drinking upon +all the world about him; and this accumulated mass of misery he hath +centred (as the custom is with judicious essayists) in a single figure. +We deny not that a portion of his own experiences may have passed into +the picture, (as who, that is not a washy fellow, but must at some times +have felt the after-operation of a too generous cup?)--but then how +heightened! how exaggerated! how little within the sense of the Review, +where a part, in their slanderous usage, must be understood to stand for +the whole! But it is useless to expostulate with this Quarterly slime, +brood of Nilus, watery heads with hearts of jelly, spawned under the +sign of Aquarius, incapable of Bacchus, and therefore cold, washy, +spiteful, bloodless. Elia shall string them up one day, and show their +colors,--or rather, how colorless and vapid the whole fry,--when he +putteth forth his long-promised, but unaccountably hitherto delayed, +'Confessions of a Water-Drinker.'" + + * * * * * + +In turning over the leaves of divers old periodicals in search of the +"Religion of Actors," I accidentally and unexpectedly found an article +by Charles Lamb entitled, "On the Custom of Hissing at the Theatres, +with some Account of a Club of Damned Authors." + +Lamb, we know, was a great lover of the drama,--a true patron and +admirer of playwrights and play-actors. He was, perhaps, the greatest +theatrical critic that ever lived. Many of the happiest hours of his +life were passed in reading the works of the old English dramatists, and +in witnessing the performances of favorite actors. He once had hopes of +being a successful dramatist himself, and to that end devoted many of +his spare hours and odd moments to the composition of a tragedy. ("John +Woodvil,") which John Kemble, "the stately manager of Drury Lane," +refused to bring out. But not wholly discouraged by the ill success of +his tragedy, he tried his hand at a farce, and produced "Mr. H.," which, +to the author's exceeding great delight, was accepted by the manager of +Drury-Lane Theatre.[B] + +[Footnote B: Talfourd says that the acceptance of "Mr. H." gave Lamb +some of the happiest moments he ever spent.] + +To Manning, then sojourning among the Mandarins, he thus writes of "Mr. +H.":-- + +"Now you'd like to know the subject. The title is 'Mr. H.',--no more: +how simple! how taking! A great H sprawling over the play-bill, and +attracting eyes at every corner. The story is a coxcomb appearing at +Bath, vastly rich,--all the ladies dying for him, all bursting to know +who he is; but he goes by no other name than Mr. H.: a curiosity like +that of the dames of Strasburg about the man with the great nose. But I +won't tell you any more about it. Yes, I will; but I can't give you an +idea how I have done it. I'll just tell you, that, after much vehement +admiration, when his true name comes out, 'Hogsflesh,' all the women +shun him, avoid him, and not one can be found to change their name for +him: that's the idea: how flat it is here! but how whimsical in +the farce! And only think how hard upon me it is, that the ship is +despatched to-morrow, and my triumph cannot be ascertained till the +Wednesday after;--but all China will ring of it by-and-by." + +Would that Lamb's joyous and exultant anticipations of "Mr. H."'s +success had proved true! But, instead of being greeted with the applause +of pit and gallery, which would have stood Elia instead of "the unheard +voice of posterity," the piece was hissed and hooted from the stage. + +In a letter to Manning, written early in 1808, he thus, half humorously, +half pathetically, describes the reception the town gave "Mr. H.":-- + +"So I go creeping on since I was lamed with that cursed fall from off +the top of Drury-Lane Theatre into the pit, something more than a year +ago. However, I have been free of the house ever since, and the house +was pretty free with me upon that occasion. Hang 'em, how they hissed! +It was not a hiss neither, but a sort of a frantic yell, like a +congregation of mad geese, with roaring sometimes like bears, mows and +mops like apes, sometimes snakes, that hissed me into madness. 'Twas +like Saint Anthony's temptations. Mercy on us, that God should give his +favorite children, men, mouths to speak with, to discourse rationally, +to promise smoothly, to flatter agreeably, to encourage warmly, to +counsel wisely, to sing with, to drink with, and to kiss with, and that +they should turn them into mouths of adders, bears, wolves, hyenas, and +whistle like tempests, and emit breath through them like distillations +of aspic poison, to asperse and vilify the innocent labors of their +fellow-creatures who are desirous to please them! Heaven be pleased to +make the teeth rot out of them all, therefore! Make them a reproach, and +all that pass by them to loll out their tongue at them! Blind mouths! as +Milton somewhere calls them." + +If his farce had been--what "Gentleman Lewis," who was present on the +night of its performance, said, if he had had it, he would have made it, +by a few judicious curtailments--"the most popular little thing that +had been brought out for some time," Lamb would not have written the +following article. + +"ON THE CUSTOM OF HISSING AT THE THEATRES, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF A CLUB +OF DAMNED AUTHORS. + +"Mr. Reflector,--I am one of those persons whom the world has thought +proper to designate by the title of Damned Authors. In that memorable +season of dramatic failures, 1806-7, in which no fewer, I think, than +two tragedies, four comedies, one opera, and three farces suffered at +Drury-Lane Theatre, I was found guilty of constructing an afterpiece, +and was _damned_. + +"Against the decision of the public in such instances there can be no +appeal. The Clerk of Chatham might as well have protested against the +decision of Cade and his followers, who were then _the public_. Like +him, I was condemned because I could write. + +"Not but it did appear to some of us that the measures of the popular +tribunal at that period savored a little of harshness and of the +_summum jus_. The public mouth was early in the season fleshed upon +the 'Vindictive Man,' and some pieces of that nature, and it retained +through the remainder of it a relish of blood. As Dr. Johnson would have +said: Sir, there was a habit of sibilation in the house. + +"Still less am I disposed to inquire into the reason of the comparative +lenity, on the other hand, with which some pieces were treated, which, +to indifferent judges, seemed at least as much deserving of condemnation +as some of those which met with it. I am willing to put, a favorable +construction upon the votes that were given against us; I believe that +there was no bribery or designed partiality in the case;--only 'our +nonsense did not happen to suit their nonsense'; that was all. + +"But against the _manner_ in which the public on these occasions think +fit to deliver their disapprobation I must and ever will protest. + +"Sir, imagine--but you have been present at the damning of a +piece,--those who never had that felicity, I beg them to imagine--a vast +theatre, like that which Drury Lane was, before it was a heap of dust +and ashes, (I insult not over its fallen greatness; let it recover +itself when it can for me, let it lift up its towering head once +more, and take in poor authors to write for it; _hic coestus artemque +repono_,)--a theatre like that, filled with all sorts of disgusting +sounds,--shrieks, groans, hisses, but chiefly the last, like the noise +of many waters, or that which Don Quixote heard from the fulling-mills, +or that wilder combination of devilish sounds which Saint Anthony +listened to in the wilderness. + +"Oh, Mr. Reflector, is it not a pity, that the sweet human voice, which +was given man to speak with, to sing with, to whisper tones of love in, +to express compliance, to convey a favor, or to grant a suit,--that +voice, which in a Siddons or a Braham rouses us, in a Siren Catalani +charms and captivates us,--that the musical, expressive human voice +should be converted into a rival of the noises of silly geese, and +irrational, venomous snakes? + +"I never shall forget the sounds on _my night_; I never before that time +fully felt the reception which the Author of All Ill in the 'Paradise +Lost' meets with from the critics in the _pit_, at the final close of +his Tragedy upon the Human Race,--though that, alas! met with too much +success:-- + + "'from innumerable tongues, + A dismal universal _hiss_, the sound + Of public scorn. Dreadful was the din + Of _hissing_ through the hall, thick swarming now + With complicated monsters, head and tail, + Scorpion and asp, and Amphisbaena dire, + Cerastes horned, Hydrus, and Elops drear, + And Dipsas.' + +"For _hall_ substitute _theatre_, and you have the very image of what +takes place at what is called the _damnation_ of a piece,--and properly +so called; for here you see its origin plainly, whence the custom was +derived, and what the first piece was that so suffered. After this none +can doubt the propriety of the appellation. + +"But, Sir, as to the justice of bestowing such appalling, +heart-withering denunciations of the popular obloquy upon the venial +mistake of a poor author who thought to please us in the act of filling +his pockets,--for the sum of his demerits amounts to no more than +that,--it does, I own, seem to me a species of retributive justice far +too severe for the offence. A culprit in the pillory (bate the eggs) +meets with no severer exprobration. + +"Indeed, I have often wondered that some modest critic has not proposed +that there should be a wooden machine to that effect erected in some +convenient part of the _proscenium_, which an unsuccessful author should +be required to mount, and stand his hour, exposed to the apples and +oranges of the pit. This _amende honorable_ would well suit with the +meanness of some authors, who in their prologues fairly prostrate their +skulls to the audience, and seem to invite a pelting. + +"Or why should they not have their pens publicly broke over their +heads, as the swords of recreant knights in old times were, and an oath +administered to them that they should never write again? + +"Seriously, _Messieurs the Public_, this outrageous way which you have +got of expressing your displeasures is too much for the occasion. When +I was deafening under the effects of it, I could not help asking what +crime of great moral turpitude I had committed: for every man about me +seemed to feel the offence as personal to himself, as something which +public interest and private feelings alike called upon him in the +strongest possible manner to stigmatize with infamy. + +"The Romans, it Is well known to you, Mr. Reflector, took a gentler +method of marking their disapprobation of an author's work. They were a +humane and equitable nation. They left the _furca_ and the _patibulum_, +the axe and the rods, to great offenders: for these minor and (if I may +so term them) extra-moral offences _the bent thumb_ was considered as a +sufficient sign of disapprobation,--_vertere pollicem_; as _the pressed +thumb, premere pollicem_, was a mark of approving. + +"And really there seems to have been a sort of fitness in this method, +a correspondency of sign in the punishment to the offence. For, as +the action of writing is performed by bending the thumb forward, the +retroversion or bending back of that joint did not unaptly point to the +opposite of that action, implying that it was the will of the audience +that the author should _write no more:_ a much more significant, as +well as more humane, way of expressing-that desire, than our custom of +hissing, which is altogether senseless and indefensible. Nor do we find +that the Roman audiences deprived themselves, by this lenity, of any +tittle of that supremacy which audiences in all ages have thought +themselves bound to maintain over such as have been candidates for their +applause. On the contrary, by this method they seem to have had the +author, as we should express it, completely _under finger and thumb_. + +"The provocations to which a dramatic genius is exposed from the public +are so much the more vexatious as they are removed from any possibility +of retaliation, the hope of which sweetens most other injuries: for the +public _never writes itself_. Not but something very like it took place +at the time of the O.-P. differences. The placards which were nightly +exhibited were, properly speaking, the composition of the public. The +public wrote them, the public applauded them, and precious morceaux of +wit and eloquence they were,--except some few, of a better quality, +which it is well known were furnished by professed dramatic writers. +After this specimen of what the public can do for itself, it should be a +little slow in condemning what others do for it. + +"As the degrees of malignancy vary in people according as they have more +or less of the Old Serpent (the father of hisses) in their composition, +I have sometimes amused myself with analyzing this many-headed hydra, +which calls itself the public, into the component parts of which it is +'complicated, head and tail,' and seeing how many varieties of the snake +kind it can afford. + +"First, there is the Common English Snake.--This is that part of the +auditory who are always the majority at damnations, but who, having +no critical venom in themselves to sting them on, stay till they hear +others hiss, and then join in for company. + +"The Blind Worm is a, species very nearly allied to the foregoing. Some +naturalists have doubted whether they are not the same. + +"The Rattle--Snake.--These are your obstreperous talking critics,--the +impertinent guides of the pit,--who will not give a plain man leave to +enjoy an evening's entertainment, but, with their frothy jargon and +incessant finding of faults, either drown his pleasure quite, or force +him in his own defence to join in their clamorous censure. The hiss +always originates with these. When this creature springs his _rattle_, +you would think, from the noise it makes, there was something in it; but +you have only to examine the instrument from which the noise proceeds, +and you will find it typical of a critic's tongue,--a shallow membrane, +empty, voluble, and seated in the most contemptible part of the +creature's body. + +"The Whip-Snake.--This is he that lashes the poor author the next day in +the newspapers. + +"The Deaf Adder, or _Surda Echidna_ of Linnaeus.--Under this head may be +classed all that portion of the spectators (for audience they properly +are not) who, not finding the first act of a piece answer to their +preconceived notions of what a first act should be, like Obstinate in +John Bunyan, positively thrust their fingers in their ears, that they +may not hear a word of what is coming, though perhaps the very next act +may be composed in a style as different as possible, and be written +quite to their own tastes. These Adders refuse to hear the voice of the +charmer, because the tuning of his instrument gave them offence. + +"I should weary you, and myself too, if I were to go through all the +classes of the serpent kind. Two qualities are common to them all. They +are creatures of remarkably cold digestions, and chiefly haunt _pits_ +and low grounds. + +"I proceed with more pleasure to give you an account of a club to which +I have the honor to belong. There are fourteen of us, who are all +authors that have been once in our lives what is called _damned_. We +meet on the anniversaries of our respective nights, and make ourselves +merry at the expense of the public. The chief tenets which distinguish +our society, and which every man among us is bound to hold for gospel, +are,-- + +"That the public, or mob, in all ages, have been a set of blind, deaf, +obstinate, senseless, illiterate savages. That no man of genius, in his +senses, would be ambitious of pleasing such a capricious, ungrateful +rabble. That the only legitimate end of writing for them is to pick +their pockets, and, that failing, we are at full liberty to vilify and +abuse them as much as ever we think fit. + +"That authors, by their affected pretences to humility, which they made +use of as a cloak to insinuate their writings into the callous senses of +the multitude, obtuse to everything but the grossest flattery, have by +degrees made that great beast their master; as we may act submission to +children till we are obliged to practise it in earnest. That authors are +and ought to be considered the masters and preceptors of the public, +and not _vice versâ_. That it was so in the days of Orpheus, Linus, +and Musaeus, and would be so again, if it were not that writers prove +traitors to themselves. That, in particular, in the days of the first of +those three great authors just mentioned, audiences appear to have been +perfect models of what audiences should be; for, though along with the +trees and the rocks and the wild creatures, which he drew after him to +listen to his strains, some serpents doubtless came to hear his music, +it does not appear that any one among them ever lifted up _a dissentient +voice_. They knew what was due to authors in those days. Now every stock +and stone turns into a serpent, and has a voice. + +"That the terms 'Courteous Reader' and 'Candid Auditors,' as having +given rise to a false notion in those to whom they were applied, as +if they conferred upon them some right, _which they cannot have,_ of +exercising their judgments, ought to be utterly banished and exploded. + +"These are our distinguishing tenets. To keep up the memory of the cause +in which we suffered, as the ancients sacrificed a goat, a supposed +unhealthy animal, to Aesculapius, on our feast-nights we cut up a goose, +an animal typical of _the popular voice_, to the deities of Candor and +Patient Hearing. A zealous member of the society once proposed that we +should revive the obsolete luxury of viper-broth; but the stomachs of +some of the company rising at the proposition, we lost the benefit of +that highly salutary and _antidotal dish_. + +"The privilege of admission to our club is strictly limited to such as +have been fairly _damned_. A piece that has met with ever so little +applause, that has but languished its night or two, and then gone out, +will never entitle its author to a seat among us. An exception to our +usual readiness in conferring this privilege is in the case of a writer +who, having been once condemned, writes again, and becomes candidate for +a second martyrdom. Simple damnation we hold to be a merit, but to be +twice-damned we adjudge infamous. Such a one we utterly reject, and +blackball without a hearing:-- + + "_The common damned shun his society._ + +"Hoping that your publication of our Regulations may be a means of +inviting some more members into our society, I conclude this long +letter. + +"I am, Sir, yours, SEMEL-DAMNATUS." + + * * * * * + + +DARK WAYS. + + "Tortured with winter's storms, and tossed with a tumultuous sea." + + +When God's curse forsook my country, it fell on me. I had been young +and heroic; I had fought well; what portion of the clock-work of Fate +had been allotted me I had utterly performed. Twelve years ago I became +a man and strove for my country's freedom; now she has attained her +heights without me, and I--what am I? A shapeless hulk, that stays in +the shadow, and that hates the world and the people of the world, and +verily the God above the world! + +"Fight!" whispered Father Anselmo, the young priest, to me, at my last +shrift; and fight I did. For from Italy's bosom I had drawn the strength +of sword-arm, hip, and thigh; and I vowed to lose that arm and life and +all that made life dear toward the trampling of oppressors from the +sacred place. + +My sun rose in storm, it continued in storm,--why not so have set? Why +not have died when swords swept their lightnings about me, when the +glorious thunders of battle rolled around and sulphurous blasts +enveloped, when the air was full of the bray of bugle and beat of drum, +of shout and shriek, exultation and agony? Why not have gone with the +crowd of souls reeking with daring and desire? Why, oh, why thus left +alone to wither? Why still hangs that sun above me, yet wrapt and veiled +and utterly obscured in thick, murk mists of sorrow and despair? + +Peace!--let me tell you my story. + +Since Father Anselmo--like all youth, whether under cowl, cap, or +crown--was a Liberal at heart, I had not wanted counsel; but when I +had told him all my yearnings and aspirations, had bared to him the +throbbings of my very thought, and he had replied in that one blessed +word, I hastened away. There were none to whom I should say farewell; +I was alone in the world. This wild blood of my veins ran in no other +veins; I knew thoroughly the wide freedom of solitude; the sins and +the virtues of my race, whatever they were, had culminated in me. As +I looked back, that morning, the castle, planted in a dimple of its +demesnes, old and gray and watched by purple peaks of Apennine, seemed +to hide its command only under the mask of silence. The wood through +which I went, with its alluring depths, the moss verdant in everlasting +spring beneath my eager feet, each bough I lifted, the blossoms that +blew their gales after, the bearded grasses that shook in the wind, all +gave me their secret sigh; all the sweet land around, the distant hill, +the distant shore, said, "Redeem me from my chains!" I came across a +sylvan statue, some faun nestled in the forest: the rains had stained, +frosts cracked, suns blistered it; but what of those? A vine covered +with thorns and stemmed with cords had wreathed about it and bound it +closely in serpent-coils. I stayed and tore apart the fetters till my +hands bled, cut away the twisting branches, and set the god free from +his bonds. Triumph rose to my lips, for I said, "So will I free my +country!" Ah, there was my error,--the shackling vines would grow again, +and infold the marble image that had consecrated the forest-glooms; +there is the flaw in all my work,--I have shorn, but have never uprooted +an evil. Youth is a fool; the young Titans cannot scale heaven,--heaven, +that, if what I live through be true, is ramparted round with tyrant +lies! But is it true? Am I what I seem to myself? Did I fail in my +purpose, in my will? Did Italy herself belie me? Did she, did she I +loved, she I worshipped, she the woman to whom I gave all, for whom I +sacrificed all, did she, too, forsake me? Ah, no! you will tell me Italy +is free. But I did not free her! She waits only to put on in Venice her +tiara. And for that other one, that fair Austrian woman, that devil whom +I serve and adore, that yellow-haired witch who brewed her incantations +in my holiest raptures,--she did not then play me foul, and falsely +feign love to win me to disgrace? May all the woes in Heaven's hands +fall on her! + +God! what have I said? That I should live to ban her with a word! Did I +say it? Oh, but it was vain! Woe for her? No, no! all blessings shower +upon her, sunshine attend her, peace and gladness dwell about her! +Traitress though she were, I must love her yet; I cannot unlove her; I +would take her into my heart, and fold my arms about her.--Oh, I pray +you do not look upon me with that mocking smile! Pity me, rather! pity +this wretched heart that longs to curse God and die!--Nay, I want not +your idle words. Can good destroy? Can love persecute? I was a worm that +turned. What then? Why not have crushed me to annihilation? Oh, no, not +that! He took me up and shook me before the world, clipped me, and let +me fall. A derisive Deity,--why, the words give each other the lie! + +Stop! Your sad eyes look as if you would go away, but for this infinite +pity in you. What makes you pity me? Because I am shorn of my strength? +because of all my fair proportions there is nothing left unshrivelled? +because my body--such as it is--is racked with hourly and perpetual +pain? because I die? For none of these? Truly, your judgments are +insenilable. For what then? Because,--yet, no, that cannot be,--because +I bear a stubborn heart? because I will not bend my soul as He has bent +my body? Partly,--but you are witless! What else? Because I toss off a +shield and buckler, you say. Because I will not lean upon a tower of +strength. Because I will not throw myself on the tide of divine love, +and trust myself to its course. It was that divine love, then, that +tower of strength, that shield and buckler, that made me this thing you +see. Tarpeia was enough. Away with your generalities! Go, go, you slave +of the past! + +Yet no,--you have not gone? You believe what you say,--I know with those +eyes you cannot deceive. Ah, but I trusted her eyes once! Yet it gives +you rest;--your sorrows are not like mine,--there is no rest for me. I +cannot go and gather that balm of Gilead,--I have no legs. I have as +good as none. This wheel-chair and that dog of a turnkey are not the +equipage for such a journey.--Ah, do not turn from me now! My railing is +worse than my cursing, you feel indeed. Well, stay with me at least, and +if it is twelve years since you shrived me at first, perhaps you shall +shrive me at last,--for I doubt if I am ever brought out to this +sunshine again, if I do not die in the prison-damps to-night,--and you, +with all your change, are Father Anshmo, I think.--Stay, I will confess +to you, confess this. Man! man! this infinite pity of your soul for mine +throws a light on my dark ways; God's curse has fallen on me through +man's curse, why not God's love through man's love? Anselmo, though you +became priest, and I went to become hero, we were children together; I +was dear to you then; I am so still, it seems. In your love let me find +the love of that Heaven I have defied.--Stay, friend, yet another word. +If man's love can be so great, what can God's love be? That which I +said I said, in desperation; in very truth, that peace hangs like an +unattainable city in the clouds before my soul's vision, that love like +a broad river flowing through the lands, an atmosphere bathing the +worlds, the subtile essence and ether of space in which the farthest +star pursues its course,--why, then, should it escape me, the mote? Oh, +when the world turned from me, I sought to flee thither! I sighed for +the rest there! Wretched, alone, I have wept in the dark and in the +light that I might go and fling myself at the heavenly feet. But, do you +see? sin has broken down the bridge between God and me. Yet why, +then, is sin in the world,--that scum that rises in the creation and +fermentation of good,--why, but _as_ a bridge on which to re-seek those +shores from which we wander? Man, I do repent me,--in loving you I +find God. And you call that blasphemy!--Nay, go, indeed, my friend! So +humble, you are not the man for me. I can talk to the winds: they, at +least, do not visit me too roughly. + +These are thy tears, Anselmo? Thou a priest, yet a man? Still with me? +Yet thou wilt have to bear with wayward moods,--scorn now, quiet then. I +am a tetchy man; I am an old man, too, though but just past thirty.--So! +I thank God for thee, dear friend! + + * * * * * + +Anselmo, look out on this scene below us here, as we sit on our lofty +battlement. Not on the turrets or the loopholes, the grates and spikes, +or all the fortified horror,--but on the earth. It is fair earth, though +not Italy; this is a mountain-fortress; here are all the lights and +shadows that play over grand hill-countries, and yonder are fields of +grain, where the winds and sunbeams play at storm, and a little hamlet's +sheltered valley. Doubtless there are towers, besides, half hidden in +the hills. It is Austria: slaves tread it, and tyrants drain it, it is +true,--but the wild, free gypsies troop now and then across it, and +though no fiction of law supports a claim they would scorn to make, they +use it so that you would swear they own it. Do you see how this iron +reticulation of social rule and custom and force makes a scaffolding on +which this tameless race build up their lives? I watch them often. Each +country has its compensations. Anselmo, this first made me tremble in +my petty defiance,--I, an ephemera of May, defying the dominations of +eternity!--Not so,--not too lowly; I also am, and each limitation of +life is as well, a domination of eternity. But I saw that it was no +purpose of God to have destroyed Italy; when men in weakness and +wantonness suffered their liberties to be torn from them, suffered +themselves to become enslaved, there was compensation in that their sons +had chance for heroic growth; they might, in efforts for freedom, create +virtues that, born to freedom, they would never have known. I, too, had +my field; I lost it; my enemy was myself. But when I think of her--Ay, +there it is! Do not let me think of her! I become mad, when I think of +her!--At least, allow me this: God's ways are dark. Not that? Not even +that? I needed what I have? If my ambitions, my passions, my will, had +ruled, my soul would have remained null? Ah, friend, and is that so much +the worse? It is the soul that aches!--I am a man of the people, a +man who acts,--I _was_, I mean,--not a man who thinks; and all your +subtleties of word perchance entrap me. I am not wary when you come to +logic. See! I surrender point after point. I shall be dead soon, you +know; when this morning's sun shave have set, when the moon shall hold +the night in fee, I shall depart,--wing up and away;--is it, that, my +body already dead, my mind sickens and dies with it, bit after bit, and +so I yield, and attest, that, without the agony of my life, death had +failed to burst my soul's husk? Oh, for I was born of an earthy race, +blood ran thick in our veins, we were sensuous and passionate, the +breath and steam of pleasure stifled our brains, and our filmy eyes +could not see heaven. Yes, yes, I needed it all; but, friend, it is +pitiful. + + * * * * * + +I like to sit here in the sun. It is only a twelvemonth, of all my long +years' imprisonment, that this has been allowed me. I like to sleep in +it, like any wild creature,--the lizard, a mere reptile,--the bird, a +hindered soul. To lie thus, weak as I am, but pillowed and warmed by the +searching genial rays, seems such comfort, when I think of the bed I +once had on the rack! This little slumber from which I wake revives me. +I feared not to find you, and did not unclose my eyes at once. It was +good in you to come, Anselmo; it must have been at risk of much. + +You ask me to speak of my life since I went away on that morning of +your command,--to reconcile the hostile acts, to gather the scattered +reports. Hear it all! + +You know my wealth was equal to my demand. I used it; before six +months were over, I was the life and soul of those who must needs be +conspirators. They saw that I was earnest, that my sacrifices were real; +they trusted me. Soon the movement had become general; all the smothered +elements of national life were convulsed and throbbing under the crust +of tyranny. + +How proud and glad was I that morning after our victory! I saw great +Italy, beautiful Italy, once more put on her diadem; I beheld the future +prospect of one broad, free land, barriered by Alps and set impregnably +in summer seas, storied seas, keys of the West and East. We embraced +each other as brothers of this glorious nation, ancient Rome risen from +trance; as we walked the streets, we sang; Milan was turbulent with +gladness; no gala-day was ever half so bright; the very spires appeared +to spring in the white radiance of their flames up a deeper heaven; the +sun stayed at perpetual dawn for us. Walking along, jubilant and daring, +at length we paused in a square where a fountain dashed up its column of +sunshine, and laved our hands. By Heaven! We forgot independence, Italy, +freedom; we were crazed with success and hope; it seemed that the stream +was Austrian blood! Then, in the midst of all, I looked up,--and on a +balcony she stood. A fair woman, with hair like shredded light, her +great blue eyes wide and full and of intense dye, her nostril distended +with pride, and fear and hate of us,--but on the full lips, ripe with +crimson bloom, juicy and young and fresh, on those Love lay. The others +wound forward,--I with them, yet apart; and my eyes became fixed on +hers. Then I lifted my cap with its tricolor. She did not return the +courtesy, but stood as if spellbound, one hand threading back the +straying hair, the lips a little parted; suddenly she turned to fly, +that hand upraised to the casement's side, and still, as she looked +back, the beautiful eyes on mine. My companions had preceded me; we were +alone in the square; she wavered as she stood, then tore a rose from her +bosom, kissed it deep into its heart, and tossed it to me. + +"Let all its petals be joys!" I said, and she vanished. + +Oh, friend, the leaves have fallen, the rose is dead! Look! I have kept +it through all,--sear leaf and withered spray! + +That night we danced; and the Austrian girl was there. They told me she +was exiled, and that she loved liberty; no one told me she was a spy. I +saw her swim along the dance, the white satin of her raiment flashing +perpetual interchange of lustrous and obscure, the warm air playing in +the lace that fell like the spray of the fountain round her golden hair +and over her pearly shoulder; grace swept in all her motions, beauty +crowned her, she seemed the perfect, pitch of womanhood. + +Still she swims along the lazy line with indolent pleasure, still floats +in dreamy waltz-circles perchance, still bends to the swaying tune +as the hazel-branch bonds to the hidden treasure,--but as for me, my +dancing days are over. + +By-and-by it was I with whom she danced, whose hand she touched, on whom +she leaned. I wondered if there were any man so blest; I listened to her +breath, I watched her cheek, our eyes met, and I loved her. The music +grew deeper, more impassioned; we stood and listened to it,--for she +danced then no more,--our hearts beat time to it, the wind wandering at +the casement played in its measure; we said no words, but now and then +each sought the other's glance, and, convicted there, turned in sudden +shame away. When I bade her good-night, which I might never have done +but that the revel broke, a great curl of her hair blew across my lips. +I was bold,--I was heated, too, with this half-secret life of my heart, +this warm blood that went leaping so riotously through my veins, and yet +so silently,--I took my dagger from my belt and severed the curl. See, +friend! will you look at it? It is like the little gold snakes of the +Campagna, is it not? each thread, so fine and fair, a separate ray of +light: once it was part of her! See how it twists round my hand! Haste! +haste! let me put it up, lest I go mad!--Where was I? + +I busied myself again in the work to be done; because of our victory we +must not rest; once more all went forward. I saw the Austrian woman only +from a window, or in a church, or as she walked in the gardens, for many +days. Then the times grew hotter; I left the place, and lived with stern +alarums; and thither she also came. I never sought what sent her. She +was with the wounded, with the dying. Then the need of her was past, and +she and all the others took their way. At length that also came to an +end. + +We were in Rome,--and thither, some time previously, she had gone. + +One night, our business for the day was over, our plans for the morrow +laid, our messages received, our messengers despatched, and those who +had been conspirators and now bade fair to be saviours were sleeping. +Sleep seemed to fold the world; each bough and twig was silent in +repose; the spectral moonlight itself slept as it bathed the air. I +alone wandered and waked. With me there were too many cares for rest; +work kept me on the alert; to court slumber at once was not easy after +the nervous tension of duty. I was torn, too, with conflicting feelings: +half my soul went one way in devotion to my country, half my soul +swerved to the other as I thought of the Austrian woman. I grew tired of +the streets and squares; something that should be fragrant and bowery +attracted me. I mounted on the broken water-god of a dry bath and leaped +a garden-wall. + +No sooner was I there than I knew why I had come. This was her garden. + +Heart of Heaven! how all things spoke of her! How the great white roses +hung their doubly heavy heads and poured their perfume out to her! how +the sprays shivered as T spoke the name she owned! how the nightingales +ceased for a breath their warbling as she rustled down a fragrant path +and met me! All her hair was swept back in one great mass and held by an +ivory comb; a white cloak wrapped her white array; she was jewel-less +and stripped of lustre; she was like pearl, milky as a shell, white as +the moonlight that followed in her wake. + +"You breathed my name,--I came," she said. + +"Pardon!" I replied. "I heard the fountains dash and the nightingales +sing, and I but came for rest under the spell." + +"And have you found it?" + +"I have found it." + +We remained silent then, while floods of passion gathered and lay darkly +still in our hearts. No, no! I know now that it was not so; yet I will +tell it, tell it all, as I thought it then. + +She did not stir; indeed, she had such capability of rest, that, had I +not spoken, she would never have stirred, it may be. She knew that my +glance was upon her; for herself, she looked at the broad lilies that +grew at her feet, and listened to the melody that seemed to bubble from +a thousand throats with interfluent sound upon the night. It was her +repose that soothed me: moulded clay is not so calm, the marble rose of +silence not half so beautifully folded to dreamful rest, so lovely +and so still no garden-statue could have been; the cool, soft night +infiltrated its tranquillity through all her being. + +As we stood, the nightingales gave us capricious pause; one alone, +distant and clear, fluted its faint piping like the phantom of the +finished strain. Another sound broke the air and floated along on this +too delicious accompaniment: music, fine and far. Some other lover sang +to her his serenade. The voice in its golden sonority rose and crept +toward her with persuading sweetness, winding through all the alleys and +hovering over the plots of greenery with a tranquil strength, as if such +song were but the natural spirit of the night, or as if the soul of the +broad calm and silence itself had taken voice. + + "Thy beauty, like a star + Whose life is light, + Shines on me from afar. + And on the night. + + "Each midnight blossom bends + With sweetest weight, + And to thy casement sends + Its fragrant freight. + + "Each, air that faintly curls + About thy nest + Its daring pinion furls + Within thy breast. + + "The night is spread for thee, + The heavens are wide, + And the dark earth's mystery + Is magnified. + + "For thee the garden waits, + The hours delay, + The fountains toss their jets + Of shimmering spray. + + "Then leave thy dim delight + In dreams above, + Come forth, and crown the night + With her I love!" + +She listened, but did not lift her head or suffer the change of a fold; +then there came the tinkle of the strings that embalmed the tune, and +the singer's steps grew soundless as he left the street. A new phantasm +crept upon me. What right had any other man to sing to her his +love-songs? Did she not live, was not her beauty created, her soul +given, for me? Did not the very breath she drew belong to me? My voice, +hoarse and husky, disturbed the stillness, my eyes flamed on her. + +"Do you love that man who sang?" I murmured. + +"Signor, I love you," she said. + +Then we were silent as before, but she stood no longer alone and +opposite. One passionate step, an outstretched arm, and her head on my +bosom, my lips bent to hers. + +All the nightingales burst forth in choral redundance of song, all the +low winds woke and fainted again through the balmy boughs, all the great +stars bent out of heaven to shed their sweet influences upon us. + +It seemed to me that in that old palace-garden life began, my memory +went out in confused joy. I held her, she was mine! mine, mine, in life +and for eternity! Fool! it was I who was hers! Man, you are a priest, +and must not love. I, too, was sworn a priest to my country. So we break +oaths! + +O moments of swift bliss, why are you torture to remember? Let me not +think how the night slipped into dawn as we roamed, how pale gold +filtered through the darkness and bleached the air, how bird after bird +with distant chirrup and breaking time announced the day. She left me, +and as well it might be night. I wound a strange way home. I questioned +if it were the dream of a fevered brain; I wondered, would she remember +when next she saw me? None met with me that day; I forgot all. With the +night I again waited in the garden. In vain I waited; she came no more. +I waxed full of love's anger, I crushed the tendril and the vine, I +wandered up and down the walks and cursed these thorns that tore my +heart. As I went, an angle of the shrubbery allured; I turned, and lo! +full radiance from open doors, and silvery sounds of sport. I leaned +against the ilex, lost in shadow, and watched her as she stirred and +floated there before me in the light. She seemed to carry with her an +atmosphere of warmth and brilliance; all things were ordered as she +moved; one throng melted before her, another followed. By-and-by +she stood at the long casement to seek acquaintance with the night. +Constantly I thought to meet her eye, and I would not reflect that she +saw only dusk and vacancy. Then indignantly I stepped from the ilex and +confronted her. A low, glad cry escapes her lips, she holds her arms +toward me and would cross the sill, when a voice constrains her from +within. It is he, the accursed Neapolitan. + +"Signor," she says, "a vampire flitted past the dawn." + +Dawn indeed was breaking. The man still stood there when she left him, +and still looked out; his eyes lay on me, and irate and motionless +I returned their gaze. One by one her guests departed; with a last +threatening glance, he, too, withdrew. I plunged into the silent places +again, and waited now, assured that she would come. The constellations +paled, and still I was alone. Then I wandered restlessly again, and, +winding through thickets of leaf-distilled perfume, I came where just +above a balcony, and almost beyond reach from it, a light burned dimly +in one narrow window. I did not ask myself why I did it, but in another +moment I had clambered to the place, and, standing there, I bent forward +to my right, pulled away the tangle of ivy that filled half the niche, +and was peering in. + +"What is that?" said a voice I knew, with its silvery echo of the South, +the accursed Neapolitan's. + +"It is the owl that builds in the recess, and stirs the ivy," she +replied. + +"Haste!" said a third,--"the day breaks." + +She was sitting at a low table, writing; Pia, the old nurse, stood +behind her chair; the oil was richly scented that she burned; the +single light illumined only her, and covered with her shadow the low +ceiling,--a shadow that seemed to hang above her like a pall ready to +fall from ghostly fingers and smother her in its folds; the others +lounged about the room and waited on her pen, in gloom they, their faces +gleaming from that dusk demoniacly. It was a concealed room, entered by +secret ways, unknown to others than these. + +When she had written, she sealed. + +"There is no more to await. Adieu," she said. + +"It is some transfer of property, some legal paper, some sale, some +gift," I said to myself, as I watched them take it and depart. Then she +was alone again. I saw her start up, pace the narrow spot,--saw her +stand and pull down the masses, so interspersed with golden light, that +crowned her head, and look at them wonderingly as they overlay her +fingers,--then saw those fingers clasped across the eyes, and the +lips part with a sigh that, prolonged and deepened, grew to be a +groan,--while all the time that shadow on the ceiling hovered and +fluttered and grew still, till it seemed the cluster of Eumenides +waiting to pounce on its prey. In another pause I had taken the perilous +step, had hung by the crumbling rock, the rending vine, had entered and +was beside her. A cold horror iced her face; she warned me away with her +trembling hands. + +"What have you seen?" she said. + +"You, O my love, in grief." + +"And no more?" + +"I have seen you give a letter to the Neapolitan, who departs to-morrow +with the little Viennois,--perhaps to your friends at home." + +"And that is all?" + +"That is all." + +"I have no friends at home. To whom, then, could the letter be?" + +"How should I divine?" + +"It was for the Austrian Government! Now love me, if you dare!" + +"And do you suppose I did not know it?" + +"Then is your love for me but a shield and mask?" + +As I gazed in reply, my steady eyes, the soul that kindled my smile, my +open arms, all must have asseverated for me the truth of my devotion. + +"Still?" she said. "Still? And you can keep your faith to me and to +Italy?" + +What was this doubt of me, this stain she would have cast upon my honor? +That armor's polish was too intense to sustain it; it rolled off like +a cloud from heaven. Italy's fortunes were _my_ fortunes; it was +impossible for me to betray them; this woman I would win to wed them. +How long, how long my blood had felt this thing in her! how long my +brain had rebelled! In a proud innocence, I stood with folded arms, and +could afford to smile. + +"Stay!" she said again, after our mute gaze, and laying her hand upon my +arm. "You shall not love me in vain, you shall not trust me for nothing. +Your cause is mine to-day. That is the last message I send to Vienna." + +And then I believed her. + +The light, slanting up, crept in and touched the brow of an ideal bust +of Mithras which she had invested with her faintly-faded wreath of +heliotropes; their fragrance falling through the place already made the +atmosphere more rich than that of chest of almond-wood,--this perfume +that is like the soul of the earth itself exhaled to the amorous air. +Behind an alabaster shrine she lighted a holy-taper, slowly to waste +and pale in the spreading day. We went to the window, where among the +ivy-nooks day's life was just astir with gaudy wings. + +"All will be seeking you, and yet you cannot go," she said. + +"Why can I not go?" + +"It is broad morning." + +"And what of that?" + +"One thing. You shall not compromise yourself, going from the house of +an Austrian woman and worse!" + +She was too winningly imperious to fail. I delayed, and together we +looked out on the rosy sky. + +"Come down," she said at last, "and on an arbor-moss the sun shall +drowse you, the flower-scents be your opiates, the birds your lullaby, +and I your guard." + +We went, and, wandering again through the garden-paths, she brushed +the dew with her trailing festal garments, and plucked the great blue +convolvuli to crown her forehead. Soon, on a plot of Roman violets, +screened by tall trees and trellises, we breakfasted. One might have +said that the cloth was laid above giant mushroom-stems, the service +acorn-cups and calices of milky blooms; golden was the honey-comb we +broke, manna was our bread; she caught the water in her hand from the +fountain and pledged me, and swift as sunshine I bent forward and +prevented the thirsty lips. Then she laid my head on her shoulder, with +her cool finger-tips she stroked the temples and soothed the lids, +they fell and closed on the vision bending above me,--loveliness like +painting, pallor that was waxen, yellow tresses wreathed with azure +stars, eyes that caught the hue again and absorbed all Tyrian dyes. + +The plash and bubble of waters swooned dreamily about my ears, and far +off it seemed I heard the wild, sad songs of her native land, that now +in tinkling tune, and now in long, slow rise and fall of mellow sound, +swathed me with sweet satiety to dreamless rest. + +The sun stole round and rose above the screen of trees at last and woke +me. I was alone, the silent statues looked on me, the breath of the dark +violets crushed by my weight rose in shrouding incense. I lifted myself +and searched for her, and asked why I must needs believe each hour of +joy a dream,--then went and cooled my brow in the lucent basin at hand, +and waited till she came, in changed raiment, and gliding toward me as +the Spirit of Noon might have come. She led me in, well refreshed, and +in the cool north rooms of the palace the warm hours of the day slipped +like beads from a leash. It scarcely seemed her fingers that touched the +harp to tune, but as if some herald of sirocco, some faint, hot breeze, +had brushed between the strings. It scarcely seemed her voice that +talked to me, but something distant as the tone in a sad sea-shell. What +I said I knew not; I was in a maze, bewildered with bliss; I only knew I +loved her, I only felt my joy. + +She told me many things: stories of her mountain-home, in distant view +of the old fortress of Hellberg,--this is the fortress of Hellberg, +Anselmo,--of her youth, her maidenhood, her life in Vienna, her lovers +in Venice, her health, that had sent her finally there where we sat +together. + +"I thought it sad," she said at length, "when they exiled me, so to +say, from Vienna and all my gay career there, because Venice, with its +water-breaths, might heal my attainted health,--and sadder when the +winter bade me leave night-tides and gondolas and repair to Rome. Now +spring has come, and all the hills are blue with these deep violets, +the very air is balm, the year is at flood, and life at what seems its +height is perfected with you." + +"But you love that land you left?" I replied, after a while, and lifting +her face to meet my gaze. + +"Love it? Oh, yes! You love your land as you love a person in whose +veins and yours kindred blood runs, because it is hardly possible to do +otherwise. The land gave me life, that is all; I never knew till lately +that it was anything to be thankful for. It is not sufficiently a +_country_ to kindle enthusiasm; it has no national life, you know,--is +an automaton put through its motions by paid and cunning mechanists. +I thought it right to obey orders and serve it. But now _you_ are my +country,--I serve only you." + +It was easy so to pass to my own hopes, to my own life, to my land, the +land to which I had vowed the last drop of blood in my gift. Her eyes +beamed upon me, smiles rippled over her face, she clasped me now and +then and sealed my brow with kisses. Soon I left her side and strode +from end to end of the long _salon_, speaking eagerly of the future that +opened to Italy. I told her how the beautiful corpse lay waiting its +resurrection, and how the Angel of Eternal Life hovered with spreading +wings above, ready to sound his general trump. My pulses beat like +trip-hammers, and as I passed a mirror I saw myself white with the +excitement that fired me. + +"You are wild with your joyous emotion," she said, coming forward and +clinging round me. "Your eyes flame from depths of darkness. What, after +all, is Italy to you, that your blood should boil in thinking of her +wrongs? These people, for whom in your terrible magnanimity, I feel that +you would sacrifice even me, to-morrow would turn and rend you!" + +"No, no!" I answered. "All things but you! You, you, are before my +country!" + +The tears filled her large, serious eyes, her lips quivered in +melancholy smile, as sunshine plays with shower over autumn woodlands. +Was I not right? Right, though the universe declare me wrong! I would do +it all again; if she loved me, she had authority to be first of all in +my care; in love lie the highest duties of existence. + +I had forgotten the subject on which we spoke; I was thinking only of +her, her beauty, her tenderness, and the debt of deathless devotion that +I owed her. It was otherwise in her thought; she had not dropped the old +thread, but, looking up, resumed. + +"It is, then, an idea that you serve?" + +Brought back from my reverie, "Could I serve a more worthy master?" I +asked. + +"You do not particularly love your countrymen, nine-tenths of whom +you have never seen? You do not particularly hate the hostile race, +nine-tenths of whom you have never seen?" + +"Abstractly, I hate them. Kindliness of heart prevents individual +hatred, and without kindliness of heart in the first place there can be +no pure patriotism." + +"And for the other part. What do you care for these men who herd in the +old tombs, raise a pittance of vetch, and live the life of brutes? what +for the lazzaroni of Naples, for the brigands of Romagua, the murderers +of the Apennine? Nay, nothing, indeed. It is, then, for the land that +you care, the mere face of the country, because it entombs myriad +ancestors, because it is familiar in its every aspect, because it +overflows with abundant beauty. But is the land less fair when foreign +sway domineers it? do the blossoms cease to crowd the gorge, the mists +to fill it with rolling color? is the sea less purple around you, the +sky less blue above, the hills, the fields, the forests, less lavishly +lovely?" + +"Yes, the land is less fair," I said. "It is a fair slave. It loses +beauty in the proportion of difference that exists between any two +creatures,--the one a slave of supple symmetry and perfect passivity, +the other a daring woman who stands nearer heaven by all the height of +her freedom. And for these people of whom you speak, first I care for +them because they _are_ my countrymen,--and next, because the idea which +I serve is a purpose to raise them into free and responsible agents." + +"Each man does that for himself; no one can do it for another." + +"But any one may remove the obstacles from another's way, scatter the +scales from the eyes of the blind, strip the dead coral from the reef." + +She took yellow honeysuckles from a vase of massed amethyst and began to +weave them in her yellow hair,--humming a tune, the while, that was full +of the subtilest curves of sound. Soon she had finished, and finished +the fresh thought as well. + +"Do you know, my own," she said, "the men who begin as hierophants of +an idea are apt to lose sight of the pure purpose, and to become the +dogged, bigoted, inflexible, unreasoning adherents of a party? All +leaders of liberal movements should beware how far they commit +themselves to party-organizations. Only that man is free. It is easier +to be a partisan than a patriot." + +I laughed. + +"Lady, you are like all women who talk politics, however capable they +may be of acting them. You immediately beg the question. We are +speaking of patriotism, not of partisanship." + +"You it was who forsook the subject. You know nothing about it; you +confess that it is with you merely a blind instinct; you cannot tell me +even what patriotism is." + +"Stay!" I replied. "All love is instinct in the germ. Can you define the +yearnings that the mother feels toward her child, the tie that binds son +to father? Then you can define the sentiment that attaches me to the +land from whose breast I have drawn life. The love of country is more +invisible, more imponderable, more inappreciable than the electricity +that fills the air and flows with perpetual variation from pole to pole +of the earth. It is as deep, as unsearchable, as ineffable as the power +which sways me to you. It is the sublimation of other affection. A +portion of you has always gone out into the material spot where you have +been, a portion of that has entered you, your past life is entwined with +river and shore. You become the country, and the country becomes a part +of God. Those who love their country, love the vast abstraction, can +almost afford not to love God. She is a beneficence, she is a shield, +something for which to do and die, something for worship, ideal, grand; +and though the sky is their only roof, the earth their only bed, +affluent are they who have a land! Passion rooted deeply as the +foundations of the hills: a man may adore one woman, but in adoring his +land the aggregation of all men's love for all other women overwhelms +him and accentuates to a fuller emotion. It is unselfish, impersonal, +sheer sentiment clarified at its white heat from all interest and +deceit, the noblest joy, the noblest sorrow. Bold should they be, and +pure as the priests who bore the ark, that dare to call themselves +patriots. And those, Lenore, who live to see their country's hopeless +ruin, plunge into a sadness at heart that no other loss can equal, no +remaining blessing mitigate,--neither the devotion of a wife nor the +perfection of a child. You have seen exiles from a lost land? Pride is +dead in them, hope is dead, ambition is dead, joy is dead. Tell me, +would you choose me to suffer the personal loss of love and you, a loss +I could hide in my aching soul, or to bear those black marks of gall and +melancholy which forever overshadow them in widest grief and gloom?" + +She had sunk upon a seat, and was looking up at me with a pained +unwavering glance, as if in my words she foresaw my fate. + +"You are too intense!" she cried. "Your tones, your eyes, your gestures, +make it an individual thing with you." + +"And so it is!" I exclaimed. "I cannot sleep in peace, nor walk upon the +ways, while these Austrian bayonets take my sunshine, these threatening +approaching French banners hide the fair light of heaven!" + +"Come," she said, rising. "Speak no more. I am tired of the burden of +the ditty, dear; and it may do you such injury yet that already I hate +it. Come out again into our garden with me. Dismiss these cares, these +burning pains and rankling wounds. Be soothed by the cool evening air, +taste the gorgeous quiet of sunset, gather peace with the dew." + +So we went. I trusted her the more that she differed from me, that then +she promised to love Italy only because _I_ loved it. I told her my +secret schemes, I took her advice on points of my own responsibility, I +learned the joy of help and confidence in one whom you deem devotedly +true. Finally we remained without speech, stood long heart to heart +while the night fell around us like a curtain; her eyes deepened from +their azure noon-splendor and took the violet glooms of the hour, a +great planet rose and painted itself within them; again and again I +printed my soul on her lips ere I left her. + +At first, when I was sure that I was once more alone in the streets, +I could not shake from myself the sense of her presence. I could not +escape from my happiness, I was able to bring my thought to no other +consideration. I reached home mechanically, slept an hour, performed the +routine of bath and refreshment, and sought my former duties. But how +changed seemed all the world to me! what air I breathed! in what light I +worked! Still I felt the thrilling pressure of those kisses on my lips, +still those dear embraces! + +So days passed on. I worked faithfully for the purpose to which I was +so utterly committed that let that be lost and I was lost! We were +victorious; after the banner fell in Lombardy to soar again in Venice +and to sink, the Republic struggled to life; Rome rose once more on her +seven hills, free and grand, child and mother of an idea, the idea of +national unity, of independence and liberty from Tyrol to Sicily. My +God! think of those dear people who for the first time said, "We have a +country!" + +Yet how could we have hoped then to continue? Such brief success dazzled +us to the past. Piedmont had long since struck the key-note of Italy's +fortunes. As Charles Albert forsook Milan and suffered Austria once more +to mouth the betrayed land and drip its blood from her heavy jaws, till +in a baptism of redder dye he absolved himself from the sin,--so woe +heaped on woe, all came to crisis, ruin, and loss,--the Republic fell, +Rome fell, the French entered. + +Our names had become too famous, our heroic defence too familiar, for us +to escape unknown: the Vascello had not been the only place where youth +fought as the lioness fights for her whelps. Many of us died. Some fled. +Others, and I among them, remained impenetrably concealed in the midst +of our enemies. Weeks then dragged away, and months. New schemes chipped +their shell. Again the central glory of the land might rise revealed to +the nations. We never lost courage; after each downfall we rose like +Antaeus with redoubled strength from contact with the beloved soil, for +each fall plunged us farther into the masses of the people, into closer +knowledge of them and kinder depths of their affection, and so, learning +their capabilities and the warmth of their hearts and the strength of +their endurance, we became convinced that freedom was yet to be theirs. +Meanwhile, you know, our operations were shrouded in inscrutable +secrecy; the French held Rome in frowning terror and subjection; the +Pope trembled on his chair, and clutched it more franticly with his weak +fingers: it was not even known that we, the leaders, were now in the +city; all supposed us to be awaiting quietly the turn of events, in some +other land. As if we ourselves were not events, and Italy did not hang +on our motions! But, as I said, all this time we were at work; our +emissaries gave us enough to do: we knew what spoil the robbers in the +March had made, the decree issued in Vienna, the order of the day in +Paris, the last word exchanged between the Cardinals, what whispers were +sibilant in the Vatican; we mined deeper every day, and longed for the +electric stroke which should kindle the spark and send princes and +principalities shivered widely into atoms. But, friend, this was not +to be. We knew one thing more, too: we knew at last that we also were +watched,--when men sang our songs in the echoing streets at night, and +when each of us, and I, chief of all, renewed our ancient fame, and +became the word in every one's mouth, so that old men blessed us in the +way as we passed, wrapt, we had thought, in safe disguise, and crowds +applauded. Thus again we changed our habits, our rendezvous, our +quarters, and again we eluded suspicion. + +There came breathing-space. I went to her to enjoy it, as I would have +gone with some intoxicating blossom to share with her its perfume,--with +any band of wandering harpers, that together our ears might be +delighted. I went as when, utterly weary, I had always gone and rested +awhile with her I loved in the sweet old palace-garden: I had my ways, +undreamed of by army or police or populace. There had I lingered, +soothed at noon by the hum of the bee, at night by that spirit that +scatters the dew, by the tranquillity and charm of the place, ever +rested by her presence, the repose of her manner, the curve of her +dropping eyelid, so that looking on her face alone gave me pleasant +dreams. + +Now, as I entered, she threw down her work,--some handkerchief for her +shoulders, perhaps, or yet a banner for those unrisen men of Rome, +I said,--a white silk square on which she had wrought a hand with a +gleaming sickle, reversed by tall wheat whose barbed grains bent full +and ripe to the reaper, and round the margin, half-pictured, wound the +wild hedge-roses of Paestum. She threw it down and came toward me in +haste, and drew me through an inner apartment. + +"He has returned, they say," she said presently,--mentioning the +Neapolitan,--"and it would be unfortunate, if you met." + +"Unfortunate for _him_, if we met here!" + +"How fearless! Yet he is subtler than the snake in Eden. I fear him as I +detest him." + +"Why fear him?" + +"That I cannot tell. Some secret sign, some unspeakable intuition, +assures me of injury through him." + +"Dearest, put it by. The strength of all these surrounding leagues with +their swarm does not flow through his wrist, as it does through mine. He +is more powerless than the mote in the air." + +"You are so confident!" she said. + +"How can I be anything else than confident? The very signs in the sky +speak for us, and half the priests are ours, and the land itself is an +oath. Look out, Lenore! Look down on these purple fields that so sweetly +are taking nightfall; look on these rills that braid the landscape and +sing toward the sea; see yonder the row of columns that have watched +above the ruins of their temple for centuries, to wait this hour; behold +the heaven, that, lucid as one dome of amethyst, darkens over us and +blooms in star on star;--was ever such beauty? Ah, take this wandering +wind,--was ever such sweetness? And since every inch of earth +is historic,--since here rose glory to fill the world with wide +renown,--since here the heroes walked, the gods came down,--since Oreads +haunt the hill, and Nereïds seek the shore"-- + +"Whereabout do Nereïds seek the shore?" she archly asked. + +"Why, if you must have data," I answered, laughing, "let us say Naples." + +"What is that you have to say of Naples?" demanded a voice in the +door-way,--and turning, I confronted the Neapolitan. + +She had started back at the abrupt apparition, and before she could +recover, stung by rage and surprise I had replied,-- + +"What have I to say of Naples? That its tyrant walks in blood to his +knees!" + +A man, I, with my hot furies, to be intrusted with the commonwealth! + +"I will trouble you to repeat that sentence at some day," he said. + +"Here and now, if you will!" I uttered, my hand on my hilt. + +"Thanks. Not here and now. It will answer, if you remember it _then_.--I +hope I see Her Highness well. Pardon this little _brusquerie_, I pray. +The southern air is kind to loveliness: I regret to bring with me Her +Highness's recall." + +She replied in the same courteous air, inquired concerning her +acquaintance, and ordered lights,--took the letter he brought, and held +it, still sealed, in the taper's flame till it fell in ashes. + +"Signor," she said, lifting the white atoms of dust and sifting them +through her fingers, "you may carry back these as my reply." + +"Nay, I do not return," he answered. "And, Signorina, many things are +pardoned to one in--your condition. Recover your senses, and you will +find this so among others." + +Then, as coolly as if nothing had happened, he spoke of the affairs +of the day, the tendency of measures, the feeling of the people, and +finally rose, kissed her hand, and departed. He was joined without by +the little Viennois, and the accursed couple sauntered down the street +together. I should have gone then,--the place was no longer safe for +me,--but something, the old spell, yet detained me. + +Lenore did not speak, but threw open all the windows and doors that were +closed. + +"Let us be purified of his presence, at least!" she cried, when this was +done. + +"And you have ceased to fear this man whom you have dared so offend?" I +asked. + +"He is not offended," said Lenore. "Austria is not Naples. He will not +transmit my reply till he is utterly past hope." + +"Hope of what?" + +"Of my hand." + +"Lenore! Then put him beyond hope now! Become my wife!" + +"Ah,--if it were less unwise"-- + +"If you loved me, Lenore, you would not think of that." + +"And you doubt it? Why should I, then, say again that I love you,--I +love you?" + +Ah, friend, how can I repeat those words? Never have I given her +endearments again to the air: sacred were they then, sacred now, however +false. Ah, passionate words! oh, sweet _issimos!_ tender intonations! +how deeply, how deeply ye lie in my soul! Let me repeat but one +sentence: it was the, key to my destiny. + +"Yes, yes," she said, rising from my arms, "already I do you injury. You +think oftener of me than of Italy." + +It was true. I sprang to my feet and began pacing the floor, as I sought +to recall any instance in which I had done less than I might for my +country. The cool evening-breeze, and the bell-notes sinking through +the air from distant old campaniles, soothed my tumult, and, turning, I +said,-- + +"My devotion to you sanctifies my devotion to her. And not only for her +own sake do I work, but that you, you, Lenore, may have a land where no +one is your master, and where your soul may develop and become perfect." + +"And those who have not such object, why do they work?" + +Then first I felt that I had fallen from the heights where my companions +stood. This ardent patriotism of mine was sullied, a stain of +selfishness rose and blotted out my glory, others should wear the +conquering crowns of this grand civic game. Oh, friend! that was sad +enough, but it was inevitable. Here is where the crime came in,--that, +knowing this, I still continued as their leader, suffered them to call +me Master and Saviour, and walked upon the palms they spread. + +Lenore mistook my silence. + +"You cannot tell me why they work?" she said. "From habit, from fear, +because committed? It cannot be, then, that they are in earnest, that +they are sincere, that they care a rush for this cause so holy to you. +They have entered into it, as all this common people do, for the love +of a new excitement, for the pleasurable mystery of conspiracy, for the +self-importance and gratulation. They will scatter at the signal of +danger, like mischievous boys when a gendarme comes round the corner. +They will betray you at the lifting of an Austrian finger. Leave them!" + +This was too much to hear in silence,--to hear of these faithful +comrades, who had endured everything, and were yet to overcome because +they possessed their souls in patience, each of whom stood higher before +God than I in unspotted public purity, and whose praise and love led me +constantly to larger effort. At least I would make them the reparation +of vindication. + +"You mistrust them?" I exclaimed. "They whose souls have been tried in +the furnace, who have the temper of fine steel, pliant as gold, but +incorruptible as adamant,--heroes and saints, they stand so low in your +favor? Come, then, come with me now,--for the bells have struck the +hour, and shadows clothe the earth,--come to their conclave where +discovery is death, and judge if they be idle prattlers, or men who +carry their lives in their hands!" + +Fool! Fool! Fool! Every sound in the air cries out that word to me: +the bee that wings across the tower hums it in my ear; the booming +alarm-bell rings it forth; my heart, my failing heart, beats it while +I speak. I would have carried a snake to the sacred ibis-nest, and +thenceforth hope was hollow as an egg-shell! + +She ran from the room, but, pausing in the door-way, exclaimed,-- + +"Remember, if you take me there, that I am no Roman patriot,--I! I, +who am of the House of Austria, that House that wears the crown of the +Caesars, those Caesars who swayed the very imperial sceptre, who trailed +the very imperial purple of old Rome! I endure the cause because it is +yours. I beseech you to be faithful to it; because I should despise you, +if for any woman you swerved from an object that had previously been +with you holier than heaven!" + +I stood there leaning from the lofty window, and looking down over the +wide, solitary fields. Recollections crowded upon me, hopes rose before +me. One day, that yet lives in my heart, Anselmo, sprang up afresh, a +day forever domed in memory. Fair rose the sun that day, and I walked on +the nation's errands through the streets of a distant town,--a hoar and +antique place, that sheltered me safely, so slight guard was it thought +to need by our oppressors! It pleased that reverend arch-hypocrite to +take at this hour his airing. Late events had given the people courage. +It was a market-day, peasants from the country obstructed the ancient +streets, the citizens were all abroad. Not few were the maledictions +muttered over a column of French infantry that wound along as it +returned to Rome from some movement of subjection, not low the curses +showered on an officer who escorted ladies upon their drive. As I went, +I considered what a day it would have been for _émeute_, and what mortal +injury _émeute_ would have done our cause. Italy, we said, like fools, +but honest fools, must not be redeemed with blood. As if there were ever +any sacred pact, any new order of things, that was not first sealed +by blood! Therefore, when I, alone perhaps of all the throng, saw one +man--a man in whose soul I knew the iron rankled--stealing behind the +crowd, behind the monuments, and, as the coach of His Excellency rolled +luxuriously along, levelling a glittering barrel,--it was but an +instant's work to seize the advancing creatures, to hold them +rearing,--and then a deadly flash,--while the ball whistled past me, +grazed my hand, and pierced the leader's heart. In a twinkling the dead +horse was cut away, and His Excellency, cowering in the bottom of the +coach, galloped borne more swiftly than the wind, without a word. But +the populace appreciated the action, took it up with _vivas_ long and +loud, that rang after me when I had slipped away, and before nightfall +had echoed in all ears through leagues of country round. I went that +night to the theatre. The house was filled, and, as we entered, a murmur +went about, and then cries broke forth,--the multitude rose with cheers +and bravos, calling my name, intoxicated with enthusiasm, and dazzled, +not by a daring feat, but by the spirit that prompted it. Women tore off +their jewels to twist them into a sling for my injured hand; men rose +and made me a conqueror's ovation; the orchestra played the old Etrurian +hymns of freedom; I was attended home with a more than Roman triumph of +torch and song, stately men and beautiful women. But chameleons change +their tint in the sunshine, and why should men always march under one +color? Friend, not six months later there came another day, when triumph +was shame,--plaudits, curses,--joyous tumult, scorching silence. Oh!-- +But I shall come to that in time. Now let me hasten; the hours are less +tardy than I, and they bring with them my last. + +Thought of this day--sole pageant defiling through memory--was startled +again by the far, sweet sound of a bell, some bell ringing twilight out +and evening in across the wide Campagna. I wondered what delayed Lenore. +Did it take so long to toss off the cloudy back-falling veil, to wrap in +any long cloak her gown of white damask and all the sheen of her milky +pearl-dusters and fiery rubies? I thought with exultation then of what +she was so soon to see,--of the route through sunken ruins, down wells +forsaken of their pristine sources and hidden by masses of moss, winding +with the faint light in our hands through the awful ways and avenues of +the catacombs. The scene grew real to me, as I mused. Alone, what should +I fear? These silent hosts encamped around would but have cheered their +child. But with her, every murmur becomes a portent of danger, every +current of air gives me fresh tremors; as we pass casual openings into +the sky, the vault of air, the glint of stars, shall seem a malignant +face; I fancy to hear impossible footsteps behind us, some bone that +crumbling falls from its shelf makes my heart beat high, her dear hand +trembles in my hold, and, full of a new and superstitious awe, I half +fear this ancient population of the graves will rise and surround us +with phantom array. Now and then, a cold, lonely wind, blowing from no +one knows where, rises and careers past us, piercing to the marrow. I +think, too, of that underground space, half choked with rubbish, into +which we are to emerge at last, once the hall of some old Roman revel. I +see the troubled flashes flung from the flaring torch over our assembly. +Alert and startled, I see Lenore listen to the names as if they summoned +the wraiths and not the bodies of men whom she had supposed to be lost +in the pampas of Paraguay, dead in the Papal prisons, sheltered in +English homes, or tossing far away on the long voyages of the Pacific +seas. I see myself at length taking the torch from its niche and +restoring it, as a hundred times before, to Pietro da Valambo, while +it glitters on some strange object looking in at the vine-clad opening +above with its breaths of air, serpent or hare, or the large face and +slow eyes of a browsing buffalo. And as I think, lo! an echo in the +house, a dull tramp in the hall, a stealthy tread in the room, a heavy +hand upon my shoulder,--I was arrested for high treason. + +Do not think I surrendered then. Without a struggle I would be the +prize of Pope nor King nor Kaiser! I shook the minions' grasp from my +shoulder, I flashed my sword in their eyes; and not till the crescent +of weapons encircled me in one blinding gleam, vain grew defence, vain +honor, vain bravery. Of what use was my soul to me thenceforth? I became +but carrion prey. I fell, and the world fell from me. + +Sensation, emotion, awoke from their swooning lapse only in the light +of day, the next or another, I knew not which. I was lifted from some +conveyance, I saw blue reaches of curving bay and the great purifying +priest of flame, and knew I was in the city guarded by its pillar of +cloud by day, of fire by night. I had reason to know it, when, yet +unfed, unrested, faint, smirched and smeared with blood and travel, +loaded with chains, I was brought to a tribunal where sat the sleek and +subtle tyrant of Naples. + +"Signor," said a bland voice from the king's side,--and looking in its +direction, I encountered the Neapolitan,--"Signor, I lately said that at +some day I would trouble you to repeat a brilliant sentence addressed +to me. The day has arrived. I scarcely dared dream it would be so soon. +Shall we listen?" + +I was silent: not that I feared to say it; they could but finish their +play. + +Then I saw the beautifully cut lips of my judge part, that the voice +might slide forth, and, taking a comfit, he tittered, with unchanging +tint and sweetest tone, the three words, "Apply the question." + +Why should I endure that for a whim? Who courts torment? Already they +drew near with the cunning instruments. Let me say it, and what then? +Nothing worse than torture. Let me _not_ say it, and certainly torture. +Oh, I was weaker than a child! my body ruled my spirit with its +exhaustion and pain. Yet there was a certain satisfaction in flinging +the words in their faces. I waved back with my remaining arm the slaves +who approached. + +"You should allow a weary man the time to collect his thoughts," I said, +and then turned to my persecutors. "I have spoken with you many times, +Signor," I replied to the Neapolitan, "yet of all our words I can +remember none but these, that you could care to hear with this auditory. +I said,--that the tyrant of Naples walks in blood to his knees!" + +The Neapolitan smiled. The king rose. + +"Well said!" he murmured, in his silvery tones. "One that knows so +much must know more. Exhaust his knowledge, I pray. Do not spare your +courtesies; remember he is my guest. I leave him in your hands." + +He fixed me with his eye,--that darkly-glazed eye, devoid of life, of +love, of joy, as if he were the thing of another element,--then bowed +and passed away. + +"The urbanity of His Majesty is too well known to suppose it possible +that he should prove you a liar," said the Neapolitan. + +Truly, I was loft in their hands! Shall I tell you of the charities I +found there? Not I, friend! it would wring your heart as dry of tears +as mine was wrung of groans. At last I was alone, it seemed,--on a wet +stone floor, sweat pouring from every muscle, each fibre quivering; I +was distorted and unjointed, I only hoped I was dying. But no, that +was too good for me. Anselmo, how can I but be full of scoffs, when I +remember those hours, those ages? The cold dampness of the place crept +into my bones; I became swollen and teeming with intimate pain. But +that was light, my body might have ached till the throbs stiffened into +death-spasms, and yet the suffering had been nought, compared with that +loathing and disgust in my soul. It had seemed that I was alone, I said. +Alone as the corpse in unshrouded grave! I was in a charnel-house. Men +who were sinless as you hung dead upon the wall, hung dying there. +Darkness covered all things at a distance, sighs crept up from +far corners, chains clanked, or imprecations or prayer uttered +themselves,--bodiless voices in the night. I did not know what untold +horror there might yet be hid. I heard the drip of water from the black +vaults; I heard the short, fierce pants and deadly groans. Oh, worst +infliction of Hell's armory it is to see another suffer! Why was it +allowed, Anselmo? Did it come in the long train of a broken law? was it +one of the dark places of Providence? or was it indeed the vile compost +to mature some beautiful germ? Ah, then, is it possible that Heaven +looks on us so in the mass? + +But for me, after a while I lay torpid, and then perchance I slept, for +finally I opened my eyes and found the white strong light; T lay on a +bed, and a surgeon handled me. Too elastic was I to be long crushed, +once the weight removed. Soon I breathed fresh air; and save that my +frame had become in its distortion hideous, I was the same as before. + +Then, indeed, began my torture,--torture to which this had been idle +jest. I was taken once more to the room of tribunal. Beside the +Neapolitan a woman sat veiled and shrouded in masses of sable drapery. +"A queen?" I thought, "or a slave?" But I had no further room for fancy; +the same interrogatories as before were given me to answer, and then I +felt why I had been nursed back to life. In the months that had elapsed, +I could not know if Italy were saved or lost, if Naples tottered or +remained impregnable. I stood only on my personal basis of right or +wrong. I refused to open my lips. They wheeled forward a low bed that I +knew well. Oh, the slow starting of the socket! Oh, the long wrench of +tendon and nerve! A bed of steel and cords, rollers and levers, bound me +there, and bent to their creaking toil. I was strong to endure; I had +set my teeth and sworn myself to silence; no woman should hear me moan. +Even in this misery I saw that she who sat there, shaking, fell. + +The tyrant was lily-livered; seldom he witnessed what others died under; +he intended nothing further then;--many men who faint at sight of blood +can probe a soul to its utmost gasp. Now he motioned, and they paused. +Then others lifted the woman and held her beside him, yet a little in +advance. + +"Keep your silence," said he, in a voice unrecognizable, and as if a +wild beast, half-glutted, should speak, "and I keep her! She is in my +power. Mine, and you know what that means. Mine," and he bent toward me, +"_body and--soul_. To use, to blast, to destroy, to tear piecemeal,--as +I will do, so help me God! unless you meet my condition." And extending +his hand, he drew aside the black veil, and my eye lay on the face of +Lenore, thin and white as the familiar faces of corpses, and utterly +insensible in swoon. + +All, that mortal horror stops my pulse! Was I wrong? Why not have borne +that, too? Had she loved me, she had chosen it, chosen it rather. And +death would have made all right!--God! why not have seized some poignard +lying there? why not have sprung upon her, have slain her? Then silence +had been simply secure. Then I could have smiled in their frustrated +faces, one keen, deep smile, and died. I was dissolved in pain, writhed +with prolonged strokes that thrilled me from head to foot, pierced as +with acute stabs, my heart seemed to forge thunderbolts to break upon my +brain,--but this agony had been spared me. They unbound me, fed me with +some stimulating cordial, gave me cold air, and I rose on my elbow a +little. + +"Swear!" I said, hoarsely. "But you do not keep oaths. God help you? +Never! There must be a Hell to help you! Imprecate this, then, on +yourself! May you in your smooth white body know the torture I have +known, be racked till each bone in your skin changes place, hang +festering in chains from the wall of a living grave, make fellowship +with putridity, and lie in the pitiless dark to see all the dead who +died under your hand rise, rise and accuse you before God! And may your +little son know the deeds you have done, live the life those deeds +merit, and die the death that _I_ shall die,--if you do not keep your +word!" + +"What word?" he said. + +"Promise, if I reveal all, and my revelations shall be true and thorough +therefore,--promise that you will leave her in safe security and freedom +to-day, untouched, unscathed, unharmed, and that so ever shall she +remain. And false to this oath, may no priest shrive you, no land own +you, God blight you and curse you and wither you from the face of the +earth!" + +And taking a crucifix, he swore the oath. + +Then they busied themselves about Lenore, revived her, soothed her, +gave her of the same cordial to drink, and placed her once more in her +daïs-seat. Her veil was thrown back, her wide blue eyes fixed on me in +intense strain, her face and lips still blanched more bitterly beneath +that hue, her features sharp as chisel-graven death. Ah, God! must +I endure that too? Was she to hear me,--she, not knowing why, never +knowing why,--she in whom that look of aching passion and pity was to +die out and freeze and fade in one of utter scorn? + +They brought me some strange draught, as if one swallowed fire. The +blood coursed richly through my shrunken veins; I felt filled with a +different life. I arose and left that bed of torture, but came back to +it as to my rest. + +And lying there, I betrayed Italy. + +Root and branch and spray and leaf, I uprooted all my memories; I forgot +no name, I lost no fact; I was eagerer than they; I modified nothing, +I abbreviated nothing; the past, the future, what had been, was to be, +plan and scheme and supreme purpose, I never faltered, I told the whole! + +I did not look at her, I kept my eyes on the tyrant; I wished I might +have the evil eye,--but that gift was for him, the Neapolitan. Yet at +length I heard a low moan trailing toward me; I turned, and saw her +face, as I saw it last, Anselmo,--stonily quiet, frozen from indignant +pain to icy apathy, and the words she would have said had hissed +inarticulately through her ashen lips. Then they brought me the +confession, and, as I could, I signed it. + +"Madame," said the tyrant, "your knowledge is coextensive with his. Does +all this agree?" + +"Sire, it does agree," she answered, and they led her out. + +"I have no authority over you," said the tyrant then to me. "You might +go freely now, but that, precious as Homer, seven cities claim you, +Signor! My prisons also will now be full of rarer game. But as a crime +of your commission places you within Austrian jurisdiction, I shall take +pleasure in presenting you to my cousin and surrendering you to his +mercy," and he withdrew. + +"You may not be aware," said the courteous Neapolitan, "that on the +night of your arrest your frantic sword-slashes had serious result. My +friend the little Viennois fell at your hands." + +[Transcriber's note: Page missing in source text.] + +through dazzling rings of light, and I fell forward in the cart and hung +by my chains among the hoofs of the trampling horses who dragged me. On +that day I had taken my last step; I never set foot on the round earth +again. But, with all, I smiled through my groans; for the shining, solid +hoofs that did their work on me did their work as well on the man who +walked by my side,--dashed dead the accursed Neapolitan. + +They were not the surgeons of Naples who essayed to galvanize volition +through my paralyzed limbs, but those who knew the utmost resources of +their art. And so I lived,--lived, too, by reason of my inextinguishable +vitality, by reason of this spark that will not quench,--and so I came +to Hellberg. It would have been mockery to give this shapeless hulk to +sentence, and then to headsman or hangman; perhaps, too, her haughty +name had been involved; and so I was never brought to trial, and so I am +at Hellberg. + +And I have never set foot on the ground again. But, oh, to touch it +for a moment, to sit anywhere on the summer mould, to pull down the +sun-quivering, sun-steeped branches about me, to scent the fresh grass +as it springs to the light! Oh. but to touch the sweet, kind earth, the +warm earth, silent with ineffable tenderness and soothing, to feel it +under my hand, to lay my cheek there for a moment, while it drew away +pain and weariness with its absorbing, purifying power! Oh, but to lie +once more where the blossoms grow! Soon, soon, they will grow above me! +Soon the kind mother will cover me! + + * * * * * + +What had happened in the outer world I knew not till you came. I fancied +Lenore returned, breathing Austrian air, and living under the same +horizon that girds me in. Sometimes I have seen a distant cavalcade +skimming over the vale, as once we careered over the Campagna, when she +handled her steed as another woman handles her needle, and the sweet +wind fanned peach-tints to her cheeks and drew out unravelled braids of +gold in lingering caress. She could have come to me, had she pleased, +then: this old chief who rules the place was her father's friend and +hers.--But look I but see! Who is it comes now,--sweeps round the donjon +flank? Lean over the embrasure, and learn! Ah, man, are my eyes so old, +my memories so treacherous, that I do not know day from night? They have +gone on,--or did they enter, think you? Or yet, there is to be carousal, +perhaps, in the halls beyond and below, and she comes to join the gay +feast; she will drink healths in red wine, will listen to flattering +dalliance with pleased eyes, will utter light laughs through the lips +that once glowed to my kisses, and will forget that the same roof +which shelters the revellers shelters also her lover dying in moans! +Careless--Best so! best so! What cavalier whispered in her ear as she +passed? Have years tarnished her beauty? Ah, God! this wind, that +maddens me now, a moment since touched her! + +Anselmo, I will go in. This vault of heaven with its spotless blue, this +wide land that laughs in festive summer, these winds that lift my hair +and come heavy with odors,--these do not fit with me, I burlesque the +fair face of creation. O invisible airs, that softly sport round the +castle-towers, why do you not woo my soul forth and bear it and lose it +in the flawless cope of sky? + +Nay, why, any more than Ajax, should I die in the dark? Never again +will I enter the cell, never again! The wide universe shall receive my +breath. Lower the back of my chair, pull away the cushions, wrap my +cloak round me, Anselmo. There! I will lie, and wait, and look up. Give +me ghostly counsel, my friend, console me. You are not too weary with +this long tale? Tell me I needed all the tears I have shed to quench the +fiery defiance, the independence of heaven and tumult of earth in my +being. If you could tell me that she had not been false, that she never +feigned her passion to decoy, that, Austrian though she were--Ah, but +I had evidence! I had evidence! his words, that ate out my life like +gangrene and rust.--Speak slower, Anselmo, slower. Can it be that I +sinned most, when I held his words before hers,--his black damning +falsehoods?--Mother of God! do you know what you say? + +Tell me, then, that I am a fool,--that not through other loss than the +loss of faith did the curse fall on me! Tell me, then, that these dark +ways lead me out on a height! Needful the shadow and the groping. He +anointed my eyes with the clay beneath his feet,--I was blind, but now I +see God! + +Repeat, Anselmo, repeat that she was true, though the knowledge blast me +with self-consuming pangs. But, true or false, one thing she promised +me: though other spheres, though other lives had come between us, she +would be with me in my dying hour. Soon the bell will toll that hour, +and toll my knell! + + * * * * * + +What is this, Anselmo,--this face that hangs between me and +heaven,--this pitying, sorrowing countenance?--Ave Maria!--Never! Never! +Still of the earth, this melting mouth, these violet eyes, this brow +of snow, this fragrant bosom pillowing my head! Mirage of fainting +fancy,--out, beautiful thing, away! Do not torment me with such a +despairing lie! do not cheat me into death! Let me at least look on the +unobstructed sky, as I sink lower and lower to my eternal rest! + + * * * * * + +Still there? Still there? Still bending above me, smiling and weeping, +sweet April face? Oh, were they truly thy lips that lay on mine, then, +that stamped them with life's impress, that woke me? Are they truly thy +fingers that pressed my throbless temples? These arms that are wound +about me, are thine? Thy heart beats for me, thy tears flow, thy perfect +womanhood does not recoil in horror? Lenore! Lenore! is it thou? + + * * * * * + +Nay, nay, Sweet, ask me no question; I have wronged thee; he shall tell +thee how. Yet best thou shouldst never hear it. Sin to thee greater than +all treachery had been. Forgive, forgive! I go,--in meeting, leave thee; +but be glad for me,--whether I sleep or whether I wake, know that a +great curse will have fallen from me. Swathe my memory in thy love. Kiss +me again, child! Rock me a little; stoop lower, and croon those old +mountain-songs that once you sang when the sunshine soaked the sward and +your hair was crowned with blue morning-glories. + +Ah, your song drowns in tears! Yet you do not wish me to live, Lenore? O +love, I can do nothing but die! + +The sunlight fades from the hills, the air wavers and glimmers, and day +is dim. Thy face is mistier than a vision of angels. There are faint, +strange voices in my ear, swift rustlings, far harmonics;--has sense +become so attenuated that I hear the blood in my failing pulses? Lenore, +love, lower. Thy lips to mine, and breathe my life away. Twice would I +die to save thee! + +--Anselmo! man! where art thou? Come back ere I fall,--strength flares +up like a dying flame. _Never tell her why I betrayed Italy!_ + +--Closer, dear love, closer! What old murmurs do I hear? + + "The night is spread for thee, + The heavens are wide, + And the dark earth's mystery"-- + +So,--in thy arms,--from thee to God! O love, +forever--kiss--forgive!--Lift me, that I confront eternity and Christ! + + + + +AFTER "TAPS." + + + Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! + As I lay with my blanket on, + By the dim fire-light, in the moonlit night, + When the skirmishing fight was done. + + The measured beat of the sentry's feet, + With the jingling scabbard's ring! + Tramp! Tramp! in my meadow-camp + By the Shenandoah's spring. + + The moonlight seems to shed cold beams + On a row of pale gravestones: + Give the bugle breath, and that image of Death + Will fly from the reveille's tones. + + By each tented roof, a charger's hoof + Makes the frosty hill-side ring: + Give the bugle breath, and a spirit of Death + To each horse's girth will spring. + + Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! + The sentry, before my tent, + Guards, in gloom, his chief, for whom + Its shelter to-night is lent. + + I am not there. On the hill-side bare + I think of the ghost within; + Of the brave who died at my sword-hand side, + To-day, 'mid the horrible din + + Of shot and shell and the infantry yell, + As we charged with the sabre drawn. + To my heart I said, "Who shall be the dead + In _my_ tent, at another dawn?" + + I thought of a blossoming almond-tree, + The stateliest tree that I know; + Of a golden bowl; of a parted soul; + And a lamp that is burning low. + + Oh, thoughts that kill! I thought of the hill + In the far-off Jura chain; + Of the two, the three, o'er the wide salt sea, + Whose hearts would break with pain; + + Of my pride and joy,--my eldest boy; + Of my darling, the second--in years; + Of _Willie_, whose face, with its pure, mild grace, + Melts memory into tears; + + Of their mother, my bride, by the Alpine lake's side, + And the angel asleep in her arms; + Love, Beauty, and Truth, which she brought to my youth, + In that sweet April day of her charms. + + "HALT! _Who comes there?_" The cold midnight air + And the challenging word chill me through. + The ghost of a fear whispers, close to my ear, + "Is peril, love, coming to you?" + + The hoarse answer, "RELIEF," makes the shade of a grief + Die away, with the step on the sod. + A kiss melts in air, while a tear and a prayer + Confide my beloved to God. + + Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! + With a solemn, pendulum-swing! + Though _I_ slumber all night, the fire burns bright, + And my sentinels' scabbards ring. + + * * * * * + + "Boot and saddle!" is sounding. Our pulses are bounding. + "To horse!" And I touch with my heel + Black Gray in the flanks, and ride down the ranks, + With my heart, like my sabre, of steel. + + + + +THE HUMAN WHEEL, ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. + + +[Illustration] + +The starting-point of this paper was a desire to call attention to +certain remarkable AMERICAN INVENTIONS, especially to one class of +mechanical contrivances, which, at the present time, assumes a vast +importance and interests great multitudes. The limbs of our friends and +countrymen are a part of the melancholy harvest which War is sweeping +down with Dahlgren's mowing-machine and the patent reapers of +Springfield and Hartford. The admirable contrivances of an American +inventor, prized as they were in ordinary times, have risen into the +character of great national blessings since the necessity for them has +become so widely felt. While the weapons that have gone from Mr. Colt's +armories have been carrying death to friend and foe, the beneficent +and ingenious inventions of MR. PALMER have been repairing the losses +inflicted by the implements of war. + +The study of the artificial limbs which owe their perfection to his +skill and long-continued labor has led us a little beyond its first +object, and finds its natural prelude in some remarks on the natural +limbs and their movements. Accident directed our attention, while +engaged with this subject, to the efforts of another ingenious American +to render the use of our lower extremities easier by shaping their +artificial coverings more in accordance with their true form than is +done by the empirical cordwainer, and thus _Dr. Plumer_ must submit to +the coupling of some mention of his praiseworthy efforts in the same +pages with the striking achievements of his more aspiring compatriot. + +We should not tell the whole truth, if we did not own that we have for +a long time been lying in wait for a chance to say something about the +mechanism of walking, because we thought we could add something to what +is known about it from a new source, accessible only within the last +few years, and never, so far as we know, employed for its elucidation, +namely, _the instantaneous photograph_. + + * * * * * + +The two accomplishments common to all mankind are walking and talking. +Simple as they seem, they are yet acquired with vast labor, and very +rarely understood in any clear way by those who practise them with +perfect ease and unconscious skill. + +Talking seems the hardest to comprehend. Yet it has been clearly +explained and successfully imitated by artificial contrivances. We +know that the moist membranous edges of a narrow crevice (the glottis) +vibrate as the reed of a clarionet vibrates, and thus produce the human +_bleat_. We narrow or widen or check or stop the flow of this sound by +the lips, the tongue, the teeth, and thus _articulate_, or break into +joints, the even current of sound. The sound varies with the degree and +kind of interruption, as the "babble" of the brook with the shape and +size of its impediments,--pebbles, or rocks, or dams. To whisper is to +articulate without _bleating_, or vocalizing; to _coo_ as babies do is +to bleat or vocalize without articulating. Machines are easily made that +bleat not unlike human beings. A bit of India-rubber tube tied round a +piece of glass tube is one of the simplest voice-uttering contrivances. +To make a machine that _articulates_ is not so easy; but we remember +Maelzel's wooden children, which said, "Pa-pa" and "Ma-ma"; and more +elaborate and successful speaking machines have, we believe, been since +constructed. + +But no man has been able to make a figure that can _walk_. Of all the +automata imitating men or animals moving, there is not one in which the +legs are the true sources of motion. So said the Webers[A] more than +twenty years ago, and it is as true now as then. These authors, after a +profound experimental and mathematical investigation of the mechanism +of animal locomotion, recognize the fact that our knowledge is not yet +advanced enough to hope to succeed in making real walking machines. But +they conceive that the time may come hereafter when colossal figures +will be constructed whose giant strides will not be arrested by the +obstacles which are impassable to wheeled conveyances. + +[Footnote A: _Traité de la Méchanique des Organes de la Locomotion_, +Translated from the German in the _Encyclopédie Anatomique_. Paris, +1843.] + +We wish to give our readers as clear an idea as possible of that +wonderful art of balanced vertical progression which they have +practised, as M. Jourdain talked prose, for so many years, without +knowing what a marvellous accomplishment they had mastered. We shall +have to begin with a few simple anatomical data. + +The foot is arched both longitudinally and transversely, so as to give +it elasticity, and thus break the sudden shock when the weight of the +body is thrown upon it. The ankle-joint is a loose hinge, and the great +muscles of the calf can straighten the foot out so far that practised +dancers walk on the tips of their toes. The knee is another hinge-joint, +which allows the leg to bend freely, but not to be carried beyond a +straight line in the other direction. Its further forward movement is +checked by two very powerful cords in the interior of the joint, which +cross each other like the letter X, and are hence called the _crucial +ligaments_. The upper ends of the thighbones are almost globes, which +are received into the deep cup-like cavities of the haunch-bones. They +are tied to these last so loosely, that, if their ligaments alone held +them, they would be half out of their sockets in many positions of the +lower limbs. But here comes in a simple and admirable contrivance. The +smooth, rounded head of the thighbone, moist with glairy fluid, fits so +perfectly into the smooth, rounded cavity which receives it, that it +holds firmly by _suction_, or atmospheric pressure. It takes a hard pull +to draw it out after all the ligaments are cut, and then it comes with a +smack like a tight cork from a bottle. Holding in this way by the close +apposition of two polished surfaces, the lower extremity swings freely +forward and backward like a _pendulum_, if we give it a chance, as is +shown by standing on a chair upon the other limb, and moving the pendent +one out of the vertical line. The force with which it swings depends +upon its weight, and this is much greater than we might at first +suppose; for our limbs not only carry themselves, but our bodies also, +with a sense of lightness rather than of weight, when we are in good +condition. Accident sometimes makes us aware how heavy our limbs are. An +officer, whose arm was shattered by a ball in one of our late battles, +told us that the dead weight of the helpless member seemed to drag him +down to the earth; he could hardly carry it; it "weighed a ton," to his +feeling, as he said. + +In _ordinary walking_, a man's lower extremity swings essentially by its +own weight, requiring little muscular effort to help it. So heavy a body +easily overcomes all impedimenta from clothing, even in the sex least +favored in its costume. But if a man's legs are pendulums, then a short +man's legs will swing quicker than a tall man's, and he will take more +steps to a minute, other things being equal. Thus there is a natural +rhythm to a man's walk, depending on the length of his legs, which beat +more or less rapidly as they are longer or shorter, like metronomes +differently adjusted, or the pendulums of different time-keepers. +Commodore Nutt is to M. Bihin in this respect as a little, fast-ticking +mantel-clock is to an old-fashioned, solemn-clicking, upright +time-piece. + +The mathematical formulae in which the Messrs. Weber embody their +results would hardly be instructive to most of our readers. The figures +of their Atlas would serve our purpose better, had we not the means of +coming nearer to the truth than even their careful studies enabled them +to do. We have selected a number of instantaneous stereoscopic views of +the streets and public places of Paris and of New York, each of them +showing numerous walking figures, among which some may be found in +every stage of the complex act we are studying. Mr. Darley has had the +kindness to leave his higher tasks to transfer several of these to our +pages, so that the reader may be sure that he looks upon an exact copy +of real human individuals in the act of walking. + +[Illustration: Fig. 1.] + +The first subject is caught with his legs stretched in a stride, the +remarkable length of which arrests our attention. The sole of the right +foot is almost vertical. By the action of the muscles of the calf it has +_rolled off_ from the ground like a portion of the tire of a wheel, the +heel rising first, and thus the body, already advancing with all its +acquired velocity, and inclined forward, has been pushed along, and, as +it were, _tipped over_, so as to fall upon the other foot, now ready to +receive its weight. + +[Illustration: Fig. 2.] + +In the second figure, the right leg is bending at the knee, so as to +lift the foot from the ground, in order that it may swing forward. + +[Illustration: Fig. 3.] + +The next stage of movement is shown in the _left_ leg of figure 3. This +leg is seen suspended in air, a little beyond the middle of the arc +through which it swings, and before it has straightened itself, which it +will presently do, as shown in the next figure. + +[Illustration: Fig. 4.] + +The foot has now swung forward, and, tending to swing back again, the +limb being straightened, and the body tipped forward, the heel strikes +the ground. The angle which the sole of the foot forms with the ground +increases with the length of the stride; and as this last surprised us, +so the extent of this angle astonishes us in many of the figures, in +this among the rest. + +The heel strikes the ground with great force, as the wear of our boots +and shoes in that part shows us. But the projecting heel of the human +foot is the arm of a lever, haying the ankle-joint as its fulcrum, and, +as it strikes the ground, brings the sole of the foot down flat upon it, +as shown in figure 1. At the same time the weight of the limb and body +is thrown upon the foot, by the joint effect of muscular action and +acquired velocity, and the other foot is now ready to rise from the +ground and repeat the process we have traced in its fellow. + +No artist would have dared to draw a walking figure in attitudes like +some of these. The swinging limb is so much shortened that the toe never +by any accident scrapes the ground, if this is tolerably even. In cases +of partial paralysis, the scraping of the toe, as the patient walks, is +one of the characteristic marks of imperfect muscular action. + +Walking, then, is a perpetual falling with a perpetual self-recovery. It +is a most complex, violent, and perilous operation, which we divest of +its extreme danger only by continual practice from a very early period +of life. We find how complex it is when we attempt to analyze it, and +we see that we never understood it thoroughly until the time of the +instantaneous photograph. We learn how violent it is, when we walk +against a post or a door in the dark. We discover how dangerous it is, +when we slip or trip and come down, perhaps breaking or dislocating our +limbs, or overlook the last step of a flight of stairs, and discover +with what headlong violence we have been hurling ourselves forward. + +Two curious facts are easily proved. First, a man is shorter when he is +walking than when at rest. We have found a very simple way of showing +this by having a rod or yardstick placed horizontally, so as to touch +the top of the head forcibly, as we stand under it. In walking rapidly +beneath it, even if the eyes are shut, to avoid involuntary stooping, +the top of the head will not even graze the rod. The other fact is, that +one side of a man always tends to outwalk the other, so that no person +can walk far in a straight line, if he is blindfolded. + +The somewhat singular illustration at the head of our article carries +out an idea which has only been partially alluded to by others. Man is +a _wheel_, with two spokes, his legs, and two fragments of a tire, his +feet. He _rolls_ successively on each of these fragments from the heel +to the toe. If he had spokes enough, he would go round and round as the +boys do when they "make a wheel" with their four limbs for its spokes. +But having only two available for ordinary locomotion, each of these has +to be taken up as soon as it has been used, and carried forward to +be used again, and so alternately with the pair. The peculiarity of +biped-walking is, that the centre of gravity is shifted from one leg to +the other, and the one not employed can shorten itself so as to swing +forward, passing by that which supports the body. + +This is just what no automaton can do. Many of our readers have, +however, seen a young lady in the shop-windows, or entertained her in +their own nurseries, who professes to be this hitherto impossible +walking automaton, and who calls herself by the Homeric-sounding epithet +_Autoperipatetikos._ The golden-booted legs of this young lady remind +us of Miss Kilmansegg, while their size assures us that she is not in +any way related to Cinderella. On being wound up, as if she were a piece +of machinery, and placed on a level surface, she proceeds to toddle off, +taking very short steps like a child, holding herself very stiff and +straight, with a little lifting at each step, and all this with a mighty +inward whirring and buzzing of the enginery which constitutes her +muscular system. + +An autopsy of one of her family who fell into our hands reveals the +secret springs of her action. Wishing to spare her as a member of the +defenceless sex, it pains us to say, that, ingenious as her counterfeit +walking is, she is an impostor. Worse than this,--with all our reverence +for her brazen crinoline, duty compels us to reveal a fact concerning +her which will shock the feelings of those who have watched the stately +rigidity of decorum with which she moves in the presence of admiring +multitudes. _She is a quadruped!_. Inside of her great golden boots, +which represent one pair of feet, is another smaller pair, which move +freely through these hollow casings. + +[Illustration] + +Four _cams_ or eccentric wheels impart motion to her four supports, by +which she is carried forward, always resting on two of them,--the boot +of one side, and the foot of the other. Her movement, then, is not +walking; it is not skating, which it seems to resemble; it is more like +that of a person walking with two crutches besides his two legs. The +machinery is simple enough: a strong spiral spring, three or four +cog-wheels and pinions, a fly to regulate the motion as in a musical +box, and the cams before mentioned. As a toy, it or she is very taking +to grown people as well as children. It is a literal fact, that the +police requested one of our dealers to remove Miss Autoperipatetikos +from his window, because the crowd she drew obstructed the sidewalk. + +We see by our analysis of the process, and by the difficulty of +imitating it, that walking is a much more delicate, perilous, +complicated operation than we should suppose, and well worth studying in +a practical point of view, to see what can be done to make it easier and +safer. Two Americans have applied themselves to this task: one laboring +for those who possess their lower limbs and want to use them to +advantage, the other for such as have had the misfortune to lose one or +both of them. + +_Dr. J.C. Plumer_, formerly of Portland, now of Boston, has devoted +himself to the study of the foot, and to the construction of a last upon +which a boot or shoe can be moulded which shall be adapted to its form +and accommodated to its action. + +Most persons know something of the cruel injustice to which the feet are +subjected, and the extraordinary distortions and diseases to which they +are liable in consequence. The foot's fingers are the slaves in the +republic of the body. Their black leathern integument is only the mask +of their servile condition. They bear the burdens, while the hands, +their white masters, handle the money and wear the rings. They are +crowded promiscuously in narrow prisons, while each of the hand's +fingers claims its separate apartment, leading from the antechamber, in +the dainty glove. As a natural consequence of all this, their faculties +are cramped, they grow into ignoble shapes, they become callous by long +abuse, and all their natural gifts are crushed and trodden out of them. + +Dr. Plumer is the Garrison of these oppressed members of the body +corporeal. He comes to break their chains, to lift their bowed figures, +to strengthen their weakness, to restore them to the dignity of digits. +To do this, he begins where every sensible man would, by contemplating +the natural foot as it appears in infancy, unspoiled as yet by +social corruptions, in adults fortunate enough to have escaped these +destructive influences, in the grim skeleton aspect divested of its +outward disguises. We will give the reader two views of the latter kind, +illustrating the longitudinal and transverse arches before spoken of. + +[Illustration] + +A man who walks on natural surfaces, with his feet unprotected by any +artificial defences, calls the action of these arches into full play at +every step. The longitudinal arch is the most strikingly marked of the +two. In some races and in certain individuals it is much developed, so +as to give the high instep which is prized as an evidence of good blood. +The Arab says that a stream of water can flow under his foot without +touching its sole. Under the conditions supposed, of a naked foot on a +natural surface, the arches of the foot will commonly maintain their +integrity, and give the noble savage or the barefooted Scotch lassie the +elasticity of gait which we admire in the children of Nature. + +But as a large portion of mankind tread on artificial hard surfaces, +especially pavements, their feet are subjected to a very unnatural +amount of wear and tear. How great this is the inhabitants of cities +are apt to forget. After passing some months in the country, we have +repeatedly found ourselves terribly lamed and shaken by our first walk +on the pavement. A party of city-folk who landed on a beach upon Cape +Cod complained greatly to one of the natives accompanying them of the +difficulty of walking through the deep sand. "Ah," he answered, "it's +nothing to the trouble I have walking on your city-sidewalks." To save +the feet from the effects of violent percussion and uneven surfaces, +they must be protected by thick soles, and thick soles require strong +upper-leather. When the foot is wedged into one of these casings, a new +boot, a struggle begins between them, which ends in a compromise. The +foot becomes more or less compressed or deformed, and the boot more or +less stretched at the points where the counter-pressure takes place. + +On the part of the foot, the effects of this warfare are liable to +show themselves in thickening and inflammation of the integuments, in +displacement of the toes, and occasionally in the breaking down of the +transverse or longitudinal arches. On the part of the boot or shoe, +there is a gradual accommodation which in time fits it to the foot +almost as if it had been moulded upon it, so that a little before it is +worn out it is invaluable, like other blessings brightening before they +take their flight. + +Now Mr. Plumer's improvements proceed from two series of data. _First_, +certain theoretical inferences from the facts above named. Finding the +arches liable to break down, he supports the transverse arch by making +the inner surface of the sole corresponding to it _convex_ instead of +concave transversely; he makes the middle portion of the sole convex +again in both directions to support the longitudinal arch, and for the +same reason extends the heel of the boot or shoe forward, so as to +support the anterior portion of the heel of the foot. _Secondly_, Mr. +Plumer takes an old shoe that has done good service, and studies the +reliefs and hollows-which the foot has shaped on the inner surface of +its sole. Comparing the empirical results of this examination with +those based on the anatomical data above given, and finding a general +coincidence in them, he constructs his last in accordance with their +joint teachings. Theoretically, Mr. Plumer is on somewhat dangerous +ground. If the arches of the foot are made to yield like elliptical +springs, why support them? But we subject them to such unnatural +conditions by pressure from above over the instep, by adding high heels +to our boots and shoes, by taking away all yielding qualities from the +soil on which we tread, that very probably they may want artificial +support as much as the soles of the feet want artificial protection. If, +now, we find that an old, easy shoe has worked the inside surface of its +sole into convexities which support the arches, we are safe in imitating +that at any rate. We shall have a new shoe with some, at least, of the +virtues of the old one. + +This all sounds very well, and the next question is, whether it works +well. We cannot but remember the coat made for Mr. Gulliver by the +Laputan tailors, which, though projected from the most refined +geometrical data and the most profound calculations, he found to be the +worst fit he ever put on his back. We must ask those who have eaten the +pudding how it tastes, and those who have worn the shoe how it wears. We +have no satisfactory experience of our own, having only within a week +or two, by mere accident, stumbled into a pair of Plumerian boots, and +being thus led to look into a matter which seemed akin to the main +subject of this paper. But the author of "Views Afoot," who ought to be +a sovereign authority on all that interests pedestrians, confirms from +his own experience the favorable opinions expressed by several of our +most eminent physicians, from an examination of the principles of +construction. We are informed that the Plumer last has been recently +adopted for the use of the army. We add our own humble belief that Dr. +Plumer deserves well of mankind for applying sound anatomical principles +to the construction of coverings for the feet, and for contriving a last +serving as a model for a boot or shoe which is adapted to the form of +the foot from the first, instead of having to be broken in by a painful +series of limping excursions, too often accompanied by impatient and +even profane utterances. + + * * * * * + +It is not two years since the sight of a person who had lost one of his +lower limbs was an infrequent occurrence. Now, alas! there are few of us +who have not a cripple among our friends, if not in our own families. A +mechanical art which provided for an occasional and exceptional want +has become a great and active branch of industry. War unmakes legs, and +human skill must supply their places as it best may. + +Our common idea of a wooden leg is realized in the "peg" of the +Greenwich pensioner. This humble contrivance has done excellent service +in its time, and may serve a good purpose still in some cases. A plain +working-man, who has outlived his courting-days and need not sacrifice +much to personal appearance, may find an honest, old-fashioned wooden +leg, cheap, lasting, requiring no repairs, the best thing for his +purpose. In higher social positions, and at an age when appearances are +realities, in the condition of the Marquis of Anglesea, for instance, +it becomes important to provide the cripple with a limb which shall +be presentable in polite society, where misfortunes of a certain +obtrusiveness may be pitied, but are never tolerated under the +chandeliers. + +The leg invented by Mr. Potts, and bearing the name of the "Anglesea +leg," was long famous, and doubtless merited the reputation it acquired +as superior to its predecessors. But legs cannot remain stationary while +the march of improvement goes on around them, and they, too, have moved +onward with the stride of progress. + +A boy of ten years old, living in a New-Hampshire village, had one of +his legs crushed so as to require amputation. The little fellow was +furnished with a "Peg" and stumped round upon it for ten years. We can +imagine what he suffered as he grew into adolescence under the cross of +this unsightly appendage. He was of comely aspect, tall, well-shaped, +with well-marked, regular features. But just at the period when personal +graces are most valued, when a good presence is a blank check on the +Bank of Fortune, with Nature's signature at the bottom, he found himself +made hideous by this fearful-looking counterfeit of a limb. It announced +him at the threshold he reached with beating heart by a thump more +energetic than the palpitation in his breast. It identified him as far +as the eye of jealousy could see his moving figure. The "peg" became +intolerable, and he unstrapped it and threw himself on the tender +mercies of the crutch. + +But the crutch is at best an instrument of torture. It presses upon a +great bundle of nerves; it distorts the figure; it stamps a character of +its own upon the whole organism; it is even accused of distempering the +mind itself. + +This young man, whose name was "B. FRANK. PALMER," (the abbreviations +probably implying the name of a distinguished Boston philosopher of the +last century, whose visit to Philadelphia is still remembered in that +city,) set himself at work to contrive a limb which should take +the place of the one he had lost, fulfilling its functions and +counterfeiting its aspect so far as possible. The result was the "Palmer +leg," one of the most unquestionable triumphs of American ingenuity. Its +victorious march has been unimpeded by any serious obstacle since it +first stepped into public notice. The inventor was introduced by the +late Dr. John C. Warren, in 1846, to the Massachusetts General Hospital, +which institution he has for many years supplied with his artificial +limbs. He received medals from the American Institute, the Massachusetts +Charitable Association, and the Great Exhibition in New York, and +obtained an honorary mention from the Royal Commissioners of the World's +Exhibition in London,--being the only maker of legs so distinguished. +These are only a few of fifty honorary awards he has received at various +times. The famous surgeons of London, the _Société de Chirurgie_ of +Paris, and the most celebrated practitioners of the United States have +given him their hearty recommendations. So lately as last August, that +shrewd and skilful surgeon, Dr. Henry J. Bigelow, who is as cautious in +handling his epithets as he is bold in using the implements of his art, +strongly advised Surgeon-General Hammond to adopt the Palmer leg, which, +after a dozen years' experience, he had found none to equal. We see it +announced that the Board of Surgeons appointed by the Surgeon-General +to select the best arm and leg to be procured by the Government for +its crippled soldiers chose that of Mr. Palmer, and that Dr. Hammond +approved their selection. + +We have thought it proper to show that Mr. Palmer's invention did not +stand in need of our commendation. Its merits, as we have seen, are +conceded by the tribunals best fitted to judge, and we are therefore +justified in selecting it as an illustration of American mechanical +skill. + +We give three views of the Palmer leg: an inside view when extended, a +second when flexed, a third as it appears externally. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +The Committee on Science and the Arts of the Franklin Institute of +Pennsylvania thus stated the peculiarities of Mr. Palmer's invention:-- + +"_First,_ An ingenious arrangement of springs and cords in the _inside_ +of the limb, by which, when the wearer is in the erect position, the +limb is extended, and the foot flexed so as to present a natural +appearance. + +"_Second_. By a second arrangement of cords and springs in the inside of +the limb, the foot and toes are gradually and easily extended, when +the heel is placed in contact with the ground. In consequence of this +arrangement, the limping gait, and the unpleasant noise made by the +sudden stroke of the ball of the foot upon the ground in walking, which +are so obvious in the ordinary leg, are avoided. + +"_Third_. By a peculiar arrangement of the knee-joint, it is rendered +little liable to wear, and all lateral or rotary motion is avoided. It +is hardly necessary to remark that any such motion is undesirable in an +artificial leg, as it renders its support unstable." + +Before reporting some of the facts which we have seen, or learned by +personal inquiry, we must be allowed, for the sake of convenience, +to exercise the privilege granted to all philosophical students, of +enlarging the nomenclature applicable to the subject of which we are +treating. + +Man, according to the Sphinx, is successively a _quadruped_, a _biped_, +and a _triped_. But circumstances may change his natural conditions. If +he loses a leg, he becomes a _uniped_. If he loses both his legs, he +becomes a _nulliped_. If art replaces the loss of one limb with a +factitious substitute, he becomes a _ligniped_, or, if we wish to be +very precise, a _uni-ligniped_; two wooden legs entitle him to be called +a _biligniped_. Our terminology being accepted, we are ready to proceed. + +To make ourselves more familiar with the working of the invention we are +considering, we have visited Mr. Palmer's establishments in Philadelphia +and Boston. The distinguished "Surgeon-Artist" is a man of fine person, +as we have said. But if he has any personal vanity, it does not betray +itself with regard to that portion of his organism which Nature +furnished him. There is some reason to think that Mr. Palmer is a little +ashamed of the lower limb which he brought into the world with him. At +least, if he follows the common rule and puts that which he considers +his best foot foremost, he evidently awards the preference to that which +was born of his brain over the one which he owes to his mother. He walks +as well as many do who have their natural limbs, though not so well as +some of his own patients. He puts his vegetable leg through many of the +movements which would seem to demand the contractile animal fibre. He +goes up and down stairs with very tolerable ease and despatch. Only when +he comes to _stand_ upon the human limb, we begin, to find that it is +not in all respects equal to the divine one. For a certain number of +seconds he can poise himself upon it; but Mr. Palmer, if he indulges +in verse, would hardly fill the Horatian complement of lines in that +attitude. In his anteroom were unipeds in different stages of their +second learning to walk as lignipeds. At first they move with a good +deal of awkwardness, but gradually the wooden limb seems to become, as +it were, penetrated by the nerves, and the intelligence to run downwards +until it reaches the last joint of the member. + +Mr. Palmer, as we have incidentally mentioned, has a branch +establishment in Boston, to which also we have paid a visit, in order +to learn some of the details of the manufacture to which we had not +attended in our pleasant interview with the inventor. The antechamber +here, too, was the nursery of immature lignipeds, ready to exhibit their +growing accomplishments to the inquiring stranger. It almost seems as if +the artificial leg were the scholar, rather than the person who wears +it. The man does well enough, but the leg is stupid until practice has +taught it just what is expected from its various parts. + +The polite Boston partner, who, if he were in want of a customer, would +almost persuade a man with two good legs to provide himself with a +third, carried us to the back part of the building, where legs are +organized. + +The _willow_, which furnishes the charcoal for the gunpowder that blows +off limbs, is the wood chosen to supply the loss it has helped to +occasion. It is light, strong, does not warp or "check" much as many +other woods, and is, as the workmen say, _healthy_, that is, not +irritating to the parts with which it is in contact. Whether the +_salicine_ it may contain enters the pores and invigorates the system +may be a question for those who remember the drugs in the Sultan's +bat-handle and the remarkable cure they wrought. This wood is kept in +a dry-house with as much care as that intended for the manufacture of +pianos. It is thoroughly steamed also, before using. + +The wood comes in rudely shaped blocks, as lasts are sent to the +factory, seeming to have been coarsely hewed out of the log. The +shaping, as we found to our surprise, is all done by hand. We had +expected to see great lathes, worked by steam-power, taking in a rough +stick and turning out a finished limb. But it is shaped very much as a +sculptor finishes his marble, with an eye to artistic effect,--not so +much in the view of the stranger, who does not look upon its naked +loveliness, as in that of the wearer, who is seduced by its harmonious +outlines into its purchase, and solaced with the consciousness that he +carries so much beauty and symmetry about with him. The hollowing-out of +the interior is done by wicked-looking blades and scoops at the end of +long stems, suggesting the thought of dentists' instruments as they +might have been in the days of the giants. The joints are most carefully +made, more particularly at the knee, where a strong bolt of steel passes +through the solid wood. Windows, oblong openings, are left in the sides +of the limb, to insure a good supply of air to the extremity of the +mutilated limb. Many persons are not aware that all parts of the surface +_breathe_ just as the lungs breathe, exhaling carbonic acid as well as +water, and taking in more or less oxygen. + +One of the workmen, a pleasant-looking young fellow, was himself, we +were told, a ligniped. We begged him to give us a specimen of his +walking. He arose and walked rather slowly across the room and back. +"Once more," we said, not feeling quite sure which was Nature's leg and +which Mr. Palmer's. So he walked up and down the room again, until we +had satisfied ourselves which was the leg of willow and which that +of flesh and bone. It is not, perhaps, to the credit of our eyes or +observing powers, but it is a fact, that we deliberately selected _the +wrong leg_. No victim of the thimble-rigger's trickery was ever more +completely taken in than we were by the contrivance of the ingenious +Surgeon-Artist. + +Our freely expressed admiration led to the telling of wonderful stories +about the doings of persons with artificial legs. One individual was +mentioned who _skated_ particularly well; another who _danced_ with zeal +and perseverance; and a third who must needs _swim_ in his leg, which +brought on a dropsical affection of the limb,--to which kind of +complaint the willow has, of course, a constitutional tendency,--and for +which it had to come to the infirmary where the diseases that wood is +heir to are treated. + +But the most wonderful monuments of the great restorer's skill are the +patients who have lost both legs,--_nullipeds_, as presented to Mr. +Palmer, _bilignipeds_, as they walk forth again before the admiring +world, balanced upon their two new-born members. We have before us +delineations of six of these hybrids between the animal and vegetable +world. One of them was employed at a railway-station near this +(Atlantic) city, where he was often seen by a member of our own +household, whose testimony we are in the habit of considering superior +in veracity to the naked truth as commonly delivered. He walked about, +we are assured, a little slowly and stiffly, but in a way that hardly +attracted attention. + +The inventor of the leg has not been contented to stop there. He has +worked for years upon the construction of an artificial _arm_, and has +at length succeeded in arranging a mechanism, which, if it cannot serve +a pianist or violinist, is yet equal to holding the reins in driving, +receiving fees for professional services, and similar easy labors. +Where Mr. Palmer means to stop in supplying bodily losses it would be +premature to say. We suppose the accidents happening occasionally from +the use of the guillotine are beyond his skill, and spare our readers +the lively remark suggested by the contrary hypothesis. + + * * * * * + +It is one of the signs of our advancing American civilization, that the +arts which preserve and restore the personal advantages necessary or +favorable to cultivated social life should have reached such perfection +among us. American dentists have achieved a reputation which has sent +them into the palaces of Europe to open the mouths of sovereigns and +princes as freely as the jockeys look into those of horses and colts. +Bad teeth, too common among us, help to breed good dentists, no doubt; +but besides this there is an absolute demand for a certain comeliness of +person throughout all the decent classes of our society. It is the same +standard of propriety in appearances which lays us open to the reproach +of caring too much for dress. If the national ear for music is not so +acute as that of some other peoples, the national eye for the harmonies +of form and color is better than we often find in older communities. We +have a right to claim that our sculptors and painters prove so much as +this for us. American taste was offended, outraged, by the odious "peg" +which the Old-World soldier or beggar was proud to show. We owe the +well-shaped, intelligent, docile limb, the half-reasoning willow of Mr. +Palmer, to the same sense of beauty and fitness which moulded the soft +outlines of the Indian Girl and the White Captive in the studio of his +namesake at Albany. + +As we wean ourselves from the Old World, and become more and more +nationalized in our great struggle for existence as a free people, we +shall carry this aptness for the production of beautiful forms more and +more into common life, which demands first what is necessary and then +what is pleasing. It is but a step from the painter's canvas to the +weaver's loom, and the pictures which are leaving the easel to-day +will show themselves in the patterns that sweep the untidy sidewalks +to-morrow. The same plastic power which is showing itself in +the triumphs of American sculpture will reach the forms of our +household-utensils. The beans of Beverly shall yet be baked in vases +that Etruria might have envied, and the clay pipe of the Americanized +Milesian shall be a thing of beauty as well as a joy forever. We +are already pushing the plastic arts farther than many persons have +suspected. There is a small town not far from us where a million +dollars' worth of gold is annually beaten into ornaments for the +breasts, the fingers, the ears, the necks of women. Many a lady supposes +she is buying Parisian adornments, when _Attleborough_ could say to +her proudly, like Cornelia, "These are my jewels." The workmen of this +little town not only meet the tastes of the less fastidious classes, to +whom all that glisters is gold, but they shape the purest metal into +artistic and effective patterns. When the Koh-i-noor--the Mountain of +Light--was to be fashioned, it was found to be almost as formidable a +task as that of Xerxes, when he undertook to hew Mount Athos to the +shape of man. The great crystal was sent to Holland, as the only place +where it could be properly cut. We have lately seen a brilliant which, +if not a mountain of light, was yet a very respectable mound of +radiance, valued at some ten or twelve thousand dollars, cut in this +virgin settlement, and exposed in one of our shop-windows to tempt our +frugal villagers. + +Monsieur Trousseau, Professor in the Medical School of Paris, delivered +a discursive lecture not long ago, in which he soared from the region +of drugs, his well-known special province, into the thin atmosphere +of aesthetics. It is the influence that surrounds his fortunate +fellow-citizens, he declares, which alone preserves their intellectual +supremacy. If a Parisian milliner, he says, remove to New York, she will +so degenerate in the course of a couple of years that the squaw of a +Choctaw chief would be ashamed to wear one of her bonnets. + +Listen, O Parisian cockney, pecking among the brood most plethoric with +conceit, of all the coop-fed citizens who tread the pavements of earth's +many-chimneyed towns! America has made implements of husbandry which +out-mow and out-reap the world. She has contrived man-slaying engines +which kill people faster than any others. She has modelled the +wave-slicing clipper which outsails all your argosies and armadas. +She has revolutionized naval warfare once by the steamboat. She has +revolutionized it a second time by planting towers of iron on the +elephantine backs of the waves. She has invented the sewing-machine to +save the dainty fingers of your virtuous grisettes from uncongenial +toil, so that Fifine and Frétillon may have more leisure for +self-development. She has taught you a whole new system of labor in her +machinery for making watches and rifles. She has bestowed upon you and +all the world an anodyne which enables you to cut arms and legs off +without hurting the patient; and when his leg is off, she has given you +a true artist's limb for your cripple to walk upon, instead of the peg +on which he has stumped from the days of Guy de Chauliac to those of M. +Nelaton. She has been contriving well-shaped boots and shoes for the +very people who, if they were your countrymen, would be clumping about +in wooden _sabots_. In works of scientific industry, hardly to be looked +for among so new a people she has distanced your best artificers. The +microscopes made at Canastota, in the backwoods of New York, look in +vain for their rivals in Paris, and must challenge the best workmanship +of London before they can be approached in excellence. The great eye +that stares into the celestial spaces from its workshop in Cambridge, +dives deeper through their clouds of silvery dust than any instrument +mounted in your observatory in face of the Luxembourg. Our artisans +produce no Gobelin tapestries or Sèvres porcelain as yet; but when your +mobs have looted the Tuileries, our shopkeepers have bought up enough +specimens to serve them as patterns by-and-by. + +All this is something for a nation which has hardly pulled up the stumps +out of its city market-places. It is sad to reflect that milliners, like +Burgundy, are spoiled by transportation to the headquarters of American +fashion. But as the best bonnet of the Empress's own artist would be +exploded with yells a couple of seasons after the time when it was the +rage, the Icarian professor's flight into the regions of rhetoric has +not led him to any very logical resting-place from which he can look +down on the aesthetic possibilities of New York or other Western cities +emerging from the semi-barbarous state. + +We are not proud, of course, of any of the mechanical triumphs we +have won; they are well enough, and show--to borrow the words of a +distinguished American, whom, during his too brief career, we held +unrivalled by any experimenter in the Old World for the depth as well as +the daring of his investigations--that some things can be done as well +as others. + +Our specialty is of somewhat larger scope. We profess to make men and +women out of human beings better than any of the joint-stock companies +called dynasties have done or can do it. We profess to make citizens out +of men,--not _citoyens_, but persons educated to question all privileges +asserted by others, and claim all rights belonging to themselves,--the +only way in which the infinitely most important party to the compact +between the governed and governing can avoid being cheated out of the +best rights inherent in human nature, as an experience the world has +seen almost enough of has proved. We are in trouble just now, on account +of a neglected hereditary _melanosis_, as Monsieur Trousseau might call +it. When we recover from the social and political convulsion it has +produced, and eliminate the _materies morbi_,--and both these events are +only matters of time,--perhaps we shall have leisure to breed our own +milliners. If not, there will probably be refugees enough from the Old +World, who have learned the fashions in courts, and will be glad to turn +their knowledge to a profitable use for the benefit of their republican +patronesses in New York and Boston. + +We have run away from our subject farther than we intended at starting; +but an essay on legs could hardly avoid the rambling tendency which +naturally belongs to these organs. + + * * * * * + + +PAUL BLECKER. + + +PART I. + + "Which serves life's purpose best, + To enjoy or to renounce?" + +A thorough American, who comprehends what America has to do, and means +to help on with it, ought to choose to be born in New England, for the +vitalized brain, finely-chorded nerves, steely self-control,--then to go +West, for more live, muscular passion, succulent manhood, naked-handed +grip of his work. But when he wants to die, by all means let him hunt +out a town in the valley of Pennsylvania or Virginia: Nature and man +there are so ineffably self-contained, content with that which is, shut +in from the outer surge, putting forth their little peculiarities, as +tranquil and glad to be alive as if they were pulseless sea-anemones, +and after a while going back to the Being whence they came, just as +tranquil and glad to be dead. + +Paul Blecker had some such fancy as this, that last evening before the +regiment of which he was surgeon started for Harper's Ferry, while he +and the Captain were coming from camp by the hill-road into the village +(or burgh: there are no Villages in Pennsylvania). Nothing was lost on +Blecker; his wide, nervous eyes took all in: the age and complacent +quiet of this nook of the world, the full-blooded Nature asleep in the +yellow June sunset; why! she had been asleep there since the beginning, +he knew. The very Indians in these hills must have been a fishing, +drowsy crew; their names and graves yet dreamily haunted the farms and +creek-shores. The Covenanters who came after them never had roused +themselves enough to shake them off. Covenanters: the Doctor began +joking to himself, as he walked along, humming some tune, about how the +spirit of every sect came out, always alike, in the temperament, the +very cut of the face, or whim of accent. These descendants of the +Covenanters, now,--Presbyterian elders and their wives,--going down to +camp to bid their boys good-bye, devoted them to death with just as +stern integrity, as partial a view of the right, as their ancestors did +theirs at Naseby or Drumclog: their religion loved its friends and hated +its enemies just as bitterly as when it scowled at Monmouth; the "boys," +no doubt, would call themselves Roundheads, as they had done in the +three months' service. Paul Blecker, who had seen a good many sides of +the world, laughed to himself: the very Captain here, good, anxious, +innocent as a baby, as he was, looked at the world exactly through +Balfour of Burley's dead eyes, was going to cure the disease of it by +the old pill of intolerance and bigotry. No wonder Paul laughed. + +The sobered Quaker evening was making ready for night: the yellow warmth +overhead thinning into tintless space; the low hills drawing farther off +in the melancholy light; the sky sinking nearer; clouds, unsteady all +day, softened at last into a thoughtful purple, and couching themselves +slowly in the hollows of the horizon; the sweep of cornfields and woods +and distant farms growing dim,--daguerreotype-like; the tinkle of the +sheep-bells on the meadows, the shouts of the boys in camp yonder, the +bass drone of the frogs in the swamp dulling down into the remoteness of +sleep. The Doctor slackened his sharp, jerking stride, and fell into +the monotonous gait of his companion, glancing up to him. McKinstry, he +thought, was going out to battle to-morrow with just as cool phlegm and +childlike content as he would set out to buy his merino ewes; but he +would receive no pay,--meant to transfer it to his men. And he would be +in the thickest of the fight,--you might bet on that. Umph! his quick +eyes darting over the big, leisurely frame, the neat yellow hair, +and the blue eyes mildly peering through spectacles. Then, having +satisfactorily anatomized McKinstry, he turned to the evening again with +open senses, the sensitive pulsing of his wide nostrils telling that +even the milky scent of the full-uddered cows gave him keen enjoyment. +The cows were going home from pasture, up shady barn-lanes, into the +grayer shadows about the houses on either side of the road, in whose +windows lights were beginning to glimmer. Solid old homesteads they +were, stone or brick, never wood. Out in these Western settlements, a +hundred years ago, they built durable homes, curiously enough, more than +in the Northern States; planted oaks about them, that bore the strength +of the earth up to heaven in sturdy arms, shaming the graceful, +uncertain elm of shallower soils. Just such old farm-houses as those, +Blecker thought, would turn out such old-time moulded men as McKinstry: +houses whose orchards still held on to the Waldower and Smoke-house +apples; their gardens gay with hollyhocks and crimson prince's-feather; +on the book-shelves the "Spectator" and "Gentleman's Magazine." The +women of them kept up the old-fashioned knitting-parties, and a +donation-visit to the pastor once a year; and the men were all gone to +the war, to keep the Union as it was in their fathers' time, and would +doubtless vote the conservative ticket next election because their +fathers did, which would make the war a horrible farce. The town, +Blecker thought, had rooted itself in between the hills with as solid +a persistence as the prejudices of its builders. Obstinately steep +streets, shaded by gnarled locust-trees; houses drawn back from the +sidewalks, in surly dread of all new-comers; the very smoke, vaporing +through the sky, had defiance in it of the outer barbarous world and its +vulgar newness. Yet the town had an honest country heart in it, if it +was a bit gray and crusty with age. Blecker, knowing it as he did, did +not wonder the boys who left it named a village for it out in Kansas, +trying to fancy themselves at home,--or that one old beggar in it asked +to be buried in the middle of the street, "So's I kin hear the stages +a-comin' in, an' know if the old place is a-gittin' on." + +There seemed to be a migration from it to-night: they met, every minute, +buggies, old-fashioned carriages, horsemen. + +"Going out to camp," McKinstry said; "the boys all have some one to bid +them good-bye." + +What a lonely, reserved voice the man had! Blecker had the curiosity of +all sensitive men to know the soul-history of people; he glanced again +keenly in McKinstry's face. Pshaw! one might as well ask their story +from the deaf and dumb. But that they were dumb,--there was hint of a +tragedy in that! + +Everybody stopped to speak to the Doctor. He had been but a few +months in the place; but the old church-goers had found him out as +a passionate, free-and-easy, honorable fellow, full of joke and +anecdote,--shrewd, too. They "fellowshipped" with him heartily, and were +glad when he got the post of surgeon with their sons. If there were +anything more astringent below this, any more real self in the man, held +back, belonging to a world outside of theirs, they did not see it. They +knew him better, they thought, than they did Daniel McKinstry, who had +grown up among them, just as mild and silent when he was a tow-haired +boy as now, a man of forty-five. He touched his hat to them now, and +went on, while Blecker leaned on the carriage-doors, his brown face +aglow with fun, his uneasy fingers drumming boyishly on the panel. Not +knowing that through the changeful face, and fierce, pitiful eyes of the +boy, the man Paul Blecker looked coolly out, testing, labelling +them. The boy in him, that they saw, Nature had made; but years of a +hand-to-hand fight with starvation came after, crime, and society, whose +work is later than Nature's, and sometimes better done. + +"Fine girl!" said the Doctor, touching his hat to Miss Mallard, as she +cantered past. "Got a head of her own, too. Made a deused good speech, +when she presented the flag to-day." + +Miss Mallard overheard him, as he intended she should, and blushed a +visible acknowledgment. All of her character was visible, well-developed +as her body: her timidity showed itself in the unceasing dropping of her +eyelid; her arch simplicity in the pouting lips; a coy reserve--well, +that everywhere, to the very rosette on her retreating slipper; and her +patriotism was quite palpable in the color of her Balmoral. She rode +Squire Mallard's gray. + +"And very well they turn out," sneered Blecker. + +"She is a woman," said the Captain, blushing,--differently from the +lady, however. + +"And if she is?" turning suddenly. "She has the nature of a Bowery +rough. Pah, McKinstry! Sexes stand alike with me. If a woman's flesh is +weaker-grained a bit, what of that? Whoever would earn esteem must work +for it." + +The Captain said nothing, stammered a little, then, hoisting his foot on +a stump, tied his shoe nervously. + +Blecker smiled, a queer, sorrowful smile, as if, oddly enough, he felt +sorry for himself. + +"I'd like to think of women as you do, Mac," he said. "You never knew +many?" + +"Only two, until now,--my mother and little Sarah. They're gone now." + +Sarah? The Doctor was silent a moment, thinking. He had heard of a +sister of McKinstry's, sick for years with some terrible disease, whom +he had nursed until the end. She was Sarah, most likely. Well, that was +what _his_ life had been given up for, was it? There was a twitching +about McKinstry's wide mouth: Paul looked away from him a moment, and +then, glancing furtively back, began again. + +"No, I never knew my mother or sister, Mac. The great discovery of this +age is woman, old fellow! I've been, knocked about too much not to have +lost all delusions about them. It did well enough for the crusading +times to hold them as angels in theory, and in practice as idiots; but +in these rough-and-tumble days we'd better give 'em their places as +flesh and blood, with exactly such wants and passions as men." + +The Captain never argued. + +"I don't know," he said, dryly. + +After that he jogged on in silence, glancing askance at the masculine, +self-assertant figure of his companion,--at the face, acrid, unyielding, +beneath its surface-heat: ruminating mildly to himself on what a good +thing it was for him never to have known any but old-fashioned women. +This Blecker, now, had been made by intercourse with such women as those +he talked of: he came from the North. The Captain looked at him with a +vague, moony compassion: the usual Western vision of a Yankee female +in his head,--Bloomer-clad, hatchet-faced, capable of anything, from +courting a husband to commanding a ship. (It is all your fault, genuine +women of New England! Why don't you come among us, and know your +country, and let your country know you? Better learn the meaning of +Chicago than of Venice, for your own sakes, believe me.) + +They were near the town now, the road crossing a railroad-track, where +the hill, chopped apart for the grade, left bare the black stratum of +coal, tinged here and there with a bloody brown and whitish shale. + +"Hillo! this means iron," said the Doctor, climbing up the bank, +cat-like, to break off a bit; "and here an odd formation, Mac. Take it +in to old Gurney." + +The Captain cleaned his spectacles with piece of chamois-leather, put +them on, folded the leather and replaced it in its especial place in his +pocket, before he took the bit of rock. + +"All that finical ceremony he would go through in the face of the +enemy," thought Blecker, jumping down on the track. + +"Give it to old Gurney, Mac. It will insure you a welcome." + +"It is curious, Doctor Blecker. But you"-- + +"I never care to gratify anybody. Besides, the old gentleman and I +inter-despised. Our instincts cried out, ''Ware dog!' the first day You +are a friend of his, eh, Mac?" + +The Captain's face grew red, like a bashful woman's. He thought Blecker +had divined his secret, would haul it out roughly in another moment. +If this slang-talking Yankee should take little Lizzy's name into his +mouth! But the Doctor was silent, even looked away until the heat on the +poor old bachelor's face had died out. He knew McKinstry's thought of +that little girl well enough, but he held the child-hearted man's secret +tenderly and charily in his hand. Paul Blecker did talk slang and assert +himself; but every impulse in him was clean, delicate, liberal. So, +Paul remaining silent, the Captain took heart of grace, going down the +street, and ventured back to the Gurney question. + +"I thought I would accompany you there, Doctor Blecker. They might only +think it seemly in me to bid farewell. I"-- + +Blecker nodded. The man had not been able to hide an harassed frown that +day under his usual vigor of speech and look. It became more palpable +after this; his voice, when he did speak, was fretful, irritable,--his +lips compressed; he stopped at a village-well to drink, as though his +mouth were parched. + +"How old is that house,--the Gurneys?" he asked, affecting carelessness, +to baffle the curious inspection of McKinstry. + +"The Fort? We call it the Fort because it was used for one in Indian +times," McKinstry began, chafing his lean whiskers delightedly. + +Old houses were his hobby, especially this which they approached,--a +narrow, long building of unhewn stone, facing on the street, the lintels +and doors worm-eaten, and green with moss. + +"Built by Bradford, the new part,--Bradford, of the Whiskey +Insurrection, you know? Carvings on the walls brought over the +mountains, when to bring them by panels was a two-months' journey. +There's queer stories hang about these old Pennsylvania homesteads." + +"Bradford? The Gurneys are a new family here, then?" + +"Came here but a few years back, from a country farther up the +mountains. They're different from us." + +"How, different?" with a keen, surprised glance. "_I_ see they are a +newer people than the others; but I thought the village accepted them +with shut eyes." + +The Captain stammered again. + +"Old Father Gurney, as we call him, taught school when they first came, +but he gave that up. This section is a good geological field, and he +wished to devote himself to that," he went on, evading the question. +"They live off of those acres at the back of the house since that. You +see? Corn, potatoes, buckwheat,--good yield." + +"Who oversees the planting?" sharply. + +McKinstry wondered vaguely at the little Doctor's curious interest in +the Gurneys, but went on with his torpid, slow answers. + +"That eldest girl, I believe, Grey. Cow there, you see, and ducks. He's +popular, old Father Gurney. People have a liking for his queer ways, +help him collect specimens for his cabinet; the boys bring him birds to +stuff, and snakes. If it hadn't been for the troubles breaking out, +he was on the eve of a most im-por-tant discovery,--the crater of an +exhausted volcano in Virginia." McKinstry lowered his voice cautiously. +"Fact, Sir. In Mercer County. But the guerrillas interfered with his +researches." + +"I think it probable. So he stuffs birds, does he?" Blecker's lips +closing tighter. + +"And keeps the snakes in alcohol. There are shelves in Miss Lizzy's room +quite full of them. That lower room it was, but Joseph has taken it for +a study. She has the upper one for her flowers and her father's birds." + +"And Grey, and the twins, and the four boys bedaubed with molasses, and +the dog, and the cooking?" + +"Stowed away somewhere," the Captain mildly responded. + +Dr. Blecker was testy. + +"You know Joseph, her brother? I mean our candidate for Congress next +term?" + +"Yes. Democratic. J. Schuyler Gurney,--give him his name, Mac. +Republican last winter. Joseph trims to wind and tide well. I heard +him crow like a barn-yard fowl on the Capitol-steps at Washington +when Lincoln called for the seventy-five thousand: now, he hashes up +Breckinridge's conservative speech for your hickory-backed farmers. Does +he support the family, Mac?" + +"His election-expenses are heavy." + +"Brandy-slings. I know his proclivities." + +McKinstry colored. Dr. Blecker was coarse, an ill-bred man, he +suspected,--noting, too, the angry repression in his eyes, as he stood +leaning on the gate, looking in at the Fort, for they had reached it +by this time. The Captain looked in, too, through the dusky clumps of +altheas and plum-trees, at the old stone house, dyed tawny-gray in the +evening light, and talked on, the words falling unconscious and simple +as a stream of milk. The old plodder was no longer dumb. Blecker had +hit on the one valve of the shut-up nature, the obstinate point of +self-reliant volition in a life that had been one long drift of +circumstance. This old stone house, shaggy with vines, its bloody script +of Indian warfare hushed down and covered with modern fruit-trees and +sunflowers,--this fort, and the Gurneys within it, stood out in the bare +swamped stretch of the man's years, their solitary bit of enchantment. +They were bare years,--the forty he had known: Fate had drained them +tolerably dry before she flung them to him to accomplish duty in;--the +duty was done now. McKinstry, a mild, common-faced man, had gone through +it for nearly half a century, pleasantly,--never called it heroism. It +was done. He had time now to stretch his nerves of body and soul with +a great sigh of relief,--to see that Duty was, after all, a lean, +meagre-faced angel, that Christ sends first, but never meant should be +nearest and best. Faith, love, and so, happiness, these were words of +more pregnant meaning in the gospel the Helper left us. So McKinstry +stood straight up, for the first time in his life, and looked about him. +A man, with an adult's blood, muscles, needs; an idle soul which his +cramped creed did not fill, hungry domestic instincts, narrow and +patient habit;--he claimed work and happiness, his right. Of course it +came, and tangibly. Into every life God sends an actual messenger to +widen and lift it above itself: puerile or selfish the messenger often +is, but so straight from Him that the divine radiance clings about it, +and all that it touches. We call that _love_, you remember. A secular +affair, according to McKinstry's education, as much as marketing. So +when he found that the tawny old house and the quiet little girl in +there with the curious voice, which people came for miles to hear, +were gaining an undue weight in his life, held, to be plain, all the +fairy-land of which his childhood had been cheated, all fierce beauty, +aspiration, passionate strength to insult Fate, which his life had never +known, he kept the knowledge to himself. It was boyish weakness. He +choked it out of thought on Sundays as sacrilege: how could he talk +of the Gurney house and Lizzy to that almighty, infinite Vagueness he +worshipped? Stalking to and fro, in the outskirts of the churchyard, +he used to watch the flutter of the little girl's white dress, as she +passed by to "meeting." He could not help it that his great limbs +trembled, if the dress touched them, or that he had a mad longing to +catch the tired-looking child up to his brawny breast and hold her there +forever. But he felt guilty and ashamed that it was so; not knowing that +Christ, seeing the pure thrill in his heart, smiled just as he did long +ago when Mary brought the beloved disciple to him. + +He never had told little Lizzy that he loved her,--hardly told himself. +Why, he was forty-five,--and a year or two ago she was sledding down the +street with her brothers, a mere yellow-haired baby. He remembered the +first time he had noticed her,--one Christmas eve; his mother and Sarah +were alive then. There was an Italian woman came to the village with a +broken hand-organ, a filthy, starving wretch, and Gurney's little girl +went with her from house to house in the snow, singing Christmas carols, +and handing the tambourine. Everybody said, "Why, you little tot!" and +gave her handfuls of silver. Such a wonderful voice she had even then, +and looked so chubby and pretty in her little blue cloak and hood; and +going about with the woman was such a pure-hearted thing to do. She +danced once or twice that day, striking the tambourine, he remembered; +the sound of it seemed to put her in a sort of ecstasy, laughing till +her eyes were full of tears, and her tangled hair fell all about her red +cheeks. She could not help but do it, he believed, for at other times +she was shy, terrified, if one spoke to her; but he wished he had not +seen her dance then, though she was only a child: dancing, he thought, +was as foul and effective a snare as ever came from hell. After that day +she used often to come to the farm to see his mother and Sarah. +They tried to teach her to sew, but she was a lazy little thing, he +remembered, with an indulgent smile. And he was "Uncle Dan." So now she +was grown up, quite a woman: in those years, when she had been with her +kinsfolk in New York, she had been taught to sing. Well, well! McKinstry +reckoned music as about as useful as the crackling of thorns under a +pot; so he never cared to know, what was the fact, that this youngest +daughter of Gurney's had one of the purest contralto voices in the +States. She came home, grown, but just as shy; only tired, needing care: +no one could look in Lizzy Gurney's face without wishing to comfort and +help the child. The Gurneys were so wretchedly poor, that might be the +cause of her look. She was a woman now. Well, and then? Why, nothing +then. He was Uncle Dan still, of whom she was less afraid than of any +other living creature; that was all. Thinking, as he stood with Paul +Blecker, leaning over the gate, of how she had brought him a badly-made +havelock that morning. "You're always so kind to me," she said. "So I +am kind to her," he thought, his quiet blue eyes growing duller behind +their spectacles; "so I will be." + +The Doctor opened the gate, and went in, turning into the shrubbery, and +seating himself under a sycamore. + +"Don't wait for me, McKinstry," he said. "I'll sit here and smoke a bit. +Here comes the aforesaid Joseph." + +He did not light his cigar, however, when the other left him; took off +his hat to let the wind blow through his hair, the petulant heat dying +out of his face, giving place to a rigid settling, at last, of the +fickle features. + +A flabby, red-faced man in fine broadcloth and jaunty beaver came down +the path, fumbling his seals, and met the Captain with a puffing snort +of salutation. To Blecker, whose fancy was made sultry to-night by some +passion we know nothing of, he looked like a bloated spider coming out +of the cell where his victims were. "Gorging himself, while they and the +country suffer the loss," he muttered. But Paul was a hot-brained +young man. We should only have seen a vulgar, commonplace trickster in +politics, such as the people make pets of. "Such men as Schuyler Gurney +get the fattest offices. God send us a monarchy soon!" he hissed under +his breath, as the gate closed after the politician. By which you will +perceive that Dr. Blecker, like most men fighting their way up, was too +near-sighted for any abstract theories. Liberty, he thought, was a very +poetic, Millennium-like idea for stump-speeches and college-cubs, but he +grappled with the time the States were too chaotic, untaught a mass for +self-government; he cursed secession as anarchy, and the government at +Washington for those equally anarchical, drunken whims of tyranny; he +would like to see an iron heel put on the whole concern, for wholesome +discipline. The Doctor was born in one of the Border States; men there, +it is said, have a sort of hand-to-mouth politics; their daily bread of +rights is all they care for; so Paul seldom looked into to-morrow for +anything. In other ways, too, his birth had curdled his blood into a +sensuous languor. To-night, after McKinstry had entered the house, and +he was left alone, the quaint old garden quiet, the air about him clean, +pure, unperfumed, the stars distant and lonely, his limbs bedded in the +clinging moss, he was rested for the moment, happy like a child, with +no subtile-sensed questionings why. The sounds of the village could not +penetrate there; the content, the listless hush of the night was with +him; the delicious shimmer of the trees in the starlight, the low call +of the pigeon to its mate, even the fall of the catalpa-blossoms upon +his hand, thrilled him with unreasoning pleasure: a dull consciousness +that the earth was alive and well, and he was glad to live with the +rest. + +Something in Blecker's nature came into close _rapport_ with the higher +animal life. If he had been born with money, and lived here in these +stagnating hills, or down yonder on some lazy cotton-plantation, he +would have settled down before this into a genial, child-loving, +arbitrary husband and master, fond of pictures and horses, his house in +decent taste, his land pleasure-giving, his wines good. By this time he +would have been Judge Blecker, with a portly voice, flushed face, and +thick eyelids. But he had scuffled and edged his way in the thin air of +Connecticut as errand-boy, daguerreotypist, teacher, doctor;--so he came +into the Gurney garden that night, shrewd, defiant, priding himself on +detecting shams. His waistcoat and trousers were of coarser stuff than +suited his temperament; a taint of vulgarity in his talk, his whiskers +untrimmed, the meaning of his face compacted, sharpened. It was many +a year since a tear had come into his black eyes; yet tears belonged +there, as much as to a woman's. + +Only for a few moments, therefore, he was contented to sit quiet in the +soft gloaming: then he puffed his cigar impatiently, watching the +house. Waiting for some one: with no fancies about the old fort, like +McKinstry. An over-full house, with an unordered, slipshod life, hungry, +clinging desperately in its poverty to an old prestige of rank, one +worker inside patiently bearing the whole selfish burden. Well, there +was the history of the anxious, struggling, middle class of America: why +need he have been goaded so intolerably by this instance? Paul's eyes +were jaundiced; he sat moodily watching the lighted window off in the +darkness, through which he could catch glimpses of the family-room +within: he called it a pitiful tragedy going on there; yet it seemed to +be a cheerful and hearty life. This girl Grey, whom he looked on as one +might on some victim from whose lungs the breath was drawn slowly, was +fresh, careless, light-hearted enough. Going to and fro in the room, +now carrying one of the children, she sang it to sleep with no doleful +ditty, such as young women fresh from boarding-school affect, but with +a ringing, cheery song. You might be sure that Baby would wake laughing +to-morrow morning after it. He could see her shadow pass and repass the +windows; she would be out presently; she was used to come out always +after the hot day's flurry,--to say her prayers, he believed; and he +chose to see her there in the dark and coolness to bid her good-bye. He +waited, not patiently. + +Grey, trotting up and down, holding by the chubby legs and wriggling +arms of Master Pen, sang herself out of breath with "Roy's Wife," and +stopped short. + +"I'm sure, Pen, I don't know what to do with you,"--half ready to cry. + +"'Dixie,' now, Sis." + +Pen was three years old, but he was the baby when his mother died; so +Sis walked him to sleep every night: all tender memories of her who +was gone clinging about the little fat lump of mischief in his white +night-gown. A wiry voice spoke out of some corner,-- + +"Yer 'd hev a thumpin' good warmin', Mars' Penrose, ef ole Oth hed his +will o' yer! It 'ud be a special 'pensation ob de Lord fur dat chile!" + +Pen prospected his sister's face with the corner of one blue eye. There +was a line about the freckled cheeks and baby-mouth of "Sis" that +sometimes agreed with Oth on the subject of dispensations, but it was +not there to-night. + +"No, no, uncle. Not the last thing before he goes to bed. I always try, +myself, to see something bright and pretty for the last thing, and then +shut my eyes, quick,--just as Pen will do now: quick! there's my sonny +boy!" + +Nobody ever called Grey Gurney pretty; but Pen took an immense delight +in her now; shook and kicked her for his pony, but could not make her +step less firm or light; thrust his hands about her white throat; pulled +the fine reddish hair down; put his dumpling face to hers. A thin, +uncertain face, but Pen knew nothing of that; he did know, though, that +the skin was fresh and dewy as his own, the soft lips very ready for +kisses, and the pale hazel eyes just as straightforward-looking as a +baby's. Children and dogs believe in women like Grey Gurney. Finally, +from pure exhaustion, Pen cuddled up and went to sleep. + +It was a long, narrow room where Grey and the children were, covered +with rag-carpet, (she and the boys and old Oth had made the balls for +it last winter): well lighted, for Father Gurney had his desk in +there to-night. He was working at his catalogue of Sauroidichnites in +Pennsylvania. A tall, lean man, with hook-nose, and peering, protruding, +blue eyes. Captain McKinstry sat by him, turning over Brongniart; his +brain, if one might judge from the frequency with which he blew his +nose, evidently the worse from the wear since he came in; glancing with +an irresolute awe from the book to the bony frame of the old man in his +red dressing-gown, and then to the bony carcasses of the birds on the +wall in their dusty plumage. + +"Like enough each to t' other," old Oth used to mutter; "on'y dem birds +done forgot to eat, an' Mars' Gurney neber will, gorry knows dat!" + +"If you could, Captain McKinstry,"--it was the old man who spoke now, +with a sort of whiffle through his teeth,--"if you could? A chip of +shale next to this you brought this evening would satisfy me. This is +evidently an original fossil foot-mark: no work of Indians. I'll go with +you,"--gathering his dressing-gown about his lank-legs. + +"No," said the Captain, some sudden thought bringing gravity and +self-reliance into his face. "My little girl is going with Uncle Dan. +It's the last walk I can take with her. Go, child, and bring your +bonnet." + +Little Lizzy (people generally called her that) got up from the +door-step where she sat, and ran up-stairs. She was one of those women +who look as if they ought to be ordered and taken care of. Grey put a +light shawl over her shoulders as she passed her. Grey thought of Lizzy +always very much as a piece of fine porcelain among some earthen crocks, +she being a very rough crock herself. Did not she have to make a +companion in some Ways of old Oth? When she had no potatoes for dinner, +or could get no sewing to pay for Lizzy's shoes, (Lizzy _was_ hard on +her shoes, poor thing!) she found herself talking it over with Oth. The +others did not-care for such things, and it would be mean to worry +them, but Oth liked a misery, and it was such a relief to tell things +sometimes! The old negro had been a slave of her grandfather's until he +was of age; he was quite helpless now, having a disease of the spine. +But Grey had brought him to town with them, "because, you know, uncle, I +couldn't keep house without you, at all,--I really couldn't." So he had +his chair covered with sheepskin in the sunniest corner always, and +Grey made over her father's old clothes for him on the machine. Oth had +learned to knit, and made "hisself s'ficiently independent, heelin' an' +ribbin' der boys' socks, an' keepin' der young debbils in order," he +said. + +It was but a cheap machine Grey had, but a sturdy little chap; the steel +band of it, even the wheel, flashed back a jolly laugh at her as she +passed it, slowly hushing Pen, as if it would like to say, "I'll put you +through, Sis!" and looked quite contemptuously at the heaps of white +muslin piled up beside it. The boys' shirts, you know,--but wasn't it a +mercy she had made enough to buy them before muslin went up? There were +three of the boys asleep now, legs and arms adrift over the floor, +pockets gorged with half-apples, bits of twine instead of suspenders, +other surreptitious bits under their trousers for straps. There were +the twins, girls of ten, hungering for beaux, pickles, and photographic +albums. They were gone to a party in the village. "Sis" had done up +their white dresses; and such fun as they had with her, putting them on +to hide the darns! She made it so comical that they laughed more than +they did the whole evening. + +Grey had saved some money to buy them ribbon for sashes, but Joseph had +taken it from her work-basket that morning to buy cigars. One of the +girls had cried, and even Grey's lips grew scarlet; her Welsh blood +maddened. This woman was neither an angel nor an idiot, Paul Blecker. +Then--it was such a trifle! Poor Joseph! he had been her mother's +favorite, was spoiled a little. So she hurried to his chamber-door with +his shaving-water, calling, "Brother!" Grey had a low, always pleasant +voice, I remember; you looked in her eyes, when you heard it, to see her +laughing. The ex-Congressman was friendly, but dignified, when he took +the water. Grey presumed on her usefulness; women seldom did know their +place. + +There was yet another girl busy now, convoying the lubberly hulks of +boys to bed,--a solid, Dutch-built little clipper, Loo by name. Loo +looked upon Grey secretly as rather silly; (she did all the counting for +her; Grey hardly knew the multiplication-table;) she always, however, +kept her opinions to herself. Tugging the boys after her in the manner +of a tow-boat, she thumped past her father and "that gype, McKinstry, +colloging over their bits of rock," indignation in every twist of her +square shoulders. + +"Fresh air," she said to Grey, jerking her head emphatically toward the +open door. + +"I will, Looey." + +"Looey! Pish!" + +It was no admiring glance she bestowed on the slight figure that came +down the stairs, and stood timidly waiting for McKinstry. + +"You're going, Captain?" the old man's nose and mind starting suddenly +up from his folio. "Lizzy,--eh? Here's the bit of rock. In the coal +formation, you say? Impossible, then, to be as old as the batrachian +track that"-- + +A sudden howl brought him back to the present era. Loo was arguing her +charge up to bed by a syllogism applied at the right time in the right +place. The old man held his hands to his ears with a patient smile, +until McKinstry was out of hearing. + +"It is hard to devote the mind pure to a search for truth here, my +daughter," looking over Grey's head as usual, with pensive, benevolent +eyes. "But I do what I can,--I do what I can." + +"I know, father,"--stroking his hair as she might a child's, trimming +the lamp, and bringing his slippers while he held out his feet for her +to put them on,--"I know." + +Then, when he took up the pen, she went out into the cool night. + +"I do what I can," said he, earnestly, looking at the catalogue, with +his head to one side. + +It was Oth's time,--now or never. + +"Debbil de bit yer do! Ef yer did what yer could, Mars' Si, dar 'ud be +more 'n one side o' sparerib in de cellar fur ten hungry mouths. We've +gone done eat dat pig o' Miss Grey's from head ter tail. An' pigs in +June's a disgrace ter Christians, let alone Presbyterians like us uns." + +The old man glanced at him. Oth's spine gave his tongue free license. + +"I'll discharge him," faintly. + +"'Scharge yerself," growled Oth, under his breath. + +So the old man went back to his batrachians, and Oth ribbed Pen's sock +in silence: the old fort stood at last as quiet in the moonlight as if +it were thinking over all of its long-ago Indian sieges. + +Grey's step was noiseless, going down the tan-bark path. She drew long +breaths, her lungs being choked with the day's work, and threw back the +hair from her forehead and throat. There was a latent dewiness in +the air that made the clear moonlight as fresh and invigorating as a +winter's morning. Grey stretched out her arms in it, with a laugh, as +a child might. You would know, to look at her hair, that there was a +strong poetic capacity in that girl below her simple Quaker character; +as it lay in curly masses where the child had pulled it down, there was +no shine, but clear depth of color in it: her eyes the same; not soggy, +black, flashing as women's are who effuse their experience every day +for the benefit of by-standers; this girl's were pale hazel, clear, +meaningless at times, but when her soul did force itself to the light +they gave it fit utterance. Women with hair and eyes like those, with +passionate lips and strong muscles like Grey Gurney's, are children, +single-natured all their lives, until some day God's test comes: then +they live tragedies, unconscious of their deed. + +The night was singularly clear, in its quiet: only a few dreamy trails +of gray mist, asleep about the moon: far off on the crest of the closing +hills, she fancied she could see the wind-stir in the trees that made a +feathered shadow about the horizon. She leaned on the stile, looking +over the sweep of silent meadows and hills, and slow--creeping +watercourses. The whole earth waited, she fancied, with newer life and +beauty than by day: going back, it might be, in the pure moonlight, +to remember that dawn when God said, "Let there be light." The girl +comprehended the meaning of the night better, perhaps, because of the +house she had left. Every night she came out there. She left the clothes +and spareribs behind her, and a Something, a Grey Gurney that might have +been, came back to her in the coolness and rest, the nearer she drew to +the pure old earth. She never went down into those mossy hollows, or +among the shivering pines, with a soiled, tawdry dress; she wore always +the clear, primitive colors, or white,--Grey: it was the girl's only bit +of self-development. This night she could see McKinstry's figure, as he +went down the path through the rye-field. He was stooping, leading Lizzy +by the hand, as a nurse might an infant. Grey thrust the currant-bushes +aside eagerly; she could catch a glimpse of the girl's face in the +colorless light. It always had a livid tinge, but she fancied it was red +now with healthy blushes; her eyes were on the ground: in the house they +looked out from under their heavy brows on their daily life with a tired +coldness that made silly Grey ashamed of her own light-heartedness. The +man's common face was ennobled with such infinite tenderness and pain, +Grey thought the help that lay therein would content her sister. It was +time for the girl's rest to come; she was sick of herself and of life. +So the tears came to Grey's eyes, though to the very bottom of her heart +she was thankful and glad. + +"She has found home at last!"--she said; and, maybe, because something +in the thought clung to her as she sauntered slowly down the +garden--alleys, her lips kept moving in a childish fashion of hers. "A +home at last, at last!"--that was what she said. + +Paul Blecker, too, waiting back yonder among the trees, saw McKinstry +and his companion, and read the same story that Grey did, but in a +different fashion. "The girl loves him." There were possibilities, +however, in that woman's curious traits, that Blecker, being a physician +and a little of a soul-fancier, saw: nothing in McKinstry's formal, +orthodox nature ran parallel with them; therefore he never would know +them. As they passed Blecker's outlook through the trees, his half-shut +eye ran over her,--the despondent step, the lithe, nervous limbs, the +manner in which she clung for protection to his horny hand. "Poor +child!" the Doctor thought. There was something more, in the girl's +face, that, people called gentle and shy: a weak, uncertain chin; thin +lips, never still an instant, opening and shutting like a starving +animal's; gray eyes, dead, opaque, such as Blecker had noted in the +spiritual mediums in New England. + +"I'm glad it is McKinstry she loves, and not I," he said. + +He turned, and forgot her, watching Grey coming nearer to him. The +garden sloped down to the borders of the creek, and she stood on its +edge now, looking at the uneasy crusting of the black water and the +pearly glint of moonlight. Thinking of Lizzy, and the strong love that +held her; feeling a little lonely, maybe, and quiet, she did not know +why; trying to wrench her thoughts back to the house, and the clothes, +and the spareribs. Why! he could read her thoughts on her face as if +it were a baby's! A homely, silly girl they called her. He thanked God +nobody had found her out before him. Look at the dewy freshness of her +skin! how pure she was! how the world would knock her about, if he did +not keep his hold on her! But he would do that; to-night he meant to lay +his hand upon her life, and never take it off, absorb it in his own. She +moved forward into the clear light: that was right. There was a broken +boll of a beech--tree covered with lichen: she should sit on that, +presently, her face in open light, he in the shadow, while he told +her. "Watching her with hot breath where she stood, then going down to +her:-- + +"Is Grey waiting to bid her friend good-bye?" + +She put her hand in his,--her very lips trembling with the sudden heat, +her untrained eyes wandering restlessly. + +"I thought you would come to me, Doctor Blecker." + +"Call me Paul," roughly. "I was coarser born and bred than you. I want +to think that matters nothing to you." + +She looked up proudly. + +"You know it matters nothing. I am not vulgar." + +"No, Grey. But--it is curious, but no one ever called me Paul, as boy or +man. It is a sign of equality; and I've always had, in the _mélée,_ the +underneath taint about me. You are not vulgar enough to care for it. +Yours is the highest and purest nature I ever knew. Yet I know it is +right for you to call me Paul. Your soul and mine stand on a plane +before God." + +The childish flush left her face; the timid woman-look was in it now. He +bent nearer. + +"They stand there alone, Grey." + +She drew back from him, her hands nervously catching in the thick curls. + +"You do not believe that?" his breath clogged and hot. "It is a fancy of +mine? not true?" + +"It is true." + +He caught the whisper, his face growing pale, his eyes flashing. + +"Then you are mine, child! What is the meaning of these paltry +contradictions? Why do you evade me from day to day?" + +"You promised me not to speak of this again,"--weakly. + +"Pah! You have a man's straightforward, frank instinct, Grey; and this +is cowardly,--paltry, as I said before. I will speak of it again. +To-night is all that is left to me." + +He seated her upon the beech-trunk. One could tell by the very touch +and glance of the man how the image of this woman stood solitary in his +coarser thoughts, delicate, pure: a disciple would have laid just such +reverential fingers on the robe of the Madonna. Then he stood off from +her, looking straight into her hazel eyes. Grey, with all her innocent +timidity, was the cooler, stronger, maybe, of the two: the poor Doctor's +passionate nature, buffeted from one anger and cheat to another in the +world, brought very little quiet or tact or aptitude in language for +this one hour. Yet, standing there, his man's sturdy heart throbbing +slow as an hysteric woman's, his eyeballs burning, it seemed to him that +all his life had been but the weak preface to these words he was going +to speak. + +"It angers me," he muttered, abruptly, "that, when I come to you with +the thought that a man's or a woman's soul can hold but once in life, +you put me aside with the silly whims of a schoolgirl. It is not worthy +of you, Grey. You are not as other women." + +What was this that he had touched? She looked up at him steadily, +her hands clasped about her knees, the childlike rose-glow and light +banished from her face. + +"I am not like other women. You speak truer than you know. You call me a +silly, happy child. Maybe I am; but, Paul, once in my life God punished +me. I don't know for what,"--getting up, and stretching out her groping +arms, blindly. + +There was a sudden silence. This was not the cheery, healthful Grey +Gurney of a moment before, this woman with the cold terror creeping out +in her face. He caught her hands and held them. + +"I don't know for what," she moaned. "He did it. He is good." + +He watched the slow change in her face: it made his hands tremble as +they held hers. No longer a child, but a woman whose soul the curse had +touched. Miriam, leprous from God's hand, might have thus looked up to +Him without the camp. Blecker drew her closer. Was she not his own? He +would defend her against even this God, for whom he cared but little. + +"What has been done to you, child?" + +She shook herself free, speaking in a fast, husky whisper. + +"Do not touch me, Dr. Blecker. It was no school-girl's whim that kept me +from you. I am not like other women. I am not worthy of any man's love." + +"I think I know what you mean," he said, gravely. "I know your story, +Grey. They made you live a foul lie once. I know it all. You were a +child then." + +She had gone still farther from him, holding by the trunk of a dead +tree, her face turned towards the water. The black sough of wind from +it lifted her hair, and dampened her forehead. The man's brain grew +clearer, stronger, somehow, as he looked at her; as thought does in the +few electric moments of life when sham and conventionality crumble down +like ashes, and souls stand bare, face to face. For the every-day, +cheery, unselfish Grey of the coarse life in yonder he cared but little; +it was but the husk that held the woman whose nature grappled with his +own, that some day would take it with her to the Devil or to God. He +knew that. It was this woman that stood before him now: looking back, +out of the inbred force and purity within her, the indignant man's sense +of honor that she had, on the lie they had made her live: daring to face +the truth, that God had suffered this thing, yet clinging, like a simple +child, to her old faith in Him. That childish faith, that worked itself +out in her common life, Paul Blecker set aside, in loving her. She was +ignorant: he knew the world, and, he thought, very plainly saw that the +Power who had charge of it suffered unneeded ills, was a traitor to the +Good his own common sense and kindly feeling could conceive; which is +the honest belief of most of the half-thinkers in America. + +"You were but a child," he said again. "It matters nothing to me, Grey. +It left no taint upon you." + +"It did," she cried, passionately. "I carry the marks of it to my grave. +I never shall be pure again." + +"Why did your God let you go down into such foulness, then?"--the words +broke from his lips irrepressibly. "It was He who put you in the hands +of a selfish woman; it was He who gave you a weak will. It is He who +suffers marriages as false as yours. Why, child! you call it crime, the +vow that bound you for that year to a man you loathed; yet the world +celebrates such vows daily in every church in Christendom." + +"I know that";--her voice had gone down into its quiet sob, like a +little child's. + +She sat down on the ground, now, the long shore-grass swelling up around +her, thrusting her fingers into the pools of eddying water, with a +far-off sense of quiet and justice and cold beneath there. + +"I don't understand," she said. "The world's wrong somehow. I don't +think God does it. There's thousands of young girls married as I was. +Maybe, if I 'd told Him about it, it wouldn't have ended as it did. I +did not think He cared for such things." + +Blecker was silent. What did he care for questions like this now? He sat +by her on the broken trunk, his elbows on his knees, his sultry eyes +devouring her face and body. What did it matter, if once she had been +sold to another man? She was free now: he was dead. He only knew that +here was the only creature in earth or heaven that he loved: there was +not a breath in her lungs, a tint of her flesh, that was not dear to +him, allied by some fierce passion to his own sense: there was that +in her soul which he needed, starved for: his life balked blank here, +demanding it,--her,--he knew not what: but that gained, a broader +freedom opened behind, unknown possibilities of honor and truth and +deed. He would take no other step, live no farther, until he gained her. +Holding, too, the sense of her youth, her rare beauty, as it seemed +to him; loving it with keener passion because he alone developed it, +drawing her soul to the light! how like a baby she was: how dainty the +dimpling white flesh of her arms, the soft limbs crouching there! So +pure, the man never came near her without a dull loathing of himself, a +sudden remembrance of places where he had been tainted, made unfit to +touch her,--rows in Bowery dance-houses, waltzes with musk-scented fine +ladies: when this girl put her cool little hand in his sometimes, he +felt tears coming to his eyes, as if the far-off God or the dead mother +had blessed him. She sat there, now, going back to that blot in her +life, her eyes turned every moment up to the Power beyond in whom she +trusted, to know why it had been. He had seen little children, struck +by their mother's hand, turn on them a look just so grieved and so +appealing. + +"It was no one's fault altogether, Paul," she said. "My mother was not +selfish, more than other women. There were very many mouths to feed: it +is so in most families like ours." + +"I know." + +"I am very dull about books,--stupid, they say. I could not teach; and +they would not let me sew for money, because of the disgrace. These are +the only ways a woman has. If I had been a boy"-- + +"I understand." + +"No man can understand,"--her voice growing shrill with pain. "It's not +easy to eat the bread needed for other mouths day after day, with your +hands tied, idle and helpless. A boy can go out and work, in a hundred +ways: a girl must marry; it's her only chance for a livelihood, or a +home, or anything to fill her heart with. Don't blame my mother, Paul. +She had ten of us to work for. From the time I could comprehend, I knew +her only hope was, to live long enough to see her boys educated, and +her daughters in homes of their own. It was the old story, Doctor +Blecker,"--with a shivering laugh more pitiful than a cry. "I've noticed +it since in a thousand other houses. Young girls like me in these +poor-genteel families,--there are none of God's creatures more helpless +or goaded, starving at their souls. I couldn't teach. I had no talent; +but if I had, a woman's a woman: she wants something else in her life +than dog-eared school-books and her wages year after year." + +Blecker could hardly repress a smile. + +"You are coming to political economy by a woman's road, Grey." + +"I don't know what that is. I know what my life was then. I was only a +child; but when that man came and held out his hand to take me, I was +willing when they gave me to him,--when they sold me, Doctor Blecker. It +was like leaving some choking pit, where air was given to me from other +lungs, to go out and find it for my own. What marriage was or ought to +be I did not know; but I wanted, as every human being does want, a place +for my own feet to stand on, not to look forward to the life of an old +maid, living on sufferance, always the one too many in the house." + +"That is weak and vulgar argument, child. It should not touch a true +woman, Grey. Any young girl can find work and honorable place for +herself in the world, without the defilement of a false marriage." + +"I know that now. But young girls are not taught that. I was only a +child, not strong-willed. And now, when I'm free,"--a curious clearness +coming to her eye,--"I'm glad to think of it all. I never blame other +women. Because, you see,"--looking up with the flickering smile,--"a +woman's so hungry for something of her own to love, for some one to be +kind to her, for a little house and parlor and kitchen of her own; and +if she marries the first man who says he loves her, out of that first +instinct of escape from dependence, and hunger for love, she does not +know she is selling herself, until it's too late. The world's all wrong, +somehow." + +She stopped, her troubled face still upturned to his. + +"But you,--you are free now?" + +"He is dead." + +She slowly rose as she spoke, her voice hardening. + +"He was my cousin, you know,--the same name as mine. Only a year he was +with me. Then he went to Cuba, where he died. He is dead. But I am not +free,"--lifting her hands fiercely, as she spoke. "Nothing can wipe the +stain of that year off of me." + +"You know what man he was," said the Doctor, with a natural thrill of +pleasure that he could say it honestly. "I know, poor child! A vapid, +cruel tyrant, weak, foul. You hated him, Grey? There's a strength of +hatred in your blood. Answer me. You dare speak truth to me." + +"He's dead now,"--with a long, choking breath. "We will not speak of +him." + +She stood a moment, looking down the stretch of curdling black +water,--then, turning with a sudden gesture, as though she flung +something from her, looked at him with a pitiful effort to smile. + +"I don't often think of that time. I cannot bear pain very well. I like +to be happy. When I'm busy now, or playing with little Pen, I hardly +believe I am the woman who was John Gurney's wife. I was so old then! I +was like a hard, tigerish soul, tried and tempted day by day. He made me +that." + +She could not bear pain, he saw: remembrance of it, alone, made the +flesh about her lips blue, unsteadied her brain; the well-accented face +grew vacant, dreary; neither nerves nor will of this woman were tough. +Her family were not the stuff out of which voluntary heroes are made. +He saw, too, she was thrusting it back,--out of thought: it was her +temperament to do that. + +"So, now, Grey," he said, cheerfully, "the story's told. Shall we lay +that ghost of the old life, and see what these healthful new years have +for us?" + +Paul Blecker's voice was never so strong or pure: whatever of coarseness +had clung to him fell off then, as he came nearer to the weak woman +whom God had given to him to care for; whatever of latent manhood, of +chivalry, slept beneath, some day to make him an earnest husband and +father, and helpful servant of the True Man, came out in his eager face +and eye, now. He took her two hands in his: how strong his muscles were! +how the man's full pulse throbbed healthfully against her own! She +looked up with a sudden blush and smile. A minute ago she thought +herself so strong to renounce! She meant, this weak, incomplete woman, +to keep to the shame of that foul old lie of hers, accepting that as her +portion for life. There is a chance comes to some few women, once in +their lives, to escape into the full development of their natures by +contact with the one soul made in the same mould as their own. It came +to this woman to-night. Grey was no theorist about it: all that she knew +was, that, when Paul Blecker stood near her, for the first time in her +life she was not alone,--that, when he spoke, his words were but more +forcible utterances of her own thought,--that, when she thought of +leaving him, it was like drawing the soul from her living body, to leave +it pulseless, dead. Yet she would do it. + +"I am not fit to be any man's wife. If you had come to me when I was a +child, it might have been,--it ought to have been,"--with an effort to +draw her hands from him. + +Blecker only smiled, and seated her gently on the mossy boll of the +beech-tree. + +"Stay. Listen to me," he whispered. + +And Grey, being a woman and no philosopher, sat motionless, her hands +folded, nerveless, where he had let them fall, her face upturned, like +that of the dead maiden waiting the touch of infinite love to tremble +and glow back into beautiful life. He did not speak, did not touch her, +only bent nearer. It seemed to him, as the pure moonlight then held them +close in its silent bound, the great world hushed without, the light air +scarce daring to touch her fair, waiting face, the slow-heaving breast, +the kindling glow in her dark hair, that all the dead and impure years +fell from them, and in a fresh new-born life they stood alone, with the +great Power of strength and love for company. What need was there of +words? She knew it all: in the promise and question of his face waited +for her the hope and vigor the time gone had never known: her woman's +nature drooped and leaned on his, content: the languid hazel eye +followed his with such intent, one would have fancied that her soul in +that silence had found its rest and home forever. + +He took her hand, and drew from it the old ring that yet bound one of +her fingers, the sign of a lie long dead, and without a word dropped it +in the current below them. The girl looked up suddenly, as it fell: +her eyes were wet: the woman whom Christ loosed from her infirmity of +eighteen years might have thanked him with such a look as Grey's that +night. Then she looked back to her earthly master. + +"It is dead now, child, the past,--never to live again. Grey holds a new +life in her hands to-night." He stopped: the words came weak, paltry, +for his meaning. "Is there nothing with which she dares to fill it? no +touch that will make it dear, holy for her?" + +There was a heavy silence. Nature rose impatient in the crimson blood +that dyed her lips and cheek, in the brilliance of her eye; but she +forced back the words that would have come, and sat timid and trembling. + +"None, Grey? You are strong and cool. I know. The lie dead and gone +from your life, you can control the years alone, with your religion and +cheery strength. Is that what you would say?"--bitterly. + +She did not answer. The color began to fade, the eyes to dim. + +"You have told me your story; let me tell you mine,"--throwing himself +on the grass beside her. "Look at me, Grey. Other women have despised +me, as rough, callous, uncouth: you never have. I've had no hot-house +usage in the world; the sun and rain hardly fell on me unpaid. I've +earned every inch of this flesh and muscle, worked for it as it grew; +the knowledge that I have, scanty enough, but whatever thought I do have +of God or life, I've had to grapple and struggle for. Other men grow, +inhale their being, like yonder tree God planted and watered. I think +sometimes He forgot me,"--with a curious woman's tremor in his voice, +gone in an instant. "I scrambled up like that scraggy parasite, without +a root. Do you know now why I am sharp, wary, suspicious, doubt if there +be a God? Grey," turning fiercely, "I am tired of this. God did make me. +I want rest. I want love, peace, religion, in my life." + +She said nothing. She forgot herself, her timid shyness now, and looked +into his eyes, a noble, helpful woman, sounding the depths of the turbid +soul laid bare for her. + +He laid his big, ill-jointed hand on her knee. + +"I thought," he said.--great drops of sweat coming out on his sallow +lips,--"God meant you to help me. There is my life, little girl. You may +do what you will with it. It does not value much to me." + +And Grey, woman-like, gathered up the despised hand and life, and sobbed +a little as she pressed them to her heart. An hour after, they went +together up the old porch-steps, halting a moment where the grape-vines +clustered thickest about the shingled wall. The house was silent; even +the village slept in the moonlight: no sound of life in the great +sweep of dusky hill and valley, save the wreaths of mist over the +watercourses, foaming and drifting together silently: before morning +they would stretch from base to base of the hills like a Dead Sea, ashy +and motionless. They stood silent a moment, until the chirp of some +robin, frightened by their steps in its nest overhead, had hummed +drowsily down into sleep. + +"It is not good-night, but good-bye, that I must bid you, Grey," he +said, stooping to see her face. + +"I know. But you will come again. God tells me that." + +"I will come. Remember, Grey, I am going to save life, not to take it. +Corrupt as I am, my hands are clean of this butchery for the sake of +interest." + +Grey's eyes wandered. She knows nothing about the war, to be candid: +only that it is like a cold pain at her heart, day and night,--sorry +that the slaves are slaves, wondering if they could be worse off than +the free negroes swarming in the back-alleys yonder,--as sorry, being +unpatriotic, for the homeless women in Virginia as for the stolen horses +of Chambersburg. Grey's principles, though mixed, are sound, as far as +they go, you see. Just then thinking only of herself. + +"You will come back to me?" clinging to his arm. + +"Why, I must come back," cheerfully, choking back whatever stopped +his breath, pushing back the curling hair from her forehead with a +half-reverential touch. "I have so much, to do, little girl! There is +a farm over yonder I mean to earn enough to buy, where you and I shall +rest and study and grow,--stronger and healthier, more helpful every +day. We'll find our work and place in the world yet, poor child! You +shall show me what a pure, earnest life is, Grey, and above us--what +there is there," lowering his voice. "And I,--how much I have to do with +this bit of humanity here on my hands!"--playfully. "An unhewn stone, +with the beautiful statue lying _perdu_ within. Bid you know you were +that, Grey? and I the sculptor?" + +She looked up bewildered. + +"It is true," passing his fingers over the low, broad, curiously moulded +forehead. "My girl does not know what powers and subtile forces lie +asleep beneath this white skin? I know. I know lights and words and +dramas of meaning these childish eyes hold latent: that I will set free. +I will teach your very silent lips a new language. You never guessed how +like a prison your life has been, how unfinished you are; but I thank +God for it, Grey. You would not have loved me, if it had been different; +I can grow with you now, grow to your height, if--He helps me." + +He took off his hat, and stood, looking silently into the deep blue +above,--for the first time in his life coming to his Friend with a +manly, humble look. His eyes were not clear when he spoke again, his +voice very quiet. + +"Good bye, Grey! I'm going to try to be a better man than I've ever +been. You are my wife now in His eyes. I need you so: for life and for +eternity, I think. You will remember that?" + +And so, holding her to his heart a moment or two, and kissing her lips +passionately once or twice, he left her, trying to smile as he went down +the path, but with a strange clogging weight in his breast, as if his +heart would not beat. + +Going in, Grey found the old negro asleep over his knitting, the candle +with a flaring black crust beside him. + +"He waited for me," she said; and as she stroked the skinny old hand, +the tears came at the thought of it. Everybody was so kind to her! The +world was so foil of love! God was so good to her to-night! + +Oth, waking fully as she helped him to his room-door, looked anxiously +in her face. + +"Er' ye well to-night, chile?" he said. "Yer look as yer did when yer +wor a little baby. Peart an' purty yer wor, dat's true. Der good Lord +loved yer, I think." + +"He loves me now," she said, softly, to herself, as in her own room she +knelt down and thanked Him, and then, undressed, crept into the white +trundle-bed beside little Pen; and when he woke, and, putting his little +arms about her neck, drew her head close to his to kiss her good-night, +she cried quietly to herself, and fell asleep with the tears upon her +cheek. + +Her sister, in the next room to hers, with the same new dream in her +heart, did not creep into any baby's arms for sympathy. Lizzy Gurney +never had a pet, dog or child. She sat by the window waiting, her shawl +about her head in the very folds McKinstry had wrapped it, motionless, +as was her wont. But for the convulsive movement of her lips now and +then, no gutta-percha doll could be more utterly still. As the night +wore down into the intenser sleep of the hours after midnight, her watch +grew more breathless. The moon sank far enough in the west to throw +the beams directly across her into the dark chamber behind. She was a +small-moulded woman, you could see now: her limbs, like those of a cat, +or animals of that tribe, from their power of trance-like quiet, gave +you the idea of an intense vitality: a gentle face,--pretty, the +villagers called it, from its waxy tint and faint coloring,--you wished +to do something for her, seeing it. Paul Blecker never did: the woman +never spoke to him; but he noted often the sudden relaxed droop of the +eyelids, when she sat alone, as if some nerve had grown weary: he had +seen that peculiarity in some women before, and knew all it meant. He +had nothing for her; her hunger lay out of his ken. + +It grew later: the moon hung now so low that deep shadows lay heavy over +the whole valley; not a breath broke the sleep of the night; even the +long melancholy howl of the dog down in camp was hushed long since. When +the clock struck two, she got up and went noiselessly out into the open +air. There was no droop in her eyelids now; they were straight, nerved, +the eyes glowing with a light never seen by day beneath them. Down the +long path into the cornfield, slowly, pausing at some places, while her +lips moved as though she repeated words once heard there. What folly was +this? Was this woman's life so bare, so empty of its true food, that she +must needs go back and drag again into life a few poor, happy moments? +distil them slowly, to drink them again drop by drop? I have seen +children so live over in their play the one great holiday of their +lives. Down through the field to the creek-ford, where the stones lay +for crossing, slippery with moss: she could feel the strong grasp of the +hand that had led her over there that night; and so, with slow, and yet +slower step, where the path had been rocky, and she had needed cautious +help. Into the thicket of lilacs, with the old scent of the spring +blossoms yet hanging on their boughs; along the bank, where her foot had +sunk deep into plushy moss, where he had gathered a cluster of fern and +put it into her hand. Its pale feathery green was not more quaint or +pure than the delicate love in the uncouth man beside her,--not nearer +kin to Nature. Did she know that? Had it been like the breath of God +coming into her nostrils to be so loved, appreciated, called home, as +she had been to-night? Was she going back to feel that breath again? +Neither pain nor pleasure was on her face: her breath came heavy and +short, her eyes shone, that was all. Out now into the open road, +stopping and glancing around with every broken twig, being a cowardly +creature, yet never leaving the track of the footsteps in the dust, +where she had gone before. Coming at last to the old-fashioned gabled +house, where she had gone when site was a child, set in among stiff rows +of evergreens. A breathless quiet always hung about the place: a pure, +wholesome atmosphere, because pure and earnest people had acted out +their souls there, and gone home to God. He had led her through the +gate here, given her to drink of the well at the side of the house. "My +mother never would taste any water but this, do you remember, Lizzy?" +They had gone through the rooms, whispering, if they spoke, as though it +were a church. Here was the pure dead sister's face looking down from +the wall; there his mother's worn wicker work-stand. Her work was in it +still. "The needle just where she placed it, Lizzy." The strong man was +weak as a little child with the memory of the old mother who had +nursed and loved him as no other could love. He stood beside her chair +irresolute; forty years ago he had stood there, a little child bringing +all his troubles to be healed: since she died no hand had touched it. +"Will you sit there, Lizzy? You are dearer to me than she. When I come +back, will you take their place here? Only you are pure as they, and +dearer, Lizzy. We will go home to them hand in hand." She sat in the +dead woman's chair. _She_. Looking in at her own heart as she did it. +Yet her love for him would make her fit to sit there: she believed that. +He had not kissed her,--she was too sacred to the simple-hearted man for +that,--had only taken her little hand in both his, saying, "God bless +you, little Lizzy!" in an unsteady voice. + +"He may never say it again," the girl said, when she crept home from +her midnight pilgrimage. "I'll come here every day and live it all +over again. It will keep me quiet until he comes. Maybe he'll never +come,"--catching her breast, and tearing it until it grew black. She was +so tired of herself, this child! She would have torn that nerve in her +heart out that sometimes made her sick, if she could. Her life was so +cramped, and selfish, too, and she knew it. Passing by the door of +Grey's room, she saw her asleep with Pen in her arms,--some other little +nightcapped heads in the larger beds. _She_ slept alone. "They tire +me so!" she said; "yet I think," her eye growing fiercer, "if I had +anything all my own, if I had a little baby to make pure and good, I'd +be a better girl. Maybe--_he_ will make me better." + +Paul Blecker, heart-anatomist, laughed when this woman, with the aching +brain and the gnawing hunger at heart, seized on the single, Christ-like +love of McKinstry, a common, bigoted man, and made it her master +and helper. Her instinct was wiser than he, being drifted by God's +under-currents of eternal order. That One who knows when the sparrow is +ready for death knows well what things are needed for a tired girl's +soul. + + * * * * * + + +UP THE THAMES. + + +The upper portion of Greenwich (where my last article left me loitering) +is a cheerful, comely, old-fashioned town, the peculiarities of which, +if there be any, have passed out of my remembrance. As you descend +towards the Thames, the streets get meaner, and the shabby and sunken +houses, elbowing one another for frontage, bear the sign-boards of +beer-shops and eating-rooms, with especial promises of whitebait and +other delicacies in the fishing line. You observe, also, a frequent +announcement of "Tea Gardens" in the rear; although, estimating the +capacity of the premises by their external compass, the entire sylvan +charm and shadowy seclusion of such blissful resorts must be limited +within a small back-yard. These places of cheap sustenance and +recreation depend for support upon the innumerable pleasure-parties who +come from London Bridge by steamer, at a fare of a few pence, and who +get as enjoyable a meal for a shilling a head as the Ship Hotel would +afford a gentleman for a guinea. + +The steamers, which are constantly smoking their pipes up and down the +Thames, offer much the most agreeable mode of getting to London. At +least, it might be exceedingly agreeable, except for the myriad floating +particles of soot from the stove-pipe, and the heavy heat of midsummer +sunshine on the unsheltered deck, or the chill, misty air-draught of a +cloudy day, and the spiteful little showers of rain that may spatter +down upon you at any moment, whatever the promise of the sky; besides +which there is some slight inconvenience from the inexhaustible throng +of passengers, who scarcely allow you standing-room, nor so much as a +breath of unappropriated air, and never a chance to sit down. If these +difficulties weigh little with you, the panorama along the shores of the +memorable river, and the incidents and shows of passing life upon its +bosom, render the trip far preferable to the brief, yet tiresome shoot +along the railway-track. On one such voyage, a regatta of wherries raced +past us, and at once involved every soul on board our steamer in the +tremendous excitement of the struggle. The spectacle was but a moment +within our view, and presented nothing more than a few light skiffs, in +each of which sat a single rower, bare-armed, and with little apparel, +save a shirt and drawers, pale, anxious, with every muscle on the +stretch, and plying his oars in such fashion that the boat skimmed along +with the aerial celerity of a swallow. I wondered at myself for so +immediately catching an interest in the affair, which seemed to contain +no very exalted rivalship of manhood; but, whatever the kind of battle +or the prize of victory, it stirs one's sympathy immensely, and is even +awful, to behold the rare sight of a man thoroughly in earnest, doing +his best, putting forth all there is in him, and staking his very soul +(as these rowers appeared willing to do) on the issue of the contest. It +was the seventy-fourth annual regatta of the Free Watermen of Greenwich, +and announced itself as under the patronage of the Lord Mayor and other +distinguished individuals, at whose expense, I suppose, a prize-boat +was offered to the conqueror, and some small amounts of money to the +inferior competitors. + +The aspect of London along the Thames, below Bridge, as it is called, is +by no means so impressive as it ought to be, considering what peculiar +advantages are offered for the display of grand and stately architecture +by the passage of a river through the midst of a great city. It seems, +indeed, as if the heart of London had been cleft open for the mere +purpose of showing how rotten and drearily mean it had become. The shore +is lined with the shabbiest, blackest, and ugliest buildings that can be +imagined, decayed warehouses with blind windows, and wharves that +look ruinous; insomuch that, had I known nothing more of the world's +metropolis, I might have fancied that it had already experienced the +down-fall which I have heard commercial and financial prophets predict +for it, within the century. And the muddy tide of the Thames, reflecting +nothing, and hiding a million of unclean secrets within its breast,--a +sort of guilty conscience, as it were, unwholesome with the rivulets of +sin that constantly flow into it,--is just the dismal stream to glide +by such a city. The surface, to be sure, displays no lack of activity, +being fretted by the passage of a hundred steamers and covered with a +good deal of shipping, but mostly of a clumsier build than I had been +accustomed to see in the Mersey: a fact which I complacently attributed +to the smaller number of American clippers in the Thames, and the +less prevalent influence of American example in refining away the +broad-bottomed capacity of the old Dutch or English models. About midway +between Greenwich and London Bridge, at a rude landing-place on the left +bank of the river, the steamer rings its bell and makes a momentary +pause in front of a large circular structure, where it may be worth our +while to scramble ashore. It indicates the locality of one of those +prodigious practical blunders that would supply John Bull with a topic +of inexhaustible ridicule, if his cousin Jonathan had committed +them, but of which he himself perpetrates two to our one in the mere +wantonness of wealth that lacks better employment. The circular building +covers the entrance to the Thames Tunnel, and is surmounted by a dome of +glass, so as to throw daylight down into the great depth at which the +passage of the river commences. Descending a wearisome succession of +staircases, we at last find ourselves, still in the broad noon, standing +before a closed door, on opening which we behold the vista of an arched +corridor that extends into everlasting midnight. In these days, when +glass has been applied to so many new purposes, it is a pity that the +architect had not thought of arching portions of his abortive tunnel +with immense blocks of the lucid substance, over which the dusky Thames +would have flowed like a cloud, making the sub-fluvial avenue only +a little gloomier than a street of upper London. At present, it is +illuminated at regular intervals by jets of gas, not very brilliantly, +yet with lustre enough to show the damp plaster of the ceiling and +walls, and the massive stone pavement, the crevices of which are oozy +with moisture, not from the incumbent river, but from hidden springs in +the earth's deeper heart. There are two parallel corridors, with a +wall between, for the separate accommodation of the double throng of +foot-passengers, equestrians, and vehicles of all kinds, which was +expected to roll and reverberate continually through the Tunnel. Only +one of them has ever been opened, and its echoes are but feebly awakened +by infrequent footfalls. + +Yet there seem to be people who spend their lives here, and who probably +blink like owls, when, once or twice a year, perhaps, they happen to +climb into the sunshine. All along the corridor, which I believe to be +a mile in extent, we see stalls or shops in little alcoves, kept +principally by women; they were of a ripe age, I was glad to observe, +and certainly robbed England of none of its very moderate supply of +feminine loveliness by their deeper than tomb-like interment. As you +approach, (and they are so accustomed to the dusky gas-light that they +read all your characteristics afar off,) they assail you with hungry +entreaties to buy some of their merchandise, holding forth views of the +Tunnel put up in cases of Derbyshire spar, with a magnifying-glass at +one end to make the vista more effective. They offer you, besides, +cheap jewelry, sunny topazes and resplendent emeralds for sixpence, and +diamonds as big as the Koh-i-noor at a not much heavier cost, together +with a multifarious trumpery which has died out of the upper world to +reappear in this Tartarean bazaar. That you may fancy yourself still +in the realms of the living, they urge you to partake of cakes, candy, +ginger-beer, and such small refreshment, more suitable, however, for the +shadowy appetite of ghosts than for the sturdy stomachs of Englishmen. +The most capacious of the shops contains a dioramic exhibition of cities +and scenes in the daylight-world, with a dreary glimmer of gas among +them all; so that they serve well enough to represent the dim, +unsatisfactory remembrances that dead people might be supposed to retain +from their past lives, mixing them up with the ghastliness of their +unsubstantial state. I dwell the more upon these trifles, and do my best +to give them a mockery of importance, because, if these are nothing, +then all this elaborate contrivance and mighty piece of work has been +wrought in vain. The Englishman has burrowed under the bed of his great +river, and set ships of two or three thousand tons a-rolling over his +head, only to provide new sites for a few old women to sell cakes and +ginger-beer! + +Yet the conception was a grand one; and though it has proved an absolute +failure, swallowing an immensity of toil and money, with annual +returns hardly sufficient to keep the pavement free from the ooze of +subterranean springs, yet it needs, I presume, only an expenditure three +or four (or, for aught I know, twenty) times as large, to make the +enterprise brilliantly successful. The descent is so great from the bank +of the river to its surface, and the Tunnel dips so profoundly under the +river's bed, that the approaches on either side must commence a long way +off, in order to render the entrance accessible to horsemen or vehicles; +so that the larger part of the cost of the whole affair should have been +expended on its margins. It has turned out a sublime piece of folly; and +when the New Zealander of distant ages shall have moralized sufficiently +among the ruins of London Bridge, he will bethink himself that somewhere +thereabout was the marvellous Tunnel, the very existence of which will +seem to him as incredible as that of the hanging-gardens of Babylon. +But the Thames will long ago have broken through the massive arch, and +choked up the corridors with mud and sand and with the large stones of +the structure itself, intermixed with skeletons of drowned people, the +rusty iron-work of sunken vessels, and a great many such precious and +curious things as a river always contrives to hide in its bosom; the +entrance will have been obliterated, and its very site forgotten beyond +the memory of twenty generations of men, and the whole neighborhood +be held a dangerous spot on account of the malaria; insomuch that the +traveller will make but a brief and careless inquisition for the traces +of the old wonder, and will stake his credit before the public, in some +Pacific Monthly of that day, that the story of it is but a myth, though +enriched with a spiritual profundity which he will proceed to unfold. + +Yet it is impossible (for a Yankee, at least) to see so much magnificent +ingenuity thrown away, without trying to endow the unfortunate result +with some kind of usefulness, though perhaps widely different from +the purpose of its original conception. In former ages, the mile-long +corridors, with their numerous alcoves, might have been utilized as +a series of dungeons, the fittest of all possible receptacles for +prisoners of state. Dethroned monarchs and fallen statesmen would not +have needed to remonstrate against a domicil so spacious, so deeply +secluded from the world's scorn, and so admirably in accordance with +their thenceforward sunless fortunes. An alcove here might have suited +Sir Walter Raleigh better than that darksome hiding-place communicating +with the great chamber in the Tower, pacing from end to end of which he +meditated upon his "History of the World." His track would here have +been straight and narrow, indeed, and would therefore have lacked +somewhat of the freedom that his intellect demanded; and yet the +length to which his footsteps might have travelled forth and retraced +themselves would partly have harmonized his physical movement with the +grand curves and planetary returns of his thought, through cycles of +majestic periods. Having it in his mind to compose the world's history, +methinks he could have asked no better retirement than such a cloister +as this, insulated from all the seductions of mankind and womankind, +deep beneath their mysteries and motives, down into the heart of things, +full of personal reminiscences in order to the comprehensive measurement +and verification of historic records, seeing into the secrets of human +nature,--secrets that daylight never yet revealed to mortal,--but +detecting their whole scope and purport with the infallible eyes of +unbroken solitude and night. And then the shades of the old mighty men +might have risen from their still profounder abodes and joined him in +the dim corridor, treading beside him with an antique stateliness of +mien, telling him in melancholy tones, grand, but always melancholy, of +the greater ideas and purposes that were so poorly embodied in their +most renowned performances. As Raleigh was a navigator, Noah would have +explained to him the peculiarities of construction that made the ark so +seaworthy; as Raleigh was a statesman, Moses would have discussed with +him the principles of laws and government; as Raleigh was a soldier, +Caesar and Hannibal would have held debate in his presence, with this +martial student for their umpire; as Raleigh was a poet, David, or +whatever most illustrious bard he might call up, would have touched his +harp, and made manifest all the true significance of the past by means +of song and the subtile intelligences of music. + +Meanwhile, I had forgotten that Sir Walter Raleigh's century knew +nothing of gas-light, and that it would require a prodigious and +wasteful expenditure of tallow-candles to illuminate the Tunnel +sufficiently to discern even a ghost. On this account, however, it would +be all the more suitable place of confinement for a metaphysician, to +keep him from bewildering mankind with his shadowy speculations; and, +being shut off from external converse, the dark corridor would help +him to make rich discoveries in those cavernous regions and mysterious +by-paths of the intellect, which he had so long accustomed himself to +explore. But how would every successive age rejoice in so secure a +habitation for its reformers, and especially for each best and wisest +man that happened to be then alive! He seeks to burn up our whole system +of society, under pretence of purifying it from its abuses! Away with +him into the Tunnel, and let him begin by setting the Thames on fire, if +he is able! + +If not precisely these, yet akin to these were some of the fantasies +that haunted me as I passed under the river: for the place is suggestive +of such idle and irresponsible stuff by its own abortive character, its +lack of whereabout on upper earth, or any solid foundation of realities. +Could I have looked forward a few years, I might have regretted that +American enterprise had not provided a similar tunnel, under the Hudson +or the Potomac, for the convenience of our National Government in times +hardly yet gone by. It would be delightful to clap up all the enemies +of our peace and Union in the dark together, and there let them abide, +listening to the monotonous roll of the river above their heads, or +perhaps in a state of miraculously suspended animation, until,--be it +after months, years, or centuries,--when the turmoil shall be all over, +the Wrong washed away in blood, (since that must needs be the cleansing +fluid,) and the Right firmly rooted in the soil which that blood will +have enriched, they might crawl forth again and catch a single glimpse +at their redeemed country, and feel it to be a better land than they +deserve, and die! + +I was not sorry when the daylight reached me after a much briefer +abode in the nether regions than, I fear, would await the troublesome +personages just hinted at. Emerging on the Surrey side of the Thames, +I found myself in Rotherhithe, a neighborhood not unfamiliar to the +readers of old books of maritime adventure. There being a ferry hard by +the mouth of the Tunnel, I recrossed the river in the primitive fashion +of an open boat, which the conflict of wind and tide, together with the +swash and swell of the passing steamers, tossed high and low rather +tumultuously. This inquietude of our frail skiff (which, indeed, bobbed +up and down like a cork) so much alarmed an old lady, the only other +passenger, that the boatmen essayed to comfort her. "Never fear, +mother!" grumbled one of them, "we'll make the river as smooth as we can +for you. We'll get a plane and plane down the waves!" The joke may not +read very brilliantly; but I make bold to record it as the only specimen +that reached my ears of the old, rough water-wit for which the Thames +used to be so celebrated. Passing directly along the line of the sunken +Tunnel, we landed in Wapping, which I should have presupposed to be the +most tarry and pitchy spot on earth, swarming with old salts, and full +of warm, bustling, coarse, homely, and cheerful life. Nevertheless, +it turned out to be a cold and torpid neighborhood, mean, shabby, and +unpicturesque, both as to its buildings and inhabitants: the latter +comprising (so far as was visible to me) not a single unmistakable +sailor, though plenty of land-sharks, who get a half dishonest +livelihood by business connected with the sea. Ale-and-spirit vaults +(as petty drinking-establishments are styled in England, pretending +to contain vast cellars full of liquor within the compass of ten feet +square above-ground) were particularly abundant, together with apples, +oranges, and oysters, the stalls of fishmongers and butchers, and +slop-shops, where blue jackets and duck trousers swung and capered +before the doors. Everything was on the poorest scale, and the place +bore an aspect of unredeemable decay. From this remote point of London, +I strolled leisurely towards the heart of the city; while the streets, +at first but thinly occupied by man or vehicle, got more and more +thronged with foot-passengers, carts, drays, cabs, and the all-pervading +and all-accommodating omnibus. But I lack courage, and feel that I +should lack perseverance, as the gentlest reader would lack patience, to +undertake a descriptive stroll through London streets; more especially +as there would be a volume ready for the printer before we could reach a +midway resting-place at Charing Cross. It will be the easier course +to step aboard another passing steamer, and continue our trip up the +Thames. + +The next notable group of objects is an assemblage of ancient walls, +battlements, and turrets, out of the midst of which rises prominently +one great square tower, of a grayish hue, bordered with white stone, and +having a small turret at each corner of the roof. This central structure +is the White Tower, and the whole circuit of ramparts and inclosed +edifices constitutes what is known in English history, and still more +widely and impressively in English poetry, as the Tower. A crowd of +river-craft are generally moored in front of it; but if we look sharply +at the right moment under the base of the rampart, we may catch a +glimpse of an arched water-entrance, half submerged, past which the +Thames glides as indifferently as if it were the mouth of a city-kennel. +Nevertheless, it is the Traitor's Gate, a dreary kind of triumphal +passage-way, (now supposed to be shut up and barred forever,) through +which a multitude of noble and illustrious personages have entered +the Tower, and found it a brief resting-place on their way to heaven. +Passing it many times, I never observed that anybody glanced at this +shadowy and ominous trap-door, save myself. It is well that America +exists, if it were only that her vagrant children may be impressed and +affected by the historical monuments of England in a degree of which +the native inhabitants are evidently incapable. These matters are too +familiar, too real, and too hopelessly built in amongst and mixed up +with the common objects and affairs of life, to be easily susceptible of +imaginative coloring in their minds; and even their poets and romancers +feel it a toil, and almost a delusion, to extract poetic material out of +what seems embodied poetry itself to an American. An Englishman cares +nothing about the Tower, which to us is a haunted castle in dreamland. +That honest and excellent gentleman, the late Mr. G.P.R. James, (whose +mechanical ability, one might have supposed, would nourish itself by +devouring every old stone of such a structure,) once assured me that +he had never in his life set eyes upon the Tower, though for years an +historic novelist in London. + +Not to spend a whole summer's day upon the voyage, we will suppose +ourselves to have reached London Bridge, and thence to have taken +another steamer for a farther passage up the river. But here the +memorable objects succeed each other so rapidly that I can spare but +a single sentence even for the great Dome, though I deem it more +picturesque, in that dusky atmosphere, than St. Peter's in its clear +blue sky. I must mention, however, (since everything connected with +royalty is especially interesting to my dear countrymen,) that I once +saw a large and beautiful barge, splendidly gilded and ornamented, and +overspread with a rich covering, lying at the pier nearest to St. Paul's +Cathedral; it had the royal banner of Great Britain displayed, besides +being decorated with a number of other flags; and many footmen (who are +universally the grandest and gaudiest objects to be seen in England +at this day, and these were regal ones, in a bright scarlet livery +bedizened with gold-lace, and white silk stockings) were in attendance. +I know not what festive or ceremonial occasion may have drawn out +this pageant; after all, it might have been merely a city-spectacle, +appertaining to the Lord Mayor; but the sight had its value in bringing +vividly before me the grand old times when the sovereign and nobles were +accustomed to use the Thames as the high street of the metropolis, and +join in pompous processions upon it; whereas, the desuetude of such +customs, nowadays, has caused the whole show of river-life to consist in +a multitude of smoke-begrimed steamers. An analogous change has taken +place in the streets, where cabs and the omnibus have crowded out a rich +variety of vehicles; and thus life gets more monotonous in hue from age +to age, and appears to seize every opportunity to strip off a bit of its +gold-lace among the wealthier classes, and to make itself decent in the +lower ones. + +Yonder is Whitefriars, the old rowdy Alsatia, now wearing as decorous a +face as any other portion of London; and, adjoining it, the avenues and +brick squares of the Temple, with that historic garden, close upon the +river-side, and still rich in shrubbery and flowers, where the partisans +of York and Lancaster plucked the fatal roses, and scattered their pale +and bloody petals over so many English battle-fields. Hard by, we see +the long white front or rear of Somerset House, and, farther on, rise +the two new Houses of Parliament, with a huge unfinished tower already +hiding its imperfect summit in the smoky canopy,--the whole vast and +cumbrous edifice a specimen of the best that modern architecture can +effect, elaborately imitating the masterpieces of those simple ages when +men "builded better than they knew." Close by it, we have a glimpse of +the roof and upper towers of the holy Abbey; while that gray, ancestral +pile on the opposite side of the river is Lambeth Palace, a venerable +group of halls and turrets, chiefly built of brick, but with at least +one large tower of stone. In our course, we have passed beneath half a +dozen bridges, and, emerging out of the black heart of London, shall +soon reach a cleanly suburb, where old Father Thames, if I remember, +begins to put on an aspect of unpolluted innocence. And now we look back +upon the mass of innumerable roofs, out of which rise steeples, towers, +columns, and the great crowning Dome,--look back, in short, upon that +mystery of the world's proudest city, amid which a man so longs and +loves to be: not, perhaps, because it contains much that is positively +admirable and enjoyable, but because, at all events, the world has +nothing better. The cream of external life is there; and whatever merely +intellectual or material good we fail to find perfect in London, we may +as well content ourselves to seek that unattainable thing no farther on +this earth. + +The steamer terminates its trip at Chelsea, an old town endowed with a +prodigious number of pot-houses, and some famous gardens, called the +Cremorne, for public amusement. The most noticeable thing, however, is +Chelsea Hospital, which, like that of Greenwich, was founded, I believe, +by Charles II., (whose bronze statue, in the guise of an old Roman, +stands in the centre of the quadrangle,) and appropriated as a home for +aged and infirm soldiers of the British army. The edifices are of three +stories with windows in the high roofs, and are built of dark, sombre +brick, with stone edgings and facings. The effect is by no means that +of grandeur, (which is somewhat disagreeably an attribute of Greenwich +Hospital,) but a quiet and venerable neatness. At each extremity of the +street-front there is a spacious and hospitably open gateway, lounging +about which I saw some gray veterans in long scarlet coats of an antique +fashion, and the cocked hats of a century ago, or occasionally a modern +foraging-cap. Almost all of them moved with a rheumatic gait, two or +three stumped on wooden legs, and here and there an arm was missing. +Inquiring of one of these fragmentary heroes whether a stranger could be +admitted to see the establishment, he replied most cordially, "Oh, +yes, Sir,--anywhere! Walk in, and go where you please,--up-stairs, +or anywhere!" So I entered, and, passing along the inner side of the +quadrangle, came to the door of the chapel, which forms a part of the +contiguity of edifices next the street. Here another pensioner, an old +warrior of exceedingly peaceable and Christian demeanor, touched his +three-cornered hat and asked if I wished to see the interior; to which I +assenting, he unlocked the door, and we went in. + +The chapel consists of a great hall with a vaulted roof, and over the +altar is a large painting in fresco, the subject of which I did not +trouble myself to make out. More appropriate adornments of the place, +dedicated as well to martial reminiscences as religious worship, are the +long ranges of dusty and tattered banners that hang from their staves +alt round the ceiling of the chapel. They are trophies of battles fought +and won in every quarter of the world, comprising the captured flags of +all the nations with whom the British lion has waged war since James +II's time,--French, Dutch, East-Indian, Prussian, Russian, Chinese, and +American,--collected together in this consecrated spot, not to symbolize +that there shall be no more discord upon earth, but drooping over the +aisle in sullen, though peaceable humiliation. Yes, I said "American" +among the rest; for the good old pensioner mistook me for an Englishman, +and failed not to point out (and, methought, with an especial emphasis +of triumph) some flags that had been taken at Bladensburg and +Washington. I fancied, indeed, that they hung a little higher and +drooped a little lower than any of their companions in disgrace. It is +a comfort, however, that their proud devices are already +indistinguishable, or nearly so, owing to dust and tatters and the kind +offices of the moths, and that they will soon rot from the banner-staves +and be swept out in unrecognized fragments from the chapel-door. + +It is a good method of teaching a man how imperfectly cosmopolitan he +is, to show him his country's flag occupying a position of dishonor in a +foreign land. But, in truth, the whole system of a people crowing over +its military triumphs had far better be dispensed with, both on account +of the ill-blood that it helps to keep fermenting among the nations, and +because it operates as an accumulative inducement to future generations +to aim at a kind of glory, the gain of which has generally proved more +ruinous than its loss. I heartily wish that every trophy of victory +might crumble away, and that every reminiscence or tradition of a hero, +from the beginning of the world to this day, could pass out of all men's +memories at once and forever. I might feel very differently, to be sure, +if we Northerners had anything especially valuable to lose by the fading +of those illuminated names. + +I gave the pensioner (but I am afraid there may have been a little +affectation in it) a magnificent guerdon of all the silver I had in +my. pocket, to requite him for having unintentionally stirred up my +patriotic susceptibilities. He was a meek-looking, kindly old man, with +a humble freedom and affability of manner that made it pleasant to +converse with him. Old soldiers, I know not why, seem to be more +accostable than old sailors. One is apt to hear a growl beneath the +smoothest courtesy of the latter. The mild veteran, with his peaceful +voice, and gentle, reverend aspect, told me that he had fought at a +cannon all through the Battle of Waterloo, and escaped unhurt; he had +now been in the hospital four or five years, and was married, but +necessarily underwent a separation from his wife, who lived outside of +the gates. To my inquiry whether his fellow-pensioners were comfortable +and happy, he answered, with great alacrity, "Oh, yes, Sir!" qualifying +his evidence, after a moment's consideration, by saying, in an +undertone, "There are some people, your Honor knows, who could not +be comfortable anywhere." I did know it, and fear that the system of +Chelsea Hospital allows too little of that wholesome care and regulation +of their own occupations and interests which might assuage the sting +of life to those naturally uncomfortable individuals by giving them +something external to think about. But my old friend here was happy in +the hospital, and by this time, very likely, is happy in heaven, in +spite of the bloodshed that he may have caused by touching off a cannon +at Waterloo. + +Crossing Battersea Bridge, in the neighborhood of Chelsea, I remember +seeing a distant gleam of the Crystal Palace, glimmering afar in the +afternoon sunshine like an imaginary structure,--an air-castle by chance +descended upon earth, and resting there one instant before it vanished, +as we sometimes see a soap-bubble touch unharmed on the carpet,--a +thing of only momentary visibility and no substance, destined to be +overburdened and crushed down by the first cloud-shadow that might fall +upon that spot. Even as I looked, it disappeared. Shall I attempt 'a +picture of this exhalation of modern ingenuity, or what else shall I +try to paint? Everything in London and its vicinity has been depleted +innumerable times, but never once translated into intelligible images; +it is an "old, old story," never yet told, nor to be told. While writing +these reminiscences, I am continually impressed with the futility of the +effort to give any creative truth to my sketch, so that it might produce +such pictures in the reader's mind as would cause the original scenes +to appear familiar when afterwards beheld. Nor have other writers often +been more successful in representing definite objects prophetically to +my own mind. In truth, I believe that the chief delight and advantage of +this kind of literature is not for any real information that it +supplies to untravelled people, but for reviving the recollections and +reawakening the emotions of persons already acquainted with the scenes +described. Thus I found an exquisite pleasure, the other day, in reading +Mr. Tuckerman's "Month in England,"--a fine example of the way in which +a refined and cultivated American looks at the Old Country, the things +that he naturally seeks there, and the modes of feeling and reflection +which they excite. Correct outlines avail little or nothing, though +truth of coloring may be somewhat more efficacious. Impressions, +however, states of mind produced by interesting and remarkable objects, +these, if truthfully and vividly recorded, may work a genuine effect, +and, though but the result of what we see, go farther towards +representing the actual scene than any direct effort to paint it. Give +the emotions that cluster about it, and, without being able to analyze +the spell by which it is summoned up, you get something like a +simulachre of the object in the midst of them. From some of the above +reflections I draw the comfortable inference, that, the longer and +better known a thing may be, so much the more eligible is it as the +subject of a descriptive sketch. + +On a Sunday afternoon, I passed through a side--entrance in the +time-blackened wall of a place of worship, and found myself among a +congregation assembled in one of the transepts and the immediately +contiguous portion of the nave. It was a vast old edifice, spacious +enough, within the extent covered by its pillared roof and overspread by +its stone pavement, to accommodate the whole of church-going London, and +with a far wider and loftier concave than any human power of lungs could +fill with audible prayer. Oaken benches were arranged in the transept, +on one of which I seated myself, and joined, as well as I knew how, in +the sacred business that was going forward. But when it came to the +sermon, the voice of the preacher was puny, and so were his thoughts, +and both seemed impertinent at such a time and place, where he and all +of us were bodily included within a sublime act of religion which could +be seen above and around us and felt beneath our feet. The structure +itself was the worship of the devout men of long ago, miraculously +preserved in stone without losing an atom of its fragrance and fervor; +it was a kind of anthem-strain that they had sung and poured out of the +organ in centuries gone by; and being so grand and sweet, the Divine +benevolence had willed it to be prolonged for the behoof of auditors +unborn. I therefore came to the conclusion, that, in my individual case, +it would be better and more reverent to let my eyes wander about the +edifice than to fasten them and my thoughts on the evidently uninspired +mortal who was venturing--and felt it no venture at all--to speak here +above his breath. + +The interior of Westminster Abbey (for the reader recognized it, no +doubt, the moment we entered) is built of rich brown stone; and the +whole of it--the lofty roof, the tall, clustered pillars, and the +pointed arches--appears to be in consummate repair. At all points where +decay has laid its finger, the structure is clamped with iron, or +otherwise carefully protected; and being thus watched over,--whether +as a place of ancient sanctity, a noble specimen of Gothic art, or an +object of national interest and pride,--it may reasonably be expected to +survive for as many ages as have passed over it already. It was sweet to +feel its venerable quietude, its long-enduring peace, and yet to observe +how kindly and even cheerfully it received the sunshine of to-day, which +fell from the great windows into the fretted aisles and arches that laid +aside somewhat of their aged gloom to welcome it. Sunshine always seems +friendly to old abbeys, churches, and castles, kissing them, as it were, +with a more affectionate, though still reverential familiarity, than it +accords to edifices of later date. A square of golden light lay on the +sombre pavement afar off, falling through the grand western entrance, +the folding leaves of which were wide open, and afforded glimpses +of people passing to and fro in the outer world, while we sat dimly +enveloped in the solemnity of antique devotion. In the south transept, +separated from us by the full breadth of the minster, there were painted +glass windows, of which the uppermost appeared to be a great orb of +many-colored radiance, being, indeed, a cluster of saints and angels +whose glorified bodies formed the rays of an aureole emanating from a +cross in the midst. These windows are modern, but combine softness with +wonderful brilliancy of effect. Through the pillars and arches, I saw +that the walls in that distant region of the edifice were almost wholly +incrusted with marble, now grown yellow with time, no blank, unlettered +slabs, but memorials of such men as their respective generations +deemed wisest and bravest. Some of them were commemorated merely by +inscriptions on mural tablets, others by sculptured bas-reliefs, +others (once famous, but now forgotten generals or admirals, these) by +ponderous tombs that aspired towards the roof of the aisle, or partly +curtained the immense arch of a window. These mountains of marble were +peopled with the sisterhood of Allegory, winged trumpeters, and classic +figures in full-bottomed wigs; but it was strange to observe how the old +Abbey melted all such absurdities into the breadth of its own grandeur, +even magnifying itself by what would elsewhere have been ridiculous. +Methinks it is the test of Gothic sublimity to overpower the ridiculous +without deigning to hide it; and these grotesque monuments of the last +century answer a similar purpose with the grinning faces which the old +architects scattered among their most solemn conceptions. + +From these distant wanderings, (it was my first visit to Westminster +Abbey, and I would gladly have taken it all in at a glance,) my eyes +came back and began to investigate what was immediately about me in the +transept. Close at my elbow was the pedestal of Canning's statue. Next +beyond it was a massive tomb, on the spacious tablet of which reposed +the full-length figures of a marble lord and lady, whom an inscription +announced to be the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle,--the historic Duke of +Charles I.'s time, and the fantastic Duchess, traditionally remembered +by her poems and plays. She was of a family, as the record on her tomb +proudly informed us, of which all the brothers had been valiant and all +the sisters virtuous. A recent statue of Sir John Malcom, the new marble +as white as snow, held the next place; and near by was a mural monument +and bust of Sir Peter Warren. The round visage of this old British +admiral has a certain interest for a New-Englander, because it was by no +merit of his own, (though he took care to assume it as such,) but by the +valor and warlike enterprise of our colonial forefathers, especially the +stout men of Massachusetts, that he won rank and renown, and a tomb in +Westminster Abbey. Lord Mansfield, a huge mass of marble done into the +guise of a judicial gown and wig, with a stern face in the midst of +the latter, sat on the other side of the transept; and on the pedestal +beside him was a figure of Justice, holding forth, instead of the +customary grocer's scales, an actual pair of brass steelyards. It is an +ancient and classic instrument, undoubtedly; but I had supposed that +Portia (when Shylock's pound of flesh was to be weighed) was the only +judge that ever really called for it in a court of justice. Pitt and +Fox were in the same distinguished company; and John Kemble, in Roman +costume, stood not far off, but strangely shorn of the dignity that is +said to have enveloped him like a mantle in his lifetime. Perhaps the +evanescent majesty of the stage is incompatible with the long endurance +of marble and the solemn reality of the tomb; though, on the other hand, +almost every illustrious personage here represented has been invested +with more or less of stage-trickery by his sculptor. In truth, the +artist (unless there be a divine efficacy in his touch, making evident a +heretofore hidden dignity in the actual form) feels it an imperious law +to remove his subject as far from the aspect of ordinary life as may +be possible without sacrificing every trace of resemblance. The absurd +effect of the contrary course is very remarkable in the statue of Mr. +Wilberforce, whose actual self, save for the lack of color, I seemed to +behold, seated just across the aisle. + +This excellent man appears to have sunk into himself in a sitting +posture, with a thin leg crossed over his knee, a book in one hand, and +a finger of the other under his chin, I believe, or applied to the side +of his nose, or to some equally familiar purpose; while his exceedingly +homely and wrinkled face, held a little on one side, twinkles at you +with the shrewdest complacency, as if he were looking right into your +eyes, and twigged something there which you had half a mind to conceal +from him. He keeps this look so pertinaciously that you feel it to be +insufferably impertinent, and bethink yourself what common ground there +may be between yourself and a stone image, enabling you to resent it. I +have no doubt that the statue is as like Mr. Wilberforce as one pea to +another, and you might fancy, that, at come ordinary moment, when he +least expected it, and before he had time to smooth away his knowing +complication of wrinkles, he had seen the Gorgon's head, and +whitened into marble,--not only his personal self, but his coat and +small-clothes, down to a button and the minutest crease of the cloth. +The ludicrous result marks the impropriety of bestowing the agelong +duration of marble upon small, characteristic individualities, such as +might come within the province of waxen imagery. The sculptor should +give permanence to the figure of a great man in his mood of broad and +grand composure, which would obliterate all mean peculiarities; for, if +the original were unaccustomed to such a mood, or if his features were +incapable of assuming the guise, it seems questionable whether he could +really have been entitled to a marble immortality. In point of fact, +however, the English face and form are seldom statuesque, however +illustrious the individual. + +It ill becomes me, perhaps, to have lapsed into this mood of half-jocose +criticism in describing my first visit to Westminster Abbey, a spot +which I had dreamed about more reverentially, from my childhood upward, +than any other in the world, and which I then beheld, and now look back +upon, with profound gratitude to the men who built it, and a kindly +interest, I may add, in the humblest personage that has contributed his +little all to its impressiveness, by depositing his dust or his memory +there. But it is a characteristic of this grand edifice that it permits +you to smile as freely under the roof of its central nave as if you +stood beneath the yet grander canopy of heaven. Break into laughter, if +you feel inclined, provided the vergers do not hear it echoing among the +arches. In an ordinary church, you would keep your countenance for fear +of disturbing the sanctities or proprieties of the place; but you need +leave no honest and decorous portion of your human nature outside of +these benign and truly hospitable walls. Their mild awfulness will take +care of itself. Thus it does no harm to the general impression, when +you come to be sensible that many of the monuments are ridiculous, and +commemorate a mob of people who are mostly forgotten in their graves, +and few of whom ever deserved any better boon from posterity. You +acknowledge the force of Sir Godfrey Kneller's objection to being buried +in Westminster Abbey, because "they do bury fools there!" Nevertheless, +these grotesque carvings of marble, that break out in dingy-white +blotches on the old freestone of the interior walls, have come there by +as natural a process as might cause mosses and ivy to cluster about the +external edifice; for they are the historical and biographical record of +each successive age, written with its own hand, and all the truer for +the inevitable mistakes, and none the less solemn for the occasional +absurdity. Though you entered the Abbey expecting to see the tombs only +of the illustrious, you are content, at last, to read many names, both +in literature and history, that have now lost the reverence of mankind, +if, indeed, they ever really possessed it. Let these men rest in peace. +Even if you miss a name or two that you hoped to find there, they +may well be spared. It matters little a few more or less, or whether +Westminster Abbey contains or lacks any one man's grave, so long as the +Centuries, each with the crowd of personages that it deemed memorable, +have chosen it as their place of honored sepulture, and laid themselves +down under its pavement. The inscriptions and devices on the walls +are rich with evidences of the fluctuating tastes, fashions, manners, +opinions, prejudices, follies, wisdoms of the past, and thus they +combine into a more truthful memorial of their dead times than any +individual epitaph-maker ever meant to write. + +When the services were over, many of the audience seemed inclined to +linger in the nave or wander away among the mysterious aisles; for there +is nothing in this world so fascinating as a Gothic minster, which +always invites you deeper and deeper into its heart both by vast +revelations and shadowy concealments. Through the open-work screen that +divides the nave from the chancel and choir, we could discern the gleam +of a marvellous window, but were debarred from entrance into that more +sacred precinct of the Abbey by the vergers. These vigilant officials +(doing their duty all the more strenuously because no fees could be +exacted from Sunday visitors) flourished their staves, and drove us +towards the grand entrance like a flock of sheep. Lingering through one +of the aisles, I happened to look down, and found my foot upon a stone +inscribed with this familiar exclamation, "_O rare Ben Jonson!_" and +remembered the story of stout old Ben's burial in that spot, standing +upright,--not, I presume, on account of any unseemly reluctance on his +part to lie down in the dust, like other men, but because standing-room +was all that could reasonably be demanded for a poet among the +slumberous notabilities of his age. It made me weary to think of +it!--such a prodigious length of time to keep one's feet!--apart from +the honor of the thing, it would certainly have been better for Ben +to stretch himself at ease in some country-churchyard. To this day, +however, I fancy that there is a contemptuous alloy mixed up with the +admiration which the higher classes of English society profess for their +literary men. + +Another day--in truth, many other days--I sought out Poets' Corner, and +found a sign-board and pointed finger, directing the visitor to it, on +the corner house of a little lane leading towards the rear of the Abbey. +The entrance is at the southeastern end of the south transept, and it +is used, on ordinary occasions, as the only free mode of access to this +building. It is no spacious arch, but a small, lowly door, passing +through which, and pushing aside an inner screen that partly keeps out +an exceedingly chill wind, you find yourself in a dim nook of the Abbey, +with the busts of poets gazing at you from the otherwise bare stonework +of the walls. Great poets, too; for Ben Jonson is right behind the door, +and Spenser's tablet is next, and Butler's on the same side of the +transept, and Milton's (whose bust you know at once by its resemblance +to one of his portraits, though older, more wrinkled, and sadder than +that) is close by, and a profile-medallion of Gray beneath it. A +window high aloft sheds down a dusky daylight on these and many other +sculptured marbles, now as yellow as old parchment, that cover the three +walls of the nook up to an elevation of about twenty feet above the +pavement. It seemed to me that I had always been familiar with the spot. +Enjoying a humble intimacy--and how much of my life had else been a +dreary solitude!--with many of its inhabitants, I could not feel myself +a stranger there. It was delightful to be among them. There was a genial +awe, mingled with a sense of kind and friendly presences about me; and +I was glad, moreover, at finding so many of them there together in fit +companionship, mutually recognized and duly honored, all reconciled +now, whatever distant generations, whatever personal hostility or other +miserable impediment, had divided them far asunder while they lived. I +have never felt a similar interest in any other tombstones, nor have I +ever been deeply moved by the imaginary presence of other famous +dead people. A poet's ghost is the only one that survives for his +fellow-mortals, after his bones are in the dust,--and he not ghostly, +but cherishing many hearts with his own warmth in the chillest +atmosphere of life. What other fame is worth aspiring for? Or, let +me speak it more boldly, what other long-enduring fame can exist? We +neither remember nor care anything for the past, except as the poet has +made it intelligibly noble and sublime to our comprehension. The shades +of the mighty have no substance; they flit ineffectually about the +darkened stage where they performed their momentary parts, save when the +poet has thrown his own creative soul into them, and imparted a more +vivid life than ever they were able to manifest to mankind while they +dwelt in the body. And therefore--though he cunningly disguises himself +in their armor, their robes of state, or kingly purple--it is not the +statesman, the warrior, or the monarch that survives, but the despised +poet, whom they may have fed with their crumbs, and to whom they owe all +that they now are or have,--a name! + +In the foregoing paragraph I seem to have been betrayed into a flight +above or beyond the customary level that best agrees with me; but it +represents fairly enough the emotions with which I passed from Poets' +Corner into the chapels, which contain the sepulchres of kings and great +people. They are magnificent even now, and must have been inconceivably +so when the marble slabs and pillars wore their new polish, and the +statues retained the brilliant colors with which they were originally +painted, and the shrines their rich gilding, of which the sunlight still +shows a glimmer or a streak, though the sunbeam itself looks tarnished +with antique dust. Yet this recondite portion of the Abbey presents few +memorials of personages whom we care to remember. The shrine of Edward +the Confessor has a certain interest, because it was so long held in +religious reverence, and because the very dust that settled upon it was +formerly worth gold. The helmet and war-saddle of Henry V., worn at +Agincourt, and now suspended above his tomb, are memorable objects, but +more for Shakspeare's sake than the victor's own. Rank has been the +general passport to admission here. Noble and regal dust is as cheap as +dirt under the pavement. I am glad to recollect, indeed, (and it is too +characteristic of the right English spirit not to be mentioned) one or +two gigantic statues of great mechanicians, who contributed largely to +the material welfare of England, sitting familiarly in their marble +chairs among forgotten kings and queens. Otherwise, the quaintness of +the earlier monuments, and the antique beauty of some of them, are what +chiefly gives them value. Nevertheless, Addison is buried among the men +of rank; not on the plea of his literary fame, however, but because he +was connected with nobility by marriage, and had been a Secretary +of State. His gravestone is inscribed with a resounding verse from +Tickell's lines to his memory, the only lines by which Tickell himself +is now remembered, and which (as I discovered a little while ago) he +mainly filched from an obscure versifier of somewhat earlier date. + +Returning to Poets' Corner, I looked again at the walls, and wondered +how the requisite hospitality can be shown to poets of our own and the +succeeding ages. There is hardly a foot of space left, although room +has lately been found for a bust of Southey and a full-length statue of +Campbell. At best, only a little portion of the Abbey is dedicated +to poets, literary men, musical composers, and others of the gentle +artist-breed, and even into that small nook of sanctity men of other +pursuits have thought it decent to intrude themselves. Methinks the +tuneful throng, being at home here, should recollect how they were +treated in their lifetime, and turn the cold shoulder, looking askance +at nobles and official personages, however worthy of honorable interment +elsewhere. Yet it shows aptly and truly enough what portion of the +world's regard and honor has heretofore been awarded to literary +eminence in comparison with other modes of greatness,--this dimly +lighted corner (nor even that quietly to themselves) in the vast +minster, the walls of which are sheathed and hidden under marble that +has been wasted upon the illustrious obscure. Nevertheless, it may +not be worth while to quarrel with the world on this account; for, to +confess the very truth, their own little nook contains more than one +poet whose memory is kept alive by his monument, instead of imbuing the +senseless stone with a spiritual immortality,--men of whom you do not +ask, "Where is he?" but "Why is he here?" I estimate that all the +literary people who really make an essential part of one's inner life, +including the period since English literature first existed, might have +ample elbow-room to sit down and quaff their draughts of Castaly round +Chaucer's broad, horizontal tombstone. These divinest poets consecrate +the spot, and throw a reflected glory over the humblest of their +companions. And as for the latter, it is to be hoped that they may have +long outgrown the characteristic jealousies and morbid sensibilities +of their craft, and have found out the little value, (probably not +amounting to sixpence in immortal currency) of the posthumous renown +which they once aspired to win. It would be a poor compliment to a dead +poet to fancy him leaning out of the sky and snuffing up the impure +breath of earthly praise. + +Yet we cannot easily rid ourselves of the notion that those who have +bequeathed us the inheritance of an undying song would fain be conscious +of its endless reverberations in the hearts of mankind, and would +delight, among sublimer enjoyments, to see their names emblazoned in +such a treasure-place of great memories as Westminster Abbey. There are +some men, at all events,--true and tender poets, moreover, and fully +deserving of the honor,--whose spirits, I feel certain, would linger a +little while about Poets' Corner for the sake of witnessing their own +apotheosis among their kindred. They have had a strong natural yearning, +not so much for applause as sympathy, which the cold fortune of their +lifetime did but scantily supply; so that this unsatisfied appetite may +make itself felt upon sensibilities at once so delicate and retentive, +even a step or two beyond the grave. Leigh Hunt, for example, would be +pleased, even now, if he could learn that his bust had been reposited in +the midst of the old poets whom he admired and loved; though there is +hardly a man among the authors of to-day and yesterday whom the judgment +of Englishmen would be less likely to place there. He deserves it, +however, if not for his verse, (the value of which I do not estimate, +never having been able to read it,) yet for his delightful prose, his +unmeasured poetry, the inscrutable happiness of his touch, working soft +miracles by a life-process like the growth of grass and flowers. As +with all such gentle writers, his page sometimes betrayed a vestige of +affectation, but, the next moment, a rich, natural luxuriance overgrew +and buried it out of sight. I knew him a little, and (since, Heaven +be praised, few English celebrities whom I chanced to meet have +enfranchised my pen by their decease, and as I assume no liberties with +living men) I will conclude this rambling article by sketching my first +interview with Leigh Hunt. + +He was then at Hammersmith, occupying a very plain and shabby little +house, in a contiguous range of others like it, with no prospect but +that of an ugly village-street, and certainly nothing to gratify +his craving for a tasteful environment, inside or out. A slatternly +maid-servant opened the door for us, and he himself stood in the entry, +a beautiful and venerable old man, buttoned to the chin in a black +dress-coat, tall and slender, with a countenance quietly alive all over, +and the gentlest and most naturally courteous manner. He ushered us into +his little study, or parlor, or both,--a very forlorn room, with poor +paper-hangings and carpet, few books, no pictures that I remember, and +an awful lack of upholstery. I touch distinctly upon these external +blemishes and this nudity of adornment, not that they would be worth +mentioning in a sketch of other remarkable persons, but because Leigh +Hunt was born with such a faculty of enjoying all beautiful things that +it seemed as if Fortune did him as much wrong in not supplying them as +in withholding a sufficiency of vital breath from ordinary men. All +kinds of mild magnificence, tempered by his taste, would have become +him well; but he had not the grim dignity that assumes nakedness as the +better robe. + +I have said that he was a beautiful old man. In truth, I never saw a +finer countenance, either as to the mould of features or the expression, +nor any that showed the play of feeling so perfectly without the +slightest theatrical emphasis. It was like a child's face in this +respect. At my first glimpse of him, when he met us in the entry, I +discerned that he was old, his long hair being white and his wrinkles +many; it was an aged visage, in short, such as I had not at all expected +to see, in spite of dates, because his books talk to the reader with the +tender vivacity of youth. But when he began to speak, and as he grew +more earnest in conversation, I ceased to be sensible of his age; +sometimes, indeed, its dusky shadow darkened through the gleam which his +sprightly thoughts diffused about his face, but then another flash of +youth came out of his eyes and made an illumination again. I never +witnessed such a wonderfully illusive transformation, before or since; +and, to this day, trusting only to my recollection, I should find it +difficult to decide which was his genuine and stable predicament, +--youth or age. I have met no Englishman whose manners seemed to me +so agreeable, soft, rather than polished, wholly unconventional, the +natural growth of a kindly and sensitive disposition without any +reference to rule, or else obedient to some rule so subtile that the +nicest observer could not detect the application of it. + +His eyes were dark and very fine, and his delightful voice accompanied +their visible language like music. He appeared to be exceedingly +appreciative, of whatever was passing among those who surrounded him, +and especially of the vicissitudes in the consciousness of the person to +whom he happened to be addressing himself at the moment. I felt that no +effect upon my mind of what he uttered, no emotion, however transitory, +in myself, escaped his notice, though not from any positive vigilance on +his part, but because his faculty of observation was so penetrative +and delicate; and to say the truth, it a little confused me to discern +always a ripple on his mobile face, responsive to any slightest breeze +that passed over the inner reservoir of my sentiments, and seemed thence +to extend to a similar reservoir within himself. On matters of feeling, +and within a certain depth, you might spare yourself the trouble of +utterance, because he already knew what you wanted to say, and perhaps +a little more than you would have spoken. His figure was full of gentle +movement, though, somehow, without disturbing its quietude; and as he +talked, he kept folding his hands nervously, and betokened in many ways +a fine and immediate sensibility, quick to feel pleasure or pain, though +scarcely capable, I should imagine, of a passionate experience in either +direction. There was not an English trait in him from head to foot, +morally, intellectually, or physically. Beef, ale, or stout, brandy, or +port-wine, entered not at all into his composition. In his earlier life, +he appears to have given evidences of courage and sturdy principle, and +of a tendency to fling himself into the rough struggle of humanity on +the liberal side. It would be taking too much upon myself to affirm that +this was merely a projection of his fancy-world into the actual, and +that he never could have hit a downright blow, and was altogether an +unsuitable person to receive one. I beheld him not in his armor, but in +his peacefullest robes. Nevertheless, drawing my conclusion merely from +what I saw, it would have occurred to me that his main deficiency was +a lack of grit. Though anything but a timid man, the combative and +defensive elements were not prominently developed in his character, and +could have been made available only when he put an unnatural force upon +his instincts. It was on this account, and also because of the fineness +of his nature generally, that the English appreciated him no better, and +left this sweet and delicate poet poor, and with scanty laurels in his +declining age. + +It was not, I think, from his American blood that Leigh Hunt derived +either his amiability or his peaceful inclinations; at least, I do +not see how we can reasonably claim the former quality as a national +characteristic, though the latter might have been fairly inherited from +his ancestors on the mother's side, who were Pennsylvania Quakers. But +the kind of excellence that distinguished him--his fineness, subtilty, +and grace--was that which the richest cultivation has heretofore tended +to develop in the happier examples of American genius, and which (though +I say it a little reluctantly) is perhaps what our future intellectual +advancement may make general among us. His person, at all events, was +thoroughly American, and of the best type, as were likewise his manners; +for we are the best-as well as the worst-mannered people in the world. + +Leigh Hunt loved dearly to be praised. That is to say, he desired +sympathy as a flower seeks sunshine, and perhaps profited by it as +much in the richer depth of coloring that it imparted to his ideas. In +response to all that we ventured to express about his writings, (and, +for my part, I went quite to the extent of my conscience, which was a +long way, and there left the matter to a lady and a young girl, who +happily were with me,) his face shone, and he manifested great delight, +with a perfect, and yet delicate, frankness for which I loved him. He +could not tell us, he said, the happiness that such appreciation gave +him; it always took him by surprise, he remarked, for--perhaps because +he cleaned his own boots, and performed other little ordinary offices +for himself--he never had been conscious of anything wonderful in his +own person. And then he smiled, making himself and all the poor little +parlor about him beautiful thereby. It is usually the hardest thing +in the world to praise a man to his face; but Leigh Hunt received the +incense with such gracious satisfaction, (feeling it to be sympathy, not +vulgar praise,) that the only difficulty was to keep the enthusiasm of +the moment within the limit of permanent opinion. A storm had suddenly +come up while we were talking; the rain poured, the lightning flashed, +and the thunder broke; but I hope, and have great pleasure in believing, +that it was a sunny hour for Leigh Hunt. Nevertheless, it was not to +my voice that he most favorably inclined his ear, but to those of my +companions. Women are the fit ministers at such a shrine. + +He must have suffered keenly in his lifetime, and enjoyed keenly, +keeping his emotions so much upon the surface as he seemed to do, and +convenient for everybody to play upon. Being of a cheerful temperament, +happiness had probably the upper hand. His was a light, mildly joyous +nature, gentle, grace-fill, yet seldom attaining to that deepest +grace which results from power; for beauty, like woman, its human +representative, dallies with the gentle, but yields its consummate +favor only to the strong. I imagine that Leigh Hunt may have been more +beautiful when I met him, both in person and character, than in his +earlier days. As a young man, I could conceive of his being finical in +certain moods, but not now, when the gravity of age shed a venerable +grace about him. I rejoiced to hear him say that he was favored with +most confident and cheering anticipations in respect to a future +life; and there were abundant proofs, throughout our interview, of an +unrepining spirit, resignation, quiet relinquishment of the worldly +benefits that were denied him, thankful enjoyment of whatever he had to +enjoy, and piety, and hope shining onward into the dusk,--all of which +gave a reverential cast to the feeling with which we parted from him. +I wish that he could have had one full draught of prosperity before he +died. As a matter of artistic propriety, it would have been delightful +to see him inhabiting a beautiful house of his own, in an Italian +climate, with all sorts of elaborate upholstery and minute elegancies +about him, and a succession of tender and lovely women to praise his +sweet poetry from morning to night. I hardly know whether it is my +fault, or the effect of a weakness in Leigh Hunt's character, that I +should be sensible of a regret of this nature, when, at the same time, I +sincerely believe that he has found an infinity of better things in the +world whither he has gone. + +At our leave-taking, he grasped me warmly by both hands, and seemed as +much interested in our whole party as if he had known us for years. All +this was genuine feeling, a quick, luxuriant growth out of his heart, +which was a soil for flower-seeds of rich and rare varieties, not +acorns, but a true heart, nevertheless. Several years afterwards I met +him for the last time at a London dinner-party, looking sadly broken +down by infirmities; and my final recollection of the beautiful old man +presents him arm in arm with, nay, partly embraced and supported by, if +I mistake not, another beloved and honored poet, whose minstrel-name, +since he has a week-day one for his personal occasions, I will venture +to speak. It was Barry Cornwall, whose kind introduction had first made +me known to Leigh Hunt. + + * * * * * + + +THE FERN FORESTS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD. + + +Draw two lines on your map, the upper one running from the mouth of the +St. Lawrence westward nearly to St. Paul on the Mississippi, and the +lower one from the neighborhood of St. John's in Newfoundland running +southwesterly about to the point where the Wisconsin joins the +Mississippi, but jutting down to form an extensive peninsula comprising +part of the States of Indiana and Illinois, and you include between them +all of the United States which existed at the close of the Devonian +period. The upper line rests against the granite hills dividing the +Silurian and Devonian deposits of the British Possessions to the north +from those of the United States to the south, Canada itself consisting, +in great part, of the granite ridge. + +How far the early deposits extended to the north of the Laurentian +Hills, as well as the outline of that portion of the continent in those +times, remains still very problematical; but the investigations thus far +undertaken in those regions would lead to the supposition that the same +granite upheaval which raised Canada stretched northward in a broad, +low ridge of land, widening in its upper part and extending to the +neighborhood of Bathurst Inlet and King William's Island, while on +either side of it to the east and west the Silurian and Devonian +deposits extended far toward the present outlines of the continent. + +Indeed, our geological surveys, as well as the information otherwise +obtained concerning the primitive condition of North America and the +gradual accessions it has received in more recent periods, point to a +very early circumscription of the area which, in the course of time, was +to become the continent we now inhabit, with its modern features.[A] + +[Footnote A: It would be impossible to encumber the pages of the +_Atlantic Monthly_ with references to all the authorities on which such +geological results rest. They are drawn from the various State Surveys, +including that of the mineral lands of Lake Superior, and other more +general works on American geology.] + +Not only from the geology of America, but from that of Europe also, it +would seem that the position of the continents was sketched out very +early in the progressive development of the physical constitution of our +earth. It is true that in the present state of our knowledge such wide +generalizations must be taken with caution, and held in abeyance to the +additional facts which future investigations may develop. But thus far +the results certainly do not sustain the theories which have lately +found favor among geologists, of entire changes in the relative +distribution of land and sea and in the connection of continents with +one another; on the contrary, it would appear, that, in accordance with +the laws of all organic progress, arising from a fixed starting-point +and proceeding through regular changes toward a well-defined end, the +continents have grown steadily and consistently from the beginning, +through successive accessions in a definite direction, to their present +form and Organic correlations. If, indeed, there is any meaning in the +remarkably symmetrical combinations of the double twin continents in +the Eastern Hemisphere, so closely soldered in their northern half, as +contrasted with the single pair in the Western Hemisphere, isolated in +their position, but so strikingly similar in their Outlines, they must +be the result of a progressive and predetermined growth already hinted +at in the relative position and gradual increase of the first lands +raised above the level of the ocean. + +However this may be, there can be no doubt that we now know with +tolerable accuracy the limits of the land raised above the water at that +period in the present United States. Let us see, then, what we inclose +between oar two lines. We have Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, the greater +part of New England, the whole of New York, a narrow strip along the +north of Ohio, a great part of Indiana and Illinois, and nearly the +whole of Michigan and Wisconsin. + +Within this region lie all the Great Lakes. The origin of these large +troughs, holding such immense sheets of fresh water, remains still the +subject of discussion and investigation among geologists. It has been +supposed that in the primitive configuration of the globe, when the +formation of those depressions at the poles in which the Arctic seas are +accumulated gave rise to a corresponding protrusion at the equator, the +curve thus produced throughout the North Temperate Zone may have forced +up the Canada granite, and have caused, at the same time, those rents +in the earth's surface now filled by the Canada lakes; and this view +is sustained by the fact that there is a belt of lakes, among which, +however, the Canada lakes are far the largest, all around the world in +that latitude. The geological phenomena connected with all these lakes +have not, however, been investigated with sufficient accuracy and +detail, nor has there been any comparison of them extensive and +comprehensive enough to justify the adoption of any theory respecting +their origin. In an excursion to Lake Superior, some years since, I +satisfied myself that the position and outline of that particular lake +had their immediate cause in several distinct systems of dikes which +intersect its northern shore, and have probably cut up the whole tract +of rock over the space now filled by that wonderful sheet of fresh water +in such a way as to destroy its continuity, to produce depressions, and +gradually create the excavation which now forms the basin of the lake. +How far the same causes have been effectual in producing the other large +lakes I am unable to say, never having had the opportunity of studying +their formation with the same care. + +The existence of the numerous smaller lakes running north and south in +the State of New York, as the Canandaigua, Seneca, Cayuga, etc., is more +easily accounted for. Slow and gradual as was the process by which +all that region was lifted above the ocean, it was, nevertheless, +accompanied by powerful dislocations of the stratified deposits, as we +shall see when we examine them with reference to the local phenomena +connected with them. To these dislocations of the strata we owe the +transverse cracks across the central part of New York, which needed +only the addition of the fresh water poured into them by the rains to +transform them into lakes. + +I shall not attempt any account of the differences between the animals +of the Devonian period and those of the Silurian period, because they +consist of structural details difficult to present in a popular form and +uninteresting to all but the professional naturalist. Suffice it to say, +that, though the organic world had the same general character in these +two closely allied periods, yet its representatives in each were +specifically distinct, and their differences, however slight, are as +constant and as definitely marked as those between more widely separated +creations. + +At the close of the Devonian period, several upheavals occurred of great +significance for the future history of America. One in Ohio raised the +elevated ground on which Cincinnati now stands; another hill lifted +its granite crest in Missouri, raising with it an extensive tract of +Silurian and Devonian deposits; while a smaller one, which does not +seem, however, to have disturbed the beds about it so powerfully, broke +through in Arkansas. At the same time, elevations took place toward the +East,--the first links, few and detached, in the great Alleghany chain +which now raises its rocky wall from New England to Alabama. + +In the Ohio hill, the granite did not break through, though the force of +the upheaval was such as to rend asunder the Devonian deposits, for we +find them lying torn and broken about the base of the hill; while the +Silurian beds, which should underlie them in their natural position, +form its centre and summit. This accounts for the great profusion of +Silurian organic remains in that neighborhood. Indeed, there is no +locality which forces upon the observer more strongly the conviction of +the profusion and richness of the early creation; for one may actually +collect the remains of Silurian Shells and Crustacea by cart-loads +around the city of Cincinnati. A naturalist would find it difficult to +gather along any modern sea-shore, even on tropical coasts, where marine +life is more abundant than elsewhere, so rich a harvest, in the same +time, as he will bring home from an hour's ramble in the environs of +that city. + +These elevations naturally gave rise to depressions between themselves +and the land on either side of them, and caused also so many +counter-slopes dipping toward the uniform southern slope already formed +at the north. Thus between the several new upheavals, as well as between +them all and the land to the north of them, wide basins or troughs were +formed, inclosed on the south, west, and east by low hills, (for these +more recent eruptions were, like all the early upheavals, insignificant +in height,) and bounded on the north by the more ancient shores of the +preceding ages. + +These were the inland seas of the Carboniferous period. Here, again, we +must infer the successive stages of a history which we can read only +in its results. Shut out from the ocean, these shallow sea-basins were +gradually changed by the rains to fresh-water lakes; the lakes, in their +turn, underwent a transformation, becoming filled, in the course of +centuries, with the materials worn away from their shores, with the +_débris_ of the animals which lived and died in their waters, as well +as with the decaying matter from aquatic plants, till at last they were +changed to spreading marshes, and on these marshes arose the gigantic +fern-vegetation of which the first forests chiefly consisted. Such are +the separate chapters in the history of the coal-basins of Illinois, +Missouri, Pennsylvania, New England, and Nova Scotia. First inland seas, +then fresh-water lakes, then spreading marshes, then gigantic forests, +and lastly vast storehouses of coal for the human race. + +Although coal-beds are by no means peculiar to the Carboniferous period, +since such deposits must be formed wherever the decay of vegetation is +going on extensively, yet it would seem that coal-making was the great +work in that age of the world's physical history. The atmospheric +conditions, so far as we can understand them, were then especially +favorable to this result. Though the existence of such an extensive +terrestrial vegetation shows conclusively that an atmosphere must have +been already established, with all the attendant phenomena of light, +heat, air, moisture, etc., yet it is probable that this atmosphere +differed from ours in being very largely charged with carbonic acid. + +We should infer this from the nature of the animals characteristic of +the period; for, though land-animals were introduced, and the organic +world was no longer exclusively marine, there were as yet none of +the higher beings in whom respiration is an active process. In all +warm-blooded animals the breathing is quick, requiring a large +proportion of oxygen in the surrounding air, and indicating by its +rapidity the animation of the whole system; while the slow-breathing, +cold-blooded animals can live in an air that is heavily loaded with +carbon. It is well known, however, that, though carbon is so deadly to +higher animal life, plants require it in great quantities; and it would +seem that one of the chief offices of the early forests was to purify +the atmosphere of its undue proportion of carbonic acid, by absorbing +the carbon into their own substance, and eventually depositing it as +coal in the soil. + +Another very important agent in the process of purifying the atmosphere, +and adapting it to the maintenance of a higher organic life, is found in +the deposits of lime. My readers will excuse me, if I introduce here a +very elementary chemical fact to explain this statement. Limestone is +carbonate of calcium. Calcium is a metal, fusible as such, and, forming +a part of the melted masses within the earth, it was thrown out with the +eruptions of Plutonic rocks. Brought to the air, it would appropriate +a certain amount of oxygen, and by that process would become oxide of +calcium, in which condition it combines very readily with carbonic acid. +Thus it becomes carbonate of lime; and all lime deposits played an +important part in establishing the atmospheric proportions essential to +the existence of the warm-blooded animals. + +Such facts remind us how far more comprehensive the results of science +will become when the different branches of scientific investigation are +pursued in connection with each other. When chemists have brought their +knowledge out of their special laboratories into the laboratory of the +world, where chemical combinations are and have been through all time +going on in such vast proportions,--when physicists study the laws +of moisture, of clouds and storms, in past periods as well as in the +present,--when, in short, geologists and zoologists are chemists and +physicists, and _vice versa_,--then we shall learn more of the changes +the world has undergone than is possible now that they are separately +studied. + +It may be asked, how any clue can be found to phenomena so evanescent as +those of clouds and moisture. But do we not trace in the old deposits +the rainstorms of past times? The heavy drops of a passing shower, the +thick, crowded tread of a splashing rain, or the small pinpricks of a +close and fine one,--all the story, in short, of the rising vapors, +the gathering clouds, the storms and showers of ancient days, we find +recorded for us in the fossil rain-drops; and when we add to this the +possibility of analyzing the chemical elements which have been absorbed +into the soil, but which once made part of the atmosphere, it is not too +much to hope that we shall learn something hereafter of the meteorology +even of the earliest geological ages. + +The peculiar character of the vegetable tissue in the trees of the +Carboniferous period, containing, as it did, a large supply of +resin drawn from the surrounding elements, confirms the view of the +atmospheric conditions above stated; and this fact, as well as the damp, +soggy soil in which the first forests must have grown, accounts for the +formation of coal in greater quantity and more combustible in quality +than is found in the more recent deposits. But stately as were those +fern forests, where plants which creep low at our feet to-day, or are +known to us chiefly as underbrush, or as rushes and grasses in swampy +grounds, grew to the height of lofty trees, yet the vegetation was of an +inferior kind. + +There has been a gradation in time for the vegetable as well as the +animal world. With the marine population of the more ancient geological +ages we find nothing but sea-weeds,--of great variety, it is true, and, +as it would seem, from some remains of the marine Cryptogams in early +times, of immense size, as compared with modern sea-weeds. But in the +Carboniferous period, the plants, though still requiring a soaked and +marshy soil, were aërial or atmospheric plants: they were covered with +leaves; they breathed; their fructification was like that which now +characterizes the ferns, the club-mosses, and the so-called "horse-tail +plants," (_Equisetaceae,_) those grasses of low, damp grounds remarkable +for the strongly marked articulations of the stem. + +These were the lords of the forests all over the world in the +Carboniferous period. Wherever the Carboniferous deposits have been +traced, in the United States, in Canada, in England, France, Belgium, +Germany, in New Holland, at the Cape of Good Hope, and in South America, +the general aspect of the vegetation has been found to be the same, +though characterized in the different localities by specific +differences of the same nature as those by which the various floras are +distinguished now in different parts of the same zone. For instance, the +Temperate Zone throughout the world is characterized by certain families +of trees: by Oaks, Maples, Beeches, Birches, Pines, etc.; but the Oaks, +Maples, Beeches, Birches, and the like, of the American flora in that +latitude differ in species from the corresponding European flora. So +in the Carboniferous period, when more uniform climatic conditions +prevailed throughout the world, the character of the vegetation showed a +general unity of structure everywhere; but it was nevertheless broken up +into distinct botanical provinces by specific differences of the same +kind as those which now give such diversity of appearance to the +vegetation of the Temperate Zone in Europe as compared with that of +America, or to the forests of South America as compared with those of +Africa. + +There can be no doubt as to the true nature of the Carboniferous +forests; for the structural character of the trees is as strongly marked +in their fossil remains as in any living plants of the same character. +We distinguish the Ferns not only by the peculiar form of their leaves, +often perfectly preserved, but also by the fructification on the lower +surface of the leaves, and by the distinct marks made on the stem at +their point of juncture with it. The leaf of the Fern, when falling, +leaves a scar on the stem varying in shape and size according to the +kind of Fern, so that the botanist readily distinguishes any particular +species of Fern by this means,--a birth-mark, as it were, by which he +detects the parentage of the individual. Another indication, equally +significant, is found in the tubular structure of the wood in Ferns. On +a vertical section of any well-preserved Fern-trunk from the old forests +the little tubes may be seen very distinctly running up its length; or, +if it be cut through transversely, they may be traced by the little +pores like dots on the surface. Trees of this description are found in +the Carboniferous marshes, standing erect and perfectly preserved, with +trunks a foot and a half in diameter, rising to a height of many feet. +Plants so strongly bituminous as the Ferns, when they equalled in size +many of our present forest-trees, naturally made coal deposits of the +most combustible quality. It is true that we find the anthracite coal of +the same period with comparatively little bituminous matter; but this is +where the bitumen has been destroyed by the action of the internal heat +of the earth. + +Next to the Ferns, the Club-Mosses (_Lycopodiacae_) seem to have +contributed most largely to the marsh-forests. They were characterized, +then, as now, by the small size of the leaves growing close against the +stem, so that the stem itself, though covered with leaves, looks +almost naked, like the stem of the Cactus. Beside these, there are the +tree-like Equiseta, in which we find the articulations on the trunk +corresponding exactly to those now so characteristic of those +marsh-grasses which are the modern representatives of this family of +plants, with cone-like fructifications on the summit of the stem. + +I would merely touch here upon a subject which does not belong to my own +branch of Natural History, but is of the greatest interest in botanical +research, namely, the gradation of plants in the geological ages, and +the combination of characters in some of the earlier vegetable forms, +corresponding to that already noticed in the ancient animal types. For +instance, in the Carboniferous period we have only Cryptogams, Ferns, +Lycopodiacae, and Equisetaceae. In the middle geological ages, Conifers +are introduced, the first flowering plant known on earth, but in which +the flower is very imperfect as compared with those of the higher +groups. The Coniferae were chiefly represented in the middle periods by +the Cycadae, that peculiar group of Coniferae, resembling Pines in their +structure, but recalling the Ferns by their external appearance. The +stem is round and short, its surface being covered with scars similar to +those of the Ferns; while on the summit are ten or more leaves, fan-like +and spreading when their growth is complete, but rolled up at first, +like Fern-leaves before they expand. Their fruit resembles somewhat the +Pine-Apple. + +The mode of growth of the Coniferae recalls a feature of the +Equisetaceae also, in the tufts of little leaves which appear in whorls +at regular intervals along the length of the stem in proportion as +it elongates, reminding one of the articulations on the stem of the +Equisetaceae. The first cone also appears on the summit of the stem, +like the terminal cone in the Equisetaceae and the Club-Mosses. Thus +in certain types of the vegetable, as well as the animal creation of +earlier times, there was a continuation of features, afterwards divided +and presented in separate groups. In the present times, no one of +these families of plants overlaps the others, but each has a distinct +individual character of its own. + +At the close of the middle geological ages and the opening of the +Tertiary periods, the Monocotyledons become abundant, the first plants +with flower and inclosed seed, though with no true floral envelope: but +not until the two last epochs of the Tertiary age do we find in any +number the Dicotyledonous plants, in which flower and fruit rise to +their highest perfection. Thus there has been a procession of plants +from their earliest introduction to the present day, corresponding to +their botanical rank as they now exist, so that the series of gradation +in the Vegetable Kingdom, as well as the Animal Kingdom, is the same, +whether founded upon succession in time or upon comparative structural +rank. + +Some attempt has been made to reproduce under an artistic form the +aspect of the world in the different geological ages, and to present in +single connected pictures the animal and vegetable world of each period. +Professor F. Unger, of Vienna, has prepared a collection of fourteen +such sketches, entitled, "Tableaux Physionomiques de la Végétation des +Diverses Périodes du Monde Primitif." + +First, we have the Devonian shores, with spreading fields of sea-weed +and numbers of the club-shaped Algae of gigantic size. He has ventured, +also, to represent a few trees, with scanty foliage; but I believe their +existence at so early a period to be very problematical. + +Next comes the Carboniferous forest, with still pools of water lying +between the Fern-trees, which, much as they affect damp, swampy grounds, +seem scarcely able to find foothold on the dripping earth. Their trunks, +as well as those of the Club-Moss trees which make the foreground of the +picture, stand up free from any branches for many feet above the ground, +giving one a glimpse between them into the dim recesses of this quiet, +watery wood, where the silence was unbroken by the song of birds or the +hum of insects. We shall find, it is true, when we give a glance at the +animals of this time, that certain insects made their appearance with +the first terrestrial vegetation; but they were few in number and of a +peculiar kind, such as thrive now in low, wet lands. + +Upon this follow a number of sketches introducing us to the middle +periods, where the land is higher and more extensive, covered chiefly +with Pine forests, beneath which grows a thick carpet of underbrush, +consisting mostly of Grasses, Rushes, and Ferns. Here and there one of +the gigantic reptiles of the time may be seen sunning himself on +the shore. One of these sketches shows us such a creature hungrily +inspecting a pool where Crinoids, with their long stems, large, +closely-coiled Chambered Shells, and Brachiopods, the Oysters and +Clams of those days, offer him a tempting repast. Here and there a +Pterodactyl, the curious winged reptile of the later middle periods, +stretches its long neck from the water, and birds also begin to make +their appearance. + +After these come the Tertiary periods: the Eocene first, where the +landscape is already broken up by hills and mountains, clothed with +a varied vegetation of comparatively modern character. Lily-pads are +floating on the stream which makes the central part of the picture; +large herds of the Palaeotherium, the ancient Pachyderm, reconstructed +with such accuracy by Cuvier, are feeding along its banks; and a tall +bird of the Heron or Pelican kind stands watching by the water's edge. +In the Miocene the vegetation looks still more familiar, though the +Elephants roaming about in regions of the Temperate Zone, and the huge +Salamanders crawling out of the water, remind us that we are still far +removed from present times. Lastly, we have the ice period, with the +glaciers coming down to the borders of a river where large troops of +Buffalo are drinking, while on the shore some Bears are feasting on the +remains of a huge carcass. + +It is, however, with the Carboniferous age that we have to do at +present, and I will not anticipate the coming chapters of my story by +dwelling now on the aspect of the later periods. To return, then, to the +period of the coal, it would seem that extensive freshets frequently +overflowed the marshes, and that even after many successive forests +had sprung up and decayed upon their soil, they were still subject to +submergence by heavy floods. These freshets, at certain intervals, +are not difficult to understand, when we remember, that, beside the +occasional influx of violent rains, the earth was constantly undergoing +changes of level, and that a subsidence or upheaval in the neighborhood +would disturb the equilibrium of the waters, causing them to overflow +and pour over the surface of the country, thus inundating the marshes +anew. + +That such was the case we can hardly doubt, after the facts revealed +by recent investigations of the Carboniferous deposits. In some of the +deeper coal-beds there is a regular alternation between layers of coal +and layers of sand or clay; in certain localities, as many as ten, +twelve, and even fifteen coal-beds have been found alternating with as +many deposits of clay or mud or sand; and in some instances, where the +trunks of the trees are hollow and have been left standing erect, they +are filled to the brim, or to the height of the next layer of deposits, +with the materials that have been swept over them. Upon this set of +deposits comes a new bed of coal with the remains of a new forest, and. +above this again a layer of materials left by a second freshet, and so +on through a number of alternate strata. It is evident from these facts +that there have been a succession of forests, one above another, but +that in the intervals of their growth great floods have poured over the +marshes, bringing with them all kinds of loose materials, such as sand, +pebbles, clay, mud, lime, etc., which, as the freshets subsided, settled +down over the coal, filling not only the spaces between such trees as +remained standing, but even the hollow trunks of the trees themselves. + +Let us give a glance now at the animals which inhabited the waters of +this period. In the Radiates we shall not find great changes; the three +classes are continued, though with new representatives, and the Polyp +Corals are increasing, while the Acalephian Corals, the Kugosa and +Tabulata, are diminishing. The Crinoids were still the most prominent +representatives of the class of Echinoderms, though some resembling the +Ophiurans and Echinoids (Sea-Urchins) began to make their appearance. +The adjoining wood-cut represents a characteristic Crinoid of the +Carboniferous age. + +[Illustration] + +Among the Mollusks, Brachiopods are still prominent, one new genus among +them, the Productus, being very remarkable on account of the manner in +which one valve rises above the other. The wood-cut below represents such +a shell, looked at from the side of the flat valve, showing the straight +cut of the line of juncture between the valves and the rising curve of +the opposite one, which looks like a hooked beak when seen in profile. + +[Illustration] + +Other species of Bivalves were also introduced, approaching more +nearly our Clams and Oysters, or, as they are called in scientific +nomenclature, the Lamellibranchiates. They differ from the Brachiopods +chiefly in the higher character of their breathing-apparatus; for they +have free gills, instead of the net-work of vessels on the lining skin +which serves as the organ of respiration in the Brachiopods. We shall +always find, that, in proportion as the functions are distinct, and, as +it were, individualized by having special organs appropriated to them, +animals rise in the scale of structure. The next class of Mollusks, the +Gasteropods, or Univalves, with spiral shells, were numerous, but, +from their brittle character, are seldom found in a good state of +preservation. + +The Chambered Shells, or the Cephalopods, represented chiefly in the +earlier periods by the straight Orthoceratites described in a previous +article, are now curled in a close coil, and the internal structure +of their chambers has become more complicated. The subjoined wood-cut +represents a characteristic Chambered Shell of the Carboniferous age. +Goniatites is the scientific name of these later forms. If we had looked +for them in the Devonian period, we should have found many with looser +coils than these, and some only slightly curved in the shape of a horn. +These, as well as the perfectly straight forms, still exist in the coal +period, but the Goniatites with close whorls are the more numerous and +more characteristic. + +[Illustration] + +The Articulates have gained their missing class since the close of the +Devonian period, for Insects have come in, and that division of the +Animal Kingdom is therefore complete, and represented by three classes, +as it is at present. Of the Worms little can be said; their traces are +found as before, but they are very imperfectly preserved. There are +still Trilobites, but they are very few in number, and other groups of +Crustacea have been added. + +One of the most prominent of these new types bears a striking +resemblance to the Horse-Shoe Crab of present times. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +I here present one of our common Horse-Shoe Crabs above one of these +old-world Crustaceans, and it will be seen, that, while the latter +preserves some of the Trilobitic characters, such as the marked +articulations on the posterior part of the body and their division into +three lobes, yet in the prominence of its anterior shield, its more +elongated form, and tapering extremity, it resembles its modern +representative. In some of them, however, there is no such sharp point +as is here figured, and the body terminates bluntly. There were a large +number of these Entomostraca in the Carboniferous period, a group which +is chiefly represented among living Crustacea by an exceedingly minute +kind of Shrimp; but in those days they were of the size of our Crabs and +Lobsters, or even larger, and the Horse-Shoe Crab still maintains their +claim to a place among the larger and more conspicuous members of the +class. + +The Insects were few, and, as I have said above, of a kind which seeks a +moist atmosphere, or whose larvae live altogether in water. They are not +usually well preserved, as will be seen from the broken character of +the one here represented, although the wood-cut is made from a better +specimen than is often found. We have, however, remains enough +to establish unquestionably the fact of their existence in the +Carboniferous period, and to show us that the type of Articulates was +already represented by all its classes. + +[Illustration] + +Not so with the Vertebrates. Fishes abound, but their class still +consists, as before, of the Ganoids, those fishes of the earlier +periods built on the Gar-Pike and Sturgeon pattern, and the Selachians, +represented now by Sharks and Skates. In the Carboniferous period we +begin to find perfectly preserved specimens of the Ganoids, and the +adjoining wood-cut represents such a one. Of the old type of Selachians +we have again one lingering representative in our own times to give us +the clue to its ancestors,--as the Gar-Pike explains the old Ganoids, +and the Chambered Nautilus helps us to understand the Chambered Shells +of past times. The so-called Port-Jackson Shark has features which were +very characteristic of the Carboniferous Sharks and are lost in the +modern ones, so that it affords us a sort of link, as it were, and a +measure of comparison, between those now living and the more ancient +forms. It is an interesting fact that this only living representative of +the Carboniferous Shark should be found in New Holland, because it is +there, in that isolated continent, left apart, as it would seem, for a +special purpose, that we find reproduced for us most fully the character +of the Animal Kingdom in earlier creations. + +[Illustration] + +The first Mammalia in the world were pouched animals, having that +extraordinary attachment to the mother after birth which characterizes +the Kangaroo. In New Holland almost all the Mammalia are pouched, and +have also the imperfect organization of the brain, as compared with the +other Mammalia, which accompanies that peculiar structural feature; and +although the American Opossum makes an exception to the rule, it is +nevertheless true that this type of the Animal Kingdom is now confined +almost exclusively to New Holland. Whether this living picture of old +creations in modern garb was meant to be educational for man or not, it +is at least well that we should take advantage of it in learning all it +has to teach us of the relations between the organic world of past and +present times. + +There were a great variety of the Selachians in the Carboniferous +period. The wood-cuts below represent a tooth and a spine from one of +the most characteristic groups, but I have not thought it worth while to +enumerate or to figure others here, for there are no perfect specimens, +and their structural differences consist chiefly in the various form and +appearance of the teeth, scales, and spines, and would be uninteresting +to most of my readers. I would refer the more scientific ones, who may +care to know something of these details, to my investigations on Fossil +Fishes, published many years since under the title of "Recherches sur +les Poissons Fossiles." + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +Although the Vertebrate division of the Animal Kingdom still waited for +its higher classes, yet it had received one important addition since +the Silurian and Devonian periods. The Carboniferous marshes were not +without their reptilian inhabitants; but they were Reptiles of the +lowest class, the so-called Amphibians, those which are hatched from the +egg in an immature condition, undergoing metamorphosis after birth. They +have no hard scales, and lay a large number of eggs. I am unable to +present any figure of one of these ancient Reptiles, as they are found +in so imperfect a state of preservation that no plates have been made +from them. I would add in connection with this subject that I believe +a large number of animals found in the Carboniferous deposits, and +referred to the class of Reptiles, to be Fishes allied to Saurians. + +Before leaving the Carboniferous period, let us see what territory the +United States has conquered from the Ocean during that time. All +its central portion, from Canada to Alabama, and from Western Iowa, +Missouri, and Arkansas to Eastern Virginia, was raised above the water. +But as yet the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains did not exist; a +great gulf ran up to the mouth of the Ohio, for the Mississippi had not +yet accumulated the soil for the fertile valley through which it was to +take its southern course; the Coral-Builders had still their work to do +in constructing the peninsula of Florida; and, indeed, all the borders +of the continent of North America, as well as a large part of its +Western territory, were still to be added. But although its central +portion held its ground and was never submerged again, yet the continent +was slowly subsiding during the middle geological periods, so that, +instead of enlarging gradually by the increase of deposits, its limits +remained much the same. + +This accounts for the very scanty traces to be found in America of +the secondary deposits; for the Permian, Triassic, and Jurassic beds, +instead of being raised to form successive shores, along which their +deposits could be accumulated in regular sequence, as had been the case +with the Azoic, Silurian, and Devonian deposits in the northern part of +the United States, were constantly sinking, so that the Triassic settled +above the Permian, the Jurassic above the Triassic, and so on, each set +of strata thus covering over and concealing the preceding one. Though we +find the stratified rocks of these periods cropping out here and there, +where some violent disturbance or the abrading action of water has +torn asunder or worn away the overlying strata, yet we never find +them consecutively over any extensive region; and it is not till the +Cretaceous and earlier Tertiary periods that we find again a regular +succession of deposits around the shores of the continent, marking its +present outlines. It is, then, in Europe, where the sequence of their +beds is most complete, that we must seek to decipher the history of the +middle geological ages; and therefore, when I meet my readers again, +it will be in the Old World of civilization, though more recent in its +physical features than the one we leave. + + * * * * * + + +TO E.W. + + + I know not, Time and Space so intervene, + Whether, still waiting with a trust serene, + Thou bearest up thy fourscore years and ten, + Or, called at last, art now Heaven's citizen; + But, here or there, a pleasant thought of thee, + Like an old friend, all day has been with me. + The shy, still boy, for whom thy kindly hand + Smoothed his hard pathway to the wonder-land + Of thought and fancy, in gray manhood yet + Keeps green the memory of his early debt. + To-day, when truth and falsehood speak their words + Through hot-lipped cannon and the teeth of swords, + Listening with quickened heart and ear intent + To each sharp clause of that stern argument, + I still can hear at times a softer note + Of the old pastoral music round me float, + While through the hot gleam of our civil strife + Looms the green mirage of a simpler life. + As, at his alien post, the sentinel + Drops the old bucket in the homestead well, + And hears old voices in the winds that toss + Above his head the live-oak's beard of moss, + So, in our trial-time, and under skies + Shadowed by swords like Islam's paradise, + I wait and watch, and let my fancy stray + To milder scenes and youth's Arcadian day; + And howsoe'er the pencil dipped in dreams + Shades the brown woods or tints the sunset streams, + The country doctor in the foreground seems, + Whose ancient sulky down the village lanes + Dragged, like a war-car, captive ills and pains. + I could not paint the scenery of my song, + Mindless of one who looked thereon so long; + Who, night and day, on duty's lonely round, + Made friends o' th' woods and rocks, and knew the sound + Of each small brook, and what the hill-side trees + Said to the winds that touched their leafy keys; + Who saw so keenly and so well could paint + The village-folk, with all their humors quaint,-- + The parson ambling on his wall-eyed roan, + Grave and erect, with white hair backward blown,-- + The tough old boatman, half amphibious grown,-- + The muttering witch-wife of the gossip's tale, + And the loud straggler levying his black mail,-- + Old customs, habits, superstitions, fears, + All that lies buried under fifty years. + To thee, as is most fit, I bring my lay, + And, grateful, own the debt I cannot pay. + + * * * * * + + +THE COUNTESS. + + + Over the wooded northern ridge, + Between its houses brown, + To the dark tunnel of the bridge + The street comes straggling down. + + You catch a glimpse through birch and pine + Of gable, roof, and porch, + The tavern with its swinging sign, + The sharp horn of the church. + + The river's steel-blue crescent curves + To meet, in ebb and flow, + The single broken wharf that serves + For sloop and gundelow. + + With salt sea-scents along its shores + The heavy hay-boats crawl, + The long antennae of their oars + In lazy rise and fall. + + Along the gray abutment's wall + The idle shad-net dries; + The toll-man in his cobbler's stall + Sits smoking with closed eyes. + + You hear the pier's low undertone + Of waves that chafe and gnaw; + You start,--a skipper's horn is blown + To raise the creaking draw. + + At times a blacksmith's anvil sounds + With slow and sluggard beat, + Or stage-coach on its dusty rounds + Wakes up the staring street. + + A place for idle eyes and ears, + A cobwebbed nook of dreams; + Left by the stream whose waves are years + The stranded village seems. + + And there, like other moss and rust, + The native dweller clings, + And keeps, in uninquiring trust, + The old, dull round of things. + + The fisher drops his patient lines, + The farmer sows his grain, + Content to hear the murmuring pines + Instead of railroad-train. + + Go where, along the tangled steep + That slopes against the west, + The hamlet's buried idlers sleep + In still profounder rest. + + Throw back the locust's flowery plume, + The birch's pale-green scarf, + And break the web of brier and bloom + From name and epitaph. + + A simple muster-roll of death, + Of pomp and romance shorn, + The dry, old names that common breath + Has cheapened and outworn. + + Yet pause by one low mound and part + The wild vines o'er it laced, + And read the words by rustic art + Upon its headstone traced. + + Haply yon white-haired villager + Of fourscore years can say + What means the noble name of her + Who sleeps with common clay. + + An exile from the Gascon land + Found refuge here and rest, + And loved, of all the village band, + Its fairest and its best. + + He knelt with her on Sabbath morns, + He worshipped through her eyes, + And on the pride that doubts and scorns + Stole in her faith's surprise. + + Her simple daily life he saw + By homeliest duties tried, + In all things by an untaught law + Of fitness justified. + + For her his rank aside he laid; + He took the hue and tone + Of lowly life and toil, and made + Her simple ways his own. + + Yet still, in gay and careless ease, + To harvest-field or dance + He brought the gentle courtesies, + The nameless grace of France. + + And she who taught him love not less + From him she loved in turn + Caught in her sweet unconsciousness + What love is quick to learn. + + Each grew to each in pleased accord, + Nor knew the gazing town + If she looked upward to her lord + Or he to her looked down. + + How sweet, when summer's day was o'er, + His violin's mirth and wail, + The walk on pleasant Newbury's shore, + The river's moonlit sail! + + Ah! life is brief, though love be long + The altar and the bier, + The burial hymn and bridal song, + Were both in one short year! + + Her rest is quiet on the hill + Beneath the locust's bloom; + Far off her lover sleeps as still + Within his scutcheoned tomb. + + The Gascon lord, the village maid + In death still clasp their hands; + The love that levels rank and grade + Unites their severed lands. + + What matter whose the hill-side grave, + Or whose the blazoned stone? + Forever to her western wave + Shall whisper blue Garonne! + + O Love!--so hallowing every soil + That gives thy sweet flower room, + Wherever, nursed by ease or toil, + The human heart takes bloom!-- + + Plant of lost Eden, from the sod + Of sinful earth unriven, + White blossom of the trees of God + Dropped down to us from heaven!-- + + This tangled waste of mound and stone + Is holy for thy sake; + A sweetness which is all thy own + Breathes out from fern and brake. + + And while ancestral pride shall twine + The Gascon's tomb with flowers, + Fall sweetly here, O song of mine, + With summer's bloom and showers! + + And let the lines that severed seem + Unite again in thee, + As western wave and Gallic stream + Are mingled in one sea! + + * * * * * + + +GALA-DAYS. + + +I. + +Once there was a great noise in our house,--a thumping and battering and +grating. It was my own self dragging my big trunk down from the garret. +I did it myself because I wanted it done. If I had said, "Halicarnassus, +will you fetch my trunk down?" he would have asked me what trunk? and +what did I want of it? and would not the other one be better? and +couldn't I wait till after dinner?--and so the trunk would probably have +had a three-days' journey from garret to basement. Now I am strong in +the wrists and weak in the temper; therefore I used the one and spared +the other, and got the trunk down-stairs myself. Halicarnassus heard the +uproar. He must have been deaf not to hear it; for the old ark banged +and bounced, and scraped the paint off the stairs, and pitched +head-foremost into the wall, and gouged out the plastering, and dinted +the mop-board, and was the most stupid, awkward, uncompromising, +unmanageable thing I ever got hold of in my life. + +By the time I had zigzagged it into the back chamber, Halicarnassus +loomed up the back stairs. I stood hot and panting, with the inside of +my fingers tortured into burning leather, the skin rasped off three +knuckles, and a bruise on the back of my right hand, where the trunk had +crushed it against a sharp edge of the door-way. + +"Now, then?" said Halicarnassus interrogatively. + +"To be sure," I replied affirmatively. + +He said no more, but went and looked up the garret-stairs. They bore +traces of a severe encounter, that must be confessed. + +"Do you want me to give you a bit of advice?" he asked. + +"No!" I answered promptly. + +"Well, then, here it is. The next time you design to bring a trunk +downstairs, you would better cut away the underpinning, and knock out +the beams, and let the garret down into the cellar. It will make less +uproar, and not take so much to repair damages." + +He intended to be severe. His words passed by me as the idle wind. I +perched on my trunk, took a pasteboard box-cover and fanned myself. I +was very warm. Halicarnassus sat down on the lowest stair and remained +silent several minutes, expecting a meek explanation, but, not getting +it, swallowed a bountiful piece of what is called in homely talk +"humble-pie," and said,-- + +"I should like to know what's in the wind now." + +I make it a principle always to resent an insult and to welcome +repentance with equal alacrity. If people thrust out their horns at me +wantonly, they very soon run against a stone wall; but the moment they +show signs of contrition, I soften. It is the best way. Don't insist +that people shall grovel at your feet before you accept their apology. +That is not magnanimous. Let mercy temper justice. It is a hard thing +at best for human nature to go down into the Valley of Humiliation; and +although, when circumstances arise which make it the only fit place for +a person, I insist upon his going, still, no sooner does he actually +begin the descent than my sense of justice is appeased, my natural +sweetness of disposition resumes sway, and I trip along by his side +chatting as gayly as if I did not perceive it was the Valley of +Humiliation at all, but fancied it the Delectable Mountains. So, upon +the first symptoms of placability, I answered cordially,-- + +"Halicarnassus, it has been the ambition of my life to write a book of +travels. But to write a book of travels, one must first have travelled." + +"Not at all," he responded. "With an atlas and an encyclopedia one can +travel around the world in his arm-chair." + +"But one cannot have personal adventures," I said. "You can, indeed, sit +in your arm-chair and describe the crater of Vesuvius; but you cannot +tumble into the crater of Vesuvius from your arm-chair." + +"I have never heard that it was necessary to tumble in, in order to have +a good view of the mountain." + +"But it is necessary to do it, if one would make a readable book." + +"Then I should let the book slide,--rather than slide myself." + +"If you would do me the honor to listen," I said, scornful of his +paltry attempt at wit, "you would see that the book is the object of my +travelling. I travel to write. I do not write because I have travelled. +I am not going to subordinate my book to my adventures. My adventures +are going to be arranged beforehand with a view to my book." + +"A most original way of getting up a book!" + +"Not in the least. It is the most common thing in the world. Look at our +dear British cousins." + +"And see them make guys of themselves. They visit a magnificent country +that is trying the experiment of the world, and write about their +shaving-soap and their babies' nurses." + +"Just where they are right. Just why I like the race, from Trollope +down. They give you something to take hold of. I tell you, +Halicarnassus, it is the personality of the writer, and not the nature +of the scenery or of the institutions, that makes the interest. It +stands to reason. If it were not so, one book would be all that ever +need be written, and that book would be a census report. For a republic +is a republic, and Niagara is Niagara forever; but tell how you stood on +the chain-bridge at Niagara--if there is one there--and bought a cake of +shaving-soap from a tribe of Indians at a fabulous price, or how your +baby jumped from the arms of the careless nurse into the Falls, and +immediately your own individuality is thrown around the scenery, and it +acquires a human interest. It is always five miles from one place to +another, but that is mere almanac and statistics. Let a poet walk the +five miles, and narrate his experience with birds and bees and flowers +and grasses and water and sky, and it becomes literature. And let me +tell you further, Sir, a book of travels is just as interesting as the +person who writes it is interesting. It is not the countries, but the +persons, that are 'shown up.' You go to France and write a dull book. +I go to France and write a lively book. But France is the same. The +difference is in ourselves." + +Halicarnassus glowered at me. I think I am not using strained or +extravagant language when I say that he glowered at me. Then he growled +out,-- + +"So your book of travels is just to put yourself into pickle." + +"Say rather," I answered, with sweet humility,--"say rather it is to +shrine myself in amber. As the insignificant fly, encompassed with +molten glory, passes into a crystallized immortality, his own littleness +uplifted into loveliness by the beauty in which he is imprisoned, so I, +wrapped around by the glory of my land, may find myself niched into a +fame which my unattended and naked merit could never have claimed." + +Halicarnassus was a little stunned, but, presently recovering himself, +suggested that I had travelled enough already to make out quite a +sizable book. + +"Travelled!" I said, looking him steadily in the face,--"travelled! +I have been up to Tudiz huckleberrying; and once, when there was a +freshet, you took a superannuated broom and paddled me, around the +orchard in a leaky pig's trough!" + +He could not deny it; so he laughed and said,-- + +"Ah, well!--ah, well! Suit yourself. Take your trunk and pitch into +Vesuvius, if you like. I won't stand in your way." + +His acquiescence was ungraciously, and I believe I may say ambiguously, +expressed; but it mattered little, for in three days from that time I +took my trunk, Halicarnassus his cane, and we started on our travels. An +evil omen met us at the beginning. Just as I was stepping into the car, +I observed a violent smoke issuing from under it. I started back in +alarm. + +"They are only getting up steam," said Halicarnassus. "Always do, when +they start." + +"I know better!" I answered briskly, for there was no time to be +circumlocutional. "They don't get up steam under the cars." + +"Why not? Bet a sixpence you couldn't get Uncle Cain's dobbin out of his +jog-trot without building a fire under him." + +"I know that wheel is on fire," I said, not to be turned from the direct +and certain line of assertion into the winding ways of argument. + +"No matter," replied Halicarnassus, conceding everything, "we are +insured." + +Upon the strength of which consolatory information I went in. By-and-by +a man entered and took a seat in front of us. "The box is all afire," +chuckled he to his neighbor, as if it were a fine joke. By-and-by +several people who had been looking out of the windows drew in their +heads, rose, and went into the next car. + +"What do you suppose they did that for?" I asked Halicarnassus. + +"More aristocratical. Belong to old families. This is a new car, don't +you see? We are _parvenus_." + +"Nothing of the sort," I rejoined. "This car is on fire, and they have +gone into the next one so as not to be burned up." + +"They are not going to write books, and can afford to run away from +adventures." + +"But suppose I am burned up in my adventure?" + +"Obviously, then, your book will end in smoke." + +I ceased to talk, for I was provoked at his indifference. I leave every +impartial mind to judge for itself whether the circumstances were such +as to warrant composure. To be sure, somebody said the car was to +be left at Jeru; but Jeru was eight miles away, and any quantity of +mischief might be done before we reached it,--if, indeed, we were +not prevented from reaching it altogether. It was a mere question of +dynamics. Would dry wood be able to hold its own against a raging fire +for half an hour? Of course the conductor thought it would; but even +conductors are not infallible; and you may imagine how comfortable it +was to sit and know that a fire was in full blast beneath you, and to +look down every few minutes expecting to see the flames forking up under +your feet. I confess I was not without something like a hope that one +tongue of the devouring element would flare up far enough to give +Halicarnassus a start; but it did not. No casualty occurred. We reached +Jeru in safety; but that does not prove that there was no danger, or +that indifference was anything but the most foolish hardihood. If our +burning car had been in mid-ocean, serenity would have been sublimity, +but to stay in the midst of peril when two steps would take one out of +it is idiocy. And that there was peril is conclusively shown by the fact +that the very next day the Eastern Railroad Depot took fire and was +burned to the ground. I have in my own mind no doubt that it was a +continuation of the same fire, and if we had stayed in the car much +longer, we should have shared the same fate. + +We found Jeru to be a pleasant city, with only one fault: the +inhabitants will crowd into a car before passengers can get out; +consequently the heads of the two columns collide near the car-door, and +there is a general choke. Otherwise Jeru is a delightful city. It is +famous for its beautiful women. Its railroad-station is a magnificent +piece of architecture. Its men are retired East-India merchants. +Everybody in Jeru is rich and has real estate. The houses in Jeru +are three stories high and face on the Common. People in Jeru are +well-dressed and well-bred, and they all came over in the Mayflower. + +We stopped in Jeru five minutes. + +When we were ready to continue our travels Halicarnassus seceded into +the smoking-car, and while the engine was shrieking off its inertia, a +small boy, laboring under great agitation, hurried in, darted up to me, +and, thrusting a pinchbeck ring with a pink glass in it into my face, +exclaimed, in a hoarse whisper,-- + +"A beautiful ring, Ma'am! I've just picked it up. Can't stop to find the +owner. Worth a dollar, Ma'am; but if you'll give me fifty cents"-- + +"Boy!" + +I rose fiercely, convulsively, in my seat, drew one long breath, but +whether he thought I was going to kill him,--I dare say I looked it,--or +whether he saw a sheriff behind, or a phantom gallows before, I know +not; but without waiting for the thunderbolt to strike, he rushed from +the car as precipitately as he had rushed in. I _was_ angry,--not +because I was to have been cheated, for I have been repeatedly and +atrociously cheated and only smiled, but because the rascal dared +attempt on me such a threadbare, ragged, shoddy trick as that. Do I +_look_ like a rough-hewn, unseasoned backwoodsman? Have I the air of +never having read a newspaper? Is there a patent innocence of eye-teeth +in my demeanor? Oh, Jeru! Jeru! Somewhere in your virtuous bosom you are +nourishing a viper, for I have felt his fangs. Woe unto you, if you do +not strangle him before he develops into mature anacondaism! In point of +natural history I am not sure that vipers do grow up anacondas, but +for the purposes of moral philosophy the development theory answers +perfectly well. + +In Boston a dreadful thing happened to me,--a thing too horrible to +relate. I have no reason to suppose that the outrage was intentional; +but if I were absolute monarch of all I survey, there is one house in +one street in Boston which I would have razed to the ground; and tobacco +I would banish forever from the haunts of civilization. + +In Boston we had three hours to spare; so we sent our luggage,--that is, +my trunk--to the Worcester Depot, and walked leisurely ourselves. I had +a little shopping to do, to complete my outfit for the journey,--a very +little shopping,--only a nightcap or two. Ordinarily such a thing is +a matter of small moment, but in my case the subject had swollen +into unnatural dimensions. Nightcaps are not generally considered +healthy,--at least not by physicians. Nature has given to the head its +sufficient and appropriate covering, the hair. Anything more than this +injures the head, by confining the heat, preventing the soothing, +cooling contact of air, and so deranging the circulation of the blood. +Therefore I have always heeded the dictates of Nature, which I have +supposed to be to brush out the hair thoroughly at night and let it fly. +But there are serious disadvantages connected with this course. For +Nature will be sure to whisk the hair away from your ears where you want +it, and into your eyes where you don't want it, besides crowning you +with magnificent disorder in the morning. But as I have always believed +that no evil exists without its remedy, I had long been exercising my +inventive genius in attempts to produce a head-gear which should at once +protect the ears, confine the hair, and let the skull alone. I regret +to say that my experiments were an utter failure, notwithstanding the +amount of science and skill brought to bear upon them. One idea lay at +the basis of all my endeavors. Every combination, however elaborate or +intricate, resolved into its simplest elements, consisted of a pair of +rosettes laterally to keep the ears warm, a bag posteriorly to put the +hair into, and some kind of a string somewhere to hold the machine +together. Every possible shape into which lace or muslin or sheeting +could be cut or plaited or sewed or twisted, into which crewel or cord +could be crocheted or netted or tatted, I make bold to declare was +essayed, until things came to such a pass that every odd bit of dry +goods lying around the house was, in the absence of any positive +testimony on the subject, assumed to be one of my nightcaps,--an utterly +baseless assumption, because my achievements never went so far as +concrete capuality, but stopped short in the later stages of abstract +idealism. However, prejudice is stronger than truth; and, as I said, +every fragment of every fabric that could not give an account of itself +was charged with being a nightcap till it was proved to be a dishcloth +or a cart-rope. I at length surrendered at discretion, and remembered +that somewhere in my reading I had met with exquisite lace caps, and I +did not know but that from the combined fineness and strength of their +material they might answer the purpose, even if in form they should not +be everything that was desirable,--and I determined to ascertain, if +possible, whether such things existed anywhere out of poetry. + +As you perceive, therefore, my Boston shopping was not every-day +trading. It was to mark the abandonment of an old and the inauguration +of a new line of policy. Thus it was with no ordinary interest that I +looked carefully at all the shops, and when I found one that seemed to +hold out a possibility of nightcaps, I went in. Halicarnassus obeyed the +hint which I pricked into him with the point of my parasol, and stopped +outside. The one place in the world where a man has no business to be is +the inside of a dry-goods shop. He never looks and never is so big and +bungling as there. A woman skips from silk to muslin, from muslin to +ribbons, from ribbons to table-cloths with the grace and agility of a +bird. She glides in and out among crowds of her sex, steers sweepingly +clear of all obstacles, and emerges triumphant. A man enters and +immediately becomes all boots and elbows. He needs as much room to turn +round in as the English iron-clad Warrior, and it takes him about as +long. He treads on all the flounces, runs against all the clerks, knocks +over all the children, and is generally under-foot. If he gets an idea +into his head, a Nims's battery cannot dislodge it. You thought of +buying a shawl; but a thousand considerations in the shape of raglans, +cloaks, talmas, pea-jackets, induce you to modify your views. He stands +by you. He hears all your inquiries and all the clerk's suggestions. The +whole process of your reasoning is visible to his naked eye. He sees the +sack, or visite, or cape put upon your shoulders and you walking off +in it, and when you are half-way home, he will mutter, in idiotic +amazement, "I thought you were going to buy a shawl!" It is enough to +drive one wild. + +No! Halicarnassus is absurd and mulish in many things, but he knows +I will not be hampered with him when I am shopping, and he obeys the +smallest hint and stops outside. + +To be sure, he puts my temper on the rack by standing with his hands in +his pockets, or by looking meek, or, likely as not, peering into the +shop-door after me with great staring eyes and parted lips; and this is +the most provoking of all. If there is anything vulgar, slipshod, and +shiftless, it is a man lounging about with his hands in his pockets. If +you have paws, stow them away; but if you are endowed with hands, learn +to carry them properly, or else cut them off. Nor can I abide a man's +looking as if he were under control. I want him to _be_ submissive, but +I don't want him to look so. I want him to do just as he is bidden, but +I want him to carry himself like the man and monarch he was made to be. +I want him to stay where he is put, yet not as if he were put there, but +as if he had taken his position deliberately. But, of all things, to +have a man act as if he were a clod just emerged for the first time from +his own barnyard! Upon this occasion, however, I was too much absorbed +in my errand to note anybody's demeanor, and I threaded straightway the +crowd of customers, went up to the counter, and inquired in a clear +voice,-- + +"Have you lace nightcaps?" + +The clerk looked at me with a troubled, bewildered glance, and made no +reply. I supposed he had not understood me, and repeated the question. +Then he answered, dubiously,-- + +"We have breakfast-caps." + +It was my turn to look bewildered. What had I to do with breakfast-caps? +What connection was there between my question and his answer? What field +was there for any further inquiry? "Have you ox-bows?" imagine a farmer +to ask. "We have rainbows," says the shopman. "Have you cameo-pins?" +inquires the elegant Mrs. Jenkins. "We have linchpins." "Have you young +apple-trees?" asks the nursery-man. "We have whiffle-trees." If I had +wanted breakfast-caps, shouldn't I have asked for breakfast-caps? Or do +the Boston people take their breakfast at one o'clock in the morning? I +concluded that the man was demented, and marched out of the shop. When I +laid the matter before Halicarnassus, the following interesting colloquy +took place. + +I. "What do you suppose it meant?" + +H. "He took you for a North American Indian." + +I. "What do you mean?" + +H. "He did not understand your _patois_." + +I. "What _patois_?" + +H. "Your squaw dialect. You should have asked for a _bonnet de nuit_." + +I. "Why?" + +H. "People never talk about nightcaps in good society." + +I. "Oh!" + +I was very warm, and Halicarnassus said he was tired; so we went into a +restaurant and ordered strawberries,--that luscious fruit, quivering on +the border-land of ambrosia and nectar. + +"Doubtless," says honest, quaint, delightful Isaac,--and he never spoke +a truer word,--"doubtless, God might have made a better berry than a +strawberry, but, doubtless, God never did." + +The bill of fare rated their excellence at fifteen cents. + +"Not unreasonable," I pantomimed. + +"Not if I pay for them," replied Halicarnassus. + +Then we sat and amused ourselves after the usual brilliant fashion +of people who are waiting in hotel parlors, railroad-stations, and +restaurants. We surveyed the gilding and the carpet and the mirrors +and the curtains. We hazarded profound conjectures touching the people +assembled. We studied the bill of fare as if it contained the secret of +our army's delay upon the Potomac, and had just concluded that the first +crop of strawberries was exhausted and they were waiting for the second +crop to grow, when Hebe hove in sight with her nectared ambrosia in a +pair of cracked, browny-white saucers, with browny-green silver spoons. +I poured out what professed to be cream, but proved very low-spirited +milk, in which a few disheartened strawberries appeared _rari nantes_. I +looked at them in dismay. Then curiosity smote me, and I counted them. +Just fifteen. + +"Cent apiece," said Halicarnassus. + +I was not thinking of the cent, but I had promised myself a feast; and +what is a feast, susceptible of enumeration? Cleopatra was right. "That +love"--and the same is true of strawberries--"is beggarly which can be +reckoned." Infinity alone is glory. + +"Perhaps the quality will atone for the quantity," said Halicarnassus, +scooping up at least half of his at one "arm-sweep." + +"How do they taste?" I asked. + +"Rather coppery," he answered. + +"It is the spoons!" I exclaimed, in a fright. "They are German silver! +You will be poisoned!"--and knocked his out of his hand with such +instinctive, sudden violence that it flew to the other side of the room, +where an old gentleman sat over his newspaper and dinner. + +He started, dropped his newspaper, and looked around in a maze. +Halicarnassus behaved beautifully,--I will give him the credit of it. +He went on with my spoon and his strawberries as unconcernedly as if +nothing had happened. I was conscious that I blushed, but my face was in +the shade, and nobody else knew it; and to this day I have no doubt +the old gentleman would have marvelled what sent that mysterious spoon +rattling against his table and whizzing between his boots, had not +Halicarnassus, when the uproar was over, conceived it his duty to go and +pick up the spoon and apologize for the accident, lest the gentleman +should fancy it an intentional rudeness. Partly to reward him for his +good behavior, partly because I never did think it worth while to +make two bites of a cherry, and partly because I did not fancy being +poisoned, I gave my fifteen berries to him. He devoured them with +evident relish. + +"Does my spoon taste as badly as yours?" I asked. + +"My spoon?" inquired he, innocently. + +"Yes. You said before that they tasted coppery." + +"I don't think," replied this unprincipled man,--"I don't think it +was the flavor of the spoon so much as of the coin which each berry +represented." + +I could have boxed his ears. + +I never made a more unsatisfactory investment in my life than the one I +made in that restaurant. I felt as if I had been swindled, and I said so +to Halicarnassus. He remarked that there was plenty of cream and sugar. +I answered curtly, that the cream was chiefly water, and the sugar +chiefly flour; but if they had been Simon Pure himself, was it anything +but an aggravation of the offence to have them with nothing to eat them +on? + +"You might do as they do in France,--carry away what you don't eat, +seeing you pay for it." + +"A pocketful of milk and water would be both delightful and serviceable; +but I might take the sugar," I added, with a sudden thought, upsetting +the sugar-bowl into a "Boston Journal" which we had bought in the train. +"I can never use it, but it will be a consolation to reflect on." + +Halicarnassus, who, though fertile in evil conceptions, lacks nerve to +put them into execution, was somewhat startled at this sudden change of +base. He had no idea that I should really act upon his suggestion, but +I did. I bundled the sugar into my pocket with a grim satisfaction; +and Halicarnassus paid his thirty cents, looking--and feeling, as he +afterwards told me--as if a policeman's gripe were on his shoulders. If +any restaurant in Boston recollects having been astonished at any time +during the summer of 1862 by an unaccountably empty sugar-bowl, I take +this occasion to explain the phenomenon. I gave the sugar afterwards to +a little beggar-girl, with a dime for a brace of lemons, and shook off +the dust of my feet against Boston at the "B. & W.R.R.D." + +Boston is a beautiful city, situated on a peninsula at the head of +Massachusetts Bay. It has three streets: Cornhill, Washington, and +Beacon Streets. It has a Common and a Frog-Pond, and many sprightly +squirrels. Its streets are straight and cross each other like lines on +a chess-board. It has a State-House which is the finest edifice in the +world or out of it. It has one church, the Old South, which was built, +as its name indicates, before the Proclamation of Emancipation was +issued. It has one bookstore, a lofty and imposing pile, of the Egyptian +style (and date) of architecture, on the corner of Washington and +School Streets. It has one magazine, the "Atlantic Monthly," one +daily newspaper, the "Boston Journal," one religious weekly, the +"Congregationalist," and one orator, whose name is Train, a model of +chaste, compact, and classic elegance. In politics, it was a Webster +Whig, till Whig and Webster both went down, when it fell apart and +waited for something to turn up,--which proved to be drafting. Boston is +called the Athens of America. Its men are solid. Its women wear their +bonnets to bed, their nightcaps to breakfast, and talk Greek at dinner. +I spent two hours and a half in Boston, and I know. + +We had a royal progress from Boston to Fontdale. Summer lay on the +shining hills and scattered benedictions. Plenty smiled up from a +thousand fertile fields. Patient oxen, with their soft, deep eyes, trod +heavily over mines of greater than Indian wealth. Kindly cows stood in +the grateful shade of cathedral elms, and gave thanks to God in their +dumb, fumbling way. Motherly, sleepy, stupid sheep lay on the plains, +little lambs rollicked out their short-lived youth around them, and no +premonition floated over from the adjoining pea-patch, nor any misgiving +of approaching mutton marred their happy heyday. Straight through the +piny forests, straight past the vocal orchards, right in among the +robins and the jays and the startled thrushes, we dashed inexorable, and +made harsh dissonance in the wild-wood orchestra; but not for that was +the music hushed, nor did one color fade. Brooks leaped in headlong +chase down the furrowed sides of gray old rocks, and glided whispering +beneath the sorrowful willows. Old trees renewed their youth in the +slight tenacious grasp of many a tremulous tendril, and, leaping lightly +above their topmost heights, vine laughed to vine, swaying dreamily in +the summer air; and not a vine nor brook nor hill nor forest but sent up +a sweet-smelling incense to its Maker. Not an ox or cow or lamb or bird +living its own dim life but lent its charm of unconscious grace to the +great picture that unfolded itself, mile after mile, in ever fresher +loveliness to ever unsated eyes. Well might the morning stars sing +together, and all the sons of God shout for joy, when first this grand +and perfect world swung free from its moorings, flung out its spotless +banner, and sailed majestic down the thronging skies. Yet, though but +once God spoke the world to life, the miracle of creation is still +incomplete. New every springtime, fresh every summer, the earth comes +forth as a bride adorned for her husband. Not only in the gray dawn of +our history, but now in the full brightness of its noon-day, may we hear +the voice of the Lord walking in the garden. I look out upon the gray +degraded fields left naked of the kindly snow, and inwardly ask: Can +these dry bones live again? And while the question is yet trembling on +my lips, lo! a Spirit breathes upon the earth, and beauty thrills into +bloom. Who shall lack faith in man's redemption, when every year the +earth is redeemed by unseen hands, and death is lost in resurrection? + +To Fontdale sitting among her beautiful meadows we are borne swiftly on. +There we must tarry for the night, for I will not travel in the dark +when I can help it. I love it. There is no solitude in the world, or at +least I have never felt any, like standing alone in the door-way of +the rear car on a dark night, and rushing on through the +darkness,--darkness, darkness everywhere, and if one could only be sure +of rushing on till daylight doth appear! But with the frightful and not +remote possibility of bringing up in a crash and being buried under a +general huddle, one prefers daylight. You may not be able to get out of +the huddle even by daylight; but you will at least know where you are, +if there is anything of you left. So at Fontdale Halicarnassus branches +off temporarily on a business errand, and I stop for the night +a-cousining. + +You object to this? Some people do. For my part, I like it. You say you +don't want to turn your own house or your friend's house into a hotel. +If people want to see you, let them come and make a visit; if you want +to see them, you will go and make them one; but this touch and go,--what +is it worth? O foolish Galatians! much every way. For don't you see, +supposing the people are people you don't like, how much better it is to +have them come and sleep or dine and be gone than to have them before +your face and eyes for a week? An ill that is temporary is tolerable. +You could entertain the Evil One himself, if you were sure he would go +away after dinner. The trouble about him is not so much that he comes as +that he won't go. He hangs around. If you once open your door to him, +there is no getting rid of him; and some of his followers, it must be +confessed, are just like him. You must resist them both, or they will +never flee. But if they do flee after a day's tarry, do not complain. +You protest against turning your house into a hotel. Why, the hotelry +is the least irksome part of the whole business, when your guests are +uninteresting. It is not the supper or the bed that costs, but keeping +people going after supper is over and before bed-time is come. Never +complain, if you have nothing worse to do than to feed or house your +guests for a day or an hour. + +On the other hand, if they are people you like, how much better to have +them come so than not to come at all! People cannot often make long +visits,--people that are worth anything,--people who use life; and they +are the only ones that are worth anything. And if you cannot get your +good things in the lump, are you going to refuse them altogether? By no +means. You are going to take them by driblets, and if you will only be +sensible and not pout, but keep your tin pan right side up, you will +find that golden showers will drizzle through all your life. So, with +never a nugget in your chest, you shall die rich. If you can stop +over-night with your friend, you have no sand-grain, but a very +respectable boulder. For a night is infinite. Daytime is well enough for +business, but it is little worth for happiness. You sit down to a book, +to a picture, to a friend, and the first you know it is time to get +dinner, or time to eat it, or time for the train, or you must put out +your dried apples, or set the bread to rising, or something breaks in +impertinently and chokes you off at flood-tide. But the night has no +end. Everything is done but that which you would be forever doing. The +curtains are drawn, the lamp is lighted and veiled into exquisite soft +shadowiness. All the world is far off. All its din and dole strike into +the bank of darkness that envelops you and are lost to your tranced +sense. In all the world are only your friend and you, and then you +strike out your oars, silver-sounding, into the shoreless night. + +But the night comes to an end, you say. No, it does not. It is you that +come to an end. You grow sleepy, clod that you are. But as you don't +think, when you begin, that you ever shall grow sleepy, it is just the +same as if you never did. For you have no foreshadow of an inevitable +termination to your rapture, and so practically your night has no limit. +It is fastened at one end to the sunset, but the other end floats off +into eternity. And there really is no abrupt termination. You roll down +the inclined plane of your social happiness into the bosom of another +happiness,--sleep. Sleep for the sleepy is bliss just as truly as +society to the lonely. What in the distance would have seemed Purgatory, +once reached, is Paradise, and your happiness is continuous. Just as it +is in mending. Short-sighted, superficial, unreflecting people have a +way--which in time fossilizes into a principle--of mending everything as +soon as it comes up from the wash, a very unthrifty, uneconomical habit, +if you use the words thrift and economy in the only way in which they +ought to be used, namely, as applied to what is worth economizing. Time, +happiness, life, these are the only things to be thrifty about. But +I see people working and worrying over quince-marmalade and tucked +petticoats and embroidered chair-covers, things that perish with the +using and leave the user worse than they found him. This I call waste +and wicked prodigality. Life is too short to permit us to fret about +matters of no importance. Where these things can minister to the mind +and heart, they are a part of the soul's furniture; but where they only +pamper the appetite or the vanity or any foolish and hurtful lust, +they are foolish and hurtful. Be thrifty of comfort. Never allow an +opportunity for cheer, for pleasure, for intelligence, for benevolence, +for any kind of good, to go unimproved. Consider seriously whether the +sirup of your preserves or the juices of your own soul will do the +most to serve your race. It may be that they are compatible,--that the +concoction of the one shall provide the ascending sap of the other; but +if it is not so, if one must be sacrificed, do not hesitate a moment +as to which it shall be. If a peach does not become sweetmeat, it will +become something, it will not stay a withered, unsightly peach; but for +souls there is no transmigration out of fables. Once a soul, forever a +soul,--mean or mighty, shrivelled or full, it is for you to say. Money, +land, luxury, so far as they are money, land, and luxury, are worthless. +It is only as fast and as far as they are turned into life that they +acquire value. + +So you are thriftless when you eagerly seize the first opportunity +to fritter away your time over old clothes. You precipitate yourself +unnecessarily against a disagreeable thing. For you are not going to put +your stockings on. Perhaps you will not need your buttons for a week, +and in a week you may have passed beyond the jurisdiction of buttons. +But even if you should not, let the buttons and the holes alone all the +same. For, first, the pleasant and profitable thing which you will do +instead is a funded capital which will roll you up a perpetual interest; +and secondly, the disagreeable duty is forever abolished. I say forever, +because, when you have gone without the button awhile, the inconvenience +it occasions will reconcile you to the necessity of sewing it on,--will +even go farther, and make it a positive relief amounting to positive +pleasure. Besides, every time you use it, for a long while after you +will have a delicious sense of satisfaction, such as accompanies the +sudden complete cessation of a dull, continuous pain. Thus what was at +best characterless routine, and most likely an exasperation, is turned +into actual delight, and adds to the sum of life. This is thrift. This +is economy. But, alas! few people understand the art of living. They +strive after system, wholeness, buttons, and neglect the weightier +matters of the higher law. + +--I wonder how I got here, or how I am to get back again. I started for +Fontdale, and I find myself in a mending-basket. As I know no good in +tracing the same road back, we may as well strike a bee-line and begin +new at Fontdale. + +We stopped at Fontdale a-cousining. I have a veil, a beautiful--_have_, +did I say? Alas! Troy _was_. But I must not anticipate--a beautiful veil +of brown tissue, none of your woolleny, gruff fabrics, fit only for +penance, but a silken gossamery cloud, soft as a baby's check. Yet +everybody fleers at it. Everybody has a joke about it. Everybody looks +at it, and holds it out at arms' length, and shakes it, and makes great +eyes at it, and says, "What in the world"--, and ends with a huge, +bouncing laugh. Why? One is ashamed of human nature at being forced to +confess. Because, to use a Gulliverism, it is longer by the breadth of +my nail than any of its contemporaries. In fact, it is two yards long. +That is all. Halicarnassus fired the first gun at it by saying that its +length was to enable one end of it to remain at home while the other end +went with me, so that neither of us should get lost. This is an +allusion to a habit which I and my property have of finding ourselves +individually and collectively left in the lurch. After this initial +shot, everybody considered himself at liberty to let off his rusty old +blunderbuss, and there was a constant peppering. But my veil never +lowered its colors nor curtailed its resources. Alas! what ridicule and +contumely failed to effect, destiny accomplished. Softness and plenitude +are no shields against the shafts of fate. + +I went into the station waiting-room to write a note. I laid my bonnet, +my veil, my packages upon the table. I wrote my note. I went away. The +next morning, when I would have arrayed myself to resume my journey, +there was no veil. I remembered that I had taken it into the station +the night before, and that I had not taken it out. At the station we +inquired of the waiting-woman concerning it. It is as much as your life +is worth to ask these people about lost articles. They take it for +granted at the first blush that you mean to accuse them of stealing. +"Have you seen a brown veil lying about anywhere?" asked Crene, her +sweet bird-voice warbling out from her sweet rose-lips. "No, I 'a'n't +seen nothin' of it," says Gnome, with magnificent indifference. + +"It was lost here last night," continues Crene, in a soliloquizing +undertone, pushing investigating glances beneath the sofas. + +"I do' know nothin' about it. _I_ 'a'n't took it"; and the Gnome tosses +her head back defiantly. "I seen the lady when she was a-writin' of her +letter, and when she went out ther' wa'n't nothin' left on the table but +a hangkerchuf, and that wa'n't hern. I do' know nothin' about it, nor I +'a'n't seen nothin' of it." + +Oh, no, my Gnome, you knew nothing of it; you did not take it. But since +no one accused you or even suspected you, why could you not have been +less aggressive and more sympathetic in your assertions? But we will +plough no longer in that field. The ploughshare has struck against a +rock and grits, denting its edge in vain. My veil is gone,--my ample, +historic, heroic veil. There is a woman in Fontdale who breathes air +filtered through--I will not say _stolen_ tissue, but certainly +through tissue which was obtained without rendering its owner any fair +equivalent. Does not every breeze that softly stirs its fluttering folds +say to her, "O friend, this veil is not yours, not yours," and still +sighingly, "not yours! Up among the northern hills, yonder towards the +sunset, sits the owner, sorrowful, weeping, wailing"? I believe I am +wading out into the Sally Waters of Mother Goosery; but, prose +or poetry, somewhere a woman,--and because nobody of taste could +surreptitiously possess herself of my veil, I have no doubt that she cut +it incontinently into two equal parts, and gave one to her sister, and +that there are two women,--nay, since niggardly souls have no sense of +grandeur and will shave down to microscopic dimensions, it is every way +probable that she divided it into three unequal parts, and took three +quarters of a yard for herself, three quarters for her sister, and gave +the remaining half-yard to her daughter, and that at this very moment +there are two women and a little girl taking their walks abroad under +the silken shadows of my veil! And yet there are people who profess to +disbelieve in total depravity. + +Nor did the veil walk away alone. My trunk became imbued with the spirit +of adventure, and branched off on its own account up somewhere into +Vermont. I suppose it would have kept on and reached perhaps the North +Pole by this time, had not Crene's dark eyes--so pretty to look at that +one instinctively feels they ought not to be good for anything, if a +just impartiality is to be maintained, but they are--Crene's dark eyes +seen it tilting up into a baggage-crate and trundling off towards the +Green Mountains, but too late. Of course there was a formidable hitch in +the programme. A court of justice was improvised on the car-steps. I was +the plaintiff, Crene chief evidence, baggage-master both defendant and +examining-counsel. The case did not admit of a doubt. There was the +little insurmountable check whose brazen lips could speak no lie. + +"Keep hold of that," whispered Crene, and a yoke of oxen could not have +drawn it from me. + +"You are sure you had it marked for Fontdale," says Mr. Baggage-master. + +I hold the impracticable check before his eyes in silence. + +"Yes, well, it must have gone on to Albany." + +"But it went away on that track," says Crene. + +"Couldn't have gone on that track. Of course they wouldn't have carried +it away over there just to make it go wrong." + +For me, I am easily persuaded and dissuaded. If he had told me that +it must have gone in such a direction, that it was a moral and mental +impossibility it should have gone in any other, and have said it times +enough, with a certain confidence and contempt of any other contingency, +I should gradually have lost faith in my own eyes, and said, "Well, I +suppose it did." But Crene is not to be asserted into yielding one inch, +and insists that the trunk went to Vermont and not to New York, and is +thoroughly unmanageable. Then the baggage-master, in anguish of soul, +trots out his subordinates, one after another,-- + +"Is this the man that wheeled the trunk away? Is this? Is this?" + +The brawny-armed fellows hang back, and scowl, and muffle words in a +very suspicious manner, and protest they won't be got into a scrape. But +Crene has no scrape for them. She cannot swear to their identity. She +had eyes only for the trunk. + +"Well," says Baggager, at his wits' end, "you let me take your check, +and I'll send the trunk on by express, when it comes." + +I pity him, and relax my clutch. + +"No," whispers Crene; "as long as you have your check, you as good as +have your trunk; but when you give that up, you have nothing. Keep that +till you see your trunk." + +My clutch re-tightens. + +"At any rate, you can wait till the next train, and see if it doesn't +come back. You'll get to your journey's end just as soon." + +"Shall I? Well, I will," compliant as usual. + +"No," interposes my good genius again. "Men are always saying that a +woman never goes when she engages to go. She is always a train later or +a train earlier, and you can't meet her." + +Pliant to the last touch I say aloud,-- + +"No, I must go in this train"; and so I go trunkless and crest-fallen to +meet Halicarnassus. + +It is a dismal day, and Crene, to comfort me, puts into my hands two +books as companions by the way. They are Coventry Patmore's "Angel in +the House," "The Espousals and the Betrothal." I do not approve of +reading in the cars; but without is a dense, white, unvarying fog, and +within my heart it is not clear sunshine. So I turn to my books. + +Did any one ever read them before? Somebody wrote a vile review of them +once, and gave the idea of a very puerile, ridiculous, apron-stringy +attempt at poetry. Whoever wrote that notice ought to be shot, for the +books are charming pure and homely and householdy, yet not effeminate. +Critics may sneer as much as they choose: it is such love as Vaughan's +that Honorias value. Because a woman's nature is not proof against +deterioration, because a large and long-continued infusion of gross +blood, and perhaps even the monotonous pressure of rough, pitiless, +degrading circumstances, may displace, eat out, rub off the delicacy of +a soul, may change its texture to unnatural coarseness and scatter ashes +for beauty, women do exist, victims rather than culprits, coarse against +their nature, hard, material, grasping, the saddest sight humanity can +see. Such a woman can accept coarse men. They may come courting on all +fours, and she will not be shocked. But women in the natural state want +men to stand god-like erect, to tread majestically, and live delicately, +Women do not often make an ado about this. They talk it over among +themselves, and take men as they are. They quietly soften them down, +and smooth them out, and polish them up, and make the best of them, and +simply and sedulously shut their eyes and make believe there isn't any +worst, or reason it away,--a great deal more than I should think they +would. But if you want to see the qualities that a woman, spontaneously +loves, the expression, the tone, the bearing that thoroughly satisfies +her self-respect, that not only secures her acquiescence, but arouses +her enthusiasm and commands her abdication, crucify the flesh, and read +Coventry Patmore. Not that he is the world's great poet, nor Arthur +Vaughan the ideal man; but this I do mean: that the delicacy, the +spirituality of his love, the scrupulous respectfulness of his demeanor, +his unfeigned inward humility, as far removed from servility on the one +side as from assumption on the other, and less the opponent than the +offspring of self-respect, his thorough gentleness, guilelessness, +deference, his manly, unselfish homage, are such qualities, and such +alone, as lead womanhood captive. Listen to me, you rattling, roaring, +rollicking Ralph Roister Doisters, you calm, inevitable Gradgrinds, as +smooth, as sharp, as bright as steel, and as soulless, and you men, +whoever, whatever, and wherever you are, with fibres of rope and nerves +of wire, there is many and many a woman who tolerates you because she +finds you, but there is nothing in her that ever goes out to seek you. +Be not deceived by her placability. "Here he is," she says to herself, +"and something must be done about it. Buried under Ossa and Pelion +somewhere he must be supposed to have a soul, and the sooner he is dug +into, the sooner it will be exhumed." So she digs. She would never have +made you, nor of her own free-will elected you; but being made, such as +you are, and on her hands in one way or another, she carves and chisels, +and strives to evoke from the block a breathing statue. She may succeed +so far as that you shall become her Frankenstein, a great, sad, +monstrous, incessant, inevitable caricature of her ideal, the monument +at once of her success and her failure, the object of her compassion, +the intimate sorrow of her soul, a vast and dreadful form into which +her creative power can breathe the breath of life, but not of sympathy. +Perhaps she loves you with a remorseful, pitying, protesting love, and +carries you on her shuddering shoulders to the grave. Probably, as she +is good and wise, you will never find it out. A limpid brook ripples in +beauty and bloom by the side of your muddy, stagnant self-complacence, +and you discern no essential difference. "Water's water," you say, with +your broad, stupid generalization, and go oozing along contentedly +through peat-bogs and meadow-ditches, mounting, perhaps, in moments +of inspiration, to the moderate sublimity of a cranberry-meadow, but +subsiding with entire satisfaction into a muck-puddle; and all the while +the little brook that you patronize when you are full-fed, and snub when +you are hungry, and look down upon always,--the little brook is singing +its own melody through grove and orchard and sweet wild-wood,--singing +with the birds and the blooms songs that you cannot hear; but they are +heard by the silent stars, singing on and on into a broader and deeper +destiny, till it pours, one day, its last earthly note, and becomes +forevermore the unutterable sea. + +And you are nothing but a ditch. + +No, my friend, Lucy will drive with you, and talk to you, and sing your +songs; she will take care of you, and pray for you, and cry when you +go to the war; if she is not your daughter or your sister, she will, +perhaps, in a moment of weakness or insanity, marry you; she will be a +faithful wife, and float you to the end; but if you wish to be her love, +her hero, her ideal, her delight, her spontaneity, her utter rest and +ultimatum, you must attune your soul to fine issues,--you must bring out +the angel in you, and keep the brute under. It is not that you shall +stop making shoes, and begin to write poetry. That is just as much +discrimination as you have. Tell you to be gentle, and you think we want +you to dissolve into milk-and-water; tell you to be polite, and you +infer hypocrisy; to be neat, and you leap over into dandyism, fancying +all the while that bluster is manliness. No, Sir. You may make shoes, +you may run engines, you may carry coals; you may blow the huntsman's +horn, hurl the base-ball, follow the plough, smite the anvil; your face +may be brown, your veins knotted, your hands grimed; and yet you may be +a hero. And, on the other hand, you may write verses and be a clown. +It is not necessary to feed on ambrosia in order to become divine; +nor shall one be accursed, though he drink of the ninefold Styx. The +Israelites ate angels' food in the wilderness, and remained stiff-necked +and uncircumcised in heart and ears. The white water-lily feeds on +slime, and unfolds a heavenly glory. Come as the June morning comes. It +has not picked its way daintily, passing only among the roses. It has +breathed up the whole earth. It has blown through the fields and the +barn-yards and all the common places of the land. It has shrunk from +nothing. Its purity has breasted and overborne all things, and so +mingled and harmonized all that it sweeps around your forehead and sinks +into your heart as soft and sweet and pure as the fragrancy of Paradise. +So come you, rough from the world's rough work, with all out-door airs +blowing around you, and all your earth-smells clinging to you, but with +a fine inward grace, so strong, so sweet, so salubrious that it meets +and masters all things, blending every faintest or foulest odor of +earthliness into the grateful incense of a pure and lofty life. + +Thus I read and mused in the soft summer fog, and the first I knew the +cars had stopped, I was standing on the platform, and Coventry and his +knight were--where? Wandering up and down somewhere among the Berkshire +hills. At some junction of roads, I suppose, I left them on the +cushion, for I have never beheld them since. Tell me, O ye daughters of +Berkshire, have you seen them,--a princely pair, sore weary in your +mountain-land, but regal still, through all their travel-stain? I pray +you, entreat them hospitably, for their mission is "not of an age, but +for all time." + + + + +GIVE. + + +"The vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, +and the heavens shall give their dew." + + The fire of Freedom burns, + March to her altar now: + Bear on the sacred urns + Where all her sons must bow. + + Woman of nerve and thought, + Bring in the urn your power! + By you is manhood taught + To meet this supreme hour. + + Come with your sunlit life, + Maiden of gentle eye! + Bring to the gloom of strife + Light by which heroes die. + + Give, rich men, proud and free, + Your children's costliest gem! + For Liberty shall be + Your heritage to them. + + O friend, with heavy urn, + What offering bear you on? + The figure did not turn; + I heard a voice, "My son." + + The fire of Freedom burns, + Her flame shall reach the heaven: + Heap up our sacred urns, + Though life for life be given! + + + + +ONLY AN IRISH GIRL! + + +"Oh, it's only an Irish girl!" + +I flamed into a wrath far too intense for restraint. My whole soul rose +up and cried out against the Deacon's wife. I answered,-- + +"True. A small thing! But are lies and murder small things, Mrs. Adams? +Murderers, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie, are to be left outside +of the heavenly city. And, Mrs. Adams, suppose it should appear that +a woman of high respectability, moving in the best society, and most +excellent housekeeper, has both those two tickets for hell? Do you +remember the others that make up that horrible company in the last +chapter of Revelation? Mrs. Adams, _the girl is_ DEAD!" + +The Deacon's wife's hard face had blazed instantly into passionate +scarlet. But I cared not for her, nor for man nor woman. For the words +_said themselves_, and thrilled and sounded fearful to me also; they +hurt me; they burnt from my tongue as melted iron might; and, scarcely +knowing it, I rose up and emphasized with my forefinger. And her face, +at those last four words, turned stony and whity-gray, like a corpse. I +thought she would die. Oh, it was awful to think so, and to feel that +she deserved it! For I did. I do now. For, reason as I will, I cannot +help feeling as if a tinge of the poor helpless child's blood was upon +my own garments. I do well to be angry. It is not that I desire any +personal revenge. But I have a feeling,--not pleasure, it is almost all +pity and pain,--but yet a feeling that sudden death or lingering death +would be small satisfaction of justice upon her for what she rendered to +another. + +Her strong, hard, cruel nature fought tigerishly up again from the +horrible blow of my news. She was frightened almost to swooning at the +thing that I told and my denunciation, and the deep answering stab of +her own conscience. But her angry iron will rallied with an effort which +must have been an agony; her face became human again, and, looking +straight and defiantly at me, she said, yet with difficulty, + +"Ah! I'll see if my husband'll hev sech things said to me! That's all!" + +And she turned and went straightway out of my house, erect and steady as +ever. + +It may seem a trifling story, and its lesson a trifling one. But it is +not so,--neither trifling nor needless. + +It is a rare thing, indeed, for a woman in this America to long and love +to have children. The only two women whom I know in this large town who +do are Mrs. O'Reilly, the mother of poor Bridget, and--one more. + +Poor old Mrs. O'Reilly! She came to me this morning, and sat in my +kitchen, and cried so bitterly, and talked in her strong Corkonian +brogue, and rocked herself backwards and forwards, and shook abroad the +great lambent banners of her cap-border,--a grotesque old woman, but +sacred in her tender motherhood and her great grief. Her first coming +was to peddle blackberries in the summer. I asked her if she picked them +herself. + +"Och thin and shure I've the childher to do that saam," said she. And +what wonderful music must the voice of her youth have been! It was deep +of intonation and heartfelt,--rich and smooth and thrilling yet, after +fifty years of poverty and toil. "And id's enough of thim that's in id!" +she added, with a curious air of satisfaction and reflectiveness. + +"How many children have you?" I inquired. + +She laughed and blushed, old woman though she was; and pride and deep +delight and love shone in her large, clear, gray eyes. + +"I've fourteen darlins, thank God for ivery wan of thim! And it's a +purrty parthy they are!" + +"Fourteen!" I exclaimed,--"how lovely!" I stopped short and blushed. My +heart had spoken. "But how "--I stopped again. + +The old blackberry-woman answered me with tears and smiles. What a deep, +rich, loving heart was covered out of sight in her squalid life! It +makes me proud that I felt my heart and my love in some measure like +hers; and she saw it, too. + +"An' it's yersilf, Ma'm, that has the mother's own heart in yez, to be +sure! An' I can see it in your eyes, Ma'm! But it's the thruth it's +mighty scarce intirely! I do be seein' the ladies that's not glad at all +for the dear childher that's sint 'em, and sure it's sthrange, Ma'm! +Indade, it was with the joy I did be cryin' over ivery wan o' me babies; +and I could aisy laugh at the pain, Ma'm! And sure now it's cryin' I am +betimes because I'll have no more!" + +The dear, beautiful, dirty old woman! I cried and laughed with her, and +I bought ten times as many blackberries as I wanted; and Mrs. O'Reilly +and I were fast friends. + +She and hers, her "ould man," her sons and her daughters, were +thenceforth our ready and devoted retainers, dexterous and efficient +in all manner of service, generous in acknowledging any return that we +could make them; respectful and self-respectful; true men and women +in their place, not unfit for a higher, and showing the same by their +demeanor in a low one. + +They came in and went out among us for a long time, in casual +employments, until, with elaborate prefaces and doubtful apologetic +circumlocutions, shyly and hesitatingly, Mrs. O'Reilly managed to prefer +her petition that her youngest girl, Bridget, by name,--there were a few +junior boys,--might be taken into my family as a servant. I asked +the old woman a few questions about her daughter's experiences and +attainments in the household graces and economies; could not remember +her; thought I had seen all the "childher"; found that she had been +living with Mrs. Deacon Adams, and had not been at my house. It was only +for form's sake that I catechized; Bridget came, of course. + +She was such a maiden as her mother must have been, one of Nature's own +ladies, but more refined in type, texture, and form, as the American +atmosphere and food and life always refine the children of European +stock,--slenderer, more delicate, finer of complexion, and with a soft, +exquisite sweetness of voice, more thrilling than her mother's, larger +and more robust heartfeltness of tone,--and with the same, but shyer +ways, and swift blushes and smiles. In one thing she differed: she was a +silent, reticent girl: her tears were not so quick as her mother's, nor +her words; she hid her thoughts. She had learned it of us secretive +Americans, or had inherited it of her father, a silent, though cheery +man. + +Her glossy wealth of dark-brown hair, her great brown eyes, long +eyelashes, sensitive, delicately cut, mobile red lips, oval face, +beautifully formed arms and hands, and lithe, graceful, lady-like +movements, were a sweet household picture, sunshiny with unfailing +good-will, and of a dexterous neat-handedness very rare in her people. +My husband was looking at her one day, and as she tripped away on some +errand he observed,-- + +"She is a graceful little saint. All her attitudes are beatitudes." + +Bridget was pure and devout enough for the compliment; and I had not +been married so long but that I could excuse the evidence of his +observation of another, for the sake of the neatness of his phrase. I +should have thought the unconscious child incongruously lovely amongst +brooms and dust-pans, pots and kettles, suds and slops and dishwater, +had I not been about as much concerned among them myself. + +Bridget had been with me only a day or two, when a friend and +fellow-matron, in the course of an afternoon call, apprised me that +there were reports that Bridget O'Reilly was a thief,--in fact, that she +had been turned away by Mrs. Adams for that very offence, which she told +me "out of kindness, and with no desire to injure the girl; but there is +so much wickedness among these Irish!" She had heard this tale, through +only one person, from Mrs. Adams herself. + +This troubled me; yet I should have quickly forgotten it. I met the same +story in several other directions within a few days; and now it troubled +me more. Women are suspicious creatures. I don't like to confess it, but +it is true. Besides, servants do sometimes steal. And little foreign +blood of the oppressed nationalities has truth in it, or honesty. Why +should it? Why should the subjugated Irish, any more than the Southern +slaves, beaten down for centuries by brutal strength, seeking to +exterminate their religion and their speech, to terrify them out of +intelligence and independence, to crush them into permanent poverty +and ignorance,--why should they tell the truth or respect property? +Falsehood and theft are that cunning which is the natural and necessary +weapon of weakness. Their falsehood is their resistance, in the only +form that weakness can use, evasion instead of force. Their theft is the +taking of what is instinctively felt to be due; their gratification +of an instinct after justice; done secretly because they have not the +strength to demand openly. Such things are unnecessary in America, +no doubt. But habits survive emigration. They are to be deplored, +charitably and hopefully and tenderly cured as diseases, not attacked +and furiously struck and thrust at as wild beasts. Thus it might be with +Bridget, notwithstanding her great, clear, innocent eyes, and open, +honest ways. If she had grown up to think such doings harmless, she +would have no conscience about it. Conscience is very pliant to +education. It troubles no man for what he is trained to do. + +So I felt these stories. I could not find it in my heart to talk to poor +Bridget about it. I could not tell her large-hearted old mother. This +reluctance was entirely involuntary, an instinct. I wish I had felt it +more clearly and obeyed it altogether! There is some fatal cloud of +human circumstance that covers up from our sight our just instinctive +perceptions,--makes us drive them out before the mechanical conclusions +of mere reason; and when our reason, our special human pride, has failed +us, we say in our sorrow, I see now; if I had only trusted my first +impulse!--What is this cloud? Is it original sin? I asked my husband. +He was writing his sermon. He stopped and told me with serious +interest,--"This cloud is that original or inbred sin which we receive +from Adam; obscuring and vitiating the free exercise of the originally +perfect faculties; wilting them down, as it were, from a high native +assimilation to the operative methods of the Divine Mind, to the +painful, creeping, mechanical procedures of the comparing and judging +reason. And this lost power is to be restored, we may expect, by the +regenerating force of conversion." + +I know I've got this right; because, after Henry had thanked me for +my question, he said I was a good preaching-stock,--that the inquiry +"joggled up" his mind, and suggested just what fayed in with his sermon; +and afterwards I heard him preach it; and now I have copied it out of +his manuscript, and have it all correct and satisfactory. What will he +do to me, if he should see this in print? But I can't help it. And what +is more, I don't believe his theological stuff. If it were true, there +would not so many good people be such geese. + +But whatever this cloud is, it now blinded and misguided me. I quietly, +very quietly, put away some little moneys that lay about,--locked up +nearly all my small stock of silver and my scanty jewelry,--locked +my bureau-drawers,--counted unobtrusively the weekly proceeds of the +washing,--and was extremely watchful against the least alteration of my +manner towards my poor pretty maid. + +It might have been a week after this, when my husband said one morning +that Bridget's eyes were heavy, and she had moved with a start several +times, as though she were half-asleep. Now that he spoke, I saw it, and +wondered that I had not seen it before; but I think some men notice +things more quickly than women. I asked the child if she were well. + +"Yes, Ma'am," she said, spiritlessly, "but my head aches." + +I observed her; and she dragged herself about with difficulty, and was +painfully slow about her dishes. At tea-time I made her lie down in my +little back parlor and got the meal myself, and made her a nice cup of +tea. She slept a little, but grew flushed. Next morning she was not fit +to get up, but insisted that she was, and would not remain in bed. But +she ate nothing,--indeed, for a day or two she had not eaten,--and after +breakfast she grew faint, and then more flushed than ever; seemed likely +to have a hard run of fever; and I sent for my doctor,--a homoeopath. + +He came, saw, queried, and prescribed. Doctor-like, he evaded my +inquiry what was the matter, so that I saw it was a serious case. On my +intimating as much, he said, with sudden decision,-- + +"I'll tell you what, Madam. She may be better by night. If not, you'd +better send for Bagford. He might do better for her than I." + +I was extremely surprised, for Bagford is a vigorous allopath of the old +school, drastic, bloody,--and an uncompromising enemy of "that quack," +as he called my grave young friend. I said as much. Doctor Nash smiled. + +"Oh, I don't mind it, so long as the patients come to me. I can very +well afford to send him one now and then. The fact is, the Irish must +_feel_ their medicine. It's quite often that a raking dose will cure +'em, not because it's the right thing, but because it takes their +imagination with it. The Irish imagination goes with Bagford and against +me; and the wrong medicine with the imagination is better than the right +one against it. I care more about curing this child than I do about him. +Besides,"--and he grew grave,--"it may be no great favor to him." + +I obliged him to tell me that he feared the attack would develop into +brain-fever; and he said something was on the girl's mind. As soon as +he was gone, I ran up to poor Bridget, whose sweet face and great brown +eyes were kindled, in her increasing fever, into a hot, fearful beauty; +and now I could see a steady, mournful, pained look contracting her +mouth and lifting the delicate lines of her eyebrows. Poor little girl! +I felt the same deep yearning sorrow which we have at the sufferings of +a little child, who seems to look in scared wonder at us, as if to ask, +What is this? and Why do you not help? When a child suffers, we feel a +sense of injustice done. Bridget's lips were dry. Her skin was so hot, +her whole frame so restless! And the silent misery of her eyes ate into +my very heart. I smoothed her pillow and bathed her head, and would fain +have comforted her, as if she had been my own little sister. But I could +plainly see that my help was not welcome. When, however, I had done all +that I could for her, I quietly told her that she was sick, and that I +wanted to have her get well,--that I saw something was troubling her, +and she must tell me what it was. I don't think the silent, enduring +thing would have spoken even then, if she had not seen that I was +crying. Her own tears came, too; and she briefly said,-- + +"You all think I'm a thief." + +I assured her most earnestly to the contrary. + +She turned her restless head over towards me again, and her great eyes, +all glittering with fever and pain, searched solemnly into mine; and she +replied,-- + +"You all think I'm a thief. Yis, I saw you had locked up the money and +the silver. I saw you count the clane clothes that was washed in the +house. Wouldn't I be after seein' it? And they says so in the town." + +It went to my heart to have done those things. All that I could say was +utterly in vain. She evidently _felt_ nothing of it to be true. She had +received a deep and cruel hurt; and the poor, wild, half-civilized, shy, +silent soul had not wherewith to reason on it. She only endured, and +held her peace, and let the fire burn; and her sensitive nerves had +allowed pain of mind to become severe physical disease. My words she +scarcely heard; my tears were to her only sympathy. She knew what she +had seen. Besides, her disease increased upon her. Almost from minute to +minute she grew more restless, and her increasing inattention to what +I said frightened as well as hurt me. The medicines of Dr. Nash were +useless. Before noon I sent for Dr. Bagford, who said it was decidedly +brain-fever,--that she must be leeched, and have ice at her head, and so +forth. + +Ah, it was useless. She grew worse and worse; passed through one or two +long terrible days of frantic misery, crying and protesting against +false accusations with a lamenting voice that made us all cry, too; then +lay long in a stupid state, until the doctor said that now it would +be better for her to die, because, after such an attack, a brain so +sensitive would be disorganized,--she would be an idiot. + +Her poor mother came and helped us wait on her. But neither care nor +medicine availed. Bridget died; and the funeral was from our house. +I was surprised by the lofty demeanor of Father MacMullen, the Irish +priest, the first I had ever met: a tall, gaunt, bony, black-haired, +hollow-eyed man, of inscrutable and guarded demeanor, who received with +absolute haughtiness the courtesies of my husband and the reverences of +his own flock. A few of his expressions might indicate a consciousness +that we had endeavored to deal kindly with poor little Bridget. But he +did not think so; or at least we know that he has so handled the matter +that we meet ill feeling on account of it. + +The griefs for any such misfortune were, however, obscure and shallow in +comparison with my sorrow for the untimely quenching of Bridget's young +life, and my sympathy with her poor old mother. When I reasoned about +the affair, I could see that I had done nothing which would not be +commended by careful housekeepers. I could see it, but, in spite of me, +I could not feel it. I was tormented by vain wishes that I had done +otherwise. I could not help feeling as if her people charged me with her +blood,--as if I had been in some sense aiding in her death. Nor do I +even now escape obscure returns of the same inexpressibly sad pain. + +The garnishing of sepulchres is an employment which by no means went out +with the Scribes and Pharisees. Under the circumstances, the death of my +pretty young maid, although she was only an Irish girl, produced a deep +impression in the village. Very soon, now that it could do no good, +it was generally agreed that the imputations against her were wholly +unfounded. It was pretty distinctly whispered that they had arisen out +of things said by Mrs. Deacon Adams, in her wrath, because Bridget had +left her service to enter mine; and I now ascertained that this Mrs. +Adams was a woman of bitter tongue, and enduring, hot, and unscrupulous +in anger and in revengefulness. I have inquired sufficiently; I know it +is true. The vulgar malice of a hard woman has murdered a fair and good +maiden with the invisible arrows of her wicked words. + +But she begins already to be punished, coarse cast-iron as she is. +People do not exactly like to talk with her. She is growing thin. She +has been ill,--a thing, I am told, never dreamed of before. Of course +she reported to her husband the reproaches with which I had surprised +her on the very day of Bridget's death. She had called in by chance, and +had not even heard of her illness; had herself begun to retail to me the +kind of talk with which she had poisoned the village, not knowing that +her evil work was finished; and it was the scornful carelessness of her +reply to my first reproof that stung me to answer her so bitterly. It +was two weeks before good, white-haired, old Deacon Adams came to the +house of his pastor. His face looked careworn enough. He stayed long +in the study with my husband, and went away sadly. I happened to pass +through our little hall just as the Deacon opened the study-door to +depart; and I caught his last words, very sorrowful in tone,-- + +"She might git well, ef she could stop dreamin' on't, and git the weight +off 'm her mind. But words that's once spoken can't be called back as +you call the cows home at night." + + + + +SHALL WE COMPROMISE? + + +In that period of remote antiquity when all birds of the air and beasts +of the field were able to talk, it befell that a certain shepherd +suffered many losses through the constant depredations of a wolf. +Fearing at length that his means of subsistence would be quite taken +away, he devised a powerful trap for the creature, and set it with +wonderful cunning. He could hardly sleep that night for thinking of the +matter, and early next morning took a stout club in his hand, and set +forth to learn of his success; when, lo! on drawing near the spot, there +he saw the wolf, sure enough, a huge savage, fast held in the trap. + +"Ah," cried he, with triumph, "now I have got you!" + +The wolf held his peace until the other was quite near, and then in a +tone of the severest moral rebuke, and with a voice that was made quite +low and grave with its weight of judicial reprehension, said,-- + +"Is it you, then? Can it be one wearing the form of a man, who has laid +this wicked plot against the peace, nay, as I infer from that club, +against the very life, of an innocent creature? Behold what I suffer, +and how unjustly!--I, of all animals, whose life,--the sad state I +am now in constrains me against modesty to say it,--whose life is +notoriously a pattern of all the virtues;--I, too, ungrateful biped, +who have watched your flock through so many sleepless nights, lest some +ill-disposed dog might do harm to the helpless sheep and lambs!" + +The shepherd, one of the simplest souls that ever lived, was utterly +confounded by this reproof, and hung his head with shame, unable, for +a season, to utter a word in his own defence. At length he managed to +stammer,-- + +"I pray your pardon, brother, but--but in truth I have lost a great many +lambs lately, and began to think my little ones at home would starve." + +"How harder than stone is the heart of man!" murmured the wolf, as if to +himself. + +Then, raising his voice, he went on to say,-- + +"I despair of reaching your conscience; nevertheless I will speak as if +I had hope. You never paid me anything for protecting your flock; it was +on my part a pure labor of love; and yet, because I cannot quite succeed +in guarding it against all the bad dogs that are about, you would take +my life!" + +And the creature put on such a look of meek suffering innocence that the +shepherd was touched to the very heart, and felt more guilty and abashed +than ever. He therefore said at once,-- + +"Brother, I fear that I have done you wrong; and if you will swear to +mind your own affairs, and not prey upon my flock, I will at once set +you free." + +"My character ought to be a sufficient guaranty," answered the +quadruped, with much dignity; "but I submit, since I must, to your +unjust suspicions, and promise as you require." + +So, lifting up his paw, he swore solemnly, by all the gods that wolves +worship, to keep his pledge. Thereupon the other set him free, with many +apologies and professions of confidence and friendship. Only a few days, +however, had passed before the shepherd, happening to mount a knoll, +saw at a little distance the self-same wolf eagerly devouring the warm +remains of a lamb. + +"Villain! villain!" he shouted, in great wrath, "is this the way you +keep your oath? Did not you swear to mind your own business?" + +"I am minding it," said the wolf, with a grin; "it is my business to eat +lambs; it should be yours not to believe in wolves' promises." + +So saying, he seized upon the last fragment of the Iamb, and ran away as +fast as his legs would carry him. + +_Moral_.--Shepherds who make compromises with wolves sell their mutton +at an exceedingly cheap market. + +Now just such short-witted shepherds are we, the people of these free +American States, invited by numbers of citizens to become. Just such, do +I say? A thousand times more silly than such. Our national wolf meets us +with jaws that drip blood and eyes that glare hunger for more. Instead +of professing sanctity and innocence, it only howls immitigable hate and +steadfast resolution to devour. "Give me," it howls, "half the pasture +and flock for my own, with, of course, a supervision over the rest, and +a child or two when I am dainty; and I will be content,--until I want +more!" + +In speaking of our "national wolf," we are using no mere rhetoric, but +are, in truth, getting at the very heart of the matter. This war, in +its final relations to human history, is an encounter between opposing +tendencies in man,--between the beast-of-prey that is in him and is +always seeking brute domination, on the one hand, and the rational and +moral elements of manhood, which ever urge toward the lawful supremacy, +on the other. This is a conflict as old as the world, and perhaps one +that, in some shape, will continue while the world lasts; and I have +tried in vain to think of a single recorded instance wherein the issue +was more simple, or the collision more direct, than in our own country +to-day. + +That principle in nature which makes the tiger tiger passes obviously +into man in virtue of the fact that he is on one side, on the side of +body and temperament, cousin to the tiger, as comparative anatomy shows. +This presence in man of a tiger-principle does not occur by a mistake, +for it is an admirable fuel or fire, an admirable generator of force, +which the higher powers may first master and then use. But at first it +assumes place in man wholly untamed and seemingly tameless, indisposed +for aught but sovereignty. Of course, having place in man, it passes, +and in the same crude state, into society. And thus it happens, that, +when the unconquerable affinities of men bring them together, this +principle arises in its brutal might, and strives to make itself central +and supreme. + +But what is highest in man has its own inevitable urgency, as well as +what is lowest. It can never be left out of the account. Gravitation +is powerful and perpetual; but the pine pushes up in opposition to it +nevertheless. The forces of the inorganic realm strive with might to +keep their own; but organic life _will_ exist on the planet in their +despite, and will conquer from the earth what material it needs. And, in +like manner, no sooner do men aggregate than there begin to play back +and forth between them ideal or ascending forces, mediations of reason, +conscience, soul; and the ever growing interpretations of these appear +as courtesies, laws, moralities, worships,--as all the noble communities +which constitute a high social state. In fine, there is that in man +which seeks perpetually, for it seeks necessarily, to give the position +of centrality in society to the ideal principle of justice and to the +great charities of the human soul. + +Hence a contest. Two antagonistic principles leap forth from the bosom +of man, so soon as men come together, seeking severally to establish +the law of social relationship. One of these is predaceous, brutal; the +other ideal, humane. One says, "Might makes Right"; the other, "Might +should serve Right." One looks upon mankind at large as a harvest to +be gathered for the behoof of a few, who are confederate only for that +purpose, even as wolves hunt in packs; the other regards humanity as +a growth to be fostered for its own sake and worth, and affirms that +superiority of strength is given for service, not for spoil. One makes +the _ego_ supreme; the other makes rational right supreme. One seeks +private gratification at any expense to higher values, even as the tiger +would, were it possible, draw and drink the blood of the universe as +soon as the blood of a cow; the other establishes an ideal estimate +of values, and places private gratification low on the scale. But the +deepest difference between them, the root of separation, remains to +be stated. It is the opposite climate they have of man in the pure +simplicity of his being. The predaceous principle says,--"Man is in and +of himself valueless; he attains value only by position, by subduing the +will of others to his own; and in subjecting others he destroys nothing +of worth, since those who are weak enough to fall are by that very fact +proved to be worthless." The humane or socializing principle, on the +contrary, says,--"Manhood is value; the essence of all value is found +in the individual soul; and therefore the final use of the world, of +society, of action, of all that man does and of all that surrounds +him, is to develop intelligence, to bring forth the mind and soul into +power,--in fine, to realize in each the spiritual possibilities of man." + +True socialization now exists only as this nobler principle is +victorious. It exists only in proportion as force is lent to ideal +relations, relations prescribed by reason, conscience, and reverence for +the being of man,--only in proportion, therefore, as the total force +of the state kneels before each individual soul, and, without foolish +intermeddlings, or confusions of order, proffers protection, service, +succor. Here is a socialization flowing, self-poised, fertilizing; it is +full of gracious invitation to all, yet regulates all; it makes liberty +by making law; it produces and distributes privilege. Here there is not +only _community_, that is, the unity of many in the enjoyment of common +privilege, but there is more, there is positive fructification, there +is a wide, manifold, infinitely precious evocation of intelligence, of +moral power, and of all spiritual worth. + +As, on the contrary, the baser principle triumphs, there is no genuine +socialization, but only a brute aggregation of subjection beneath and a +brute dominance of egotism above. Society is mocked and travestied, not +established, in proportion as force is lent to egotism. If anywhere +the power which we call _state_ set its heel on an innocent soul,--if +anywhere it suppress, instead of uniting intelligence,--if anywhere +it deny, though only to one individual, the privilege of becoming +human,--to such an extent it wars against society and civilization, to +such extent sets its face against the divine uses of the world. + +Now the contest between these opposing principles is that which is +raging in our country this day. Of course, any broad territorial +representation of this must be of a very mixed quality. Our best +civilizations are badly mottled with stains of barbarism. In no state or +city can egotism, either of the hot-blooded or cold-blooded kind,--and +the latter is far the more virulent,--be far to seek. On the other hand, +no social system, thank God, can quite reverse the better instincts of +humanity; and it may be freely granted that even American slavery shades +off, here and there, into quite tender modifications. Yet not in all the +world could there possibly be found an antagonism so deep and intense as +exists here. The Old World seems to have thrown upon the shores of the +New its utmost extremes, its Oriental barbarisms and its orients and +auroras of hope and belief; so that here coexist what Asia was three +thousand years ago, and what Europe may be one thousand years hence. Let +us consider the actual _status_. + +In certain localities of Southern Africa there is a remarkable fly, the +Tsetse fly. In the ordinary course of satisfying its hunger, this insect +punctures the skin of a horse, and the animal dies in consequence. A fly +makes a lunch, and a horse's life pays the price of the meal. This has +ever seemed to me to represent the beast-of-prey principle in Nature +more vigorously than any other fact. But in that system whose fangs +are now red with the blood of our brave there is an expression of this +principle not less enormous. It is the very Tsetse fly of civilization. +That a small minority of Southern men may make money without earning +it,--that a few thousand individuals may monopolize the cotton-market +of the world,--what a suppression and destruction of intelligence it +perpetrates I what consuming of spiritual possibilities! what mental +wreck and waste! Whites, too, suffer equally with blacks. Less +oppressed, they are perhaps even more demoralized. No parallel example +does the earth exhibit of the sacrifice of transcendent values for +pitiful ends. + +In attempting to destroy free government and rational socialization in +America, this system is treading no new road, it is only proceeding on +the old. Its central law is that of destroying any value, however +great, for the sake of any gratification, however small. Accustomed to +battening on the hopes of humanity,--accustomed to taking stock in +human degradation, and declaring dividends upon enforced ignorance and +crime,--existing only while every canon of the common law is annulled, +and every precept of morals and civilization set at nought,--could it be +expected to pause just when, or rather just _because_, it had apparently +found the richest possible prey? Could it be expected to withhold its +fang for no other reason than that its fang was allured by a more +opulent artery than ever before? The simple truth is--and he knows +nothing about this controversy who fails to perceive such truth--that +the system whose hands are now armed against us has always borne these +arms in its heart; that the fang which is now bared has hitherto been +only concealed, not wanting; that the tree which is to-day in bloody +blossom is the same tree it ever was, and carried these blossoms in its +sap long ere spreading them upon its boughs. + +To this predaceous system what do we oppose? We oppose a socialization +that has features,--I will say no more,--has _features_ of generous +breadth and promise, that are the best fruition of many countries and +centuries. Faults and drawbacks it has enough and to spare; conspicuous +among which may be named the vulgar and disgusting "negrophobia,"--a +mark of under-breeding which one hopes may not disgrace us always. But +let us be carried away by no mania for self-criticism. Two claims for +ourselves may be made. First, a higher grade of laws nowhere exists with +a less amount of coercive application,--exists, that is, by the rational +and constant choice of the whole people. Secondly, it may be questioned +whether anywhere in the world the development of intelligence and moral +force in the whole people is to a greater extent a national aim. But +abandoning all comparison with other peoples, this we may say with no +doubtful voice: We stand for the best ideas of the Old World in the New; +we stand for orderly-freedom and true socialization in America; we stand +for these, and with us these must here stand or fall. + +Now, of course, we are not about to become the offscouring of the earth +by yielding these up to destruction. Of course, we shall not convert +ourselves into a nation of Iscariots, and give over civilization to +the bowie-knife, with the mere hope of so making money out of Southern +trade,--which we should not do,--and with the certainty of a gibbet in +history, to mention no greater penalty. + +But refusing this perfidy, could we have avoided this war? No; for +it was simply our refusal of such perfidy which, so far as we are +concerned, brought the war on. The South, having ever since the +Mexican War stood with its sword half out of the scabbard, perpetually +threatening to give its edge,--having made it the chief problem of our +politics, by what gift or concession to purchase exemption from that +dreaded blade,--at last reached its ultimate demand. "Will you," it said +to the North, "abdicate the privileges of equal citizenship? Will +you give up this continent, territory, Free States and all, to our +predaceous, blood-eating system? Will you sell into slavery the elective +franchise itself? Will you sell the elective franchise itself into +slavery, and take for pay barely the poltroon's price, that of being +scornfully spared by the sword we stand ready to draw?" The +North excused itself politely. In the softest voice, but with a +soft-voicedness that did not wholly conceal an iron thread of +resolution, it declined to comply with that most modest demand. Then the +sword came out and struck at our life. "Was it matter of choice with us +whether we would fight? Not unless it were also matter of choice whether +we would become the very sweepings and blemish of creation. + +"But we might have permitted secession." No, we could not. It was +clearly impracticable. "But why not?" _Because that would have been +to surrender the whole under the guise of giving up half_. Such a +concession could have meant to the people of the rebellious States, and, +in the existing state of national belief, could have meant to our very +selves, nothing other than this:--"We submit; do what you will; we are +shopkeepers and cowards; we must have your trade; and besides, though +expert in the use of yardsticks, we have not the nerve for handling +guns." From that moment we should have lost all authority on this +continent, and all respect on the other. + +The English papers have blamed us for fighting; but had we failed to +fight, not one of these censuring mouths but would have hissed at us +like an adder with contempt Nay, we ourselves should, as it were, soon +have lost the musical speech and high carriage of men, and fallen to +a proneness and a hissing, degraded in our own eyes even more than in +those of our neighbors. Of course, from this state we should have risen; +but it would have been to see the redness of war on our own fields +and its flames wrapping our own households. We should have risen, but +through a contest to which this war, gigantic though it be, is but a +quarrel of school-boys. + +By sheer necessity we began to fight; by the same we must fight It out. +Compromise is, in the nature of the case, impossible. It can mean only +_surrender_. Had there been an inch more of ground for us to yield +without total submission, the war would have been, for the present, +staved off. We turned to bay only when driven back to the vital +principle of our polity and the vital facts of our socialization. + +Politically, what was the immediate grievance of the South? Simply that +Northern freemen went to the polls as freemen; simply that they there +expressed, under constitutional forms, their lawful preference. How +can we compromise here, even to the breadth of a hair? How compromise +without stipulating that all Northern electors shall henceforth go to +the polls in charge of an armed police, and there deposit such ballot as +the slave-masters of the Secession States shall direct? + +Again, in our social state what is it that gives umbrage to our +antagonists? They have answered the question for us; they have stated it +repeatedly in the plainest English. It is simply the fact that we _are_ +free States; that we have, and honor, free labor; that we have schools +for the people; that we teach the duty of each to all and of all to +each; that we respect the human principle, the spiritual possibility, +in man; in fine, that ours is a human socialization, whose fundamental +principles are the venerableness of man's nature and the superiority +of reason and right to any individual will. So far as we are base +bargainers and unbelievers, they can tolerate us, even though they +despise; just where our praise begins, begin their detestation and +animosity. + +It is, by the pointed confession of Southern spokesmen, what we are, +rather than what we have done, which makes them Secessionists; and any +man of sense might, indeed must, see this fact, were the confession +withheld. In action we have conformed to Southern wishes, as if +conformity could not be in excess. We have conformed to an extent +that--to mention nothing of more importance--had nearly ruined us in the +estimation of mankind. One chief reason, indeed, why the sympathy of +Europe did not immediately go with us was that a disgust toward us had +been created by the football passivity, as it seemed abroad, with which +we had submitted to be kicked to and fro. The rebellion was deemed to be +on our side, not on theirs. We, born servitors and underlings, it was +thought, had forgotten our proper places,--nay, had presumed to strike +back, when our masters chastised us. Of course, we should soon be +whipped to our knees again. And when we were again submissive and +abject, Europe must so have demeaned itself as still to be on good terms +with the conquerors. As for us, our final opinion of their demeanor, so +they deemed, mattered very little. The ill opinion of the servants can +be borne; but one must needs be on friendly terms with the master of the +house. The conduct of Europe toward us at the outbreak of this war is +to be thus explained, more than in any other way. According to European +understanding, we had before written ourselves down menials; therefore, +on rising to the attitude of men, we were scorned as upstarts. + +The world has now discovered that there was less cowardice and more +comity in this yielding than had been supposed. Yet in candor one must +confess that it was barely not carried to a fatal extent. One step more +in that direction, and we had gone over the brink and into the abyss. +Only when the last test arrived, and we must decide once and forever +whether we would be the champions or the apostates of civilization, did +we show to the foe not the dastard back, but the dauntless front. And +the proposal to "compromise" is simply and exactly a proposal to us to +reverse that decision. + +Again, we can propose no compromise, such as would stay the war, without +confessing that there was no occasion for beginning it. And if, indeed, +we began it without occasion, without an occasion absolutely imperative, +then does the whole mountain--weight of its guilt lie on our hearts. +Then in every man that has fallen on either side we are assassins. The +proposal to bring back the seceded States by submission to their demands +is neither more nor less than a proposal to write "Murderer" on the brow +of every soldier in our armies, and "Twice Murderer" over the grave of +every one of our slain. If such submission be due now, not less was +it due before the war began. To say that it was then due, and then +withheld, is, I repeat, merely to brand with the blackness of +assassination the whole patriotic service of the United States, both +civil and military, for the last two years. + +If, now, such be, in very deed, our guilt, let us lose no moment in +confessing the fact,--nor afterwards lose a moment in creeping to the +gallows, that must, in that case, be hungering for us. But if no such +guilt be ours, then why should not our courage be as good as our cause? +If not only by the warrant, but by the imperative bidding of Heaven, +we have taken up arms, then why should we not, as under the banner of +Heaven, bear them to the end? + +In this course, no _real_ failure can await us. Obeying the necessity +which is laid upon us, and simply conducting ourselves as men of +humanity, courage, and honor, we shall surely vindicate the principles +of civilization and Orderly society, within our own States, whether we +immediately succeed in impressing them on South Carolina and her evil +sisterhood or not. Let us but vindicate their existence on any part of +this continent, and that alone will insure their final prevalence on the +continent as a whole. Let us now but make them inexpugnable, and they +will make themselves universal. This law of necessary prevalence, in a +socialization whose vital principle is reverence for the nature of man, +was clearly seen by the masters, or rather, one should say, by the +subjects, of the slave system; and this war signifies their immediate +purpose to build up between it and themselves a Chinese excluding +wall, and their ulterior purpose to starve and trample it out of this +hemisphere. + +Finally, just that which teaches us charity toward the slaveholders +teaches us also, forbearing all thought of base and demoralizing +compositions, to press the hand steadily upon the hilt it has grasped, +until war's work is done. These servants of a predaceous principle are +nearly, if not quite, its earliest prey. Enemies to us, they are twice +enemies to themselves. They are driven helplessly on, and will be so +until we slay the tyrant that wrings from them their evil services. +During that fatal month's _siesta_ at Yorktown, the country was +horror-stricken to hear that the enemy were forcing negroes at the point +of the bayonet to work those pieces of ordnance from which the whites, +in terror of our sharpshooters, had fled away. But behind the whites +themselves, behind the whole disloyal South, had long been another +bayonet goading heart and brain, and pricking them on to aggression +after aggression, till aggression found its goal, where we trust it will +find its grave, in civil war. Poor wretches! Who does not pity them? Who +that pities them wisely would not all the more firmly grasp that sword +which alone can deliver them? + +Nor has the slave-system been any worse than it must be, in pushing us +and them to the present pass. So bad it must be, or cease to be at all. +All things obey their nature. Hydrophobia will bite, small-pox infect, +plague enter upon life and depart upon death, hyenas scent the new-made +graves, and predaceous systems of society open their mouths ever and +ever for prey. What else _can_ they do? Even would the Secessionists +consent to partial compositions, as they will not, they must inevitably +break faith, as ever before. They are slaves to the slave-system. As +wise were it to covenant with the dust not to fly, or with the sea not +to foam, when the hurricane blows, as to bargain with these that they +shall resist that despotic impetus which compels them. They are slaves. +And their master is one whose law is to devour. Only he who might +meditate letting go a Bengal tiger on its parole of honor, or binding +over a pestilence to keep the peace, should so much as dream for a +moment of civil compositions with this system. Its action is inevitable. +And therefore our only wisdom will be to make our way by the straightest +path to this, which is our chief, and in the last analysis our only +enemy, and cut it through and through. This only will be a final +preservation to ourselves; this only the noblest amity to the South; +this, deliverance to the captivity of two continents, Africa and +America: so that here principle and policy are for once so obviously, as +ever they are really, one and the same, that no man of sense should fail +to perceive their unity. + + * * * * * + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +The Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. Illustrated from +Drawings by F.O.C. Darley and John Gilbert. Dombey & Son. In Four +Volumes. New York. Sheldon & Co. 16mo. pp. 322, 312, 306, 336. $3.00. + +The Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. Illustrated from +Drawings by F.O.C. Darley and John Gilbert. David Copperfield. 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Van +Nostrand. 8vo. paper, pp. 62. 30 cts. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13026 *** 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..96fb2f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #13026 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13026) diff --git a/old/13026-8.txt b/old/13026-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..19186d7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13026-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8667 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, +1863, by Various + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: July 26, 2004 [eBook #13026] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 11, ISSUE +67, MAY, 1863*** + + +E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen, and Project Gutenberg +Distributed Proofreaders from page scans provided by Cornell University + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. XI.--MAY, 1863.--NO. LXVII. + + + + + + +CHARLES LAMB'S UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS. + + +I. + +What Southey says of Cottle's shop is true of the little bookstore in a +certain old town of New England, which I used to frequent years ago, and +where I got my first peep into Chaucer, and Spenser, and Fuller, and Sir +Thomas Browne, and other renowned old authors, from whom I now derive so +much pleasure and solacement. 'Twas a place where sundry lovers of good +books used to meet and descant eloquently and enthusiastically upon the +merits and demerits of their favorite authors. I, then a young man, with +a most praiseworthy desire of reading "books that are books," but with +a most lamentable ignorance of even the names of the principal +English authors, was both a pleased and a benefited listener to the +conversations of these bookish men. Hawthorne says that to hear the +old Inspector (whom he has immortalized in the quaint and genial +introduction to the "Scarlet Letter") expatiate on fish, poultry, and +butcher's-meat, and the most eligible methods of preparing the same for +the table, was as appetizing as a pickle or an oyster; and to hear these +literary gourmands talk with such gusto of this writer's delightful +style, or of that one's delicious humor, or t' other's brilliant wit +and merciless satire, gave one a taste and a relish for the authors so +lovingly and heartily commended. Certainly, after hearing the genial, +scholarly, gentlemanly lawyer S---- sweetly discourse on the old English +divines,--or bluff, burly, good-natured, wit-loving Master R---- +declaim, in his loud, bold, enthusiastic manner, on the old English +dramatists,--or queer, quaint, golden-hearted Dr. D---- mildly and +modestly, yet most pertinently, express himself about Old Burton and Old +Fuller,--or wise, thoughtful, ingenious Squire M---- ably, if not very +eloquently, hold forth on Shakspeare and Milton, I had (who but a dunce +or dunderhead would not have had?) a "greedy great desire" to look into +the works of + + "Such famous men, such worthies of the + earth." + +And after listening to the stout, brawny, two-fisted, whole-soled, +big-hearted, large-brained Parson A----, as he talked in his wise and +winsome manner about Charles Lamed and his writings, I could not refrain +from forthwith procuring and reading Elia's famous and immortal essays. +Since then I have been a constant reader of Elia, and a most zealous +admirer of Charles Lamb the author and Charles Lamb the man. Thackeray, +you remember, somewhere mentions a youthful admirer of Dickens, who, +when she is happy, reads "Nicholas Nickleby,"--when she is unhappy, +reads "Nicholas Nickleby,"--when she is in bed, reads "Nicholas +Nickleby,"--when she has nothing to do, reads "Nicholas Nickleby,"--and +when she has finished the book, reads "Nicholas Nickleby": and so do I +read and re-read the essays and letters of Charles Lamb; and the oftener +I read them, the better I like then, the higher I value them. Indeed, I +live upon the essays of Elia, as Hazlitt did upon "Tristram Shandy," as +a sort of food that simulates with my natural disposition. + +And yet, despite all my love and admiration of Charles Lamb,--nay, +rather in consequence of it,--I must blame him of what Mr. Barron Field +was please to eulogize him for,--writing so little. Undoubtedly in most +authors suppression in writing would be a virtue. In Lamb it was a +fault. There are a score or two of subjects which he, "no less from +temerity than felicity of his pen," should have written upon,--subjects +on which he had thought and ruminated for years, and which he, and none +but he, could do justice to. He who loved and admired before or since, +such sterling old writers as Burton, Browne, Fuller, and Walton, should +have given us an article on each of those worthies and their inditing. +Chaucer and Spenser, though proud and happy in having had such an +appreciating reader of there writings as Elia was, when denizen of this +earth, would, methinks, have given him a warmer, heartier, gladder +welcome to heaven, if he had done for them what he did for Hogarth and +the old dramatists,--pointed out to the would "with a finger of fire" +the truth and beauty contained in their works. Instead of writing only +two volumes of essays, Elia should have written a dozen. He had read, +heard, thought, and seen enough to furnish matter for twice that number. +He himself confesseth, in a letter written a year or two before his +death, that he felt as if he had a thousand essays swelling within him. +Oh that Elia, like Mr. Spectator, had printed himself out before he +died! + +But notwithstanding Lamb's fame and popularity, notwithstanding +all readers of his inimitable essays lament that one who wrote so +delightfully as Elia did should have written so little, their has not +yet be published a complete collection of his writings. The standard +edition of his works, edited by Talfourd, is far from being complete. +Surely the author of "Ion" was unwise in not publishing all of Lamb's +productions. Carlyle said he wanted to know all about Margaret Fuller, +even to the color of her stocking. And the admirers of Elia wanted +to possess every scrap and fragment of his inditing. They cannot let +oblivion have the lease "notelet" or "essaykin" of his. For, however +inferior to his best productions these uncollected articles may be, +they must contain more or less of Lamb's humor, sense, and observation. +Somewhat of his delightful individuality must be stamped upon them. In +brief, they cannot but contain much that would amuse and entertain all +admirers of their author. For myself, I would rather read the poorest of +these uncollected essays of Elia than the best productions of some of +the most popular of modern authors. "The king's chaff is as good as +other people's corn," saith the old proverb. "There is a pleasure +arising from the very bagatelles of men renowned for their knowledge and +genius," says Goldsmith; "and we receive with veneration those pieces, +after they are dead, which would lessen them in our estimation while +living: sensible that we shall enjoy them no more, we treasure up, as +precious relics, every saying and word that has escaped them; but their +writings, of every kind, we deem inestimable." + +For years I have been hopefully and patiently waiting for somebody to +collect and publish these scattered and all but forgotten articles of +Lamb's; but at last, seeing no likelihood of its being done at present, +if ever in my day, and fearing that I might else never have an +opportunity of perusing these strangely neglected writings of my +favorite author, I commenced the task of searching out and discovering +them myself for mine own delectation. And after a deal of fruitless and +aimless labor, (for, unlike Johannes Scotus Erigena, in his quest of a +treatise of Aristotle, I had no oracle to consult,) after spending as +many days in turning over the leaves of I know not how many volumes of +old, dusty, musty, fusty periodicals as Mr. Vernon ran miles after a +butterfly, I was amply rewarded for all my pains. For I not only found +all of Lamb's uncollected writings that are spoken of in his "Life and +Letters," but a goodly number of articles from his pen which neither +he nor his biographer has ever alluded to. As I read these (to me) +new essays of Elia, I could not but feel somewhat indignant that such +excellent productions of such an excellent writer should have been +"underkept and down supprest" so long. I was as much ravished with these +new-found essays of Lamb's as good old Nicholas Gerbelius (see Burton's +"Anatomy of Melancholy," Partition II., Section 2, Member 4) was with +a few Greek authors restored to light. If I had had one or two loving, +enthusiastic admirers of Charles Lamb to enjoy with me the delight of +perusing these uncollected Elias, I should have been "all felicity up to +the brim." For with me, as with Michael de Montaigne and Hans Andersen, +there is no pleasure without communication. + +And therefore, partly to please myself, and partly to please the +admirers of Charles Lamb, I herewith publish a part of Elia's +uncollected essays and sketches. To ninety-nine hundredths of their +author's readers they will be as good as MSS. And not only will they be +new to most readers, but they will be found to be not wholly unworthy of +him who wrote the immortal dissertation on "Roast Pig." Albeit not to be +compared with Elia's best and most finished productions, these articles +contain some of the best qualities and peculiarities of his genius. +Without doubt, all genuine admirers, all true lovers of the gentle, +genial, delightful Elia, will be mightily pleased with these productions +of his inimitable pen. + +Those who were so fortunate as to be personally acquainted with Charles +Lamb are lavish in their praise of his conversational powers. Hazlitt +says that no one ever stammered out such fine, piquant, deep, eloquent +things in a half-dozen half-sentences as he did. "He always made the +best pun and the best remark in the course of the evening." Lamb was +undoubtedly "matchless as a fireside companion," inimitable as a +table-talker, "great at the midnight hour." The "wit-combats" at his +Wednesday-evening parties were waged with scarcely inferior skill and +ability to those fought at the old Mermaid tavern between Shakspeare +and Ben Jonson. Hazlitt, in his delightful essay intituled "Persons One +would Wish to have Seen," gives a masterly report of the sayings and +doings at one of these parties. It is to be regretted that he did not +report the conversation at all of these weekly assemblages of wits, +humorists, and good-fellows. He made a capital book out of the +conversation of James Northcote: he could have made a better one out of +the conversation of Charles Lamb. Indeed, Elia himself seems to have +been conscious that many of his deepest, wisest, best thoughts and +ideas, as well as wildest, wittiest, airiest fancies and conceits, were +vented in conversation; and a few months before his death he noted down +for the entertainment of the readers of the London "Athenaeum," a few +specimens of his table-talk. Although these paragraphs of table-talk are +not transcripts of their author's actual conversation, they doubtless +contain the pith and substance of what he had really said in some of his +familiar discourses with friends and acquaintances. They contain none of +his "jests that scald like tears," none of his play upon words, none of +his flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar, but +some of his sweet, serious, beautiful thoughts and fancies. + +Strange that Talfourd neglected to print "Table-Talk" in his edition of +Lamb! He does not even mention it. It is certainly as good, if not +a great deal better than some things of Lamb's which he saw fit to +reprint. But the best way to praise Elia's "Table-Talk" is, as the +"Tatler" says of South's wise and witty discourse on the "Pleasures of +Religious Wisdom," to quote it; and therefore here followeth, without +further comment or introduction,-- + +"TABLE-TALK. BY THE LATE ELIA. + +"It is a desideratum in works that treat _de re culinariâ_, that we +have no rationale of sauces, or theory of mixed flavors: as to show why +cabbage is reprehensible with roast beef, laudable with bacon; why the +haunch of mutton seeks the alliance of currant-jelly, the shoulder +civilly declineth it; why loin of veal, (a pretty problem,) being itself +unctuous, seeketh the adventitious lubricity of melted butter,--and why +the same part in pork, not more oleaginous, abhorreth from it; why the +French bean sympathizes with the flesh of deer; why salt fish points to +parsnip, brawn makes a dead-set at mustard; why cats prefer valerian to +heart's-ease, old ladies _vice versâ_,--though this is rather travelling +out of the road of the dietetics, and may be thought a question more +curious than relevant; why salmon (a strong sapor _per se_) fortifieth +its condition with the mighty lobster-sauce, whose embraces are fatal to +the delicater relish of the turbot; why oysters in death rise up against +the contamination of brown sugar, while they are posthumously amorous +of vinegar; why the sour mango and the sweet jam by turns court and are +accepted by the compilable mutton-hash,--she not yet decidedly declaring +for either. We are as yet but in the empirical stage of cookery. We +feed ignorantly, and want to be able to give a reason of the relish that +is in us; so that, if Nature should furnish us with a new meat, or be +prodigally pleased to restore the phoenix, upon a _given_ flavor, we +might be able to pronounce instantly, on philosophical principles, what +the sauce to it should be,--what the curious adjuncts." + + * * * * * + +"The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth and to +have it found out by accident." + + * * * * * + +"'T is unpleasant to meet a beggar. It is painful to deny him; and if +you relieve him, it is so much out of your pocket." + + * * * * * + +"Men marry for fortune, and sometimes to please their fancy; but, much +oftener than is suspected, they consider what the world will say of +it, how such a woman in their friends' eyes will look at the head of a +table. Hence we see so many insipid beauties made wives of, that could +not have struck the particular fancy of any man that had any fancy at +all. These I call _furniture wives_; as men buy _furniture pictures_, +because they suit this or that niche in their dining-parlors. + +"Your universally cried-up beauties are the very last choice which a man +of taste would make. What pleases all cannot have that individual charm +which makes this or that countenance engaging to you, and to you +only perhaps, you know not why. What gained the fair Gunnings titled +husbands, who, after all, turned out very sorry wives? Popular repute." + + * * * * * + +"It is a sore trial, when a daughter shall marry against her father's +approbation. A little hard-heartedness, and aversion to a reconcilement, +is almost pardonable. After all, Will Dockwray's way is, perhaps, the +wisest. His best-loved daughter made a most imprudent match,--in fact, +eloped with the last man in the world that her father would have wished +her to marry. All the world said that he would never speak to her again. +For months she durst not write to him, much less come near him. But, in +a casual rencounter, he met her in the streets of Ware,--Ware, that will +long remember the mild virtues of William Dockwray, Esq. What said the +parent to his disobedient child, whose knees faltered under her at the +sight of him? 'Ha, Sukey, is it you?' with that benevolent aspect with +which he paced the streets of Ware, venerated as an angel,--'come and +dine with us on Sunday'; then turning away, and again turning back, as +if he had forgotten something, he added,--'and, Sukey, do you hear? +bring your husband with you.' This was all the reproof she ever heard +from him. Need it be added that the match turned out better for Susan +than the world expected?" + + * * * * * + +"'We read the "Paradise Lost" as a task,' says Dr. Johnson. Nay, rather +as a celestial recreation, of which the dullard mind is not at all hours +alike recipient. 'Nobody ever wished it longer';--nor the moon rounder, +he might have added. Why, 'tis the perfectness and completeness of +it which makes us imagine that not a line could be added to it, or +diminished from it, with advantage. Would we have a cubit added to the +stature of the Medicean Venus? Do we wish her taller?" + + * * * * * + +"Amidst the complaints of the wide spread of infidelity among us, it is +consolatory that a sect is sprung up in the heart of the metropolis, and +is daily on the increase, of teachers of that healing doctrine which +Pope upheld, and against which Voltaire directed his envenomed wit. We +mean those practical preachers of Optimism, or the belief that _Whatever +is best_, the cads of omnibuses, who, from their little back pulpits, +not once in three or four hours, as those proclaimers of 'God and His +prophet' in Mussulman countries, but every minute, at the entry or +exit of a brief passenger, are heard, in an almost prophetic tone, +to exclaim, (Wisdom crying out, as it were, in the streets,) 'ALL'S +RIGHT!'" + + * * * * * + +"Advice is not so commonly thrown away as is imagined. We seek it in +difficulties. But, in common speech, we are apt to confound with it +_admonition:_ as when a friend reminds one that drink is prejudicial to +the health, etc. We do not care to be told of that which we know better +than the good man that admonishes. M---- sent to his friend L----, who +is no water-drinker, a two-penny tract 'Against the Use of Fermented +Liquors.' L---- acknowledged the obligation, as far as to _twopence_. +Penotier's advice was the safest, after all:-- + +"'I advised him'-- + +"But I must tell you. The dear, good-meaning, no-thinking creature +had been dumbfounding a company of us with a detail of inextricable +difficulties in which the circumstances of an acquaintance of his were +involved. No clue of light offered itself. He grew more and more misty +as he proceeded. We pitied his friend, and thought,-- + + "'God help the man so wrapt in error's endless + maze!' + +"when, suddenly brightening up his placid countenance, like one that had +found out a riddle, and looked to have the solution admired,-- + +"'At last,' said he, 'I advised him'-- + +"Here he paused, and here we were again interminably thrown back. By no +possible guess could any of us aim at the drift of the meaning he was +about to be delivered of. + +"'I advised him,' he repeated, 'to have some _advice_ upon the subject.' + +"A general approbation followed; and it was unanimously agreed, that, +under all the circumstances of the case, no sounder or more judicious +counsel could have been given." + + * * * * * + +"A laxity pervades the popular use of words. + +"Parson W---- is not quite so continent as Diana, yet prettily +dissembleth his frailty. Is Parson W---- therefore a _hypocrite?_ I +think not. Where the concealment of a vice is less pernicious than the +barefaced publication of it would be, no additional delinquency is +incurred in the secrecy. + +"Parson W---- is simply an immoral clergyman. But if Parson W---- were +to be forever haranguing on the opposite virtue,--choosing for his +perpetual text, in preference to all other pulpit-topics, the remarkable +resistance recorded in the 89th of Exodus [Genesis?],--dwelling, +moreover, and dilating upon it,--then Parson W---- might be reasonably +suspected of hypocrisy. But Parson W---- rarely diverteth into such line +of argument, or toucheth it briefly. His ordinary topics are fetched +from 'obedience to the powers that are,'--'submission to the civil +magistrate in all commands that are not absolutely unlawful'; on which +he can delight to expatiate with equal fervor and sincerity. + +"Again. To _despise_ a person is properly to _look down_ upon him with +none or the least possible emotion. But when Clementina, who has lately +lost her lover, with bosom heaving, eyes flashing, and her whole frame +in agitation, pronounces with a peculiar emphasis that she '_despises_ +the fellow,' depend upon it that he is not quite so despicable in her +eyes as she would have us imagine. + +"One more instance. If we must naturalize that portentous phrase, _a +truism_, it were well that we limited the use of it. Every commonplace +or trite observation is not a truism. For example: A good name helps +a man on in the world. This is nothing but a simple truth, however +hackneyed. It has a distinct subject and predicate. But when the thing +predicated is involved in the term of the subject, and so necessarily +involved that by no possible conception they can be separated, then +it becomes a truism; as to say, A good name is a proof of a man's +estimation in the world. We seem to be saying something, when we say +nothing. I was describing to F---- some knavish tricks of a mutual +friend of ours. 'If he did so and so,' was the reply, 'he cannot be an +honest man.' Here was a genuine truism, truth upon truth, inference and +proposition identical,--or rather, a dictionary definition usurping the +place of an inference." + + * * * * * + +"We are ashamed at sight of a monkey,--somehow as we are shy of poor +relations." + + * * * * * + +"C---- imagined a Caledonian compartment in Hades, where there should be +fire without sulphur." + + * * * * * + +"Absurd images are sometimes irresistible. I will mention two. An +elephant in a coach-office gravely coming to have his trunk booked;--a +mermaid over a fish-kettle cooking her own tail." + + * * * * * + +"It is the praise of Shakspeare, with reference to the playwriters, his +contemporaries, that he has so few revolting characters. Yet be has one +that is singularly mean and disagreeable,--the King in 'Hamlet.' Neither +has he characters of insignificance, unless the phantom that stalks over +the stage as Julius Caesar, in the play of that name, may be accounted +one. Neither has he envious characters, excepting the short part of +Don John, in 'Much Ado about Nothing.' Neither has he unentertaining +characters, if we except Parolles, and the little that there is of the +Clown, in 'All's Well that Ends Well.'" + + * * * * * + +"It would settle the dispute as to whether Shakspeare intended Othello +for a jealous character, to consider how differently we are affected +towards him, and for Leontes in the 'Winter's Tale.' Leontes _is_ that +character. Othello's fault was simply credulity." + + * * * * * + +"Is it possible that Shakspeare should never have read Homer, in +Chapman's version at least? If he had read it, could he mean to +_travesty_ it in the parts of those big boobies, Ajax and Achilles? +Ulysses, Nestor, and Agamemnon are true to their parts in the 'Iliad +'; they are gentlemen at least. Thersites, though unamusing, is fairly +deducible from it. Troilus and Cressida are a fine graft upon it. But +those two big bulks"-- + + * * * * * + +Disraeli wrote a book on the Quarrels of Authors. Somebody should write +one on the Friendships of Literary Men. If such a work is ever written, +Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge will be honorably mentioned +therein. For among all the friendships celebrated in tale or history +there is none more admirable than that which existed between these two +eminent men. The "golden thread that tied their hearts together" was +never broken. Their friendship was never "chipt or diminished"; but the +longer they lived, the stronger it grew. Death could not destroy it. + +Lamb, after Coleridge's death, as if weary of "this green earth," as if +not caring if "sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer +holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juices of meats +and fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and candle-light, and +fireside conversations, and innocent vanities, and jests, and irony +itself," went out with life, willingly sought "Lavinian shores." + +"Lamb," as Mr. John Foster says, in his beautiful tribute to his memory, +"never fairly recovered the death of Coleridge. He thought of little +else (his sister was but another portion of himself) until his own great +spirit joined his friend. He had a habit of venting his melancholy in a +sort of mirth. He would, with nothing graver than a pun, 'cleanse his +bosom of the perilous stuff that weighed' upon it. In a jest, or a few +light phrases, he would lay open the last recesses of his heart. So in +respect of the death of Coleridge. Some old friends of his saw him two +or three weeks ago and remarked the constant turning and reference of +his mind. He interrupted-himself and them almost every instant with some +play of affected wonder, or astonishment, or humorous melancholy, on the +words, '_Coleridge is dead_.' Nothing could divert him from that, for +the thought of it never left him. About the same time, we had written +to him to request a few lines for the literary album of a gentleman who +entertained a fitting admiration of his genius. It was the last request +we were destined to make, the last kindness we were allowed to receive. +He wrote in Mr. Keymer's volume,--and wrote of Coleridge." + +And this is what he said of his friend: it would be, as Mr. Foster says, +impertinence to offer one remark on it:-- + +"When I heard of the death of Coleridge, it was without grief. It seemed +to me that he long had been on the confines of the next world,--that he +had a hunger for eternity. I grieved then that I could not grieve. But +since, I feel how great a part he was of me. His great and dear spirit +haunts me. I cannot think a thought, I cannot make a criticism on men or +books, without an ineffectual turning and reference to him. He was the +proof and touchstone of all my cogitations. He was a Grecian (or in the +first form) at Christ's Hospital, where I was Deputy-Grecian; and the +same subordination and deference to him I have preserved through a +life-long acquaintance. Great in his writings, he was greatest in his +conversation. In him was disproved that old maxim, that we should allow +every one his share of talk. He would talk from morn to dewy eve, nor +cease till far midnight; yet who ever would interrupt him? who would +obstruct that continuous flow of converse, fetched from Helicon or Zion? +He had the tact of making the unintelligible seem plain. Many who read +the abstruser parts of his 'Friend' would complain that his works did +not answer to his spoken wisdom. They were identical. But he had a +tone in oral delivery which seemed to convey sense to those who were +otherwise imperfect recipients. He was my fifty-years-old friend without +a dissension. Never saw I his likeness, nor probably the world can see +again. I seem to love the house he died at more passionately than when +he lived. I love the faithful Gilmans more than while they exercised +their virtues towards him living. What was his mansion is consecrated to +me a chapel. + +"CHS. LAMB. + +"EDMONTON, November 21, 1834." + + * * * * * + +Having seen what Charles Lamb says of Coleridge, perhaps the reader +would like to see what Charles Lamb says of himself. For he, (though +but few of his readers are aware of the fact,) like Lord Herbert +of Cherbury, Gibbon, Franklin, and other eminent men, wrote an +autobiography. It is certainly the briefest, and perhaps the wittiest +and most truthful autobiographical sketch in the language. It was +published in the "New Monthly Magazine" a few months after its author's +death, with the following preface or introduction from the pen of some +unknown admirer of Elia:-- + +"We have been favored, by the kindness of Mr. Upcott, with the following +sketch, written in one of his manuscript collections, by Charles Lamb. +It will be read with deep interest by all, but with the deepest interest +by those who had the honor and the happiness of knowing the writer. It +is so singularly characteristic, that we can scarcely persuade ourselves +we do not hear it, as we read, spoken from his living lips. Slight as +it is, it conveys the most exquisite and perfect notion of the personal +manner and habits of our friend. For the intellectual rest, we lift the +veil of its noble modesty, and can even here discern them. Mark its +humor, crammed into a few thinking words,--its pathetic sensibility in +the midst of contrast,--its wit, truth, and feeling,--and, above all, +its fanciful retreat at the close under a phantom cloud of death." + +CHARLES LAMB'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. + +"Charles Lamb, born in the Inner Temple, 10th February, 1775; educated +in Christ's Hospital; afterwards a clerk in the Accountants' Office, +East-India House; pensioned off from that service, 1825, after +thirty-three years' service; is now a gentleman at large;--can remember +few specialties in his life worth noting, except that he once caught a +swallow flying (_teste suâ manu_). Below the middle stature; cast of +face slightly Jewish, with no Judaic tinge in his complexional religion; +stammers abominably, and is therefore more apt to discharge his +occasional conversation in a quaint aphorism or a poor quibble than in +set and edifying speeches; has consequently been libelled as a person +always aiming at wit, which, as he told a dull fellow that charged him +with it, is at least as good as aiming at dulness. A small eater, +but not drinker; confesses a partiality for the production of the +juniper-berry; was a fierce smoker of tobacco, but may be resembled to +a volcano burnt out, emitting only now and then a casual puff. Has been +guilty of obtruding upon the public a tale in prose, called 'Rosamund +Gray,'--a dramatic sketch, named 'John Woodvil,'--a 'Farewell Ode to +Tobacco,'--with sundry other poems, and light prose matter, collected in +two slight crown octavos, and pompously christened his works, though in +fact they were his recreations, and his true works may be found on the +shelves of Leadenhall Street, filling some hundred folios. He is also +the true Elia, whose essays are extant in a little volume, published +a year or two since, and rather better known from that name without a +meaning than from anything he has done, or can hope to do, in his own. +He also was the first to draw the public attention to the old English +dramatists, in a work called 'Specimens of English Dramatic Writers +who lived about the Time of Shakspeare,' published about fifteen years +since. In short, all his merits and demerits to set forth would take to +the end of Mr. Upcott's book, and then not be told truly. + + "He died _____ 18__, much lamented.[A] + Witness his hand, + CHARLES LAMB. + + "18th April, 1827." + +[Footnote A: "_To Anybody_--Please to fill up these blanks."] + +Lamb, if he did not find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, +and sermons in stones, found good in everything. The soul of goodness in +things evil was visible to him. He had thought, felt, and suffered +so much, that, as Leigh Hunt says, he literally had intolerance for +nothing. Though he could see but little religion in many professing +Christians, he nevertheless saw that the motley players, "made up of +mimic laughter and tears, passing from the extremes of joy or woe at the +prompter's call," were not so godless and impious as the world believed +them to be. + +Writing to Bernard Barton in the spring of 1826, Lamb says, speaking +of his literary projects,--"A little thing without name will also be +printed on the Religion of the Actors, but it is out of your way; so I +recommend you, with true author's hypocrisy, to skip it." I wonder if +"good B.B." read the article, and, if he did, how he liked it. Quaker +though he was, he could not but have been pleased with it. Should you +like to read the "Religion of the Actors," reader? You will not find it +in any edition of Charles Lamb's writings. Here it is. + +THE RELIGION OF ACTORS. + +"The world has hitherto so little troubled its head with the points of +doctrine held by a community which contributes in other ways so largely +to its amusement, that, before the late mischance of a celebrated +tragic actor, it scarce condescended to look into the practice of any +individual player, much less to inquire into the hidden and abscondite +springs of his actions. Indeed, it is with some violence to the +imagination that we conceive of an actor as belonging to the relations +of private life, so closely do we identify these persons in our mind +with the characters which they assume upon the stage. How oddly does it +sound, when we are told that the late Miss Pope, for instance,--that +is to say, in our notion of her, Mrs. Candor,--was a good daughter, an +affectionate sister, and exemplary in all the parts of domestic life! +With still greater difficulty can we carry our notions to church, and +conceive of Liston kneeling upon a hassock, or Munden uttering a pious +ejaculation, 'making mouths at the invisible event.' But the times are +fast improving; and if the process of sanctity begun under the happy +auspices of the present licenser go on to its completion, it will be +as necessary for a comedian to give an account of his faith as of his +conduct. Fawcett must study the five points; and Dicky Suett, if he were +alive, would have had to rub up his catechism. Already the effects of it +begin to appear. A celebrated performer has thought fit to oblige the +world with a confession of his faith,--or, Br----'s 'Religio Dramatici.' +This gentleman, in his laudable attempt to shift from his person the +obloquy of Judaism, with the forwardness of a new convert, in trying to +prove too much, has, in the opinion of many, proved too little. A simple +declaration of his Christianity was sufficient; but, strange to say, +his apology has not a word about it. We are left to gather it from some +expressions which imply that he is a Protestant; but we did not wish to +inquire into the niceties of his orthodoxy. To his friends of the _old +persuasion_ the distinction was impertinent; for what cares Rabbi Ben +Kimchi for the differences which have split our novelty? To the great +body of Christians that hold the Pope's supremacy--that is to say, to +the major part of the Christian world--his religion will appear as +much to seek as ever. But perhaps he conceived that all Christians are +Protestants, as children, and the common people call all that are not +animals Christians. The mistake was not very considerable in so young a +proselyte. Or he might think the general (as logicians speak) involved +in the particular. All Protestants are Christians; but I am a +Protestant; _ergo_, etc.: as if a marmoset, contending to be a man, +overleaping that term as too generic and vulgar, should at once roundly +proclaim himself to be a gentleman. The argument would be, as we say, +_ex abundanti_. From whichever cause this _excessus in terminis_ +proceeded, we can do no less than congratulate the general state of +Christendom upon the accession of so extraordinary a convert. Who was +the happy instrument of the conversion we are yet to learn: it comes +nearest to the attempt of the late pious Doctor Watts to Christianize +the Psalms of the Old Testament. Something of the old Hebrew raciness is +lost in the transfusion; but much of its asperity is softened and pared +down in the adaptation. + +"The appearance of so singular a treatise at this conjuncture has set +us upon an inquiry into the present state of religion upon the stage +generally. By the favor of the church-wardens of Saint Martin's in the +Fields, and Saint Paul's, Covent Garden, who have very readily, and with +great kindness, assisted our pursuit, we are enabled to lay before the +public the following particulars. Strictly speaking, neither of the two +great bodies is collectively a religious institution. We had expected to +have found a chaplain among them, as at Saint Stephen's, and other Court +establishments; and were the more surprised at the omission, as the last +Mr. Bengough, at the one house, and Mr. Powell at the other, from a +gravity of speech and demeanor, and the habit of wearing black at their +first appearances in the beginning of _fifth_ or the conclusion of +_fourth acts_, so eminently pointed out their qualifications for such +office. These corporations, then, being not properly congregational, +we must seek the solution of our question in the tastes, attainments, +accidental breeding, and education of the individual members of them. +As we were prepared to expect, a majority at both houses adhere to the +religion of the Church Established, only that at one of them a pretty +strong leaven of Catholicism is suspected,--which, considering the +notorious education of the manager at a foreign seminary, is not so much +to be wondered at. Some have gone so far as to report that Mr. T----y, +in particular, belongs to an order lately restored on the Continent. We +can contradict this: that gentleman is a member of the Kirk of Scotland; +and his name is to be found, much to his honor, in the list of seceders +from the congregation of Mr. Fletcher. While the generality, as we have +said, are content to jog on in the safe trammels of national orthodoxy, +symptoms of a sectarian spirit have broken out in quarters where we +should least have looked for it. Some of the ladies at both houses are +deep in controverted points. Miss F----e, we are credibly informed, is +_Sub-_, and Madame V----a _Supra_-Lapsarian. Mr. Pope is the last of the +exploded sect of the Ranters. Mr. Sinclair has joined the Shakers. Mr. +Grimaldi, Senior, after being long a Jumper, has lately fallen into some +whimsical theories respecting the Fall of Man; which he understands, +not of an allegorical, but a _real tumble_, by which the whole body of +humanity became, as it were, lame to the performance of good works. +Pride he will have to be nothing but a stiff neck; irresolution, the +nerves shaken; an inclination to sinister paths, crookedness of the +joints; spiritual deadness, a paralysis; want of charity, a contraction +in the fingers; despising of government, a broken head; the plaster, a +sermon; the lint to bind it up, the text; the probers, the preachers; a +pair of crutches, the old and new law; a bandage, religious obligation: +a fanciful mode of illustration, derived from the accidents and habits +of his past calling _spiritualized_, rather than from any accurate +acquaintance with the Hebrew text, in which report speaks him but a raw +scholar. Mr. Elliston, from all that we can learn, has his religion yet +to choose; though some think him a Muggletonian." + + * * * * * + +Willis, in his "Pencillings by the Way," describing his interview with +Charles and Mary Lamb, says,--"Nothing could be more delightful than the +kindness and affection between the brother and the sister, though Lamb +was continually taking advantage of her deafness to mystify her with the +most singular gravity upon every topic that was started. 'Poor Mary!' +said he, 'she hears all of an epigram but the point.' 'What are you +saying of me, Charles?' she asked. 'Mr. Willis,' said he, raising his +voice, 'admires _your_ "Confessions of a Drunkard" very much, and I was +saying it was no merit of yours that you understood the subject.' We had +been speaking of this admirable essay (which is his own) half an hour +before." + +That essay has been strangely and purposely misunderstood. Elia, albeit +he loved the cheerful glass, was not a drunkard. The "poor nameless +egotist" of the Confessions is not Charles Lamb. In printing the article +in the "London Magazine," (it was originally contributed to a collection +of tracts published by Basil Montagu,) Elia introduced it to the readers +of that periodical in the following explanatory paragraphs. They should +be printed in all editions of Elia as a note to the article they explain +and comment on. For many persons, like a writer in the London "Quarterly +Review" for July, 1822, believe, or profess to believe, that this +"fearful picture of the consequences of intemperance" is a true tale. +"How far it was from actual truth," says Talfourd, "the essays of Elia, +the production of a later day, in which the maturity of his feeling, +humor, and reason is exhibited, may sufficiently show." + +ELIA ON HIS "CONFESSIONS OF A DRUNKARD." + +"Many are the sayings of Elia, painful and frequent his lucubrations, +set forth for the most part (such his modesty!) without a name, +scattered about in obscure periodicals and forgotten miscellanies. From +the dust of some of these it is our intention occasionally to revive a +tract or two that shall seem worthy of a better fate, especially at a +time like the present, when the pen of our industrious contributor, +engaged in a laborious digest of his recent Continental tour, may haply +want the leisure to expatiate in more miscellaneous speculations. We +have been induced, in the first instance, to reprint a thing which +he put forth in a friend's volume some years since, entitled 'The +Confessions of a Drunkard,' seeing that Messieurs the Quarterly +Reviewers have chosen to embellish their last dry pages with fruitful +quotations therefrom; adding, from their peculiar brains, the gratuitous +affirmation, that they have reason to believe that the describer (in his +delineations of a drunkard, forsooth!) partly sat for his own picture. +The truth is, that our friend had been reading among the essays of a +contemporary, who has perversely been confounded with him, a paper in +which Edax (or the Great Eater) humorously complaineth of an inordinate +appetite; and it struck him that a better paper--of deeper interest, and +wider usefulness--might be made out of the imagined experiences of a +Great Drinker. Accordingly he set to work, and, with that mock fervor +and counterfeit earnestness with which he is too apt to over-realize +his descriptions, has given us a frightful picture indeed, but no more +resembling the man Elia than the fictitious Edax may be supposed to +identify itself with Mr. L., its author. It is, indeed, a compound +extracted out of his long observations of the effects of drinking upon +all the world about him; and this accumulated mass of misery he hath +centred (as the custom is with judicious essayists) in a single figure. +We deny not that a portion of his own experiences may have passed into +the picture, (as who, that is not a washy fellow, but must at some times +have felt the after-operation of a too generous cup?)--but then how +heightened! how exaggerated! how little within the sense of the Review, +where a part, in their slanderous usage, must be understood to stand for +the whole! But it is useless to expostulate with this Quarterly slime, +brood of Nilus, watery heads with hearts of jelly, spawned under the +sign of Aquarius, incapable of Bacchus, and therefore cold, washy, +spiteful, bloodless. Elia shall string them up one day, and show their +colors,--or rather, how colorless and vapid the whole fry,--when he +putteth forth his long-promised, but unaccountably hitherto delayed, +'Confessions of a Water-Drinker.'" + + * * * * * + +In turning over the leaves of divers old periodicals in search of the +"Religion of Actors," I accidentally and unexpectedly found an article +by Charles Lamb entitled, "On the Custom of Hissing at the Theatres, +with some Account of a Club of Damned Authors." + +Lamb, we know, was a great lover of the drama,--a true patron and +admirer of playwrights and play-actors. He was, perhaps, the greatest +theatrical critic that ever lived. Many of the happiest hours of his +life were passed in reading the works of the old English dramatists, and +in witnessing the performances of favorite actors. He once had hopes of +being a successful dramatist himself, and to that end devoted many of +his spare hours and odd moments to the composition of a tragedy. ("John +Woodvil,") which John Kemble, "the stately manager of Drury Lane," +refused to bring out. But not wholly discouraged by the ill success of +his tragedy, he tried his hand at a farce, and produced "Mr. H.," which, +to the author's exceeding great delight, was accepted by the manager of +Drury-Lane Theatre.[B] + +[Footnote B: Talfourd says that the acceptance of "Mr. H." gave Lamb +some of the happiest moments he ever spent.] + +To Manning, then sojourning among the Mandarins, he thus writes of "Mr. +H.":-- + +"Now you'd like to know the subject. The title is 'Mr. H.',--no more: +how simple! how taking! A great H sprawling over the play-bill, and +attracting eyes at every corner. The story is a coxcomb appearing at +Bath, vastly rich,--all the ladies dying for him, all bursting to know +who he is; but he goes by no other name than Mr. H.: a curiosity like +that of the dames of Strasburg about the man with the great nose. But I +won't tell you any more about it. Yes, I will; but I can't give you an +idea how I have done it. I'll just tell you, that, after much vehement +admiration, when his true name comes out, 'Hogsflesh,' all the women +shun him, avoid him, and not one can be found to change their name for +him: that's the idea: how flat it is here! but how whimsical in +the farce! And only think how hard upon me it is, that the ship is +despatched to-morrow, and my triumph cannot be ascertained till the +Wednesday after;--but all China will ring of it by-and-by." + +Would that Lamb's joyous and exultant anticipations of "Mr. H."'s +success had proved true! But, instead of being greeted with the applause +of pit and gallery, which would have stood Elia instead of "the unheard +voice of posterity," the piece was hissed and hooted from the stage. + +In a letter to Manning, written early in 1808, he thus, half humorously, +half pathetically, describes the reception the town gave "Mr. H.":-- + +"So I go creeping on since I was lamed with that cursed fall from off +the top of Drury-Lane Theatre into the pit, something more than a year +ago. However, I have been free of the house ever since, and the house +was pretty free with me upon that occasion. Hang 'em, how they hissed! +It was not a hiss neither, but a sort of a frantic yell, like a +congregation of mad geese, with roaring sometimes like bears, mows and +mops like apes, sometimes snakes, that hissed me into madness. 'Twas +like Saint Anthony's temptations. Mercy on us, that God should give his +favorite children, men, mouths to speak with, to discourse rationally, +to promise smoothly, to flatter agreeably, to encourage warmly, to +counsel wisely, to sing with, to drink with, and to kiss with, and that +they should turn them into mouths of adders, bears, wolves, hyenas, and +whistle like tempests, and emit breath through them like distillations +of aspic poison, to asperse and vilify the innocent labors of their +fellow-creatures who are desirous to please them! Heaven be pleased to +make the teeth rot out of them all, therefore! Make them a reproach, and +all that pass by them to loll out their tongue at them! Blind mouths! as +Milton somewhere calls them." + +If his farce had been--what "Gentleman Lewis," who was present on the +night of its performance, said, if he had had it, he would have made it, +by a few judicious curtailments--"the most popular little thing that +had been brought out for some time," Lamb would not have written the +following article. + +"ON THE CUSTOM OF HISSING AT THE THEATRES, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF A CLUB +OF DAMNED AUTHORS. + +"Mr. Reflector,--I am one of those persons whom the world has thought +proper to designate by the title of Damned Authors. In that memorable +season of dramatic failures, 1806-7, in which no fewer, I think, than +two tragedies, four comedies, one opera, and three farces suffered at +Drury-Lane Theatre, I was found guilty of constructing an afterpiece, +and was _damned_. + +"Against the decision of the public in such instances there can be no +appeal. The Clerk of Chatham might as well have protested against the +decision of Cade and his followers, who were then _the public_. Like +him, I was condemned because I could write. + +"Not but it did appear to some of us that the measures of the popular +tribunal at that period savored a little of harshness and of the +_summum jus_. The public mouth was early in the season fleshed upon +the 'Vindictive Man,' and some pieces of that nature, and it retained +through the remainder of it a relish of blood. As Dr. Johnson would have +said: Sir, there was a habit of sibilation in the house. + +"Still less am I disposed to inquire into the reason of the comparative +lenity, on the other hand, with which some pieces were treated, which, +to indifferent judges, seemed at least as much deserving of condemnation +as some of those which met with it. I am willing to put, a favorable +construction upon the votes that were given against us; I believe that +there was no bribery or designed partiality in the case;--only 'our +nonsense did not happen to suit their nonsense'; that was all. + +"But against the _manner_ in which the public on these occasions think +fit to deliver their disapprobation I must and ever will protest. + +"Sir, imagine--but you have been present at the damning of a +piece,--those who never had that felicity, I beg them to imagine--a vast +theatre, like that which Drury Lane was, before it was a heap of dust +and ashes, (I insult not over its fallen greatness; let it recover +itself when it can for me, let it lift up its towering head once +more, and take in poor authors to write for it; _hic coestus artemque +repono_,)--a theatre like that, filled with all sorts of disgusting +sounds,--shrieks, groans, hisses, but chiefly the last, like the noise +of many waters, or that which Don Quixote heard from the fulling-mills, +or that wilder combination of devilish sounds which Saint Anthony +listened to in the wilderness. + +"Oh, Mr. Reflector, is it not a pity, that the sweet human voice, which +was given man to speak with, to sing with, to whisper tones of love in, +to express compliance, to convey a favor, or to grant a suit,--that +voice, which in a Siddons or a Braham rouses us, in a Siren Catalani +charms and captivates us,--that the musical, expressive human voice +should be converted into a rival of the noises of silly geese, and +irrational, venomous snakes? + +"I never shall forget the sounds on _my night_; I never before that time +fully felt the reception which the Author of All Ill in the 'Paradise +Lost' meets with from the critics in the _pit_, at the final close of +his Tragedy upon the Human Race,--though that, alas! met with too much +success:-- + + "'from innumerable tongues, + A dismal universal _hiss_, the sound + Of public scorn. Dreadful was the din + Of _hissing_ through the hall, thick swarming now + With complicated monsters, head and tail, + Scorpion and asp, and Amphisbaena dire, + Cerastes horned, Hydrus, and Elops drear, + And Dipsas.' + +"For _hall_ substitute _theatre_, and you have the very image of what +takes place at what is called the _damnation_ of a piece,--and properly +so called; for here you see its origin plainly, whence the custom was +derived, and what the first piece was that so suffered. After this none +can doubt the propriety of the appellation. + +"But, Sir, as to the justice of bestowing such appalling, +heart-withering denunciations of the popular obloquy upon the venial +mistake of a poor author who thought to please us in the act of filling +his pockets,--for the sum of his demerits amounts to no more than +that,--it does, I own, seem to me a species of retributive justice far +too severe for the offence. A culprit in the pillory (bate the eggs) +meets with no severer exprobration. + +"Indeed, I have often wondered that some modest critic has not proposed +that there should be a wooden machine to that effect erected in some +convenient part of the _proscenium_, which an unsuccessful author should +be required to mount, and stand his hour, exposed to the apples and +oranges of the pit. This _amende honorable_ would well suit with the +meanness of some authors, who in their prologues fairly prostrate their +skulls to the audience, and seem to invite a pelting. + +"Or why should they not have their pens publicly broke over their +heads, as the swords of recreant knights in old times were, and an oath +administered to them that they should never write again? + +"Seriously, _Messieurs the Public_, this outrageous way which you have +got of expressing your displeasures is too much for the occasion. When +I was deafening under the effects of it, I could not help asking what +crime of great moral turpitude I had committed: for every man about me +seemed to feel the offence as personal to himself, as something which +public interest and private feelings alike called upon him in the +strongest possible manner to stigmatize with infamy. + +"The Romans, it Is well known to you, Mr. Reflector, took a gentler +method of marking their disapprobation of an author's work. They were a +humane and equitable nation. They left the _furca_ and the _patibulum_, +the axe and the rods, to great offenders: for these minor and (if I may +so term them) extra-moral offences _the bent thumb_ was considered as a +sufficient sign of disapprobation,--_vertere pollicem_; as _the pressed +thumb, premere pollicem_, was a mark of approving. + +"And really there seems to have been a sort of fitness in this method, +a correspondency of sign in the punishment to the offence. For, as +the action of writing is performed by bending the thumb forward, the +retroversion or bending back of that joint did not unaptly point to the +opposite of that action, implying that it was the will of the audience +that the author should _write no more:_ a much more significant, as +well as more humane, way of expressing-that desire, than our custom of +hissing, which is altogether senseless and indefensible. Nor do we find +that the Roman audiences deprived themselves, by this lenity, of any +tittle of that supremacy which audiences in all ages have thought +themselves bound to maintain over such as have been candidates for their +applause. On the contrary, by this method they seem to have had the +author, as we should express it, completely _under finger and thumb_. + +"The provocations to which a dramatic genius is exposed from the public +are so much the more vexatious as they are removed from any possibility +of retaliation, the hope of which sweetens most other injuries: for the +public _never writes itself_. Not but something very like it took place +at the time of the O.-P. differences. The placards which were nightly +exhibited were, properly speaking, the composition of the public. The +public wrote them, the public applauded them, and precious morceaux of +wit and eloquence they were,--except some few, of a better quality, +which it is well known were furnished by professed dramatic writers. +After this specimen of what the public can do for itself, it should be a +little slow in condemning what others do for it. + +"As the degrees of malignancy vary in people according as they have more +or less of the Old Serpent (the father of hisses) in their composition, +I have sometimes amused myself with analyzing this many-headed hydra, +which calls itself the public, into the component parts of which it is +'complicated, head and tail,' and seeing how many varieties of the snake +kind it can afford. + +"First, there is the Common English Snake.--This is that part of the +auditory who are always the majority at damnations, but who, having +no critical venom in themselves to sting them on, stay till they hear +others hiss, and then join in for company. + +"The Blind Worm is a, species very nearly allied to the foregoing. Some +naturalists have doubted whether they are not the same. + +"The Rattle--Snake.--These are your obstreperous talking critics,--the +impertinent guides of the pit,--who will not give a plain man leave to +enjoy an evening's entertainment, but, with their frothy jargon and +incessant finding of faults, either drown his pleasure quite, or force +him in his own defence to join in their clamorous censure. The hiss +always originates with these. When this creature springs his _rattle_, +you would think, from the noise it makes, there was something in it; but +you have only to examine the instrument from which the noise proceeds, +and you will find it typical of a critic's tongue,--a shallow membrane, +empty, voluble, and seated in the most contemptible part of the +creature's body. + +"The Whip-Snake.--This is he that lashes the poor author the next day in +the newspapers. + +"The Deaf Adder, or _Surda Echidna_ of Linnaeus.--Under this head may be +classed all that portion of the spectators (for audience they properly +are not) who, not finding the first act of a piece answer to their +preconceived notions of what a first act should be, like Obstinate in +John Bunyan, positively thrust their fingers in their ears, that they +may not hear a word of what is coming, though perhaps the very next act +may be composed in a style as different as possible, and be written +quite to their own tastes. These Adders refuse to hear the voice of the +charmer, because the tuning of his instrument gave them offence. + +"I should weary you, and myself too, if I were to go through all the +classes of the serpent kind. Two qualities are common to them all. They +are creatures of remarkably cold digestions, and chiefly haunt _pits_ +and low grounds. + +"I proceed with more pleasure to give you an account of a club to which +I have the honor to belong. There are fourteen of us, who are all +authors that have been once in our lives what is called _damned_. We +meet on the anniversaries of our respective nights, and make ourselves +merry at the expense of the public. The chief tenets which distinguish +our society, and which every man among us is bound to hold for gospel, +are,-- + +"That the public, or mob, in all ages, have been a set of blind, deaf, +obstinate, senseless, illiterate savages. That no man of genius, in his +senses, would be ambitious of pleasing such a capricious, ungrateful +rabble. That the only legitimate end of writing for them is to pick +their pockets, and, that failing, we are at full liberty to vilify and +abuse them as much as ever we think fit. + +"That authors, by their affected pretences to humility, which they made +use of as a cloak to insinuate their writings into the callous senses of +the multitude, obtuse to everything but the grossest flattery, have by +degrees made that great beast their master; as we may act submission to +children till we are obliged to practise it in earnest. That authors are +and ought to be considered the masters and preceptors of the public, +and not _vice versâ_. That it was so in the days of Orpheus, Linus, +and Musaeus, and would be so again, if it were not that writers prove +traitors to themselves. That, in particular, in the days of the first of +those three great authors just mentioned, audiences appear to have been +perfect models of what audiences should be; for, though along with the +trees and the rocks and the wild creatures, which he drew after him to +listen to his strains, some serpents doubtless came to hear his music, +it does not appear that any one among them ever lifted up _a dissentient +voice_. They knew what was due to authors in those days. Now every stock +and stone turns into a serpent, and has a voice. + +"That the terms 'Courteous Reader' and 'Candid Auditors,' as having +given rise to a false notion in those to whom they were applied, as +if they conferred upon them some right, _which they cannot have,_ of +exercising their judgments, ought to be utterly banished and exploded. + +"These are our distinguishing tenets. To keep up the memory of the cause +in which we suffered, as the ancients sacrificed a goat, a supposed +unhealthy animal, to Aesculapius, on our feast-nights we cut up a goose, +an animal typical of _the popular voice_, to the deities of Candor and +Patient Hearing. A zealous member of the society once proposed that we +should revive the obsolete luxury of viper-broth; but the stomachs of +some of the company rising at the proposition, we lost the benefit of +that highly salutary and _antidotal dish_. + +"The privilege of admission to our club is strictly limited to such as +have been fairly _damned_. A piece that has met with ever so little +applause, that has but languished its night or two, and then gone out, +will never entitle its author to a seat among us. An exception to our +usual readiness in conferring this privilege is in the case of a writer +who, having been once condemned, writes again, and becomes candidate for +a second martyrdom. Simple damnation we hold to be a merit, but to be +twice-damned we adjudge infamous. Such a one we utterly reject, and +blackball without a hearing:-- + + "_The common damned shun his society._ + +"Hoping that your publication of our Regulations may be a means of +inviting some more members into our society, I conclude this long +letter. + +"I am, Sir, yours, SEMEL-DAMNATUS." + + * * * * * + + +DARK WAYS. + + "Tortured with winter's storms, and tossed with a tumultuous sea." + + +When God's curse forsook my country, it fell on me. I had been young +and heroic; I had fought well; what portion of the clock-work of Fate +had been allotted me I had utterly performed. Twelve years ago I became +a man and strove for my country's freedom; now she has attained her +heights without me, and I--what am I? A shapeless hulk, that stays in +the shadow, and that hates the world and the people of the world, and +verily the God above the world! + +"Fight!" whispered Father Anselmo, the young priest, to me, at my last +shrift; and fight I did. For from Italy's bosom I had drawn the strength +of sword-arm, hip, and thigh; and I vowed to lose that arm and life and +all that made life dear toward the trampling of oppressors from the +sacred place. + +My sun rose in storm, it continued in storm,--why not so have set? Why +not have died when swords swept their lightnings about me, when the +glorious thunders of battle rolled around and sulphurous blasts +enveloped, when the air was full of the bray of bugle and beat of drum, +of shout and shriek, exultation and agony? Why not have gone with the +crowd of souls reeking with daring and desire? Why, oh, why thus left +alone to wither? Why still hangs that sun above me, yet wrapt and veiled +and utterly obscured in thick, murk mists of sorrow and despair? + +Peace!--let me tell you my story. + +Since Father Anselmo--like all youth, whether under cowl, cap, or +crown--was a Liberal at heart, I had not wanted counsel; but when I +had told him all my yearnings and aspirations, had bared to him the +throbbings of my very thought, and he had replied in that one blessed +word, I hastened away. There were none to whom I should say farewell; +I was alone in the world. This wild blood of my veins ran in no other +veins; I knew thoroughly the wide freedom of solitude; the sins and +the virtues of my race, whatever they were, had culminated in me. As +I looked back, that morning, the castle, planted in a dimple of its +demesnes, old and gray and watched by purple peaks of Apennine, seemed +to hide its command only under the mask of silence. The wood through +which I went, with its alluring depths, the moss verdant in everlasting +spring beneath my eager feet, each bough I lifted, the blossoms that +blew their gales after, the bearded grasses that shook in the wind, all +gave me their secret sigh; all the sweet land around, the distant hill, +the distant shore, said, "Redeem me from my chains!" I came across a +sylvan statue, some faun nestled in the forest: the rains had stained, +frosts cracked, suns blistered it; but what of those? A vine covered +with thorns and stemmed with cords had wreathed about it and bound it +closely in serpent-coils. I stayed and tore apart the fetters till my +hands bled, cut away the twisting branches, and set the god free from +his bonds. Triumph rose to my lips, for I said, "So will I free my +country!" Ah, there was my error,--the shackling vines would grow again, +and infold the marble image that had consecrated the forest-glooms; +there is the flaw in all my work,--I have shorn, but have never uprooted +an evil. Youth is a fool; the young Titans cannot scale heaven,--heaven, +that, if what I live through be true, is ramparted round with tyrant +lies! But is it true? Am I what I seem to myself? Did I fail in my +purpose, in my will? Did Italy herself belie me? Did she, did she I +loved, she I worshipped, she the woman to whom I gave all, for whom I +sacrificed all, did she, too, forsake me? Ah, no! you will tell me Italy +is free. But I did not free her! She waits only to put on in Venice her +tiara. And for that other one, that fair Austrian woman, that devil whom +I serve and adore, that yellow-haired witch who brewed her incantations +in my holiest raptures,--she did not then play me foul, and falsely +feign love to win me to disgrace? May all the woes in Heaven's hands +fall on her! + +God! what have I said? That I should live to ban her with a word! Did I +say it? Oh, but it was vain! Woe for her? No, no! all blessings shower +upon her, sunshine attend her, peace and gladness dwell about her! +Traitress though she were, I must love her yet; I cannot unlove her; I +would take her into my heart, and fold my arms about her.--Oh, I pray +you do not look upon me with that mocking smile! Pity me, rather! pity +this wretched heart that longs to curse God and die!--Nay, I want not +your idle words. Can good destroy? Can love persecute? I was a worm that +turned. What then? Why not have crushed me to annihilation? Oh, no, not +that! He took me up and shook me before the world, clipped me, and let +me fall. A derisive Deity,--why, the words give each other the lie! + +Stop! Your sad eyes look as if you would go away, but for this infinite +pity in you. What makes you pity me? Because I am shorn of my strength? +because of all my fair proportions there is nothing left unshrivelled? +because my body--such as it is--is racked with hourly and perpetual +pain? because I die? For none of these? Truly, your judgments are +insenilable. For what then? Because,--yet, no, that cannot be,--because +I bear a stubborn heart? because I will not bend my soul as He has bent +my body? Partly,--but you are witless! What else? Because I toss off a +shield and buckler, you say. Because I will not lean upon a tower of +strength. Because I will not throw myself on the tide of divine love, +and trust myself to its course. It was that divine love, then, that +tower of strength, that shield and buckler, that made me this thing you +see. Tarpeia was enough. Away with your generalities! Go, go, you slave +of the past! + +Yet no,--you have not gone? You believe what you say,--I know with those +eyes you cannot deceive. Ah, but I trusted her eyes once! Yet it gives +you rest;--your sorrows are not like mine,--there is no rest for me. I +cannot go and gather that balm of Gilead,--I have no legs. I have as +good as none. This wheel-chair and that dog of a turnkey are not the +equipage for such a journey.--Ah, do not turn from me now! My railing is +worse than my cursing, you feel indeed. Well, stay with me at least, and +if it is twelve years since you shrived me at first, perhaps you shall +shrive me at last,--for I doubt if I am ever brought out to this +sunshine again, if I do not die in the prison-damps to-night,--and you, +with all your change, are Father Anshmo, I think.--Stay, I will confess +to you, confess this. Man! man! this infinite pity of your soul for mine +throws a light on my dark ways; God's curse has fallen on me through +man's curse, why not God's love through man's love? Anselmo, though you +became priest, and I went to become hero, we were children together; I +was dear to you then; I am so still, it seems. In your love let me find +the love of that Heaven I have defied.--Stay, friend, yet another word. +If man's love can be so great, what can God's love be? That which I +said I said, in desperation; in very truth, that peace hangs like an +unattainable city in the clouds before my soul's vision, that love like +a broad river flowing through the lands, an atmosphere bathing the +worlds, the subtile essence and ether of space in which the farthest +star pursues its course,--why, then, should it escape me, the mote? Oh, +when the world turned from me, I sought to flee thither! I sighed for +the rest there! Wretched, alone, I have wept in the dark and in the +light that I might go and fling myself at the heavenly feet. But, do you +see? sin has broken down the bridge between God and me. Yet why, +then, is sin in the world,--that scum that rises in the creation and +fermentation of good,--why, but _as_ a bridge on which to re-seek those +shores from which we wander? Man, I do repent me,--in loving you I +find God. And you call that blasphemy!--Nay, go, indeed, my friend! So +humble, you are not the man for me. I can talk to the winds: they, at +least, do not visit me too roughly. + +These are thy tears, Anselmo? Thou a priest, yet a man? Still with me? +Yet thou wilt have to bear with wayward moods,--scorn now, quiet then. I +am a tetchy man; I am an old man, too, though but just past thirty.--So! +I thank God for thee, dear friend! + + * * * * * + +Anselmo, look out on this scene below us here, as we sit on our lofty +battlement. Not on the turrets or the loopholes, the grates and spikes, +or all the fortified horror,--but on the earth. It is fair earth, though +not Italy; this is a mountain-fortress; here are all the lights and +shadows that play over grand hill-countries, and yonder are fields of +grain, where the winds and sunbeams play at storm, and a little hamlet's +sheltered valley. Doubtless there are towers, besides, half hidden in +the hills. It is Austria: slaves tread it, and tyrants drain it, it is +true,--but the wild, free gypsies troop now and then across it, and +though no fiction of law supports a claim they would scorn to make, they +use it so that you would swear they own it. Do you see how this iron +reticulation of social rule and custom and force makes a scaffolding on +which this tameless race build up their lives? I watch them often. Each +country has its compensations. Anselmo, this first made me tremble in +my petty defiance,--I, an ephemera of May, defying the dominations of +eternity!--Not so,--not too lowly; I also am, and each limitation of +life is as well, a domination of eternity. But I saw that it was no +purpose of God to have destroyed Italy; when men in weakness and +wantonness suffered their liberties to be torn from them, suffered +themselves to become enslaved, there was compensation in that their sons +had chance for heroic growth; they might, in efforts for freedom, create +virtues that, born to freedom, they would never have known. I, too, had +my field; I lost it; my enemy was myself. But when I think of her--Ay, +there it is! Do not let me think of her! I become mad, when I think of +her!--At least, allow me this: God's ways are dark. Not that? Not even +that? I needed what I have? If my ambitions, my passions, my will, had +ruled, my soul would have remained null? Ah, friend, and is that so much +the worse? It is the soul that aches!--I am a man of the people, a +man who acts,--I _was_, I mean,--not a man who thinks; and all your +subtleties of word perchance entrap me. I am not wary when you come to +logic. See! I surrender point after point. I shall be dead soon, you +know; when this morning's sun shave have set, when the moon shall hold +the night in fee, I shall depart,--wing up and away;--is it, that, my +body already dead, my mind sickens and dies with it, bit after bit, and +so I yield, and attest, that, without the agony of my life, death had +failed to burst my soul's husk? Oh, for I was born of an earthy race, +blood ran thick in our veins, we were sensuous and passionate, the +breath and steam of pleasure stifled our brains, and our filmy eyes +could not see heaven. Yes, yes, I needed it all; but, friend, it is +pitiful. + + * * * * * + +I like to sit here in the sun. It is only a twelvemonth, of all my long +years' imprisonment, that this has been allowed me. I like to sleep in +it, like any wild creature,--the lizard, a mere reptile,--the bird, a +hindered soul. To lie thus, weak as I am, but pillowed and warmed by the +searching genial rays, seems such comfort, when I think of the bed I +once had on the rack! This little slumber from which I wake revives me. +I feared not to find you, and did not unclose my eyes at once. It was +good in you to come, Anselmo; it must have been at risk of much. + +You ask me to speak of my life since I went away on that morning of +your command,--to reconcile the hostile acts, to gather the scattered +reports. Hear it all! + +You know my wealth was equal to my demand. I used it; before six +months were over, I was the life and soul of those who must needs be +conspirators. They saw that I was earnest, that my sacrifices were real; +they trusted me. Soon the movement had become general; all the smothered +elements of national life were convulsed and throbbing under the crust +of tyranny. + +How proud and glad was I that morning after our victory! I saw great +Italy, beautiful Italy, once more put on her diadem; I beheld the future +prospect of one broad, free land, barriered by Alps and set impregnably +in summer seas, storied seas, keys of the West and East. We embraced +each other as brothers of this glorious nation, ancient Rome risen from +trance; as we walked the streets, we sang; Milan was turbulent with +gladness; no gala-day was ever half so bright; the very spires appeared +to spring in the white radiance of their flames up a deeper heaven; the +sun stayed at perpetual dawn for us. Walking along, jubilant and daring, +at length we paused in a square where a fountain dashed up its column of +sunshine, and laved our hands. By Heaven! We forgot independence, Italy, +freedom; we were crazed with success and hope; it seemed that the stream +was Austrian blood! Then, in the midst of all, I looked up,--and on a +balcony she stood. A fair woman, with hair like shredded light, her +great blue eyes wide and full and of intense dye, her nostril distended +with pride, and fear and hate of us,--but on the full lips, ripe with +crimson bloom, juicy and young and fresh, on those Love lay. The others +wound forward,--I with them, yet apart; and my eyes became fixed on +hers. Then I lifted my cap with its tricolor. She did not return the +courtesy, but stood as if spellbound, one hand threading back the +straying hair, the lips a little parted; suddenly she turned to fly, +that hand upraised to the casement's side, and still, as she looked +back, the beautiful eyes on mine. My companions had preceded me; we were +alone in the square; she wavered as she stood, then tore a rose from her +bosom, kissed it deep into its heart, and tossed it to me. + +"Let all its petals be joys!" I said, and she vanished. + +Oh, friend, the leaves have fallen, the rose is dead! Look! I have kept +it through all,--sear leaf and withered spray! + +That night we danced; and the Austrian girl was there. They told me she +was exiled, and that she loved liberty; no one told me she was a spy. I +saw her swim along the dance, the white satin of her raiment flashing +perpetual interchange of lustrous and obscure, the warm air playing in +the lace that fell like the spray of the fountain round her golden hair +and over her pearly shoulder; grace swept in all her motions, beauty +crowned her, she seemed the perfect, pitch of womanhood. + +Still she swims along the lazy line with indolent pleasure, still floats +in dreamy waltz-circles perchance, still bends to the swaying tune +as the hazel-branch bonds to the hidden treasure,--but as for me, my +dancing days are over. + +By-and-by it was I with whom she danced, whose hand she touched, on whom +she leaned. I wondered if there were any man so blest; I listened to her +breath, I watched her cheek, our eyes met, and I loved her. The music +grew deeper, more impassioned; we stood and listened to it,--for she +danced then no more,--our hearts beat time to it, the wind wandering at +the casement played in its measure; we said no words, but now and then +each sought the other's glance, and, convicted there, turned in sudden +shame away. When I bade her good-night, which I might never have done +but that the revel broke, a great curl of her hair blew across my lips. +I was bold,--I was heated, too, with this half-secret life of my heart, +this warm blood that went leaping so riotously through my veins, and yet +so silently,--I took my dagger from my belt and severed the curl. See, +friend! will you look at it? It is like the little gold snakes of the +Campagna, is it not? each thread, so fine and fair, a separate ray of +light: once it was part of her! See how it twists round my hand! Haste! +haste! let me put it up, lest I go mad!--Where was I? + +I busied myself again in the work to be done; because of our victory we +must not rest; once more all went forward. I saw the Austrian woman only +from a window, or in a church, or as she walked in the gardens, for many +days. Then the times grew hotter; I left the place, and lived with stern +alarums; and thither she also came. I never sought what sent her. She +was with the wounded, with the dying. Then the need of her was past, and +she and all the others took their way. At length that also came to an +end. + +We were in Rome,--and thither, some time previously, she had gone. + +One night, our business for the day was over, our plans for the morrow +laid, our messages received, our messengers despatched, and those who +had been conspirators and now bade fair to be saviours were sleeping. +Sleep seemed to fold the world; each bough and twig was silent in +repose; the spectral moonlight itself slept as it bathed the air. I +alone wandered and waked. With me there were too many cares for rest; +work kept me on the alert; to court slumber at once was not easy after +the nervous tension of duty. I was torn, too, with conflicting feelings: +half my soul went one way in devotion to my country, half my soul +swerved to the other as I thought of the Austrian woman. I grew tired of +the streets and squares; something that should be fragrant and bowery +attracted me. I mounted on the broken water-god of a dry bath and leaped +a garden-wall. + +No sooner was I there than I knew why I had come. This was her garden. + +Heart of Heaven! how all things spoke of her! How the great white roses +hung their doubly heavy heads and poured their perfume out to her! how +the sprays shivered as T spoke the name she owned! how the nightingales +ceased for a breath their warbling as she rustled down a fragrant path +and met me! All her hair was swept back in one great mass and held by an +ivory comb; a white cloak wrapped her white array; she was jewel-less +and stripped of lustre; she was like pearl, milky as a shell, white as +the moonlight that followed in her wake. + +"You breathed my name,--I came," she said. + +"Pardon!" I replied. "I heard the fountains dash and the nightingales +sing, and I but came for rest under the spell." + +"And have you found it?" + +"I have found it." + +We remained silent then, while floods of passion gathered and lay darkly +still in our hearts. No, no! I know now that it was not so; yet I will +tell it, tell it all, as I thought it then. + +She did not stir; indeed, she had such capability of rest, that, had I +not spoken, she would never have stirred, it may be. She knew that my +glance was upon her; for herself, she looked at the broad lilies that +grew at her feet, and listened to the melody that seemed to bubble from +a thousand throats with interfluent sound upon the night. It was her +repose that soothed me: moulded clay is not so calm, the marble rose of +silence not half so beautifully folded to dreamful rest, so lovely +and so still no garden-statue could have been; the cool, soft night +infiltrated its tranquillity through all her being. + +As we stood, the nightingales gave us capricious pause; one alone, +distant and clear, fluted its faint piping like the phantom of the +finished strain. Another sound broke the air and floated along on this +too delicious accompaniment: music, fine and far. Some other lover sang +to her his serenade. The voice in its golden sonority rose and crept +toward her with persuading sweetness, winding through all the alleys and +hovering over the plots of greenery with a tranquil strength, as if such +song were but the natural spirit of the night, or as if the soul of the +broad calm and silence itself had taken voice. + + "Thy beauty, like a star + Whose life is light, + Shines on me from afar. + And on the night. + + "Each midnight blossom bends + With sweetest weight, + And to thy casement sends + Its fragrant freight. + + "Each, air that faintly curls + About thy nest + Its daring pinion furls + Within thy breast. + + "The night is spread for thee, + The heavens are wide, + And the dark earth's mystery + Is magnified. + + "For thee the garden waits, + The hours delay, + The fountains toss their jets + Of shimmering spray. + + "Then leave thy dim delight + In dreams above, + Come forth, and crown the night + With her I love!" + +She listened, but did not lift her head or suffer the change of a fold; +then there came the tinkle of the strings that embalmed the tune, and +the singer's steps grew soundless as he left the street. A new phantasm +crept upon me. What right had any other man to sing to her his +love-songs? Did she not live, was not her beauty created, her soul +given, for me? Did not the very breath she drew belong to me? My voice, +hoarse and husky, disturbed the stillness, my eyes flamed on her. + +"Do you love that man who sang?" I murmured. + +"Signor, I love you," she said. + +Then we were silent as before, but she stood no longer alone and +opposite. One passionate step, an outstretched arm, and her head on my +bosom, my lips bent to hers. + +All the nightingales burst forth in choral redundance of song, all the +low winds woke and fainted again through the balmy boughs, all the great +stars bent out of heaven to shed their sweet influences upon us. + +It seemed to me that in that old palace-garden life began, my memory +went out in confused joy. I held her, she was mine! mine, mine, in life +and for eternity! Fool! it was I who was hers! Man, you are a priest, +and must not love. I, too, was sworn a priest to my country. So we break +oaths! + +O moments of swift bliss, why are you torture to remember? Let me not +think how the night slipped into dawn as we roamed, how pale gold +filtered through the darkness and bleached the air, how bird after bird +with distant chirrup and breaking time announced the day. She left me, +and as well it might be night. I wound a strange way home. I questioned +if it were the dream of a fevered brain; I wondered, would she remember +when next she saw me? None met with me that day; I forgot all. With the +night I again waited in the garden. In vain I waited; she came no more. +I waxed full of love's anger, I crushed the tendril and the vine, I +wandered up and down the walks and cursed these thorns that tore my +heart. As I went, an angle of the shrubbery allured; I turned, and lo! +full radiance from open doors, and silvery sounds of sport. I leaned +against the ilex, lost in shadow, and watched her as she stirred and +floated there before me in the light. She seemed to carry with her an +atmosphere of warmth and brilliance; all things were ordered as she +moved; one throng melted before her, another followed. By-and-by +she stood at the long casement to seek acquaintance with the night. +Constantly I thought to meet her eye, and I would not reflect that she +saw only dusk and vacancy. Then indignantly I stepped from the ilex and +confronted her. A low, glad cry escapes her lips, she holds her arms +toward me and would cross the sill, when a voice constrains her from +within. It is he, the accursed Neapolitan. + +"Signor," she says, "a vampire flitted past the dawn." + +Dawn indeed was breaking. The man still stood there when she left him, +and still looked out; his eyes lay on me, and irate and motionless +I returned their gaze. One by one her guests departed; with a last +threatening glance, he, too, withdrew. I plunged into the silent places +again, and waited now, assured that she would come. The constellations +paled, and still I was alone. Then I wandered restlessly again, and, +winding through thickets of leaf-distilled perfume, I came where just +above a balcony, and almost beyond reach from it, a light burned dimly +in one narrow window. I did not ask myself why I did it, but in another +moment I had clambered to the place, and, standing there, I bent forward +to my right, pulled away the tangle of ivy that filled half the niche, +and was peering in. + +"What is that?" said a voice I knew, with its silvery echo of the South, +the accursed Neapolitan's. + +"It is the owl that builds in the recess, and stirs the ivy," she +replied. + +"Haste!" said a third,--"the day breaks." + +She was sitting at a low table, writing; Pia, the old nurse, stood +behind her chair; the oil was richly scented that she burned; the +single light illumined only her, and covered with her shadow the low +ceiling,--a shadow that seemed to hang above her like a pall ready to +fall from ghostly fingers and smother her in its folds; the others +lounged about the room and waited on her pen, in gloom they, their faces +gleaming from that dusk demoniacly. It was a concealed room, entered by +secret ways, unknown to others than these. + +When she had written, she sealed. + +"There is no more to await. Adieu," she said. + +"It is some transfer of property, some legal paper, some sale, some +gift," I said to myself, as I watched them take it and depart. Then she +was alone again. I saw her start up, pace the narrow spot,--saw her +stand and pull down the masses, so interspersed with golden light, that +crowned her head, and look at them wonderingly as they overlay her +fingers,--then saw those fingers clasped across the eyes, and the +lips part with a sigh that, prolonged and deepened, grew to be a +groan,--while all the time that shadow on the ceiling hovered and +fluttered and grew still, till it seemed the cluster of Eumenides +waiting to pounce on its prey. In another pause I had taken the perilous +step, had hung by the crumbling rock, the rending vine, had entered and +was beside her. A cold horror iced her face; she warned me away with her +trembling hands. + +"What have you seen?" she said. + +"You, O my love, in grief." + +"And no more?" + +"I have seen you give a letter to the Neapolitan, who departs to-morrow +with the little Viennois,--perhaps to your friends at home." + +"And that is all?" + +"That is all." + +"I have no friends at home. To whom, then, could the letter be?" + +"How should I divine?" + +"It was for the Austrian Government! Now love me, if you dare!" + +"And do you suppose I did not know it?" + +"Then is your love for me but a shield and mask?" + +As I gazed in reply, my steady eyes, the soul that kindled my smile, my +open arms, all must have asseverated for me the truth of my devotion. + +"Still?" she said. "Still? And you can keep your faith to me and to +Italy?" + +What was this doubt of me, this stain she would have cast upon my honor? +That armor's polish was too intense to sustain it; it rolled off like +a cloud from heaven. Italy's fortunes were _my_ fortunes; it was +impossible for me to betray them; this woman I would win to wed them. +How long, how long my blood had felt this thing in her! how long my +brain had rebelled! In a proud innocence, I stood with folded arms, and +could afford to smile. + +"Stay!" she said again, after our mute gaze, and laying her hand upon my +arm. "You shall not love me in vain, you shall not trust me for nothing. +Your cause is mine to-day. That is the last message I send to Vienna." + +And then I believed her. + +The light, slanting up, crept in and touched the brow of an ideal bust +of Mithras which she had invested with her faintly-faded wreath of +heliotropes; their fragrance falling through the place already made the +atmosphere more rich than that of chest of almond-wood,--this perfume +that is like the soul of the earth itself exhaled to the amorous air. +Behind an alabaster shrine she lighted a holy-taper, slowly to waste +and pale in the spreading day. We went to the window, where among the +ivy-nooks day's life was just astir with gaudy wings. + +"All will be seeking you, and yet you cannot go," she said. + +"Why can I not go?" + +"It is broad morning." + +"And what of that?" + +"One thing. You shall not compromise yourself, going from the house of +an Austrian woman and worse!" + +She was too winningly imperious to fail. I delayed, and together we +looked out on the rosy sky. + +"Come down," she said at last, "and on an arbor-moss the sun shall +drowse you, the flower-scents be your opiates, the birds your lullaby, +and I your guard." + +We went, and, wandering again through the garden-paths, she brushed +the dew with her trailing festal garments, and plucked the great blue +convolvuli to crown her forehead. Soon, on a plot of Roman violets, +screened by tall trees and trellises, we breakfasted. One might have +said that the cloth was laid above giant mushroom-stems, the service +acorn-cups and calices of milky blooms; golden was the honey-comb we +broke, manna was our bread; she caught the water in her hand from the +fountain and pledged me, and swift as sunshine I bent forward and +prevented the thirsty lips. Then she laid my head on her shoulder, with +her cool finger-tips she stroked the temples and soothed the lids, +they fell and closed on the vision bending above me,--loveliness like +painting, pallor that was waxen, yellow tresses wreathed with azure +stars, eyes that caught the hue again and absorbed all Tyrian dyes. + +The plash and bubble of waters swooned dreamily about my ears, and far +off it seemed I heard the wild, sad songs of her native land, that now +in tinkling tune, and now in long, slow rise and fall of mellow sound, +swathed me with sweet satiety to dreamless rest. + +The sun stole round and rose above the screen of trees at last and woke +me. I was alone, the silent statues looked on me, the breath of the dark +violets crushed by my weight rose in shrouding incense. I lifted myself +and searched for her, and asked why I must needs believe each hour of +joy a dream,--then went and cooled my brow in the lucent basin at hand, +and waited till she came, in changed raiment, and gliding toward me as +the Spirit of Noon might have come. She led me in, well refreshed, and +in the cool north rooms of the palace the warm hours of the day slipped +like beads from a leash. It scarcely seemed her fingers that touched the +harp to tune, but as if some herald of sirocco, some faint, hot breeze, +had brushed between the strings. It scarcely seemed her voice that +talked to me, but something distant as the tone in a sad sea-shell. What +I said I knew not; I was in a maze, bewildered with bliss; I only knew I +loved her, I only felt my joy. + +She told me many things: stories of her mountain-home, in distant view +of the old fortress of Hellberg,--this is the fortress of Hellberg, +Anselmo,--of her youth, her maidenhood, her life in Vienna, her lovers +in Venice, her health, that had sent her finally there where we sat +together. + +"I thought it sad," she said at length, "when they exiled me, so to +say, from Vienna and all my gay career there, because Venice, with its +water-breaths, might heal my attainted health,--and sadder when the +winter bade me leave night-tides and gondolas and repair to Rome. Now +spring has come, and all the hills are blue with these deep violets, +the very air is balm, the year is at flood, and life at what seems its +height is perfected with you." + +"But you love that land you left?" I replied, after a while, and lifting +her face to meet my gaze. + +"Love it? Oh, yes! You love your land as you love a person in whose +veins and yours kindred blood runs, because it is hardly possible to do +otherwise. The land gave me life, that is all; I never knew till lately +that it was anything to be thankful for. It is not sufficiently a +_country_ to kindle enthusiasm; it has no national life, you know,--is +an automaton put through its motions by paid and cunning mechanists. +I thought it right to obey orders and serve it. But now _you_ are my +country,--I serve only you." + +It was easy so to pass to my own hopes, to my own life, to my land, the +land to which I had vowed the last drop of blood in my gift. Her eyes +beamed upon me, smiles rippled over her face, she clasped me now and +then and sealed my brow with kisses. Soon I left her side and strode +from end to end of the long _salon_, speaking eagerly of the future that +opened to Italy. I told her how the beautiful corpse lay waiting its +resurrection, and how the Angel of Eternal Life hovered with spreading +wings above, ready to sound his general trump. My pulses beat like +trip-hammers, and as I passed a mirror I saw myself white with the +excitement that fired me. + +"You are wild with your joyous emotion," she said, coming forward and +clinging round me. "Your eyes flame from depths of darkness. What, after +all, is Italy to you, that your blood should boil in thinking of her +wrongs? These people, for whom in your terrible magnanimity, I feel that +you would sacrifice even me, to-morrow would turn and rend you!" + +"No, no!" I answered. "All things but you! You, you, are before my +country!" + +The tears filled her large, serious eyes, her lips quivered in +melancholy smile, as sunshine plays with shower over autumn woodlands. +Was I not right? Right, though the universe declare me wrong! I would do +it all again; if she loved me, she had authority to be first of all in +my care; in love lie the highest duties of existence. + +I had forgotten the subject on which we spoke; I was thinking only of +her, her beauty, her tenderness, and the debt of deathless devotion that +I owed her. It was otherwise in her thought; she had not dropped the old +thread, but, looking up, resumed. + +"It is, then, an idea that you serve?" + +Brought back from my reverie, "Could I serve a more worthy master?" I +asked. + +"You do not particularly love your countrymen, nine-tenths of whom +you have never seen? You do not particularly hate the hostile race, +nine-tenths of whom you have never seen?" + +"Abstractly, I hate them. Kindliness of heart prevents individual +hatred, and without kindliness of heart in the first place there can be +no pure patriotism." + +"And for the other part. What do you care for these men who herd in the +old tombs, raise a pittance of vetch, and live the life of brutes? what +for the lazzaroni of Naples, for the brigands of Romagua, the murderers +of the Apennine? Nay, nothing, indeed. It is, then, for the land that +you care, the mere face of the country, because it entombs myriad +ancestors, because it is familiar in its every aspect, because it +overflows with abundant beauty. But is the land less fair when foreign +sway domineers it? do the blossoms cease to crowd the gorge, the mists +to fill it with rolling color? is the sea less purple around you, the +sky less blue above, the hills, the fields, the forests, less lavishly +lovely?" + +"Yes, the land is less fair," I said. "It is a fair slave. It loses +beauty in the proportion of difference that exists between any two +creatures,--the one a slave of supple symmetry and perfect passivity, +the other a daring woman who stands nearer heaven by all the height of +her freedom. And for these people of whom you speak, first I care for +them because they _are_ my countrymen,--and next, because the idea which +I serve is a purpose to raise them into free and responsible agents." + +"Each man does that for himself; no one can do it for another." + +"But any one may remove the obstacles from another's way, scatter the +scales from the eyes of the blind, strip the dead coral from the reef." + +She took yellow honeysuckles from a vase of massed amethyst and began to +weave them in her yellow hair,--humming a tune, the while, that was full +of the subtilest curves of sound. Soon she had finished, and finished +the fresh thought as well. + +"Do you know, my own," she said, "the men who begin as hierophants of +an idea are apt to lose sight of the pure purpose, and to become the +dogged, bigoted, inflexible, unreasoning adherents of a party? All +leaders of liberal movements should beware how far they commit +themselves to party-organizations. Only that man is free. It is easier +to be a partisan than a patriot." + +I laughed. + +"Lady, you are like all women who talk politics, however capable they +may be of acting them. You immediately beg the question. We are +speaking of patriotism, not of partisanship." + +"You it was who forsook the subject. You know nothing about it; you +confess that it is with you merely a blind instinct; you cannot tell me +even what patriotism is." + +"Stay!" I replied. "All love is instinct in the germ. Can you define the +yearnings that the mother feels toward her child, the tie that binds son +to father? Then you can define the sentiment that attaches me to the +land from whose breast I have drawn life. The love of country is more +invisible, more imponderable, more inappreciable than the electricity +that fills the air and flows with perpetual variation from pole to pole +of the earth. It is as deep, as unsearchable, as ineffable as the power +which sways me to you. It is the sublimation of other affection. A +portion of you has always gone out into the material spot where you have +been, a portion of that has entered you, your past life is entwined with +river and shore. You become the country, and the country becomes a part +of God. Those who love their country, love the vast abstraction, can +almost afford not to love God. She is a beneficence, she is a shield, +something for which to do and die, something for worship, ideal, grand; +and though the sky is their only roof, the earth their only bed, +affluent are they who have a land! Passion rooted deeply as the +foundations of the hills: a man may adore one woman, but in adoring his +land the aggregation of all men's love for all other women overwhelms +him and accentuates to a fuller emotion. It is unselfish, impersonal, +sheer sentiment clarified at its white heat from all interest and +deceit, the noblest joy, the noblest sorrow. Bold should they be, and +pure as the priests who bore the ark, that dare to call themselves +patriots. And those, Lenore, who live to see their country's hopeless +ruin, plunge into a sadness at heart that no other loss can equal, no +remaining blessing mitigate,--neither the devotion of a wife nor the +perfection of a child. You have seen exiles from a lost land? Pride is +dead in them, hope is dead, ambition is dead, joy is dead. Tell me, +would you choose me to suffer the personal loss of love and you, a loss +I could hide in my aching soul, or to bear those black marks of gall and +melancholy which forever overshadow them in widest grief and gloom?" + +She had sunk upon a seat, and was looking up at me with a pained +unwavering glance, as if in my words she foresaw my fate. + +"You are too intense!" she cried. "Your tones, your eyes, your gestures, +make it an individual thing with you." + +"And so it is!" I exclaimed. "I cannot sleep in peace, nor walk upon the +ways, while these Austrian bayonets take my sunshine, these threatening +approaching French banners hide the fair light of heaven!" + +"Come," she said, rising. "Speak no more. I am tired of the burden of +the ditty, dear; and it may do you such injury yet that already I hate +it. Come out again into our garden with me. Dismiss these cares, these +burning pains and rankling wounds. Be soothed by the cool evening air, +taste the gorgeous quiet of sunset, gather peace with the dew." + +So we went. I trusted her the more that she differed from me, that then +she promised to love Italy only because _I_ loved it. I told her my +secret schemes, I took her advice on points of my own responsibility, I +learned the joy of help and confidence in one whom you deem devotedly +true. Finally we remained without speech, stood long heart to heart +while the night fell around us like a curtain; her eyes deepened from +their azure noon-splendor and took the violet glooms of the hour, a +great planet rose and painted itself within them; again and again I +printed my soul on her lips ere I left her. + +At first, when I was sure that I was once more alone in the streets, +I could not shake from myself the sense of her presence. I could not +escape from my happiness, I was able to bring my thought to no other +consideration. I reached home mechanically, slept an hour, performed the +routine of bath and refreshment, and sought my former duties. But how +changed seemed all the world to me! what air I breathed! in what light I +worked! Still I felt the thrilling pressure of those kisses on my lips, +still those dear embraces! + +So days passed on. I worked faithfully for the purpose to which I was +so utterly committed that let that be lost and I was lost! We were +victorious; after the banner fell in Lombardy to soar again in Venice +and to sink, the Republic struggled to life; Rome rose once more on her +seven hills, free and grand, child and mother of an idea, the idea of +national unity, of independence and liberty from Tyrol to Sicily. My +God! think of those dear people who for the first time said, "We have a +country!" + +Yet how could we have hoped then to continue? Such brief success dazzled +us to the past. Piedmont had long since struck the key-note of Italy's +fortunes. As Charles Albert forsook Milan and suffered Austria once more +to mouth the betrayed land and drip its blood from her heavy jaws, till +in a baptism of redder dye he absolved himself from the sin,--so woe +heaped on woe, all came to crisis, ruin, and loss,--the Republic fell, +Rome fell, the French entered. + +Our names had become too famous, our heroic defence too familiar, for us +to escape unknown: the Vascello had not been the only place where youth +fought as the lioness fights for her whelps. Many of us died. Some fled. +Others, and I among them, remained impenetrably concealed in the midst +of our enemies. Weeks then dragged away, and months. New schemes chipped +their shell. Again the central glory of the land might rise revealed to +the nations. We never lost courage; after each downfall we rose like +Antaeus with redoubled strength from contact with the beloved soil, for +each fall plunged us farther into the masses of the people, into closer +knowledge of them and kinder depths of their affection, and so, learning +their capabilities and the warmth of their hearts and the strength of +their endurance, we became convinced that freedom was yet to be theirs. +Meanwhile, you know, our operations were shrouded in inscrutable +secrecy; the French held Rome in frowning terror and subjection; the +Pope trembled on his chair, and clutched it more franticly with his weak +fingers: it was not even known that we, the leaders, were now in the +city; all supposed us to be awaiting quietly the turn of events, in some +other land. As if we ourselves were not events, and Italy did not hang +on our motions! But, as I said, all this time we were at work; our +emissaries gave us enough to do: we knew what spoil the robbers in the +March had made, the decree issued in Vienna, the order of the day in +Paris, the last word exchanged between the Cardinals, what whispers were +sibilant in the Vatican; we mined deeper every day, and longed for the +electric stroke which should kindle the spark and send princes and +principalities shivered widely into atoms. But, friend, this was not +to be. We knew one thing more, too: we knew at last that we also were +watched,--when men sang our songs in the echoing streets at night, and +when each of us, and I, chief of all, renewed our ancient fame, and +became the word in every one's mouth, so that old men blessed us in the +way as we passed, wrapt, we had thought, in safe disguise, and crowds +applauded. Thus again we changed our habits, our rendezvous, our +quarters, and again we eluded suspicion. + +There came breathing-space. I went to her to enjoy it, as I would have +gone with some intoxicating blossom to share with her its perfume,--with +any band of wandering harpers, that together our ears might be +delighted. I went as when, utterly weary, I had always gone and rested +awhile with her I loved in the sweet old palace-garden: I had my ways, +undreamed of by army or police or populace. There had I lingered, +soothed at noon by the hum of the bee, at night by that spirit that +scatters the dew, by the tranquillity and charm of the place, ever +rested by her presence, the repose of her manner, the curve of her +dropping eyelid, so that looking on her face alone gave me pleasant +dreams. + +Now, as I entered, she threw down her work,--some handkerchief for her +shoulders, perhaps, or yet a banner for those unrisen men of Rome, +I said,--a white silk square on which she had wrought a hand with a +gleaming sickle, reversed by tall wheat whose barbed grains bent full +and ripe to the reaper, and round the margin, half-pictured, wound the +wild hedge-roses of Paestum. She threw it down and came toward me in +haste, and drew me through an inner apartment. + +"He has returned, they say," she said presently,--mentioning the +Neapolitan,--"and it would be unfortunate, if you met." + +"Unfortunate for _him_, if we met here!" + +"How fearless! Yet he is subtler than the snake in Eden. I fear him as I +detest him." + +"Why fear him?" + +"That I cannot tell. Some secret sign, some unspeakable intuition, +assures me of injury through him." + +"Dearest, put it by. The strength of all these surrounding leagues with +their swarm does not flow through his wrist, as it does through mine. He +is more powerless than the mote in the air." + +"You are so confident!" she said. + +"How can I be anything else than confident? The very signs in the sky +speak for us, and half the priests are ours, and the land itself is an +oath. Look out, Lenore! Look down on these purple fields that so sweetly +are taking nightfall; look on these rills that braid the landscape and +sing toward the sea; see yonder the row of columns that have watched +above the ruins of their temple for centuries, to wait this hour; behold +the heaven, that, lucid as one dome of amethyst, darkens over us and +blooms in star on star;--was ever such beauty? Ah, take this wandering +wind,--was ever such sweetness? And since every inch of earth +is historic,--since here rose glory to fill the world with wide +renown,--since here the heroes walked, the gods came down,--since Oreads +haunt the hill, and Nereïds seek the shore"-- + +"Whereabout do Nereïds seek the shore?" she archly asked. + +"Why, if you must have data," I answered, laughing, "let us say Naples." + +"What is that you have to say of Naples?" demanded a voice in the +door-way,--and turning, I confronted the Neapolitan. + +She had started back at the abrupt apparition, and before she could +recover, stung by rage and surprise I had replied,-- + +"What have I to say of Naples? That its tyrant walks in blood to his +knees!" + +A man, I, with my hot furies, to be intrusted with the commonwealth! + +"I will trouble you to repeat that sentence at some day," he said. + +"Here and now, if you will!" I uttered, my hand on my hilt. + +"Thanks. Not here and now. It will answer, if you remember it _then_.--I +hope I see Her Highness well. Pardon this little _brusquerie_, I pray. +The southern air is kind to loveliness: I regret to bring with me Her +Highness's recall." + +She replied in the same courteous air, inquired concerning her +acquaintance, and ordered lights,--took the letter he brought, and held +it, still sealed, in the taper's flame till it fell in ashes. + +"Signor," she said, lifting the white atoms of dust and sifting them +through her fingers, "you may carry back these as my reply." + +"Nay, I do not return," he answered. "And, Signorina, many things are +pardoned to one in--your condition. Recover your senses, and you will +find this so among others." + +Then, as coolly as if nothing had happened, he spoke of the affairs +of the day, the tendency of measures, the feeling of the people, and +finally rose, kissed her hand, and departed. He was joined without by +the little Viennois, and the accursed couple sauntered down the street +together. I should have gone then,--the place was no longer safe for +me,--but something, the old spell, yet detained me. + +Lenore did not speak, but threw open all the windows and doors that were +closed. + +"Let us be purified of his presence, at least!" she cried, when this was +done. + +"And you have ceased to fear this man whom you have dared so offend?" I +asked. + +"He is not offended," said Lenore. "Austria is not Naples. He will not +transmit my reply till he is utterly past hope." + +"Hope of what?" + +"Of my hand." + +"Lenore! Then put him beyond hope now! Become my wife!" + +"Ah,--if it were less unwise"-- + +"If you loved me, Lenore, you would not think of that." + +"And you doubt it? Why should I, then, say again that I love you,--I +love you?" + +Ah, friend, how can I repeat those words? Never have I given her +endearments again to the air: sacred were they then, sacred now, however +false. Ah, passionate words! oh, sweet _issimos!_ tender intonations! +how deeply, how deeply ye lie in my soul! Let me repeat but one +sentence: it was the, key to my destiny. + +"Yes, yes," she said, rising from my arms, "already I do you injury. You +think oftener of me than of Italy." + +It was true. I sprang to my feet and began pacing the floor, as I sought +to recall any instance in which I had done less than I might for my +country. The cool evening-breeze, and the bell-notes sinking through +the air from distant old campaniles, soothed my tumult, and, turning, I +said,-- + +"My devotion to you sanctifies my devotion to her. And not only for her +own sake do I work, but that you, you, Lenore, may have a land where no +one is your master, and where your soul may develop and become perfect." + +"And those who have not such object, why do they work?" + +Then first I felt that I had fallen from the heights where my companions +stood. This ardent patriotism of mine was sullied, a stain of +selfishness rose and blotted out my glory, others should wear the +conquering crowns of this grand civic game. Oh, friend! that was sad +enough, but it was inevitable. Here is where the crime came in,--that, +knowing this, I still continued as their leader, suffered them to call +me Master and Saviour, and walked upon the palms they spread. + +Lenore mistook my silence. + +"You cannot tell me why they work?" she said. "From habit, from fear, +because committed? It cannot be, then, that they are in earnest, that +they are sincere, that they care a rush for this cause so holy to you. +They have entered into it, as all this common people do, for the love +of a new excitement, for the pleasurable mystery of conspiracy, for the +self-importance and gratulation. They will scatter at the signal of +danger, like mischievous boys when a gendarme comes round the corner. +They will betray you at the lifting of an Austrian finger. Leave them!" + +This was too much to hear in silence,--to hear of these faithful +comrades, who had endured everything, and were yet to overcome because +they possessed their souls in patience, each of whom stood higher before +God than I in unspotted public purity, and whose praise and love led me +constantly to larger effort. At least I would make them the reparation +of vindication. + +"You mistrust them?" I exclaimed. "They whose souls have been tried in +the furnace, who have the temper of fine steel, pliant as gold, but +incorruptible as adamant,--heroes and saints, they stand so low in your +favor? Come, then, come with me now,--for the bells have struck the +hour, and shadows clothe the earth,--come to their conclave where +discovery is death, and judge if they be idle prattlers, or men who +carry their lives in their hands!" + +Fool! Fool! Fool! Every sound in the air cries out that word to me: +the bee that wings across the tower hums it in my ear; the booming +alarm-bell rings it forth; my heart, my failing heart, beats it while +I speak. I would have carried a snake to the sacred ibis-nest, and +thenceforth hope was hollow as an egg-shell! + +She ran from the room, but, pausing in the door-way, exclaimed,-- + +"Remember, if you take me there, that I am no Roman patriot,--I! I, +who am of the House of Austria, that House that wears the crown of the +Caesars, those Caesars who swayed the very imperial sceptre, who trailed +the very imperial purple of old Rome! I endure the cause because it is +yours. I beseech you to be faithful to it; because I should despise you, +if for any woman you swerved from an object that had previously been +with you holier than heaven!" + +I stood there leaning from the lofty window, and looking down over the +wide, solitary fields. Recollections crowded upon me, hopes rose before +me. One day, that yet lives in my heart, Anselmo, sprang up afresh, a +day forever domed in memory. Fair rose the sun that day, and I walked on +the nation's errands through the streets of a distant town,--a hoar and +antique place, that sheltered me safely, so slight guard was it thought +to need by our oppressors! It pleased that reverend arch-hypocrite to +take at this hour his airing. Late events had given the people courage. +It was a market-day, peasants from the country obstructed the ancient +streets, the citizens were all abroad. Not few were the maledictions +muttered over a column of French infantry that wound along as it +returned to Rome from some movement of subjection, not low the curses +showered on an officer who escorted ladies upon their drive. As I went, +I considered what a day it would have been for _émeute_, and what mortal +injury _émeute_ would have done our cause. Italy, we said, like fools, +but honest fools, must not be redeemed with blood. As if there were ever +any sacred pact, any new order of things, that was not first sealed +by blood! Therefore, when I, alone perhaps of all the throng, saw one +man--a man in whose soul I knew the iron rankled--stealing behind the +crowd, behind the monuments, and, as the coach of His Excellency rolled +luxuriously along, levelling a glittering barrel,--it was but an +instant's work to seize the advancing creatures, to hold them +rearing,--and then a deadly flash,--while the ball whistled past me, +grazed my hand, and pierced the leader's heart. In a twinkling the dead +horse was cut away, and His Excellency, cowering in the bottom of the +coach, galloped borne more swiftly than the wind, without a word. But +the populace appreciated the action, took it up with _vivas_ long and +loud, that rang after me when I had slipped away, and before nightfall +had echoed in all ears through leagues of country round. I went that +night to the theatre. The house was filled, and, as we entered, a murmur +went about, and then cries broke forth,--the multitude rose with cheers +and bravos, calling my name, intoxicated with enthusiasm, and dazzled, +not by a daring feat, but by the spirit that prompted it. Women tore off +their jewels to twist them into a sling for my injured hand; men rose +and made me a conqueror's ovation; the orchestra played the old Etrurian +hymns of freedom; I was attended home with a more than Roman triumph of +torch and song, stately men and beautiful women. But chameleons change +their tint in the sunshine, and why should men always march under one +color? Friend, not six months later there came another day, when triumph +was shame,--plaudits, curses,--joyous tumult, scorching silence. Oh!-- +But I shall come to that in time. Now let me hasten; the hours are less +tardy than I, and they bring with them my last. + +Thought of this day--sole pageant defiling through memory--was startled +again by the far, sweet sound of a bell, some bell ringing twilight out +and evening in across the wide Campagna. I wondered what delayed Lenore. +Did it take so long to toss off the cloudy back-falling veil, to wrap in +any long cloak her gown of white damask and all the sheen of her milky +pearl-dusters and fiery rubies? I thought with exultation then of what +she was so soon to see,--of the route through sunken ruins, down wells +forsaken of their pristine sources and hidden by masses of moss, winding +with the faint light in our hands through the awful ways and avenues of +the catacombs. The scene grew real to me, as I mused. Alone, what should +I fear? These silent hosts encamped around would but have cheered their +child. But with her, every murmur becomes a portent of danger, every +current of air gives me fresh tremors; as we pass casual openings into +the sky, the vault of air, the glint of stars, shall seem a malignant +face; I fancy to hear impossible footsteps behind us, some bone that +crumbling falls from its shelf makes my heart beat high, her dear hand +trembles in my hold, and, full of a new and superstitious awe, I half +fear this ancient population of the graves will rise and surround us +with phantom array. Now and then, a cold, lonely wind, blowing from no +one knows where, rises and careers past us, piercing to the marrow. I +think, too, of that underground space, half choked with rubbish, into +which we are to emerge at last, once the hall of some old Roman revel. I +see the troubled flashes flung from the flaring torch over our assembly. +Alert and startled, I see Lenore listen to the names as if they summoned +the wraiths and not the bodies of men whom she had supposed to be lost +in the pampas of Paraguay, dead in the Papal prisons, sheltered in +English homes, or tossing far away on the long voyages of the Pacific +seas. I see myself at length taking the torch from its niche and +restoring it, as a hundred times before, to Pietro da Valambo, while +it glitters on some strange object looking in at the vine-clad opening +above with its breaths of air, serpent or hare, or the large face and +slow eyes of a browsing buffalo. And as I think, lo! an echo in the +house, a dull tramp in the hall, a stealthy tread in the room, a heavy +hand upon my shoulder,--I was arrested for high treason. + +Do not think I surrendered then. Without a struggle I would be the +prize of Pope nor King nor Kaiser! I shook the minions' grasp from my +shoulder, I flashed my sword in their eyes; and not till the crescent +of weapons encircled me in one blinding gleam, vain grew defence, vain +honor, vain bravery. Of what use was my soul to me thenceforth? I became +but carrion prey. I fell, and the world fell from me. + +Sensation, emotion, awoke from their swooning lapse only in the light +of day, the next or another, I knew not which. I was lifted from some +conveyance, I saw blue reaches of curving bay and the great purifying +priest of flame, and knew I was in the city guarded by its pillar of +cloud by day, of fire by night. I had reason to know it, when, yet +unfed, unrested, faint, smirched and smeared with blood and travel, +loaded with chains, I was brought to a tribunal where sat the sleek and +subtle tyrant of Naples. + +"Signor," said a bland voice from the king's side,--and looking in its +direction, I encountered the Neapolitan,--"Signor, I lately said that at +some day I would trouble you to repeat a brilliant sentence addressed +to me. The day has arrived. I scarcely dared dream it would be so soon. +Shall we listen?" + +I was silent: not that I feared to say it; they could but finish their +play. + +Then I saw the beautifully cut lips of my judge part, that the voice +might slide forth, and, taking a comfit, he tittered, with unchanging +tint and sweetest tone, the three words, "Apply the question." + +Why should I endure that for a whim? Who courts torment? Already they +drew near with the cunning instruments. Let me say it, and what then? +Nothing worse than torture. Let me _not_ say it, and certainly torture. +Oh, I was weaker than a child! my body ruled my spirit with its +exhaustion and pain. Yet there was a certain satisfaction in flinging +the words in their faces. I waved back with my remaining arm the slaves +who approached. + +"You should allow a weary man the time to collect his thoughts," I said, +and then turned to my persecutors. "I have spoken with you many times, +Signor," I replied to the Neapolitan, "yet of all our words I can +remember none but these, that you could care to hear with this auditory. +I said,--that the tyrant of Naples walks in blood to his knees!" + +The Neapolitan smiled. The king rose. + +"Well said!" he murmured, in his silvery tones. "One that knows so +much must know more. Exhaust his knowledge, I pray. Do not spare your +courtesies; remember he is my guest. I leave him in your hands." + +He fixed me with his eye,--that darkly-glazed eye, devoid of life, of +love, of joy, as if he were the thing of another element,--then bowed +and passed away. + +"The urbanity of His Majesty is too well known to suppose it possible +that he should prove you a liar," said the Neapolitan. + +Truly, I was loft in their hands! Shall I tell you of the charities I +found there? Not I, friend! it would wring your heart as dry of tears +as mine was wrung of groans. At last I was alone, it seemed,--on a wet +stone floor, sweat pouring from every muscle, each fibre quivering; I +was distorted and unjointed, I only hoped I was dying. But no, that +was too good for me. Anselmo, how can I but be full of scoffs, when I +remember those hours, those ages? The cold dampness of the place crept +into my bones; I became swollen and teeming with intimate pain. But +that was light, my body might have ached till the throbs stiffened into +death-spasms, and yet the suffering had been nought, compared with that +loathing and disgust in my soul. It had seemed that I was alone, I said. +Alone as the corpse in unshrouded grave! I was in a charnel-house. Men +who were sinless as you hung dead upon the wall, hung dying there. +Darkness covered all things at a distance, sighs crept up from +far corners, chains clanked, or imprecations or prayer uttered +themselves,--bodiless voices in the night. I did not know what untold +horror there might yet be hid. I heard the drip of water from the black +vaults; I heard the short, fierce pants and deadly groans. Oh, worst +infliction of Hell's armory it is to see another suffer! Why was it +allowed, Anselmo? Did it come in the long train of a broken law? was it +one of the dark places of Providence? or was it indeed the vile compost +to mature some beautiful germ? Ah, then, is it possible that Heaven +looks on us so in the mass? + +But for me, after a while I lay torpid, and then perchance I slept, for +finally I opened my eyes and found the white strong light; T lay on a +bed, and a surgeon handled me. Too elastic was I to be long crushed, +once the weight removed. Soon I breathed fresh air; and save that my +frame had become in its distortion hideous, I was the same as before. + +Then, indeed, began my torture,--torture to which this had been idle +jest. I was taken once more to the room of tribunal. Beside the +Neapolitan a woman sat veiled and shrouded in masses of sable drapery. +"A queen?" I thought, "or a slave?" But I had no further room for fancy; +the same interrogatories as before were given me to answer, and then I +felt why I had been nursed back to life. In the months that had elapsed, +I could not know if Italy were saved or lost, if Naples tottered or +remained impregnable. I stood only on my personal basis of right or +wrong. I refused to open my lips. They wheeled forward a low bed that I +knew well. Oh, the slow starting of the socket! Oh, the long wrench of +tendon and nerve! A bed of steel and cords, rollers and levers, bound me +there, and bent to their creaking toil. I was strong to endure; I had +set my teeth and sworn myself to silence; no woman should hear me moan. +Even in this misery I saw that she who sat there, shaking, fell. + +The tyrant was lily-livered; seldom he witnessed what others died under; +he intended nothing further then;--many men who faint at sight of blood +can probe a soul to its utmost gasp. Now he motioned, and they paused. +Then others lifted the woman and held her beside him, yet a little in +advance. + +"Keep your silence," said he, in a voice unrecognizable, and as if a +wild beast, half-glutted, should speak, "and I keep her! She is in my +power. Mine, and you know what that means. Mine," and he bent toward me, +"_body and--soul_. To use, to blast, to destroy, to tear piecemeal,--as +I will do, so help me God! unless you meet my condition." And extending +his hand, he drew aside the black veil, and my eye lay on the face of +Lenore, thin and white as the familiar faces of corpses, and utterly +insensible in swoon. + +All, that mortal horror stops my pulse! Was I wrong? Why not have borne +that, too? Had she loved me, she had chosen it, chosen it rather. And +death would have made all right!--God! why not have seized some poignard +lying there? why not have sprung upon her, have slain her? Then silence +had been simply secure. Then I could have smiled in their frustrated +faces, one keen, deep smile, and died. I was dissolved in pain, writhed +with prolonged strokes that thrilled me from head to foot, pierced as +with acute stabs, my heart seemed to forge thunderbolts to break upon my +brain,--but this agony had been spared me. They unbound me, fed me with +some stimulating cordial, gave me cold air, and I rose on my elbow a +little. + +"Swear!" I said, hoarsely. "But you do not keep oaths. God help you? +Never! There must be a Hell to help you! Imprecate this, then, on +yourself! May you in your smooth white body know the torture I have +known, be racked till each bone in your skin changes place, hang +festering in chains from the wall of a living grave, make fellowship +with putridity, and lie in the pitiless dark to see all the dead who +died under your hand rise, rise and accuse you before God! And may your +little son know the deeds you have done, live the life those deeds +merit, and die the death that _I_ shall die,--if you do not keep your +word!" + +"What word?" he said. + +"Promise, if I reveal all, and my revelations shall be true and thorough +therefore,--promise that you will leave her in safe security and freedom +to-day, untouched, unscathed, unharmed, and that so ever shall she +remain. And false to this oath, may no priest shrive you, no land own +you, God blight you and curse you and wither you from the face of the +earth!" + +And taking a crucifix, he swore the oath. + +Then they busied themselves about Lenore, revived her, soothed her, +gave her of the same cordial to drink, and placed her once more in her +daïs-seat. Her veil was thrown back, her wide blue eyes fixed on me in +intense strain, her face and lips still blanched more bitterly beneath +that hue, her features sharp as chisel-graven death. Ah, God! must +I endure that too? Was she to hear me,--she, not knowing why, never +knowing why,--she in whom that look of aching passion and pity was to +die out and freeze and fade in one of utter scorn? + +They brought me some strange draught, as if one swallowed fire. The +blood coursed richly through my shrunken veins; I felt filled with a +different life. I arose and left that bed of torture, but came back to +it as to my rest. + +And lying there, I betrayed Italy. + +Root and branch and spray and leaf, I uprooted all my memories; I forgot +no name, I lost no fact; I was eagerer than they; I modified nothing, +I abbreviated nothing; the past, the future, what had been, was to be, +plan and scheme and supreme purpose, I never faltered, I told the whole! + +I did not look at her, I kept my eyes on the tyrant; I wished I might +have the evil eye,--but that gift was for him, the Neapolitan. Yet at +length I heard a low moan trailing toward me; I turned, and saw her +face, as I saw it last, Anselmo,--stonily quiet, frozen from indignant +pain to icy apathy, and the words she would have said had hissed +inarticulately through her ashen lips. Then they brought me the +confession, and, as I could, I signed it. + +"Madame," said the tyrant, "your knowledge is coextensive with his. Does +all this agree?" + +"Sire, it does agree," she answered, and they led her out. + +"I have no authority over you," said the tyrant then to me. "You might +go freely now, but that, precious as Homer, seven cities claim you, +Signor! My prisons also will now be full of rarer game. But as a crime +of your commission places you within Austrian jurisdiction, I shall take +pleasure in presenting you to my cousin and surrendering you to his +mercy," and he withdrew. + +"You may not be aware," said the courteous Neapolitan, "that on the +night of your arrest your frantic sword-slashes had serious result. My +friend the little Viennois fell at your hands." + +[Transcriber's note: Page missing in source text.] + +through dazzling rings of light, and I fell forward in the cart and hung +by my chains among the hoofs of the trampling horses who dragged me. On +that day I had taken my last step; I never set foot on the round earth +again. But, with all, I smiled through my groans; for the shining, solid +hoofs that did their work on me did their work as well on the man who +walked by my side,--dashed dead the accursed Neapolitan. + +They were not the surgeons of Naples who essayed to galvanize volition +through my paralyzed limbs, but those who knew the utmost resources of +their art. And so I lived,--lived, too, by reason of my inextinguishable +vitality, by reason of this spark that will not quench,--and so I came +to Hellberg. It would have been mockery to give this shapeless hulk to +sentence, and then to headsman or hangman; perhaps, too, her haughty +name had been involved; and so I was never brought to trial, and so I am +at Hellberg. + +And I have never set foot on the ground again. But, oh, to touch it +for a moment, to sit anywhere on the summer mould, to pull down the +sun-quivering, sun-steeped branches about me, to scent the fresh grass +as it springs to the light! Oh. but to touch the sweet, kind earth, the +warm earth, silent with ineffable tenderness and soothing, to feel it +under my hand, to lay my cheek there for a moment, while it drew away +pain and weariness with its absorbing, purifying power! Oh, but to lie +once more where the blossoms grow! Soon, soon, they will grow above me! +Soon the kind mother will cover me! + + * * * * * + +What had happened in the outer world I knew not till you came. I fancied +Lenore returned, breathing Austrian air, and living under the same +horizon that girds me in. Sometimes I have seen a distant cavalcade +skimming over the vale, as once we careered over the Campagna, when she +handled her steed as another woman handles her needle, and the sweet +wind fanned peach-tints to her cheeks and drew out unravelled braids of +gold in lingering caress. She could have come to me, had she pleased, +then: this old chief who rules the place was her father's friend and +hers.--But look I but see! Who is it comes now,--sweeps round the donjon +flank? Lean over the embrasure, and learn! Ah, man, are my eyes so old, +my memories so treacherous, that I do not know day from night? They have +gone on,--or did they enter, think you? Or yet, there is to be carousal, +perhaps, in the halls beyond and below, and she comes to join the gay +feast; she will drink healths in red wine, will listen to flattering +dalliance with pleased eyes, will utter light laughs through the lips +that once glowed to my kisses, and will forget that the same roof +which shelters the revellers shelters also her lover dying in moans! +Careless--Best so! best so! What cavalier whispered in her ear as she +passed? Have years tarnished her beauty? Ah, God! this wind, that +maddens me now, a moment since touched her! + +Anselmo, I will go in. This vault of heaven with its spotless blue, this +wide land that laughs in festive summer, these winds that lift my hair +and come heavy with odors,--these do not fit with me, I burlesque the +fair face of creation. O invisible airs, that softly sport round the +castle-towers, why do you not woo my soul forth and bear it and lose it +in the flawless cope of sky? + +Nay, why, any more than Ajax, should I die in the dark? Never again +will I enter the cell, never again! The wide universe shall receive my +breath. Lower the back of my chair, pull away the cushions, wrap my +cloak round me, Anselmo. There! I will lie, and wait, and look up. Give +me ghostly counsel, my friend, console me. You are not too weary with +this long tale? Tell me I needed all the tears I have shed to quench the +fiery defiance, the independence of heaven and tumult of earth in my +being. If you could tell me that she had not been false, that she never +feigned her passion to decoy, that, Austrian though she were--Ah, but +I had evidence! I had evidence! his words, that ate out my life like +gangrene and rust.--Speak slower, Anselmo, slower. Can it be that I +sinned most, when I held his words before hers,--his black damning +falsehoods?--Mother of God! do you know what you say? + +Tell me, then, that I am a fool,--that not through other loss than the +loss of faith did the curse fall on me! Tell me, then, that these dark +ways lead me out on a height! Needful the shadow and the groping. He +anointed my eyes with the clay beneath his feet,--I was blind, but now I +see God! + +Repeat, Anselmo, repeat that she was true, though the knowledge blast me +with self-consuming pangs. But, true or false, one thing she promised +me: though other spheres, though other lives had come between us, she +would be with me in my dying hour. Soon the bell will toll that hour, +and toll my knell! + + * * * * * + +What is this, Anselmo,--this face that hangs between me and +heaven,--this pitying, sorrowing countenance?--Ave Maria!--Never! Never! +Still of the earth, this melting mouth, these violet eyes, this brow +of snow, this fragrant bosom pillowing my head! Mirage of fainting +fancy,--out, beautiful thing, away! Do not torment me with such a +despairing lie! do not cheat me into death! Let me at least look on the +unobstructed sky, as I sink lower and lower to my eternal rest! + + * * * * * + +Still there? Still there? Still bending above me, smiling and weeping, +sweet April face? Oh, were they truly thy lips that lay on mine, then, +that stamped them with life's impress, that woke me? Are they truly thy +fingers that pressed my throbless temples? These arms that are wound +about me, are thine? Thy heart beats for me, thy tears flow, thy perfect +womanhood does not recoil in horror? Lenore! Lenore! is it thou? + + * * * * * + +Nay, nay, Sweet, ask me no question; I have wronged thee; he shall tell +thee how. Yet best thou shouldst never hear it. Sin to thee greater than +all treachery had been. Forgive, forgive! I go,--in meeting, leave thee; +but be glad for me,--whether I sleep or whether I wake, know that a +great curse will have fallen from me. Swathe my memory in thy love. Kiss +me again, child! Rock me a little; stoop lower, and croon those old +mountain-songs that once you sang when the sunshine soaked the sward and +your hair was crowned with blue morning-glories. + +Ah, your song drowns in tears! Yet you do not wish me to live, Lenore? O +love, I can do nothing but die! + +The sunlight fades from the hills, the air wavers and glimmers, and day +is dim. Thy face is mistier than a vision of angels. There are faint, +strange voices in my ear, swift rustlings, far harmonics;--has sense +become so attenuated that I hear the blood in my failing pulses? Lenore, +love, lower. Thy lips to mine, and breathe my life away. Twice would I +die to save thee! + +--Anselmo! man! where art thou? Come back ere I fall,--strength flares +up like a dying flame. _Never tell her why I betrayed Italy!_ + +--Closer, dear love, closer! What old murmurs do I hear? + + "The night is spread for thee, + The heavens are wide, + And the dark earth's mystery"-- + +So,--in thy arms,--from thee to God! O love, +forever--kiss--forgive!--Lift me, that I confront eternity and Christ! + + + + +AFTER "TAPS." + + + Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! + As I lay with my blanket on, + By the dim fire-light, in the moonlit night, + When the skirmishing fight was done. + + The measured beat of the sentry's feet, + With the jingling scabbard's ring! + Tramp! Tramp! in my meadow-camp + By the Shenandoah's spring. + + The moonlight seems to shed cold beams + On a row of pale gravestones: + Give the bugle breath, and that image of Death + Will fly from the reveille's tones. + + By each tented roof, a charger's hoof + Makes the frosty hill-side ring: + Give the bugle breath, and a spirit of Death + To each horse's girth will spring. + + Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! + The sentry, before my tent, + Guards, in gloom, his chief, for whom + Its shelter to-night is lent. + + I am not there. On the hill-side bare + I think of the ghost within; + Of the brave who died at my sword-hand side, + To-day, 'mid the horrible din + + Of shot and shell and the infantry yell, + As we charged with the sabre drawn. + To my heart I said, "Who shall be the dead + In _my_ tent, at another dawn?" + + I thought of a blossoming almond-tree, + The stateliest tree that I know; + Of a golden bowl; of a parted soul; + And a lamp that is burning low. + + Oh, thoughts that kill! I thought of the hill + In the far-off Jura chain; + Of the two, the three, o'er the wide salt sea, + Whose hearts would break with pain; + + Of my pride and joy,--my eldest boy; + Of my darling, the second--in years; + Of _Willie_, whose face, with its pure, mild grace, + Melts memory into tears; + + Of their mother, my bride, by the Alpine lake's side, + And the angel asleep in her arms; + Love, Beauty, and Truth, which she brought to my youth, + In that sweet April day of her charms. + + "HALT! _Who comes there?_" The cold midnight air + And the challenging word chill me through. + The ghost of a fear whispers, close to my ear, + "Is peril, love, coming to you?" + + The hoarse answer, "RELIEF," makes the shade of a grief + Die away, with the step on the sod. + A kiss melts in air, while a tear and a prayer + Confide my beloved to God. + + Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! + With a solemn, pendulum-swing! + Though _I_ slumber all night, the fire burns bright, + And my sentinels' scabbards ring. + + * * * * * + + "Boot and saddle!" is sounding. Our pulses are bounding. + "To horse!" And I touch with my heel + Black Gray in the flanks, and ride down the ranks, + With my heart, like my sabre, of steel. + + + + +THE HUMAN WHEEL, ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. + + +[Illustration] + +The starting-point of this paper was a desire to call attention to +certain remarkable AMERICAN INVENTIONS, especially to one class of +mechanical contrivances, which, at the present time, assumes a vast +importance and interests great multitudes. The limbs of our friends and +countrymen are a part of the melancholy harvest which War is sweeping +down with Dahlgren's mowing-machine and the patent reapers of +Springfield and Hartford. The admirable contrivances of an American +inventor, prized as they were in ordinary times, have risen into the +character of great national blessings since the necessity for them has +become so widely felt. While the weapons that have gone from Mr. Colt's +armories have been carrying death to friend and foe, the beneficent +and ingenious inventions of MR. PALMER have been repairing the losses +inflicted by the implements of war. + +The study of the artificial limbs which owe their perfection to his +skill and long-continued labor has led us a little beyond its first +object, and finds its natural prelude in some remarks on the natural +limbs and their movements. Accident directed our attention, while +engaged with this subject, to the efforts of another ingenious American +to render the use of our lower extremities easier by shaping their +artificial coverings more in accordance with their true form than is +done by the empirical cordwainer, and thus _Dr. Plumer_ must submit to +the coupling of some mention of his praiseworthy efforts in the same +pages with the striking achievements of his more aspiring compatriot. + +We should not tell the whole truth, if we did not own that we have for +a long time been lying in wait for a chance to say something about the +mechanism of walking, because we thought we could add something to what +is known about it from a new source, accessible only within the last +few years, and never, so far as we know, employed for its elucidation, +namely, _the instantaneous photograph_. + + * * * * * + +The two accomplishments common to all mankind are walking and talking. +Simple as they seem, they are yet acquired with vast labor, and very +rarely understood in any clear way by those who practise them with +perfect ease and unconscious skill. + +Talking seems the hardest to comprehend. Yet it has been clearly +explained and successfully imitated by artificial contrivances. We +know that the moist membranous edges of a narrow crevice (the glottis) +vibrate as the reed of a clarionet vibrates, and thus produce the human +_bleat_. We narrow or widen or check or stop the flow of this sound by +the lips, the tongue, the teeth, and thus _articulate_, or break into +joints, the even current of sound. The sound varies with the degree and +kind of interruption, as the "babble" of the brook with the shape and +size of its impediments,--pebbles, or rocks, or dams. To whisper is to +articulate without _bleating_, or vocalizing; to _coo_ as babies do is +to bleat or vocalize without articulating. Machines are easily made that +bleat not unlike human beings. A bit of India-rubber tube tied round a +piece of glass tube is one of the simplest voice-uttering contrivances. +To make a machine that _articulates_ is not so easy; but we remember +Maelzel's wooden children, which said, "Pa-pa" and "Ma-ma"; and more +elaborate and successful speaking machines have, we believe, been since +constructed. + +But no man has been able to make a figure that can _walk_. Of all the +automata imitating men or animals moving, there is not one in which the +legs are the true sources of motion. So said the Webers[A] more than +twenty years ago, and it is as true now as then. These authors, after a +profound experimental and mathematical investigation of the mechanism +of animal locomotion, recognize the fact that our knowledge is not yet +advanced enough to hope to succeed in making real walking machines. But +they conceive that the time may come hereafter when colossal figures +will be constructed whose giant strides will not be arrested by the +obstacles which are impassable to wheeled conveyances. + +[Footnote A: _Traité de la Méchanique des Organes de la Locomotion_, +Translated from the German in the _Encyclopédie Anatomique_. Paris, +1843.] + +We wish to give our readers as clear an idea as possible of that +wonderful art of balanced vertical progression which they have +practised, as M. Jourdain talked prose, for so many years, without +knowing what a marvellous accomplishment they had mastered. We shall +have to begin with a few simple anatomical data. + +The foot is arched both longitudinally and transversely, so as to give +it elasticity, and thus break the sudden shock when the weight of the +body is thrown upon it. The ankle-joint is a loose hinge, and the great +muscles of the calf can straighten the foot out so far that practised +dancers walk on the tips of their toes. The knee is another hinge-joint, +which allows the leg to bend freely, but not to be carried beyond a +straight line in the other direction. Its further forward movement is +checked by two very powerful cords in the interior of the joint, which +cross each other like the letter X, and are hence called the _crucial +ligaments_. The upper ends of the thighbones are almost globes, which +are received into the deep cup-like cavities of the haunch-bones. They +are tied to these last so loosely, that, if their ligaments alone held +them, they would be half out of their sockets in many positions of the +lower limbs. But here comes in a simple and admirable contrivance. The +smooth, rounded head of the thighbone, moist with glairy fluid, fits so +perfectly into the smooth, rounded cavity which receives it, that it +holds firmly by _suction_, or atmospheric pressure. It takes a hard pull +to draw it out after all the ligaments are cut, and then it comes with a +smack like a tight cork from a bottle. Holding in this way by the close +apposition of two polished surfaces, the lower extremity swings freely +forward and backward like a _pendulum_, if we give it a chance, as is +shown by standing on a chair upon the other limb, and moving the pendent +one out of the vertical line. The force with which it swings depends +upon its weight, and this is much greater than we might at first +suppose; for our limbs not only carry themselves, but our bodies also, +with a sense of lightness rather than of weight, when we are in good +condition. Accident sometimes makes us aware how heavy our limbs are. An +officer, whose arm was shattered by a ball in one of our late battles, +told us that the dead weight of the helpless member seemed to drag him +down to the earth; he could hardly carry it; it "weighed a ton," to his +feeling, as he said. + +In _ordinary walking_, a man's lower extremity swings essentially by its +own weight, requiring little muscular effort to help it. So heavy a body +easily overcomes all impedimenta from clothing, even in the sex least +favored in its costume. But if a man's legs are pendulums, then a short +man's legs will swing quicker than a tall man's, and he will take more +steps to a minute, other things being equal. Thus there is a natural +rhythm to a man's walk, depending on the length of his legs, which beat +more or less rapidly as they are longer or shorter, like metronomes +differently adjusted, or the pendulums of different time-keepers. +Commodore Nutt is to M. Bihin in this respect as a little, fast-ticking +mantel-clock is to an old-fashioned, solemn-clicking, upright +time-piece. + +The mathematical formulae in which the Messrs. Weber embody their +results would hardly be instructive to most of our readers. The figures +of their Atlas would serve our purpose better, had we not the means of +coming nearer to the truth than even their careful studies enabled them +to do. We have selected a number of instantaneous stereoscopic views of +the streets and public places of Paris and of New York, each of them +showing numerous walking figures, among which some may be found in +every stage of the complex act we are studying. Mr. Darley has had the +kindness to leave his higher tasks to transfer several of these to our +pages, so that the reader may be sure that he looks upon an exact copy +of real human individuals in the act of walking. + +[Illustration: Fig. 1.] + +The first subject is caught with his legs stretched in a stride, the +remarkable length of which arrests our attention. The sole of the right +foot is almost vertical. By the action of the muscles of the calf it has +_rolled off_ from the ground like a portion of the tire of a wheel, the +heel rising first, and thus the body, already advancing with all its +acquired velocity, and inclined forward, has been pushed along, and, as +it were, _tipped over_, so as to fall upon the other foot, now ready to +receive its weight. + +[Illustration: Fig. 2.] + +In the second figure, the right leg is bending at the knee, so as to +lift the foot from the ground, in order that it may swing forward. + +[Illustration: Fig. 3.] + +The next stage of movement is shown in the _left_ leg of figure 3. This +leg is seen suspended in air, a little beyond the middle of the arc +through which it swings, and before it has straightened itself, which it +will presently do, as shown in the next figure. + +[Illustration: Fig. 4.] + +The foot has now swung forward, and, tending to swing back again, the +limb being straightened, and the body tipped forward, the heel strikes +the ground. The angle which the sole of the foot forms with the ground +increases with the length of the stride; and as this last surprised us, +so the extent of this angle astonishes us in many of the figures, in +this among the rest. + +The heel strikes the ground with great force, as the wear of our boots +and shoes in that part shows us. But the projecting heel of the human +foot is the arm of a lever, haying the ankle-joint as its fulcrum, and, +as it strikes the ground, brings the sole of the foot down flat upon it, +as shown in figure 1. At the same time the weight of the limb and body +is thrown upon the foot, by the joint effect of muscular action and +acquired velocity, and the other foot is now ready to rise from the +ground and repeat the process we have traced in its fellow. + +No artist would have dared to draw a walking figure in attitudes like +some of these. The swinging limb is so much shortened that the toe never +by any accident scrapes the ground, if this is tolerably even. In cases +of partial paralysis, the scraping of the toe, as the patient walks, is +one of the characteristic marks of imperfect muscular action. + +Walking, then, is a perpetual falling with a perpetual self-recovery. It +is a most complex, violent, and perilous operation, which we divest of +its extreme danger only by continual practice from a very early period +of life. We find how complex it is when we attempt to analyze it, and +we see that we never understood it thoroughly until the time of the +instantaneous photograph. We learn how violent it is, when we walk +against a post or a door in the dark. We discover how dangerous it is, +when we slip or trip and come down, perhaps breaking or dislocating our +limbs, or overlook the last step of a flight of stairs, and discover +with what headlong violence we have been hurling ourselves forward. + +Two curious facts are easily proved. First, a man is shorter when he is +walking than when at rest. We have found a very simple way of showing +this by having a rod or yardstick placed horizontally, so as to touch +the top of the head forcibly, as we stand under it. In walking rapidly +beneath it, even if the eyes are shut, to avoid involuntary stooping, +the top of the head will not even graze the rod. The other fact is, that +one side of a man always tends to outwalk the other, so that no person +can walk far in a straight line, if he is blindfolded. + +The somewhat singular illustration at the head of our article carries +out an idea which has only been partially alluded to by others. Man is +a _wheel_, with two spokes, his legs, and two fragments of a tire, his +feet. He _rolls_ successively on each of these fragments from the heel +to the toe. If he had spokes enough, he would go round and round as the +boys do when they "make a wheel" with their four limbs for its spokes. +But having only two available for ordinary locomotion, each of these has +to be taken up as soon as it has been used, and carried forward to +be used again, and so alternately with the pair. The peculiarity of +biped-walking is, that the centre of gravity is shifted from one leg to +the other, and the one not employed can shorten itself so as to swing +forward, passing by that which supports the body. + +This is just what no automaton can do. Many of our readers have, +however, seen a young lady in the shop-windows, or entertained her in +their own nurseries, who professes to be this hitherto impossible +walking automaton, and who calls herself by the Homeric-sounding epithet +_Autoperipatetikos._ The golden-booted legs of this young lady remind +us of Miss Kilmansegg, while their size assures us that she is not in +any way related to Cinderella. On being wound up, as if she were a piece +of machinery, and placed on a level surface, she proceeds to toddle off, +taking very short steps like a child, holding herself very stiff and +straight, with a little lifting at each step, and all this with a mighty +inward whirring and buzzing of the enginery which constitutes her +muscular system. + +An autopsy of one of her family who fell into our hands reveals the +secret springs of her action. Wishing to spare her as a member of the +defenceless sex, it pains us to say, that, ingenious as her counterfeit +walking is, she is an impostor. Worse than this,--with all our reverence +for her brazen crinoline, duty compels us to reveal a fact concerning +her which will shock the feelings of those who have watched the stately +rigidity of decorum with which she moves in the presence of admiring +multitudes. _She is a quadruped!_. Inside of her great golden boots, +which represent one pair of feet, is another smaller pair, which move +freely through these hollow casings. + +[Illustration] + +Four _cams_ or eccentric wheels impart motion to her four supports, by +which she is carried forward, always resting on two of them,--the boot +of one side, and the foot of the other. Her movement, then, is not +walking; it is not skating, which it seems to resemble; it is more like +that of a person walking with two crutches besides his two legs. The +machinery is simple enough: a strong spiral spring, three or four +cog-wheels and pinions, a fly to regulate the motion as in a musical +box, and the cams before mentioned. As a toy, it or she is very taking +to grown people as well as children. It is a literal fact, that the +police requested one of our dealers to remove Miss Autoperipatetikos +from his window, because the crowd she drew obstructed the sidewalk. + +We see by our analysis of the process, and by the difficulty of +imitating it, that walking is a much more delicate, perilous, +complicated operation than we should suppose, and well worth studying in +a practical point of view, to see what can be done to make it easier and +safer. Two Americans have applied themselves to this task: one laboring +for those who possess their lower limbs and want to use them to +advantage, the other for such as have had the misfortune to lose one or +both of them. + +_Dr. J.C. Plumer_, formerly of Portland, now of Boston, has devoted +himself to the study of the foot, and to the construction of a last upon +which a boot or shoe can be moulded which shall be adapted to its form +and accommodated to its action. + +Most persons know something of the cruel injustice to which the feet are +subjected, and the extraordinary distortions and diseases to which they +are liable in consequence. The foot's fingers are the slaves in the +republic of the body. Their black leathern integument is only the mask +of their servile condition. They bear the burdens, while the hands, +their white masters, handle the money and wear the rings. They are +crowded promiscuously in narrow prisons, while each of the hand's +fingers claims its separate apartment, leading from the antechamber, in +the dainty glove. As a natural consequence of all this, their faculties +are cramped, they grow into ignoble shapes, they become callous by long +abuse, and all their natural gifts are crushed and trodden out of them. + +Dr. Plumer is the Garrison of these oppressed members of the body +corporeal. He comes to break their chains, to lift their bowed figures, +to strengthen their weakness, to restore them to the dignity of digits. +To do this, he begins where every sensible man would, by contemplating +the natural foot as it appears in infancy, unspoiled as yet by +social corruptions, in adults fortunate enough to have escaped these +destructive influences, in the grim skeleton aspect divested of its +outward disguises. We will give the reader two views of the latter kind, +illustrating the longitudinal and transverse arches before spoken of. + +[Illustration] + +A man who walks on natural surfaces, with his feet unprotected by any +artificial defences, calls the action of these arches into full play at +every step. The longitudinal arch is the most strikingly marked of the +two. In some races and in certain individuals it is much developed, so +as to give the high instep which is prized as an evidence of good blood. +The Arab says that a stream of water can flow under his foot without +touching its sole. Under the conditions supposed, of a naked foot on a +natural surface, the arches of the foot will commonly maintain their +integrity, and give the noble savage or the barefooted Scotch lassie the +elasticity of gait which we admire in the children of Nature. + +But as a large portion of mankind tread on artificial hard surfaces, +especially pavements, their feet are subjected to a very unnatural +amount of wear and tear. How great this is the inhabitants of cities +are apt to forget. After passing some months in the country, we have +repeatedly found ourselves terribly lamed and shaken by our first walk +on the pavement. A party of city-folk who landed on a beach upon Cape +Cod complained greatly to one of the natives accompanying them of the +difficulty of walking through the deep sand. "Ah," he answered, "it's +nothing to the trouble I have walking on your city-sidewalks." To save +the feet from the effects of violent percussion and uneven surfaces, +they must be protected by thick soles, and thick soles require strong +upper-leather. When the foot is wedged into one of these casings, a new +boot, a struggle begins between them, which ends in a compromise. The +foot becomes more or less compressed or deformed, and the boot more or +less stretched at the points where the counter-pressure takes place. + +On the part of the foot, the effects of this warfare are liable to +show themselves in thickening and inflammation of the integuments, in +displacement of the toes, and occasionally in the breaking down of the +transverse or longitudinal arches. On the part of the boot or shoe, +there is a gradual accommodation which in time fits it to the foot +almost as if it had been moulded upon it, so that a little before it is +worn out it is invaluable, like other blessings brightening before they +take their flight. + +Now Mr. Plumer's improvements proceed from two series of data. _First_, +certain theoretical inferences from the facts above named. Finding the +arches liable to break down, he supports the transverse arch by making +the inner surface of the sole corresponding to it _convex_ instead of +concave transversely; he makes the middle portion of the sole convex +again in both directions to support the longitudinal arch, and for the +same reason extends the heel of the boot or shoe forward, so as to +support the anterior portion of the heel of the foot. _Secondly_, Mr. +Plumer takes an old shoe that has done good service, and studies the +reliefs and hollows-which the foot has shaped on the inner surface of +its sole. Comparing the empirical results of this examination with +those based on the anatomical data above given, and finding a general +coincidence in them, he constructs his last in accordance with their +joint teachings. Theoretically, Mr. Plumer is on somewhat dangerous +ground. If the arches of the foot are made to yield like elliptical +springs, why support them? But we subject them to such unnatural +conditions by pressure from above over the instep, by adding high heels +to our boots and shoes, by taking away all yielding qualities from the +soil on which we tread, that very probably they may want artificial +support as much as the soles of the feet want artificial protection. If, +now, we find that an old, easy shoe has worked the inside surface of its +sole into convexities which support the arches, we are safe in imitating +that at any rate. We shall have a new shoe with some, at least, of the +virtues of the old one. + +This all sounds very well, and the next question is, whether it works +well. We cannot but remember the coat made for Mr. Gulliver by the +Laputan tailors, which, though projected from the most refined +geometrical data and the most profound calculations, he found to be the +worst fit he ever put on his back. We must ask those who have eaten the +pudding how it tastes, and those who have worn the shoe how it wears. We +have no satisfactory experience of our own, having only within a week +or two, by mere accident, stumbled into a pair of Plumerian boots, and +being thus led to look into a matter which seemed akin to the main +subject of this paper. But the author of "Views Afoot," who ought to be +a sovereign authority on all that interests pedestrians, confirms from +his own experience the favorable opinions expressed by several of our +most eminent physicians, from an examination of the principles of +construction. We are informed that the Plumer last has been recently +adopted for the use of the army. We add our own humble belief that Dr. +Plumer deserves well of mankind for applying sound anatomical principles +to the construction of coverings for the feet, and for contriving a last +serving as a model for a boot or shoe which is adapted to the form of +the foot from the first, instead of having to be broken in by a painful +series of limping excursions, too often accompanied by impatient and +even profane utterances. + + * * * * * + +It is not two years since the sight of a person who had lost one of his +lower limbs was an infrequent occurrence. Now, alas! there are few of us +who have not a cripple among our friends, if not in our own families. A +mechanical art which provided for an occasional and exceptional want +has become a great and active branch of industry. War unmakes legs, and +human skill must supply their places as it best may. + +Our common idea of a wooden leg is realized in the "peg" of the +Greenwich pensioner. This humble contrivance has done excellent service +in its time, and may serve a good purpose still in some cases. A plain +working-man, who has outlived his courting-days and need not sacrifice +much to personal appearance, may find an honest, old-fashioned wooden +leg, cheap, lasting, requiring no repairs, the best thing for his +purpose. In higher social positions, and at an age when appearances are +realities, in the condition of the Marquis of Anglesea, for instance, +it becomes important to provide the cripple with a limb which shall +be presentable in polite society, where misfortunes of a certain +obtrusiveness may be pitied, but are never tolerated under the +chandeliers. + +The leg invented by Mr. Potts, and bearing the name of the "Anglesea +leg," was long famous, and doubtless merited the reputation it acquired +as superior to its predecessors. But legs cannot remain stationary while +the march of improvement goes on around them, and they, too, have moved +onward with the stride of progress. + +A boy of ten years old, living in a New-Hampshire village, had one of +his legs crushed so as to require amputation. The little fellow was +furnished with a "Peg" and stumped round upon it for ten years. We can +imagine what he suffered as he grew into adolescence under the cross of +this unsightly appendage. He was of comely aspect, tall, well-shaped, +with well-marked, regular features. But just at the period when personal +graces are most valued, when a good presence is a blank check on the +Bank of Fortune, with Nature's signature at the bottom, he found himself +made hideous by this fearful-looking counterfeit of a limb. It announced +him at the threshold he reached with beating heart by a thump more +energetic than the palpitation in his breast. It identified him as far +as the eye of jealousy could see his moving figure. The "peg" became +intolerable, and he unstrapped it and threw himself on the tender +mercies of the crutch. + +But the crutch is at best an instrument of torture. It presses upon a +great bundle of nerves; it distorts the figure; it stamps a character of +its own upon the whole organism; it is even accused of distempering the +mind itself. + +This young man, whose name was "B. FRANK. PALMER," (the abbreviations +probably implying the name of a distinguished Boston philosopher of the +last century, whose visit to Philadelphia is still remembered in that +city,) set himself at work to contrive a limb which should take +the place of the one he had lost, fulfilling its functions and +counterfeiting its aspect so far as possible. The result was the "Palmer +leg," one of the most unquestionable triumphs of American ingenuity. Its +victorious march has been unimpeded by any serious obstacle since it +first stepped into public notice. The inventor was introduced by the +late Dr. John C. Warren, in 1846, to the Massachusetts General Hospital, +which institution he has for many years supplied with his artificial +limbs. He received medals from the American Institute, the Massachusetts +Charitable Association, and the Great Exhibition in New York, and +obtained an honorary mention from the Royal Commissioners of the World's +Exhibition in London,--being the only maker of legs so distinguished. +These are only a few of fifty honorary awards he has received at various +times. The famous surgeons of London, the _Société de Chirurgie_ of +Paris, and the most celebrated practitioners of the United States have +given him their hearty recommendations. So lately as last August, that +shrewd and skilful surgeon, Dr. Henry J. Bigelow, who is as cautious in +handling his epithets as he is bold in using the implements of his art, +strongly advised Surgeon-General Hammond to adopt the Palmer leg, which, +after a dozen years' experience, he had found none to equal. We see it +announced that the Board of Surgeons appointed by the Surgeon-General +to select the best arm and leg to be procured by the Government for +its crippled soldiers chose that of Mr. Palmer, and that Dr. Hammond +approved their selection. + +We have thought it proper to show that Mr. Palmer's invention did not +stand in need of our commendation. Its merits, as we have seen, are +conceded by the tribunals best fitted to judge, and we are therefore +justified in selecting it as an illustration of American mechanical +skill. + +We give three views of the Palmer leg: an inside view when extended, a +second when flexed, a third as it appears externally. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +The Committee on Science and the Arts of the Franklin Institute of +Pennsylvania thus stated the peculiarities of Mr. Palmer's invention:-- + +"_First,_ An ingenious arrangement of springs and cords in the _inside_ +of the limb, by which, when the wearer is in the erect position, the +limb is extended, and the foot flexed so as to present a natural +appearance. + +"_Second_. By a second arrangement of cords and springs in the inside of +the limb, the foot and toes are gradually and easily extended, when +the heel is placed in contact with the ground. In consequence of this +arrangement, the limping gait, and the unpleasant noise made by the +sudden stroke of the ball of the foot upon the ground in walking, which +are so obvious in the ordinary leg, are avoided. + +"_Third_. By a peculiar arrangement of the knee-joint, it is rendered +little liable to wear, and all lateral or rotary motion is avoided. It +is hardly necessary to remark that any such motion is undesirable in an +artificial leg, as it renders its support unstable." + +Before reporting some of the facts which we have seen, or learned by +personal inquiry, we must be allowed, for the sake of convenience, +to exercise the privilege granted to all philosophical students, of +enlarging the nomenclature applicable to the subject of which we are +treating. + +Man, according to the Sphinx, is successively a _quadruped_, a _biped_, +and a _triped_. But circumstances may change his natural conditions. If +he loses a leg, he becomes a _uniped_. If he loses both his legs, he +becomes a _nulliped_. If art replaces the loss of one limb with a +factitious substitute, he becomes a _ligniped_, or, if we wish to be +very precise, a _uni-ligniped_; two wooden legs entitle him to be called +a _biligniped_. Our terminology being accepted, we are ready to proceed. + +To make ourselves more familiar with the working of the invention we are +considering, we have visited Mr. Palmer's establishments in Philadelphia +and Boston. The distinguished "Surgeon-Artist" is a man of fine person, +as we have said. But if he has any personal vanity, it does not betray +itself with regard to that portion of his organism which Nature +furnished him. There is some reason to think that Mr. Palmer is a little +ashamed of the lower limb which he brought into the world with him. At +least, if he follows the common rule and puts that which he considers +his best foot foremost, he evidently awards the preference to that which +was born of his brain over the one which he owes to his mother. He walks +as well as many do who have their natural limbs, though not so well as +some of his own patients. He puts his vegetable leg through many of the +movements which would seem to demand the contractile animal fibre. He +goes up and down stairs with very tolerable ease and despatch. Only when +he comes to _stand_ upon the human limb, we begin, to find that it is +not in all respects equal to the divine one. For a certain number of +seconds he can poise himself upon it; but Mr. Palmer, if he indulges +in verse, would hardly fill the Horatian complement of lines in that +attitude. In his anteroom were unipeds in different stages of their +second learning to walk as lignipeds. At first they move with a good +deal of awkwardness, but gradually the wooden limb seems to become, as +it were, penetrated by the nerves, and the intelligence to run downwards +until it reaches the last joint of the member. + +Mr. Palmer, as we have incidentally mentioned, has a branch +establishment in Boston, to which also we have paid a visit, in order +to learn some of the details of the manufacture to which we had not +attended in our pleasant interview with the inventor. The antechamber +here, too, was the nursery of immature lignipeds, ready to exhibit their +growing accomplishments to the inquiring stranger. It almost seems as if +the artificial leg were the scholar, rather than the person who wears +it. The man does well enough, but the leg is stupid until practice has +taught it just what is expected from its various parts. + +The polite Boston partner, who, if he were in want of a customer, would +almost persuade a man with two good legs to provide himself with a +third, carried us to the back part of the building, where legs are +organized. + +The _willow_, which furnishes the charcoal for the gunpowder that blows +off limbs, is the wood chosen to supply the loss it has helped to +occasion. It is light, strong, does not warp or "check" much as many +other woods, and is, as the workmen say, _healthy_, that is, not +irritating to the parts with which it is in contact. Whether the +_salicine_ it may contain enters the pores and invigorates the system +may be a question for those who remember the drugs in the Sultan's +bat-handle and the remarkable cure they wrought. This wood is kept in +a dry-house with as much care as that intended for the manufacture of +pianos. It is thoroughly steamed also, before using. + +The wood comes in rudely shaped blocks, as lasts are sent to the +factory, seeming to have been coarsely hewed out of the log. The +shaping, as we found to our surprise, is all done by hand. We had +expected to see great lathes, worked by steam-power, taking in a rough +stick and turning out a finished limb. But it is shaped very much as a +sculptor finishes his marble, with an eye to artistic effect,--not so +much in the view of the stranger, who does not look upon its naked +loveliness, as in that of the wearer, who is seduced by its harmonious +outlines into its purchase, and solaced with the consciousness that he +carries so much beauty and symmetry about with him. The hollowing-out of +the interior is done by wicked-looking blades and scoops at the end of +long stems, suggesting the thought of dentists' instruments as they +might have been in the days of the giants. The joints are most carefully +made, more particularly at the knee, where a strong bolt of steel passes +through the solid wood. Windows, oblong openings, are left in the sides +of the limb, to insure a good supply of air to the extremity of the +mutilated limb. Many persons are not aware that all parts of the surface +_breathe_ just as the lungs breathe, exhaling carbonic acid as well as +water, and taking in more or less oxygen. + +One of the workmen, a pleasant-looking young fellow, was himself, we +were told, a ligniped. We begged him to give us a specimen of his +walking. He arose and walked rather slowly across the room and back. +"Once more," we said, not feeling quite sure which was Nature's leg and +which Mr. Palmer's. So he walked up and down the room again, until we +had satisfied ourselves which was the leg of willow and which that +of flesh and bone. It is not, perhaps, to the credit of our eyes or +observing powers, but it is a fact, that we deliberately selected _the +wrong leg_. No victim of the thimble-rigger's trickery was ever more +completely taken in than we were by the contrivance of the ingenious +Surgeon-Artist. + +Our freely expressed admiration led to the telling of wonderful stories +about the doings of persons with artificial legs. One individual was +mentioned who _skated_ particularly well; another who _danced_ with zeal +and perseverance; and a third who must needs _swim_ in his leg, which +brought on a dropsical affection of the limb,--to which kind of +complaint the willow has, of course, a constitutional tendency,--and for +which it had to come to the infirmary where the diseases that wood is +heir to are treated. + +But the most wonderful monuments of the great restorer's skill are the +patients who have lost both legs,--_nullipeds_, as presented to Mr. +Palmer, _bilignipeds_, as they walk forth again before the admiring +world, balanced upon their two new-born members. We have before us +delineations of six of these hybrids between the animal and vegetable +world. One of them was employed at a railway-station near this +(Atlantic) city, where he was often seen by a member of our own +household, whose testimony we are in the habit of considering superior +in veracity to the naked truth as commonly delivered. He walked about, +we are assured, a little slowly and stiffly, but in a way that hardly +attracted attention. + +The inventor of the leg has not been contented to stop there. He has +worked for years upon the construction of an artificial _arm_, and has +at length succeeded in arranging a mechanism, which, if it cannot serve +a pianist or violinist, is yet equal to holding the reins in driving, +receiving fees for professional services, and similar easy labors. +Where Mr. Palmer means to stop in supplying bodily losses it would be +premature to say. We suppose the accidents happening occasionally from +the use of the guillotine are beyond his skill, and spare our readers +the lively remark suggested by the contrary hypothesis. + + * * * * * + +It is one of the signs of our advancing American civilization, that the +arts which preserve and restore the personal advantages necessary or +favorable to cultivated social life should have reached such perfection +among us. American dentists have achieved a reputation which has sent +them into the palaces of Europe to open the mouths of sovereigns and +princes as freely as the jockeys look into those of horses and colts. +Bad teeth, too common among us, help to breed good dentists, no doubt; +but besides this there is an absolute demand for a certain comeliness of +person throughout all the decent classes of our society. It is the same +standard of propriety in appearances which lays us open to the reproach +of caring too much for dress. If the national ear for music is not so +acute as that of some other peoples, the national eye for the harmonies +of form and color is better than we often find in older communities. We +have a right to claim that our sculptors and painters prove so much as +this for us. American taste was offended, outraged, by the odious "peg" +which the Old-World soldier or beggar was proud to show. We owe the +well-shaped, intelligent, docile limb, the half-reasoning willow of Mr. +Palmer, to the same sense of beauty and fitness which moulded the soft +outlines of the Indian Girl and the White Captive in the studio of his +namesake at Albany. + +As we wean ourselves from the Old World, and become more and more +nationalized in our great struggle for existence as a free people, we +shall carry this aptness for the production of beautiful forms more and +more into common life, which demands first what is necessary and then +what is pleasing. It is but a step from the painter's canvas to the +weaver's loom, and the pictures which are leaving the easel to-day +will show themselves in the patterns that sweep the untidy sidewalks +to-morrow. The same plastic power which is showing itself in +the triumphs of American sculpture will reach the forms of our +household-utensils. The beans of Beverly shall yet be baked in vases +that Etruria might have envied, and the clay pipe of the Americanized +Milesian shall be a thing of beauty as well as a joy forever. We +are already pushing the plastic arts farther than many persons have +suspected. There is a small town not far from us where a million +dollars' worth of gold is annually beaten into ornaments for the +breasts, the fingers, the ears, the necks of women. Many a lady supposes +she is buying Parisian adornments, when _Attleborough_ could say to +her proudly, like Cornelia, "These are my jewels." The workmen of this +little town not only meet the tastes of the less fastidious classes, to +whom all that glisters is gold, but they shape the purest metal into +artistic and effective patterns. When the Koh-i-noor--the Mountain of +Light--was to be fashioned, it was found to be almost as formidable a +task as that of Xerxes, when he undertook to hew Mount Athos to the +shape of man. The great crystal was sent to Holland, as the only place +where it could be properly cut. We have lately seen a brilliant which, +if not a mountain of light, was yet a very respectable mound of +radiance, valued at some ten or twelve thousand dollars, cut in this +virgin settlement, and exposed in one of our shop-windows to tempt our +frugal villagers. + +Monsieur Trousseau, Professor in the Medical School of Paris, delivered +a discursive lecture not long ago, in which he soared from the region +of drugs, his well-known special province, into the thin atmosphere +of aesthetics. It is the influence that surrounds his fortunate +fellow-citizens, he declares, which alone preserves their intellectual +supremacy. If a Parisian milliner, he says, remove to New York, she will +so degenerate in the course of a couple of years that the squaw of a +Choctaw chief would be ashamed to wear one of her bonnets. + +Listen, O Parisian cockney, pecking among the brood most plethoric with +conceit, of all the coop-fed citizens who tread the pavements of earth's +many-chimneyed towns! America has made implements of husbandry which +out-mow and out-reap the world. She has contrived man-slaying engines +which kill people faster than any others. She has modelled the +wave-slicing clipper which outsails all your argosies and armadas. +She has revolutionized naval warfare once by the steamboat. She has +revolutionized it a second time by planting towers of iron on the +elephantine backs of the waves. She has invented the sewing-machine to +save the dainty fingers of your virtuous grisettes from uncongenial +toil, so that Fifine and Frétillon may have more leisure for +self-development. She has taught you a whole new system of labor in her +machinery for making watches and rifles. She has bestowed upon you and +all the world an anodyne which enables you to cut arms and legs off +without hurting the patient; and when his leg is off, she has given you +a true artist's limb for your cripple to walk upon, instead of the peg +on which he has stumped from the days of Guy de Chauliac to those of M. +Nelaton. She has been contriving well-shaped boots and shoes for the +very people who, if they were your countrymen, would be clumping about +in wooden _sabots_. In works of scientific industry, hardly to be looked +for among so new a people she has distanced your best artificers. The +microscopes made at Canastota, in the backwoods of New York, look in +vain for their rivals in Paris, and must challenge the best workmanship +of London before they can be approached in excellence. The great eye +that stares into the celestial spaces from its workshop in Cambridge, +dives deeper through their clouds of silvery dust than any instrument +mounted in your observatory in face of the Luxembourg. Our artisans +produce no Gobelin tapestries or Sèvres porcelain as yet; but when your +mobs have looted the Tuileries, our shopkeepers have bought up enough +specimens to serve them as patterns by-and-by. + +All this is something for a nation which has hardly pulled up the stumps +out of its city market-places. It is sad to reflect that milliners, like +Burgundy, are spoiled by transportation to the headquarters of American +fashion. But as the best bonnet of the Empress's own artist would be +exploded with yells a couple of seasons after the time when it was the +rage, the Icarian professor's flight into the regions of rhetoric has +not led him to any very logical resting-place from which he can look +down on the aesthetic possibilities of New York or other Western cities +emerging from the semi-barbarous state. + +We are not proud, of course, of any of the mechanical triumphs we +have won; they are well enough, and show--to borrow the words of a +distinguished American, whom, during his too brief career, we held +unrivalled by any experimenter in the Old World for the depth as well as +the daring of his investigations--that some things can be done as well +as others. + +Our specialty is of somewhat larger scope. We profess to make men and +women out of human beings better than any of the joint-stock companies +called dynasties have done or can do it. We profess to make citizens out +of men,--not _citoyens_, but persons educated to question all privileges +asserted by others, and claim all rights belonging to themselves,--the +only way in which the infinitely most important party to the compact +between the governed and governing can avoid being cheated out of the +best rights inherent in human nature, as an experience the world has +seen almost enough of has proved. We are in trouble just now, on account +of a neglected hereditary _melanosis_, as Monsieur Trousseau might call +it. When we recover from the social and political convulsion it has +produced, and eliminate the _materies morbi_,--and both these events are +only matters of time,--perhaps we shall have leisure to breed our own +milliners. If not, there will probably be refugees enough from the Old +World, who have learned the fashions in courts, and will be glad to turn +their knowledge to a profitable use for the benefit of their republican +patronesses in New York and Boston. + +We have run away from our subject farther than we intended at starting; +but an essay on legs could hardly avoid the rambling tendency which +naturally belongs to these organs. + + * * * * * + + +PAUL BLECKER. + + +PART I. + + "Which serves life's purpose best, + To enjoy or to renounce?" + +A thorough American, who comprehends what America has to do, and means +to help on with it, ought to choose to be born in New England, for the +vitalized brain, finely-chorded nerves, steely self-control,--then to go +West, for more live, muscular passion, succulent manhood, naked-handed +grip of his work. But when he wants to die, by all means let him hunt +out a town in the valley of Pennsylvania or Virginia: Nature and man +there are so ineffably self-contained, content with that which is, shut +in from the outer surge, putting forth their little peculiarities, as +tranquil and glad to be alive as if they were pulseless sea-anemones, +and after a while going back to the Being whence they came, just as +tranquil and glad to be dead. + +Paul Blecker had some such fancy as this, that last evening before the +regiment of which he was surgeon started for Harper's Ferry, while he +and the Captain were coming from camp by the hill-road into the village +(or burgh: there are no Villages in Pennsylvania). Nothing was lost on +Blecker; his wide, nervous eyes took all in: the age and complacent +quiet of this nook of the world, the full-blooded Nature asleep in the +yellow June sunset; why! she had been asleep there since the beginning, +he knew. The very Indians in these hills must have been a fishing, +drowsy crew; their names and graves yet dreamily haunted the farms and +creek-shores. The Covenanters who came after them never had roused +themselves enough to shake them off. Covenanters: the Doctor began +joking to himself, as he walked along, humming some tune, about how the +spirit of every sect came out, always alike, in the temperament, the +very cut of the face, or whim of accent. These descendants of the +Covenanters, now,--Presbyterian elders and their wives,--going down to +camp to bid their boys good-bye, devoted them to death with just as +stern integrity, as partial a view of the right, as their ancestors did +theirs at Naseby or Drumclog: their religion loved its friends and hated +its enemies just as bitterly as when it scowled at Monmouth; the "boys," +no doubt, would call themselves Roundheads, as they had done in the +three months' service. Paul Blecker, who had seen a good many sides of +the world, laughed to himself: the very Captain here, good, anxious, +innocent as a baby, as he was, looked at the world exactly through +Balfour of Burley's dead eyes, was going to cure the disease of it by +the old pill of intolerance and bigotry. No wonder Paul laughed. + +The sobered Quaker evening was making ready for night: the yellow warmth +overhead thinning into tintless space; the low hills drawing farther off +in the melancholy light; the sky sinking nearer; clouds, unsteady all +day, softened at last into a thoughtful purple, and couching themselves +slowly in the hollows of the horizon; the sweep of cornfields and woods +and distant farms growing dim,--daguerreotype-like; the tinkle of the +sheep-bells on the meadows, the shouts of the boys in camp yonder, the +bass drone of the frogs in the swamp dulling down into the remoteness of +sleep. The Doctor slackened his sharp, jerking stride, and fell into +the monotonous gait of his companion, glancing up to him. McKinstry, he +thought, was going out to battle to-morrow with just as cool phlegm and +childlike content as he would set out to buy his merino ewes; but he +would receive no pay,--meant to transfer it to his men. And he would be +in the thickest of the fight,--you might bet on that. Umph! his quick +eyes darting over the big, leisurely frame, the neat yellow hair, +and the blue eyes mildly peering through spectacles. Then, having +satisfactorily anatomized McKinstry, he turned to the evening again with +open senses, the sensitive pulsing of his wide nostrils telling that +even the milky scent of the full-uddered cows gave him keen enjoyment. +The cows were going home from pasture, up shady barn-lanes, into the +grayer shadows about the houses on either side of the road, in whose +windows lights were beginning to glimmer. Solid old homesteads they +were, stone or brick, never wood. Out in these Western settlements, a +hundred years ago, they built durable homes, curiously enough, more than +in the Northern States; planted oaks about them, that bore the strength +of the earth up to heaven in sturdy arms, shaming the graceful, +uncertain elm of shallower soils. Just such old farm-houses as those, +Blecker thought, would turn out such old-time moulded men as McKinstry: +houses whose orchards still held on to the Waldower and Smoke-house +apples; their gardens gay with hollyhocks and crimson prince's-feather; +on the book-shelves the "Spectator" and "Gentleman's Magazine." The +women of them kept up the old-fashioned knitting-parties, and a +donation-visit to the pastor once a year; and the men were all gone to +the war, to keep the Union as it was in their fathers' time, and would +doubtless vote the conservative ticket next election because their +fathers did, which would make the war a horrible farce. The town, +Blecker thought, had rooted itself in between the hills with as solid +a persistence as the prejudices of its builders. Obstinately steep +streets, shaded by gnarled locust-trees; houses drawn back from the +sidewalks, in surly dread of all new-comers; the very smoke, vaporing +through the sky, had defiance in it of the outer barbarous world and its +vulgar newness. Yet the town had an honest country heart in it, if it +was a bit gray and crusty with age. Blecker, knowing it as he did, did +not wonder the boys who left it named a village for it out in Kansas, +trying to fancy themselves at home,--or that one old beggar in it asked +to be buried in the middle of the street, "So's I kin hear the stages +a-comin' in, an' know if the old place is a-gittin' on." + +There seemed to be a migration from it to-night: they met, every minute, +buggies, old-fashioned carriages, horsemen. + +"Going out to camp," McKinstry said; "the boys all have some one to bid +them good-bye." + +What a lonely, reserved voice the man had! Blecker had the curiosity of +all sensitive men to know the soul-history of people; he glanced again +keenly in McKinstry's face. Pshaw! one might as well ask their story +from the deaf and dumb. But that they were dumb,--there was hint of a +tragedy in that! + +Everybody stopped to speak to the Doctor. He had been but a few +months in the place; but the old church-goers had found him out as +a passionate, free-and-easy, honorable fellow, full of joke and +anecdote,--shrewd, too. They "fellowshipped" with him heartily, and were +glad when he got the post of surgeon with their sons. If there were +anything more astringent below this, any more real self in the man, held +back, belonging to a world outside of theirs, they did not see it. They +knew him better, they thought, than they did Daniel McKinstry, who had +grown up among them, just as mild and silent when he was a tow-haired +boy as now, a man of forty-five. He touched his hat to them now, and +went on, while Blecker leaned on the carriage-doors, his brown face +aglow with fun, his uneasy fingers drumming boyishly on the panel. Not +knowing that through the changeful face, and fierce, pitiful eyes of the +boy, the man Paul Blecker looked coolly out, testing, labelling +them. The boy in him, that they saw, Nature had made; but years of a +hand-to-hand fight with starvation came after, crime, and society, whose +work is later than Nature's, and sometimes better done. + +"Fine girl!" said the Doctor, touching his hat to Miss Mallard, as she +cantered past. "Got a head of her own, too. Made a deused good speech, +when she presented the flag to-day." + +Miss Mallard overheard him, as he intended she should, and blushed a +visible acknowledgment. All of her character was visible, well-developed +as her body: her timidity showed itself in the unceasing dropping of her +eyelid; her arch simplicity in the pouting lips; a coy reserve--well, +that everywhere, to the very rosette on her retreating slipper; and her +patriotism was quite palpable in the color of her Balmoral. She rode +Squire Mallard's gray. + +"And very well they turn out," sneered Blecker. + +"She is a woman," said the Captain, blushing,--differently from the +lady, however. + +"And if she is?" turning suddenly. "She has the nature of a Bowery +rough. Pah, McKinstry! Sexes stand alike with me. If a woman's flesh is +weaker-grained a bit, what of that? Whoever would earn esteem must work +for it." + +The Captain said nothing, stammered a little, then, hoisting his foot on +a stump, tied his shoe nervously. + +Blecker smiled, a queer, sorrowful smile, as if, oddly enough, he felt +sorry for himself. + +"I'd like to think of women as you do, Mac," he said. "You never knew +many?" + +"Only two, until now,--my mother and little Sarah. They're gone now." + +Sarah? The Doctor was silent a moment, thinking. He had heard of a +sister of McKinstry's, sick for years with some terrible disease, whom +he had nursed until the end. She was Sarah, most likely. Well, that was +what _his_ life had been given up for, was it? There was a twitching +about McKinstry's wide mouth: Paul looked away from him a moment, and +then, glancing furtively back, began again. + +"No, I never knew my mother or sister, Mac. The great discovery of this +age is woman, old fellow! I've been, knocked about too much not to have +lost all delusions about them. It did well enough for the crusading +times to hold them as angels in theory, and in practice as idiots; but +in these rough-and-tumble days we'd better give 'em their places as +flesh and blood, with exactly such wants and passions as men." + +The Captain never argued. + +"I don't know," he said, dryly. + +After that he jogged on in silence, glancing askance at the masculine, +self-assertant figure of his companion,--at the face, acrid, unyielding, +beneath its surface-heat: ruminating mildly to himself on what a good +thing it was for him never to have known any but old-fashioned women. +This Blecker, now, had been made by intercourse with such women as those +he talked of: he came from the North. The Captain looked at him with a +vague, moony compassion: the usual Western vision of a Yankee female +in his head,--Bloomer-clad, hatchet-faced, capable of anything, from +courting a husband to commanding a ship. (It is all your fault, genuine +women of New England! Why don't you come among us, and know your +country, and let your country know you? Better learn the meaning of +Chicago than of Venice, for your own sakes, believe me.) + +They were near the town now, the road crossing a railroad-track, where +the hill, chopped apart for the grade, left bare the black stratum of +coal, tinged here and there with a bloody brown and whitish shale. + +"Hillo! this means iron," said the Doctor, climbing up the bank, +cat-like, to break off a bit; "and here an odd formation, Mac. Take it +in to old Gurney." + +The Captain cleaned his spectacles with piece of chamois-leather, put +them on, folded the leather and replaced it in its especial place in his +pocket, before he took the bit of rock. + +"All that finical ceremony he would go through in the face of the +enemy," thought Blecker, jumping down on the track. + +"Give it to old Gurney, Mac. It will insure you a welcome." + +"It is curious, Doctor Blecker. But you"-- + +"I never care to gratify anybody. Besides, the old gentleman and I +inter-despised. Our instincts cried out, ''Ware dog!' the first day You +are a friend of his, eh, Mac?" + +The Captain's face grew red, like a bashful woman's. He thought Blecker +had divined his secret, would haul it out roughly in another moment. +If this slang-talking Yankee should take little Lizzy's name into his +mouth! But the Doctor was silent, even looked away until the heat on the +poor old bachelor's face had died out. He knew McKinstry's thought of +that little girl well enough, but he held the child-hearted man's secret +tenderly and charily in his hand. Paul Blecker did talk slang and assert +himself; but every impulse in him was clean, delicate, liberal. So, +Paul remaining silent, the Captain took heart of grace, going down the +street, and ventured back to the Gurney question. + +"I thought I would accompany you there, Doctor Blecker. They might only +think it seemly in me to bid farewell. I"-- + +Blecker nodded. The man had not been able to hide an harassed frown that +day under his usual vigor of speech and look. It became more palpable +after this; his voice, when he did speak, was fretful, irritable,--his +lips compressed; he stopped at a village-well to drink, as though his +mouth were parched. + +"How old is that house,--the Gurneys?" he asked, affecting carelessness, +to baffle the curious inspection of McKinstry. + +"The Fort? We call it the Fort because it was used for one in Indian +times," McKinstry began, chafing his lean whiskers delightedly. + +Old houses were his hobby, especially this which they approached,--a +narrow, long building of unhewn stone, facing on the street, the lintels +and doors worm-eaten, and green with moss. + +"Built by Bradford, the new part,--Bradford, of the Whiskey +Insurrection, you know? Carvings on the walls brought over the +mountains, when to bring them by panels was a two-months' journey. +There's queer stories hang about these old Pennsylvania homesteads." + +"Bradford? The Gurneys are a new family here, then?" + +"Came here but a few years back, from a country farther up the +mountains. They're different from us." + +"How, different?" with a keen, surprised glance. "_I_ see they are a +newer people than the others; but I thought the village accepted them +with shut eyes." + +The Captain stammered again. + +"Old Father Gurney, as we call him, taught school when they first came, +but he gave that up. This section is a good geological field, and he +wished to devote himself to that," he went on, evading the question. +"They live off of those acres at the back of the house since that. You +see? Corn, potatoes, buckwheat,--good yield." + +"Who oversees the planting?" sharply. + +McKinstry wondered vaguely at the little Doctor's curious interest in +the Gurneys, but went on with his torpid, slow answers. + +"That eldest girl, I believe, Grey. Cow there, you see, and ducks. He's +popular, old Father Gurney. People have a liking for his queer ways, +help him collect specimens for his cabinet; the boys bring him birds to +stuff, and snakes. If it hadn't been for the troubles breaking out, +he was on the eve of a most im-por-tant discovery,--the crater of an +exhausted volcano in Virginia." McKinstry lowered his voice cautiously. +"Fact, Sir. In Mercer County. But the guerrillas interfered with his +researches." + +"I think it probable. So he stuffs birds, does he?" Blecker's lips +closing tighter. + +"And keeps the snakes in alcohol. There are shelves in Miss Lizzy's room +quite full of them. That lower room it was, but Joseph has taken it for +a study. She has the upper one for her flowers and her father's birds." + +"And Grey, and the twins, and the four boys bedaubed with molasses, and +the dog, and the cooking?" + +"Stowed away somewhere," the Captain mildly responded. + +Dr. Blecker was testy. + +"You know Joseph, her brother? I mean our candidate for Congress next +term?" + +"Yes. Democratic. J. Schuyler Gurney,--give him his name, Mac. +Republican last winter. Joseph trims to wind and tide well. I heard +him crow like a barn-yard fowl on the Capitol-steps at Washington +when Lincoln called for the seventy-five thousand: now, he hashes up +Breckinridge's conservative speech for your hickory-backed farmers. Does +he support the family, Mac?" + +"His election-expenses are heavy." + +"Brandy-slings. I know his proclivities." + +McKinstry colored. Dr. Blecker was coarse, an ill-bred man, he +suspected,--noting, too, the angry repression in his eyes, as he stood +leaning on the gate, looking in at the Fort, for they had reached it +by this time. The Captain looked in, too, through the dusky clumps of +altheas and plum-trees, at the old stone house, dyed tawny-gray in the +evening light, and talked on, the words falling unconscious and simple +as a stream of milk. The old plodder was no longer dumb. Blecker had +hit on the one valve of the shut-up nature, the obstinate point of +self-reliant volition in a life that had been one long drift of +circumstance. This old stone house, shaggy with vines, its bloody script +of Indian warfare hushed down and covered with modern fruit-trees and +sunflowers,--this fort, and the Gurneys within it, stood out in the bare +swamped stretch of the man's years, their solitary bit of enchantment. +They were bare years,--the forty he had known: Fate had drained them +tolerably dry before she flung them to him to accomplish duty in;--the +duty was done now. McKinstry, a mild, common-faced man, had gone through +it for nearly half a century, pleasantly,--never called it heroism. It +was done. He had time now to stretch his nerves of body and soul with +a great sigh of relief,--to see that Duty was, after all, a lean, +meagre-faced angel, that Christ sends first, but never meant should be +nearest and best. Faith, love, and so, happiness, these were words of +more pregnant meaning in the gospel the Helper left us. So McKinstry +stood straight up, for the first time in his life, and looked about him. +A man, with an adult's blood, muscles, needs; an idle soul which his +cramped creed did not fill, hungry domestic instincts, narrow and +patient habit;--he claimed work and happiness, his right. Of course it +came, and tangibly. Into every life God sends an actual messenger to +widen and lift it above itself: puerile or selfish the messenger often +is, but so straight from Him that the divine radiance clings about it, +and all that it touches. We call that _love_, you remember. A secular +affair, according to McKinstry's education, as much as marketing. So +when he found that the tawny old house and the quiet little girl in +there with the curious voice, which people came for miles to hear, +were gaining an undue weight in his life, held, to be plain, all the +fairy-land of which his childhood had been cheated, all fierce beauty, +aspiration, passionate strength to insult Fate, which his life had never +known, he kept the knowledge to himself. It was boyish weakness. He +choked it out of thought on Sundays as sacrilege: how could he talk +of the Gurney house and Lizzy to that almighty, infinite Vagueness he +worshipped? Stalking to and fro, in the outskirts of the churchyard, +he used to watch the flutter of the little girl's white dress, as she +passed by to "meeting." He could not help it that his great limbs +trembled, if the dress touched them, or that he had a mad longing to +catch the tired-looking child up to his brawny breast and hold her there +forever. But he felt guilty and ashamed that it was so; not knowing that +Christ, seeing the pure thrill in his heart, smiled just as he did long +ago when Mary brought the beloved disciple to him. + +He never had told little Lizzy that he loved her,--hardly told himself. +Why, he was forty-five,--and a year or two ago she was sledding down the +street with her brothers, a mere yellow-haired baby. He remembered the +first time he had noticed her,--one Christmas eve; his mother and Sarah +were alive then. There was an Italian woman came to the village with a +broken hand-organ, a filthy, starving wretch, and Gurney's little girl +went with her from house to house in the snow, singing Christmas carols, +and handing the tambourine. Everybody said, "Why, you little tot!" and +gave her handfuls of silver. Such a wonderful voice she had even then, +and looked so chubby and pretty in her little blue cloak and hood; and +going about with the woman was such a pure-hearted thing to do. She +danced once or twice that day, striking the tambourine, he remembered; +the sound of it seemed to put her in a sort of ecstasy, laughing till +her eyes were full of tears, and her tangled hair fell all about her red +cheeks. She could not help but do it, he believed, for at other times +she was shy, terrified, if one spoke to her; but he wished he had not +seen her dance then, though she was only a child: dancing, he thought, +was as foul and effective a snare as ever came from hell. After that day +she used often to come to the farm to see his mother and Sarah. +They tried to teach her to sew, but she was a lazy little thing, he +remembered, with an indulgent smile. And he was "Uncle Dan." So now she +was grown up, quite a woman: in those years, when she had been with her +kinsfolk in New York, she had been taught to sing. Well, well! McKinstry +reckoned music as about as useful as the crackling of thorns under a +pot; so he never cared to know, what was the fact, that this youngest +daughter of Gurney's had one of the purest contralto voices in the +States. She came home, grown, but just as shy; only tired, needing care: +no one could look in Lizzy Gurney's face without wishing to comfort and +help the child. The Gurneys were so wretchedly poor, that might be the +cause of her look. She was a woman now. Well, and then? Why, nothing +then. He was Uncle Dan still, of whom she was less afraid than of any +other living creature; that was all. Thinking, as he stood with Paul +Blecker, leaning over the gate, of how she had brought him a badly-made +havelock that morning. "You're always so kind to me," she said. "So I +am kind to her," he thought, his quiet blue eyes growing duller behind +their spectacles; "so I will be." + +The Doctor opened the gate, and went in, turning into the shrubbery, and +seating himself under a sycamore. + +"Don't wait for me, McKinstry," he said. "I'll sit here and smoke a bit. +Here comes the aforesaid Joseph." + +He did not light his cigar, however, when the other left him; took off +his hat to let the wind blow through his hair, the petulant heat dying +out of his face, giving place to a rigid settling, at last, of the +fickle features. + +A flabby, red-faced man in fine broadcloth and jaunty beaver came down +the path, fumbling his seals, and met the Captain with a puffing snort +of salutation. To Blecker, whose fancy was made sultry to-night by some +passion we know nothing of, he looked like a bloated spider coming out +of the cell where his victims were. "Gorging himself, while they and the +country suffer the loss," he muttered. But Paul was a hot-brained +young man. We should only have seen a vulgar, commonplace trickster in +politics, such as the people make pets of. "Such men as Schuyler Gurney +get the fattest offices. God send us a monarchy soon!" he hissed under +his breath, as the gate closed after the politician. By which you will +perceive that Dr. Blecker, like most men fighting their way up, was too +near-sighted for any abstract theories. Liberty, he thought, was a very +poetic, Millennium-like idea for stump-speeches and college-cubs, but he +grappled with the time the States were too chaotic, untaught a mass for +self-government; he cursed secession as anarchy, and the government at +Washington for those equally anarchical, drunken whims of tyranny; he +would like to see an iron heel put on the whole concern, for wholesome +discipline. The Doctor was born in one of the Border States; men there, +it is said, have a sort of hand-to-mouth politics; their daily bread of +rights is all they care for; so Paul seldom looked into to-morrow for +anything. In other ways, too, his birth had curdled his blood into a +sensuous languor. To-night, after McKinstry had entered the house, and +he was left alone, the quaint old garden quiet, the air about him clean, +pure, unperfumed, the stars distant and lonely, his limbs bedded in the +clinging moss, he was rested for the moment, happy like a child, with +no subtile-sensed questionings why. The sounds of the village could not +penetrate there; the content, the listless hush of the night was with +him; the delicious shimmer of the trees in the starlight, the low call +of the pigeon to its mate, even the fall of the catalpa-blossoms upon +his hand, thrilled him with unreasoning pleasure: a dull consciousness +that the earth was alive and well, and he was glad to live with the +rest. + +Something in Blecker's nature came into close _rapport_ with the higher +animal life. If he had been born with money, and lived here in these +stagnating hills, or down yonder on some lazy cotton-plantation, he +would have settled down before this into a genial, child-loving, +arbitrary husband and master, fond of pictures and horses, his house in +decent taste, his land pleasure-giving, his wines good. By this time he +would have been Judge Blecker, with a portly voice, flushed face, and +thick eyelids. But he had scuffled and edged his way in the thin air of +Connecticut as errand-boy, daguerreotypist, teacher, doctor;--so he came +into the Gurney garden that night, shrewd, defiant, priding himself on +detecting shams. His waistcoat and trousers were of coarser stuff than +suited his temperament; a taint of vulgarity in his talk, his whiskers +untrimmed, the meaning of his face compacted, sharpened. It was many +a year since a tear had come into his black eyes; yet tears belonged +there, as much as to a woman's. + +Only for a few moments, therefore, he was contented to sit quiet in the +soft gloaming: then he puffed his cigar impatiently, watching the +house. Waiting for some one: with no fancies about the old fort, like +McKinstry. An over-full house, with an unordered, slipshod life, hungry, +clinging desperately in its poverty to an old prestige of rank, one +worker inside patiently bearing the whole selfish burden. Well, there +was the history of the anxious, struggling, middle class of America: why +need he have been goaded so intolerably by this instance? Paul's eyes +were jaundiced; he sat moodily watching the lighted window off in the +darkness, through which he could catch glimpses of the family-room +within: he called it a pitiful tragedy going on there; yet it seemed to +be a cheerful and hearty life. This girl Grey, whom he looked on as one +might on some victim from whose lungs the breath was drawn slowly, was +fresh, careless, light-hearted enough. Going to and fro in the room, +now carrying one of the children, she sang it to sleep with no doleful +ditty, such as young women fresh from boarding-school affect, but with +a ringing, cheery song. You might be sure that Baby would wake laughing +to-morrow morning after it. He could see her shadow pass and repass the +windows; she would be out presently; she was used to come out always +after the hot day's flurry,--to say her prayers, he believed; and he +chose to see her there in the dark and coolness to bid her good-bye. He +waited, not patiently. + +Grey, trotting up and down, holding by the chubby legs and wriggling +arms of Master Pen, sang herself out of breath with "Roy's Wife," and +stopped short. + +"I'm sure, Pen, I don't know what to do with you,"--half ready to cry. + +"'Dixie,' now, Sis." + +Pen was three years old, but he was the baby when his mother died; so +Sis walked him to sleep every night: all tender memories of her who +was gone clinging about the little fat lump of mischief in his white +night-gown. A wiry voice spoke out of some corner,-- + +"Yer 'd hev a thumpin' good warmin', Mars' Penrose, ef ole Oth hed his +will o' yer! It 'ud be a special 'pensation ob de Lord fur dat chile!" + +Pen prospected his sister's face with the corner of one blue eye. There +was a line about the freckled cheeks and baby-mouth of "Sis" that +sometimes agreed with Oth on the subject of dispensations, but it was +not there to-night. + +"No, no, uncle. Not the last thing before he goes to bed. I always try, +myself, to see something bright and pretty for the last thing, and then +shut my eyes, quick,--just as Pen will do now: quick! there's my sonny +boy!" + +Nobody ever called Grey Gurney pretty; but Pen took an immense delight +in her now; shook and kicked her for his pony, but could not make her +step less firm or light; thrust his hands about her white throat; pulled +the fine reddish hair down; put his dumpling face to hers. A thin, +uncertain face, but Pen knew nothing of that; he did know, though, that +the skin was fresh and dewy as his own, the soft lips very ready for +kisses, and the pale hazel eyes just as straightforward-looking as a +baby's. Children and dogs believe in women like Grey Gurney. Finally, +from pure exhaustion, Pen cuddled up and went to sleep. + +It was a long, narrow room where Grey and the children were, covered +with rag-carpet, (she and the boys and old Oth had made the balls for +it last winter): well lighted, for Father Gurney had his desk in +there to-night. He was working at his catalogue of Sauroidichnites in +Pennsylvania. A tall, lean man, with hook-nose, and peering, protruding, +blue eyes. Captain McKinstry sat by him, turning over Brongniart; his +brain, if one might judge from the frequency with which he blew his +nose, evidently the worse from the wear since he came in; glancing with +an irresolute awe from the book to the bony frame of the old man in his +red dressing-gown, and then to the bony carcasses of the birds on the +wall in their dusty plumage. + +"Like enough each to t' other," old Oth used to mutter; "on'y dem birds +done forgot to eat, an' Mars' Gurney neber will, gorry knows dat!" + +"If you could, Captain McKinstry,"--it was the old man who spoke now, +with a sort of whiffle through his teeth,--"if you could? A chip of +shale next to this you brought this evening would satisfy me. This is +evidently an original fossil foot-mark: no work of Indians. I'll go with +you,"--gathering his dressing-gown about his lank-legs. + +"No," said the Captain, some sudden thought bringing gravity and +self-reliance into his face. "My little girl is going with Uncle Dan. +It's the last walk I can take with her. Go, child, and bring your +bonnet." + +Little Lizzy (people generally called her that) got up from the +door-step where she sat, and ran up-stairs. She was one of those women +who look as if they ought to be ordered and taken care of. Grey put a +light shawl over her shoulders as she passed her. Grey thought of Lizzy +always very much as a piece of fine porcelain among some earthen crocks, +she being a very rough crock herself. Did not she have to make a +companion in some Ways of old Oth? When she had no potatoes for dinner, +or could get no sewing to pay for Lizzy's shoes, (Lizzy _was_ hard on +her shoes, poor thing!) she found herself talking it over with Oth. The +others did not-care for such things, and it would be mean to worry +them, but Oth liked a misery, and it was such a relief to tell things +sometimes! The old negro had been a slave of her grandfather's until he +was of age; he was quite helpless now, having a disease of the spine. +But Grey had brought him to town with them, "because, you know, uncle, I +couldn't keep house without you, at all,--I really couldn't." So he had +his chair covered with sheepskin in the sunniest corner always, and +Grey made over her father's old clothes for him on the machine. Oth had +learned to knit, and made "hisself s'ficiently independent, heelin' an' +ribbin' der boys' socks, an' keepin' der young debbils in order," he +said. + +It was but a cheap machine Grey had, but a sturdy little chap; the steel +band of it, even the wheel, flashed back a jolly laugh at her as she +passed it, slowly hushing Pen, as if it would like to say, "I'll put you +through, Sis!" and looked quite contemptuously at the heaps of white +muslin piled up beside it. The boys' shirts, you know,--but wasn't it a +mercy she had made enough to buy them before muslin went up? There were +three of the boys asleep now, legs and arms adrift over the floor, +pockets gorged with half-apples, bits of twine instead of suspenders, +other surreptitious bits under their trousers for straps. There were +the twins, girls of ten, hungering for beaux, pickles, and photographic +albums. They were gone to a party in the village. "Sis" had done up +their white dresses; and such fun as they had with her, putting them on +to hide the darns! She made it so comical that they laughed more than +they did the whole evening. + +Grey had saved some money to buy them ribbon for sashes, but Joseph had +taken it from her work-basket that morning to buy cigars. One of the +girls had cried, and even Grey's lips grew scarlet; her Welsh blood +maddened. This woman was neither an angel nor an idiot, Paul Blecker. +Then--it was such a trifle! Poor Joseph! he had been her mother's +favorite, was spoiled a little. So she hurried to his chamber-door with +his shaving-water, calling, "Brother!" Grey had a low, always pleasant +voice, I remember; you looked in her eyes, when you heard it, to see her +laughing. The ex-Congressman was friendly, but dignified, when he took +the water. Grey presumed on her usefulness; women seldom did know their +place. + +There was yet another girl busy now, convoying the lubberly hulks of +boys to bed,--a solid, Dutch-built little clipper, Loo by name. Loo +looked upon Grey secretly as rather silly; (she did all the counting for +her; Grey hardly knew the multiplication-table;) she always, however, +kept her opinions to herself. Tugging the boys after her in the manner +of a tow-boat, she thumped past her father and "that gype, McKinstry, +colloging over their bits of rock," indignation in every twist of her +square shoulders. + +"Fresh air," she said to Grey, jerking her head emphatically toward the +open door. + +"I will, Looey." + +"Looey! Pish!" + +It was no admiring glance she bestowed on the slight figure that came +down the stairs, and stood timidly waiting for McKinstry. + +"You're going, Captain?" the old man's nose and mind starting suddenly +up from his folio. "Lizzy,--eh? Here's the bit of rock. In the coal +formation, you say? Impossible, then, to be as old as the batrachian +track that"-- + +A sudden howl brought him back to the present era. Loo was arguing her +charge up to bed by a syllogism applied at the right time in the right +place. The old man held his hands to his ears with a patient smile, +until McKinstry was out of hearing. + +"It is hard to devote the mind pure to a search for truth here, my +daughter," looking over Grey's head as usual, with pensive, benevolent +eyes. "But I do what I can,--I do what I can." + +"I know, father,"--stroking his hair as she might a child's, trimming +the lamp, and bringing his slippers while he held out his feet for her +to put them on,--"I know." + +Then, when he took up the pen, she went out into the cool night. + +"I do what I can," said he, earnestly, looking at the catalogue, with +his head to one side. + +It was Oth's time,--now or never. + +"Debbil de bit yer do! Ef yer did what yer could, Mars' Si, dar 'ud be +more 'n one side o' sparerib in de cellar fur ten hungry mouths. We've +gone done eat dat pig o' Miss Grey's from head ter tail. An' pigs in +June's a disgrace ter Christians, let alone Presbyterians like us uns." + +The old man glanced at him. Oth's spine gave his tongue free license. + +"I'll discharge him," faintly. + +"'Scharge yerself," growled Oth, under his breath. + +So the old man went back to his batrachians, and Oth ribbed Pen's sock +in silence: the old fort stood at last as quiet in the moonlight as if +it were thinking over all of its long-ago Indian sieges. + +Grey's step was noiseless, going down the tan-bark path. She drew long +breaths, her lungs being choked with the day's work, and threw back the +hair from her forehead and throat. There was a latent dewiness in +the air that made the clear moonlight as fresh and invigorating as a +winter's morning. Grey stretched out her arms in it, with a laugh, as +a child might. You would know, to look at her hair, that there was a +strong poetic capacity in that girl below her simple Quaker character; +as it lay in curly masses where the child had pulled it down, there was +no shine, but clear depth of color in it: her eyes the same; not soggy, +black, flashing as women's are who effuse their experience every day +for the benefit of by-standers; this girl's were pale hazel, clear, +meaningless at times, but when her soul did force itself to the light +they gave it fit utterance. Women with hair and eyes like those, with +passionate lips and strong muscles like Grey Gurney's, are children, +single-natured all their lives, until some day God's test comes: then +they live tragedies, unconscious of their deed. + +The night was singularly clear, in its quiet: only a few dreamy trails +of gray mist, asleep about the moon: far off on the crest of the closing +hills, she fancied she could see the wind-stir in the trees that made a +feathered shadow about the horizon. She leaned on the stile, looking +over the sweep of silent meadows and hills, and slow--creeping +watercourses. The whole earth waited, she fancied, with newer life and +beauty than by day: going back, it might be, in the pure moonlight, +to remember that dawn when God said, "Let there be light." The girl +comprehended the meaning of the night better, perhaps, because of the +house she had left. Every night she came out there. She left the clothes +and spareribs behind her, and a Something, a Grey Gurney that might have +been, came back to her in the coolness and rest, the nearer she drew to +the pure old earth. She never went down into those mossy hollows, or +among the shivering pines, with a soiled, tawdry dress; she wore always +the clear, primitive colors, or white,--Grey: it was the girl's only bit +of self-development. This night she could see McKinstry's figure, as he +went down the path through the rye-field. He was stooping, leading Lizzy +by the hand, as a nurse might an infant. Grey thrust the currant-bushes +aside eagerly; she could catch a glimpse of the girl's face in the +colorless light. It always had a livid tinge, but she fancied it was red +now with healthy blushes; her eyes were on the ground: in the house they +looked out from under their heavy brows on their daily life with a tired +coldness that made silly Grey ashamed of her own light-heartedness. The +man's common face was ennobled with such infinite tenderness and pain, +Grey thought the help that lay therein would content her sister. It was +time for the girl's rest to come; she was sick of herself and of life. +So the tears came to Grey's eyes, though to the very bottom of her heart +she was thankful and glad. + +"She has found home at last!"--she said; and, maybe, because something +in the thought clung to her as she sauntered slowly down the +garden--alleys, her lips kept moving in a childish fashion of hers. "A +home at last, at last!"--that was what she said. + +Paul Blecker, too, waiting back yonder among the trees, saw McKinstry +and his companion, and read the same story that Grey did, but in a +different fashion. "The girl loves him." There were possibilities, +however, in that woman's curious traits, that Blecker, being a physician +and a little of a soul-fancier, saw: nothing in McKinstry's formal, +orthodox nature ran parallel with them; therefore he never would know +them. As they passed Blecker's outlook through the trees, his half-shut +eye ran over her,--the despondent step, the lithe, nervous limbs, the +manner in which she clung for protection to his horny hand. "Poor +child!" the Doctor thought. There was something more, in the girl's +face, that, people called gentle and shy: a weak, uncertain chin; thin +lips, never still an instant, opening and shutting like a starving +animal's; gray eyes, dead, opaque, such as Blecker had noted in the +spiritual mediums in New England. + +"I'm glad it is McKinstry she loves, and not I," he said. + +He turned, and forgot her, watching Grey coming nearer to him. The +garden sloped down to the borders of the creek, and she stood on its +edge now, looking at the uneasy crusting of the black water and the +pearly glint of moonlight. Thinking of Lizzy, and the strong love that +held her; feeling a little lonely, maybe, and quiet, she did not know +why; trying to wrench her thoughts back to the house, and the clothes, +and the spareribs. Why! he could read her thoughts on her face as if +it were a baby's! A homely, silly girl they called her. He thanked God +nobody had found her out before him. Look at the dewy freshness of her +skin! how pure she was! how the world would knock her about, if he did +not keep his hold on her! But he would do that; to-night he meant to lay +his hand upon her life, and never take it off, absorb it in his own. She +moved forward into the clear light: that was right. There was a broken +boll of a beech--tree covered with lichen: she should sit on that, +presently, her face in open light, he in the shadow, while he told +her. "Watching her with hot breath where she stood, then going down to +her:-- + +"Is Grey waiting to bid her friend good-bye?" + +She put her hand in his,--her very lips trembling with the sudden heat, +her untrained eyes wandering restlessly. + +"I thought you would come to me, Doctor Blecker." + +"Call me Paul," roughly. "I was coarser born and bred than you. I want +to think that matters nothing to you." + +She looked up proudly. + +"You know it matters nothing. I am not vulgar." + +"No, Grey. But--it is curious, but no one ever called me Paul, as boy or +man. It is a sign of equality; and I've always had, in the _mélée,_ the +underneath taint about me. You are not vulgar enough to care for it. +Yours is the highest and purest nature I ever knew. Yet I know it is +right for you to call me Paul. Your soul and mine stand on a plane +before God." + +The childish flush left her face; the timid woman-look was in it now. He +bent nearer. + +"They stand there alone, Grey." + +She drew back from him, her hands nervously catching in the thick curls. + +"You do not believe that?" his breath clogged and hot. "It is a fancy of +mine? not true?" + +"It is true." + +He caught the whisper, his face growing pale, his eyes flashing. + +"Then you are mine, child! What is the meaning of these paltry +contradictions? Why do you evade me from day to day?" + +"You promised me not to speak of this again,"--weakly. + +"Pah! You have a man's straightforward, frank instinct, Grey; and this +is cowardly,--paltry, as I said before. I will speak of it again. +To-night is all that is left to me." + +He seated her upon the beech-trunk. One could tell by the very touch +and glance of the man how the image of this woman stood solitary in his +coarser thoughts, delicate, pure: a disciple would have laid just such +reverential fingers on the robe of the Madonna. Then he stood off from +her, looking straight into her hazel eyes. Grey, with all her innocent +timidity, was the cooler, stronger, maybe, of the two: the poor Doctor's +passionate nature, buffeted from one anger and cheat to another in the +world, brought very little quiet or tact or aptitude in language for +this one hour. Yet, standing there, his man's sturdy heart throbbing +slow as an hysteric woman's, his eyeballs burning, it seemed to him that +all his life had been but the weak preface to these words he was going +to speak. + +"It angers me," he muttered, abruptly, "that, when I come to you with +the thought that a man's or a woman's soul can hold but once in life, +you put me aside with the silly whims of a schoolgirl. It is not worthy +of you, Grey. You are not as other women." + +What was this that he had touched? She looked up at him steadily, +her hands clasped about her knees, the childlike rose-glow and light +banished from her face. + +"I am not like other women. You speak truer than you know. You call me a +silly, happy child. Maybe I am; but, Paul, once in my life God punished +me. I don't know for what,"--getting up, and stretching out her groping +arms, blindly. + +There was a sudden silence. This was not the cheery, healthful Grey +Gurney of a moment before, this woman with the cold terror creeping out +in her face. He caught her hands and held them. + +"I don't know for what," she moaned. "He did it. He is good." + +He watched the slow change in her face: it made his hands tremble as +they held hers. No longer a child, but a woman whose soul the curse had +touched. Miriam, leprous from God's hand, might have thus looked up to +Him without the camp. Blecker drew her closer. Was she not his own? He +would defend her against even this God, for whom he cared but little. + +"What has been done to you, child?" + +She shook herself free, speaking in a fast, husky whisper. + +"Do not touch me, Dr. Blecker. It was no school-girl's whim that kept me +from you. I am not like other women. I am not worthy of any man's love." + +"I think I know what you mean," he said, gravely. "I know your story, +Grey. They made you live a foul lie once. I know it all. You were a +child then." + +She had gone still farther from him, holding by the trunk of a dead +tree, her face turned towards the water. The black sough of wind from +it lifted her hair, and dampened her forehead. The man's brain grew +clearer, stronger, somehow, as he looked at her; as thought does in the +few electric moments of life when sham and conventionality crumble down +like ashes, and souls stand bare, face to face. For the every-day, +cheery, unselfish Grey of the coarse life in yonder he cared but little; +it was but the husk that held the woman whose nature grappled with his +own, that some day would take it with her to the Devil or to God. He +knew that. It was this woman that stood before him now: looking back, +out of the inbred force and purity within her, the indignant man's sense +of honor that she had, on the lie they had made her live: daring to face +the truth, that God had suffered this thing, yet clinging, like a simple +child, to her old faith in Him. That childish faith, that worked itself +out in her common life, Paul Blecker set aside, in loving her. She was +ignorant: he knew the world, and, he thought, very plainly saw that the +Power who had charge of it suffered unneeded ills, was a traitor to the +Good his own common sense and kindly feeling could conceive; which is +the honest belief of most of the half-thinkers in America. + +"You were but a child," he said again. "It matters nothing to me, Grey. +It left no taint upon you." + +"It did," she cried, passionately. "I carry the marks of it to my grave. +I never shall be pure again." + +"Why did your God let you go down into such foulness, then?"--the words +broke from his lips irrepressibly. "It was He who put you in the hands +of a selfish woman; it was He who gave you a weak will. It is He who +suffers marriages as false as yours. Why, child! you call it crime, the +vow that bound you for that year to a man you loathed; yet the world +celebrates such vows daily in every church in Christendom." + +"I know that";--her voice had gone down into its quiet sob, like a +little child's. + +She sat down on the ground, now, the long shore-grass swelling up around +her, thrusting her fingers into the pools of eddying water, with a +far-off sense of quiet and justice and cold beneath there. + +"I don't understand," she said. "The world's wrong somehow. I don't +think God does it. There's thousands of young girls married as I was. +Maybe, if I 'd told Him about it, it wouldn't have ended as it did. I +did not think He cared for such things." + +Blecker was silent. What did he care for questions like this now? He sat +by her on the broken trunk, his elbows on his knees, his sultry eyes +devouring her face and body. What did it matter, if once she had been +sold to another man? She was free now: he was dead. He only knew that +here was the only creature in earth or heaven that he loved: there was +not a breath in her lungs, a tint of her flesh, that was not dear to +him, allied by some fierce passion to his own sense: there was that +in her soul which he needed, starved for: his life balked blank here, +demanding it,--her,--he knew not what: but that gained, a broader +freedom opened behind, unknown possibilities of honor and truth and +deed. He would take no other step, live no farther, until he gained her. +Holding, too, the sense of her youth, her rare beauty, as it seemed +to him; loving it with keener passion because he alone developed it, +drawing her soul to the light! how like a baby she was: how dainty the +dimpling white flesh of her arms, the soft limbs crouching there! So +pure, the man never came near her without a dull loathing of himself, a +sudden remembrance of places where he had been tainted, made unfit to +touch her,--rows in Bowery dance-houses, waltzes with musk-scented fine +ladies: when this girl put her cool little hand in his sometimes, he +felt tears coming to his eyes, as if the far-off God or the dead mother +had blessed him. She sat there, now, going back to that blot in her +life, her eyes turned every moment up to the Power beyond in whom she +trusted, to know why it had been. He had seen little children, struck +by their mother's hand, turn on them a look just so grieved and so +appealing. + +"It was no one's fault altogether, Paul," she said. "My mother was not +selfish, more than other women. There were very many mouths to feed: it +is so in most families like ours." + +"I know." + +"I am very dull about books,--stupid, they say. I could not teach; and +they would not let me sew for money, because of the disgrace. These are +the only ways a woman has. If I had been a boy"-- + +"I understand." + +"No man can understand,"--her voice growing shrill with pain. "It's not +easy to eat the bread needed for other mouths day after day, with your +hands tied, idle and helpless. A boy can go out and work, in a hundred +ways: a girl must marry; it's her only chance for a livelihood, or a +home, or anything to fill her heart with. Don't blame my mother, Paul. +She had ten of us to work for. From the time I could comprehend, I knew +her only hope was, to live long enough to see her boys educated, and +her daughters in homes of their own. It was the old story, Doctor +Blecker,"--with a shivering laugh more pitiful than a cry. "I've noticed +it since in a thousand other houses. Young girls like me in these +poor-genteel families,--there are none of God's creatures more helpless +or goaded, starving at their souls. I couldn't teach. I had no talent; +but if I had, a woman's a woman: she wants something else in her life +than dog-eared school-books and her wages year after year." + +Blecker could hardly repress a smile. + +"You are coming to political economy by a woman's road, Grey." + +"I don't know what that is. I know what my life was then. I was only a +child; but when that man came and held out his hand to take me, I was +willing when they gave me to him,--when they sold me, Doctor Blecker. It +was like leaving some choking pit, where air was given to me from other +lungs, to go out and find it for my own. What marriage was or ought to +be I did not know; but I wanted, as every human being does want, a place +for my own feet to stand on, not to look forward to the life of an old +maid, living on sufferance, always the one too many in the house." + +"That is weak and vulgar argument, child. It should not touch a true +woman, Grey. Any young girl can find work and honorable place for +herself in the world, without the defilement of a false marriage." + +"I know that now. But young girls are not taught that. I was only a +child, not strong-willed. And now, when I'm free,"--a curious clearness +coming to her eye,--"I'm glad to think of it all. I never blame other +women. Because, you see,"--looking up with the flickering smile,--"a +woman's so hungry for something of her own to love, for some one to be +kind to her, for a little house and parlor and kitchen of her own; and +if she marries the first man who says he loves her, out of that first +instinct of escape from dependence, and hunger for love, she does not +know she is selling herself, until it's too late. The world's all wrong, +somehow." + +She stopped, her troubled face still upturned to his. + +"But you,--you are free now?" + +"He is dead." + +She slowly rose as she spoke, her voice hardening. + +"He was my cousin, you know,--the same name as mine. Only a year he was +with me. Then he went to Cuba, where he died. He is dead. But I am not +free,"--lifting her hands fiercely, as she spoke. "Nothing can wipe the +stain of that year off of me." + +"You know what man he was," said the Doctor, with a natural thrill of +pleasure that he could say it honestly. "I know, poor child! A vapid, +cruel tyrant, weak, foul. You hated him, Grey? There's a strength of +hatred in your blood. Answer me. You dare speak truth to me." + +"He's dead now,"--with a long, choking breath. "We will not speak of +him." + +She stood a moment, looking down the stretch of curdling black +water,--then, turning with a sudden gesture, as though she flung +something from her, looked at him with a pitiful effort to smile. + +"I don't often think of that time. I cannot bear pain very well. I like +to be happy. When I'm busy now, or playing with little Pen, I hardly +believe I am the woman who was John Gurney's wife. I was so old then! I +was like a hard, tigerish soul, tried and tempted day by day. He made me +that." + +She could not bear pain, he saw: remembrance of it, alone, made the +flesh about her lips blue, unsteadied her brain; the well-accented face +grew vacant, dreary; neither nerves nor will of this woman were tough. +Her family were not the stuff out of which voluntary heroes are made. +He saw, too, she was thrusting it back,--out of thought: it was her +temperament to do that. + +"So, now, Grey," he said, cheerfully, "the story's told. Shall we lay +that ghost of the old life, and see what these healthful new years have +for us?" + +Paul Blecker's voice was never so strong or pure: whatever of coarseness +had clung to him fell off then, as he came nearer to the weak woman +whom God had given to him to care for; whatever of latent manhood, of +chivalry, slept beneath, some day to make him an earnest husband and +father, and helpful servant of the True Man, came out in his eager face +and eye, now. He took her two hands in his: how strong his muscles were! +how the man's full pulse throbbed healthfully against her own! She +looked up with a sudden blush and smile. A minute ago she thought +herself so strong to renounce! She meant, this weak, incomplete woman, +to keep to the shame of that foul old lie of hers, accepting that as her +portion for life. There is a chance comes to some few women, once in +their lives, to escape into the full development of their natures by +contact with the one soul made in the same mould as their own. It came +to this woman to-night. Grey was no theorist about it: all that she knew +was, that, when Paul Blecker stood near her, for the first time in her +life she was not alone,--that, when he spoke, his words were but more +forcible utterances of her own thought,--that, when she thought of +leaving him, it was like drawing the soul from her living body, to leave +it pulseless, dead. Yet she would do it. + +"I am not fit to be any man's wife. If you had come to me when I was a +child, it might have been,--it ought to have been,"--with an effort to +draw her hands from him. + +Blecker only smiled, and seated her gently on the mossy boll of the +beech-tree. + +"Stay. Listen to me," he whispered. + +And Grey, being a woman and no philosopher, sat motionless, her hands +folded, nerveless, where he had let them fall, her face upturned, like +that of the dead maiden waiting the touch of infinite love to tremble +and glow back into beautiful life. He did not speak, did not touch her, +only bent nearer. It seemed to him, as the pure moonlight then held them +close in its silent bound, the great world hushed without, the light air +scarce daring to touch her fair, waiting face, the slow-heaving breast, +the kindling glow in her dark hair, that all the dead and impure years +fell from them, and in a fresh new-born life they stood alone, with the +great Power of strength and love for company. What need was there of +words? She knew it all: in the promise and question of his face waited +for her the hope and vigor the time gone had never known: her woman's +nature drooped and leaned on his, content: the languid hazel eye +followed his with such intent, one would have fancied that her soul in +that silence had found its rest and home forever. + +He took her hand, and drew from it the old ring that yet bound one of +her fingers, the sign of a lie long dead, and without a word dropped it +in the current below them. The girl looked up suddenly, as it fell: +her eyes were wet: the woman whom Christ loosed from her infirmity of +eighteen years might have thanked him with such a look as Grey's that +night. Then she looked back to her earthly master. + +"It is dead now, child, the past,--never to live again. Grey holds a new +life in her hands to-night." He stopped: the words came weak, paltry, +for his meaning. "Is there nothing with which she dares to fill it? no +touch that will make it dear, holy for her?" + +There was a heavy silence. Nature rose impatient in the crimson blood +that dyed her lips and cheek, in the brilliance of her eye; but she +forced back the words that would have come, and sat timid and trembling. + +"None, Grey? You are strong and cool. I know. The lie dead and gone +from your life, you can control the years alone, with your religion and +cheery strength. Is that what you would say?"--bitterly. + +She did not answer. The color began to fade, the eyes to dim. + +"You have told me your story; let me tell you mine,"--throwing himself +on the grass beside her. "Look at me, Grey. Other women have despised +me, as rough, callous, uncouth: you never have. I've had no hot-house +usage in the world; the sun and rain hardly fell on me unpaid. I've +earned every inch of this flesh and muscle, worked for it as it grew; +the knowledge that I have, scanty enough, but whatever thought I do have +of God or life, I've had to grapple and struggle for. Other men grow, +inhale their being, like yonder tree God planted and watered. I think +sometimes He forgot me,"--with a curious woman's tremor in his voice, +gone in an instant. "I scrambled up like that scraggy parasite, without +a root. Do you know now why I am sharp, wary, suspicious, doubt if there +be a God? Grey," turning fiercely, "I am tired of this. God did make me. +I want rest. I want love, peace, religion, in my life." + +She said nothing. She forgot herself, her timid shyness now, and looked +into his eyes, a noble, helpful woman, sounding the depths of the turbid +soul laid bare for her. + +He laid his big, ill-jointed hand on her knee. + +"I thought," he said.--great drops of sweat coming out on his sallow +lips,--"God meant you to help me. There is my life, little girl. You may +do what you will with it. It does not value much to me." + +And Grey, woman-like, gathered up the despised hand and life, and sobbed +a little as she pressed them to her heart. An hour after, they went +together up the old porch-steps, halting a moment where the grape-vines +clustered thickest about the shingled wall. The house was silent; even +the village slept in the moonlight: no sound of life in the great +sweep of dusky hill and valley, save the wreaths of mist over the +watercourses, foaming and drifting together silently: before morning +they would stretch from base to base of the hills like a Dead Sea, ashy +and motionless. They stood silent a moment, until the chirp of some +robin, frightened by their steps in its nest overhead, had hummed +drowsily down into sleep. + +"It is not good-night, but good-bye, that I must bid you, Grey," he +said, stooping to see her face. + +"I know. But you will come again. God tells me that." + +"I will come. Remember, Grey, I am going to save life, not to take it. +Corrupt as I am, my hands are clean of this butchery for the sake of +interest." + +Grey's eyes wandered. She knows nothing about the war, to be candid: +only that it is like a cold pain at her heart, day and night,--sorry +that the slaves are slaves, wondering if they could be worse off than +the free negroes swarming in the back-alleys yonder,--as sorry, being +unpatriotic, for the homeless women in Virginia as for the stolen horses +of Chambersburg. Grey's principles, though mixed, are sound, as far as +they go, you see. Just then thinking only of herself. + +"You will come back to me?" clinging to his arm. + +"Why, I must come back," cheerfully, choking back whatever stopped +his breath, pushing back the curling hair from her forehead with a +half-reverential touch. "I have so much, to do, little girl! There is +a farm over yonder I mean to earn enough to buy, where you and I shall +rest and study and grow,--stronger and healthier, more helpful every +day. We'll find our work and place in the world yet, poor child! You +shall show me what a pure, earnest life is, Grey, and above us--what +there is there," lowering his voice. "And I,--how much I have to do with +this bit of humanity here on my hands!"--playfully. "An unhewn stone, +with the beautiful statue lying _perdu_ within. Bid you know you were +that, Grey? and I the sculptor?" + +She looked up bewildered. + +"It is true," passing his fingers over the low, broad, curiously moulded +forehead. "My girl does not know what powers and subtile forces lie +asleep beneath this white skin? I know. I know lights and words and +dramas of meaning these childish eyes hold latent: that I will set free. +I will teach your very silent lips a new language. You never guessed how +like a prison your life has been, how unfinished you are; but I thank +God for it, Grey. You would not have loved me, if it had been different; +I can grow with you now, grow to your height, if--He helps me." + +He took off his hat, and stood, looking silently into the deep blue +above,--for the first time in his life coming to his Friend with a +manly, humble look. His eyes were not clear when he spoke again, his +voice very quiet. + +"Good bye, Grey! I'm going to try to be a better man than I've ever +been. You are my wife now in His eyes. I need you so: for life and for +eternity, I think. You will remember that?" + +And so, holding her to his heart a moment or two, and kissing her lips +passionately once or twice, he left her, trying to smile as he went down +the path, but with a strange clogging weight in his breast, as if his +heart would not beat. + +Going in, Grey found the old negro asleep over his knitting, the candle +with a flaring black crust beside him. + +"He waited for me," she said; and as she stroked the skinny old hand, +the tears came at the thought of it. Everybody was so kind to her! The +world was so foil of love! God was so good to her to-night! + +Oth, waking fully as she helped him to his room-door, looked anxiously +in her face. + +"Er' ye well to-night, chile?" he said. "Yer look as yer did when yer +wor a little baby. Peart an' purty yer wor, dat's true. Der good Lord +loved yer, I think." + +"He loves me now," she said, softly, to herself, as in her own room she +knelt down and thanked Him, and then, undressed, crept into the white +trundle-bed beside little Pen; and when he woke, and, putting his little +arms about her neck, drew her head close to his to kiss her good-night, +she cried quietly to herself, and fell asleep with the tears upon her +cheek. + +Her sister, in the next room to hers, with the same new dream in her +heart, did not creep into any baby's arms for sympathy. Lizzy Gurney +never had a pet, dog or child. She sat by the window waiting, her shawl +about her head in the very folds McKinstry had wrapped it, motionless, +as was her wont. But for the convulsive movement of her lips now and +then, no gutta-percha doll could be more utterly still. As the night +wore down into the intenser sleep of the hours after midnight, her watch +grew more breathless. The moon sank far enough in the west to throw +the beams directly across her into the dark chamber behind. She was a +small-moulded woman, you could see now: her limbs, like those of a cat, +or animals of that tribe, from their power of trance-like quiet, gave +you the idea of an intense vitality: a gentle face,--pretty, the +villagers called it, from its waxy tint and faint coloring,--you wished +to do something for her, seeing it. Paul Blecker never did: the woman +never spoke to him; but he noted often the sudden relaxed droop of the +eyelids, when she sat alone, as if some nerve had grown weary: he had +seen that peculiarity in some women before, and knew all it meant. He +had nothing for her; her hunger lay out of his ken. + +It grew later: the moon hung now so low that deep shadows lay heavy over +the whole valley; not a breath broke the sleep of the night; even the +long melancholy howl of the dog down in camp was hushed long since. When +the clock struck two, she got up and went noiselessly out into the open +air. There was no droop in her eyelids now; they were straight, nerved, +the eyes glowing with a light never seen by day beneath them. Down the +long path into the cornfield, slowly, pausing at some places, while her +lips moved as though she repeated words once heard there. What folly was +this? Was this woman's life so bare, so empty of its true food, that she +must needs go back and drag again into life a few poor, happy moments? +distil them slowly, to drink them again drop by drop? I have seen +children so live over in their play the one great holiday of their +lives. Down through the field to the creek-ford, where the stones lay +for crossing, slippery with moss: she could feel the strong grasp of the +hand that had led her over there that night; and so, with slow, and yet +slower step, where the path had been rocky, and she had needed cautious +help. Into the thicket of lilacs, with the old scent of the spring +blossoms yet hanging on their boughs; along the bank, where her foot had +sunk deep into plushy moss, where he had gathered a cluster of fern and +put it into her hand. Its pale feathery green was not more quaint or +pure than the delicate love in the uncouth man beside her,--not nearer +kin to Nature. Did she know that? Had it been like the breath of God +coming into her nostrils to be so loved, appreciated, called home, as +she had been to-night? Was she going back to feel that breath again? +Neither pain nor pleasure was on her face: her breath came heavy and +short, her eyes shone, that was all. Out now into the open road, +stopping and glancing around with every broken twig, being a cowardly +creature, yet never leaving the track of the footsteps in the dust, +where she had gone before. Coming at last to the old-fashioned gabled +house, where she had gone when site was a child, set in among stiff rows +of evergreens. A breathless quiet always hung about the place: a pure, +wholesome atmosphere, because pure and earnest people had acted out +their souls there, and gone home to God. He had led her through the +gate here, given her to drink of the well at the side of the house. "My +mother never would taste any water but this, do you remember, Lizzy?" +They had gone through the rooms, whispering, if they spoke, as though it +were a church. Here was the pure dead sister's face looking down from +the wall; there his mother's worn wicker work-stand. Her work was in it +still. "The needle just where she placed it, Lizzy." The strong man was +weak as a little child with the memory of the old mother who had +nursed and loved him as no other could love. He stood beside her chair +irresolute; forty years ago he had stood there, a little child bringing +all his troubles to be healed: since she died no hand had touched it. +"Will you sit there, Lizzy? You are dearer to me than she. When I come +back, will you take their place here? Only you are pure as they, and +dearer, Lizzy. We will go home to them hand in hand." She sat in the +dead woman's chair. _She_. Looking in at her own heart as she did it. +Yet her love for him would make her fit to sit there: she believed that. +He had not kissed her,--she was too sacred to the simple-hearted man for +that,--had only taken her little hand in both his, saying, "God bless +you, little Lizzy!" in an unsteady voice. + +"He may never say it again," the girl said, when she crept home from +her midnight pilgrimage. "I'll come here every day and live it all +over again. It will keep me quiet until he comes. Maybe he'll never +come,"--catching her breast, and tearing it until it grew black. She was +so tired of herself, this child! She would have torn that nerve in her +heart out that sometimes made her sick, if she could. Her life was so +cramped, and selfish, too, and she knew it. Passing by the door of +Grey's room, she saw her asleep with Pen in her arms,--some other little +nightcapped heads in the larger beds. _She_ slept alone. "They tire +me so!" she said; "yet I think," her eye growing fiercer, "if I had +anything all my own, if I had a little baby to make pure and good, I'd +be a better girl. Maybe--_he_ will make me better." + +Paul Blecker, heart-anatomist, laughed when this woman, with the aching +brain and the gnawing hunger at heart, seized on the single, Christ-like +love of McKinstry, a common, bigoted man, and made it her master +and helper. Her instinct was wiser than he, being drifted by God's +under-currents of eternal order. That One who knows when the sparrow is +ready for death knows well what things are needed for a tired girl's +soul. + + * * * * * + + +UP THE THAMES. + + +The upper portion of Greenwich (where my last article left me loitering) +is a cheerful, comely, old-fashioned town, the peculiarities of which, +if there be any, have passed out of my remembrance. As you descend +towards the Thames, the streets get meaner, and the shabby and sunken +houses, elbowing one another for frontage, bear the sign-boards of +beer-shops and eating-rooms, with especial promises of whitebait and +other delicacies in the fishing line. You observe, also, a frequent +announcement of "Tea Gardens" in the rear; although, estimating the +capacity of the premises by their external compass, the entire sylvan +charm and shadowy seclusion of such blissful resorts must be limited +within a small back-yard. These places of cheap sustenance and +recreation depend for support upon the innumerable pleasure-parties who +come from London Bridge by steamer, at a fare of a few pence, and who +get as enjoyable a meal for a shilling a head as the Ship Hotel would +afford a gentleman for a guinea. + +The steamers, which are constantly smoking their pipes up and down the +Thames, offer much the most agreeable mode of getting to London. At +least, it might be exceedingly agreeable, except for the myriad floating +particles of soot from the stove-pipe, and the heavy heat of midsummer +sunshine on the unsheltered deck, or the chill, misty air-draught of a +cloudy day, and the spiteful little showers of rain that may spatter +down upon you at any moment, whatever the promise of the sky; besides +which there is some slight inconvenience from the inexhaustible throng +of passengers, who scarcely allow you standing-room, nor so much as a +breath of unappropriated air, and never a chance to sit down. If these +difficulties weigh little with you, the panorama along the shores of the +memorable river, and the incidents and shows of passing life upon its +bosom, render the trip far preferable to the brief, yet tiresome shoot +along the railway-track. On one such voyage, a regatta of wherries raced +past us, and at once involved every soul on board our steamer in the +tremendous excitement of the struggle. The spectacle was but a moment +within our view, and presented nothing more than a few light skiffs, in +each of which sat a single rower, bare-armed, and with little apparel, +save a shirt and drawers, pale, anxious, with every muscle on the +stretch, and plying his oars in such fashion that the boat skimmed along +with the aerial celerity of a swallow. I wondered at myself for so +immediately catching an interest in the affair, which seemed to contain +no very exalted rivalship of manhood; but, whatever the kind of battle +or the prize of victory, it stirs one's sympathy immensely, and is even +awful, to behold the rare sight of a man thoroughly in earnest, doing +his best, putting forth all there is in him, and staking his very soul +(as these rowers appeared willing to do) on the issue of the contest. It +was the seventy-fourth annual regatta of the Free Watermen of Greenwich, +and announced itself as under the patronage of the Lord Mayor and other +distinguished individuals, at whose expense, I suppose, a prize-boat +was offered to the conqueror, and some small amounts of money to the +inferior competitors. + +The aspect of London along the Thames, below Bridge, as it is called, is +by no means so impressive as it ought to be, considering what peculiar +advantages are offered for the display of grand and stately architecture +by the passage of a river through the midst of a great city. It seems, +indeed, as if the heart of London had been cleft open for the mere +purpose of showing how rotten and drearily mean it had become. The shore +is lined with the shabbiest, blackest, and ugliest buildings that can be +imagined, decayed warehouses with blind windows, and wharves that +look ruinous; insomuch that, had I known nothing more of the world's +metropolis, I might have fancied that it had already experienced the +down-fall which I have heard commercial and financial prophets predict +for it, within the century. And the muddy tide of the Thames, reflecting +nothing, and hiding a million of unclean secrets within its breast,--a +sort of guilty conscience, as it were, unwholesome with the rivulets of +sin that constantly flow into it,--is just the dismal stream to glide +by such a city. The surface, to be sure, displays no lack of activity, +being fretted by the passage of a hundred steamers and covered with a +good deal of shipping, but mostly of a clumsier build than I had been +accustomed to see in the Mersey: a fact which I complacently attributed +to the smaller number of American clippers in the Thames, and the +less prevalent influence of American example in refining away the +broad-bottomed capacity of the old Dutch or English models. About midway +between Greenwich and London Bridge, at a rude landing-place on the left +bank of the river, the steamer rings its bell and makes a momentary +pause in front of a large circular structure, where it may be worth our +while to scramble ashore. It indicates the locality of one of those +prodigious practical blunders that would supply John Bull with a topic +of inexhaustible ridicule, if his cousin Jonathan had committed +them, but of which he himself perpetrates two to our one in the mere +wantonness of wealth that lacks better employment. The circular building +covers the entrance to the Thames Tunnel, and is surmounted by a dome of +glass, so as to throw daylight down into the great depth at which the +passage of the river commences. Descending a wearisome succession of +staircases, we at last find ourselves, still in the broad noon, standing +before a closed door, on opening which we behold the vista of an arched +corridor that extends into everlasting midnight. In these days, when +glass has been applied to so many new purposes, it is a pity that the +architect had not thought of arching portions of his abortive tunnel +with immense blocks of the lucid substance, over which the dusky Thames +would have flowed like a cloud, making the sub-fluvial avenue only +a little gloomier than a street of upper London. At present, it is +illuminated at regular intervals by jets of gas, not very brilliantly, +yet with lustre enough to show the damp plaster of the ceiling and +walls, and the massive stone pavement, the crevices of which are oozy +with moisture, not from the incumbent river, but from hidden springs in +the earth's deeper heart. There are two parallel corridors, with a +wall between, for the separate accommodation of the double throng of +foot-passengers, equestrians, and vehicles of all kinds, which was +expected to roll and reverberate continually through the Tunnel. Only +one of them has ever been opened, and its echoes are but feebly awakened +by infrequent footfalls. + +Yet there seem to be people who spend their lives here, and who probably +blink like owls, when, once or twice a year, perhaps, they happen to +climb into the sunshine. All along the corridor, which I believe to be +a mile in extent, we see stalls or shops in little alcoves, kept +principally by women; they were of a ripe age, I was glad to observe, +and certainly robbed England of none of its very moderate supply of +feminine loveliness by their deeper than tomb-like interment. As you +approach, (and they are so accustomed to the dusky gas-light that they +read all your characteristics afar off,) they assail you with hungry +entreaties to buy some of their merchandise, holding forth views of the +Tunnel put up in cases of Derbyshire spar, with a magnifying-glass at +one end to make the vista more effective. They offer you, besides, +cheap jewelry, sunny topazes and resplendent emeralds for sixpence, and +diamonds as big as the Koh-i-noor at a not much heavier cost, together +with a multifarious trumpery which has died out of the upper world to +reappear in this Tartarean bazaar. That you may fancy yourself still +in the realms of the living, they urge you to partake of cakes, candy, +ginger-beer, and such small refreshment, more suitable, however, for the +shadowy appetite of ghosts than for the sturdy stomachs of Englishmen. +The most capacious of the shops contains a dioramic exhibition of cities +and scenes in the daylight-world, with a dreary glimmer of gas among +them all; so that they serve well enough to represent the dim, +unsatisfactory remembrances that dead people might be supposed to retain +from their past lives, mixing them up with the ghastliness of their +unsubstantial state. I dwell the more upon these trifles, and do my best +to give them a mockery of importance, because, if these are nothing, +then all this elaborate contrivance and mighty piece of work has been +wrought in vain. The Englishman has burrowed under the bed of his great +river, and set ships of two or three thousand tons a-rolling over his +head, only to provide new sites for a few old women to sell cakes and +ginger-beer! + +Yet the conception was a grand one; and though it has proved an absolute +failure, swallowing an immensity of toil and money, with annual +returns hardly sufficient to keep the pavement free from the ooze of +subterranean springs, yet it needs, I presume, only an expenditure three +or four (or, for aught I know, twenty) times as large, to make the +enterprise brilliantly successful. The descent is so great from the bank +of the river to its surface, and the Tunnel dips so profoundly under the +river's bed, that the approaches on either side must commence a long way +off, in order to render the entrance accessible to horsemen or vehicles; +so that the larger part of the cost of the whole affair should have been +expended on its margins. It has turned out a sublime piece of folly; and +when the New Zealander of distant ages shall have moralized sufficiently +among the ruins of London Bridge, he will bethink himself that somewhere +thereabout was the marvellous Tunnel, the very existence of which will +seem to him as incredible as that of the hanging-gardens of Babylon. +But the Thames will long ago have broken through the massive arch, and +choked up the corridors with mud and sand and with the large stones of +the structure itself, intermixed with skeletons of drowned people, the +rusty iron-work of sunken vessels, and a great many such precious and +curious things as a river always contrives to hide in its bosom; the +entrance will have been obliterated, and its very site forgotten beyond +the memory of twenty generations of men, and the whole neighborhood +be held a dangerous spot on account of the malaria; insomuch that the +traveller will make but a brief and careless inquisition for the traces +of the old wonder, and will stake his credit before the public, in some +Pacific Monthly of that day, that the story of it is but a myth, though +enriched with a spiritual profundity which he will proceed to unfold. + +Yet it is impossible (for a Yankee, at least) to see so much magnificent +ingenuity thrown away, without trying to endow the unfortunate result +with some kind of usefulness, though perhaps widely different from +the purpose of its original conception. In former ages, the mile-long +corridors, with their numerous alcoves, might have been utilized as +a series of dungeons, the fittest of all possible receptacles for +prisoners of state. Dethroned monarchs and fallen statesmen would not +have needed to remonstrate against a domicil so spacious, so deeply +secluded from the world's scorn, and so admirably in accordance with +their thenceforward sunless fortunes. An alcove here might have suited +Sir Walter Raleigh better than that darksome hiding-place communicating +with the great chamber in the Tower, pacing from end to end of which he +meditated upon his "History of the World." His track would here have +been straight and narrow, indeed, and would therefore have lacked +somewhat of the freedom that his intellect demanded; and yet the +length to which his footsteps might have travelled forth and retraced +themselves would partly have harmonized his physical movement with the +grand curves and planetary returns of his thought, through cycles of +majestic periods. Having it in his mind to compose the world's history, +methinks he could have asked no better retirement than such a cloister +as this, insulated from all the seductions of mankind and womankind, +deep beneath their mysteries and motives, down into the heart of things, +full of personal reminiscences in order to the comprehensive measurement +and verification of historic records, seeing into the secrets of human +nature,--secrets that daylight never yet revealed to mortal,--but +detecting their whole scope and purport with the infallible eyes of +unbroken solitude and night. And then the shades of the old mighty men +might have risen from their still profounder abodes and joined him in +the dim corridor, treading beside him with an antique stateliness of +mien, telling him in melancholy tones, grand, but always melancholy, of +the greater ideas and purposes that were so poorly embodied in their +most renowned performances. As Raleigh was a navigator, Noah would have +explained to him the peculiarities of construction that made the ark so +seaworthy; as Raleigh was a statesman, Moses would have discussed with +him the principles of laws and government; as Raleigh was a soldier, +Caesar and Hannibal would have held debate in his presence, with this +martial student for their umpire; as Raleigh was a poet, David, or +whatever most illustrious bard he might call up, would have touched his +harp, and made manifest all the true significance of the past by means +of song and the subtile intelligences of music. + +Meanwhile, I had forgotten that Sir Walter Raleigh's century knew +nothing of gas-light, and that it would require a prodigious and +wasteful expenditure of tallow-candles to illuminate the Tunnel +sufficiently to discern even a ghost. On this account, however, it would +be all the more suitable place of confinement for a metaphysician, to +keep him from bewildering mankind with his shadowy speculations; and, +being shut off from external converse, the dark corridor would help +him to make rich discoveries in those cavernous regions and mysterious +by-paths of the intellect, which he had so long accustomed himself to +explore. But how would every successive age rejoice in so secure a +habitation for its reformers, and especially for each best and wisest +man that happened to be then alive! He seeks to burn up our whole system +of society, under pretence of purifying it from its abuses! Away with +him into the Tunnel, and let him begin by setting the Thames on fire, if +he is able! + +If not precisely these, yet akin to these were some of the fantasies +that haunted me as I passed under the river: for the place is suggestive +of such idle and irresponsible stuff by its own abortive character, its +lack of whereabout on upper earth, or any solid foundation of realities. +Could I have looked forward a few years, I might have regretted that +American enterprise had not provided a similar tunnel, under the Hudson +or the Potomac, for the convenience of our National Government in times +hardly yet gone by. It would be delightful to clap up all the enemies +of our peace and Union in the dark together, and there let them abide, +listening to the monotonous roll of the river above their heads, or +perhaps in a state of miraculously suspended animation, until,--be it +after months, years, or centuries,--when the turmoil shall be all over, +the Wrong washed away in blood, (since that must needs be the cleansing +fluid,) and the Right firmly rooted in the soil which that blood will +have enriched, they might crawl forth again and catch a single glimpse +at their redeemed country, and feel it to be a better land than they +deserve, and die! + +I was not sorry when the daylight reached me after a much briefer +abode in the nether regions than, I fear, would await the troublesome +personages just hinted at. Emerging on the Surrey side of the Thames, +I found myself in Rotherhithe, a neighborhood not unfamiliar to the +readers of old books of maritime adventure. There being a ferry hard by +the mouth of the Tunnel, I recrossed the river in the primitive fashion +of an open boat, which the conflict of wind and tide, together with the +swash and swell of the passing steamers, tossed high and low rather +tumultuously. This inquietude of our frail skiff (which, indeed, bobbed +up and down like a cork) so much alarmed an old lady, the only other +passenger, that the boatmen essayed to comfort her. "Never fear, +mother!" grumbled one of them, "we'll make the river as smooth as we can +for you. We'll get a plane and plane down the waves!" The joke may not +read very brilliantly; but I make bold to record it as the only specimen +that reached my ears of the old, rough water-wit for which the Thames +used to be so celebrated. Passing directly along the line of the sunken +Tunnel, we landed in Wapping, which I should have presupposed to be the +most tarry and pitchy spot on earth, swarming with old salts, and full +of warm, bustling, coarse, homely, and cheerful life. Nevertheless, +it turned out to be a cold and torpid neighborhood, mean, shabby, and +unpicturesque, both as to its buildings and inhabitants: the latter +comprising (so far as was visible to me) not a single unmistakable +sailor, though plenty of land-sharks, who get a half dishonest +livelihood by business connected with the sea. Ale-and-spirit vaults +(as petty drinking-establishments are styled in England, pretending +to contain vast cellars full of liquor within the compass of ten feet +square above-ground) were particularly abundant, together with apples, +oranges, and oysters, the stalls of fishmongers and butchers, and +slop-shops, where blue jackets and duck trousers swung and capered +before the doors. Everything was on the poorest scale, and the place +bore an aspect of unredeemable decay. From this remote point of London, +I strolled leisurely towards the heart of the city; while the streets, +at first but thinly occupied by man or vehicle, got more and more +thronged with foot-passengers, carts, drays, cabs, and the all-pervading +and all-accommodating omnibus. But I lack courage, and feel that I +should lack perseverance, as the gentlest reader would lack patience, to +undertake a descriptive stroll through London streets; more especially +as there would be a volume ready for the printer before we could reach a +midway resting-place at Charing Cross. It will be the easier course +to step aboard another passing steamer, and continue our trip up the +Thames. + +The next notable group of objects is an assemblage of ancient walls, +battlements, and turrets, out of the midst of which rises prominently +one great square tower, of a grayish hue, bordered with white stone, and +having a small turret at each corner of the roof. This central structure +is the White Tower, and the whole circuit of ramparts and inclosed +edifices constitutes what is known in English history, and still more +widely and impressively in English poetry, as the Tower. A crowd of +river-craft are generally moored in front of it; but if we look sharply +at the right moment under the base of the rampart, we may catch a +glimpse of an arched water-entrance, half submerged, past which the +Thames glides as indifferently as if it were the mouth of a city-kennel. +Nevertheless, it is the Traitor's Gate, a dreary kind of triumphal +passage-way, (now supposed to be shut up and barred forever,) through +which a multitude of noble and illustrious personages have entered +the Tower, and found it a brief resting-place on their way to heaven. +Passing it many times, I never observed that anybody glanced at this +shadowy and ominous trap-door, save myself. It is well that America +exists, if it were only that her vagrant children may be impressed and +affected by the historical monuments of England in a degree of which +the native inhabitants are evidently incapable. These matters are too +familiar, too real, and too hopelessly built in amongst and mixed up +with the common objects and affairs of life, to be easily susceptible of +imaginative coloring in their minds; and even their poets and romancers +feel it a toil, and almost a delusion, to extract poetic material out of +what seems embodied poetry itself to an American. An Englishman cares +nothing about the Tower, which to us is a haunted castle in dreamland. +That honest and excellent gentleman, the late Mr. G.P.R. James, (whose +mechanical ability, one might have supposed, would nourish itself by +devouring every old stone of such a structure,) once assured me that +he had never in his life set eyes upon the Tower, though for years an +historic novelist in London. + +Not to spend a whole summer's day upon the voyage, we will suppose +ourselves to have reached London Bridge, and thence to have taken +another steamer for a farther passage up the river. But here the +memorable objects succeed each other so rapidly that I can spare but +a single sentence even for the great Dome, though I deem it more +picturesque, in that dusky atmosphere, than St. Peter's in its clear +blue sky. I must mention, however, (since everything connected with +royalty is especially interesting to my dear countrymen,) that I once +saw a large and beautiful barge, splendidly gilded and ornamented, and +overspread with a rich covering, lying at the pier nearest to St. Paul's +Cathedral; it had the royal banner of Great Britain displayed, besides +being decorated with a number of other flags; and many footmen (who are +universally the grandest and gaudiest objects to be seen in England +at this day, and these were regal ones, in a bright scarlet livery +bedizened with gold-lace, and white silk stockings) were in attendance. +I know not what festive or ceremonial occasion may have drawn out +this pageant; after all, it might have been merely a city-spectacle, +appertaining to the Lord Mayor; but the sight had its value in bringing +vividly before me the grand old times when the sovereign and nobles were +accustomed to use the Thames as the high street of the metropolis, and +join in pompous processions upon it; whereas, the desuetude of such +customs, nowadays, has caused the whole show of river-life to consist in +a multitude of smoke-begrimed steamers. An analogous change has taken +place in the streets, where cabs and the omnibus have crowded out a rich +variety of vehicles; and thus life gets more monotonous in hue from age +to age, and appears to seize every opportunity to strip off a bit of its +gold-lace among the wealthier classes, and to make itself decent in the +lower ones. + +Yonder is Whitefriars, the old rowdy Alsatia, now wearing as decorous a +face as any other portion of London; and, adjoining it, the avenues and +brick squares of the Temple, with that historic garden, close upon the +river-side, and still rich in shrubbery and flowers, where the partisans +of York and Lancaster plucked the fatal roses, and scattered their pale +and bloody petals over so many English battle-fields. Hard by, we see +the long white front or rear of Somerset House, and, farther on, rise +the two new Houses of Parliament, with a huge unfinished tower already +hiding its imperfect summit in the smoky canopy,--the whole vast and +cumbrous edifice a specimen of the best that modern architecture can +effect, elaborately imitating the masterpieces of those simple ages when +men "builded better than they knew." Close by it, we have a glimpse of +the roof and upper towers of the holy Abbey; while that gray, ancestral +pile on the opposite side of the river is Lambeth Palace, a venerable +group of halls and turrets, chiefly built of brick, but with at least +one large tower of stone. In our course, we have passed beneath half a +dozen bridges, and, emerging out of the black heart of London, shall +soon reach a cleanly suburb, where old Father Thames, if I remember, +begins to put on an aspect of unpolluted innocence. And now we look back +upon the mass of innumerable roofs, out of which rise steeples, towers, +columns, and the great crowning Dome,--look back, in short, upon that +mystery of the world's proudest city, amid which a man so longs and +loves to be: not, perhaps, because it contains much that is positively +admirable and enjoyable, but because, at all events, the world has +nothing better. The cream of external life is there; and whatever merely +intellectual or material good we fail to find perfect in London, we may +as well content ourselves to seek that unattainable thing no farther on +this earth. + +The steamer terminates its trip at Chelsea, an old town endowed with a +prodigious number of pot-houses, and some famous gardens, called the +Cremorne, for public amusement. The most noticeable thing, however, is +Chelsea Hospital, which, like that of Greenwich, was founded, I believe, +by Charles II., (whose bronze statue, in the guise of an old Roman, +stands in the centre of the quadrangle,) and appropriated as a home for +aged and infirm soldiers of the British army. The edifices are of three +stories with windows in the high roofs, and are built of dark, sombre +brick, with stone edgings and facings. The effect is by no means that +of grandeur, (which is somewhat disagreeably an attribute of Greenwich +Hospital,) but a quiet and venerable neatness. At each extremity of the +street-front there is a spacious and hospitably open gateway, lounging +about which I saw some gray veterans in long scarlet coats of an antique +fashion, and the cocked hats of a century ago, or occasionally a modern +foraging-cap. Almost all of them moved with a rheumatic gait, two or +three stumped on wooden legs, and here and there an arm was missing. +Inquiring of one of these fragmentary heroes whether a stranger could be +admitted to see the establishment, he replied most cordially, "Oh, +yes, Sir,--anywhere! Walk in, and go where you please,--up-stairs, +or anywhere!" So I entered, and, passing along the inner side of the +quadrangle, came to the door of the chapel, which forms a part of the +contiguity of edifices next the street. Here another pensioner, an old +warrior of exceedingly peaceable and Christian demeanor, touched his +three-cornered hat and asked if I wished to see the interior; to which I +assenting, he unlocked the door, and we went in. + +The chapel consists of a great hall with a vaulted roof, and over the +altar is a large painting in fresco, the subject of which I did not +trouble myself to make out. More appropriate adornments of the place, +dedicated as well to martial reminiscences as religious worship, are the +long ranges of dusty and tattered banners that hang from their staves +alt round the ceiling of the chapel. They are trophies of battles fought +and won in every quarter of the world, comprising the captured flags of +all the nations with whom the British lion has waged war since James +II's time,--French, Dutch, East-Indian, Prussian, Russian, Chinese, and +American,--collected together in this consecrated spot, not to symbolize +that there shall be no more discord upon earth, but drooping over the +aisle in sullen, though peaceable humiliation. Yes, I said "American" +among the rest; for the good old pensioner mistook me for an Englishman, +and failed not to point out (and, methought, with an especial emphasis +of triumph) some flags that had been taken at Bladensburg and +Washington. I fancied, indeed, that they hung a little higher and +drooped a little lower than any of their companions in disgrace. It is +a comfort, however, that their proud devices are already +indistinguishable, or nearly so, owing to dust and tatters and the kind +offices of the moths, and that they will soon rot from the banner-staves +and be swept out in unrecognized fragments from the chapel-door. + +It is a good method of teaching a man how imperfectly cosmopolitan he +is, to show him his country's flag occupying a position of dishonor in a +foreign land. But, in truth, the whole system of a people crowing over +its military triumphs had far better be dispensed with, both on account +of the ill-blood that it helps to keep fermenting among the nations, and +because it operates as an accumulative inducement to future generations +to aim at a kind of glory, the gain of which has generally proved more +ruinous than its loss. I heartily wish that every trophy of victory +might crumble away, and that every reminiscence or tradition of a hero, +from the beginning of the world to this day, could pass out of all men's +memories at once and forever. I might feel very differently, to be sure, +if we Northerners had anything especially valuable to lose by the fading +of those illuminated names. + +I gave the pensioner (but I am afraid there may have been a little +affectation in it) a magnificent guerdon of all the silver I had in +my. pocket, to requite him for having unintentionally stirred up my +patriotic susceptibilities. He was a meek-looking, kindly old man, with +a humble freedom and affability of manner that made it pleasant to +converse with him. Old soldiers, I know not why, seem to be more +accostable than old sailors. One is apt to hear a growl beneath the +smoothest courtesy of the latter. The mild veteran, with his peaceful +voice, and gentle, reverend aspect, told me that he had fought at a +cannon all through the Battle of Waterloo, and escaped unhurt; he had +now been in the hospital four or five years, and was married, but +necessarily underwent a separation from his wife, who lived outside of +the gates. To my inquiry whether his fellow-pensioners were comfortable +and happy, he answered, with great alacrity, "Oh, yes, Sir!" qualifying +his evidence, after a moment's consideration, by saying, in an +undertone, "There are some people, your Honor knows, who could not +be comfortable anywhere." I did know it, and fear that the system of +Chelsea Hospital allows too little of that wholesome care and regulation +of their own occupations and interests which might assuage the sting +of life to those naturally uncomfortable individuals by giving them +something external to think about. But my old friend here was happy in +the hospital, and by this time, very likely, is happy in heaven, in +spite of the bloodshed that he may have caused by touching off a cannon +at Waterloo. + +Crossing Battersea Bridge, in the neighborhood of Chelsea, I remember +seeing a distant gleam of the Crystal Palace, glimmering afar in the +afternoon sunshine like an imaginary structure,--an air-castle by chance +descended upon earth, and resting there one instant before it vanished, +as we sometimes see a soap-bubble touch unharmed on the carpet,--a +thing of only momentary visibility and no substance, destined to be +overburdened and crushed down by the first cloud-shadow that might fall +upon that spot. Even as I looked, it disappeared. Shall I attempt 'a +picture of this exhalation of modern ingenuity, or what else shall I +try to paint? Everything in London and its vicinity has been depleted +innumerable times, but never once translated into intelligible images; +it is an "old, old story," never yet told, nor to be told. While writing +these reminiscences, I am continually impressed with the futility of the +effort to give any creative truth to my sketch, so that it might produce +such pictures in the reader's mind as would cause the original scenes +to appear familiar when afterwards beheld. Nor have other writers often +been more successful in representing definite objects prophetically to +my own mind. In truth, I believe that the chief delight and advantage of +this kind of literature is not for any real information that it +supplies to untravelled people, but for reviving the recollections and +reawakening the emotions of persons already acquainted with the scenes +described. Thus I found an exquisite pleasure, the other day, in reading +Mr. Tuckerman's "Month in England,"--a fine example of the way in which +a refined and cultivated American looks at the Old Country, the things +that he naturally seeks there, and the modes of feeling and reflection +which they excite. Correct outlines avail little or nothing, though +truth of coloring may be somewhat more efficacious. Impressions, +however, states of mind produced by interesting and remarkable objects, +these, if truthfully and vividly recorded, may work a genuine effect, +and, though but the result of what we see, go farther towards +representing the actual scene than any direct effort to paint it. Give +the emotions that cluster about it, and, without being able to analyze +the spell by which it is summoned up, you get something like a +simulachre of the object in the midst of them. From some of the above +reflections I draw the comfortable inference, that, the longer and +better known a thing may be, so much the more eligible is it as the +subject of a descriptive sketch. + +On a Sunday afternoon, I passed through a side--entrance in the +time-blackened wall of a place of worship, and found myself among a +congregation assembled in one of the transepts and the immediately +contiguous portion of the nave. It was a vast old edifice, spacious +enough, within the extent covered by its pillared roof and overspread by +its stone pavement, to accommodate the whole of church-going London, and +with a far wider and loftier concave than any human power of lungs could +fill with audible prayer. Oaken benches were arranged in the transept, +on one of which I seated myself, and joined, as well as I knew how, in +the sacred business that was going forward. But when it came to the +sermon, the voice of the preacher was puny, and so were his thoughts, +and both seemed impertinent at such a time and place, where he and all +of us were bodily included within a sublime act of religion which could +be seen above and around us and felt beneath our feet. The structure +itself was the worship of the devout men of long ago, miraculously +preserved in stone without losing an atom of its fragrance and fervor; +it was a kind of anthem-strain that they had sung and poured out of the +organ in centuries gone by; and being so grand and sweet, the Divine +benevolence had willed it to be prolonged for the behoof of auditors +unborn. I therefore came to the conclusion, that, in my individual case, +it would be better and more reverent to let my eyes wander about the +edifice than to fasten them and my thoughts on the evidently uninspired +mortal who was venturing--and felt it no venture at all--to speak here +above his breath. + +The interior of Westminster Abbey (for the reader recognized it, no +doubt, the moment we entered) is built of rich brown stone; and the +whole of it--the lofty roof, the tall, clustered pillars, and the +pointed arches--appears to be in consummate repair. At all points where +decay has laid its finger, the structure is clamped with iron, or +otherwise carefully protected; and being thus watched over,--whether +as a place of ancient sanctity, a noble specimen of Gothic art, or an +object of national interest and pride,--it may reasonably be expected to +survive for as many ages as have passed over it already. It was sweet to +feel its venerable quietude, its long-enduring peace, and yet to observe +how kindly and even cheerfully it received the sunshine of to-day, which +fell from the great windows into the fretted aisles and arches that laid +aside somewhat of their aged gloom to welcome it. Sunshine always seems +friendly to old abbeys, churches, and castles, kissing them, as it were, +with a more affectionate, though still reverential familiarity, than it +accords to edifices of later date. A square of golden light lay on the +sombre pavement afar off, falling through the grand western entrance, +the folding leaves of which were wide open, and afforded glimpses +of people passing to and fro in the outer world, while we sat dimly +enveloped in the solemnity of antique devotion. In the south transept, +separated from us by the full breadth of the minster, there were painted +glass windows, of which the uppermost appeared to be a great orb of +many-colored radiance, being, indeed, a cluster of saints and angels +whose glorified bodies formed the rays of an aureole emanating from a +cross in the midst. These windows are modern, but combine softness with +wonderful brilliancy of effect. Through the pillars and arches, I saw +that the walls in that distant region of the edifice were almost wholly +incrusted with marble, now grown yellow with time, no blank, unlettered +slabs, but memorials of such men as their respective generations +deemed wisest and bravest. Some of them were commemorated merely by +inscriptions on mural tablets, others by sculptured bas-reliefs, +others (once famous, but now forgotten generals or admirals, these) by +ponderous tombs that aspired towards the roof of the aisle, or partly +curtained the immense arch of a window. These mountains of marble were +peopled with the sisterhood of Allegory, winged trumpeters, and classic +figures in full-bottomed wigs; but it was strange to observe how the old +Abbey melted all such absurdities into the breadth of its own grandeur, +even magnifying itself by what would elsewhere have been ridiculous. +Methinks it is the test of Gothic sublimity to overpower the ridiculous +without deigning to hide it; and these grotesque monuments of the last +century answer a similar purpose with the grinning faces which the old +architects scattered among their most solemn conceptions. + +From these distant wanderings, (it was my first visit to Westminster +Abbey, and I would gladly have taken it all in at a glance,) my eyes +came back and began to investigate what was immediately about me in the +transept. Close at my elbow was the pedestal of Canning's statue. Next +beyond it was a massive tomb, on the spacious tablet of which reposed +the full-length figures of a marble lord and lady, whom an inscription +announced to be the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle,--the historic Duke of +Charles I.'s time, and the fantastic Duchess, traditionally remembered +by her poems and plays. She was of a family, as the record on her tomb +proudly informed us, of which all the brothers had been valiant and all +the sisters virtuous. A recent statue of Sir John Malcom, the new marble +as white as snow, held the next place; and near by was a mural monument +and bust of Sir Peter Warren. The round visage of this old British +admiral has a certain interest for a New-Englander, because it was by no +merit of his own, (though he took care to assume it as such,) but by the +valor and warlike enterprise of our colonial forefathers, especially the +stout men of Massachusetts, that he won rank and renown, and a tomb in +Westminster Abbey. Lord Mansfield, a huge mass of marble done into the +guise of a judicial gown and wig, with a stern face in the midst of +the latter, sat on the other side of the transept; and on the pedestal +beside him was a figure of Justice, holding forth, instead of the +customary grocer's scales, an actual pair of brass steelyards. It is an +ancient and classic instrument, undoubtedly; but I had supposed that +Portia (when Shylock's pound of flesh was to be weighed) was the only +judge that ever really called for it in a court of justice. Pitt and +Fox were in the same distinguished company; and John Kemble, in Roman +costume, stood not far off, but strangely shorn of the dignity that is +said to have enveloped him like a mantle in his lifetime. Perhaps the +evanescent majesty of the stage is incompatible with the long endurance +of marble and the solemn reality of the tomb; though, on the other hand, +almost every illustrious personage here represented has been invested +with more or less of stage-trickery by his sculptor. In truth, the +artist (unless there be a divine efficacy in his touch, making evident a +heretofore hidden dignity in the actual form) feels it an imperious law +to remove his subject as far from the aspect of ordinary life as may +be possible without sacrificing every trace of resemblance. The absurd +effect of the contrary course is very remarkable in the statue of Mr. +Wilberforce, whose actual self, save for the lack of color, I seemed to +behold, seated just across the aisle. + +This excellent man appears to have sunk into himself in a sitting +posture, with a thin leg crossed over his knee, a book in one hand, and +a finger of the other under his chin, I believe, or applied to the side +of his nose, or to some equally familiar purpose; while his exceedingly +homely and wrinkled face, held a little on one side, twinkles at you +with the shrewdest complacency, as if he were looking right into your +eyes, and twigged something there which you had half a mind to conceal +from him. He keeps this look so pertinaciously that you feel it to be +insufferably impertinent, and bethink yourself what common ground there +may be between yourself and a stone image, enabling you to resent it. I +have no doubt that the statue is as like Mr. Wilberforce as one pea to +another, and you might fancy, that, at come ordinary moment, when he +least expected it, and before he had time to smooth away his knowing +complication of wrinkles, he had seen the Gorgon's head, and +whitened into marble,--not only his personal self, but his coat and +small-clothes, down to a button and the minutest crease of the cloth. +The ludicrous result marks the impropriety of bestowing the agelong +duration of marble upon small, characteristic individualities, such as +might come within the province of waxen imagery. The sculptor should +give permanence to the figure of a great man in his mood of broad and +grand composure, which would obliterate all mean peculiarities; for, if +the original were unaccustomed to such a mood, or if his features were +incapable of assuming the guise, it seems questionable whether he could +really have been entitled to a marble immortality. In point of fact, +however, the English face and form are seldom statuesque, however +illustrious the individual. + +It ill becomes me, perhaps, to have lapsed into this mood of half-jocose +criticism in describing my first visit to Westminster Abbey, a spot +which I had dreamed about more reverentially, from my childhood upward, +than any other in the world, and which I then beheld, and now look back +upon, with profound gratitude to the men who built it, and a kindly +interest, I may add, in the humblest personage that has contributed his +little all to its impressiveness, by depositing his dust or his memory +there. But it is a characteristic of this grand edifice that it permits +you to smile as freely under the roof of its central nave as if you +stood beneath the yet grander canopy of heaven. Break into laughter, if +you feel inclined, provided the vergers do not hear it echoing among the +arches. In an ordinary church, you would keep your countenance for fear +of disturbing the sanctities or proprieties of the place; but you need +leave no honest and decorous portion of your human nature outside of +these benign and truly hospitable walls. Their mild awfulness will take +care of itself. Thus it does no harm to the general impression, when +you come to be sensible that many of the monuments are ridiculous, and +commemorate a mob of people who are mostly forgotten in their graves, +and few of whom ever deserved any better boon from posterity. You +acknowledge the force of Sir Godfrey Kneller's objection to being buried +in Westminster Abbey, because "they do bury fools there!" Nevertheless, +these grotesque carvings of marble, that break out in dingy-white +blotches on the old freestone of the interior walls, have come there by +as natural a process as might cause mosses and ivy to cluster about the +external edifice; for they are the historical and biographical record of +each successive age, written with its own hand, and all the truer for +the inevitable mistakes, and none the less solemn for the occasional +absurdity. Though you entered the Abbey expecting to see the tombs only +of the illustrious, you are content, at last, to read many names, both +in literature and history, that have now lost the reverence of mankind, +if, indeed, they ever really possessed it. Let these men rest in peace. +Even if you miss a name or two that you hoped to find there, they +may well be spared. It matters little a few more or less, or whether +Westminster Abbey contains or lacks any one man's grave, so long as the +Centuries, each with the crowd of personages that it deemed memorable, +have chosen it as their place of honored sepulture, and laid themselves +down under its pavement. The inscriptions and devices on the walls +are rich with evidences of the fluctuating tastes, fashions, manners, +opinions, prejudices, follies, wisdoms of the past, and thus they +combine into a more truthful memorial of their dead times than any +individual epitaph-maker ever meant to write. + +When the services were over, many of the audience seemed inclined to +linger in the nave or wander away among the mysterious aisles; for there +is nothing in this world so fascinating as a Gothic minster, which +always invites you deeper and deeper into its heart both by vast +revelations and shadowy concealments. Through the open-work screen that +divides the nave from the chancel and choir, we could discern the gleam +of a marvellous window, but were debarred from entrance into that more +sacred precinct of the Abbey by the vergers. These vigilant officials +(doing their duty all the more strenuously because no fees could be +exacted from Sunday visitors) flourished their staves, and drove us +towards the grand entrance like a flock of sheep. Lingering through one +of the aisles, I happened to look down, and found my foot upon a stone +inscribed with this familiar exclamation, "_O rare Ben Jonson!_" and +remembered the story of stout old Ben's burial in that spot, standing +upright,--not, I presume, on account of any unseemly reluctance on his +part to lie down in the dust, like other men, but because standing-room +was all that could reasonably be demanded for a poet among the +slumberous notabilities of his age. It made me weary to think of +it!--such a prodigious length of time to keep one's feet!--apart from +the honor of the thing, it would certainly have been better for Ben +to stretch himself at ease in some country-churchyard. To this day, +however, I fancy that there is a contemptuous alloy mixed up with the +admiration which the higher classes of English society profess for their +literary men. + +Another day--in truth, many other days--I sought out Poets' Corner, and +found a sign-board and pointed finger, directing the visitor to it, on +the corner house of a little lane leading towards the rear of the Abbey. +The entrance is at the southeastern end of the south transept, and it +is used, on ordinary occasions, as the only free mode of access to this +building. It is no spacious arch, but a small, lowly door, passing +through which, and pushing aside an inner screen that partly keeps out +an exceedingly chill wind, you find yourself in a dim nook of the Abbey, +with the busts of poets gazing at you from the otherwise bare stonework +of the walls. Great poets, too; for Ben Jonson is right behind the door, +and Spenser's tablet is next, and Butler's on the same side of the +transept, and Milton's (whose bust you know at once by its resemblance +to one of his portraits, though older, more wrinkled, and sadder than +that) is close by, and a profile-medallion of Gray beneath it. A +window high aloft sheds down a dusky daylight on these and many other +sculptured marbles, now as yellow as old parchment, that cover the three +walls of the nook up to an elevation of about twenty feet above the +pavement. It seemed to me that I had always been familiar with the spot. +Enjoying a humble intimacy--and how much of my life had else been a +dreary solitude!--with many of its inhabitants, I could not feel myself +a stranger there. It was delightful to be among them. There was a genial +awe, mingled with a sense of kind and friendly presences about me; and +I was glad, moreover, at finding so many of them there together in fit +companionship, mutually recognized and duly honored, all reconciled +now, whatever distant generations, whatever personal hostility or other +miserable impediment, had divided them far asunder while they lived. I +have never felt a similar interest in any other tombstones, nor have I +ever been deeply moved by the imaginary presence of other famous +dead people. A poet's ghost is the only one that survives for his +fellow-mortals, after his bones are in the dust,--and he not ghostly, +but cherishing many hearts with his own warmth in the chillest +atmosphere of life. What other fame is worth aspiring for? Or, let +me speak it more boldly, what other long-enduring fame can exist? We +neither remember nor care anything for the past, except as the poet has +made it intelligibly noble and sublime to our comprehension. The shades +of the mighty have no substance; they flit ineffectually about the +darkened stage where they performed their momentary parts, save when the +poet has thrown his own creative soul into them, and imparted a more +vivid life than ever they were able to manifest to mankind while they +dwelt in the body. And therefore--though he cunningly disguises himself +in their armor, their robes of state, or kingly purple--it is not the +statesman, the warrior, or the monarch that survives, but the despised +poet, whom they may have fed with their crumbs, and to whom they owe all +that they now are or have,--a name! + +In the foregoing paragraph I seem to have been betrayed into a flight +above or beyond the customary level that best agrees with me; but it +represents fairly enough the emotions with which I passed from Poets' +Corner into the chapels, which contain the sepulchres of kings and great +people. They are magnificent even now, and must have been inconceivably +so when the marble slabs and pillars wore their new polish, and the +statues retained the brilliant colors with which they were originally +painted, and the shrines their rich gilding, of which the sunlight still +shows a glimmer or a streak, though the sunbeam itself looks tarnished +with antique dust. Yet this recondite portion of the Abbey presents few +memorials of personages whom we care to remember. The shrine of Edward +the Confessor has a certain interest, because it was so long held in +religious reverence, and because the very dust that settled upon it was +formerly worth gold. The helmet and war-saddle of Henry V., worn at +Agincourt, and now suspended above his tomb, are memorable objects, but +more for Shakspeare's sake than the victor's own. Rank has been the +general passport to admission here. Noble and regal dust is as cheap as +dirt under the pavement. I am glad to recollect, indeed, (and it is too +characteristic of the right English spirit not to be mentioned) one or +two gigantic statues of great mechanicians, who contributed largely to +the material welfare of England, sitting familiarly in their marble +chairs among forgotten kings and queens. Otherwise, the quaintness of +the earlier monuments, and the antique beauty of some of them, are what +chiefly gives them value. Nevertheless, Addison is buried among the men +of rank; not on the plea of his literary fame, however, but because he +was connected with nobility by marriage, and had been a Secretary +of State. His gravestone is inscribed with a resounding verse from +Tickell's lines to his memory, the only lines by which Tickell himself +is now remembered, and which (as I discovered a little while ago) he +mainly filched from an obscure versifier of somewhat earlier date. + +Returning to Poets' Corner, I looked again at the walls, and wondered +how the requisite hospitality can be shown to poets of our own and the +succeeding ages. There is hardly a foot of space left, although room +has lately been found for a bust of Southey and a full-length statue of +Campbell. At best, only a little portion of the Abbey is dedicated +to poets, literary men, musical composers, and others of the gentle +artist-breed, and even into that small nook of sanctity men of other +pursuits have thought it decent to intrude themselves. Methinks the +tuneful throng, being at home here, should recollect how they were +treated in their lifetime, and turn the cold shoulder, looking askance +at nobles and official personages, however worthy of honorable interment +elsewhere. Yet it shows aptly and truly enough what portion of the +world's regard and honor has heretofore been awarded to literary +eminence in comparison with other modes of greatness,--this dimly +lighted corner (nor even that quietly to themselves) in the vast +minster, the walls of which are sheathed and hidden under marble that +has been wasted upon the illustrious obscure. Nevertheless, it may +not be worth while to quarrel with the world on this account; for, to +confess the very truth, their own little nook contains more than one +poet whose memory is kept alive by his monument, instead of imbuing the +senseless stone with a spiritual immortality,--men of whom you do not +ask, "Where is he?" but "Why is he here?" I estimate that all the +literary people who really make an essential part of one's inner life, +including the period since English literature first existed, might have +ample elbow-room to sit down and quaff their draughts of Castaly round +Chaucer's broad, horizontal tombstone. These divinest poets consecrate +the spot, and throw a reflected glory over the humblest of their +companions. And as for the latter, it is to be hoped that they may have +long outgrown the characteristic jealousies and morbid sensibilities +of their craft, and have found out the little value, (probably not +amounting to sixpence in immortal currency) of the posthumous renown +which they once aspired to win. It would be a poor compliment to a dead +poet to fancy him leaning out of the sky and snuffing up the impure +breath of earthly praise. + +Yet we cannot easily rid ourselves of the notion that those who have +bequeathed us the inheritance of an undying song would fain be conscious +of its endless reverberations in the hearts of mankind, and would +delight, among sublimer enjoyments, to see their names emblazoned in +such a treasure-place of great memories as Westminster Abbey. There are +some men, at all events,--true and tender poets, moreover, and fully +deserving of the honor,--whose spirits, I feel certain, would linger a +little while about Poets' Corner for the sake of witnessing their own +apotheosis among their kindred. They have had a strong natural yearning, +not so much for applause as sympathy, which the cold fortune of their +lifetime did but scantily supply; so that this unsatisfied appetite may +make itself felt upon sensibilities at once so delicate and retentive, +even a step or two beyond the grave. Leigh Hunt, for example, would be +pleased, even now, if he could learn that his bust had been reposited in +the midst of the old poets whom he admired and loved; though there is +hardly a man among the authors of to-day and yesterday whom the judgment +of Englishmen would be less likely to place there. He deserves it, +however, if not for his verse, (the value of which I do not estimate, +never having been able to read it,) yet for his delightful prose, his +unmeasured poetry, the inscrutable happiness of his touch, working soft +miracles by a life-process like the growth of grass and flowers. As +with all such gentle writers, his page sometimes betrayed a vestige of +affectation, but, the next moment, a rich, natural luxuriance overgrew +and buried it out of sight. I knew him a little, and (since, Heaven +be praised, few English celebrities whom I chanced to meet have +enfranchised my pen by their decease, and as I assume no liberties with +living men) I will conclude this rambling article by sketching my first +interview with Leigh Hunt. + +He was then at Hammersmith, occupying a very plain and shabby little +house, in a contiguous range of others like it, with no prospect but +that of an ugly village-street, and certainly nothing to gratify +his craving for a tasteful environment, inside or out. A slatternly +maid-servant opened the door for us, and he himself stood in the entry, +a beautiful and venerable old man, buttoned to the chin in a black +dress-coat, tall and slender, with a countenance quietly alive all over, +and the gentlest and most naturally courteous manner. He ushered us into +his little study, or parlor, or both,--a very forlorn room, with poor +paper-hangings and carpet, few books, no pictures that I remember, and +an awful lack of upholstery. I touch distinctly upon these external +blemishes and this nudity of adornment, not that they would be worth +mentioning in a sketch of other remarkable persons, but because Leigh +Hunt was born with such a faculty of enjoying all beautiful things that +it seemed as if Fortune did him as much wrong in not supplying them as +in withholding a sufficiency of vital breath from ordinary men. All +kinds of mild magnificence, tempered by his taste, would have become +him well; but he had not the grim dignity that assumes nakedness as the +better robe. + +I have said that he was a beautiful old man. In truth, I never saw a +finer countenance, either as to the mould of features or the expression, +nor any that showed the play of feeling so perfectly without the +slightest theatrical emphasis. It was like a child's face in this +respect. At my first glimpse of him, when he met us in the entry, I +discerned that he was old, his long hair being white and his wrinkles +many; it was an aged visage, in short, such as I had not at all expected +to see, in spite of dates, because his books talk to the reader with the +tender vivacity of youth. But when he began to speak, and as he grew +more earnest in conversation, I ceased to be sensible of his age; +sometimes, indeed, its dusky shadow darkened through the gleam which his +sprightly thoughts diffused about his face, but then another flash of +youth came out of his eyes and made an illumination again. I never +witnessed such a wonderfully illusive transformation, before or since; +and, to this day, trusting only to my recollection, I should find it +difficult to decide which was his genuine and stable predicament, +--youth or age. I have met no Englishman whose manners seemed to me +so agreeable, soft, rather than polished, wholly unconventional, the +natural growth of a kindly and sensitive disposition without any +reference to rule, or else obedient to some rule so subtile that the +nicest observer could not detect the application of it. + +His eyes were dark and very fine, and his delightful voice accompanied +their visible language like music. He appeared to be exceedingly +appreciative, of whatever was passing among those who surrounded him, +and especially of the vicissitudes in the consciousness of the person to +whom he happened to be addressing himself at the moment. I felt that no +effect upon my mind of what he uttered, no emotion, however transitory, +in myself, escaped his notice, though not from any positive vigilance on +his part, but because his faculty of observation was so penetrative +and delicate; and to say the truth, it a little confused me to discern +always a ripple on his mobile face, responsive to any slightest breeze +that passed over the inner reservoir of my sentiments, and seemed thence +to extend to a similar reservoir within himself. On matters of feeling, +and within a certain depth, you might spare yourself the trouble of +utterance, because he already knew what you wanted to say, and perhaps +a little more than you would have spoken. His figure was full of gentle +movement, though, somehow, without disturbing its quietude; and as he +talked, he kept folding his hands nervously, and betokened in many ways +a fine and immediate sensibility, quick to feel pleasure or pain, though +scarcely capable, I should imagine, of a passionate experience in either +direction. There was not an English trait in him from head to foot, +morally, intellectually, or physically. Beef, ale, or stout, brandy, or +port-wine, entered not at all into his composition. In his earlier life, +he appears to have given evidences of courage and sturdy principle, and +of a tendency to fling himself into the rough struggle of humanity on +the liberal side. It would be taking too much upon myself to affirm that +this was merely a projection of his fancy-world into the actual, and +that he never could have hit a downright blow, and was altogether an +unsuitable person to receive one. I beheld him not in his armor, but in +his peacefullest robes. Nevertheless, drawing my conclusion merely from +what I saw, it would have occurred to me that his main deficiency was +a lack of grit. Though anything but a timid man, the combative and +defensive elements were not prominently developed in his character, and +could have been made available only when he put an unnatural force upon +his instincts. It was on this account, and also because of the fineness +of his nature generally, that the English appreciated him no better, and +left this sweet and delicate poet poor, and with scanty laurels in his +declining age. + +It was not, I think, from his American blood that Leigh Hunt derived +either his amiability or his peaceful inclinations; at least, I do +not see how we can reasonably claim the former quality as a national +characteristic, though the latter might have been fairly inherited from +his ancestors on the mother's side, who were Pennsylvania Quakers. But +the kind of excellence that distinguished him--his fineness, subtilty, +and grace--was that which the richest cultivation has heretofore tended +to develop in the happier examples of American genius, and which (though +I say it a little reluctantly) is perhaps what our future intellectual +advancement may make general among us. His person, at all events, was +thoroughly American, and of the best type, as were likewise his manners; +for we are the best-as well as the worst-mannered people in the world. + +Leigh Hunt loved dearly to be praised. That is to say, he desired +sympathy as a flower seeks sunshine, and perhaps profited by it as +much in the richer depth of coloring that it imparted to his ideas. In +response to all that we ventured to express about his writings, (and, +for my part, I went quite to the extent of my conscience, which was a +long way, and there left the matter to a lady and a young girl, who +happily were with me,) his face shone, and he manifested great delight, +with a perfect, and yet delicate, frankness for which I loved him. He +could not tell us, he said, the happiness that such appreciation gave +him; it always took him by surprise, he remarked, for--perhaps because +he cleaned his own boots, and performed other little ordinary offices +for himself--he never had been conscious of anything wonderful in his +own person. And then he smiled, making himself and all the poor little +parlor about him beautiful thereby. It is usually the hardest thing +in the world to praise a man to his face; but Leigh Hunt received the +incense with such gracious satisfaction, (feeling it to be sympathy, not +vulgar praise,) that the only difficulty was to keep the enthusiasm of +the moment within the limit of permanent opinion. A storm had suddenly +come up while we were talking; the rain poured, the lightning flashed, +and the thunder broke; but I hope, and have great pleasure in believing, +that it was a sunny hour for Leigh Hunt. Nevertheless, it was not to +my voice that he most favorably inclined his ear, but to those of my +companions. Women are the fit ministers at such a shrine. + +He must have suffered keenly in his lifetime, and enjoyed keenly, +keeping his emotions so much upon the surface as he seemed to do, and +convenient for everybody to play upon. Being of a cheerful temperament, +happiness had probably the upper hand. His was a light, mildly joyous +nature, gentle, grace-fill, yet seldom attaining to that deepest +grace which results from power; for beauty, like woman, its human +representative, dallies with the gentle, but yields its consummate +favor only to the strong. I imagine that Leigh Hunt may have been more +beautiful when I met him, both in person and character, than in his +earlier days. As a young man, I could conceive of his being finical in +certain moods, but not now, when the gravity of age shed a venerable +grace about him. I rejoiced to hear him say that he was favored with +most confident and cheering anticipations in respect to a future +life; and there were abundant proofs, throughout our interview, of an +unrepining spirit, resignation, quiet relinquishment of the worldly +benefits that were denied him, thankful enjoyment of whatever he had to +enjoy, and piety, and hope shining onward into the dusk,--all of which +gave a reverential cast to the feeling with which we parted from him. +I wish that he could have had one full draught of prosperity before he +died. As a matter of artistic propriety, it would have been delightful +to see him inhabiting a beautiful house of his own, in an Italian +climate, with all sorts of elaborate upholstery and minute elegancies +about him, and a succession of tender and lovely women to praise his +sweet poetry from morning to night. I hardly know whether it is my +fault, or the effect of a weakness in Leigh Hunt's character, that I +should be sensible of a regret of this nature, when, at the same time, I +sincerely believe that he has found an infinity of better things in the +world whither he has gone. + +At our leave-taking, he grasped me warmly by both hands, and seemed as +much interested in our whole party as if he had known us for years. All +this was genuine feeling, a quick, luxuriant growth out of his heart, +which was a soil for flower-seeds of rich and rare varieties, not +acorns, but a true heart, nevertheless. Several years afterwards I met +him for the last time at a London dinner-party, looking sadly broken +down by infirmities; and my final recollection of the beautiful old man +presents him arm in arm with, nay, partly embraced and supported by, if +I mistake not, another beloved and honored poet, whose minstrel-name, +since he has a week-day one for his personal occasions, I will venture +to speak. It was Barry Cornwall, whose kind introduction had first made +me known to Leigh Hunt. + + * * * * * + + +THE FERN FORESTS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD. + + +Draw two lines on your map, the upper one running from the mouth of the +St. Lawrence westward nearly to St. Paul on the Mississippi, and the +lower one from the neighborhood of St. John's in Newfoundland running +southwesterly about to the point where the Wisconsin joins the +Mississippi, but jutting down to form an extensive peninsula comprising +part of the States of Indiana and Illinois, and you include between them +all of the United States which existed at the close of the Devonian +period. The upper line rests against the granite hills dividing the +Silurian and Devonian deposits of the British Possessions to the north +from those of the United States to the south, Canada itself consisting, +in great part, of the granite ridge. + +How far the early deposits extended to the north of the Laurentian +Hills, as well as the outline of that portion of the continent in those +times, remains still very problematical; but the investigations thus far +undertaken in those regions would lead to the supposition that the same +granite upheaval which raised Canada stretched northward in a broad, +low ridge of land, widening in its upper part and extending to the +neighborhood of Bathurst Inlet and King William's Island, while on +either side of it to the east and west the Silurian and Devonian +deposits extended far toward the present outlines of the continent. + +Indeed, our geological surveys, as well as the information otherwise +obtained concerning the primitive condition of North America and the +gradual accessions it has received in more recent periods, point to a +very early circumscription of the area which, in the course of time, was +to become the continent we now inhabit, with its modern features.[A] + +[Footnote A: It would be impossible to encumber the pages of the +_Atlantic Monthly_ with references to all the authorities on which such +geological results rest. They are drawn from the various State Surveys, +including that of the mineral lands of Lake Superior, and other more +general works on American geology.] + +Not only from the geology of America, but from that of Europe also, it +would seem that the position of the continents was sketched out very +early in the progressive development of the physical constitution of our +earth. It is true that in the present state of our knowledge such wide +generalizations must be taken with caution, and held in abeyance to the +additional facts which future investigations may develop. But thus far +the results certainly do not sustain the theories which have lately +found favor among geologists, of entire changes in the relative +distribution of land and sea and in the connection of continents with +one another; on the contrary, it would appear, that, in accordance with +the laws of all organic progress, arising from a fixed starting-point +and proceeding through regular changes toward a well-defined end, the +continents have grown steadily and consistently from the beginning, +through successive accessions in a definite direction, to their present +form and Organic correlations. If, indeed, there is any meaning in the +remarkably symmetrical combinations of the double twin continents in +the Eastern Hemisphere, so closely soldered in their northern half, as +contrasted with the single pair in the Western Hemisphere, isolated in +their position, but so strikingly similar in their Outlines, they must +be the result of a progressive and predetermined growth already hinted +at in the relative position and gradual increase of the first lands +raised above the level of the ocean. + +However this may be, there can be no doubt that we now know with +tolerable accuracy the limits of the land raised above the water at that +period in the present United States. Let us see, then, what we inclose +between oar two lines. We have Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, the greater +part of New England, the whole of New York, a narrow strip along the +north of Ohio, a great part of Indiana and Illinois, and nearly the +whole of Michigan and Wisconsin. + +Within this region lie all the Great Lakes. The origin of these large +troughs, holding such immense sheets of fresh water, remains still the +subject of discussion and investigation among geologists. It has been +supposed that in the primitive configuration of the globe, when the +formation of those depressions at the poles in which the Arctic seas are +accumulated gave rise to a corresponding protrusion at the equator, the +curve thus produced throughout the North Temperate Zone may have forced +up the Canada granite, and have caused, at the same time, those rents +in the earth's surface now filled by the Canada lakes; and this view +is sustained by the fact that there is a belt of lakes, among which, +however, the Canada lakes are far the largest, all around the world in +that latitude. The geological phenomena connected with all these lakes +have not, however, been investigated with sufficient accuracy and +detail, nor has there been any comparison of them extensive and +comprehensive enough to justify the adoption of any theory respecting +their origin. In an excursion to Lake Superior, some years since, I +satisfied myself that the position and outline of that particular lake +had their immediate cause in several distinct systems of dikes which +intersect its northern shore, and have probably cut up the whole tract +of rock over the space now filled by that wonderful sheet of fresh water +in such a way as to destroy its continuity, to produce depressions, and +gradually create the excavation which now forms the basin of the lake. +How far the same causes have been effectual in producing the other large +lakes I am unable to say, never having had the opportunity of studying +their formation with the same care. + +The existence of the numerous smaller lakes running north and south in +the State of New York, as the Canandaigua, Seneca, Cayuga, etc., is more +easily accounted for. Slow and gradual as was the process by which +all that region was lifted above the ocean, it was, nevertheless, +accompanied by powerful dislocations of the stratified deposits, as we +shall see when we examine them with reference to the local phenomena +connected with them. To these dislocations of the strata we owe the +transverse cracks across the central part of New York, which needed +only the addition of the fresh water poured into them by the rains to +transform them into lakes. + +I shall not attempt any account of the differences between the animals +of the Devonian period and those of the Silurian period, because they +consist of structural details difficult to present in a popular form and +uninteresting to all but the professional naturalist. Suffice it to say, +that, though the organic world had the same general character in these +two closely allied periods, yet its representatives in each were +specifically distinct, and their differences, however slight, are as +constant and as definitely marked as those between more widely separated +creations. + +At the close of the Devonian period, several upheavals occurred of great +significance for the future history of America. One in Ohio raised the +elevated ground on which Cincinnati now stands; another hill lifted +its granite crest in Missouri, raising with it an extensive tract of +Silurian and Devonian deposits; while a smaller one, which does not +seem, however, to have disturbed the beds about it so powerfully, broke +through in Arkansas. At the same time, elevations took place toward the +East,--the first links, few and detached, in the great Alleghany chain +which now raises its rocky wall from New England to Alabama. + +In the Ohio hill, the granite did not break through, though the force of +the upheaval was such as to rend asunder the Devonian deposits, for we +find them lying torn and broken about the base of the hill; while the +Silurian beds, which should underlie them in their natural position, +form its centre and summit. This accounts for the great profusion of +Silurian organic remains in that neighborhood. Indeed, there is no +locality which forces upon the observer more strongly the conviction of +the profusion and richness of the early creation; for one may actually +collect the remains of Silurian Shells and Crustacea by cart-loads +around the city of Cincinnati. A naturalist would find it difficult to +gather along any modern sea-shore, even on tropical coasts, where marine +life is more abundant than elsewhere, so rich a harvest, in the same +time, as he will bring home from an hour's ramble in the environs of +that city. + +These elevations naturally gave rise to depressions between themselves +and the land on either side of them, and caused also so many +counter-slopes dipping toward the uniform southern slope already formed +at the north. Thus between the several new upheavals, as well as between +them all and the land to the north of them, wide basins or troughs were +formed, inclosed on the south, west, and east by low hills, (for these +more recent eruptions were, like all the early upheavals, insignificant +in height,) and bounded on the north by the more ancient shores of the +preceding ages. + +These were the inland seas of the Carboniferous period. Here, again, we +must infer the successive stages of a history which we can read only +in its results. Shut out from the ocean, these shallow sea-basins were +gradually changed by the rains to fresh-water lakes; the lakes, in their +turn, underwent a transformation, becoming filled, in the course of +centuries, with the materials worn away from their shores, with the +_débris_ of the animals which lived and died in their waters, as well +as with the decaying matter from aquatic plants, till at last they were +changed to spreading marshes, and on these marshes arose the gigantic +fern-vegetation of which the first forests chiefly consisted. Such are +the separate chapters in the history of the coal-basins of Illinois, +Missouri, Pennsylvania, New England, and Nova Scotia. First inland seas, +then fresh-water lakes, then spreading marshes, then gigantic forests, +and lastly vast storehouses of coal for the human race. + +Although coal-beds are by no means peculiar to the Carboniferous period, +since such deposits must be formed wherever the decay of vegetation is +going on extensively, yet it would seem that coal-making was the great +work in that age of the world's physical history. The atmospheric +conditions, so far as we can understand them, were then especially +favorable to this result. Though the existence of such an extensive +terrestrial vegetation shows conclusively that an atmosphere must have +been already established, with all the attendant phenomena of light, +heat, air, moisture, etc., yet it is probable that this atmosphere +differed from ours in being very largely charged with carbonic acid. + +We should infer this from the nature of the animals characteristic of +the period; for, though land-animals were introduced, and the organic +world was no longer exclusively marine, there were as yet none of +the higher beings in whom respiration is an active process. In all +warm-blooded animals the breathing is quick, requiring a large +proportion of oxygen in the surrounding air, and indicating by its +rapidity the animation of the whole system; while the slow-breathing, +cold-blooded animals can live in an air that is heavily loaded with +carbon. It is well known, however, that, though carbon is so deadly to +higher animal life, plants require it in great quantities; and it would +seem that one of the chief offices of the early forests was to purify +the atmosphere of its undue proportion of carbonic acid, by absorbing +the carbon into their own substance, and eventually depositing it as +coal in the soil. + +Another very important agent in the process of purifying the atmosphere, +and adapting it to the maintenance of a higher organic life, is found in +the deposits of lime. My readers will excuse me, if I introduce here a +very elementary chemical fact to explain this statement. Limestone is +carbonate of calcium. Calcium is a metal, fusible as such, and, forming +a part of the melted masses within the earth, it was thrown out with the +eruptions of Plutonic rocks. Brought to the air, it would appropriate +a certain amount of oxygen, and by that process would become oxide of +calcium, in which condition it combines very readily with carbonic acid. +Thus it becomes carbonate of lime; and all lime deposits played an +important part in establishing the atmospheric proportions essential to +the existence of the warm-blooded animals. + +Such facts remind us how far more comprehensive the results of science +will become when the different branches of scientific investigation are +pursued in connection with each other. When chemists have brought their +knowledge out of their special laboratories into the laboratory of the +world, where chemical combinations are and have been through all time +going on in such vast proportions,--when physicists study the laws +of moisture, of clouds and storms, in past periods as well as in the +present,--when, in short, geologists and zoologists are chemists and +physicists, and _vice versa_,--then we shall learn more of the changes +the world has undergone than is possible now that they are separately +studied. + +It may be asked, how any clue can be found to phenomena so evanescent as +those of clouds and moisture. But do we not trace in the old deposits +the rainstorms of past times? The heavy drops of a passing shower, the +thick, crowded tread of a splashing rain, or the small pinpricks of a +close and fine one,--all the story, in short, of the rising vapors, +the gathering clouds, the storms and showers of ancient days, we find +recorded for us in the fossil rain-drops; and when we add to this the +possibility of analyzing the chemical elements which have been absorbed +into the soil, but which once made part of the atmosphere, it is not too +much to hope that we shall learn something hereafter of the meteorology +even of the earliest geological ages. + +The peculiar character of the vegetable tissue in the trees of the +Carboniferous period, containing, as it did, a large supply of +resin drawn from the surrounding elements, confirms the view of the +atmospheric conditions above stated; and this fact, as well as the damp, +soggy soil in which the first forests must have grown, accounts for the +formation of coal in greater quantity and more combustible in quality +than is found in the more recent deposits. But stately as were those +fern forests, where plants which creep low at our feet to-day, or are +known to us chiefly as underbrush, or as rushes and grasses in swampy +grounds, grew to the height of lofty trees, yet the vegetation was of an +inferior kind. + +There has been a gradation in time for the vegetable as well as the +animal world. With the marine population of the more ancient geological +ages we find nothing but sea-weeds,--of great variety, it is true, and, +as it would seem, from some remains of the marine Cryptogams in early +times, of immense size, as compared with modern sea-weeds. But in the +Carboniferous period, the plants, though still requiring a soaked and +marshy soil, were aërial or atmospheric plants: they were covered with +leaves; they breathed; their fructification was like that which now +characterizes the ferns, the club-mosses, and the so-called "horse-tail +plants," (_Equisetaceae,_) those grasses of low, damp grounds remarkable +for the strongly marked articulations of the stem. + +These were the lords of the forests all over the world in the +Carboniferous period. Wherever the Carboniferous deposits have been +traced, in the United States, in Canada, in England, France, Belgium, +Germany, in New Holland, at the Cape of Good Hope, and in South America, +the general aspect of the vegetation has been found to be the same, +though characterized in the different localities by specific +differences of the same nature as those by which the various floras are +distinguished now in different parts of the same zone. For instance, the +Temperate Zone throughout the world is characterized by certain families +of trees: by Oaks, Maples, Beeches, Birches, Pines, etc.; but the Oaks, +Maples, Beeches, Birches, and the like, of the American flora in that +latitude differ in species from the corresponding European flora. So +in the Carboniferous period, when more uniform climatic conditions +prevailed throughout the world, the character of the vegetation showed a +general unity of structure everywhere; but it was nevertheless broken up +into distinct botanical provinces by specific differences of the same +kind as those which now give such diversity of appearance to the +vegetation of the Temperate Zone in Europe as compared with that of +America, or to the forests of South America as compared with those of +Africa. + +There can be no doubt as to the true nature of the Carboniferous +forests; for the structural character of the trees is as strongly marked +in their fossil remains as in any living plants of the same character. +We distinguish the Ferns not only by the peculiar form of their leaves, +often perfectly preserved, but also by the fructification on the lower +surface of the leaves, and by the distinct marks made on the stem at +their point of juncture with it. The leaf of the Fern, when falling, +leaves a scar on the stem varying in shape and size according to the +kind of Fern, so that the botanist readily distinguishes any particular +species of Fern by this means,--a birth-mark, as it were, by which he +detects the parentage of the individual. Another indication, equally +significant, is found in the tubular structure of the wood in Ferns. On +a vertical section of any well-preserved Fern-trunk from the old forests +the little tubes may be seen very distinctly running up its length; or, +if it be cut through transversely, they may be traced by the little +pores like dots on the surface. Trees of this description are found in +the Carboniferous marshes, standing erect and perfectly preserved, with +trunks a foot and a half in diameter, rising to a height of many feet. +Plants so strongly bituminous as the Ferns, when they equalled in size +many of our present forest-trees, naturally made coal deposits of the +most combustible quality. It is true that we find the anthracite coal of +the same period with comparatively little bituminous matter; but this is +where the bitumen has been destroyed by the action of the internal heat +of the earth. + +Next to the Ferns, the Club-Mosses (_Lycopodiacae_) seem to have +contributed most largely to the marsh-forests. They were characterized, +then, as now, by the small size of the leaves growing close against the +stem, so that the stem itself, though covered with leaves, looks +almost naked, like the stem of the Cactus. Beside these, there are the +tree-like Equiseta, in which we find the articulations on the trunk +corresponding exactly to those now so characteristic of those +marsh-grasses which are the modern representatives of this family of +plants, with cone-like fructifications on the summit of the stem. + +I would merely touch here upon a subject which does not belong to my own +branch of Natural History, but is of the greatest interest in botanical +research, namely, the gradation of plants in the geological ages, and +the combination of characters in some of the earlier vegetable forms, +corresponding to that already noticed in the ancient animal types. For +instance, in the Carboniferous period we have only Cryptogams, Ferns, +Lycopodiacae, and Equisetaceae. In the middle geological ages, Conifers +are introduced, the first flowering plant known on earth, but in which +the flower is very imperfect as compared with those of the higher +groups. The Coniferae were chiefly represented in the middle periods by +the Cycadae, that peculiar group of Coniferae, resembling Pines in their +structure, but recalling the Ferns by their external appearance. The +stem is round and short, its surface being covered with scars similar to +those of the Ferns; while on the summit are ten or more leaves, fan-like +and spreading when their growth is complete, but rolled up at first, +like Fern-leaves before they expand. Their fruit resembles somewhat the +Pine-Apple. + +The mode of growth of the Coniferae recalls a feature of the +Equisetaceae also, in the tufts of little leaves which appear in whorls +at regular intervals along the length of the stem in proportion as +it elongates, reminding one of the articulations on the stem of the +Equisetaceae. The first cone also appears on the summit of the stem, +like the terminal cone in the Equisetaceae and the Club-Mosses. Thus +in certain types of the vegetable, as well as the animal creation of +earlier times, there was a continuation of features, afterwards divided +and presented in separate groups. In the present times, no one of +these families of plants overlaps the others, but each has a distinct +individual character of its own. + +At the close of the middle geological ages and the opening of the +Tertiary periods, the Monocotyledons become abundant, the first plants +with flower and inclosed seed, though with no true floral envelope: but +not until the two last epochs of the Tertiary age do we find in any +number the Dicotyledonous plants, in which flower and fruit rise to +their highest perfection. Thus there has been a procession of plants +from their earliest introduction to the present day, corresponding to +their botanical rank as they now exist, so that the series of gradation +in the Vegetable Kingdom, as well as the Animal Kingdom, is the same, +whether founded upon succession in time or upon comparative structural +rank. + +Some attempt has been made to reproduce under an artistic form the +aspect of the world in the different geological ages, and to present in +single connected pictures the animal and vegetable world of each period. +Professor F. Unger, of Vienna, has prepared a collection of fourteen +such sketches, entitled, "Tableaux Physionomiques de la Végétation des +Diverses Périodes du Monde Primitif." + +First, we have the Devonian shores, with spreading fields of sea-weed +and numbers of the club-shaped Algae of gigantic size. He has ventured, +also, to represent a few trees, with scanty foliage; but I believe their +existence at so early a period to be very problematical. + +Next comes the Carboniferous forest, with still pools of water lying +between the Fern-trees, which, much as they affect damp, swampy grounds, +seem scarcely able to find foothold on the dripping earth. Their trunks, +as well as those of the Club-Moss trees which make the foreground of the +picture, stand up free from any branches for many feet above the ground, +giving one a glimpse between them into the dim recesses of this quiet, +watery wood, where the silence was unbroken by the song of birds or the +hum of insects. We shall find, it is true, when we give a glance at the +animals of this time, that certain insects made their appearance with +the first terrestrial vegetation; but they were few in number and of a +peculiar kind, such as thrive now in low, wet lands. + +Upon this follow a number of sketches introducing us to the middle +periods, where the land is higher and more extensive, covered chiefly +with Pine forests, beneath which grows a thick carpet of underbrush, +consisting mostly of Grasses, Rushes, and Ferns. Here and there one of +the gigantic reptiles of the time may be seen sunning himself on +the shore. One of these sketches shows us such a creature hungrily +inspecting a pool where Crinoids, with their long stems, large, +closely-coiled Chambered Shells, and Brachiopods, the Oysters and +Clams of those days, offer him a tempting repast. Here and there a +Pterodactyl, the curious winged reptile of the later middle periods, +stretches its long neck from the water, and birds also begin to make +their appearance. + +After these come the Tertiary periods: the Eocene first, where the +landscape is already broken up by hills and mountains, clothed with +a varied vegetation of comparatively modern character. Lily-pads are +floating on the stream which makes the central part of the picture; +large herds of the Palaeotherium, the ancient Pachyderm, reconstructed +with such accuracy by Cuvier, are feeding along its banks; and a tall +bird of the Heron or Pelican kind stands watching by the water's edge. +In the Miocene the vegetation looks still more familiar, though the +Elephants roaming about in regions of the Temperate Zone, and the huge +Salamanders crawling out of the water, remind us that we are still far +removed from present times. Lastly, we have the ice period, with the +glaciers coming down to the borders of a river where large troops of +Buffalo are drinking, while on the shore some Bears are feasting on the +remains of a huge carcass. + +It is, however, with the Carboniferous age that we have to do at +present, and I will not anticipate the coming chapters of my story by +dwelling now on the aspect of the later periods. To return, then, to the +period of the coal, it would seem that extensive freshets frequently +overflowed the marshes, and that even after many successive forests +had sprung up and decayed upon their soil, they were still subject to +submergence by heavy floods. These freshets, at certain intervals, +are not difficult to understand, when we remember, that, beside the +occasional influx of violent rains, the earth was constantly undergoing +changes of level, and that a subsidence or upheaval in the neighborhood +would disturb the equilibrium of the waters, causing them to overflow +and pour over the surface of the country, thus inundating the marshes +anew. + +That such was the case we can hardly doubt, after the facts revealed +by recent investigations of the Carboniferous deposits. In some of the +deeper coal-beds there is a regular alternation between layers of coal +and layers of sand or clay; in certain localities, as many as ten, +twelve, and even fifteen coal-beds have been found alternating with as +many deposits of clay or mud or sand; and in some instances, where the +trunks of the trees are hollow and have been left standing erect, they +are filled to the brim, or to the height of the next layer of deposits, +with the materials that have been swept over them. Upon this set of +deposits comes a new bed of coal with the remains of a new forest, and. +above this again a layer of materials left by a second freshet, and so +on through a number of alternate strata. It is evident from these facts +that there have been a succession of forests, one above another, but +that in the intervals of their growth great floods have poured over the +marshes, bringing with them all kinds of loose materials, such as sand, +pebbles, clay, mud, lime, etc., which, as the freshets subsided, settled +down over the coal, filling not only the spaces between such trees as +remained standing, but even the hollow trunks of the trees themselves. + +Let us give a glance now at the animals which inhabited the waters of +this period. In the Radiates we shall not find great changes; the three +classes are continued, though with new representatives, and the Polyp +Corals are increasing, while the Acalephian Corals, the Kugosa and +Tabulata, are diminishing. The Crinoids were still the most prominent +representatives of the class of Echinoderms, though some resembling the +Ophiurans and Echinoids (Sea-Urchins) began to make their appearance. +The adjoining wood-cut represents a characteristic Crinoid of the +Carboniferous age. + +[Illustration] + +Among the Mollusks, Brachiopods are still prominent, one new genus among +them, the Productus, being very remarkable on account of the manner in +which one valve rises above the other. The wood-cut below represents such +a shell, looked at from the side of the flat valve, showing the straight +cut of the line of juncture between the valves and the rising curve of +the opposite one, which looks like a hooked beak when seen in profile. + +[Illustration] + +Other species of Bivalves were also introduced, approaching more +nearly our Clams and Oysters, or, as they are called in scientific +nomenclature, the Lamellibranchiates. They differ from the Brachiopods +chiefly in the higher character of their breathing-apparatus; for they +have free gills, instead of the net-work of vessels on the lining skin +which serves as the organ of respiration in the Brachiopods. We shall +always find, that, in proportion as the functions are distinct, and, as +it were, individualized by having special organs appropriated to them, +animals rise in the scale of structure. The next class of Mollusks, the +Gasteropods, or Univalves, with spiral shells, were numerous, but, +from their brittle character, are seldom found in a good state of +preservation. + +The Chambered Shells, or the Cephalopods, represented chiefly in the +earlier periods by the straight Orthoceratites described in a previous +article, are now curled in a close coil, and the internal structure +of their chambers has become more complicated. The subjoined wood-cut +represents a characteristic Chambered Shell of the Carboniferous age. +Goniatites is the scientific name of these later forms. If we had looked +for them in the Devonian period, we should have found many with looser +coils than these, and some only slightly curved in the shape of a horn. +These, as well as the perfectly straight forms, still exist in the coal +period, but the Goniatites with close whorls are the more numerous and +more characteristic. + +[Illustration] + +The Articulates have gained their missing class since the close of the +Devonian period, for Insects have come in, and that division of the +Animal Kingdom is therefore complete, and represented by three classes, +as it is at present. Of the Worms little can be said; their traces are +found as before, but they are very imperfectly preserved. There are +still Trilobites, but they are very few in number, and other groups of +Crustacea have been added. + +One of the most prominent of these new types bears a striking +resemblance to the Horse-Shoe Crab of present times. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +I here present one of our common Horse-Shoe Crabs above one of these +old-world Crustaceans, and it will be seen, that, while the latter +preserves some of the Trilobitic characters, such as the marked +articulations on the posterior part of the body and their division into +three lobes, yet in the prominence of its anterior shield, its more +elongated form, and tapering extremity, it resembles its modern +representative. In some of them, however, there is no such sharp point +as is here figured, and the body terminates bluntly. There were a large +number of these Entomostraca in the Carboniferous period, a group which +is chiefly represented among living Crustacea by an exceedingly minute +kind of Shrimp; but in those days they were of the size of our Crabs and +Lobsters, or even larger, and the Horse-Shoe Crab still maintains their +claim to a place among the larger and more conspicuous members of the +class. + +The Insects were few, and, as I have said above, of a kind which seeks a +moist atmosphere, or whose larvae live altogether in water. They are not +usually well preserved, as will be seen from the broken character of +the one here represented, although the wood-cut is made from a better +specimen than is often found. We have, however, remains enough +to establish unquestionably the fact of their existence in the +Carboniferous period, and to show us that the type of Articulates was +already represented by all its classes. + +[Illustration] + +Not so with the Vertebrates. Fishes abound, but their class still +consists, as before, of the Ganoids, those fishes of the earlier +periods built on the Gar-Pike and Sturgeon pattern, and the Selachians, +represented now by Sharks and Skates. In the Carboniferous period we +begin to find perfectly preserved specimens of the Ganoids, and the +adjoining wood-cut represents such a one. Of the old type of Selachians +we have again one lingering representative in our own times to give us +the clue to its ancestors,--as the Gar-Pike explains the old Ganoids, +and the Chambered Nautilus helps us to understand the Chambered Shells +of past times. The so-called Port-Jackson Shark has features which were +very characteristic of the Carboniferous Sharks and are lost in the +modern ones, so that it affords us a sort of link, as it were, and a +measure of comparison, between those now living and the more ancient +forms. It is an interesting fact that this only living representative of +the Carboniferous Shark should be found in New Holland, because it is +there, in that isolated continent, left apart, as it would seem, for a +special purpose, that we find reproduced for us most fully the character +of the Animal Kingdom in earlier creations. + +[Illustration] + +The first Mammalia in the world were pouched animals, having that +extraordinary attachment to the mother after birth which characterizes +the Kangaroo. In New Holland almost all the Mammalia are pouched, and +have also the imperfect organization of the brain, as compared with the +other Mammalia, which accompanies that peculiar structural feature; and +although the American Opossum makes an exception to the rule, it is +nevertheless true that this type of the Animal Kingdom is now confined +almost exclusively to New Holland. Whether this living picture of old +creations in modern garb was meant to be educational for man or not, it +is at least well that we should take advantage of it in learning all it +has to teach us of the relations between the organic world of past and +present times. + +There were a great variety of the Selachians in the Carboniferous +period. The wood-cuts below represent a tooth and a spine from one of +the most characteristic groups, but I have not thought it worth while to +enumerate or to figure others here, for there are no perfect specimens, +and their structural differences consist chiefly in the various form and +appearance of the teeth, scales, and spines, and would be uninteresting +to most of my readers. I would refer the more scientific ones, who may +care to know something of these details, to my investigations on Fossil +Fishes, published many years since under the title of "Recherches sur +les Poissons Fossiles." + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +Although the Vertebrate division of the Animal Kingdom still waited for +its higher classes, yet it had received one important addition since +the Silurian and Devonian periods. The Carboniferous marshes were not +without their reptilian inhabitants; but they were Reptiles of the +lowest class, the so-called Amphibians, those which are hatched from the +egg in an immature condition, undergoing metamorphosis after birth. They +have no hard scales, and lay a large number of eggs. I am unable to +present any figure of one of these ancient Reptiles, as they are found +in so imperfect a state of preservation that no plates have been made +from them. I would add in connection with this subject that I believe +a large number of animals found in the Carboniferous deposits, and +referred to the class of Reptiles, to be Fishes allied to Saurians. + +Before leaving the Carboniferous period, let us see what territory the +United States has conquered from the Ocean during that time. All +its central portion, from Canada to Alabama, and from Western Iowa, +Missouri, and Arkansas to Eastern Virginia, was raised above the water. +But as yet the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains did not exist; a +great gulf ran up to the mouth of the Ohio, for the Mississippi had not +yet accumulated the soil for the fertile valley through which it was to +take its southern course; the Coral-Builders had still their work to do +in constructing the peninsula of Florida; and, indeed, all the borders +of the continent of North America, as well as a large part of its +Western territory, were still to be added. But although its central +portion held its ground and was never submerged again, yet the continent +was slowly subsiding during the middle geological periods, so that, +instead of enlarging gradually by the increase of deposits, its limits +remained much the same. + +This accounts for the very scanty traces to be found in America of +the secondary deposits; for the Permian, Triassic, and Jurassic beds, +instead of being raised to form successive shores, along which their +deposits could be accumulated in regular sequence, as had been the case +with the Azoic, Silurian, and Devonian deposits in the northern part of +the United States, were constantly sinking, so that the Triassic settled +above the Permian, the Jurassic above the Triassic, and so on, each set +of strata thus covering over and concealing the preceding one. Though we +find the stratified rocks of these periods cropping out here and there, +where some violent disturbance or the abrading action of water has +torn asunder or worn away the overlying strata, yet we never find +them consecutively over any extensive region; and it is not till the +Cretaceous and earlier Tertiary periods that we find again a regular +succession of deposits around the shores of the continent, marking its +present outlines. It is, then, in Europe, where the sequence of their +beds is most complete, that we must seek to decipher the history of the +middle geological ages; and therefore, when I meet my readers again, +it will be in the Old World of civilization, though more recent in its +physical features than the one we leave. + + * * * * * + + +TO E.W. + + + I know not, Time and Space so intervene, + Whether, still waiting with a trust serene, + Thou bearest up thy fourscore years and ten, + Or, called at last, art now Heaven's citizen; + But, here or there, a pleasant thought of thee, + Like an old friend, all day has been with me. + The shy, still boy, for whom thy kindly hand + Smoothed his hard pathway to the wonder-land + Of thought and fancy, in gray manhood yet + Keeps green the memory of his early debt. + To-day, when truth and falsehood speak their words + Through hot-lipped cannon and the teeth of swords, + Listening with quickened heart and ear intent + To each sharp clause of that stern argument, + I still can hear at times a softer note + Of the old pastoral music round me float, + While through the hot gleam of our civil strife + Looms the green mirage of a simpler life. + As, at his alien post, the sentinel + Drops the old bucket in the homestead well, + And hears old voices in the winds that toss + Above his head the live-oak's beard of moss, + So, in our trial-time, and under skies + Shadowed by swords like Islam's paradise, + I wait and watch, and let my fancy stray + To milder scenes and youth's Arcadian day; + And howsoe'er the pencil dipped in dreams + Shades the brown woods or tints the sunset streams, + The country doctor in the foreground seems, + Whose ancient sulky down the village lanes + Dragged, like a war-car, captive ills and pains. + I could not paint the scenery of my song, + Mindless of one who looked thereon so long; + Who, night and day, on duty's lonely round, + Made friends o' th' woods and rocks, and knew the sound + Of each small brook, and what the hill-side trees + Said to the winds that touched their leafy keys; + Who saw so keenly and so well could paint + The village-folk, with all their humors quaint,-- + The parson ambling on his wall-eyed roan, + Grave and erect, with white hair backward blown,-- + The tough old boatman, half amphibious grown,-- + The muttering witch-wife of the gossip's tale, + And the loud straggler levying his black mail,-- + Old customs, habits, superstitions, fears, + All that lies buried under fifty years. + To thee, as is most fit, I bring my lay, + And, grateful, own the debt I cannot pay. + + * * * * * + + +THE COUNTESS. + + + Over the wooded northern ridge, + Between its houses brown, + To the dark tunnel of the bridge + The street comes straggling down. + + You catch a glimpse through birch and pine + Of gable, roof, and porch, + The tavern with its swinging sign, + The sharp horn of the church. + + The river's steel-blue crescent curves + To meet, in ebb and flow, + The single broken wharf that serves + For sloop and gundelow. + + With salt sea-scents along its shores + The heavy hay-boats crawl, + The long antennae of their oars + In lazy rise and fall. + + Along the gray abutment's wall + The idle shad-net dries; + The toll-man in his cobbler's stall + Sits smoking with closed eyes. + + You hear the pier's low undertone + Of waves that chafe and gnaw; + You start,--a skipper's horn is blown + To raise the creaking draw. + + At times a blacksmith's anvil sounds + With slow and sluggard beat, + Or stage-coach on its dusty rounds + Wakes up the staring street. + + A place for idle eyes and ears, + A cobwebbed nook of dreams; + Left by the stream whose waves are years + The stranded village seems. + + And there, like other moss and rust, + The native dweller clings, + And keeps, in uninquiring trust, + The old, dull round of things. + + The fisher drops his patient lines, + The farmer sows his grain, + Content to hear the murmuring pines + Instead of railroad-train. + + Go where, along the tangled steep + That slopes against the west, + The hamlet's buried idlers sleep + In still profounder rest. + + Throw back the locust's flowery plume, + The birch's pale-green scarf, + And break the web of brier and bloom + From name and epitaph. + + A simple muster-roll of death, + Of pomp and romance shorn, + The dry, old names that common breath + Has cheapened and outworn. + + Yet pause by one low mound and part + The wild vines o'er it laced, + And read the words by rustic art + Upon its headstone traced. + + Haply yon white-haired villager + Of fourscore years can say + What means the noble name of her + Who sleeps with common clay. + + An exile from the Gascon land + Found refuge here and rest, + And loved, of all the village band, + Its fairest and its best. + + He knelt with her on Sabbath morns, + He worshipped through her eyes, + And on the pride that doubts and scorns + Stole in her faith's surprise. + + Her simple daily life he saw + By homeliest duties tried, + In all things by an untaught law + Of fitness justified. + + For her his rank aside he laid; + He took the hue and tone + Of lowly life and toil, and made + Her simple ways his own. + + Yet still, in gay and careless ease, + To harvest-field or dance + He brought the gentle courtesies, + The nameless grace of France. + + And she who taught him love not less + From him she loved in turn + Caught in her sweet unconsciousness + What love is quick to learn. + + Each grew to each in pleased accord, + Nor knew the gazing town + If she looked upward to her lord + Or he to her looked down. + + How sweet, when summer's day was o'er, + His violin's mirth and wail, + The walk on pleasant Newbury's shore, + The river's moonlit sail! + + Ah! life is brief, though love be long + The altar and the bier, + The burial hymn and bridal song, + Were both in one short year! + + Her rest is quiet on the hill + Beneath the locust's bloom; + Far off her lover sleeps as still + Within his scutcheoned tomb. + + The Gascon lord, the village maid + In death still clasp their hands; + The love that levels rank and grade + Unites their severed lands. + + What matter whose the hill-side grave, + Or whose the blazoned stone? + Forever to her western wave + Shall whisper blue Garonne! + + O Love!--so hallowing every soil + That gives thy sweet flower room, + Wherever, nursed by ease or toil, + The human heart takes bloom!-- + + Plant of lost Eden, from the sod + Of sinful earth unriven, + White blossom of the trees of God + Dropped down to us from heaven!-- + + This tangled waste of mound and stone + Is holy for thy sake; + A sweetness which is all thy own + Breathes out from fern and brake. + + And while ancestral pride shall twine + The Gascon's tomb with flowers, + Fall sweetly here, O song of mine, + With summer's bloom and showers! + + And let the lines that severed seem + Unite again in thee, + As western wave and Gallic stream + Are mingled in one sea! + + * * * * * + + +GALA-DAYS. + + +I. + +Once there was a great noise in our house,--a thumping and battering and +grating. It was my own self dragging my big trunk down from the garret. +I did it myself because I wanted it done. If I had said, "Halicarnassus, +will you fetch my trunk down?" he would have asked me what trunk? and +what did I want of it? and would not the other one be better? and +couldn't I wait till after dinner?--and so the trunk would probably have +had a three-days' journey from garret to basement. Now I am strong in +the wrists and weak in the temper; therefore I used the one and spared +the other, and got the trunk down-stairs myself. Halicarnassus heard the +uproar. He must have been deaf not to hear it; for the old ark banged +and bounced, and scraped the paint off the stairs, and pitched +head-foremost into the wall, and gouged out the plastering, and dinted +the mop-board, and was the most stupid, awkward, uncompromising, +unmanageable thing I ever got hold of in my life. + +By the time I had zigzagged it into the back chamber, Halicarnassus +loomed up the back stairs. I stood hot and panting, with the inside of +my fingers tortured into burning leather, the skin rasped off three +knuckles, and a bruise on the back of my right hand, where the trunk had +crushed it against a sharp edge of the door-way. + +"Now, then?" said Halicarnassus interrogatively. + +"To be sure," I replied affirmatively. + +He said no more, but went and looked up the garret-stairs. They bore +traces of a severe encounter, that must be confessed. + +"Do you want me to give you a bit of advice?" he asked. + +"No!" I answered promptly. + +"Well, then, here it is. The next time you design to bring a trunk +downstairs, you would better cut away the underpinning, and knock out +the beams, and let the garret down into the cellar. It will make less +uproar, and not take so much to repair damages." + +He intended to be severe. His words passed by me as the idle wind. I +perched on my trunk, took a pasteboard box-cover and fanned myself. I +was very warm. Halicarnassus sat down on the lowest stair and remained +silent several minutes, expecting a meek explanation, but, not getting +it, swallowed a bountiful piece of what is called in homely talk +"humble-pie," and said,-- + +"I should like to know what's in the wind now." + +I make it a principle always to resent an insult and to welcome +repentance with equal alacrity. If people thrust out their horns at me +wantonly, they very soon run against a stone wall; but the moment they +show signs of contrition, I soften. It is the best way. Don't insist +that people shall grovel at your feet before you accept their apology. +That is not magnanimous. Let mercy temper justice. It is a hard thing +at best for human nature to go down into the Valley of Humiliation; and +although, when circumstances arise which make it the only fit place for +a person, I insist upon his going, still, no sooner does he actually +begin the descent than my sense of justice is appeased, my natural +sweetness of disposition resumes sway, and I trip along by his side +chatting as gayly as if I did not perceive it was the Valley of +Humiliation at all, but fancied it the Delectable Mountains. So, upon +the first symptoms of placability, I answered cordially,-- + +"Halicarnassus, it has been the ambition of my life to write a book of +travels. But to write a book of travels, one must first have travelled." + +"Not at all," he responded. "With an atlas and an encyclopedia one can +travel around the world in his arm-chair." + +"But one cannot have personal adventures," I said. "You can, indeed, sit +in your arm-chair and describe the crater of Vesuvius; but you cannot +tumble into the crater of Vesuvius from your arm-chair." + +"I have never heard that it was necessary to tumble in, in order to have +a good view of the mountain." + +"But it is necessary to do it, if one would make a readable book." + +"Then I should let the book slide,--rather than slide myself." + +"If you would do me the honor to listen," I said, scornful of his +paltry attempt at wit, "you would see that the book is the object of my +travelling. I travel to write. I do not write because I have travelled. +I am not going to subordinate my book to my adventures. My adventures +are going to be arranged beforehand with a view to my book." + +"A most original way of getting up a book!" + +"Not in the least. It is the most common thing in the world. Look at our +dear British cousins." + +"And see them make guys of themselves. They visit a magnificent country +that is trying the experiment of the world, and write about their +shaving-soap and their babies' nurses." + +"Just where they are right. Just why I like the race, from Trollope +down. They give you something to take hold of. I tell you, +Halicarnassus, it is the personality of the writer, and not the nature +of the scenery or of the institutions, that makes the interest. It +stands to reason. If it were not so, one book would be all that ever +need be written, and that book would be a census report. For a republic +is a republic, and Niagara is Niagara forever; but tell how you stood on +the chain-bridge at Niagara--if there is one there--and bought a cake of +shaving-soap from a tribe of Indians at a fabulous price, or how your +baby jumped from the arms of the careless nurse into the Falls, and +immediately your own individuality is thrown around the scenery, and it +acquires a human interest. It is always five miles from one place to +another, but that is mere almanac and statistics. Let a poet walk the +five miles, and narrate his experience with birds and bees and flowers +and grasses and water and sky, and it becomes literature. And let me +tell you further, Sir, a book of travels is just as interesting as the +person who writes it is interesting. It is not the countries, but the +persons, that are 'shown up.' You go to France and write a dull book. +I go to France and write a lively book. But France is the same. The +difference is in ourselves." + +Halicarnassus glowered at me. I think I am not using strained or +extravagant language when I say that he glowered at me. Then he growled +out,-- + +"So your book of travels is just to put yourself into pickle." + +"Say rather," I answered, with sweet humility,--"say rather it is to +shrine myself in amber. As the insignificant fly, encompassed with +molten glory, passes into a crystallized immortality, his own littleness +uplifted into loveliness by the beauty in which he is imprisoned, so I, +wrapped around by the glory of my land, may find myself niched into a +fame which my unattended and naked merit could never have claimed." + +Halicarnassus was a little stunned, but, presently recovering himself, +suggested that I had travelled enough already to make out quite a +sizable book. + +"Travelled!" I said, looking him steadily in the face,--"travelled! +I have been up to Tudiz huckleberrying; and once, when there was a +freshet, you took a superannuated broom and paddled me, around the +orchard in a leaky pig's trough!" + +He could not deny it; so he laughed and said,-- + +"Ah, well!--ah, well! Suit yourself. Take your trunk and pitch into +Vesuvius, if you like. I won't stand in your way." + +His acquiescence was ungraciously, and I believe I may say ambiguously, +expressed; but it mattered little, for in three days from that time I +took my trunk, Halicarnassus his cane, and we started on our travels. An +evil omen met us at the beginning. Just as I was stepping into the car, +I observed a violent smoke issuing from under it. I started back in +alarm. + +"They are only getting up steam," said Halicarnassus. "Always do, when +they start." + +"I know better!" I answered briskly, for there was no time to be +circumlocutional. "They don't get up steam under the cars." + +"Why not? Bet a sixpence you couldn't get Uncle Cain's dobbin out of his +jog-trot without building a fire under him." + +"I know that wheel is on fire," I said, not to be turned from the direct +and certain line of assertion into the winding ways of argument. + +"No matter," replied Halicarnassus, conceding everything, "we are +insured." + +Upon the strength of which consolatory information I went in. By-and-by +a man entered and took a seat in front of us. "The box is all afire," +chuckled he to his neighbor, as if it were a fine joke. By-and-by +several people who had been looking out of the windows drew in their +heads, rose, and went into the next car. + +"What do you suppose they did that for?" I asked Halicarnassus. + +"More aristocratical. Belong to old families. This is a new car, don't +you see? We are _parvenus_." + +"Nothing of the sort," I rejoined. "This car is on fire, and they have +gone into the next one so as not to be burned up." + +"They are not going to write books, and can afford to run away from +adventures." + +"But suppose I am burned up in my adventure?" + +"Obviously, then, your book will end in smoke." + +I ceased to talk, for I was provoked at his indifference. I leave every +impartial mind to judge for itself whether the circumstances were such +as to warrant composure. To be sure, somebody said the car was to +be left at Jeru; but Jeru was eight miles away, and any quantity of +mischief might be done before we reached it,--if, indeed, we were +not prevented from reaching it altogether. It was a mere question of +dynamics. Would dry wood be able to hold its own against a raging fire +for half an hour? Of course the conductor thought it would; but even +conductors are not infallible; and you may imagine how comfortable it +was to sit and know that a fire was in full blast beneath you, and to +look down every few minutes expecting to see the flames forking up under +your feet. I confess I was not without something like a hope that one +tongue of the devouring element would flare up far enough to give +Halicarnassus a start; but it did not. No casualty occurred. We reached +Jeru in safety; but that does not prove that there was no danger, or +that indifference was anything but the most foolish hardihood. If our +burning car had been in mid-ocean, serenity would have been sublimity, +but to stay in the midst of peril when two steps would take one out of +it is idiocy. And that there was peril is conclusively shown by the fact +that the very next day the Eastern Railroad Depot took fire and was +burned to the ground. I have in my own mind no doubt that it was a +continuation of the same fire, and if we had stayed in the car much +longer, we should have shared the same fate. + +We found Jeru to be a pleasant city, with only one fault: the +inhabitants will crowd into a car before passengers can get out; +consequently the heads of the two columns collide near the car-door, and +there is a general choke. Otherwise Jeru is a delightful city. It is +famous for its beautiful women. Its railroad-station is a magnificent +piece of architecture. Its men are retired East-India merchants. +Everybody in Jeru is rich and has real estate. The houses in Jeru +are three stories high and face on the Common. People in Jeru are +well-dressed and well-bred, and they all came over in the Mayflower. + +We stopped in Jeru five minutes. + +When we were ready to continue our travels Halicarnassus seceded into +the smoking-car, and while the engine was shrieking off its inertia, a +small boy, laboring under great agitation, hurried in, darted up to me, +and, thrusting a pinchbeck ring with a pink glass in it into my face, +exclaimed, in a hoarse whisper,-- + +"A beautiful ring, Ma'am! I've just picked it up. Can't stop to find the +owner. Worth a dollar, Ma'am; but if you'll give me fifty cents"-- + +"Boy!" + +I rose fiercely, convulsively, in my seat, drew one long breath, but +whether he thought I was going to kill him,--I dare say I looked it,--or +whether he saw a sheriff behind, or a phantom gallows before, I know +not; but without waiting for the thunderbolt to strike, he rushed from +the car as precipitately as he had rushed in. I _was_ angry,--not +because I was to have been cheated, for I have been repeatedly and +atrociously cheated and only smiled, but because the rascal dared +attempt on me such a threadbare, ragged, shoddy trick as that. Do I +_look_ like a rough-hewn, unseasoned backwoodsman? Have I the air of +never having read a newspaper? Is there a patent innocence of eye-teeth +in my demeanor? Oh, Jeru! Jeru! Somewhere in your virtuous bosom you are +nourishing a viper, for I have felt his fangs. Woe unto you, if you do +not strangle him before he develops into mature anacondaism! In point of +natural history I am not sure that vipers do grow up anacondas, but +for the purposes of moral philosophy the development theory answers +perfectly well. + +In Boston a dreadful thing happened to me,--a thing too horrible to +relate. I have no reason to suppose that the outrage was intentional; +but if I were absolute monarch of all I survey, there is one house in +one street in Boston which I would have razed to the ground; and tobacco +I would banish forever from the haunts of civilization. + +In Boston we had three hours to spare; so we sent our luggage,--that is, +my trunk--to the Worcester Depot, and walked leisurely ourselves. I had +a little shopping to do, to complete my outfit for the journey,--a very +little shopping,--only a nightcap or two. Ordinarily such a thing is +a matter of small moment, but in my case the subject had swollen +into unnatural dimensions. Nightcaps are not generally considered +healthy,--at least not by physicians. Nature has given to the head its +sufficient and appropriate covering, the hair. Anything more than this +injures the head, by confining the heat, preventing the soothing, +cooling contact of air, and so deranging the circulation of the blood. +Therefore I have always heeded the dictates of Nature, which I have +supposed to be to brush out the hair thoroughly at night and let it fly. +But there are serious disadvantages connected with this course. For +Nature will be sure to whisk the hair away from your ears where you want +it, and into your eyes where you don't want it, besides crowning you +with magnificent disorder in the morning. But as I have always believed +that no evil exists without its remedy, I had long been exercising my +inventive genius in attempts to produce a head-gear which should at once +protect the ears, confine the hair, and let the skull alone. I regret +to say that my experiments were an utter failure, notwithstanding the +amount of science and skill brought to bear upon them. One idea lay at +the basis of all my endeavors. Every combination, however elaborate or +intricate, resolved into its simplest elements, consisted of a pair of +rosettes laterally to keep the ears warm, a bag posteriorly to put the +hair into, and some kind of a string somewhere to hold the machine +together. Every possible shape into which lace or muslin or sheeting +could be cut or plaited or sewed or twisted, into which crewel or cord +could be crocheted or netted or tatted, I make bold to declare was +essayed, until things came to such a pass that every odd bit of dry +goods lying around the house was, in the absence of any positive +testimony on the subject, assumed to be one of my nightcaps,--an utterly +baseless assumption, because my achievements never went so far as +concrete capuality, but stopped short in the later stages of abstract +idealism. However, prejudice is stronger than truth; and, as I said, +every fragment of every fabric that could not give an account of itself +was charged with being a nightcap till it was proved to be a dishcloth +or a cart-rope. I at length surrendered at discretion, and remembered +that somewhere in my reading I had met with exquisite lace caps, and I +did not know but that from the combined fineness and strength of their +material they might answer the purpose, even if in form they should not +be everything that was desirable,--and I determined to ascertain, if +possible, whether such things existed anywhere out of poetry. + +As you perceive, therefore, my Boston shopping was not every-day +trading. It was to mark the abandonment of an old and the inauguration +of a new line of policy. Thus it was with no ordinary interest that I +looked carefully at all the shops, and when I found one that seemed to +hold out a possibility of nightcaps, I went in. Halicarnassus obeyed the +hint which I pricked into him with the point of my parasol, and stopped +outside. The one place in the world where a man has no business to be is +the inside of a dry-goods shop. He never looks and never is so big and +bungling as there. A woman skips from silk to muslin, from muslin to +ribbons, from ribbons to table-cloths with the grace and agility of a +bird. She glides in and out among crowds of her sex, steers sweepingly +clear of all obstacles, and emerges triumphant. A man enters and +immediately becomes all boots and elbows. He needs as much room to turn +round in as the English iron-clad Warrior, and it takes him about as +long. He treads on all the flounces, runs against all the clerks, knocks +over all the children, and is generally under-foot. If he gets an idea +into his head, a Nims's battery cannot dislodge it. You thought of +buying a shawl; but a thousand considerations in the shape of raglans, +cloaks, talmas, pea-jackets, induce you to modify your views. He stands +by you. He hears all your inquiries and all the clerk's suggestions. The +whole process of your reasoning is visible to his naked eye. He sees the +sack, or visite, or cape put upon your shoulders and you walking off +in it, and when you are half-way home, he will mutter, in idiotic +amazement, "I thought you were going to buy a shawl!" It is enough to +drive one wild. + +No! Halicarnassus is absurd and mulish in many things, but he knows +I will not be hampered with him when I am shopping, and he obeys the +smallest hint and stops outside. + +To be sure, he puts my temper on the rack by standing with his hands in +his pockets, or by looking meek, or, likely as not, peering into the +shop-door after me with great staring eyes and parted lips; and this is +the most provoking of all. If there is anything vulgar, slipshod, and +shiftless, it is a man lounging about with his hands in his pockets. If +you have paws, stow them away; but if you are endowed with hands, learn +to carry them properly, or else cut them off. Nor can I abide a man's +looking as if he were under control. I want him to _be_ submissive, but +I don't want him to look so. I want him to do just as he is bidden, but +I want him to carry himself like the man and monarch he was made to be. +I want him to stay where he is put, yet not as if he were put there, but +as if he had taken his position deliberately. But, of all things, to +have a man act as if he were a clod just emerged for the first time from +his own barnyard! Upon this occasion, however, I was too much absorbed +in my errand to note anybody's demeanor, and I threaded straightway the +crowd of customers, went up to the counter, and inquired in a clear +voice,-- + +"Have you lace nightcaps?" + +The clerk looked at me with a troubled, bewildered glance, and made no +reply. I supposed he had not understood me, and repeated the question. +Then he answered, dubiously,-- + +"We have breakfast-caps." + +It was my turn to look bewildered. What had I to do with breakfast-caps? +What connection was there between my question and his answer? What field +was there for any further inquiry? "Have you ox-bows?" imagine a farmer +to ask. "We have rainbows," says the shopman. "Have you cameo-pins?" +inquires the elegant Mrs. Jenkins. "We have linchpins." "Have you young +apple-trees?" asks the nursery-man. "We have whiffle-trees." If I had +wanted breakfast-caps, shouldn't I have asked for breakfast-caps? Or do +the Boston people take their breakfast at one o'clock in the morning? I +concluded that the man was demented, and marched out of the shop. When I +laid the matter before Halicarnassus, the following interesting colloquy +took place. + +I. "What do you suppose it meant?" + +H. "He took you for a North American Indian." + +I. "What do you mean?" + +H. "He did not understand your _patois_." + +I. "What _patois_?" + +H. "Your squaw dialect. You should have asked for a _bonnet de nuit_." + +I. "Why?" + +H. "People never talk about nightcaps in good society." + +I. "Oh!" + +I was very warm, and Halicarnassus said he was tired; so we went into a +restaurant and ordered strawberries,--that luscious fruit, quivering on +the border-land of ambrosia and nectar. + +"Doubtless," says honest, quaint, delightful Isaac,--and he never spoke +a truer word,--"doubtless, God might have made a better berry than a +strawberry, but, doubtless, God never did." + +The bill of fare rated their excellence at fifteen cents. + +"Not unreasonable," I pantomimed. + +"Not if I pay for them," replied Halicarnassus. + +Then we sat and amused ourselves after the usual brilliant fashion +of people who are waiting in hotel parlors, railroad-stations, and +restaurants. We surveyed the gilding and the carpet and the mirrors +and the curtains. We hazarded profound conjectures touching the people +assembled. We studied the bill of fare as if it contained the secret of +our army's delay upon the Potomac, and had just concluded that the first +crop of strawberries was exhausted and they were waiting for the second +crop to grow, when Hebe hove in sight with her nectared ambrosia in a +pair of cracked, browny-white saucers, with browny-green silver spoons. +I poured out what professed to be cream, but proved very low-spirited +milk, in which a few disheartened strawberries appeared _rari nantes_. I +looked at them in dismay. Then curiosity smote me, and I counted them. +Just fifteen. + +"Cent apiece," said Halicarnassus. + +I was not thinking of the cent, but I had promised myself a feast; and +what is a feast, susceptible of enumeration? Cleopatra was right. "That +love"--and the same is true of strawberries--"is beggarly which can be +reckoned." Infinity alone is glory. + +"Perhaps the quality will atone for the quantity," said Halicarnassus, +scooping up at least half of his at one "arm-sweep." + +"How do they taste?" I asked. + +"Rather coppery," he answered. + +"It is the spoons!" I exclaimed, in a fright. "They are German silver! +You will be poisoned!"--and knocked his out of his hand with such +instinctive, sudden violence that it flew to the other side of the room, +where an old gentleman sat over his newspaper and dinner. + +He started, dropped his newspaper, and looked around in a maze. +Halicarnassus behaved beautifully,--I will give him the credit of it. +He went on with my spoon and his strawberries as unconcernedly as if +nothing had happened. I was conscious that I blushed, but my face was in +the shade, and nobody else knew it; and to this day I have no doubt +the old gentleman would have marvelled what sent that mysterious spoon +rattling against his table and whizzing between his boots, had not +Halicarnassus, when the uproar was over, conceived it his duty to go and +pick up the spoon and apologize for the accident, lest the gentleman +should fancy it an intentional rudeness. Partly to reward him for his +good behavior, partly because I never did think it worth while to +make two bites of a cherry, and partly because I did not fancy being +poisoned, I gave my fifteen berries to him. He devoured them with +evident relish. + +"Does my spoon taste as badly as yours?" I asked. + +"My spoon?" inquired he, innocently. + +"Yes. You said before that they tasted coppery." + +"I don't think," replied this unprincipled man,--"I don't think it +was the flavor of the spoon so much as of the coin which each berry +represented." + +I could have boxed his ears. + +I never made a more unsatisfactory investment in my life than the one I +made in that restaurant. I felt as if I had been swindled, and I said so +to Halicarnassus. He remarked that there was plenty of cream and sugar. +I answered curtly, that the cream was chiefly water, and the sugar +chiefly flour; but if they had been Simon Pure himself, was it anything +but an aggravation of the offence to have them with nothing to eat them +on? + +"You might do as they do in France,--carry away what you don't eat, +seeing you pay for it." + +"A pocketful of milk and water would be both delightful and serviceable; +but I might take the sugar," I added, with a sudden thought, upsetting +the sugar-bowl into a "Boston Journal" which we had bought in the train. +"I can never use it, but it will be a consolation to reflect on." + +Halicarnassus, who, though fertile in evil conceptions, lacks nerve to +put them into execution, was somewhat startled at this sudden change of +base. He had no idea that I should really act upon his suggestion, but +I did. I bundled the sugar into my pocket with a grim satisfaction; +and Halicarnassus paid his thirty cents, looking--and feeling, as he +afterwards told me--as if a policeman's gripe were on his shoulders. If +any restaurant in Boston recollects having been astonished at any time +during the summer of 1862 by an unaccountably empty sugar-bowl, I take +this occasion to explain the phenomenon. I gave the sugar afterwards to +a little beggar-girl, with a dime for a brace of lemons, and shook off +the dust of my feet against Boston at the "B. & W.R.R.D." + +Boston is a beautiful city, situated on a peninsula at the head of +Massachusetts Bay. It has three streets: Cornhill, Washington, and +Beacon Streets. It has a Common and a Frog-Pond, and many sprightly +squirrels. Its streets are straight and cross each other like lines on +a chess-board. It has a State-House which is the finest edifice in the +world or out of it. It has one church, the Old South, which was built, +as its name indicates, before the Proclamation of Emancipation was +issued. It has one bookstore, a lofty and imposing pile, of the Egyptian +style (and date) of architecture, on the corner of Washington and +School Streets. It has one magazine, the "Atlantic Monthly," one +daily newspaper, the "Boston Journal," one religious weekly, the +"Congregationalist," and one orator, whose name is Train, a model of +chaste, compact, and classic elegance. In politics, it was a Webster +Whig, till Whig and Webster both went down, when it fell apart and +waited for something to turn up,--which proved to be drafting. Boston is +called the Athens of America. Its men are solid. Its women wear their +bonnets to bed, their nightcaps to breakfast, and talk Greek at dinner. +I spent two hours and a half in Boston, and I know. + +We had a royal progress from Boston to Fontdale. Summer lay on the +shining hills and scattered benedictions. Plenty smiled up from a +thousand fertile fields. Patient oxen, with their soft, deep eyes, trod +heavily over mines of greater than Indian wealth. Kindly cows stood in +the grateful shade of cathedral elms, and gave thanks to God in their +dumb, fumbling way. Motherly, sleepy, stupid sheep lay on the plains, +little lambs rollicked out their short-lived youth around them, and no +premonition floated over from the adjoining pea-patch, nor any misgiving +of approaching mutton marred their happy heyday. Straight through the +piny forests, straight past the vocal orchards, right in among the +robins and the jays and the startled thrushes, we dashed inexorable, and +made harsh dissonance in the wild-wood orchestra; but not for that was +the music hushed, nor did one color fade. Brooks leaped in headlong +chase down the furrowed sides of gray old rocks, and glided whispering +beneath the sorrowful willows. Old trees renewed their youth in the +slight tenacious grasp of many a tremulous tendril, and, leaping lightly +above their topmost heights, vine laughed to vine, swaying dreamily in +the summer air; and not a vine nor brook nor hill nor forest but sent up +a sweet-smelling incense to its Maker. Not an ox or cow or lamb or bird +living its own dim life but lent its charm of unconscious grace to the +great picture that unfolded itself, mile after mile, in ever fresher +loveliness to ever unsated eyes. Well might the morning stars sing +together, and all the sons of God shout for joy, when first this grand +and perfect world swung free from its moorings, flung out its spotless +banner, and sailed majestic down the thronging skies. Yet, though but +once God spoke the world to life, the miracle of creation is still +incomplete. New every springtime, fresh every summer, the earth comes +forth as a bride adorned for her husband. Not only in the gray dawn of +our history, but now in the full brightness of its noon-day, may we hear +the voice of the Lord walking in the garden. I look out upon the gray +degraded fields left naked of the kindly snow, and inwardly ask: Can +these dry bones live again? And while the question is yet trembling on +my lips, lo! a Spirit breathes upon the earth, and beauty thrills into +bloom. Who shall lack faith in man's redemption, when every year the +earth is redeemed by unseen hands, and death is lost in resurrection? + +To Fontdale sitting among her beautiful meadows we are borne swiftly on. +There we must tarry for the night, for I will not travel in the dark +when I can help it. I love it. There is no solitude in the world, or at +least I have never felt any, like standing alone in the door-way of +the rear car on a dark night, and rushing on through the +darkness,--darkness, darkness everywhere, and if one could only be sure +of rushing on till daylight doth appear! But with the frightful and not +remote possibility of bringing up in a crash and being buried under a +general huddle, one prefers daylight. You may not be able to get out of +the huddle even by daylight; but you will at least know where you are, +if there is anything of you left. So at Fontdale Halicarnassus branches +off temporarily on a business errand, and I stop for the night +a-cousining. + +You object to this? Some people do. For my part, I like it. You say you +don't want to turn your own house or your friend's house into a hotel. +If people want to see you, let them come and make a visit; if you want +to see them, you will go and make them one; but this touch and go,--what +is it worth? O foolish Galatians! much every way. For don't you see, +supposing the people are people you don't like, how much better it is to +have them come and sleep or dine and be gone than to have them before +your face and eyes for a week? An ill that is temporary is tolerable. +You could entertain the Evil One himself, if you were sure he would go +away after dinner. The trouble about him is not so much that he comes as +that he won't go. He hangs around. If you once open your door to him, +there is no getting rid of him; and some of his followers, it must be +confessed, are just like him. You must resist them both, or they will +never flee. But if they do flee after a day's tarry, do not complain. +You protest against turning your house into a hotel. Why, the hotelry +is the least irksome part of the whole business, when your guests are +uninteresting. It is not the supper or the bed that costs, but keeping +people going after supper is over and before bed-time is come. Never +complain, if you have nothing worse to do than to feed or house your +guests for a day or an hour. + +On the other hand, if they are people you like, how much better to have +them come so than not to come at all! People cannot often make long +visits,--people that are worth anything,--people who use life; and they +are the only ones that are worth anything. And if you cannot get your +good things in the lump, are you going to refuse them altogether? By no +means. You are going to take them by driblets, and if you will only be +sensible and not pout, but keep your tin pan right side up, you will +find that golden showers will drizzle through all your life. So, with +never a nugget in your chest, you shall die rich. If you can stop +over-night with your friend, you have no sand-grain, but a very +respectable boulder. For a night is infinite. Daytime is well enough for +business, but it is little worth for happiness. You sit down to a book, +to a picture, to a friend, and the first you know it is time to get +dinner, or time to eat it, or time for the train, or you must put out +your dried apples, or set the bread to rising, or something breaks in +impertinently and chokes you off at flood-tide. But the night has no +end. Everything is done but that which you would be forever doing. The +curtains are drawn, the lamp is lighted and veiled into exquisite soft +shadowiness. All the world is far off. All its din and dole strike into +the bank of darkness that envelops you and are lost to your tranced +sense. In all the world are only your friend and you, and then you +strike out your oars, silver-sounding, into the shoreless night. + +But the night comes to an end, you say. No, it does not. It is you that +come to an end. You grow sleepy, clod that you are. But as you don't +think, when you begin, that you ever shall grow sleepy, it is just the +same as if you never did. For you have no foreshadow of an inevitable +termination to your rapture, and so practically your night has no limit. +It is fastened at one end to the sunset, but the other end floats off +into eternity. And there really is no abrupt termination. You roll down +the inclined plane of your social happiness into the bosom of another +happiness,--sleep. Sleep for the sleepy is bliss just as truly as +society to the lonely. What in the distance would have seemed Purgatory, +once reached, is Paradise, and your happiness is continuous. Just as it +is in mending. Short-sighted, superficial, unreflecting people have a +way--which in time fossilizes into a principle--of mending everything as +soon as it comes up from the wash, a very unthrifty, uneconomical habit, +if you use the words thrift and economy in the only way in which they +ought to be used, namely, as applied to what is worth economizing. Time, +happiness, life, these are the only things to be thrifty about. But +I see people working and worrying over quince-marmalade and tucked +petticoats and embroidered chair-covers, things that perish with the +using and leave the user worse than they found him. This I call waste +and wicked prodigality. Life is too short to permit us to fret about +matters of no importance. Where these things can minister to the mind +and heart, they are a part of the soul's furniture; but where they only +pamper the appetite or the vanity or any foolish and hurtful lust, +they are foolish and hurtful. Be thrifty of comfort. Never allow an +opportunity for cheer, for pleasure, for intelligence, for benevolence, +for any kind of good, to go unimproved. Consider seriously whether the +sirup of your preserves or the juices of your own soul will do the +most to serve your race. It may be that they are compatible,--that the +concoction of the one shall provide the ascending sap of the other; but +if it is not so, if one must be sacrificed, do not hesitate a moment +as to which it shall be. If a peach does not become sweetmeat, it will +become something, it will not stay a withered, unsightly peach; but for +souls there is no transmigration out of fables. Once a soul, forever a +soul,--mean or mighty, shrivelled or full, it is for you to say. Money, +land, luxury, so far as they are money, land, and luxury, are worthless. +It is only as fast and as far as they are turned into life that they +acquire value. + +So you are thriftless when you eagerly seize the first opportunity +to fritter away your time over old clothes. You precipitate yourself +unnecessarily against a disagreeable thing. For you are not going to put +your stockings on. Perhaps you will not need your buttons for a week, +and in a week you may have passed beyond the jurisdiction of buttons. +But even if you should not, let the buttons and the holes alone all the +same. For, first, the pleasant and profitable thing which you will do +instead is a funded capital which will roll you up a perpetual interest; +and secondly, the disagreeable duty is forever abolished. I say forever, +because, when you have gone without the button awhile, the inconvenience +it occasions will reconcile you to the necessity of sewing it on,--will +even go farther, and make it a positive relief amounting to positive +pleasure. Besides, every time you use it, for a long while after you +will have a delicious sense of satisfaction, such as accompanies the +sudden complete cessation of a dull, continuous pain. Thus what was at +best characterless routine, and most likely an exasperation, is turned +into actual delight, and adds to the sum of life. This is thrift. This +is economy. But, alas! few people understand the art of living. They +strive after system, wholeness, buttons, and neglect the weightier +matters of the higher law. + +--I wonder how I got here, or how I am to get back again. I started for +Fontdale, and I find myself in a mending-basket. As I know no good in +tracing the same road back, we may as well strike a bee-line and begin +new at Fontdale. + +We stopped at Fontdale a-cousining. I have a veil, a beautiful--_have_, +did I say? Alas! Troy _was_. But I must not anticipate--a beautiful veil +of brown tissue, none of your woolleny, gruff fabrics, fit only for +penance, but a silken gossamery cloud, soft as a baby's check. Yet +everybody fleers at it. Everybody has a joke about it. Everybody looks +at it, and holds it out at arms' length, and shakes it, and makes great +eyes at it, and says, "What in the world"--, and ends with a huge, +bouncing laugh. Why? One is ashamed of human nature at being forced to +confess. Because, to use a Gulliverism, it is longer by the breadth of +my nail than any of its contemporaries. In fact, it is two yards long. +That is all. Halicarnassus fired the first gun at it by saying that its +length was to enable one end of it to remain at home while the other end +went with me, so that neither of us should get lost. This is an +allusion to a habit which I and my property have of finding ourselves +individually and collectively left in the lurch. After this initial +shot, everybody considered himself at liberty to let off his rusty old +blunderbuss, and there was a constant peppering. But my veil never +lowered its colors nor curtailed its resources. Alas! what ridicule and +contumely failed to effect, destiny accomplished. Softness and plenitude +are no shields against the shafts of fate. + +I went into the station waiting-room to write a note. I laid my bonnet, +my veil, my packages upon the table. I wrote my note. I went away. The +next morning, when I would have arrayed myself to resume my journey, +there was no veil. I remembered that I had taken it into the station +the night before, and that I had not taken it out. At the station we +inquired of the waiting-woman concerning it. It is as much as your life +is worth to ask these people about lost articles. They take it for +granted at the first blush that you mean to accuse them of stealing. +"Have you seen a brown veil lying about anywhere?" asked Crene, her +sweet bird-voice warbling out from her sweet rose-lips. "No, I 'a'n't +seen nothin' of it," says Gnome, with magnificent indifference. + +"It was lost here last night," continues Crene, in a soliloquizing +undertone, pushing investigating glances beneath the sofas. + +"I do' know nothin' about it. _I_ 'a'n't took it"; and the Gnome tosses +her head back defiantly. "I seen the lady when she was a-writin' of her +letter, and when she went out ther' wa'n't nothin' left on the table but +a hangkerchuf, and that wa'n't hern. I do' know nothin' about it, nor I +'a'n't seen nothin' of it." + +Oh, no, my Gnome, you knew nothing of it; you did not take it. But since +no one accused you or even suspected you, why could you not have been +less aggressive and more sympathetic in your assertions? But we will +plough no longer in that field. The ploughshare has struck against a +rock and grits, denting its edge in vain. My veil is gone,--my ample, +historic, heroic veil. There is a woman in Fontdale who breathes air +filtered through--I will not say _stolen_ tissue, but certainly +through tissue which was obtained without rendering its owner any fair +equivalent. Does not every breeze that softly stirs its fluttering folds +say to her, "O friend, this veil is not yours, not yours," and still +sighingly, "not yours! Up among the northern hills, yonder towards the +sunset, sits the owner, sorrowful, weeping, wailing"? I believe I am +wading out into the Sally Waters of Mother Goosery; but, prose +or poetry, somewhere a woman,--and because nobody of taste could +surreptitiously possess herself of my veil, I have no doubt that she cut +it incontinently into two equal parts, and gave one to her sister, and +that there are two women,--nay, since niggardly souls have no sense of +grandeur and will shave down to microscopic dimensions, it is every way +probable that she divided it into three unequal parts, and took three +quarters of a yard for herself, three quarters for her sister, and gave +the remaining half-yard to her daughter, and that at this very moment +there are two women and a little girl taking their walks abroad under +the silken shadows of my veil! And yet there are people who profess to +disbelieve in total depravity. + +Nor did the veil walk away alone. My trunk became imbued with the spirit +of adventure, and branched off on its own account up somewhere into +Vermont. I suppose it would have kept on and reached perhaps the North +Pole by this time, had not Crene's dark eyes--so pretty to look at that +one instinctively feels they ought not to be good for anything, if a +just impartiality is to be maintained, but they are--Crene's dark eyes +seen it tilting up into a baggage-crate and trundling off towards the +Green Mountains, but too late. Of course there was a formidable hitch in +the programme. A court of justice was improvised on the car-steps. I was +the plaintiff, Crene chief evidence, baggage-master both defendant and +examining-counsel. The case did not admit of a doubt. There was the +little insurmountable check whose brazen lips could speak no lie. + +"Keep hold of that," whispered Crene, and a yoke of oxen could not have +drawn it from me. + +"You are sure you had it marked for Fontdale," says Mr. Baggage-master. + +I hold the impracticable check before his eyes in silence. + +"Yes, well, it must have gone on to Albany." + +"But it went away on that track," says Crene. + +"Couldn't have gone on that track. Of course they wouldn't have carried +it away over there just to make it go wrong." + +For me, I am easily persuaded and dissuaded. If he had told me that +it must have gone in such a direction, that it was a moral and mental +impossibility it should have gone in any other, and have said it times +enough, with a certain confidence and contempt of any other contingency, +I should gradually have lost faith in my own eyes, and said, "Well, I +suppose it did." But Crene is not to be asserted into yielding one inch, +and insists that the trunk went to Vermont and not to New York, and is +thoroughly unmanageable. Then the baggage-master, in anguish of soul, +trots out his subordinates, one after another,-- + +"Is this the man that wheeled the trunk away? Is this? Is this?" + +The brawny-armed fellows hang back, and scowl, and muffle words in a +very suspicious manner, and protest they won't be got into a scrape. But +Crene has no scrape for them. She cannot swear to their identity. She +had eyes only for the trunk. + +"Well," says Baggager, at his wits' end, "you let me take your check, +and I'll send the trunk on by express, when it comes." + +I pity him, and relax my clutch. + +"No," whispers Crene; "as long as you have your check, you as good as +have your trunk; but when you give that up, you have nothing. Keep that +till you see your trunk." + +My clutch re-tightens. + +"At any rate, you can wait till the next train, and see if it doesn't +come back. You'll get to your journey's end just as soon." + +"Shall I? Well, I will," compliant as usual. + +"No," interposes my good genius again. "Men are always saying that a +woman never goes when she engages to go. She is always a train later or +a train earlier, and you can't meet her." + +Pliant to the last touch I say aloud,-- + +"No, I must go in this train"; and so I go trunkless and crest-fallen to +meet Halicarnassus. + +It is a dismal day, and Crene, to comfort me, puts into my hands two +books as companions by the way. They are Coventry Patmore's "Angel in +the House," "The Espousals and the Betrothal." I do not approve of +reading in the cars; but without is a dense, white, unvarying fog, and +within my heart it is not clear sunshine. So I turn to my books. + +Did any one ever read them before? Somebody wrote a vile review of them +once, and gave the idea of a very puerile, ridiculous, apron-stringy +attempt at poetry. Whoever wrote that notice ought to be shot, for the +books are charming pure and homely and householdy, yet not effeminate. +Critics may sneer as much as they choose: it is such love as Vaughan's +that Honorias value. Because a woman's nature is not proof against +deterioration, because a large and long-continued infusion of gross +blood, and perhaps even the monotonous pressure of rough, pitiless, +degrading circumstances, may displace, eat out, rub off the delicacy of +a soul, may change its texture to unnatural coarseness and scatter ashes +for beauty, women do exist, victims rather than culprits, coarse against +their nature, hard, material, grasping, the saddest sight humanity can +see. Such a woman can accept coarse men. They may come courting on all +fours, and she will not be shocked. But women in the natural state want +men to stand god-like erect, to tread majestically, and live delicately, +Women do not often make an ado about this. They talk it over among +themselves, and take men as they are. They quietly soften them down, +and smooth them out, and polish them up, and make the best of them, and +simply and sedulously shut their eyes and make believe there isn't any +worst, or reason it away,--a great deal more than I should think they +would. But if you want to see the qualities that a woman, spontaneously +loves, the expression, the tone, the bearing that thoroughly satisfies +her self-respect, that not only secures her acquiescence, but arouses +her enthusiasm and commands her abdication, crucify the flesh, and read +Coventry Patmore. Not that he is the world's great poet, nor Arthur +Vaughan the ideal man; but this I do mean: that the delicacy, the +spirituality of his love, the scrupulous respectfulness of his demeanor, +his unfeigned inward humility, as far removed from servility on the one +side as from assumption on the other, and less the opponent than the +offspring of self-respect, his thorough gentleness, guilelessness, +deference, his manly, unselfish homage, are such qualities, and such +alone, as lead womanhood captive. Listen to me, you rattling, roaring, +rollicking Ralph Roister Doisters, you calm, inevitable Gradgrinds, as +smooth, as sharp, as bright as steel, and as soulless, and you men, +whoever, whatever, and wherever you are, with fibres of rope and nerves +of wire, there is many and many a woman who tolerates you because she +finds you, but there is nothing in her that ever goes out to seek you. +Be not deceived by her placability. "Here he is," she says to herself, +"and something must be done about it. Buried under Ossa and Pelion +somewhere he must be supposed to have a soul, and the sooner he is dug +into, the sooner it will be exhumed." So she digs. She would never have +made you, nor of her own free-will elected you; but being made, such as +you are, and on her hands in one way or another, she carves and chisels, +and strives to evoke from the block a breathing statue. She may succeed +so far as that you shall become her Frankenstein, a great, sad, +monstrous, incessant, inevitable caricature of her ideal, the monument +at once of her success and her failure, the object of her compassion, +the intimate sorrow of her soul, a vast and dreadful form into which +her creative power can breathe the breath of life, but not of sympathy. +Perhaps she loves you with a remorseful, pitying, protesting love, and +carries you on her shuddering shoulders to the grave. Probably, as she +is good and wise, you will never find it out. A limpid brook ripples in +beauty and bloom by the side of your muddy, stagnant self-complacence, +and you discern no essential difference. "Water's water," you say, with +your broad, stupid generalization, and go oozing along contentedly +through peat-bogs and meadow-ditches, mounting, perhaps, in moments +of inspiration, to the moderate sublimity of a cranberry-meadow, but +subsiding with entire satisfaction into a muck-puddle; and all the while +the little brook that you patronize when you are full-fed, and snub when +you are hungry, and look down upon always,--the little brook is singing +its own melody through grove and orchard and sweet wild-wood,--singing +with the birds and the blooms songs that you cannot hear; but they are +heard by the silent stars, singing on and on into a broader and deeper +destiny, till it pours, one day, its last earthly note, and becomes +forevermore the unutterable sea. + +And you are nothing but a ditch. + +No, my friend, Lucy will drive with you, and talk to you, and sing your +songs; she will take care of you, and pray for you, and cry when you +go to the war; if she is not your daughter or your sister, she will, +perhaps, in a moment of weakness or insanity, marry you; she will be a +faithful wife, and float you to the end; but if you wish to be her love, +her hero, her ideal, her delight, her spontaneity, her utter rest and +ultimatum, you must attune your soul to fine issues,--you must bring out +the angel in you, and keep the brute under. It is not that you shall +stop making shoes, and begin to write poetry. That is just as much +discrimination as you have. Tell you to be gentle, and you think we want +you to dissolve into milk-and-water; tell you to be polite, and you +infer hypocrisy; to be neat, and you leap over into dandyism, fancying +all the while that bluster is manliness. No, Sir. You may make shoes, +you may run engines, you may carry coals; you may blow the huntsman's +horn, hurl the base-ball, follow the plough, smite the anvil; your face +may be brown, your veins knotted, your hands grimed; and yet you may be +a hero. And, on the other hand, you may write verses and be a clown. +It is not necessary to feed on ambrosia in order to become divine; +nor shall one be accursed, though he drink of the ninefold Styx. The +Israelites ate angels' food in the wilderness, and remained stiff-necked +and uncircumcised in heart and ears. The white water-lily feeds on +slime, and unfolds a heavenly glory. Come as the June morning comes. It +has not picked its way daintily, passing only among the roses. It has +breathed up the whole earth. It has blown through the fields and the +barn-yards and all the common places of the land. It has shrunk from +nothing. Its purity has breasted and overborne all things, and so +mingled and harmonized all that it sweeps around your forehead and sinks +into your heart as soft and sweet and pure as the fragrancy of Paradise. +So come you, rough from the world's rough work, with all out-door airs +blowing around you, and all your earth-smells clinging to you, but with +a fine inward grace, so strong, so sweet, so salubrious that it meets +and masters all things, blending every faintest or foulest odor of +earthliness into the grateful incense of a pure and lofty life. + +Thus I read and mused in the soft summer fog, and the first I knew the +cars had stopped, I was standing on the platform, and Coventry and his +knight were--where? Wandering up and down somewhere among the Berkshire +hills. At some junction of roads, I suppose, I left them on the +cushion, for I have never beheld them since. Tell me, O ye daughters of +Berkshire, have you seen them,--a princely pair, sore weary in your +mountain-land, but regal still, through all their travel-stain? I pray +you, entreat them hospitably, for their mission is "not of an age, but +for all time." + + + + +GIVE. + + +"The vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, +and the heavens shall give their dew." + + The fire of Freedom burns, + March to her altar now: + Bear on the sacred urns + Where all her sons must bow. + + Woman of nerve and thought, + Bring in the urn your power! + By you is manhood taught + To meet this supreme hour. + + Come with your sunlit life, + Maiden of gentle eye! + Bring to the gloom of strife + Light by which heroes die. + + Give, rich men, proud and free, + Your children's costliest gem! + For Liberty shall be + Your heritage to them. + + O friend, with heavy urn, + What offering bear you on? + The figure did not turn; + I heard a voice, "My son." + + The fire of Freedom burns, + Her flame shall reach the heaven: + Heap up our sacred urns, + Though life for life be given! + + + + +ONLY AN IRISH GIRL! + + +"Oh, it's only an Irish girl!" + +I flamed into a wrath far too intense for restraint. My whole soul rose +up and cried out against the Deacon's wife. I answered,-- + +"True. A small thing! But are lies and murder small things, Mrs. Adams? +Murderers, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie, are to be left outside +of the heavenly city. And, Mrs. Adams, suppose it should appear that +a woman of high respectability, moving in the best society, and most +excellent housekeeper, has both those two tickets for hell? Do you +remember the others that make up that horrible company in the last +chapter of Revelation? Mrs. Adams, _the girl is_ DEAD!" + +The Deacon's wife's hard face had blazed instantly into passionate +scarlet. But I cared not for her, nor for man nor woman. For the words +_said themselves_, and thrilled and sounded fearful to me also; they +hurt me; they burnt from my tongue as melted iron might; and, scarcely +knowing it, I rose up and emphasized with my forefinger. And her face, +at those last four words, turned stony and whity-gray, like a corpse. I +thought she would die. Oh, it was awful to think so, and to feel that +she deserved it! For I did. I do now. For, reason as I will, I cannot +help feeling as if a tinge of the poor helpless child's blood was upon +my own garments. I do well to be angry. It is not that I desire any +personal revenge. But I have a feeling,--not pleasure, it is almost all +pity and pain,--but yet a feeling that sudden death or lingering death +would be small satisfaction of justice upon her for what she rendered to +another. + +Her strong, hard, cruel nature fought tigerishly up again from the +horrible blow of my news. She was frightened almost to swooning at the +thing that I told and my denunciation, and the deep answering stab of +her own conscience. But her angry iron will rallied with an effort which +must have been an agony; her face became human again, and, looking +straight and defiantly at me, she said, yet with difficulty, + +"Ah! I'll see if my husband'll hev sech things said to me! That's all!" + +And she turned and went straightway out of my house, erect and steady as +ever. + +It may seem a trifling story, and its lesson a trifling one. But it is +not so,--neither trifling nor needless. + +It is a rare thing, indeed, for a woman in this America to long and love +to have children. The only two women whom I know in this large town who +do are Mrs. O'Reilly, the mother of poor Bridget, and--one more. + +Poor old Mrs. O'Reilly! She came to me this morning, and sat in my +kitchen, and cried so bitterly, and talked in her strong Corkonian +brogue, and rocked herself backwards and forwards, and shook abroad the +great lambent banners of her cap-border,--a grotesque old woman, but +sacred in her tender motherhood and her great grief. Her first coming +was to peddle blackberries in the summer. I asked her if she picked them +herself. + +"Och thin and shure I've the childher to do that saam," said she. And +what wonderful music must the voice of her youth have been! It was deep +of intonation and heartfelt,--rich and smooth and thrilling yet, after +fifty years of poverty and toil. "And id's enough of thim that's in id!" +she added, with a curious air of satisfaction and reflectiveness. + +"How many children have you?" I inquired. + +She laughed and blushed, old woman though she was; and pride and deep +delight and love shone in her large, clear, gray eyes. + +"I've fourteen darlins, thank God for ivery wan of thim! And it's a +purrty parthy they are!" + +"Fourteen!" I exclaimed,--"how lovely!" I stopped short and blushed. My +heart had spoken. "But how "--I stopped again. + +The old blackberry-woman answered me with tears and smiles. What a deep, +rich, loving heart was covered out of sight in her squalid life! It +makes me proud that I felt my heart and my love in some measure like +hers; and she saw it, too. + +"An' it's yersilf, Ma'm, that has the mother's own heart in yez, to be +sure! An' I can see it in your eyes, Ma'm! But it's the thruth it's +mighty scarce intirely! I do be seein' the ladies that's not glad at all +for the dear childher that's sint 'em, and sure it's sthrange, Ma'm! +Indade, it was with the joy I did be cryin' over ivery wan o' me babies; +and I could aisy laugh at the pain, Ma'm! And sure now it's cryin' I am +betimes because I'll have no more!" + +The dear, beautiful, dirty old woman! I cried and laughed with her, and +I bought ten times as many blackberries as I wanted; and Mrs. O'Reilly +and I were fast friends. + +She and hers, her "ould man," her sons and her daughters, were +thenceforth our ready and devoted retainers, dexterous and efficient +in all manner of service, generous in acknowledging any return that we +could make them; respectful and self-respectful; true men and women +in their place, not unfit for a higher, and showing the same by their +demeanor in a low one. + +They came in and went out among us for a long time, in casual +employments, until, with elaborate prefaces and doubtful apologetic +circumlocutions, shyly and hesitatingly, Mrs. O'Reilly managed to prefer +her petition that her youngest girl, Bridget, by name,--there were a few +junior boys,--might be taken into my family as a servant. I asked +the old woman a few questions about her daughter's experiences and +attainments in the household graces and economies; could not remember +her; thought I had seen all the "childher"; found that she had been +living with Mrs. Deacon Adams, and had not been at my house. It was only +for form's sake that I catechized; Bridget came, of course. + +She was such a maiden as her mother must have been, one of Nature's own +ladies, but more refined in type, texture, and form, as the American +atmosphere and food and life always refine the children of European +stock,--slenderer, more delicate, finer of complexion, and with a soft, +exquisite sweetness of voice, more thrilling than her mother's, larger +and more robust heartfeltness of tone,--and with the same, but shyer +ways, and swift blushes and smiles. In one thing she differed: she was a +silent, reticent girl: her tears were not so quick as her mother's, nor +her words; she hid her thoughts. She had learned it of us secretive +Americans, or had inherited it of her father, a silent, though cheery +man. + +Her glossy wealth of dark-brown hair, her great brown eyes, long +eyelashes, sensitive, delicately cut, mobile red lips, oval face, +beautifully formed arms and hands, and lithe, graceful, lady-like +movements, were a sweet household picture, sunshiny with unfailing +good-will, and of a dexterous neat-handedness very rare in her people. +My husband was looking at her one day, and as she tripped away on some +errand he observed,-- + +"She is a graceful little saint. All her attitudes are beatitudes." + +Bridget was pure and devout enough for the compliment; and I had not +been married so long but that I could excuse the evidence of his +observation of another, for the sake of the neatness of his phrase. I +should have thought the unconscious child incongruously lovely amongst +brooms and dust-pans, pots and kettles, suds and slops and dishwater, +had I not been about as much concerned among them myself. + +Bridget had been with me only a day or two, when a friend and +fellow-matron, in the course of an afternoon call, apprised me that +there were reports that Bridget O'Reilly was a thief,--in fact, that she +had been turned away by Mrs. Adams for that very offence, which she told +me "out of kindness, and with no desire to injure the girl; but there is +so much wickedness among these Irish!" She had heard this tale, through +only one person, from Mrs. Adams herself. + +This troubled me; yet I should have quickly forgotten it. I met the same +story in several other directions within a few days; and now it troubled +me more. Women are suspicious creatures. I don't like to confess it, but +it is true. Besides, servants do sometimes steal. And little foreign +blood of the oppressed nationalities has truth in it, or honesty. Why +should it? Why should the subjugated Irish, any more than the Southern +slaves, beaten down for centuries by brutal strength, seeking to +exterminate their religion and their speech, to terrify them out of +intelligence and independence, to crush them into permanent poverty +and ignorance,--why should they tell the truth or respect property? +Falsehood and theft are that cunning which is the natural and necessary +weapon of weakness. Their falsehood is their resistance, in the only +form that weakness can use, evasion instead of force. Their theft is the +taking of what is instinctively felt to be due; their gratification +of an instinct after justice; done secretly because they have not the +strength to demand openly. Such things are unnecessary in America, +no doubt. But habits survive emigration. They are to be deplored, +charitably and hopefully and tenderly cured as diseases, not attacked +and furiously struck and thrust at as wild beasts. Thus it might be with +Bridget, notwithstanding her great, clear, innocent eyes, and open, +honest ways. If she had grown up to think such doings harmless, she +would have no conscience about it. Conscience is very pliant to +education. It troubles no man for what he is trained to do. + +So I felt these stories. I could not find it in my heart to talk to poor +Bridget about it. I could not tell her large-hearted old mother. This +reluctance was entirely involuntary, an instinct. I wish I had felt it +more clearly and obeyed it altogether! There is some fatal cloud of +human circumstance that covers up from our sight our just instinctive +perceptions,--makes us drive them out before the mechanical conclusions +of mere reason; and when our reason, our special human pride, has failed +us, we say in our sorrow, I see now; if I had only trusted my first +impulse!--What is this cloud? Is it original sin? I asked my husband. +He was writing his sermon. He stopped and told me with serious +interest,--"This cloud is that original or inbred sin which we receive +from Adam; obscuring and vitiating the free exercise of the originally +perfect faculties; wilting them down, as it were, from a high native +assimilation to the operative methods of the Divine Mind, to the +painful, creeping, mechanical procedures of the comparing and judging +reason. And this lost power is to be restored, we may expect, by the +regenerating force of conversion." + +I know I've got this right; because, after Henry had thanked me for +my question, he said I was a good preaching-stock,--that the inquiry +"joggled up" his mind, and suggested just what fayed in with his sermon; +and afterwards I heard him preach it; and now I have copied it out of +his manuscript, and have it all correct and satisfactory. What will he +do to me, if he should see this in print? But I can't help it. And what +is more, I don't believe his theological stuff. If it were true, there +would not so many good people be such geese. + +But whatever this cloud is, it now blinded and misguided me. I quietly, +very quietly, put away some little moneys that lay about,--locked up +nearly all my small stock of silver and my scanty jewelry,--locked +my bureau-drawers,--counted unobtrusively the weekly proceeds of the +washing,--and was extremely watchful against the least alteration of my +manner towards my poor pretty maid. + +It might have been a week after this, when my husband said one morning +that Bridget's eyes were heavy, and she had moved with a start several +times, as though she were half-asleep. Now that he spoke, I saw it, and +wondered that I had not seen it before; but I think some men notice +things more quickly than women. I asked the child if she were well. + +"Yes, Ma'am," she said, spiritlessly, "but my head aches." + +I observed her; and she dragged herself about with difficulty, and was +painfully slow about her dishes. At tea-time I made her lie down in my +little back parlor and got the meal myself, and made her a nice cup of +tea. She slept a little, but grew flushed. Next morning she was not fit +to get up, but insisted that she was, and would not remain in bed. But +she ate nothing,--indeed, for a day or two she had not eaten,--and after +breakfast she grew faint, and then more flushed than ever; seemed likely +to have a hard run of fever; and I sent for my doctor,--a homoeopath. + +He came, saw, queried, and prescribed. Doctor-like, he evaded my +inquiry what was the matter, so that I saw it was a serious case. On my +intimating as much, he said, with sudden decision,-- + +"I'll tell you what, Madam. She may be better by night. If not, you'd +better send for Bagford. He might do better for her than I." + +I was extremely surprised, for Bagford is a vigorous allopath of the old +school, drastic, bloody,--and an uncompromising enemy of "that quack," +as he called my grave young friend. I said as much. Doctor Nash smiled. + +"Oh, I don't mind it, so long as the patients come to me. I can very +well afford to send him one now and then. The fact is, the Irish must +_feel_ their medicine. It's quite often that a raking dose will cure +'em, not because it's the right thing, but because it takes their +imagination with it. The Irish imagination goes with Bagford and against +me; and the wrong medicine with the imagination is better than the right +one against it. I care more about curing this child than I do about him. +Besides,"--and he grew grave,--"it may be no great favor to him." + +I obliged him to tell me that he feared the attack would develop into +brain-fever; and he said something was on the girl's mind. As soon as +he was gone, I ran up to poor Bridget, whose sweet face and great brown +eyes were kindled, in her increasing fever, into a hot, fearful beauty; +and now I could see a steady, mournful, pained look contracting her +mouth and lifting the delicate lines of her eyebrows. Poor little girl! +I felt the same deep yearning sorrow which we have at the sufferings of +a little child, who seems to look in scared wonder at us, as if to ask, +What is this? and Why do you not help? When a child suffers, we feel a +sense of injustice done. Bridget's lips were dry. Her skin was so hot, +her whole frame so restless! And the silent misery of her eyes ate into +my very heart. I smoothed her pillow and bathed her head, and would fain +have comforted her, as if she had been my own little sister. But I could +plainly see that my help was not welcome. When, however, I had done all +that I could for her, I quietly told her that she was sick, and that I +wanted to have her get well,--that I saw something was troubling her, +and she must tell me what it was. I don't think the silent, enduring +thing would have spoken even then, if she had not seen that I was +crying. Her own tears came, too; and she briefly said,-- + +"You all think I'm a thief." + +I assured her most earnestly to the contrary. + +She turned her restless head over towards me again, and her great eyes, +all glittering with fever and pain, searched solemnly into mine; and she +replied,-- + +"You all think I'm a thief. Yis, I saw you had locked up the money and +the silver. I saw you count the clane clothes that was washed in the +house. Wouldn't I be after seein' it? And they says so in the town." + +It went to my heart to have done those things. All that I could say was +utterly in vain. She evidently _felt_ nothing of it to be true. She had +received a deep and cruel hurt; and the poor, wild, half-civilized, shy, +silent soul had not wherewith to reason on it. She only endured, and +held her peace, and let the fire burn; and her sensitive nerves had +allowed pain of mind to become severe physical disease. My words she +scarcely heard; my tears were to her only sympathy. She knew what she +had seen. Besides, her disease increased upon her. Almost from minute to +minute she grew more restless, and her increasing inattention to what +I said frightened as well as hurt me. The medicines of Dr. Nash were +useless. Before noon I sent for Dr. Bagford, who said it was decidedly +brain-fever,--that she must be leeched, and have ice at her head, and so +forth. + +Ah, it was useless. She grew worse and worse; passed through one or two +long terrible days of frantic misery, crying and protesting against +false accusations with a lamenting voice that made us all cry, too; then +lay long in a stupid state, until the doctor said that now it would +be better for her to die, because, after such an attack, a brain so +sensitive would be disorganized,--she would be an idiot. + +Her poor mother came and helped us wait on her. But neither care nor +medicine availed. Bridget died; and the funeral was from our house. +I was surprised by the lofty demeanor of Father MacMullen, the Irish +priest, the first I had ever met: a tall, gaunt, bony, black-haired, +hollow-eyed man, of inscrutable and guarded demeanor, who received with +absolute haughtiness the courtesies of my husband and the reverences of +his own flock. A few of his expressions might indicate a consciousness +that we had endeavored to deal kindly with poor little Bridget. But he +did not think so; or at least we know that he has so handled the matter +that we meet ill feeling on account of it. + +The griefs for any such misfortune were, however, obscure and shallow in +comparison with my sorrow for the untimely quenching of Bridget's young +life, and my sympathy with her poor old mother. When I reasoned about +the affair, I could see that I had done nothing which would not be +commended by careful housekeepers. I could see it, but, in spite of me, +I could not feel it. I was tormented by vain wishes that I had done +otherwise. I could not help feeling as if her people charged me with her +blood,--as if I had been in some sense aiding in her death. Nor do I +even now escape obscure returns of the same inexpressibly sad pain. + +The garnishing of sepulchres is an employment which by no means went out +with the Scribes and Pharisees. Under the circumstances, the death of my +pretty young maid, although she was only an Irish girl, produced a deep +impression in the village. Very soon, now that it could do no good, +it was generally agreed that the imputations against her were wholly +unfounded. It was pretty distinctly whispered that they had arisen out +of things said by Mrs. Deacon Adams, in her wrath, because Bridget had +left her service to enter mine; and I now ascertained that this Mrs. +Adams was a woman of bitter tongue, and enduring, hot, and unscrupulous +in anger and in revengefulness. I have inquired sufficiently; I know it +is true. The vulgar malice of a hard woman has murdered a fair and good +maiden with the invisible arrows of her wicked words. + +But she begins already to be punished, coarse cast-iron as she is. +People do not exactly like to talk with her. She is growing thin. She +has been ill,--a thing, I am told, never dreamed of before. Of course +she reported to her husband the reproaches with which I had surprised +her on the very day of Bridget's death. She had called in by chance, and +had not even heard of her illness; had herself begun to retail to me the +kind of talk with which she had poisoned the village, not knowing that +her evil work was finished; and it was the scornful carelessness of her +reply to my first reproof that stung me to answer her so bitterly. It +was two weeks before good, white-haired, old Deacon Adams came to the +house of his pastor. His face looked careworn enough. He stayed long +in the study with my husband, and went away sadly. I happened to pass +through our little hall just as the Deacon opened the study-door to +depart; and I caught his last words, very sorrowful in tone,-- + +"She might git well, ef she could stop dreamin' on't, and git the weight +off 'm her mind. But words that's once spoken can't be called back as +you call the cows home at night." + + + + +SHALL WE COMPROMISE? + + +In that period of remote antiquity when all birds of the air and beasts +of the field were able to talk, it befell that a certain shepherd +suffered many losses through the constant depredations of a wolf. +Fearing at length that his means of subsistence would be quite taken +away, he devised a powerful trap for the creature, and set it with +wonderful cunning. He could hardly sleep that night for thinking of the +matter, and early next morning took a stout club in his hand, and set +forth to learn of his success; when, lo! on drawing near the spot, there +he saw the wolf, sure enough, a huge savage, fast held in the trap. + +"Ah," cried he, with triumph, "now I have got you!" + +The wolf held his peace until the other was quite near, and then in a +tone of the severest moral rebuke, and with a voice that was made quite +low and grave with its weight of judicial reprehension, said,-- + +"Is it you, then? Can it be one wearing the form of a man, who has laid +this wicked plot against the peace, nay, as I infer from that club, +against the very life, of an innocent creature? Behold what I suffer, +and how unjustly!--I, of all animals, whose life,--the sad state I +am now in constrains me against modesty to say it,--whose life is +notoriously a pattern of all the virtues;--I, too, ungrateful biped, +who have watched your flock through so many sleepless nights, lest some +ill-disposed dog might do harm to the helpless sheep and lambs!" + +The shepherd, one of the simplest souls that ever lived, was utterly +confounded by this reproof, and hung his head with shame, unable, for +a season, to utter a word in his own defence. At length he managed to +stammer,-- + +"I pray your pardon, brother, but--but in truth I have lost a great many +lambs lately, and began to think my little ones at home would starve." + +"How harder than stone is the heart of man!" murmured the wolf, as if to +himself. + +Then, raising his voice, he went on to say,-- + +"I despair of reaching your conscience; nevertheless I will speak as if +I had hope. You never paid me anything for protecting your flock; it was +on my part a pure labor of love; and yet, because I cannot quite succeed +in guarding it against all the bad dogs that are about, you would take +my life!" + +And the creature put on such a look of meek suffering innocence that the +shepherd was touched to the very heart, and felt more guilty and abashed +than ever. He therefore said at once,-- + +"Brother, I fear that I have done you wrong; and if you will swear to +mind your own affairs, and not prey upon my flock, I will at once set +you free." + +"My character ought to be a sufficient guaranty," answered the +quadruped, with much dignity; "but I submit, since I must, to your +unjust suspicions, and promise as you require." + +So, lifting up his paw, he swore solemnly, by all the gods that wolves +worship, to keep his pledge. Thereupon the other set him free, with many +apologies and professions of confidence and friendship. Only a few days, +however, had passed before the shepherd, happening to mount a knoll, +saw at a little distance the self-same wolf eagerly devouring the warm +remains of a lamb. + +"Villain! villain!" he shouted, in great wrath, "is this the way you +keep your oath? Did not you swear to mind your own business?" + +"I am minding it," said the wolf, with a grin; "it is my business to eat +lambs; it should be yours not to believe in wolves' promises." + +So saying, he seized upon the last fragment of the Iamb, and ran away as +fast as his legs would carry him. + +_Moral_.--Shepherds who make compromises with wolves sell their mutton +at an exceedingly cheap market. + +Now just such short-witted shepherds are we, the people of these free +American States, invited by numbers of citizens to become. Just such, do +I say? A thousand times more silly than such. Our national wolf meets us +with jaws that drip blood and eyes that glare hunger for more. Instead +of professing sanctity and innocence, it only howls immitigable hate and +steadfast resolution to devour. "Give me," it howls, "half the pasture +and flock for my own, with, of course, a supervision over the rest, and +a child or two when I am dainty; and I will be content,--until I want +more!" + +In speaking of our "national wolf," we are using no mere rhetoric, but +are, in truth, getting at the very heart of the matter. This war, in +its final relations to human history, is an encounter between opposing +tendencies in man,--between the beast-of-prey that is in him and is +always seeking brute domination, on the one hand, and the rational and +moral elements of manhood, which ever urge toward the lawful supremacy, +on the other. This is a conflict as old as the world, and perhaps one +that, in some shape, will continue while the world lasts; and I have +tried in vain to think of a single recorded instance wherein the issue +was more simple, or the collision more direct, than in our own country +to-day. + +That principle in nature which makes the tiger tiger passes obviously +into man in virtue of the fact that he is on one side, on the side of +body and temperament, cousin to the tiger, as comparative anatomy shows. +This presence in man of a tiger-principle does not occur by a mistake, +for it is an admirable fuel or fire, an admirable generator of force, +which the higher powers may first master and then use. But at first it +assumes place in man wholly untamed and seemingly tameless, indisposed +for aught but sovereignty. Of course, having place in man, it passes, +and in the same crude state, into society. And thus it happens, that, +when the unconquerable affinities of men bring them together, this +principle arises in its brutal might, and strives to make itself central +and supreme. + +But what is highest in man has its own inevitable urgency, as well as +what is lowest. It can never be left out of the account. Gravitation +is powerful and perpetual; but the pine pushes up in opposition to it +nevertheless. The forces of the inorganic realm strive with might to +keep their own; but organic life _will_ exist on the planet in their +despite, and will conquer from the earth what material it needs. And, in +like manner, no sooner do men aggregate than there begin to play back +and forth between them ideal or ascending forces, mediations of reason, +conscience, soul; and the ever growing interpretations of these appear +as courtesies, laws, moralities, worships,--as all the noble communities +which constitute a high social state. In fine, there is that in man +which seeks perpetually, for it seeks necessarily, to give the position +of centrality in society to the ideal principle of justice and to the +great charities of the human soul. + +Hence a contest. Two antagonistic principles leap forth from the bosom +of man, so soon as men come together, seeking severally to establish +the law of social relationship. One of these is predaceous, brutal; the +other ideal, humane. One says, "Might makes Right"; the other, "Might +should serve Right." One looks upon mankind at large as a harvest to +be gathered for the behoof of a few, who are confederate only for that +purpose, even as wolves hunt in packs; the other regards humanity as +a growth to be fostered for its own sake and worth, and affirms that +superiority of strength is given for service, not for spoil. One makes +the _ego_ supreme; the other makes rational right supreme. One seeks +private gratification at any expense to higher values, even as the tiger +would, were it possible, draw and drink the blood of the universe as +soon as the blood of a cow; the other establishes an ideal estimate +of values, and places private gratification low on the scale. But the +deepest difference between them, the root of separation, remains to +be stated. It is the opposite climate they have of man in the pure +simplicity of his being. The predaceous principle says,--"Man is in and +of himself valueless; he attains value only by position, by subduing the +will of others to his own; and in subjecting others he destroys nothing +of worth, since those who are weak enough to fall are by that very fact +proved to be worthless." The humane or socializing principle, on the +contrary, says,--"Manhood is value; the essence of all value is found +in the individual soul; and therefore the final use of the world, of +society, of action, of all that man does and of all that surrounds +him, is to develop intelligence, to bring forth the mind and soul into +power,--in fine, to realize in each the spiritual possibilities of man." + +True socialization now exists only as this nobler principle is +victorious. It exists only in proportion as force is lent to ideal +relations, relations prescribed by reason, conscience, and reverence for +the being of man,--only in proportion, therefore, as the total force +of the state kneels before each individual soul, and, without foolish +intermeddlings, or confusions of order, proffers protection, service, +succor. Here is a socialization flowing, self-poised, fertilizing; it is +full of gracious invitation to all, yet regulates all; it makes liberty +by making law; it produces and distributes privilege. Here there is not +only _community_, that is, the unity of many in the enjoyment of common +privilege, but there is more, there is positive fructification, there +is a wide, manifold, infinitely precious evocation of intelligence, of +moral power, and of all spiritual worth. + +As, on the contrary, the baser principle triumphs, there is no genuine +socialization, but only a brute aggregation of subjection beneath and a +brute dominance of egotism above. Society is mocked and travestied, not +established, in proportion as force is lent to egotism. If anywhere +the power which we call _state_ set its heel on an innocent soul,--if +anywhere it suppress, instead of uniting intelligence,--if anywhere +it deny, though only to one individual, the privilege of becoming +human,--to such an extent it wars against society and civilization, to +such extent sets its face against the divine uses of the world. + +Now the contest between these opposing principles is that which is +raging in our country this day. Of course, any broad territorial +representation of this must be of a very mixed quality. Our best +civilizations are badly mottled with stains of barbarism. In no state or +city can egotism, either of the hot-blooded or cold-blooded kind,--and +the latter is far the more virulent,--be far to seek. On the other hand, +no social system, thank God, can quite reverse the better instincts of +humanity; and it may be freely granted that even American slavery shades +off, here and there, into quite tender modifications. Yet not in all the +world could there possibly be found an antagonism so deep and intense as +exists here. The Old World seems to have thrown upon the shores of the +New its utmost extremes, its Oriental barbarisms and its orients and +auroras of hope and belief; so that here coexist what Asia was three +thousand years ago, and what Europe may be one thousand years hence. Let +us consider the actual _status_. + +In certain localities of Southern Africa there is a remarkable fly, the +Tsetse fly. In the ordinary course of satisfying its hunger, this insect +punctures the skin of a horse, and the animal dies in consequence. A fly +makes a lunch, and a horse's life pays the price of the meal. This has +ever seemed to me to represent the beast-of-prey principle in Nature +more vigorously than any other fact. But in that system whose fangs +are now red with the blood of our brave there is an expression of this +principle not less enormous. It is the very Tsetse fly of civilization. +That a small minority of Southern men may make money without earning +it,--that a few thousand individuals may monopolize the cotton-market +of the world,--what a suppression and destruction of intelligence it +perpetrates I what consuming of spiritual possibilities! what mental +wreck and waste! Whites, too, suffer equally with blacks. Less +oppressed, they are perhaps even more demoralized. No parallel example +does the earth exhibit of the sacrifice of transcendent values for +pitiful ends. + +In attempting to destroy free government and rational socialization in +America, this system is treading no new road, it is only proceeding on +the old. Its central law is that of destroying any value, however +great, for the sake of any gratification, however small. Accustomed to +battening on the hopes of humanity,--accustomed to taking stock in +human degradation, and declaring dividends upon enforced ignorance and +crime,--existing only while every canon of the common law is annulled, +and every precept of morals and civilization set at nought,--could it be +expected to pause just when, or rather just _because_, it had apparently +found the richest possible prey? Could it be expected to withhold its +fang for no other reason than that its fang was allured by a more +opulent artery than ever before? The simple truth is--and he knows +nothing about this controversy who fails to perceive such truth--that +the system whose hands are now armed against us has always borne these +arms in its heart; that the fang which is now bared has hitherto been +only concealed, not wanting; that the tree which is to-day in bloody +blossom is the same tree it ever was, and carried these blossoms in its +sap long ere spreading them upon its boughs. + +To this predaceous system what do we oppose? We oppose a socialization +that has features,--I will say no more,--has _features_ of generous +breadth and promise, that are the best fruition of many countries and +centuries. Faults and drawbacks it has enough and to spare; conspicuous +among which may be named the vulgar and disgusting "negrophobia,"--a +mark of under-breeding which one hopes may not disgrace us always. But +let us be carried away by no mania for self-criticism. Two claims for +ourselves may be made. First, a higher grade of laws nowhere exists with +a less amount of coercive application,--exists, that is, by the rational +and constant choice of the whole people. Secondly, it may be questioned +whether anywhere in the world the development of intelligence and moral +force in the whole people is to a greater extent a national aim. But +abandoning all comparison with other peoples, this we may say with no +doubtful voice: We stand for the best ideas of the Old World in the New; +we stand for orderly-freedom and true socialization in America; we stand +for these, and with us these must here stand or fall. + +Now, of course, we are not about to become the offscouring of the earth +by yielding these up to destruction. Of course, we shall not convert +ourselves into a nation of Iscariots, and give over civilization to +the bowie-knife, with the mere hope of so making money out of Southern +trade,--which we should not do,--and with the certainty of a gibbet in +history, to mention no greater penalty. + +But refusing this perfidy, could we have avoided this war? No; for +it was simply our refusal of such perfidy which, so far as we are +concerned, brought the war on. The South, having ever since the +Mexican War stood with its sword half out of the scabbard, perpetually +threatening to give its edge,--having made it the chief problem of our +politics, by what gift or concession to purchase exemption from that +dreaded blade,--at last reached its ultimate demand. "Will you," it said +to the North, "abdicate the privileges of equal citizenship? Will +you give up this continent, territory, Free States and all, to our +predaceous, blood-eating system? Will you sell into slavery the elective +franchise itself? Will you sell the elective franchise itself into +slavery, and take for pay barely the poltroon's price, that of being +scornfully spared by the sword we stand ready to draw?" The +North excused itself politely. In the softest voice, but with a +soft-voicedness that did not wholly conceal an iron thread of +resolution, it declined to comply with that most modest demand. Then the +sword came out and struck at our life. "Was it matter of choice with us +whether we would fight? Not unless it were also matter of choice whether +we would become the very sweepings and blemish of creation. + +"But we might have permitted secession." No, we could not. It was +clearly impracticable. "But why not?" _Because that would have been +to surrender the whole under the guise of giving up half_. Such a +concession could have meant to the people of the rebellious States, and, +in the existing state of national belief, could have meant to our very +selves, nothing other than this:--"We submit; do what you will; we are +shopkeepers and cowards; we must have your trade; and besides, though +expert in the use of yardsticks, we have not the nerve for handling +guns." From that moment we should have lost all authority on this +continent, and all respect on the other. + +The English papers have blamed us for fighting; but had we failed to +fight, not one of these censuring mouths but would have hissed at us +like an adder with contempt Nay, we ourselves should, as it were, soon +have lost the musical speech and high carriage of men, and fallen to +a proneness and a hissing, degraded in our own eyes even more than in +those of our neighbors. Of course, from this state we should have risen; +but it would have been to see the redness of war on our own fields +and its flames wrapping our own households. We should have risen, but +through a contest to which this war, gigantic though it be, is but a +quarrel of school-boys. + +By sheer necessity we began to fight; by the same we must fight It out. +Compromise is, in the nature of the case, impossible. It can mean only +_surrender_. Had there been an inch more of ground for us to yield +without total submission, the war would have been, for the present, +staved off. We turned to bay only when driven back to the vital +principle of our polity and the vital facts of our socialization. + +Politically, what was the immediate grievance of the South? Simply that +Northern freemen went to the polls as freemen; simply that they there +expressed, under constitutional forms, their lawful preference. How +can we compromise here, even to the breadth of a hair? How compromise +without stipulating that all Northern electors shall henceforth go to +the polls in charge of an armed police, and there deposit such ballot as +the slave-masters of the Secession States shall direct? + +Again, in our social state what is it that gives umbrage to our +antagonists? They have answered the question for us; they have stated it +repeatedly in the plainest English. It is simply the fact that we _are_ +free States; that we have, and honor, free labor; that we have schools +for the people; that we teach the duty of each to all and of all to +each; that we respect the human principle, the spiritual possibility, +in man; in fine, that ours is a human socialization, whose fundamental +principles are the venerableness of man's nature and the superiority +of reason and right to any individual will. So far as we are base +bargainers and unbelievers, they can tolerate us, even though they +despise; just where our praise begins, begin their detestation and +animosity. + +It is, by the pointed confession of Southern spokesmen, what we are, +rather than what we have done, which makes them Secessionists; and any +man of sense might, indeed must, see this fact, were the confession +withheld. In action we have conformed to Southern wishes, as if +conformity could not be in excess. We have conformed to an extent +that--to mention nothing of more importance--had nearly ruined us in the +estimation of mankind. One chief reason, indeed, why the sympathy of +Europe did not immediately go with us was that a disgust toward us had +been created by the football passivity, as it seemed abroad, with which +we had submitted to be kicked to and fro. The rebellion was deemed to be +on our side, not on theirs. We, born servitors and underlings, it was +thought, had forgotten our proper places,--nay, had presumed to strike +back, when our masters chastised us. Of course, we should soon be +whipped to our knees again. And when we were again submissive and +abject, Europe must so have demeaned itself as still to be on good terms +with the conquerors. As for us, our final opinion of their demeanor, so +they deemed, mattered very little. The ill opinion of the servants can +be borne; but one must needs be on friendly terms with the master of the +house. The conduct of Europe toward us at the outbreak of this war is +to be thus explained, more than in any other way. According to European +understanding, we had before written ourselves down menials; therefore, +on rising to the attitude of men, we were scorned as upstarts. + +The world has now discovered that there was less cowardice and more +comity in this yielding than had been supposed. Yet in candor one must +confess that it was barely not carried to a fatal extent. One step more +in that direction, and we had gone over the brink and into the abyss. +Only when the last test arrived, and we must decide once and forever +whether we would be the champions or the apostates of civilization, did +we show to the foe not the dastard back, but the dauntless front. And +the proposal to "compromise" is simply and exactly a proposal to us to +reverse that decision. + +Again, we can propose no compromise, such as would stay the war, without +confessing that there was no occasion for beginning it. And if, indeed, +we began it without occasion, without an occasion absolutely imperative, +then does the whole mountain--weight of its guilt lie on our hearts. +Then in every man that has fallen on either side we are assassins. The +proposal to bring back the seceded States by submission to their demands +is neither more nor less than a proposal to write "Murderer" on the brow +of every soldier in our armies, and "Twice Murderer" over the grave of +every one of our slain. If such submission be due now, not less was +it due before the war began. To say that it was then due, and then +withheld, is, I repeat, merely to brand with the blackness of +assassination the whole patriotic service of the United States, both +civil and military, for the last two years. + +If, now, such be, in very deed, our guilt, let us lose no moment in +confessing the fact,--nor afterwards lose a moment in creeping to the +gallows, that must, in that case, be hungering for us. But if no such +guilt be ours, then why should not our courage be as good as our cause? +If not only by the warrant, but by the imperative bidding of Heaven, +we have taken up arms, then why should we not, as under the banner of +Heaven, bear them to the end? + +In this course, no _real_ failure can await us. Obeying the necessity +which is laid upon us, and simply conducting ourselves as men of +humanity, courage, and honor, we shall surely vindicate the principles +of civilization and Orderly society, within our own States, whether we +immediately succeed in impressing them on South Carolina and her evil +sisterhood or not. Let us but vindicate their existence on any part of +this continent, and that alone will insure their final prevalence on the +continent as a whole. Let us now but make them inexpugnable, and they +will make themselves universal. This law of necessary prevalence, in a +socialization whose vital principle is reverence for the nature of man, +was clearly seen by the masters, or rather, one should say, by the +subjects, of the slave system; and this war signifies their immediate +purpose to build up between it and themselves a Chinese excluding +wall, and their ulterior purpose to starve and trample it out of this +hemisphere. + +Finally, just that which teaches us charity toward the slaveholders +teaches us also, forbearing all thought of base and demoralizing +compositions, to press the hand steadily upon the hilt it has grasped, +until war's work is done. These servants of a predaceous principle are +nearly, if not quite, its earliest prey. Enemies to us, they are twice +enemies to themselves. They are driven helplessly on, and will be so +until we slay the tyrant that wrings from them their evil services. +During that fatal month's _siesta_ at Yorktown, the country was +horror-stricken to hear that the enemy were forcing negroes at the point +of the bayonet to work those pieces of ordnance from which the whites, +in terror of our sharpshooters, had fled away. But behind the whites +themselves, behind the whole disloyal South, had long been another +bayonet goading heart and brain, and pricking them on to aggression +after aggression, till aggression found its goal, where we trust it will +find its grave, in civil war. Poor wretches! Who does not pity them? Who +that pities them wisely would not all the more firmly grasp that sword +which alone can deliver them? + +Nor has the slave-system been any worse than it must be, in pushing us +and them to the present pass. So bad it must be, or cease to be at all. +All things obey their nature. Hydrophobia will bite, small-pox infect, +plague enter upon life and depart upon death, hyenas scent the new-made +graves, and predaceous systems of society open their mouths ever and +ever for prey. What else _can_ they do? Even would the Secessionists +consent to partial compositions, as they will not, they must inevitably +break faith, as ever before. They are slaves to the slave-system. As +wise were it to covenant with the dust not to fly, or with the sea not +to foam, when the hurricane blows, as to bargain with these that they +shall resist that despotic impetus which compels them. They are slaves. +And their master is one whose law is to devour. Only he who might +meditate letting go a Bengal tiger on its parole of honor, or binding +over a pestilence to keep the peace, should so much as dream for a +moment of civil compositions with this system. Its action is inevitable. +And therefore our only wisdom will be to make our way by the straightest +path to this, which is our chief, and in the last analysis our only +enemy, and cut it through and through. This only will be a final +preservation to ourselves; this only the noblest amity to the South; +this, deliverance to the captivity of two continents, Africa and +America: so that here principle and policy are for once so obviously, as +ever they are really, one and the same, that no man of sense should fail +to perceive their unity. + + * * * * * + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +The Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. Illustrated from +Drawings by F.O.C. Darley and John Gilbert. Dombey & Son. In Four +Volumes. New York. Sheldon & Co. 16mo. pp. 322, 312, 306, 336. $3.00. + +The Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. Illustrated from +Drawings by F.O.C. Darley and John Gilbert. David Copperfield. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: July 26, 2004 [eBook #13026] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 11, ISSUE +67, MAY, 1863*** + + +E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen, and Project Gutenberg +Distributed Proofreaders from page scans provided by Cornell University + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. XI.--MAY, 1863.--NO. LXVII. + + + + + + +CHARLES LAMB'S UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS. + + +I. + +What Southey says of Cottle's shop is true of the little bookstore in a +certain old town of New England, which I used to frequent years ago, and +where I got my first peep into Chaucer, and Spenser, and Fuller, and Sir +Thomas Browne, and other renowned old authors, from whom I now derive so +much pleasure and solacement. 'Twas a place where sundry lovers of good +books used to meet and descant eloquently and enthusiastically upon the +merits and demerits of their favorite authors. I, then a young man, with +a most praiseworthy desire of reading "books that are books," but with +a most lamentable ignorance of even the names of the principal +English authors, was both a pleased and a benefited listener to the +conversations of these bookish men. Hawthorne says that to hear the +old Inspector (whom he has immortalized in the quaint and genial +introduction to the "Scarlet Letter") expatiate on fish, poultry, and +butcher's-meat, and the most eligible methods of preparing the same for +the table, was as appetizing as a pickle or an oyster; and to hear these +literary gourmands talk with such gusto of this writer's delightful +style, or of that one's delicious humor, or t' other's brilliant wit +and merciless satire, gave one a taste and a relish for the authors so +lovingly and heartily commended. Certainly, after hearing the genial, +scholarly, gentlemanly lawyer S---- sweetly discourse on the old English +divines,--or bluff, burly, good-natured, wit-loving Master R---- +declaim, in his loud, bold, enthusiastic manner, on the old English +dramatists,--or queer, quaint, golden-hearted Dr. D---- mildly and +modestly, yet most pertinently, express himself about Old Burton and Old +Fuller,--or wise, thoughtful, ingenious Squire M---- ably, if not very +eloquently, hold forth on Shakspeare and Milton, I had (who but a dunce +or dunderhead would not have had?) a "greedy great desire" to look into +the works of + + "Such famous men, such worthies of the + earth." + +And after listening to the stout, brawny, two-fisted, whole-soled, +big-hearted, large-brained Parson A----, as he talked in his wise and +winsome manner about Charles Lamed and his writings, I could not refrain +from forthwith procuring and reading Elia's famous and immortal essays. +Since then I have been a constant reader of Elia, and a most zealous +admirer of Charles Lamb the author and Charles Lamb the man. Thackeray, +you remember, somewhere mentions a youthful admirer of Dickens, who, +when she is happy, reads "Nicholas Nickleby,"--when she is unhappy, +reads "Nicholas Nickleby,"--when she is in bed, reads "Nicholas +Nickleby,"--when she has nothing to do, reads "Nicholas Nickleby,"--and +when she has finished the book, reads "Nicholas Nickleby": and so do I +read and re-read the essays and letters of Charles Lamb; and the oftener +I read them, the better I like then, the higher I value them. Indeed, I +live upon the essays of Elia, as Hazlitt did upon "Tristram Shandy," as +a sort of food that simulates with my natural disposition. + +And yet, despite all my love and admiration of Charles Lamb,--nay, +rather in consequence of it,--I must blame him of what Mr. Barron Field +was please to eulogize him for,--writing so little. Undoubtedly in most +authors suppression in writing would be a virtue. In Lamb it was a +fault. There are a score or two of subjects which he, "no less from +temerity than felicity of his pen," should have written upon,--subjects +on which he had thought and ruminated for years, and which he, and none +but he, could do justice to. He who loved and admired before or since, +such sterling old writers as Burton, Browne, Fuller, and Walton, should +have given us an article on each of those worthies and their inditing. +Chaucer and Spenser, though proud and happy in having had such an +appreciating reader of there writings as Elia was, when denizen of this +earth, would, methinks, have given him a warmer, heartier, gladder +welcome to heaven, if he had done for them what he did for Hogarth and +the old dramatists,--pointed out to the would "with a finger of fire" +the truth and beauty contained in their works. Instead of writing only +two volumes of essays, Elia should have written a dozen. He had read, +heard, thought, and seen enough to furnish matter for twice that number. +He himself confesseth, in a letter written a year or two before his +death, that he felt as if he had a thousand essays swelling within him. +Oh that Elia, like Mr. Spectator, had printed himself out before he +died! + +But notwithstanding Lamb's fame and popularity, notwithstanding +all readers of his inimitable essays lament that one who wrote so +delightfully as Elia did should have written so little, their has not +yet be published a complete collection of his writings. The standard +edition of his works, edited by Talfourd, is far from being complete. +Surely the author of "Ion" was unwise in not publishing all of Lamb's +productions. Carlyle said he wanted to know all about Margaret Fuller, +even to the color of her stocking. And the admirers of Elia wanted +to possess every scrap and fragment of his inditing. They cannot let +oblivion have the lease "notelet" or "essaykin" of his. For, however +inferior to his best productions these uncollected articles may be, +they must contain more or less of Lamb's humor, sense, and observation. +Somewhat of his delightful individuality must be stamped upon them. In +brief, they cannot but contain much that would amuse and entertain all +admirers of their author. For myself, I would rather read the poorest of +these uncollected essays of Elia than the best productions of some of +the most popular of modern authors. "The king's chaff is as good as +other people's corn," saith the old proverb. "There is a pleasure +arising from the very bagatelles of men renowned for their knowledge and +genius," says Goldsmith; "and we receive with veneration those pieces, +after they are dead, which would lessen them in our estimation while +living: sensible that we shall enjoy them no more, we treasure up, as +precious relics, every saying and word that has escaped them; but their +writings, of every kind, we deem inestimable." + +For years I have been hopefully and patiently waiting for somebody to +collect and publish these scattered and all but forgotten articles of +Lamb's; but at last, seeing no likelihood of its being done at present, +if ever in my day, and fearing that I might else never have an +opportunity of perusing these strangely neglected writings of my +favorite author, I commenced the task of searching out and discovering +them myself for mine own delectation. And after a deal of fruitless and +aimless labor, (for, unlike Johannes Scotus Erigena, in his quest of a +treatise of Aristotle, I had no oracle to consult,) after spending as +many days in turning over the leaves of I know not how many volumes of +old, dusty, musty, fusty periodicals as Mr. Vernon ran miles after a +butterfly, I was amply rewarded for all my pains. For I not only found +all of Lamb's uncollected writings that are spoken of in his "Life and +Letters," but a goodly number of articles from his pen which neither +he nor his biographer has ever alluded to. As I read these (to me) +new essays of Elia, I could not but feel somewhat indignant that such +excellent productions of such an excellent writer should have been +"underkept and down supprest" so long. I was as much ravished with these +new-found essays of Lamb's as good old Nicholas Gerbelius (see Burton's +"Anatomy of Melancholy," Partition II., Section 2, Member 4) was with +a few Greek authors restored to light. If I had had one or two loving, +enthusiastic admirers of Charles Lamb to enjoy with me the delight of +perusing these uncollected Elias, I should have been "all felicity up to +the brim." For with me, as with Michael de Montaigne and Hans Andersen, +there is no pleasure without communication. + +And therefore, partly to please myself, and partly to please the +admirers of Charles Lamb, I herewith publish a part of Elia's +uncollected essays and sketches. To ninety-nine hundredths of their +author's readers they will be as good as MSS. And not only will they be +new to most readers, but they will be found to be not wholly unworthy of +him who wrote the immortal dissertation on "Roast Pig." Albeit not to be +compared with Elia's best and most finished productions, these articles +contain some of the best qualities and peculiarities of his genius. +Without doubt, all genuine admirers, all true lovers of the gentle, +genial, delightful Elia, will be mightily pleased with these productions +of his inimitable pen. + +Those who were so fortunate as to be personally acquainted with Charles +Lamb are lavish in their praise of his conversational powers. Hazlitt +says that no one ever stammered out such fine, piquant, deep, eloquent +things in a half-dozen half-sentences as he did. "He always made the +best pun and the best remark in the course of the evening." Lamb was +undoubtedly "matchless as a fireside companion," inimitable as a +table-talker, "great at the midnight hour." The "wit-combats" at his +Wednesday-evening parties were waged with scarcely inferior skill and +ability to those fought at the old Mermaid tavern between Shakspeare +and Ben Jonson. Hazlitt, in his delightful essay intituled "Persons One +would Wish to have Seen," gives a masterly report of the sayings and +doings at one of these parties. It is to be regretted that he did not +report the conversation at all of these weekly assemblages of wits, +humorists, and good-fellows. He made a capital book out of the +conversation of James Northcote: he could have made a better one out of +the conversation of Charles Lamb. Indeed, Elia himself seems to have +been conscious that many of his deepest, wisest, best thoughts and +ideas, as well as wildest, wittiest, airiest fancies and conceits, were +vented in conversation; and a few months before his death he noted down +for the entertainment of the readers of the London "Athenaeum," a few +specimens of his table-talk. Although these paragraphs of table-talk are +not transcripts of their author's actual conversation, they doubtless +contain the pith and substance of what he had really said in some of his +familiar discourses with friends and acquaintances. They contain none of +his "jests that scald like tears," none of his play upon words, none of +his flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar, but +some of his sweet, serious, beautiful thoughts and fancies. + +Strange that Talfourd neglected to print "Table-Talk" in his edition of +Lamb! He does not even mention it. It is certainly as good, if not +a great deal better than some things of Lamb's which he saw fit to +reprint. But the best way to praise Elia's "Table-Talk" is, as the +"Tatler" says of South's wise and witty discourse on the "Pleasures of +Religious Wisdom," to quote it; and therefore here followeth, without +further comment or introduction,-- + +"TABLE-TALK. BY THE LATE ELIA. + +"It is a desideratum in works that treat _de re culinaria_, that we +have no rationale of sauces, or theory of mixed flavors: as to show why +cabbage is reprehensible with roast beef, laudable with bacon; why the +haunch of mutton seeks the alliance of currant-jelly, the shoulder +civilly declineth it; why loin of veal, (a pretty problem,) being itself +unctuous, seeketh the adventitious lubricity of melted butter,--and why +the same part in pork, not more oleaginous, abhorreth from it; why the +French bean sympathizes with the flesh of deer; why salt fish points to +parsnip, brawn makes a dead-set at mustard; why cats prefer valerian to +heart's-ease, old ladies _vice versa_,--though this is rather travelling +out of the road of the dietetics, and may be thought a question more +curious than relevant; why salmon (a strong sapor _per se_) fortifieth +its condition with the mighty lobster-sauce, whose embraces are fatal to +the delicater relish of the turbot; why oysters in death rise up against +the contamination of brown sugar, while they are posthumously amorous +of vinegar; why the sour mango and the sweet jam by turns court and are +accepted by the compilable mutton-hash,--she not yet decidedly declaring +for either. We are as yet but in the empirical stage of cookery. We +feed ignorantly, and want to be able to give a reason of the relish that +is in us; so that, if Nature should furnish us with a new meat, or be +prodigally pleased to restore the phoenix, upon a _given_ flavor, we +might be able to pronounce instantly, on philosophical principles, what +the sauce to it should be,--what the curious adjuncts." + + * * * * * + +"The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth and to +have it found out by accident." + + * * * * * + +"'T is unpleasant to meet a beggar. It is painful to deny him; and if +you relieve him, it is so much out of your pocket." + + * * * * * + +"Men marry for fortune, and sometimes to please their fancy; but, much +oftener than is suspected, they consider what the world will say of +it, how such a woman in their friends' eyes will look at the head of a +table. Hence we see so many insipid beauties made wives of, that could +not have struck the particular fancy of any man that had any fancy at +all. These I call _furniture wives_; as men buy _furniture pictures_, +because they suit this or that niche in their dining-parlors. + +"Your universally cried-up beauties are the very last choice which a man +of taste would make. What pleases all cannot have that individual charm +which makes this or that countenance engaging to you, and to you +only perhaps, you know not why. What gained the fair Gunnings titled +husbands, who, after all, turned out very sorry wives? Popular repute." + + * * * * * + +"It is a sore trial, when a daughter shall marry against her father's +approbation. A little hard-heartedness, and aversion to a reconcilement, +is almost pardonable. After all, Will Dockwray's way is, perhaps, the +wisest. His best-loved daughter made a most imprudent match,--in fact, +eloped with the last man in the world that her father would have wished +her to marry. All the world said that he would never speak to her again. +For months she durst not write to him, much less come near him. But, in +a casual rencounter, he met her in the streets of Ware,--Ware, that will +long remember the mild virtues of William Dockwray, Esq. What said the +parent to his disobedient child, whose knees faltered under her at the +sight of him? 'Ha, Sukey, is it you?' with that benevolent aspect with +which he paced the streets of Ware, venerated as an angel,--'come and +dine with us on Sunday'; then turning away, and again turning back, as +if he had forgotten something, he added,--'and, Sukey, do you hear? +bring your husband with you.' This was all the reproof she ever heard +from him. Need it be added that the match turned out better for Susan +than the world expected?" + + * * * * * + +"'We read the "Paradise Lost" as a task,' says Dr. Johnson. Nay, rather +as a celestial recreation, of which the dullard mind is not at all hours +alike recipient. 'Nobody ever wished it longer';--nor the moon rounder, +he might have added. Why, 'tis the perfectness and completeness of +it which makes us imagine that not a line could be added to it, or +diminished from it, with advantage. Would we have a cubit added to the +stature of the Medicean Venus? Do we wish her taller?" + + * * * * * + +"Amidst the complaints of the wide spread of infidelity among us, it is +consolatory that a sect is sprung up in the heart of the metropolis, and +is daily on the increase, of teachers of that healing doctrine which +Pope upheld, and against which Voltaire directed his envenomed wit. We +mean those practical preachers of Optimism, or the belief that _Whatever +is best_, the cads of omnibuses, who, from their little back pulpits, +not once in three or four hours, as those proclaimers of 'God and His +prophet' in Mussulman countries, but every minute, at the entry or +exit of a brief passenger, are heard, in an almost prophetic tone, +to exclaim, (Wisdom crying out, as it were, in the streets,) 'ALL'S +RIGHT!'" + + * * * * * + +"Advice is not so commonly thrown away as is imagined. We seek it in +difficulties. But, in common speech, we are apt to confound with it +_admonition:_ as when a friend reminds one that drink is prejudicial to +the health, etc. We do not care to be told of that which we know better +than the good man that admonishes. M---- sent to his friend L----, who +is no water-drinker, a two-penny tract 'Against the Use of Fermented +Liquors.' L---- acknowledged the obligation, as far as to _twopence_. +Penotier's advice was the safest, after all:-- + +"'I advised him'-- + +"But I must tell you. The dear, good-meaning, no-thinking creature +had been dumbfounding a company of us with a detail of inextricable +difficulties in which the circumstances of an acquaintance of his were +involved. No clue of light offered itself. He grew more and more misty +as he proceeded. We pitied his friend, and thought,-- + + "'God help the man so wrapt in error's endless + maze!' + +"when, suddenly brightening up his placid countenance, like one that had +found out a riddle, and looked to have the solution admired,-- + +"'At last,' said he, 'I advised him'-- + +"Here he paused, and here we were again interminably thrown back. By no +possible guess could any of us aim at the drift of the meaning he was +about to be delivered of. + +"'I advised him,' he repeated, 'to have some _advice_ upon the subject.' + +"A general approbation followed; and it was unanimously agreed, that, +under all the circumstances of the case, no sounder or more judicious +counsel could have been given." + + * * * * * + +"A laxity pervades the popular use of words. + +"Parson W---- is not quite so continent as Diana, yet prettily +dissembleth his frailty. Is Parson W---- therefore a _hypocrite?_ I +think not. Where the concealment of a vice is less pernicious than the +barefaced publication of it would be, no additional delinquency is +incurred in the secrecy. + +"Parson W---- is simply an immoral clergyman. But if Parson W---- were +to be forever haranguing on the opposite virtue,--choosing for his +perpetual text, in preference to all other pulpit-topics, the remarkable +resistance recorded in the 89th of Exodus [Genesis?],--dwelling, +moreover, and dilating upon it,--then Parson W---- might be reasonably +suspected of hypocrisy. But Parson W---- rarely diverteth into such line +of argument, or toucheth it briefly. His ordinary topics are fetched +from 'obedience to the powers that are,'--'submission to the civil +magistrate in all commands that are not absolutely unlawful'; on which +he can delight to expatiate with equal fervor and sincerity. + +"Again. To _despise_ a person is properly to _look down_ upon him with +none or the least possible emotion. But when Clementina, who has lately +lost her lover, with bosom heaving, eyes flashing, and her whole frame +in agitation, pronounces with a peculiar emphasis that she '_despises_ +the fellow,' depend upon it that he is not quite so despicable in her +eyes as she would have us imagine. + +"One more instance. If we must naturalize that portentous phrase, _a +truism_, it were well that we limited the use of it. Every commonplace +or trite observation is not a truism. For example: A good name helps +a man on in the world. This is nothing but a simple truth, however +hackneyed. It has a distinct subject and predicate. But when the thing +predicated is involved in the term of the subject, and so necessarily +involved that by no possible conception they can be separated, then +it becomes a truism; as to say, A good name is a proof of a man's +estimation in the world. We seem to be saying something, when we say +nothing. I was describing to F---- some knavish tricks of a mutual +friend of ours. 'If he did so and so,' was the reply, 'he cannot be an +honest man.' Here was a genuine truism, truth upon truth, inference and +proposition identical,--or rather, a dictionary definition usurping the +place of an inference." + + * * * * * + +"We are ashamed at sight of a monkey,--somehow as we are shy of poor +relations." + + * * * * * + +"C---- imagined a Caledonian compartment in Hades, where there should be +fire without sulphur." + + * * * * * + +"Absurd images are sometimes irresistible. I will mention two. An +elephant in a coach-office gravely coming to have his trunk booked;--a +mermaid over a fish-kettle cooking her own tail." + + * * * * * + +"It is the praise of Shakspeare, with reference to the playwriters, his +contemporaries, that he has so few revolting characters. Yet be has one +that is singularly mean and disagreeable,--the King in 'Hamlet.' Neither +has he characters of insignificance, unless the phantom that stalks over +the stage as Julius Caesar, in the play of that name, may be accounted +one. Neither has he envious characters, excepting the short part of +Don John, in 'Much Ado about Nothing.' Neither has he unentertaining +characters, if we except Parolles, and the little that there is of the +Clown, in 'All's Well that Ends Well.'" + + * * * * * + +"It would settle the dispute as to whether Shakspeare intended Othello +for a jealous character, to consider how differently we are affected +towards him, and for Leontes in the 'Winter's Tale.' Leontes _is_ that +character. Othello's fault was simply credulity." + + * * * * * + +"Is it possible that Shakspeare should never have read Homer, in +Chapman's version at least? If he had read it, could he mean to +_travesty_ it in the parts of those big boobies, Ajax and Achilles? +Ulysses, Nestor, and Agamemnon are true to their parts in the 'Iliad +'; they are gentlemen at least. Thersites, though unamusing, is fairly +deducible from it. Troilus and Cressida are a fine graft upon it. But +those two big bulks"-- + + * * * * * + +Disraeli wrote a book on the Quarrels of Authors. Somebody should write +one on the Friendships of Literary Men. If such a work is ever written, +Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge will be honorably mentioned +therein. For among all the friendships celebrated in tale or history +there is none more admirable than that which existed between these two +eminent men. The "golden thread that tied their hearts together" was +never broken. Their friendship was never "chipt or diminished"; but the +longer they lived, the stronger it grew. Death could not destroy it. + +Lamb, after Coleridge's death, as if weary of "this green earth," as if +not caring if "sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer +holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juices of meats +and fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and candle-light, and +fireside conversations, and innocent vanities, and jests, and irony +itself," went out with life, willingly sought "Lavinian shores." + +"Lamb," as Mr. John Foster says, in his beautiful tribute to his memory, +"never fairly recovered the death of Coleridge. He thought of little +else (his sister was but another portion of himself) until his own great +spirit joined his friend. He had a habit of venting his melancholy in a +sort of mirth. He would, with nothing graver than a pun, 'cleanse his +bosom of the perilous stuff that weighed' upon it. In a jest, or a few +light phrases, he would lay open the last recesses of his heart. So in +respect of the death of Coleridge. Some old friends of his saw him two +or three weeks ago and remarked the constant turning and reference of +his mind. He interrupted-himself and them almost every instant with some +play of affected wonder, or astonishment, or humorous melancholy, on the +words, '_Coleridge is dead_.' Nothing could divert him from that, for +the thought of it never left him. About the same time, we had written +to him to request a few lines for the literary album of a gentleman who +entertained a fitting admiration of his genius. It was the last request +we were destined to make, the last kindness we were allowed to receive. +He wrote in Mr. Keymer's volume,--and wrote of Coleridge." + +And this is what he said of his friend: it would be, as Mr. Foster says, +impertinence to offer one remark on it:-- + +"When I heard of the death of Coleridge, it was without grief. It seemed +to me that he long had been on the confines of the next world,--that he +had a hunger for eternity. I grieved then that I could not grieve. But +since, I feel how great a part he was of me. His great and dear spirit +haunts me. I cannot think a thought, I cannot make a criticism on men or +books, without an ineffectual turning and reference to him. He was the +proof and touchstone of all my cogitations. He was a Grecian (or in the +first form) at Christ's Hospital, where I was Deputy-Grecian; and the +same subordination and deference to him I have preserved through a +life-long acquaintance. Great in his writings, he was greatest in his +conversation. In him was disproved that old maxim, that we should allow +every one his share of talk. He would talk from morn to dewy eve, nor +cease till far midnight; yet who ever would interrupt him? who would +obstruct that continuous flow of converse, fetched from Helicon or Zion? +He had the tact of making the unintelligible seem plain. Many who read +the abstruser parts of his 'Friend' would complain that his works did +not answer to his spoken wisdom. They were identical. But he had a +tone in oral delivery which seemed to convey sense to those who were +otherwise imperfect recipients. He was my fifty-years-old friend without +a dissension. Never saw I his likeness, nor probably the world can see +again. I seem to love the house he died at more passionately than when +he lived. I love the faithful Gilmans more than while they exercised +their virtues towards him living. What was his mansion is consecrated to +me a chapel. + +"CHS. LAMB. + +"EDMONTON, November 21, 1834." + + * * * * * + +Having seen what Charles Lamb says of Coleridge, perhaps the reader +would like to see what Charles Lamb says of himself. For he, (though +but few of his readers are aware of the fact,) like Lord Herbert +of Cherbury, Gibbon, Franklin, and other eminent men, wrote an +autobiography. It is certainly the briefest, and perhaps the wittiest +and most truthful autobiographical sketch in the language. It was +published in the "New Monthly Magazine" a few months after its author's +death, with the following preface or introduction from the pen of some +unknown admirer of Elia:-- + +"We have been favored, by the kindness of Mr. Upcott, with the following +sketch, written in one of his manuscript collections, by Charles Lamb. +It will be read with deep interest by all, but with the deepest interest +by those who had the honor and the happiness of knowing the writer. It +is so singularly characteristic, that we can scarcely persuade ourselves +we do not hear it, as we read, spoken from his living lips. Slight as +it is, it conveys the most exquisite and perfect notion of the personal +manner and habits of our friend. For the intellectual rest, we lift the +veil of its noble modesty, and can even here discern them. Mark its +humor, crammed into a few thinking words,--its pathetic sensibility in +the midst of contrast,--its wit, truth, and feeling,--and, above all, +its fanciful retreat at the close under a phantom cloud of death." + +CHARLES LAMB'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. + +"Charles Lamb, born in the Inner Temple, 10th February, 1775; educated +in Christ's Hospital; afterwards a clerk in the Accountants' Office, +East-India House; pensioned off from that service, 1825, after +thirty-three years' service; is now a gentleman at large;--can remember +few specialties in his life worth noting, except that he once caught a +swallow flying (_teste sua manu_). Below the middle stature; cast of +face slightly Jewish, with no Judaic tinge in his complexional religion; +stammers abominably, and is therefore more apt to discharge his +occasional conversation in a quaint aphorism or a poor quibble than in +set and edifying speeches; has consequently been libelled as a person +always aiming at wit, which, as he told a dull fellow that charged him +with it, is at least as good as aiming at dulness. A small eater, +but not drinker; confesses a partiality for the production of the +juniper-berry; was a fierce smoker of tobacco, but may be resembled to +a volcano burnt out, emitting only now and then a casual puff. Has been +guilty of obtruding upon the public a tale in prose, called 'Rosamund +Gray,'--a dramatic sketch, named 'John Woodvil,'--a 'Farewell Ode to +Tobacco,'--with sundry other poems, and light prose matter, collected in +two slight crown octavos, and pompously christened his works, though in +fact they were his recreations, and his true works may be found on the +shelves of Leadenhall Street, filling some hundred folios. He is also +the true Elia, whose essays are extant in a little volume, published +a year or two since, and rather better known from that name without a +meaning than from anything he has done, or can hope to do, in his own. +He also was the first to draw the public attention to the old English +dramatists, in a work called 'Specimens of English Dramatic Writers +who lived about the Time of Shakspeare,' published about fifteen years +since. In short, all his merits and demerits to set forth would take to +the end of Mr. Upcott's book, and then not be told truly. + + "He died _____ 18__, much lamented.[A] + Witness his hand, + CHARLES LAMB. + + "18th April, 1827." + +[Footnote A: "_To Anybody_--Please to fill up these blanks."] + +Lamb, if he did not find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, +and sermons in stones, found good in everything. The soul of goodness in +things evil was visible to him. He had thought, felt, and suffered +so much, that, as Leigh Hunt says, he literally had intolerance for +nothing. Though he could see but little religion in many professing +Christians, he nevertheless saw that the motley players, "made up of +mimic laughter and tears, passing from the extremes of joy or woe at the +prompter's call," were not so godless and impious as the world believed +them to be. + +Writing to Bernard Barton in the spring of 1826, Lamb says, speaking +of his literary projects,--"A little thing without name will also be +printed on the Religion of the Actors, but it is out of your way; so I +recommend you, with true author's hypocrisy, to skip it." I wonder if +"good B.B." read the article, and, if he did, how he liked it. Quaker +though he was, he could not but have been pleased with it. Should you +like to read the "Religion of the Actors," reader? You will not find it +in any edition of Charles Lamb's writings. Here it is. + +THE RELIGION OF ACTORS. + +"The world has hitherto so little troubled its head with the points of +doctrine held by a community which contributes in other ways so largely +to its amusement, that, before the late mischance of a celebrated +tragic actor, it scarce condescended to look into the practice of any +individual player, much less to inquire into the hidden and abscondite +springs of his actions. Indeed, it is with some violence to the +imagination that we conceive of an actor as belonging to the relations +of private life, so closely do we identify these persons in our mind +with the characters which they assume upon the stage. How oddly does it +sound, when we are told that the late Miss Pope, for instance,--that +is to say, in our notion of her, Mrs. Candor,--was a good daughter, an +affectionate sister, and exemplary in all the parts of domestic life! +With still greater difficulty can we carry our notions to church, and +conceive of Liston kneeling upon a hassock, or Munden uttering a pious +ejaculation, 'making mouths at the invisible event.' But the times are +fast improving; and if the process of sanctity begun under the happy +auspices of the present licenser go on to its completion, it will be +as necessary for a comedian to give an account of his faith as of his +conduct. Fawcett must study the five points; and Dicky Suett, if he were +alive, would have had to rub up his catechism. Already the effects of it +begin to appear. A celebrated performer has thought fit to oblige the +world with a confession of his faith,--or, Br----'s 'Religio Dramatici.' +This gentleman, in his laudable attempt to shift from his person the +obloquy of Judaism, with the forwardness of a new convert, in trying to +prove too much, has, in the opinion of many, proved too little. A simple +declaration of his Christianity was sufficient; but, strange to say, +his apology has not a word about it. We are left to gather it from some +expressions which imply that he is a Protestant; but we did not wish to +inquire into the niceties of his orthodoxy. To his friends of the _old +persuasion_ the distinction was impertinent; for what cares Rabbi Ben +Kimchi for the differences which have split our novelty? To the great +body of Christians that hold the Pope's supremacy--that is to say, to +the major part of the Christian world--his religion will appear as +much to seek as ever. But perhaps he conceived that all Christians are +Protestants, as children, and the common people call all that are not +animals Christians. The mistake was not very considerable in so young a +proselyte. Or he might think the general (as logicians speak) involved +in the particular. All Protestants are Christians; but I am a +Protestant; _ergo_, etc.: as if a marmoset, contending to be a man, +overleaping that term as too generic and vulgar, should at once roundly +proclaim himself to be a gentleman. The argument would be, as we say, +_ex abundanti_. From whichever cause this _excessus in terminis_ +proceeded, we can do no less than congratulate the general state of +Christendom upon the accession of so extraordinary a convert. Who was +the happy instrument of the conversion we are yet to learn: it comes +nearest to the attempt of the late pious Doctor Watts to Christianize +the Psalms of the Old Testament. Something of the old Hebrew raciness is +lost in the transfusion; but much of its asperity is softened and pared +down in the adaptation. + +"The appearance of so singular a treatise at this conjuncture has set +us upon an inquiry into the present state of religion upon the stage +generally. By the favor of the church-wardens of Saint Martin's in the +Fields, and Saint Paul's, Covent Garden, who have very readily, and with +great kindness, assisted our pursuit, we are enabled to lay before the +public the following particulars. Strictly speaking, neither of the two +great bodies is collectively a religious institution. We had expected to +have found a chaplain among them, as at Saint Stephen's, and other Court +establishments; and were the more surprised at the omission, as the last +Mr. Bengough, at the one house, and Mr. Powell at the other, from a +gravity of speech and demeanor, and the habit of wearing black at their +first appearances in the beginning of _fifth_ or the conclusion of +_fourth acts_, so eminently pointed out their qualifications for such +office. These corporations, then, being not properly congregational, +we must seek the solution of our question in the tastes, attainments, +accidental breeding, and education of the individual members of them. +As we were prepared to expect, a majority at both houses adhere to the +religion of the Church Established, only that at one of them a pretty +strong leaven of Catholicism is suspected,--which, considering the +notorious education of the manager at a foreign seminary, is not so much +to be wondered at. Some have gone so far as to report that Mr. T----y, +in particular, belongs to an order lately restored on the Continent. We +can contradict this: that gentleman is a member of the Kirk of Scotland; +and his name is to be found, much to his honor, in the list of seceders +from the congregation of Mr. Fletcher. While the generality, as we have +said, are content to jog on in the safe trammels of national orthodoxy, +symptoms of a sectarian spirit have broken out in quarters where we +should least have looked for it. Some of the ladies at both houses are +deep in controverted points. Miss F----e, we are credibly informed, is +_Sub-_, and Madame V----a _Supra_-Lapsarian. Mr. Pope is the last of the +exploded sect of the Ranters. Mr. Sinclair has joined the Shakers. Mr. +Grimaldi, Senior, after being long a Jumper, has lately fallen into some +whimsical theories respecting the Fall of Man; which he understands, +not of an allegorical, but a _real tumble_, by which the whole body of +humanity became, as it were, lame to the performance of good works. +Pride he will have to be nothing but a stiff neck; irresolution, the +nerves shaken; an inclination to sinister paths, crookedness of the +joints; spiritual deadness, a paralysis; want of charity, a contraction +in the fingers; despising of government, a broken head; the plaster, a +sermon; the lint to bind it up, the text; the probers, the preachers; a +pair of crutches, the old and new law; a bandage, religious obligation: +a fanciful mode of illustration, derived from the accidents and habits +of his past calling _spiritualized_, rather than from any accurate +acquaintance with the Hebrew text, in which report speaks him but a raw +scholar. Mr. Elliston, from all that we can learn, has his religion yet +to choose; though some think him a Muggletonian." + + * * * * * + +Willis, in his "Pencillings by the Way," describing his interview with +Charles and Mary Lamb, says,--"Nothing could be more delightful than the +kindness and affection between the brother and the sister, though Lamb +was continually taking advantage of her deafness to mystify her with the +most singular gravity upon every topic that was started. 'Poor Mary!' +said he, 'she hears all of an epigram but the point.' 'What are you +saying of me, Charles?' she asked. 'Mr. Willis,' said he, raising his +voice, 'admires _your_ "Confessions of a Drunkard" very much, and I was +saying it was no merit of yours that you understood the subject.' We had +been speaking of this admirable essay (which is his own) half an hour +before." + +That essay has been strangely and purposely misunderstood. Elia, albeit +he loved the cheerful glass, was not a drunkard. The "poor nameless +egotist" of the Confessions is not Charles Lamb. In printing the article +in the "London Magazine," (it was originally contributed to a collection +of tracts published by Basil Montagu,) Elia introduced it to the readers +of that periodical in the following explanatory paragraphs. They should +be printed in all editions of Elia as a note to the article they explain +and comment on. For many persons, like a writer in the London "Quarterly +Review" for July, 1822, believe, or profess to believe, that this +"fearful picture of the consequences of intemperance" is a true tale. +"How far it was from actual truth," says Talfourd, "the essays of Elia, +the production of a later day, in which the maturity of his feeling, +humor, and reason is exhibited, may sufficiently show." + +ELIA ON HIS "CONFESSIONS OF A DRUNKARD." + +"Many are the sayings of Elia, painful and frequent his lucubrations, +set forth for the most part (such his modesty!) without a name, +scattered about in obscure periodicals and forgotten miscellanies. From +the dust of some of these it is our intention occasionally to revive a +tract or two that shall seem worthy of a better fate, especially at a +time like the present, when the pen of our industrious contributor, +engaged in a laborious digest of his recent Continental tour, may haply +want the leisure to expatiate in more miscellaneous speculations. We +have been induced, in the first instance, to reprint a thing which +he put forth in a friend's volume some years since, entitled 'The +Confessions of a Drunkard,' seeing that Messieurs the Quarterly +Reviewers have chosen to embellish their last dry pages with fruitful +quotations therefrom; adding, from their peculiar brains, the gratuitous +affirmation, that they have reason to believe that the describer (in his +delineations of a drunkard, forsooth!) partly sat for his own picture. +The truth is, that our friend had been reading among the essays of a +contemporary, who has perversely been confounded with him, a paper in +which Edax (or the Great Eater) humorously complaineth of an inordinate +appetite; and it struck him that a better paper--of deeper interest, and +wider usefulness--might be made out of the imagined experiences of a +Great Drinker. Accordingly he set to work, and, with that mock fervor +and counterfeit earnestness with which he is too apt to over-realize +his descriptions, has given us a frightful picture indeed, but no more +resembling the man Elia than the fictitious Edax may be supposed to +identify itself with Mr. L., its author. It is, indeed, a compound +extracted out of his long observations of the effects of drinking upon +all the world about him; and this accumulated mass of misery he hath +centred (as the custom is with judicious essayists) in a single figure. +We deny not that a portion of his own experiences may have passed into +the picture, (as who, that is not a washy fellow, but must at some times +have felt the after-operation of a too generous cup?)--but then how +heightened! how exaggerated! how little within the sense of the Review, +where a part, in their slanderous usage, must be understood to stand for +the whole! But it is useless to expostulate with this Quarterly slime, +brood of Nilus, watery heads with hearts of jelly, spawned under the +sign of Aquarius, incapable of Bacchus, and therefore cold, washy, +spiteful, bloodless. Elia shall string them up one day, and show their +colors,--or rather, how colorless and vapid the whole fry,--when he +putteth forth his long-promised, but unaccountably hitherto delayed, +'Confessions of a Water-Drinker.'" + + * * * * * + +In turning over the leaves of divers old periodicals in search of the +"Religion of Actors," I accidentally and unexpectedly found an article +by Charles Lamb entitled, "On the Custom of Hissing at the Theatres, +with some Account of a Club of Damned Authors." + +Lamb, we know, was a great lover of the drama,--a true patron and +admirer of playwrights and play-actors. He was, perhaps, the greatest +theatrical critic that ever lived. Many of the happiest hours of his +life were passed in reading the works of the old English dramatists, and +in witnessing the performances of favorite actors. He once had hopes of +being a successful dramatist himself, and to that end devoted many of +his spare hours and odd moments to the composition of a tragedy. ("John +Woodvil,") which John Kemble, "the stately manager of Drury Lane," +refused to bring out. But not wholly discouraged by the ill success of +his tragedy, he tried his hand at a farce, and produced "Mr. H.," which, +to the author's exceeding great delight, was accepted by the manager of +Drury-Lane Theatre.[B] + +[Footnote B: Talfourd says that the acceptance of "Mr. H." gave Lamb +some of the happiest moments he ever spent.] + +To Manning, then sojourning among the Mandarins, he thus writes of "Mr. +H.":-- + +"Now you'd like to know the subject. The title is 'Mr. H.',--no more: +how simple! how taking! A great H sprawling over the play-bill, and +attracting eyes at every corner. The story is a coxcomb appearing at +Bath, vastly rich,--all the ladies dying for him, all bursting to know +who he is; but he goes by no other name than Mr. H.: a curiosity like +that of the dames of Strasburg about the man with the great nose. But I +won't tell you any more about it. Yes, I will; but I can't give you an +idea how I have done it. I'll just tell you, that, after much vehement +admiration, when his true name comes out, 'Hogsflesh,' all the women +shun him, avoid him, and not one can be found to change their name for +him: that's the idea: how flat it is here! but how whimsical in +the farce! And only think how hard upon me it is, that the ship is +despatched to-morrow, and my triumph cannot be ascertained till the +Wednesday after;--but all China will ring of it by-and-by." + +Would that Lamb's joyous and exultant anticipations of "Mr. H."'s +success had proved true! But, instead of being greeted with the applause +of pit and gallery, which would have stood Elia instead of "the unheard +voice of posterity," the piece was hissed and hooted from the stage. + +In a letter to Manning, written early in 1808, he thus, half humorously, +half pathetically, describes the reception the town gave "Mr. H.":-- + +"So I go creeping on since I was lamed with that cursed fall from off +the top of Drury-Lane Theatre into the pit, something more than a year +ago. However, I have been free of the house ever since, and the house +was pretty free with me upon that occasion. Hang 'em, how they hissed! +It was not a hiss neither, but a sort of a frantic yell, like a +congregation of mad geese, with roaring sometimes like bears, mows and +mops like apes, sometimes snakes, that hissed me into madness. 'Twas +like Saint Anthony's temptations. Mercy on us, that God should give his +favorite children, men, mouths to speak with, to discourse rationally, +to promise smoothly, to flatter agreeably, to encourage warmly, to +counsel wisely, to sing with, to drink with, and to kiss with, and that +they should turn them into mouths of adders, bears, wolves, hyenas, and +whistle like tempests, and emit breath through them like distillations +of aspic poison, to asperse and vilify the innocent labors of their +fellow-creatures who are desirous to please them! Heaven be pleased to +make the teeth rot out of them all, therefore! Make them a reproach, and +all that pass by them to loll out their tongue at them! Blind mouths! as +Milton somewhere calls them." + +If his farce had been--what "Gentleman Lewis," who was present on the +night of its performance, said, if he had had it, he would have made it, +by a few judicious curtailments--"the most popular little thing that +had been brought out for some time," Lamb would not have written the +following article. + +"ON THE CUSTOM OF HISSING AT THE THEATRES, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF A CLUB +OF DAMNED AUTHORS. + +"Mr. Reflector,--I am one of those persons whom the world has thought +proper to designate by the title of Damned Authors. In that memorable +season of dramatic failures, 1806-7, in which no fewer, I think, than +two tragedies, four comedies, one opera, and three farces suffered at +Drury-Lane Theatre, I was found guilty of constructing an afterpiece, +and was _damned_. + +"Against the decision of the public in such instances there can be no +appeal. The Clerk of Chatham might as well have protested against the +decision of Cade and his followers, who were then _the public_. Like +him, I was condemned because I could write. + +"Not but it did appear to some of us that the measures of the popular +tribunal at that period savored a little of harshness and of the +_summum jus_. The public mouth was early in the season fleshed upon +the 'Vindictive Man,' and some pieces of that nature, and it retained +through the remainder of it a relish of blood. As Dr. Johnson would have +said: Sir, there was a habit of sibilation in the house. + +"Still less am I disposed to inquire into the reason of the comparative +lenity, on the other hand, with which some pieces were treated, which, +to indifferent judges, seemed at least as much deserving of condemnation +as some of those which met with it. I am willing to put, a favorable +construction upon the votes that were given against us; I believe that +there was no bribery or designed partiality in the case;--only 'our +nonsense did not happen to suit their nonsense'; that was all. + +"But against the _manner_ in which the public on these occasions think +fit to deliver their disapprobation I must and ever will protest. + +"Sir, imagine--but you have been present at the damning of a +piece,--those who never had that felicity, I beg them to imagine--a vast +theatre, like that which Drury Lane was, before it was a heap of dust +and ashes, (I insult not over its fallen greatness; let it recover +itself when it can for me, let it lift up its towering head once +more, and take in poor authors to write for it; _hic coestus artemque +repono_,)--a theatre like that, filled with all sorts of disgusting +sounds,--shrieks, groans, hisses, but chiefly the last, like the noise +of many waters, or that which Don Quixote heard from the fulling-mills, +or that wilder combination of devilish sounds which Saint Anthony +listened to in the wilderness. + +"Oh, Mr. Reflector, is it not a pity, that the sweet human voice, which +was given man to speak with, to sing with, to whisper tones of love in, +to express compliance, to convey a favor, or to grant a suit,--that +voice, which in a Siddons or a Braham rouses us, in a Siren Catalani +charms and captivates us,--that the musical, expressive human voice +should be converted into a rival of the noises of silly geese, and +irrational, venomous snakes? + +"I never shall forget the sounds on _my night_; I never before that time +fully felt the reception which the Author of All Ill in the 'Paradise +Lost' meets with from the critics in the _pit_, at the final close of +his Tragedy upon the Human Race,--though that, alas! met with too much +success:-- + + "'from innumerable tongues, + A dismal universal _hiss_, the sound + Of public scorn. Dreadful was the din + Of _hissing_ through the hall, thick swarming now + With complicated monsters, head and tail, + Scorpion and asp, and Amphisbaena dire, + Cerastes horned, Hydrus, and Elops drear, + And Dipsas.' + +"For _hall_ substitute _theatre_, and you have the very image of what +takes place at what is called the _damnation_ of a piece,--and properly +so called; for here you see its origin plainly, whence the custom was +derived, and what the first piece was that so suffered. After this none +can doubt the propriety of the appellation. + +"But, Sir, as to the justice of bestowing such appalling, +heart-withering denunciations of the popular obloquy upon the venial +mistake of a poor author who thought to please us in the act of filling +his pockets,--for the sum of his demerits amounts to no more than +that,--it does, I own, seem to me a species of retributive justice far +too severe for the offence. A culprit in the pillory (bate the eggs) +meets with no severer exprobration. + +"Indeed, I have often wondered that some modest critic has not proposed +that there should be a wooden machine to that effect erected in some +convenient part of the _proscenium_, which an unsuccessful author should +be required to mount, and stand his hour, exposed to the apples and +oranges of the pit. This _amende honorable_ would well suit with the +meanness of some authors, who in their prologues fairly prostrate their +skulls to the audience, and seem to invite a pelting. + +"Or why should they not have their pens publicly broke over their +heads, as the swords of recreant knights in old times were, and an oath +administered to them that they should never write again? + +"Seriously, _Messieurs the Public_, this outrageous way which you have +got of expressing your displeasures is too much for the occasion. When +I was deafening under the effects of it, I could not help asking what +crime of great moral turpitude I had committed: for every man about me +seemed to feel the offence as personal to himself, as something which +public interest and private feelings alike called upon him in the +strongest possible manner to stigmatize with infamy. + +"The Romans, it Is well known to you, Mr. Reflector, took a gentler +method of marking their disapprobation of an author's work. They were a +humane and equitable nation. They left the _furca_ and the _patibulum_, +the axe and the rods, to great offenders: for these minor and (if I may +so term them) extra-moral offences _the bent thumb_ was considered as a +sufficient sign of disapprobation,--_vertere pollicem_; as _the pressed +thumb, premere pollicem_, was a mark of approving. + +"And really there seems to have been a sort of fitness in this method, +a correspondency of sign in the punishment to the offence. For, as +the action of writing is performed by bending the thumb forward, the +retroversion or bending back of that joint did not unaptly point to the +opposite of that action, implying that it was the will of the audience +that the author should _write no more:_ a much more significant, as +well as more humane, way of expressing-that desire, than our custom of +hissing, which is altogether senseless and indefensible. Nor do we find +that the Roman audiences deprived themselves, by this lenity, of any +tittle of that supremacy which audiences in all ages have thought +themselves bound to maintain over such as have been candidates for their +applause. On the contrary, by this method they seem to have had the +author, as we should express it, completely _under finger and thumb_. + +"The provocations to which a dramatic genius is exposed from the public +are so much the more vexatious as they are removed from any possibility +of retaliation, the hope of which sweetens most other injuries: for the +public _never writes itself_. Not but something very like it took place +at the time of the O.-P. differences. The placards which were nightly +exhibited were, properly speaking, the composition of the public. The +public wrote them, the public applauded them, and precious morceaux of +wit and eloquence they were,--except some few, of a better quality, +which it is well known were furnished by professed dramatic writers. +After this specimen of what the public can do for itself, it should be a +little slow in condemning what others do for it. + +"As the degrees of malignancy vary in people according as they have more +or less of the Old Serpent (the father of hisses) in their composition, +I have sometimes amused myself with analyzing this many-headed hydra, +which calls itself the public, into the component parts of which it is +'complicated, head and tail,' and seeing how many varieties of the snake +kind it can afford. + +"First, there is the Common English Snake.--This is that part of the +auditory who are always the majority at damnations, but who, having +no critical venom in themselves to sting them on, stay till they hear +others hiss, and then join in for company. + +"The Blind Worm is a, species very nearly allied to the foregoing. Some +naturalists have doubted whether they are not the same. + +"The Rattle--Snake.--These are your obstreperous talking critics,--the +impertinent guides of the pit,--who will not give a plain man leave to +enjoy an evening's entertainment, but, with their frothy jargon and +incessant finding of faults, either drown his pleasure quite, or force +him in his own defence to join in their clamorous censure. The hiss +always originates with these. When this creature springs his _rattle_, +you would think, from the noise it makes, there was something in it; but +you have only to examine the instrument from which the noise proceeds, +and you will find it typical of a critic's tongue,--a shallow membrane, +empty, voluble, and seated in the most contemptible part of the +creature's body. + +"The Whip-Snake.--This is he that lashes the poor author the next day in +the newspapers. + +"The Deaf Adder, or _Surda Echidna_ of Linnaeus.--Under this head may be +classed all that portion of the spectators (for audience they properly +are not) who, not finding the first act of a piece answer to their +preconceived notions of what a first act should be, like Obstinate in +John Bunyan, positively thrust their fingers in their ears, that they +may not hear a word of what is coming, though perhaps the very next act +may be composed in a style as different as possible, and be written +quite to their own tastes. These Adders refuse to hear the voice of the +charmer, because the tuning of his instrument gave them offence. + +"I should weary you, and myself too, if I were to go through all the +classes of the serpent kind. Two qualities are common to them all. They +are creatures of remarkably cold digestions, and chiefly haunt _pits_ +and low grounds. + +"I proceed with more pleasure to give you an account of a club to which +I have the honor to belong. There are fourteen of us, who are all +authors that have been once in our lives what is called _damned_. We +meet on the anniversaries of our respective nights, and make ourselves +merry at the expense of the public. The chief tenets which distinguish +our society, and which every man among us is bound to hold for gospel, +are,-- + +"That the public, or mob, in all ages, have been a set of blind, deaf, +obstinate, senseless, illiterate savages. That no man of genius, in his +senses, would be ambitious of pleasing such a capricious, ungrateful +rabble. That the only legitimate end of writing for them is to pick +their pockets, and, that failing, we are at full liberty to vilify and +abuse them as much as ever we think fit. + +"That authors, by their affected pretences to humility, which they made +use of as a cloak to insinuate their writings into the callous senses of +the multitude, obtuse to everything but the grossest flattery, have by +degrees made that great beast their master; as we may act submission to +children till we are obliged to practise it in earnest. That authors are +and ought to be considered the masters and preceptors of the public, +and not _vice versa_. That it was so in the days of Orpheus, Linus, +and Musaeus, and would be so again, if it were not that writers prove +traitors to themselves. That, in particular, in the days of the first of +those three great authors just mentioned, audiences appear to have been +perfect models of what audiences should be; for, though along with the +trees and the rocks and the wild creatures, which he drew after him to +listen to his strains, some serpents doubtless came to hear his music, +it does not appear that any one among them ever lifted up _a dissentient +voice_. They knew what was due to authors in those days. Now every stock +and stone turns into a serpent, and has a voice. + +"That the terms 'Courteous Reader' and 'Candid Auditors,' as having +given rise to a false notion in those to whom they were applied, as +if they conferred upon them some right, _which they cannot have,_ of +exercising their judgments, ought to be utterly banished and exploded. + +"These are our distinguishing tenets. To keep up the memory of the cause +in which we suffered, as the ancients sacrificed a goat, a supposed +unhealthy animal, to Aesculapius, on our feast-nights we cut up a goose, +an animal typical of _the popular voice_, to the deities of Candor and +Patient Hearing. A zealous member of the society once proposed that we +should revive the obsolete luxury of viper-broth; but the stomachs of +some of the company rising at the proposition, we lost the benefit of +that highly salutary and _antidotal dish_. + +"The privilege of admission to our club is strictly limited to such as +have been fairly _damned_. A piece that has met with ever so little +applause, that has but languished its night or two, and then gone out, +will never entitle its author to a seat among us. An exception to our +usual readiness in conferring this privilege is in the case of a writer +who, having been once condemned, writes again, and becomes candidate for +a second martyrdom. Simple damnation we hold to be a merit, but to be +twice-damned we adjudge infamous. Such a one we utterly reject, and +blackball without a hearing:-- + + "_The common damned shun his society._ + +"Hoping that your publication of our Regulations may be a means of +inviting some more members into our society, I conclude this long +letter. + +"I am, Sir, yours, SEMEL-DAMNATUS." + + * * * * * + + +DARK WAYS. + + "Tortured with winter's storms, and tossed with a tumultuous sea." + + +When God's curse forsook my country, it fell on me. I had been young +and heroic; I had fought well; what portion of the clock-work of Fate +had been allotted me I had utterly performed. Twelve years ago I became +a man and strove for my country's freedom; now she has attained her +heights without me, and I--what am I? A shapeless hulk, that stays in +the shadow, and that hates the world and the people of the world, and +verily the God above the world! + +"Fight!" whispered Father Anselmo, the young priest, to me, at my last +shrift; and fight I did. For from Italy's bosom I had drawn the strength +of sword-arm, hip, and thigh; and I vowed to lose that arm and life and +all that made life dear toward the trampling of oppressors from the +sacred place. + +My sun rose in storm, it continued in storm,--why not so have set? Why +not have died when swords swept their lightnings about me, when the +glorious thunders of battle rolled around and sulphurous blasts +enveloped, when the air was full of the bray of bugle and beat of drum, +of shout and shriek, exultation and agony? Why not have gone with the +crowd of souls reeking with daring and desire? Why, oh, why thus left +alone to wither? Why still hangs that sun above me, yet wrapt and veiled +and utterly obscured in thick, murk mists of sorrow and despair? + +Peace!--let me tell you my story. + +Since Father Anselmo--like all youth, whether under cowl, cap, or +crown--was a Liberal at heart, I had not wanted counsel; but when I +had told him all my yearnings and aspirations, had bared to him the +throbbings of my very thought, and he had replied in that one blessed +word, I hastened away. There were none to whom I should say farewell; +I was alone in the world. This wild blood of my veins ran in no other +veins; I knew thoroughly the wide freedom of solitude; the sins and +the virtues of my race, whatever they were, had culminated in me. As +I looked back, that morning, the castle, planted in a dimple of its +demesnes, old and gray and watched by purple peaks of Apennine, seemed +to hide its command only under the mask of silence. The wood through +which I went, with its alluring depths, the moss verdant in everlasting +spring beneath my eager feet, each bough I lifted, the blossoms that +blew their gales after, the bearded grasses that shook in the wind, all +gave me their secret sigh; all the sweet land around, the distant hill, +the distant shore, said, "Redeem me from my chains!" I came across a +sylvan statue, some faun nestled in the forest: the rains had stained, +frosts cracked, suns blistered it; but what of those? A vine covered +with thorns and stemmed with cords had wreathed about it and bound it +closely in serpent-coils. I stayed and tore apart the fetters till my +hands bled, cut away the twisting branches, and set the god free from +his bonds. Triumph rose to my lips, for I said, "So will I free my +country!" Ah, there was my error,--the shackling vines would grow again, +and infold the marble image that had consecrated the forest-glooms; +there is the flaw in all my work,--I have shorn, but have never uprooted +an evil. Youth is a fool; the young Titans cannot scale heaven,--heaven, +that, if what I live through be true, is ramparted round with tyrant +lies! But is it true? Am I what I seem to myself? Did I fail in my +purpose, in my will? Did Italy herself belie me? Did she, did she I +loved, she I worshipped, she the woman to whom I gave all, for whom I +sacrificed all, did she, too, forsake me? Ah, no! you will tell me Italy +is free. But I did not free her! She waits only to put on in Venice her +tiara. And for that other one, that fair Austrian woman, that devil whom +I serve and adore, that yellow-haired witch who brewed her incantations +in my holiest raptures,--she did not then play me foul, and falsely +feign love to win me to disgrace? May all the woes in Heaven's hands +fall on her! + +God! what have I said? That I should live to ban her with a word! Did I +say it? Oh, but it was vain! Woe for her? No, no! all blessings shower +upon her, sunshine attend her, peace and gladness dwell about her! +Traitress though she were, I must love her yet; I cannot unlove her; I +would take her into my heart, and fold my arms about her.--Oh, I pray +you do not look upon me with that mocking smile! Pity me, rather! pity +this wretched heart that longs to curse God and die!--Nay, I want not +your idle words. Can good destroy? Can love persecute? I was a worm that +turned. What then? Why not have crushed me to annihilation? Oh, no, not +that! He took me up and shook me before the world, clipped me, and let +me fall. A derisive Deity,--why, the words give each other the lie! + +Stop! Your sad eyes look as if you would go away, but for this infinite +pity in you. What makes you pity me? Because I am shorn of my strength? +because of all my fair proportions there is nothing left unshrivelled? +because my body--such as it is--is racked with hourly and perpetual +pain? because I die? For none of these? Truly, your judgments are +insenilable. For what then? Because,--yet, no, that cannot be,--because +I bear a stubborn heart? because I will not bend my soul as He has bent +my body? Partly,--but you are witless! What else? Because I toss off a +shield and buckler, you say. Because I will not lean upon a tower of +strength. Because I will not throw myself on the tide of divine love, +and trust myself to its course. It was that divine love, then, that +tower of strength, that shield and buckler, that made me this thing you +see. Tarpeia was enough. Away with your generalities! Go, go, you slave +of the past! + +Yet no,--you have not gone? You believe what you say,--I know with those +eyes you cannot deceive. Ah, but I trusted her eyes once! Yet it gives +you rest;--your sorrows are not like mine,--there is no rest for me. I +cannot go and gather that balm of Gilead,--I have no legs. I have as +good as none. This wheel-chair and that dog of a turnkey are not the +equipage for such a journey.--Ah, do not turn from me now! My railing is +worse than my cursing, you feel indeed. Well, stay with me at least, and +if it is twelve years since you shrived me at first, perhaps you shall +shrive me at last,--for I doubt if I am ever brought out to this +sunshine again, if I do not die in the prison-damps to-night,--and you, +with all your change, are Father Anshmo, I think.--Stay, I will confess +to you, confess this. Man! man! this infinite pity of your soul for mine +throws a light on my dark ways; God's curse has fallen on me through +man's curse, why not God's love through man's love? Anselmo, though you +became priest, and I went to become hero, we were children together; I +was dear to you then; I am so still, it seems. In your love let me find +the love of that Heaven I have defied.--Stay, friend, yet another word. +If man's love can be so great, what can God's love be? That which I +said I said, in desperation; in very truth, that peace hangs like an +unattainable city in the clouds before my soul's vision, that love like +a broad river flowing through the lands, an atmosphere bathing the +worlds, the subtile essence and ether of space in which the farthest +star pursues its course,--why, then, should it escape me, the mote? Oh, +when the world turned from me, I sought to flee thither! I sighed for +the rest there! Wretched, alone, I have wept in the dark and in the +light that I might go and fling myself at the heavenly feet. But, do you +see? sin has broken down the bridge between God and me. Yet why, +then, is sin in the world,--that scum that rises in the creation and +fermentation of good,--why, but _as_ a bridge on which to re-seek those +shores from which we wander? Man, I do repent me,--in loving you I +find God. And you call that blasphemy!--Nay, go, indeed, my friend! So +humble, you are not the man for me. I can talk to the winds: they, at +least, do not visit me too roughly. + +These are thy tears, Anselmo? Thou a priest, yet a man? Still with me? +Yet thou wilt have to bear with wayward moods,--scorn now, quiet then. I +am a tetchy man; I am an old man, too, though but just past thirty.--So! +I thank God for thee, dear friend! + + * * * * * + +Anselmo, look out on this scene below us here, as we sit on our lofty +battlement. Not on the turrets or the loopholes, the grates and spikes, +or all the fortified horror,--but on the earth. It is fair earth, though +not Italy; this is a mountain-fortress; here are all the lights and +shadows that play over grand hill-countries, and yonder are fields of +grain, where the winds and sunbeams play at storm, and a little hamlet's +sheltered valley. Doubtless there are towers, besides, half hidden in +the hills. It is Austria: slaves tread it, and tyrants drain it, it is +true,--but the wild, free gypsies troop now and then across it, and +though no fiction of law supports a claim they would scorn to make, they +use it so that you would swear they own it. Do you see how this iron +reticulation of social rule and custom and force makes a scaffolding on +which this tameless race build up their lives? I watch them often. Each +country has its compensations. Anselmo, this first made me tremble in +my petty defiance,--I, an ephemera of May, defying the dominations of +eternity!--Not so,--not too lowly; I also am, and each limitation of +life is as well, a domination of eternity. But I saw that it was no +purpose of God to have destroyed Italy; when men in weakness and +wantonness suffered their liberties to be torn from them, suffered +themselves to become enslaved, there was compensation in that their sons +had chance for heroic growth; they might, in efforts for freedom, create +virtues that, born to freedom, they would never have known. I, too, had +my field; I lost it; my enemy was myself. But when I think of her--Ay, +there it is! Do not let me think of her! I become mad, when I think of +her!--At least, allow me this: God's ways are dark. Not that? Not even +that? I needed what I have? If my ambitions, my passions, my will, had +ruled, my soul would have remained null? Ah, friend, and is that so much +the worse? It is the soul that aches!--I am a man of the people, a +man who acts,--I _was_, I mean,--not a man who thinks; and all your +subtleties of word perchance entrap me. I am not wary when you come to +logic. See! I surrender point after point. I shall be dead soon, you +know; when this morning's sun shave have set, when the moon shall hold +the night in fee, I shall depart,--wing up and away;--is it, that, my +body already dead, my mind sickens and dies with it, bit after bit, and +so I yield, and attest, that, without the agony of my life, death had +failed to burst my soul's husk? Oh, for I was born of an earthy race, +blood ran thick in our veins, we were sensuous and passionate, the +breath and steam of pleasure stifled our brains, and our filmy eyes +could not see heaven. Yes, yes, I needed it all; but, friend, it is +pitiful. + + * * * * * + +I like to sit here in the sun. It is only a twelvemonth, of all my long +years' imprisonment, that this has been allowed me. I like to sleep in +it, like any wild creature,--the lizard, a mere reptile,--the bird, a +hindered soul. To lie thus, weak as I am, but pillowed and warmed by the +searching genial rays, seems such comfort, when I think of the bed I +once had on the rack! This little slumber from which I wake revives me. +I feared not to find you, and did not unclose my eyes at once. It was +good in you to come, Anselmo; it must have been at risk of much. + +You ask me to speak of my life since I went away on that morning of +your command,--to reconcile the hostile acts, to gather the scattered +reports. Hear it all! + +You know my wealth was equal to my demand. I used it; before six +months were over, I was the life and soul of those who must needs be +conspirators. They saw that I was earnest, that my sacrifices were real; +they trusted me. Soon the movement had become general; all the smothered +elements of national life were convulsed and throbbing under the crust +of tyranny. + +How proud and glad was I that morning after our victory! I saw great +Italy, beautiful Italy, once more put on her diadem; I beheld the future +prospect of one broad, free land, barriered by Alps and set impregnably +in summer seas, storied seas, keys of the West and East. We embraced +each other as brothers of this glorious nation, ancient Rome risen from +trance; as we walked the streets, we sang; Milan was turbulent with +gladness; no gala-day was ever half so bright; the very spires appeared +to spring in the white radiance of their flames up a deeper heaven; the +sun stayed at perpetual dawn for us. Walking along, jubilant and daring, +at length we paused in a square where a fountain dashed up its column of +sunshine, and laved our hands. By Heaven! We forgot independence, Italy, +freedom; we were crazed with success and hope; it seemed that the stream +was Austrian blood! Then, in the midst of all, I looked up,--and on a +balcony she stood. A fair woman, with hair like shredded light, her +great blue eyes wide and full and of intense dye, her nostril distended +with pride, and fear and hate of us,--but on the full lips, ripe with +crimson bloom, juicy and young and fresh, on those Love lay. The others +wound forward,--I with them, yet apart; and my eyes became fixed on +hers. Then I lifted my cap with its tricolor. She did not return the +courtesy, but stood as if spellbound, one hand threading back the +straying hair, the lips a little parted; suddenly she turned to fly, +that hand upraised to the casement's side, and still, as she looked +back, the beautiful eyes on mine. My companions had preceded me; we were +alone in the square; she wavered as she stood, then tore a rose from her +bosom, kissed it deep into its heart, and tossed it to me. + +"Let all its petals be joys!" I said, and she vanished. + +Oh, friend, the leaves have fallen, the rose is dead! Look! I have kept +it through all,--sear leaf and withered spray! + +That night we danced; and the Austrian girl was there. They told me she +was exiled, and that she loved liberty; no one told me she was a spy. I +saw her swim along the dance, the white satin of her raiment flashing +perpetual interchange of lustrous and obscure, the warm air playing in +the lace that fell like the spray of the fountain round her golden hair +and over her pearly shoulder; grace swept in all her motions, beauty +crowned her, she seemed the perfect, pitch of womanhood. + +Still she swims along the lazy line with indolent pleasure, still floats +in dreamy waltz-circles perchance, still bends to the swaying tune +as the hazel-branch bonds to the hidden treasure,--but as for me, my +dancing days are over. + +By-and-by it was I with whom she danced, whose hand she touched, on whom +she leaned. I wondered if there were any man so blest; I listened to her +breath, I watched her cheek, our eyes met, and I loved her. The music +grew deeper, more impassioned; we stood and listened to it,--for she +danced then no more,--our hearts beat time to it, the wind wandering at +the casement played in its measure; we said no words, but now and then +each sought the other's glance, and, convicted there, turned in sudden +shame away. When I bade her good-night, which I might never have done +but that the revel broke, a great curl of her hair blew across my lips. +I was bold,--I was heated, too, with this half-secret life of my heart, +this warm blood that went leaping so riotously through my veins, and yet +so silently,--I took my dagger from my belt and severed the curl. See, +friend! will you look at it? It is like the little gold snakes of the +Campagna, is it not? each thread, so fine and fair, a separate ray of +light: once it was part of her! See how it twists round my hand! Haste! +haste! let me put it up, lest I go mad!--Where was I? + +I busied myself again in the work to be done; because of our victory we +must not rest; once more all went forward. I saw the Austrian woman only +from a window, or in a church, or as she walked in the gardens, for many +days. Then the times grew hotter; I left the place, and lived with stern +alarums; and thither she also came. I never sought what sent her. She +was with the wounded, with the dying. Then the need of her was past, and +she and all the others took their way. At length that also came to an +end. + +We were in Rome,--and thither, some time previously, she had gone. + +One night, our business for the day was over, our plans for the morrow +laid, our messages received, our messengers despatched, and those who +had been conspirators and now bade fair to be saviours were sleeping. +Sleep seemed to fold the world; each bough and twig was silent in +repose; the spectral moonlight itself slept as it bathed the air. I +alone wandered and waked. With me there were too many cares for rest; +work kept me on the alert; to court slumber at once was not easy after +the nervous tension of duty. I was torn, too, with conflicting feelings: +half my soul went one way in devotion to my country, half my soul +swerved to the other as I thought of the Austrian woman. I grew tired of +the streets and squares; something that should be fragrant and bowery +attracted me. I mounted on the broken water-god of a dry bath and leaped +a garden-wall. + +No sooner was I there than I knew why I had come. This was her garden. + +Heart of Heaven! how all things spoke of her! How the great white roses +hung their doubly heavy heads and poured their perfume out to her! how +the sprays shivered as T spoke the name she owned! how the nightingales +ceased for a breath their warbling as she rustled down a fragrant path +and met me! All her hair was swept back in one great mass and held by an +ivory comb; a white cloak wrapped her white array; she was jewel-less +and stripped of lustre; she was like pearl, milky as a shell, white as +the moonlight that followed in her wake. + +"You breathed my name,--I came," she said. + +"Pardon!" I replied. "I heard the fountains dash and the nightingales +sing, and I but came for rest under the spell." + +"And have you found it?" + +"I have found it." + +We remained silent then, while floods of passion gathered and lay darkly +still in our hearts. No, no! I know now that it was not so; yet I will +tell it, tell it all, as I thought it then. + +She did not stir; indeed, she had such capability of rest, that, had I +not spoken, she would never have stirred, it may be. She knew that my +glance was upon her; for herself, she looked at the broad lilies that +grew at her feet, and listened to the melody that seemed to bubble from +a thousand throats with interfluent sound upon the night. It was her +repose that soothed me: moulded clay is not so calm, the marble rose of +silence not half so beautifully folded to dreamful rest, so lovely +and so still no garden-statue could have been; the cool, soft night +infiltrated its tranquillity through all her being. + +As we stood, the nightingales gave us capricious pause; one alone, +distant and clear, fluted its faint piping like the phantom of the +finished strain. Another sound broke the air and floated along on this +too delicious accompaniment: music, fine and far. Some other lover sang +to her his serenade. The voice in its golden sonority rose and crept +toward her with persuading sweetness, winding through all the alleys and +hovering over the plots of greenery with a tranquil strength, as if such +song were but the natural spirit of the night, or as if the soul of the +broad calm and silence itself had taken voice. + + "Thy beauty, like a star + Whose life is light, + Shines on me from afar. + And on the night. + + "Each midnight blossom bends + With sweetest weight, + And to thy casement sends + Its fragrant freight. + + "Each, air that faintly curls + About thy nest + Its daring pinion furls + Within thy breast. + + "The night is spread for thee, + The heavens are wide, + And the dark earth's mystery + Is magnified. + + "For thee the garden waits, + The hours delay, + The fountains toss their jets + Of shimmering spray. + + "Then leave thy dim delight + In dreams above, + Come forth, and crown the night + With her I love!" + +She listened, but did not lift her head or suffer the change of a fold; +then there came the tinkle of the strings that embalmed the tune, and +the singer's steps grew soundless as he left the street. A new phantasm +crept upon me. What right had any other man to sing to her his +love-songs? Did she not live, was not her beauty created, her soul +given, for me? Did not the very breath she drew belong to me? My voice, +hoarse and husky, disturbed the stillness, my eyes flamed on her. + +"Do you love that man who sang?" I murmured. + +"Signor, I love you," she said. + +Then we were silent as before, but she stood no longer alone and +opposite. One passionate step, an outstretched arm, and her head on my +bosom, my lips bent to hers. + +All the nightingales burst forth in choral redundance of song, all the +low winds woke and fainted again through the balmy boughs, all the great +stars bent out of heaven to shed their sweet influences upon us. + +It seemed to me that in that old palace-garden life began, my memory +went out in confused joy. I held her, she was mine! mine, mine, in life +and for eternity! Fool! it was I who was hers! Man, you are a priest, +and must not love. I, too, was sworn a priest to my country. So we break +oaths! + +O moments of swift bliss, why are you torture to remember? Let me not +think how the night slipped into dawn as we roamed, how pale gold +filtered through the darkness and bleached the air, how bird after bird +with distant chirrup and breaking time announced the day. She left me, +and as well it might be night. I wound a strange way home. I questioned +if it were the dream of a fevered brain; I wondered, would she remember +when next she saw me? None met with me that day; I forgot all. With the +night I again waited in the garden. In vain I waited; she came no more. +I waxed full of love's anger, I crushed the tendril and the vine, I +wandered up and down the walks and cursed these thorns that tore my +heart. As I went, an angle of the shrubbery allured; I turned, and lo! +full radiance from open doors, and silvery sounds of sport. I leaned +against the ilex, lost in shadow, and watched her as she stirred and +floated there before me in the light. She seemed to carry with her an +atmosphere of warmth and brilliance; all things were ordered as she +moved; one throng melted before her, another followed. By-and-by +she stood at the long casement to seek acquaintance with the night. +Constantly I thought to meet her eye, and I would not reflect that she +saw only dusk and vacancy. Then indignantly I stepped from the ilex and +confronted her. A low, glad cry escapes her lips, she holds her arms +toward me and would cross the sill, when a voice constrains her from +within. It is he, the accursed Neapolitan. + +"Signor," she says, "a vampire flitted past the dawn." + +Dawn indeed was breaking. The man still stood there when she left him, +and still looked out; his eyes lay on me, and irate and motionless +I returned their gaze. One by one her guests departed; with a last +threatening glance, he, too, withdrew. I plunged into the silent places +again, and waited now, assured that she would come. The constellations +paled, and still I was alone. Then I wandered restlessly again, and, +winding through thickets of leaf-distilled perfume, I came where just +above a balcony, and almost beyond reach from it, a light burned dimly +in one narrow window. I did not ask myself why I did it, but in another +moment I had clambered to the place, and, standing there, I bent forward +to my right, pulled away the tangle of ivy that filled half the niche, +and was peering in. + +"What is that?" said a voice I knew, with its silvery echo of the South, +the accursed Neapolitan's. + +"It is the owl that builds in the recess, and stirs the ivy," she +replied. + +"Haste!" said a third,--"the day breaks." + +She was sitting at a low table, writing; Pia, the old nurse, stood +behind her chair; the oil was richly scented that she burned; the +single light illumined only her, and covered with her shadow the low +ceiling,--a shadow that seemed to hang above her like a pall ready to +fall from ghostly fingers and smother her in its folds; the others +lounged about the room and waited on her pen, in gloom they, their faces +gleaming from that dusk demoniacly. It was a concealed room, entered by +secret ways, unknown to others than these. + +When she had written, she sealed. + +"There is no more to await. Adieu," she said. + +"It is some transfer of property, some legal paper, some sale, some +gift," I said to myself, as I watched them take it and depart. Then she +was alone again. I saw her start up, pace the narrow spot,--saw her +stand and pull down the masses, so interspersed with golden light, that +crowned her head, and look at them wonderingly as they overlay her +fingers,--then saw those fingers clasped across the eyes, and the +lips part with a sigh that, prolonged and deepened, grew to be a +groan,--while all the time that shadow on the ceiling hovered and +fluttered and grew still, till it seemed the cluster of Eumenides +waiting to pounce on its prey. In another pause I had taken the perilous +step, had hung by the crumbling rock, the rending vine, had entered and +was beside her. A cold horror iced her face; she warned me away with her +trembling hands. + +"What have you seen?" she said. + +"You, O my love, in grief." + +"And no more?" + +"I have seen you give a letter to the Neapolitan, who departs to-morrow +with the little Viennois,--perhaps to your friends at home." + +"And that is all?" + +"That is all." + +"I have no friends at home. To whom, then, could the letter be?" + +"How should I divine?" + +"It was for the Austrian Government! Now love me, if you dare!" + +"And do you suppose I did not know it?" + +"Then is your love for me but a shield and mask?" + +As I gazed in reply, my steady eyes, the soul that kindled my smile, my +open arms, all must have asseverated for me the truth of my devotion. + +"Still?" she said. "Still? And you can keep your faith to me and to +Italy?" + +What was this doubt of me, this stain she would have cast upon my honor? +That armor's polish was too intense to sustain it; it rolled off like +a cloud from heaven. Italy's fortunes were _my_ fortunes; it was +impossible for me to betray them; this woman I would win to wed them. +How long, how long my blood had felt this thing in her! how long my +brain had rebelled! In a proud innocence, I stood with folded arms, and +could afford to smile. + +"Stay!" she said again, after our mute gaze, and laying her hand upon my +arm. "You shall not love me in vain, you shall not trust me for nothing. +Your cause is mine to-day. That is the last message I send to Vienna." + +And then I believed her. + +The light, slanting up, crept in and touched the brow of an ideal bust +of Mithras which she had invested with her faintly-faded wreath of +heliotropes; their fragrance falling through the place already made the +atmosphere more rich than that of chest of almond-wood,--this perfume +that is like the soul of the earth itself exhaled to the amorous air. +Behind an alabaster shrine she lighted a holy-taper, slowly to waste +and pale in the spreading day. We went to the window, where among the +ivy-nooks day's life was just astir with gaudy wings. + +"All will be seeking you, and yet you cannot go," she said. + +"Why can I not go?" + +"It is broad morning." + +"And what of that?" + +"One thing. You shall not compromise yourself, going from the house of +an Austrian woman and worse!" + +She was too winningly imperious to fail. I delayed, and together we +looked out on the rosy sky. + +"Come down," she said at last, "and on an arbor-moss the sun shall +drowse you, the flower-scents be your opiates, the birds your lullaby, +and I your guard." + +We went, and, wandering again through the garden-paths, she brushed +the dew with her trailing festal garments, and plucked the great blue +convolvuli to crown her forehead. Soon, on a plot of Roman violets, +screened by tall trees and trellises, we breakfasted. One might have +said that the cloth was laid above giant mushroom-stems, the service +acorn-cups and calices of milky blooms; golden was the honey-comb we +broke, manna was our bread; she caught the water in her hand from the +fountain and pledged me, and swift as sunshine I bent forward and +prevented the thirsty lips. Then she laid my head on her shoulder, with +her cool finger-tips she stroked the temples and soothed the lids, +they fell and closed on the vision bending above me,--loveliness like +painting, pallor that was waxen, yellow tresses wreathed with azure +stars, eyes that caught the hue again and absorbed all Tyrian dyes. + +The plash and bubble of waters swooned dreamily about my ears, and far +off it seemed I heard the wild, sad songs of her native land, that now +in tinkling tune, and now in long, slow rise and fall of mellow sound, +swathed me with sweet satiety to dreamless rest. + +The sun stole round and rose above the screen of trees at last and woke +me. I was alone, the silent statues looked on me, the breath of the dark +violets crushed by my weight rose in shrouding incense. I lifted myself +and searched for her, and asked why I must needs believe each hour of +joy a dream,--then went and cooled my brow in the lucent basin at hand, +and waited till she came, in changed raiment, and gliding toward me as +the Spirit of Noon might have come. She led me in, well refreshed, and +in the cool north rooms of the palace the warm hours of the day slipped +like beads from a leash. It scarcely seemed her fingers that touched the +harp to tune, but as if some herald of sirocco, some faint, hot breeze, +had brushed between the strings. It scarcely seemed her voice that +talked to me, but something distant as the tone in a sad sea-shell. What +I said I knew not; I was in a maze, bewildered with bliss; I only knew I +loved her, I only felt my joy. + +She told me many things: stories of her mountain-home, in distant view +of the old fortress of Hellberg,--this is the fortress of Hellberg, +Anselmo,--of her youth, her maidenhood, her life in Vienna, her lovers +in Venice, her health, that had sent her finally there where we sat +together. + +"I thought it sad," she said at length, "when they exiled me, so to +say, from Vienna and all my gay career there, because Venice, with its +water-breaths, might heal my attainted health,--and sadder when the +winter bade me leave night-tides and gondolas and repair to Rome. Now +spring has come, and all the hills are blue with these deep violets, +the very air is balm, the year is at flood, and life at what seems its +height is perfected with you." + +"But you love that land you left?" I replied, after a while, and lifting +her face to meet my gaze. + +"Love it? Oh, yes! You love your land as you love a person in whose +veins and yours kindred blood runs, because it is hardly possible to do +otherwise. The land gave me life, that is all; I never knew till lately +that it was anything to be thankful for. It is not sufficiently a +_country_ to kindle enthusiasm; it has no national life, you know,--is +an automaton put through its motions by paid and cunning mechanists. +I thought it right to obey orders and serve it. But now _you_ are my +country,--I serve only you." + +It was easy so to pass to my own hopes, to my own life, to my land, the +land to which I had vowed the last drop of blood in my gift. Her eyes +beamed upon me, smiles rippled over her face, she clasped me now and +then and sealed my brow with kisses. Soon I left her side and strode +from end to end of the long _salon_, speaking eagerly of the future that +opened to Italy. I told her how the beautiful corpse lay waiting its +resurrection, and how the Angel of Eternal Life hovered with spreading +wings above, ready to sound his general trump. My pulses beat like +trip-hammers, and as I passed a mirror I saw myself white with the +excitement that fired me. + +"You are wild with your joyous emotion," she said, coming forward and +clinging round me. "Your eyes flame from depths of darkness. What, after +all, is Italy to you, that your blood should boil in thinking of her +wrongs? These people, for whom in your terrible magnanimity, I feel that +you would sacrifice even me, to-morrow would turn and rend you!" + +"No, no!" I answered. "All things but you! You, you, are before my +country!" + +The tears filled her large, serious eyes, her lips quivered in +melancholy smile, as sunshine plays with shower over autumn woodlands. +Was I not right? Right, though the universe declare me wrong! I would do +it all again; if she loved me, she had authority to be first of all in +my care; in love lie the highest duties of existence. + +I had forgotten the subject on which we spoke; I was thinking only of +her, her beauty, her tenderness, and the debt of deathless devotion that +I owed her. It was otherwise in her thought; she had not dropped the old +thread, but, looking up, resumed. + +"It is, then, an idea that you serve?" + +Brought back from my reverie, "Could I serve a more worthy master?" I +asked. + +"You do not particularly love your countrymen, nine-tenths of whom +you have never seen? You do not particularly hate the hostile race, +nine-tenths of whom you have never seen?" + +"Abstractly, I hate them. Kindliness of heart prevents individual +hatred, and without kindliness of heart in the first place there can be +no pure patriotism." + +"And for the other part. What do you care for these men who herd in the +old tombs, raise a pittance of vetch, and live the life of brutes? what +for the lazzaroni of Naples, for the brigands of Romagua, the murderers +of the Apennine? Nay, nothing, indeed. It is, then, for the land that +you care, the mere face of the country, because it entombs myriad +ancestors, because it is familiar in its every aspect, because it +overflows with abundant beauty. But is the land less fair when foreign +sway domineers it? do the blossoms cease to crowd the gorge, the mists +to fill it with rolling color? is the sea less purple around you, the +sky less blue above, the hills, the fields, the forests, less lavishly +lovely?" + +"Yes, the land is less fair," I said. "It is a fair slave. It loses +beauty in the proportion of difference that exists between any two +creatures,--the one a slave of supple symmetry and perfect passivity, +the other a daring woman who stands nearer heaven by all the height of +her freedom. And for these people of whom you speak, first I care for +them because they _are_ my countrymen,--and next, because the idea which +I serve is a purpose to raise them into free and responsible agents." + +"Each man does that for himself; no one can do it for another." + +"But any one may remove the obstacles from another's way, scatter the +scales from the eyes of the blind, strip the dead coral from the reef." + +She took yellow honeysuckles from a vase of massed amethyst and began to +weave them in her yellow hair,--humming a tune, the while, that was full +of the subtilest curves of sound. Soon she had finished, and finished +the fresh thought as well. + +"Do you know, my own," she said, "the men who begin as hierophants of +an idea are apt to lose sight of the pure purpose, and to become the +dogged, bigoted, inflexible, unreasoning adherents of a party? All +leaders of liberal movements should beware how far they commit +themselves to party-organizations. Only that man is free. It is easier +to be a partisan than a patriot." + +I laughed. + +"Lady, you are like all women who talk politics, however capable they +may be of acting them. You immediately beg the question. We are +speaking of patriotism, not of partisanship." + +"You it was who forsook the subject. You know nothing about it; you +confess that it is with you merely a blind instinct; you cannot tell me +even what patriotism is." + +"Stay!" I replied. "All love is instinct in the germ. Can you define the +yearnings that the mother feels toward her child, the tie that binds son +to father? Then you can define the sentiment that attaches me to the +land from whose breast I have drawn life. The love of country is more +invisible, more imponderable, more inappreciable than the electricity +that fills the air and flows with perpetual variation from pole to pole +of the earth. It is as deep, as unsearchable, as ineffable as the power +which sways me to you. It is the sublimation of other affection. A +portion of you has always gone out into the material spot where you have +been, a portion of that has entered you, your past life is entwined with +river and shore. You become the country, and the country becomes a part +of God. Those who love their country, love the vast abstraction, can +almost afford not to love God. She is a beneficence, she is a shield, +something for which to do and die, something for worship, ideal, grand; +and though the sky is their only roof, the earth their only bed, +affluent are they who have a land! Passion rooted deeply as the +foundations of the hills: a man may adore one woman, but in adoring his +land the aggregation of all men's love for all other women overwhelms +him and accentuates to a fuller emotion. It is unselfish, impersonal, +sheer sentiment clarified at its white heat from all interest and +deceit, the noblest joy, the noblest sorrow. Bold should they be, and +pure as the priests who bore the ark, that dare to call themselves +patriots. And those, Lenore, who live to see their country's hopeless +ruin, plunge into a sadness at heart that no other loss can equal, no +remaining blessing mitigate,--neither the devotion of a wife nor the +perfection of a child. You have seen exiles from a lost land? Pride is +dead in them, hope is dead, ambition is dead, joy is dead. Tell me, +would you choose me to suffer the personal loss of love and you, a loss +I could hide in my aching soul, or to bear those black marks of gall and +melancholy which forever overshadow them in widest grief and gloom?" + +She had sunk upon a seat, and was looking up at me with a pained +unwavering glance, as if in my words she foresaw my fate. + +"You are too intense!" she cried. "Your tones, your eyes, your gestures, +make it an individual thing with you." + +"And so it is!" I exclaimed. "I cannot sleep in peace, nor walk upon the +ways, while these Austrian bayonets take my sunshine, these threatening +approaching French banners hide the fair light of heaven!" + +"Come," she said, rising. "Speak no more. I am tired of the burden of +the ditty, dear; and it may do you such injury yet that already I hate +it. Come out again into our garden with me. Dismiss these cares, these +burning pains and rankling wounds. Be soothed by the cool evening air, +taste the gorgeous quiet of sunset, gather peace with the dew." + +So we went. I trusted her the more that she differed from me, that then +she promised to love Italy only because _I_ loved it. I told her my +secret schemes, I took her advice on points of my own responsibility, I +learned the joy of help and confidence in one whom you deem devotedly +true. Finally we remained without speech, stood long heart to heart +while the night fell around us like a curtain; her eyes deepened from +their azure noon-splendor and took the violet glooms of the hour, a +great planet rose and painted itself within them; again and again I +printed my soul on her lips ere I left her. + +At first, when I was sure that I was once more alone in the streets, +I could not shake from myself the sense of her presence. I could not +escape from my happiness, I was able to bring my thought to no other +consideration. I reached home mechanically, slept an hour, performed the +routine of bath and refreshment, and sought my former duties. But how +changed seemed all the world to me! what air I breathed! in what light I +worked! Still I felt the thrilling pressure of those kisses on my lips, +still those dear embraces! + +So days passed on. I worked faithfully for the purpose to which I was +so utterly committed that let that be lost and I was lost! We were +victorious; after the banner fell in Lombardy to soar again in Venice +and to sink, the Republic struggled to life; Rome rose once more on her +seven hills, free and grand, child and mother of an idea, the idea of +national unity, of independence and liberty from Tyrol to Sicily. My +God! think of those dear people who for the first time said, "We have a +country!" + +Yet how could we have hoped then to continue? Such brief success dazzled +us to the past. Piedmont had long since struck the key-note of Italy's +fortunes. As Charles Albert forsook Milan and suffered Austria once more +to mouth the betrayed land and drip its blood from her heavy jaws, till +in a baptism of redder dye he absolved himself from the sin,--so woe +heaped on woe, all came to crisis, ruin, and loss,--the Republic fell, +Rome fell, the French entered. + +Our names had become too famous, our heroic defence too familiar, for us +to escape unknown: the Vascello had not been the only place where youth +fought as the lioness fights for her whelps. Many of us died. Some fled. +Others, and I among them, remained impenetrably concealed in the midst +of our enemies. Weeks then dragged away, and months. New schemes chipped +their shell. Again the central glory of the land might rise revealed to +the nations. We never lost courage; after each downfall we rose like +Antaeus with redoubled strength from contact with the beloved soil, for +each fall plunged us farther into the masses of the people, into closer +knowledge of them and kinder depths of their affection, and so, learning +their capabilities and the warmth of their hearts and the strength of +their endurance, we became convinced that freedom was yet to be theirs. +Meanwhile, you know, our operations were shrouded in inscrutable +secrecy; the French held Rome in frowning terror and subjection; the +Pope trembled on his chair, and clutched it more franticly with his weak +fingers: it was not even known that we, the leaders, were now in the +city; all supposed us to be awaiting quietly the turn of events, in some +other land. As if we ourselves were not events, and Italy did not hang +on our motions! But, as I said, all this time we were at work; our +emissaries gave us enough to do: we knew what spoil the robbers in the +March had made, the decree issued in Vienna, the order of the day in +Paris, the last word exchanged between the Cardinals, what whispers were +sibilant in the Vatican; we mined deeper every day, and longed for the +electric stroke which should kindle the spark and send princes and +principalities shivered widely into atoms. But, friend, this was not +to be. We knew one thing more, too: we knew at last that we also were +watched,--when men sang our songs in the echoing streets at night, and +when each of us, and I, chief of all, renewed our ancient fame, and +became the word in every one's mouth, so that old men blessed us in the +way as we passed, wrapt, we had thought, in safe disguise, and crowds +applauded. Thus again we changed our habits, our rendezvous, our +quarters, and again we eluded suspicion. + +There came breathing-space. I went to her to enjoy it, as I would have +gone with some intoxicating blossom to share with her its perfume,--with +any band of wandering harpers, that together our ears might be +delighted. I went as when, utterly weary, I had always gone and rested +awhile with her I loved in the sweet old palace-garden: I had my ways, +undreamed of by army or police or populace. There had I lingered, +soothed at noon by the hum of the bee, at night by that spirit that +scatters the dew, by the tranquillity and charm of the place, ever +rested by her presence, the repose of her manner, the curve of her +dropping eyelid, so that looking on her face alone gave me pleasant +dreams. + +Now, as I entered, she threw down her work,--some handkerchief for her +shoulders, perhaps, or yet a banner for those unrisen men of Rome, +I said,--a white silk square on which she had wrought a hand with a +gleaming sickle, reversed by tall wheat whose barbed grains bent full +and ripe to the reaper, and round the margin, half-pictured, wound the +wild hedge-roses of Paestum. She threw it down and came toward me in +haste, and drew me through an inner apartment. + +"He has returned, they say," she said presently,--mentioning the +Neapolitan,--"and it would be unfortunate, if you met." + +"Unfortunate for _him_, if we met here!" + +"How fearless! Yet he is subtler than the snake in Eden. I fear him as I +detest him." + +"Why fear him?" + +"That I cannot tell. Some secret sign, some unspeakable intuition, +assures me of injury through him." + +"Dearest, put it by. The strength of all these surrounding leagues with +their swarm does not flow through his wrist, as it does through mine. He +is more powerless than the mote in the air." + +"You are so confident!" she said. + +"How can I be anything else than confident? The very signs in the sky +speak for us, and half the priests are ours, and the land itself is an +oath. Look out, Lenore! Look down on these purple fields that so sweetly +are taking nightfall; look on these rills that braid the landscape and +sing toward the sea; see yonder the row of columns that have watched +above the ruins of their temple for centuries, to wait this hour; behold +the heaven, that, lucid as one dome of amethyst, darkens over us and +blooms in star on star;--was ever such beauty? Ah, take this wandering +wind,--was ever such sweetness? And since every inch of earth +is historic,--since here rose glory to fill the world with wide +renown,--since here the heroes walked, the gods came down,--since Oreads +haunt the hill, and Nereids seek the shore"-- + +"Whereabout do Nereids seek the shore?" she archly asked. + +"Why, if you must have data," I answered, laughing, "let us say Naples." + +"What is that you have to say of Naples?" demanded a voice in the +door-way,--and turning, I confronted the Neapolitan. + +She had started back at the abrupt apparition, and before she could +recover, stung by rage and surprise I had replied,-- + +"What have I to say of Naples? That its tyrant walks in blood to his +knees!" + +A man, I, with my hot furies, to be intrusted with the commonwealth! + +"I will trouble you to repeat that sentence at some day," he said. + +"Here and now, if you will!" I uttered, my hand on my hilt. + +"Thanks. Not here and now. It will answer, if you remember it _then_.--I +hope I see Her Highness well. Pardon this little _brusquerie_, I pray. +The southern air is kind to loveliness: I regret to bring with me Her +Highness's recall." + +She replied in the same courteous air, inquired concerning her +acquaintance, and ordered lights,--took the letter he brought, and held +it, still sealed, in the taper's flame till it fell in ashes. + +"Signor," she said, lifting the white atoms of dust and sifting them +through her fingers, "you may carry back these as my reply." + +"Nay, I do not return," he answered. "And, Signorina, many things are +pardoned to one in--your condition. Recover your senses, and you will +find this so among others." + +Then, as coolly as if nothing had happened, he spoke of the affairs +of the day, the tendency of measures, the feeling of the people, and +finally rose, kissed her hand, and departed. He was joined without by +the little Viennois, and the accursed couple sauntered down the street +together. I should have gone then,--the place was no longer safe for +me,--but something, the old spell, yet detained me. + +Lenore did not speak, but threw open all the windows and doors that were +closed. + +"Let us be purified of his presence, at least!" she cried, when this was +done. + +"And you have ceased to fear this man whom you have dared so offend?" I +asked. + +"He is not offended," said Lenore. "Austria is not Naples. He will not +transmit my reply till he is utterly past hope." + +"Hope of what?" + +"Of my hand." + +"Lenore! Then put him beyond hope now! Become my wife!" + +"Ah,--if it were less unwise"-- + +"If you loved me, Lenore, you would not think of that." + +"And you doubt it? Why should I, then, say again that I love you,--I +love you?" + +Ah, friend, how can I repeat those words? Never have I given her +endearments again to the air: sacred were they then, sacred now, however +false. Ah, passionate words! oh, sweet _issimos!_ tender intonations! +how deeply, how deeply ye lie in my soul! Let me repeat but one +sentence: it was the, key to my destiny. + +"Yes, yes," she said, rising from my arms, "already I do you injury. You +think oftener of me than of Italy." + +It was true. I sprang to my feet and began pacing the floor, as I sought +to recall any instance in which I had done less than I might for my +country. The cool evening-breeze, and the bell-notes sinking through +the air from distant old campaniles, soothed my tumult, and, turning, I +said,-- + +"My devotion to you sanctifies my devotion to her. And not only for her +own sake do I work, but that you, you, Lenore, may have a land where no +one is your master, and where your soul may develop and become perfect." + +"And those who have not such object, why do they work?" + +Then first I felt that I had fallen from the heights where my companions +stood. This ardent patriotism of mine was sullied, a stain of +selfishness rose and blotted out my glory, others should wear the +conquering crowns of this grand civic game. Oh, friend! that was sad +enough, but it was inevitable. Here is where the crime came in,--that, +knowing this, I still continued as their leader, suffered them to call +me Master and Saviour, and walked upon the palms they spread. + +Lenore mistook my silence. + +"You cannot tell me why they work?" she said. "From habit, from fear, +because committed? It cannot be, then, that they are in earnest, that +they are sincere, that they care a rush for this cause so holy to you. +They have entered into it, as all this common people do, for the love +of a new excitement, for the pleasurable mystery of conspiracy, for the +self-importance and gratulation. They will scatter at the signal of +danger, like mischievous boys when a gendarme comes round the corner. +They will betray you at the lifting of an Austrian finger. Leave them!" + +This was too much to hear in silence,--to hear of these faithful +comrades, who had endured everything, and were yet to overcome because +they possessed their souls in patience, each of whom stood higher before +God than I in unspotted public purity, and whose praise and love led me +constantly to larger effort. At least I would make them the reparation +of vindication. + +"You mistrust them?" I exclaimed. "They whose souls have been tried in +the furnace, who have the temper of fine steel, pliant as gold, but +incorruptible as adamant,--heroes and saints, they stand so low in your +favor? Come, then, come with me now,--for the bells have struck the +hour, and shadows clothe the earth,--come to their conclave where +discovery is death, and judge if they be idle prattlers, or men who +carry their lives in their hands!" + +Fool! Fool! Fool! Every sound in the air cries out that word to me: +the bee that wings across the tower hums it in my ear; the booming +alarm-bell rings it forth; my heart, my failing heart, beats it while +I speak. I would have carried a snake to the sacred ibis-nest, and +thenceforth hope was hollow as an egg-shell! + +She ran from the room, but, pausing in the door-way, exclaimed,-- + +"Remember, if you take me there, that I am no Roman patriot,--I! I, +who am of the House of Austria, that House that wears the crown of the +Caesars, those Caesars who swayed the very imperial sceptre, who trailed +the very imperial purple of old Rome! I endure the cause because it is +yours. I beseech you to be faithful to it; because I should despise you, +if for any woman you swerved from an object that had previously been +with you holier than heaven!" + +I stood there leaning from the lofty window, and looking down over the +wide, solitary fields. Recollections crowded upon me, hopes rose before +me. One day, that yet lives in my heart, Anselmo, sprang up afresh, a +day forever domed in memory. Fair rose the sun that day, and I walked on +the nation's errands through the streets of a distant town,--a hoar and +antique place, that sheltered me safely, so slight guard was it thought +to need by our oppressors! It pleased that reverend arch-hypocrite to +take at this hour his airing. Late events had given the people courage. +It was a market-day, peasants from the country obstructed the ancient +streets, the citizens were all abroad. Not few were the maledictions +muttered over a column of French infantry that wound along as it +returned to Rome from some movement of subjection, not low the curses +showered on an officer who escorted ladies upon their drive. As I went, +I considered what a day it would have been for _emeute_, and what mortal +injury _emeute_ would have done our cause. Italy, we said, like fools, +but honest fools, must not be redeemed with blood. As if there were ever +any sacred pact, any new order of things, that was not first sealed +by blood! Therefore, when I, alone perhaps of all the throng, saw one +man--a man in whose soul I knew the iron rankled--stealing behind the +crowd, behind the monuments, and, as the coach of His Excellency rolled +luxuriously along, levelling a glittering barrel,--it was but an +instant's work to seize the advancing creatures, to hold them +rearing,--and then a deadly flash,--while the ball whistled past me, +grazed my hand, and pierced the leader's heart. In a twinkling the dead +horse was cut away, and His Excellency, cowering in the bottom of the +coach, galloped borne more swiftly than the wind, without a word. But +the populace appreciated the action, took it up with _vivas_ long and +loud, that rang after me when I had slipped away, and before nightfall +had echoed in all ears through leagues of country round. I went that +night to the theatre. The house was filled, and, as we entered, a murmur +went about, and then cries broke forth,--the multitude rose with cheers +and bravos, calling my name, intoxicated with enthusiasm, and dazzled, +not by a daring feat, but by the spirit that prompted it. Women tore off +their jewels to twist them into a sling for my injured hand; men rose +and made me a conqueror's ovation; the orchestra played the old Etrurian +hymns of freedom; I was attended home with a more than Roman triumph of +torch and song, stately men and beautiful women. But chameleons change +their tint in the sunshine, and why should men always march under one +color? Friend, not six months later there came another day, when triumph +was shame,--plaudits, curses,--joyous tumult, scorching silence. Oh!-- +But I shall come to that in time. Now let me hasten; the hours are less +tardy than I, and they bring with them my last. + +Thought of this day--sole pageant defiling through memory--was startled +again by the far, sweet sound of a bell, some bell ringing twilight out +and evening in across the wide Campagna. I wondered what delayed Lenore. +Did it take so long to toss off the cloudy back-falling veil, to wrap in +any long cloak her gown of white damask and all the sheen of her milky +pearl-dusters and fiery rubies? I thought with exultation then of what +she was so soon to see,--of the route through sunken ruins, down wells +forsaken of their pristine sources and hidden by masses of moss, winding +with the faint light in our hands through the awful ways and avenues of +the catacombs. The scene grew real to me, as I mused. Alone, what should +I fear? These silent hosts encamped around would but have cheered their +child. But with her, every murmur becomes a portent of danger, every +current of air gives me fresh tremors; as we pass casual openings into +the sky, the vault of air, the glint of stars, shall seem a malignant +face; I fancy to hear impossible footsteps behind us, some bone that +crumbling falls from its shelf makes my heart beat high, her dear hand +trembles in my hold, and, full of a new and superstitious awe, I half +fear this ancient population of the graves will rise and surround us +with phantom array. Now and then, a cold, lonely wind, blowing from no +one knows where, rises and careers past us, piercing to the marrow. I +think, too, of that underground space, half choked with rubbish, into +which we are to emerge at last, once the hall of some old Roman revel. I +see the troubled flashes flung from the flaring torch over our assembly. +Alert and startled, I see Lenore listen to the names as if they summoned +the wraiths and not the bodies of men whom she had supposed to be lost +in the pampas of Paraguay, dead in the Papal prisons, sheltered in +English homes, or tossing far away on the long voyages of the Pacific +seas. I see myself at length taking the torch from its niche and +restoring it, as a hundred times before, to Pietro da Valambo, while +it glitters on some strange object looking in at the vine-clad opening +above with its breaths of air, serpent or hare, or the large face and +slow eyes of a browsing buffalo. And as I think, lo! an echo in the +house, a dull tramp in the hall, a stealthy tread in the room, a heavy +hand upon my shoulder,--I was arrested for high treason. + +Do not think I surrendered then. Without a struggle I would be the +prize of Pope nor King nor Kaiser! I shook the minions' grasp from my +shoulder, I flashed my sword in their eyes; and not till the crescent +of weapons encircled me in one blinding gleam, vain grew defence, vain +honor, vain bravery. Of what use was my soul to me thenceforth? I became +but carrion prey. I fell, and the world fell from me. + +Sensation, emotion, awoke from their swooning lapse only in the light +of day, the next or another, I knew not which. I was lifted from some +conveyance, I saw blue reaches of curving bay and the great purifying +priest of flame, and knew I was in the city guarded by its pillar of +cloud by day, of fire by night. I had reason to know it, when, yet +unfed, unrested, faint, smirched and smeared with blood and travel, +loaded with chains, I was brought to a tribunal where sat the sleek and +subtle tyrant of Naples. + +"Signor," said a bland voice from the king's side,--and looking in its +direction, I encountered the Neapolitan,--"Signor, I lately said that at +some day I would trouble you to repeat a brilliant sentence addressed +to me. The day has arrived. I scarcely dared dream it would be so soon. +Shall we listen?" + +I was silent: not that I feared to say it; they could but finish their +play. + +Then I saw the beautifully cut lips of my judge part, that the voice +might slide forth, and, taking a comfit, he tittered, with unchanging +tint and sweetest tone, the three words, "Apply the question." + +Why should I endure that for a whim? Who courts torment? Already they +drew near with the cunning instruments. Let me say it, and what then? +Nothing worse than torture. Let me _not_ say it, and certainly torture. +Oh, I was weaker than a child! my body ruled my spirit with its +exhaustion and pain. Yet there was a certain satisfaction in flinging +the words in their faces. I waved back with my remaining arm the slaves +who approached. + +"You should allow a weary man the time to collect his thoughts," I said, +and then turned to my persecutors. "I have spoken with you many times, +Signor," I replied to the Neapolitan, "yet of all our words I can +remember none but these, that you could care to hear with this auditory. +I said,--that the tyrant of Naples walks in blood to his knees!" + +The Neapolitan smiled. The king rose. + +"Well said!" he murmured, in his silvery tones. "One that knows so +much must know more. Exhaust his knowledge, I pray. Do not spare your +courtesies; remember he is my guest. I leave him in your hands." + +He fixed me with his eye,--that darkly-glazed eye, devoid of life, of +love, of joy, as if he were the thing of another element,--then bowed +and passed away. + +"The urbanity of His Majesty is too well known to suppose it possible +that he should prove you a liar," said the Neapolitan. + +Truly, I was loft in their hands! Shall I tell you of the charities I +found there? Not I, friend! it would wring your heart as dry of tears +as mine was wrung of groans. At last I was alone, it seemed,--on a wet +stone floor, sweat pouring from every muscle, each fibre quivering; I +was distorted and unjointed, I only hoped I was dying. But no, that +was too good for me. Anselmo, how can I but be full of scoffs, when I +remember those hours, those ages? The cold dampness of the place crept +into my bones; I became swollen and teeming with intimate pain. But +that was light, my body might have ached till the throbs stiffened into +death-spasms, and yet the suffering had been nought, compared with that +loathing and disgust in my soul. It had seemed that I was alone, I said. +Alone as the corpse in unshrouded grave! I was in a charnel-house. Men +who were sinless as you hung dead upon the wall, hung dying there. +Darkness covered all things at a distance, sighs crept up from +far corners, chains clanked, or imprecations or prayer uttered +themselves,--bodiless voices in the night. I did not know what untold +horror there might yet be hid. I heard the drip of water from the black +vaults; I heard the short, fierce pants and deadly groans. Oh, worst +infliction of Hell's armory it is to see another suffer! Why was it +allowed, Anselmo? Did it come in the long train of a broken law? was it +one of the dark places of Providence? or was it indeed the vile compost +to mature some beautiful germ? Ah, then, is it possible that Heaven +looks on us so in the mass? + +But for me, after a while I lay torpid, and then perchance I slept, for +finally I opened my eyes and found the white strong light; T lay on a +bed, and a surgeon handled me. Too elastic was I to be long crushed, +once the weight removed. Soon I breathed fresh air; and save that my +frame had become in its distortion hideous, I was the same as before. + +Then, indeed, began my torture,--torture to which this had been idle +jest. I was taken once more to the room of tribunal. Beside the +Neapolitan a woman sat veiled and shrouded in masses of sable drapery. +"A queen?" I thought, "or a slave?" But I had no further room for fancy; +the same interrogatories as before were given me to answer, and then I +felt why I had been nursed back to life. In the months that had elapsed, +I could not know if Italy were saved or lost, if Naples tottered or +remained impregnable. I stood only on my personal basis of right or +wrong. I refused to open my lips. They wheeled forward a low bed that I +knew well. Oh, the slow starting of the socket! Oh, the long wrench of +tendon and nerve! A bed of steel and cords, rollers and levers, bound me +there, and bent to their creaking toil. I was strong to endure; I had +set my teeth and sworn myself to silence; no woman should hear me moan. +Even in this misery I saw that she who sat there, shaking, fell. + +The tyrant was lily-livered; seldom he witnessed what others died under; +he intended nothing further then;--many men who faint at sight of blood +can probe a soul to its utmost gasp. Now he motioned, and they paused. +Then others lifted the woman and held her beside him, yet a little in +advance. + +"Keep your silence," said he, in a voice unrecognizable, and as if a +wild beast, half-glutted, should speak, "and I keep her! She is in my +power. Mine, and you know what that means. Mine," and he bent toward me, +"_body and--soul_. To use, to blast, to destroy, to tear piecemeal,--as +I will do, so help me God! unless you meet my condition." And extending +his hand, he drew aside the black veil, and my eye lay on the face of +Lenore, thin and white as the familiar faces of corpses, and utterly +insensible in swoon. + +All, that mortal horror stops my pulse! Was I wrong? Why not have borne +that, too? Had she loved me, she had chosen it, chosen it rather. And +death would have made all right!--God! why not have seized some poignard +lying there? why not have sprung upon her, have slain her? Then silence +had been simply secure. Then I could have smiled in their frustrated +faces, one keen, deep smile, and died. I was dissolved in pain, writhed +with prolonged strokes that thrilled me from head to foot, pierced as +with acute stabs, my heart seemed to forge thunderbolts to break upon my +brain,--but this agony had been spared me. They unbound me, fed me with +some stimulating cordial, gave me cold air, and I rose on my elbow a +little. + +"Swear!" I said, hoarsely. "But you do not keep oaths. God help you? +Never! There must be a Hell to help you! Imprecate this, then, on +yourself! May you in your smooth white body know the torture I have +known, be racked till each bone in your skin changes place, hang +festering in chains from the wall of a living grave, make fellowship +with putridity, and lie in the pitiless dark to see all the dead who +died under your hand rise, rise and accuse you before God! And may your +little son know the deeds you have done, live the life those deeds +merit, and die the death that _I_ shall die,--if you do not keep your +word!" + +"What word?" he said. + +"Promise, if I reveal all, and my revelations shall be true and thorough +therefore,--promise that you will leave her in safe security and freedom +to-day, untouched, unscathed, unharmed, and that so ever shall she +remain. And false to this oath, may no priest shrive you, no land own +you, God blight you and curse you and wither you from the face of the +earth!" + +And taking a crucifix, he swore the oath. + +Then they busied themselves about Lenore, revived her, soothed her, +gave her of the same cordial to drink, and placed her once more in her +dais-seat. Her veil was thrown back, her wide blue eyes fixed on me in +intense strain, her face and lips still blanched more bitterly beneath +that hue, her features sharp as chisel-graven death. Ah, God! must +I endure that too? Was she to hear me,--she, not knowing why, never +knowing why,--she in whom that look of aching passion and pity was to +die out and freeze and fade in one of utter scorn? + +They brought me some strange draught, as if one swallowed fire. The +blood coursed richly through my shrunken veins; I felt filled with a +different life. I arose and left that bed of torture, but came back to +it as to my rest. + +And lying there, I betrayed Italy. + +Root and branch and spray and leaf, I uprooted all my memories; I forgot +no name, I lost no fact; I was eagerer than they; I modified nothing, +I abbreviated nothing; the past, the future, what had been, was to be, +plan and scheme and supreme purpose, I never faltered, I told the whole! + +I did not look at her, I kept my eyes on the tyrant; I wished I might +have the evil eye,--but that gift was for him, the Neapolitan. Yet at +length I heard a low moan trailing toward me; I turned, and saw her +face, as I saw it last, Anselmo,--stonily quiet, frozen from indignant +pain to icy apathy, and the words she would have said had hissed +inarticulately through her ashen lips. Then they brought me the +confession, and, as I could, I signed it. + +"Madame," said the tyrant, "your knowledge is coextensive with his. Does +all this agree?" + +"Sire, it does agree," she answered, and they led her out. + +"I have no authority over you," said the tyrant then to me. "You might +go freely now, but that, precious as Homer, seven cities claim you, +Signor! My prisons also will now be full of rarer game. But as a crime +of your commission places you within Austrian jurisdiction, I shall take +pleasure in presenting you to my cousin and surrendering you to his +mercy," and he withdrew. + +"You may not be aware," said the courteous Neapolitan, "that on the +night of your arrest your frantic sword-slashes had serious result. My +friend the little Viennois fell at your hands." + +[Transcriber's note: Page missing in source text.] + +through dazzling rings of light, and I fell forward in the cart and hung +by my chains among the hoofs of the trampling horses who dragged me. On +that day I had taken my last step; I never set foot on the round earth +again. But, with all, I smiled through my groans; for the shining, solid +hoofs that did their work on me did their work as well on the man who +walked by my side,--dashed dead the accursed Neapolitan. + +They were not the surgeons of Naples who essayed to galvanize volition +through my paralyzed limbs, but those who knew the utmost resources of +their art. And so I lived,--lived, too, by reason of my inextinguishable +vitality, by reason of this spark that will not quench,--and so I came +to Hellberg. It would have been mockery to give this shapeless hulk to +sentence, and then to headsman or hangman; perhaps, too, her haughty +name had been involved; and so I was never brought to trial, and so I am +at Hellberg. + +And I have never set foot on the ground again. But, oh, to touch it +for a moment, to sit anywhere on the summer mould, to pull down the +sun-quivering, sun-steeped branches about me, to scent the fresh grass +as it springs to the light! Oh. but to touch the sweet, kind earth, the +warm earth, silent with ineffable tenderness and soothing, to feel it +under my hand, to lay my cheek there for a moment, while it drew away +pain and weariness with its absorbing, purifying power! Oh, but to lie +once more where the blossoms grow! Soon, soon, they will grow above me! +Soon the kind mother will cover me! + + * * * * * + +What had happened in the outer world I knew not till you came. I fancied +Lenore returned, breathing Austrian air, and living under the same +horizon that girds me in. Sometimes I have seen a distant cavalcade +skimming over the vale, as once we careered over the Campagna, when she +handled her steed as another woman handles her needle, and the sweet +wind fanned peach-tints to her cheeks and drew out unravelled braids of +gold in lingering caress. She could have come to me, had she pleased, +then: this old chief who rules the place was her father's friend and +hers.--But look I but see! Who is it comes now,--sweeps round the donjon +flank? Lean over the embrasure, and learn! Ah, man, are my eyes so old, +my memories so treacherous, that I do not know day from night? They have +gone on,--or did they enter, think you? Or yet, there is to be carousal, +perhaps, in the halls beyond and below, and she comes to join the gay +feast; she will drink healths in red wine, will listen to flattering +dalliance with pleased eyes, will utter light laughs through the lips +that once glowed to my kisses, and will forget that the same roof +which shelters the revellers shelters also her lover dying in moans! +Careless--Best so! best so! What cavalier whispered in her ear as she +passed? Have years tarnished her beauty? Ah, God! this wind, that +maddens me now, a moment since touched her! + +Anselmo, I will go in. This vault of heaven with its spotless blue, this +wide land that laughs in festive summer, these winds that lift my hair +and come heavy with odors,--these do not fit with me, I burlesque the +fair face of creation. O invisible airs, that softly sport round the +castle-towers, why do you not woo my soul forth and bear it and lose it +in the flawless cope of sky? + +Nay, why, any more than Ajax, should I die in the dark? Never again +will I enter the cell, never again! The wide universe shall receive my +breath. Lower the back of my chair, pull away the cushions, wrap my +cloak round me, Anselmo. There! I will lie, and wait, and look up. Give +me ghostly counsel, my friend, console me. You are not too weary with +this long tale? Tell me I needed all the tears I have shed to quench the +fiery defiance, the independence of heaven and tumult of earth in my +being. If you could tell me that she had not been false, that she never +feigned her passion to decoy, that, Austrian though she were--Ah, but +I had evidence! I had evidence! his words, that ate out my life like +gangrene and rust.--Speak slower, Anselmo, slower. Can it be that I +sinned most, when I held his words before hers,--his black damning +falsehoods?--Mother of God! do you know what you say? + +Tell me, then, that I am a fool,--that not through other loss than the +loss of faith did the curse fall on me! Tell me, then, that these dark +ways lead me out on a height! Needful the shadow and the groping. He +anointed my eyes with the clay beneath his feet,--I was blind, but now I +see God! + +Repeat, Anselmo, repeat that she was true, though the knowledge blast me +with self-consuming pangs. But, true or false, one thing she promised +me: though other spheres, though other lives had come between us, she +would be with me in my dying hour. Soon the bell will toll that hour, +and toll my knell! + + * * * * * + +What is this, Anselmo,--this face that hangs between me and +heaven,--this pitying, sorrowing countenance?--Ave Maria!--Never! Never! +Still of the earth, this melting mouth, these violet eyes, this brow +of snow, this fragrant bosom pillowing my head! Mirage of fainting +fancy,--out, beautiful thing, away! Do not torment me with such a +despairing lie! do not cheat me into death! Let me at least look on the +unobstructed sky, as I sink lower and lower to my eternal rest! + + * * * * * + +Still there? Still there? Still bending above me, smiling and weeping, +sweet April face? Oh, were they truly thy lips that lay on mine, then, +that stamped them with life's impress, that woke me? Are they truly thy +fingers that pressed my throbless temples? These arms that are wound +about me, are thine? Thy heart beats for me, thy tears flow, thy perfect +womanhood does not recoil in horror? Lenore! Lenore! is it thou? + + * * * * * + +Nay, nay, Sweet, ask me no question; I have wronged thee; he shall tell +thee how. Yet best thou shouldst never hear it. Sin to thee greater than +all treachery had been. Forgive, forgive! I go,--in meeting, leave thee; +but be glad for me,--whether I sleep or whether I wake, know that a +great curse will have fallen from me. Swathe my memory in thy love. Kiss +me again, child! Rock me a little; stoop lower, and croon those old +mountain-songs that once you sang when the sunshine soaked the sward and +your hair was crowned with blue morning-glories. + +Ah, your song drowns in tears! Yet you do not wish me to live, Lenore? O +love, I can do nothing but die! + +The sunlight fades from the hills, the air wavers and glimmers, and day +is dim. Thy face is mistier than a vision of angels. There are faint, +strange voices in my ear, swift rustlings, far harmonics;--has sense +become so attenuated that I hear the blood in my failing pulses? Lenore, +love, lower. Thy lips to mine, and breathe my life away. Twice would I +die to save thee! + +--Anselmo! man! where art thou? Come back ere I fall,--strength flares +up like a dying flame. _Never tell her why I betrayed Italy!_ + +--Closer, dear love, closer! What old murmurs do I hear? + + "The night is spread for thee, + The heavens are wide, + And the dark earth's mystery"-- + +So,--in thy arms,--from thee to God! O love, +forever--kiss--forgive!--Lift me, that I confront eternity and Christ! + + + + +AFTER "TAPS." + + + Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! + As I lay with my blanket on, + By the dim fire-light, in the moonlit night, + When the skirmishing fight was done. + + The measured beat of the sentry's feet, + With the jingling scabbard's ring! + Tramp! Tramp! in my meadow-camp + By the Shenandoah's spring. + + The moonlight seems to shed cold beams + On a row of pale gravestones: + Give the bugle breath, and that image of Death + Will fly from the reveille's tones. + + By each tented roof, a charger's hoof + Makes the frosty hill-side ring: + Give the bugle breath, and a spirit of Death + To each horse's girth will spring. + + Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! + The sentry, before my tent, + Guards, in gloom, his chief, for whom + Its shelter to-night is lent. + + I am not there. On the hill-side bare + I think of the ghost within; + Of the brave who died at my sword-hand side, + To-day, 'mid the horrible din + + Of shot and shell and the infantry yell, + As we charged with the sabre drawn. + To my heart I said, "Who shall be the dead + In _my_ tent, at another dawn?" + + I thought of a blossoming almond-tree, + The stateliest tree that I know; + Of a golden bowl; of a parted soul; + And a lamp that is burning low. + + Oh, thoughts that kill! I thought of the hill + In the far-off Jura chain; + Of the two, the three, o'er the wide salt sea, + Whose hearts would break with pain; + + Of my pride and joy,--my eldest boy; + Of my darling, the second--in years; + Of _Willie_, whose face, with its pure, mild grace, + Melts memory into tears; + + Of their mother, my bride, by the Alpine lake's side, + And the angel asleep in her arms; + Love, Beauty, and Truth, which she brought to my youth, + In that sweet April day of her charms. + + "HALT! _Who comes there?_" The cold midnight air + And the challenging word chill me through. + The ghost of a fear whispers, close to my ear, + "Is peril, love, coming to you?" + + The hoarse answer, "RELIEF," makes the shade of a grief + Die away, with the step on the sod. + A kiss melts in air, while a tear and a prayer + Confide my beloved to God. + + Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! + With a solemn, pendulum-swing! + Though _I_ slumber all night, the fire burns bright, + And my sentinels' scabbards ring. + + * * * * * + + "Boot and saddle!" is sounding. Our pulses are bounding. + "To horse!" And I touch with my heel + Black Gray in the flanks, and ride down the ranks, + With my heart, like my sabre, of steel. + + + + +THE HUMAN WHEEL, ITS SPOKES AND FELLOES. + + +[Illustration] + +The starting-point of this paper was a desire to call attention to +certain remarkable AMERICAN INVENTIONS, especially to one class of +mechanical contrivances, which, at the present time, assumes a vast +importance and interests great multitudes. The limbs of our friends and +countrymen are a part of the melancholy harvest which War is sweeping +down with Dahlgren's mowing-machine and the patent reapers of +Springfield and Hartford. The admirable contrivances of an American +inventor, prized as they were in ordinary times, have risen into the +character of great national blessings since the necessity for them has +become so widely felt. While the weapons that have gone from Mr. Colt's +armories have been carrying death to friend and foe, the beneficent +and ingenious inventions of MR. PALMER have been repairing the losses +inflicted by the implements of war. + +The study of the artificial limbs which owe their perfection to his +skill and long-continued labor has led us a little beyond its first +object, and finds its natural prelude in some remarks on the natural +limbs and their movements. Accident directed our attention, while +engaged with this subject, to the efforts of another ingenious American +to render the use of our lower extremities easier by shaping their +artificial coverings more in accordance with their true form than is +done by the empirical cordwainer, and thus _Dr. Plumer_ must submit to +the coupling of some mention of his praiseworthy efforts in the same +pages with the striking achievements of his more aspiring compatriot. + +We should not tell the whole truth, if we did not own that we have for +a long time been lying in wait for a chance to say something about the +mechanism of walking, because we thought we could add something to what +is known about it from a new source, accessible only within the last +few years, and never, so far as we know, employed for its elucidation, +namely, _the instantaneous photograph_. + + * * * * * + +The two accomplishments common to all mankind are walking and talking. +Simple as they seem, they are yet acquired with vast labor, and very +rarely understood in any clear way by those who practise them with +perfect ease and unconscious skill. + +Talking seems the hardest to comprehend. Yet it has been clearly +explained and successfully imitated by artificial contrivances. We +know that the moist membranous edges of a narrow crevice (the glottis) +vibrate as the reed of a clarionet vibrates, and thus produce the human +_bleat_. We narrow or widen or check or stop the flow of this sound by +the lips, the tongue, the teeth, and thus _articulate_, or break into +joints, the even current of sound. The sound varies with the degree and +kind of interruption, as the "babble" of the brook with the shape and +size of its impediments,--pebbles, or rocks, or dams. To whisper is to +articulate without _bleating_, or vocalizing; to _coo_ as babies do is +to bleat or vocalize without articulating. Machines are easily made that +bleat not unlike human beings. A bit of India-rubber tube tied round a +piece of glass tube is one of the simplest voice-uttering contrivances. +To make a machine that _articulates_ is not so easy; but we remember +Maelzel's wooden children, which said, "Pa-pa" and "Ma-ma"; and more +elaborate and successful speaking machines have, we believe, been since +constructed. + +But no man has been able to make a figure that can _walk_. Of all the +automata imitating men or animals moving, there is not one in which the +legs are the true sources of motion. So said the Webers[A] more than +twenty years ago, and it is as true now as then. These authors, after a +profound experimental and mathematical investigation of the mechanism +of animal locomotion, recognize the fact that our knowledge is not yet +advanced enough to hope to succeed in making real walking machines. But +they conceive that the time may come hereafter when colossal figures +will be constructed whose giant strides will not be arrested by the +obstacles which are impassable to wheeled conveyances. + +[Footnote A: _Traite de la Mechanique des Organes de la Locomotion_, +Translated from the German in the _Encyclopedie Anatomique_. Paris, +1843.] + +We wish to give our readers as clear an idea as possible of that +wonderful art of balanced vertical progression which they have +practised, as M. Jourdain talked prose, for so many years, without +knowing what a marvellous accomplishment they had mastered. We shall +have to begin with a few simple anatomical data. + +The foot is arched both longitudinally and transversely, so as to give +it elasticity, and thus break the sudden shock when the weight of the +body is thrown upon it. The ankle-joint is a loose hinge, and the great +muscles of the calf can straighten the foot out so far that practised +dancers walk on the tips of their toes. The knee is another hinge-joint, +which allows the leg to bend freely, but not to be carried beyond a +straight line in the other direction. Its further forward movement is +checked by two very powerful cords in the interior of the joint, which +cross each other like the letter X, and are hence called the _crucial +ligaments_. The upper ends of the thighbones are almost globes, which +are received into the deep cup-like cavities of the haunch-bones. They +are tied to these last so loosely, that, if their ligaments alone held +them, they would be half out of their sockets in many positions of the +lower limbs. But here comes in a simple and admirable contrivance. The +smooth, rounded head of the thighbone, moist with glairy fluid, fits so +perfectly into the smooth, rounded cavity which receives it, that it +holds firmly by _suction_, or atmospheric pressure. It takes a hard pull +to draw it out after all the ligaments are cut, and then it comes with a +smack like a tight cork from a bottle. Holding in this way by the close +apposition of two polished surfaces, the lower extremity swings freely +forward and backward like a _pendulum_, if we give it a chance, as is +shown by standing on a chair upon the other limb, and moving the pendent +one out of the vertical line. The force with which it swings depends +upon its weight, and this is much greater than we might at first +suppose; for our limbs not only carry themselves, but our bodies also, +with a sense of lightness rather than of weight, when we are in good +condition. Accident sometimes makes us aware how heavy our limbs are. An +officer, whose arm was shattered by a ball in one of our late battles, +told us that the dead weight of the helpless member seemed to drag him +down to the earth; he could hardly carry it; it "weighed a ton," to his +feeling, as he said. + +In _ordinary walking_, a man's lower extremity swings essentially by its +own weight, requiring little muscular effort to help it. So heavy a body +easily overcomes all impedimenta from clothing, even in the sex least +favored in its costume. But if a man's legs are pendulums, then a short +man's legs will swing quicker than a tall man's, and he will take more +steps to a minute, other things being equal. Thus there is a natural +rhythm to a man's walk, depending on the length of his legs, which beat +more or less rapidly as they are longer or shorter, like metronomes +differently adjusted, or the pendulums of different time-keepers. +Commodore Nutt is to M. Bihin in this respect as a little, fast-ticking +mantel-clock is to an old-fashioned, solemn-clicking, upright +time-piece. + +The mathematical formulae in which the Messrs. Weber embody their +results would hardly be instructive to most of our readers. The figures +of their Atlas would serve our purpose better, had we not the means of +coming nearer to the truth than even their careful studies enabled them +to do. We have selected a number of instantaneous stereoscopic views of +the streets and public places of Paris and of New York, each of them +showing numerous walking figures, among which some may be found in +every stage of the complex act we are studying. Mr. Darley has had the +kindness to leave his higher tasks to transfer several of these to our +pages, so that the reader may be sure that he looks upon an exact copy +of real human individuals in the act of walking. + +[Illustration: Fig. 1.] + +The first subject is caught with his legs stretched in a stride, the +remarkable length of which arrests our attention. The sole of the right +foot is almost vertical. By the action of the muscles of the calf it has +_rolled off_ from the ground like a portion of the tire of a wheel, the +heel rising first, and thus the body, already advancing with all its +acquired velocity, and inclined forward, has been pushed along, and, as +it were, _tipped over_, so as to fall upon the other foot, now ready to +receive its weight. + +[Illustration: Fig. 2.] + +In the second figure, the right leg is bending at the knee, so as to +lift the foot from the ground, in order that it may swing forward. + +[Illustration: Fig. 3.] + +The next stage of movement is shown in the _left_ leg of figure 3. This +leg is seen suspended in air, a little beyond the middle of the arc +through which it swings, and before it has straightened itself, which it +will presently do, as shown in the next figure. + +[Illustration: Fig. 4.] + +The foot has now swung forward, and, tending to swing back again, the +limb being straightened, and the body tipped forward, the heel strikes +the ground. The angle which the sole of the foot forms with the ground +increases with the length of the stride; and as this last surprised us, +so the extent of this angle astonishes us in many of the figures, in +this among the rest. + +The heel strikes the ground with great force, as the wear of our boots +and shoes in that part shows us. But the projecting heel of the human +foot is the arm of a lever, haying the ankle-joint as its fulcrum, and, +as it strikes the ground, brings the sole of the foot down flat upon it, +as shown in figure 1. At the same time the weight of the limb and body +is thrown upon the foot, by the joint effect of muscular action and +acquired velocity, and the other foot is now ready to rise from the +ground and repeat the process we have traced in its fellow. + +No artist would have dared to draw a walking figure in attitudes like +some of these. The swinging limb is so much shortened that the toe never +by any accident scrapes the ground, if this is tolerably even. In cases +of partial paralysis, the scraping of the toe, as the patient walks, is +one of the characteristic marks of imperfect muscular action. + +Walking, then, is a perpetual falling with a perpetual self-recovery. It +is a most complex, violent, and perilous operation, which we divest of +its extreme danger only by continual practice from a very early period +of life. We find how complex it is when we attempt to analyze it, and +we see that we never understood it thoroughly until the time of the +instantaneous photograph. We learn how violent it is, when we walk +against a post or a door in the dark. We discover how dangerous it is, +when we slip or trip and come down, perhaps breaking or dislocating our +limbs, or overlook the last step of a flight of stairs, and discover +with what headlong violence we have been hurling ourselves forward. + +Two curious facts are easily proved. First, a man is shorter when he is +walking than when at rest. We have found a very simple way of showing +this by having a rod or yardstick placed horizontally, so as to touch +the top of the head forcibly, as we stand under it. In walking rapidly +beneath it, even if the eyes are shut, to avoid involuntary stooping, +the top of the head will not even graze the rod. The other fact is, that +one side of a man always tends to outwalk the other, so that no person +can walk far in a straight line, if he is blindfolded. + +The somewhat singular illustration at the head of our article carries +out an idea which has only been partially alluded to by others. Man is +a _wheel_, with two spokes, his legs, and two fragments of a tire, his +feet. He _rolls_ successively on each of these fragments from the heel +to the toe. If he had spokes enough, he would go round and round as the +boys do when they "make a wheel" with their four limbs for its spokes. +But having only two available for ordinary locomotion, each of these has +to be taken up as soon as it has been used, and carried forward to +be used again, and so alternately with the pair. The peculiarity of +biped-walking is, that the centre of gravity is shifted from one leg to +the other, and the one not employed can shorten itself so as to swing +forward, passing by that which supports the body. + +This is just what no automaton can do. Many of our readers have, +however, seen a young lady in the shop-windows, or entertained her in +their own nurseries, who professes to be this hitherto impossible +walking automaton, and who calls herself by the Homeric-sounding epithet +_Autoperipatetikos._ The golden-booted legs of this young lady remind +us of Miss Kilmansegg, while their size assures us that she is not in +any way related to Cinderella. On being wound up, as if she were a piece +of machinery, and placed on a level surface, she proceeds to toddle off, +taking very short steps like a child, holding herself very stiff and +straight, with a little lifting at each step, and all this with a mighty +inward whirring and buzzing of the enginery which constitutes her +muscular system. + +An autopsy of one of her family who fell into our hands reveals the +secret springs of her action. Wishing to spare her as a member of the +defenceless sex, it pains us to say, that, ingenious as her counterfeit +walking is, she is an impostor. Worse than this,--with all our reverence +for her brazen crinoline, duty compels us to reveal a fact concerning +her which will shock the feelings of those who have watched the stately +rigidity of decorum with which she moves in the presence of admiring +multitudes. _She is a quadruped!_. Inside of her great golden boots, +which represent one pair of feet, is another smaller pair, which move +freely through these hollow casings. + +[Illustration] + +Four _cams_ or eccentric wheels impart motion to her four supports, by +which she is carried forward, always resting on two of them,--the boot +of one side, and the foot of the other. Her movement, then, is not +walking; it is not skating, which it seems to resemble; it is more like +that of a person walking with two crutches besides his two legs. The +machinery is simple enough: a strong spiral spring, three or four +cog-wheels and pinions, a fly to regulate the motion as in a musical +box, and the cams before mentioned. As a toy, it or she is very taking +to grown people as well as children. It is a literal fact, that the +police requested one of our dealers to remove Miss Autoperipatetikos +from his window, because the crowd she drew obstructed the sidewalk. + +We see by our analysis of the process, and by the difficulty of +imitating it, that walking is a much more delicate, perilous, +complicated operation than we should suppose, and well worth studying in +a practical point of view, to see what can be done to make it easier and +safer. Two Americans have applied themselves to this task: one laboring +for those who possess their lower limbs and want to use them to +advantage, the other for such as have had the misfortune to lose one or +both of them. + +_Dr. J.C. Plumer_, formerly of Portland, now of Boston, has devoted +himself to the study of the foot, and to the construction of a last upon +which a boot or shoe can be moulded which shall be adapted to its form +and accommodated to its action. + +Most persons know something of the cruel injustice to which the feet are +subjected, and the extraordinary distortions and diseases to which they +are liable in consequence. The foot's fingers are the slaves in the +republic of the body. Their black leathern integument is only the mask +of their servile condition. They bear the burdens, while the hands, +their white masters, handle the money and wear the rings. They are +crowded promiscuously in narrow prisons, while each of the hand's +fingers claims its separate apartment, leading from the antechamber, in +the dainty glove. As a natural consequence of all this, their faculties +are cramped, they grow into ignoble shapes, they become callous by long +abuse, and all their natural gifts are crushed and trodden out of them. + +Dr. Plumer is the Garrison of these oppressed members of the body +corporeal. He comes to break their chains, to lift their bowed figures, +to strengthen their weakness, to restore them to the dignity of digits. +To do this, he begins where every sensible man would, by contemplating +the natural foot as it appears in infancy, unspoiled as yet by +social corruptions, in adults fortunate enough to have escaped these +destructive influences, in the grim skeleton aspect divested of its +outward disguises. We will give the reader two views of the latter kind, +illustrating the longitudinal and transverse arches before spoken of. + +[Illustration] + +A man who walks on natural surfaces, with his feet unprotected by any +artificial defences, calls the action of these arches into full play at +every step. The longitudinal arch is the most strikingly marked of the +two. In some races and in certain individuals it is much developed, so +as to give the high instep which is prized as an evidence of good blood. +The Arab says that a stream of water can flow under his foot without +touching its sole. Under the conditions supposed, of a naked foot on a +natural surface, the arches of the foot will commonly maintain their +integrity, and give the noble savage or the barefooted Scotch lassie the +elasticity of gait which we admire in the children of Nature. + +But as a large portion of mankind tread on artificial hard surfaces, +especially pavements, their feet are subjected to a very unnatural +amount of wear and tear. How great this is the inhabitants of cities +are apt to forget. After passing some months in the country, we have +repeatedly found ourselves terribly lamed and shaken by our first walk +on the pavement. A party of city-folk who landed on a beach upon Cape +Cod complained greatly to one of the natives accompanying them of the +difficulty of walking through the deep sand. "Ah," he answered, "it's +nothing to the trouble I have walking on your city-sidewalks." To save +the feet from the effects of violent percussion and uneven surfaces, +they must be protected by thick soles, and thick soles require strong +upper-leather. When the foot is wedged into one of these casings, a new +boot, a struggle begins between them, which ends in a compromise. The +foot becomes more or less compressed or deformed, and the boot more or +less stretched at the points where the counter-pressure takes place. + +On the part of the foot, the effects of this warfare are liable to +show themselves in thickening and inflammation of the integuments, in +displacement of the toes, and occasionally in the breaking down of the +transverse or longitudinal arches. On the part of the boot or shoe, +there is a gradual accommodation which in time fits it to the foot +almost as if it had been moulded upon it, so that a little before it is +worn out it is invaluable, like other blessings brightening before they +take their flight. + +Now Mr. Plumer's improvements proceed from two series of data. _First_, +certain theoretical inferences from the facts above named. Finding the +arches liable to break down, he supports the transverse arch by making +the inner surface of the sole corresponding to it _convex_ instead of +concave transversely; he makes the middle portion of the sole convex +again in both directions to support the longitudinal arch, and for the +same reason extends the heel of the boot or shoe forward, so as to +support the anterior portion of the heel of the foot. _Secondly_, Mr. +Plumer takes an old shoe that has done good service, and studies the +reliefs and hollows-which the foot has shaped on the inner surface of +its sole. Comparing the empirical results of this examination with +those based on the anatomical data above given, and finding a general +coincidence in them, he constructs his last in accordance with their +joint teachings. Theoretically, Mr. Plumer is on somewhat dangerous +ground. If the arches of the foot are made to yield like elliptical +springs, why support them? But we subject them to such unnatural +conditions by pressure from above over the instep, by adding high heels +to our boots and shoes, by taking away all yielding qualities from the +soil on which we tread, that very probably they may want artificial +support as much as the soles of the feet want artificial protection. If, +now, we find that an old, easy shoe has worked the inside surface of its +sole into convexities which support the arches, we are safe in imitating +that at any rate. We shall have a new shoe with some, at least, of the +virtues of the old one. + +This all sounds very well, and the next question is, whether it works +well. We cannot but remember the coat made for Mr. Gulliver by the +Laputan tailors, which, though projected from the most refined +geometrical data and the most profound calculations, he found to be the +worst fit he ever put on his back. We must ask those who have eaten the +pudding how it tastes, and those who have worn the shoe how it wears. We +have no satisfactory experience of our own, having only within a week +or two, by mere accident, stumbled into a pair of Plumerian boots, and +being thus led to look into a matter which seemed akin to the main +subject of this paper. But the author of "Views Afoot," who ought to be +a sovereign authority on all that interests pedestrians, confirms from +his own experience the favorable opinions expressed by several of our +most eminent physicians, from an examination of the principles of +construction. We are informed that the Plumer last has been recently +adopted for the use of the army. We add our own humble belief that Dr. +Plumer deserves well of mankind for applying sound anatomical principles +to the construction of coverings for the feet, and for contriving a last +serving as a model for a boot or shoe which is adapted to the form of +the foot from the first, instead of having to be broken in by a painful +series of limping excursions, too often accompanied by impatient and +even profane utterances. + + * * * * * + +It is not two years since the sight of a person who had lost one of his +lower limbs was an infrequent occurrence. Now, alas! there are few of us +who have not a cripple among our friends, if not in our own families. A +mechanical art which provided for an occasional and exceptional want +has become a great and active branch of industry. War unmakes legs, and +human skill must supply their places as it best may. + +Our common idea of a wooden leg is realized in the "peg" of the +Greenwich pensioner. This humble contrivance has done excellent service +in its time, and may serve a good purpose still in some cases. A plain +working-man, who has outlived his courting-days and need not sacrifice +much to personal appearance, may find an honest, old-fashioned wooden +leg, cheap, lasting, requiring no repairs, the best thing for his +purpose. In higher social positions, and at an age when appearances are +realities, in the condition of the Marquis of Anglesea, for instance, +it becomes important to provide the cripple with a limb which shall +be presentable in polite society, where misfortunes of a certain +obtrusiveness may be pitied, but are never tolerated under the +chandeliers. + +The leg invented by Mr. Potts, and bearing the name of the "Anglesea +leg," was long famous, and doubtless merited the reputation it acquired +as superior to its predecessors. But legs cannot remain stationary while +the march of improvement goes on around them, and they, too, have moved +onward with the stride of progress. + +A boy of ten years old, living in a New-Hampshire village, had one of +his legs crushed so as to require amputation. The little fellow was +furnished with a "Peg" and stumped round upon it for ten years. We can +imagine what he suffered as he grew into adolescence under the cross of +this unsightly appendage. He was of comely aspect, tall, well-shaped, +with well-marked, regular features. But just at the period when personal +graces are most valued, when a good presence is a blank check on the +Bank of Fortune, with Nature's signature at the bottom, he found himself +made hideous by this fearful-looking counterfeit of a limb. It announced +him at the threshold he reached with beating heart by a thump more +energetic than the palpitation in his breast. It identified him as far +as the eye of jealousy could see his moving figure. The "peg" became +intolerable, and he unstrapped it and threw himself on the tender +mercies of the crutch. + +But the crutch is at best an instrument of torture. It presses upon a +great bundle of nerves; it distorts the figure; it stamps a character of +its own upon the whole organism; it is even accused of distempering the +mind itself. + +This young man, whose name was "B. FRANK. PALMER," (the abbreviations +probably implying the name of a distinguished Boston philosopher of the +last century, whose visit to Philadelphia is still remembered in that +city,) set himself at work to contrive a limb which should take +the place of the one he had lost, fulfilling its functions and +counterfeiting its aspect so far as possible. The result was the "Palmer +leg," one of the most unquestionable triumphs of American ingenuity. Its +victorious march has been unimpeded by any serious obstacle since it +first stepped into public notice. The inventor was introduced by the +late Dr. John C. Warren, in 1846, to the Massachusetts General Hospital, +which institution he has for many years supplied with his artificial +limbs. He received medals from the American Institute, the Massachusetts +Charitable Association, and the Great Exhibition in New York, and +obtained an honorary mention from the Royal Commissioners of the World's +Exhibition in London,--being the only maker of legs so distinguished. +These are only a few of fifty honorary awards he has received at various +times. The famous surgeons of London, the _Societe de Chirurgie_ of +Paris, and the most celebrated practitioners of the United States have +given him their hearty recommendations. So lately as last August, that +shrewd and skilful surgeon, Dr. Henry J. Bigelow, who is as cautious in +handling his epithets as he is bold in using the implements of his art, +strongly advised Surgeon-General Hammond to adopt the Palmer leg, which, +after a dozen years' experience, he had found none to equal. We see it +announced that the Board of Surgeons appointed by the Surgeon-General +to select the best arm and leg to be procured by the Government for +its crippled soldiers chose that of Mr. Palmer, and that Dr. Hammond +approved their selection. + +We have thought it proper to show that Mr. Palmer's invention did not +stand in need of our commendation. Its merits, as we have seen, are +conceded by the tribunals best fitted to judge, and we are therefore +justified in selecting it as an illustration of American mechanical +skill. + +We give three views of the Palmer leg: an inside view when extended, a +second when flexed, a third as it appears externally. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +The Committee on Science and the Arts of the Franklin Institute of +Pennsylvania thus stated the peculiarities of Mr. Palmer's invention:-- + +"_First,_ An ingenious arrangement of springs and cords in the _inside_ +of the limb, by which, when the wearer is in the erect position, the +limb is extended, and the foot flexed so as to present a natural +appearance. + +"_Second_. By a second arrangement of cords and springs in the inside of +the limb, the foot and toes are gradually and easily extended, when +the heel is placed in contact with the ground. In consequence of this +arrangement, the limping gait, and the unpleasant noise made by the +sudden stroke of the ball of the foot upon the ground in walking, which +are so obvious in the ordinary leg, are avoided. + +"_Third_. By a peculiar arrangement of the knee-joint, it is rendered +little liable to wear, and all lateral or rotary motion is avoided. It +is hardly necessary to remark that any such motion is undesirable in an +artificial leg, as it renders its support unstable." + +Before reporting some of the facts which we have seen, or learned by +personal inquiry, we must be allowed, for the sake of convenience, +to exercise the privilege granted to all philosophical students, of +enlarging the nomenclature applicable to the subject of which we are +treating. + +Man, according to the Sphinx, is successively a _quadruped_, a _biped_, +and a _triped_. But circumstances may change his natural conditions. If +he loses a leg, he becomes a _uniped_. If he loses both his legs, he +becomes a _nulliped_. If art replaces the loss of one limb with a +factitious substitute, he becomes a _ligniped_, or, if we wish to be +very precise, a _uni-ligniped_; two wooden legs entitle him to be called +a _biligniped_. Our terminology being accepted, we are ready to proceed. + +To make ourselves more familiar with the working of the invention we are +considering, we have visited Mr. Palmer's establishments in Philadelphia +and Boston. The distinguished "Surgeon-Artist" is a man of fine person, +as we have said. But if he has any personal vanity, it does not betray +itself with regard to that portion of his organism which Nature +furnished him. There is some reason to think that Mr. Palmer is a little +ashamed of the lower limb which he brought into the world with him. At +least, if he follows the common rule and puts that which he considers +his best foot foremost, he evidently awards the preference to that which +was born of his brain over the one which he owes to his mother. He walks +as well as many do who have their natural limbs, though not so well as +some of his own patients. He puts his vegetable leg through many of the +movements which would seem to demand the contractile animal fibre. He +goes up and down stairs with very tolerable ease and despatch. Only when +he comes to _stand_ upon the human limb, we begin, to find that it is +not in all respects equal to the divine one. For a certain number of +seconds he can poise himself upon it; but Mr. Palmer, if he indulges +in verse, would hardly fill the Horatian complement of lines in that +attitude. In his anteroom were unipeds in different stages of their +second learning to walk as lignipeds. At first they move with a good +deal of awkwardness, but gradually the wooden limb seems to become, as +it were, penetrated by the nerves, and the intelligence to run downwards +until it reaches the last joint of the member. + +Mr. Palmer, as we have incidentally mentioned, has a branch +establishment in Boston, to which also we have paid a visit, in order +to learn some of the details of the manufacture to which we had not +attended in our pleasant interview with the inventor. The antechamber +here, too, was the nursery of immature lignipeds, ready to exhibit their +growing accomplishments to the inquiring stranger. It almost seems as if +the artificial leg were the scholar, rather than the person who wears +it. The man does well enough, but the leg is stupid until practice has +taught it just what is expected from its various parts. + +The polite Boston partner, who, if he were in want of a customer, would +almost persuade a man with two good legs to provide himself with a +third, carried us to the back part of the building, where legs are +organized. + +The _willow_, which furnishes the charcoal for the gunpowder that blows +off limbs, is the wood chosen to supply the loss it has helped to +occasion. It is light, strong, does not warp or "check" much as many +other woods, and is, as the workmen say, _healthy_, that is, not +irritating to the parts with which it is in contact. Whether the +_salicine_ it may contain enters the pores and invigorates the system +may be a question for those who remember the drugs in the Sultan's +bat-handle and the remarkable cure they wrought. This wood is kept in +a dry-house with as much care as that intended for the manufacture of +pianos. It is thoroughly steamed also, before using. + +The wood comes in rudely shaped blocks, as lasts are sent to the +factory, seeming to have been coarsely hewed out of the log. The +shaping, as we found to our surprise, is all done by hand. We had +expected to see great lathes, worked by steam-power, taking in a rough +stick and turning out a finished limb. But it is shaped very much as a +sculptor finishes his marble, with an eye to artistic effect,--not so +much in the view of the stranger, who does not look upon its naked +loveliness, as in that of the wearer, who is seduced by its harmonious +outlines into its purchase, and solaced with the consciousness that he +carries so much beauty and symmetry about with him. The hollowing-out of +the interior is done by wicked-looking blades and scoops at the end of +long stems, suggesting the thought of dentists' instruments as they +might have been in the days of the giants. The joints are most carefully +made, more particularly at the knee, where a strong bolt of steel passes +through the solid wood. Windows, oblong openings, are left in the sides +of the limb, to insure a good supply of air to the extremity of the +mutilated limb. Many persons are not aware that all parts of the surface +_breathe_ just as the lungs breathe, exhaling carbonic acid as well as +water, and taking in more or less oxygen. + +One of the workmen, a pleasant-looking young fellow, was himself, we +were told, a ligniped. We begged him to give us a specimen of his +walking. He arose and walked rather slowly across the room and back. +"Once more," we said, not feeling quite sure which was Nature's leg and +which Mr. Palmer's. So he walked up and down the room again, until we +had satisfied ourselves which was the leg of willow and which that +of flesh and bone. It is not, perhaps, to the credit of our eyes or +observing powers, but it is a fact, that we deliberately selected _the +wrong leg_. No victim of the thimble-rigger's trickery was ever more +completely taken in than we were by the contrivance of the ingenious +Surgeon-Artist. + +Our freely expressed admiration led to the telling of wonderful stories +about the doings of persons with artificial legs. One individual was +mentioned who _skated_ particularly well; another who _danced_ with zeal +and perseverance; and a third who must needs _swim_ in his leg, which +brought on a dropsical affection of the limb,--to which kind of +complaint the willow has, of course, a constitutional tendency,--and for +which it had to come to the infirmary where the diseases that wood is +heir to are treated. + +But the most wonderful monuments of the great restorer's skill are the +patients who have lost both legs,--_nullipeds_, as presented to Mr. +Palmer, _bilignipeds_, as they walk forth again before the admiring +world, balanced upon their two new-born members. We have before us +delineations of six of these hybrids between the animal and vegetable +world. One of them was employed at a railway-station near this +(Atlantic) city, where he was often seen by a member of our own +household, whose testimony we are in the habit of considering superior +in veracity to the naked truth as commonly delivered. He walked about, +we are assured, a little slowly and stiffly, but in a way that hardly +attracted attention. + +The inventor of the leg has not been contented to stop there. He has +worked for years upon the construction of an artificial _arm_, and has +at length succeeded in arranging a mechanism, which, if it cannot serve +a pianist or violinist, is yet equal to holding the reins in driving, +receiving fees for professional services, and similar easy labors. +Where Mr. Palmer means to stop in supplying bodily losses it would be +premature to say. We suppose the accidents happening occasionally from +the use of the guillotine are beyond his skill, and spare our readers +the lively remark suggested by the contrary hypothesis. + + * * * * * + +It is one of the signs of our advancing American civilization, that the +arts which preserve and restore the personal advantages necessary or +favorable to cultivated social life should have reached such perfection +among us. American dentists have achieved a reputation which has sent +them into the palaces of Europe to open the mouths of sovereigns and +princes as freely as the jockeys look into those of horses and colts. +Bad teeth, too common among us, help to breed good dentists, no doubt; +but besides this there is an absolute demand for a certain comeliness of +person throughout all the decent classes of our society. It is the same +standard of propriety in appearances which lays us open to the reproach +of caring too much for dress. If the national ear for music is not so +acute as that of some other peoples, the national eye for the harmonies +of form and color is better than we often find in older communities. We +have a right to claim that our sculptors and painters prove so much as +this for us. American taste was offended, outraged, by the odious "peg" +which the Old-World soldier or beggar was proud to show. We owe the +well-shaped, intelligent, docile limb, the half-reasoning willow of Mr. +Palmer, to the same sense of beauty and fitness which moulded the soft +outlines of the Indian Girl and the White Captive in the studio of his +namesake at Albany. + +As we wean ourselves from the Old World, and become more and more +nationalized in our great struggle for existence as a free people, we +shall carry this aptness for the production of beautiful forms more and +more into common life, which demands first what is necessary and then +what is pleasing. It is but a step from the painter's canvas to the +weaver's loom, and the pictures which are leaving the easel to-day +will show themselves in the patterns that sweep the untidy sidewalks +to-morrow. The same plastic power which is showing itself in +the triumphs of American sculpture will reach the forms of our +household-utensils. The beans of Beverly shall yet be baked in vases +that Etruria might have envied, and the clay pipe of the Americanized +Milesian shall be a thing of beauty as well as a joy forever. We +are already pushing the plastic arts farther than many persons have +suspected. There is a small town not far from us where a million +dollars' worth of gold is annually beaten into ornaments for the +breasts, the fingers, the ears, the necks of women. Many a lady supposes +she is buying Parisian adornments, when _Attleborough_ could say to +her proudly, like Cornelia, "These are my jewels." The workmen of this +little town not only meet the tastes of the less fastidious classes, to +whom all that glisters is gold, but they shape the purest metal into +artistic and effective patterns. When the Koh-i-noor--the Mountain of +Light--was to be fashioned, it was found to be almost as formidable a +task as that of Xerxes, when he undertook to hew Mount Athos to the +shape of man. The great crystal was sent to Holland, as the only place +where it could be properly cut. We have lately seen a brilliant which, +if not a mountain of light, was yet a very respectable mound of +radiance, valued at some ten or twelve thousand dollars, cut in this +virgin settlement, and exposed in one of our shop-windows to tempt our +frugal villagers. + +Monsieur Trousseau, Professor in the Medical School of Paris, delivered +a discursive lecture not long ago, in which he soared from the region +of drugs, his well-known special province, into the thin atmosphere +of aesthetics. It is the influence that surrounds his fortunate +fellow-citizens, he declares, which alone preserves their intellectual +supremacy. If a Parisian milliner, he says, remove to New York, she will +so degenerate in the course of a couple of years that the squaw of a +Choctaw chief would be ashamed to wear one of her bonnets. + +Listen, O Parisian cockney, pecking among the brood most plethoric with +conceit, of all the coop-fed citizens who tread the pavements of earth's +many-chimneyed towns! America has made implements of husbandry which +out-mow and out-reap the world. She has contrived man-slaying engines +which kill people faster than any others. She has modelled the +wave-slicing clipper which outsails all your argosies and armadas. +She has revolutionized naval warfare once by the steamboat. She has +revolutionized it a second time by planting towers of iron on the +elephantine backs of the waves. She has invented the sewing-machine to +save the dainty fingers of your virtuous grisettes from uncongenial +toil, so that Fifine and Fretillon may have more leisure for +self-development. She has taught you a whole new system of labor in her +machinery for making watches and rifles. She has bestowed upon you and +all the world an anodyne which enables you to cut arms and legs off +without hurting the patient; and when his leg is off, she has given you +a true artist's limb for your cripple to walk upon, instead of the peg +on which he has stumped from the days of Guy de Chauliac to those of M. +Nelaton. She has been contriving well-shaped boots and shoes for the +very people who, if they were your countrymen, would be clumping about +in wooden _sabots_. In works of scientific industry, hardly to be looked +for among so new a people she has distanced your best artificers. The +microscopes made at Canastota, in the backwoods of New York, look in +vain for their rivals in Paris, and must challenge the best workmanship +of London before they can be approached in excellence. The great eye +that stares into the celestial spaces from its workshop in Cambridge, +dives deeper through their clouds of silvery dust than any instrument +mounted in your observatory in face of the Luxembourg. Our artisans +produce no Gobelin tapestries or Sevres porcelain as yet; but when your +mobs have looted the Tuileries, our shopkeepers have bought up enough +specimens to serve them as patterns by-and-by. + +All this is something for a nation which has hardly pulled up the stumps +out of its city market-places. It is sad to reflect that milliners, like +Burgundy, are spoiled by transportation to the headquarters of American +fashion. But as the best bonnet of the Empress's own artist would be +exploded with yells a couple of seasons after the time when it was the +rage, the Icarian professor's flight into the regions of rhetoric has +not led him to any very logical resting-place from which he can look +down on the aesthetic possibilities of New York or other Western cities +emerging from the semi-barbarous state. + +We are not proud, of course, of any of the mechanical triumphs we +have won; they are well enough, and show--to borrow the words of a +distinguished American, whom, during his too brief career, we held +unrivalled by any experimenter in the Old World for the depth as well as +the daring of his investigations--that some things can be done as well +as others. + +Our specialty is of somewhat larger scope. We profess to make men and +women out of human beings better than any of the joint-stock companies +called dynasties have done or can do it. We profess to make citizens out +of men,--not _citoyens_, but persons educated to question all privileges +asserted by others, and claim all rights belonging to themselves,--the +only way in which the infinitely most important party to the compact +between the governed and governing can avoid being cheated out of the +best rights inherent in human nature, as an experience the world has +seen almost enough of has proved. We are in trouble just now, on account +of a neglected hereditary _melanosis_, as Monsieur Trousseau might call +it. When we recover from the social and political convulsion it has +produced, and eliminate the _materies morbi_,--and both these events are +only matters of time,--perhaps we shall have leisure to breed our own +milliners. If not, there will probably be refugees enough from the Old +World, who have learned the fashions in courts, and will be glad to turn +their knowledge to a profitable use for the benefit of their republican +patronesses in New York and Boston. + +We have run away from our subject farther than we intended at starting; +but an essay on legs could hardly avoid the rambling tendency which +naturally belongs to these organs. + + * * * * * + + +PAUL BLECKER. + + +PART I. + + "Which serves life's purpose best, + To enjoy or to renounce?" + +A thorough American, who comprehends what America has to do, and means +to help on with it, ought to choose to be born in New England, for the +vitalized brain, finely-chorded nerves, steely self-control,--then to go +West, for more live, muscular passion, succulent manhood, naked-handed +grip of his work. But when he wants to die, by all means let him hunt +out a town in the valley of Pennsylvania or Virginia: Nature and man +there are so ineffably self-contained, content with that which is, shut +in from the outer surge, putting forth their little peculiarities, as +tranquil and glad to be alive as if they were pulseless sea-anemones, +and after a while going back to the Being whence they came, just as +tranquil and glad to be dead. + +Paul Blecker had some such fancy as this, that last evening before the +regiment of which he was surgeon started for Harper's Ferry, while he +and the Captain were coming from camp by the hill-road into the village +(or burgh: there are no Villages in Pennsylvania). Nothing was lost on +Blecker; his wide, nervous eyes took all in: the age and complacent +quiet of this nook of the world, the full-blooded Nature asleep in the +yellow June sunset; why! she had been asleep there since the beginning, +he knew. The very Indians in these hills must have been a fishing, +drowsy crew; their names and graves yet dreamily haunted the farms and +creek-shores. The Covenanters who came after them never had roused +themselves enough to shake them off. Covenanters: the Doctor began +joking to himself, as he walked along, humming some tune, about how the +spirit of every sect came out, always alike, in the temperament, the +very cut of the face, or whim of accent. These descendants of the +Covenanters, now,--Presbyterian elders and their wives,--going down to +camp to bid their boys good-bye, devoted them to death with just as +stern integrity, as partial a view of the right, as their ancestors did +theirs at Naseby or Drumclog: their religion loved its friends and hated +its enemies just as bitterly as when it scowled at Monmouth; the "boys," +no doubt, would call themselves Roundheads, as they had done in the +three months' service. Paul Blecker, who had seen a good many sides of +the world, laughed to himself: the very Captain here, good, anxious, +innocent as a baby, as he was, looked at the world exactly through +Balfour of Burley's dead eyes, was going to cure the disease of it by +the old pill of intolerance and bigotry. No wonder Paul laughed. + +The sobered Quaker evening was making ready for night: the yellow warmth +overhead thinning into tintless space; the low hills drawing farther off +in the melancholy light; the sky sinking nearer; clouds, unsteady all +day, softened at last into a thoughtful purple, and couching themselves +slowly in the hollows of the horizon; the sweep of cornfields and woods +and distant farms growing dim,--daguerreotype-like; the tinkle of the +sheep-bells on the meadows, the shouts of the boys in camp yonder, the +bass drone of the frogs in the swamp dulling down into the remoteness of +sleep. The Doctor slackened his sharp, jerking stride, and fell into +the monotonous gait of his companion, glancing up to him. McKinstry, he +thought, was going out to battle to-morrow with just as cool phlegm and +childlike content as he would set out to buy his merino ewes; but he +would receive no pay,--meant to transfer it to his men. And he would be +in the thickest of the fight,--you might bet on that. Umph! his quick +eyes darting over the big, leisurely frame, the neat yellow hair, +and the blue eyes mildly peering through spectacles. Then, having +satisfactorily anatomized McKinstry, he turned to the evening again with +open senses, the sensitive pulsing of his wide nostrils telling that +even the milky scent of the full-uddered cows gave him keen enjoyment. +The cows were going home from pasture, up shady barn-lanes, into the +grayer shadows about the houses on either side of the road, in whose +windows lights were beginning to glimmer. Solid old homesteads they +were, stone or brick, never wood. Out in these Western settlements, a +hundred years ago, they built durable homes, curiously enough, more than +in the Northern States; planted oaks about them, that bore the strength +of the earth up to heaven in sturdy arms, shaming the graceful, +uncertain elm of shallower soils. Just such old farm-houses as those, +Blecker thought, would turn out such old-time moulded men as McKinstry: +houses whose orchards still held on to the Waldower and Smoke-house +apples; their gardens gay with hollyhocks and crimson prince's-feather; +on the book-shelves the "Spectator" and "Gentleman's Magazine." The +women of them kept up the old-fashioned knitting-parties, and a +donation-visit to the pastor once a year; and the men were all gone to +the war, to keep the Union as it was in their fathers' time, and would +doubtless vote the conservative ticket next election because their +fathers did, which would make the war a horrible farce. The town, +Blecker thought, had rooted itself in between the hills with as solid +a persistence as the prejudices of its builders. Obstinately steep +streets, shaded by gnarled locust-trees; houses drawn back from the +sidewalks, in surly dread of all new-comers; the very smoke, vaporing +through the sky, had defiance in it of the outer barbarous world and its +vulgar newness. Yet the town had an honest country heart in it, if it +was a bit gray and crusty with age. Blecker, knowing it as he did, did +not wonder the boys who left it named a village for it out in Kansas, +trying to fancy themselves at home,--or that one old beggar in it asked +to be buried in the middle of the street, "So's I kin hear the stages +a-comin' in, an' know if the old place is a-gittin' on." + +There seemed to be a migration from it to-night: they met, every minute, +buggies, old-fashioned carriages, horsemen. + +"Going out to camp," McKinstry said; "the boys all have some one to bid +them good-bye." + +What a lonely, reserved voice the man had! Blecker had the curiosity of +all sensitive men to know the soul-history of people; he glanced again +keenly in McKinstry's face. Pshaw! one might as well ask their story +from the deaf and dumb. But that they were dumb,--there was hint of a +tragedy in that! + +Everybody stopped to speak to the Doctor. He had been but a few +months in the place; but the old church-goers had found him out as +a passionate, free-and-easy, honorable fellow, full of joke and +anecdote,--shrewd, too. They "fellowshipped" with him heartily, and were +glad when he got the post of surgeon with their sons. If there were +anything more astringent below this, any more real self in the man, held +back, belonging to a world outside of theirs, they did not see it. They +knew him better, they thought, than they did Daniel McKinstry, who had +grown up among them, just as mild and silent when he was a tow-haired +boy as now, a man of forty-five. He touched his hat to them now, and +went on, while Blecker leaned on the carriage-doors, his brown face +aglow with fun, his uneasy fingers drumming boyishly on the panel. Not +knowing that through the changeful face, and fierce, pitiful eyes of the +boy, the man Paul Blecker looked coolly out, testing, labelling +them. The boy in him, that they saw, Nature had made; but years of a +hand-to-hand fight with starvation came after, crime, and society, whose +work is later than Nature's, and sometimes better done. + +"Fine girl!" said the Doctor, touching his hat to Miss Mallard, as she +cantered past. "Got a head of her own, too. Made a deused good speech, +when she presented the flag to-day." + +Miss Mallard overheard him, as he intended she should, and blushed a +visible acknowledgment. All of her character was visible, well-developed +as her body: her timidity showed itself in the unceasing dropping of her +eyelid; her arch simplicity in the pouting lips; a coy reserve--well, +that everywhere, to the very rosette on her retreating slipper; and her +patriotism was quite palpable in the color of her Balmoral. She rode +Squire Mallard's gray. + +"And very well they turn out," sneered Blecker. + +"She is a woman," said the Captain, blushing,--differently from the +lady, however. + +"And if she is?" turning suddenly. "She has the nature of a Bowery +rough. Pah, McKinstry! Sexes stand alike with me. If a woman's flesh is +weaker-grained a bit, what of that? Whoever would earn esteem must work +for it." + +The Captain said nothing, stammered a little, then, hoisting his foot on +a stump, tied his shoe nervously. + +Blecker smiled, a queer, sorrowful smile, as if, oddly enough, he felt +sorry for himself. + +"I'd like to think of women as you do, Mac," he said. "You never knew +many?" + +"Only two, until now,--my mother and little Sarah. They're gone now." + +Sarah? The Doctor was silent a moment, thinking. He had heard of a +sister of McKinstry's, sick for years with some terrible disease, whom +he had nursed until the end. She was Sarah, most likely. Well, that was +what _his_ life had been given up for, was it? There was a twitching +about McKinstry's wide mouth: Paul looked away from him a moment, and +then, glancing furtively back, began again. + +"No, I never knew my mother or sister, Mac. The great discovery of this +age is woman, old fellow! I've been, knocked about too much not to have +lost all delusions about them. It did well enough for the crusading +times to hold them as angels in theory, and in practice as idiots; but +in these rough-and-tumble days we'd better give 'em their places as +flesh and blood, with exactly such wants and passions as men." + +The Captain never argued. + +"I don't know," he said, dryly. + +After that he jogged on in silence, glancing askance at the masculine, +self-assertant figure of his companion,--at the face, acrid, unyielding, +beneath its surface-heat: ruminating mildly to himself on what a good +thing it was for him never to have known any but old-fashioned women. +This Blecker, now, had been made by intercourse with such women as those +he talked of: he came from the North. The Captain looked at him with a +vague, moony compassion: the usual Western vision of a Yankee female +in his head,--Bloomer-clad, hatchet-faced, capable of anything, from +courting a husband to commanding a ship. (It is all your fault, genuine +women of New England! Why don't you come among us, and know your +country, and let your country know you? Better learn the meaning of +Chicago than of Venice, for your own sakes, believe me.) + +They were near the town now, the road crossing a railroad-track, where +the hill, chopped apart for the grade, left bare the black stratum of +coal, tinged here and there with a bloody brown and whitish shale. + +"Hillo! this means iron," said the Doctor, climbing up the bank, +cat-like, to break off a bit; "and here an odd formation, Mac. Take it +in to old Gurney." + +The Captain cleaned his spectacles with piece of chamois-leather, put +them on, folded the leather and replaced it in its especial place in his +pocket, before he took the bit of rock. + +"All that finical ceremony he would go through in the face of the +enemy," thought Blecker, jumping down on the track. + +"Give it to old Gurney, Mac. It will insure you a welcome." + +"It is curious, Doctor Blecker. But you"-- + +"I never care to gratify anybody. Besides, the old gentleman and I +inter-despised. Our instincts cried out, ''Ware dog!' the first day You +are a friend of his, eh, Mac?" + +The Captain's face grew red, like a bashful woman's. He thought Blecker +had divined his secret, would haul it out roughly in another moment. +If this slang-talking Yankee should take little Lizzy's name into his +mouth! But the Doctor was silent, even looked away until the heat on the +poor old bachelor's face had died out. He knew McKinstry's thought of +that little girl well enough, but he held the child-hearted man's secret +tenderly and charily in his hand. Paul Blecker did talk slang and assert +himself; but every impulse in him was clean, delicate, liberal. So, +Paul remaining silent, the Captain took heart of grace, going down the +street, and ventured back to the Gurney question. + +"I thought I would accompany you there, Doctor Blecker. They might only +think it seemly in me to bid farewell. I"-- + +Blecker nodded. The man had not been able to hide an harassed frown that +day under his usual vigor of speech and look. It became more palpable +after this; his voice, when he did speak, was fretful, irritable,--his +lips compressed; he stopped at a village-well to drink, as though his +mouth were parched. + +"How old is that house,--the Gurneys?" he asked, affecting carelessness, +to baffle the curious inspection of McKinstry. + +"The Fort? We call it the Fort because it was used for one in Indian +times," McKinstry began, chafing his lean whiskers delightedly. + +Old houses were his hobby, especially this which they approached,--a +narrow, long building of unhewn stone, facing on the street, the lintels +and doors worm-eaten, and green with moss. + +"Built by Bradford, the new part,--Bradford, of the Whiskey +Insurrection, you know? Carvings on the walls brought over the +mountains, when to bring them by panels was a two-months' journey. +There's queer stories hang about these old Pennsylvania homesteads." + +"Bradford? The Gurneys are a new family here, then?" + +"Came here but a few years back, from a country farther up the +mountains. They're different from us." + +"How, different?" with a keen, surprised glance. "_I_ see they are a +newer people than the others; but I thought the village accepted them +with shut eyes." + +The Captain stammered again. + +"Old Father Gurney, as we call him, taught school when they first came, +but he gave that up. This section is a good geological field, and he +wished to devote himself to that," he went on, evading the question. +"They live off of those acres at the back of the house since that. You +see? Corn, potatoes, buckwheat,--good yield." + +"Who oversees the planting?" sharply. + +McKinstry wondered vaguely at the little Doctor's curious interest in +the Gurneys, but went on with his torpid, slow answers. + +"That eldest girl, I believe, Grey. Cow there, you see, and ducks. He's +popular, old Father Gurney. People have a liking for his queer ways, +help him collect specimens for his cabinet; the boys bring him birds to +stuff, and snakes. If it hadn't been for the troubles breaking out, +he was on the eve of a most im-por-tant discovery,--the crater of an +exhausted volcano in Virginia." McKinstry lowered his voice cautiously. +"Fact, Sir. In Mercer County. But the guerrillas interfered with his +researches." + +"I think it probable. So he stuffs birds, does he?" Blecker's lips +closing tighter. + +"And keeps the snakes in alcohol. There are shelves in Miss Lizzy's room +quite full of them. That lower room it was, but Joseph has taken it for +a study. She has the upper one for her flowers and her father's birds." + +"And Grey, and the twins, and the four boys bedaubed with molasses, and +the dog, and the cooking?" + +"Stowed away somewhere," the Captain mildly responded. + +Dr. Blecker was testy. + +"You know Joseph, her brother? I mean our candidate for Congress next +term?" + +"Yes. Democratic. J. Schuyler Gurney,--give him his name, Mac. +Republican last winter. Joseph trims to wind and tide well. I heard +him crow like a barn-yard fowl on the Capitol-steps at Washington +when Lincoln called for the seventy-five thousand: now, he hashes up +Breckinridge's conservative speech for your hickory-backed farmers. Does +he support the family, Mac?" + +"His election-expenses are heavy." + +"Brandy-slings. I know his proclivities." + +McKinstry colored. Dr. Blecker was coarse, an ill-bred man, he +suspected,--noting, too, the angry repression in his eyes, as he stood +leaning on the gate, looking in at the Fort, for they had reached it +by this time. The Captain looked in, too, through the dusky clumps of +altheas and plum-trees, at the old stone house, dyed tawny-gray in the +evening light, and talked on, the words falling unconscious and simple +as a stream of milk. The old plodder was no longer dumb. Blecker had +hit on the one valve of the shut-up nature, the obstinate point of +self-reliant volition in a life that had been one long drift of +circumstance. This old stone house, shaggy with vines, its bloody script +of Indian warfare hushed down and covered with modern fruit-trees and +sunflowers,--this fort, and the Gurneys within it, stood out in the bare +swamped stretch of the man's years, their solitary bit of enchantment. +They were bare years,--the forty he had known: Fate had drained them +tolerably dry before she flung them to him to accomplish duty in;--the +duty was done now. McKinstry, a mild, common-faced man, had gone through +it for nearly half a century, pleasantly,--never called it heroism. It +was done. He had time now to stretch his nerves of body and soul with +a great sigh of relief,--to see that Duty was, after all, a lean, +meagre-faced angel, that Christ sends first, but never meant should be +nearest and best. Faith, love, and so, happiness, these were words of +more pregnant meaning in the gospel the Helper left us. So McKinstry +stood straight up, for the first time in his life, and looked about him. +A man, with an adult's blood, muscles, needs; an idle soul which his +cramped creed did not fill, hungry domestic instincts, narrow and +patient habit;--he claimed work and happiness, his right. Of course it +came, and tangibly. Into every life God sends an actual messenger to +widen and lift it above itself: puerile or selfish the messenger often +is, but so straight from Him that the divine radiance clings about it, +and all that it touches. We call that _love_, you remember. A secular +affair, according to McKinstry's education, as much as marketing. So +when he found that the tawny old house and the quiet little girl in +there with the curious voice, which people came for miles to hear, +were gaining an undue weight in his life, held, to be plain, all the +fairy-land of which his childhood had been cheated, all fierce beauty, +aspiration, passionate strength to insult Fate, which his life had never +known, he kept the knowledge to himself. It was boyish weakness. He +choked it out of thought on Sundays as sacrilege: how could he talk +of the Gurney house and Lizzy to that almighty, infinite Vagueness he +worshipped? Stalking to and fro, in the outskirts of the churchyard, +he used to watch the flutter of the little girl's white dress, as she +passed by to "meeting." He could not help it that his great limbs +trembled, if the dress touched them, or that he had a mad longing to +catch the tired-looking child up to his brawny breast and hold her there +forever. But he felt guilty and ashamed that it was so; not knowing that +Christ, seeing the pure thrill in his heart, smiled just as he did long +ago when Mary brought the beloved disciple to him. + +He never had told little Lizzy that he loved her,--hardly told himself. +Why, he was forty-five,--and a year or two ago she was sledding down the +street with her brothers, a mere yellow-haired baby. He remembered the +first time he had noticed her,--one Christmas eve; his mother and Sarah +were alive then. There was an Italian woman came to the village with a +broken hand-organ, a filthy, starving wretch, and Gurney's little girl +went with her from house to house in the snow, singing Christmas carols, +and handing the tambourine. Everybody said, "Why, you little tot!" and +gave her handfuls of silver. Such a wonderful voice she had even then, +and looked so chubby and pretty in her little blue cloak and hood; and +going about with the woman was such a pure-hearted thing to do. She +danced once or twice that day, striking the tambourine, he remembered; +the sound of it seemed to put her in a sort of ecstasy, laughing till +her eyes were full of tears, and her tangled hair fell all about her red +cheeks. She could not help but do it, he believed, for at other times +she was shy, terrified, if one spoke to her; but he wished he had not +seen her dance then, though she was only a child: dancing, he thought, +was as foul and effective a snare as ever came from hell. After that day +she used often to come to the farm to see his mother and Sarah. +They tried to teach her to sew, but she was a lazy little thing, he +remembered, with an indulgent smile. And he was "Uncle Dan." So now she +was grown up, quite a woman: in those years, when she had been with her +kinsfolk in New York, she had been taught to sing. Well, well! McKinstry +reckoned music as about as useful as the crackling of thorns under a +pot; so he never cared to know, what was the fact, that this youngest +daughter of Gurney's had one of the purest contralto voices in the +States. She came home, grown, but just as shy; only tired, needing care: +no one could look in Lizzy Gurney's face without wishing to comfort and +help the child. The Gurneys were so wretchedly poor, that might be the +cause of her look. She was a woman now. Well, and then? Why, nothing +then. He was Uncle Dan still, of whom she was less afraid than of any +other living creature; that was all. Thinking, as he stood with Paul +Blecker, leaning over the gate, of how she had brought him a badly-made +havelock that morning. "You're always so kind to me," she said. "So I +am kind to her," he thought, his quiet blue eyes growing duller behind +their spectacles; "so I will be." + +The Doctor opened the gate, and went in, turning into the shrubbery, and +seating himself under a sycamore. + +"Don't wait for me, McKinstry," he said. "I'll sit here and smoke a bit. +Here comes the aforesaid Joseph." + +He did not light his cigar, however, when the other left him; took off +his hat to let the wind blow through his hair, the petulant heat dying +out of his face, giving place to a rigid settling, at last, of the +fickle features. + +A flabby, red-faced man in fine broadcloth and jaunty beaver came down +the path, fumbling his seals, and met the Captain with a puffing snort +of salutation. To Blecker, whose fancy was made sultry to-night by some +passion we know nothing of, he looked like a bloated spider coming out +of the cell where his victims were. "Gorging himself, while they and the +country suffer the loss," he muttered. But Paul was a hot-brained +young man. We should only have seen a vulgar, commonplace trickster in +politics, such as the people make pets of. "Such men as Schuyler Gurney +get the fattest offices. God send us a monarchy soon!" he hissed under +his breath, as the gate closed after the politician. By which you will +perceive that Dr. Blecker, like most men fighting their way up, was too +near-sighted for any abstract theories. Liberty, he thought, was a very +poetic, Millennium-like idea for stump-speeches and college-cubs, but he +grappled with the time the States were too chaotic, untaught a mass for +self-government; he cursed secession as anarchy, and the government at +Washington for those equally anarchical, drunken whims of tyranny; he +would like to see an iron heel put on the whole concern, for wholesome +discipline. The Doctor was born in one of the Border States; men there, +it is said, have a sort of hand-to-mouth politics; their daily bread of +rights is all they care for; so Paul seldom looked into to-morrow for +anything. In other ways, too, his birth had curdled his blood into a +sensuous languor. To-night, after McKinstry had entered the house, and +he was left alone, the quaint old garden quiet, the air about him clean, +pure, unperfumed, the stars distant and lonely, his limbs bedded in the +clinging moss, he was rested for the moment, happy like a child, with +no subtile-sensed questionings why. The sounds of the village could not +penetrate there; the content, the listless hush of the night was with +him; the delicious shimmer of the trees in the starlight, the low call +of the pigeon to its mate, even the fall of the catalpa-blossoms upon +his hand, thrilled him with unreasoning pleasure: a dull consciousness +that the earth was alive and well, and he was glad to live with the +rest. + +Something in Blecker's nature came into close _rapport_ with the higher +animal life. If he had been born with money, and lived here in these +stagnating hills, or down yonder on some lazy cotton-plantation, he +would have settled down before this into a genial, child-loving, +arbitrary husband and master, fond of pictures and horses, his house in +decent taste, his land pleasure-giving, his wines good. By this time he +would have been Judge Blecker, with a portly voice, flushed face, and +thick eyelids. But he had scuffled and edged his way in the thin air of +Connecticut as errand-boy, daguerreotypist, teacher, doctor;--so he came +into the Gurney garden that night, shrewd, defiant, priding himself on +detecting shams. His waistcoat and trousers were of coarser stuff than +suited his temperament; a taint of vulgarity in his talk, his whiskers +untrimmed, the meaning of his face compacted, sharpened. It was many +a year since a tear had come into his black eyes; yet tears belonged +there, as much as to a woman's. + +Only for a few moments, therefore, he was contented to sit quiet in the +soft gloaming: then he puffed his cigar impatiently, watching the +house. Waiting for some one: with no fancies about the old fort, like +McKinstry. An over-full house, with an unordered, slipshod life, hungry, +clinging desperately in its poverty to an old prestige of rank, one +worker inside patiently bearing the whole selfish burden. Well, there +was the history of the anxious, struggling, middle class of America: why +need he have been goaded so intolerably by this instance? Paul's eyes +were jaundiced; he sat moodily watching the lighted window off in the +darkness, through which he could catch glimpses of the family-room +within: he called it a pitiful tragedy going on there; yet it seemed to +be a cheerful and hearty life. This girl Grey, whom he looked on as one +might on some victim from whose lungs the breath was drawn slowly, was +fresh, careless, light-hearted enough. Going to and fro in the room, +now carrying one of the children, she sang it to sleep with no doleful +ditty, such as young women fresh from boarding-school affect, but with +a ringing, cheery song. You might be sure that Baby would wake laughing +to-morrow morning after it. He could see her shadow pass and repass the +windows; she would be out presently; she was used to come out always +after the hot day's flurry,--to say her prayers, he believed; and he +chose to see her there in the dark and coolness to bid her good-bye. He +waited, not patiently. + +Grey, trotting up and down, holding by the chubby legs and wriggling +arms of Master Pen, sang herself out of breath with "Roy's Wife," and +stopped short. + +"I'm sure, Pen, I don't know what to do with you,"--half ready to cry. + +"'Dixie,' now, Sis." + +Pen was three years old, but he was the baby when his mother died; so +Sis walked him to sleep every night: all tender memories of her who +was gone clinging about the little fat lump of mischief in his white +night-gown. A wiry voice spoke out of some corner,-- + +"Yer 'd hev a thumpin' good warmin', Mars' Penrose, ef ole Oth hed his +will o' yer! It 'ud be a special 'pensation ob de Lord fur dat chile!" + +Pen prospected his sister's face with the corner of one blue eye. There +was a line about the freckled cheeks and baby-mouth of "Sis" that +sometimes agreed with Oth on the subject of dispensations, but it was +not there to-night. + +"No, no, uncle. Not the last thing before he goes to bed. I always try, +myself, to see something bright and pretty for the last thing, and then +shut my eyes, quick,--just as Pen will do now: quick! there's my sonny +boy!" + +Nobody ever called Grey Gurney pretty; but Pen took an immense delight +in her now; shook and kicked her for his pony, but could not make her +step less firm or light; thrust his hands about her white throat; pulled +the fine reddish hair down; put his dumpling face to hers. A thin, +uncertain face, but Pen knew nothing of that; he did know, though, that +the skin was fresh and dewy as his own, the soft lips very ready for +kisses, and the pale hazel eyes just as straightforward-looking as a +baby's. Children and dogs believe in women like Grey Gurney. Finally, +from pure exhaustion, Pen cuddled up and went to sleep. + +It was a long, narrow room where Grey and the children were, covered +with rag-carpet, (she and the boys and old Oth had made the balls for +it last winter): well lighted, for Father Gurney had his desk in +there to-night. He was working at his catalogue of Sauroidichnites in +Pennsylvania. A tall, lean man, with hook-nose, and peering, protruding, +blue eyes. Captain McKinstry sat by him, turning over Brongniart; his +brain, if one might judge from the frequency with which he blew his +nose, evidently the worse from the wear since he came in; glancing with +an irresolute awe from the book to the bony frame of the old man in his +red dressing-gown, and then to the bony carcasses of the birds on the +wall in their dusty plumage. + +"Like enough each to t' other," old Oth used to mutter; "on'y dem birds +done forgot to eat, an' Mars' Gurney neber will, gorry knows dat!" + +"If you could, Captain McKinstry,"--it was the old man who spoke now, +with a sort of whiffle through his teeth,--"if you could? A chip of +shale next to this you brought this evening would satisfy me. This is +evidently an original fossil foot-mark: no work of Indians. I'll go with +you,"--gathering his dressing-gown about his lank-legs. + +"No," said the Captain, some sudden thought bringing gravity and +self-reliance into his face. "My little girl is going with Uncle Dan. +It's the last walk I can take with her. Go, child, and bring your +bonnet." + +Little Lizzy (people generally called her that) got up from the +door-step where she sat, and ran up-stairs. She was one of those women +who look as if they ought to be ordered and taken care of. Grey put a +light shawl over her shoulders as she passed her. Grey thought of Lizzy +always very much as a piece of fine porcelain among some earthen crocks, +she being a very rough crock herself. Did not she have to make a +companion in some Ways of old Oth? When she had no potatoes for dinner, +or could get no sewing to pay for Lizzy's shoes, (Lizzy _was_ hard on +her shoes, poor thing!) she found herself talking it over with Oth. The +others did not-care for such things, and it would be mean to worry +them, but Oth liked a misery, and it was such a relief to tell things +sometimes! The old negro had been a slave of her grandfather's until he +was of age; he was quite helpless now, having a disease of the spine. +But Grey had brought him to town with them, "because, you know, uncle, I +couldn't keep house without you, at all,--I really couldn't." So he had +his chair covered with sheepskin in the sunniest corner always, and +Grey made over her father's old clothes for him on the machine. Oth had +learned to knit, and made "hisself s'ficiently independent, heelin' an' +ribbin' der boys' socks, an' keepin' der young debbils in order," he +said. + +It was but a cheap machine Grey had, but a sturdy little chap; the steel +band of it, even the wheel, flashed back a jolly laugh at her as she +passed it, slowly hushing Pen, as if it would like to say, "I'll put you +through, Sis!" and looked quite contemptuously at the heaps of white +muslin piled up beside it. The boys' shirts, you know,--but wasn't it a +mercy she had made enough to buy them before muslin went up? There were +three of the boys asleep now, legs and arms adrift over the floor, +pockets gorged with half-apples, bits of twine instead of suspenders, +other surreptitious bits under their trousers for straps. There were +the twins, girls of ten, hungering for beaux, pickles, and photographic +albums. They were gone to a party in the village. "Sis" had done up +their white dresses; and such fun as they had with her, putting them on +to hide the darns! She made it so comical that they laughed more than +they did the whole evening. + +Grey had saved some money to buy them ribbon for sashes, but Joseph had +taken it from her work-basket that morning to buy cigars. One of the +girls had cried, and even Grey's lips grew scarlet; her Welsh blood +maddened. This woman was neither an angel nor an idiot, Paul Blecker. +Then--it was such a trifle! Poor Joseph! he had been her mother's +favorite, was spoiled a little. So she hurried to his chamber-door with +his shaving-water, calling, "Brother!" Grey had a low, always pleasant +voice, I remember; you looked in her eyes, when you heard it, to see her +laughing. The ex-Congressman was friendly, but dignified, when he took +the water. Grey presumed on her usefulness; women seldom did know their +place. + +There was yet another girl busy now, convoying the lubberly hulks of +boys to bed,--a solid, Dutch-built little clipper, Loo by name. Loo +looked upon Grey secretly as rather silly; (she did all the counting for +her; Grey hardly knew the multiplication-table;) she always, however, +kept her opinions to herself. Tugging the boys after her in the manner +of a tow-boat, she thumped past her father and "that gype, McKinstry, +colloging over their bits of rock," indignation in every twist of her +square shoulders. + +"Fresh air," she said to Grey, jerking her head emphatically toward the +open door. + +"I will, Looey." + +"Looey! Pish!" + +It was no admiring glance she bestowed on the slight figure that came +down the stairs, and stood timidly waiting for McKinstry. + +"You're going, Captain?" the old man's nose and mind starting suddenly +up from his folio. "Lizzy,--eh? Here's the bit of rock. In the coal +formation, you say? Impossible, then, to be as old as the batrachian +track that"-- + +A sudden howl brought him back to the present era. Loo was arguing her +charge up to bed by a syllogism applied at the right time in the right +place. The old man held his hands to his ears with a patient smile, +until McKinstry was out of hearing. + +"It is hard to devote the mind pure to a search for truth here, my +daughter," looking over Grey's head as usual, with pensive, benevolent +eyes. "But I do what I can,--I do what I can." + +"I know, father,"--stroking his hair as she might a child's, trimming +the lamp, and bringing his slippers while he held out his feet for her +to put them on,--"I know." + +Then, when he took up the pen, she went out into the cool night. + +"I do what I can," said he, earnestly, looking at the catalogue, with +his head to one side. + +It was Oth's time,--now or never. + +"Debbil de bit yer do! Ef yer did what yer could, Mars' Si, dar 'ud be +more 'n one side o' sparerib in de cellar fur ten hungry mouths. We've +gone done eat dat pig o' Miss Grey's from head ter tail. An' pigs in +June's a disgrace ter Christians, let alone Presbyterians like us uns." + +The old man glanced at him. Oth's spine gave his tongue free license. + +"I'll discharge him," faintly. + +"'Scharge yerself," growled Oth, under his breath. + +So the old man went back to his batrachians, and Oth ribbed Pen's sock +in silence: the old fort stood at last as quiet in the moonlight as if +it were thinking over all of its long-ago Indian sieges. + +Grey's step was noiseless, going down the tan-bark path. She drew long +breaths, her lungs being choked with the day's work, and threw back the +hair from her forehead and throat. There was a latent dewiness in +the air that made the clear moonlight as fresh and invigorating as a +winter's morning. Grey stretched out her arms in it, with a laugh, as +a child might. You would know, to look at her hair, that there was a +strong poetic capacity in that girl below her simple Quaker character; +as it lay in curly masses where the child had pulled it down, there was +no shine, but clear depth of color in it: her eyes the same; not soggy, +black, flashing as women's are who effuse their experience every day +for the benefit of by-standers; this girl's were pale hazel, clear, +meaningless at times, but when her soul did force itself to the light +they gave it fit utterance. Women with hair and eyes like those, with +passionate lips and strong muscles like Grey Gurney's, are children, +single-natured all their lives, until some day God's test comes: then +they live tragedies, unconscious of their deed. + +The night was singularly clear, in its quiet: only a few dreamy trails +of gray mist, asleep about the moon: far off on the crest of the closing +hills, she fancied she could see the wind-stir in the trees that made a +feathered shadow about the horizon. She leaned on the stile, looking +over the sweep of silent meadows and hills, and slow--creeping +watercourses. The whole earth waited, she fancied, with newer life and +beauty than by day: going back, it might be, in the pure moonlight, +to remember that dawn when God said, "Let there be light." The girl +comprehended the meaning of the night better, perhaps, because of the +house she had left. Every night she came out there. She left the clothes +and spareribs behind her, and a Something, a Grey Gurney that might have +been, came back to her in the coolness and rest, the nearer she drew to +the pure old earth. She never went down into those mossy hollows, or +among the shivering pines, with a soiled, tawdry dress; she wore always +the clear, primitive colors, or white,--Grey: it was the girl's only bit +of self-development. This night she could see McKinstry's figure, as he +went down the path through the rye-field. He was stooping, leading Lizzy +by the hand, as a nurse might an infant. Grey thrust the currant-bushes +aside eagerly; she could catch a glimpse of the girl's face in the +colorless light. It always had a livid tinge, but she fancied it was red +now with healthy blushes; her eyes were on the ground: in the house they +looked out from under their heavy brows on their daily life with a tired +coldness that made silly Grey ashamed of her own light-heartedness. The +man's common face was ennobled with such infinite tenderness and pain, +Grey thought the help that lay therein would content her sister. It was +time for the girl's rest to come; she was sick of herself and of life. +So the tears came to Grey's eyes, though to the very bottom of her heart +she was thankful and glad. + +"She has found home at last!"--she said; and, maybe, because something +in the thought clung to her as she sauntered slowly down the +garden--alleys, her lips kept moving in a childish fashion of hers. "A +home at last, at last!"--that was what she said. + +Paul Blecker, too, waiting back yonder among the trees, saw McKinstry +and his companion, and read the same story that Grey did, but in a +different fashion. "The girl loves him." There were possibilities, +however, in that woman's curious traits, that Blecker, being a physician +and a little of a soul-fancier, saw: nothing in McKinstry's formal, +orthodox nature ran parallel with them; therefore he never would know +them. As they passed Blecker's outlook through the trees, his half-shut +eye ran over her,--the despondent step, the lithe, nervous limbs, the +manner in which she clung for protection to his horny hand. "Poor +child!" the Doctor thought. There was something more, in the girl's +face, that, people called gentle and shy: a weak, uncertain chin; thin +lips, never still an instant, opening and shutting like a starving +animal's; gray eyes, dead, opaque, such as Blecker had noted in the +spiritual mediums in New England. + +"I'm glad it is McKinstry she loves, and not I," he said. + +He turned, and forgot her, watching Grey coming nearer to him. The +garden sloped down to the borders of the creek, and she stood on its +edge now, looking at the uneasy crusting of the black water and the +pearly glint of moonlight. Thinking of Lizzy, and the strong love that +held her; feeling a little lonely, maybe, and quiet, she did not know +why; trying to wrench her thoughts back to the house, and the clothes, +and the spareribs. Why! he could read her thoughts on her face as if +it were a baby's! A homely, silly girl they called her. He thanked God +nobody had found her out before him. Look at the dewy freshness of her +skin! how pure she was! how the world would knock her about, if he did +not keep his hold on her! But he would do that; to-night he meant to lay +his hand upon her life, and never take it off, absorb it in his own. She +moved forward into the clear light: that was right. There was a broken +boll of a beech--tree covered with lichen: she should sit on that, +presently, her face in open light, he in the shadow, while he told +her. "Watching her with hot breath where she stood, then going down to +her:-- + +"Is Grey waiting to bid her friend good-bye?" + +She put her hand in his,--her very lips trembling with the sudden heat, +her untrained eyes wandering restlessly. + +"I thought you would come to me, Doctor Blecker." + +"Call me Paul," roughly. "I was coarser born and bred than you. I want +to think that matters nothing to you." + +She looked up proudly. + +"You know it matters nothing. I am not vulgar." + +"No, Grey. But--it is curious, but no one ever called me Paul, as boy or +man. It is a sign of equality; and I've always had, in the _melee,_ the +underneath taint about me. You are not vulgar enough to care for it. +Yours is the highest and purest nature I ever knew. Yet I know it is +right for you to call me Paul. Your soul and mine stand on a plane +before God." + +The childish flush left her face; the timid woman-look was in it now. He +bent nearer. + +"They stand there alone, Grey." + +She drew back from him, her hands nervously catching in the thick curls. + +"You do not believe that?" his breath clogged and hot. "It is a fancy of +mine? not true?" + +"It is true." + +He caught the whisper, his face growing pale, his eyes flashing. + +"Then you are mine, child! What is the meaning of these paltry +contradictions? Why do you evade me from day to day?" + +"You promised me not to speak of this again,"--weakly. + +"Pah! You have a man's straightforward, frank instinct, Grey; and this +is cowardly,--paltry, as I said before. I will speak of it again. +To-night is all that is left to me." + +He seated her upon the beech-trunk. One could tell by the very touch +and glance of the man how the image of this woman stood solitary in his +coarser thoughts, delicate, pure: a disciple would have laid just such +reverential fingers on the robe of the Madonna. Then he stood off from +her, looking straight into her hazel eyes. Grey, with all her innocent +timidity, was the cooler, stronger, maybe, of the two: the poor Doctor's +passionate nature, buffeted from one anger and cheat to another in the +world, brought very little quiet or tact or aptitude in language for +this one hour. Yet, standing there, his man's sturdy heart throbbing +slow as an hysteric woman's, his eyeballs burning, it seemed to him that +all his life had been but the weak preface to these words he was going +to speak. + +"It angers me," he muttered, abruptly, "that, when I come to you with +the thought that a man's or a woman's soul can hold but once in life, +you put me aside with the silly whims of a schoolgirl. It is not worthy +of you, Grey. You are not as other women." + +What was this that he had touched? She looked up at him steadily, +her hands clasped about her knees, the childlike rose-glow and light +banished from her face. + +"I am not like other women. You speak truer than you know. You call me a +silly, happy child. Maybe I am; but, Paul, once in my life God punished +me. I don't know for what,"--getting up, and stretching out her groping +arms, blindly. + +There was a sudden silence. This was not the cheery, healthful Grey +Gurney of a moment before, this woman with the cold terror creeping out +in her face. He caught her hands and held them. + +"I don't know for what," she moaned. "He did it. He is good." + +He watched the slow change in her face: it made his hands tremble as +they held hers. No longer a child, but a woman whose soul the curse had +touched. Miriam, leprous from God's hand, might have thus looked up to +Him without the camp. Blecker drew her closer. Was she not his own? He +would defend her against even this God, for whom he cared but little. + +"What has been done to you, child?" + +She shook herself free, speaking in a fast, husky whisper. + +"Do not touch me, Dr. Blecker. It was no school-girl's whim that kept me +from you. I am not like other women. I am not worthy of any man's love." + +"I think I know what you mean," he said, gravely. "I know your story, +Grey. They made you live a foul lie once. I know it all. You were a +child then." + +She had gone still farther from him, holding by the trunk of a dead +tree, her face turned towards the water. The black sough of wind from +it lifted her hair, and dampened her forehead. The man's brain grew +clearer, stronger, somehow, as he looked at her; as thought does in the +few electric moments of life when sham and conventionality crumble down +like ashes, and souls stand bare, face to face. For the every-day, +cheery, unselfish Grey of the coarse life in yonder he cared but little; +it was but the husk that held the woman whose nature grappled with his +own, that some day would take it with her to the Devil or to God. He +knew that. It was this woman that stood before him now: looking back, +out of the inbred force and purity within her, the indignant man's sense +of honor that she had, on the lie they had made her live: daring to face +the truth, that God had suffered this thing, yet clinging, like a simple +child, to her old faith in Him. That childish faith, that worked itself +out in her common life, Paul Blecker set aside, in loving her. She was +ignorant: he knew the world, and, he thought, very plainly saw that the +Power who had charge of it suffered unneeded ills, was a traitor to the +Good his own common sense and kindly feeling could conceive; which is +the honest belief of most of the half-thinkers in America. + +"You were but a child," he said again. "It matters nothing to me, Grey. +It left no taint upon you." + +"It did," she cried, passionately. "I carry the marks of it to my grave. +I never shall be pure again." + +"Why did your God let you go down into such foulness, then?"--the words +broke from his lips irrepressibly. "It was He who put you in the hands +of a selfish woman; it was He who gave you a weak will. It is He who +suffers marriages as false as yours. Why, child! you call it crime, the +vow that bound you for that year to a man you loathed; yet the world +celebrates such vows daily in every church in Christendom." + +"I know that";--her voice had gone down into its quiet sob, like a +little child's. + +She sat down on the ground, now, the long shore-grass swelling up around +her, thrusting her fingers into the pools of eddying water, with a +far-off sense of quiet and justice and cold beneath there. + +"I don't understand," she said. "The world's wrong somehow. I don't +think God does it. There's thousands of young girls married as I was. +Maybe, if I 'd told Him about it, it wouldn't have ended as it did. I +did not think He cared for such things." + +Blecker was silent. What did he care for questions like this now? He sat +by her on the broken trunk, his elbows on his knees, his sultry eyes +devouring her face and body. What did it matter, if once she had been +sold to another man? She was free now: he was dead. He only knew that +here was the only creature in earth or heaven that he loved: there was +not a breath in her lungs, a tint of her flesh, that was not dear to +him, allied by some fierce passion to his own sense: there was that +in her soul which he needed, starved for: his life balked blank here, +demanding it,--her,--he knew not what: but that gained, a broader +freedom opened behind, unknown possibilities of honor and truth and +deed. He would take no other step, live no farther, until he gained her. +Holding, too, the sense of her youth, her rare beauty, as it seemed +to him; loving it with keener passion because he alone developed it, +drawing her soul to the light! how like a baby she was: how dainty the +dimpling white flesh of her arms, the soft limbs crouching there! So +pure, the man never came near her without a dull loathing of himself, a +sudden remembrance of places where he had been tainted, made unfit to +touch her,--rows in Bowery dance-houses, waltzes with musk-scented fine +ladies: when this girl put her cool little hand in his sometimes, he +felt tears coming to his eyes, as if the far-off God or the dead mother +had blessed him. She sat there, now, going back to that blot in her +life, her eyes turned every moment up to the Power beyond in whom she +trusted, to know why it had been. He had seen little children, struck +by their mother's hand, turn on them a look just so grieved and so +appealing. + +"It was no one's fault altogether, Paul," she said. "My mother was not +selfish, more than other women. There were very many mouths to feed: it +is so in most families like ours." + +"I know." + +"I am very dull about books,--stupid, they say. I could not teach; and +they would not let me sew for money, because of the disgrace. These are +the only ways a woman has. If I had been a boy"-- + +"I understand." + +"No man can understand,"--her voice growing shrill with pain. "It's not +easy to eat the bread needed for other mouths day after day, with your +hands tied, idle and helpless. A boy can go out and work, in a hundred +ways: a girl must marry; it's her only chance for a livelihood, or a +home, or anything to fill her heart with. Don't blame my mother, Paul. +She had ten of us to work for. From the time I could comprehend, I knew +her only hope was, to live long enough to see her boys educated, and +her daughters in homes of their own. It was the old story, Doctor +Blecker,"--with a shivering laugh more pitiful than a cry. "I've noticed +it since in a thousand other houses. Young girls like me in these +poor-genteel families,--there are none of God's creatures more helpless +or goaded, starving at their souls. I couldn't teach. I had no talent; +but if I had, a woman's a woman: she wants something else in her life +than dog-eared school-books and her wages year after year." + +Blecker could hardly repress a smile. + +"You are coming to political economy by a woman's road, Grey." + +"I don't know what that is. I know what my life was then. I was only a +child; but when that man came and held out his hand to take me, I was +willing when they gave me to him,--when they sold me, Doctor Blecker. It +was like leaving some choking pit, where air was given to me from other +lungs, to go out and find it for my own. What marriage was or ought to +be I did not know; but I wanted, as every human being does want, a place +for my own feet to stand on, not to look forward to the life of an old +maid, living on sufferance, always the one too many in the house." + +"That is weak and vulgar argument, child. It should not touch a true +woman, Grey. Any young girl can find work and honorable place for +herself in the world, without the defilement of a false marriage." + +"I know that now. But young girls are not taught that. I was only a +child, not strong-willed. And now, when I'm free,"--a curious clearness +coming to her eye,--"I'm glad to think of it all. I never blame other +women. Because, you see,"--looking up with the flickering smile,--"a +woman's so hungry for something of her own to love, for some one to be +kind to her, for a little house and parlor and kitchen of her own; and +if she marries the first man who says he loves her, out of that first +instinct of escape from dependence, and hunger for love, she does not +know she is selling herself, until it's too late. The world's all wrong, +somehow." + +She stopped, her troubled face still upturned to his. + +"But you,--you are free now?" + +"He is dead." + +She slowly rose as she spoke, her voice hardening. + +"He was my cousin, you know,--the same name as mine. Only a year he was +with me. Then he went to Cuba, where he died. He is dead. But I am not +free,"--lifting her hands fiercely, as she spoke. "Nothing can wipe the +stain of that year off of me." + +"You know what man he was," said the Doctor, with a natural thrill of +pleasure that he could say it honestly. "I know, poor child! A vapid, +cruel tyrant, weak, foul. You hated him, Grey? There's a strength of +hatred in your blood. Answer me. You dare speak truth to me." + +"He's dead now,"--with a long, choking breath. "We will not speak of +him." + +She stood a moment, looking down the stretch of curdling black +water,--then, turning with a sudden gesture, as though she flung +something from her, looked at him with a pitiful effort to smile. + +"I don't often think of that time. I cannot bear pain very well. I like +to be happy. When I'm busy now, or playing with little Pen, I hardly +believe I am the woman who was John Gurney's wife. I was so old then! I +was like a hard, tigerish soul, tried and tempted day by day. He made me +that." + +She could not bear pain, he saw: remembrance of it, alone, made the +flesh about her lips blue, unsteadied her brain; the well-accented face +grew vacant, dreary; neither nerves nor will of this woman were tough. +Her family were not the stuff out of which voluntary heroes are made. +He saw, too, she was thrusting it back,--out of thought: it was her +temperament to do that. + +"So, now, Grey," he said, cheerfully, "the story's told. Shall we lay +that ghost of the old life, and see what these healthful new years have +for us?" + +Paul Blecker's voice was never so strong or pure: whatever of coarseness +had clung to him fell off then, as he came nearer to the weak woman +whom God had given to him to care for; whatever of latent manhood, of +chivalry, slept beneath, some day to make him an earnest husband and +father, and helpful servant of the True Man, came out in his eager face +and eye, now. He took her two hands in his: how strong his muscles were! +how the man's full pulse throbbed healthfully against her own! She +looked up with a sudden blush and smile. A minute ago she thought +herself so strong to renounce! She meant, this weak, incomplete woman, +to keep to the shame of that foul old lie of hers, accepting that as her +portion for life. There is a chance comes to some few women, once in +their lives, to escape into the full development of their natures by +contact with the one soul made in the same mould as their own. It came +to this woman to-night. Grey was no theorist about it: all that she knew +was, that, when Paul Blecker stood near her, for the first time in her +life she was not alone,--that, when he spoke, his words were but more +forcible utterances of her own thought,--that, when she thought of +leaving him, it was like drawing the soul from her living body, to leave +it pulseless, dead. Yet she would do it. + +"I am not fit to be any man's wife. If you had come to me when I was a +child, it might have been,--it ought to have been,"--with an effort to +draw her hands from him. + +Blecker only smiled, and seated her gently on the mossy boll of the +beech-tree. + +"Stay. Listen to me," he whispered. + +And Grey, being a woman and no philosopher, sat motionless, her hands +folded, nerveless, where he had let them fall, her face upturned, like +that of the dead maiden waiting the touch of infinite love to tremble +and glow back into beautiful life. He did not speak, did not touch her, +only bent nearer. It seemed to him, as the pure moonlight then held them +close in its silent bound, the great world hushed without, the light air +scarce daring to touch her fair, waiting face, the slow-heaving breast, +the kindling glow in her dark hair, that all the dead and impure years +fell from them, and in a fresh new-born life they stood alone, with the +great Power of strength and love for company. What need was there of +words? She knew it all: in the promise and question of his face waited +for her the hope and vigor the time gone had never known: her woman's +nature drooped and leaned on his, content: the languid hazel eye +followed his with such intent, one would have fancied that her soul in +that silence had found its rest and home forever. + +He took her hand, and drew from it the old ring that yet bound one of +her fingers, the sign of a lie long dead, and without a word dropped it +in the current below them. The girl looked up suddenly, as it fell: +her eyes were wet: the woman whom Christ loosed from her infirmity of +eighteen years might have thanked him with such a look as Grey's that +night. Then she looked back to her earthly master. + +"It is dead now, child, the past,--never to live again. Grey holds a new +life in her hands to-night." He stopped: the words came weak, paltry, +for his meaning. "Is there nothing with which she dares to fill it? no +touch that will make it dear, holy for her?" + +There was a heavy silence. Nature rose impatient in the crimson blood +that dyed her lips and cheek, in the brilliance of her eye; but she +forced back the words that would have come, and sat timid and trembling. + +"None, Grey? You are strong and cool. I know. The lie dead and gone +from your life, you can control the years alone, with your religion and +cheery strength. Is that what you would say?"--bitterly. + +She did not answer. The color began to fade, the eyes to dim. + +"You have told me your story; let me tell you mine,"--throwing himself +on the grass beside her. "Look at me, Grey. Other women have despised +me, as rough, callous, uncouth: you never have. I've had no hot-house +usage in the world; the sun and rain hardly fell on me unpaid. I've +earned every inch of this flesh and muscle, worked for it as it grew; +the knowledge that I have, scanty enough, but whatever thought I do have +of God or life, I've had to grapple and struggle for. Other men grow, +inhale their being, like yonder tree God planted and watered. I think +sometimes He forgot me,"--with a curious woman's tremor in his voice, +gone in an instant. "I scrambled up like that scraggy parasite, without +a root. Do you know now why I am sharp, wary, suspicious, doubt if there +be a God? Grey," turning fiercely, "I am tired of this. God did make me. +I want rest. I want love, peace, religion, in my life." + +She said nothing. She forgot herself, her timid shyness now, and looked +into his eyes, a noble, helpful woman, sounding the depths of the turbid +soul laid bare for her. + +He laid his big, ill-jointed hand on her knee. + +"I thought," he said.--great drops of sweat coming out on his sallow +lips,--"God meant you to help me. There is my life, little girl. You may +do what you will with it. It does not value much to me." + +And Grey, woman-like, gathered up the despised hand and life, and sobbed +a little as she pressed them to her heart. An hour after, they went +together up the old porch-steps, halting a moment where the grape-vines +clustered thickest about the shingled wall. The house was silent; even +the village slept in the moonlight: no sound of life in the great +sweep of dusky hill and valley, save the wreaths of mist over the +watercourses, foaming and drifting together silently: before morning +they would stretch from base to base of the hills like a Dead Sea, ashy +and motionless. They stood silent a moment, until the chirp of some +robin, frightened by their steps in its nest overhead, had hummed +drowsily down into sleep. + +"It is not good-night, but good-bye, that I must bid you, Grey," he +said, stooping to see her face. + +"I know. But you will come again. God tells me that." + +"I will come. Remember, Grey, I am going to save life, not to take it. +Corrupt as I am, my hands are clean of this butchery for the sake of +interest." + +Grey's eyes wandered. She knows nothing about the war, to be candid: +only that it is like a cold pain at her heart, day and night,--sorry +that the slaves are slaves, wondering if they could be worse off than +the free negroes swarming in the back-alleys yonder,--as sorry, being +unpatriotic, for the homeless women in Virginia as for the stolen horses +of Chambersburg. Grey's principles, though mixed, are sound, as far as +they go, you see. Just then thinking only of herself. + +"You will come back to me?" clinging to his arm. + +"Why, I must come back," cheerfully, choking back whatever stopped +his breath, pushing back the curling hair from her forehead with a +half-reverential touch. "I have so much, to do, little girl! There is +a farm over yonder I mean to earn enough to buy, where you and I shall +rest and study and grow,--stronger and healthier, more helpful every +day. We'll find our work and place in the world yet, poor child! You +shall show me what a pure, earnest life is, Grey, and above us--what +there is there," lowering his voice. "And I,--how much I have to do with +this bit of humanity here on my hands!"--playfully. "An unhewn stone, +with the beautiful statue lying _perdu_ within. Bid you know you were +that, Grey? and I the sculptor?" + +She looked up bewildered. + +"It is true," passing his fingers over the low, broad, curiously moulded +forehead. "My girl does not know what powers and subtile forces lie +asleep beneath this white skin? I know. I know lights and words and +dramas of meaning these childish eyes hold latent: that I will set free. +I will teach your very silent lips a new language. You never guessed how +like a prison your life has been, how unfinished you are; but I thank +God for it, Grey. You would not have loved me, if it had been different; +I can grow with you now, grow to your height, if--He helps me." + +He took off his hat, and stood, looking silently into the deep blue +above,--for the first time in his life coming to his Friend with a +manly, humble look. His eyes were not clear when he spoke again, his +voice very quiet. + +"Good bye, Grey! I'm going to try to be a better man than I've ever +been. You are my wife now in His eyes. I need you so: for life and for +eternity, I think. You will remember that?" + +And so, holding her to his heart a moment or two, and kissing her lips +passionately once or twice, he left her, trying to smile as he went down +the path, but with a strange clogging weight in his breast, as if his +heart would not beat. + +Going in, Grey found the old negro asleep over his knitting, the candle +with a flaring black crust beside him. + +"He waited for me," she said; and as she stroked the skinny old hand, +the tears came at the thought of it. Everybody was so kind to her! The +world was so foil of love! God was so good to her to-night! + +Oth, waking fully as she helped him to his room-door, looked anxiously +in her face. + +"Er' ye well to-night, chile?" he said. "Yer look as yer did when yer +wor a little baby. Peart an' purty yer wor, dat's true. Der good Lord +loved yer, I think." + +"He loves me now," she said, softly, to herself, as in her own room she +knelt down and thanked Him, and then, undressed, crept into the white +trundle-bed beside little Pen; and when he woke, and, putting his little +arms about her neck, drew her head close to his to kiss her good-night, +she cried quietly to herself, and fell asleep with the tears upon her +cheek. + +Her sister, in the next room to hers, with the same new dream in her +heart, did not creep into any baby's arms for sympathy. Lizzy Gurney +never had a pet, dog or child. She sat by the window waiting, her shawl +about her head in the very folds McKinstry had wrapped it, motionless, +as was her wont. But for the convulsive movement of her lips now and +then, no gutta-percha doll could be more utterly still. As the night +wore down into the intenser sleep of the hours after midnight, her watch +grew more breathless. The moon sank far enough in the west to throw +the beams directly across her into the dark chamber behind. She was a +small-moulded woman, you could see now: her limbs, like those of a cat, +or animals of that tribe, from their power of trance-like quiet, gave +you the idea of an intense vitality: a gentle face,--pretty, the +villagers called it, from its waxy tint and faint coloring,--you wished +to do something for her, seeing it. Paul Blecker never did: the woman +never spoke to him; but he noted often the sudden relaxed droop of the +eyelids, when she sat alone, as if some nerve had grown weary: he had +seen that peculiarity in some women before, and knew all it meant. He +had nothing for her; her hunger lay out of his ken. + +It grew later: the moon hung now so low that deep shadows lay heavy over +the whole valley; not a breath broke the sleep of the night; even the +long melancholy howl of the dog down in camp was hushed long since. When +the clock struck two, she got up and went noiselessly out into the open +air. There was no droop in her eyelids now; they were straight, nerved, +the eyes glowing with a light never seen by day beneath them. Down the +long path into the cornfield, slowly, pausing at some places, while her +lips moved as though she repeated words once heard there. What folly was +this? Was this woman's life so bare, so empty of its true food, that she +must needs go back and drag again into life a few poor, happy moments? +distil them slowly, to drink them again drop by drop? I have seen +children so live over in their play the one great holiday of their +lives. Down through the field to the creek-ford, where the stones lay +for crossing, slippery with moss: she could feel the strong grasp of the +hand that had led her over there that night; and so, with slow, and yet +slower step, where the path had been rocky, and she had needed cautious +help. Into the thicket of lilacs, with the old scent of the spring +blossoms yet hanging on their boughs; along the bank, where her foot had +sunk deep into plushy moss, where he had gathered a cluster of fern and +put it into her hand. Its pale feathery green was not more quaint or +pure than the delicate love in the uncouth man beside her,--not nearer +kin to Nature. Did she know that? Had it been like the breath of God +coming into her nostrils to be so loved, appreciated, called home, as +she had been to-night? Was she going back to feel that breath again? +Neither pain nor pleasure was on her face: her breath came heavy and +short, her eyes shone, that was all. Out now into the open road, +stopping and glancing around with every broken twig, being a cowardly +creature, yet never leaving the track of the footsteps in the dust, +where she had gone before. Coming at last to the old-fashioned gabled +house, where she had gone when site was a child, set in among stiff rows +of evergreens. A breathless quiet always hung about the place: a pure, +wholesome atmosphere, because pure and earnest people had acted out +their souls there, and gone home to God. He had led her through the +gate here, given her to drink of the well at the side of the house. "My +mother never would taste any water but this, do you remember, Lizzy?" +They had gone through the rooms, whispering, if they spoke, as though it +were a church. Here was the pure dead sister's face looking down from +the wall; there his mother's worn wicker work-stand. Her work was in it +still. "The needle just where she placed it, Lizzy." The strong man was +weak as a little child with the memory of the old mother who had +nursed and loved him as no other could love. He stood beside her chair +irresolute; forty years ago he had stood there, a little child bringing +all his troubles to be healed: since she died no hand had touched it. +"Will you sit there, Lizzy? You are dearer to me than she. When I come +back, will you take their place here? Only you are pure as they, and +dearer, Lizzy. We will go home to them hand in hand." She sat in the +dead woman's chair. _She_. Looking in at her own heart as she did it. +Yet her love for him would make her fit to sit there: she believed that. +He had not kissed her,--she was too sacred to the simple-hearted man for +that,--had only taken her little hand in both his, saying, "God bless +you, little Lizzy!" in an unsteady voice. + +"He may never say it again," the girl said, when she crept home from +her midnight pilgrimage. "I'll come here every day and live it all +over again. It will keep me quiet until he comes. Maybe he'll never +come,"--catching her breast, and tearing it until it grew black. She was +so tired of herself, this child! She would have torn that nerve in her +heart out that sometimes made her sick, if she could. Her life was so +cramped, and selfish, too, and she knew it. Passing by the door of +Grey's room, she saw her asleep with Pen in her arms,--some other little +nightcapped heads in the larger beds. _She_ slept alone. "They tire +me so!" she said; "yet I think," her eye growing fiercer, "if I had +anything all my own, if I had a little baby to make pure and good, I'd +be a better girl. Maybe--_he_ will make me better." + +Paul Blecker, heart-anatomist, laughed when this woman, with the aching +brain and the gnawing hunger at heart, seized on the single, Christ-like +love of McKinstry, a common, bigoted man, and made it her master +and helper. Her instinct was wiser than he, being drifted by God's +under-currents of eternal order. That One who knows when the sparrow is +ready for death knows well what things are needed for a tired girl's +soul. + + * * * * * + + +UP THE THAMES. + + +The upper portion of Greenwich (where my last article left me loitering) +is a cheerful, comely, old-fashioned town, the peculiarities of which, +if there be any, have passed out of my remembrance. As you descend +towards the Thames, the streets get meaner, and the shabby and sunken +houses, elbowing one another for frontage, bear the sign-boards of +beer-shops and eating-rooms, with especial promises of whitebait and +other delicacies in the fishing line. You observe, also, a frequent +announcement of "Tea Gardens" in the rear; although, estimating the +capacity of the premises by their external compass, the entire sylvan +charm and shadowy seclusion of such blissful resorts must be limited +within a small back-yard. These places of cheap sustenance and +recreation depend for support upon the innumerable pleasure-parties who +come from London Bridge by steamer, at a fare of a few pence, and who +get as enjoyable a meal for a shilling a head as the Ship Hotel would +afford a gentleman for a guinea. + +The steamers, which are constantly smoking their pipes up and down the +Thames, offer much the most agreeable mode of getting to London. At +least, it might be exceedingly agreeable, except for the myriad floating +particles of soot from the stove-pipe, and the heavy heat of midsummer +sunshine on the unsheltered deck, or the chill, misty air-draught of a +cloudy day, and the spiteful little showers of rain that may spatter +down upon you at any moment, whatever the promise of the sky; besides +which there is some slight inconvenience from the inexhaustible throng +of passengers, who scarcely allow you standing-room, nor so much as a +breath of unappropriated air, and never a chance to sit down. If these +difficulties weigh little with you, the panorama along the shores of the +memorable river, and the incidents and shows of passing life upon its +bosom, render the trip far preferable to the brief, yet tiresome shoot +along the railway-track. On one such voyage, a regatta of wherries raced +past us, and at once involved every soul on board our steamer in the +tremendous excitement of the struggle. The spectacle was but a moment +within our view, and presented nothing more than a few light skiffs, in +each of which sat a single rower, bare-armed, and with little apparel, +save a shirt and drawers, pale, anxious, with every muscle on the +stretch, and plying his oars in such fashion that the boat skimmed along +with the aerial celerity of a swallow. I wondered at myself for so +immediately catching an interest in the affair, which seemed to contain +no very exalted rivalship of manhood; but, whatever the kind of battle +or the prize of victory, it stirs one's sympathy immensely, and is even +awful, to behold the rare sight of a man thoroughly in earnest, doing +his best, putting forth all there is in him, and staking his very soul +(as these rowers appeared willing to do) on the issue of the contest. It +was the seventy-fourth annual regatta of the Free Watermen of Greenwich, +and announced itself as under the patronage of the Lord Mayor and other +distinguished individuals, at whose expense, I suppose, a prize-boat +was offered to the conqueror, and some small amounts of money to the +inferior competitors. + +The aspect of London along the Thames, below Bridge, as it is called, is +by no means so impressive as it ought to be, considering what peculiar +advantages are offered for the display of grand and stately architecture +by the passage of a river through the midst of a great city. It seems, +indeed, as if the heart of London had been cleft open for the mere +purpose of showing how rotten and drearily mean it had become. The shore +is lined with the shabbiest, blackest, and ugliest buildings that can be +imagined, decayed warehouses with blind windows, and wharves that +look ruinous; insomuch that, had I known nothing more of the world's +metropolis, I might have fancied that it had already experienced the +down-fall which I have heard commercial and financial prophets predict +for it, within the century. And the muddy tide of the Thames, reflecting +nothing, and hiding a million of unclean secrets within its breast,--a +sort of guilty conscience, as it were, unwholesome with the rivulets of +sin that constantly flow into it,--is just the dismal stream to glide +by such a city. The surface, to be sure, displays no lack of activity, +being fretted by the passage of a hundred steamers and covered with a +good deal of shipping, but mostly of a clumsier build than I had been +accustomed to see in the Mersey: a fact which I complacently attributed +to the smaller number of American clippers in the Thames, and the +less prevalent influence of American example in refining away the +broad-bottomed capacity of the old Dutch or English models. About midway +between Greenwich and London Bridge, at a rude landing-place on the left +bank of the river, the steamer rings its bell and makes a momentary +pause in front of a large circular structure, where it may be worth our +while to scramble ashore. It indicates the locality of one of those +prodigious practical blunders that would supply John Bull with a topic +of inexhaustible ridicule, if his cousin Jonathan had committed +them, but of which he himself perpetrates two to our one in the mere +wantonness of wealth that lacks better employment. The circular building +covers the entrance to the Thames Tunnel, and is surmounted by a dome of +glass, so as to throw daylight down into the great depth at which the +passage of the river commences. Descending a wearisome succession of +staircases, we at last find ourselves, still in the broad noon, standing +before a closed door, on opening which we behold the vista of an arched +corridor that extends into everlasting midnight. In these days, when +glass has been applied to so many new purposes, it is a pity that the +architect had not thought of arching portions of his abortive tunnel +with immense blocks of the lucid substance, over which the dusky Thames +would have flowed like a cloud, making the sub-fluvial avenue only +a little gloomier than a street of upper London. At present, it is +illuminated at regular intervals by jets of gas, not very brilliantly, +yet with lustre enough to show the damp plaster of the ceiling and +walls, and the massive stone pavement, the crevices of which are oozy +with moisture, not from the incumbent river, but from hidden springs in +the earth's deeper heart. There are two parallel corridors, with a +wall between, for the separate accommodation of the double throng of +foot-passengers, equestrians, and vehicles of all kinds, which was +expected to roll and reverberate continually through the Tunnel. Only +one of them has ever been opened, and its echoes are but feebly awakened +by infrequent footfalls. + +Yet there seem to be people who spend their lives here, and who probably +blink like owls, when, once or twice a year, perhaps, they happen to +climb into the sunshine. All along the corridor, which I believe to be +a mile in extent, we see stalls or shops in little alcoves, kept +principally by women; they were of a ripe age, I was glad to observe, +and certainly robbed England of none of its very moderate supply of +feminine loveliness by their deeper than tomb-like interment. As you +approach, (and they are so accustomed to the dusky gas-light that they +read all your characteristics afar off,) they assail you with hungry +entreaties to buy some of their merchandise, holding forth views of the +Tunnel put up in cases of Derbyshire spar, with a magnifying-glass at +one end to make the vista more effective. They offer you, besides, +cheap jewelry, sunny topazes and resplendent emeralds for sixpence, and +diamonds as big as the Koh-i-noor at a not much heavier cost, together +with a multifarious trumpery which has died out of the upper world to +reappear in this Tartarean bazaar. That you may fancy yourself still +in the realms of the living, they urge you to partake of cakes, candy, +ginger-beer, and such small refreshment, more suitable, however, for the +shadowy appetite of ghosts than for the sturdy stomachs of Englishmen. +The most capacious of the shops contains a dioramic exhibition of cities +and scenes in the daylight-world, with a dreary glimmer of gas among +them all; so that they serve well enough to represent the dim, +unsatisfactory remembrances that dead people might be supposed to retain +from their past lives, mixing them up with the ghastliness of their +unsubstantial state. I dwell the more upon these trifles, and do my best +to give them a mockery of importance, because, if these are nothing, +then all this elaborate contrivance and mighty piece of work has been +wrought in vain. The Englishman has burrowed under the bed of his great +river, and set ships of two or three thousand tons a-rolling over his +head, only to provide new sites for a few old women to sell cakes and +ginger-beer! + +Yet the conception was a grand one; and though it has proved an absolute +failure, swallowing an immensity of toil and money, with annual +returns hardly sufficient to keep the pavement free from the ooze of +subterranean springs, yet it needs, I presume, only an expenditure three +or four (or, for aught I know, twenty) times as large, to make the +enterprise brilliantly successful. The descent is so great from the bank +of the river to its surface, and the Tunnel dips so profoundly under the +river's bed, that the approaches on either side must commence a long way +off, in order to render the entrance accessible to horsemen or vehicles; +so that the larger part of the cost of the whole affair should have been +expended on its margins. It has turned out a sublime piece of folly; and +when the New Zealander of distant ages shall have moralized sufficiently +among the ruins of London Bridge, he will bethink himself that somewhere +thereabout was the marvellous Tunnel, the very existence of which will +seem to him as incredible as that of the hanging-gardens of Babylon. +But the Thames will long ago have broken through the massive arch, and +choked up the corridors with mud and sand and with the large stones of +the structure itself, intermixed with skeletons of drowned people, the +rusty iron-work of sunken vessels, and a great many such precious and +curious things as a river always contrives to hide in its bosom; the +entrance will have been obliterated, and its very site forgotten beyond +the memory of twenty generations of men, and the whole neighborhood +be held a dangerous spot on account of the malaria; insomuch that the +traveller will make but a brief and careless inquisition for the traces +of the old wonder, and will stake his credit before the public, in some +Pacific Monthly of that day, that the story of it is but a myth, though +enriched with a spiritual profundity which he will proceed to unfold. + +Yet it is impossible (for a Yankee, at least) to see so much magnificent +ingenuity thrown away, without trying to endow the unfortunate result +with some kind of usefulness, though perhaps widely different from +the purpose of its original conception. In former ages, the mile-long +corridors, with their numerous alcoves, might have been utilized as +a series of dungeons, the fittest of all possible receptacles for +prisoners of state. Dethroned monarchs and fallen statesmen would not +have needed to remonstrate against a domicil so spacious, so deeply +secluded from the world's scorn, and so admirably in accordance with +their thenceforward sunless fortunes. An alcove here might have suited +Sir Walter Raleigh better than that darksome hiding-place communicating +with the great chamber in the Tower, pacing from end to end of which he +meditated upon his "History of the World." His track would here have +been straight and narrow, indeed, and would therefore have lacked +somewhat of the freedom that his intellect demanded; and yet the +length to which his footsteps might have travelled forth and retraced +themselves would partly have harmonized his physical movement with the +grand curves and planetary returns of his thought, through cycles of +majestic periods. Having it in his mind to compose the world's history, +methinks he could have asked no better retirement than such a cloister +as this, insulated from all the seductions of mankind and womankind, +deep beneath their mysteries and motives, down into the heart of things, +full of personal reminiscences in order to the comprehensive measurement +and verification of historic records, seeing into the secrets of human +nature,--secrets that daylight never yet revealed to mortal,--but +detecting their whole scope and purport with the infallible eyes of +unbroken solitude and night. And then the shades of the old mighty men +might have risen from their still profounder abodes and joined him in +the dim corridor, treading beside him with an antique stateliness of +mien, telling him in melancholy tones, grand, but always melancholy, of +the greater ideas and purposes that were so poorly embodied in their +most renowned performances. As Raleigh was a navigator, Noah would have +explained to him the peculiarities of construction that made the ark so +seaworthy; as Raleigh was a statesman, Moses would have discussed with +him the principles of laws and government; as Raleigh was a soldier, +Caesar and Hannibal would have held debate in his presence, with this +martial student for their umpire; as Raleigh was a poet, David, or +whatever most illustrious bard he might call up, would have touched his +harp, and made manifest all the true significance of the past by means +of song and the subtile intelligences of music. + +Meanwhile, I had forgotten that Sir Walter Raleigh's century knew +nothing of gas-light, and that it would require a prodigious and +wasteful expenditure of tallow-candles to illuminate the Tunnel +sufficiently to discern even a ghost. On this account, however, it would +be all the more suitable place of confinement for a metaphysician, to +keep him from bewildering mankind with his shadowy speculations; and, +being shut off from external converse, the dark corridor would help +him to make rich discoveries in those cavernous regions and mysterious +by-paths of the intellect, which he had so long accustomed himself to +explore. But how would every successive age rejoice in so secure a +habitation for its reformers, and especially for each best and wisest +man that happened to be then alive! He seeks to burn up our whole system +of society, under pretence of purifying it from its abuses! Away with +him into the Tunnel, and let him begin by setting the Thames on fire, if +he is able! + +If not precisely these, yet akin to these were some of the fantasies +that haunted me as I passed under the river: for the place is suggestive +of such idle and irresponsible stuff by its own abortive character, its +lack of whereabout on upper earth, or any solid foundation of realities. +Could I have looked forward a few years, I might have regretted that +American enterprise had not provided a similar tunnel, under the Hudson +or the Potomac, for the convenience of our National Government in times +hardly yet gone by. It would be delightful to clap up all the enemies +of our peace and Union in the dark together, and there let them abide, +listening to the monotonous roll of the river above their heads, or +perhaps in a state of miraculously suspended animation, until,--be it +after months, years, or centuries,--when the turmoil shall be all over, +the Wrong washed away in blood, (since that must needs be the cleansing +fluid,) and the Right firmly rooted in the soil which that blood will +have enriched, they might crawl forth again and catch a single glimpse +at their redeemed country, and feel it to be a better land than they +deserve, and die! + +I was not sorry when the daylight reached me after a much briefer +abode in the nether regions than, I fear, would await the troublesome +personages just hinted at. Emerging on the Surrey side of the Thames, +I found myself in Rotherhithe, a neighborhood not unfamiliar to the +readers of old books of maritime adventure. There being a ferry hard by +the mouth of the Tunnel, I recrossed the river in the primitive fashion +of an open boat, which the conflict of wind and tide, together with the +swash and swell of the passing steamers, tossed high and low rather +tumultuously. This inquietude of our frail skiff (which, indeed, bobbed +up and down like a cork) so much alarmed an old lady, the only other +passenger, that the boatmen essayed to comfort her. "Never fear, +mother!" grumbled one of them, "we'll make the river as smooth as we can +for you. We'll get a plane and plane down the waves!" The joke may not +read very brilliantly; but I make bold to record it as the only specimen +that reached my ears of the old, rough water-wit for which the Thames +used to be so celebrated. Passing directly along the line of the sunken +Tunnel, we landed in Wapping, which I should have presupposed to be the +most tarry and pitchy spot on earth, swarming with old salts, and full +of warm, bustling, coarse, homely, and cheerful life. Nevertheless, +it turned out to be a cold and torpid neighborhood, mean, shabby, and +unpicturesque, both as to its buildings and inhabitants: the latter +comprising (so far as was visible to me) not a single unmistakable +sailor, though plenty of land-sharks, who get a half dishonest +livelihood by business connected with the sea. Ale-and-spirit vaults +(as petty drinking-establishments are styled in England, pretending +to contain vast cellars full of liquor within the compass of ten feet +square above-ground) were particularly abundant, together with apples, +oranges, and oysters, the stalls of fishmongers and butchers, and +slop-shops, where blue jackets and duck trousers swung and capered +before the doors. Everything was on the poorest scale, and the place +bore an aspect of unredeemable decay. From this remote point of London, +I strolled leisurely towards the heart of the city; while the streets, +at first but thinly occupied by man or vehicle, got more and more +thronged with foot-passengers, carts, drays, cabs, and the all-pervading +and all-accommodating omnibus. But I lack courage, and feel that I +should lack perseverance, as the gentlest reader would lack patience, to +undertake a descriptive stroll through London streets; more especially +as there would be a volume ready for the printer before we could reach a +midway resting-place at Charing Cross. It will be the easier course +to step aboard another passing steamer, and continue our trip up the +Thames. + +The next notable group of objects is an assemblage of ancient walls, +battlements, and turrets, out of the midst of which rises prominently +one great square tower, of a grayish hue, bordered with white stone, and +having a small turret at each corner of the roof. This central structure +is the White Tower, and the whole circuit of ramparts and inclosed +edifices constitutes what is known in English history, and still more +widely and impressively in English poetry, as the Tower. A crowd of +river-craft are generally moored in front of it; but if we look sharply +at the right moment under the base of the rampart, we may catch a +glimpse of an arched water-entrance, half submerged, past which the +Thames glides as indifferently as if it were the mouth of a city-kennel. +Nevertheless, it is the Traitor's Gate, a dreary kind of triumphal +passage-way, (now supposed to be shut up and barred forever,) through +which a multitude of noble and illustrious personages have entered +the Tower, and found it a brief resting-place on their way to heaven. +Passing it many times, I never observed that anybody glanced at this +shadowy and ominous trap-door, save myself. It is well that America +exists, if it were only that her vagrant children may be impressed and +affected by the historical monuments of England in a degree of which +the native inhabitants are evidently incapable. These matters are too +familiar, too real, and too hopelessly built in amongst and mixed up +with the common objects and affairs of life, to be easily susceptible of +imaginative coloring in their minds; and even their poets and romancers +feel it a toil, and almost a delusion, to extract poetic material out of +what seems embodied poetry itself to an American. An Englishman cares +nothing about the Tower, which to us is a haunted castle in dreamland. +That honest and excellent gentleman, the late Mr. G.P.R. James, (whose +mechanical ability, one might have supposed, would nourish itself by +devouring every old stone of such a structure,) once assured me that +he had never in his life set eyes upon the Tower, though for years an +historic novelist in London. + +Not to spend a whole summer's day upon the voyage, we will suppose +ourselves to have reached London Bridge, and thence to have taken +another steamer for a farther passage up the river. But here the +memorable objects succeed each other so rapidly that I can spare but +a single sentence even for the great Dome, though I deem it more +picturesque, in that dusky atmosphere, than St. Peter's in its clear +blue sky. I must mention, however, (since everything connected with +royalty is especially interesting to my dear countrymen,) that I once +saw a large and beautiful barge, splendidly gilded and ornamented, and +overspread with a rich covering, lying at the pier nearest to St. Paul's +Cathedral; it had the royal banner of Great Britain displayed, besides +being decorated with a number of other flags; and many footmen (who are +universally the grandest and gaudiest objects to be seen in England +at this day, and these were regal ones, in a bright scarlet livery +bedizened with gold-lace, and white silk stockings) were in attendance. +I know not what festive or ceremonial occasion may have drawn out +this pageant; after all, it might have been merely a city-spectacle, +appertaining to the Lord Mayor; but the sight had its value in bringing +vividly before me the grand old times when the sovereign and nobles were +accustomed to use the Thames as the high street of the metropolis, and +join in pompous processions upon it; whereas, the desuetude of such +customs, nowadays, has caused the whole show of river-life to consist in +a multitude of smoke-begrimed steamers. An analogous change has taken +place in the streets, where cabs and the omnibus have crowded out a rich +variety of vehicles; and thus life gets more monotonous in hue from age +to age, and appears to seize every opportunity to strip off a bit of its +gold-lace among the wealthier classes, and to make itself decent in the +lower ones. + +Yonder is Whitefriars, the old rowdy Alsatia, now wearing as decorous a +face as any other portion of London; and, adjoining it, the avenues and +brick squares of the Temple, with that historic garden, close upon the +river-side, and still rich in shrubbery and flowers, where the partisans +of York and Lancaster plucked the fatal roses, and scattered their pale +and bloody petals over so many English battle-fields. Hard by, we see +the long white front or rear of Somerset House, and, farther on, rise +the two new Houses of Parliament, with a huge unfinished tower already +hiding its imperfect summit in the smoky canopy,--the whole vast and +cumbrous edifice a specimen of the best that modern architecture can +effect, elaborately imitating the masterpieces of those simple ages when +men "builded better than they knew." Close by it, we have a glimpse of +the roof and upper towers of the holy Abbey; while that gray, ancestral +pile on the opposite side of the river is Lambeth Palace, a venerable +group of halls and turrets, chiefly built of brick, but with at least +one large tower of stone. In our course, we have passed beneath half a +dozen bridges, and, emerging out of the black heart of London, shall +soon reach a cleanly suburb, where old Father Thames, if I remember, +begins to put on an aspect of unpolluted innocence. And now we look back +upon the mass of innumerable roofs, out of which rise steeples, towers, +columns, and the great crowning Dome,--look back, in short, upon that +mystery of the world's proudest city, amid which a man so longs and +loves to be: not, perhaps, because it contains much that is positively +admirable and enjoyable, but because, at all events, the world has +nothing better. The cream of external life is there; and whatever merely +intellectual or material good we fail to find perfect in London, we may +as well content ourselves to seek that unattainable thing no farther on +this earth. + +The steamer terminates its trip at Chelsea, an old town endowed with a +prodigious number of pot-houses, and some famous gardens, called the +Cremorne, for public amusement. The most noticeable thing, however, is +Chelsea Hospital, which, like that of Greenwich, was founded, I believe, +by Charles II., (whose bronze statue, in the guise of an old Roman, +stands in the centre of the quadrangle,) and appropriated as a home for +aged and infirm soldiers of the British army. The edifices are of three +stories with windows in the high roofs, and are built of dark, sombre +brick, with stone edgings and facings. The effect is by no means that +of grandeur, (which is somewhat disagreeably an attribute of Greenwich +Hospital,) but a quiet and venerable neatness. At each extremity of the +street-front there is a spacious and hospitably open gateway, lounging +about which I saw some gray veterans in long scarlet coats of an antique +fashion, and the cocked hats of a century ago, or occasionally a modern +foraging-cap. Almost all of them moved with a rheumatic gait, two or +three stumped on wooden legs, and here and there an arm was missing. +Inquiring of one of these fragmentary heroes whether a stranger could be +admitted to see the establishment, he replied most cordially, "Oh, +yes, Sir,--anywhere! Walk in, and go where you please,--up-stairs, +or anywhere!" So I entered, and, passing along the inner side of the +quadrangle, came to the door of the chapel, which forms a part of the +contiguity of edifices next the street. Here another pensioner, an old +warrior of exceedingly peaceable and Christian demeanor, touched his +three-cornered hat and asked if I wished to see the interior; to which I +assenting, he unlocked the door, and we went in. + +The chapel consists of a great hall with a vaulted roof, and over the +altar is a large painting in fresco, the subject of which I did not +trouble myself to make out. More appropriate adornments of the place, +dedicated as well to martial reminiscences as religious worship, are the +long ranges of dusty and tattered banners that hang from their staves +alt round the ceiling of the chapel. They are trophies of battles fought +and won in every quarter of the world, comprising the captured flags of +all the nations with whom the British lion has waged war since James +II's time,--French, Dutch, East-Indian, Prussian, Russian, Chinese, and +American,--collected together in this consecrated spot, not to symbolize +that there shall be no more discord upon earth, but drooping over the +aisle in sullen, though peaceable humiliation. Yes, I said "American" +among the rest; for the good old pensioner mistook me for an Englishman, +and failed not to point out (and, methought, with an especial emphasis +of triumph) some flags that had been taken at Bladensburg and +Washington. I fancied, indeed, that they hung a little higher and +drooped a little lower than any of their companions in disgrace. It is +a comfort, however, that their proud devices are already +indistinguishable, or nearly so, owing to dust and tatters and the kind +offices of the moths, and that they will soon rot from the banner-staves +and be swept out in unrecognized fragments from the chapel-door. + +It is a good method of teaching a man how imperfectly cosmopolitan he +is, to show him his country's flag occupying a position of dishonor in a +foreign land. But, in truth, the whole system of a people crowing over +its military triumphs had far better be dispensed with, both on account +of the ill-blood that it helps to keep fermenting among the nations, and +because it operates as an accumulative inducement to future generations +to aim at a kind of glory, the gain of which has generally proved more +ruinous than its loss. I heartily wish that every trophy of victory +might crumble away, and that every reminiscence or tradition of a hero, +from the beginning of the world to this day, could pass out of all men's +memories at once and forever. I might feel very differently, to be sure, +if we Northerners had anything especially valuable to lose by the fading +of those illuminated names. + +I gave the pensioner (but I am afraid there may have been a little +affectation in it) a magnificent guerdon of all the silver I had in +my. pocket, to requite him for having unintentionally stirred up my +patriotic susceptibilities. He was a meek-looking, kindly old man, with +a humble freedom and affability of manner that made it pleasant to +converse with him. Old soldiers, I know not why, seem to be more +accostable than old sailors. One is apt to hear a growl beneath the +smoothest courtesy of the latter. The mild veteran, with his peaceful +voice, and gentle, reverend aspect, told me that he had fought at a +cannon all through the Battle of Waterloo, and escaped unhurt; he had +now been in the hospital four or five years, and was married, but +necessarily underwent a separation from his wife, who lived outside of +the gates. To my inquiry whether his fellow-pensioners were comfortable +and happy, he answered, with great alacrity, "Oh, yes, Sir!" qualifying +his evidence, after a moment's consideration, by saying, in an +undertone, "There are some people, your Honor knows, who could not +be comfortable anywhere." I did know it, and fear that the system of +Chelsea Hospital allows too little of that wholesome care and regulation +of their own occupations and interests which might assuage the sting +of life to those naturally uncomfortable individuals by giving them +something external to think about. But my old friend here was happy in +the hospital, and by this time, very likely, is happy in heaven, in +spite of the bloodshed that he may have caused by touching off a cannon +at Waterloo. + +Crossing Battersea Bridge, in the neighborhood of Chelsea, I remember +seeing a distant gleam of the Crystal Palace, glimmering afar in the +afternoon sunshine like an imaginary structure,--an air-castle by chance +descended upon earth, and resting there one instant before it vanished, +as we sometimes see a soap-bubble touch unharmed on the carpet,--a +thing of only momentary visibility and no substance, destined to be +overburdened and crushed down by the first cloud-shadow that might fall +upon that spot. Even as I looked, it disappeared. Shall I attempt 'a +picture of this exhalation of modern ingenuity, or what else shall I +try to paint? Everything in London and its vicinity has been depleted +innumerable times, but never once translated into intelligible images; +it is an "old, old story," never yet told, nor to be told. While writing +these reminiscences, I am continually impressed with the futility of the +effort to give any creative truth to my sketch, so that it might produce +such pictures in the reader's mind as would cause the original scenes +to appear familiar when afterwards beheld. Nor have other writers often +been more successful in representing definite objects prophetically to +my own mind. In truth, I believe that the chief delight and advantage of +this kind of literature is not for any real information that it +supplies to untravelled people, but for reviving the recollections and +reawakening the emotions of persons already acquainted with the scenes +described. Thus I found an exquisite pleasure, the other day, in reading +Mr. Tuckerman's "Month in England,"--a fine example of the way in which +a refined and cultivated American looks at the Old Country, the things +that he naturally seeks there, and the modes of feeling and reflection +which they excite. Correct outlines avail little or nothing, though +truth of coloring may be somewhat more efficacious. Impressions, +however, states of mind produced by interesting and remarkable objects, +these, if truthfully and vividly recorded, may work a genuine effect, +and, though but the result of what we see, go farther towards +representing the actual scene than any direct effort to paint it. Give +the emotions that cluster about it, and, without being able to analyze +the spell by which it is summoned up, you get something like a +simulachre of the object in the midst of them. From some of the above +reflections I draw the comfortable inference, that, the longer and +better known a thing may be, so much the more eligible is it as the +subject of a descriptive sketch. + +On a Sunday afternoon, I passed through a side--entrance in the +time-blackened wall of a place of worship, and found myself among a +congregation assembled in one of the transepts and the immediately +contiguous portion of the nave. It was a vast old edifice, spacious +enough, within the extent covered by its pillared roof and overspread by +its stone pavement, to accommodate the whole of church-going London, and +with a far wider and loftier concave than any human power of lungs could +fill with audible prayer. Oaken benches were arranged in the transept, +on one of which I seated myself, and joined, as well as I knew how, in +the sacred business that was going forward. But when it came to the +sermon, the voice of the preacher was puny, and so were his thoughts, +and both seemed impertinent at such a time and place, where he and all +of us were bodily included within a sublime act of religion which could +be seen above and around us and felt beneath our feet. The structure +itself was the worship of the devout men of long ago, miraculously +preserved in stone without losing an atom of its fragrance and fervor; +it was a kind of anthem-strain that they had sung and poured out of the +organ in centuries gone by; and being so grand and sweet, the Divine +benevolence had willed it to be prolonged for the behoof of auditors +unborn. I therefore came to the conclusion, that, in my individual case, +it would be better and more reverent to let my eyes wander about the +edifice than to fasten them and my thoughts on the evidently uninspired +mortal who was venturing--and felt it no venture at all--to speak here +above his breath. + +The interior of Westminster Abbey (for the reader recognized it, no +doubt, the moment we entered) is built of rich brown stone; and the +whole of it--the lofty roof, the tall, clustered pillars, and the +pointed arches--appears to be in consummate repair. At all points where +decay has laid its finger, the structure is clamped with iron, or +otherwise carefully protected; and being thus watched over,--whether +as a place of ancient sanctity, a noble specimen of Gothic art, or an +object of national interest and pride,--it may reasonably be expected to +survive for as many ages as have passed over it already. It was sweet to +feel its venerable quietude, its long-enduring peace, and yet to observe +how kindly and even cheerfully it received the sunshine of to-day, which +fell from the great windows into the fretted aisles and arches that laid +aside somewhat of their aged gloom to welcome it. Sunshine always seems +friendly to old abbeys, churches, and castles, kissing them, as it were, +with a more affectionate, though still reverential familiarity, than it +accords to edifices of later date. A square of golden light lay on the +sombre pavement afar off, falling through the grand western entrance, +the folding leaves of which were wide open, and afforded glimpses +of people passing to and fro in the outer world, while we sat dimly +enveloped in the solemnity of antique devotion. In the south transept, +separated from us by the full breadth of the minster, there were painted +glass windows, of which the uppermost appeared to be a great orb of +many-colored radiance, being, indeed, a cluster of saints and angels +whose glorified bodies formed the rays of an aureole emanating from a +cross in the midst. These windows are modern, but combine softness with +wonderful brilliancy of effect. Through the pillars and arches, I saw +that the walls in that distant region of the edifice were almost wholly +incrusted with marble, now grown yellow with time, no blank, unlettered +slabs, but memorials of such men as their respective generations +deemed wisest and bravest. Some of them were commemorated merely by +inscriptions on mural tablets, others by sculptured bas-reliefs, +others (once famous, but now forgotten generals or admirals, these) by +ponderous tombs that aspired towards the roof of the aisle, or partly +curtained the immense arch of a window. These mountains of marble were +peopled with the sisterhood of Allegory, winged trumpeters, and classic +figures in full-bottomed wigs; but it was strange to observe how the old +Abbey melted all such absurdities into the breadth of its own grandeur, +even magnifying itself by what would elsewhere have been ridiculous. +Methinks it is the test of Gothic sublimity to overpower the ridiculous +without deigning to hide it; and these grotesque monuments of the last +century answer a similar purpose with the grinning faces which the old +architects scattered among their most solemn conceptions. + +From these distant wanderings, (it was my first visit to Westminster +Abbey, and I would gladly have taken it all in at a glance,) my eyes +came back and began to investigate what was immediately about me in the +transept. Close at my elbow was the pedestal of Canning's statue. Next +beyond it was a massive tomb, on the spacious tablet of which reposed +the full-length figures of a marble lord and lady, whom an inscription +announced to be the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle,--the historic Duke of +Charles I.'s time, and the fantastic Duchess, traditionally remembered +by her poems and plays. She was of a family, as the record on her tomb +proudly informed us, of which all the brothers had been valiant and all +the sisters virtuous. A recent statue of Sir John Malcom, the new marble +as white as snow, held the next place; and near by was a mural monument +and bust of Sir Peter Warren. The round visage of this old British +admiral has a certain interest for a New-Englander, because it was by no +merit of his own, (though he took care to assume it as such,) but by the +valor and warlike enterprise of our colonial forefathers, especially the +stout men of Massachusetts, that he won rank and renown, and a tomb in +Westminster Abbey. Lord Mansfield, a huge mass of marble done into the +guise of a judicial gown and wig, with a stern face in the midst of +the latter, sat on the other side of the transept; and on the pedestal +beside him was a figure of Justice, holding forth, instead of the +customary grocer's scales, an actual pair of brass steelyards. It is an +ancient and classic instrument, undoubtedly; but I had supposed that +Portia (when Shylock's pound of flesh was to be weighed) was the only +judge that ever really called for it in a court of justice. Pitt and +Fox were in the same distinguished company; and John Kemble, in Roman +costume, stood not far off, but strangely shorn of the dignity that is +said to have enveloped him like a mantle in his lifetime. Perhaps the +evanescent majesty of the stage is incompatible with the long endurance +of marble and the solemn reality of the tomb; though, on the other hand, +almost every illustrious personage here represented has been invested +with more or less of stage-trickery by his sculptor. In truth, the +artist (unless there be a divine efficacy in his touch, making evident a +heretofore hidden dignity in the actual form) feels it an imperious law +to remove his subject as far from the aspect of ordinary life as may +be possible without sacrificing every trace of resemblance. The absurd +effect of the contrary course is very remarkable in the statue of Mr. +Wilberforce, whose actual self, save for the lack of color, I seemed to +behold, seated just across the aisle. + +This excellent man appears to have sunk into himself in a sitting +posture, with a thin leg crossed over his knee, a book in one hand, and +a finger of the other under his chin, I believe, or applied to the side +of his nose, or to some equally familiar purpose; while his exceedingly +homely and wrinkled face, held a little on one side, twinkles at you +with the shrewdest complacency, as if he were looking right into your +eyes, and twigged something there which you had half a mind to conceal +from him. He keeps this look so pertinaciously that you feel it to be +insufferably impertinent, and bethink yourself what common ground there +may be between yourself and a stone image, enabling you to resent it. I +have no doubt that the statue is as like Mr. Wilberforce as one pea to +another, and you might fancy, that, at come ordinary moment, when he +least expected it, and before he had time to smooth away his knowing +complication of wrinkles, he had seen the Gorgon's head, and +whitened into marble,--not only his personal self, but his coat and +small-clothes, down to a button and the minutest crease of the cloth. +The ludicrous result marks the impropriety of bestowing the agelong +duration of marble upon small, characteristic individualities, such as +might come within the province of waxen imagery. The sculptor should +give permanence to the figure of a great man in his mood of broad and +grand composure, which would obliterate all mean peculiarities; for, if +the original were unaccustomed to such a mood, or if his features were +incapable of assuming the guise, it seems questionable whether he could +really have been entitled to a marble immortality. In point of fact, +however, the English face and form are seldom statuesque, however +illustrious the individual. + +It ill becomes me, perhaps, to have lapsed into this mood of half-jocose +criticism in describing my first visit to Westminster Abbey, a spot +which I had dreamed about more reverentially, from my childhood upward, +than any other in the world, and which I then beheld, and now look back +upon, with profound gratitude to the men who built it, and a kindly +interest, I may add, in the humblest personage that has contributed his +little all to its impressiveness, by depositing his dust or his memory +there. But it is a characteristic of this grand edifice that it permits +you to smile as freely under the roof of its central nave as if you +stood beneath the yet grander canopy of heaven. Break into laughter, if +you feel inclined, provided the vergers do not hear it echoing among the +arches. In an ordinary church, you would keep your countenance for fear +of disturbing the sanctities or proprieties of the place; but you need +leave no honest and decorous portion of your human nature outside of +these benign and truly hospitable walls. Their mild awfulness will take +care of itself. Thus it does no harm to the general impression, when +you come to be sensible that many of the monuments are ridiculous, and +commemorate a mob of people who are mostly forgotten in their graves, +and few of whom ever deserved any better boon from posterity. You +acknowledge the force of Sir Godfrey Kneller's objection to being buried +in Westminster Abbey, because "they do bury fools there!" Nevertheless, +these grotesque carvings of marble, that break out in dingy-white +blotches on the old freestone of the interior walls, have come there by +as natural a process as might cause mosses and ivy to cluster about the +external edifice; for they are the historical and biographical record of +each successive age, written with its own hand, and all the truer for +the inevitable mistakes, and none the less solemn for the occasional +absurdity. Though you entered the Abbey expecting to see the tombs only +of the illustrious, you are content, at last, to read many names, both +in literature and history, that have now lost the reverence of mankind, +if, indeed, they ever really possessed it. Let these men rest in peace. +Even if you miss a name or two that you hoped to find there, they +may well be spared. It matters little a few more or less, or whether +Westminster Abbey contains or lacks any one man's grave, so long as the +Centuries, each with the crowd of personages that it deemed memorable, +have chosen it as their place of honored sepulture, and laid themselves +down under its pavement. The inscriptions and devices on the walls +are rich with evidences of the fluctuating tastes, fashions, manners, +opinions, prejudices, follies, wisdoms of the past, and thus they +combine into a more truthful memorial of their dead times than any +individual epitaph-maker ever meant to write. + +When the services were over, many of the audience seemed inclined to +linger in the nave or wander away among the mysterious aisles; for there +is nothing in this world so fascinating as a Gothic minster, which +always invites you deeper and deeper into its heart both by vast +revelations and shadowy concealments. Through the open-work screen that +divides the nave from the chancel and choir, we could discern the gleam +of a marvellous window, but were debarred from entrance into that more +sacred precinct of the Abbey by the vergers. These vigilant officials +(doing their duty all the more strenuously because no fees could be +exacted from Sunday visitors) flourished their staves, and drove us +towards the grand entrance like a flock of sheep. Lingering through one +of the aisles, I happened to look down, and found my foot upon a stone +inscribed with this familiar exclamation, "_O rare Ben Jonson!_" and +remembered the story of stout old Ben's burial in that spot, standing +upright,--not, I presume, on account of any unseemly reluctance on his +part to lie down in the dust, like other men, but because standing-room +was all that could reasonably be demanded for a poet among the +slumberous notabilities of his age. It made me weary to think of +it!--such a prodigious length of time to keep one's feet!--apart from +the honor of the thing, it would certainly have been better for Ben +to stretch himself at ease in some country-churchyard. To this day, +however, I fancy that there is a contemptuous alloy mixed up with the +admiration which the higher classes of English society profess for their +literary men. + +Another day--in truth, many other days--I sought out Poets' Corner, and +found a sign-board and pointed finger, directing the visitor to it, on +the corner house of a little lane leading towards the rear of the Abbey. +The entrance is at the southeastern end of the south transept, and it +is used, on ordinary occasions, as the only free mode of access to this +building. It is no spacious arch, but a small, lowly door, passing +through which, and pushing aside an inner screen that partly keeps out +an exceedingly chill wind, you find yourself in a dim nook of the Abbey, +with the busts of poets gazing at you from the otherwise bare stonework +of the walls. Great poets, too; for Ben Jonson is right behind the door, +and Spenser's tablet is next, and Butler's on the same side of the +transept, and Milton's (whose bust you know at once by its resemblance +to one of his portraits, though older, more wrinkled, and sadder than +that) is close by, and a profile-medallion of Gray beneath it. A +window high aloft sheds down a dusky daylight on these and many other +sculptured marbles, now as yellow as old parchment, that cover the three +walls of the nook up to an elevation of about twenty feet above the +pavement. It seemed to me that I had always been familiar with the spot. +Enjoying a humble intimacy--and how much of my life had else been a +dreary solitude!--with many of its inhabitants, I could not feel myself +a stranger there. It was delightful to be among them. There was a genial +awe, mingled with a sense of kind and friendly presences about me; and +I was glad, moreover, at finding so many of them there together in fit +companionship, mutually recognized and duly honored, all reconciled +now, whatever distant generations, whatever personal hostility or other +miserable impediment, had divided them far asunder while they lived. I +have never felt a similar interest in any other tombstones, nor have I +ever been deeply moved by the imaginary presence of other famous +dead people. A poet's ghost is the only one that survives for his +fellow-mortals, after his bones are in the dust,--and he not ghostly, +but cherishing many hearts with his own warmth in the chillest +atmosphere of life. What other fame is worth aspiring for? Or, let +me speak it more boldly, what other long-enduring fame can exist? We +neither remember nor care anything for the past, except as the poet has +made it intelligibly noble and sublime to our comprehension. The shades +of the mighty have no substance; they flit ineffectually about the +darkened stage where they performed their momentary parts, save when the +poet has thrown his own creative soul into them, and imparted a more +vivid life than ever they were able to manifest to mankind while they +dwelt in the body. And therefore--though he cunningly disguises himself +in their armor, their robes of state, or kingly purple--it is not the +statesman, the warrior, or the monarch that survives, but the despised +poet, whom they may have fed with their crumbs, and to whom they owe all +that they now are or have,--a name! + +In the foregoing paragraph I seem to have been betrayed into a flight +above or beyond the customary level that best agrees with me; but it +represents fairly enough the emotions with which I passed from Poets' +Corner into the chapels, which contain the sepulchres of kings and great +people. They are magnificent even now, and must have been inconceivably +so when the marble slabs and pillars wore their new polish, and the +statues retained the brilliant colors with which they were originally +painted, and the shrines their rich gilding, of which the sunlight still +shows a glimmer or a streak, though the sunbeam itself looks tarnished +with antique dust. Yet this recondite portion of the Abbey presents few +memorials of personages whom we care to remember. The shrine of Edward +the Confessor has a certain interest, because it was so long held in +religious reverence, and because the very dust that settled upon it was +formerly worth gold. The helmet and war-saddle of Henry V., worn at +Agincourt, and now suspended above his tomb, are memorable objects, but +more for Shakspeare's sake than the victor's own. Rank has been the +general passport to admission here. Noble and regal dust is as cheap as +dirt under the pavement. I am glad to recollect, indeed, (and it is too +characteristic of the right English spirit not to be mentioned) one or +two gigantic statues of great mechanicians, who contributed largely to +the material welfare of England, sitting familiarly in their marble +chairs among forgotten kings and queens. Otherwise, the quaintness of +the earlier monuments, and the antique beauty of some of them, are what +chiefly gives them value. Nevertheless, Addison is buried among the men +of rank; not on the plea of his literary fame, however, but because he +was connected with nobility by marriage, and had been a Secretary +of State. His gravestone is inscribed with a resounding verse from +Tickell's lines to his memory, the only lines by which Tickell himself +is now remembered, and which (as I discovered a little while ago) he +mainly filched from an obscure versifier of somewhat earlier date. + +Returning to Poets' Corner, I looked again at the walls, and wondered +how the requisite hospitality can be shown to poets of our own and the +succeeding ages. There is hardly a foot of space left, although room +has lately been found for a bust of Southey and a full-length statue of +Campbell. At best, only a little portion of the Abbey is dedicated +to poets, literary men, musical composers, and others of the gentle +artist-breed, and even into that small nook of sanctity men of other +pursuits have thought it decent to intrude themselves. Methinks the +tuneful throng, being at home here, should recollect how they were +treated in their lifetime, and turn the cold shoulder, looking askance +at nobles and official personages, however worthy of honorable interment +elsewhere. Yet it shows aptly and truly enough what portion of the +world's regard and honor has heretofore been awarded to literary +eminence in comparison with other modes of greatness,--this dimly +lighted corner (nor even that quietly to themselves) in the vast +minster, the walls of which are sheathed and hidden under marble that +has been wasted upon the illustrious obscure. Nevertheless, it may +not be worth while to quarrel with the world on this account; for, to +confess the very truth, their own little nook contains more than one +poet whose memory is kept alive by his monument, instead of imbuing the +senseless stone with a spiritual immortality,--men of whom you do not +ask, "Where is he?" but "Why is he here?" I estimate that all the +literary people who really make an essential part of one's inner life, +including the period since English literature first existed, might have +ample elbow-room to sit down and quaff their draughts of Castaly round +Chaucer's broad, horizontal tombstone. These divinest poets consecrate +the spot, and throw a reflected glory over the humblest of their +companions. And as for the latter, it is to be hoped that they may have +long outgrown the characteristic jealousies and morbid sensibilities +of their craft, and have found out the little value, (probably not +amounting to sixpence in immortal currency) of the posthumous renown +which they once aspired to win. It would be a poor compliment to a dead +poet to fancy him leaning out of the sky and snuffing up the impure +breath of earthly praise. + +Yet we cannot easily rid ourselves of the notion that those who have +bequeathed us the inheritance of an undying song would fain be conscious +of its endless reverberations in the hearts of mankind, and would +delight, among sublimer enjoyments, to see their names emblazoned in +such a treasure-place of great memories as Westminster Abbey. There are +some men, at all events,--true and tender poets, moreover, and fully +deserving of the honor,--whose spirits, I feel certain, would linger a +little while about Poets' Corner for the sake of witnessing their own +apotheosis among their kindred. They have had a strong natural yearning, +not so much for applause as sympathy, which the cold fortune of their +lifetime did but scantily supply; so that this unsatisfied appetite may +make itself felt upon sensibilities at once so delicate and retentive, +even a step or two beyond the grave. Leigh Hunt, for example, would be +pleased, even now, if he could learn that his bust had been reposited in +the midst of the old poets whom he admired and loved; though there is +hardly a man among the authors of to-day and yesterday whom the judgment +of Englishmen would be less likely to place there. He deserves it, +however, if not for his verse, (the value of which I do not estimate, +never having been able to read it,) yet for his delightful prose, his +unmeasured poetry, the inscrutable happiness of his touch, working soft +miracles by a life-process like the growth of grass and flowers. As +with all such gentle writers, his page sometimes betrayed a vestige of +affectation, but, the next moment, a rich, natural luxuriance overgrew +and buried it out of sight. I knew him a little, and (since, Heaven +be praised, few English celebrities whom I chanced to meet have +enfranchised my pen by their decease, and as I assume no liberties with +living men) I will conclude this rambling article by sketching my first +interview with Leigh Hunt. + +He was then at Hammersmith, occupying a very plain and shabby little +house, in a contiguous range of others like it, with no prospect but +that of an ugly village-street, and certainly nothing to gratify +his craving for a tasteful environment, inside or out. A slatternly +maid-servant opened the door for us, and he himself stood in the entry, +a beautiful and venerable old man, buttoned to the chin in a black +dress-coat, tall and slender, with a countenance quietly alive all over, +and the gentlest and most naturally courteous manner. He ushered us into +his little study, or parlor, or both,--a very forlorn room, with poor +paper-hangings and carpet, few books, no pictures that I remember, and +an awful lack of upholstery. I touch distinctly upon these external +blemishes and this nudity of adornment, not that they would be worth +mentioning in a sketch of other remarkable persons, but because Leigh +Hunt was born with such a faculty of enjoying all beautiful things that +it seemed as if Fortune did him as much wrong in not supplying them as +in withholding a sufficiency of vital breath from ordinary men. All +kinds of mild magnificence, tempered by his taste, would have become +him well; but he had not the grim dignity that assumes nakedness as the +better robe. + +I have said that he was a beautiful old man. In truth, I never saw a +finer countenance, either as to the mould of features or the expression, +nor any that showed the play of feeling so perfectly without the +slightest theatrical emphasis. It was like a child's face in this +respect. At my first glimpse of him, when he met us in the entry, I +discerned that he was old, his long hair being white and his wrinkles +many; it was an aged visage, in short, such as I had not at all expected +to see, in spite of dates, because his books talk to the reader with the +tender vivacity of youth. But when he began to speak, and as he grew +more earnest in conversation, I ceased to be sensible of his age; +sometimes, indeed, its dusky shadow darkened through the gleam which his +sprightly thoughts diffused about his face, but then another flash of +youth came out of his eyes and made an illumination again. I never +witnessed such a wonderfully illusive transformation, before or since; +and, to this day, trusting only to my recollection, I should find it +difficult to decide which was his genuine and stable predicament, +--youth or age. I have met no Englishman whose manners seemed to me +so agreeable, soft, rather than polished, wholly unconventional, the +natural growth of a kindly and sensitive disposition without any +reference to rule, or else obedient to some rule so subtile that the +nicest observer could not detect the application of it. + +His eyes were dark and very fine, and his delightful voice accompanied +their visible language like music. He appeared to be exceedingly +appreciative, of whatever was passing among those who surrounded him, +and especially of the vicissitudes in the consciousness of the person to +whom he happened to be addressing himself at the moment. I felt that no +effect upon my mind of what he uttered, no emotion, however transitory, +in myself, escaped his notice, though not from any positive vigilance on +his part, but because his faculty of observation was so penetrative +and delicate; and to say the truth, it a little confused me to discern +always a ripple on his mobile face, responsive to any slightest breeze +that passed over the inner reservoir of my sentiments, and seemed thence +to extend to a similar reservoir within himself. On matters of feeling, +and within a certain depth, you might spare yourself the trouble of +utterance, because he already knew what you wanted to say, and perhaps +a little more than you would have spoken. His figure was full of gentle +movement, though, somehow, without disturbing its quietude; and as he +talked, he kept folding his hands nervously, and betokened in many ways +a fine and immediate sensibility, quick to feel pleasure or pain, though +scarcely capable, I should imagine, of a passionate experience in either +direction. There was not an English trait in him from head to foot, +morally, intellectually, or physically. Beef, ale, or stout, brandy, or +port-wine, entered not at all into his composition. In his earlier life, +he appears to have given evidences of courage and sturdy principle, and +of a tendency to fling himself into the rough struggle of humanity on +the liberal side. It would be taking too much upon myself to affirm that +this was merely a projection of his fancy-world into the actual, and +that he never could have hit a downright blow, and was altogether an +unsuitable person to receive one. I beheld him not in his armor, but in +his peacefullest robes. Nevertheless, drawing my conclusion merely from +what I saw, it would have occurred to me that his main deficiency was +a lack of grit. Though anything but a timid man, the combative and +defensive elements were not prominently developed in his character, and +could have been made available only when he put an unnatural force upon +his instincts. It was on this account, and also because of the fineness +of his nature generally, that the English appreciated him no better, and +left this sweet and delicate poet poor, and with scanty laurels in his +declining age. + +It was not, I think, from his American blood that Leigh Hunt derived +either his amiability or his peaceful inclinations; at least, I do +not see how we can reasonably claim the former quality as a national +characteristic, though the latter might have been fairly inherited from +his ancestors on the mother's side, who were Pennsylvania Quakers. But +the kind of excellence that distinguished him--his fineness, subtilty, +and grace--was that which the richest cultivation has heretofore tended +to develop in the happier examples of American genius, and which (though +I say it a little reluctantly) is perhaps what our future intellectual +advancement may make general among us. His person, at all events, was +thoroughly American, and of the best type, as were likewise his manners; +for we are the best-as well as the worst-mannered people in the world. + +Leigh Hunt loved dearly to be praised. That is to say, he desired +sympathy as a flower seeks sunshine, and perhaps profited by it as +much in the richer depth of coloring that it imparted to his ideas. In +response to all that we ventured to express about his writings, (and, +for my part, I went quite to the extent of my conscience, which was a +long way, and there left the matter to a lady and a young girl, who +happily were with me,) his face shone, and he manifested great delight, +with a perfect, and yet delicate, frankness for which I loved him. He +could not tell us, he said, the happiness that such appreciation gave +him; it always took him by surprise, he remarked, for--perhaps because +he cleaned his own boots, and performed other little ordinary offices +for himself--he never had been conscious of anything wonderful in his +own person. And then he smiled, making himself and all the poor little +parlor about him beautiful thereby. It is usually the hardest thing +in the world to praise a man to his face; but Leigh Hunt received the +incense with such gracious satisfaction, (feeling it to be sympathy, not +vulgar praise,) that the only difficulty was to keep the enthusiasm of +the moment within the limit of permanent opinion. A storm had suddenly +come up while we were talking; the rain poured, the lightning flashed, +and the thunder broke; but I hope, and have great pleasure in believing, +that it was a sunny hour for Leigh Hunt. Nevertheless, it was not to +my voice that he most favorably inclined his ear, but to those of my +companions. Women are the fit ministers at such a shrine. + +He must have suffered keenly in his lifetime, and enjoyed keenly, +keeping his emotions so much upon the surface as he seemed to do, and +convenient for everybody to play upon. Being of a cheerful temperament, +happiness had probably the upper hand. His was a light, mildly joyous +nature, gentle, grace-fill, yet seldom attaining to that deepest +grace which results from power; for beauty, like woman, its human +representative, dallies with the gentle, but yields its consummate +favor only to the strong. I imagine that Leigh Hunt may have been more +beautiful when I met him, both in person and character, than in his +earlier days. As a young man, I could conceive of his being finical in +certain moods, but not now, when the gravity of age shed a venerable +grace about him. I rejoiced to hear him say that he was favored with +most confident and cheering anticipations in respect to a future +life; and there were abundant proofs, throughout our interview, of an +unrepining spirit, resignation, quiet relinquishment of the worldly +benefits that were denied him, thankful enjoyment of whatever he had to +enjoy, and piety, and hope shining onward into the dusk,--all of which +gave a reverential cast to the feeling with which we parted from him. +I wish that he could have had one full draught of prosperity before he +died. As a matter of artistic propriety, it would have been delightful +to see him inhabiting a beautiful house of his own, in an Italian +climate, with all sorts of elaborate upholstery and minute elegancies +about him, and a succession of tender and lovely women to praise his +sweet poetry from morning to night. I hardly know whether it is my +fault, or the effect of a weakness in Leigh Hunt's character, that I +should be sensible of a regret of this nature, when, at the same time, I +sincerely believe that he has found an infinity of better things in the +world whither he has gone. + +At our leave-taking, he grasped me warmly by both hands, and seemed as +much interested in our whole party as if he had known us for years. All +this was genuine feeling, a quick, luxuriant growth out of his heart, +which was a soil for flower-seeds of rich and rare varieties, not +acorns, but a true heart, nevertheless. Several years afterwards I met +him for the last time at a London dinner-party, looking sadly broken +down by infirmities; and my final recollection of the beautiful old man +presents him arm in arm with, nay, partly embraced and supported by, if +I mistake not, another beloved and honored poet, whose minstrel-name, +since he has a week-day one for his personal occasions, I will venture +to speak. It was Barry Cornwall, whose kind introduction had first made +me known to Leigh Hunt. + + * * * * * + + +THE FERN FORESTS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD. + + +Draw two lines on your map, the upper one running from the mouth of the +St. Lawrence westward nearly to St. Paul on the Mississippi, and the +lower one from the neighborhood of St. John's in Newfoundland running +southwesterly about to the point where the Wisconsin joins the +Mississippi, but jutting down to form an extensive peninsula comprising +part of the States of Indiana and Illinois, and you include between them +all of the United States which existed at the close of the Devonian +period. The upper line rests against the granite hills dividing the +Silurian and Devonian deposits of the British Possessions to the north +from those of the United States to the south, Canada itself consisting, +in great part, of the granite ridge. + +How far the early deposits extended to the north of the Laurentian +Hills, as well as the outline of that portion of the continent in those +times, remains still very problematical; but the investigations thus far +undertaken in those regions would lead to the supposition that the same +granite upheaval which raised Canada stretched northward in a broad, +low ridge of land, widening in its upper part and extending to the +neighborhood of Bathurst Inlet and King William's Island, while on +either side of it to the east and west the Silurian and Devonian +deposits extended far toward the present outlines of the continent. + +Indeed, our geological surveys, as well as the information otherwise +obtained concerning the primitive condition of North America and the +gradual accessions it has received in more recent periods, point to a +very early circumscription of the area which, in the course of time, was +to become the continent we now inhabit, with its modern features.[A] + +[Footnote A: It would be impossible to encumber the pages of the +_Atlantic Monthly_ with references to all the authorities on which such +geological results rest. They are drawn from the various State Surveys, +including that of the mineral lands of Lake Superior, and other more +general works on American geology.] + +Not only from the geology of America, but from that of Europe also, it +would seem that the position of the continents was sketched out very +early in the progressive development of the physical constitution of our +earth. It is true that in the present state of our knowledge such wide +generalizations must be taken with caution, and held in abeyance to the +additional facts which future investigations may develop. But thus far +the results certainly do not sustain the theories which have lately +found favor among geologists, of entire changes in the relative +distribution of land and sea and in the connection of continents with +one another; on the contrary, it would appear, that, in accordance with +the laws of all organic progress, arising from a fixed starting-point +and proceeding through regular changes toward a well-defined end, the +continents have grown steadily and consistently from the beginning, +through successive accessions in a definite direction, to their present +form and Organic correlations. If, indeed, there is any meaning in the +remarkably symmetrical combinations of the double twin continents in +the Eastern Hemisphere, so closely soldered in their northern half, as +contrasted with the single pair in the Western Hemisphere, isolated in +their position, but so strikingly similar in their Outlines, they must +be the result of a progressive and predetermined growth already hinted +at in the relative position and gradual increase of the first lands +raised above the level of the ocean. + +However this may be, there can be no doubt that we now know with +tolerable accuracy the limits of the land raised above the water at that +period in the present United States. Let us see, then, what we inclose +between oar two lines. We have Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, the greater +part of New England, the whole of New York, a narrow strip along the +north of Ohio, a great part of Indiana and Illinois, and nearly the +whole of Michigan and Wisconsin. + +Within this region lie all the Great Lakes. The origin of these large +troughs, holding such immense sheets of fresh water, remains still the +subject of discussion and investigation among geologists. It has been +supposed that in the primitive configuration of the globe, when the +formation of those depressions at the poles in which the Arctic seas are +accumulated gave rise to a corresponding protrusion at the equator, the +curve thus produced throughout the North Temperate Zone may have forced +up the Canada granite, and have caused, at the same time, those rents +in the earth's surface now filled by the Canada lakes; and this view +is sustained by the fact that there is a belt of lakes, among which, +however, the Canada lakes are far the largest, all around the world in +that latitude. The geological phenomena connected with all these lakes +have not, however, been investigated with sufficient accuracy and +detail, nor has there been any comparison of them extensive and +comprehensive enough to justify the adoption of any theory respecting +their origin. In an excursion to Lake Superior, some years since, I +satisfied myself that the position and outline of that particular lake +had their immediate cause in several distinct systems of dikes which +intersect its northern shore, and have probably cut up the whole tract +of rock over the space now filled by that wonderful sheet of fresh water +in such a way as to destroy its continuity, to produce depressions, and +gradually create the excavation which now forms the basin of the lake. +How far the same causes have been effectual in producing the other large +lakes I am unable to say, never having had the opportunity of studying +their formation with the same care. + +The existence of the numerous smaller lakes running north and south in +the State of New York, as the Canandaigua, Seneca, Cayuga, etc., is more +easily accounted for. Slow and gradual as was the process by which +all that region was lifted above the ocean, it was, nevertheless, +accompanied by powerful dislocations of the stratified deposits, as we +shall see when we examine them with reference to the local phenomena +connected with them. To these dislocations of the strata we owe the +transverse cracks across the central part of New York, which needed +only the addition of the fresh water poured into them by the rains to +transform them into lakes. + +I shall not attempt any account of the differences between the animals +of the Devonian period and those of the Silurian period, because they +consist of structural details difficult to present in a popular form and +uninteresting to all but the professional naturalist. Suffice it to say, +that, though the organic world had the same general character in these +two closely allied periods, yet its representatives in each were +specifically distinct, and their differences, however slight, are as +constant and as definitely marked as those between more widely separated +creations. + +At the close of the Devonian period, several upheavals occurred of great +significance for the future history of America. One in Ohio raised the +elevated ground on which Cincinnati now stands; another hill lifted +its granite crest in Missouri, raising with it an extensive tract of +Silurian and Devonian deposits; while a smaller one, which does not +seem, however, to have disturbed the beds about it so powerfully, broke +through in Arkansas. At the same time, elevations took place toward the +East,--the first links, few and detached, in the great Alleghany chain +which now raises its rocky wall from New England to Alabama. + +In the Ohio hill, the granite did not break through, though the force of +the upheaval was such as to rend asunder the Devonian deposits, for we +find them lying torn and broken about the base of the hill; while the +Silurian beds, which should underlie them in their natural position, +form its centre and summit. This accounts for the great profusion of +Silurian organic remains in that neighborhood. Indeed, there is no +locality which forces upon the observer more strongly the conviction of +the profusion and richness of the early creation; for one may actually +collect the remains of Silurian Shells and Crustacea by cart-loads +around the city of Cincinnati. A naturalist would find it difficult to +gather along any modern sea-shore, even on tropical coasts, where marine +life is more abundant than elsewhere, so rich a harvest, in the same +time, as he will bring home from an hour's ramble in the environs of +that city. + +These elevations naturally gave rise to depressions between themselves +and the land on either side of them, and caused also so many +counter-slopes dipping toward the uniform southern slope already formed +at the north. Thus between the several new upheavals, as well as between +them all and the land to the north of them, wide basins or troughs were +formed, inclosed on the south, west, and east by low hills, (for these +more recent eruptions were, like all the early upheavals, insignificant +in height,) and bounded on the north by the more ancient shores of the +preceding ages. + +These were the inland seas of the Carboniferous period. Here, again, we +must infer the successive stages of a history which we can read only +in its results. Shut out from the ocean, these shallow sea-basins were +gradually changed by the rains to fresh-water lakes; the lakes, in their +turn, underwent a transformation, becoming filled, in the course of +centuries, with the materials worn away from their shores, with the +_debris_ of the animals which lived and died in their waters, as well +as with the decaying matter from aquatic plants, till at last they were +changed to spreading marshes, and on these marshes arose the gigantic +fern-vegetation of which the first forests chiefly consisted. Such are +the separate chapters in the history of the coal-basins of Illinois, +Missouri, Pennsylvania, New England, and Nova Scotia. First inland seas, +then fresh-water lakes, then spreading marshes, then gigantic forests, +and lastly vast storehouses of coal for the human race. + +Although coal-beds are by no means peculiar to the Carboniferous period, +since such deposits must be formed wherever the decay of vegetation is +going on extensively, yet it would seem that coal-making was the great +work in that age of the world's physical history. The atmospheric +conditions, so far as we can understand them, were then especially +favorable to this result. Though the existence of such an extensive +terrestrial vegetation shows conclusively that an atmosphere must have +been already established, with all the attendant phenomena of light, +heat, air, moisture, etc., yet it is probable that this atmosphere +differed from ours in being very largely charged with carbonic acid. + +We should infer this from the nature of the animals characteristic of +the period; for, though land-animals were introduced, and the organic +world was no longer exclusively marine, there were as yet none of +the higher beings in whom respiration is an active process. In all +warm-blooded animals the breathing is quick, requiring a large +proportion of oxygen in the surrounding air, and indicating by its +rapidity the animation of the whole system; while the slow-breathing, +cold-blooded animals can live in an air that is heavily loaded with +carbon. It is well known, however, that, though carbon is so deadly to +higher animal life, plants require it in great quantities; and it would +seem that one of the chief offices of the early forests was to purify +the atmosphere of its undue proportion of carbonic acid, by absorbing +the carbon into their own substance, and eventually depositing it as +coal in the soil. + +Another very important agent in the process of purifying the atmosphere, +and adapting it to the maintenance of a higher organic life, is found in +the deposits of lime. My readers will excuse me, if I introduce here a +very elementary chemical fact to explain this statement. Limestone is +carbonate of calcium. Calcium is a metal, fusible as such, and, forming +a part of the melted masses within the earth, it was thrown out with the +eruptions of Plutonic rocks. Brought to the air, it would appropriate +a certain amount of oxygen, and by that process would become oxide of +calcium, in which condition it combines very readily with carbonic acid. +Thus it becomes carbonate of lime; and all lime deposits played an +important part in establishing the atmospheric proportions essential to +the existence of the warm-blooded animals. + +Such facts remind us how far more comprehensive the results of science +will become when the different branches of scientific investigation are +pursued in connection with each other. When chemists have brought their +knowledge out of their special laboratories into the laboratory of the +world, where chemical combinations are and have been through all time +going on in such vast proportions,--when physicists study the laws +of moisture, of clouds and storms, in past periods as well as in the +present,--when, in short, geologists and zoologists are chemists and +physicists, and _vice versa_,--then we shall learn more of the changes +the world has undergone than is possible now that they are separately +studied. + +It may be asked, how any clue can be found to phenomena so evanescent as +those of clouds and moisture. But do we not trace in the old deposits +the rainstorms of past times? The heavy drops of a passing shower, the +thick, crowded tread of a splashing rain, or the small pinpricks of a +close and fine one,--all the story, in short, of the rising vapors, +the gathering clouds, the storms and showers of ancient days, we find +recorded for us in the fossil rain-drops; and when we add to this the +possibility of analyzing the chemical elements which have been absorbed +into the soil, but which once made part of the atmosphere, it is not too +much to hope that we shall learn something hereafter of the meteorology +even of the earliest geological ages. + +The peculiar character of the vegetable tissue in the trees of the +Carboniferous period, containing, as it did, a large supply of +resin drawn from the surrounding elements, confirms the view of the +atmospheric conditions above stated; and this fact, as well as the damp, +soggy soil in which the first forests must have grown, accounts for the +formation of coal in greater quantity and more combustible in quality +than is found in the more recent deposits. But stately as were those +fern forests, where plants which creep low at our feet to-day, or are +known to us chiefly as underbrush, or as rushes and grasses in swampy +grounds, grew to the height of lofty trees, yet the vegetation was of an +inferior kind. + +There has been a gradation in time for the vegetable as well as the +animal world. With the marine population of the more ancient geological +ages we find nothing but sea-weeds,--of great variety, it is true, and, +as it would seem, from some remains of the marine Cryptogams in early +times, of immense size, as compared with modern sea-weeds. But in the +Carboniferous period, the plants, though still requiring a soaked and +marshy soil, were aerial or atmospheric plants: they were covered with +leaves; they breathed; their fructification was like that which now +characterizes the ferns, the club-mosses, and the so-called "horse-tail +plants," (_Equisetaceae,_) those grasses of low, damp grounds remarkable +for the strongly marked articulations of the stem. + +These were the lords of the forests all over the world in the +Carboniferous period. Wherever the Carboniferous deposits have been +traced, in the United States, in Canada, in England, France, Belgium, +Germany, in New Holland, at the Cape of Good Hope, and in South America, +the general aspect of the vegetation has been found to be the same, +though characterized in the different localities by specific +differences of the same nature as those by which the various floras are +distinguished now in different parts of the same zone. For instance, the +Temperate Zone throughout the world is characterized by certain families +of trees: by Oaks, Maples, Beeches, Birches, Pines, etc.; but the Oaks, +Maples, Beeches, Birches, and the like, of the American flora in that +latitude differ in species from the corresponding European flora. So +in the Carboniferous period, when more uniform climatic conditions +prevailed throughout the world, the character of the vegetation showed a +general unity of structure everywhere; but it was nevertheless broken up +into distinct botanical provinces by specific differences of the same +kind as those which now give such diversity of appearance to the +vegetation of the Temperate Zone in Europe as compared with that of +America, or to the forests of South America as compared with those of +Africa. + +There can be no doubt as to the true nature of the Carboniferous +forests; for the structural character of the trees is as strongly marked +in their fossil remains as in any living plants of the same character. +We distinguish the Ferns not only by the peculiar form of their leaves, +often perfectly preserved, but also by the fructification on the lower +surface of the leaves, and by the distinct marks made on the stem at +their point of juncture with it. The leaf of the Fern, when falling, +leaves a scar on the stem varying in shape and size according to the +kind of Fern, so that the botanist readily distinguishes any particular +species of Fern by this means,--a birth-mark, as it were, by which he +detects the parentage of the individual. Another indication, equally +significant, is found in the tubular structure of the wood in Ferns. On +a vertical section of any well-preserved Fern-trunk from the old forests +the little tubes may be seen very distinctly running up its length; or, +if it be cut through transversely, they may be traced by the little +pores like dots on the surface. Trees of this description are found in +the Carboniferous marshes, standing erect and perfectly preserved, with +trunks a foot and a half in diameter, rising to a height of many feet. +Plants so strongly bituminous as the Ferns, when they equalled in size +many of our present forest-trees, naturally made coal deposits of the +most combustible quality. It is true that we find the anthracite coal of +the same period with comparatively little bituminous matter; but this is +where the bitumen has been destroyed by the action of the internal heat +of the earth. + +Next to the Ferns, the Club-Mosses (_Lycopodiacae_) seem to have +contributed most largely to the marsh-forests. They were characterized, +then, as now, by the small size of the leaves growing close against the +stem, so that the stem itself, though covered with leaves, looks +almost naked, like the stem of the Cactus. Beside these, there are the +tree-like Equiseta, in which we find the articulations on the trunk +corresponding exactly to those now so characteristic of those +marsh-grasses which are the modern representatives of this family of +plants, with cone-like fructifications on the summit of the stem. + +I would merely touch here upon a subject which does not belong to my own +branch of Natural History, but is of the greatest interest in botanical +research, namely, the gradation of plants in the geological ages, and +the combination of characters in some of the earlier vegetable forms, +corresponding to that already noticed in the ancient animal types. For +instance, in the Carboniferous period we have only Cryptogams, Ferns, +Lycopodiacae, and Equisetaceae. In the middle geological ages, Conifers +are introduced, the first flowering plant known on earth, but in which +the flower is very imperfect as compared with those of the higher +groups. The Coniferae were chiefly represented in the middle periods by +the Cycadae, that peculiar group of Coniferae, resembling Pines in their +structure, but recalling the Ferns by their external appearance. The +stem is round and short, its surface being covered with scars similar to +those of the Ferns; while on the summit are ten or more leaves, fan-like +and spreading when their growth is complete, but rolled up at first, +like Fern-leaves before they expand. Their fruit resembles somewhat the +Pine-Apple. + +The mode of growth of the Coniferae recalls a feature of the +Equisetaceae also, in the tufts of little leaves which appear in whorls +at regular intervals along the length of the stem in proportion as +it elongates, reminding one of the articulations on the stem of the +Equisetaceae. The first cone also appears on the summit of the stem, +like the terminal cone in the Equisetaceae and the Club-Mosses. Thus +in certain types of the vegetable, as well as the animal creation of +earlier times, there was a continuation of features, afterwards divided +and presented in separate groups. In the present times, no one of +these families of plants overlaps the others, but each has a distinct +individual character of its own. + +At the close of the middle geological ages and the opening of the +Tertiary periods, the Monocotyledons become abundant, the first plants +with flower and inclosed seed, though with no true floral envelope: but +not until the two last epochs of the Tertiary age do we find in any +number the Dicotyledonous plants, in which flower and fruit rise to +their highest perfection. Thus there has been a procession of plants +from their earliest introduction to the present day, corresponding to +their botanical rank as they now exist, so that the series of gradation +in the Vegetable Kingdom, as well as the Animal Kingdom, is the same, +whether founded upon succession in time or upon comparative structural +rank. + +Some attempt has been made to reproduce under an artistic form the +aspect of the world in the different geological ages, and to present in +single connected pictures the animal and vegetable world of each period. +Professor F. Unger, of Vienna, has prepared a collection of fourteen +such sketches, entitled, "Tableaux Physionomiques de la Vegetation des +Diverses Periodes du Monde Primitif." + +First, we have the Devonian shores, with spreading fields of sea-weed +and numbers of the club-shaped Algae of gigantic size. He has ventured, +also, to represent a few trees, with scanty foliage; but I believe their +existence at so early a period to be very problematical. + +Next comes the Carboniferous forest, with still pools of water lying +between the Fern-trees, which, much as they affect damp, swampy grounds, +seem scarcely able to find foothold on the dripping earth. Their trunks, +as well as those of the Club-Moss trees which make the foreground of the +picture, stand up free from any branches for many feet above the ground, +giving one a glimpse between them into the dim recesses of this quiet, +watery wood, where the silence was unbroken by the song of birds or the +hum of insects. We shall find, it is true, when we give a glance at the +animals of this time, that certain insects made their appearance with +the first terrestrial vegetation; but they were few in number and of a +peculiar kind, such as thrive now in low, wet lands. + +Upon this follow a number of sketches introducing us to the middle +periods, where the land is higher and more extensive, covered chiefly +with Pine forests, beneath which grows a thick carpet of underbrush, +consisting mostly of Grasses, Rushes, and Ferns. Here and there one of +the gigantic reptiles of the time may be seen sunning himself on +the shore. One of these sketches shows us such a creature hungrily +inspecting a pool where Crinoids, with their long stems, large, +closely-coiled Chambered Shells, and Brachiopods, the Oysters and +Clams of those days, offer him a tempting repast. Here and there a +Pterodactyl, the curious winged reptile of the later middle periods, +stretches its long neck from the water, and birds also begin to make +their appearance. + +After these come the Tertiary periods: the Eocene first, where the +landscape is already broken up by hills and mountains, clothed with +a varied vegetation of comparatively modern character. Lily-pads are +floating on the stream which makes the central part of the picture; +large herds of the Palaeotherium, the ancient Pachyderm, reconstructed +with such accuracy by Cuvier, are feeding along its banks; and a tall +bird of the Heron or Pelican kind stands watching by the water's edge. +In the Miocene the vegetation looks still more familiar, though the +Elephants roaming about in regions of the Temperate Zone, and the huge +Salamanders crawling out of the water, remind us that we are still far +removed from present times. Lastly, we have the ice period, with the +glaciers coming down to the borders of a river where large troops of +Buffalo are drinking, while on the shore some Bears are feasting on the +remains of a huge carcass. + +It is, however, with the Carboniferous age that we have to do at +present, and I will not anticipate the coming chapters of my story by +dwelling now on the aspect of the later periods. To return, then, to the +period of the coal, it would seem that extensive freshets frequently +overflowed the marshes, and that even after many successive forests +had sprung up and decayed upon their soil, they were still subject to +submergence by heavy floods. These freshets, at certain intervals, +are not difficult to understand, when we remember, that, beside the +occasional influx of violent rains, the earth was constantly undergoing +changes of level, and that a subsidence or upheaval in the neighborhood +would disturb the equilibrium of the waters, causing them to overflow +and pour over the surface of the country, thus inundating the marshes +anew. + +That such was the case we can hardly doubt, after the facts revealed +by recent investigations of the Carboniferous deposits. In some of the +deeper coal-beds there is a regular alternation between layers of coal +and layers of sand or clay; in certain localities, as many as ten, +twelve, and even fifteen coal-beds have been found alternating with as +many deposits of clay or mud or sand; and in some instances, where the +trunks of the trees are hollow and have been left standing erect, they +are filled to the brim, or to the height of the next layer of deposits, +with the materials that have been swept over them. Upon this set of +deposits comes a new bed of coal with the remains of a new forest, and. +above this again a layer of materials left by a second freshet, and so +on through a number of alternate strata. It is evident from these facts +that there have been a succession of forests, one above another, but +that in the intervals of their growth great floods have poured over the +marshes, bringing with them all kinds of loose materials, such as sand, +pebbles, clay, mud, lime, etc., which, as the freshets subsided, settled +down over the coal, filling not only the spaces between such trees as +remained standing, but even the hollow trunks of the trees themselves. + +Let us give a glance now at the animals which inhabited the waters of +this period. In the Radiates we shall not find great changes; the three +classes are continued, though with new representatives, and the Polyp +Corals are increasing, while the Acalephian Corals, the Kugosa and +Tabulata, are diminishing. The Crinoids were still the most prominent +representatives of the class of Echinoderms, though some resembling the +Ophiurans and Echinoids (Sea-Urchins) began to make their appearance. +The adjoining wood-cut represents a characteristic Crinoid of the +Carboniferous age. + +[Illustration] + +Among the Mollusks, Brachiopods are still prominent, one new genus among +them, the Productus, being very remarkable on account of the manner in +which one valve rises above the other. The wood-cut below represents such +a shell, looked at from the side of the flat valve, showing the straight +cut of the line of juncture between the valves and the rising curve of +the opposite one, which looks like a hooked beak when seen in profile. + +[Illustration] + +Other species of Bivalves were also introduced, approaching more +nearly our Clams and Oysters, or, as they are called in scientific +nomenclature, the Lamellibranchiates. They differ from the Brachiopods +chiefly in the higher character of their breathing-apparatus; for they +have free gills, instead of the net-work of vessels on the lining skin +which serves as the organ of respiration in the Brachiopods. We shall +always find, that, in proportion as the functions are distinct, and, as +it were, individualized by having special organs appropriated to them, +animals rise in the scale of structure. The next class of Mollusks, the +Gasteropods, or Univalves, with spiral shells, were numerous, but, +from their brittle character, are seldom found in a good state of +preservation. + +The Chambered Shells, or the Cephalopods, represented chiefly in the +earlier periods by the straight Orthoceratites described in a previous +article, are now curled in a close coil, and the internal structure +of their chambers has become more complicated. The subjoined wood-cut +represents a characteristic Chambered Shell of the Carboniferous age. +Goniatites is the scientific name of these later forms. If we had looked +for them in the Devonian period, we should have found many with looser +coils than these, and some only slightly curved in the shape of a horn. +These, as well as the perfectly straight forms, still exist in the coal +period, but the Goniatites with close whorls are the more numerous and +more characteristic. + +[Illustration] + +The Articulates have gained their missing class since the close of the +Devonian period, for Insects have come in, and that division of the +Animal Kingdom is therefore complete, and represented by three classes, +as it is at present. Of the Worms little can be said; their traces are +found as before, but they are very imperfectly preserved. There are +still Trilobites, but they are very few in number, and other groups of +Crustacea have been added. + +One of the most prominent of these new types bears a striking +resemblance to the Horse-Shoe Crab of present times. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +I here present one of our common Horse-Shoe Crabs above one of these +old-world Crustaceans, and it will be seen, that, while the latter +preserves some of the Trilobitic characters, such as the marked +articulations on the posterior part of the body and their division into +three lobes, yet in the prominence of its anterior shield, its more +elongated form, and tapering extremity, it resembles its modern +representative. In some of them, however, there is no such sharp point +as is here figured, and the body terminates bluntly. There were a large +number of these Entomostraca in the Carboniferous period, a group which +is chiefly represented among living Crustacea by an exceedingly minute +kind of Shrimp; but in those days they were of the size of our Crabs and +Lobsters, or even larger, and the Horse-Shoe Crab still maintains their +claim to a place among the larger and more conspicuous members of the +class. + +The Insects were few, and, as I have said above, of a kind which seeks a +moist atmosphere, or whose larvae live altogether in water. They are not +usually well preserved, as will be seen from the broken character of +the one here represented, although the wood-cut is made from a better +specimen than is often found. We have, however, remains enough +to establish unquestionably the fact of their existence in the +Carboniferous period, and to show us that the type of Articulates was +already represented by all its classes. + +[Illustration] + +Not so with the Vertebrates. Fishes abound, but their class still +consists, as before, of the Ganoids, those fishes of the earlier +periods built on the Gar-Pike and Sturgeon pattern, and the Selachians, +represented now by Sharks and Skates. In the Carboniferous period we +begin to find perfectly preserved specimens of the Ganoids, and the +adjoining wood-cut represents such a one. Of the old type of Selachians +we have again one lingering representative in our own times to give us +the clue to its ancestors,--as the Gar-Pike explains the old Ganoids, +and the Chambered Nautilus helps us to understand the Chambered Shells +of past times. The so-called Port-Jackson Shark has features which were +very characteristic of the Carboniferous Sharks and are lost in the +modern ones, so that it affords us a sort of link, as it were, and a +measure of comparison, between those now living and the more ancient +forms. It is an interesting fact that this only living representative of +the Carboniferous Shark should be found in New Holland, because it is +there, in that isolated continent, left apart, as it would seem, for a +special purpose, that we find reproduced for us most fully the character +of the Animal Kingdom in earlier creations. + +[Illustration] + +The first Mammalia in the world were pouched animals, having that +extraordinary attachment to the mother after birth which characterizes +the Kangaroo. In New Holland almost all the Mammalia are pouched, and +have also the imperfect organization of the brain, as compared with the +other Mammalia, which accompanies that peculiar structural feature; and +although the American Opossum makes an exception to the rule, it is +nevertheless true that this type of the Animal Kingdom is now confined +almost exclusively to New Holland. Whether this living picture of old +creations in modern garb was meant to be educational for man or not, it +is at least well that we should take advantage of it in learning all it +has to teach us of the relations between the organic world of past and +present times. + +There were a great variety of the Selachians in the Carboniferous +period. The wood-cuts below represent a tooth and a spine from one of +the most characteristic groups, but I have not thought it worth while to +enumerate or to figure others here, for there are no perfect specimens, +and their structural differences consist chiefly in the various form and +appearance of the teeth, scales, and spines, and would be uninteresting +to most of my readers. I would refer the more scientific ones, who may +care to know something of these details, to my investigations on Fossil +Fishes, published many years since under the title of "Recherches sur +les Poissons Fossiles." + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] + +Although the Vertebrate division of the Animal Kingdom still waited for +its higher classes, yet it had received one important addition since +the Silurian and Devonian periods. The Carboniferous marshes were not +without their reptilian inhabitants; but they were Reptiles of the +lowest class, the so-called Amphibians, those which are hatched from the +egg in an immature condition, undergoing metamorphosis after birth. They +have no hard scales, and lay a large number of eggs. I am unable to +present any figure of one of these ancient Reptiles, as they are found +in so imperfect a state of preservation that no plates have been made +from them. I would add in connection with this subject that I believe +a large number of animals found in the Carboniferous deposits, and +referred to the class of Reptiles, to be Fishes allied to Saurians. + +Before leaving the Carboniferous period, let us see what territory the +United States has conquered from the Ocean during that time. All +its central portion, from Canada to Alabama, and from Western Iowa, +Missouri, and Arkansas to Eastern Virginia, was raised above the water. +But as yet the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains did not exist; a +great gulf ran up to the mouth of the Ohio, for the Mississippi had not +yet accumulated the soil for the fertile valley through which it was to +take its southern course; the Coral-Builders had still their work to do +in constructing the peninsula of Florida; and, indeed, all the borders +of the continent of North America, as well as a large part of its +Western territory, were still to be added. But although its central +portion held its ground and was never submerged again, yet the continent +was slowly subsiding during the middle geological periods, so that, +instead of enlarging gradually by the increase of deposits, its limits +remained much the same. + +This accounts for the very scanty traces to be found in America of +the secondary deposits; for the Permian, Triassic, and Jurassic beds, +instead of being raised to form successive shores, along which their +deposits could be accumulated in regular sequence, as had been the case +with the Azoic, Silurian, and Devonian deposits in the northern part of +the United States, were constantly sinking, so that the Triassic settled +above the Permian, the Jurassic above the Triassic, and so on, each set +of strata thus covering over and concealing the preceding one. Though we +find the stratified rocks of these periods cropping out here and there, +where some violent disturbance or the abrading action of water has +torn asunder or worn away the overlying strata, yet we never find +them consecutively over any extensive region; and it is not till the +Cretaceous and earlier Tertiary periods that we find again a regular +succession of deposits around the shores of the continent, marking its +present outlines. It is, then, in Europe, where the sequence of their +beds is most complete, that we must seek to decipher the history of the +middle geological ages; and therefore, when I meet my readers again, +it will be in the Old World of civilization, though more recent in its +physical features than the one we leave. + + * * * * * + + +TO E.W. + + + I know not, Time and Space so intervene, + Whether, still waiting with a trust serene, + Thou bearest up thy fourscore years and ten, + Or, called at last, art now Heaven's citizen; + But, here or there, a pleasant thought of thee, + Like an old friend, all day has been with me. + The shy, still boy, for whom thy kindly hand + Smoothed his hard pathway to the wonder-land + Of thought and fancy, in gray manhood yet + Keeps green the memory of his early debt. + To-day, when truth and falsehood speak their words + Through hot-lipped cannon and the teeth of swords, + Listening with quickened heart and ear intent + To each sharp clause of that stern argument, + I still can hear at times a softer note + Of the old pastoral music round me float, + While through the hot gleam of our civil strife + Looms the green mirage of a simpler life. + As, at his alien post, the sentinel + Drops the old bucket in the homestead well, + And hears old voices in the winds that toss + Above his head the live-oak's beard of moss, + So, in our trial-time, and under skies + Shadowed by swords like Islam's paradise, + I wait and watch, and let my fancy stray + To milder scenes and youth's Arcadian day; + And howsoe'er the pencil dipped in dreams + Shades the brown woods or tints the sunset streams, + The country doctor in the foreground seems, + Whose ancient sulky down the village lanes + Dragged, like a war-car, captive ills and pains. + I could not paint the scenery of my song, + Mindless of one who looked thereon so long; + Who, night and day, on duty's lonely round, + Made friends o' th' woods and rocks, and knew the sound + Of each small brook, and what the hill-side trees + Said to the winds that touched their leafy keys; + Who saw so keenly and so well could paint + The village-folk, with all their humors quaint,-- + The parson ambling on his wall-eyed roan, + Grave and erect, with white hair backward blown,-- + The tough old boatman, half amphibious grown,-- + The muttering witch-wife of the gossip's tale, + And the loud straggler levying his black mail,-- + Old customs, habits, superstitions, fears, + All that lies buried under fifty years. + To thee, as is most fit, I bring my lay, + And, grateful, own the debt I cannot pay. + + * * * * * + + +THE COUNTESS. + + + Over the wooded northern ridge, + Between its houses brown, + To the dark tunnel of the bridge + The street comes straggling down. + + You catch a glimpse through birch and pine + Of gable, roof, and porch, + The tavern with its swinging sign, + The sharp horn of the church. + + The river's steel-blue crescent curves + To meet, in ebb and flow, + The single broken wharf that serves + For sloop and gundelow. + + With salt sea-scents along its shores + The heavy hay-boats crawl, + The long antennae of their oars + In lazy rise and fall. + + Along the gray abutment's wall + The idle shad-net dries; + The toll-man in his cobbler's stall + Sits smoking with closed eyes. + + You hear the pier's low undertone + Of waves that chafe and gnaw; + You start,--a skipper's horn is blown + To raise the creaking draw. + + At times a blacksmith's anvil sounds + With slow and sluggard beat, + Or stage-coach on its dusty rounds + Wakes up the staring street. + + A place for idle eyes and ears, + A cobwebbed nook of dreams; + Left by the stream whose waves are years + The stranded village seems. + + And there, like other moss and rust, + The native dweller clings, + And keeps, in uninquiring trust, + The old, dull round of things. + + The fisher drops his patient lines, + The farmer sows his grain, + Content to hear the murmuring pines + Instead of railroad-train. + + Go where, along the tangled steep + That slopes against the west, + The hamlet's buried idlers sleep + In still profounder rest. + + Throw back the locust's flowery plume, + The birch's pale-green scarf, + And break the web of brier and bloom + From name and epitaph. + + A simple muster-roll of death, + Of pomp and romance shorn, + The dry, old names that common breath + Has cheapened and outworn. + + Yet pause by one low mound and part + The wild vines o'er it laced, + And read the words by rustic art + Upon its headstone traced. + + Haply yon white-haired villager + Of fourscore years can say + What means the noble name of her + Who sleeps with common clay. + + An exile from the Gascon land + Found refuge here and rest, + And loved, of all the village band, + Its fairest and its best. + + He knelt with her on Sabbath morns, + He worshipped through her eyes, + And on the pride that doubts and scorns + Stole in her faith's surprise. + + Her simple daily life he saw + By homeliest duties tried, + In all things by an untaught law + Of fitness justified. + + For her his rank aside he laid; + He took the hue and tone + Of lowly life and toil, and made + Her simple ways his own. + + Yet still, in gay and careless ease, + To harvest-field or dance + He brought the gentle courtesies, + The nameless grace of France. + + And she who taught him love not less + From him she loved in turn + Caught in her sweet unconsciousness + What love is quick to learn. + + Each grew to each in pleased accord, + Nor knew the gazing town + If she looked upward to her lord + Or he to her looked down. + + How sweet, when summer's day was o'er, + His violin's mirth and wail, + The walk on pleasant Newbury's shore, + The river's moonlit sail! + + Ah! life is brief, though love be long + The altar and the bier, + The burial hymn and bridal song, + Were both in one short year! + + Her rest is quiet on the hill + Beneath the locust's bloom; + Far off her lover sleeps as still + Within his scutcheoned tomb. + + The Gascon lord, the village maid + In death still clasp their hands; + The love that levels rank and grade + Unites their severed lands. + + What matter whose the hill-side grave, + Or whose the blazoned stone? + Forever to her western wave + Shall whisper blue Garonne! + + O Love!--so hallowing every soil + That gives thy sweet flower room, + Wherever, nursed by ease or toil, + The human heart takes bloom!-- + + Plant of lost Eden, from the sod + Of sinful earth unriven, + White blossom of the trees of God + Dropped down to us from heaven!-- + + This tangled waste of mound and stone + Is holy for thy sake; + A sweetness which is all thy own + Breathes out from fern and brake. + + And while ancestral pride shall twine + The Gascon's tomb with flowers, + Fall sweetly here, O song of mine, + With summer's bloom and showers! + + And let the lines that severed seem + Unite again in thee, + As western wave and Gallic stream + Are mingled in one sea! + + * * * * * + + +GALA-DAYS. + + +I. + +Once there was a great noise in our house,--a thumping and battering and +grating. It was my own self dragging my big trunk down from the garret. +I did it myself because I wanted it done. If I had said, "Halicarnassus, +will you fetch my trunk down?" he would have asked me what trunk? and +what did I want of it? and would not the other one be better? and +couldn't I wait till after dinner?--and so the trunk would probably have +had a three-days' journey from garret to basement. Now I am strong in +the wrists and weak in the temper; therefore I used the one and spared +the other, and got the trunk down-stairs myself. Halicarnassus heard the +uproar. He must have been deaf not to hear it; for the old ark banged +and bounced, and scraped the paint off the stairs, and pitched +head-foremost into the wall, and gouged out the plastering, and dinted +the mop-board, and was the most stupid, awkward, uncompromising, +unmanageable thing I ever got hold of in my life. + +By the time I had zigzagged it into the back chamber, Halicarnassus +loomed up the back stairs. I stood hot and panting, with the inside of +my fingers tortured into burning leather, the skin rasped off three +knuckles, and a bruise on the back of my right hand, where the trunk had +crushed it against a sharp edge of the door-way. + +"Now, then?" said Halicarnassus interrogatively. + +"To be sure," I replied affirmatively. + +He said no more, but went and looked up the garret-stairs. They bore +traces of a severe encounter, that must be confessed. + +"Do you want me to give you a bit of advice?" he asked. + +"No!" I answered promptly. + +"Well, then, here it is. The next time you design to bring a trunk +downstairs, you would better cut away the underpinning, and knock out +the beams, and let the garret down into the cellar. It will make less +uproar, and not take so much to repair damages." + +He intended to be severe. His words passed by me as the idle wind. I +perched on my trunk, took a pasteboard box-cover and fanned myself. I +was very warm. Halicarnassus sat down on the lowest stair and remained +silent several minutes, expecting a meek explanation, but, not getting +it, swallowed a bountiful piece of what is called in homely talk +"humble-pie," and said,-- + +"I should like to know what's in the wind now." + +I make it a principle always to resent an insult and to welcome +repentance with equal alacrity. If people thrust out their horns at me +wantonly, they very soon run against a stone wall; but the moment they +show signs of contrition, I soften. It is the best way. Don't insist +that people shall grovel at your feet before you accept their apology. +That is not magnanimous. Let mercy temper justice. It is a hard thing +at best for human nature to go down into the Valley of Humiliation; and +although, when circumstances arise which make it the only fit place for +a person, I insist upon his going, still, no sooner does he actually +begin the descent than my sense of justice is appeased, my natural +sweetness of disposition resumes sway, and I trip along by his side +chatting as gayly as if I did not perceive it was the Valley of +Humiliation at all, but fancied it the Delectable Mountains. So, upon +the first symptoms of placability, I answered cordially,-- + +"Halicarnassus, it has been the ambition of my life to write a book of +travels. But to write a book of travels, one must first have travelled." + +"Not at all," he responded. "With an atlas and an encyclopedia one can +travel around the world in his arm-chair." + +"But one cannot have personal adventures," I said. "You can, indeed, sit +in your arm-chair and describe the crater of Vesuvius; but you cannot +tumble into the crater of Vesuvius from your arm-chair." + +"I have never heard that it was necessary to tumble in, in order to have +a good view of the mountain." + +"But it is necessary to do it, if one would make a readable book." + +"Then I should let the book slide,--rather than slide myself." + +"If you would do me the honor to listen," I said, scornful of his +paltry attempt at wit, "you would see that the book is the object of my +travelling. I travel to write. I do not write because I have travelled. +I am not going to subordinate my book to my adventures. My adventures +are going to be arranged beforehand with a view to my book." + +"A most original way of getting up a book!" + +"Not in the least. It is the most common thing in the world. Look at our +dear British cousins." + +"And see them make guys of themselves. They visit a magnificent country +that is trying the experiment of the world, and write about their +shaving-soap and their babies' nurses." + +"Just where they are right. Just why I like the race, from Trollope +down. They give you something to take hold of. I tell you, +Halicarnassus, it is the personality of the writer, and not the nature +of the scenery or of the institutions, that makes the interest. It +stands to reason. If it were not so, one book would be all that ever +need be written, and that book would be a census report. For a republic +is a republic, and Niagara is Niagara forever; but tell how you stood on +the chain-bridge at Niagara--if there is one there--and bought a cake of +shaving-soap from a tribe of Indians at a fabulous price, or how your +baby jumped from the arms of the careless nurse into the Falls, and +immediately your own individuality is thrown around the scenery, and it +acquires a human interest. It is always five miles from one place to +another, but that is mere almanac and statistics. Let a poet walk the +five miles, and narrate his experience with birds and bees and flowers +and grasses and water and sky, and it becomes literature. And let me +tell you further, Sir, a book of travels is just as interesting as the +person who writes it is interesting. It is not the countries, but the +persons, that are 'shown up.' You go to France and write a dull book. +I go to France and write a lively book. But France is the same. The +difference is in ourselves." + +Halicarnassus glowered at me. I think I am not using strained or +extravagant language when I say that he glowered at me. Then he growled +out,-- + +"So your book of travels is just to put yourself into pickle." + +"Say rather," I answered, with sweet humility,--"say rather it is to +shrine myself in amber. As the insignificant fly, encompassed with +molten glory, passes into a crystallized immortality, his own littleness +uplifted into loveliness by the beauty in which he is imprisoned, so I, +wrapped around by the glory of my land, may find myself niched into a +fame which my unattended and naked merit could never have claimed." + +Halicarnassus was a little stunned, but, presently recovering himself, +suggested that I had travelled enough already to make out quite a +sizable book. + +"Travelled!" I said, looking him steadily in the face,--"travelled! +I have been up to Tudiz huckleberrying; and once, when there was a +freshet, you took a superannuated broom and paddled me, around the +orchard in a leaky pig's trough!" + +He could not deny it; so he laughed and said,-- + +"Ah, well!--ah, well! Suit yourself. Take your trunk and pitch into +Vesuvius, if you like. I won't stand in your way." + +His acquiescence was ungraciously, and I believe I may say ambiguously, +expressed; but it mattered little, for in three days from that time I +took my trunk, Halicarnassus his cane, and we started on our travels. An +evil omen met us at the beginning. Just as I was stepping into the car, +I observed a violent smoke issuing from under it. I started back in +alarm. + +"They are only getting up steam," said Halicarnassus. "Always do, when +they start." + +"I know better!" I answered briskly, for there was no time to be +circumlocutional. "They don't get up steam under the cars." + +"Why not? Bet a sixpence you couldn't get Uncle Cain's dobbin out of his +jog-trot without building a fire under him." + +"I know that wheel is on fire," I said, not to be turned from the direct +and certain line of assertion into the winding ways of argument. + +"No matter," replied Halicarnassus, conceding everything, "we are +insured." + +Upon the strength of which consolatory information I went in. By-and-by +a man entered and took a seat in front of us. "The box is all afire," +chuckled he to his neighbor, as if it were a fine joke. By-and-by +several people who had been looking out of the windows drew in their +heads, rose, and went into the next car. + +"What do you suppose they did that for?" I asked Halicarnassus. + +"More aristocratical. Belong to old families. This is a new car, don't +you see? We are _parvenus_." + +"Nothing of the sort," I rejoined. "This car is on fire, and they have +gone into the next one so as not to be burned up." + +"They are not going to write books, and can afford to run away from +adventures." + +"But suppose I am burned up in my adventure?" + +"Obviously, then, your book will end in smoke." + +I ceased to talk, for I was provoked at his indifference. I leave every +impartial mind to judge for itself whether the circumstances were such +as to warrant composure. To be sure, somebody said the car was to +be left at Jeru; but Jeru was eight miles away, and any quantity of +mischief might be done before we reached it,--if, indeed, we were +not prevented from reaching it altogether. It was a mere question of +dynamics. Would dry wood be able to hold its own against a raging fire +for half an hour? Of course the conductor thought it would; but even +conductors are not infallible; and you may imagine how comfortable it +was to sit and know that a fire was in full blast beneath you, and to +look down every few minutes expecting to see the flames forking up under +your feet. I confess I was not without something like a hope that one +tongue of the devouring element would flare up far enough to give +Halicarnassus a start; but it did not. No casualty occurred. We reached +Jeru in safety; but that does not prove that there was no danger, or +that indifference was anything but the most foolish hardihood. If our +burning car had been in mid-ocean, serenity would have been sublimity, +but to stay in the midst of peril when two steps would take one out of +it is idiocy. And that there was peril is conclusively shown by the fact +that the very next day the Eastern Railroad Depot took fire and was +burned to the ground. I have in my own mind no doubt that it was a +continuation of the same fire, and if we had stayed in the car much +longer, we should have shared the same fate. + +We found Jeru to be a pleasant city, with only one fault: the +inhabitants will crowd into a car before passengers can get out; +consequently the heads of the two columns collide near the car-door, and +there is a general choke. Otherwise Jeru is a delightful city. It is +famous for its beautiful women. Its railroad-station is a magnificent +piece of architecture. Its men are retired East-India merchants. +Everybody in Jeru is rich and has real estate. The houses in Jeru +are three stories high and face on the Common. People in Jeru are +well-dressed and well-bred, and they all came over in the Mayflower. + +We stopped in Jeru five minutes. + +When we were ready to continue our travels Halicarnassus seceded into +the smoking-car, and while the engine was shrieking off its inertia, a +small boy, laboring under great agitation, hurried in, darted up to me, +and, thrusting a pinchbeck ring with a pink glass in it into my face, +exclaimed, in a hoarse whisper,-- + +"A beautiful ring, Ma'am! I've just picked it up. Can't stop to find the +owner. Worth a dollar, Ma'am; but if you'll give me fifty cents"-- + +"Boy!" + +I rose fiercely, convulsively, in my seat, drew one long breath, but +whether he thought I was going to kill him,--I dare say I looked it,--or +whether he saw a sheriff behind, or a phantom gallows before, I know +not; but without waiting for the thunderbolt to strike, he rushed from +the car as precipitately as he had rushed in. I _was_ angry,--not +because I was to have been cheated, for I have been repeatedly and +atrociously cheated and only smiled, but because the rascal dared +attempt on me such a threadbare, ragged, shoddy trick as that. Do I +_look_ like a rough-hewn, unseasoned backwoodsman? Have I the air of +never having read a newspaper? Is there a patent innocence of eye-teeth +in my demeanor? Oh, Jeru! Jeru! Somewhere in your virtuous bosom you are +nourishing a viper, for I have felt his fangs. Woe unto you, if you do +not strangle him before he develops into mature anacondaism! In point of +natural history I am not sure that vipers do grow up anacondas, but +for the purposes of moral philosophy the development theory answers +perfectly well. + +In Boston a dreadful thing happened to me,--a thing too horrible to +relate. I have no reason to suppose that the outrage was intentional; +but if I were absolute monarch of all I survey, there is one house in +one street in Boston which I would have razed to the ground; and tobacco +I would banish forever from the haunts of civilization. + +In Boston we had three hours to spare; so we sent our luggage,--that is, +my trunk--to the Worcester Depot, and walked leisurely ourselves. I had +a little shopping to do, to complete my outfit for the journey,--a very +little shopping,--only a nightcap or two. Ordinarily such a thing is +a matter of small moment, but in my case the subject had swollen +into unnatural dimensions. Nightcaps are not generally considered +healthy,--at least not by physicians. Nature has given to the head its +sufficient and appropriate covering, the hair. Anything more than this +injures the head, by confining the heat, preventing the soothing, +cooling contact of air, and so deranging the circulation of the blood. +Therefore I have always heeded the dictates of Nature, which I have +supposed to be to brush out the hair thoroughly at night and let it fly. +But there are serious disadvantages connected with this course. For +Nature will be sure to whisk the hair away from your ears where you want +it, and into your eyes where you don't want it, besides crowning you +with magnificent disorder in the morning. But as I have always believed +that no evil exists without its remedy, I had long been exercising my +inventive genius in attempts to produce a head-gear which should at once +protect the ears, confine the hair, and let the skull alone. I regret +to say that my experiments were an utter failure, notwithstanding the +amount of science and skill brought to bear upon them. One idea lay at +the basis of all my endeavors. Every combination, however elaborate or +intricate, resolved into its simplest elements, consisted of a pair of +rosettes laterally to keep the ears warm, a bag posteriorly to put the +hair into, and some kind of a string somewhere to hold the machine +together. Every possible shape into which lace or muslin or sheeting +could be cut or plaited or sewed or twisted, into which crewel or cord +could be crocheted or netted or tatted, I make bold to declare was +essayed, until things came to such a pass that every odd bit of dry +goods lying around the house was, in the absence of any positive +testimony on the subject, assumed to be one of my nightcaps,--an utterly +baseless assumption, because my achievements never went so far as +concrete capuality, but stopped short in the later stages of abstract +idealism. However, prejudice is stronger than truth; and, as I said, +every fragment of every fabric that could not give an account of itself +was charged with being a nightcap till it was proved to be a dishcloth +or a cart-rope. I at length surrendered at discretion, and remembered +that somewhere in my reading I had met with exquisite lace caps, and I +did not know but that from the combined fineness and strength of their +material they might answer the purpose, even if in form they should not +be everything that was desirable,--and I determined to ascertain, if +possible, whether such things existed anywhere out of poetry. + +As you perceive, therefore, my Boston shopping was not every-day +trading. It was to mark the abandonment of an old and the inauguration +of a new line of policy. Thus it was with no ordinary interest that I +looked carefully at all the shops, and when I found one that seemed to +hold out a possibility of nightcaps, I went in. Halicarnassus obeyed the +hint which I pricked into him with the point of my parasol, and stopped +outside. The one place in the world where a man has no business to be is +the inside of a dry-goods shop. He never looks and never is so big and +bungling as there. A woman skips from silk to muslin, from muslin to +ribbons, from ribbons to table-cloths with the grace and agility of a +bird. She glides in and out among crowds of her sex, steers sweepingly +clear of all obstacles, and emerges triumphant. A man enters and +immediately becomes all boots and elbows. He needs as much room to turn +round in as the English iron-clad Warrior, and it takes him about as +long. He treads on all the flounces, runs against all the clerks, knocks +over all the children, and is generally under-foot. If he gets an idea +into his head, a Nims's battery cannot dislodge it. You thought of +buying a shawl; but a thousand considerations in the shape of raglans, +cloaks, talmas, pea-jackets, induce you to modify your views. He stands +by you. He hears all your inquiries and all the clerk's suggestions. The +whole process of your reasoning is visible to his naked eye. He sees the +sack, or visite, or cape put upon your shoulders and you walking off +in it, and when you are half-way home, he will mutter, in idiotic +amazement, "I thought you were going to buy a shawl!" It is enough to +drive one wild. + +No! Halicarnassus is absurd and mulish in many things, but he knows +I will not be hampered with him when I am shopping, and he obeys the +smallest hint and stops outside. + +To be sure, he puts my temper on the rack by standing with his hands in +his pockets, or by looking meek, or, likely as not, peering into the +shop-door after me with great staring eyes and parted lips; and this is +the most provoking of all. If there is anything vulgar, slipshod, and +shiftless, it is a man lounging about with his hands in his pockets. If +you have paws, stow them away; but if you are endowed with hands, learn +to carry them properly, or else cut them off. Nor can I abide a man's +looking as if he were under control. I want him to _be_ submissive, but +I don't want him to look so. I want him to do just as he is bidden, but +I want him to carry himself like the man and monarch he was made to be. +I want him to stay where he is put, yet not as if he were put there, but +as if he had taken his position deliberately. But, of all things, to +have a man act as if he were a clod just emerged for the first time from +his own barnyard! Upon this occasion, however, I was too much absorbed +in my errand to note anybody's demeanor, and I threaded straightway the +crowd of customers, went up to the counter, and inquired in a clear +voice,-- + +"Have you lace nightcaps?" + +The clerk looked at me with a troubled, bewildered glance, and made no +reply. I supposed he had not understood me, and repeated the question. +Then he answered, dubiously,-- + +"We have breakfast-caps." + +It was my turn to look bewildered. What had I to do with breakfast-caps? +What connection was there between my question and his answer? What field +was there for any further inquiry? "Have you ox-bows?" imagine a farmer +to ask. "We have rainbows," says the shopman. "Have you cameo-pins?" +inquires the elegant Mrs. Jenkins. "We have linchpins." "Have you young +apple-trees?" asks the nursery-man. "We have whiffle-trees." If I had +wanted breakfast-caps, shouldn't I have asked for breakfast-caps? Or do +the Boston people take their breakfast at one o'clock in the morning? I +concluded that the man was demented, and marched out of the shop. When I +laid the matter before Halicarnassus, the following interesting colloquy +took place. + +I. "What do you suppose it meant?" + +H. "He took you for a North American Indian." + +I. "What do you mean?" + +H. "He did not understand your _patois_." + +I. "What _patois_?" + +H. "Your squaw dialect. You should have asked for a _bonnet de nuit_." + +I. "Why?" + +H. "People never talk about nightcaps in good society." + +I. "Oh!" + +I was very warm, and Halicarnassus said he was tired; so we went into a +restaurant and ordered strawberries,--that luscious fruit, quivering on +the border-land of ambrosia and nectar. + +"Doubtless," says honest, quaint, delightful Isaac,--and he never spoke +a truer word,--"doubtless, God might have made a better berry than a +strawberry, but, doubtless, God never did." + +The bill of fare rated their excellence at fifteen cents. + +"Not unreasonable," I pantomimed. + +"Not if I pay for them," replied Halicarnassus. + +Then we sat and amused ourselves after the usual brilliant fashion +of people who are waiting in hotel parlors, railroad-stations, and +restaurants. We surveyed the gilding and the carpet and the mirrors +and the curtains. We hazarded profound conjectures touching the people +assembled. We studied the bill of fare as if it contained the secret of +our army's delay upon the Potomac, and had just concluded that the first +crop of strawberries was exhausted and they were waiting for the second +crop to grow, when Hebe hove in sight with her nectared ambrosia in a +pair of cracked, browny-white saucers, with browny-green silver spoons. +I poured out what professed to be cream, but proved very low-spirited +milk, in which a few disheartened strawberries appeared _rari nantes_. I +looked at them in dismay. Then curiosity smote me, and I counted them. +Just fifteen. + +"Cent apiece," said Halicarnassus. + +I was not thinking of the cent, but I had promised myself a feast; and +what is a feast, susceptible of enumeration? Cleopatra was right. "That +love"--and the same is true of strawberries--"is beggarly which can be +reckoned." Infinity alone is glory. + +"Perhaps the quality will atone for the quantity," said Halicarnassus, +scooping up at least half of his at one "arm-sweep." + +"How do they taste?" I asked. + +"Rather coppery," he answered. + +"It is the spoons!" I exclaimed, in a fright. "They are German silver! +You will be poisoned!"--and knocked his out of his hand with such +instinctive, sudden violence that it flew to the other side of the room, +where an old gentleman sat over his newspaper and dinner. + +He started, dropped his newspaper, and looked around in a maze. +Halicarnassus behaved beautifully,--I will give him the credit of it. +He went on with my spoon and his strawberries as unconcernedly as if +nothing had happened. I was conscious that I blushed, but my face was in +the shade, and nobody else knew it; and to this day I have no doubt +the old gentleman would have marvelled what sent that mysterious spoon +rattling against his table and whizzing between his boots, had not +Halicarnassus, when the uproar was over, conceived it his duty to go and +pick up the spoon and apologize for the accident, lest the gentleman +should fancy it an intentional rudeness. Partly to reward him for his +good behavior, partly because I never did think it worth while to +make two bites of a cherry, and partly because I did not fancy being +poisoned, I gave my fifteen berries to him. He devoured them with +evident relish. + +"Does my spoon taste as badly as yours?" I asked. + +"My spoon?" inquired he, innocently. + +"Yes. You said before that they tasted coppery." + +"I don't think," replied this unprincipled man,--"I don't think it +was the flavor of the spoon so much as of the coin which each berry +represented." + +I could have boxed his ears. + +I never made a more unsatisfactory investment in my life than the one I +made in that restaurant. I felt as if I had been swindled, and I said so +to Halicarnassus. He remarked that there was plenty of cream and sugar. +I answered curtly, that the cream was chiefly water, and the sugar +chiefly flour; but if they had been Simon Pure himself, was it anything +but an aggravation of the offence to have them with nothing to eat them +on? + +"You might do as they do in France,--carry away what you don't eat, +seeing you pay for it." + +"A pocketful of milk and water would be both delightful and serviceable; +but I might take the sugar," I added, with a sudden thought, upsetting +the sugar-bowl into a "Boston Journal" which we had bought in the train. +"I can never use it, but it will be a consolation to reflect on." + +Halicarnassus, who, though fertile in evil conceptions, lacks nerve to +put them into execution, was somewhat startled at this sudden change of +base. He had no idea that I should really act upon his suggestion, but +I did. I bundled the sugar into my pocket with a grim satisfaction; +and Halicarnassus paid his thirty cents, looking--and feeling, as he +afterwards told me--as if a policeman's gripe were on his shoulders. If +any restaurant in Boston recollects having been astonished at any time +during the summer of 1862 by an unaccountably empty sugar-bowl, I take +this occasion to explain the phenomenon. I gave the sugar afterwards to +a little beggar-girl, with a dime for a brace of lemons, and shook off +the dust of my feet against Boston at the "B. & W.R.R.D." + +Boston is a beautiful city, situated on a peninsula at the head of +Massachusetts Bay. It has three streets: Cornhill, Washington, and +Beacon Streets. It has a Common and a Frog-Pond, and many sprightly +squirrels. Its streets are straight and cross each other like lines on +a chess-board. It has a State-House which is the finest edifice in the +world or out of it. It has one church, the Old South, which was built, +as its name indicates, before the Proclamation of Emancipation was +issued. It has one bookstore, a lofty and imposing pile, of the Egyptian +style (and date) of architecture, on the corner of Washington and +School Streets. It has one magazine, the "Atlantic Monthly," one +daily newspaper, the "Boston Journal," one religious weekly, the +"Congregationalist," and one orator, whose name is Train, a model of +chaste, compact, and classic elegance. In politics, it was a Webster +Whig, till Whig and Webster both went down, when it fell apart and +waited for something to turn up,--which proved to be drafting. Boston is +called the Athens of America. Its men are solid. Its women wear their +bonnets to bed, their nightcaps to breakfast, and talk Greek at dinner. +I spent two hours and a half in Boston, and I know. + +We had a royal progress from Boston to Fontdale. Summer lay on the +shining hills and scattered benedictions. Plenty smiled up from a +thousand fertile fields. Patient oxen, with their soft, deep eyes, trod +heavily over mines of greater than Indian wealth. Kindly cows stood in +the grateful shade of cathedral elms, and gave thanks to God in their +dumb, fumbling way. Motherly, sleepy, stupid sheep lay on the plains, +little lambs rollicked out their short-lived youth around them, and no +premonition floated over from the adjoining pea-patch, nor any misgiving +of approaching mutton marred their happy heyday. Straight through the +piny forests, straight past the vocal orchards, right in among the +robins and the jays and the startled thrushes, we dashed inexorable, and +made harsh dissonance in the wild-wood orchestra; but not for that was +the music hushed, nor did one color fade. Brooks leaped in headlong +chase down the furrowed sides of gray old rocks, and glided whispering +beneath the sorrowful willows. Old trees renewed their youth in the +slight tenacious grasp of many a tremulous tendril, and, leaping lightly +above their topmost heights, vine laughed to vine, swaying dreamily in +the summer air; and not a vine nor brook nor hill nor forest but sent up +a sweet-smelling incense to its Maker. Not an ox or cow or lamb or bird +living its own dim life but lent its charm of unconscious grace to the +great picture that unfolded itself, mile after mile, in ever fresher +loveliness to ever unsated eyes. Well might the morning stars sing +together, and all the sons of God shout for joy, when first this grand +and perfect world swung free from its moorings, flung out its spotless +banner, and sailed majestic down the thronging skies. Yet, though but +once God spoke the world to life, the miracle of creation is still +incomplete. New every springtime, fresh every summer, the earth comes +forth as a bride adorned for her husband. Not only in the gray dawn of +our history, but now in the full brightness of its noon-day, may we hear +the voice of the Lord walking in the garden. I look out upon the gray +degraded fields left naked of the kindly snow, and inwardly ask: Can +these dry bones live again? And while the question is yet trembling on +my lips, lo! a Spirit breathes upon the earth, and beauty thrills into +bloom. Who shall lack faith in man's redemption, when every year the +earth is redeemed by unseen hands, and death is lost in resurrection? + +To Fontdale sitting among her beautiful meadows we are borne swiftly on. +There we must tarry for the night, for I will not travel in the dark +when I can help it. I love it. There is no solitude in the world, or at +least I have never felt any, like standing alone in the door-way of +the rear car on a dark night, and rushing on through the +darkness,--darkness, darkness everywhere, and if one could only be sure +of rushing on till daylight doth appear! But with the frightful and not +remote possibility of bringing up in a crash and being buried under a +general huddle, one prefers daylight. You may not be able to get out of +the huddle even by daylight; but you will at least know where you are, +if there is anything of you left. So at Fontdale Halicarnassus branches +off temporarily on a business errand, and I stop for the night +a-cousining. + +You object to this? Some people do. For my part, I like it. You say you +don't want to turn your own house or your friend's house into a hotel. +If people want to see you, let them come and make a visit; if you want +to see them, you will go and make them one; but this touch and go,--what +is it worth? O foolish Galatians! much every way. For don't you see, +supposing the people are people you don't like, how much better it is to +have them come and sleep or dine and be gone than to have them before +your face and eyes for a week? An ill that is temporary is tolerable. +You could entertain the Evil One himself, if you were sure he would go +away after dinner. The trouble about him is not so much that he comes as +that he won't go. He hangs around. If you once open your door to him, +there is no getting rid of him; and some of his followers, it must be +confessed, are just like him. You must resist them both, or they will +never flee. But if they do flee after a day's tarry, do not complain. +You protest against turning your house into a hotel. Why, the hotelry +is the least irksome part of the whole business, when your guests are +uninteresting. It is not the supper or the bed that costs, but keeping +people going after supper is over and before bed-time is come. Never +complain, if you have nothing worse to do than to feed or house your +guests for a day or an hour. + +On the other hand, if they are people you like, how much better to have +them come so than not to come at all! People cannot often make long +visits,--people that are worth anything,--people who use life; and they +are the only ones that are worth anything. And if you cannot get your +good things in the lump, are you going to refuse them altogether? By no +means. You are going to take them by driblets, and if you will only be +sensible and not pout, but keep your tin pan right side up, you will +find that golden showers will drizzle through all your life. So, with +never a nugget in your chest, you shall die rich. If you can stop +over-night with your friend, you have no sand-grain, but a very +respectable boulder. For a night is infinite. Daytime is well enough for +business, but it is little worth for happiness. You sit down to a book, +to a picture, to a friend, and the first you know it is time to get +dinner, or time to eat it, or time for the train, or you must put out +your dried apples, or set the bread to rising, or something breaks in +impertinently and chokes you off at flood-tide. But the night has no +end. Everything is done but that which you would be forever doing. The +curtains are drawn, the lamp is lighted and veiled into exquisite soft +shadowiness. All the world is far off. All its din and dole strike into +the bank of darkness that envelops you and are lost to your tranced +sense. In all the world are only your friend and you, and then you +strike out your oars, silver-sounding, into the shoreless night. + +But the night comes to an end, you say. No, it does not. It is you that +come to an end. You grow sleepy, clod that you are. But as you don't +think, when you begin, that you ever shall grow sleepy, it is just the +same as if you never did. For you have no foreshadow of an inevitable +termination to your rapture, and so practically your night has no limit. +It is fastened at one end to the sunset, but the other end floats off +into eternity. And there really is no abrupt termination. You roll down +the inclined plane of your social happiness into the bosom of another +happiness,--sleep. Sleep for the sleepy is bliss just as truly as +society to the lonely. What in the distance would have seemed Purgatory, +once reached, is Paradise, and your happiness is continuous. Just as it +is in mending. Short-sighted, superficial, unreflecting people have a +way--which in time fossilizes into a principle--of mending everything as +soon as it comes up from the wash, a very unthrifty, uneconomical habit, +if you use the words thrift and economy in the only way in which they +ought to be used, namely, as applied to what is worth economizing. Time, +happiness, life, these are the only things to be thrifty about. But +I see people working and worrying over quince-marmalade and tucked +petticoats and embroidered chair-covers, things that perish with the +using and leave the user worse than they found him. This I call waste +and wicked prodigality. Life is too short to permit us to fret about +matters of no importance. Where these things can minister to the mind +and heart, they are a part of the soul's furniture; but where they only +pamper the appetite or the vanity or any foolish and hurtful lust, +they are foolish and hurtful. Be thrifty of comfort. Never allow an +opportunity for cheer, for pleasure, for intelligence, for benevolence, +for any kind of good, to go unimproved. Consider seriously whether the +sirup of your preserves or the juices of your own soul will do the +most to serve your race. It may be that they are compatible,--that the +concoction of the one shall provide the ascending sap of the other; but +if it is not so, if one must be sacrificed, do not hesitate a moment +as to which it shall be. If a peach does not become sweetmeat, it will +become something, it will not stay a withered, unsightly peach; but for +souls there is no transmigration out of fables. Once a soul, forever a +soul,--mean or mighty, shrivelled or full, it is for you to say. Money, +land, luxury, so far as they are money, land, and luxury, are worthless. +It is only as fast and as far as they are turned into life that they +acquire value. + +So you are thriftless when you eagerly seize the first opportunity +to fritter away your time over old clothes. You precipitate yourself +unnecessarily against a disagreeable thing. For you are not going to put +your stockings on. Perhaps you will not need your buttons for a week, +and in a week you may have passed beyond the jurisdiction of buttons. +But even if you should not, let the buttons and the holes alone all the +same. For, first, the pleasant and profitable thing which you will do +instead is a funded capital which will roll you up a perpetual interest; +and secondly, the disagreeable duty is forever abolished. I say forever, +because, when you have gone without the button awhile, the inconvenience +it occasions will reconcile you to the necessity of sewing it on,--will +even go farther, and make it a positive relief amounting to positive +pleasure. Besides, every time you use it, for a long while after you +will have a delicious sense of satisfaction, such as accompanies the +sudden complete cessation of a dull, continuous pain. Thus what was at +best characterless routine, and most likely an exasperation, is turned +into actual delight, and adds to the sum of life. This is thrift. This +is economy. But, alas! few people understand the art of living. They +strive after system, wholeness, buttons, and neglect the weightier +matters of the higher law. + +--I wonder how I got here, or how I am to get back again. I started for +Fontdale, and I find myself in a mending-basket. As I know no good in +tracing the same road back, we may as well strike a bee-line and begin +new at Fontdale. + +We stopped at Fontdale a-cousining. I have a veil, a beautiful--_have_, +did I say? Alas! Troy _was_. But I must not anticipate--a beautiful veil +of brown tissue, none of your woolleny, gruff fabrics, fit only for +penance, but a silken gossamery cloud, soft as a baby's check. Yet +everybody fleers at it. Everybody has a joke about it. Everybody looks +at it, and holds it out at arms' length, and shakes it, and makes great +eyes at it, and says, "What in the world"--, and ends with a huge, +bouncing laugh. Why? One is ashamed of human nature at being forced to +confess. Because, to use a Gulliverism, it is longer by the breadth of +my nail than any of its contemporaries. In fact, it is two yards long. +That is all. Halicarnassus fired the first gun at it by saying that its +length was to enable one end of it to remain at home while the other end +went with me, so that neither of us should get lost. This is an +allusion to a habit which I and my property have of finding ourselves +individually and collectively left in the lurch. After this initial +shot, everybody considered himself at liberty to let off his rusty old +blunderbuss, and there was a constant peppering. But my veil never +lowered its colors nor curtailed its resources. Alas! what ridicule and +contumely failed to effect, destiny accomplished. Softness and plenitude +are no shields against the shafts of fate. + +I went into the station waiting-room to write a note. I laid my bonnet, +my veil, my packages upon the table. I wrote my note. I went away. The +next morning, when I would have arrayed myself to resume my journey, +there was no veil. I remembered that I had taken it into the station +the night before, and that I had not taken it out. At the station we +inquired of the waiting-woman concerning it. It is as much as your life +is worth to ask these people about lost articles. They take it for +granted at the first blush that you mean to accuse them of stealing. +"Have you seen a brown veil lying about anywhere?" asked Crene, her +sweet bird-voice warbling out from her sweet rose-lips. "No, I 'a'n't +seen nothin' of it," says Gnome, with magnificent indifference. + +"It was lost here last night," continues Crene, in a soliloquizing +undertone, pushing investigating glances beneath the sofas. + +"I do' know nothin' about it. _I_ 'a'n't took it"; and the Gnome tosses +her head back defiantly. "I seen the lady when she was a-writin' of her +letter, and when she went out ther' wa'n't nothin' left on the table but +a hangkerchuf, and that wa'n't hern. I do' know nothin' about it, nor I +'a'n't seen nothin' of it." + +Oh, no, my Gnome, you knew nothing of it; you did not take it. But since +no one accused you or even suspected you, why could you not have been +less aggressive and more sympathetic in your assertions? But we will +plough no longer in that field. The ploughshare has struck against a +rock and grits, denting its edge in vain. My veil is gone,--my ample, +historic, heroic veil. There is a woman in Fontdale who breathes air +filtered through--I will not say _stolen_ tissue, but certainly +through tissue which was obtained without rendering its owner any fair +equivalent. Does not every breeze that softly stirs its fluttering folds +say to her, "O friend, this veil is not yours, not yours," and still +sighingly, "not yours! Up among the northern hills, yonder towards the +sunset, sits the owner, sorrowful, weeping, wailing"? I believe I am +wading out into the Sally Waters of Mother Goosery; but, prose +or poetry, somewhere a woman,--and because nobody of taste could +surreptitiously possess herself of my veil, I have no doubt that she cut +it incontinently into two equal parts, and gave one to her sister, and +that there are two women,--nay, since niggardly souls have no sense of +grandeur and will shave down to microscopic dimensions, it is every way +probable that she divided it into three unequal parts, and took three +quarters of a yard for herself, three quarters for her sister, and gave +the remaining half-yard to her daughter, and that at this very moment +there are two women and a little girl taking their walks abroad under +the silken shadows of my veil! And yet there are people who profess to +disbelieve in total depravity. + +Nor did the veil walk away alone. My trunk became imbued with the spirit +of adventure, and branched off on its own account up somewhere into +Vermont. I suppose it would have kept on and reached perhaps the North +Pole by this time, had not Crene's dark eyes--so pretty to look at that +one instinctively feels they ought not to be good for anything, if a +just impartiality is to be maintained, but they are--Crene's dark eyes +seen it tilting up into a baggage-crate and trundling off towards the +Green Mountains, but too late. Of course there was a formidable hitch in +the programme. A court of justice was improvised on the car-steps. I was +the plaintiff, Crene chief evidence, baggage-master both defendant and +examining-counsel. The case did not admit of a doubt. There was the +little insurmountable check whose brazen lips could speak no lie. + +"Keep hold of that," whispered Crene, and a yoke of oxen could not have +drawn it from me. + +"You are sure you had it marked for Fontdale," says Mr. Baggage-master. + +I hold the impracticable check before his eyes in silence. + +"Yes, well, it must have gone on to Albany." + +"But it went away on that track," says Crene. + +"Couldn't have gone on that track. Of course they wouldn't have carried +it away over there just to make it go wrong." + +For me, I am easily persuaded and dissuaded. If he had told me that +it must have gone in such a direction, that it was a moral and mental +impossibility it should have gone in any other, and have said it times +enough, with a certain confidence and contempt of any other contingency, +I should gradually have lost faith in my own eyes, and said, "Well, I +suppose it did." But Crene is not to be asserted into yielding one inch, +and insists that the trunk went to Vermont and not to New York, and is +thoroughly unmanageable. Then the baggage-master, in anguish of soul, +trots out his subordinates, one after another,-- + +"Is this the man that wheeled the trunk away? Is this? Is this?" + +The brawny-armed fellows hang back, and scowl, and muffle words in a +very suspicious manner, and protest they won't be got into a scrape. But +Crene has no scrape for them. She cannot swear to their identity. She +had eyes only for the trunk. + +"Well," says Baggager, at his wits' end, "you let me take your check, +and I'll send the trunk on by express, when it comes." + +I pity him, and relax my clutch. + +"No," whispers Crene; "as long as you have your check, you as good as +have your trunk; but when you give that up, you have nothing. Keep that +till you see your trunk." + +My clutch re-tightens. + +"At any rate, you can wait till the next train, and see if it doesn't +come back. You'll get to your journey's end just as soon." + +"Shall I? Well, I will," compliant as usual. + +"No," interposes my good genius again. "Men are always saying that a +woman never goes when she engages to go. She is always a train later or +a train earlier, and you can't meet her." + +Pliant to the last touch I say aloud,-- + +"No, I must go in this train"; and so I go trunkless and crest-fallen to +meet Halicarnassus. + +It is a dismal day, and Crene, to comfort me, puts into my hands two +books as companions by the way. They are Coventry Patmore's "Angel in +the House," "The Espousals and the Betrothal." I do not approve of +reading in the cars; but without is a dense, white, unvarying fog, and +within my heart it is not clear sunshine. So I turn to my books. + +Did any one ever read them before? Somebody wrote a vile review of them +once, and gave the idea of a very puerile, ridiculous, apron-stringy +attempt at poetry. Whoever wrote that notice ought to be shot, for the +books are charming pure and homely and householdy, yet not effeminate. +Critics may sneer as much as they choose: it is such love as Vaughan's +that Honorias value. Because a woman's nature is not proof against +deterioration, because a large and long-continued infusion of gross +blood, and perhaps even the monotonous pressure of rough, pitiless, +degrading circumstances, may displace, eat out, rub off the delicacy of +a soul, may change its texture to unnatural coarseness and scatter ashes +for beauty, women do exist, victims rather than culprits, coarse against +their nature, hard, material, grasping, the saddest sight humanity can +see. Such a woman can accept coarse men. They may come courting on all +fours, and she will not be shocked. But women in the natural state want +men to stand god-like erect, to tread majestically, and live delicately, +Women do not often make an ado about this. They talk it over among +themselves, and take men as they are. They quietly soften them down, +and smooth them out, and polish them up, and make the best of them, and +simply and sedulously shut their eyes and make believe there isn't any +worst, or reason it away,--a great deal more than I should think they +would. But if you want to see the qualities that a woman, spontaneously +loves, the expression, the tone, the bearing that thoroughly satisfies +her self-respect, that not only secures her acquiescence, but arouses +her enthusiasm and commands her abdication, crucify the flesh, and read +Coventry Patmore. Not that he is the world's great poet, nor Arthur +Vaughan the ideal man; but this I do mean: that the delicacy, the +spirituality of his love, the scrupulous respectfulness of his demeanor, +his unfeigned inward humility, as far removed from servility on the one +side as from assumption on the other, and less the opponent than the +offspring of self-respect, his thorough gentleness, guilelessness, +deference, his manly, unselfish homage, are such qualities, and such +alone, as lead womanhood captive. Listen to me, you rattling, roaring, +rollicking Ralph Roister Doisters, you calm, inevitable Gradgrinds, as +smooth, as sharp, as bright as steel, and as soulless, and you men, +whoever, whatever, and wherever you are, with fibres of rope and nerves +of wire, there is many and many a woman who tolerates you because she +finds you, but there is nothing in her that ever goes out to seek you. +Be not deceived by her placability. "Here he is," she says to herself, +"and something must be done about it. Buried under Ossa and Pelion +somewhere he must be supposed to have a soul, and the sooner he is dug +into, the sooner it will be exhumed." So she digs. She would never have +made you, nor of her own free-will elected you; but being made, such as +you are, and on her hands in one way or another, she carves and chisels, +and strives to evoke from the block a breathing statue. She may succeed +so far as that you shall become her Frankenstein, a great, sad, +monstrous, incessant, inevitable caricature of her ideal, the monument +at once of her success and her failure, the object of her compassion, +the intimate sorrow of her soul, a vast and dreadful form into which +her creative power can breathe the breath of life, but not of sympathy. +Perhaps she loves you with a remorseful, pitying, protesting love, and +carries you on her shuddering shoulders to the grave. Probably, as she +is good and wise, you will never find it out. A limpid brook ripples in +beauty and bloom by the side of your muddy, stagnant self-complacence, +and you discern no essential difference. "Water's water," you say, with +your broad, stupid generalization, and go oozing along contentedly +through peat-bogs and meadow-ditches, mounting, perhaps, in moments +of inspiration, to the moderate sublimity of a cranberry-meadow, but +subsiding with entire satisfaction into a muck-puddle; and all the while +the little brook that you patronize when you are full-fed, and snub when +you are hungry, and look down upon always,--the little brook is singing +its own melody through grove and orchard and sweet wild-wood,--singing +with the birds and the blooms songs that you cannot hear; but they are +heard by the silent stars, singing on and on into a broader and deeper +destiny, till it pours, one day, its last earthly note, and becomes +forevermore the unutterable sea. + +And you are nothing but a ditch. + +No, my friend, Lucy will drive with you, and talk to you, and sing your +songs; she will take care of you, and pray for you, and cry when you +go to the war; if she is not your daughter or your sister, she will, +perhaps, in a moment of weakness or insanity, marry you; she will be a +faithful wife, and float you to the end; but if you wish to be her love, +her hero, her ideal, her delight, her spontaneity, her utter rest and +ultimatum, you must attune your soul to fine issues,--you must bring out +the angel in you, and keep the brute under. It is not that you shall +stop making shoes, and begin to write poetry. That is just as much +discrimination as you have. Tell you to be gentle, and you think we want +you to dissolve into milk-and-water; tell you to be polite, and you +infer hypocrisy; to be neat, and you leap over into dandyism, fancying +all the while that bluster is manliness. No, Sir. You may make shoes, +you may run engines, you may carry coals; you may blow the huntsman's +horn, hurl the base-ball, follow the plough, smite the anvil; your face +may be brown, your veins knotted, your hands grimed; and yet you may be +a hero. And, on the other hand, you may write verses and be a clown. +It is not necessary to feed on ambrosia in order to become divine; +nor shall one be accursed, though he drink of the ninefold Styx. The +Israelites ate angels' food in the wilderness, and remained stiff-necked +and uncircumcised in heart and ears. The white water-lily feeds on +slime, and unfolds a heavenly glory. Come as the June morning comes. It +has not picked its way daintily, passing only among the roses. It has +breathed up the whole earth. It has blown through the fields and the +barn-yards and all the common places of the land. It has shrunk from +nothing. Its purity has breasted and overborne all things, and so +mingled and harmonized all that it sweeps around your forehead and sinks +into your heart as soft and sweet and pure as the fragrancy of Paradise. +So come you, rough from the world's rough work, with all out-door airs +blowing around you, and all your earth-smells clinging to you, but with +a fine inward grace, so strong, so sweet, so salubrious that it meets +and masters all things, blending every faintest or foulest odor of +earthliness into the grateful incense of a pure and lofty life. + +Thus I read and mused in the soft summer fog, and the first I knew the +cars had stopped, I was standing on the platform, and Coventry and his +knight were--where? Wandering up and down somewhere among the Berkshire +hills. At some junction of roads, I suppose, I left them on the +cushion, for I have never beheld them since. Tell me, O ye daughters of +Berkshire, have you seen them,--a princely pair, sore weary in your +mountain-land, but regal still, through all their travel-stain? I pray +you, entreat them hospitably, for their mission is "not of an age, but +for all time." + + + + +GIVE. + + +"The vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, +and the heavens shall give their dew." + + The fire of Freedom burns, + March to her altar now: + Bear on the sacred urns + Where all her sons must bow. + + Woman of nerve and thought, + Bring in the urn your power! + By you is manhood taught + To meet this supreme hour. + + Come with your sunlit life, + Maiden of gentle eye! + Bring to the gloom of strife + Light by which heroes die. + + Give, rich men, proud and free, + Your children's costliest gem! + For Liberty shall be + Your heritage to them. + + O friend, with heavy urn, + What offering bear you on? + The figure did not turn; + I heard a voice, "My son." + + The fire of Freedom burns, + Her flame shall reach the heaven: + Heap up our sacred urns, + Though life for life be given! + + + + +ONLY AN IRISH GIRL! + + +"Oh, it's only an Irish girl!" + +I flamed into a wrath far too intense for restraint. My whole soul rose +up and cried out against the Deacon's wife. I answered,-- + +"True. A small thing! But are lies and murder small things, Mrs. Adams? +Murderers, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie, are to be left outside +of the heavenly city. And, Mrs. Adams, suppose it should appear that +a woman of high respectability, moving in the best society, and most +excellent housekeeper, has both those two tickets for hell? Do you +remember the others that make up that horrible company in the last +chapter of Revelation? Mrs. Adams, _the girl is_ DEAD!" + +The Deacon's wife's hard face had blazed instantly into passionate +scarlet. But I cared not for her, nor for man nor woman. For the words +_said themselves_, and thrilled and sounded fearful to me also; they +hurt me; they burnt from my tongue as melted iron might; and, scarcely +knowing it, I rose up and emphasized with my forefinger. And her face, +at those last four words, turned stony and whity-gray, like a corpse. I +thought she would die. Oh, it was awful to think so, and to feel that +she deserved it! For I did. I do now. For, reason as I will, I cannot +help feeling as if a tinge of the poor helpless child's blood was upon +my own garments. I do well to be angry. It is not that I desire any +personal revenge. But I have a feeling,--not pleasure, it is almost all +pity and pain,--but yet a feeling that sudden death or lingering death +would be small satisfaction of justice upon her for what she rendered to +another. + +Her strong, hard, cruel nature fought tigerishly up again from the +horrible blow of my news. She was frightened almost to swooning at the +thing that I told and my denunciation, and the deep answering stab of +her own conscience. But her angry iron will rallied with an effort which +must have been an agony; her face became human again, and, looking +straight and defiantly at me, she said, yet with difficulty, + +"Ah! I'll see if my husband'll hev sech things said to me! That's all!" + +And she turned and went straightway out of my house, erect and steady as +ever. + +It may seem a trifling story, and its lesson a trifling one. But it is +not so,--neither trifling nor needless. + +It is a rare thing, indeed, for a woman in this America to long and love +to have children. The only two women whom I know in this large town who +do are Mrs. O'Reilly, the mother of poor Bridget, and--one more. + +Poor old Mrs. O'Reilly! She came to me this morning, and sat in my +kitchen, and cried so bitterly, and talked in her strong Corkonian +brogue, and rocked herself backwards and forwards, and shook abroad the +great lambent banners of her cap-border,--a grotesque old woman, but +sacred in her tender motherhood and her great grief. Her first coming +was to peddle blackberries in the summer. I asked her if she picked them +herself. + +"Och thin and shure I've the childher to do that saam," said she. And +what wonderful music must the voice of her youth have been! It was deep +of intonation and heartfelt,--rich and smooth and thrilling yet, after +fifty years of poverty and toil. "And id's enough of thim that's in id!" +she added, with a curious air of satisfaction and reflectiveness. + +"How many children have you?" I inquired. + +She laughed and blushed, old woman though she was; and pride and deep +delight and love shone in her large, clear, gray eyes. + +"I've fourteen darlins, thank God for ivery wan of thim! And it's a +purrty parthy they are!" + +"Fourteen!" I exclaimed,--"how lovely!" I stopped short and blushed. My +heart had spoken. "But how "--I stopped again. + +The old blackberry-woman answered me with tears and smiles. What a deep, +rich, loving heart was covered out of sight in her squalid life! It +makes me proud that I felt my heart and my love in some measure like +hers; and she saw it, too. + +"An' it's yersilf, Ma'm, that has the mother's own heart in yez, to be +sure! An' I can see it in your eyes, Ma'm! But it's the thruth it's +mighty scarce intirely! I do be seein' the ladies that's not glad at all +for the dear childher that's sint 'em, and sure it's sthrange, Ma'm! +Indade, it was with the joy I did be cryin' over ivery wan o' me babies; +and I could aisy laugh at the pain, Ma'm! And sure now it's cryin' I am +betimes because I'll have no more!" + +The dear, beautiful, dirty old woman! I cried and laughed with her, and +I bought ten times as many blackberries as I wanted; and Mrs. O'Reilly +and I were fast friends. + +She and hers, her "ould man," her sons and her daughters, were +thenceforth our ready and devoted retainers, dexterous and efficient +in all manner of service, generous in acknowledging any return that we +could make them; respectful and self-respectful; true men and women +in their place, not unfit for a higher, and showing the same by their +demeanor in a low one. + +They came in and went out among us for a long time, in casual +employments, until, with elaborate prefaces and doubtful apologetic +circumlocutions, shyly and hesitatingly, Mrs. O'Reilly managed to prefer +her petition that her youngest girl, Bridget, by name,--there were a few +junior boys,--might be taken into my family as a servant. I asked +the old woman a few questions about her daughter's experiences and +attainments in the household graces and economies; could not remember +her; thought I had seen all the "childher"; found that she had been +living with Mrs. Deacon Adams, and had not been at my house. It was only +for form's sake that I catechized; Bridget came, of course. + +She was such a maiden as her mother must have been, one of Nature's own +ladies, but more refined in type, texture, and form, as the American +atmosphere and food and life always refine the children of European +stock,--slenderer, more delicate, finer of complexion, and with a soft, +exquisite sweetness of voice, more thrilling than her mother's, larger +and more robust heartfeltness of tone,--and with the same, but shyer +ways, and swift blushes and smiles. In one thing she differed: she was a +silent, reticent girl: her tears were not so quick as her mother's, nor +her words; she hid her thoughts. She had learned it of us secretive +Americans, or had inherited it of her father, a silent, though cheery +man. + +Her glossy wealth of dark-brown hair, her great brown eyes, long +eyelashes, sensitive, delicately cut, mobile red lips, oval face, +beautifully formed arms and hands, and lithe, graceful, lady-like +movements, were a sweet household picture, sunshiny with unfailing +good-will, and of a dexterous neat-handedness very rare in her people. +My husband was looking at her one day, and as she tripped away on some +errand he observed,-- + +"She is a graceful little saint. All her attitudes are beatitudes." + +Bridget was pure and devout enough for the compliment; and I had not +been married so long but that I could excuse the evidence of his +observation of another, for the sake of the neatness of his phrase. I +should have thought the unconscious child incongruously lovely amongst +brooms and dust-pans, pots and kettles, suds and slops and dishwater, +had I not been about as much concerned among them myself. + +Bridget had been with me only a day or two, when a friend and +fellow-matron, in the course of an afternoon call, apprised me that +there were reports that Bridget O'Reilly was a thief,--in fact, that she +had been turned away by Mrs. Adams for that very offence, which she told +me "out of kindness, and with no desire to injure the girl; but there is +so much wickedness among these Irish!" She had heard this tale, through +only one person, from Mrs. Adams herself. + +This troubled me; yet I should have quickly forgotten it. I met the same +story in several other directions within a few days; and now it troubled +me more. Women are suspicious creatures. I don't like to confess it, but +it is true. Besides, servants do sometimes steal. And little foreign +blood of the oppressed nationalities has truth in it, or honesty. Why +should it? Why should the subjugated Irish, any more than the Southern +slaves, beaten down for centuries by brutal strength, seeking to +exterminate their religion and their speech, to terrify them out of +intelligence and independence, to crush them into permanent poverty +and ignorance,--why should they tell the truth or respect property? +Falsehood and theft are that cunning which is the natural and necessary +weapon of weakness. Their falsehood is their resistance, in the only +form that weakness can use, evasion instead of force. Their theft is the +taking of what is instinctively felt to be due; their gratification +of an instinct after justice; done secretly because they have not the +strength to demand openly. Such things are unnecessary in America, +no doubt. But habits survive emigration. They are to be deplored, +charitably and hopefully and tenderly cured as diseases, not attacked +and furiously struck and thrust at as wild beasts. Thus it might be with +Bridget, notwithstanding her great, clear, innocent eyes, and open, +honest ways. If she had grown up to think such doings harmless, she +would have no conscience about it. Conscience is very pliant to +education. It troubles no man for what he is trained to do. + +So I felt these stories. I could not find it in my heart to talk to poor +Bridget about it. I could not tell her large-hearted old mother. This +reluctance was entirely involuntary, an instinct. I wish I had felt it +more clearly and obeyed it altogether! There is some fatal cloud of +human circumstance that covers up from our sight our just instinctive +perceptions,--makes us drive them out before the mechanical conclusions +of mere reason; and when our reason, our special human pride, has failed +us, we say in our sorrow, I see now; if I had only trusted my first +impulse!--What is this cloud? Is it original sin? I asked my husband. +He was writing his sermon. He stopped and told me with serious +interest,--"This cloud is that original or inbred sin which we receive +from Adam; obscuring and vitiating the free exercise of the originally +perfect faculties; wilting them down, as it were, from a high native +assimilation to the operative methods of the Divine Mind, to the +painful, creeping, mechanical procedures of the comparing and judging +reason. And this lost power is to be restored, we may expect, by the +regenerating force of conversion." + +I know I've got this right; because, after Henry had thanked me for +my question, he said I was a good preaching-stock,--that the inquiry +"joggled up" his mind, and suggested just what fayed in with his sermon; +and afterwards I heard him preach it; and now I have copied it out of +his manuscript, and have it all correct and satisfactory. What will he +do to me, if he should see this in print? But I can't help it. And what +is more, I don't believe his theological stuff. If it were true, there +would not so many good people be such geese. + +But whatever this cloud is, it now blinded and misguided me. I quietly, +very quietly, put away some little moneys that lay about,--locked up +nearly all my small stock of silver and my scanty jewelry,--locked +my bureau-drawers,--counted unobtrusively the weekly proceeds of the +washing,--and was extremely watchful against the least alteration of my +manner towards my poor pretty maid. + +It might have been a week after this, when my husband said one morning +that Bridget's eyes were heavy, and she had moved with a start several +times, as though she were half-asleep. Now that he spoke, I saw it, and +wondered that I had not seen it before; but I think some men notice +things more quickly than women. I asked the child if she were well. + +"Yes, Ma'am," she said, spiritlessly, "but my head aches." + +I observed her; and she dragged herself about with difficulty, and was +painfully slow about her dishes. At tea-time I made her lie down in my +little back parlor and got the meal myself, and made her a nice cup of +tea. She slept a little, but grew flushed. Next morning she was not fit +to get up, but insisted that she was, and would not remain in bed. But +she ate nothing,--indeed, for a day or two she had not eaten,--and after +breakfast she grew faint, and then more flushed than ever; seemed likely +to have a hard run of fever; and I sent for my doctor,--a homoeopath. + +He came, saw, queried, and prescribed. Doctor-like, he evaded my +inquiry what was the matter, so that I saw it was a serious case. On my +intimating as much, he said, with sudden decision,-- + +"I'll tell you what, Madam. She may be better by night. If not, you'd +better send for Bagford. He might do better for her than I." + +I was extremely surprised, for Bagford is a vigorous allopath of the old +school, drastic, bloody,--and an uncompromising enemy of "that quack," +as he called my grave young friend. I said as much. Doctor Nash smiled. + +"Oh, I don't mind it, so long as the patients come to me. I can very +well afford to send him one now and then. The fact is, the Irish must +_feel_ their medicine. It's quite often that a raking dose will cure +'em, not because it's the right thing, but because it takes their +imagination with it. The Irish imagination goes with Bagford and against +me; and the wrong medicine with the imagination is better than the right +one against it. I care more about curing this child than I do about him. +Besides,"--and he grew grave,--"it may be no great favor to him." + +I obliged him to tell me that he feared the attack would develop into +brain-fever; and he said something was on the girl's mind. As soon as +he was gone, I ran up to poor Bridget, whose sweet face and great brown +eyes were kindled, in her increasing fever, into a hot, fearful beauty; +and now I could see a steady, mournful, pained look contracting her +mouth and lifting the delicate lines of her eyebrows. Poor little girl! +I felt the same deep yearning sorrow which we have at the sufferings of +a little child, who seems to look in scared wonder at us, as if to ask, +What is this? and Why do you not help? When a child suffers, we feel a +sense of injustice done. Bridget's lips were dry. Her skin was so hot, +her whole frame so restless! And the silent misery of her eyes ate into +my very heart. I smoothed her pillow and bathed her head, and would fain +have comforted her, as if she had been my own little sister. But I could +plainly see that my help was not welcome. When, however, I had done all +that I could for her, I quietly told her that she was sick, and that I +wanted to have her get well,--that I saw something was troubling her, +and she must tell me what it was. I don't think the silent, enduring +thing would have spoken even then, if she had not seen that I was +crying. Her own tears came, too; and she briefly said,-- + +"You all think I'm a thief." + +I assured her most earnestly to the contrary. + +She turned her restless head over towards me again, and her great eyes, +all glittering with fever and pain, searched solemnly into mine; and she +replied,-- + +"You all think I'm a thief. Yis, I saw you had locked up the money and +the silver. I saw you count the clane clothes that was washed in the +house. Wouldn't I be after seein' it? And they says so in the town." + +It went to my heart to have done those things. All that I could say was +utterly in vain. She evidently _felt_ nothing of it to be true. She had +received a deep and cruel hurt; and the poor, wild, half-civilized, shy, +silent soul had not wherewith to reason on it. She only endured, and +held her peace, and let the fire burn; and her sensitive nerves had +allowed pain of mind to become severe physical disease. My words she +scarcely heard; my tears were to her only sympathy. She knew what she +had seen. Besides, her disease increased upon her. Almost from minute to +minute she grew more restless, and her increasing inattention to what +I said frightened as well as hurt me. The medicines of Dr. Nash were +useless. Before noon I sent for Dr. Bagford, who said it was decidedly +brain-fever,--that she must be leeched, and have ice at her head, and so +forth. + +Ah, it was useless. She grew worse and worse; passed through one or two +long terrible days of frantic misery, crying and protesting against +false accusations with a lamenting voice that made us all cry, too; then +lay long in a stupid state, until the doctor said that now it would +be better for her to die, because, after such an attack, a brain so +sensitive would be disorganized,--she would be an idiot. + +Her poor mother came and helped us wait on her. But neither care nor +medicine availed. Bridget died; and the funeral was from our house. +I was surprised by the lofty demeanor of Father MacMullen, the Irish +priest, the first I had ever met: a tall, gaunt, bony, black-haired, +hollow-eyed man, of inscrutable and guarded demeanor, who received with +absolute haughtiness the courtesies of my husband and the reverences of +his own flock. A few of his expressions might indicate a consciousness +that we had endeavored to deal kindly with poor little Bridget. But he +did not think so; or at least we know that he has so handled the matter +that we meet ill feeling on account of it. + +The griefs for any such misfortune were, however, obscure and shallow in +comparison with my sorrow for the untimely quenching of Bridget's young +life, and my sympathy with her poor old mother. When I reasoned about +the affair, I could see that I had done nothing which would not be +commended by careful housekeepers. I could see it, but, in spite of me, +I could not feel it. I was tormented by vain wishes that I had done +otherwise. I could not help feeling as if her people charged me with her +blood,--as if I had been in some sense aiding in her death. Nor do I +even now escape obscure returns of the same inexpressibly sad pain. + +The garnishing of sepulchres is an employment which by no means went out +with the Scribes and Pharisees. Under the circumstances, the death of my +pretty young maid, although she was only an Irish girl, produced a deep +impression in the village. Very soon, now that it could do no good, +it was generally agreed that the imputations against her were wholly +unfounded. It was pretty distinctly whispered that they had arisen out +of things said by Mrs. Deacon Adams, in her wrath, because Bridget had +left her service to enter mine; and I now ascertained that this Mrs. +Adams was a woman of bitter tongue, and enduring, hot, and unscrupulous +in anger and in revengefulness. I have inquired sufficiently; I know it +is true. The vulgar malice of a hard woman has murdered a fair and good +maiden with the invisible arrows of her wicked words. + +But she begins already to be punished, coarse cast-iron as she is. +People do not exactly like to talk with her. She is growing thin. She +has been ill,--a thing, I am told, never dreamed of before. Of course +she reported to her husband the reproaches with which I had surprised +her on the very day of Bridget's death. She had called in by chance, and +had not even heard of her illness; had herself begun to retail to me the +kind of talk with which she had poisoned the village, not knowing that +her evil work was finished; and it was the scornful carelessness of her +reply to my first reproof that stung me to answer her so bitterly. It +was two weeks before good, white-haired, old Deacon Adams came to the +house of his pastor. His face looked careworn enough. He stayed long +in the study with my husband, and went away sadly. I happened to pass +through our little hall just as the Deacon opened the study-door to +depart; and I caught his last words, very sorrowful in tone,-- + +"She might git well, ef she could stop dreamin' on't, and git the weight +off 'm her mind. But words that's once spoken can't be called back as +you call the cows home at night." + + + + +SHALL WE COMPROMISE? + + +In that period of remote antiquity when all birds of the air and beasts +of the field were able to talk, it befell that a certain shepherd +suffered many losses through the constant depredations of a wolf. +Fearing at length that his means of subsistence would be quite taken +away, he devised a powerful trap for the creature, and set it with +wonderful cunning. He could hardly sleep that night for thinking of the +matter, and early next morning took a stout club in his hand, and set +forth to learn of his success; when, lo! on drawing near the spot, there +he saw the wolf, sure enough, a huge savage, fast held in the trap. + +"Ah," cried he, with triumph, "now I have got you!" + +The wolf held his peace until the other was quite near, and then in a +tone of the severest moral rebuke, and with a voice that was made quite +low and grave with its weight of judicial reprehension, said,-- + +"Is it you, then? Can it be one wearing the form of a man, who has laid +this wicked plot against the peace, nay, as I infer from that club, +against the very life, of an innocent creature? Behold what I suffer, +and how unjustly!--I, of all animals, whose life,--the sad state I +am now in constrains me against modesty to say it,--whose life is +notoriously a pattern of all the virtues;--I, too, ungrateful biped, +who have watched your flock through so many sleepless nights, lest some +ill-disposed dog might do harm to the helpless sheep and lambs!" + +The shepherd, one of the simplest souls that ever lived, was utterly +confounded by this reproof, and hung his head with shame, unable, for +a season, to utter a word in his own defence. At length he managed to +stammer,-- + +"I pray your pardon, brother, but--but in truth I have lost a great many +lambs lately, and began to think my little ones at home would starve." + +"How harder than stone is the heart of man!" murmured the wolf, as if to +himself. + +Then, raising his voice, he went on to say,-- + +"I despair of reaching your conscience; nevertheless I will speak as if +I had hope. You never paid me anything for protecting your flock; it was +on my part a pure labor of love; and yet, because I cannot quite succeed +in guarding it against all the bad dogs that are about, you would take +my life!" + +And the creature put on such a look of meek suffering innocence that the +shepherd was touched to the very heart, and felt more guilty and abashed +than ever. He therefore said at once,-- + +"Brother, I fear that I have done you wrong; and if you will swear to +mind your own affairs, and not prey upon my flock, I will at once set +you free." + +"My character ought to be a sufficient guaranty," answered the +quadruped, with much dignity; "but I submit, since I must, to your +unjust suspicions, and promise as you require." + +So, lifting up his paw, he swore solemnly, by all the gods that wolves +worship, to keep his pledge. Thereupon the other set him free, with many +apologies and professions of confidence and friendship. Only a few days, +however, had passed before the shepherd, happening to mount a knoll, +saw at a little distance the self-same wolf eagerly devouring the warm +remains of a lamb. + +"Villain! villain!" he shouted, in great wrath, "is this the way you +keep your oath? Did not you swear to mind your own business?" + +"I am minding it," said the wolf, with a grin; "it is my business to eat +lambs; it should be yours not to believe in wolves' promises." + +So saying, he seized upon the last fragment of the Iamb, and ran away as +fast as his legs would carry him. + +_Moral_.--Shepherds who make compromises with wolves sell their mutton +at an exceedingly cheap market. + +Now just such short-witted shepherds are we, the people of these free +American States, invited by numbers of citizens to become. Just such, do +I say? A thousand times more silly than such. Our national wolf meets us +with jaws that drip blood and eyes that glare hunger for more. Instead +of professing sanctity and innocence, it only howls immitigable hate and +steadfast resolution to devour. "Give me," it howls, "half the pasture +and flock for my own, with, of course, a supervision over the rest, and +a child or two when I am dainty; and I will be content,--until I want +more!" + +In speaking of our "national wolf," we are using no mere rhetoric, but +are, in truth, getting at the very heart of the matter. This war, in +its final relations to human history, is an encounter between opposing +tendencies in man,--between the beast-of-prey that is in him and is +always seeking brute domination, on the one hand, and the rational and +moral elements of manhood, which ever urge toward the lawful supremacy, +on the other. This is a conflict as old as the world, and perhaps one +that, in some shape, will continue while the world lasts; and I have +tried in vain to think of a single recorded instance wherein the issue +was more simple, or the collision more direct, than in our own country +to-day. + +That principle in nature which makes the tiger tiger passes obviously +into man in virtue of the fact that he is on one side, on the side of +body and temperament, cousin to the tiger, as comparative anatomy shows. +This presence in man of a tiger-principle does not occur by a mistake, +for it is an admirable fuel or fire, an admirable generator of force, +which the higher powers may first master and then use. But at first it +assumes place in man wholly untamed and seemingly tameless, indisposed +for aught but sovereignty. Of course, having place in man, it passes, +and in the same crude state, into society. And thus it happens, that, +when the unconquerable affinities of men bring them together, this +principle arises in its brutal might, and strives to make itself central +and supreme. + +But what is highest in man has its own inevitable urgency, as well as +what is lowest. It can never be left out of the account. Gravitation +is powerful and perpetual; but the pine pushes up in opposition to it +nevertheless. The forces of the inorganic realm strive with might to +keep their own; but organic life _will_ exist on the planet in their +despite, and will conquer from the earth what material it needs. And, in +like manner, no sooner do men aggregate than there begin to play back +and forth between them ideal or ascending forces, mediations of reason, +conscience, soul; and the ever growing interpretations of these appear +as courtesies, laws, moralities, worships,--as all the noble communities +which constitute a high social state. In fine, there is that in man +which seeks perpetually, for it seeks necessarily, to give the position +of centrality in society to the ideal principle of justice and to the +great charities of the human soul. + +Hence a contest. Two antagonistic principles leap forth from the bosom +of man, so soon as men come together, seeking severally to establish +the law of social relationship. One of these is predaceous, brutal; the +other ideal, humane. One says, "Might makes Right"; the other, "Might +should serve Right." One looks upon mankind at large as a harvest to +be gathered for the behoof of a few, who are confederate only for that +purpose, even as wolves hunt in packs; the other regards humanity as +a growth to be fostered for its own sake and worth, and affirms that +superiority of strength is given for service, not for spoil. One makes +the _ego_ supreme; the other makes rational right supreme. One seeks +private gratification at any expense to higher values, even as the tiger +would, were it possible, draw and drink the blood of the universe as +soon as the blood of a cow; the other establishes an ideal estimate +of values, and places private gratification low on the scale. But the +deepest difference between them, the root of separation, remains to +be stated. It is the opposite climate they have of man in the pure +simplicity of his being. The predaceous principle says,--"Man is in and +of himself valueless; he attains value only by position, by subduing the +will of others to his own; and in subjecting others he destroys nothing +of worth, since those who are weak enough to fall are by that very fact +proved to be worthless." The humane or socializing principle, on the +contrary, says,--"Manhood is value; the essence of all value is found +in the individual soul; and therefore the final use of the world, of +society, of action, of all that man does and of all that surrounds +him, is to develop intelligence, to bring forth the mind and soul into +power,--in fine, to realize in each the spiritual possibilities of man." + +True socialization now exists only as this nobler principle is +victorious. It exists only in proportion as force is lent to ideal +relations, relations prescribed by reason, conscience, and reverence for +the being of man,--only in proportion, therefore, as the total force +of the state kneels before each individual soul, and, without foolish +intermeddlings, or confusions of order, proffers protection, service, +succor. Here is a socialization flowing, self-poised, fertilizing; it is +full of gracious invitation to all, yet regulates all; it makes liberty +by making law; it produces and distributes privilege. Here there is not +only _community_, that is, the unity of many in the enjoyment of common +privilege, but there is more, there is positive fructification, there +is a wide, manifold, infinitely precious evocation of intelligence, of +moral power, and of all spiritual worth. + +As, on the contrary, the baser principle triumphs, there is no genuine +socialization, but only a brute aggregation of subjection beneath and a +brute dominance of egotism above. Society is mocked and travestied, not +established, in proportion as force is lent to egotism. If anywhere +the power which we call _state_ set its heel on an innocent soul,--if +anywhere it suppress, instead of uniting intelligence,--if anywhere +it deny, though only to one individual, the privilege of becoming +human,--to such an extent it wars against society and civilization, to +such extent sets its face against the divine uses of the world. + +Now the contest between these opposing principles is that which is +raging in our country this day. Of course, any broad territorial +representation of this must be of a very mixed quality. Our best +civilizations are badly mottled with stains of barbarism. In no state or +city can egotism, either of the hot-blooded or cold-blooded kind,--and +the latter is far the more virulent,--be far to seek. On the other hand, +no social system, thank God, can quite reverse the better instincts of +humanity; and it may be freely granted that even American slavery shades +off, here and there, into quite tender modifications. Yet not in all the +world could there possibly be found an antagonism so deep and intense as +exists here. The Old World seems to have thrown upon the shores of the +New its utmost extremes, its Oriental barbarisms and its orients and +auroras of hope and belief; so that here coexist what Asia was three +thousand years ago, and what Europe may be one thousand years hence. Let +us consider the actual _status_. + +In certain localities of Southern Africa there is a remarkable fly, the +Tsetse fly. In the ordinary course of satisfying its hunger, this insect +punctures the skin of a horse, and the animal dies in consequence. A fly +makes a lunch, and a horse's life pays the price of the meal. This has +ever seemed to me to represent the beast-of-prey principle in Nature +more vigorously than any other fact. But in that system whose fangs +are now red with the blood of our brave there is an expression of this +principle not less enormous. It is the very Tsetse fly of civilization. +That a small minority of Southern men may make money without earning +it,--that a few thousand individuals may monopolize the cotton-market +of the world,--what a suppression and destruction of intelligence it +perpetrates I what consuming of spiritual possibilities! what mental +wreck and waste! Whites, too, suffer equally with blacks. Less +oppressed, they are perhaps even more demoralized. No parallel example +does the earth exhibit of the sacrifice of transcendent values for +pitiful ends. + +In attempting to destroy free government and rational socialization in +America, this system is treading no new road, it is only proceeding on +the old. Its central law is that of destroying any value, however +great, for the sake of any gratification, however small. Accustomed to +battening on the hopes of humanity,--accustomed to taking stock in +human degradation, and declaring dividends upon enforced ignorance and +crime,--existing only while every canon of the common law is annulled, +and every precept of morals and civilization set at nought,--could it be +expected to pause just when, or rather just _because_, it had apparently +found the richest possible prey? Could it be expected to withhold its +fang for no other reason than that its fang was allured by a more +opulent artery than ever before? The simple truth is--and he knows +nothing about this controversy who fails to perceive such truth--that +the system whose hands are now armed against us has always borne these +arms in its heart; that the fang which is now bared has hitherto been +only concealed, not wanting; that the tree which is to-day in bloody +blossom is the same tree it ever was, and carried these blossoms in its +sap long ere spreading them upon its boughs. + +To this predaceous system what do we oppose? We oppose a socialization +that has features,--I will say no more,--has _features_ of generous +breadth and promise, that are the best fruition of many countries and +centuries. Faults and drawbacks it has enough and to spare; conspicuous +among which may be named the vulgar and disgusting "negrophobia,"--a +mark of under-breeding which one hopes may not disgrace us always. But +let us be carried away by no mania for self-criticism. Two claims for +ourselves may be made. First, a higher grade of laws nowhere exists with +a less amount of coercive application,--exists, that is, by the rational +and constant choice of the whole people. Secondly, it may be questioned +whether anywhere in the world the development of intelligence and moral +force in the whole people is to a greater extent a national aim. But +abandoning all comparison with other peoples, this we may say with no +doubtful voice: We stand for the best ideas of the Old World in the New; +we stand for orderly-freedom and true socialization in America; we stand +for these, and with us these must here stand or fall. + +Now, of course, we are not about to become the offscouring of the earth +by yielding these up to destruction. Of course, we shall not convert +ourselves into a nation of Iscariots, and give over civilization to +the bowie-knife, with the mere hope of so making money out of Southern +trade,--which we should not do,--and with the certainty of a gibbet in +history, to mention no greater penalty. + +But refusing this perfidy, could we have avoided this war? No; for +it was simply our refusal of such perfidy which, so far as we are +concerned, brought the war on. The South, having ever since the +Mexican War stood with its sword half out of the scabbard, perpetually +threatening to give its edge,--having made it the chief problem of our +politics, by what gift or concession to purchase exemption from that +dreaded blade,--at last reached its ultimate demand. "Will you," it said +to the North, "abdicate the privileges of equal citizenship? Will +you give up this continent, territory, Free States and all, to our +predaceous, blood-eating system? Will you sell into slavery the elective +franchise itself? Will you sell the elective franchise itself into +slavery, and take for pay barely the poltroon's price, that of being +scornfully spared by the sword we stand ready to draw?" The +North excused itself politely. In the softest voice, but with a +soft-voicedness that did not wholly conceal an iron thread of +resolution, it declined to comply with that most modest demand. Then the +sword came out and struck at our life. "Was it matter of choice with us +whether we would fight? Not unless it were also matter of choice whether +we would become the very sweepings and blemish of creation. + +"But we might have permitted secession." No, we could not. It was +clearly impracticable. "But why not?" _Because that would have been +to surrender the whole under the guise of giving up half_. Such a +concession could have meant to the people of the rebellious States, and, +in the existing state of national belief, could have meant to our very +selves, nothing other than this:--"We submit; do what you will; we are +shopkeepers and cowards; we must have your trade; and besides, though +expert in the use of yardsticks, we have not the nerve for handling +guns." From that moment we should have lost all authority on this +continent, and all respect on the other. + +The English papers have blamed us for fighting; but had we failed to +fight, not one of these censuring mouths but would have hissed at us +like an adder with contempt Nay, we ourselves should, as it were, soon +have lost the musical speech and high carriage of men, and fallen to +a proneness and a hissing, degraded in our own eyes even more than in +those of our neighbors. Of course, from this state we should have risen; +but it would have been to see the redness of war on our own fields +and its flames wrapping our own households. We should have risen, but +through a contest to which this war, gigantic though it be, is but a +quarrel of school-boys. + +By sheer necessity we began to fight; by the same we must fight It out. +Compromise is, in the nature of the case, impossible. It can mean only +_surrender_. Had there been an inch more of ground for us to yield +without total submission, the war would have been, for the present, +staved off. We turned to bay only when driven back to the vital +principle of our polity and the vital facts of our socialization. + +Politically, what was the immediate grievance of the South? Simply that +Northern freemen went to the polls as freemen; simply that they there +expressed, under constitutional forms, their lawful preference. How +can we compromise here, even to the breadth of a hair? How compromise +without stipulating that all Northern electors shall henceforth go to +the polls in charge of an armed police, and there deposit such ballot as +the slave-masters of the Secession States shall direct? + +Again, in our social state what is it that gives umbrage to our +antagonists? They have answered the question for us; they have stated it +repeatedly in the plainest English. It is simply the fact that we _are_ +free States; that we have, and honor, free labor; that we have schools +for the people; that we teach the duty of each to all and of all to +each; that we respect the human principle, the spiritual possibility, +in man; in fine, that ours is a human socialization, whose fundamental +principles are the venerableness of man's nature and the superiority +of reason and right to any individual will. So far as we are base +bargainers and unbelievers, they can tolerate us, even though they +despise; just where our praise begins, begin their detestation and +animosity. + +It is, by the pointed confession of Southern spokesmen, what we are, +rather than what we have done, which makes them Secessionists; and any +man of sense might, indeed must, see this fact, were the confession +withheld. In action we have conformed to Southern wishes, as if +conformity could not be in excess. We have conformed to an extent +that--to mention nothing of more importance--had nearly ruined us in the +estimation of mankind. One chief reason, indeed, why the sympathy of +Europe did not immediately go with us was that a disgust toward us had +been created by the football passivity, as it seemed abroad, with which +we had submitted to be kicked to and fro. The rebellion was deemed to be +on our side, not on theirs. We, born servitors and underlings, it was +thought, had forgotten our proper places,--nay, had presumed to strike +back, when our masters chastised us. Of course, we should soon be +whipped to our knees again. And when we were again submissive and +abject, Europe must so have demeaned itself as still to be on good terms +with the conquerors. As for us, our final opinion of their demeanor, so +they deemed, mattered very little. The ill opinion of the servants can +be borne; but one must needs be on friendly terms with the master of the +house. The conduct of Europe toward us at the outbreak of this war is +to be thus explained, more than in any other way. According to European +understanding, we had before written ourselves down menials; therefore, +on rising to the attitude of men, we were scorned as upstarts. + +The world has now discovered that there was less cowardice and more +comity in this yielding than had been supposed. Yet in candor one must +confess that it was barely not carried to a fatal extent. One step more +in that direction, and we had gone over the brink and into the abyss. +Only when the last test arrived, and we must decide once and forever +whether we would be the champions or the apostates of civilization, did +we show to the foe not the dastard back, but the dauntless front. And +the proposal to "compromise" is simply and exactly a proposal to us to +reverse that decision. + +Again, we can propose no compromise, such as would stay the war, without +confessing that there was no occasion for beginning it. And if, indeed, +we began it without occasion, without an occasion absolutely imperative, +then does the whole mountain--weight of its guilt lie on our hearts. +Then in every man that has fallen on either side we are assassins. The +proposal to bring back the seceded States by submission to their demands +is neither more nor less than a proposal to write "Murderer" on the brow +of every soldier in our armies, and "Twice Murderer" over the grave of +every one of our slain. If such submission be due now, not less was +it due before the war began. To say that it was then due, and then +withheld, is, I repeat, merely to brand with the blackness of +assassination the whole patriotic service of the United States, both +civil and military, for the last two years. + +If, now, such be, in very deed, our guilt, let us lose no moment in +confessing the fact,--nor afterwards lose a moment in creeping to the +gallows, that must, in that case, be hungering for us. But if no such +guilt be ours, then why should not our courage be as good as our cause? +If not only by the warrant, but by the imperative bidding of Heaven, +we have taken up arms, then why should we not, as under the banner of +Heaven, bear them to the end? + +In this course, no _real_ failure can await us. Obeying the necessity +which is laid upon us, and simply conducting ourselves as men of +humanity, courage, and honor, we shall surely vindicate the principles +of civilization and Orderly society, within our own States, whether we +immediately succeed in impressing them on South Carolina and her evil +sisterhood or not. Let us but vindicate their existence on any part of +this continent, and that alone will insure their final prevalence on the +continent as a whole. Let us now but make them inexpugnable, and they +will make themselves universal. This law of necessary prevalence, in a +socialization whose vital principle is reverence for the nature of man, +was clearly seen by the masters, or rather, one should say, by the +subjects, of the slave system; and this war signifies their immediate +purpose to build up between it and themselves a Chinese excluding +wall, and their ulterior purpose to starve and trample it out of this +hemisphere. + +Finally, just that which teaches us charity toward the slaveholders +teaches us also, forbearing all thought of base and demoralizing +compositions, to press the hand steadily upon the hilt it has grasped, +until war's work is done. These servants of a predaceous principle are +nearly, if not quite, its earliest prey. Enemies to us, they are twice +enemies to themselves. They are driven helplessly on, and will be so +until we slay the tyrant that wrings from them their evil services. +During that fatal month's _siesta_ at Yorktown, the country was +horror-stricken to hear that the enemy were forcing negroes at the point +of the bayonet to work those pieces of ordnance from which the whites, +in terror of our sharpshooters, had fled away. But behind the whites +themselves, behind the whole disloyal South, had long been another +bayonet goading heart and brain, and pricking them on to aggression +after aggression, till aggression found its goal, where we trust it will +find its grave, in civil war. Poor wretches! Who does not pity them? Who +that pities them wisely would not all the more firmly grasp that sword +which alone can deliver them? + +Nor has the slave-system been any worse than it must be, in pushing us +and them to the present pass. So bad it must be, or cease to be at all. +All things obey their nature. Hydrophobia will bite, small-pox infect, +plague enter upon life and depart upon death, hyenas scent the new-made +graves, and predaceous systems of society open their mouths ever and +ever for prey. What else _can_ they do? Even would the Secessionists +consent to partial compositions, as they will not, they must inevitably +break faith, as ever before. They are slaves to the slave-system. As +wise were it to covenant with the dust not to fly, or with the sea not +to foam, when the hurricane blows, as to bargain with these that they +shall resist that despotic impetus which compels them. They are slaves. +And their master is one whose law is to devour. Only he who might +meditate letting go a Bengal tiger on its parole of honor, or binding +over a pestilence to keep the peace, should so much as dream for a +moment of civil compositions with this system. Its action is inevitable. +And therefore our only wisdom will be to make our way by the straightest +path to this, which is our chief, and in the last analysis our only +enemy, and cut it through and through. This only will be a final +preservation to ourselves; this only the noblest amity to the South; +this, deliverance to the captivity of two continents, Africa and +America: so that here principle and policy are for once so obviously, as +ever they are really, one and the same, that no man of sense should fail +to perceive their unity. + + * * * * * + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +The Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. Illustrated from +Drawings by F.O.C. Darley and John Gilbert. Dombey & Son. In Four +Volumes. New York. Sheldon & Co. 16mo. pp. 322, 312, 306, 336. $3.00. + +The Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. Illustrated from +Drawings by F.O.C. Darley and John Gilbert. David Copperfield. 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