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diff --git a/13924-0.txt b/13924-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4908892 --- /dev/null +++ b/13924-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9678 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13924 *** + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + + * * * * * + +VOLUME IX. + +M DCCC LXII. + + * * * * * + + + [Transcriber's note: Converted page numbers to issue numbers.] + + +CONTENTS. ISSUE. + +A.C., The Experiences of the, 52. +Agnes of Sorrento, 51, 52, 53, 54. +American Civilization, 54. +Author of "Charles Auchester," The, 56. +Autobiographical Sketches of a Strength-Seeker, 51. + +Childhood, Concerning the Sorrows of, 53. +Clough, Arthur Hugh, 54. +Cooper, James Fenimore, 52. + +Ease in Work, 52. + +Forester, The, 54. +Fremont's Hundred Days in Missouri, 51, 52, 53. +Fruits of Free Labor in the Smaller Islands + of the British West Indies, 53. + +German Burns, The, 54. + +Health of Our Girls, The, 56. +Hindrance, 55. +Horrors of San Domingo, The, 56. + +Individuality, 54. + +Jefferson and Slavery, 51. +John Lamar, 54. + +Letter to a Young Contributor, 54. +Light Literature, 51. +Love and Skates, 51, 52. + +Man under Sealed Orders, 55. +Methods of Study in Natural History, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56. +My Garden, 55. + +Old Age, 51. +Our Artists in Italy, 52. + +Père Antoine's Date-Palm, 56. +Pilgrimage to Old Boston, 51. + +Raft that no Man made, A, 53. +Richelieu, The Statesmanship of, 55. +Rifle, The Use of the, 53. + +Saltpetre as a Source of Power, 55. +Sam Adams Regiments in the Town of Boston, The, 56. +Slavery, in its Principles, Development, + and Expedients, 55. +Snow, 52. +"Solid Operations in Virginia", 56. +South Breaker, The, 55, 56. +Spain, The Rehabilitation of, 53. +Spirits, 55. +Story of To-Day, A, 51, 52, 53. + +Taxation, 53. +Then and Now in the Old Dominion, 54. + +Walking, 56. +War and Literature, 56. +Weather in War, 55. +What shall We do with Them?, 54. + + +POETRY. + +Astraea at the Capitol, 56. +At Port Royal, 1861, 52. + +Battle-Hymn of the Republic, 52. +Birdofredum Sawin, Esq., to Mr. Hosea Biglow, 51, 53. + +Compensation, 54. + +Exodus, 54. + +Lines written under a Portrait of Theodore + Winthrop, 55. +Lyrics of the Street, 55. + +Mason and Slidell: A Yankee Idyl, 52. +Message of Jeff Davis in Secret Session, A, 54. +Midwinter, 52. +Mountain Pictures, 53, 54. + +Order for a Picture, An, 56. +Out of the Body to God, 56. + +Per Tenebras, Lumina, 51. + +Sonnet, 56. +Southern Cross, The, 53. +Speech of Hon'ble Preserved Doe in Secret + Caucus, 55. +Strasburg Clock, The, 54. +Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line, 56. + +Titmouse, The, 55. +True Heroine, The, 51. + +Under the Snow, 55. + +Volunteer, The, 55. +Voyage of the Good Ship Union, 53. + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + +Arnold's Lectures on translating Homer, 51. + +Book about Doctors, A, 54. +Botta's Discourse on the Life, Character, + and Policy of Count Cavour, 55. + +Cloister and the Hearth, The, 52. + +De Vere, Aubrey, Poems by, 54. +Dickens's Works, Household Edition, 55. + +Harris's Insects Injurious to Vegetation, 55. + +John Brent, 54. + +Leigh Hunt, Correspondence of, 55. +Lessons in Life, 51. + +Müller's Lectures on the Science of Language, 51. + +Newman's Homeric Translation in Theory and + in Practice, 51. + +Pauli's Pictures of Old England, 55. + +Record of an Obscure Man, 55. + +Tragedy of Errors, 55. + +Willmott's English Sacred Poetry, 52. + + +FOREIGN LITERATURE, 54, 55. + + +OBITUARY, 51. + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS, 52, 53, 54, 55. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + + * * * * * + +VOL. IX.--JANUARY, 1862.--NO. LI. + + * * * * * + + + + +METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY. + + +I. + +It is my intention, in this series of papers, to give the history of the +progress in Natural History from the beginning,--to show how men first +approached Nature,--how the facts of Natural History have been +accumulated, and how those facts have been converted into science. In so +doing, I shall present the methods employed in Natural History on a wider +scale and with broader generalizations than if I limited myself to the +study as it exists to-day. The history of humanity, in its efforts to +understand the Creation, resembles the development of any individual mind +engaged in the same direction. It has its infancy, with the first +recognition of surrounding objects; and, indeed, the early observers seem +to us like children in their first attempts to understand the world in +which they live. But these efforts, that appear childish to us now, were +the first steps in that field of knowledge which is so extensive that all +our progress seems only to show us how much is left to do. + +Aristotle is the representative of the learning of antiquity in Natural +Science. The great mind of Greece in his day, and a leader in all the +intellectual culture of his time, he was especially a naturalist, and his +work on Natural History is a record not only of his own investigations, +but of all preceding study in this department. It is evident that even +then much had been done, and, in allusion to certain peculiarities of the +human frame, which he does not describe in full, he refers his readers to +familiar works, saying, that illustrations in point may be found in +anatomical text-books.[1] + + [1] See Aristotle's _Zoölogy_, Book I., Chapter xiv. + +Strange that in Aristotle's day, two thousand years ago, such books should +have been in general use, and that in our time we are still in want of +elementary text-books of Natural History, having special reference to the +animals of our own country, and adapted to the use of schools. One fact in +Aristotle's "History of Animals" is very striking, and makes it difficult +for us to understand much of its contents. It never occurs to him that a +time may come when the Greek language--the language of all culture and +science in his time--would not be the language of all cultivated men. He +took, therefore, little pains to characterize the animals he alludes to, +otherwise than by their current names; and of his descriptions of their +habits and peculiarities, much is lost upon us from their local character +and expression. There is also a total absence of systematic form, of any +classification or framework to express the divisions of the animal kingdom +into larger or lesser groups. His only divisions are genera and species: +classes, orders, and families, as we understand them now, are quite +foreign to the Greek conception of the animal kingdom. Fishes and birds, +for instance, they considered as genera, and their different +representatives as species. They grouped together quadrupeds also in +contradistinction to animals with legs and wings, and they distinguished +those that bring forth living young from those that lay eggs. But though a +system of Nature was not familiar even to their great philosopher, and +Aristotle had not arrived at the idea of a classification on general +principles, he yet stimulated a search into the closer affinities among +animals by the differences he pointed out. He divided the animal kingdom +into two groups, which he called _Enaima_ and _Anaima_, or animals with +blood and animals without blood. We must remember, however, that by the +word _blood_ he designated only the red fluid circulating in the higher +animals; whereas a fluid akin to blood exists in all animals, variously +colored in some, but colorless in a large number of others. + +After Aristotle, a long period elapsed without any addition to the +information he left us. Rome and the Middle Ages gave us nothing, and even +Pliny added hardly a fact to those that Aristotle recorded. And though the +great naturalists of the sixteenth century gave a new impulse to this +study, their investigations were chiefly directed towards a minute +acquaintance with the animals they had an opportunity of observing, +mingled with commentaries upon the ancients. Systematic Zoölogy was but +little advanced by their efforts. + +We must come down to the last century, to Linnæus, before we find the +history taken up where Aristotle had left it, and some of his suggestions +carried out with new vigor and vitality. Aristotle had distinguished only +between genera and species; Linnæus took hold of this idea, and gave +special names to other groups, of different weight and value. Besides +species and genera, he gives us orders and classes,--considering classes +the most comprehensive, then orders, then genera, then species. He did +not, however, represent these groups as distinguished by their nature, but +only by their range; they were still to him, as genera and species had +been to Aristotle, only larger or smaller groups, not founded upon and +limited by different categories of structure. He divided the animal +kingdom into six classes, which I give here, as we shall have occasion to +compare them with other classifications:--_Mammalia_, _Birds_, _Reptiles_, +_Fishes_, _Insects_, _Worms_. + +That this classification should have expressed all that was known in the +last century of the most general relations among animals only shows how +difficult it is to generalize on such a subject; nor should we expect to +find it an easy task, when we remember the vast number of species (about a +quarter of a million) already noticed by naturalists. Linnæus succeeded, +however, in finding a common character on which to unite most of his +classes; but the Mammalia, that group to which we ourselves belong, +remained very imperfect. Indeed, in the earlier editions of his +classification, he does not apply the name of Mammalia to this class, but +calls the higher animals _Quadrupedia_, characterizing them as the animals +with four legs and covered with fur or hair, that bring forth living young +and nurse them with milk. In thus admitting external features as class +characters, he excluded many animals which by their mode of reproduction, +as well as by their respiration and circulation, belong to this class as +much as the Quadrupeds,--as, for instance, all the Cetaceans, (Whales, +Porpoises, and the like,) which, though they have not legs, nor are their +bodies covered with hair or fur, yet bring forth living young, nurse them +with milk, are warm-blooded and air-breathing. As more was learned of +these animals, there arose serious discussion and criticism among +contemporary naturalists respecting the classification of Linnæus, all of +which led to a clearer insight into the true relations among animals. +Linnæus himself, in his last edition of the "Systema Naturæ," shows us +what important progress he had made since he first announced his views; +for he there substitutes for the name of _Quadrupedia_ that of _Mammalia_, +including among them the Whales, which he characterizes as air-breathing, +warm-blooded, and bringing forth living young which they nurse with milk. +Thus the very deficiencies of his classification stimulated naturalists to +new criticism and investigation into the true limits of classes, and led +to the recognition of one most important principle,--that such groups are +founded, not on external appearance, but on internal structure, and that +internal structure, therefore, is the thing to be studied. The group of +Quadrupeds was not the only defective one in this classification of +Linnæus; his class of Worms, also, was most heterogeneous, for he included +among them Shell-Fishes, Slugs, Star-Fishes, Sea-Urchins, and other +animals that bear no relation whatever to the class of Worms. + +But whatever its defects, the classification of Linnæus was the first +attempt at grouping animals together according to certain common +structural characters. His followers and pupils engaged at once in a +scrutiny of the differences and similarities among animals, which soon led +to a great increase in the number of classes: instead of six, there were +presently nine, twelve, and more. But till Cuvier's time there was no +great principle of classification. Facts were accumulated and more or less +systematized, but they were not yet arranged according to law; the +principle was still wanting by which to generalize them and give meaning +and vitality to the whole. It was Cuvier who found the key. He himself +tells us how he first began, in his investigations upon the internal +organization of animals, to use his dissections with reference to finding +the true relations between animals, and how, ever after, his knowledge of +anatomy assisted him in his classifications, and his classifications threw +new light again on his anatomical investigations,--each science thus +helping to fertilize the other. He was not one of those superficial +observers who are in haste to announce every new fact that they chance to +find, and his first paper[2] specially devoted to classification gave to +the world the ripe fruit of years of study. This was followed by his great +work, "Le Règne Animal." He said that animals were united in their most +comprehensive groups, not on special characters, but on different _plans +of structure_,--moulds, he called them, in which all animals had been +cast. He tells us this in such admirable language that I must, to do +justice to his thought, give it in his own words:-- + + "Si l'on considère le règne animal d'après les principes que nous + venons de poser en se débarrassant des préjugés établis sur les + divisions anciennement admises, en n'ayant égard qu'à + l'organisation et à la nature des animaux, et non pas à leur + grandeur, à leur utilité, au plus ou moins de connaissance que + nous en avons, ni à toutes les autres circonstances accessoires, + on trouvera qu'il existe quatre formes principales, quatre plans + généraux, si l'on peut s'exprimer ainsi, d'après lesquels tous les + animaux semblent avoir été modelés, et dont les divisions + ultérieures, de quelque titre que les naturalistes les aient + décorées, ne sont que des modifications assez légères, fondées sur + le développement ou l'addition de quelques parties, qui ne + changent rien à l'essence du plan." + + [2] Sur un nouveau rapprochement à établir entre les Classes qui + composent le Règne Animal. _Ann. Mus._, Vol. XIX. + +The value of this principle was soon tested by its application to facts +already known, and it was found that animals whose affinities had been +questionable before were now at once referred to their true relations with +other animals by ascertaining whether they were built on one or another of +these plans. Of such plans or structural conceptions Cuvier found in the +whole animal kingdom only four, which he called _Vertebrates_, _Mollusks_, +_Articulates_, and _Radiates_. + +With this new principle as the basis of investigation, it was no longer +enough for the naturalist to know a certain amount of features +characteristic of a certain number of animals,--he must penetrate deep +enough into their organization to find the secret of their internal +structure. Till he can do this, he is like the traveller in a strange +city, who looks on the exterior of edifices entirely new to him, but knows +nothing of the plan of their internal architecture. To be able to read in +the finished structure the plan on which the whole is built is now +essential to every naturalist. + +There have been many criticisms on this division of Cuvier's, and many +attempts to change it; but though some improvements have been made in the +details of his classification, all departures from its great fundamental +principle are errors, and do but lead us away from the recognition of the +true affinities among animals. + +Each of these plans may be stated in the most general terms. In the +_Vertebrates_ there is a vertebral column terminating in a prominent head; +this column has an arch above and an arch below, forming a double internal +cavity. The parts are symmetrically arranged on either side of the +longitudinal axis of the body. In the _Mollusks_, also, the parts are +arranged according to a bilateral symmetry on either side of the body, but +the body has but one cavity, and is a soft, concentrated mass, without a +distinct individualization of parts. In the _Articulates_ there is but one +cavity, and the parts are here again arranged on either side of the +longitudinal axis, but in these animals the whole body is divided from end +to end into transverse rings or joints movable upon each other. In the +_Radiates_ we lose sight of the bilateral symmetry so prevalent in the +other three, except as a very subordinate element of structure; the plan +of this lowest type is an organic sphere, in which all parts bear definite +relations to a vertical axis. + +It is not upon any special features, then, that these largest divisions of +the animal kingdom are based, but simply upon the general structural idea. +Striking as this statement was, it was coldly received at first by +contemporary naturalists: they could hardly grasp Cuvier's wide +generalizations, and perhaps there was also some jealousy of the grandeur +of his views. Whatever the cause, his principle of classification was not +fully appreciated; but it opened a new road for study, and gave us the +keynote to the natural affinities among animals. Lamarck, his +contemporary, not recognizing the truth of this principle, distributed the +animal kingdom into two great divisions, which he calls _Vertebrates_ and +_Invertebrates_. Ehrenberg also, at a later period, announced another +division under two heads,--those with a continuous solid nervous centre, +and those with merely scattered nervous swellings.[3] + + [3] For more details upon the different systems of Zoölogy, see + Agassiz's Essay on Classification in his _Contributions to the + Natural History of the United States_, Vol. I. + +But there was no real progress in either of these latter classifications, +so far as the primary divisions are concerned; for they correspond to the +old division of Aristotle, under the head of animals with or without +blood, the _Enaima_ and _Anaima_. This coincidence between systems based +on different foundations may teach us that every structural combination +includes certain inherent necessities which will bring animals together on +whatever set of features we try to classify them; so that the division of +Aristotle, founded on the circulating fluids, or that of Lamarck, on the +absence or presence of a backbone, or that of Ehrenberg, on the +differences of the nervous system, cover the same ground. Lamarck +attempted also to use the faculties of animals as a groundwork for +division among them. But our knowledge of the psychology of animals is +still too imperfect to justify any such use of it. His divisions into +Apathetic, Sensitive, and Intelligent animals are entirely theoretical. He +places, for instance, Fishes and Reptiles among the Intelligent animals, +as distinguished from Crustacea and Insects, which he refers to the second +division. But one would be puzzled to say how the former manifest more +intelligence than the latter, or why the latter should be placed among the +Sensitive animals. Again, some of the animals that he calls Apathetic have +been proved by later investigators to show an affection and care for their +young, seemingly quite inconsistent with the epithet he has applied to +them. In fact, we know so little of the faculties of animals that any +classification based upon our present information about them must be very +imperfect. + +Many modifications of Cuvier's great divisions have been attempted. Some +naturalists, for instance, have divided off a part of the Radiates and +Articulates, insisting upon some special features of structure, and +mistaking these for the more important and general characteristics of +their respective plans. All subsequent investigations of such would-be +improvements show them to be retrograde movements, only proving more +clearly that Cuvier detected in his four plans all the great structural +ideas on which the vast variety of animals is founded. This result is of +greater importance than may at first appear. Upon it depends the question, +whether all such classifications represent merely individual impressions +and opinions of men, or whether there is really something in Nature that +presses upon us certain divisions among animals, certain affinities, +certain limitations, founded upon essential principles of organization. +Are our systems the inventions of naturalists, or only their reading of +the Book of Nature? and can that book have more than one reading? If these +classifications are not mere inventions, if they are not an attempt to +classify for our own convenience the objects we study, then they are +thoughts which, whether we detect them or not, are expressed in +Nature,--then Nature is the work of thought, the production of +intelligence carried out according to plan, therefore premeditated,--and +in our study of natural objects we are approaching the thoughts of the +Creator, reading His conceptions, interpreting a system that is His and +not ours. + +All the divergence from the simplicity and grandeur of this division of +the animal kingdom arises from an inability to distinguish between a plan +and the execution, of a plan. We allow the details to shut out the plan +itself, which exists quite independent of special forms. I hope we shall +find a meaning in all these plans that will prove them to be the parts of +one great conception and the work of one Mind. + + +II. + +Proceeding upon the view that there is a close analogy between the way in +which every individual student penetrates into Nature and the progress of +science as a whole in the history of humanity, I continue my sketch of the +successive steps that have led to our present state of knowledge. I began +with Aristotle, and showed that this great philosopher, though he prepared +a digest of all the knowledge belonging to his time, yet did not feel the +necessity of any system or of any scientific language differing from the +common mode of expression of his day. He presents his information as a man +with his eyes open narrates in a familiar style what he sees. As +civilization spread and science had its representatives in other countries +besides Greece, it became indispensable to have a common scientific +language, a technical nomenclature, combining many objects under common +names, and enabling every naturalist to express the results of his +observations readily and simply in a manner intelligible to all other +students of Natural History. + +Linnæus devised such a system, and to him we owe a most simple and +comprehensive scientific mode of designating animals and plants. It may at +first seem no advantage to give up the common names of the vernacular and +adopt the unfamiliar ones, but a word of explanation will make the object +clear. Perceiving, for instance, the close relations between certain +members of the larger groups, Linnæus gave to them names that should be +common to all, and which are called generic names,--as we speak of Ducks, +when we would designate in one word the Mallard, the Widgeon, the +Canvas-Back, etc.; but to these generic names he added qualifying +epithets, called specific names, to indicate the different kinds in each +group. For example, the Lion, the Tiger, the Panther, the Domestic Cat +constitute such a natural group, which Linnæus called _Felis_, Cat, +indicating the whole genus; but the species he designates as _Felis +catus_, the Domestic Cat,--_Felis leo_, the Lion,--_Felis tigris_, the +Tiger,--_Felis panthera_, the Panther. So he called all the Dogs _Canis_; +but for the different kinds we have _Canis familiaris_, the Domestic +Dog,--_Canis lupus_, the Wolf,--_Canis vulpes_, the Fox, etc. + +In some families of the vegetable kingdom we can appreciate better the +application of this nomenclature, because we have something corresponding +to it in the vernacular. We have, for instance, one name for all the Oaks, +but we call the different kinds Swamp Oak, Red Oak, White Oak, Chestnut +Oak, etc. So Linnæus, in his botanical nomenclature, called all the Oaks +by the generic name _Quercus_, (characterizing them by their fruit, the +acorn, common to all,) and qualified them as _Quercus bicolor_, _Quercus +rubra_, _Quercus alba_, _Quercus castanea_, etc., etc. His nomenclature, +being so easy of application, became at once exceedingly popular and made +him the great scientific legislator of his century. He insisted on Latin +names, because, if every naturalist should use his own language, it must +lead to great confusion, and this Latin nomenclature of double +significance was adopted by all. Another advantage of this binominal Latin +nomenclature consists in preventing the confusion frequently arising from +the use of the same name to designate different animals in different parts +of the world,--as, for instance, the name of Robin, used in America to +designate a bird of the Thrush family, entirely different from the Robin +of the Old World,--or of different names for the same animal, as Perch or +Chogset or Burgall for our Cunner. Nothing is more to be deprecated than +an over-appreciation of technicalities, valuing the name more highly than +the thing; but some knowledge of this nomenclature is necessary to every +student of Nature. + +The improvements in science thus far were chiefly verbal. Cuvier now came +forward and added a principle. He showed that all animals are built upon a +certain number of definite plans. This momentous step, the significance of +which is not yet appreciated to its full extent; for, had its importance +been understood, the efforts of naturalists would have been directed +toward a further illustration of the distinctive characteristics of all +the plans,--instead of which, the division of the animal kingdom into +larger and smaller groups chiefly attracted their attention, and has been +carried too far by some of them. Linnæus began with six classes, Cuvier +brought them up to nineteen, and at last the animal kingdom was subdivided +by subsequent investigators into twenty-eight classes. This multiplication +of divisions, however, soon suggested an important question: How far are +these divisions natural or inherent in the objects themselves, and not +dependent on individual views? + +While Linnæus pointed out classes, orders, genera, and species, other +naturalists had detected other divisions among animals, called families. +Lamarck, who had been a distinguished botanist before he began his study +of the animal kingdom, brought to his zoölogical researches his previous +methods of investigation. Families in the vegetable kingdom had long been +distinguished by French botanists; and one cannot examine the groups they +call by this name, without perceiving, that, though they bring them +together and describe them according to other characters, they have been +unconsciously led to unite them from the general similarity of their port +and bearing. Take, for instance, the families of Pines, Oaks, Beeches, +Maples, etc., and you feel at once, that, besides the common characters +given in the technical descriptions of these trees, there is also a +general resemblance among them that would naturally lead us to associate +them together, even if we knew nothing of the other features of their +structure. By an instinctive recognition of this family likeness between +plants, botanists have been led to seek for structural characters on which +to unite them, and the groups so founded generally correspond with the +combinations suggested by their appearance. + +By a like process Lamarck combined animals into families. His method was +adopted by French naturalists generally, and found favor especially with +Cuvier, who was particularly successful in limiting families among +animals, and in naming them happily, generally selecting names expressive +of the features on which the groups were founded, or borrowing them from +familiar animals. Much, indeed, depends upon the pleasant sound and the +significance of a name; for an idea reaches the mind more easily when well +expressed, and Cuvier's names were both simple and significant. His +descriptions are also remarkable for their graphic precision,--giving all +that is essential, omitting all that is merely accessory. He has given us +the key-note to his progress in his own expressive language:-- + + "Je dus donc, et cette obligation me prit un temps considérable, + je dus faire marcher de front l'anatomie et la zoologie, les + dissections et le classement; chercher dans mes premières + remarques sur l'organisation des distributions meilleures; m'en + servir pour arriver à des remarques nouvelles; employer encore ces + remarques à perfectionner les distributions; faire sortir enfin de + cette fécondation mutuelle des deux sciences, l'une par l'autre, + un système zoologique propre à servir d'introducteur et de guide + dans le champ de l'anatomie, et un corps de doctrine anatomique + propre à servir de développement et d'explication au système + zoologique." + +It is deeply to be lamented that so many naturalists have entirely +overlooked this significant advice of Cuvier's, to combine zoölogical and +anatomical studies in order to arrive at a clearer perception of the true +affinities among animals. To sum it up in one word, he tells us that the +secret of his method is "comparison,"--ever comparing and comparing +throughout the enormous range of his knowledge of the organization of +animals, and founding upon the differences as well as the similarities +those broad generalizations under which he has included all animal +structures. And this method, so prolific in his hands, has also a lesson +for us all. In this country there is a growing interest in the study of +Nature; but while there exist hundreds of elementary works illustrating +the native animals of Europe, there are few such books here to satisfy the +demand for information respecting the animals of our land and water. We +are thus forced to turn more and more to our own investigations and less +to authority; and the true method of obtaining independent knowledge is +this very method of Cuvier's,--comparison. + +Let us make the most common application of it to natural objects. Suppose +we see together a Dog, a Cat, a Bear, a Horse, a Cow, and a Deer. The +first feature that strikes us as common to any two of them is the horn in +the Cow and Deer. But how shall we associate either of the others with +these? We examine the teeth, and find those of the Dog, the Cat, and the +Bear sharp and cutting, while those of the Cow, the Deer, and the Horse +have flat surfaces, adapted to grinding and chewing, rather than cutting +and tearing. We compare these features of their structure with the habits +of these animals, and find that the first are carnivorous, that they seize +and tear their prey, while the others are herbivorous or grazing animals, +living only on vegetable substances, which they chew and grind. We compare +farther the Horse and Cow, and find that the Horse has front teeth both in +the upper and lower jaw, while the Cow has them only in the lower; and +going still farther and comparing the internal with the external features, +we find this arrangement of the teeth in direct relation to the different +structure of the stomach in the two animals,--the Cow having a stomach +with four pouches, adapted to a mode of digestion by which the food is +prepared for the second mastication, while the Horse has a simple stomach. +Comparing the Cow and the Deer, we find that the digestive apparatus is +the same in both; but though they both have horns, in the Cow the horn is +hollow, and remains through life firmly attached to the bone, while in the +Deer it is solid and is shed every year. With these facts before us, we +cannot hesitate to place the Dog, the Cat, and the Bear in one division, +as carnivorous animals, and the other three in another division as +herbivorous animals,--and looking a little farther, we perceive, that, in +common with the Cow and the Deer, the Goat and the Sheep have cloven feet, +and that they are all ruminants, while the Horse has a single hoof, does +not ruminate, and must therefore be separated from them, even though, like +them, he is herbivorous. + +This is but the simplest illustration, taken from the most familiar +objects, of this comparative method; but the same process is equally +applicable to the most intricate problems in animal structures, and will +give us the clue to all true affinities between animals. The education of +a naturalist, now, consists chiefly in learning how to compare. If he have +any power of generalization, when he has collected his facts, this habit +of mental comparison will lead him up to principles, to the great laws of +combination. It must not discourage us, that the process is a slow and +laborious one, and the results of one lifetime after all very small. It +might seem invidious, were I to show here how small is the sum total of +the work accomplished even by the great exceptional men, whose names are +known throughout the civilized world. But I may at least be permitted to +speak of my own efforts, and to sum up in the fewest words the result of +my life's work. I have devoted my whole life to the study of Nature, and +yet a single sentence may express all that I have done. I have shown that +there is a correspondence between the succession of Fishes in geological +times and the different stages of their growth in the egg,--this is all. +It chanced to be a result that was found to apply to other groups and has +led to other conclusions of a like nature. But, such as it is, it has been +reached by this system of comparison, which, though I speak of it now in +its application to the study of Natural History, is equally important in +every other branch of knowledge. By the same process the most mature +results of scientific research in Philology, in Ethnology, and in Physical +Science are reached. And let me say that the community should foster the +purely intellectual efforts of scientific men as carefully as they do +their elementary schools and their practical institutions, generally +considered so much more useful and important to the public. For from what +other source shall we derive the higher results that are gradually woven +into the practical resources of our life, except from the researches of +those very men who study science not for its uses, but for its truth? It +is this that gives it its noblest interest: it must be for truth's sake, +and not even for the sake of its usefulness to humanity, that the +scientific man studies Nature. The application of science to the useful +arts requires other abilities, other qualities, other tools than his; and +therefore I say that the man of science who follows his studies into their +practical application is false to his calling. The practical man stands +ever ready to take up the work where the scientific man leaves it, and to +adapt it to the material wants and uses of daily life. + +The publication of Cuvier's proposition, that the animal kingdom is built +on four plans, created an extraordinary excitement throughout the +scientific world. All naturalists proceeded to test it, and many soon +recognized in it a great scientific truth,--while others, who thought more +of making themselves prominent than of advancing science, proposed poor +amendments, that were sure to be rejected on farther investigation. There +were, however, some of these criticisms and additions that were truly +improvements, and touched upon points overlooked by Cuvier. Blainville, +especially, took up the element of form among animals,--whether divided on +two sides, whether radiated, whether irregular, etc. He, however, made the +mistake of giving very elaborate names to animals already known under +simpler ones. Why, for instance, call all animals with parts radiating in +every direction _Actinomorpha_ or _Actinozoaria_, when they had received +the significant name of _Radiates_? It seemed, to be a new system, when in +fact it was only a new name. Ehrenberg, likewise, made an important +distinction, when he united the animals according to the difference in +their nervous systems; but he also incumbered the nomenclature +unnecessarily, when he added to the names _Anaima_ and _Enaima_ of +Aristotle those of _Myeloneura_ and _Ganglioneura_. + +But it is not my object to give all the classifications of different +authors here, and I will therefore pass over many noted ones, as those of +Burmeister, Milne, Edwards, Siebold and Stannius, Owen, Leuckart, Vogt, +Van Beneden, and others, and proceed to give some account of one +investigator who did as much for the progress of Zoölogy as Cuvier, though +he is comparatively little known among us. Karl Ernst von Baer proposed a +classification based, like Cuvier's, upon plan; but he recognized what +Cuvier failed to perceive,--namely, the importance of distinguishing +between type (by which he means exactly what Cuvier means by plan) and +complication of structure,--in other words, between plan and the execution +of the plan. He recognized four types, which correspond exactly to +Cuvier's four plans, though he calls them by different names. Let us +compare them. + + _Cuvier_. _Baer_. + Radiates, Peripheric, + Mollusks, Massive, + Articulates, Longitudinal, + Vertebrates. Doubly Symmetrical. + +Though perhaps less felicitous, the names of Baer express the same ideas +as those of Cuvier. By the _Peripheric_ he signified those in which all +the parts converge from the periphery or circumference of the animal to +its centre. Cuvier only reverses this definition in his name of +_Radiates_, signifying the animals in which all parts radiate from the +centre to the circumference. By _Massive_, Baer indicated those animals in +which the structure is soft and concentrated, without a very distinct +individualization of parts,--exactly the animals included by Cuvier under +his name of _Mollusks_, or soft-bodied animals. In his selection of the +epithet _Longitudinal_, Baer was less fortunate; for all animals have a +longitudinal diameter, and this word was not, therefore, sufficiently +special. Yet his _Longitudinal_ type answers exactly to Cuvier's +_Articulates_,--animals in which all parts are arranged in a succession of +articulated joints along a longitudinal axis. Cuvier has expressed this +jointed structure in the name _Articulates_; whereas Baer, in his name of +_Longitudinal_, referred only to the arrangement of joints in longitudinal +succession, in a continuous string, as it were, one after another. For the +_Doubly Symmetrical_ type his name is the better of the two; for Cuvier's +name of _Vertebrates_ alludes only to the backbone,--while Baer, who is an +embryologist, signifies in his their mode of growth also. He knew what +Cuvier did not know, that in its first formation the germ of the +Vertebrate divides in two folds: one turning up above the backbone, to +inclose all the sensitive Organs,--the spinal marrow, the organs of sense, +all those organs by which life is expressed; the other turning down below +the backbone, and inclosing all those organs by which life is +maintained,--the organs of digestion, of respiration, of circulation, of +reproduction, etc. So there is in this type not only an equal division of +parts on either side, but also a division above and below, making thus a +double symmetry in the plan, expressed by Baer in the name he gave it. +Baer was perfectly original in his conception of these four types, for his +paper was published in the very same year with that of Cuvier. But even in +Germany, his native land, his ideas were not fully appreciated: strange +that it should be so,--for, had his countrymen recognized his genius, they +might have claimed him as the compeer of the great French naturalist. + +Baer also founded the science of Embryology, under the guidance of his +teacher, Dollinger. His researches in this direction showed him that +animals were not only built on four plans, but that they grew according to +four modes of development. The Vertebrate arises from the egg differently +from the Articulate,--the Articulate differently from the Mollusk,--the +Mollusk differently from the Radiate. Cuvier only showed us the four plans +as they exist in the adult; Baer went a step farther, and showed us the +four plans in the process of formation. But his greatest scientific +achievement is perhaps the discovery that all animals originate in eggs, +and that all these eggs are at first identical in substance and structure. +The wonderful and untiring research condensed into this simple statement, +that all animals arise from eggs and that all those eggs are identical in +the beginning, may well excite our admiration. This egg consists of an +outer envelope, the vitelline membrane, containing a fluid more or less +dense, the yolk; within this is a second envelope, the so-called +germinative vesicle, containing a somewhat different and more transparent +fluid, and in the fluid of this second envelope float one or more +so-called germinative specks. At this stage of their growth all eggs are +microsopically small, yet each one has such tenacity of its individual +principle of life that no egg was ever known to swerve from the pattern of +the parent animal that gave it birth. + + +III. + +From the time that Linnæus showed us the necessity of a scientific system +as a framework for the arrangement of scientific facts in Natural History, +the number of divisions adopted by zoölogists and botanists increased +steadily. Not only were families, orders, and classes added to genera and +species, but these were further multiplied by subdivisions of the +different groups. But as the number of divisions increased, they lost in +precise meaning, and it became more and more doubtful how far they were +true to Nature. Moreover, these divisions were not taken in the same sense +by all naturalists: what were called families by some were called orders +by others, while the orders of some were the classes of others, till it +began to be doubted whether these scientific systems had any foundation in +Nature, or signified anything more than that it had pleased Linnæus, for +instance, to call certain groups of animals by one name, while Cuvier had +chosen to call them by another. + +These divisions are, first, the most comprehensive groups, the primary +divisions, called branches by some, types by others, and divided by some +naturalists into so-called sub-types, meaning only a more limited +circumscription of the same kind of group; next we have classes, and these +also have been divided into sub-classes, then orders and sub-orders, +families, sub-families, and tribes; then genera, species, and varieties. +With reference to the question, whether these groups really exist in +Nature or are merely the expression of individual theories and opinions, +it is worth while to study the works of the early naturalists, in order to +trace the natural process by which scientific classification has been +reached; for in this, as in other departments of learning, practice has +always preceded theory. We do the thing before we understand why we do it: +speech precedes grammar, reason precedes logic; and so a division of +animals into groups, upon an instinctive perception of their differences, +has preceded all our scientific creeds and doctrines. Let us, therefore, +proceed to examine the meaning of these names as adopted by naturalists. + +When Cuvier proposed his four primary divisions of the animal kingdom, he +added his argument for their adoption,--_because_, he said, they are +constructed on four different plans. All the progress in our science since +his time confirms this result; and I shall attempt to show that there are +really four, and only four, such structural ideas at the foundation of the +animal kingdom, and that all animals are included under one or another of +them. But it does not follow, that, because we have arrived at a sound +principle, we are therefore unerring in our practice. From ignorance we +may misplace animals, and include them under the wrong division. This is a +mistake, however, which a better insight into their organization +rectifies; and experience constantly proves, that, whenever the structure +of an animal is perfectly understood, there is no hesitation as to the +head under which it belongs. We may consequently test the merits of these +four primary groups on the evidence furnished by investigation. It has +already been seen that these plans may be presented in the most abstract +manner without any reference to special animals. _Radiation_ expresses in +one word the idea on which the lowest of these types is based. In +_Radiates_ we have no prominent bilateral symmetry, as in all other +animals, but an all-sided symmetry, in which there is no right and left, +no anterior and posterior extremity, no above and below. They are +spheroidal bodies; yet, though many of them remind us of a sphere, they +are by no means to be compared to a mathematical sphere, but rather to an +organic sphere, so loaded with life, as it were, as to produce an infinite +variety of radiate symmetry. The whole organization is arranged around a +centre toward which all the parts converge, or, in a reverse sense, from +which all the parts radiate. In _Mollusks_ there is a longitudinal axis +and a bilateral symmetry; but the longitudinal axis in these soft +concentrated bodies is not very prominent; and though the two ends of this +axis are distinct from each other, the difference is not so marked that we +can say at once, for all of them, which is the anterior and which the +posterior extremity. In this type, right and left have the preponderance +over the other diameters of the body. The sides are the prominent +parts,--they are charged with the important organs, loaded with those +peculiarities of the structure that give it character. The Oyster is a +good instance of this, with its double valve, so swollen on one side, so +flat on the other. There is an unconscious recognition of this in the +arrangement of all collections of Mollusks; for, though the collectors do +not put up their specimens with any intention of illustrating this +peculiarity, they instinctively give them the position best calculated to +display their distinctive characteristics, and to accomplish this they +necessarily place them in such a manner as to show the sides. In +_Articulates_ there is also a longitudinal axis of the body and a +bilateral symmetry in the arrangement of parts; the head and tail are +marked, and the right and left sides are distinct. But the prominent +tendency in this type is the development of the dorsal and ventral region; +here above and below prevail over right and left. It is the back and the +lower side that have the preponderance over any other part of the +structure in Articulates. The body is divided from end to end by a +succession of transverse constrictions, forming movable rings; but the +character of the animal, its striking features, are always above or below, +and especially developed on the back. Any collection of Insects or +Crustacea is an evidence of this; being always instinctively arranged in +such a manner as to show the predominant features, they uniformly exhibit +the back of the animal. The profile view of an Articulate has no +significance; whereas in a Mollusk, on the contrary, the profile view is +the most illustrative of the structural character. In the highest +division, the _Vertebrates_, so characteristically called by Baer the +_Doubly Symmetrical_ type, a solid column runs through the body with an +arch above and an arch below, thus forming a double internal cavity. In +this type, the head is the prominent feature; it is, as it were, the +loaded end of the longitudinal axis, so charged with vitality as to form +an intelligent brain, and rising in man to such predominance as to command +and control the whole organism. The structure is arranged above and below +this axis, the upper cavity containing all the sensitive organs, and the +lower cavity containing all those by which life is maintained. + +While Cuvier and his followers traced these four distinct plans, as shown +in the adult animal, Baer opened to us a new field of investigation in the +embryology of the four types, showing that for each there was a special +mode of growth in the egg. Looking at them from this point of view, we +shall see that these four types, with their four modes of growth, seem to +fill out completely the plan or outline of the animal kingdom, and leave +no reason to expect any further development or any other plan of animal +life within these limits. The eggs of all animals are spheres, such as I +have described them; but in the Radiate the whole periphery is transformed +into the germ, so that it becomes, by the liquefying of the yolk, a hollow +sphere. In the Mollusks, the germ lies above the yolk, absorbing its whole +substance through the under side, thus forming a massive close body +instead of a hollow one. In the Articulate, the germ is turned in a +position exactly opposite to that of the Mollusk, and absorbs the yolk +upon the back. In the Vertebrate, the germ divides in two folds, one +turning upward, the other turning downward, above and below the central +backbone. These four modes of development seem to exhaust the +possibilities of the primitive sphere, which is the foundation of all +animal life, and therefore I believe that Cuvier and Baer were right in +saying that the whole animal kingdom is included under these four +structural ideas. + +Leuckart proposed to subdivide the Radiates into two groups: the +Coelenterata, including Polyps and Acalephs or Jelly-Fishes,--and +Echinoderms, including Star-Fishes, Sea-Urchins, and Holothurians. His +reason for this distinction is the fact that in the latter the organs are +inclosed within walls of their own, distinct from the body-wall; whereas +in the former the organs are formed by internal folds of the outer wall of +the body, as in the Polyps, or are hollowed out of the substance of the +body, as in Jelly-Fishes. This implies no difference in the plan, but +merely a difference in the execution of the plan. Both are equally radiate +in their structure; and when Leuckart separated them as distinct primary +types, he mistook a difference in the material expression of the plan for +a difference in the plan itself. So some naturalists have distinguished +Worms from the other Articulates as a separate division. But the +structural plan of this type is a body divided by transverse constrictions +or joints; and whether those joints are uniformly arranged from one end of +the body to the other, as in the Worms, or whether the front joints are +soldered together so as to form two regions of the body, as in Crustacea, +or divided so as to form three regions of the body, as in winged Insects, +does not in the least affect the typical character of the structure, which +remains the same in all. Branches or types, then, are natural groups of +the animal kingdom, founded on plans of structure or structural ideas. + +What now are classes? Are they lesser divisions, differing only in extent, +or are they founded on special characters? I believe the latter view to be +the true one, and that class characters have a significance quite +different from that of their mere range or extent. These divisions are +founded on certain categories of structure; and were there but one animal +of a class in the world, if it had those characters on which a class is +founded, it would be as distinct from all other animals as if its kind +were counted by thousands. Baer approached the idea of the classes when he +discriminated between plan of structure or type and the degree of +perfection in the structure. But while he understands the distinction +between a plan and its execution, his ideas respecting the different +features of structure are not quite so precise. He does not, for instance, +distinguish between the complication of a given structure and the mode of +execution of a plan, both of which are combined in what he calls degrees +of perfection. And yet, without this distinction, the difference between +classes and orders cannot be understood; for classes and orders rest upon +a just appreciation of these two categories, which are quite distinct from +each other, and have by no means the same significance. Again, quite +distinct from both of these is the character of form, not to be confounded +either with complication of structure, on which orders are based, or with +the execution of the plan, on which classes rest. An example will show +that form is no guide for the determination of classes or orders. Take, +for instance, a Beche-de-Mer, a member of the highest class of Radiates, +and compare it with a Worm. They are both long cylindrical bodies; but one +has parallel divisions along the length of the body, the other has the +body divided by transverse rings. Though in external form they resemble +each other, the one is a worm-like Radiate, the other is a worm-like +Articulate, each having the structure of its own type; so that they do not +even belong to the same great division of the animal kingdom, much less to +the same class. We have a similar instance in the Whales and Fishes,--the +Whales having been for a long time considered as Fishes, on account of +their form, while their structural complication shows them to be a low +order of the class of Mammalia, to which we ourselves belong, that class +being founded upon a particular mode of execution of the plan +characteristic of the Vertebrates, while the order to which the Whales +belong depends upon their complication of structure, as compared with +other members of the same class. We may therefore say that neither form +nor complication of structure distinguishes classes, but simply the mode +of execution of a plan. In Vertebrates, for instance, how do we +distinguish the class of Mammalia from the other classes of the type? By +the peculiar development of the brain, by their breathing through lungs, +by their double circulation, by their bringing forth living young and +nursing them with milk. In this class the beasts of prey form a distinct +order, superior to the Whales or the herbivorous animals, on account of +the higher complication of their structure; and for the same reason we +place the Monkeys above them all. But among the beasts of prey we +distinguish the Bears, as a family, from the family of Dogs, Wolves, and +Cats, on account of their different form, which does not imply a +difference either in the complication of their structure or in the mode of +execution of their plan. + + * * * * * + + + + +AGNES OF SORRENTO. + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +THE PENANCE. + + +The course of our story requires us to return to the Capuchin convent, and +to the struggles and trials of its Superior; for in his hands is the +irresistible authority which must direct the future life of Agnes. + +From no guilty compliances, no heedless running into temptation, had he +come to love her. The temptation had met him in the direct path of duty; +the poison had been breathed in with the perfume of sweetest and most +life-giving flowers: nor could he shun that temptation, nor cease to +inhale that fatal sweetness, without confessing himself vanquished in a +point where, in his view, to yield was to be lost. The subtle and +deceitful visit of Father Johannes to his cell had the effect of +thoroughly rousing him to a complete sense of his position, and making him +feel the immediate, absolute necessity of bringing all the energy of his +will, all the resources of his nature to bear on its present difficulties. +For he felt, by a fine intuition, that already he was watched and +suspected;--any faltering step now, any wavering, any change in his mode +of treating his female penitents, would be maliciously noted. The military +education of his early days had still left in his mind a strong residuum +of personal courage and honor, which made him regard it as dastardly to +flee when he ought to conquer, and therefore he set his face as a flint +for victory. + +But reviewing his interior world, and taking a survey of the work before +him, he felt that sense of a divided personality which often becomes so +vivid in the history of individuals of strong will and passion. It seemed +to him that there were two men within him: the one turbulent, passionate, +demented; the other vainly endeavoring by authority, reason, and +conscience to bring the rebel to subjection. The discipline of conventual +life, the extraordinary austerities to which he had condemned himself, the +monotonous solitude of his existence, all tended to exalt the vivacity of +the nervous system, which, in the Italian constitution, is at all times +disproportionately developed; and when those weird harp-strings of the +nerves are once thoroughly unstrung, the fury and tempest of the discord +sometimes utterly bewilders the most practised self-government. + +But he felt that _something_ must be done with himself, and done +immediately; for in a few days he must again meet Agnes at the +confessional. He must meet her, not with weak tremblings and passionate +fears, but calm as Fate, inexorable as the Judgment-Day. He must hear her +confession, not as man, but as God; he must pronounce his judgments with a +divine dispassionateness. He must dive into the recesses of her secret +heart, and, following with subtile analysis all the fine courses of those +fibres which were feeling their blind way towards an earthly love, must +tear them remorselessly away. Well could he warn her of the insidiousness +of earthly affections; better than any one else he could show her how a +name that was blended with her prayers and borne before the sacred shrine +in her most retired and solemn hours might at last come to fill all her +heart with a presence too dangerously dear. He must direct her gaze up +those mystical heights where an unearthly marriage awaited her, its sealed +and spiritual bride; he must hurry her footsteps onward to the irrevocable +issue. + +All this was before him. But ere it could be done, he must subdue +himself,--he must become calm and pulseless, in deadly resolve; and what +prayer, what penance might avail for this? If all that he had already +tried had so miserably failed, what hope? He resolved to quit for a season +all human society, and enter upon one of those desolate periods of retreat +from earthly converse well known in the annals of saintship as most +prolific in spiritual victories. + +Accordingly, on the day after the conversation with Father Johannes, he +startled the monks by announcing to them that he was going to leave them +for several days. + +"My brothers," he said, "the weight of a fearful penance is laid upon me, +which I must work out alone. I leave you today, and charge you not to +seek to follow my footsteps; but, as you hope to escape hell, watch and +wrestle for me and yourselves during the time I am gone. Before many days +I hope to return to you with renewed spiritual strength." + +That evening, while Agnes and her uncle were sitting together in their +orange-garden, mingling their parting prayers and hymns, scenes of a very +different description surrounded the Father Francesco. + +One who looks on the flowery fields and blue seas of this enchanting +region thinks that the Isles of the Blest could scarcely find on earth a +more fitting image; nor can he realize, till experience proves it to him, +that he is in the immediate vicinity of a weird and dreary region which +might represent no less the goblin horrors of the damned. + +Around the foot of Vesuvius lie fair villages and villas garlanded with +roses and flushing with grapes whose juice gains warmth from the breathing +of its subterraneous fires, while just above them rises a region more +awful than can be created by the action of any common causes of sterility. + There, immense tracts sloping gradually upward show a desolation so +peculiar, so utterly unlike every common solitude of Nature, that one +enters upon it with the shudder we give at that which is wholly unnatural. +On all sides are gigantic serpent convolutions of black lava, their +immense folds rolled into every conceivable contortion, as if, in their +fiery agonies, they had struggled and wreathed and knotted together, and +then grown cold and black with the imperishable signs of those terrific +convulsions upon them. Not a blade of grass, not a flower, not even the +hardiest lichen, springs up to relieve the utter deathliness of the scene. + The eye wanders from one black, shapeless mass to another, and there is +ever the same suggestion of hideous monster life,--of goblin convulsions +and strange fiend-like agonies in some age gone by. One's very footsteps +have an unnatural, metallic clink, and one's garments brushing over the +rough surface are torn and fretted by its sharp, remorseless touch,--as if +its very nature were so pitiless and acrid that the slightest contact +revealed it. + +The sun was just setting over the beautiful Bay of Naples,--with its +enchanted islands, its jewelled city, its flowery villages, all bedecked +and bedropped with strange shiftings and flushes of prismatic light and +shade, as if they belonged to some fairy-land of perpetual festivity and +singing,--when Father Francesco stopped in his toilsome ascent up the +mountain, and, seating himself on ropy ridges of black lava, looked down +on the peaceful landscape. + +Above his head, behind him, rose the black cone of the mountain, over +whose top the lazy clouds of thin white smoke were floating, tinged with +the evening light; around him the desolate convulsed waste,--so arid, so +supernaturally dreary; and below, like a soft enchanted dream, the +beautiful bay, the gleaming white villas and towers, the picturesque +islands, the gliding sails, flecked and streaked and dyed with the violet +and pink and purple of the evening sky. The thin new moon and one +glittering star trembled through the rosy air. + +The monk wiped from his brow the sweat that had been caused by the toil of +his hurried journey, and listened to the bells of the Ave Maria pealing +from the different churches of Naples, filling the atmosphere with a soft +tremble of solemn dropping sound, as if spirits in the air took up and +repeated over and over the angelic salutation which a thousand earthly +lips were just then uttering. Mechanically he joined in the invocation +which at that moment united the hearts of all Christians, and as the words +passed his lips, he thought, with a sad, desolate longing, of the hour of +death of which they spake. + +"It must come at last," he said. "Life is but a moment. Why am I so +cowardly? why so unwilling to suffer and to struggle? Am I a warrior of +the Lord, and do I shrink from the toils of the camp, and long for the +ease of the court before I have earned it? Why do we clamor for happiness? +Why should we sinners be happy? And yet, O God, why is the world made so +lovely as it lies there, why so rejoicing, and so girt with splendor and +beauty, if we are never to enjoy it? If penance and toil were all we were +sent here for, why not make a world grim and desolate as this around +me?--then there would be nothing to seduce us. But our path is a constant +fight; Nature is made only to be resisted; we must walk the sharp blade of +the sword over the fiery chasm to Paradise. Come, then!--no +shrinking!--let me turn my back on everything dear and beautiful, as now +on this landscape!" + +He rose and commenced the perpendicular ascent of the cone, stumbling and +climbing over the huge sliding blocks of broken lava, which grated and +crunched beneath his feet with a harsh metallic ring. Sometimes a broken +fragment or two would go tinkling down the rough path behind him, and +sometimes it seemed as if the whole loose black mass from above were about +to slide, like an avalanche, down upon his head;--he almost hoped it +would. Sometimes he would stop, overcome by the toil of the ascent, and +seat himself for a moment on a black fragment, and then his eye would +wander over the wide and peaceful panorama below. He seemed to himself +like a fly perched upon some little roughness of a perpendicular wall, and +felt a strange airy sense of pleasure in being thus between earth and +heaven. A sense of relief, of beauty, and peacefulness would steal over +him, as if he were indeed something disfranchised and disembodied, a part +of the harmonious and beautiful world that lay stretched out beneath him; +in a moment more he would waken himself with a start, and resume his +toilsome journey with a sullen and dogged perseverance. + +At last he gained the top of the mountain,--that weird, strange region +where the loose, hot soil, crumbling beneath his feet, was no honest +foodful mother earth, but an acrid mass of ashes and corrosive minerals. +Arsenic, sulphur, and many a sharp and bitter salt were in all he touched, +every rift in the ground hissed with stifling steam, while rolling clouds +of dun sullen smoke, and a deep hollow booming, like the roar of an +immense furnace, told his nearness to the great crater. He penetrated the +sombre tabernacle, and stood on the very brink of a huge basin, formed by +a wall of rocks around a sunken plain, the midst of which rose the black +cone of the subterraneous furnace, which crackled and roared and from time +to time spit up burning stones and cinders or oozed out slow ropy streams +of liquid fire. + +The sulphurous cliffs were dyed in many a brilliant shade of brown and +orange by the admixture of various ores, but their brightness seemed +strange and unnatural, and the dizzying whirls of vapor, now enveloping +the whole scene in gloom, now lifting in this spot and now in that, seemed +to magnify the dismal pit to an indefinite size. Now and then there would +come up from the very entrails of the mountain a sort of convulsed sob of +hollow sound, and the earth would quiver beneath his feet, and fragments +from the surrounding rocks would scale off and fall with crashing +reverberations into the depth beneath; at such moments it would seem as if +the very mountain were about to crush in and bear him down in its ruins. + +Father Francesco, though blinded by the smoke and choked by the vapor, +could not be content without descending into the abyss and exploring the +very _penetralia_ of its mysteries. Steadying his way by means of a cord +which he fastened to a firm projecting rock, he began slowly and painfully +clambering downward. The wind was sweeping across the chasm from behind, +bearing the noxious vapors away from him, or he must inevitably have been +stifled. It took him some little time, however, to effect his descent; but +at length he found himself fairly landed on the dark floor of the gloomy +inclosure. + +The ropy, pitch-black undulations of lava yawned here and there in red-hot +cracks and seams, making it appear to be only a crust over some fathomless +depth of molten fire, whose moanings and boilings could be heard below. +These dark congealed billows creaked and bent as the monk stepped upon +them, and burned his feet through his coarse sandals; yet he stumbled on. +Now and then his foot would crush in, where the lava had hardened in a +thinner crust, and he would draw it suddenly back from the lurid red-hot +metal beneath. The staff on which he rested was constantly kindling into a +light blaze as it slipped into some heated hollow, and he was fain to beat +out the fire upon the cooler surface. Still he went on half-stifled by the +hot and pungent vapor, but drawn by that painful, unnatural curiosity +which possesses one in a nightmare dream. The great cone in the centre was +the point to which he wished to attain,--the nearest point which man can +gain to this eternal mystery of fire. It was trembling with a perpetual +vibration, a hollow, pulsating undertone of sound like the surging of the +sea before a storm, and the lava that boiled over its sides rolled slowly +down with a strange creaking; it seemed the condensed, intensified essence +and expression of eternal fire, rising and still rising from some +inexhaustible fountain of burning. + +Father Francesco drew as near as he could for the stifling heat and vapor, +and, resting on his staff, stood gazing intently. The lurid light of the +fire fell with an unearthly glare on his pale, sunken features, his wild, +haggard eyes, and his torn and disarranged garments. In the awful solitude +and silence of the night he felt his heart stand still, as if indeed he +had touched with his very hand the gates of eternal woe, and felt its +fiery breath upon his cheek. He half-imagined that the seams and clefts +which glowed in lurid lines between the dark billows would gape yet wider +and show the blasting secrets of some world of fiery despair below. He +fancied that he heard behind and around the mocking laugh of fiends, and +that confused clamor of mingled shrieks and lamentations which Dante +describes as filling the dusky approaches to that forlorn realm where hope +never enters. + +"Ah, God," he exclaimed, "for this vain life of man! They eat, they drink, +they dance, they sing, they marry and are given in marriage, they have +castles and gardens and villas, and the very beauty of Paradise seems over +it all,--and yet how close by burns and roars the eternal fire! Fools that +we are, to clamor for indulgence and happiness in this life, when the +question is, to escape everlasting burnings! If I tremble at this outer +court of God's wrath and justice, what must be the fires of hell? These +are but earthly fires; they can but burn the body: those are made to burn +the soul; they are undying as the soul is. What would it be to be dragged +down, down, down, into an abyss of soul-fire hotter than this for ages on +ages? This might bring merciful death in time: that will have no end." + +The monk fell on his knees and breathed out piercing supplications. Every +nerve and fibre within him seemed tense with his agony of prayer. It was +not the outcry for purity and peace, not a tender longing for forgiveness, +not a filial remorse for sin, but the nervous anguish of him who shrieks +in the immediate apprehension of an unendurable torture. It was the cry of +a man upon the rack, the despairing scream of him who feels himself +sinking in a burning dwelling. Such anguish has found an utterance in +Stradella's celebrated "Pietà, Signore," which still tells to our ears, in +its wild moans and piteous shrieks, the religious conceptions of his day; +for there is no phase of the Italian mind that has not found expression in +its music. + +When the oppression of the heat and sulphurous vapor became too dreadful +to be borne, the monk retraced his way and climbed with difficulty up the +steep sides of the crater, till he gained the summit above, where a +comparatively free air revived him. All night he wandered up and down in +that dreary vicinity, now listening to the mournful roar and crackle of +the fire, and now raising his voice in penitential psalms or the notes of +that terrific "Dies Iræ" which sums up all the intense fear and horror +with which the religion of the Middle Ages clothed the idea of the final +catastrophe of humanity. Sometimes prostrating himself with his face +towards the stifling soil, he prayed with agonized intensity till Nature +would sink in a temporary collapse, and sleep, in spite of himself, would +steal over him. + +So waned the gloomy hours of the night away, till the morning broke in the +east, turning all the blue wavering floor of the sea to crimson +brightness, and bringing up, with the rising breeze, the barking of dogs, +the lowing of kine, the songs of laborers and boatmen, all fresh and +breezy from the repose of the past night. + +Father Francesco heard the sound of approaching footsteps climbing the +lava path, and started with a nervous trepidation. Soon he recognized a +poor peasant of the vicinity, whose child he had tended during a dangerous +illness. He bore with him a little basket of eggs, with a melon and a +fresh green salad. + +"Good morning, holy father," he said, bowing humbly. "I saw you coming +this way last night, and I could hardly sleep for thinking of you; and my +good woman, Teresina, would have it that I should come out to look after +you. I have taken the liberty to bring a little offering;--it was the best +we had." + +"Thank you, my son," said the monk, looking wistfully at the fresh, honest +face of the peasant. "You have taken too much trouble for such a sinner. I +must not allow myself such indulgences." + +"But your Reverence must live. Look you," said the peasant, "at least your +Reverence will take an egg. See here, how handily I can cook one," he +added, striking his stick into a little cavity of a rock, from which, as +from an escape-valve, hissed a jet of hot steam,--"see here, I nestle the +egg in this little cleft, and it will be done in a twinkling. Our good God +gives us our fire for nothing here." + +There was something wholesomely kindly and cheerful in the action and +expression of the man, which broke upon the overstrained and disturbed +musings of the monk like daylight on a ghastly dream. The honest, loving +heart sees love in everything; even the fire is its fatherly helper, and +not its avenging enemy. + +Father Francesco took the egg, when it was done, with a silent gesture of +thanks. + +"If I might make bold to say," said the peasant, encouraged, "your +Reverence should have some care for yourself. If a man will not feed +himself, the good God will not feed him; and we poor people have too few +friends already to let such as you die. Your hands are trembling, and you +look worn out. Surely you should take something more, for the very love of +the poor." + +"My son, I am bound to do a heavy penance, and to work out a great +conflict. I thank you for your undeserved kindness. Leave me now to +myself, and come no more to disturb my prayers. Go, and God bless you!" + +"Well," said the peasant, putting down the basket and melon, "I shall +leave these things here, any way, and I beg your Reverence to have a care +of yourself. Teresina fretted all night for fear something might come to +you. The bambino that you cured is grown a stout little fellow, and eats +enough for two,--and it is all of you; so she cannot forget it. She is a +busy little woman, is Teresina; and when she gets a thought in her head, +it buzzes, buzzes, like a fly in a bottle, and she will have it your +Reverence is killing yourself by inches, and says she, 'What will all the +poor do when he is gone?' So your Reverence must pardon us. We mean it all +for the best." + +So saying, the man turned and began sliding and slipping down the steep +ashy sides of the mountain cone with a dexterity which carried him to the +bottom in a few moments; and on he went, sending back after him a cheerful +little air, the refrain of which is still to be heard in our days in that +neighborhood. A word or two of the gay song fluttered back on the ear of +the monk,-- + + "Tutta gieja, tutta festa." + +So gay and airy it was in its ringing cadence that it seemed a musical +laugh springing from sunny skies, and came fluttering into the dismal +smoke and gloom of the mountain-top like a very butterfly of sound. It +struck on the sad, leaden ear of the monk much as we might fancy the carol +of a robin over a grave might seem, could the cold sleeper below wake one +moment to its perception. If it woke one regretful sigh and drew one +wandering look downward to the elysian paradise that lay smiling at the +foot of the mountain, he instantly suppressed the feeling, and set his +face in its old deathly stillness. + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +CLOUDS DEEPENING. + + +After the departure of her uncle to Florence, the life of Agnes was +troubled and harassed from a variety of causes. + +First, her grandmother was sulky and moody, and though saying nothing +directly on the topic nearest her heart, yet intimating by every look and +action that she considered Agnes as a most ungrateful and contumacious +child. Then there was a constant internal perplexity,--a constant wearying +course of self-interrogation and self-distrust, the pain of a sensitive +spirit which doubts at every moment whether it may not be falling into +sin. The absence of her kind uncle at this time took from her the +strongest support on which she had leaned in her perplexities. Cheerful, +airy, and elastic in his temperament, always full of fresh-springing and +beautiful thoughts, as an Italian dell is of flowers, the charming old man +seemed, while he stayed with Agnes, to be the door of a new and fairer +world, where she could walk in air and sunshine, and find utterance for a +thousand thoughts and feelings which at all other times lay in cold +repression in her heart. His counsels were always so wholesome, his +sympathies so quick, his devotion so fervent and cheerful, that while with +him Agnes felt the burden of her life insensibly lifted and carried for +her as by some angel guide. + +Now they had all come back upon her, heavier a thousand-fold than ever +they had been before. Never did she so much need counsel and +guidance,--never had she so much within herself to be solved and made +plain to her own comprehension; yet she thought with a strange shiver of +her next visit to her confessor. That austere man, so chilling, so awful, +so far above all conception of human weaknesses, how should she dare to +lay before him all the secrets of her breast, especially when she must +confess to having disobeyed his most stringent commands? She had had +another interview with this forbidden son of perdition, but how it was she +knew not. How could such things have happened? Instead of shutting her +eyes and turning her head and saying prayers, she had listened to a +passionate declaration of love, and his last word had called her his wife. +Her heart thrilled every time she thought of it; and somehow she could not +feel sure that it was exactly a thrill of penitence. It was all like a +strange dream to her; and sometimes she looked at her little brown hands +and wondered if he really had kissed them,--he, the splendid strange +vision of a man, the prince from fairyland! Agnes had never read romances, +it is true, but she had been brought up on the legends of the saints, and +there never was a marvel possible to human conception that had not been +told there. Princes had come from China and Barbary and Abyssinia and +every other strange out-of-the-way place, to kneel at the feet of fair, +obdurate saints who would not even turn the head to look at them; but she +had acted, she was conscious, after a much more mortal fashion, and so +made herself work for confession and penance. Yet certainly she had not +meant to do so; the interview came on her so suddenly, so unexpectedly; +and somehow he _would_ speak, and he would not go when she asked him to; +and she remembered how he looked when he stood right before her in the +doorway and told her she _should_ hear him,--how the color flushed up in +his cheeks, what a fire there was in his great dark eyes; he looked as if +he were going to do something desperate then; it made her hold her breath +even now to think of it. + +"These princes and nobles," she thought, "are so used to command, it is no +wonder they make us feel as if they must have their will. I have heard +grandmother call them wolves and vultures, that are ready to tear us poor +folk to pieces; but I am sure he seems gentle. I'm sure it isn't wicked or +cruel for him to want to make me his wife; and he couldn't know, of +course, why it wasn't right he should; and it really is beautiful of him +to love me so. Oh, if I were only a princess, and he loved me that way, +how glad I should be to give up everything and go to him alone! And then +we would pray together; and I really think that would be much better than +praying all alone. He said men had so much more to tempt them. Ah, that is +true! How can little moles that grub in the ground know of the dangers of +eagles that fly to the very sun? Holy Mother, look mercifully upon him and +save his soul!" + +Such were the thoughts of Agnes the day when she was preparing for her +confession; and all the way to church she found them floating and +dissolving and reappearing in new forms in her mind, like the silvery +smoke-clouds which were constantly veering and sailing over Vesuvius. + +Only one thing was firm and never changing, and that was the purpose to +reveal everything to her spiritual director. When she kneeled at the +confessional with closed eyes, and began her whispered acknowledgments, +she tried to feel as if she were speaking in the ear of God alone,--that +God whose spirit she was taught to believe, for the time being, was +present in His minister before whom her inmost heart was to be unveiled. + +He who sat within had just returned from his lonely retreat with his mind +and nerves in a state of unnatural tension,--a sort of ecstatic clearness +and calmness, which he mistook for victory and peace. During those lonely +days when he had wandered afar from human converse, and was surrounded +only by objects of desolation and gloom, he had passed through as many +phases of strange, unnatural experience as there were flitting +smoke-wreaths eddying about him. + +There are depths in man's nature and his possibilities which no plummet +has ever sounded,--the wild, lonely joys of fanatical excitement, the +perfectly ravenous appetite for self-torture, which seems able, in time, +to reverse the whole human system, and make a heaven of hell. How else can +we understand the facts related both in Hindoo and in Christian story, of +those men and women who have found such strange raptures in slow tortures, +prolonged from year to year, till pain became a habit of body and mind? It +is said, that, after the tortures of the rack, the reaction of the +overstrained nerves produces a sense of the most exquisite relief and +repose; and so when mind and body are harrowed, harassed to the very outer +verge of endurance, come wild throbbings and transports, and strange +celestial clairvoyance, which the mystic hails as the descent of the New +Jerusalem into his soul. + +It had seemed to Father Francesco, when he came down from the mountain, +that he had left his body behind him,--that he had left earth and earthly +things; his very feet touching the ground seemed to tread not on rough, +resisting soil, but upon elastic cloud. He saw a strange excess of beauty +in every flower, in every leaf, in the wavering blue of the sea, in the +red grottoed rocks that overhung the shore, with their purple, green, +orange, and yellow hangings of flower-and-leaf-tapestry. The songs of the +fishermen on the beach, the peasant-girls cutting flowery fodder for the +cattle, all seemed to him to have an unnatural charm. As one looking +through a prism sees a fine bordering of rainbow on every object, so he +beheld a glorified world. His former self seemed to him something forever +past and gone. He looked at himself as at another person, who had sinned +and suffered, and was now resting in beatified repose; and he fondly +thought all this was firm reality, and believed that he was now proof +against all earthly impressions, able to hear and to judge with the +dispassionate calmness of a disembodied spirit. He did not know that this +high-strung calmness, this fine clearness, were only the most intense form +of nervous sensibility, and as vividly susceptible to every mortal +impression as is the vitalized chemical plate to the least action of the +sun's rays. + +When Agnes began her confession, her voice seemed to him to pass through +every nerve; it seemed as if he could feel her presence thrilling through +the very wood of the confessional. He was astonished and dismayed at his +own emotion. But when she began to speak of the interview with the +cavalier, he trembled from head to foot with uncontrollable passion. +Nature long repressed came back in a tempestuous reaction. He crossed +himself again and again, he tried to pray, and blessed those protecting +shadows which concealed his emotion from the unconscious one by his side. +But he set his teeth in deadly resolve, and his voice, as he questioned +her, came forth cutting and cold as ice crystals. + +"Why did you listen to a word?" + +"My father, it was so sudden. He wakened me from sleep. I answered him +before I thought." + +"You should not have been sleeping. It was a sinful indolence." + +"Yes, my father." + +"See now to what it led. The enemy of your soul, ever watching, seized +this moment to tempt you." + +"Yes, my father." + +"Examine your soul well," said Father Francesco, in a tone of austere +severity that made Agnes tremble. "Did you not find a secret pleasure in +his words?" + +"My father, I fear I did," said she, with a trembling voice. + +"I knew it! I knew it!" the priest muttered to himself, while the great +drops started on his forehead, in the intensity of the conflict he +repressed. Agnes thought the solemn pause that followed was caused by the +horror that had been inspired by her own sinfulness. + +"You did not, then, heartily and truly wish him to go from you?" pursued +the cold, severe voice. + +"Yes, my father, I did. I wished him to go with all my soul." + +"Yet you say you found pleasure in his being near you," said Father +Francesco, conscious how every string of his own being, even in this awful +hour, was vibrating with a sort of desperate, miserable joy in being once +more near to her. + +"Ah," sighed Agnes, "that is true, my father,--woe is me! Please tell me +how I could have helped it. I was pleased before I knew it." + +"And you have been thinking of what he said to you with pleasure since?" +pursued the confessor, with an intense severity of manner, deepening as he +spoke. + +"I _have_ thought of it," faltered Agnes. + +"Beware how you trifle with the holy sacrament! Answer frankly. You have +thought of it with _pleasure_. Confess it." + +"I do not understand myself exactly," said Agnes. "I have thought of it +partly with pleasure and partly with pain." + +"Would you like to go with him and be his wife, as he said?" + +"If it were right, father,--not otherwise." + +"Oh, foolish child! oh, blinded soul! to think of right in connection with +an infidel and heretic! Do you not see that all this is an artifice of +Satan? He can transform himself into an angel of light. Do you suppose +this heretic would be brought back to the Church by a foolish girl? Do you +suppose it is your prayers he wants? Why does, he not seek the prayers of +the Church,--of holy men who have power with God? He would bait his hook +with this pretence that he may catch your soul. Do you believe me?" + +"I am bound to believe you, my father." + +"But you do not. Your heart is going after this wicked man." + +"Oh, my father, I do not wish it should. I never wish or expect to see him +more. I only pray for him that his soul may not be lost." + +"He has gone, then?" + +"Yes, my father. And he went with my uncle, a most holy monk, who has +undertaken the work of his salvation. He listens to my uncle, who has +hopes of restoring him to the Church." + +"That is well. And now, my daughter, listen to me. You must root out of +your thought every trace and remembrance of these words of sinful earthly +love which he hath spoken. Such love would burn your soul to all eternity +with fire that never could be quenched. If you can tear away all roots and +traces of this from your heart, if by fasting and prayer and penance you +can become worthy to be a bride of your divine Lord, then your prayers +will gain power, and you may prevail to secure his eternal salvation. But +listen to me, daughter,--listen and tremble! If ever you should yield to +his love and turn back from this heavenly marriage to follow him, you will +accomplish his damnation and your own; to all eternity he will curse you, +while the fire rages and consumes him,--he will curse the hour that he +first saw you." + +These words were spoken with an intense vehemence which seemed almost +supernatural. Agnes shivered and trembled; a vague feeling of guilt +overwhelmed and disheartened her; she seemed to herself the most lost and +abandoned of human beings. + +"My father, I shall think no penance too severe that may restore my soul +from this sin. I have already made a vow to the blessed Mother that I will +walk on foot to the Holy City, praying in every shrine and holy place; and +I humbly ask your approval." + +This announcement brought to the mind of the monk a sense of relief and +deliverance. He felt already, in the terrible storm of agitation which +this confession had aroused within him, that nature was not dead, and that +he was infinitely farther from the victory of passionless calm than he had +supposed. He was still a man,--torn with human passions, with a love which +he must never express, and a jealousy which burned and writhed at every +word which he had wrung from its unconscious object. Conscience had begun +to whisper in his ear that there would be no safety to him in continuing +this spiritual dictatorship to one whose every word unmanned him,--that it +was laying himself open to a ceaseless temptation, which in some blinded, +dreary hour of evil might hurry him into acts of horrible sacrilege; and +he was once more feeling that wild, stormy revolt of his inner nature that +so distressed him before he left the convent. + +This proposition of Agnes' struck him as a compromise. It would take her +from him only for a season, she would go under his care and direction, and +he would gradually recover his calmness and self-possession in her +absence. Her pilgrimage to the holy places would be a most proper and fit +preparation for the solemn marriage-rite which should forever sunder her +from all human ties and make her inaccessible to all solicitations of +human love. Therefore, after an interval of silence, he answered,-- + +"Daughter, your plan is approved. Such pilgrimages have ever been held +meritorious works in the Church, and there is a special blessing upon +them." + +"My father," said Agnes, "it has always been in my heart from my childhood +to be the bride of the Lord; but my grandmother, who brought me up, and to +whom I owe the obedience of a daughter, utterly forbids me: she will not +hear a word of it. No longer ago than last Monday she told me I might as +well put a knife into her heart as speak of this." + +"And you, daughter, do you put the feelings of any earthly friend before +the love of your Lord and Creator who laid down His life for you? Hear +what He saith:--'He that loveth father or mother more than me is not +worthy of me.'" + +"But my poor old grandmother has no one but me in the world, and she has +never slept a night without me; she is getting old, and she has worked for +me all her good days;--it would be very hard for her to lose me." + +"Ah, false, deceitful heart! Has, then, thy Lord not labored for thee? Has +He not borne thee through all the years of thy life? And wilt thou put the +love of any mortal before His?" + +"Yes," replied Agnes, with a sort of hardy sweetness,--"but my Lord does +not need me as grandmother does; He is in glory, and will never be old or +feeble; I cannot work for Him and tend Him as I shall her. I cannot see my +way clear at present; but when she is gone, or if the saints move her to +consent, I shall then belong to God alone." + +"Daughter, there is some truth in your words; and if your Lord accepts +you, He will dispose her heart. Will she go with you on this pilgrimage?" + +"I have prayed that she might, father,--that her soul may be quickened; +for I fear me, dear old grandmamma has found her love for me a snare,--she +has thought too much of my interests and too little of her own soul, poor +grandmamma!" + +"Well, child, I shall enjoin this pilgrimage on her as a penance." + +"I have grievously offended her lately," said Agnes, "in rejecting an +offer of marriage with a man on whom she had set her heart, and therefore +she does not listen to me as she is wont to do." + +"You have done right in refusing, my daughter. I will speak to her of +this, and show her how great is the sin of opposing a holy vocation in a +soul whom the Lord calls to Himself, and enjoin her to make reparation by +uniting with you in this holy work." + +Agnes departed from the confessional without even looking upon the face of +her director, who sat within listening to the rustle of her dress as she +rose,--listening to the soft fall of her departing footsteps, and praying +that grace might be given him not to look after her: and he did not, +though he felt as if his life were going with her. + +Agnes tripped round the aisle to a little side-chapel where a light was +always kept burning by her before a picture of Saint Agnes, and, kneeling +there, waited till her grandmother should be through with her confession. + +"Ah, sweet Saint Agnes," she said, "pity me! I am a poor ignorant young +girl, and have been led into grievous sin; but I did not mean to do +wrong,--I have been trying to do right; pray for me, that I may overcome +as you did. Pray our dear Lord to send you with us on this pilgrimage, and +save us from all wicked and brutal men who would do us harm. As the Lord +delivered you in sorest straits, keeping soul and body pure as a lily, ah, +pray Him to keep me! I love you dearly,--watch over me and guide me." + +In those days of the Church, such addresses to the glorified saints had +become common among all Christians. They were not regarded as worship, any +more than a similar outpouring of confidence to a beloved and revered +friend yet in the body. Among the hymns of Savonarola is one addressed to +Saint Mary Magdalen, whom he regarded with an especial veneration. The +great truth, that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, that +_all_ live to Him, was in those ages with the truly religious a part of +spiritual consciousness. The saints of the Church Triumphant, having +become one with Christ as he is one with the Father, were regarded as +invested with a portion of his divinity, and as the ministering agency +through which his mediatorial government on earth was conducted; and it +was thought to be in the power of the sympathetic heart to attract them by +the outflow of its affections, so that their presence often overshadowed +the walks of daily life with a cloud of healing and protecting sweetness. + +If the enthusiasm of devotion in regard to these invisible friends became +extravagant and took the language due to God alone, it was no more than +the fervid Italian nature was always doing with regard to visible objects +of affection. Love with an Italian always tends to become worship, and +some of the language of the poets addressed to earthly loves rises into +intensities of expression due only to the One, Sovereign, Eternal Beauty. +One sees even in the writings of Cicero that this passionate adoring kind +of love is not confined to modern times. When he loses the daughter in +whom his heart is garnered up, he finds no comfort except in building a +temple to her memory,--a blind outreaching towards the saint-worship of +modern times. + +Agnes rose from her devotions, and went with downcast eyes, her lips still +repeating prayers, to the font of holy water, which was in a dim shadowy +corner, where a painted window cast a gold and violet twilight. Suddenly +there was a rustle of garments in the dimness, and a jewelled hand essayed +to pass holy water to her on the tip of its finger. This mark of Christian +fraternity, common in those times, Agnes almost mechanically accepted, +touching her slender finger to the one extended, and making the sign of +the cross, while she raised her eyes to see who stood there. Gradually the +haze cleared from her mind, and she awoke to the consciousness that it was +the cavalier! He moved to come towards her, with a bright smile on his +face; but suddenly she became pale as one who has seen a spectre, and, +pushing from her with both hands, she said faintly, "Go, go!" and turned +and sped up the aisle silently as a sunbeam, joining her grandmother, who +was coming from the confessional with a gloomy and sullen brow. + +Old Elsie had been enjoined to unite with her grandchild in this scheme of +a pilgrimage, and received the direction with as much internal contumacy +as would a thriving church-member of Wall Street a proposition to attend a +protracted meeting in the height of the business season. Not but that +pilgrimages were holy and gracious works,--she was too good a Christian +not to admit that,--but why must holy and gracious works be thrust on her +in particular? There were saints enough who liked such things; and people +_could_ get to heaven without,--if not with a very abundant entrance, +still in a modest way,--and Elsie's ambition for position and treasure in +the spiritual world was of a very moderate cast. + +"Well, now, I hope you are satisfied," she said to Agnes, as she pulled +her along with no very gentle hand; "you've got me sent off on a +pilgrimage,--and my old bones must be rattling up and down all the hills +between here and Rome,--and who's to see to the oranges?--they'll all be +stolen, every one." + +"Grandmother," began Agnes in a pleading voice-- + +"Oh, you hush up! I know what you're going to say: 'The good Lord will +take care of them.' I wish He may! He has His hands full, with all the +people that go cawing and psalm-singing like so many crows, and leave all +their affairs to Him!" + +Agnes walked along disconsolate, with her eyes full of tears, which +coursed one another down her pale cheeks. + +"There's Antonio," pursued Elsie, "would perhaps look after things a +little. He is a good fellow, and only yesterday was asking if he couldn't +do something for us. It's you he does it for,--but little you care who +loves you, or what they do for you!" + +At this moment they met old Jocunda, whom we have before introduced to the +reader as portress of the Convent. She had on her arm a large square +basket, which she was storing for its practical uses. + +"Well, well, Saint Agnes be praised, I have found you at last," she said. +"I was wanting to speak about some of your blood-oranges for conserving. +An order has come down from our dear gracious lady, the Queen, to prepare +a lot for her own blessed eating, and you may be sure I would get none of +anybody but you.--But what's this, my little heart, my little +lamb?--crying?--tears in those sweet eyes? What's the matter now?" + +"Matter enough for me!" said Elsie. "It's a weary world we live in. A body +can't turn any way and not meet with trouble. If a body brings up a girl +one way, why, every fellow is after her, and one has no peace; and if a +body brings her up another way, she gets her head in the clouds, and +there's no good of her in this world. Now look at that girl,--doesn't +everybody say it's time she were married?--but no marrying for her! +Nothing will do but we must off to Rome on a pilgrimage,--and what's the +good of that, I want to know? If it's praying that's to be done, the dear +saints know she's at it from morning till night,--and lately she's up and +down three or four times a night with some prayer or other." + +"Well, well," said Jocunda, "who started this idea?" + +"Oh, Father Francesco and she got it up between them,--and nothing will do +but I must go, too." + +"Well, now, after all, my dear," said Jocunda, "do you know, I made a +pilgrimage once, and it isn't so bad. One gets a good deal by it, first +and last. Everybody drops something into your hand as you go, and one gets +treated as if one were somebody a little above the common; and then in +Rome one has a princess or a duchess or some noble lady who washes one's +feet, and gives one a good supper, and perhaps a new suit of clothes, and +all that,--and ten to one there comes a pretty little sum of money to +boot, if one plays one's cards well. A pilgrimage isn't bad, after +all;--one sees a world of fine things, and something new every day." + +"But who is to look after our garden and dress our trees?" + +"Ah, now, there's Antonio, and old Meta his mother," said Jocunda, with a +knowing wink at Agnes. "I fancy there are friends there that would lend a +hand to keep things together against the little one comes borne. If one is +going to be married, a pilgrimage brings good luck in the family. All the +saints take it kindly that one comes so far to see them, and are more +ready to do a good turn for one when one needs it. The blessed saints are +like other folks,--they like to be treated with proper attention." + +This view of pilgrimages from the material stand-point had more effect on +the mind of Elsie than the most elaborate appeals of Father Francesco. She +began to acquiesce, though with a reluctant air. + +Jocunda, seeing her words had made some impression, pursued her advantage +on the spiritual ground. + +"To be sure," she added, "I don't know how it is with you; but I know that +_I_ have, one way and another, rolled up quite an account of sins in my +life. When I was tramping up and down with my old man through the +country,--now in this castle and then in that camp, and now and then in at +the sacking of a city or village, or something of the kind,--the saints +forgive us!--it does seem as if one got into things that were not of the +best sort, in such times. It's true, it's been wiped out over and over by +the priest; but then a pilgrimage is a good thing to make all sure, in +case one's good works should fall short of one's sins at last. I can tell +you, a pilgrimage is a good round weight to throw into the scale; and when +it comes to heaven and hell, you know, my dear, why, one cannot be too +careful." + +"Well, that may be true enough," said Elsie,--"though, as to my sins, I +have tried to keep them regularly squared up and balanced as I went along. +I have always been regular at confession, and never failed a jot or tittle +in what the holy father told me. But there may be something in what you +say; one can't be too sure; and so I'll e'en school my old bones into +taking this tramp." + +That evening, as Agnes was sitting in the garden at sunset, her +grandmother bustling in and out, talking, groaning, and, hurrying in her +preparations for the anticipated undertaking, suddenly there was a +rustling in the branches overhead, and a bouquet of rose-buds fell at her +feet. Agnes picked it up, and saw a scrip of paper coiled among the +flowers. In a moment remembering the apparition of the cavalier in the +church in the morning, she doubted not from whom it came. So dreadful had +been the effect of the scene at the confessional, that the thought of the +near presence of her lover brought only terror. She turned pale; her hands +shook. She shut her eyes, and prayed that she might not be left to read +the paper; and then, summoning all her resolution, she threw the bouquet +with force over the wall. It dropped down, down, down the gloomy, shadowy +abyss, and was lost in the damp caverns below. + +The cavalier stood without the wall, waiting for some responsive signal in +reply to his missive. It had never occurred to him that Agnes would not +even read it, and he stood confounded when he saw it thrown back with such +apparent rudeness. He remembered her pale, terrified look on seeing him in +the morning. It was not indifference or dislike, but mortal fear, that had +been shown in that pale face. + +"These wretches are practising on her," he said, in wrath,--"filling her +head with frightful images, and torturing her sensitive conscience till +she sees sin in the most natural and innocent feelings." + +He had learned from Father Antonio the intention of Agnes to go on a +pilgrimage, and he longed to see and talk with her, that he might offer +her his protection against dangers which he understood far better than +she. It had never even occurred to him that the door for all possible +communication would be thus suddenly barred in his face. + +"Very well," he said to himself, with a darkening brow,--"let them have it +their own way here. She must pass through my dominions before she can +reach Rome, and I will find a place where I _can_ be heard, without priest +or grandmother to let or hinder. She is mine, and I will care for her." + +But poor Agnes had the woman's share of the misery to bear, in the fear +and self-reproach and distress which every movement of this kind cost her. +The involuntary thrill at seeing her lover, at hearing from him, the +conscious struggle which it cost her to throw back his gift, were all +noted by her accusing conscience as so many sins. The next day she sought +again her confessor, and began an entrance on those darker and more chilly +paths of penance, by which, according to the opinion of her times, the +peculiarly elect of the Lord were supposed to be best trained. Hitherto +her religion had been the cheerful and natural expression of her tender +and devout nature according to the more beautiful and engaging devotional +forms of her Church. During the year when her confessor had been, +unconsciously to himself, led by her instead of leading, her spiritual +food had been its beautiful old hymns and prayers, which she found no +weariness in often repeating. But now an unnatural conflict was begun in +her mind, directed by a spiritual guide in whom every natural and normal +movement of the soul had given way before a succession of morbid and +unhealthful experiences. From that day Agnes wore upon her heart one of +those sharp instruments of torture which in those times were supposed to +be a means of inward grace,--a cross with seven steel points for the seven +sorrows of Mary. She fasted with a severity which alarmed her grandmother, +who in her inmost heart cursed the day that ever she had placed her in the +way of saintship. + +"All this will just end in spoiling her beauty,--making her as thin as a +shadow,"--said Elsie; "and she was good enough before." + +But it did not spoil her beauty,-it only changed its character. The +roundness and bloom melted away,--but there came in their stead that +solemn, transparent clearness of countenance, that spiritual light and +radiance, which the old Florentine painters gave to their Madonnas. + +It is singular how all religious exercises and appliances take the +character of the nature that uses them. The pain and penance, which so +many in her day bore as a cowardly expedient for averting divine wrath, +seemed, as she viewed them, a humble way of becoming associated in the +sufferings of her Redeemer. "_Jesu dulcis memoria_," was the thought that +carried a redeeming sweetness with every pain. Could she thus, by +suffering with her Lord, gain power like Him to save,--a power which +should save that soul so dear and so endangered! "Ah," she thought, "I +would give my life-blood, drop by drop, if only it might avail for his +salvation!" + + * * * * * + + + + +THE TRUE HEROINE. + + What was she like? I cannot tell. + I only know God loved her well. + Two noble sons her gray hairs blest,-- + And he, their sire, was now at rest. + + And why her children loved her so, + And called her blessed, all shall know: + She never had a selfish thought, + Nor valued what her hand had wrought. + + She could be just in spite of love; + And cherished hates she dwelt above; + In sick-rooms they that had her care + Said she was wondrous gentle there. + + It was a fearful trust, she knew, + To guide her young immortals through; + But Love and Truth explained the way, + And Piety made perfect day. + + She taught them to be pure and true, + And brave, and strong, and courteous, too; + She made them reverence silver hairs, + And feel the poor man's biting cares. + + She won them ever to her side; + _Home_ was their treasure and their pride: + Its food, drink, shelter pleased them best, + And there they found the sweetest rest. + + And often, as the shadows fell, + And twilight had attuned them well, + She sang of many a noble deed, + And marked with joy their eager heed. + + And most she marked their kindling eyes + When telling of the victories + That made the Stars and Stripes a name, + Their country rich in honest fame. + + It was a noble land, she said,-- + Its poorest children lacked not bread; + It was so broad, so rich, so free, + They sang its praise beyond the sea; + + And thousands sought its kindly shore, + And none were poor and friendless more; + All blessed the name of Washington, + And loved the Union, every one. + + She made them feel that they were part + Of a great nation's living heart.-- + So they grew up, true patriot boys, + And knew not all their mother's joys. + + Sad was the hour when murmurs loud + From a great black advancing cloud + Made millions feel the coming breath + Of maddened whirlwinds, full of death! + + She prayed the skies might soon be bright, + And made her sons prepare for fight + Brave youths!--their zeal proved clearly then + In such an hour youths can be men! + + By day she went from door to door,-- + Men caught her soul, unfelt before; + By night she prayed, and planned, and dreamed, + Till morn's red light war's lightning seemed. + + The cry went forth; forth stepped her sons + In martial blaze of gleaming guns: + Still striding on to perils dire, + They turned to catch her glance of fire. + + No fears, no fond regrets she knew, + But proudly watched them fade from view: + "Lord, keep them so!" she said, and turned + To where her lonely hearth-fire burned. + + * * * * * + + + + +JEFFERSON AND SLAVERY. + + +Any one who feels deeply the truths in which our great men of old founded +this Democracy, and who sees clearly the great lines of political +architecture by which alone it shall stand firm or rise high, finds in the +direct plan and work the agency mainly of six men. + +These may be set in three groups. + +_First_, three men, who, through a series of earnest thoughts, taking +shape sometimes in apt words, sometimes in bold acts, did most to _found_ +the Republic: and these three are Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. + +_Secondly_, two men, who, as statesmen, by a healthful division between +the two great natural policies, and, as politicians, by a healthful +antagonism between the two great natural parties, did most to _build_ the +Republic: and these two are Jefferson and Hamilton. + +_Thirdly_, three men, who, having a clear theory in their heads, and a +deep conviction in their hearts, working on the nation by sermons, +epistles, programmes, hints, quips, innuendoes, by every form of winged +word, have done most to get this people into simple trains of humanitarian +thought, and have therefore done most to _brace_ the Republic: and these +three men are Franklin, Jefferson, and Channing. + +So, rising above the dust raised in our old quarrels, and taking a broad +view over this Democracy, we see Jefferson firmly placed in each of these +groups. + +If we search in Jefferson's writings and in the contemporary records to +ascertain what that power was which won him these positions, we find that +it was no personal skill in cajoling friends or scaring enemies. No +sound-hearted man ever rose from talk with him with a tithe of the +veneration felt by those who sat at the feet of Washington or Hamilton or +Channing. Neither was his position due to oratory: he could deal neither +in sweet words nor in lofty words. Yet, in spite of these wants, he +wrought on the nation with immense power. + +The real secret of this power was, first of all, that Jefferson saw +infinitely deeper into the principles of the rising Democracy, and +infinitely farther into its future working, than any other man of his +time. Those who earnestly read him will often halt astounded at proofs of +a foresight in him almost miraculous. Even in masses of what men have +called his puerility there are often germs of immense worth,--taking +years, perhaps, to show life, but sure to be alive at last. + +Take, as the latest examples of this, three germ-truths which have +recently come to full life, after having been trodden under foot for fifty +years. + +Early in our national life Jefferson declared against the usurpations of +the national judiciary. Straightway his supporters were divided, mainly +between those who sorrowed and those who stood silent; while his opponents +were divided only between those who laughed and those who cursed. But who +laughs now? Jefferson foresaw but too well. The usurpations of the +national judiciary have come in shapes most hideous,--in the _obiter +dicta_ of the Dred Scott decision, and in the use of quibbles to entangle +our defenders and set loose our traitors. + +Take an example of another kind. In his early career Jefferson gave forth +a scheme of harbor-defence by gun-boats and floating batteries. This was +partially carried out, and only partially; so it failed. On these +gun-boats and batteries his enemies never tired of trying their wit, and +certainly seemed to make a brilliant point against his foresight and +economy. But, in these latter years, many Americans besides ourself, +visiting Cronstadt during the blockade by the Allied fleet, saw not only +how the Allies failed of a conquest, the first summer, for want of +gun-boats, but how the Russians protected themselves greatly, during the +second summer, by means of them. We were shown, too, that not only could +good work be done by those driven by steam, but that the greater number +driven by oarsmen were of much service, not only in vexing the enemy, but +in protecting the whole exposed coast. Here was Jefferson's scheme to the +letter. Here was a despised thought of the past become a proud fact of the +present. Here had the Autocrat reared a monument to our great +Democrat,--gaining praise for Jefferson long after his enemies and their +factious laughter had died out forever. + +But take what the main body of cultured Americans have thought Jefferson's +chronic whimsey,--his belief that the heart of England must be ever set +against all our liberty and prosperity. As we now breast the terrific +storm which English reasonings and taunts had encouraged us to brave, and +hear, swelling above the faint English God-speed, misstatements, gibes, +reproofs, malignant prophecies, who of us shall say that the English +character and policy of 1861 were not better foreknown by Jefferson in +1820 than by ourselves In 1860? + +So much for Jefferson's insight and foresight. But there was yet a greater +quality which gave him a place in each of these three great groups,--his +faith in Democracy. + +At a time when the French Revolution had scared even Burke, and when the +British Constitution was thought by many to have seduced even Washington, +Jefferson held fast to his great faith in the rights and capacities of the +people. The only effect on him of the shocks and failures of that period +was to make his anxiety sometimes morbid, and his action sometimes +spasmodic. Hence much that to many men has seemed unjust suspicion of +Adams, and persecution of Hamilton, and disrespect for Washington. Yet all +this was but the jarring of that strong mind in the struggle and crash of +his times,--mere spasms of bigotry which prove the vigor of his faith in +Democracy. + +Jefferson, then, known of all men not fettered by provincial traditions as +invested with this foresight and this faith, is become to a vast party an +idol, and from his writings issue oracles. But the priests at his shrines, +having waxed fat in honors, have at last so befogged his sentiments and +wrested his arguments, that thousands of true men regard him sorrowfully +as the promoter of that Slavery-Despotism which to-day blooms in treason. +It is worth our while, therefore, to seek to know whether Jefferson the +god of the Oligarchs is Jefferson the Democrat. Let us, by the simplest +and fairest process possible, try to come at his real opinions on +Slavery,--just as they grew when he did so much to found the +Republic,--just as they flourished when he did so much to build the +Republic,--just as they were re-wrought and polished when he did so much +to brace the Republic. + +The whole culture of Jefferson's youth was, of all things in the world, +least likely to make him support slavery or apologize for it. The man who +did most to work into his mind ideas of moral and political science was +Dr. William Small, a liberal Scotchman; the man who did most to direct his +studies in law, and his grappling with social problems, was George Wythe. +To both of these Jefferson confessed the deepest debt for their efforts to +strengthen his mind and make his footing firm. Now, of all men in this +country at that time, these two were least likely to support pro-slavery +theories or tolerate pro-slavery cant. For while to Small's soundness +there is abundance of general testimony, there is to Wythe's soundness +testimony the most pointed. We have but to take the first volume of +Jefferson's Works, published by order of Congress, and we find Jefferson's +anti-slavery letter to Dr. Price, written in 1785, urging the Doctor to +work against pro-slavery ideas in the young men, and to exhort the young +men of Virginia to the "redress of the enormity." Incidentally he speaks +of Mr. Wythe as already doing great good in this direction among these +same young men, and declares him "one of the most virtuous of characters, +and whose sentiments on the subject of slavery are unequivocal." + +So much for the _direct_ influences on Jefferson's early culture. + +Studying, next, the _indirect_ influences on his early culture, we see +that the reform literature of that time was coming almost entirely from +France. Active, earnest men everywhere were grasping the theories and +phrases of Voltaire and Rousseau and Montesquieu, to wield them against +every tyranny. Terrible weapons these,--often searing and scarring +frightfully those who brandished them,--yet there was not one chance in a +thousand that any man who had once made any considerable number of these +ideas his own could ever support slavery. Whoever, at that time, studied +the "Contrat Social," or the defence of Jean Calas, whatever other sins he +might commit, was no more likely to advocate systematic oppression than +are they who now read with reverence Dr. Arnold and Charles Kingsley; and +whoever, at that time, read earnestly "The Spirit of the Laws" was as sure +to fight slavery as any man who to-day reveres Channing or Theodore +Parker. Those French thinkers threw such heat and light into Jefferson's +young mind, that every filthy weed of tyrannic quibble or pro-slavery +paradox must have been shrivelled. + +And the young statesman grew under this influence as we should expect. In +his twenty-seventh year he sat in the Virginia House of Burgesses, and his +first effort in legislation was, in his own words, "an effort for the +permission of the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected, and, indeed, +during the regal government nothing liberal could expect success." His +whole career in those years, whether as public man or private man, shows +that his hatred of slavery was bitter. But there was such a press of other +work during this founding period, that this hatred took shape not so much +in a steady siege as in a series of pitched battles. The work to be done +was immense, and Jefferson bore the bulk of it. He took upon himself +one-third of the revising and codifying of the Virginia laws, and did even +more than this. He undertook, in his own words, "a distinct series of +labors which formed _a system by which every fibre would be eradicated of +ancient or future aristocracy_." He effected the repeal of the laws of +entail, and this prevented an aristocratic absorption of the soil; he +effected the abolition of primogeniture, and this destroyed all chance of +rebuilding feudal families; he effected a restoration of the rights of +conscience, and this overthrew all hope of an Established Church; he +forced on the bill for general education,--for thus, he said, would the +people be "qualified to understand their rights, to maintain them, and to +exercise with intelligence their parts in self-government." In all this +work his keen common sense always cut his way through questions at which +other men stopped or stumbled. Thus, in the discussion on primogeniture, +when Isaac Pendleton proposed, as a compromise, that they should adopt the +Hebrew principle and give a double portion to the eldest son, Jefferson +cut at once into the heart of the question. As he himself relates,--"I +observed, that, if the eldest son could eat twice as much, or do double +work, it might be a natural evidence of his right to a double portion; but +being on a par in his powers and wants with his brothers and sisters, he +should be on a par also in the partition of the patrimony. And such was +the decision of the other members." + +But such fierceness against the bulwarks of aristocracy, and such keenness +in cutting through its heavy arguments, carried him farther. Logic forced +him to pass from the attack on aristocracy to the attack on slavery, just +as logic forces the Confederate oligarchs of to-day to pass from the +defence of slavery to the defence of aristocracy. He was sure to fight +this vilest of tyrannies, and he gave quick thrusts and heavy blows. In +1778 he brought in a bill to prevent the further importation of slaves +into Virginia. "This," he says, "passed without opposition, and stopped +the increase of the evil by importation, leaving to future efforts its +final eradication." Years afterward he wrote as follows:--"I have +sometimes asked myself whether my country is better for my having lived at +all: I do not know that it is. I have been the instrument of doing the +following things." Of these things there were just ten. Just ten great +worthy deeds in a life like Jefferson's!--and one of these he declares +"the act prohibiting the importation of slaves." + +Close upon this followed a fiercer grapple,--his third great legislative +attack on slavery. In his revision of the Virginia laws he reported "a +bill to emancipate all slaves born after the passing of the act." Attached +to this was a plan for the instruction of the young negroes thus set free. + +To follow Jefferson and understand him, we must bear in mind that the +Virginia which educated him was not behind a dozen smaller States in +fertility, enterprise, and republican feeling. Its best men were haters of +slavery. The efforts of its leaders were directed to other things than +plans for taxing oysters or filching the gains of free negroes. Forth from +the Virginia of that time were hurled against negro slavery the thrilling +invectives of Patrick Henry, the startling prophecies of Madison, and the +declaration of Washington, "For the abolition of slavery by law my vote +shall not be wanting." + +For a mirror of that Virginia statesmanship, in its dealings with human +rights, take the "Dissertation on Slavery with a Proposal for the Gradual +Abolition of it in the State of Virginia, written by St. George Tucker, +Professor of Law in the University of William and Mary, and one of the +Judges of the General Court in Virginia," published in 1791. It proves, +that, between the passage of the act of 1782 allowing manumission and the +year 1791, more than ten thousand slaves had been set free. One is tempted +to believe that the new Massachusetts school caught its fire from this old +Virginia school; for this friend of Jefferson speaks of "the inconsistency +of invoking God for liberty in our Revolution and imposing on our +fellow-men who differ from us in complexion a slavery ten thousand times +more cruel than the grievances and oppressions of which we complained." +Such was the utterance of the Virginia school of statesmanship in which +Jefferson was trained. + +And his views progressed, as we should expect. On the occasion of a call +for instructions to the first Virginia delegates to Congress respecting an +address to the King, Jefferson drew up a paper, which, though greatly +admired, was thought too bold. In one passage he goes beyond his masters, +and says,--"For the most trifling reasons, and sometimes for no +conceivable reasons at all, his Majesty has rejected laws of the most +salutary tendency. _The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object +of desire in these Colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their +infant state._ But, previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have, +it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa. Yet our +repeated efforts to effect this, by prohibiting and by imposing duties +which might amount to prohibition, have been hitherto defeated by his +Majesty's negative,--thus preferring the advantages of a few British +corsairs to the lasting interests of the American States, and to the +rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice." + +These words are hot and bright, but they are mere sparkles compared to the +full-flaming orb of freedom which our statesman gave afterward. For, take +the Declaration of Independence, as it issued from Carpenter's Hall, after +slavery-loving planters of the South and money-loving ship-owners of the +North had, as they thought, made it neutral, and we all, North and South, +recognize in it the boldest anti-slavery document extant. Why else do +Northern demagogues ridicule it, and Southern demagogues revile it? Yet +Jefferson made it far stronger and sharper against negro slavery than it +is now. Look closely at the well-known fac-simile:-- + + [Transcriber's note: in this quotation, _text_ is underlined; + #text# is struck through] + + he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sac- + -red rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never of- + fended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemis- + -sphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither, this + piratical warfare, the opprobrium of _infidel_ powers, is the warfare of the + _Christian_ king of Great Britain determined to keep open a market + #and# + where MEN should be bought & sold he has prostituted his negative + for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this + #determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold:# + execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact + of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms + among us, and to purchase that liberty of which _he_ has deprived them, + by murdering the people upon whom _he_ also obtruded them: thus paying + off former crimes committed against the _liberties_ of one people, with crimes + which he urges them to commit against the _lives_ of another.] + +There stands to this day that precious original,--hot first-thoughts and +cold second-thoughts, all in Jefferson's own hand. Look for a moment at +the rich current of internal evidence running through that rough draught, +and through all its erasures, changes, and emphatic markings,--evidence of +the deepest hatred not only of all tyranny, but of all slavery. Thus, +after he had written the passage, "determined to keep open a market where +MEN should be bought & sold," the idea continues hot in his mind; for, +after smouldering a few moments, it flames forth again, is written again +in the same phrasing, with the same show of emphasis, before he bethinks +himself to erase it. Then, too, the words Christian and MEN are the only +words emphasized by careful pen-printing in large letters;--and this +labored movement of his pen marks the injury which he deemed the greater; +for the largest letters and deepest emphasis are reserved for MEN. +Evidently, that word points out the wrong which, as Jefferson thought, "a +candid world" would forever regard as the supreme wrong. + +We have now noted Jefferson's battle against slavery in the founding of +the Republic: let us go on to his work in the building of the Republic. + +In 1782 he gave forth the "Notes on Virginia." His opposition to slavery +is as fierce here as of old, but it takes various phases,--sometimes +sweeping against the hated system with a torrent of facts,--sometimes +battering it with a hard, cold logic,--sometimes piercing it with deadly +queries and suggestions,--and sometimes, with his blazing hate of all +oppression, biting and burning through every pro-slavery theory. + +But in taking up the "Notes," we must understand the relation of +Jefferson's way of thinking to his way of working. In his thinking, the +slave system was evidently a violation of the whole body of good +principles, for he calls it an "_evil_";--a violation of morality, for he +calls it an "_enormity_";--a violation of justice, for he calls it a +"_wrong_";--a violation of republican pretensions, for he calls it a +"_hideous blot_";--a violation of the healthy action of our institutions, +for he calls it a "_disease_";--a violation of our whole public happiness, +for he calls it a "_curse_." But his way of working was more calm and +cool,--often displeasing those whose plans of action are formed far from +any direct entanglement in the slave system. + +This union of fervent thought and cool action has, of course, brought upon +Jefferson the invectives of two great classes. One class have looked +merely at his thinking, and have distrusted him as a dreamer. To these he +is a dealer in oracles, at second-hand, from Voltaire and Diderot. The +other class have studied his plans of practical philanthropy, with all his +shrewd researches and homely discussions in agriculture, finance, +mechanics, and architecture, and have ridiculed him as a tinker. To such +Jefferson seems a grandmotherly sort of person,--riding about in a gig +arranged to register the length of his rides,--walking about in boots +arranged to register the length of his walks,--weatherwise, and profound +in dealing with smoky chimneys and sheep-breeding. + +But whether men have cavilled at him for a dreamer or laughed at him for a +tinker, they have been mainly foolish, for they have cavilled and laughed +at the very combination which made him powerful. In no other American have +been so happily blended highest skill in theory and highest strength in +practice. + +The remarks, in the "Notes on Virginia," on the colored race are clear and +fair. He studied carefully and stated fully all that could be learned in +his time. On the whole, his examination greatly encourages those who hope +good things for that race. But one distinction must be made. As to those +profound views of the character and destiny of the race which come only by +observation of a long historic development, in a wide range of climate, in +great variety of social position, Jefferson could, as he confesses, know +almost nothing,--for the same reason that the keenest observer of William +the Conqueror's Norman robbers and Saxon swineherds would have failed to +foretell the great dominant race which has come from them by free growth +and good culture. But, on the other hand, of all that comes by observation +of the daily life of the black race, as it then was, he knew almost +everything. + +He declares that the black race is inferior to the white in mind, but not +in heart. The poems of black Phillis Wheatley seem to him to prove not +much; but the letters of black Ignatius Sancho he praises for depth of +feeling, happy turn of thought, and ease of style, though he finds no +depth of reasoning. He does not praise the mental capacity of the race, +but, at last, as if conscious, that, if developed under a free system, it +might be far better, he quotes the Homeric lines,-- + + "Jove fixed it certain that whatever day + Makes man a slave takes half his worth away." + +And shortly after, he declares it "a _suspicion_ only that the blacks are +inferior in the endowments of body or mind,"--that "in memory they are +equal to the whites,"--that "in music they are more generally gifted than +the whites with accurate ears for time and tune." + +But there is one statement which we especially commend to those in search +of an effective military policy in the present crisis. Jefferson declares +of the negroes, that they are "at least as brave as the whites, and more +adventuresome." May not this truth account for the fact that one of the +most daring deeds in the present war was done by a black man? + +Still later, Jefferson says,--"Whether further observation will or will +not verify the conjecture that Nature has been less bountiful to them in +the endowments of the head, I believe that in those of the heart she will +be found to have done them justice. That disposition to theft with which +they have been branded must be ascribed to their situation, and not to any +depravity of the moral sense. The man in whose favor no laws of property +exist probably feels himself less bound to respect those made in favor of +others. When arguing for ourselves, we lay it down as fundamental, that +laws, to be just, must give reciprocation of right,--that, without this, +they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in +conscience; and it is a problem which I give to the master to solve, +whether the religious precepts against the violation of property were not +framed for him as well as his slave,--and whether the slave may not as +justifiably take a little from one who has taken all from him as he may +slay one who would slay him. That a change in the relations in which a man +is placed should change his ideas of moral right and wrong is neither new, +nor peculiar to the color of the blacks." + +Here Jefferson puts forth that very idea for which Gerrit Smith, a few +years ago, was threatened with the penalties of treason. + +But to quote further from the same source:-- + + "Notwithstanding these considerations, which must weaken their + respect for the laws of property, we find among them numerous + instances of the most rigid integrity, and as many as among their + instructed masters, of benevolence, gratitude, and unshaken + fidelity. The opinion that they are inferior in the faculties of + reason and imagination must be hazarded with great diffidence." + +The old hot thought blazes forth again in the chapter on "Particular +Manners and Customs." Can men speak against the proclamations of Abolition +Conventions after such fiery words from Jefferson? + + "The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual + exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting + despotism, on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. + Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an + imitative animal. If a parent could find no motive either in his + philanthropy or his self-love for restraining the intemperance of + passion toward his slave, it should always be a sufficient one + that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The + parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of + wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, + gives a loose rein to the worst of passions, and thus nursed, + educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by + its odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain + his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances." (Here + fire begins to flicker up around the words.) "And with what + execration should a statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half + the _citizens_" (note the word) "to trample on the _rights_" (note + the word) "of the other, transforms those into despots and these + into enemies, destroys the morals of the one and the _amor + patriae_ of the other! And can the liberties of a nation be + thought secure, when we have removed their only firm basis,--a + conviction in the minds of the people that their liberties are the + gifts of God, that they are not to be violated but with His + wrath?" (Now bursts forth prophecy. The whole page flames in a + moment.) "Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God + is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; that, considering + numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel + of Fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events; + that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The + Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a + contest." + +Well may Jefferson say, immediately after this, that "it is impossible to +be temperate and to pursue this subject through the various considerations +of policy, of morals, of history natural and civil." For no Abolitionist +ever branded the slave-system with words more fiery. + +In 1784 Jefferson drew up the ordinance for the government of the Western +Territory. One famous clause runs thus:-- + + "After the year 1800 of the Christian era there shall be neither + slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States, + otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall + have been convicted to be personally guilty." + +In Randall's "Life of Jefferson," a work in many respects admirable, this +clause is glossed with the declaration that Jefferson intended merely to +prevent an immense new importation of slaves from Africa to fill the +Territory; but Mr. Randall would have shown far greater insight, had he +added to this half-truth, that the idea of legally grasping and strangling +this curse flows from the ideas of the "Notes" as hot metal flows from +fiery furnace,--that the Ordinance of 1784 was but a minting of that true +metal drawn from those old glowing thoughts and words. + +But Jefferson's hatred of slavery is not less fierce in his letters. + +Dr. Price writes a pamphlet in England against slavery, and straightway +Jefferson seizes his pen to urge him to write more, and more clearly for +America, and more directly at American young men, saying, in +encouragement,--"Northward of the Chesapeake you may find, here and there, +an opponent to your doctrine, as you may find, here and there, a +murderer." He speaks hopefully of the disposition in Virginia to "redress +this enormity,"--calls the fight against slavery "the interesting +spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and oppression,"--speaks of +the side hostile to slavery as "the sacred side." The date is 1785. + +This welcome to Dr. Price's onslaught will serve as antidote to Mr. +Randall's poisonous declaration, that Jefferson was opposed to +interference with slave institutions by those living outside of Slave +States. + +In 1786 Jefferson wrote to correct M. de Meusnier's statement of the +efforts already made for emancipation; and, referring to the holding of +slaves by a people who had clamored loudly and fought bravely for freedom, +he says,-- + + "What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man,--who + can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, + in vindication of his own liberty, and, in the next moment, be + deaf to all those motives whose power supported him through his + trial, and inflict on his fellow-men _a bondage one hour of which + is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in + rebellion to oppose_!" + +Here, in Jefferson himself, then, is the source of that venom with which +earnest men, throughout the land, are stinging to death the organization +which stole his name to destroy his ideas. + +In 1788, Jefferson, being Minister at Paris, receives a note from M. de +Warville tendering him membership in the Society for the Abolition of the +Slave-Trade. Jefferson is forced by his peculiar position to decline, but +he takes pains to say,--"You know that nobody wishes more ardently to see +an abolition not only of the trade, but of the _condition_ of slavery." + +Here is no non-committalism, no wistful casting about for loop-holes, no +sly putting out of hooks to catch backers, not the feeblest germ of +quibble or lie. The man answers more than he is asked. Is there not, in +the present dearth, something refreshing in this old candor? + +But some have thought Jefferson's later expressions against slavery +wanting in heartiness. Let us examine. + +The whole world knows, that, when a wrong stings a man, making him fierce +and loud, his _direct_ expressions have often small value; but that his +_parenthetical_ expressions often have great value. This is one of the +simplest principles in homely every-day criticism, serving truth-seekers, +wherever wordy war rages, whether among statesmen or hackmen. + +Now, in Jefferson's letter to Dr. Gordon,--written in 1788,--he is greatly +stirred by his own recital of the shameful ravages on his property by the +British army. Just at the moment when his indignation was at the hottest, +there shot out of his heart, and off his pen, one of these side-thoughts, +one of these fragments of the man's ground-idea, which, at such moments, +truth-seekers always watch for. Jefferson says of Cornwallis,-- + + "He destroyed all my growing crops of corn and tobacco; he burned + all my barns containing the same articles of the last year, having + first taken what corn he wanted; he used, as was to be expected, + all my stock of cattle, sheep, and hogs, for the sustenance of his + army, and carried off all the horses capable of service,--of those + too young for service he cut the throats; and he burned all the + fences in the plantation, so as to make it an absolute waste. _He + carried off also about thirty slaves. Had this been to give them + their freedom, he would have done right_." + +But we turn to a seeming discrepancy between these thousand earnest +declarations of Jefferson the private citizen, and the cold, formal tone +of Jefferson the Secretary of State. In this high office he reclaims +slaves from the Spanish power in Florida, and demands compensation for +slaves carried off by the British at the evacuation of New York. For a +moment that transition from personal warmth to diplomatic coolness is as +the Russian plunge from steam-bath to snow-heap. + +Yet, if truth-seekers do not stop to moan, they may easily find a complete +explanation. As private citizen, in a State, dealing with his home +Government, Jefferson had the right to move heaven and earth against +slavery, and bravely he did it; but, as public servant of the nation, +dealing with foreign Governments, his rights and duties were different, +and his tone must be different. As a private person, writing for man as +man, Jefferson forgot readily enough all differences of nation. He wrote +as readily and fully of the hideousness of slavery to Meusnier and +Warville in France, or to Price and Priestley in England, as to any of his +neighbors; but, as public servant of the nation, writing to Hammond or +Viar, representatives of foreign powers, he made no apology for our +miseries. England might be ready enough to act the part of Dives, but +Jefferson was not the statesman to put America in the attitude of +Lazarus,--begging, and showing sores. + +But we have to note yet another change in Jefferson's modes of work and +warfare. + +As he wrought and fought in this second period, which, for easy reference, +we call the building period, he was forced into new methods. In the former +period we saw him thinking and speaking and working against every effort +to found pro-slavery theories or practices. Eagerness was then the best +quality for work, and quickness the best quality for fight. But now the +case was different. An institution which Jefferson hated had, in spite of +his struggles, been firmly founded. The land was full of the towers of the +slave aristocracy. He saw that his mode of warfare must be changed. His +old way did well in the earlier days, for tower-builders may be driven +from their work by a sweeping charge or sudden volley; but towers, when +built, must be treated with steady battering and skilful mining. + +In 1797, Jefferson, writing to St. George Tucker, speaks of the only +possible emancipation as "a compromise between the passions, prejudices, +and real difficulties, which will each have their weight in the +operation." Afterwards, in his letters to Monroe and Rufus King, he +advocates a scheme of colonization to some point not too distant. But let +no man, on this account, claim Jefferson as a supporter of the do-nothing +school of Northern demagogues, or of the mad school of Southern fanatics +who proclaim this ulcerous mass a beauty, and who howl at all who refuse +its infection. For, note, in that same letter to St. George Tucker, the +fervor of the Jeffersonian theory: bitter as Tucker's pamphlet against +slavery was, he says,--"You know my subscription to its doctrines." Note +also the vigor of the Jeffersonian practice: speaking of emancipation, he +says,--"The sooner we put some plan under way, the greater hope there is +that it may be permitted to proceed peaceably to its ultimate effect." And +now bursts forth prophecy again. "_But if something is not done, and soon +done, we shall be the murderers of our own children_." "If we had begun +sooner, we might probably have been allowed a lengthier operation to clear +ourselves; but every day's delay lessens the time we may take for +emancipation." + +Here is no trace of the theory inflicting a present certain evil on a +great white population in order to do a future doubtful good to a smaller +black population. And this has been nowhere better understood than among +the slave oligarchs of his own time. Note one marked example. + +In 1801, Jefferson was elected to the Presidency on the thirty-sixth +ballot. Thirty-five times Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina voted +against him. The following year Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina, feeling an +itching to specify to Congress his interests in Buncombe and his relations +to the universe, palavered in the usual style, but let out one truth, for +which, as truth-searchers, we thank him. He said,-- + + "Permit me to state, that, beside the objections common to my + friend from Delaware and myself, there was a strong one which I + felt with peculiar force. It resulted from a firm belief that the + gentleman in question [Jefferson] _held opinions respecting a + certain description of property in my State which, should they + obtain generally, would endanger it_."[4] + + [4] Benton's _Abridgment_, Vol. II. p. 636. + +We come now to Jefferson's Presidency. In this there was no great chance +to deal an effective blow at slavery; but some have grown bitter over a +story that he favored the schemes to break the slavery-limitation in Ohio. +Such writers have not stopped to consider that it is more probable that a +few Southern members, eager to drum in recruits, falsely claimed the favor +of the President, than that Jefferson broke the slavery-limitation which +he himself planned. Then, too, came the petitions of the abolition +societies against slavery in Louisiana; and Hildreth blames Jefferson for +his slowness to assist; but ought we not here to take some account of the +difficulties of the situation? Ought not some weight to be given to +Jefferson's declaration to Kerchival, that in his administration his +"efforts in relation to peace, slavery, and religious freedom were all in +accordance with Quakerism"? + +We pass now to the third great period, in which, as thinker and writer, he +did so much to brace the Republic. + +First of all, in this period we see him revising the translation and +arranging the publication of De Tracy's "Commentaire sur l'Esprit des +Lois." He takes endless pains to make its hold firm on America; engages +his old companion in abolitionism, St. George Tucker, to circulate it; +makes it a text-book in the University of Virginia; tells his friend +Cabell to read it, for it is "the best book on government in the world." +Now this "best book on government" is killing to every form of tyranny or +slavery; its arguments pierce all their fallacies and crush all their +sophistries. That famous plea which makes Alison love Austria and Palmer +love Louisiana--the plea that a people can be best educated for freedom +and religion by dwarfing their minds and tying their hands--is, in this +book, shivered by argument and burnt by invective. + +As we approach the last years of Jefferson's life we find several letters +of his on slavery. Some have thought them mere heaps of ashes,--poor +remains of the flaming thoughts and words of earlier years. This mistake +is great. Touch the seeming heap of ashes, and those thoughts and words +dart forth, fiery as of old. + +In 1814, Edward Coles attacks slavery vigorously, and calls on the great +Democrat to destroy it. Jefferson's approving reply is the complete +summary of his matured views on slavery. Take a few declarations as +specimens.[5] + + [5] Randall, Vol. III., Appendix. + + "The sentiments breathed through the whole do honor both to the + head and heart of the writer. Mine, on the subject of the slavery + of negroes, have long since been in possession of the public, and + time has only served to give them stronger proof. The love of + justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these + people, and it is a mortal reproach to us that they should have + pleaded so long in vain." + + "The hour of emancipation is advancing in the march of time. It + will come; and whether brought on by the generous energy of our + own minds or by the bloody process of St. Domingo ... is a leaf of + our history not yet turned over." + + "As to the method by which this difficult work is to be effected, + if permitted to be done by ourselves, I have seen no proposition + so expedient, on the whole, as that of emancipation of those born + after a given day." + + "This enterprise is for the young,--for those who can follow it up + and bear it through to its consummation. It shall have all my + prayers." + +No wonder that this letter of Jefferson to Coles seems to have been +carefully suppressed by Southern editors of the Jeffersonian writings. + +Take also the letters to Mr. Barrows and to Dr. Humphreys of 1815-17. +Disappointment is expressed at the want of a more general anti-slavery +feeling among the young men; hope is expressed that "time will soften down +the master and educate the slave"; faith is expressed that slavery will +yield, "because we are not in a world ungoverned by the laws and power of +a Supreme Agent." + +Entering now the stormy period of the Missouri Debate, we have one +declaration from Jefferson which, at first, surprises and pains us,--the +opinion given in a letter to Lafayette, that spreading slavery will +"dilute the evil everywhere, and facilitate the means of getting rid of +it." The mistake is gross indeed. To all of us, with the political +knowledge forced upon us by events since Jefferson's death, it seems +atrocious. But unpardonable as such a theory is _now_, was it so _then_? + +Jefferson had not before him the experience of these last forty years of +weakness and poverty and barbarism in our new Slave States,--and of that +tenacity of life which slavery shares with so many other noxious growths. +Hastily, then, he broached this opinion. Let it stand; and let the remark +on "geographical lines," and the two or three severe criticisms of +Northern men, wrested from him in the excitement of the Missouri struggle, +be tied to it and given to the Oligarchs. These expressions were drawn +from him in his old age,--in his vexation at unfair attacks,--in his +depression at the approach of poverty,--in his suffering under the +encroachments of disease. Any one of those bold declarations in the vigor +of his manhood will forever efface all memory of them. + +The opinion expressed by Jefferson, at the same period, that "the General +Government cannot interfere with slavery in the States," all our parties +now accept--as a _peace_ policy; but if we are forced into an opposite +_war_ policy, let our generals remember Jefferson's declaration as to the +taking of his slaves by Cornwallis: "_Had this been to give them their +freedom, he would have done right_." + +But there is one letter which all Northern statesmen should ponder. It +warns them solemnly, for it was written a very short time before +Jefferson's death;--it warns them sharply, for it struck one whom the +North has especially honored. This son of the North had made a well-known +unfortunate speech in Congress, and had sent it to Jefferson. In his +answer the old statesman declares,-- + + "On the question of the lawfulness of slavery, that is, _of the + right of one man to appropriate to himself the faculties of + another without his consent, I certainly retain my early + opinions_. On that, however, of third persons to interfere between + the parties, and the effect of Constitutional modifications of + that pretension, we are probably nearer together." + +There was a blow well dealt,--though at one now greatly honored. We may +refuse the subordinate idea in the letter, but we will glory in that main +confession of political faith, in the last year of Jefferson's life; and +we will not forget that the last of his letters on slavery chastised the +worst sin of Northern statesmanship. + +Jefferson, then, in dealing with slavery, was a real political seer and +giver of oracles,--always sure to say _something_; whereas the "leading +men" who in these latter days have usurped his name are neither political +seers nor givers of oracles, but mere political fakirs,--striving, their +lives long, to enter political blessedness by solemnly doing and seeing +and saying--_nothing_. + +Jefferson was a true political warrior, and his battle for human rights +compares with the Oligarchist battle against them as the warfare of Cortés +compares with Aztec warfare. He is the man full of strong thought backed +by civilization: they, the men trying to keep up their faith in idols, +trying to scare with war-paint, trying to startle with war-whoop, trying +to vex with showers of poor Aztec arrows. + +Jefferson was an orator,--not in that he fed petty assemblages with +narcotic words to stupefy conscience, or corrosive words to kill +conscience, but in that he gave to the world those decisive, true words +which shall yet pierce all tyranny and slavery. + +Jefferson was the founder of a democratic system, strong and full-orbed: +"leading men" have fastened his name to an aristocratic system with +mobocratic cries. + +This great tree of Liberty which we are all trying to plant will, of +course, not grow as _we_ will, but as God and Nature will. Some branches +will be exuberant through too great wealth of sunshine,--others gnarled +and awry through too great fury of storms. We need find no fault with any +growth, but we may admire some branches and prize some fruits more than +others. Some grafts set by noblest hands have often blossomed in bad +temper and borne fruit bitter and sour. Some fruitage has been of that +poor Dead-Sea sort,--splendid in coating, but inwardly ashes,--wretched +"protective" schemes and the like. The world may yet see that the limbs of +toughest fibre and fruit of richest flavor have come from grafts set by +just such strong men in theory and in practice as Thomas Jefferson. + + * * * * * + + + + +A STORY OF TO-DAY. + + +PART IV. + +An hour after, the evening came on sultry, the air murky, opaque, with +yellow trails of color dragging in the west: a sullen stillness in the +woods and farms; only, in fact, that dark, inexplicable hush that precedes +a storm. But Lois, coming down the hill-road, singing to herself, and +keeping time with her whip-end on the wooden measure, stopped when she +grew conscious of it. It seemed to her blurred fancy more than a deadening +sky: a something solemn and unknown, hinting of evil to come. The +dwarf-pines on the road-side scowled weakly at her through the gray; the +very silver minnows in the pools she passed flashed frightened away, and +darkened into the muddy niches. There was a vague dread in the sudden +silence. She called to the old donkey, and went faster down the hill, as +if escaping from some overhanging peril, unseen. She saw Margaret coming +up the road. There was a phaëton behind her, and some horsemen: she jolted +the cart off into the stones to let them pass, seeing Mr. Holmes's face in +the carriage as she did so. He did not look at her; had his head turned +towards the gray distance. Lois's vivid eye caught the full meaning of the +woman beside him. The face hurt her: not fair, as Polston called it: vapid +and cruel. She was dressed in yellow: the color seemed jeering and mocking +to the girl's sensitive instinct, keenly alive to every trifle. She did +not know that it is the color of shams, and that women like this are the +most deadly of shams. As the phaëton went slowly down, Margaret came +nearer, meeting it on the road-side, the dust from the wheels stifling the +air. Lois saw her look up, and then suddenly stand still, holding to the +fence, as they met her. Holmes's cold, wandering eye turned on the little +dusty figure standing there, poor and despised. Polston called his eyes +hungry: it was a savage hunger that sprang into them now; a gray shadow +creeping over his set face, as he looked at her, in that flashing moment. +The phaëton was gone in an instant, leaving her alone in the muddy road. +One of the men looked back, and then whispered something to the lady with +a laugh. She turned to Holmes, when he had finished, fixing her light, +confusing eyes on his face, and softening her voice. + +"Fred swears that woman we passed was your first love. Were you, then, so +chivalric? Was it to have been a second romaunt of 'King Cophetua and the +Beggar Maid'?" + +He met her look, and saw the fierce demand through the softness and +persiflage. He gave it no answer, but, turning to her, kindled into the +man whom she was so proud to show as her capture,--a man far off from +Stephen Holmes. Brilliant she called him,--frank, winning, generous. She +thought she knew him well; held him a slave to her fluttering hand. Being +proud of her slave, she let the hand flutter down now somehow with some +flowers it held until it touched his hard fingers, her cheek flushing into +rose. The nerveless, spongy hand,--what a death-grip it had on his life! +He did not look back once at the motionless, dusty figure on the road. +What was that Polston had said about starving to death for a kind word? +_Love?_ He was sick of the sickly talk,--crushed it out of his heart with +a savage scorn. He remembered his father, the night he died, had said in +his weak ravings that God was love. Was He? No wonder, then, He was the +God of women, and children, and unsuccessful men. For him, he was done +with it. He was here with stronger purpose than to yield to weaknesses of +the flesh. He had made his choice,--a straight, hard path upwards; he was +deaf now and forever to any word of kindness or pity. As for this woman +beside him, he would be just to her, in justice to himself: she never +should know the loathing in his heart: just to her as to all living +creatures. Some little, mean doubt kept up a sullen whisper of bought and +sold,--sold,--but he laughed it down. He sat there with his head steadily +turned towards her: a kingly face, she called it, and she was right,--it +was a kingly face: with the same shallow, fixed smile on his mouth,--no +weary cry went up to God that day so terrible in its pathos, I think: with +the same dull consciousness that this was the trial night of his +life,--that with the homely figure on the road-side he had turned his back +on love and kindly happiness and warmth, on all that was weak and useless +in the world. He had made his choice; he would abide by it,--he would +abide by it. He said that over and over again, dulling down the +death-gnawing of his outraged heart. + +Miss Herne was quite contented, sitting by him, with herself, and the +admiring world. She had no notion of trial nights in life. Not many +temptations pierced through her callous, flabby temperament to sting her +to defeat or triumph. There was for her no under-current of conflict, in +these people whom she passed, between self and the unseen power that +Holmes sneered at, whose name was love; they were nothing but movables, +pleasant or ugly to look at, well- or ill-dressed. There were no dark iron +bars across her life for her soul to clutch and shake madly,--nothing "in +the world amiss, to be unriddled by-and-by." Little Margaret, sitting by +the muddy road, digging her fingers dully into the clover-roots, while she +looked at the spot where the wheels had passed, looked at life +differently, it may be;--or old Joe Yare by the furnace-fire, his black +face and gray hair bent over a torn old spelling-book Lois had given him. +The night perhaps was going to be more to them than so many rainy hours +for sleeping,--the time to be looked back on through coming lives as the +hour when good and ill came to them, and they made their choice, and, as +Holmes said, did abide by it. + +It grew cool and darker. Holmes left the phaëton before they entered town, +and turned back. He was going to see this Margaret Howth, tell her what he +was going to do. Because he was going to leave a clean record. No one +should accuse him of want of honor. This girl alone of all living beings +had a right to see him as he stood, justified to himself. Why she had this +right, I do not think he answered to himself. Besides, he must see her, if +only on business. She must keep her place at the mill: he would not begin +his new life by an act of injustice, taking the bread out of Margaret's +mouth. _Little Margaret!_ He stopped suddenly, looking down into a deep +pool of water by the road-side. What madness of weariness crossed his +brain just then I do not know. He shook it off. Was he mad? Life was worth +more to him than to other men, he thought; and perhaps he was right. He +went slowly through the cool dusk, looking across the fields, up at the +pale, frightened face of the moon hooded in clouds: he did not dare to +look, with all his iron nerve, at the dark figure beyond him on the road. +She was sitting there just where he had left her: be knew she would be. +When he came closer, she got up, not looking towards him; but he saw her +clasp her hands behind her, the fingers plucking weakly at each other. It +was an old, childish fashion of hers, when she was frightened or hurt. It +would only need a word, and he could be quiet and firm,--she was such a +child compared to him: he always had thought of her so. He went on up to +her slowly, and stopped; when she looked at him, he untied the linen +bonnet that hid her face, and threw it back. How thin and tired the little +face had grown! Poor child! He put his strong arm kindly about her, and +stooped to kiss her hand, but she drew it away. God! what did she do that +for? Did not she know that he could put his head beneath her foot then, he +was so mad with pity for the woman he had wronged? Not love, he thought, +controlling himself,--it was only justice to be kind to her. + +"You have been ill, Margaret, these two years, while I was gone?" + +He could not hear her answer; only saw that she looked up with a white, +pitiful smile. Only a word it needed, he thought,--very kind and firm: and +he must be quick,--he could not bear this long. But he held the little +worn fingers, stroking them with an unutterable tenderness. + +"You must let these fingers work for me, Margaret," he said, at last, +"when I am master in the mill." + +"It is true, then, Stephen?" + +"It is true,--yes." + +She lifted her hand to her head, uncertainly: he held it tightly, and then +let it go. What right had he to touch the dust upon her shoes,--he, bought +and sold? She did not speak for a time; when she did, it was a weak and +sick voice. + +"I am glad. I saw her, you know. She is very beautiful." + +The fingers were plucking at each other again; and a strange, vacant smile +on her face, trying to look glad. + +"You love her, Stephen?" + +He was quiet and firm enough now. + +"I do not. Her money will help me to become what I ought to be. She does +not care for love. You want me to succeed, Margaret? No one ever +understood me as you did, child though you were." + +Her whole face glowed. + +"I know! I know! I did understand you!" + +She said, lower, after a little while,-- + +"I knew you did not love her." + +"There is no such thing as love in real life," he said, in his steeled +voice. "You will know that, when you grow older. I used to believe in it +once, myself." + +She did not speak, only watched the slow motion of his lips, not looking +into his eyes,--as she used to do in the old time. Whatever secret account +lay between the souls of this man and woman came out now, and stood bare +on their faces. + +"I used to think that I, too, loved," he went on, in his low, hard tone. +"But it kept me back, Margaret, and"-- + +He was silent. + +"I know, Stephen. It kept you back"-- + +"And I put it away. I put it away to-night, forever." + +She did not speak; stood quite quiet, her head bent on her breast. His +conscience was quite clear now. But he almost wished he had not said it, +she was such a weak, sickly thing. She sat down at last, burying her face +in her hands, with a shivering sob. He dared not trust himself to speak +again. + +"I am not proud,--as a woman ought to be," she said, wearily, when he +wiped her clammy forehead. + +"You loved me, then?" he whispered. + +Her face flashed at the unmanly triumph; her puny frame started up, away +from him. + +"I did love you, Stephen. I love you now,--as you might be, not as you +are,--not with those cold, inhuman eyes. I do understand you,--I do. I +know you for a better man than you know yourself this night." + +She turned to go. He put his hand on her arm; something we have never seen +on his face struggled up,--the better soul that she knew. + +"Come back," he said, hoarsely; "don't leave me with myself. Come back, +Margaret." + +She did not come; stood leaning, her sudden strength gone, against the +broken wall. There was a heavy silence. The night throbbed slow about +them. Some late bird rose from the sedges of the pool, and with a +frightened cry flapped its tired wings, and drifted into the dark. His +eyes, through the gathering shadow, devoured the weak, trembling body, met +the soul that looked at him, strong as his own. Was it because it knew and +trusted him that all that was pure and strongest in his crushed nature +struggled madly to be free? He thrust it down; the self-learned lesson of +years was not to be conquered in a moment. + +"There have been times," he said, in a smothered, restless voice, "when I +thought you belonged to me. Not here, but before this life. My soul and +body thirst and hunger for you, then, Margaret." + +She did not answer; her hands worked feebly together. + +He came nearer, and held up his arras to where she stood,--the heavy, +masterful face pale and wet. + +"I need you, Margaret. I shall be nothing without you, now. Come, +Margaret, little Margaret!" + +She came to him, and put her hands in his. + +"No, Stephen," she said. + +If there were any pain in her tone, she kept it down, for his sake. + +"Never, I could never help you,--as you are. It might have been, once. +Good-bye, Stephen." + +Her childish way put him in mind of the old days when this girl was dearer +to him than his own soul. She was so yet. He held her, looking down into +her eyes. She moved uneasily; she dared not trust her resolution. + +"You will come?" he said. "It might have been,--it shall be again." + +"It may be," she said, humbly. "God is good. And I believe in you, +Stephen. I will be yours some time: we cannot help it, if we would: but +not as you are." + +"You do not love me?" he said, flinging off her hand. + +She said nothing, gathered her damp shawl around her, and turned to go. +Just a moment they stood, looking at each other. If the dark square figure +standing there had been an iron fate trampling her young life down into +hopeless wretchedness, she forgot it now. Women like Margaret are apt to +forget. His eye never abated in its fierce question. + +"I will wait for you yonder, if I die first," she whispered. + +He came closer, waiting for an answer. + +"And--I love you, Stephen." + +He gathered her in his arms, and put his cold lips to hers, without a +word; then turned and left her slowly. + +She made no sign, shed no tear, as she stood watching him go. It was all +over: she had willed it, herself, and yet--he could not go! God would not +suffer it! Oh, he could not leave her,--he could not!--He went down the +hill, slowly. If it were a trial of life and death for her, did he know or +care?--He did not look back. What if he did not? his heart was true; he +suffered in going; even now he walked wearily. God forgive her, if she had +wronged him!--What did it matter, if he were hard in this life, and it +hurt her a little? It would come right,--beyond, some time. But life was +long.--She would not sit down, sick as she was: he might turn, and it +would vex him to see her suffer.--He walked slowly; once he stopped to +pick up something. She saw the deep-cut face and half-shut eyes. How often +those eyes had looked into her soul, and it had answered! They never would +look so any more.--There was a tree by the place where the road turned +into town. If he came back, he would be sure to turn there.--How tired he +walked, and slow!--If he was sick, that beautiful woman could be near +him,--help him.--She never would touch his hand again,--never again, +never,--unless he came back now.--He was near the tree: she closed her +eyes, turning away. When she looked again, only the bare road lay there, +yellow and wet. It was over, now. + +How long she sat there she did not know. She tried once or twice to go to +the house, but the lights seemed so far off that she gave it up and sat +quiet, unconscious except of the damp stones her head leaned on and the +stretch of muddy road. Some time, she knew not when, there was a heavy +step beside her, and a rough hand shook hers where she stooped feebly +tracing out the lines of mortar between the stones. It was Knowles. She +looked up, bewildered. + +"Hunting catarrhs, eh?" he growled, eying her keenly. "Got your father on +the Bourbons, so took the chance to come and find you. He'll not miss _me_ +for an hour. That man has a natural hankering after treason against the +people. Lord, Margaret! what a stiff old head he'd have carried to the +guillotine! How he'd have looked at the _canaille_!" + +He helped her up gently enough. + +"Your bonnet's like a wet rag,"--with a furtive glance at the worn-out +face. A hungry face always, with her life unfed by its stingy few crumbs +of good; but to-night it was vacant with utter loss. + +She got up, trying to laugh cheerfully, and went beside him down the road. + +"You saw that painted Jezebel to-night, and"--stopping abruptly. + +She had not heard him, and he followed her doggedly, with an occasional +snort or grunt or other inarticulate damn at the obstinate mud. She +stopped at last, with a quick gasp. Looking at her, he chafed her limp +hands,--his huge, uncouth face growing pale. When she was better, he said, +gravely,-- + +"I want you, Margaret. Not at home, child. I want to show you something." + +He turned with her suddenly off the main road into a by-path, helping her +along, watching her stealthily, but going on with his disjointed, bearish +growls. If it stung her from her pain, vexing her, he did not care. + +"I want to show you a bit of hell: outskirt. You're in a fit state: it'll +do you good. I'm minister there. The clergy can't attend to it just now: +they're too busy measuring God's truth by the States'-Rights doctrine or +the Chicago Platform. Consequence, religion yields to majorities. Are you +able? It's only a step." + +She went on indifferently. The night was breathless and dark. Black, wet +gusts dragged now and then through the skyless fog, striking her face with +a chill. The Doctor quit talking, hurrying her, watching her anxiously. +They came at last to the railway-track, with long trains of empty +freight-cars. + +"We are nearly there," he whispered. "It's time you knew your work, and +forgot your weakness. The curse of pampered generations. 'High Norman +blood,'--pah!" + +There was a broken gap in the fence. He led her through it into a muddy +yard. Inside was one of those taverns you will find in the suburbs of +large cities, haunts of the lowest vice. This one was a smoky frame +standing on piles over an open space where hogs were rooting. Half a dozen +drunken Irishmen were playing poker with a pack of greasy cards in an +out-house. He led her up the rickety ladder to the one room, where a +flaring tallow-dip threw a saffron glare into the darkness. A putrid odor +met them at the door. She drew back, trembling. + +"Come here!" he said, fiercely, clutching her hand. "Women as fair and +pure as you have come into dens like this,--and never gone away. Does it +make your delicate breath faint? And you a follower of the meek and lowly +Jesus! Look here! and here!" + +The room was swarming with human life. Women, idle trampers, +whiskey-bloated, filthy, lay half-asleep or smoking on the floor, and set +up a chorus of whining begging when they entered. Half-naked children +crawled about in rags. On the damp, mildewed walls there was hung a +picture of the Benicia Boy, and close by Pio Nono, crook in hand, with the +usual inscription, "Feed my sheep." The Doctor looked at it. + +"'_Tu es Petrus, et super hanc_'--Good God! what is truth?" he muttered, +bitterly. + +He dragged her closer to the women, through the darkness and foul smell. + +"Look in their faces," he whispered. "There is not one of them that is not +a living lie. Can they help it? Think of the centuries of serfdom and +superstition through which their blood has crawled. Come closer,--here." + +In the corner slept a heap of half-clothed blacks. Going on the +underground railroad to Canada. Stolid, sensual wretches, with here and +there a broad, melancholy brow and desperate jaws. One little pickaninny +rubbed its sleepy eyes and laughed at them. + +"So much flesh and blood out of the market, unweighed!" + +Margaret took up the child, kissing its brown face. Knowles looked at her. + +"Would you touch her? I forgot you were born down South. Put it down, and +come on." + +They went out of the door. Margaret stopped, looking back. + +"Did I call it a bit of hell? It's only a glimpse of the under-life of +America,--God help us!--where all men are born free and equal." + +The air in the passage grew fouler. She leaned back faint and shuddering. +He did not heed her. The passion of the man, the terrible pity for these +people, came out of his soul now, whitening his face and dulling his eyes. + +"And you," he said, savagely, "you sit by the road-side, with help in your +hands, and Christ in your heart, and call your life lost, quarrel with +your God, because that mass of selfishness has left you,--because you are +balked in your puny hope! Look at these women. What is their loss, do you +think? Go back, will you, and drone out your life whimpering over your +lost dream, and go to Shakspeare for tragedy when you want it? Tragedy! +Come here,--let me hear what you call this." + +He led her through the passage, up a narrow flight of stairs. An old woman +in a flaring cap sat at the top, nodding,--wakening now and then, to rock +herself to and fro, and give the shrill Irish keen. + +"You know that stoker who was killed in the mill a month ago? Of course +not,--what are such people to you? There was a girl who loved him,-you +know what that is? She's dead now, here. She drank herself to death,--a +most unpicturesque suicide. I want you to look at her. You need not blush +for her life of shame, now; she's dead.--Is Hetty here?" + +The woman got up. + +"She is, Zur. She is, Mem. She's lookin' foine in her Sunday suit. Shrouds +is gone out, Mem, they say." + +She went tipping over the floor to something white that lay on a board, a +candle at the head, and drew off the sheet. A girl of fifteen, almost a +child, lay underneath, dead,--her lithe, delicate figure decked out in a +barred plaid skirt, and stained, faded velvet bodice,--her neck and arms +bare. The small face was purely cut, haggard, patient in its sleep,--the +soft, fair hair gathered off the tired forehead. Margaret leaned over her +shuddering, pinning her handkerchief about the child's dead neck. + +"How young she is!" muttered Knowles. "Merciful God, how young she +is!--What is that you say?" sharply, seeing Margaret's lips move. + +"'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.'" + +"Ah, child, that is old-time philosophy. Put your hand here, on her dead +face. Is your loss like hers?" he said lower, looking into the dull pain +in her eyes. Selfish pain he called it. + +"Let me go," she said. "I am tired." + +He took her out into the cool, open road, leading her tenderly +enough,--for the girl suffered, he saw. + +"What will you do?" he asked her then. "It is not too late,--will you help +me save these people?" + +She wrung her hands helplessly. + +"What do you want with me?" she cried, weakly. "I have enough to bear." + +The burly black figure before her seemed to tower and strengthen; the +man's face in the wan light showed a terrible life-purpose coming out +bare. + +"I want you to do your work. It is hard; it will wear out your strength +and brain and heart. Give yourself to these people. God calls you to it. +There is none to help them. Give up love, and the petty hopes of women. +Help me. God calls you to the work." + +She went on blindly: he followed her. For years he had set apart this girl +to help him in his scheme: he would not be balked now. He had great hopes +from his plan: he meant to give all he had: it was the noblest of aims. He +thought some day it would work like leaven through the festering mass +under the country he loved so well, and raise it to a new life. If it +failed,--if it failed, and saved one life, his work was not lost. But it +could not fail. + +"Home!" he said, stopping her as she reached the stile,--"oh, Margaret, +what is home? There is a cry going up night and day from homes like that +den yonder, for help,--and no man listens." + +She was weak; her brain faltered. + +"Does God call me to this work? Does He call me?" she moaned. + +He watched her eagerly. + +"He calls you. He waits for your answer. Swear to me that you will help +His people. Give up father and mother and love, and go down as Christ did. +Help me to give liberty and truth and Jesus' love to these wretches on the +brink of hell. Live with them, raise them with you." + +She looked up, white; she was a weak, weak woman, sick for her natural +food of love. + +"Is it my work?" + +"It is your work. Listen to me, Margaret," softly. "Who cares for you? You +stand alone to-night. There is not a single human heart that calls you +nearest and best. Shiver, if you will,--it is true. The man you wasted +your soul on left you in the night and cold to go to his bride,--is +sitting by her now, holding her hand in his." + +He waited a moment, looking down at her, until she should understand. + +"Do you think you deserved this of God? I know that yonder on the muddy +road you looked up to Him, and knew it was not just; that you had done +right, and this was your reward. I know that for these two years you have +trusted in the Christ you worship to make it right, to give you your +heart's desire. Did He do it? Did He hear your prayer? Does He care for +your weak love, when the nations of the earth are going down? What is your +poor hope to Him, when the very land you live in is a wine-press that will +be trodden some day by the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God? O +Christ!--if there be a Christ,--help me to save it!" + +He looked up,--his face white with pain. After a time he said to her,-- + +"Help me, Margaret! Your prayer was selfish; it was not heard. Give up +your idle hope that Christ will aid you. Swear to me, this night when you +have lost all, to give yourself to this work." + +The storm had been dark and windy: it cleared now slowly, the warm summer +rain falling softly, the fresh blue stealing broadly from behind the gray. +It seemed to Margaret like a blessing; for her brain rose up stronger, +more healthful. + +"I will not swear," she said, weakly. "I think He heard my prayer. I think +He will answer it. He was a man, and loved as we do. My love is not +selfish; it is the best gift God has given me." + +Knowles went slowly with her to the house. He was not baffled. He knew +that the struggle was yet to come; that, when she was alone, her faith in +the far-off Christ would falter; that she would grasp at this work, to +fill her empty hands and starved heart, if for no other reason,--to stifle +by a sense of duty her unutterable feeling of loss. He was keenly read in +woman's heart, this Knowles. He left her silently, and she passed through +the dark passage to her own room. + +Putting her damp shawl off, she sat down on the floor, leaning her head on +a low chair,--one her father had given her for a Christmas gift when she +was little. How fond Holmes and her father used to be of each other! Every +Christmas he spent with them. She remembered them all now. "He was sitting +by her now, holding her hand in his." She said that over to herself, +though it was not hard to understand. + +After a long time, her mother came with a candle to the door. + +"Good-night, Margaret. Why, your hair is wet, child!" + +For Margaret, kissing her good-night, had laid her head down a minute on +her breast. She stroked the hair a moment, and then turned away. + +"Mother, could you stay with me to-night?" + +"Why, no, Maggie,--your father wants me to read to him." + +"Oh, I know. Did he miss me to-night,--father?" + +"Not much; we were talking old times over,--in Virginia, you know." + +"I know; good-night." + +She went back to the chair. Tige was there,--for he used to spend half of +his time on the farm. She put her arm about his head. God knows how lonely +the poor child was when she drew the dog so warmly to her heart: not for +his master's sake alone; but it was all she had. He grew tired at last, +and whined, trying to get out. + +"Will you go, Tige?" she said, and opened the window. + +He jumped out, and she watched him going towards town. Such a little +thing, it was! But not even a dog "called her nearest and best." + +Let us be silent; the story of the night is not for us to read. Do you +think that He, who in the far, dim Life holds the worlds in His hand, knew +or cared how alone the child was? What if she wrung her thin hands, grew +sick with the slow, mad, solitary tears?--was not the world to save, as +Knowles said? + +He, too, had been alone; He had come unto His own, and His own received +him not: so, while the struggling world rested, unconscious, in infinite +calm of right, He came close to her with human eyes that had loved, and +not been loved, and had suffered with that pain. And, trusting Him, she +only said, "Show me my work! Thou that takest away the pain of the world, +have mercy upon me!" + +For that night, at least, Holmes swept his soul clean of doubt and +indecision; one of his natures was conquered,--finally, he thought. +Polston, if he had seen his face as he paced the street slowly home to the +mill, would have remembered his mother's the day she died. How the stern +old woman met death half-way! why should she fear? she was as strong as +he. Wherein had she failed of duty? her hands were clean: she was going to +meet her just reward. + +It was different with Holmes, of course, with his self-existent soul. It +was life he accepted to-night, he thought,--a life of growth, labor, +achievement,--eternal. + +"_Ohne Hast, aber ohne Rast_,"--favorite words with him. He liked to study +the nature of the man who spoke them; because, I think, it was like his +own,--a Titan strength of endurance, an infinite capability of love and +hate and suffering, and over all (the peculiar identity of the man) a +cold, speculative eye of reason, that looked down into the passion and +depths of his growing self, and calmly noted them, a lesson for all time. + +"_Ohne Hast_." Going slowly through the night, he strengthened himself by +marking how all things in Nature accomplish a perfected life through slow, +narrow fixedness of purpose,--each life complete in itself: why not his +own, then? The windless gray, the stars, the stone under his feet, stood +alone in the universe, each working out its own soul into deed. If there +were any all-embracing harmony, one soul through all, he did not see it. +Knowles--that old skeptic--believed in it, and called it Love. Even Goethe +himself, what was it he said? "_Der Allumfasser, der Allerhalter, fasst +und erhält er nicht dich, mich, sich selbst_?" + +There was a curious power in the words, as he lingered over them, like +half-comprehended music,--as simple and tender as if they had come from +the depths of a woman's heart: it touched him deeper than his power of +control. Pah! it was a dream of Faust's; he, too, had his Margaret; he +fell, through that love. + +He went on slowly to the mill. If the name or the words woke a subtile +remorse or longing, he buried them under restful composure. Whether they +should ever rise like angry ghosts of what might have been, to taunt the +man, only the future could tell. + +Going through the gas-lit streets, Holmes met some cordial greeting at +every turn. What a just, clever fellow he was! people said: one of those +men improved by success: just to the defrauding of himself: saw the true +worth of everybody, the very lowest: hadn't one spark of self-esteem: +despised all humbug and show, one could see, though he never said it: when +he was a boy, he was moody, with passionate likes and dislikes; but +success had improved him, vastly. So Holmes was popular, though the +beggars shunned him, and the lazy Italian organ-grinders never held their +tambourines up to him. + +The mill street was dark; the building threw its great shadow over the +square. It was empty, he supposed; only one hand generally remained to +keep in the furnace-fires. Going through one of the lower passages, he +heard voices, and turned aside to examine. The management was not strict, +and in case of a fire the mill was not insured: like Knowles's +carelessness. + +It was Lois and her father,--Joe Yare being feeder that night. They were +in one of the great furnace-rooms in the cellar,--a very comfortable place +that stormy night. Two or three doors of the wide brick ovens were open, +and the fire threw a ruddy glow over the stone floor, and shimmered into +the dark recesses of the shadows, very home-like after the rain and mud +without. Lois seemed to think so, at any rate, for she had made a table of +a store-box, put a white cloth on it, and was busy getting up a regular +supper for her father,--down on her knees before the red coals, turning +something on an iron plate, while some slices of ham sent up a cloud of +juicy, hungry smell. + +The old stoker had just finished slaking the out-fires, and was putting +some blue plates on the table, gravely straightening them. He had grown +old, as Polston said,--Holmes saw, stooped much, with a low, hacking +cough; his coarse clothes were curiously clean: that was to please Lois, +of course. She put the ham on the table, and some bubbling coffee, and +then, from a hickory board in front of the fire, took off, with a jerk, +brown, flaky slices of Virginia johnny-cake. + +"Ther' yoh are, father, hot 'n' hot," with her face on +fire,--"ther'--yoh--are,--coaxin' to be eatin'.--Why, Mr. Holmes! Father! +Now, ef yoh jes' hedn't hed yer supper?" + +She came up, coaxingly. What brooding brown eyes the poor cripple had! Not +many years ago he would have sat down with the two poor souls and made a +hearty meal of it: he had no heart for such follies now. + +Old Yare stood in the background, his hat in his hand, stooping in his +submissive negro fashion, with a frightened watch on Holmes. + +"Do you stay here, Lois?" he asked, kindly, turning his back on the old +man. + +"On'y to bring his supper. I couldn't bide all night 'n th' mill,"--the +old shadow coming on her face,--"I couldn't, yoh know. _He_ doesn't mind +it." + +She glanced quickly from one to the other in the silence, seeing the fear +on her father's face. + +"Yoh know father, Mr. Holmes? He's back now. This is him." + +The old man came forward, humbly. + +"It's me, Master Stephen." + +The sullen, stealthy face disgusted Holmes. He nodded, shortly. + +"Yoh've been kind to my little girl while I was gone," he said, catching +his breath. "I thank yoh, master." + +"You need not. It was for Lois." + +"'Twas fur her I comed back hyur. 'Twas a resk,"--with a dumb look of +entreaty at Holmes,--"but fur her I thort I'd try it. I know 'twas a +resk; but I thort them as cared fur Lo wud be merciful. She's a good girl, +Lo. She's all I hev." + +Lois brought a box over, lugging it heavily. + +"We hevn't chairs; but yoh'll sit down, Mr. Holmes?" laughing as she +covered it with a cloth. "It's a warrm place, here. Father studies 'n his +watch, 'n' I'm teacher,"--showing the torn old spelling-book. + +The old man came eagerly forward, seeing the smile flicker on Holmes's +face. + +"It's slow work, master,--slow. But Lo's a good teacher, 'n' I'm +tryin',--I'm tryin' hard." + +"It's not slow, Sir, seein' father hedn't 'dvantages, like me. He was a"-- + +She stopped, lowering her voice, a hot flush of shame on her face. + +"I know." + +"Ben't that 'n 'xcuse, master, seein' I knowed noght at the beginnin'? +Thenk o' that, master. I'm tryin' to be a different man. Fur Lo. I _am_ +tryin'." + +Holmes did not notice him. + +"Good-night, Lois," he said, kindly, as she lighted his lamp. + +He put some money on the table. + +"You must take it," as she looked uneasy. "For Tiger's board, say. I never +see him now. A bright new frock, remember." + +She thanked him, her eyes brightening, looking at her father's patched +coat. + +The old man followed Holmes out. + +"Master Holmes"-- + +"Have done with this," said Holmes, sternly. "Whoever breaks law abides by +it. It is no affair of mine." + +The old man clutched his hands together fiercely, struggling to be quiet. + +"Ther's none knows it but yoh," he said, in a smothered voice. "Fur God's +sake be merciful! It'll kill my girl,--it'll kill her. Gev me a chance, +master." + +"You trouble me. I must do what is just." + +"It's not just," he said, savagely. "What good'll it do me to go back +ther'? I was goin' down, down, an' bringin' th' others with me. What +good'll it do you or the rest to hev me ther'? To make me afraid? It's +poor learnin' frum fear. Who taught me what was right? Who cared? No man +cared fur my soul, till I thieved 'n' robbed; 'n' then judge 'n' jury 'n' +jailers was glad to pounce on me. Will yoh gev me a chance? will yoh?" + +It was a desperate face before him; but Holmes never knew fear. + +"Stand aside," he said, quietly. "To-morrow I will see you. You need not +try to escape." + +He passed him, and went slowly up through the vacant mill to his chamber. + +The man sat down on the lower step a few moments, quite quiet, crushing +his hat up in a slow, steady way, looking up at the mouldy cobwebs on the +wall. He got up at last, and went in to Lois. Had she heard? The old +scarred face of the girl looked years older, he thought,--but it might be +fancy. She did not say anything for a while, moving slowly, with a new +gentleness, about him; her very voice was changed, older. He tried to be +cheerful, eating his supper: she need not know until to-morrow. He would +get out of the town to-night, or--There were different ways to escape. +When he had done, he told her to go; but she would not. + +"Let me stay th' night," she said. "I ben't afraid o' th' mill." + +"Why, Lo," he said, laughing, "yoh used to say yer death was hid here, +somewheres." + +"I know. But ther's worse nor death. But it'll come right," she said, +persistently, muttering to herself, as she leaned her face on her knees, +watching,--"it'll come right." + +The glimmering shadows changed and faded for an hour. The man sat quiet. +There was not much in the years gone to soften his thought, as it grew +desperate and cruel: there was oppression and vice heaped on him, and +flung back out of his bitter heart. Nor much in the future: a blank +stretch of punishment to the end. He was an old man: was it easy to bear? +What if he were black? what if he were born a thief? what if all the +sullen revenge of his nature had made him an outcast from the poorest +poor? Was there no latent good in this soul for which Christ died, that a +kind hand might not have brought to life? None? Something, I think, +struggled up in the touch of his hand, catching the skirt of his child's +dress, when it came near him, with the timid tenderness of a mother +touching her dead baby's hair,--as something holy, far off, yet very near: +something in his old crime-marked face,--a look like this dog's, putting +his head on my knee,--a dumb, unhelpful love in his eyes, and the slow +memory of a wrong done to his soul in a day long past. A wrong to both, +you say, perhaps; but if so, irreparable, and never to be recompensed. +Never? + +"Yoh must go, my little girl," he said at last. + +Whatever he did must be done quickly. She came up, combing the thin gray +hairs through her fingers. + +"Father, I dunnot understan' what it is, rightly. But stay with me,--stay, +father!" + +"Yoh've a many frien's, Lo," he said, with a keen flash of jealousy. +"Ther's none like yoh,--none." + +She put her misshapen head and scarred face down on his hand, where he +could see them. If it had ever hurt her to be as she was, if she had ever +compared herself bitterly with fair, beloved women, she was glad now and +thankful for every fault and deformity that brought her nearer to him, and +made her dearer. + +"They're kind, but ther's not many loves me with true love, like yoh. +Stay, father! Bear it out, whatever it be. Th' good time'll come, father." + +He kissed her, saying nothing, and went with her down the street. When he +left her, she waited, and, creeping back, hid near the mill. God knows +what vague dread was in her brain; but she came back to watch and help. + +Old Yare wandered through the great loom-rooms of the mill with but one +fact clear in his cloudy, faltering perception,--that above him the man +lay quietly sleeping who would bring worse than death on him to-morrow. Up +and down, aimlessly, with his stoker's torch in his hand, going over the +years gone and the years to come, with the dead hatred through all of the +pitiless man above him,--with now and then, perhaps, a pleasanter thought +of things that had been warm and cheerful in his life,--of the +corn-huskings long ago, when he was a boy, down in "th' Alabam',"--of the +scow his young master gave him once, the first thing he really owned: he +was almost as proud of it as he was of Lois when she was born. Most of all +remembering the good times in his life, he went back to Lois. It was all +good, there, to go back to. What a little chub she used to be! +Remembering, with bitter remorse, how all his life he had meant to try and +do better, on her account, but had kept putting off and putting off until +now. And now--Did nothing lie before him but to go back and rot yonder? +Was that the end, because he never had learned better, and was a "dam' +nigger"? + +"I'll _not_ leave my girl!" he muttered, going up and down,--"I'll _not_ +leave my girl!" + +If Holmes did sleep above him, the trial of the day, of which we have seen +nothing, came back sharper in sleep. While the strong self in the man lay +torpid, whatever holier power was in him came out, undaunted by defeat, +and unwearied, and took the form of dreams, those slighted messengers of +God, to soothe and charm and win him out into fuller, kindlier life. Let +us hope that they did so win him; let us hope that even in that unreal +world the better nature of the man triumphed at last, and claimed its +reward before the terrible reality broke upon him. + +Lois, over in the damp, fresh-smelling lumber-yard, sat coiled up in one +of the creviced houses made by the jutting boards. She remembered how she +used to play in them, before she went into the mill. The mill,--even now, +with the vague dread of some uncertain evil to come, the mill absorbed all +fear in its old hated shadow. Whatever danger was coming to them lay in +it, came from it, she knew, in her confused, blurred way of thinking. It +loomed up now, with the square patch of ashen sky above, black, heavy with +years of remembered agony and loss. In Lois's hopeful, warm life this was +the one uncomprehended monster. Her crushed brain, her unwakened powers, +resented their wrong dimly to the mass of iron and work and impure smells, +unconscious of any remorseless power that wielded it. It was a monster, +she thought, through the sleepy, dreading night,--a monster that kept her +wakeful with a dull, mysterious terror. + +When the night grew sultry and deepest, she started from her half-doze to +see her father come stealthily out and go down the street. She must have +slept, she thought, rubbing her eyes, and watching him out of sight,--and +then, creeping out, turned to glance at the mill. She cried out, shrill +with horror. It was a live monster now,--in one swift instant, alive with +fire,--quick, greedy fire, leaping like serpents' tongues out of its +hundred jaws, hungry sheets of flame maddening and writhing towards her, +and under all a dull and hollow roar that shook the night. Did it call her +to her death? She turned to fly, and then--He was alone, dying! He had +been so kind to her! She wrung her hands, standing there a moment. It was +a brave hope that was in her heart, and a prayer on her lips never left +unanswered, as she hobbled, in her lame, slow way, up to the open black +door, and, with one backward look, went in. + + * * * * * + + + + +JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. + + +The publication, now brought to a close, of a new edition of the novels of +Cooper[6] gives us a fair occasion for discharging a duty which Maga has +too long neglected, and saying something upon the genius of this great +writer, and, incidentally, upon the character of a man who would have been +a noticeable, not to say remarkable person, had he never written a line. +These novels stand before us in thirty-two goodly duodecimo volumes, well +printed, gracefully illustrated, and, in all external aspects, worthy of +generous commendation. With strong propriety, the publishers dedicate this +edition of the "first American novelist" to "the American People." No one +of our great writers is more thoroughly American than Cooper; no one has +caught and reproduced more broadly and accurately the spirit of our +institutions, the character of our people, and even the aspects of Nature +in this our Western world. He was a patriot to the very core of his heart; +he loved his country with a fervid, but not an undiscerning love: it was +an intelligent, vigilant, discriminating affection that bound his heart to +his native land; and thus, while no man defended his country more +vigorously when it was in the right, no one reproved its faults more +courageously, or gave warning and advice more unreservedly, where he felt +that they were needed. + + [6] We refer to the new edition of the novels of Cooper by Messrs. + W.A. Townsend & Co., with illustrations by Darley. + +This may be one reason why Cooper has more admirers, or at least fewer +disparagers, abroad than at home. On the Continent of Europe his novels +are everywhere read, with an eager, unquestioning delight. His popularity +is at least equal to that of Scott; and we think a considerable amount of +testimony could be collected to prove that it is even greater. But the +fact we have above stated is not the only explanation of this. He was the +first writer who made foreign nations acquainted with the characters and +incidents of American frontier and woodland life; and his delineations of +Indian manners and traits were greatly superior in freshness and power, if +not in truth, to any which had preceded them. His novels opened a new and +unwrought vein of interest, and were a revelation of humanity under +aspects and influences hitherto unobserved by the ripe civilization of +Europe. The taste which had become cloyed with endless imitations of the +feudal and mediaeval pictures of Scott turned with fresh delight to such +original figures--so full of sylvan power and wildwood grace--as Natty +Bumppo and Uncas. European readers, too, received these sketches with an +unqualified, because an ignorant admiration. We, who had better knowledge, +were more critical, and could see that the drawing was sometimes faulty, +and the colors more brilliant than those of life. + +The acute observer can detect a parallel between the relation of Cooper to +America and that of Scott to Scotland. Scott was as hearty a Scotchman as +Cooper an American: but Scott was a Tory in politics and an Episcopalian +in religion; and the majority of Scotchmen are Whigs in politics and +Presbyterians in religion. In Scott, as in Cooper, the elements of passion +and sympathy were so strong that he could not be neutral or silent on the +great questions of his time and place. Thus, while the Scotch are proud of +Scott, as they well may be,--while he has among his own people most +intense and enthusiastic admirers,--the proportion of those who yield to +his genius a cold and reluctant homage is probably greater in Scotland +than in any other country in Christendom. "The rest of mankind recognize +the essential truth of his delineations, and his loyalty to all the primal +instincts and sympathies of humanity"; but the Scotch cannot forget that +he opposed the Reform Bill, painted the Covenanters with an Episcopalian +pencil, and made a graceful and heroic image of the detested Claverhouse. + +The novels of Cooper, in the dates of their publication, cover a period of +thirty years: beginning with "Precaution," in 1820, and ending with "The +Ways of the Hour," in 1850. The production of thirty-two volumes in thirty +years is honorable to his creative energy, as well as to the systematic +industry of his habits. But even these do not constitute the whole of his +literary labors during these twenty-nine years. We must add five volumes +of naval history and biography, ten volumes of travels and sketches in +Europe, and a large amount of occasional and controversial writings, most +of which is now hidden away in that huge wallet wherein Time puts his alms +for Oblivion. His literary productions other than his novels would alone +be enough to save him from the reproach of idleness. In estimating a +writer's claims to honor and remembrance, the quantity as well as the +quality of his work should surely be taken into account; and in summing up +the case of our great novelist to the jury of posterity, this point should +be strongly put. + +Cooper's first novel, "Precaution," was published when he was in his +thirty-first year. It owed its existence to an accident, and was but an +ordinary production, as inferior to the best of his subsequent works as +Byron's "Hours of Idleness" to "Childe Harold." It was a languid and +colorless copy of exotic forms: a mere scale picked from the surface of +the writer's mind, with neither beauty nor vital warmth to commend it. We +speak from the vague impressions which many long years have been busy in +effacing; and we confess that it would require the combined forces of a +long voyage and a scanty library to constrain us to the task of reading it +anew. + +And yet, such as it was, it made a certain impression at the time of its +appearance. The standard by which it was tried was very unlike that which +would now be applied to it: there was all the difference between the two +that there is between strawberries in December and strawberries in June. +American literature was then just beginning to "glint forth" like Burns's +mountain daisy, and rear its tender form above the parent earth. The time +had, indeed, gone by--which a friend of ours, not yet venerable, affirms +he can well remember--when school-boys and collegians, zealous for the +honor of indigenous literature, were obliged to cite, by way of +illustration, such works as Morse's Geography and Hannah Adams's "History +of the Jews"; but it was only a faint, crepuscular light, that streaked +the east, and gave promise of the coming day. Irving had just completed +his "Sketch-Book," which was basking in the full sunshine of unqualified +popularity. Dana, in the thoughtful and meditative beauty of "The Idle +Man," was addressing a more limited public. Percival had just before +published a small volume of poems; Halleck's "Fanny" had recently +appeared; and so had a small duodecimo volume by Bryant, containing "The +Ages," and half a dozen smaller poems. Miss Sedgwick's "New England Tale" +was published about the same time. But a large proportion of those who are +now regarded as our ablest writers were as yet unknown, or just beginning +to give sign of what they were. Dr. Channing was already distinguished as +an eloquent and powerful preacher, but the general public had not yet +recognized in him that remarkable combination of loftiness of thought with +magic charm of style, which was soon to be revealed in his essays on +Milton and Napoleon Bonaparte. Ticknor and Everett were professors in +Harvard College, giving a new impulse to the minds of the students by +their admirable lectures; and the latter was also conducting the "North +American Review." Neither had as yet attained to anything more than a +local reputation. Prescott, a gay and light-hearted young man,--gay and +light-hearted, in spite of partial blindness,--the darling of society and +the idol of his home, was silently and resolutely preparing himself for +his chosen function by a wide and thorough course of patient study. +Bancroft was in Germany, and working like a German. Emerson was a Junior +in College. Hawthorne, Longfellow, Holmes, Whittier, and Poe were +school-boys; Mrs. Stowe was a school-girl; Whipple and Lowell were in the +nursery, and Motley and the younger Dana had not long been out of it. + +"Precaution," though an indifferent novel, was yet a novel; of the +orthodox length, with plot, characters, and incidents; and here and there +a touch of genuine power, as in the forty-first chapter, where the scene +is on board a man-of-war bringing her prizes into port. It found many +readers, and excited a good deal of curiosity as to who the author might +be. + +"Precaution" was published on the 25th of August, 1820, and "The Spy" on +the 17th of September, 1821. The second novel was a great improvement upon +the first, and fairly took the public by storm. We are old enough to +remember its first appearance; the eager curiosity and keen discussion +which it awakened; the criticism which it called forth; and, above all, +the animated delight with which it was received by all who were young or +not critical. Distinctly, too, can we recall the breathless rapture with +which we hung over its pages, in those happy days when the mind's appetite +for books was as ravenous as the body's for bread-and-butter, and a novel, +with plenty of fighting in it, was all we asked at a writer's hands. In +order to qualify ourselves for the task which we have undertaken in this +article, we have read "The Spy" a second time; and melancholy indeed was +the contrast between the recollections of the boy and the impressions of +the man. It was the difference between the theatre by gas-light and the +theatre by day-light: the gold was pinchbeck, the gems were glass, the +flowers were cambric and colored paper, the goblets were gilded +pasteboard. Painfully did the ideal light fade away, and the +well-remembered scene stand revealed in disenchanting day. With +incredulous surprise, with a constant struggle between past images and +present revelations, were we forced to acknowledge the improbability of +the story, the clumsiness of the style, the awkwardness of the dialogue, +the want of Nature in many of the characters, the absurdity of many of the +incidents, and the painfulness of some of the scenes. But with all this, a +candid, though critical judgment could not but admit that these grave +defects were attended by striking merits, which pleaded in mitigation of +literary sentence. It was stamped with a truth, earnestness, and vital +power, of which its predecessor gave no promise. Though the story was +improbable, it seized upon the attention with a powerful grasp from the +very start, and the hold was not relaxed till the end. Whatever criticism +it might challenge, no one could call it dull: the only offence in a book +which neither gods nor men nor counters can pardon. If the narrative +flowed languidly at times, there were moments in which the incidents +flashed along with such vivid rapidity that the susceptible reader held +his breath over the page. The character of Washington was an elaborate +failure, and the author, in his later years, regretted that he had +introduced this august form into a work of fiction; but Harvey Birch was +an original sketch, happily conceived, and, in the main, well sustained. +His mysterious figure was recognized as a new accession to the repertory +of the novelist, and not a mere modification of a preëxisting type. And, +above all, "The Spy" had the charm of reality; it tasted of the soil; it +was the first successful attempt to throw an imaginative light over +American history, and to do for our country what the author of "Waverley" +had done for Scotland. Many of the officers and soldiers of the +Revolutionary War were still living, receiving the reward of their early +perils and privations in the grateful reverence which was paid to them by +the contemporaries of their children and grandchildren. Innumerable +traditionary anecdotes of those dark days of suffering and struggle, +unrecorded in print, yet lingered in the memories of the people, and were +told in the nights of winter around the farm-house fire; and of no part of +the country was this more true than of the region in which the scene of +the novel is laid. The enthusiasm with which it was there read was the +best tribute to the substantial fidelity of its delineations. All over the +country, it enlisted in its behalf the powerful sentiment of patriotism; +and whatever the critics might say, the author had the satisfaction of +feeling that the heart of the people was with him. + +Abroad, "The Spy" was received with equal favor. It was soon translated +into most of the languages of Europe; and even the "gorgeous East" opened +for it its rarely moving portals. In 1847, a Persian version was published +in Ispahan; and by this time it may have crossed the Chinese wall, and be +delighting the pig-tailed critics and narrow-eyed beauties of Pekin. + +The success of "The Spy" unquestionably determined Cooper's vocation, and +made him a man of letters. But he had not yet found where his true +strength lay. His training and education had not been such as would seem +to be a good preparation for a literary career. His reading had been +desultory, and not extensive; and the habit of composition had not been +formed in early life. Indeed, in mere style, in the handling of the tools +of his craft, Cooper never attained a master's ease and power. In his +first two novels the want of technical skill and literary accomplishment +was obvious; and the scenery, subjects, and characters of these novels did +not furnish him with the opportunity of turning to account the peculiar +advantages which had come to him from the events of his childhood and +youth. In his infancy he was taken to Cooperstown, a spot which his father +had just begun to reclaim from the dominion of the wilderness. Here his +first impressions of the external world, as well as of life and manners, +were received. At the age of sixteen he became a midshipman in the United +States navy, and remained in the service for six years. A father who, in +training up his son for the profession of letters, should send him into +the wilderness in his infancy and to sea at sixteen, would seem to be +shooting very wide of the mark; but in this, as in so many things, there +is a divinity that shapes our rough-hewn ends. Had Cooper enjoyed the best +scholastic advantages which the schools and colleges of Europe could have +furnished, they could not have fitted him for the work he was destined to +do so well as the apparently untoward elements we have above adverted to; +for Natty Bumppo was the fruit of his woodland experience, and Long Tom +Coffin of his sea-faring life. + +"The Pioneers" and "The Pilot" were both published in 1823; "Lionel +Lincoln" in 1825; and "The Last of the Mohicans" in 1826. We may put +"Lionel Lincoln" aside, as one of his least successful productions; but +the three others were never surpassed, and rarely equalled, by any of his +numerous subsequent works. All the powerful, and nearly all the +attractive, qualities of his genius were displayed in these three novels, +in their highest degree and most ample measure. Had he never written any +more,--though we should have missed many interesting narratives, admirable +pictures, and vigorously drawn characters,--we are not sure that his fame +would not have been as great as it is now. From these, and "The Spy," full +materials may be drawn for forming a correct estimate of his merits and +his defects. In these, his strength and weakness, his gifts and +deficiencies, are amply shown. Here, then, we may pause, and, without +pursuing his literary biography any farther, proceed to set down our +estimate of his claims as a writer. Any critic who dips his pen in ink and +not in gall would rather praise than blame; therefore we will dispose of +the least gracious part of our task first, and begin with his blemishes +and defects. + +A skilful construction of the story is a merit which the public taste no +longer demands, and it is consequently fast becoming one of the lost arts. +The practice of publishing novels in successive numbers, so that one +portion is printed before another is written, is undoubtedly one cause of +this. But English and American readers have not been accustomed to this +excellence in the works of their best writers of fiction; and therefore +they are not sensitive to the want of it. This is certainly not one of +Scott's strong points. Fielding's "Tom Jones" is, in this respect, +superior to any of the "Waverley Novels," and without an equal, so far as +we know, in English literature. But, in sitting in judgment upon a writer +of novels, we cannot waive an inquiry into his merits on this point. Are +his stories, simply as stories, well told? Are his plots symmetrically +constructed and harmoniously evolved? Are his incidents probable? and do +they all help on the catastrophe? Does he reject all episodical matter +which would clog the current of the narrative? Do his novels have unity of +action? or are they merely a series of sketches, strung together without +any relation of cause and effect? Cooper, tried by these rules, can +certainly command no praise. His plots are not carefully or skilfully +constructed. His incidents are not probable in themselves, nor do they +succeed each other in a natural and dependent progression. His characters +get into scrapes from which the reasonable exercise of common faculties +should have saved them; and they are rescued by incredible means and +impossible instruments. The needed man appears as unaccountably and +mysteriously as if he had dropped from the clouds, or emerged from the +sea, or crept up through a fissure in the earth. The winding up of his +stories is often effected by devices nearly as improbable as a violation +of the laws of Nature. His personages act without adequate motives; they +rush into needless dangers; they trust their fate, with unsuspecting +simplicity, to treacherous hands. + +In works of fiction the skill of the writer is most conspicuously shown +when the progress of the story is secured by natural and probable +occurrences. Many events take place in history and in common life which +good taste rejects as inadmissible in a work of imagination. Sudden death +by disease or casualty is no very uncommon occurrence in real life; but it +cannot be used in a novel to clear up a tangled web of circumstance, +without betraying something of a poverty of invention in the writer. He is +the best artist who makes least use of incidents which lie out of the +beaten path of observation and experience. In constructive skill Cooper's +rank is not high; for all his novels are more or less open to the +criticism that too frequent use is made in them of events very unlikely to +have happened. He leads his characters into such formidable perils that +the chances are a million to one against their being rescued. Such a run +is made upon our credulity that the fund is soon exhausted, and the bank +stops payment. + +For illustration of the above strictures we will refer to a single novel, +"The Last of the Mohicans," which everybody will admit to be one of the +most interesting of his works,--full of rapid movement, brilliant +descriptions, hair-breadth escapes, thrilling adventures,--which young +persons probably read with more rapt attention than any other of his +narratives. In the opening chapter we find at Fort Edward, on the +head-waters of the Hudson, the two daughters of Colonel Munro, the +commander of Fort William Henry, on the shores of Lake George; though why +they were at the former post, under the protection of a stranger, and not +with their father, does not appear. Information is brought of the approach +of Montcalm, with a hostile army of Indians and Frenchmen, from the North; +and the young ladies are straightway hurried off to the more advanced, and +consequently more dangerous post, when prudence and affection would have +dictated just the opposite course. Nor is this all. General Webb, the +commander of Fort Edward, at the urgent request of Colonel Munro, sends +him a reinforcement of fifteen hundred men, who march off through the +woods, by the military road, with drums beating and colors flying; and +yet, strange to say, the young ladies do not accompany the troops, but set +off, on the very same day, by a by-path, attended by no other escort than +Major Heyward, and guided by an Indian whose fidelity is supposed to be +assured by his having been flogged for drunkenness by the orders of +Colonel Munro. The reason assigned for conduct so absurd that in real life +it would have gone far to prove the parties having a hand in it not to be +possessed of that sound and disposing mind and memory which the law +requires as a condition precedent to making a will is, that hostile +Indians, in search of chance scalps, would be hovering about the column of +troops, and so leave the by-path unmolested. But the servants of the party +follow the route of the column: a measure, we are told, dictated by the +sagacity of the Indian guide, in order to diminish the marks of their +trail, if, haply, the Canadian savages should be prowling about so far in +advance of their army! Certainly, all the sagacity of the fort would seem +to have been concentrated in the person of the Indian. How much of this +improbability might have been avoided, if the action had been reversed, +and the young ladies, in view of the gathering cloud of war, had been sent +from the more exposed and less strongly guarded point of Fort William +Henry to the safe fortress of Fort Edward! Then the smallness of the +escort and the risks of the journey would have been explained and excused +by the necessity of the case; and the subsequent events of the novel might +have been easily accommodated to the change we have indicated. + +One of the best of Cooper's novels--as a work of art perhaps the very +best--is "The Bravo." But the character of Jacopo Frontoni is a sort of +moral impossibility, and the clearing up of the mystery which hangs over +his life and conduct, which is skilfully reserved to the last moment, is +consequently unsatisfactory. He is represented as a young man of the +finest qualities and powers, who, in the hope of rescuing a father who had +been falsely imprisoned by the Senate, consents to assume the character, +and bear the odium, of a public bravo, or assassin, though entirely +innocent. This false position gives rise to many most effective scenes and +incidents, and the character is in many respects admirably drawn. But when +the end comes, we lay down the book and say,--"This could never have been: +a virtuous and noble young man could not for years have been believed to +be the most hateful of mankind; the laws of Nature and the laws of the +human mind forbid it: so vast a web of falsehood could not have been woven +without a flaw: we can credit much of the organized and pitiless despotism +of Venice, but could it work miracles?" + +Further illustrations of this same defect might easily be cited, if the +task were not ungracious. Neither books, nor pictures, nor men and women +should be judged by their defects. It is enough to say that Cooper never +wrote a novel in regard to which the reader must not lay aside his +critical judgment upon the structure of the story and the interdependence +of the incidents, and let himself be borne along by the rapid flow of the +narrative, without questioning too curiously as to the nature of the means +and instruments employed to give movement to the stream. + +In the delineation of character, Cooper may claim great, but not +unqualified praise. This is a vague statement; and to draw a sharper line +of discrimination, we should say that he is generally successful--sometimes +admirably so--in drawing personages in whom strong primitive traits have +not been effaced by the attritions of artificial life, and generally +unsuccessful when he deals with those in whom the original characteristics +are less marked, or who have been smoothed by education and polished by +society. It is but putting this criticism in another form to say that his +best characters are persons of humble social position. He wields his brush +with a vigorous hand, but the brush itself has not a fine point. Of all +the children of his brain, Natty Bumppo is the most universal +favorite,--and herein the popular judgment is assuredly right. He is an +original conception,--and not more happily conceived than skilfully +executed. It was a hazardous undertaking to present the character +backwards, and let us see the closing scenes of his life first,--like a +Hebrew Bible, of which the beginning is at the end; but the author's +genius has triumphed over the perils of the task, and given us a +delineation as consistent and symmetrical as it is striking and vigorous. +Ignorant of books, simple, and credulous, guileless himself, and +suspecting no evil in others, with moderate intellectual powers, he +commands our admiration and respect by his courage, his love of Nature, +his skill in woodland lore, his unerring moral sense, his strong +affections, and the veins of poetry that run through his rugged nature +like seams of gold in quartz. Long Tom Coffin may be described as +Leatherstocking suffered a sea-change,--with a harpoon instead of a rifle, +and a pea-jacket instead of a hunting-shirt. In both the same primitive +elements may be discerned: the same limited intellectual range combined +with professional or technical skill; the same generous affections and +unerring moral instincts; the same religious feeling, taking the form at +times of fatalism or superstition. Long Tom's love of the sea is like +Leatherstocking's love of the woods; the former's dislike of the land is +like the latter's dislike of the clearings. Cooper himself, as we are told +by his daughter, was less satisfied, in his last years, with Long Tom +Coffin than most of his readers,--and, of the two characters, considered +that of Boltrope the better piece of workmanship. We cannot assent to this +comparative estimate; but we admit that Boltrope has not had full justice +done to him in popular judgment. It is but a slight sketch, but it is +extremely well done. His death is a bit of manly and genuine pathos; and +in his conversations with the chaplain there is here and there a touch of +true humor, which we value the more because humor was certainly not one of +the author's best gifts. + +Antonio, the old fisherman, in "The Bravo," is another very well drawn +character, in which we can trace something of a family likeness to the +hunter and sailor above mentioned. The scene in which he is shrived by the +Carmelite monk, in his boat, under the midnight moon, upon the Lagoons, is +one of the finest we know of in the whole range of the literature of +fiction, leaving upon the mind a lasting impression of solemn and pathetic +beauty. In "The Chainbearer," the Yankee squatter, Thousandacres, is a +repulsive figure, but drawn with a powerful pencil. The energy of +character, or rather of action, which is the result of a passionate love +of money, is true to human nature. The closing scenes of his rough and +lawless life, in which his latent affection for his faithful wife throws a +sunset gleam over his hard and selfish nature, and prevents it from being +altogether hateful, are impressively told, and are touched with genuine +tragic power. + +On the other hand, Cooper generally fails when he undertakes to draw a +character which requires for its successful execution a nice observation +and a delicate hand. His heroes and heroines are apt to abuse the +privilege which such personages have enjoyed, time out of mind, of being +insipid. Nor can he catch and reproduce the easy grace and unconscious +dignity of high-bred men and women. His gentlemen, whether young or old, +are apt to be stiff, priggish, and commonplace; and his ladies, especially +his young ladies, are as deficient in individuality as the figures and +faces of a fashion-print. Their personal and mental charms are set forth +with all the minuteness of a passport; but, after all, we cannot but think +that these fine creatures, with hair, brow, eyes, and lips of the most +orthodox and approved pattern, would do very little towards helping one +through a rainy day in a country-house. Judge Temple, in "The Pioneers," +and Colonel Howard, in "The Pilot," are highly estimable and respectable +gentlemen, but, in looking round for the materials of a pleasant +dinner-party, we do not think they would stand very high on the list. They +are fair specimens of their class,--the educated gentleman in declining +life,--many of whom are found in the subsequent novels. They are wanting +in those natural traits of individuality by which, in real life, one human +being is distinguished from another. They are obnoxious to this one +general criticism, that the author is constantly reminding us of the +qualities of mind and character on which he rests their claims to favor, +without causing them to appear naturally and unconsciously in the course +of the narrative. The defect we are adverting to may be illustrated by +comparing such personages of this class as Cooper has delineated with +Colonel Talbot, in "Waverley," Colonel Mannering and Counsellor Pleydell, +in "Guy Mannering," Monkbarns, in "The Antiquary," and old Osbaldistone, +in "Rob Roy." These are all old men: they are all men of education, and in +the social position of gentlemen; but each has certain characteristics +which the others have not: each has the distinctive individual +flavor-perceptible, but indescribable, like the savor of a fruit--which is +wanting in Cooper's well-dressed and well-behaved lay-figures. + +In the delineation of female loveliness and excellence Cooper is generally +supposed to have failed,--at least, comparatively so. But in this respect +full justice has hardly been done him; and this may be explained by the +fact that it was from the heroines of his earlier novels that this +unfavorable judgment was drawn. Certainly, such sticks of barley-candy as +Frances Wharton, Cecilia Howard, and Alice Munro justify the common +impression. But it would be as unfair to judge of what he can do in this +department by his acknowledged failures as it would be to form an estimate +of the genius of Michel Angelo from the easel-picture of the Virgin and +Child in the Tribune at Florence. No man ever had a juster appreciation +of, and higher reverence for, the worth of woman than Cooper. Towards +women his manners were always marked by chivalrous deference, blended as +to those of his own household with the most affectionate tenderness. His +own nature was robust, self-reliant, and essentially masculine: such men +always honor women, but they understand them better as they grow older. +There is so much foundation for the saying, that men are apt to love their +first wives best, but to treat their second wives best. Thus the reader +who takes up his works in chronological order will perceive that the +heroines of his later novels have more spirit and character, are drawn +with a more discriminating touch, take stronger hold upon the interest, +than those of his earlier. Ursula Malbone is a finer girl than Cecilia +Howard, or even Elizabeth Temple. So when he has occasion to delineate a +woman who, from her position in life, or the peculiar circumstances into +which she is thrown, is moved by deeper springs of feeling, is obliged to +put forth sterner energies, than are known to females reared in the +sheltered air of prosperity and civilization,--when he paints the heart of +woman roused by great perils, overborne by heavy sorrows, wasted by strong +passions,--we recognize the same master-hand which has given us such +powerful pictures of character in the other sex. In other words, Cooper is +not happy in representing those shadowy and delicate graces which belong +exclusively to woman, and distinguish her from man; but he is generally +successful in sketching in woman those qualities which are found in both +sexes. In "The Bravo," Donna Violetta, the heroine, a rich and high-born +young lady, is not remarkable one way or the other; but Gelsomina, the +jailer's daughter, born in an inferior position, reared in a sterner +school of discipline and struggle, is a beautiful and consistent creation, +constantly showing masculine energy and endurance, yet losing nothing of +womanly charm. Ruth, in "The Wept of the Wish-ton-Wish," Hetty Hutter, the +weak-minded and sound-hearted girl, in "The Deerslayer," Mabel Dunham, and +the young Indian woman, "Dew of June," in "The Pathfinder," are further +cases in point. No one can read the books in which these women are +represented and say that Cooper was wanting in the power of delineating +the finest and highest attributes of womanhood, + +Cooper cannot be congratulated upon his success in the few attempts he has +made to represent historical personages. Washington, as shown to us in +"The Spy," is a formal piece of mechanism, as destitute of vital character +as Maelzel's automaton trumpeter. This, we admit, was a very difficult +subject, alike from the peculiar traits of Washington, and from the +reverence in which his name and memory are held by his countrymen. But the +sketch, in "The Pilot," of Paul Jones, a very different person, and a much +easier subject, is hardly better. In both cases, the failure arises from +the fact that the author is constantly endeavoring to produce the +legitimate effect of mental and moral qualities by a careful enumeration +of external attributes. Harper, under which name Washington is introduced, +appears in only two or three scenes; but, during these, we hear so much of +the solemnity and impressiveness of his manner, the gravity of his brow, +the steadiness of his gaze, that we get the notion of a rather oppressive +personage, and sympathize with the satisfaction of the Whartons, when he +retires to his own room, and relieves them of his tremendous presence. Mr. +Gray, who stands for Paul Jones, is more carefully elaborated, but the +result is far from satisfactory. We are so constantly told of his calmness +and abstraction, of his sudden starts and bursts of feeling, of his low +voice, of his fits of musing, that the aggregate impression is that of +affectation and self-consciousness, rather than of a simple, passionate, +and heroic nature. Mr. Gray does not seem to us at all like the rash, +fiery, and dare-devil Scotchman of history. His conduct and conversation, +as recounted in the fifth chapter of the novel, are unnatural and +improbable; and we cannot wonder that the first lieutenant did not know +what to make of so melodramatic and sententious a gentleman, in the guise +of a pilot. + +Cooper, as we need hardly say, has drawn copiously upon Indian life and +character for the materials of his novels; and among foreign nations much +of his reputation is due to this fact. Civilized men and women always take +pleasure in reading about the manners and habits of savage life; and those +in whom the shows of things are submitted to the desires of the mind +delight to invest them with those ideal qualities which they do not find, +or think they do not, in the artificial society around them. Cooper had +enjoyed no peculiar opportunities of studying by personal observation the +characteristics of the Indian race, but he had undoubtedly read everything +he could get hold of in illustration of the subject. No one can question +the vividness and animation of his sketches, or their brilliant tone of +color. He paints with a pencil dipped in the glow of our sunset skies and +the crimson of our autumn maples. Whenever he brings Indians upon the +stage, we may be sure that scenes of thrilling interest are before us: +that rifles are to crack, tomahawks to gleam, and arrows to dart like +sunbeams through the air; that a net of peril is to be drawn around his +hero or heroine, from the meshes of which he or she is to be extricated by +some unexpected combination of fortunate circumstances. We expect a +succession of startling incidents, and a rapid course of narrative without +pauses or languid intervals. We do not object to his idealizing his +Indians: this is the privilege of the novelist, time out of mind. He may +make them swift of foot, graceful in movement, and give them a form like +the Apollo's; he may put as much expression as he pleases into their black +eyes; he may tessellate their speech as freely as he will with poetical +and figurative expressions, drawn from the aspects of the external world: +for all this there is authority, and chapter and verse may be cited in +support of it. But we have a right to ask that he shall not transcend the +bounds of reason and possibility, and represent his red men as moved by +motives and guided by sentiments which are wholly inconsistent with the +inexorable facts of the case. We confess to being a little more than +skeptical as to the Indian of poetry and romance: like the German's camel, +he is evolved from the depth of the writer's own consciousness. The poet +takes the most delicate sentiments and the finest emotions of civilization +and cultivation, and grafts them upon the best qualities of savage life; +which is as if a painter should represent an oak-tree bearing roses. The +life of the North-American Indian, like that of all men who stand upon the +base-line of civilization, is a constant struggle, and often a losing +struggle, for mere subsistence. The sting of animal wants is his chief +motive of action, and the full gratification of animal wants his highest +ideal of happiness. The "noble savage," as sketched by poets, weary of the +hollowness, the insincerity, and the meanness of artificial life, is +really a very ignoble creature, when seen in the "open daylight" of truth. +He is selfish, sensual, cruel, indolent, and impassive. The highest graces +of character, the sweetest emotions, the finest sensibilities,--which make +up the novelist's stock in trade,--are not and cannot be the growth of a +so-called state of Nature, which is an essentially unnatural state. We no +more believe that Logan ever made the speech reported by Jefferson, in so +many words, than we believe that Chatham ever made the speech in reply to +Walpole which begins with, "The atrocious crime of being a young man"; +though we have no doubt that the reporters in both cases had something +fine and good to start from. We accept with acquiescence, nay, with +admiration, such characters as Magua, Chingachgook, Susquesus, Tamenund, +and Canonchet; but when we come to Uncas, in "The Last of the Mohicans," +we pause and shake our heads with incredulous doubt. That a young Indian +chief should fall in love with a handsome quadroon like Cora Munro--for +she was neither more nor less than that--is natural enough; but that he +should manifest his passion with such delicacy and refinement is +impossible. We include under one and the same name all the affinities and +attractions of sex, but the appetite of the savage differs from the love +of the educated and civilized man as much as charcoal differs from the +diamond. The sentiment of love, as distinguished from the passion, is one +of the last and best results of Christianity and civilization: in no one +thing does savage life differ from civilized more than in the relations +between man and woman, and in the affections that unite them. Uncas is a +graceful and beautiful image; but he is no Indian. + +We turn now to a more gracious part of our task, and proceed to say +something of the many striking excellences which distinguish Cooper's +writings, and have given him such wide popularity. Popularity is but one +test of merit, and not the highest,--gauging popularity by the number of +readers, at any one time, irrespective of their taste and judgment. In +this sense, "The Scottish Chiefs" and "Thaddeus of Warsaw" were once as +popular as any of the Waverley Novels. But Cooper's novels have enduring +merit, and will surely keep their place in the literature of the language. +The manners, habits, and costumes of England have greatly changed during +the last hundred years; but Richardson and Fielding are still read. We +must expect corresponding changes in this country during the next century; +but we may confidently predict that in the year 1962 young and impressible +hearts will be saddened at the fate of Uncas and Cora, and exult when +Captain Munson's frigate escapes from the shoals. + +A few pages back we spoke of Cooper's want of skill in the structure of +his plots, and his too frequent recurrence to improbable incidents to help +on the course of his stories. But most readers care little about this +defect, provided the writer betrays no poverty of invention, and succeeds +in making his narratives interesting. Herein Cooper never lays himself +open to that instinctive and unconscious criticism, which is the only kind +an author need dread, because from it there is no appeal. It is bad to +have a play hissed down, but it is worse to have it yawned down. But over +Cooper's pages his readers never yawn. They never break down in the middle +of one of his stories. The fortunes of his characters are followed with +breathless and accumulating interest to the end. In vain does the +dinner-bell sound, or the clock strike the hour of bed-time: the book +cannot be laid down till we know whether Elizabeth Temple is to get out of +the woods without being burned alive, or solve the mystery that hangs over +the life of Jacopo Frontoni. He has in ample measure that paramount and +essential merit in a novelist of fertility of invention. The resources of +his genius, alike in the devising of incidents and the creation of +character, are inexhaustible. His scenes are laid on the sea and in the +forest,--in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain,--amid the refinements +and graces of civilization and the rudeness and hardships of frontier and +pioneer life; but everywhere he moves with an easy and familiar tread, and +everywhere, though there may be the motive and the cue for minute +criticism, we recognize the substantial truth of his pictures. In all his +novels the action is rapid and the movement animated: his incidents may +not be probable, but they crowd upon each other so thickly that we have +not time to raise the question: before one impression has become familiar, +the scene changes, and new objects enchain the attention. All rapid motion +is exhilarating alike to mind and body; and in reading Cooper's novels we +feel a pleasure analogous to that which stirs the blood when we drive a +fast horse or sail with a ten-knot breeze. This fruitfulness in the +invention of incidents is nearly as important an element in the +composition of a novelist as a good voice in that of a singer. A powerful +work of fiction may be produced by a writer who has not this gift; but +such works address a comparatively limited public. To the common mind no +faculty in the novelist is so fascinating as this. "Caleb Williams" is a +story of remarkable power; but "Ivanhoe" has a thousand readers to its +one. + +In estimating novelists by the number and variety of characters with which +they have enriched the repertory of fiction, Cooper's place, if not the +highest, is very high. The fruitfulness of his genius in this regard is +kindred to its fertility in the invention of incidents. We can pardon in a +portrait-gallery of such extent here and there an ill-drawn figure or a +face wanting in expression. With the exception of Scott, and perhaps of +Dickens, what writer of prose fiction has created a greater number of +characters such as stamp themselves upon the memory so that an allusion to +them is well understood in cultivated society? Fielding has drawn country +squires, and Smollett has drawn sailors; but neither has intruded upon the +domain of the other, nor could he have made the attempt without failure. +Some of our living novelists have a limited list of characters; they have +half a dozen types which we recognize as inevitably as we do the face and +voice of an actor in the king, the lover, the priest, or the bandit: but +Cooper is not a mere mannerist, perpetually copying from himself. His +range is very wide: it includes white men, red men, and black +men,--sailors, hunters, and soldiers,--lawyers, doctors, and +clergymen,--past generations and present,--Europeans and +Americans,--civilized and savage life. All his delineations are not +successful; some are even unsuccessful: but the aberrations of his genius +must be viewed in connection with the extent of the orbit through which it +moves. The courage which led him to expose himself to so many risks of +failure is itself a proof of conscious power. + +Cooper's style has not the ease, grace, and various power of Scott's,--or +the racy, idiomatic character of Thackeray's,--or the exquisite purity and +transparency of Hawthorne's: but it is a manly, energetic style, in which +we are sure to find good words, if not the best. It has certain wants, but +it has no marked defects; if it does not always command admiration, it +never offends. It has not the highest finish; it sometimes betrays +carelessness: but it is the natural garb in which a vigorous mind clothes +its conceptions. It is the style of a man who writes from a full mind, +without thinking of what he is going to say; and this is in itself a +certain kind of merit. His descriptive powers are of a high order. His +love of Nature was strong; and, as is generally the case with intellectual +men, it rather increased than diminished as he grew older. It was not the +meditative and self-conscious love of a sensitive spirit, that seeks in +communion with the outward world a relief from the burdens and struggles +of humanity, but the hearty enjoyment of a thoroughly healthy nature, the +schoolboy's sense of a holiday dwelling in a manly breast. His finest +passages are those in which he presents the energies and capacities of +humanity in combination with striking or beautiful scenes in Nature. His +genius, which sometimes moves with "compulsion and laborious flight" when +dealing with artificial life and the manners and speech of cultivated men, +and women, here recovers all its powers, and sweeps and soars with +victorious and irresistible wing. The breeze from the sea, the fresh air +and wide horizon of the prairies, the noonday darkness of the forest are +sure to animate his drooping energies, and breathe into his mind the +inspiration of a fresh life. Here he is at home, and in his congenial +element: he is the swan on the lake, the eagle in the air, the deer in the +woods. The escape of the frigate, in the fifth chapter of "The Pilot," is +a well-known passage of this kind; and nothing can be finer. The technical +skill, the poetical feeling, the rapidity of the narrative, the +distinctness of the details, the vividness of the coloring, the life, +power, and animation which breathe and burn in every line, make up a +combination of the highest order of literary merit. It is as good a +sea-piece as the best of Turner's; and we cannot give it higher praise. We +hear the whistling of the wind through the rigging, and the roar of the +pitiless sea, bellowing for its prey; we see the white caps of the waves +flashing with spectral light through the darkness, and the gallant ship +whirled along like a bubble by the irresistible current; we hold our +breath as we read of the expedients and manoeuvres which most of us but +half understand, and heave a long sigh of relief when the danger is past, +and the ship reaches the open sea. A similar passage, though of more quiet +and gentler beauty, is the description of the deer-chase on the lake, in +the twenty-seventh chapter of "The Pioneers." Indeed, this whole novel is +full of the finest expressions of the author's genius. Into none of his +works has he put more of the warmth of personal feeling and the glow of +early recollection. His own heart beats through every line. The fresh +breezes of the morning of life play round its pages, and its unexhaled dew +hangs upon them. It is colored throughout with the rich hues of +sympathetic emotion. All that is attractive in pioneer life is reproduced +with substantial truth; but the pictures are touched with those finer +lights which time pours over the memories of childhood. With what spirit +and power all the characteristic incidents and scenes of a new settlement +are described,--pigeon-shooting, bass-fishing, deer-hunting, the making of +maple-sugar, the turkey-shooting at Christmas, the sleighing-parties in +winter! How distinctly his landscapes are painted,--the deep, impenetrable +forest, the gleaming lake, the crude aspect and absurd architecture of the +new-born village! How full of poetry in the ore is the conversation of +Leatherstocking! The incongruities and peculiarities of social life which +are the result of a sudden rush of population into the wilderness are also +well sketched; though with a pencil less free and vivid than that with +which he paints the aspects of Nature and the movements of natural man. As +respects the structure of the story, and the probability of the incidents, +the novel is open to criticism; but such is the fascination that hangs +over it, that it is impossible to criticize. To do this would be as +ungracious as to correct the language and pronunciation of an old friend +who revives by his conversation the fading memories of school-boy and +college life. + +Cooper would have been a better writer, if he had had more of the quality +of humor, and a keener sense of the ridiculous; for these would have saved +him from his too frequent practice of introducing both into his narrative +and his conversations, but more often into the latter, scraps of +commonplace morality, and bits of sentiment so long worn as to have lost +all their gloss. In general, his genius does not appear to advantage in +dialogue. His characters have not always a due regard to the brevity of +human life. They make long speeches, preach dull sermons, and ventilate +very self-evident propositions with great solemnity of utterance. Their +discourse wants not only compression, but seasoning. They are sometimes +made to talk in such a way that the force of caricature can hardly go +farther. For instance, in "The Pioneers," Judge Temple, coming into a room +in his house, and seeing a fire of maple-logs, exclaims to Richard Jones, +his kinsman and factotum,--"How often have I forbidden the use of the +sugar-maple in my dwelling! The sight of that sap, as it _exudes_ with the +heat, is painful to me, Richard." And in another place, he is made to say +to his daughter,--"Remember the heats of July, my daughter; nor venture +farther than thou canst _retrace before the meridian_." We may be sure +that no man of woman born, in finding fault about the burning of +maple-logs, ever talked of the sap's "exuding"; or, when giving a daughter +a caution against walking too far, ever translated getting home before +noon into "retracing before the meridian." This is almost as bad as Sir +Piercie Shafton's calling the cows "the milky mothers of the herds." + +So, too, a lively perception of the ludicrous would have saved Cooper from +certain peculiarities of phrase and awkwardnesses of expression, +frequently occurring in his novels, such as might easily slip from the pen +in the rapidity of composition, but which we wonder should have been +overlooked in the proof-sheet. A few instances will illustrate our +meaning. In the elaborate description of the personal charms of Cecilia +Howard, in the tenth chapter of "The Pilot," we are told of "a small hand +which _seemed to blush at its own naked beauties_." In "The Pioneers," +speaking of the head and brow of Oliver Edwards, he says,--"The very air +and manner with which _the member haughtily maintained itself_ over the +coarse and even wild attire," etc. In "The Bravo," we read,--"As the +stranger passed, his _glittering organs rolled over_ the persons of the +gondolier and his companion," etc.; and again, in the same novel,--"The +packet was received calmly, though _the organ_ which glanced at its seal," +etc. In "The Last of the Mohicans," the complexion of Cora appears +"charged with the color of the rich blood that _seemed ready to burst its +bounds_." These are but trivial faults; and if they had not been so easily +corrected, it would have been hypercriticism to notice them. + +Every author in the department of imaginative literature, whether of prose +or verse, puts more or less of his personal traits of mind and character +into his writings. This is very true of Cooper; and much of the worth and +popularity of his novels is to be ascribed to the unconscious expressions +and revelations they give of the estimable and attractive qualities of the +man. Bryant, in his admirably written and discriminating biographical +sketch, originally pronounced as a eulogy, and now prefixed to +"Precaution" in Townsend's edition, relates that a distinguished man of +letters, between whom and Cooper an unhappy coolness had for some time +existed, after reading "The Pathfinder," remarked,--"They may say what +they will of Cooper, the man who wrote this book is not only a great man, +but a good man." This is a just tribute; and the impression thus made by a +single work is confirmed by all. Cooper's moral nature was thoroughly +sound, and all his moral instincts were right. His writings show in how +high regard he held the two great guardian virtues of courage in man and +purity in woman. In all his novels we do not recall a single expression of +doubtful morality. He never undertakes to enlist our sympathies on the +wrong side. If his good characters are not always engaging, he never does +violence to virtue by presenting attractive qualities in combination with +vices which in real life harden the heart and coarsen the taste. We do not +find in his pages those moral monsters in which the finest sensibilities, +the richest gifts, the noblest sentiments are linked to heartless +profligacy, or not less heartless misanthropy. He never palters with +right; he enters into no truce with wrong; he admits of no compromise on +such points. How admirable in its moral aspect is the character of +Leatherstocking! he is ignorant, and of very moderate intellectual range +or grasp; but what dignity, nay, even grandeur, is thrown around him from +his noble moral qualities,--his undeviating rectitude, his +disinterestedness, his heroism, his warm affections! No writer could have +delineated such a character so well who had not an instinctive and +unconscious sympathy with his intellectual offspring. Praise of the same +kind belongs to Long Tom Coffin, and Antonio, the old fisherman. The +elements of character--truth, courage, and affection--are the same in all. +Harvey Birch and Jacopo Frontoni are kindred conceptions: both are in a +false relation to those around them; both assume a voluntary load of +obloquy; both live and move in an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust; +but in both the end sanctifies and exalts the means; the element of +deception in both only adds to the admiration finally awakened. The +carrying out of conceptions like these--the delineation of a character +that perpetually weaves a web of untruth, and yet through all maintains +our respect, and at last secures our reverence--was no easy task; but +Cooper's success is perfect. + +Cooper was fortunate in having been born with a vigorous constitution, and +in having kept through life the blessing of robust health. He never +suffered from remorse of the stomach or protest of the brain; and his +writings are those of a man who always digested his dinner and never had a +headache. His novels, like those of Scott, are full of the breeze and +sunshine of health. They breathe of manly tastes, active habits, sound +sleep, a relish for simple pleasures, temperate enjoyments, and the +retention in manhood of the fresh susceptibilities of youth. His genius is +thoroughly masculine. He is deficient in acute perception, in delicate +discrimination, in fine analysis, in the skill to seize and arrest +exceptional peculiarities; but he has in large measure the power to +present the broad characteristics of universal humanity. It is to this +power that he owes his wide popularity. At this moment, in every public +and circulating library in England or America, the novels of Cooper will +be found to be in constant demand. He wrote for the many, and not for the +few; he hit the common mind between wind and water; a delicate and +fastidious literary appetite may not be attracted to his productions, but +the healthy taste of the natural man finds therein food alike convenient +and savory. + +In a manly, courageous, somewhat impulsive nature like Cooper's we should +expect to find prejudices; and he was a man of strong prejudices. Among +others, was an antipathy to the people of New England. His characters, +male and female, are frequently Yankees, but they are almost invariably +caricatures; that is, they have all the unamiable characteristics and +unattractive traits which are bestowed upon the people of New England by +their ill-wishers. Had he ever lived among them, with his quick powers of +observation and essentially kindly judgment of men and life, he could not +have failed to correct his misapprehensions, and to perceive that he had +taken the reverse side of the tapestry for the face. + +Cooper, with a very keen sense of injustice, conscious of inexhaustible +power, full of vehement impulses, and not largely endowed with that safe +quality called prudence, was a man likely to get involved in +controversies. It was his destiny, and he never could have avoided it, to +be in opposition to the dominant public sentiment around him. Had he been +born in Russia, he could hardly have escaped a visit to Siberia; had he +been born in Austria, he would have wasted some of his best years in +Spielberg. Under a despotic government he would have been a vehement +Republican; in a Catholic country he would have been the most +uncompromising of Protestants. He had full faith in the institutions of +his own country; and his large heart, hopeful temperament, and robust soul +made him a Democrat; but his democracy had not the least tinge of +radicalism. He believed that man had a right to govern himself, and that +he was capable of self-government; but government, the subordination of +impulse to law, he insisted upon as rigorously as the veriest monarchist +or aristocrat in Christendom. He would have no authority that was not +legitimate; but he would tolerate no resistance to legitimate authority. +All his sentiments, impulses, and instincts were those of a gentleman; and +vulgar manners, coarse habits, and want of respect for the rights of +others were highly offensive to him. When in Europe, he resolutely, and at +no little expense of time and trouble, defended America from unjust +imputations and ignorant criticism; and when at home, with equal courage +and equal energy, he breasted the current of public Opinion where he +deemed it to be wrong, and resisted those most formidable invasions of +right, wherein the many combine to oppress the one. His long controversy +with the press was too important an episode in his life to be passed over +by us without mention; though our limits will not permit us to make +anything more than a passing allusion to it. The opinion which will be +formed upon Cooper's course in this matter will depend, in a considerable +degree, upon the temperament of the critic. Timid men, cautious men, men +who love their ease, will call him Quixotic, rash, imprudent, to engage in +a controversy in which he had much to lose and little to gain; but the +reply to such suggestions is, that, if men always took counsel of +indolence, timidity, and selfishness, no good would ever be accomplished, +and no abuses ever be reformed. Cooper may not have been judicious in +everything he said and did; but that he was right in the main, both in +motive and conduct, we firmly believe. He acted from a high sense of duty; +there was no alloy of vindictiveness or love of money in the impulses +which moved him. Criticism the most severe and unsparing he accepted as +perfectly allowable, so long as it kept within the limits of literary +judgment; but any attack upon his personal character, especially any +imputation or insinuation involving a moral stain, he would not submit to. +He appealed to the laws of the land to vindicate his reputation and punish +his assailants. Long and gallant was the warfare he maintained,--a +friendless, solitary warfare,--and all the hydra-heads of the press +hissing and ejaculating their venom upon him,--with none to stand by his +side and wish him God-speed. But he persevered, and, what is more, he +succeeded: that, is to say, he secured all the substantial fruits of +success. He vindicated the principle for which he contended: he compelled +the newspapers to keep within the pale of literary criticism; he confirmed +the saying of President Jackson, that "desperate courage makes one a +majority." + +Two of his novels, "Homeward Bound" and "Home as Found," bear a strong +infusion of the feelings which led to his contest with the press. After +the publication of these, he became much interested in the well-known +Anti-Rent agitation by which the State of New York was so long shaken; and +three of his novels, "Satanstoe," "The Chainbearer," and "The Redskins," +forming one continuous narrative, were written with reference to this +subject. Many professed novel-readers are, we suspect, repelled from these +books, partly because of this continuity of the story, and partly because +they contain a moral; but we assure them, that, if on these grounds they +pass them by, they lose both pleasure and profit. They are written with +all the vigor and spirit of his prime; they have many powerful scenes and +admirably drawn characters; the pictures of colonial life and manners in +"Satanstoe" are animated and delightful; and in all the legal and ethical +points for which the author contends he is perfectly right. In his Preface +to "The Chainbearer" he says,--"In our view, New York is at this moment a +disgraced State; and her disgrace arises from the fact that her laws are +trampled under foot, without any efforts--at all commensurate with the +object--being made to enforce them." That any commonwealth is a disgraced +State against which such charges can with truth be made no one will deny; +and any one who is familiar with the history of that wretched business +will agree, that, at the time it was made, the charge was not too strong. +Who can fail to admire the courage of the man who ventured to write and +print such a judgment as the above against a State of which he was a +native, a citizen, and a resident, and in which the public sentiment was +fiercely the other way? Here, too, Cooper's motives were entirely +unselfish: he had almost no pecuniary interest in the question of +Anti-Rentism; he wrote all in honor, unalloyed by thrift. His very last +novel, "The Ways of the Hour," is a vigorous exposition of the defects of +the trial by jury in cases where a vehement public sentiment has already +tried the question, and condemned the prisoner. The story is improbable, +and the leading character is an impossible being; but the interest is kept +up to the end,--it has many most impressive scenes,--it abounds with +shrewd and sound observations upon life, manners, and politics,--and all +the legal portion is stamped with an acuteness and fidelity to truth which +no professional reader can note without admiration. + +Cooper's character as a man is the more admirable to us because it was +marked by strong points which are not common in our country, and which the +institutions of our country do not foster. He had the courage to defy the +majority: he had the courage to confront the press: and not from the sting +of ill-success, not from mortified vanity, not from wounded self-love, but +from an heroic sense of duty. How easy a life might he have purchased by +the cheap virtues of silence, submission, and acquiescence! Booksellers +would have enriched him; society would have caressed him; political +distinction would have crowned him: he had only to watch the course of +public sentiment, and so dispose himself that he should seem to lead where +he only followed, and all comfortable things would have been poured into +his lap. But he preferred to breast the stream, to speak ungrateful +truths. He set a wholesome example in this respect; none the less valuable +because so few have had the manliness and self-reliance to imitate him. +More than twenty years ago De Tocqueville said,--"I know of no country in +which there is so little true independence of mind and freedom of +discussion as in America": words which we fear are not less true to-day +than when they were written. Cooper's dauntless courage would have been +less admirable, had he been hard, cold, stern, and impassive: but he was +none of these. He was full of warm affections, cordial, sympathetic, and +genial; he had a woman's tenderness of heart; he was the most faithful of +friends; and in his own home no man was ever more gentle, gracious, and +sweet. The blows he received fell upon a heart that felt them keenly; but +he bared his breast none the less resolutely to the contest because it was +not protected by an armor of insensibility. + +But we must bring this long paper to a close. We cannot give to it the +interest which comes from personal recollections. We saw Cooper once, and +but once. This was the very year before he died, in his own home, and amid +the scenes which his genius has made immortal. It was a bright midsummer's +day, and we walked together about the village, and around the shores of +the lake over which the canoe of Indian John had glided. His own aspect +was as sunny as that of the smiling heavens above us; age had not touched +him with its paralyzing finger: his vigorous frame, elastic step, and +animated glance gave promise of twenty years more of energetic life. His +sturdy figure, healthy face, and a slight bluffness of manner reminded one +more of his original profession than of the life and manners of a man of +letters. He looked like a man who had lived much in the open air,--upon +whom the rain had fallen, and against whom the wind had blown. His +conversation was hearty, spontaneous, and delightful from its frankness +and fulness, but it was not pointed or brilliant; you remembered the +healthy ring of the words, but not the words themselves. We recollect, +that, as we were standing together on the shores of the lake,--shores +which are somewhat tame, and a lake which can claim no higher epithet than +that of pretty,--he said: "I suppose it would be patriotic to say that +this is finer than Como, but we know that it is not." We found a chord of +sympathy in our common impressions of the beauty of Sorrento, about which, +and his residence there, he spoke with contagious animation. Who could +have thought that that rich and abundant life was so near its close? +Nothing could be more thoroughly satisfying than the impression he left in +this brief and solitary interview. His air and movement revealed the same +manly, brave, true-hearted, warm-hearted man that is imaged in his books. +Grateful are we for the privilege of having seen, spoken with, and taken +by the hand the author of "The Pathfinder" and "The Pilot": "it is a +pleasure to have seen a great man." Distinctly through the gathering mists +of years do his face and form rise up before the mind's eye: an image of +manly self-reliance, of frank courage, of generous impulse; a frank +friend, an open enemy; a man whom many misunderstood, but whom no one +could understand without honoring and loving. + + * * * * * + + + + +PER TENEBRAS, LUMINA. + + I know how, through the golden hours + When summer sunlight floods the deep, + The fairest stars of all the heaven + Climb up, unseen, the effulgent steep. + + Orion girds him with a flame; + And, king-like, from the eastward seas, + Comes Aldebaran, with his train + Of Hyades and Pleiades. + + In far meridian pride, the Twins + Build, side by side, their luminous thrones; + And Sirius and Procyon pour + A splendor that the day disowns. + + And stately Leo, undismayed, + With fiery footstep tracks the Sun, + To plunge adown the western blaze, + Sublimely lost in glories won. + + I know, if I were called to keep + Pale morning watch with Grief and Pain, + Mine eyes should see their gathering might + Rise grandly through the gloom again. + + And when the Winter Solstice holds + In his diminished path the Sun,-- + When hope, and growth, and joy are o'er, + And all our harvesting is done,-- + + When, stricken, like our mortal Life, + Darkened and chill, the Year lays down + The summer beauty that she wore, + Her summer stars of Harp and Crown,-- + + Thick trooping with their golden tread + They come, as nightfall fills the sky, + Those strong and solemn sentinels, + To hold their mightier watch on high. + + Ah, who shall shrink from dark and cold, + Or fear the sad and shortening days, + Since God doth only so unfold + The wider glory to his gaze? + + Since loyal Truth, and holy Trust, + And kingly Strength defying Pain, + Stern Courage, and sure Brotherhood + Are born from out the depths again? + + Dear Country of our love and pride! + So is thy stormy winter given! + So, through the terrors that betide, + Look up, and hail thy kindling heaven! + + * * * * * + + + + +LOVE AND SKATES. + +IN TWO PARTS. + + +PART I. + + +CHAPTER I. + +A KNOT AND A MAN TO CUT IT. + + +Consternation! Consternation in the back office of Benjamin Brummage, +Esq., banker in Wall Street. + +Yesterday down came Mr. Superintendent Whiffler, from Dunderbunk, up the +North River, to say, that, "unless something be done, _at once_, the +Dunderbunk Foundry and Iron-Works must wind up." President Brummage +forthwith convoked his Directors. And here they sat around the green +table, forlorn as the guests at a Barmecide feast. + +Well they might be forlorn! It was the rosy summer solstice, the longest +and fairest day of all the year. But rose-color and sunshine had fled from +Wall Street. Noisy Crisis towing black Panic, as a puffing steam-tug drags +a three-decker cocked and primed for destruction, had suddenly sailed in +upon Credit. + +As all the green inch-worms vanish on the tenth of every June, so on the +tenth of that June all the money in America had buried itself and was as +if it were not. Everybody and everything was ready to fail. If the +hindmost brick went, down would go the whole file. + +There were ten Directors of the Dunderbunk Foundry. + +Now, not seldom, of a Board of ten Directors, five are wise and five are +foolish: five wise, who bag all the Company's funds in salaries and +commissions for indorsing its paper; five foolish, who get no salaries, no +commissions, no dividends,--nothing, indeed, but abuse from the +stockholders, and the reputation of thieves. That is to say, five of the +ten are pick-pockets; the other five, pockets to be picked. + +It happened that the Dunderbunk Directors were all honest and foolish but +one. He, John Churm, honest and wise, was off at the West, with his +Herculean shoulders at the wheels of a dead-locked railroad. These honest +fellows did not wish Dunderbunk to fail for several reasons. First, it was +not pleasant to lose their investment. Second, one important failure might +betray Credit to Crisis with Panic at its heels, whereupon every +investment would be in danger. Third, what would become of their +Directorial reputations? From President Brummage down, each of these +gentlemen was one of the pockets to be picked in a great many companies. +Each was of the first Wall-Street fashion, invited to lend his name and +take stock in every new enterprise. Any one of them might have walked down +town in a long patchwork toga made of the newspaper advertisements of +boards in which his name proudly figured. If Dunderbunk failed, the toga +was torn, and might presently go to rags beyond repair. The first rent +would inaugurate universal rupture. How to avoid this disaster?--that was +the question. + +"State the case, Mr. Superintendent Whiffler," said President Brummage, in +his pompous manner, with its pomp a little collapsed, _pro tempore_. + +Inefficient Whiffler whimpered out his story. + +The confessions of an impotent executive are sorry stuff to read. +Whiffler's long, dismal complaint shall not be repeated. He had taken a +prosperous concern, had carried on things in his own way, and now failure +was inevitable. He had bought raw material lavishly, and worked it badly +into half-ripe material, which nobody wanted to buy. He was in arrears to +his hands. He had tried to bully them, when they asked for their money. +They had insulted him, and threatened to knock off work, unless they were +paid at once. "A set of horrid ruffians," Whiffler said,--"and his life +wouldn't be safe many days among them." + +"Withdraw, if you please, Mr. Superintendent," President Brummage +requested. "The Board will discuss measures of relief." + +The more they discussed, the more consternation. Nobody said anything to +the purpose, except Mr. Sam Gwelp, his late father's lubberly son and +successor. + +"Blast!" said he; "we shall have to let it slide!" + +Into this assembly of imbeciles unexpectedly entered Mr. John Churm. He +had set his Western railroad trains rolling, and was just returned to +town. Now he was ready to put those Herculean shoulders at any other +bemired and rickety no-go-cart. + +Mr. Churm was not accustomed to be a Director in feeble companies. He came +into Dunderbunk recently as executor of his friend Damer, a year ago bored +to death by a silly wife. + +Churm's bristly aspect and incisive manner made him a sharp contrast to +Brummage. The latter personage was flabby in flesh, and the oppressively +civil counter-jumper style of his youth had grown naturally into a +deportment of most imposing pomposity. + +The Tenth Director listened to the President's recitative of their +difficulties, chorused by the Board. + +"Gentlemen," said Director Churm, "you want two things. The first is +Money!" + +He pronounced this cabalistic word with such magic power that all the air +seemed instantly filled with a cheerful flight of gold American eagles, +each carrying a double eagle on its back and a silver dollar in its claws; +and all the soil of America seemed to sprout with coin, as after a shower +a meadow sprouts with the yellow buds of the dandelion. + +"Money! yes, Money!" murmured the Directors. + +It seemed a word of good omen, now. + +"The second thing," resumed the newcomer, "is a Man!" + +The Directors looked at each other and did not see such a being. + +"The actual Superintendent of Dunderbunk is a dunderhead," said Churm. + +"Pun!" cried Sam Gwelp, waking up from a snooze. + +Several of the Directors, thus instructed, started a complimentary laugh. + +"Order, gentlemen! Orrderr!" said the President, severely, rapping with a +paper-cutter. + +"We must have a Man, not a Whiffler!" Churm continued. "And I have one in +my eye." + +Everybody examined his eye. + +"Would you be so good as to name him?" said Old Brummage, timidly. + +He wanted to see a Man, but feared the strange creature might be +dangerous. + +"Richard Wade," says Churm. They did not know him. The name sounded +forcible. + +"He has been in California," the nominator said. + +A shudder ran around the green table. They seemed to see a frowzy +desperado, shaggy as a bison, in a red shirt and jackboots, hung about the +waist with an assortment of six-shooters and bowie-knives, and standing +against a background of mustangs, monte-banks, and lynch-law. + +"We must get Wade," Churm says, with authority. "He knows Iron by heart. +He can handle Men. I will back him with my blank check, to any amount, to +his order." + +Here a murmur of applause, swelling to a cheer, burst from the Directors. + +Everybody knew that the Geological Bank deemed Churm's deposits the +fundamental stratum of its wealth. They lay there in the vaults, like +underlying granite. When hot times came, they boiled up in a mountain to +buttress the world. + +Churm's blank check seemed to wave in the air like an oriflamme of +victory. Its payee might come from Botany Bay; he might wear his beard to +his knees, and his belt stuck full of howitzers and boomerangs; he might +have been repeatedly hung by Vigilance Committees, and as often cut down +and revived by galvanism; but brandishing that check, good for anything +less than a million, every Director in Wall Street was his slave, his +friend, and his brother. + +"Let us vote Mr. Wade in by acclamation," cried the Directors. + +"But, gentlemen," Churm interposed, "if I give him my blank check, he must +have _carte blanche_, and no one to interfere in his management." + +Every Director, from President Brummage down, drew a long face at this +condition. + +It was one of their great privileges to potter in the Dunderbunk affairs +and propose ludicrous impossibilities. + +"Just as you please," Churm continued. "I name a competent man, a +gentleman and fine fellow. I back him with all the cash he wants. But he +must have his own way. Now take him, or leave him!" + +Such despotic talk had never been heard before in that Directors' Room. +They relucted a moment. But they thought of their togas of advertisements +in danger. The blank check shook its blandishments before their eyes. + +"We take him," they said, and Richard Wade was the new Superintendent +unanimously. + +"He shall be at Dunderbunk to take hold to-morrow morning," said Churm, +and went off to notify him. + +Upon this, Consternation sailed out of the hearts of Brummage and +associates. + +They lunched with good appetites over the green table, and the President +confidently remarked,-- + +"I don't believe there is going much of a crisis, after all." + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +BARRACKS FOR THE HERO. + + +Wade packed his kit, and took the Hudson-River train for Dunderbunk the +same afternoon. + +He swallowed his dust, he gasped for his fresh air, he wept over his +cinders, he refused his "lozengers," he was admired by all the pretty +girls and detested by all the puny men in the train, and in good time got +down at his station. + +He stopped on the platform to survey the land--and water-privileges of his +new abode. + +"The June sunshine is unequalled," he soliloquized, "the river is +splendid, the hills are pretty, and the Highlands, north, respectable; but +the village has gone to seed. Place and people look lazy, vicious, and +ashamed. I suppose those chimneys are my Foundry. The smoke rises as if +the furnaces were ill-fed and weak in the lungs. Nothing, I can see, looks +alive, except that queer little steamboat coming in,--the 'I. +Ambuster,'--jolly name for a boat!" + +Wade left his traps at the station, and walked through the village. All +the gilding of a golden sunset of June could not make it anything but +commonplace. It would be forlorn on a gray day, and utterly dismal in a +storm. + +"I must look up a civilized house to lodge in," thought the stranger. "I +cannot possibly camp at the tavern. Its offence is rum, and smells to +heaven." + +Presently our explorer found a neat, white, two-story, home-like abode on +the upper street, overlooking the river. + +"This promises," he thought. "Here are roses on the porch, a piano, or at +least a melodeon, by the parlor-window, and they are insured in the +Mutual, as the Mutual's plate announces. Now, if that nice-looking person +in black I see setting a table in the back-room is a widow, I will camp +here." + +Perry Purtett was the name on the door, and opposite the sign of an +_omnium-gatherum_ country-store hinted that Perry was deceased. The hint +was a broad one. Wade read, "Ringdove, Successor to late P. Purtett." + +"It's worth a try to get in here out of the pagan barbarism around. I'll +propose--as a lodger--to the widow." + +So said Wade, and rang the bell under the roses. A pretty, slim, delicate, +fair-haired maiden answered. + +"This explains the roses and the melodeon," thought Wade, and asked, "Can +I see your mother?" + +Mamma came. "Mild, timid, accustomed to depend on the late Perry, and +wants a friend," Wade analyzed, while he bowed. He proposed himself as a +lodger. + +"I didn't know it was talked of generally," replied the widow, +plaintively; "but I have said that we felt lonesome, Mr. Purtett bein' +gone, and if the new minister"-- + +Here she paused. The cut of Wade's jib was unclerical. He did not stoop, +like a new minister. He was not pallid, meagre, and clad in unwholesome +black, like the same. His bronzed face was frank and bold and unfamiliar +with speculations on Original Sin or Total Depravity. + +"I am not the new minister," said Wade, smiling slightly over his +moustache; "but a new Superintendent for the Foundry." + +"Mr. Whiffler is goin'?" exclaimed Mrs. Purtett. + +She looked at her daughter, who gave a little sob and ran out of the room. + +"What makes my daughter Belle feel bad," says the widow, "is, that she had +a friend,--well, it isn't too much to say that they was as good as +engaged,--and he was foreman of the Foundry finishin'-shop. But somehow +Whiffler spoilt him, just as he spoils everything he touches; and last +winter, when Belle was away, William Tarbox--that's his name, and his head +is runnin' over with inventions--took to spreein' and liquor, and got +ashamed of himself, and let down from a foreman to a hand, and is all the +while lettin' down lower." + +The widow's heart thus opened, Wade walked in as consoler. This also +opened the lodgings to him. He was presently installed in the large and +small front-rooms up-stairs, unpacking his traps, and making himself +permanently at home. + +Superintendent Whiffler came over, by-and-by, to see his successor. He did +not like his looks. The new man should have looked mean or weak or +rascally, to suit the outgoer. + +"How long do you expect to stay?" asks Whiffler, with a half-sneer, +watching Wade hanging a map and a print _vis-à-vis_. + +"Until the men and I, or the Company and I, cannot pull together." + +"I'll give you a week to quarrel with both, and another to see the whole +concern go to everlasting smash. And now, if you're ready, I'll go over +the accounts with you and prove it." + +Whiffler himself, insolent, cowardly, and a humbug, if not a swindler, was +enough, Wade thought, to account for any failure. But he did not mention +this conviction. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +HOW TO BEHEAD A HYDRA! + + +At ten next morning, Whiffler handed over the safe-key to Wade, and +departed to ruin some other property, if he could get one to ruin. Wade +walked with him to the gate. + +"I'm glad to be out of a sinking ship," said the ex-boss. "The Works will +go down, sure as shooting. And I think myself well out of the clutches of +these men. They're a bullying, swearing, drinking set of infernal +ruffians. Foremen are just as bad as hands. I never felt safe of my life +with 'em." + +"A bad lot, are they?" mused Wade, as he returned to the office. "I must +give them a little sharp talk by way of Inaugural." + +He had the bell tapped and the men called together in the main building. + +Much work was still going on in an inefficient, unsystematic way. + +While hot fires were roaring in the great furnaces, smoke rose from the +dusty beds where Titanic castings were cooling. Great cranes, manacled +with heavy chains, stood over the furnace-doors, ready to lift steaming +jorums of melted metal, and pour out, hot and hot, for the moulds to +swallow. + +Raw material in big heaps lay about, waiting for the fire to ripen it. +Here was a stack of long, rough, rusty pigs, clumsy as the shillelabs of +the Anakim. There was a pile of short, thick masses, lying +higgledy-piggledy, stuff from the neighboring mines, which needed to be +crossed with foreign stock before it could be of much use in civilization. + +Here, too, was raw material organized: a fly-wheel, large enough to keep +the knobbiest of asteroids revolving without a wabble; a cross-head, +cross-tail, and piston-rod, to help a great sea-going steamer breast the +waves; a light walking-beam, to whirl the paddles of a fast boat on the +river; and other members of machines, only asking to be put together and +vivified by steam and they would go at their work with a will. + +From the black rafters overhead hung the heavy folds of a dim atmosphere, +half dust, half smoke. A dozen sunbeams, forcing their way through the +grimy panes of the grimy upper windows, found this compound quite palpable +and solid, and they moulded out of it a series of golden bars set side by +side aloft, like the pipes of an organ out of its perpendicular. + +Wade grew indignant, as he looked about him and saw so much good stuff and +good force wasting for want of a little will and skill to train the force +and manage the stuff. He abhorred bankruptcy and chaos. + +"All they want here is a head," he thought. + +He shook his own. The brain within was well developed with healthy +exercise. It filled its case, and did not rattle like a withered kernel, +or sound soft like a rotten one. It was a vigorous, muscular brain. The +owner felt that he could trust it for an effort, as he could his lungs for +a shout, his legs for a leap, or his fist for a knock-down argument. + +At the tap of the bell, the "bad lot" of men came together. They numbered +more than two hundred, though the Foundry was working short. They had been +notified that "that gonoph of a Whiffler was kicked out, and a new feller +was in, who looked cranky enough, and wanted to see 'em and tell 'em +whether he was a damn' fool or not." + +So all hands collected from the different parts of the Foundry to see the +head. + +They came up with easy and somewhat swaggering bearing,--a good many +roughs, with here and there a ruffian. Several, as they approached, swung +and tossed, for mere overplus of strength, the sledges with which they had +been tapping at the bald shiny pates of their anvils. Several wielded +their long pokers like lances. + +Grimy chaps, all with their faces streaked, like Blackfeet in their +warpaint. Their hairy chests showed, where some men parade elaborate +shirt-bosoms. Some had their sleeves pushed up to the elbow to exhibit +their compact flexors and extensors. Some had rolled their flannel up to +the shoulder, above the bulging muscles of the upper arm. They wore aprons +tied about the neck, like the bibs of our childhood,--or about the waist, +like the coquettish articles which young housewives affect. But there was +no coquetry in these great flaps of leather or canvas, and they were +besmeared and rust-stained quite beyond any bib that ever suffered under +bread-and-molasses or mud-pie treatment. + +They lounged and swaggered up, and stood at ease, not without rough grace, +in a sinuous line, coiled and knotted like a snake. + +Ten feet back stood the new Hercules who was to take down that Hydra's two +hundred crests of insubordination. + +They inspected him, and he them as coolly. He read and ticketed each man, +as he came up,--good, bad, or on the fence,--and marked each so that he +would know him among a myriad. + +The Hands faced the Head. It was a question whether the two hundred or the +one would be master in Dunderbunk. + +Which was boss? An old question. + +It has to be settled whenever a new man claims power, and there is always +a struggle until it is fought out by main force of brain or muscle. + +Wade had made up his mind on this subject. He waited a moment until the +men were still. He was a Saxon six-footer of thirty. He stood easily on +his pins, as if he had eyed men and facts before. His mouth looked firm, +his brow freighted, his nose clipper,--that the hands could see. But +clipper noses are not always backed by a stout hull. Seemingly freighted +brows sometimes carry nothing but ballast and dunnage. The firmness may be +all in the moustache, while the mouth hides beneath, a mere silly slit. +All which the hands knew. + +Wade began, short and sharp as a trip-hammer, when it has a bar to shape. + +"I'm the new Superintendent. Richard Wade is my name. I rang the bell +because I wanted to see you and have you see me. You know as well as I do +that these Works are in a bad way. They can't stay so. They must come up +and pay you regular wages and the Company profits. Every man of you has +got to be here on the spot when the bell strikes, and up to the mark in +his work. You haven't been,--and you know it. You've turned out rotten +iron,--stuff that any honest shop would be ashamed of. Now there's to be a +new leaf turned over here. You're to be paid on the nail; but you've got +to earn your money. I won't have any idlers or shirkers or rebels about +me. I shall work hard myself, and every man of you will, or he leaves the +shop. Now, if anybody has a complaint to make, I'll hear him before you +all." + +The men were evidently impressed with Wade's Inaugural. It meant +something. But they were not to be put down so easily, after long misrule. +There began to be a whisper,-- + +"B'il in, Bill Tarbox! and talk up to him!" + +Presently Bill shouldered forward and faced the new ruler. + +Since Bill took to drink and degradation, he had been the butt-end of riot +and revolt at the Foundry. He had had his own way with Whiffler. He did +not like to abdicate and give in to this new chap without testing him. + +In a better mood, Bill would have liked Wade's looks and words; but today +he had a sore head, a sour face, and a bitter heart from last night's +spree. And then he had heard--it was as well known already in Dunderbunk +as if the town-crier had cried it--that Wade was lodging at Mrs. +Purtett's, where poor Bill was excluded. So Bill stepped forward as +spokesman of the ruffianly element, and the immoral force gathered behind +and backed him heavily. + +Tarbox, too, was a Saxon six-footer of thirty. But he had sagged one inch +for want of self-respect. He had spoilt his color and dyed his moustache. +He wore foxy-black pantaloons tucked into red-topped boots, with the name +of the maker on a gilt shield. His red flannel shirt was open at the neck +and caught with a black handkerchief. His damaged tile was in permanent +crape for the late lamented Poole. + +"We allow," says Bill, in a tone halfway between Lablache's _De profundis_ +and a burglar's bull-dog's snarl, "that we've did our work as good as need +to be did. We 'xpect we know our rights. We ha'n't ben treated fair, and +I'm damned if we're go'n' to stan' it." + +"Stop!" says Wade. "No swearing in this shop!" + +"Who the Devil is go'n' to stop it?" growled Tarbox. + +"I am. Do you step back now, and let some one come out who can talk like a +gentleman!" + +"I'm damned if I stir till I've had my say out," says Bill, shaking +himself up and looking dangerous. + +"Go back!" + +Wade moved close to him, also looking dangerous. + +"Don't tech me!" Bill threatened, squaring off. + +He was not quick enough. Wade knocked him down flat on a heap of +moulding-sand. The hat in mourning for Poole found its place in a puddle. + +Bill did not like the new Emperor's method of compelling _kotou_. Round +One of the mill had not given him enough. + +He jumped up from his soft bed and made a vicious rush at Wade. But he was +damaged by evil courses. He was fighting against law and order, on the +side of wrong and bad manners. + +The same fist met him again, and heavier. + +Up went his heels! Down went his head! It struck the ragged edge of a +fresh casting, and there he lay stunned and bleeding on his hard black +pillow. + +"Ring the bell to go to work!" said Wade, in a tone that made the ringer +jump. "Now, men, take hold and do your duty and everything will go +smooth!" + +The bell clanged in. The line looked at its prostrate champion, then at +the new boss standing there, cool and brave, and not afraid of a regiment +of sledge-hammers. + +They wanted an Executive. They wanted to be well governed, as all men do. +They wanted disorder out and order in. The new man looked like a man, +talked fair, hit hard. Why not all hands give in with a good grace and go +to work like honest fellows? + +The line broke up. The hands went off to their duty. And there was never +any more insubordination at Dunderbunk. + +This was June. + +Skates in the next chapter. + +Love in good time afterward shall glide upon the scene. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +A CHRISTMAS GIFT. + + +The pioneer sunbeam of next Christmas morning rattled over the Dunderbunk +hills, flashed into Richard Wade's eyes, waked him, and was off, +ricochetting across the black ice of the river. + +Wade jumped up, electrified and jubilant. He had gone to bed, feeling +quite too despondent for so healthy a fellow. Christmas Eve, the time of +family-meetings, reminded him how lonely he was. He had not a relative in +the world, except two little nieces,--one as tall as his knee, the other +almost up to his waist; and them he had safely bestowed in a nook of New +England, to gain wit and virtues as they gained inches. + +"I have had a stern and lonely life," thought Wade, as he blew out his +candle last night, "and what has it profited me?" + +Perhaps the pioneer sunbeam answered this question with a truism, not +always as applicable as in this case,--"A brave, able, self-respecting +manhood is fair profit for any man's first thirty years of life." + +But, answered or not, the question troubled Wade no more. He shot out of +bed in tip-top spirits; shouted "Merry Christmas!" at the rising disk of +the sun; looked over the black ice; thrilled with the thought of a long +holiday for skating; and proceeded to dress in a knowing suit of rough +clothes, singing, "_Ah, non giunge_!" as he slid into them. + +Presently, glancing from his south window, he observed several matinal +smokes rising from the chimneys of a country-house a mile away, on a slope +fronting the river. + +"Peter Skerrett must be back from Europe at last," he thought. "I hope he +is as fine a fellow as he was ten years ago. I hope marriage has not made +him a muff, and wealth a weakling." + +Wade went down to breakfast with an heroic appetite. His "Merry Christmas" +to Mrs. Purtett was followed up by a ravished kiss and the gift of a +silver butter-knife. The good widow did not know which to be most charmed +with. The butter-knife was genuine, shining, solid silver, with her +initials, M.B.P., Martha Bilsby Purtett, given in luxuriant flourishes; +but then the kiss had such a fine twang, such an exhilarating titillation! +The late Perry's kisses, from first to last, had wanted point. They were, +as the Spanish proverb would put it, unsavory as unsalted eggs, for want +of a moustache. The widow now perceived, with mild regret, how much she +had missed when she married "a man all shaven and shorn." Her cheek, still +fair, though forty, flushed with novel delight, and she appreciated her +lodger more than ever. + +Wade's salutation to Belle Purtett was more distant. There must be a +little friendly reserve between a handsome young man and a pretty young +woman several grades lower in the social scale, living in the same house. +They were on the most cordial terms, however; and her gift--of course +embroidered slippers--and his to her--of course "The Illustrated Poets," +in Turkey morocco--were exchanged with tender good-will on both sides. + +"We shall meet on the ice, Miss Belle," said Wade. "It is a day of a +thousand for skating." + +"Mr. Ringdove says you are a famous skater," Belle rejoined. "He saw you +on the river yesterday evening." + +"Yes; Tarbox and I were practising to exhibit to-day; but I could not do +much with my dull old skates." + +Wade breakfasted deliberately, as a holiday morning allowed, and then +walked down to the Foundry. There would be no work done to-day, except by +a small gang keeping up the fires. The Superintendent wished only to give +his First Semi-Annual Report an hour's polishing, before he joined all +Dunderbunk on the ice. + +It was a halcyon day, worthy of its motto, "Peace on earth, good-will to +men." The air was electric, the sun overflowing with jolly shine, the +river smooth and sheeny from the hither bank to the snowy mountains +opposite. + +"I wish I were Rembrandt, to paint this grand shadowy interior," thought +Wade, as he entered the silent, deserted Foundry. "With the gleam of the +snow in my eyes, it looks deliciously warm and _chiaroscuro_. When the men +are here and '_fervet opus_,'--the pot boils,--I cannot stop to see the +picturesque." + +He opened his office, took his Report and began to complete it with ,s, +;s, and .s in the right places. + +All at once the bell of the Works rang out loud and clear. Presently the +Superintendent became aware of a tramp and a bustle in the building. +By-and-by came a tap at the office-door. + +"Come in," said Wade, and, enter young Perry Purtett. + +Perry was a boy of fifteen, with hair the color of fresh sawdust, white +eyebrows, and an uncommonly wide-awake look. Ringdove, his father's +successor, could never teach Perry the smirk, the grace, and the +seductiveness of the counter, so the boy had found his place in the +finishing-shop of the Foundry. + +"Some of the hands would like to see you for half a jiff, Mr. Wade," said +he. "Will you come along, if you please?" + +There was a good deal of easy swagger about Perry, as there is always in +boys and men whose business is to watch the lunging of steam-engines. Wade +followed him. Perry led the way with a jaunty air that said,-- + +"Room here! Out of the way, you lubberly bits of cast-iron! Be careful, +now, you big derricks, or I'll walk right over you! Room now for Me and My +suite!" + +This pompous usher conducted the Superintendent to the very spot in the +main room of the Works where, six months before, the Inaugural had been +pronounced and the first Veto spoken and enacted. + +And there, as six months before, stood the Hands awaiting their Head. But +the aprons, the red shirts, and the grime of working-days were off, and +the whole were in holiday rig,--as black and smooth and shiny from top to +toe as the members of a Congress of Undertakers. + +Wade, following in the wake of Perry, took his stand facing the rank, and +waited to see what he was summoned for. He had not long to wait. + +To the front stepped Mr. William Tarbox, foreman of the finishing-shop, no +longer a boy, but an erect, fine-looking fellow, with no nitrate in his +moustache, and his hat permanently out of mourning for the late Mr. Poole. + +"Gentlemen," said Bill, "I move that this meeting organize by appointing +Mr. Smith Wheelwright Chairman. As many as are in favor of this motion, +please to say 'Aye.'" + +"Aye!" said the crowd, very loud and big. And then every man looked at his +neighbor, a little abashed, as if he himself had made all the noise. + +"This is a free country," continues Bill. "Every woter has a right to a +fair shake. Contrary minds, 'No.'" + +No contrary minds. The crowd uttered a great silence. Every man looked at +his neighbor, surprised to find how well they agreed. + +"Unanimous!" Tarbox pronounced. "No fractious minorities _here_, to block +the wheels of legislation!" + +The crowd burst into a roar at this significant remark, and, again +abashed, dropped portcullis on its laughter, cutting off the flanks and +tail of the sound. + +"Mr. Purtett, will you please conduct the Chairman to the Chair," says +Bill, very stately. + +"Make way here!" cried Perry, with the manner of a man seven feet high. +"Step out now, Mr. Chairman!" + +He took a big, grizzled, docile-looking fellow patronizingly by the arm, +led him forward, and chaired him on a large cylinder-head, in the rough, +just hatched out of its mould. + +"Bang away with that, and sing out, 'Silence!'" says the knowing boy, +handing Wheelwright an iron bolt, and taking his place beside him, as +prompter. + +The docile Chairman obeyed. At his breaking silence by hooting "Silence!" +the audience had another mighty bob-tailed laugh. + +"Say, 'Will some honorable member state the object of this meeting?'" +whispered the prompter. + +"Will some honorable mumbler state the subject of this 'ere meetin'?" says +Chair, a little bashful and confused. + +Bill Tarbox advanced, and, with a formal bow, began,-- + +"Mr. Chairman"-- + +"Say, 'Mr. Tarbox has the floor,'" piped Perry. + +"Mr. Tarbox has the floor," diapasoned the Chair. + +"Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen"--Bill began, and stopped. + +"Say, 'Proceed, Sir!'" suggested Perry, which the senior did, magnifying +the boy's whisper a dozen times. + +Again Bill began and stopped. + +"Boys," said he, dropping grandiloquence, "when I accepted the office of +Orator of the Day at our primary, and promised to bring forward our +Resolutions in honor of Mr. Wade with my best speech, I didn't think I was +going to have such a head of steam on that the walves would get stuck and +the piston jammed and I couldn't say a word. + +"But," he continued, warming up, "when I think of the Indian powwow we had +in this very spot six months ago,--and what a mean bloat I was, going to +the stub-tail dogs with my hat over my eyes,--and what a hard lot we were +all round, livin' on nothing but argee whiskey, and rampin' off on +benders, instead of makin' good iron,--and how the Works was flat +broke,--and how Dunderbunk was full of women crying over their husbands +and mothers ashamed of their sons,--boys, when I think how things was, and +see how they are, and look at Mr. Wade standing there like a"-- + +Bill hesitated for a comparison. + +"Like a thousand of brick," Perry Purtett suggested, _sotto voce_. + +The Chairman took this as a hint to himself. + +"Like a thousand of brick," he said, with the voice of a Stentor. + +Here the audience roared and cheered, and the Orator got a fresh start. + +"When you came, Mr. Wade," he resumed, "we was about sick of putty-heads +and sneaks that didn't know enough or didn't dare to make us stand round +and bone in. You walked in, b'ilin' over with grit. You took hold as if +you belonged here. You made things jump like a two-headed tarrier. All we +wanted was a live man, to say, 'Here, boys, all together now! You've got +your stint, and I've got mine. I'm boss in this shop,--but I can't do the +first thing, unless every man pulls his pound. Now, then, my hand is on +the throttle, grease the wheels, oil the walves, poke the fires, hook on, +and let's yank her through with a will!'" + +At this figure the meeting showed a tendency to cheer. "Silence!" Perry +sternly suggested. "Silence!" repeated the Chair. + +"Then," continued the Orator, "you wasn't one of the uneasy kind, always +fussin' and cussin' round. You wasn't always spyin' to see we didn't take +home a cross-tail or a hundred-weight of cast-iron in our pants' pockets, +or go to swiggin' hot metal out of the ladles on the sly." + +Here an enormous laugh requited Bill's joke. Perry prompted, the Chair +banged with his bolt and cried, "Order!" + +"Well, now, boys," Tarbox went on, "what has come of having one of the +right sort to be boss? Why, this. The Works go ahead, stiddy as the North +River. We work full time and full-handed. We turn out stuff that no shop +needs to be ashamed of. Wages is on the nail. We have a good time +generally. How is that, boys,--Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen?" + +"That's so!" from everybody. + +"And there's something better yet," Bill resumed. "Dunderbunk used to be +full of crying women. They've stopped crying now." + +Here the whole assemblage, Chairman and all, burst into an irrepressible +cheer. + +"But I'm making my speech as long as a lightning-rod," said the speaker. +"I'll put on the brakes, short. I guess Mr. Wade understands pretty well, +now, how we feel; and if he don't, here it all is in shape, in this +document, with 'Whereas' at the top and 'Resolved' entered along down in +five places. Mr. Purtett, will you hand the Resolutions to the +Superintendent?" + +Perry advanced and did his office loftily, much to the amusement of Wade +and the workmen. + +"Now," Bill resumed, "we wanted, besides, to make you a little gift, Mr. +Wade, to remember the day by. So we got up a subscription, and every man +put in his dime. Here's the present,--hand 'em over, Perry! + +"There, Sir, is THE BEST PAIR OF SKATES to be had in York City, made for +work, and no nonsense about 'em. We Dunderbunk boys give 'em to you, one +for all, and hope you'll like 'em and beat the world skating, as you do in +all the things we've knowed you try. + +"Now, boys," Bill perorated, "before I retire to the shades of private +life, I motion we give Three Cheers--regular Toplifters--for Richard +Wade!" + +"Hurrah! Wade and Good Government!" "Hurrah! Wade and Prosperity!" +"Hurrah! Wade and the Women's Tears Dry!" + +Cheers like the shout of Achilles! Wielding sledges is good for the +bellows, it appears. Toplifters! Why, the smoky black rafters overhead had +to tug hard to hold the roof on. Hurrah! From every corner of the vast +building came back rattling echoes. The Works, the machinery, the +furnaces, the stuff, all had their voice to add to the verdict. + +Magnificent music! and our Anglo-Saxon is the only race in the world +civilized enough to join in singing it. We are the only hurrahing +people,--the only brood hatched in a "Hurrah's nest." + +Silence restored, the Chairman, prompted by Perry, said, "Gentlemen, Mr. +Wade has the floor for a few remarks." + +Of course Wade had to speak, and did. He would not have been an American +in America else. But his heart was too full to say more than a few hearty +and earnest words of good feeling. + +"Now, men," he closed, "I want to get away on the river and see if my +skates will go as they look; so I'll end by proposing three cheers for +Smith Wheelwright, our Chairman, three for our Orator, Tarbox, three for +Old Dunderbunk,--Works, Men, Women, and Children; and one big cheer for +Old Father Iron, as rousing a cheer as ever was roared." + +So they gave their three times three with enormous enthusiasm. The roof +shook, the furnaces rattled, Perry Purtett banged with the Chairman's +hammer, the great echoes thundered through the Foundry. + +And when they ended with one gigantic cheer for IRON, tough and true, the +weapon, the tool, and the engine of all civilization,--it seemed as if the +uproar would never cease until Father Iron himself heard the call in his +smithy away under the magnetic pole, and came clanking up, to return +thanks in person. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +SKATING AS A FINE ART. + + +Of all the plays that are played by this playful world on its play-days, +there is no play like Skating. + +To prepare a board for the moves of this game of games, a panel for the +drawings of this Fine Art, a stage for the _entrechats_ and _pirouettes_ +of its graceful adepts, Zero, magical artificer, had been, for the last +two nights, sliding at full speed up and down the North River. + +We have heard of Midas, whose touch made gold, and of the virgin under +whose feet sprang roses; but Zero's heels and toes were armed with more +precious influences. They left a diamond way, where they slid,--a hundred +and fifty miles of diamond, half a mile wide and six inches thick. + +Diamond can only reflect sunlight; ice can contain it. Zero's product, +finer even than diamond, was filled--at the rate of a million to the +square foot--with bubbles immeasurably little, and yet every one big +enough to comprise the entire sun in small, but without alteration or +abridgment. When the sun rose, each of these wonderful cells was ready to +catch the tip of a sunbeam and house it in a shining abode. + +Besides this, Zero had inlaid its work, all along shore, with exquisite +marquetry of leaves, brown and evergreen, of sprays and twigs, reeds and +grasses. No parquet in any palace from Fontainebleau to St. Petersburg +could show such delicate patterns, or could gleam so brightly, though +polished with all the wax in Christendom. + +On this fine pavement, all the way from Cohoes to Spuyten Duyvil, Jubilee +was sliding without friction, the Christmas morning of these adventures. + +Navigation was closed. Navigators had leisure. The sloops and schooners +were frozen in along shore, the tugs and barges were laid up in basins, +the floating palaces were down at New York, deodorizing their bar-rooms, +regilding their bridal chambers, and enlarging their spittoon +accommodations alow and aloft, for next summer. All the population was out +on the ice, skating, sliding, sledding, slipping, tumbling, to its heart's +content. + +One person out of every Dunderbunk family was of course at home, roasting +Christmas turkey. The rest were already at high jinks on Zero's Christmas +present, when Wade and the men came down, from the meeting. + +Wade buckled on his new skates in a jiffy. He stamped to settle himself, +and then flung off half a dozen circles on the right leg, half a dozen +with the left, and the same with either leg backwards. + +The ice, traced with these white peripheries, showed like a blackboard +where a school has been chalking diagrams of Euclid, to point at with the +"slow unyielding finger" of demonstration. + +"Hurrah!" cries Wade, halting in front of the men, who, some on the +Foundry wharf, some on the deck of our first acquaintance at Dunderbunk, +the tug "L Ambuster," were putting on their skates or watching him, +"Hurrah! the skates are perfection! Are you ready, Bill?" + +"Yes," says Tarbox, whizzing off rings, as exact as Giotto's autograph. + +"Now, then," Wade said, "we'll give Dunderbunk a laugh, as we practised +last night." + +They got under full headway, Wade backwards, Bill forwards, holding hands. +When they were near enough to the merry throng out in the stream, both +dropped into a sitting posture, with the left knee bent, and each with his +right leg stretched out parallel to the ice and fitting compactly by the +other man's leg. In this queer figure they rushed through the laughing +crowd. + +Then all Dunderbunk formed a ring, agog for a grand show of + +SKATING AS A FINE ART. + +The world loves to see Great Artists, and expects them to do their duty. + +It is hard to treat of this Fine Art by the Art of Fine Writing. Its +eloquent motions must be seen. + +To skate Fine Art, you must have a Body and a Soul, each of the First +Order; otherwise you will never get out of coarse art and skating in one +syllable. So much for yourself, the motive power. And your +machinery,--your smooth-bottomed rockers, the same shape stem and +stern,--this must be as perfect as the man it moves, and who moves it. + +Now suppose you wish to skate so that the critics will say, "See! this +athlete docs his work as Church paints, as Darley draws, as Palmer +chisels, as Wittier strikes the lyre, and Longfellow the dulcimer; he is +as terse as Emerson, as clever as Holmes, as graceful as Curtis; he is as +calm as Seward, as keen as Phillips, as stalwart as Beecher; be is +Garibaldi, he is Kit Carson, he is Blondin; he is as complete as the +steamboat Metropolis, as Steers's yacht, as Singer's sewing-machine, as +Colt's revolver, as the steam-plough, as Civilization." You wish to be so +ranked among the people and things that lead the age;--consider the +qualities you must have, and while you consider, keep your eye on Richard +Wade, for he has them all in perfection. + +First,--of your physical qualities. You must have lungs, not bellows; and +an active heart, not an assortment of sluggish auricles and ventricles. +You must have legs, not shanks. Their shape is unimportant, except that +they must not interfere at the knee. You must have muscles, not +flabbiness; sinews like wire; nerves like sunbeams; and a thin layer of +flesh to cushion the gable-ends, where you will strike, if you +tumble,--which, once for all be it said, you must never do. You must be +all _momentum_, and no _inertia_. You must be one part grace, one force, +one agility, and the rest caoutchouc, Manila hemp, and watch-spring. Your +machine, your body, must be thoroughly obedient. It must go just so far +and no farther. You have got to be as unerring as a planet holding its +own, emphatically, between forces centripetal and centrifugal. Your +_aplomb_ must be as absolute as the pounce of a falcon. + +So much for a few of the physical qualities necessary to be a Great Artist +in Skating. See Wade, how be shows them! + +Now for the moral and intellectual. Pluck is the first;--it always is the +first quality. Then enthusiasm. Then patience. Then pertinacity. Then a +fine aesthetic faculty,--in short, good taste. Then an orderly and +submissive mind, that can consent to act in accordance with the laws of +Art. Circumstances, too, must have been reasonably favorable. That +well-known skeptic, the King of tropical Bantam, could not skate, because +he had never seen ice and doubted even the existence of solid water. +Widdrington, after the Battle of Chevy Chace, could not have skated, +because he had no legs,--poor fellow! + +But granted the ice and the legs, then if you begin in the elastic days of +youth, when cold does not sting, tumbles do not bruise, and duckings do +not wet; if you have pluck and ardor enough to try everything; if you work +slowly ahead and stick to it; if you have good taste and a lively +invention; if you are a man, and not a lubber;--then, in fine, you may +become a Great Skater, just as with equal power and equal pains you may +put your grip on any kind of Greatness. + +The technology of skating is imperfect. Few of the great feats, the Big +Things, have admitted names. If I attempted to catalogue Wade's +achievements, this chapter might become an unintelligible rhapsody. A +sheet of paper and a pen-point cannot supply the place of a sheet of ice +and a skate-edge. Geometry must have its diagrams, Anatomy its _corpus_ to +carve. Skating also refuses to be spiritualized into a Science; it remains +an Art, and cannot be expressed in a formula. + +Skating has its Little Go, its Great Go, its Baccalaureate, its M.A., its +F.S.D., (Doctor of Frantic Skipping,) its A.G.D., (Doctor of Airy +Gliding,) its N.T.D., (Doctor of No Tumbles,) and finally its highest +degree, U.P. (Unapproachable Podographer). + +Wade was U.P. + +There were a hundred of Dunderbunkers who had passed their Little Go and +could skate forward and backward easily. A half-hundred, perhaps, were +through the Great Go; these could do outer edge freely. A dozen had taken +the Baccalaureate, and were proudly repeating the pirouettes and +spread-eagles of that degree. A few could cross their feet, on the edge, +forward and backward, and shift edge on the same foot, and so were +_Magistri Artis_. + +Wade, U.P., added to these an indefinite list of combinations and fresh +contrivances. He spun spirals slow, and spirals neck or nothing. He +pivoted on one toe, with the other foot cutting rings, inner and outer +edge, forward and back, He skated on one foot better than the M.A.s could +on both. He ran on his toes; he slid on his heels; he cut up shines like a +sunbeam on a bender; he swung, light as if he could fly, if he pleased, +like a wing-footed Mercury; he glided as if will, not muscle, moved him; +he tore about in frenzies; his pivotal leg stood firm, his balance leg +flapped like a graceful pinion; he turned somersets; he jumped, whirling +backward as he went, over a platoon of boys laid flat on the ice;--the +last boy winced, and thought he was amputated; but Wade flew over, and the +boy still holds together as well as most boys. Besides this, he could +write his name, with a flourish at the end, like the _rubrica_ of a +Spanish _hidalgo_. He could podograph any letter, and multitudes of +ingenious curlicues which might pass for the alphabets of the unknown +tongues. He could _not_ tumble. + +It was Fine Art. + +Bill Tarbox sometimes pressed the champion hard. But Bill stopped just +short of Fine Art, in High Artisanship. + +How Dunderbunk cheered this wondrous display! How delighted the whole +population was to believe they possessed the best skater on the North +River! How they struggled to imitate! How they tumbled, some on their +backs, some on their faces, some with dignity like the dying Caesar, some +rebelliously like a cat thrown out of a garret, some limp as an ancient +acrobate! How they laughed at themselves and at each other! + +"It's all in the new skates," says Wade, apologizing for his +unapproachable power and finish. + +"It's suthin' in the man," says Smith Wheelwright. + +"Now chase me, everybody," said Wade. + +And, for a quarter of an hour, he dodged the merry crowd, until at last, +breathless, he let himself be touched by pretty Belle Purtett, rosiest of +all the Dunderbunk bevy of rosy maidens on the ice. + +"He rayther beats Bosting," says Captain Isaac Ambuster to Smith +Wheelwright. "It's so cold there that they can skate all the year round; +but he beats them, all the same." + +The Captain was sitting in a queer little bowl of a skiff on the deck of +his tug, and rocking it like a cradle, as he talked. + +"Bosting's always hard to beat in anything," rejoined the ex-Chairman. +"But if Bosting is to be beat, here's the man to do it." + + * * * * * + +And now, perhaps, gentle reader, you think I have said enough in behalf of +a limited fraternity, the Skaters. + +The next chapter, then, shall take up the cause of the Lovers, a more +numerous body, and we will see whether True Love, which never makes +"smooth running," can help its progress by a skate-blade. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +"GO NOT, HAPPY DAY, TILL THE MAIDEN YIELDS." + + +Christmas noon at Dunderbunk. Every skater was in galloping glee,--as the +electric air, and the sparkling sun, and the glinting ice had a right to +expect that they all should be. + +Belle Purtett, skating simply and well, had never looked so pretty and +graceful. So thought Bill Tarbox. + +He had not spoken to her, nor she to him, for more than six months. The +poor fellow was ashamed of himself and penitent for his past bad courses. +And so, though he longed to have his old flame recognize him again, and +though he was bitterly jealous and miserably afraid he should lose her, he +had kept away and consumed his heart like a true despairing lover. + +But to-day Bill was a lion, only second to Wade, the unapproachable +lion-in-chief. Bill was reinstated in public esteem, and had won back his +standing in the Foundry. He had to-day made a speech which Perry Purtett +gave everybody to understand "none of Senator Bill Seward's could hold the +tallow to." Getting up the meeting and presenting Wade with the skates was +Bill's own scheme, and it had turned out an eminent success. Everything +began to look bright to him. His past life drifted out of his mind like +the rowdy tales he used to read in the Sunday newspapers. + +He had watched Belle Purtett all the morning, and saw that she +distinguished nobody with her smiles, not even that _coq du village_, +Ringdove. He also observed that she was furtively watching him. + +By-and-by she sailed out of the crowd, and went off a little way to +practise. + +"Now," said he to himself, "sail in, Bill Tarbox!" + +Belle heard the sharp strokes of a powerful skater coming after her. Her +heart divined who this might be. She sped away like the swift Camilla, and +her modest drapery showed just enough and "_ne quid nimis_" of her ankles. + +Bill admired the grace and the ankles immensely. But his hopes sank a +little at the flight,--for he thought she perceived his chase and meant to +drop him. Bill had not bad a classical education, and knew nothing of +Galatea in the Eclogue,--how she did not hide, until she saw her swain was +looking fondly after. + +"She wants to get away," he thought "But she sha'n't,--no, not if I have +to follow her to Albany." + +He struck out mightily. Presently the swift Camilla let herself be +overtaken. + +"Good morning, Miss Purtett." (Dogged air.) + +"Good morning, Mr. Tarbox." (Taken-by-surprise air.) + +"I've been admiring your skating," says Bill, trying to be cool. + +"Have you?" rejoins Belle, very cool and distant. + +"Have you been long on the ice?" he inquired, hypocritically. + +"I came on two hours ago with Mr. Ringdove and the girls," returned she, +with a twinkle which said, "Take that, Sir, for pretending you did not see +me." + +"You've seen Mr. Wade skate, then," Bill said, ignoring Ringdove. + +"Yes; isn't it splendid?" Belle replied, kindling. + +"Tip-top!" + +"But then he does everything better than anybody." + +"So he does!" Bill said,--true to his friend, and yet beginning to be +jealous of this enthusiasm. It was not the first time he had been jealous +of Wade; but he had quelled his fears, like a good fellow. + +Belle perceived Bill's jealousy, and could have cried for joy. She had +known as little of her once lover's heart as he of hers. She only knew +that he stopped coming to see her when he fell, and had not renewed his +visits now that he was risen again. If she had not been charmingly ruddy +with the brisk air and exercise, she would have betrayed her pleasure at +Bill's jealousy with a fine blush. + +The sense of recovered power made her wish to use it again. She must tease +him a little. So she continued, as they skated on in good rhythm,-- + +"Mother and I wouldn't know what to do without Mr. Wade. We like him _so_ +much,"--said ardently. + +What Bill feared was true, then, he thought. Wade, noble fellow, worthy to +win any woman's heart, had fascinated his landlady's daughter. + +"I don't wonder you like him," said he. "He deserves it." + +Belle was touched by her old lover's forlorn tone. + +"He does indeed," she said. "He has helped and taught us all so much. He +has taken such good care of Perry. And then"--here she gave her companion +a little look and a little smile--"he speaks so kindly of you, Mr. +Tarbox." + +Smile, look, and words electrified Bill. He gave such a spring on his +skates that he shot far ahead of the lady. He brought himself back with a +sharp turn. + +"He has done kinder than he can speak," says Bill. "He has made a man of +me again, Miss Belle." + +"I know it. It makes me very happy to hear you able to say so of +yourself." She spoke gravely. + +"Very happy"--about anything that concerned him? Bill had to work off his +overjoy at this by an exuberant flourish. He whisked about Belle,--outer +edge backward. She stopped to admire. He finished by describing on the +virgin ice, before her, the letters B.P., in his neatest style of +podography,--easy letters to make, luckily. + +"Beautiful!" exclaimed Belle. "What are those letters? Oh! B.P.! What do +they stand for?" + +"Guess!" + +"I'm so dull," said she, looking bright as a diamond. "Let me think! B.P.? +British Poets, perhaps." + +"Try nearer home!" + +"What are you likely to be thinking of that begins with B.P.?--Oh, I know! +Boiler Plates!" + +She looked at him,--innocent as a lamb. Bill looked at her, delighted with +her little coquetry. A woman without coquetry is insipid as a rose without +scent, as Champagne without bubbles, or as corned beef without mustard. + +"It's something I'm thinking of most of the time," says he; "but I hope +it's softer than Boiler Plates. B.P. stands for Miss Isabella Purtett." + +"Oh!" says Belle, and she skated on in silence. + +"You came down with Alonzo Ringdove?" Bill asked, suddenly, aware of +another pang after a moment of peace. + +"He came with me and his sisters," she replied. + +Yes; poor Ringdove had dressed himself in his shiniest black, put on his +brightest patent-leather boots, with his new swan-necked skates newly +strapped over them, and wore his new dove-colored overcoat with the long +skirts, on purpose to be lovely in the eyes of Belle on this occasion. +Alas, in vain! + +"Mr. Ringdove is a great friend of yours, isn't he?" + +"If you ever came to see me now, you would know who my friends are, Mr. +Tarbox." + +"Would you be my friend again, if I came, Miss Belle?" + +"Again? I have always been so,--always, Bill." + +"Well, then, something more than my friend,--now that I am trying to be +worthy of more, Belle?" + +"What more can I be?" she said, softly. + +"My wife." + +She curved to the right. He followed. To the left. He was not to be shaken +off. + +"Will you promise me not to say _walves_ instead of _valves_, Bill?" she +said, looking pretty and saucy as could be. "I know, to say W for V is +fashionable in the iron business; but I don't like it." + +"What a thing a woman is to dodge!" says Bill. "Suppose I told you that +men brought up inside of boilers, hammering on the inside against twenty +hammering like Wulcans on the outside, get their ears so dumfounded that +they can't tell whether they are saying _valves_ or _walves_, _wice_ or +_virtue_,--suppose I told you that,--what would you say, Belle?" + +"Perhaps I'd say that you pronounce _virtue_ so well, and act it so +sincerely, that I can't make any objection to your other words. If you'd +asked me to be your _vife_, Bill, I might have said I didn't understand; +but _wife_ I do understand, and I say"-- + +She nodded, and tried to skate off. Bill stuck close to her side. + +"Is this true, Belle?" he said, almost doubtfully. + +"True as truth!" + +She put out her hand. He took it, and they skated on together,--hearts +beating to the rhythm of their movements. The uproar and merriment of the +village came only faintly to them. It seemed as if all Nature was hushed +to listen to their plighted troth, their words of love renewed, more +earnest for long suppression. The beautiful ice spread before them, like +their life to come, a pathway untouched by any sorrowful or weary +footstep. The blue sky was cloudless. The keen air stirred the pulses like +the vapor of frozen wine. The benignant mountains westward kindly surveyed +the happy pair, and the sun seemed created to warm and cheer them. + +"And you forgive me, Belle?" said the lover. "I feel as if I had only gone +bad to make me know how much better going right is." + +"I always knew you would find it out. I never stopped hoping and praying +for it." + +"That must have been what brought Mr. Wade here." + +"Oh, I did hate him so, Bill, when I heard of something that happened +between you and him! I thought him a brute and a tyrant. I never could get +over it, until he told mother that you were the best machinist he ever +knew, and would some time grow to be a great inventor." + +"I'm glad you hated him. I suffered rattlesnakes and collapsed flues for +fear you'd go and love him." + +"My affections were engaged," she said, with simple seriousness. + +"Oh, if I'd only thought so long ago! How lovely you are!" exclaims Bill, +in an ecstasy. "And how refined! And how good! God bless you!" + +He made up such a wishful mouth,--so wishful for one of the pleasurable +duties of mouths, that Belle blushed, laughed, and looked down, and as she +did so saw that one of her straps was trailing. + +"Please fix it, Bill," she said, stopping and kneeling. + +Bill also knelt, and his wishful mouth immediately took its chance. + +A manly smack and sweet little feminine chirp sounded as their lips met. + +Boom! twanging gay as the first tap of a marriage-bell, a loud crack in +the ice rang musically for leagues up and down the river. "Bravo!" it +seemed to say. "Well done, Bill Tarbox! Try again!" Which the happy fellow +did, and the happy maiden permitted. + +"Now," said Bill, "let us go and hug Mr. Wade!" + +"What! Both of us?" Belle protested. "Mr. Tarbox, I am ashamed of you!" + + * * * * * + + + + +LIGHT LITERATURE. + + +Though the smallest boulder is heavy, and even the merest pebble has a +perceptible weight, yet the entire planet, toward which both gravitate, +floats more lightly than any feather. In literature somewhat analogous may +be observed. Here also are found the insignificant lightness of the pebble +and the mighty lightness of the planet; while between them range the +weighty masses, superior to the petty ponderability of the one, and +unequal to the firmamental float of the other. Accordingly, setting out +from the mote-and-pebble extreme, you find, that, up to a certain point, +increasing values of thought are commonly indicated by increasing gravity, +by more and more of state-paper weightiness; but beyond this the rule is +reversed, and lightness becomes the sign and measure of excellence. Bishop +Butler and Richard Hooker--especially the latter, the first book of whose +"Ecclesiastical Polity" is a truly noble piece of writing--stand, perhaps, +at the head of the weighty class of writers in our language; but going +beyond these to the "Areopagitica" of Milton, or even to the powerful +prose of Raleigh, you pass the boundary-line, and are touched with the +buoyant influences of the Muse. Shakspeare and Plato are lighter than +levity; they are lifting forces, and weigh _less_ than nothing. The +novelette of the season, or any finest and flimsiest gossamer that is +fabricated in our literary looms, compares with "Lear," with "Prometheus +Bound," with any supreme work, only as cobwebs and thistle-down, that are +easily borne by the breeze, may compare with sparrows and thrushes, that +can fly and withal sing. + +There is a call for "light reading," and I for one applaud the demand. A +lightening influence is the best that books or men can bestow upon us. +Information is good, but invigoration is a thousand times better. Cheer, +cheer and vigor for the world's heart! It is because man's hope is so low, +and his imaginations so poor, that he is earthly and evil. Wings for these +unfledged hearts! Transformation for these grubs! Give us animation, +inspiration, joy, faith! Give us enlivening, lightsome airs, to which our +souls shall, on a sudden, begin to dance, keeping step with the angels! +What else is worth having? Each one of these sordid sons of men--is he not +a new-born Apollo, who waits only for the ambrosia from Olympus, to spring +forth in divineness of beauty and strength? + +Nevertheless, I know not of any reading so hopelessly heavy as large +portions of that which claims the name of light. Light writing it may be; +but, considered as reading, one would be unjust to charge upon it any lack +of avoirdupois. It is like the bran of wheat, which, though of little +weight in the barrel, is heavy enough in the stomach,--Dr. Sylvester +Graham to the contrary notwithstanding. It is related of an Italian +culprit, that, being required, in punishment of his crime, to make choice +between lying in prison for a term of years and reading the history of +Guicciardini, he chose the latter, but, after a brief trial, petitioned +for leave to reverse his election. I never attempted Guicciardini; but I +_did_ once attempt Pope's "Dunciad." And was it really the doom of a +generation of readers to find delight in this book? One must suppose so. +There are those in our day whose hard fate it is to read and to like +James's and Bulwer's novels. But greatly mistaken is the scholar who, for +relief from severe studies, goes to an empty or insincere book. It is like +saying money, after large and worthy expenditures, by purchasing at a low +price that which is worth nothing,--buying "gold" watches at a +mock-auction room. + +Indeed, no book, however witty, lively, saltatory, can have the volant +effects we covet, if it want substance and seriousness. Substance, +however, is to be widely distinguished from ponderability. Oxygen is not +so ponderous as lead or granite, but it is far more substantial than +either, and, as every one knows, infinitely more serviceable to life. The +distinction is equally valid when applied to books and to men. The "airy +nothings" of imagination prove to be the most enduring somethings of the +world's literature; and the last lightness of heart may go with the purest +truth of soul and the most precious virtue of intelligence. All +expressions carry the perpetual savors of their origin; and as brooks that +dance and frolic with the sunbeams and murmur to the birds, light-hearted +forever, will yet bear sands of gold, if they flow from auriferous hills, +so any bubble and purl of laughter, proceeding from a wise and wealthy +soul, will bear a noble significance. In point of fact, some of the +merriest books in the world are among the most richly freighted. And as +airy and mirthful books may be substantial and serious, so it is an effect +very similar to that of noble and significant mirth that is produced upon +us by the grandest pieces of serious writing. Thus, he who rightly reads +the "Phaedon" or "Phaedrus" of Plato smiles through all the depths of his +brain, though no pronounced smile show on his face; and he who rightly +reads the book of Cervantes, though the laughters plunge, as it were, in +cascades from his lips, is earnest at heart, and full of sound and tender +meditations. + +If now, setting aside all books, whether pretending to gayety or gravity, +that are simply empty and ineffectual, we inquire for the prime +distinction between books light in a worthy and unworthy sense, it will +appear to be the distinction between inspiration and alcohol,--between +effects divinely real and effects illusory and momentary. The drunkard +dreams of flying, and fancies the stars themselves left below him, while +he is really lying in the gutter. There are those, and numbers of those, +who in reading seek no more than to be cheated in a similar way. Indeed, +to acknowledge a disagreeable fact, there is a very great deal of reading +in our day that is simply a substitute for the potations and "heavy-handed +revel" of our Saxon ancestors. In both cases it is a spurious exaltation +of feeling that is sought; in both cases those who for a moment seem to +themselves larks ascending to meet the sun are but worms eating earth. + +This celestial lightness, which constitutes the last praise and causes the +purest benefit of books, comes not of any manner of writing; no mere +vivacity, though that of a French writer of memoirs, though that of Arsène +Houssaye himself, can compass it; by no knack or talents is it to be +attained. Perfect style has, indeed, many allurements, and is of exceeding +price; but it is no chariot of Elijah, nevertheless. Was ever style more +delightful, of its kind, than Dryden's? Was ever style more heavy and +monotonous than that of Swedenborg in his theological works? But I have +read Dryden, not indeed without pleasure in his masterly exquisite ease +and sureness of statement and his occasional touches of admirable good +sense, yet with no slightest liberation of spirit, with no degree, greater +or less, of that magical and marvellous evocation, of inward resource, +whose blessed surprise now and then in life makes for us angelic moments, +and feelingly persuades us that our earth also is a star and in the sky. +On the other hand, I once read Swedenborg's "Angelic Wisdom concerning the +Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom" with such enticement, such afflatus, +such quickening and heightening of soul, as I cannot describe without +seeming excessive. Until half through the book, I turned every page with +the feeling that before another page I might see the chasm between the +real and phenomenal worlds fairly bridged over. Of course, it disappointed +me in the end; but what of that? To have kindled and for a time sustained +the expectation which should render possible such disappointment was a +benefit that a whole Bodleian Library might fail to confer. These benefits +come to us not from the writer as such, but from the man behind the +writer. He who dwells aloft amid the deathless orient imaginations of the +human race, easily inhabiting their atmosphere as his native +element,--about him, and him only, are the halos and dawns of immortal +youth; and his speech, though with many babyish or barbarous fancies, many +melancholies and vices of the blood compounded, carries nevertheless some +refrain of divine hilarity, that beguiles men of their sordidness, their +sullenness, and low cares, they know not how nor why. + + * * * * * + + + + +PILGRIMAGE TO OLD BOSTON. + + +We set out at a little past eleven, and made our first stage to +Manchester. We were by this time sufficiently Anglicized to reckon the +morning a bright and sunny one; although the May sunshine was mingled with +water, as it were, and distempered with a very bitter east-wind. + +Lancashire is a dreary county, (all, at least, except its hilly portions,) +and I have never passed through it without wishing myself anywhere but in +that particular spot where I then happened to be. A few places along our +route were historically interesting; as, for example, Bolton, which was +the scene of many remarkable events in the Parliamentary War, and in the +market-square of which one of the Earls of Derby was beheaded. We saw, +along the way-side, the never-failing green fields, hedges, and other +monotonous features of an ordinary English landscape. There were little +factory villages, too, or larger towns, with their tall chimneys, and +their pennons of black smoke, their uglinesses of brick-work, and their +heaps of refuse matter from the furnace, which seems to be the only kind +of stuff which Nature cannot take back to herself and resolve into the +elements, when man has thrown it aside. These hillocks of waste and effete +mineral always disfigure the neighborhood of ironmongering towns, and, +even after a considerable antiquity, are hardly made decent with a little +grass. + +At a quarter to two we left Manchester by the Sheffield and Lincoln +Railway. The scenery grew rather better than that through which we had +hitherto passed, though still by no means very striking; for (except in +the show-districts, such as the Lake country, or Derbyshire) English +scenery is not particularly well worth looking at, considered as a +spectacle or a picture. It has a real, homely charm of its own, no doubt; +and the rich verdure, and the thorough finish added by human, art, are +perhaps as attractive to an American eye as any stronger feature could be. +Our journey, however, between Manchester and Sheffield was not through a +rich tract of country, but along a valley walled in by bleak, ridgy hills +extending straight as a rampart, and across black moorlands with here and +there a plantation of trees. Sometimes there were long and gradual +ascents, bleak, windy, and desolate, conveying the very impression which +the reader gets from many passages of Miss Bronté's novels, and still more +from those of her two sisters. Old stone or brick farm-houses, and, once +in a while, an old church-tower, were visible: but these are almost too +common objects to be noticed in an English landscape. + +On a railway, I suspect, what little we do see of the country is seen +quite amiss, because it was never intended to be looked at from any point +of view in that straight line; so that it is like looking at the wrong +side of a piece of tapestry. The old highways and footpaths were as +natural as brooks and rivulets, and adapted themselves by an inevitable +impulse to the physiognomy of the country; and, furthermore, every object +within view of them had some subtile reference to their curves and +undulations: but the line of a railway is perfectly artificial, and puts +all precedent things at sixes-and-sevens. At any rate, be the cause what +it may, there is seldom anything worth seeing--within the scope of a +railway traveller's eye; and if there were, it requires an alert marksman +to take a flying shot at the picturesque. + +At one of the stations, (it was near a village of ancient aspect, nestling +round a church, on a wide Yorkshire moor,) I saw a tall old lady in black, +who seemed to have just alighted from the train. She caught my attention +by a singular movement of the head, not once only, but continually +repeated, and at regular intervals, as if she were making a stern and +solemn protest against some action that developed itself before her eyes, +and were foreboding terrible disaster, if it should be persisted in. Of +course, it was nothing more than a paralytic or nervous affection; yet one +might fancy that it had its origin in some unspeakable wrong, perpetrated +half a lifetime ago in this old gentlewoman's presence, either against +herself or somebody whom she loved still better. Her features had a +wonderful sternness, which, I presume, was caused by her habitual effort +to compose and keep them quiet, and thereby counteract the tendency to +paralytic movement. The slow, regular, and inexorable character of the +motion,--her look of force and self-control, which had the appearance of +rendering it voluntary, while yet it was so fateful,--have stamped this +poor lady's face and gesture into my memory; so that, some dark day or +other, I am afraid she will reproduce herself in a dismal romance. + +The train stopped a minute or two, to allow the tickets to be taken, just +before entering the Sheffield station, and thence I had a glimpse of the +famous town of razors and penknives, enveloped in a cloud of its own +diffusing. My impressions of it are extremely vague and misty,--or, +rather, smoky: for Sheffield seems to me smokier than Manchester, +Liverpool, or Birmingham,--smokier than all England besides, unless +Newcastle be the exception. It might have been Pluto's own metropolis, +shrouded in sulphurous vapor; and, indeed, our approach to it had been by +the Valley of the Shadow of Death, through a tunnel three miles in length, +quite traversing the breadth and depth of a mountainous hill. + +After passing Sheffield, the scenery became softer, gentler, yet more +picturesque. At one point we saw what I believe to be the utmost northern +verge of Sherwood Forest,--not consisting, however, of thousand-year oaks, +extant from Robin Hood's days, but of young and thriving plantations, +which will require a century or two of slow English growth to give them +much breadth of shade. Earl Fitzwilliam's property lies in this +neighborhood, and probably his castle was hidden among some soft depth of +foliage not far off. Farther onward the country grew quite level around +us, whereby I judged that we must now be in Lincolnshire; and shortly +after six o'clock we caught the first glimpse of the Cathedral towers, +though they loomed scarcely huge enough for our preconceived idea of them. +But, as we drew nearer, the great edifice began to assert itself, making +us acknowledge it to be larger than our receptivity could take in. + +At the railway-station we found no cab, (it being an unknown vehicle in +Lincoln,) but only an omnibus belonging to the Saracen's Head, which the +driver recommended as the best hotel in the city, and took us thither +accordingly. It received us hospitably, and looked comfortable enough; +though, like the hotels of most old English towns, it had a musty +fragrance of antiquity, such as I have smelt in a seldom-opened London +church where the broad-aisle is paved with tombstones. The house was of an +ancient fashion, the entrance into its interior court-yard being through +an arch, in the side of which is the door of the hotel. There are long +corridors, an intricate arrangement of passages, and an up-and-down +meandering of staircases, amid which it would be no marvel to encounter +some forgotten guest who had gone astray a hundred years ago, and was +still seeking for his bed-room while the rest of his generation were in +their graves. There is no exaggerating the confusion of mind that seizes +upon a stranger in the bewildering geography of a great old-fashioned +English inn. + +This hotel stands in the principal street of Lincoln, and within a very +short distance of one of the ancient city-gates, which is arched across +the public way, with a smaller arch for foot-passengers on either side; +the whole, a gray, time-gnawn, ponderous, shadowy structure, through the +dark vista of which you look into the Middle Ages. The street is narrow, +and retains many antique peculiarities; though, unquestionably, English +domestic architecture has lost its most impressive features, in the course +of the last century. In this respect, there are finer old towns than +Lincoln: Chester, for instance, and Shrewsbury,--which last is unusually +rich in those quaint and stately edifices where the gentry of the shire +used to make their winter-abodes, in a provincial metropolis. Almost +everywhere, nowadays, there is a monotony of modern brick or stuccoed +fronts, hiding houses that are older than ever, but obliterating the +picturesque antiquity of the street. + +Between seven and eight o'clock (it being still broad daylight in these +long English days) we set out to pay a preliminary visit to the exterior +of the Cathedral. Passing through the Stone Bow, as the city-gate close by +is called, we ascended a street which grew steeper and narrower as we +advanced, till at last it got to be the steepest street I ever +climbed,--so steep that any carriage, if left to itself, would rattle +downward much faster than it could possibly be drawn up. Being almost the +only hill in Lincolnshire, the inhabitants seem disposed to make the most +of it. The houses on each side had no very remarkable aspect, except one +with a stone portal and carved ornaments, which is now a dwelling-place +for poverty-stricken people, but may have been an aristocratic abode in +the days of the Norman kings, to whom its style of architecture dates +back. This is called the Jewess's House, having been inhabited by a woman +of that faith who was hanged six hundred years ago. + +And still the street grew steeper and steeper. Certainly, the Bishop and +clergy of Lincoln ought not to be fat men, but of very spiritual, +saint-like, almost angelic habit, if it be a frequent part of their +ecclesiastical duty to climb this hill; for it is a real penance, and was +probably performed as such, and groaned over accordingly, in monkish +times. Formerly, on the day of his installation, the Bishop used to ascend +the hill barefoot, and was doubtless cheered and invigorated by looking +upward to the grandeur that was to console him for the humility of his +approach. We, likewise, were beckoned onward by glimpses of the Cathedral +towers, and, finally, attaining an open square on the summit, we saw an +old Gothic gateway to the left hand, and another to the right. The latter +had apparently been a part of the exterior defences of the Cathedral, at a +time when the edifice was fortified. The west front rose behind. We passed +through one of the side-arches of the Gothic portal, and found ourselves +in the Cathedral Close, a wide, level space, where the great old Minster +has fair room to sit, looking down on the ancient structures that surround +it, all of which, in former days, were the habitations of its dignitaries +and officers. Some of them are still occupied as such, though others are +in too neglected and dilapidated a state to seem worthy of so splendid an +establishment. Unless it be Salisbury Close, however, (which is +incomparably rich as regards the old residences that belong to it,) I +remember no more comfortably picturesque precincts round any other +cathedral. But, in, truth, almost every cathedral close, in turn, has +seemed to me the loveliest, coziest, safest, least wind-shaken, most +decorous, and most enjoyable shelter that ever the thrift and selfishness +of mortal man contrived for himself. How delightful, to combine all this +with the service of the temple! + +Lincoln Cathedral is built of a yellowish brown-stone, which appears +either to have been largely restored, or else does not assume the hoary, +crumbly surface that gives such a venerable aspect to most of the ancient +churches and castles in England. In many parts, the recent restorations +are quite evident; but other, and much the larger portions, can scarcely +have been touched for centuries: for there are still the gargoyles, +perfect, or with broken noses, as the case may be, but showing that +variety and fertility of grotesque extravagance which no modern imitation +can effect. There are innumerable niches, too, up the whole height of the +towers, above and around the entrance, and all over the walls: most of +them empty, but a few containing the lamentable remnants of headless +saints and angels. It is singular what a native animosity lives in the +human heart against carved images, insomuch that, whether they represent +Christian saint or Pagan deity, all unsophisticated men seize the first +safe opportunity to knock off their heads! In spite of all dilapidations, +however, the effect of the west front of the Cathedral is still +exceedingly rich, being covered from massive base to airy summit with the +minutest details of sculpture and carving: at least, it was so once; and +even now the spiritual impression of its beauty remains so strong, that we +have to look twice to see that much of it has been obliterated. I have +seen a cherry-stone carved all over by a monk, so minutely that it must +have cost him half a lifetime of labor; and this cathedral front seems to +have been elaborated in a monkish spirit, like that cherry-stone. Not that +the result is in the least petty, but miraculously grand, and all the more +so for the faithful beauty of the smallest details. + +An elderly man, seeing us looking up at the west front, came to the door +of an adjacent house, and called to inquire if we wished to go into the +Cathedral; but as there would have been a dusky twilight beneath its roof, +like the antiquity that has sheltered itself within, we declined for the +present. So we merely walked round the exterior, and thought it more +beautiful than that of York; though, on recollection, I hardly deem it so +majestic and mighty as that. It is vain to attempt a description, or seek +even to record the feeling which the edifice inspires. It does not impress +the beholder as an inanimate object, but as something that has a vast, +quiet, long-enduring life of its own,--a creation which man did not build, +though in some way or other it is connected with him, and kindred to human +nature. In short, I fall straightway to talking nonsense, when I try to +express my inner sense of this and other cathedrals. + +While we stood in the close, at the eastern end of the Minster, the clock +chimed the quarters; and then Great Tom, who hangs in the Rood Tower, told +us it was eight o'clock, in far the sweetest and mightiest accents that I +ever heard from any bell,--slow, and solemn, and allowing the profound +reverberations of each stroke to die away before the next one fell. It was +still broad daylight in that upper region of the town, and would be so for +some time longer; but the evening atmosphere was getting sharp and cool. +We therefore descended the steep street,--our younger companion running +before us, and gathering such headway that I fully expected him to break +his head against some projecting wall. + +In the morning we took a fly, (an English term for an exceedingly sluggish +vehicle,) and drove up to the Minster by a road rather less steep and +abrupt than the one we had previously climbed. We alighted before the west +front, and sent our charioteer in quest of the verger; but, as he was not +immediately to be found, a young girl let us into the nave. We found it +very grand, it is needless to say, but not so grand, methought, as the +vast nave of York Cathedral, especially beneath the great central tower of +the latter. Unless a writer intends a professedly architectural +description, there is but one set of phrases in which to talk of all the +cathedrals in England, and elsewhere. They are alike in their great +features: an acre or two of stone flags for a pavement; rows of vast +columns supporting a vaulted roof at a dusky height; great windows, +sometimes richly bedimmed with ancient or modern stained glass; an +elaborately carved screen between the nave and chancel, breaking the vista +that might else be of such glorious length, and which is further choked up +by a massive organ,--in spite of which obstructions, you catch the broad, +variegated glimmer of the painted east window, where a hundred saints wear +their robes of transfiguration. Within the screen are the carved oaken +stalls of the Chapter and Prebendaries, the Bishop's throne, the pulpit, +the altar, and whatever else may furnish out the Holy of Holies. Nor must +we forget the range of chapels, (once dedicated to Catholic saints, but +which have now lost their individual consecration,) nor the old monuments +of kings, warriors, and prelates, in the side-aisles of the chancel. In +close contiguity to the main body of the Cathedral is the Chapter-House, +which, here at Lincoln, as at Salisbury, is supported by one central +pillar rising from the floor, and putting forth branches like a tree, to +hold up the roof. Adjacent to the Chapter-House are the cloisters, +extending round a quadrangle, and paved with lettered tombstones, the more +antique of which have had their inscriptions half obliterated by the feet +of monks taking their noontide exercise in these sheltered walks, five +hundred years ago. Some of these old burial-stones, although with ancient +crosses engraved upon them, have been made to serve as memorials to dead +people of very recent date. + +In the chancel, among the tombs of forgotten bishops and knights, we saw +an immense slab of stone purporting to be the monument of Catherine +Swineferd, wife of John of Gaunt; also, here was the shrine of the little +Saint Hugh, that Christian child who was fabled to have been crucified by +the Jews of Lincoln. The Cathedral is not particularly rich in monuments; +for it suffered grievous outrage and dilapidation, both at the Reformation +and in Cromwell's time. This latter iconoclast is in especially bad odor +with the sextons and vergers of most of the old churches which I have +visited. His soldiers stabled their steeds in the nave of Lincoln +Cathedral, and hacked and hewed the monkish sculptures, and the ancestral +memorials of great families, quite at their wicked and plebeian pleasure. +Nevertheless, there are some most exquisite and marvellous specimens of +flowers, foliage, and grape-vines, and miracles of stone-work twined about +arches, as if the material had been as soft as wax in the cunning +sculptor's hands,--the leaves being represented with all their veins, so +that you would almost think it petrified Nature, for which he sought to +steal the praise of Art. Here, too, were those grotesque faces which +always grin at you from the projections of monkish architecture, as if the +builders had gone mad with their own deep solemnity, or dreaded such a +catastrophe, unless permitted to throw in something ineffably absurd. + +Originally, it is supposed, all the pillars of this great edifice, and all +these magic sculptures, were polished to the utmost degree of lustre; nor +is it unreasonable to think that the artists would have taken these +further pains, when they had already bestowed so much labor in working out +their conceptions to the extremest point. But, at present, the whole +interior of the Cathedral is smeared over with a yellowish wash, the very +meanest hue imaginable, and for which somebody's soul has a bitter +reckoning to undergo. + +In the centre of the grassy quadrangle about which the cloisters +perambulate is a small, mean, brick building, with a locked door. Our +guide,--I forgot to say that we had been captured by a verger, in black, +and with a white tie, but of a lusty and jolly aspect,--our guide unlocked +this door, and disclosed a flight of steps. At the bottom appeared what I +should have taken to be a large square of dim, worn, and faded +oil-carpeting, which might originally have been painted of a rather gaudy +pattern. This was a Roman tessellated pavement, made of small colored +bricks, or pieces of burnt clay. It was accidentally discovered here, and +has not been meddled with, further than by removing the superincumbent +earth and rubbish. + +Nothing else occurs to me, just now, to be recorded about the interior of +the Cathedral, except that we saw a place where the stone pavement had +been worn away by the feet of ancient pilgrims scraping upon it, as they +knelt down before a shrine of the Virgin. + +Leaving the Minster, we now went along a street of more venerable +appearance than we had heretofore seen, bordered with houses, the high, +peaked roofs of which were covered with red earthen tiles. It led us to a +Roman arch, which was once the gateway of a fortification, and has been +striding across the English street ever since the latter was a faint +village-path, and for centuries before. The arch is about four hundred +yards from the Cathedral; and it is to be noticed that there are Roman +remains in all this neighborhood, some above ground, and doubtless +innumerable more beneath it; for, as in ancient Rome itself, an inundation +of accumulated soil seems to have swept over what was the surface of that +earlier day. The gateway which I am speaking about is probably buried to a +third of its height, and perhaps has as perfect a Roman pavement (if +sought for at the original depth) as that which runs beneath the Arch of +Titus. It is a rude and massive structure, and seems as stalwart now as it +could have been two thousand years ago; and though Time has gnawed it +externally, he has made what amends he could by crowning its rough and +broken summit with grass and weeds, and planting tufts of yellow flowers +on the projections up and down the sides. + +There are the ruins of a Norman castle, built by the Conqueror, in pretty +close proximity to the Cathedral; but the old gateway is obstructed by a +modern door of wood, and we were denied admittance because some part of +the precincts are used as a prison. We now rambled about on the broad back +of the hill, which, besides the Minster and ruined castle, is the site of +some stately and queer old houses, and of many mean little hovels. I +suspect that all or most of the life of the present day has subsided into +the lower town, and that only priests, poor people, and prisoners dwell in +these upper regions. In the wide, dry moat at the base of the castle-wall +are clustered whole colonies of small houses, some of brick, but the +larger portion built of old stones which once made part of the Norman +keep, or of Roman structures that existed before the Conqueror's castle +was ever dreamed about. They are like toadstools that spring up from the +mould of a decaying tree. Ugly as they are, they add wonderfully to the +picturesqueness of the scene, being quite as valuable, in that respect, as +the great, broad, ponderous ruin of the castle-keep, which rose high above +our heads, heaving its huge gray mass out of a bank of green foliage and +ornamental shrubbery, such as lilacs and other flowering-plants, in which +its foundations were completely hidden. + +After walking quite round the castle, I made an excursion through the +Roman gateway, along a pleasant and level road bordered with dwellings of +various character. One or two were houses of gentility, with delightful +and shadowy lawns before them; many had those high, red-tiled roofs, +ascending into acutely pointed gables, which seem to belong to the same +epoch as some of the edifices in our own earlier towns; and there were +pleasant-looking cottages, very sylvan and rural, with hedges so dense and +high, fencing them in, as almost to hide them up to the eaves of their +thatched roofs. In front of one of these I saw various images, crosses, +and relics of antiquity, among which were fragments of old Catholic +tombstones, disposed by way of ornament. + +We now went home to the Saracen's Head; and as the weather was very +unpropitious, and it sprinkled a little now and then, I would gladly have +felt myself released from further thraldom to the Cathedral. But it had +taken possession of me, and would not let me be at rest; so at length I +found myself compelled to climb the hill again, between daylight and dusk. +A mist was now hovering about the upper height of the great central tower, +so as to dim and half obliterate its battlements and pinnacles, even while +I stood in the close beneath it. It was the most impressive view that I +had had. The whole lower part of the structure was seen with perfect +distinctness; but at the very summit the mist was so dense as to form an +actual cloud, as well denned as ever I saw resting on a mountain-top. +Really and literally, here was a "cloud-capt tower." + +The entire Cathedral, too, transfigured itself into a richer beauty and +more imposing majesty than ever. The longer I looked, the better I loved +it. Its exterior is certainly far more beautiful than that of York +Minster; and its finer effect is due, I think, to the many peaks in which +the structure ascends, and to the pinnacles which, as it were, repeat and +re-echo them into the sky. York Cathedral is comparatively square and +angular in its general effect; but here there is a continual mystery of +variety, so that at every glance you are aware of a change, and a +disclosure of something new, yet working an harmonious development of what +you have heretofore seen. The west front is unspeakably grand, and may be +read over and over again forever, and still show undetected meanings, like +a great, broad page of marvellous writing in black-letter,--so many +sculptured ornaments there are, blossoming out before your eyes, and gray +statues that have grown there since you looked last, and empty niches, and +a hundred airy canopies beneath which carved images used to be, and where +they will show themselves again, if you gaze long enough.--But I will not +say another word about the Cathedral. + +We spent the rest of the day within the sombre precincts of the Saracen's +Head, reading yesterday's "Times," "The Guide-Book of Lincoln," and "The +Directory of the Eastern Counties." Dismal as the weather was, the street +beneath our window was enlivened with a great bustle and turmoil of people +all the evening, because it was Saturday night, and they had accomplished +their week's toil, received their wages, and were making their small +purchases against Sunday, and enjoying themselves as well as they knew +how. A band of music passed to and fro several times, with the rain-drops +falling into the mouth of the brazen trumpet and pattering on the +bass-drum; a spirit-shop, opposite the hotel, had a vast run of custom; +and a coffee-dealer, in the open air, found occasional vent for his +commodity, in spite of the cold water that dripped into the cups. The +whole breadth of the street, between the Stone Bow and the bridge across +the Witham, was thronged to overflowing, and humming with human life. + +Observing in the Guide-Book that a steamer runs on the River Witham +between Lincoln and Boston, I inquired of the waiter, and learned that she +was to start on Monday, at ten o'clock. Thinking it might be an +interesting trip, and a pleasant variation of our customary mode of +travel, we determined to make the voyage. The Witham flows through +Lincoln, crossing the main street under an arched bridge of Gothic +construction, a little below the Saracen's Head. It has more the +appearance of a canal than of a river, in its passage through the +town,--being bordered with hewn stone mason-work on each side, and +provided with one or two locks. The steamer proved to be small, dirty, and +altogether inconvenient. The early morning had been bright; but the sky +now lowered upon us with a sulky English temper, and we had not long put +off before we felt an ugly wind from the German Ocean blowing right in our +teeth. There were a number of passengers on board, country-people, such as +travel by third-class on the railway; for, I suppose, nobody but ourselves +ever dreamt of voyaging, by the steamer for the sake of what he might +happen upon in the way of river-scenery. + +We bothered a good while about getting through a preliminary lock; nor, +when fairly under way, did we ever accomplish, I think, six miles an hour. +Constant delays were caused, moreover, by stopping to take up passengers +and freight,--not at regular landing-places, but anywhere along the green +banks. The scenery was identical with that of the railway, because the +latter runs along by the river-side through the whole distance, or nowhere +departs from it except to make a short cut across some sinuosity; so that +our only advantage lay in the drawling, snail-like slothfulness of our +progress, which allowed us time enough and to spare for the objects along +the shore. Unfortunately, there was nothing, or next to nothing, to be +seen,--the country being one unvaried level over the whole thirty miles of +our voyage,--not a hill in sight, either near or far, except that solitary +one on the summit of which we had left Lincoln Cathedral. And the +Cathedral was our landmark for four hours or more, and at last rather +faded out than was hidden by any intervening object. + +It would have been a pleasantly lazy day enough, if the rough and bitter +wind had not blown directly in our faces, and chilled us through, in spite +of the sunshine that soon succeeded a sprinkle or two of rain. These +English east-winds, which prevail from February till June, are greater +nuisances than the east-wind of our own Atlantic coast, although they do +not bring mist and storm, as with us, but some of the sunniest weather +that England sees. Under their influence, the sky smiles and is villanous. + +The landscape was tame to the last degree, but had an English character +that was abundantly worth our looking at. A green luxuriance of early +grass; old, high-roofed farm-houses, surrounded by their stone barns and +ricks of bay and grain; ancient villages, with the square, gray tower of a +church seen afar over the level country, amid the cluster of red roofs; +here and there a shadowy grove of venerable trees, surrounding what was +perhaps an Elizabethan ball, though it looked more like the abode of some +rich yeoman. Once, too, we saw the tower of a mediaeval castle, that of +Tattershall, built by a Cromwell, but whether of the Protector's family I +cannot tell. But the gentry do not appear to have settled multitudinously +in this tract of country; nor is it to be wondered at, since a lover of +the picturesque would as soon think of settling in Holland. The river +retains its canal-like aspect all along; and only in the latter part of +its course does it become more than wide enough for the little steamer to +turn itself round,--at broadest, not more than twice that width. + +The only memorable incident of our voyage happened when a mother-duck was +leading her little fleet of five ducklings across the river, just as our +steamer went swaggering by, stirring the quiet stream into great waves +that lashed the banks on either side. I saw the imminence of the +catastrophe, and hurried to the stern of the boat to witness, since I +could not possibly avert it. The poor ducklings had uttered their +baby-quacks, and striven with all their tiny might to escape: four of +them, I believe, were washed aside and thrown off unhurt from the +steamer's prow; but the fifth must have gone under the whole length of the +keel, and never could have come up alive. + +At last, in, mid-afternoon, we beheld the tall tower of Saint Botolph's +Church (three hundred feet high, the same elevation as the tallest tower +of Lincoln Cathedral) looming in the distance. At about half-past four we +reached Boston, (which name has been shortened, in the course of ages, by +the quick and slovenly English pronunciation, from Botolph's town,) and +were taken by a cab to the Peacock, in the market-place. It was the best +hotel in town, though a poor one enough; and we were shown into a small, +stilled parlor, dingy, musty, and scented with stale +tobacco-smoke,--tobacco-smoke two days old, for the waiter assured us that +the room had not more recently been fumigated. An exceedingly grim waiter +he was, apparently a genuine descendant of the old Puritans of this +English Boston, and quite as sour as those who peopled the daughter-city +in New England. Our parlor had the one recommendation of looking into the +market-place, and affording a sidelong glimpse of the tail spire and noble +old church. + +In my first ramble about the town, chance led me to the river-side, at +that quarter where the port is situated. Here were long buildings of an +old-fashioned aspect, seemingly warehouses, with windows in the high, +steep roofs. The Custom-House found ample accommodation within an ordinary +dwelling-house. Two or three large schooners were moored along the river's +brink, which had here a stone margin; another large and handsome schooner +was evidently just finished, rigged and equipped for her first voyage; the +rudiments of another were on the stocks, in a ship-yard bordering on the +river. Still another, while I was looking on, came up the stream, and +lowered her main-sail, from a foreign voyage. An old man on the bank +hailed her and inquired about her cargo; but the Lincolnshire people have +such a queer way of talking English that I could not understand the reply. +Farther down the river, I saw a brig, approaching rapidly under sail. The +whole scene made an odd impression of bustle, and sluggishness, and decay, +and a remnant of wholesome life; and I could not but contrast it with the +mighty and populous activity of our own Boston, which was once the feeble +infant of this old English town;--the latter, perhaps, almost stationary +ever since that day, as if the birth of such an offspring had taken away +its own principle of growth. I thought of Long Wharf, and Faneuil Hall, +and Washington Street, and the Great Elm, and the State-House, and exulted +lustily,--but yet began to feel at home in this good old town, for its +very name's sake, as I never had before felt, in England. + +The next morning we came out in the early sunshine, (the sun must have +been shining nearly four hours, however, for it was after eight o'clock,) +and strolled about the streets, like people who had a right to be there. +The market-place of Boston is an irregular square, into one end of which +the chancel of the church slightly projects. The gates of the church-yard +were open and free to all passengers, and the common footway of the +towns-people seems to lie to and fro across it. It is paved, according to +English custom, with flat tombstones; and there are also raised, or +altar-tombs, some of which have armorial bearings on them. One clergyman +has caused himself and his wife to be buried right in the middle of the +stone-bordered path that traverses the church-yard; so that not an +individual of the thousands who pass along this public way can help +trampling over him or her. The scene, nevertheless, was very cheerful in +the morning sun: people going about their business in the day's primal +freshness, which was just as fresh here as in younger villages; children, +with milk-pails, loitering over the burial-stones; school-boys playing +leap-frog with the altar-tombs; the simple old town preparing itself for +the day, which would be like myriads of other days that had passed over +it, but yet would be worth living through. And down on the church-yard, +where were buried many generations whom it remembered in their time, +looked the stately tower of Saint Botolph; and it was good to see and +think of such an age-long giant, intermarrying the present epoch with a +distant past, and getting quite imbued with human nature by being so +immemorially connected with men's familiar knowledge and homely interests. +It is a noble tower; and the jackdaws evidently have pleasant homes in +their hereditary nests among its topmost windows, and live delightful +lives, flitting and cawing about its pinnacles and flying-buttresses. I +should almost like to be a jackdaw myself, for the sake of living up +there. + +In front of the church, not more than twenty yards off, and with a low +brick wall between, flows the River Witham. On the hither bank a fisherman +was washing his boat; and another skiff, with her sail lazily +half-twisted, lay on the opposite strand. The stream, at this point, is +about of such width, that, if the tall tower were to tumble over flat on +its face, its top-stone might perhaps reach to the middle of the channel. +On the farther shore there is a line of antique-looking houses, with roofs +of red tile, and windows opening out of them,--some of these dwellings +being so ancient, that the Reverend Mr. Cotton, subsequently our first +Boston minister, must have seen them with his own bodily eyes, when he +used to issue from the front-portal after service. Indeed, there must be +very many houses here, and even some streets, that bear much the aspect +that they did when the Puritan divine paced solemnly among them. + +In our rambles about town, we went into a bookseller's shop to inquire if +he had any description of Boston for sale. He offered me (or, rather, +produced for inspection, not supposing that I would buy it) a quarto +history of the town, published by subscription, nearly forty years ago. +The bookseller showed himself a well-informed and affable man, and a local +antiquary, to whom a party of inquisitive strangers were a godsend. He had +met with several Americans, who, at various times, had come on pilgrimages +to this place, and had been in correspondence with others. Happening to +have heard the name of one member of our party, he showed us great +courtesy and kindness, and invited us into his inner domicile, where, as +he modestly intimated, he kept a few articles which it might interest us +to see. So we went with him through the shop, up-stairs, into the private +part of his establishment; and, really, it was one of the rarest +adventures I ever met with, to stumble upon this treasure of a man, with +his treasury of antiquities and curiosities, veiled behind the +unostentatious front of a bookseller's shop, in a very moderate line of +village-business. The two up-stair rooms into which he introduced us were +so crowded with inestimable articles, that we were almost afraid to stir, +for fear of breaking some fragile thing that had been accumulating value +for unknown centuries. + +The apartment was hung round with pictures and old engravings, many of +which were extremely rare. Premising that he was going to show us +something very curious, Mr. Porter went into the next room and returned +with a counterpane of fine linen, elaborately embroidered with silk, which +so profusely covered the linen that the general effect was as if the main +texture were silken. It was stained, and seemed very old, and had an +ancient fragrance. It was wrought all over with birds and flowers in a +most delicate style of needle-work, and among other devices, more than +once repeated, was the cipher, M.S.,--being the initials of one of the +most unhappy names that ever a woman bore. This quilt was embroidered by +the hands of Mary-Queen of Scots, during her imprisonment at Fotheringay +Castle; and having evidently been a work of years, she had doubtless shed +many tears over it, and wrought many doleful thoughts and abortive schemes +into its texture, along with the birds and flowers. As a counterpart to +this most precious relic, our friend produced some of the handiwork of a +former Queen of Otaheite, presented by her to Captain Cook: it was a bag, +cunningly made of some delicate vegetable stuff, and ornamented with +feathers. Next, he brought out a green silk waistcoat of very antique +fashion, trimmed about the edges and pocket-holes with a rich and delicate +embroidery of gold and silver. This (as the possessor of the treasure +proved, by tracing its pedigree till it came into his hands) was once the +vestment of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Burleigh: but that great statesman must +have been a person of very moderate girth in the chest and waist; for the +garment was hardly more than a comfortable fit for a boy of eleven, the +smallest American of our party, who tried on the gorgeous waistcoat. Then, +Mr. Porter produced some curiously engraved drinking-glasses, with a view +of Saint Botolph's steeple on one of them, and other Boston edifices, +public or domestic, on the remaining two, very admirably done. These +crystal goblets had been a present, long ago, to an old master of the Free +School from his pupils; and it is very rarely, I imagine, that a retired +schoolmaster can exhibit such trophies of gratitude and affection, won +from the victims of his birch rod. + +Our kind friend kept bringing out one unexpected and wholly unexpectable +thing after another, as if he were a magician, and had only to fling a +private signal into the air, and some attendant imp would hand forth any +strange relic we might choose to ask for. He was especially rich in +drawings by the Old Masters, producing two or three, of exquisite +delicacy, by Raphael, one by Salvator, a head by Rembrandt, and others, in +chalk or pen-and-ink, by Giordano, Benvenuto Cellini, and hands almost as +famous; and besides what were shown us, there seemed to be an endless +supply of these art-treasures in reserve. On the wall hung a +crayon-portrait of Sterne, never engraved, representing him as a rather +young man, blooming, and not uncomely: it was the worldly face of a man +fond of pleasure, but without that ugly, keen, sarcastic, odd expression +that we see in his only engraved portrait. The picture is an original, and +must needs be very valuable; and we wish it might be prefixed to some new +and worthier biography of a writer whose character the world has always +treated with singular harshness, considering how much it owes him. There +was likewise a crayon-portrait of Sterne's wife, looking so haughty and +unamiable, that the wonder is, how he ever contrived to live a week with +such an awful woman. + +After looking at these, and a great many more things than I can remember, +above stairs, we went down to a parlor, where this wonderful bookseller +opened an old cabinet, containing numberless drawers, and looking just fit +to be the repository of such knick-knacks as were stored up in it. He +appeared to possess more treasures than he himself knew of, or knew where +to find; but, rummaging here and there, he brought forth things new and +old: rose-nobles, Victoria crowns, gold angels, double-sovereigns of +George IV., two-guinea pieces of George II.; a marriage-medal of the first +Napoleon, only forty-five of which were ever struck off, and of which even +the British Museum does not contain a specimen like this, in gold; a brass +medal, three or four inches in diameter, of a Roman Emperor; together with +buckles, bracelets, amulets, and I know not what besides. There was a +green silk tassel from the fringe of Queen Mary's bed at Holyrood Palace. +There were illuminated missals, antique Latin Bibles, and (what may seem +of especial interest to the historian) a Secret-Book of Queen Elizabeth, +written, for aught I know, by her own hand. On examination, however, it +proved to contain, not secrets of State, but recipes for dishes, drinks, +medicines, washes, and all such matters of housewifery, the toilet, and +domestic quackery, among which we were horrified by the title of one of +the nostrums, "How to kill a Fellow quickly"! We never doubted that bloody +Queen Bess might often have had occasion for such a recipe, but wondered +at her frankness, and at her attending to these anomalous necessities in +such a methodical way. The truth is, we had read amiss, and the Queen had +spelt amiss: the word was "Fellon,"--a sort of whitlow,--not "Fellow." + +Our hospitable friend now made us drink a glass of wine, as old and +genuine as the curiosities of his cabinet; and while sipping it, we +ungratefully tried to excite his envy, by telling of various things, +interesting to an antiquary and virtuoso, which we had seen in the course +of our travels about England. We spoke, for instance, of a missal bound in +solid gold and set round with jewels, but of such intrinsic value as no +setting could enhance, for it was exquisitely illuminated, throughout, by +the hand of Raphael himself. We mentioned a little silver case which once +contained a portion of the heart of Louis XIV, nicely done up in spices, +but, to the owner's horror and astonishment, Dean Buckland popped the +kingly morsel into his mouth, and swallowed it. We told about the +black-letter prayer-book of King Charles the Martyr, used by him upon the +scaffold, taking which into our hands, it opened of itself at the +Communion Service; and there, on the left-hand page, appeared a spot about +as large as a sixpence, of a yellowish or brownish hue: a drop of the +King's blood had fallen there. + +Mr. Porter now accompanied us to the church, but first leading us to a +vacant spot of ground where old John Cotton's vicarage had stood till a +very short time since. According to our friend's description, it was a +humble habitation, of the cottage order, built of brick, with a thatched +roof. The site is now rudely fenced in, and cultivated as a vegetable +garden. In the right-hand aisle of the church there is an ancient chapel, +which, at the time of our visit, was in process of restoration, and was to +be dedicated to Cotton, whom these English people consider as the founder +of our American Boston. It would contain a painted memorial-window, in +honor of the old Puritan minister. A festival in commemoration of the +event was to take place in the ensuing July, to which I had myself +received an invitation, but I knew too well the pains and penalties +incurred by an invited guest at public festivals in England to accept it. +It ought to be recorded, (and it seems to have made a very kindly +impression on our kinsfolk here,) that five hundred pounds had been +contributed by persons in the United States, principally in Boston, +towards the cost of the memorial-window, and the repair and restoration of +the chapel. + +After we emerged from the chapel, Mr. Porter approached us with the vicar, +to whom he kindly introduced us, and then took his leave. May a stranger's +benediction rest upon him! He is a most pleasant man; rather, I imagine, a +virtuoso than an antiquary; for he seemed to value the Queen of Otaheite's +bag as highly as Queen Mary's embroidered quilt, and to have an omnivorous +appetite for everything strange and rare. Would that we could fill up his +shelves and drawers (if there are any vacant spaces left) with the +choicest trifles that have dropped out of Time's carpet-bag, or give him +the carpet-bag itself, to take out what he will! + +The vicar looked about thirty years old, a gentleman, evidently assured of +his position, (as clergymen of the Established Church invariably are,) +comfortable and well-to-do, a scholar and a Christian, and fit to be a +bishop, knowing how to make the most of life without prejudice to the life +to come. I was glad to see such a model English priest so suitably +accommodated with an old English church. He kindly and courteously did the +honors, showing us quite round the interior, giving us all the information +that we required, and then leaving us to the quiet enjoyment of what we +came to see. + +The interior of Saint Botolph's is very fine and satisfactory, as stately, +almost, as a cathedral, and has been repaired--so far as repairs were +necessary--in a chaste and noble style. The great eastern window is of +modern painted glass, but is the richest, mellowest, and tenderest modern +window that I have ever seen: the art of painting these glowing +transparencies in pristine perfection being one that the world has lost. +The vast, clear space, of the interior church delighted me. There was no +screen,--nothing between the vestibule and the altar to break the long +vista; even the organ stood aside,--though it by-and-by made us aware of +its presence by a melodious roar. Around the walls there were old engraved +brasses, and a stone coffin, and an alabaster knight of Saint John, and an +alabaster lady, each recumbent at full length, as large as life, and in +perfect preservation, except for a slight modern touch at the tips of +their noses. In the chancel we saw a great deal of oaken work, quaintly +and admirably carved, especially about the seats formerly appropriated to +the monks, which were so contrived as to tumble down with a tremendous +crash, if the occupant happened to fall asleep. + +We now essayed to climb into the upper regions. Up we went, winding and +still winding round the circular stairs, till we came to the gallery +beneath the stone roof of the tower, whence we could look down and see the +raised Fort, and my Talma lying on one of the steps, and looking about as +big as a pocket-handkerchief. Then up again, up, up, up, through a yet +smaller staircase, till we emerged into another stone gallery, above the +jackdaws, and far above the roof beneath which we had before made a halt. +Then up another flight, which led us into a pinnacle of the temple, but +not the highest; so, retracing our steps, we took the right turret this +time, and emerged into the loftiest lantern, where we saw level +Lincolnshire, far and near, though with a haze on the distant horizon. +There were dusty roads, a river, and canals, converging towards Boston, +which--a congregation of red-tiled roofs--lay beneath our feet, with pigmy +people creeping about its narrow streets. We were three hundred feet +aloft, and the pinnacle on which we stood is a landmark forty miles at +sea. + +Content, and weary of our elevation, we descended the corkscrew stairs and +left the church; the last object that we noticed in the interior being a +bird, which appeared to be at home there, and responded with its cheerful +notes to the swell of the organ. Pausing on the church-steps, we observed +that there were formerly two statues, one on each side of the door-way; +the canopies still remaining, and the pedestals being about a yard from +the ground. Some of Mr. Cotton's Puritan parishioners are probably +responsible for the disappearance of these stone saints. This door-way at +the base of the tower is now much dilapidated, but must once have been +very rich and of a peculiar fashion. It opens its arch through a great +square tablet of stone, reared against the front of the tower. On most of +the projections, whether on the tower or about the body of the church, +there are gargoyles of genuine Gothic grotesqueness,--fiends, beasts, +angels, and combinations of all three; and where portions of the edifice +are restored, the modern sculptors have tried to imitate these wild +fantasies, but with very poor success. Extravagance and absurdity have +still their law, and should pay as rigid obedience to it as the primmest +things on earth. + +In our further rambles about Boston, we crossed the river by a bridge, and +observed that the larger part of the town seems to lie on that side of its +navigable stream. The crooked streets and narrow lanes reminded me much of +Hanover Street, Ann Street, and other portions of the North End of our +American Boston, as I remember that picturesque region in my boyish days. +It is not unreasonable to suppose that the local habits and recollections +of the first settlers may have had some influence on the physical +character of the streets and houses in the New-England metropolis; at any +rate, here is a similar intricacy of bewildering lanes, and numbers of old +peaked and projecting-storied dwellings, such as I used to see there. It +is singular what a home-feeling and sense of kindred I derived from this +hereditary connection and fancied physiognomical resemblance between the +old town and its well-grown daughter, and how reluctant I was, after chill +years of banishment, to leave this hospitable place, on that account. +Moreover, it recalled some of the features of another American town, my +own dear native place, when I saw the seafaring people leaning against +posts, and sitting on planks, under the lee of warehouses,--or lolling on +long-boats, drawn up high and dry, as sailors and old wharf-rats are +accustomed to do, in seaports of little business. In other respects, the +English town is more village-like than either of the American ones. The +women and budding girls chat together at their doors, and exchange merry +greetings with young men; children chase one another in the summer +twilight; school-boys sail little boats on the river, or play at marbles +across the flat tombstones in the churchyard; and ancient men, in breeches +and long waistcoats, wander slowly about the streets, with a certain +familiarity of deportment, as if each one were everybody's grandfather. I +have frequently observed, in old English towns, that Old Age comes forth +more cheerfully, and genially into the sunshine than among ourselves, +where the rush, stir, bustle, and irreverent energy of youth are so +preponderant, that the poor, forlorn grandsires begin to doubt whether +they have a right to breathe in such a world any longer, and so hide their +silvery heads in solitude. Speaking of old men, I am reminded of the +scholars of the Boston Charity-School, who walk about in antique, +long-skirted blue coats, and knee-breeches, and with bands at their +necks,--perfect and grotesque pictures of the costume of three centuries +ago. + +On the morning of our departure, I looked from the parlor-window of the +Peacock into the market-place, and beheld its irregular square already +well-covered with booths, and more in process of being put up, by +stretching tattered sail-cloth on poles. It was market-day. The dealers +were arranging their commodities, consisting chiefly of vegetables, the +great bulk of which seemed to be cabbages. Later in the forenoon there was +a much greater variety of merchandise: basket-work, both for fancy and +use; twig-brooms, beehives, oranges, rustic attire; all sorts of things, +in short, that are commonly sold at a rural fair. I heard the lowing of +cattle, too, and the bleating of sheep, and found that there was a market +for cows, oxen, and pigs, in another part of the town. A crowd of +towns-people and Lincolnshire yeomen elbowed one another in the square; +Mr. Punch was squeaking in one corner, and a vagabond juggler tried to +find space for his exhibition in another: so that my final glimpse of +Boston was calculated to leave a livelier impression than my former ones. +Meanwhile the tower of Saint Botolph's looked benignantly down; and I +fancied that it was bidding me farewell, as it did Mr. Cotton, two or +three hundred years ago, and telling me to describe its venerable height, +and the town beneath it, to the people of the American city, who are +partly akin, if not to the living inhabitants of Old Boston, yet to some +of the dust that lies in its churchyard. + +One thing more. They have a Bunker Hill in the vicinity of their town; and +(what could hardly be expected of an English community) seem proud to +think that their neighborhood has given name to our first and most widely +celebrated and best-remembered battle-field. + + * * * * * + + + + +AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF A STRENGTH-SEEKER. + + +"There goes the smallest fellow in our class." + +I was crossing one of the paths that intersect the college green of old +Harvard when this remark fell upon my ears. Looking up, I saw two stalwart +Freshmen on their way to recitation, one of whom had called the other's +attention to my humble self by this observation, reminding me of a +distinction which I did not covet. + +It was not quite true. There was one, and only one, member of the class of +'54 who was as small as I. Some consolation, though not much, in that! But +the air of amused compassion with which the lusty Down-Easter, who had +made me feel what the _digito monstrari_ was, now looked down on me, +raised a feeling of resentment and self-depreciation which left me in no +mood to make a brilliant show of scholarship in construing my "Isocrates" +that morning. + +"True, I am small, nay, diminutive," I soliloquized, as I wended my way +homeward under the classic umbrage of venerable elms. "But surely this is +no fault of mine.--Hold there! Are you quite sure it's no fault of yours? +Are we not responsible to a much greater extent than we imagine for our +physical condition? After making all abatement for insurmountable +hereditary influences upon organization,--after granting to that +remorseless law of genealogical transmission its proper weight,--after +admitting the seemingly capricious facts of what the modern French +physiologists call _atavism_, under which we are made drunkards or +consumptives, lunatics or wise men, short or tall, because of certain +dominant traits in some remote ancestor,--after conceding all this, does +not Nature leave it largely in our own power to counteract both physical +and moral tendencies, and to mould the body as well as the mind, if we +will only put forth in action the requisite energy of will?" + +This disposition to cavil at received axioms has beset me through life. No +sooner does a truth present itself than I want to see it on its other +side. If I hear the Devil spoken ill of, I puzzle myself to find what can +be said in his favor. The man who thus halts between conflicting opinions, +solicitous to give both their due, and to see the truth, pure and simple +and entire, may miss laying hold of great convictions till it is too late +for him to act on them; but what he accepts he generally holds. + +My meditations on the subject of my inferior stature led me to a +determination to try what gymnastic practice could do to remedy the +defect. For some thirty years, gymnastics, first introduced into this +country, I believe, at the Round-Hill School at Northampton, then under +the charge of Messrs. Cogswell and Bancroft, had languished and revived +fitfully at Cambridge. It was during one of the languishing periods that I +began my practice. For some five or six weeks I kept it up with +enthusiasm. Then I began to grow less methodical and regular in my habits +of exercise; and then to find excuses for my delinquencies. + +After all, what matter, if, like Paul's, my "bodily presence is weak"? +Were not Alexander the Great and Napoleon small men? Were not Pope, and +Dr. Watts, and Moore, and Campbell, and a long list of authors, artists, +and philosophers, considerably under medium height? Were not Garrick and +Kean and the elder Booth all under five feet four or five? Is there not a +volume somewhere in our college library, written by a learned Frenchman, +devoted exclusively to the biography of men who have been great in mind, +though diminutive in stature? Is not Lord John Russell as small almost as +I? Have I many inches to grow before I shall be as tall as Dr. Holmes? + +These consolatory considerations softened my chagrin at the contemplation +of my height. "Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big +assemblance of a man? Give me the spirit, Master Shallow,--the spirit!" + +And so my gymnastic ardor, after a brief blaze, flickered, fell, was +ashes. But it was destined to be soon revived by an incident, trifling in +itself, though of a character to assume exaggerated proportions in the +mind of a sensitive boy. A youth, who had considerably the advantage of me +both in inches and in years, and whose overflow of animal spirits required +some object to vent itself upon, selected me as the victim of his +ebullient vivacity. He began by tossing my book down stairs. This seemed +to me rather rough play, especially from one with whom I was not, at the +time, on terms of intimacy; but, making allowance for the hilarity of +classmates just let loose from recitation, I picked up, without a thought +of resentment, the abused volume, and took no further notice of the +matter. I subsequently found that it was merely the commencement of a +series of similar annoyances. This lively classmate would even play tricks +on me at the dinner table. + +What was to be done? I mentioned the grievance to a friend, and he +remonstrated with my lively classmate, threatening him with my serious +displeasure. "Pooh! how can he help himself?" was the reply which came +duly to my ears. + +Sure enough! How could I help myself? The aggressor was my superior in +weight and size. It was a plain case that I should get badly and +ridiculously whipped, if I attempted to cope with him in any pugilistic +encounter. But how would it do to demand of him the satisfaction of a +gentleman? True, I knew nothing of pistol-shooting, and had never handled +a small-sword. No matter for that! + +But another consideration speedily drove this scheme of vengeance _à +l'outrance_ out of my head. Not many years before, a peppery little +Freshman had been insulted, as he thought, by a Sophomore. The Soph, I +believe, had knocked the young one's hat over his eyes, as they were +kicking foot-ball in the Delta. Freshman sent a challenge, the effect of +which was to excite inextinguishable laughter among the Sophs convened +over their cigars in the aggressor's room. Amid roars, one of the +conspirators penned an acceptance, fixing as the weapon, hair +triggers,--time, five o'clock in the morning,--place, the Delta,--second, +the bearer, Mr. M----, the writer of this reply. + +It was a cruel business. A sham second was imposed on poor little Fresh. +Brave as Julius Caesar, he sat up all night writing letters and preparing +his will. Prompt to the moment, he was on the chosen ground. An unusually +large delegation for such a delicate affair seemed to be present. One +rascal who wore enormous green goggles was pointed out to the innocent as +Dr. Von Guldenstubbe, a celebrated German surgeon, just from Leipsic. +Little Fresh shook hands with him gravely, amid the smothered laughter of +the conspirators. The distance was to be five paces; for it was whispered +so as to reach the ear of Fresh, that Soph was thirsting for his heart's +blood. They take their places,--the signal is given,--they fire,--and with +a hideous groan and a wild pirouette, the Soph falls to the ground. + +The Freshman is led up near enough to see the fellow's face covered with +blood, and to hear his cries to his friends to put him out of his misery. +Intensely agitated, poor little Fresh is hurried by pretended friends into +a carriage, and driven off; and it is not till a week afterwards that he +learns he has been the victim of a hoax. + +No! it would never answer for me to run the risk of being _sold_ in any +such way as this. I must select a surer and more practical vengeance. I +thought the matter over intently, and finally resolved that I would put +myself on a physical equality with my persecutor, and then meet him in a +fair fight with such weapons as Nature had given us both. I accordingly +said to the friend and classmate who had played the part of intercessor, +"Wait two years, and I promise you I will either make my tormentor +apologize or give him such a thrashing as he will remember for the rest of +his life." + +Thus was my resolve renewed to accomplish myself as a gymnast, and, above +all, to develop my physical strength. My previous attempts in the +gymnasium had been spasmodic and irregular. Having now a definite object +in view, I set about my work in earnest, and went through a daily +systematic practice of a little more than an hour's duration. + +The gymnasium was kept by a Mr. Law, and, though ordinary in its +accommodations, had a good arrangement of apparatus, of which I faithfully +availed myself. The spring-board, horse, vaulting-apparatus, parallel +bars, suspended rings, horizontal and inclined ladders, pulley-weights, +pegs, climbing-rope, trapezoid, etc., were all put in frequent +requisition. My time for exercise was generally in the evening, when I +would find myself almost alone,--while the clicking of balls from the +billiard-rooms and bowling-alleys down-stairs announced that a busy +crowd--if amusement may be called a business--were there assembled. + +Naturally indolent, it was not without a severe struggle that I overcame a +besetting propensity to confine myself to sedentary pursuits. The desire +of retaliation soon became extinct. My pledge to my friend and +sympathizer, that in two years I would cry _quittance_ to my foe, would +occasionally act as a spur in the side of my intent; but my two best aids +in supplying me with the motive power to keep up my gymnastic practice +were _habit_ and _progress_. What will not habit make easy to us, whether +it be for good or for evil? And what an incentive we have to renewed +effort in finding that we are making actual progress,--that we can do with +comparative facility to-day what we could do only with difficulty +yesterday! + +Two years, while we are yet on the sunny side of twenty, are no trifle; +but for two years I persistently and methodically went through the +exercises of the gymnasium. At the end of that time I had quite lost sight +of my original object in cultivating my athletic powers; for all +annoyances towards me had long since been dropped by my old enemy. But +punctually on the day of expiration, the friend who had listened to my +pledge came to me and claimed its fulfilment. From some evidences which he +had recently had of my strength he felt a soothing assurance that I should +have no difficulty in making good my promise. + +I accordingly called on the lively young gentleman who two years before +had indulged in those little frolics at my expense. With diplomatic +ceremony and circumlocution I introduced the object of my visit, and wound +up with an _ultimatum_ to this effect: There must either be a frank +apology for past indignities, or he must accompany me, each with a friend, +to some suitable spot, and there decide which was "the better man." + +If he had been called on to expiate an offence committed before he was +breeched, the young gentleman could not have been more astounded. Two +years had made some change in our relative positions. I was now about his +equal in size, and felt a comfortable sense of my superiority, so far as +strength was concerned. My shoulders had broadened, and my muscles been +developed, so as to present to the critical and interested observer a +somewhat threatening appearance. Mr. ---- (who, by the way, was a good +fellow in the main) protested that he had never intended to give me any +offence,--that he, in fact, did not remember the circumstances to which I +referred,--and finished by peremptorily declining my proposal. When I +reflected on the disparity between us in strength, which my two years' +practice had established, I felt that it would be cowardly for me to urge +the matter further, especially as it was so long a time since he had given +me cause of complaint. I have only to add, that we parted without a +collision, and that, in my heart, I could not help thanking him for the +service he had rendered in inciting me to the regimen which had resulted +so beneficially to my health. + +The impetus given to my gymnastic education by the little incident I have +just related was continued without abatement through my whole college +life. Gradually I acquired the reputation of being the strongest man in my +class. I discovered that with every day's development of my strength there +was an increase of my ability to resist and overcome all fleshly ailments, +pains, and infirmities,--a discovery which subsequent experience has so +amply confirmed, that, if I were called on to condense the proposition +which sums it up into a formula, it would be in these words: _Strength is +Health_. + +Until I had renovated my bodily system by a faithful gymnastic training, I +had been subject to nervousness, headache, indigestion, rush of blood to +the head, and a weak circulation. It was torture to me to have to listen +to the grating of a slate-pencil, the filing of a saw, or the scratching +of glass. As I grew in strength, my nerves ceased to be impressible to +such annoyances. Another good effect was to take away all appetite for any +stimulating food or drink. Although I had never applied "rebellious +liquors" to my blood, I had been in the habit of taking a bowl of strong +coffee morning and night. Now a craving for milk took the place of this +want, and my coffee was gradually diminished to less than a fourth of what +had been a customary indulgence. + +At last arrived the eagerly looked-for day of release from collegiate +restrictions and labors. I graduated, and the question, so momentous in +the history of all adolescents, "What shall I be?" addressed itself +seriously to my mind. My father was desirous that I should choose medicine +for a profession, and become the fourth physician, in lineal sequence, of +my family on the paternal side. + +Medicine. I cavilled at it awhile, that I might bring out to view its +grimmest and most discouraging aspect The cares, trials, humiliations of a +young physician, his months and years of uncompensated drudgery, passed in +awful review before me. I thought of his toils among the poor and lowly, +the vicious and depraved,--of his broken sleep,--the interruptions of his +social ease,--and then of the many scenes so repugnant to delicate nerves +which he has to pass through,--scenes of pain and insanity, of maimed and +severed limbs, and all the eccentricities and fearful forms of disease. +These considerations pressed with such weight on my mind that for a time +my ancestral craft was in danger of being ignominiously rejected by me. +Indeed, I began to think seriously of adopting a very different vocation. +And here I will make a confession, if the gentle reader will take it +confidentially. + +It is a familiar fact, that every college-boy has to pass through an +attack of the rhyming frenzy as regularly as the child has to submit to +measles and the whooping-cough. A less frequent, but not less trying +complaint, is that which manifests itself in a passion for the stage and +in an espousal of the delusion that one was born for a great actor. At any +rate, this last was the type which my juvenile _malaise-du-coeur_ finally +assumed. + +I have heard of a young gentleman who, whenever he was hard up for money, +went to his nearest relatives and threatened them with the publication of +a volume of his original poems. This threat never failed to open the +paternal purse. I do not know what effect the intimation of my histrionic +aspirations would have had; but one fine day I found myself on my way to +Rochester, in the State of New York. + +My _rôle_ of dramatic characters was a very modest one for a beginner. It +embraced only Richelieu, Bertram, Brutus, Lear, Richard, Shylock, Sir +Giles Overreach, Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth. My principal literary +recreation for several years had been in studying these parts; and as I +knew them by heart, I did not doubt that a few rehearsals would put me in +possession of the requisite stage-business. And yet my familiarity with +the theatre was very limited. I had never been behind the scenes. Once, +with a classmate, I had penetrated in the daytime to the stage of the old +Federal-Street Theatre, and looked with awe on the boards formerly trodden +by the elder Kean; but a growl from that august functionary, the prompter, +sent us back in quick retreat, and I had never ventured again into those +sacred precincts. + +Arrived at Rochester,--which place I had selected for my _début_ because +of its remoteness from home,--I looked in, the evening of my arrival, to +see the performances at the theatre. It was a hall of humble dimensions, +seating an audience of five or six hundred. The piece was a travesty of +"Hamlet," neither edifying nor amusing. A little of the _couleur-de-rose_ +which had flushed my prospect faded that night; but the few friends at +home to whom I had confided my plans had so pertinaciously assured me that +I--the most diffident man in the world--could never appear before an +audience without letting them see I was shaky in the knees, that I +resolved to do what I could to show my depreciators they were false +prophets. + +And so I called on the manager,--with a beating heart, as you may suppose. +He was a small, quiet, gentlemanly person, whom I regret I cannot, +consistently with historical truth, show up as a Crummles. But not even +Dickens could have found any salient trait for ridicule in the man. +Frankly and kindly he went into the statistics of the theatrical business, +and showed me, that, unless I was rich, and could afford to play for my +own amusement, the stage held out few inducements; it was barren of +promise to a young man anxious to make himself independent of the world. + +I did not reply, "Perish the lucre!" but said that I would be content, in +the early part of my career, to labor for reputation. He soon satisfied me +that he could not give up his stage to an experimentalist, and I did not +urge my suit; but bade Mr. S. good morning, and, a day or two afterwards, +started for Niagara. Here, wet by the mist and listening to the roar of +the great cataract, I speedily forgot my chagrin, and took a not +unfriendly leave of the illusions which had lured me on to try my fortune +on the stage. Even now they return occasionally with all their +fascination. + +While at Rochester, as I was passing through the principal street, I met a +crowd assembled about a lifting-machine. On making trial of it, I found I +could lift four hundred and twenty pounds. I had then been for four years +a gymnast, and I supposed my practice would have qualified me to make the +crowd stare at my achievement. But the result was far from triumphant. I +found what many other gymnasts will find, that _main strength_, by which I +mean the strength of the truckman and the porter, cannot be acquired in +the ordinary exercises of the gymnasium. + +Returning home, I began the study of anatomy and physiology, and in the +autumn of 1854 entered the Harvard Medical School. The question of the +extent to which human strength can be developed had long been invested +with a scientific interest to my mind. One of the greatest lifting feats +on authentic record is that of Thomas Topham, an Englishman, who in Bath +Street, Cold Bath Fields, London, on the 28th of May, 1741, lifted three +hogsheads of water, said to weigh, with the connections, _eighteen hundred +and thirty-six pounds_. In the performance of this feat, Topham stood on a +raised platform, his hands grasping a fixture on either side, and a broad +strap over his shoulders communicating with the weight. An immense +concourse of persons was assembled on the occasion,--the performance +having been announced as "in honor of Admiral Vernon," or rather, "in +commemoration of his taking Porto Bello with six ships only." Being a +descendant myself from the Vernon family of Haddon Hall, Derbyshire, +England, I have reserved it for future genealogical inquiry to learn +whether the Admiral was connected with that branch of the Vernons. If so, +a somewhat remarkable coincidence is involved. + +I now informed my father that I intended to go through a series of +experiments in lifting. He was afraid I should injure myself, and +expressly forbade any such practice on his premises. To gratify him, I +gave up testing the question for a whole year. + +But the desire re-awoke, and I had frequent arguments with my father in +the endeavor to overcome his objections. + +"Look at that man," he said to me one day,--pointing to a large, stout +individual in front of us,--"you might practise lifting all your life, and +never be able to lift as much as that big fellow." + +"Let me construct a lifting-apparatus in the back-yard, and I will soon +prove to you that you are mistaken," I replied. + +Finding that I was bent on the experiment, he at length gave a reluctant +consent. + +It was now the August of 1855, and I was in my twenty-second year. My +first lifting-apparatus was constructed in the following manner. I first +sank into the ground a hogshead, and into the hogshead a flour-barrel. +Then I lowered to the bottom of the barrel a rope having at the end a +round stick transversely balanced, about four inches in diameter and +fifteen inches long. A quantity of gravel, nearly sufficient to bury the +stick, was then thrown into the barrel; some oblong stones were placed +across the stick and across and between one another, and the interstices +filled with smaller stones and gravel. When I had by this method about +two-thirds filled the barrel, taking care to keep the axis of the rope in +correspondence with the long axis of the barrel, I judged I had a +sufficient weight for a first trial. I now formed a loop in the end of the +rope over the top of the barrel, and put through it a piece of a +hoe-handle, about two feet long; and standing astride of the hogshead, and +holding the handle with one hand before me and the other +behind,--straightening my body, previously a little flexed,--with mouth +closed, head up, chest out, and shoulders down,--I succeeded in lifting +the barrel, containing a weight of between four and five hundred pounds, +some five or six inches from the bottom of the hogshead. + +It was no great feat, after all, considering that I had been for five +years a gymnast. I found that I was inharmoniously developed in many +points of my frame,--was perilously weak in the sides, between the +shoulders, and at the back of the head. However, the day after this trial, +I succeeded in lifting the same weight with somewhat less difficulty. This +induced me to add on a few pounds; and in three or four weeks I could lift +between six and seven hundred. I now had the satisfaction of seeing the +stout gentleman, whom a few months before my father had pointed out as +possessed of a strength I could never attain to, introduced to an +inspection of my apparatus. Through the blinds of a back-parlor window I +watched his movements, as, encouraged by _pater-familias_, he drew off his +coat, moistened his hands, and undertook to "snake up" the big weight. An +ignominious failure to start the barrel was the result. The stout +gentleman tugged till he was so red in the face that apoplexy seemed +imminent, and then he dejectedly gave it up. The reputation he had long +enjoyed of being one of the "strongest men about" must henceforth be a +thing of the past till it fades into a myth. + +In the December of 1855 I was admitted to the arcana of the +dissecting-room, and forthwith commenced some experiments with the view +of testing the sustaining power of human bones. Some one had told me, +that, in lifting a heavy weight, there was danger of fracturing the neck +of the thigh-bone; but my experiments satisfied me, that, if properly +positioned, it would safely bear a strain of two or three thousand pounds. +And so I concluded that I might securely continue my practice of lifting +till I reached the last-named limit. + +In order to get all possible hints from the inspiration and experience of +the past, I studied some of the ancient statues. The specimens of Grecian +statuary at the Boston Athenæum were objects of my frequent +contemplation,--especially the Farnesian Hercules. From this I derived a +proper conception of the bodily outline compatible with the exercise of +the greatest amount of strength. I was particularly struck by the absence +of all exaggeration in the muscular developments as represented. I saw by +this statue that a Hercules must be free from superfluous flesh, neatly +made, and finely organized,--that form and quality were of more account +than quantity in his formation. Some years earlier I might have been more +attracted by the Apollo Belvedere; but it was a Hercules I dreamed of +becoming, and the Apollo was but the incipient and potential Hercules. Two +other statues that shared my admiration and study were the Quoit-Thrower +and the Dying Gladiator. From the careful inspection of all these relics +of ancient Art I obtained some valuable hints as to my own physical +deficiencies. I learned that the upper region of my chest needed +developing, and that in other points I had not yet reached the artist's +ideal of a strong man. + +Good casts of these and other masterpieces in statuary may be had at a +trifling cost. Why are they not generally introduced into the gymnasia +attached to our colleges and schools? The habitual contemplation of such +works could not fail to have a good effect upon the physical bearing and +development of the young. We are the creatures of imitation. I remember, +at the school I attended in my seventh year, the strongest boy among my +mates was quite round-shouldered. Fancying that he derived his strength +from his stoop, I began to imitate him; and it was not till I learned that +he was strong in spite of his round shoulders, and not because of them, +that I gave up aping his peculiarity. + +On the 29th of January, 1856, I lifted seven hundred pounds in Bailey's +Gymnasium, Franklin Street, Boston. The exhibition created great surprise +among the lookers-on; and at that time it was, perhaps, an extraordinary +feat; but since the extension and growth of the lifting mania, it would +not be regarded by the knowing ones as anything to marvel at. The fourth +of April following, my lifting capacity had reached eight hundred and +forty pounds. + +On Fast-Day of that year, two Irishmen knocked at my door and asked to see +the strong man. I presented myself, and they told me there was great +curiosity among the "ould counthrymen" in the vicinity to ascertain if one +Pat Farren, the strongest Irishman in Roxbury, could lift my weight. +"Would it be convanient for me to let him thry?" "Certainly,--and I think +he'll lift it," I modestly added. + +Soon afterwards a delegation of Irishmen, rather startling from its +numbers, entered the yard. Among them was Mr. Farren. They surrounded my +lifting-apparatus, while I, unseen, surveyed them from a back window. I +saw Mr. Farren take the handle, straddle the hogshead, throw himself into +a lifting posture, and, straining every muscle to its utmost tension, give +a tremendous pull. But the weight made no sign; and his friends, thinking +he was merely feeling it, said, "Wait a bit,--Pat'll have it up the next +pull." Mr. Farren rested a moment,--then threw off his coat, rubbed his +hands, and, seizing the handle a second time, tugged away at it till his +muscles swelled and his frame quivered. But he failed in starting the +barrel, and a burst of laughter from his friends and backers announced his +defeat. + +It is now but justice to Mr. Farren to say that it could hardly be +expected of him to lift such a weight at either the first trial or the +second. A want of confidence, or the maladjustment of the rope, might have +interfered with the full exercise of his strength. I need not say that his +discomfiture was witnessed by me from my hiding-place with the liveliest +satisfaction; for I had begun to pride myself on being able to outlift any +man in the country. + +In May, 1856, I received the appointment of medical assistant to Dr. +Walker, at the Lunatic Hospital, South Boston, and gave up for a couple of +months my practice of lifting. The consequence was a rapid diminution of +strength, which suggested to me a return to the lifting exercise. Near the +hospital was a large unoccupied building, formerly the House of Industry. +In the cellar of this building I put a barrel, and loaded it with rocks +and gravel as I had done in Roxbury. Immediately overhead, on the first +floor, I cut a hole, about six inches square, and passed up a rope +attached to the barrel. This rope I looped at the end, for the reception +of a handle. On the floor I nailed two cleats between three and four feet +apart, as guards to keep my feet from slipping. Beginning with about six +hundred pounds, I added a few pounds daily, till I was able, in November, +1856, to lift with my hands alone nine hundred pounds. + +Returning home the ensuing winter, I attended a second course of medical +lectures, and, in the routine of labors incident to a medical student's +life, omitted to develop further my powers as a lifter. In the summer of +1857 I became a practitioner of medicine. In the autumn of that year, a +gentleman, who had been looking at my lifting-apparatus, remarked to me, +"If you are as strong as they tell me, what is to prevent your seizing +hold of me, (I weigh only a hundred and eighty pounds) holding me at +arm's-length over your head, and pitching me over that fence?" To this I +replied, that, if he would give me six weeks for practice, I would satisfy +him the thing could be done. He agreed to be on hand at the end of the +time named. + +In order to be sure of the muscles that would be brought into play by the +feat, I procured an oblong box with a handle on either side running the +whole length. Into the box I threw a number of brick-bats,--then raised +the box at arm's-length above my head, and threw it over my vaulting-pole, +which was at an elevation of six and a half feet from the ground. +Subsequently I added more brick-bats, till gradually their weight amounted +to precisely one hundred and eighty pounds. Having practised till I could +easily handle and throw the box thus charged, I informed my challenger +that I was ready for him. He came, when, seizing him by the middle, I +lifted him struggling above my head, and threw him over the fence before +he was hardly aware of my intent. As he was somewhat corpulent and puffy, +and the act involved an abdominal pressure which was by no means +agreeable, he expressed himself perfectly satisfied with the experiment, +but objected very decidedly to its repetition. + +In June, 1858, I commenced practising with two fifty-pound dumb-bells, and +subsequently added one of a hundred pounds, which I was prompted to get +from hearing that one of that weight was used by Mr. James Montgomery, at +that time a celebrated gymnast of New York City, and afterwards a +successful teacher at the Albany Gymnasium. Not having given much +attention to the development of the extensor muscles of the arms for +several months previous, it was a number of weeks before I could put this +dumb-bell up at arm's-length above my head with one hand. As soon as I +succeeded in doing this with comparative ease, I procured another +hundred-pound dumb-bell, and in a few months succeeded in exercising with +both of the instruments at the same time, raising each alternately above +my head. I then commenced practice with a dumb-bell weighing one hundred +and forty-one pounds. It consisted of two shells connected by a handle, +which, being removable, allowed me to introduce shot, from time to time, +into the cavities of the shells. After a few months of practice, I could, +with a jerk, raise the instrument from my shoulder to arm's-length above +my head. My first public exhibition of this feat took place in +Philadelphia, in April, 1860. + +The spring of 1859 was now drawing nigh, and I began to think of giving a +public lecture on Physical Culture, illustrating it with some exhibitions +of the strength to which I had attained. My father approved the venture, +but, bethinking himself of my extreme diffidence, significantly asked, +_when_ I would be ready to permit a public announcement of my intention. +"Oh, in a few days," I replied, as if it were as small a matter for me to +lecture in public as to lift a thousand pounds in a gymnasium. Weeks flew +by, and still to the galling inquiry, "_When?_" I could only answer, +"Soon, but not just yet." February and March had come and gone, and still +I was not ready. Finally, to the oft-renewed interrogatory, I made this +reply: "As soon as I can shoulder a barrel of flour, a feat which I am +determined to accomplish before an audience, you may announce my lecture." + +I had then been practising some two months with a loaded barrel, so +contrived that it should weigh a little more each succeeding day; and it +had now reached a hundred and ninety pounds. About this time it occurred +to me, that, among my many experiments, I had never fairly tried that of a +vegetable diet. I read anew the works of Graham and Alcott; and conceiving +that my strength had reached a stagnation-point, I gave up meat, and +restricted my animal diet to milk. + +A barrel of flour weighs on an average two hundred and sixteen pounds. I +therefore could not succeed in shouldering one until twenty-six pounds had +been added to my loaded barrel. Day after day I shouldered my one hundred +and ninety pounds, but could not get an ounce beyond that limit. My grand +theory of the possible development of a man's strength began to look +somewhat insecure. + + "So fares the system-building sage, + Who, plodding on from youth to age, + Has proved all other reasoners fools, + And bound all Nature by his rules,-- + So fares he in that dreadful hour + When injured Truth exerts her power + Some new phenomenon to raise, + Which, bursting on his frighted gaze, + From its proud summit to the ground, + Proves the whole edifice unsound." + JAMES BEATTIE + +The shouldering of a barrel of flour is a feat, by the way, which many an +old inhabitant will tell you that he, or some friend of his, could +accomplish in his eighteenth year. Why it should always be among the _res +gestæ temporis acti_ cannot be readily explained. It is a common belief +that any stout truckman can do the thing; but I have been assured by one +of the leading truckmen of Boston, that there are not, probably, three +individuals in the city who are equal to the accomplishment. + +The mode of life that I had hitherto found essential to the keeping up of +my strength was quite simple, and rather negative than positive. From +tobacco and all ardent spirits, including wine, I had to abstain as a +matter of course. Beer and all fermented liquors had also been ruled out. +Impure air must be avoided like poison. Summer and winter I slept with my +windows open. Badly ventilated apartments were scrupulously shunned. Cold +bathing of the entire person was rarely practised oftener than once a week +in cold weather or twice a week in warm weather. A more frequent ablution +seemed to over-stimulate the excretory functions of the skin, so that +excessive bathing defeated its very object. The "tranquil mind" must be +preserved with little or no interruption. Great physical strength cannot +coexist with an unhappy, discontented temper. You must be habitually +cheerful, if you would be strong. With regard to diet,--that was the very +experiment I was trying,--the experiment, namely, of going without solid +animal food. With me it did not succeed. So far from gaining in strength, +hardly did I hold my own. Suddenly I resolved to give up my vegetable +diet, and return to beef-steaks, mutton-chops, and loins of veal. A daily +appreciable increase of strength was soon the consequence. Within ten days +I succeeded in shouldering the loaded barrel weighing two hundred and +sixteen pounds; and a day or two after I shouldered, in the presence of +our grocer himself, a barrel of flour. + +I had now no further excuse for deferring my promised lecture. The month +of May had arrived. My father delicately broached the subject of the +announcement. Being a little fractious, perhaps from some ebb in my +strength, I hastily replied,-- + +"Announce it for the 30th of May." + +"What hall shall I engage?" + +"Any hall in Boston. Why not the Music Hall?" I added, affecting a valor I +was far from feeling; but, like Macbeth, I now realized that "returning +were as tedious as go o'er." + +Mercantile Hall, in Summer Street, was engaged for me,--it being central, +modest in point of size, commodious, and favorably known. At this time I +was in excellent health and weighed one hundred and forty-three pounds. +But from the moment of the public announcement of my lecture, my appetite +for food, for meat particularly, began to fail me. "How peevish and +irritable he is growing!" I heard one member of the family remark to +another. Soon the grocer's scales indicated that my weight was +diminishing. It fell to one hundred and forty-one,--then to one hundred +and forty,--then to one hundred and thirty-eight,--and finally, when the +30th of May arrived, I found I weighed only one hundred and thirty-four +pounds! + +The crisis was now at hand. Do not laugh at me, ye self-assured ones, with +your comfortable sense of your own powers,--ye who care as little for an +audience as for a field of cabbages,--do not jeer at one who has felt the +pangs of shyness and quailed under the imaginary terrors of a first public +appearance. For you it may be a small matter to face an audience,--that +nearest approximation to the many-headed monster which we can palpably +encounter; but for one whose diffidence had become the standard of that +quality to his acquaintances the venture was perilous and desperate, as +the sequel showed. + +Never had time rolled by with such fearful velocity as on that eventful +day. Breakfast was hardly over before preparations were being made for +dinner. Small appetite had I for either. Before I had finished pacing the +parlor there was a summons to tea. It was like the summons to the +criminal: "Rise up, Master Barnardine, and be hanged." With a most shallow +affectation of _nonchalance_ I sat down at the table. A child might have +detected my agitation; and yet, with horrible insincerity, I alluded to +the news of the day, and asked the family why they were all so silent. +They saw from my look that they might as well have joked with a man on his +way to execution. + +Having dressed and adorned myself for the sacrifice, I returned to the +parlor, when the rumbling of coach-wheels, the sudden letting down of +steps, and then a frightfully discordant ring of the doorbell, sent the +blood from my cheeks and made my heart palpitate like a trip-hammer. "Is +th-th-that the off-officer,--I mean the coachman?" I stammered. Yes, there +was no doubt about it. + +Straightening my person, I affected a dignified calmness, and assured my +dear, anxious mother that I was not in the least nervous,--oh, not in the +least! + +It was a gloomy night, and the streets wore a dismal aspect. The hall was +distant about three miles; but in some mysterious manner, or by some route +which I have never been able to discover, the coachman seemed to abridge +the distance to less than half a mile. We are in Summer Street,--before +the door. Some juvenile amateurs, attracted by stories of the strong man, +surround the carriage to get a sight of him. + +"Ha! what are these? Sure, hangmen, That come to bind my hands, and then +to drag me Before the judgment-seat: now they are new shapes, And do +appear like Furies!" + +The words of Sir Giles Overreach, one of the parts I had studied during my +histrionic _accès_, were not at all inappropriate to the state of mind in +which, with knee-joints slipping from under me, I now made my way +up-stairs. Having reached the upper entry, I paused, and glanced at the +audience through the windows, before entering the little retiring-room +behind the stage. With an inward groan at my presumption, I passed on. To +think, that, but for my own madness, I might have been at that moment +comfortably at home, reading the evening paper! Nay, were it not better to +be tossing on stormy seas, driving on a lee-shore, toiling as a slave +under a tropic sun, than here, with a gaping audience waiting to devour me +with their eyes and ears? + +The first thing I did, on reaching the retiring-room, was to give way to a +fearful fascination and take another peep at the audience from behind a +curtain at the side-entrance. I then looked at my watch. Twenty minutes to +eight! People were pouring in, notwithstanding the inclement weather. The +hall was nearly crowded already. One familiar face after another was +recognized. Surely everybody I know is present. + +Another look at my watch. Quarter to eight! Suddenly the frantic thought +occurred to me, What if I have lost my manuscript? Where did I put it? +'Tis in none of my pockets! Good gracious! Has any one seen my manuscript? +Come, Jerome, no fooling at a time like this! Where have you hidden it? +What! You know nothing about it? _Hunt_ for it, then! Wouldn't it be a +charming scrape, if I couldn't find my lecture? Isn't this it, in the +drawer? Oh, yes! I must have put it there unconsciously. + +Being in a high state of perspiration, and wiping my forehead incessantly, +I disarrange my hair. Where's that brush? No one can tell. Agony! Where's +the brush? Here on the floor. Oh, yes! There! What a blaze my cheeks are +in! The audience will think they are flushed with Bourbon. No matter. That +manuscript has disappeared again. Confusion! Where is it? Here in your +overcoat-pocket. All right. + +Five minutes to eight. Grasping the scroll, I rush to the side-entrance. +The audience begin to manifest their impatience by applause. Suddenly I +hear the bell of the Old South Church strike eight. The last vibration +passes like an ice-bolt through my heart. Wrought up to desperation, I +thrust aside the curtain. This gives a portion of the audience a sight of +me, and I hear some one exclaim, "There he is!" Horrible exposure! I dodge +back out of view, as if to escape the discharge of a battery. A round of +impatient applause rouses me. I count three, and precipitate myself +forward to the centre of the stage. + +The hall is filled,--all the seats and most of the standing-places +occupied. But I can no longer recognize any one. Friend and foe are +confounded in an undistinguishable mass; or, rather, they are but parts +and members of one hideous monster, moving itself by one volition, winking +its thousand eyes all at once, and ready to swallow me with a single +deglutition. However, the plunge is made. The worst is over. I rallied +from the shock, and in a clear, but unnecessarily loud and ponderous +voice, pitched many degrees too high, I commenced my lecture. + +For some ten minutes, if I may believe the tender reports in the +newspapers the next day, I got on very respectably. I had won the +attention of the audience. But, at an unlucky moment, a fresh arrival of +persons at the door made the monster turn his thousand eyes in that +direction. I mistook it for an indication that he was getting weary of my +talk. My attention was distracted. Then came a suspension of all thought, +an appalling paralysis of memory. Having learnt the first part of my +discourse by heart, I had been reciting it without turning over the leaves +of the manuscript; and now I was unable to recollect at what point I had +left off, or whether I had given five pages or ten. + +Frightful dilemma! Stupefied with horror, I gazed intently on the page +before me till the lines became all blurred, and a blue mist wavered +before my eyes. Then came a pause of intensest silence. The monster lying +in wait for me evidently began to anticipate that his victim's time was +come, and so, like a crafty monster, he remained still and patient. Who +could endure a nightmare like this? I felt myself reeling to and fro. Then +a pleasant thrill, like that, perhaps, which drowning men feel, ran +through my frame. All became dark,--and the strong man dropped, like a +felled ox, senseless on the stage. + +When consciousness returned I was lying flat on my back, and several +persons were bending over me. + +"Keep down,--don't rise," some one said. + +"What has happened?" I asked. + +"Nothing,--only you were a little faint." + +"Faint? A man who can lift a thousand pounds faint--at the sight of an +audience? Absurd! Let me rise." + +And in spite of all opposition I rose, grasped my manuscript, walked to +the front of the stage, and resumed my lecture. Alas! + + "Reaching above our nature does no good; + We must sink back into our own flesh and blood." + +I had not proceeded far before I felt symptoms of a repetition of the +calamity; and lest I should be overtaken before I could retreat, I +stammered a few words of apology, and withdrew ingloriously from public +view. Fresh air and a draught of water, which some obliging friend had +dashed with _eau-de-vie_, soon restored me. But I took the advice of +friends and did not make a third attempt that evening. + +The audience, had it been wholly composed of brothers and sisters, could +not have been more indulgent and considerate. One skeptical gentleman was +heard to say,-- + +"I don't believe he can lift nine hundred pounds." + +And another added,-- + +"Nor I,--any more than that he can shoulder a barrel of flour." + +"Or raise his body by the little finger of one hand," said another. + +Whereupon a venerable citizen, a gentleman long known and respected as the +very soul of honor, truthfulness, and uprightness, came forward on the +stage before the audience, and with emphatic earnestness, and in a loud, +intrepid tone of voice, exclaimed,-- + +"Ladies and gentlemen,--The heat of the room was too much for the +lecturer; but he can easily do all the feats announced in the bills. _I've +seen him do them twenty times_." + +The dear, but infatuated old gentleman! He had never seen me do anything +of the kind. He hardly knew me by sight. He thought only of coming to the +rescue of an unfortunate lecturer, prostrated on the very threshold of his +career; and a friendly hallucination made him for the moment really +believe what he said. His unpremeditated assertion must have been set down +by the recording angel on the same page with Uncle Toby's oath, and then +obliterated in the same manner. + +Ten days after the above-mentioned catastrophe, having engaged the largest +hall in Boston, (the Music Hall,) I delivered my lecture--in the words of +the newspapers--"with _éclat_." The illustrations of strength which I +exhibited on the occasion, though far inferior to subsequent efforts, were +looked on as most extraordinary. The weight I lifted before the audience, +with my hands alone, was nine hundred and twenty-nine pounds. This was +testified to by the City Sealer of Weights and Measures, Mr. Moulton. My +success induced me to repeat my lecture in other places. Invitations and +liberal offers poured in upon me from all directions; and during the +ensuing seasons, I lectured in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, +Albany, and many of the principal cities throughout the Northern States +and the Canadas. + +To return to my lifting experiments. I had promised my father to "stop at +a thousand pounds." In the autumn of 1859 I had reached ten hundred and +thirty-two pounds. An incident now occurred that induced me to reconsider +my promise and get absolution from it. One day, while engaged in lifting, +I had a visit from two powerful-looking men who asked permission to try my +weight. One of them was five feet ten inches in height, and a hundred and +ninety-two pounds in weight. The other was fully six feet in his +stockings, and two hundred and twelve pounds in weight,--a fearful +superiority in the eyes of a man, under five feet seven and weighing less +than a hundred and fifty pounds. The smaller of these men failed to lift +eight of my iron disks, which, with the connections, amounted to eight +hundred and twenty-seven pounds. The larger individual fairly lifted them +at the second or third trial, but declined to attempt an increase. They +left me, and I soon, afterward heard that they were practising with a view +of "outlifting Dr. Windship." + +My father had incautiously remarked to me, "Those huge fellows, with a +little practice, can lift your weight and you on top of it. You can't +expect to compete with giants." This decided me to test the question +whether five feet seven must necessarily yield to mere bulk in the +attainment of the maximum of human strength. I had the start of my +competitors by some two hundred pounds, and I determined to preserve that +distance between us. In the autumn of that year I advanced to lifting with +the hands eleven hundred and thirty-three pounds, and in the spring of +1860 to twelve hundred and eight. I have had no evidence that my +competitors ever got beyond a thousand pounds; though I doubt not, if they +had had my leisure for practice, they might have surpassed me. + +In July, 1860, I commenced lifting by means of a padded rope over my +shoulders,--my body, during the act of lifting, being steadied and partly +supported by my hands grasping a stout frame at each side. After a few +unsuccessful preliminary trials, I quickly advanced to fourteen hundred +pounds. The stretching of the rope now proved so great an annoyance, that +I substituted for it a stout leather band of double thickness, about two +inches and a half wide, and which had been subjected to a process which +was calculated to render it proof against stretching more than half an +inch under any weight it was capable of sustaining. But on trial, I found, +almost to my despair, that it was of a far more yielding nature than the +rope, and consequently the rope was again brought into requisition. A few +weeks of unsatisfactory practice followed, when it occurred to me that an +iron chain, inasmuch as it could not stretch, might be advantageously +used, provided it could be so padded as not to chafe my shoulders. After +many experiments I succeeded in this substitution; but the chain had yet +one objection in common with the rope and the strap, arising from the +difficulty of getting it properly adjusted. I contented myself with its +use, however, until the spring of 1861, when I hit upon a contrivance +which has proved a complete success. It consists of a wooden yoke fitting +across my shoulders, and having two chains connected with it in such a +manner as to enable me to lift on every occasion to the most advantage. +With this contrivance my lifting-power has advanced with mathematical +certainty, slowly, but surely, to _two thousand and seven pounds_, up to +this twenty-third day of November, 1861. + +In my public experiments in lifting, when I have not used the iron weights +cast for the purpose, I have, as a convenient substitute, used kegs of +nails. It recently occurred to me, that, if, instead of these kegs, I +could employ a number of men selected from the audience, the spectacle +would he still more satisfactory to the skeptical. Accordingly I contrived +an apparatus by means of which I have been able to present this convincing +proof of the actual weight lifted. I introduced it after my lecture at the +Town-Hall in Brighton, Massachusetts, on the 9th of October, 1861; and the +following account of the result appeared in one of the city papers:-- + +"Standing upon a staging at an elevation of about eight or ten feet from +the floor, the Doctor lifted and sustained, for a considerable time and +without apparent difficulty, a platform suspended beneath him on which +stood twelve gentlemen, all heavier individually than the Doctor himself, +and weighing, inclusive of the entire apparatus lifted with them, _nearly +nineteen hundred pounds avoirdupois_. In the performance of this +tremendous feat, Dr. W. employed neither straps, bands, nor +girdle,--nothing in short but a stout oaken stick fitting across his +shoulders, and having attached to it a couple of rather formidable-looking +chains. At his request, a committee, appointed by the audience, and +furnished with one of Fairbanks's scales, superintended all the +experiments." + +The exact weight lifted on this occasion was eighteen hundred and +thirty-six pounds. A few evenings after, I lifted, in the same way, in +Lynn, eighteen hundred and sixty; in Brookline, eighteen hundred and +ninety; in Medford, nineteen hundred and thirty-four; in Maiden, nineteen +hundred and two; and in Charlestown, nineteen hundred and forty. + +As my strength is still increasing in an undiminished ratio, I am fairly +beginning to wonder where the limit will be; and the old adage of the +camel's back and the last feather occasionally suggests itself. I have +fixed three thousand pounds as my _ne plus ultra_. + + * * * * * + + + + +FREMONT'S HUNDRED DAYS IN MISSOURI. + + +I. + +The narrative we propose to give of events in Missouri is not intended to +be a defence of General Fremont, nor in any respect an answer to the +charges which have been made against him. Our purpose is the more humble +one of presenting a hasty sketch of the expedition to Springfield, +confining ourselves almost entirely to the incidents which came under the +observation of an officer of the General's staff. + +General Fremont was in command of the Western Department precisely One +Hundred Days. He assumed the command at the time when the army with which +Lyon had captured Camp Jackson and won the Battle of Booneville was on the +point of dissolution. The enemy, knowing that the term for which our +soldiers had been enlisted was near its close, began offensive movements +along their whole line. Cairo, Bird's Point, Ironton, and Springfield were +simultaneously threatened. Jeff Thompson wrote to his friends in St. +Louis, promising to be in that city in a month. The sad, but glorious day +upon Wilson's Creek defeated the Rebel designs, and compelled McCulloch, +Pillow, Hardee, and Thompson to retire. + +Relieved from immediate danger, General Fremont found an opportunity to +organize the expedition down the Mississippi. Won by the magic of his name +and the ceaseless energy of his action, the hardy youth of the Northwest, +flocked into St. Louis, eager to share his labors and his glory. There was +little time for organization and discipline. They were armed with such +weapons as could be procured against the competition of the General +Government, and at once forwarded to the exposed points. History can +furnish few parallels to the hasty levy and organization of the Army of +the West. When suddenly required to defend Washington, the Government was +able to summon the equipped and disciplined militia of the East, and could +call upon the inexhaustible resources of a wealthy and skilful people. But +in the West there was neither a disciplined militia nor trained mechanics. +Men, indeed, brave, earnest, patriotic men, were plenty,--men who +appreciated the magnitude and importance of the task before them, and who +were confident of their ability to accomplish it. But to introduce order +into their tumultuous ranks, to place arms in their eager hands, to clothe +and feed them, to provide them with transportation and equipage for the +march, and inspire them with confidence for the siege and the +battle,--this labor the General, almost unaided, was called upon to +perform. Like all the rest of our generals, he was without experience in +military affairs of such magnitude and urgency, and he was compelled to +rely chiefly upon the assistance of men entirely without military training +and knowledge. The general staff and the division and brigade staffs were, +from the necessity of the case, made up mainly of civilians. A small +number of foreign officers brought to his aid their learning and +experience, and a still smaller number of West-Point officers gave him +their invaluable assistance. In spite of all difficulties the work +proceeded. In six weeks the strategic positions were placed in a state of +defence, and an army of sixty thousand men, with a greater than common +proportion of cavalry and artillery, stood ready to clear Missouri of the +invader and to open the valley of the Mississippi. At this time the sudden +appearance of Price in the West, and the fall of Lexington, compelled the +General to take the field. + +We will now confine ourselves to the narrative of the incidents of the +march to Springfield, as it is given in the journal which has been placed +in our hands. + + +FROM ST. LOUIS TO WARSAW. + +_St. Louis, September 27th, 1861._ For four days the head-quarters have +been ready to take the field at an hour's notice. The baggage has been +packed, the wagons loaded, horses have stood saddled all through the day, +and the officers have been sitting at their desks, booted and spurred, +awaiting the order for their departure. It is not unlikely that the +suspense in which they are held and the constant condition of readiness +which is required of them are a sort of preliminary discipline to which +the General is subjecting them. Yesterday the body-guard left by the +river, and the staff-horses went upon the same steamer, so that we cannot +be detained much longer. + +_Jefferson City, September 28th._ Yesterday, at eleven o'clock, we were +informed that the General would leave for Jefferson City at noon; and that +those members of the staff who were not ready would be left behind, and +their places filled in the field. At the appointed hour we were all +gathered at the depot. The General drove down entirely unattended. Most of +the train was occupied by a battalion of sharp-shooters, but in the rear +car the General and his staff found seats. The day was cloudy and damp; +there was no one to say farewell; and as the train passed through the cold +hills, a feeling of gloom seemed to pervade the company. Nature was in +harmony with the clouded fortunes of our General, and the laboring +locomotive dragged us at a snail's pace, as if it were unwilling to assist +us in our adventure. + +Those who were strangers in the West looked out eagerly for the Missouri, +hoping to find the valley of the river rich in scenery which would relieve +the tedium of the journey. But when we came out upon the river-bank and +looked at the dull shores, and the sandy bed, which the scant stream does +not cover, but through which it creeps, treacherous and slimy, in half a +dozen channels, there was no pleasure to the eye, no relief for the +spirit. Late in the afternoon we approached a little village, and were +greeted with music and hearty cheers,--the first sign of hospitality the +day had furnished. It was the German settlement of Hermann, famous for +good cheer and good wines. The Home-Guard was drawn up at the station, +files of soldiers kept the passage clear to the dining-room, and through +an avenue of muskets, and amidst the shouts of an enthusiastic little +crowd, the General passed into a room decorated with flowers, through the +centre of which was stretched a table groaning under the weight of +delicious fruits and smoking viands. With little ceremony the hungry +company seated themselves, and vigorously assailed the tempting array, +quite unconscious of the curious glances of a motley assemblage of men, +women, and children who assisted at the entertainment. The day had been +dark, the journey dull, and the people we had seen silent and sullen; but +here was a welcome, the hearty, generous welcome of sympathizing friends, +who saw in their guests the defenders of their homes. They were Germans, +and our language came broken from their lips. But they are Germans who +fill the ranks of our regiments. Look where you will, and the sturdy +Teuton meets your eye. If Missouri shall be preserved for the Union and +civilization, it will be by the valor of men who learned their lessons of +American liberty and glory upon the banks of the Rhine and the Elbe. We +think of this at Hermann, and we pledge our German hosts and our German +fellow-soldiers in strong draughts of delicious Catawba,--not such Catawba +as is sent forth from the slovenly manufactories of Cincinnati, for the +careful vintners of Hermann select the choice grapes, and in the quiet +cellars of Hermann the Catawba has time to grow old and to ripen. + +We at length extricate ourselves from the maze of corn-cakes and pancakes, +waffles and muffins and pies without number, with which our kind friends +of Hermann tempt and tantalize our satiated palates, and once more set +forth after the wheezing, reluctant locomotive, over the rough road, +through the dreary hills, along the bank of the treacherous river. + +At ten o'clock, in ten weary hours, we have accomplished one hundred and +twenty miles, and have reached Jefferson City. The train backs and starts +ahead, halts and backs and jerks, and finally, with a long sigh of relief, +the locomotive stops, and a gentleman in citizen's dress enters the car, +carrying a lantern in his hand. It was Brigadier-General Price, commanding +at Jefferson City. He took possession of the General, and, with us closely +following, left the car. But leaving the train was a somewhat more +difficult matter. We went along-side the train, over the train, under the +train, but still those cars seemed to surround us like a corral. We at +length outflanked the train, but still failed to extricate ourselves from +the labyrinth. Informed, or rather deluded, by the "lantern dimly +burning," we floundered into ditches and scrambled out of them, we waded +mud-puddles and stumbled over boulders, until finally the ever-present +train disappeared in the darkness, we rushed up a steep hill, heard the +welcome sound as our feet touched a brick walk, and, after turning two or +three corners, found ourselves in the narrow hall of the "principal +hotel." We were tired and disgusted, and no one stood upon the order of +his going, but went at once to sleep upon whatever floor, table, or bed +offered itself. + +This morning we are pleased to hear that the General has resolved to go +into camp. Of course the best houses in the place are at our disposal, but +it is wisely thought that our soldier-life will not begin until we are +fairly under canvas. + +All day we have had an exhibition of a Missouri crowd. The sidewalk has +been fringed with curious gazers waiting to catch a glimpse of the +General. Foote, the comedian, said, that, until he landed on the quays at +Dublin, he never knew what the London beggars did with their old clothes. +One should go to Missouri to see what the New-York beggars do with their +old clothes. But it is not the dress alone. Such vacant, listless faces, +with laziness written in every line, and ignorance seated upon every +feature! Is it for these that the descendants of New England and the +thrifty Germans are going forth to battle? If Missouri depended upon the +Missourians, there would be little chance for her safety, and, indeed, not +very much to save. + +_October 4th._ We have been in camp since Sunday, the 29th of September. +Our tents are pitched upon abroad shelf half-way down a considerable hill. +Behind us the hill rises a hundred feet or more, shutting us in from the +south; in front, to the north, the hill inclines to a ravine which +separates us from other less lofty hills. Our camp is upon open ground, +but there is a fine forest to the east and west. + +In a few days we have all become very learned in camp-life. We have found +out what we want and what we do not want. Fortunately, St. Louis is near +at hand, and we send there to provide for our necessities, and also to get +rid of our superfluities. The troops have been gathering all the week. +There are several regiments in front of us, and batteries of artillery +behind us. Go where you will, spread out upon the plain or shining amidst +the trees you will see the encampments. Head-quarters are busy providing +for the transportation and the maintenance of this great force; and as +rapidly as the railway can carry them, regiment after regiment is sent +west. There is plenty of work for the staff-officers; and yet our life is +not without its pleasures. The horses and their riders need training. This +getting used to the saddle is no light matter for the civilian spoiled by +years of ease and comfort. But the General gives all his officers plenty +of horseback discipline. Then there is the broadsword exercise to fill up +the idle time. Evening is the festive hour in camp; though I judge, from +what I have seen and heard, that our camp has little of the gayety which +is commonly associated with the soldier's life. We are too busy for +merrymaking, but in the evening there are pleasant little circles around +the fires or in the snug tents. There are old campaigners among us, men +who have served in Mexico and Utah, and others whose lives have been +passed upon the Plains; they tell us campaign stories, and teach the green +hands the slang and the airs of the camp. But the unfailing amusement is +the band. This is the special pride of the General, and soon after +nightfall the musicians appear upon the little _plaza_ around which the +tents are grouped. At the first note the audience gather. The guardsmen +come up from their camp on the edge of the ravine, the negro-quarter is +deserted, the wagoners flock in from the surrounding forest, the officers +stroll out of their tents,--a picturesque crowd stands around the huge +camp-fire. The programme is simple and not often varied. It uniformly +opens with "The Star-Spangled Banner," and closes with "Home, Sweet Home." +By way of a grand _finale_, a procession is organized every night, led by +some score of negro torch-bearers, which makes the circuit of the camp,--a +performance which never fails to produce something of a stampede among the +animals. + +Last night we had an alarm. About eleven o'clock, when the camp was fairly +asleep, some one tried to pass a picket half a mile west of us. The guard +fired at the intruder, and in an instant the regimental drums sounded the +long roll. We started from our beds, with frantic haste buckled on swords, +spurs, and pistols, hurried servants after the horses, and hastened to +report for duty to the General. The officer who was first to appear found +him standing in front of his tent, himself the first man in camp who was +ready for service. Presently a messenger came with information as to the +cause of the alarm, and we were dismissed. + +At two o'clock in the morning there was another alarm. Again the +body-guard bugles sounded and the drums rolled. Again soldiers sprang to +their arms, and officers rushed to report to the General,--the first man +finding him, as before, leaning upon his sword in front of his tent. But, +alas for the reputation of our mess, not one of its number appeared. In +complete unconsciousness of danger or duty, we slept on. Colonel S. said +he heard "the music, but thought it was a continuation of the evening's +serenade," and went to sleep again. It was not long before we discovered +that the General knew that four members of his staff did not report to him +when the long roll was sounded. + +There are several encampments on the hill-sides north of us which are in +full view from our quarters, and it is not the least of our amusements to +watch the regiments going through the afternoon drill. In the soft light +of these golden days we see the long blue lines, silver-tipped, wheel and +turn, scatter and form, upon the brown hill-sides. Now the slopes are +dotted with skirmishers, and puffs of gray smoke rise over the kneeling +figures; again a solid wall of bayonets gleams along the crest of the +hill, and peals of musketry echo through the woods in the ravines. + +Colonel Myscall Johnson, a Methodist exhorter and formidable Rebel +marauder, is said to be forty miles south of us with a small force, and +some of the Union farmers came into camp to-day asking for protection. +Zagonyi, the commander of the body-guard, is anxious to descend upon +Johnson and scatter his thieving crew; but it is not probable he will +obtain permission. The Union men of Missouri are quite willing to have you +fight for them, but their patriotism does not go farther than this. These +people represent that three-fourths of the inhabitants of Miller County +are loyal. The General probably thinks, if this be true, they ought to be +able to take care of Johnson's men. But a suggestion that they should +defend their own homes and families astonishes our Missouri friends. +General Lyon established Home-Guards throughout the State, and armed them +with several thousand Springfield muskets taken from the arsenal at St. +Louis. Most of these muskets are now in Price's army, and are the most +formidable weapons he has. In some instances the Rebels enlisted in the +Home-Guards and thus controlled the organization, carrying whole companies +into Price's ranks. In other cases bands of Rebels scoured the country, +went to the house of every Home-Guard, and took away his musket. In the +German settlements alone the Guards still preserve their organization and +their arms. + +A few days ago it fell to the lot of our mess to entertain a Rebel officer +who had come in with a flag of truce. Strange to say, he was a New-Yorker, +and had a younger brother in one of the Indiana regiments. He was a +pleasant and courteous gentleman, albeit his faded dress, with its +red-flannel trimmings, did not indicate great prosperity in the enemy's +camp. We gave him the best meal we could command. I apologized because it +was no better. He replied,--"Make no apology, Sir. It is the best dinner I +have eaten these three months. I have campaigned it a good deal this +summer upon three ears of roast corn a day." He added,--"I never have +received a cent of pay. None of us have. We never expect to receive any." +This captain has already seen considerable service. He was at Booneville, +Carthage, Wilson's Creek, and Lexington. His descriptions of these +engagements were animated and interesting, his point of view presenting +matters in a novel light. He spoke particularly of a gunner stationed at +the first piece in Totten's battery, saying that his energy and coolness +made him one of the most conspicuous figures of the day. "Our +sharp-shooters did their best, but they failed to bring him down. There he +was all day long, doing his duty as if on parade." He also told us there +was no hard fighting at Lexington. "We knew," said he, "the place was +short of water, and so we spared our men, and waited for time to do the +work." + +_Camp Lovejoy, October 7th._ For the last two days the troops have been +leaving Jefferson City, and the densely peopled hills are bare. This +morning, at seven o'clock, we began to break camp. There was no little +trouble and confusion in lowering the tents and packing the wagons. It +took us a long time to-day, but we shall soon get accustomed to it, and +become able to move more quickly. At noon we left Jefferson City, going +due west. + +Out little column consists of three companies of the body-guard, numbering +about two hundred and fifty men, a battalion of sharp-shooters (infantry) +under Major Holman, one hundred and eighty strong, and the staff. The +march is in the following order. The first company of the guard act as +advance-guard; then comes the General, followed by his staff, riding by +twos, according to rank; the other two companies of the guard come next. +The sharp-shooters accompany and protect the train. Our route lay through +a broken and heavily wooded region. The roads were very bad, but the day +was bright, and the march was a succession of beautiful pictures, of which +the long and brilliant line of horsemen winding through the forest was the +chief ornament. + +We reached camp at three o'clock. It is a lovely spot, upon a hill-side, +with a clear, swift-running brook washing the foot of the hill. Presently +the horses are tied along the fences, riders are lounging under the trees, +the kitchen-fires are lighted, guardsmen are scattered along the banks of +the stream bathing, the wagons roll heavily over the prairie and are drawn +up along the edge of the wood, tents are raised, tent-furniture is hastily +arranged, and the camp looks as if it had been there a month. Before dark +a regiment of infantry and two batteries of artillery come up. The men +sleep in the open air without tents, and innumerable fires cover the +hill-sides. + +We are upon land which is owned by an influential and wealthy citizen, who +is an open Secessionist in opinion, though he has had the prudence not to +take up arms. By way of a slight punishment, the General has annoyed the +old man by naming his farm "Camp Owen Lovejoy," a name which the Union +neighbors will not fail to make perpetual. + +_California, October 8th._ This morning we broke camp at six o'clock and +marched at eight. The road was bad, for which the beauty of the scenery +did not entirely compensate. To-day's experience has taught us how +completely an army is tied to the wheels of the wagons. Tell a general how +fast the train can travel and he will know how long the journey will be. +We passed our wagons in a terrible plight: some upset, some with balky +mules, some stuck in the mud, and some broken down. The loud-swearing +drivers, and the stubborn, patient, hard-pulling mules did not fail to +vary and enliven the scene. + +A journey of eighteen miles brought us to this place, where we are +encamped upon the county fair-ground. California is a mean, thriftless +village; there are no trees shading the cottages, no shrubbery in the +yards. The place is only two or three years old, but already wears a +slovenly air of decay. + +I set out with Colonel L. upon a foraging expedition. We passed a small +house, in front of which a fat little negro-girl was drawing a bucket of +water from the well, the girl puffing and the windlass creaking. + +"Will Massa have a drink of water?" + +It was the first token of hospitality since Hermann. We stopped and drank +from the bucket, but had not been there a minute before the mistress ran +out, with suspicion in her face, to protect her property. A single +question sufficed to show the politics of that house. + +"Where is your husband?" + +"He went off a little while ago." + +This was the Missouri way of informing us that he was in the Rebel army. + +A little farther on we came to what was evidently the chief house of the +place. A bevy of maidens stood at the gate, supported by a pleasant +matron, fair and fat. + +"Can you sell us some bread?" was our rather practical inquiry. + +"We have none baked, but will bake you some by sundown," was the answer, +given in a hearty, generous voice. + +The bargain was soon made. Our portly dame proved to be a Virginian, who +still cherished a true Virginian love for the Union. + +_Tipton, October 9th._ The General was in the saddle very early, and left +camp before the staff was ready. I was fortunate enough to be on hand, and +indulged in some excusable banter when the tardy members of our company +rode up after we were a mile or two on the way. We have marched twelve +miles to-day through a lovely country. We have left the hills and stony +roads behind us, and now we pass over beautiful little prairies, bordered +by forests blazing with the crimson and gold of autumn. The day's ride has +been delightful, the atmosphere soft and warm, the sky cloudless, and the +prairie firm and hard under our horses' feet. We passed several regiments +on the road, who received the General with unbounded enthusiasm; and when +we entered Tipton, we found the country covered with tents, and alive with +men and horses. Amidst the cheers of the troops, we passed through the +camps, and settled down upon a fine prairie-farm a mile to the southwest +of Tipton. The divisions of Asboth and Hunter are here, not less than +twelve thousand men, and from this point our course is to be southward. + +_Camp Asboth, near Tipton, October 11th._ For the last twenty-four hours +it has rained violently, and the prairie upon which we are encamped is a +sea of black mud. But the tents are tight, and inside we contrive to keep +comparatively warm. + +The camp is filled with speculations as to our future course. Shall we +follow Price, who is crossing the Osage now, or are we to garrison the +important positions upon this line and return to St. Louis and prepare for +the expedition down the river? The General is silent, his reserve is never +broken, and no one knows what his plans are, except those whose business +it is to know. I will here record the plan of the campaign. + +Our campaign has been in some measure decided by the movements of the +Rebels. The sudden appearance of Price in the West, gathering to his +standard many thousands of the disaffected, has made it necessary for the +General to check his bold and successful progress. Carthage, Wilson's +Creek, and Lexington have given to Price a prestige which it is essential +to destroy. The gun-boats cannot be finished for two months or more, and +we cannot go down the Mississippi until the flotilla is ready; and from +the character of the country upon each side of the river it will be +difficult to operate there with a large body of men. In Southwestern +Missouri we are sure of fine weather till the last of November, the +prairies are high and dry, and there are no natural obstacles except such +as it will excite the enthusiasm of the troops to overcome. Therefore the +General has determined to pursue Price until he catches him. He can march +faster than we can now, but we shall soon be able to move faster than it +is possible for him to do. The Rebels have no base of operations from +which to draw supplies; they depend entirely upon foraging; and for this +reason Price has to make long halts wherever he finds mills, and grind the +flour. He is so deficient in equipage, also, that it will be impossible +for him to carry his troops over great distances. But we can safely +calculate that Price and Rains will not leave the State; their followers +are enlisted for six months, and are already becoming discontented at +their continued retreat, and will not go with them beyond the borders. +This is the uniform testimony of deserters and scouts. Price disposed of, +either by a defeat or by the dispersal of his army, we are to proceed to +Bird's Point, or into Arkansas, according to circumstances. A blow at +Little Rock seems now the wisest, as it is the boldest plan. We can reach +that place by the middle of November; and if we obtain possession of it, +the position of the enemy upon the Mississippi will be completely turned. +The communications of Pillow, Hardee, and Thompson, who draw their +supplies through Arkansas, will be cut off, they will be compelled to +retreat, and our flotilla and the reinforcements can descend the river to +assist in the operations against Memphis and the attack upon New Orleans. + +This campaign may be difficult, the army will have to encounter hardships +and perils, but, unless defeated in the field, the enterprise will be +successful. No hardships or perils can daunt the spirit of the General, or +arrest the march of the enthusiastic army his genius has created. + +Our column is composed of five divisions, under Generals Hunter, Pope, +Sigel, McKinstry, and Asboth, and numbers about thirty thousand men, +including over five thousand cavalry and eighty-six pieces of artillery, a +large proportion of which are rifled. The infantry is generally well, +though not uniformly armed. But the cavalry is very badly armed. Colonel +Carr's regiment has no sabres, except for the commissioned and +non-commissioned officers. The men carry Hall's carbines and revolvers. +Major Waring's fine corps, the Fremont Hussars, is also deficient in +sabres, and some of the companies are provided with lances,--formidable +weapons in skilful bands, but only an embarrassment to our raw troops. + +Lane and Sturgis are to come from Kansas and join us on the Osage, and +Wyman is to bring his command from Rolla and meet us south of that river. + +Paducah, Cairo, Bird's Point, Cape Girardeau, and Ironton are well +protected against attack, and the commanders at those posts are ordered to +engage the enemy as soon as we catch Price; and if the Rebels retreat, +they are to pursue them. Thus our expedition is part of a combined and +extended movement, and, instead of having no purpose except the defeat of +Price, we are on the road to New Orleans. + +Next Monday we are to start. Asboth will go from here, Hunter by way of +Versailles, McKinstry from Syracuse, Pope from his present position in the +direction of Booneville, and Sigel from Sedalia. We are to cross the Osage +at Warsaw; and as Sigel has the shortest distance to march, he is expected +to reach that town first. + +Precious time has already been lost because of a lack of transportation +and supplies. Foraging parties have been scouring the country, and large +numbers of wagons, horses, and mules have been brought in. This property +is all appraised, and when taken from Union men it is paid for. In +doubtful cases a certificate is given to the owner, which recites that he +is to be paid in case he shall continue to be loyal to the Government. We +thus obtain a hold upon these people which an oath of allegiance every day +would not give us. + +_Camp Asboth, October 13th._ Mr. Cameron, Senator Chandler of Michigan, +and Adjutant-General Thomas arrived at an early hour this morning; and at +eight o'clock, the General, attended by his staff and body-guard, repaired +to the Secretary's quarters. After a short stay there, the whole party, +except General Thomas, set out for Syracuse to review the division of +General McKinstry. The day was fine, and we proceeded at a hand gallop +until we reached a prairie some three or four miles wide. Here the +Secretary set spurs to his horse, and we tore across the plain as fast as +our animals could be driven. Passing from the open plain into a forest, +the whole cortege dashed over a very rough road with but little slackening +of our pace; nor did we draw rein until we reached Syracuse. A few moments +were passed in the interchange of the usual civilities, and we then went a +mile farther on, to a large prairie upon which the division was drawn up. +McKinstry has the flower of the army. He has in his ranks some regular +infantry, cavalry, and artillery, and among his subordinate officers are +Totten, Steele, Kelton, and Stanley, all distinguished in the regular +service. There was no time for the observance of the usual forms of a +review. The Secretary passed in front and behind the lines, made a short +address, and left immediately by rail for St. Louis, stopping at Tipton to +review Asboth's division. The staff and guard rode slowly back to camp, +both men and animals having had quite enough of the day's work. It is +said, that Adjutant-General Thomas has expressed the opinion that we shall +not be able to move from here, because we have no transportation. As we +are ordered to march to-morrow, the prediction will soon be tested. + +_Camp Zagonyi, October 14th._ We were in the saddle this morning at nine +o'clock, A short march of eleven miles, in a south-westerly direction, and +through a prairie country, brought us to our camp. As we came upon the +summit of a hill which lies to the west of our present position, our +attention was directed to a group standing in front of a house about a +mile distant. We had hardly caught sight of them when half a dozen men and +three women mounted their horses and started at full speed towards the +northeast, each man leading a horse. The General ordered some of the +body-guard to pursue and try to stop the fugitives. We eagerly watched the +chase. A narrow valley separated us from the elevation upon which the +farm-house stood, and a small stream with low banks ran through the bottom +of the valley. The pursuit was active, the guardsmen ran their horses down +the slope, leaped the pool, and rushed up the opposite hill; but the +runaways were on fresh horses, and had no rough ground to pass, and so +they escaped. One of them lost the horse he was leading, and it was caught +by a guardsman. This was the first exhibition we have seen of a desire on +the part of the inhabitants to avoid us. + +The General established head-quarters along-side the house where we first +discovered the Rebel party. Our position is the most beautiful one we have +yet found. To the west stretches an undulating prairie, separated from us +by a valley, into which our camping-ground subsides with a mild declivity; +to the north is a range of low hills, their round sides unbroken by shrub +or tree; while to the south stretches an extensive tract of low land, +densely covered with timber, and resplendent with the colors of autumn. + +Before dark the whole of Asboth's division came up and encamped on the +slopes to the west and north: not less than seven thousand men are here. +This evening the scene is beautiful. I sit in the door of my lodge, and as +far as the eye can reach the prairie is dotted with tents, the dark forms +of men and horses, the huge white-topped wagons,--and a thousand fires +gleam through the faint moonlight. Our band is playing near the General's +quarters, its strains are echoed by a score of regimental bands, and their +music is mingled with the numberless noises of camp, the hum of voices, +the laughter from the groups around the fires, the clatter of hoofs as +some rider hurries to the General, the distant challenges of the sentries, +the neighing of horses, the hoarse bellowing of the mules, and the +clinking of the cavalry anvils. This, at last, is the romance of war. How +soon will our ears be saluted by sterner music? + +_Camp Hudson, October 15th._ We moved at seven o'clock this morning. For +the first four miles the road ran through woods intersected by small +streams. The ground was as rough as it could well be, and the teams which +had started before us were struggling through the mire and over the rocks. +We dashed past them at a fast trot, and in half an hour came upon a high +prairie. The prairies of Southern Missouri are not large and flat, like +the monotonous levels of Central Illinois, but they are rolling, usually +small, and broken by frequent narrow belts of timber. In the woods there +are hills, rocky soil, and always one, often two streams, clear and rapid +as a mountain-brook in New England. + +The scenery to-day was particularly attractive, a constant succession of +prairies surrounded by wooded hills. As we go south, the color of the +forest becomes richer, and the atmosphere more mellow and hazy. + +During the first two hours we passed several regiments of foot. The men +were nearly all Germans, and I scanned the ranks carefully, longing to see +an American countenance. I found none, but caught sight of one +arch-devil-may-care Irish face. I doubt whether there is a company in the +army without an Irishman in it, though the proportion of Irishmen in our +ranks is not so great as at the East. + +Early in the afternoon we rode up to a farm-house, at the gate of which a +middle-aged woman was standing, crying bitterly. The General stopped, and +the woman at once assailed him vehemently. She told him the soldiers had +that day taken her husband and his team away with them. She said that +there was no one left to take care of her old blind mother,--at which +allusion, the blind mother tottered down the walk and took a position in +the rear of the attacking party,--that they had two orphan girls, the +children of a deceased sister, and the orphans had lost their second +father. The assailants were here reinforced by the two orphan girls. She +protested that her husband was loyal,--"Truly, Sir, he was a Union man and +voted for the Union, and always told his neighbors Disunion would do +nothing except bring trouble upon innocent people, as indeed it has," said +she, with a fresh flood of tears. The General was moved by her distress, +and ordered Colonel E. to have the man, whose name is Rutherford, sent +back at once. + +A few rods farther on we came to another house, in front of which was +another weeping woman afflicted in the same way. Several little +flaxen-haired children surrounded her, and a white-bearded man, trembling +with age, stood behind, leaning upon a staff. Her earnestness far +surpassed that of Mrs. Rutherford. She wrung her hands, and could hardly +speak for her tears. She seized the General's hand and entreated him to +return her husband, with an expression of distress which the hardest heart +could not resist. The General comforted the poor woman with a few kind +words, and promised to grant what she asked. + +It is very difficult to refuse such requests, and yet, in point of fact, +no great hardship or sacrifice is required of these men. They profess to +be Union men, but they are not in arms for the Union, and a Federal +general now asks of them that they shall help the army for a day with +their teams. To those who come here from all parts of the nation to defend +these homes this does not appear to be a harsh demand. + +We arrived at camp about five o'clock. Our day's march was twenty-two +miles, and the wagons were far behind. A neighboring farm-house afforded +the General and a few of his officers a dinner, but it was late in the +evening before the tents were pitched. + +_Warsaw, October 17th._ Yesterday we made our longest march, making +twenty-five miles, and encamped three miles north of this place. + +It is a problem, why riding in a column should be so much more wearisome +than riding alone, but so it undeniably is. Men who would think little of +a sixty-mile ride were quite broken down by to-day's march. + +As soon as we reached camp, the General asked for volunteers from the +staff to ride over to Warsaw: of course the whole staff volunteered. On +the way we met General Sigel. This very able and enterprising officer is a +pleasant, scholarly-looking gentleman, his studious air being increased by +the spectacles he always wears. His figure is light, active, and graceful, +and he is an excellent horseman. The country has few better heads than +his. Always on the alert, he is full of resources, and no difficulties +daunt him. Planter, Pope, and McKinstry are behind, waiting for tea and +coffee, beans and flour, and army-wagons. Sigel gathered the ox-team and +the farmers' wagons and brought his division forward with no food for his +men but fresh beef. His advance-guard is already across the Osage, and in +a day or two his whole division will be over. + +Guided by General Sigel, we rode down to the ford across the Osage. The +river here is broad and rapid, and its banks are immense bare cliffs +rising one hundred feet perpendicularly from the water's edge. The ford is +crooked, uncertain, and never practicable except for horsemen. The ferry +is an old flat-boat drawn across by a rope, and the ascent up the farther +bank is steep and rocky. It will not answer to leave in our rear this +river, liable to be changed by a night's rain into a fierce torrent, with +no other means of crossing it than the rickety ferry. A bridge must at +once be built, strong and firm, a safe road for the army in case of +disaster. So decides the General. And as we look upon the swift-running +river and its rocky shores, cold and gloomy in the twilight, every one +agrees that the General is right. His decision has since been strongly +supported, for to-day two soldiers of the Fremont Hussars were drowned in +trying to cross the ford, and the water is now rising rapidly. + +This morning we moved into Warsaw, and for the first time the staff is +billeted in the Secession houses of the town; but the General clings to +his tent. Our mess is quartered in the house of the county judge, who says +his sympathies are with the South. But the poor man is so frightened, that +we pity and protect him. + +Bridge-building is now the sole purpose of the army. There is no saw-mill +here, nor any lumber. The forest must be cut down and fashioned into a +bridge, as well as the tools and the skill at command will permit. Details +are already told off from the sharp-shooters, the cadets, and even the +body-guard, and the banks of the river now resound with the quick blows of +their axes. + +_Warsaw, October 21st._ Four days we have been waiting for the building of +the bridge. By night and by day the work goes on, and now the long black +shape is striding slowly across the stream. In a few hours it will have +gained the opposite bank, and then, Ho, for Springfield! + +Our scouts have come in frequently the last few days. They tell us Price +is at Stockton, and is pushing rapidly on towards the southwest. He has +been grinding corn near Stockton, and has now food enough for another +journey. His army numbers twenty thousand men, of whom five thousand have +no arms. The rest carry everything, from double-barrelled shot-guns to the +Springfield muskets taken from the Home-Guards. They load their shot-guns +with a Minié-ball and two buck-shot, and those who have had experience say +that at one hundred yards they are very effective weapons. There is little +discipline in the Rebel army, and the only organization is by companies. +The men are badly clothed, and without shoes, and often without food. The +deserters say that those who remain are waiting only to get the new +clothes which McCulloch is expected to bring from the South. + +McCulloch, the redoubtable Ben, does not seem to be held in high esteem by +the Rebel soldiers. They say he lacks judgment and self-command. But all +speak well of Price. No one can doubt that he is a man of unusual energy +and ability. McCulloch will increase Price's force to about thirty-five +thousand, which number we must expect to meet. + +Hunter and McKinstry have not yet appeared, but Pope reported himself last +night, and some of his men came in to-day. + +_Camp White, October 22d._ The bridge is built, and the army is now +crossing the Osage. In five days a firm road has been thrown across the +river, over which our troops may pass in a day. The General and staff +crossed by the ferry, and are now encamped two miles south of the +Pomme-de-Terre. + + * * * * * + + + + +BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN, ESQ., TO MR. HOSEA BIGLOW. + + + _Letter from the REVEREND HOMER WILBUR, A.M., inclosing the + Epistle aforesaid._ + + +Jaalam, 15th Nov., 1861. + +It is not from any idle wish to obtrude my humble person with undue +prominence upon the publick view that I resume my pen upon the present +occasion. _Juniores ad labores._ But having been a main instrument in +rescuing the talent of my young parishioner from being buried in the +ground, by giving it such warrant with the world as would be derived from +a name already widely known by several printed discourses, (all of which I +maybe permitted without immodesty to state have been deemed worthy of +preservation in the Library of Harvard College by my esteemed friend Mr. +Sibley,) it seemed becoming that I should not only testify to the +genuineness of the following production, but call attention to it, the +more as Mr. Biglow had so long been silent as to be in danger of absolute +oblivion. I insinuate no claim to any share in the authourship (_vix ea +nostra voco_) of the works already published by Mr. Biglow, but merely +take to myself the credit of having fulfilled toward them the office of +taster, (_experto crede_,) who, having first tried, could afterward bear +witness,--an office always arduous, and sometimes even dangerous, as in +the ease of those devoted persons who venture their lives in the +deglutition of patent medicines (_dolus latet in generalibus_, there is +deceit in the most of them) and thereafter are wonderfully preserved long +enough to append their signatures to testimonials in the diurnal and +hebdomadal prints. I say not this as covertly glancing at the authours of +certain manuscripts which have been submitted to my literary judgment, +(though an epick in twenty-four books on the "Taking of Jericho" might, +save for the prudent forethought of Mrs. Wilbur in secreting the same just +as I had arrived beneath the walls and was beginning a catalogue of the +various horns and their blowers, too ambitiously emulous in longanimity of +Homer's list of ships, might, I say, have rendered frustrate any hope I +could entertain _vacare Musis_ for the small remainder of my days,) but +only further to secure myself against any imputation of unseemly +forthputting. I will barely subjoin, in this connection, that, whereas Job +was left to desire, in the soreness of his heart, that his adversary had +written a book, as perchance misanthropically wishing to indite a review +thereof, yet was not Satan allowed so far to tempt him as to send Bildad, +Eliphaz, and Zophar each with an unprinted work in his wallet to be +submitted to his censure. But of this enough. Were I in need of other +excuse, I might add that I write by the express desire of Mr. Biglow +himself, whose entire winter leisure is occupied, as he assures me, in +answering demands for autographs, a labour exacting enough in itself, and +egregiously so to him, who, being no ready penman, cannot sign so much as +his name without strange contortions of the face (his nose, even, being +essential to complete success) and painfully suppressed Saint-Vitus-dance +of every muscle in his body. This, with his having been put in the +Commission of the Peace by our excellent Governour (_O, si sic omnes!_) +immediately on his accession to office, keeps him continually employed. +_Haud inexpertus loquor,_ having for many years written myself J.P., and +being not seldom applied to for specimens of my chirography, a request to +which I have sometimes too weakly assented, believing as I do that nothing +written of set purpose can properly be called an autograph, but only those +unpremeditated sallies and lively runnings which betray the fireside Man +instead of the hunted Notoriety doubling on his pursuers. But it is time +that I should bethink me of Saint Austin's prayer, _Libera me a meipso,_ +if I would arrive at the matter in hand. + +Moreover, I had yet another reason for taking up the pen myself. I am +informed that the "Atlantic Monthly" is mainly indebted for its success to +the contributions and editorial supervision of Dr. Holmes, whose excellent +"Annals of America" occupy an honoured place upon my shelves. The journal +itself I have never seen; but if this be so, it should seem that the +recommendation of a brother-clergyman (though _par magis quam similis_) +would carry a greater weight. I suppose that you have a department for +historical lucubrations, and should be glad, if deemed desirable, to +forward for publication my "Collections for the Antiquities of Jaalam" and +my (now happily complete) pedigree of the Wilbur family from _fons et +origo_, the Wild-Boar of Ardennes. Withdrawn from the active duties of my +profession by the settlement of a colleague-pastor, the Reverend Jeduthun +Hitchcock, formerly of Brutus Four-Corners, I might find time for further +contributions to general literature on similar topicks. I have made large +advances toward a completer genealogy of Mrs. Wilbur's family, the +Pilcoxes, not, if I know myself, from any idle vanity, but with the sole +desire of rendering myself useful in my day and generation. _Nulla dies +sine lineâ._ I inclose a meteorological register, a list of the births, +deaths, and marriages, and a few _memorabilia_, of longevity in Jaalam +East Parish for the last half-century. Though spared to the unusual period +of more than eighty years, I find no diminution of my faculties or +abatement of my natural vigour, except a scarcely sensible decay of memory +and a necessity of recurring to younger eyesight for the finer print in +Cruden. It would gratify me to make some further provision for declining +years from the emoluments of my literary labours. I had intended to effect +an insurance on my life, but was deterred therefrom by a circular from one +of the offices, in which the sudden deaths of so large a proportion of the +insured was set forth as an inducement, that it seemed to me little less +than a tempting of Providence. _Neque in summâ inopiâ levis esse senectus +potest, ne sapienti quidem._ + +Thus far concerning Mr. Biglow; and so much seemed needful (_brevis esse +laboro_) by way of preliminary, after a silence of fourteen years. He +greatly fears lest he may in this essay have fallen below himself, well +knowing, that, if exercise be dangerous on a full stomach, no less so is +writing on a full reputation. Beset as he has been on all sides, he could +not refrain, and would only imprecate patience till he shall again have +"got the hang" (as he calls it) of an accomplishment long disused. The +letter of Mr. Sawin was received some time in last June, and others have +followed which will in due season be submitted to the publick. How largely +his statements are to be depended on, I more than merely dubitate. He was +always distinguished for a tendency to exaggeration,--it might almost be +qualified by a stronger term. _Fortiter mentire, aliquid hæret_, seemed to +be his favourite rule of rhetorick. That he is actually where he says he +is the post-mark would seem to confirm; that he was received with the +publick demonstrations he describes would appear consonant with what we +know of the habits of those regions; but further than this I venture not +to decide. I have sometimes suspected a vein of humour in him which leads +him to speak by contraries; but since, in the unrestrained intercourse of +private life, I have never observed in him any striking powers of +invention, I am the more willing to put a certain qualified faith in the +incidents and the details of life and manners which give to his narratives +some of the interest and entertainment which characterize a Century +Sermon. + +It may be expected of me that I should say something to justify myself +with the world for a seeming inconsistency with my well-known principles +in allowing my youngest son to raise a company for the war, a fact known +to all through the medium of the publick prints. I did reason with the +young man, but _expellas naturam furcâ, tamenusque recurrit_. Having +myself been a chaplain in 1812, I could the less wonder that a man of war +had sprung from my loins. It was, indeed, grievous to send my Benjamin, +the child of my old age; but after the discomfiture of Manassas, I with my +own hands did buckle on his armour, trusting in the great Comforter for +strength according to my need. For truly the memory of a brave son dead in +his shroud were a greater staff of my declining years than a coward, +though his days might be long in the land and he should get much goods. It +is not till our earthen vessels are broken that we find and truly possess +the treasure that was laid up in them. _Migravi in animam meam_, I have +sought refuge in my own soul; nor would I be shamed by the heathen +comedian with his _Nequam illud verbum, bene vult, nisi bene facit_. +During our dark days, I read constantly in the inspired book of Job, which +I believe to contain more food to maintain the fibre of the soul for right +living and high thinking than all pagan literature together, though I +would by no means vilipend the study of the classicks. There I read that +Job said in his despair, even as the fool saith in his heart there is no +God,--"The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are +secure." _Job_ xii. 6. But I sought farther till I found this Scripture +also, which I would have those perpend who have striven to turn our Israel +aside to the worship of strange gods:--"If I did despise the cause of my +man-servant or of my maid-servant when they contended with me, what then +shall I do when God riseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer +him?" _Job_ xxxi. 13-14. On this text I preached a discourse on the last +day of Fasting and Humiliation with general acceptance, though there were +not wanting one or two Laodiceans who said that I should have waited till +the President announced his policy. But let us hope and pray, remembering +this of Saint Gregory, _Vult Deus rogari, vult cogi, vult quâdam +importunitate vinci_. + +We had our first fall of snow on Friday last. Frosts have been unusually +backward this fall. A singular circumstance occurred in this town on the +20th October, in the family of Deacon Pelatiah Tinkham. On the previous +evening, a few moments before family-prayers, + + * * * * * + +[The editors of the "Atlantic" find it necessary here to cut short the +letter of their valued correspondent, which seemed calculated rather on +the rates of longevity in Jaalam than for less favored localities. They +have every encouragement to hope that he will write again.] + + With esteem and respect, + + Your obedient servant, + + HOMER WILBUR, A.M. + + + It's some consid'ble of a spell sence I hain't writ no letters, + An' ther' 's gret changes hez took place in all polit'cle metters: + Some canderdates air dead an' gone, an' some hez ben defeated, + Which 'mounts to pooty much the same; fer it's ben proved repeated + A betch o' bread thet hain't riz once ain't goin' to rise agin, + An' it's jest money throwed away to put the emptins in: + But thet's wut folks wun't never larn; they dunno how to go, + Arter you want their room, no more 'n a bullet-headed beau; + Ther' 's ollers chaps a-hangin' roun' thet can't see pea-time's past, + Mis'ble as roosters in a rain, heads down an' tails half-mast: + It ain't disgraceful bein' beat, when a holl nation doos it, + But Chance is like an amberill,--it don't take twice to lose it. + + I spose you're kin' o' cur'ous, now, to know why I hain't writ. + Wal, I've ben where a litt'ry taste don't somehow seem to git + Th' encouragement a feller'd think, thet's used to public schools, + An' where sech things ez paper 'n' ink air clean agin the rules: + A kind o' vicyvarsy house, built dreffle strong an' stout, + So 's 't honest people can't git in, ner t' other sort git out, + An' with the winders so contrived, you'd prob'ly like the view + Better a-lookin' in than out, though it seems sing'lar, tu; + But then the landlord sets by ye, can't bear ye out o' sight, + And locks ye up ez reg'lar ez an outside door at night. + + This world is awfle contrary: the rope may stretch your neck + Thet mebby kep' another chap frum washin' off a wreck; + An' you will see the taters grow in one poor feller's patch, + So small no self-respectin' hen thet vallied time 'ould scratch, + So small the rot can't find 'em out, an' then agin, nex' door, + Ez big ez wut hogs dream on when they're 'most too fat to snore. + But groutin' ain't no kin' o' use; an' ef the fust throw fails, + Why, up an' try agin, thet's all,--the coppers ain't all tails; + Though I _hev_ seen 'em when I thought they hed n't no more head + Than'd sarve a nussin' Brigadier thet gits some ink to shed. + + When I writ last, I'd ben turned loose by thet blamed nigger, Pomp, + Ferlorner than a musquash, ef you'd took an' dreened his swamp: + But I ain't o' the meechin' kind, thet sets an' thinks fer weeks + The bottom's out o' th' univarse coz their own gillpot leaks. + I hed to cross bayous an' criks, (wal, it did beat all natur',) + Upon a kin' o' corderoy, fust log, then alligator: + Luck'ly the critters warn't sharp-sot; I guess't wuz overruled + They'd done their mornin's marketin' an' gut their hunger cooled; + Fer missionaries to the Creeks an' runaway's air viewed + By them an' folks ez sent express to be their reg'lar food: + Wutever 't wuz, they laid an' snoozed ez peacefully ez sinners, + Meek ez disgestin' deacons be at ordination dinners; + Ef any on 'em turned an' snapped, I let 'em kin' o' taste + My live-oak leg, an' so, ye see, ther' warn't no gret o' waste, + Fer they found out in quicker time than ef they'd ben to college + 'T warn't heartier food than though 't wuz made out o' the tree o' + knowledge. + + But _I_ tell _you_ my other leg hed larned wut pizon-nettle meant, + An' var'ous other usefle things, afore I reached a settlement, + An' all o' me thet wuz n't sore an' sendin' prickles thru me + Wuz jest the leg I parted with in lickin' Montezumy: + A usefle limb it 's ben to me, an' more of a support + Than wut the other hez ben,--coz I dror my pension for 't. + + Wal, I gut in at last where folks wuz civerlized an' white, + Ez I diskivered to my cost afore 't wuz hardly night; + Fer 'z I wuz settin' in the bar a-takin' sunthin' hot, + An' feelin' like a man agin, all over in one spot, + A feller thet sot opposite, arter a squint at me, + Lep up an' drawed his peacemaker, an', "Dash it, Sir," suz he, + "I'm doubledashed if you ain't him thet stole my yaller chettle, + (You're all the stranger thet's around,) so now you've gut to settle; + It ain't no use to argerfy ner try to cut up frisky, + I know ye ez I know the smell o' ole chain-lightnin' whiskey; + We're lor-abidin' folks down here, we'll fix ye so 's 't a bar + Wouldn' tech ye with a ten-foot pole; (Jedge, you jest warm the tar;) + You'll think you'd better ha' gut among a tribe o' Mongrel Tartars, + 'Fore we've done showin' how we raise our Southun prize tar-martyrs; + A moultin' fallen cherubim, ef he should see ye, 'd snicker, + Thinkin' he hedn't nary chance. Come, genlemun, le' 's liquor; + An', Gin'ral, when you 've mixed the drinks an' chalked 'em up, tote + roun' + An' see ef ther' 's a feather-bed (thet's borryable) in town. + We'll try ye fair, Ole Grafted-Leg, an' ef the tar wun't stick, + Th' ain't not a juror here but wut'll 'quit ye double-quick." + To cut it short, I wun't say sweet, they gi' me a good dip, + (They ain't _perfessin'_ Bahptists here,) then give the bed a rip,-- + The jury 'd sot, an' quicker 'n a flash they hetched me out, a livin' + Extemp'ry mammoth turkey-chick fer a Feejee Thanksgivin'. + + Thet I felt some stuck up is wut it's nat'ral to suppose, + When poppylar enthusiasm hed furnished me sech clo'es; + (Ner 't ain't without edvantiges, this kin' o' suit, ye see, + It's water-proof, an' water's wut I like kep' out o' me;) + But nut content with thet, they took a kerridge from the fence + An' rid me roun' to see the place, entirely free 'f expense, + With forty-'leven new kines o' sarse without no charge acquainted me, + Gi' me three cheers, an' vowed thet I wuz all their fahncy painted me; + They treated me to all their eggs; (they keep 'em, I should think, + Fer sech ovations, pooty long, for they wuz mos' distinc';) + They starred me thick 'z the Milky-Way with indiscrim'nit cherity, + For wut we call reception eggs air sunthin' of a rerity; + Green ones is plentifle anough, skurce wuth a nigger's getherin', + But your dead-ripe ones ranges high fer treatin' Nothun bretherin: + A spotteder, ringstreakeder child the' warn't in Uncle Sam's + Holl farm,--a cross of stripèd pig an' one o' Jacob's lambs; + 'T wuz Dannil in the lions' den, new an' enlarged edition, + An' everythin' fust-rate o' 'ts kind, the' warn't no impersition. + People's impulsiver down here than wut our folks to home be, + An' kin' o' go it 'ith a resh in raisin' Hail Columby: + Thet's _so_: an' they swarmed out like bees, for your real Southun + men's + Time isn't o' much more account than an ole settin' hen's; + (They jest work semioccashnally, or else don't work at all, + An' so their time an' 'tention both air et saci'ty's call.) + Talk about hospitality! wut Nothun town d' ye know + Would take a totle stranger up an' treat him gratis so? + You'd better b'lieve ther' 's nothin' like this spendin' days an' + nights + Along 'ith a dependent race fer civerlizin' whites. + + But this wuz all prelim'nary; it's so Gran' Jurors here + Fin' a true bill, a hendier way than ourn, an' nut so dear; + So arter this they sentenced me, to make all tight 'n' snug, + Afore a reg'lar court o' law, to ten years in the Jug. + I didn' make no gret defence: you don't feel much like speakin', + When, ef you let your clamshells gape, a quart o' tar will leak in: + I _hev_ hearn tell o' wingèd words, but pint o' fact it tethers + The spoutin' gift to hev your words tu thick sot on with feathers, + An' Choate ner Webster wouldn't ha' made an A 1 kin' o' speech, + Astride a Southun chestnut horse sharper 'n a baby's screech. + + Two year ago they ketched the thief, 'n' seein' I wuz innercent, + They jest oncorked an' le' me run, an' in my stid the sinner sent + To see how _he_ liked pork 'n' pone flavored with wa'nut saplin', + An' nary social priv'ledge but a one-hoss, starn-wheel chaplin. + When I come out, the folks behaved mos' gen'manly an' harnsome; + They 'lowed it wouldn't be more 'n right, ef I should cuss 'n' darn + some: + The Cunnle he apolergized; suz he, "I'll du wut 's right, + I'll give ye settisfection now by shootin' ye at sight, + An' give the nigger, (when he's caught,) to pay him fer his trickin' + In gittin' the wrong man took up, a most H fired lickin',-- + It's jest the way with all on 'em, the inconsistent critters, + They're 'most enough to make a man blaspheme his mornin' bitters; + I'll be your frien' thru thick an' thin an' in all kines o' weathers, + An' all you'll hev to pay fer 's jest the waste o' tar an' feathers: + A lady owned the bed, ye see, a widder, tu, Miss Shennon; + It wuz her mite; we would ha' took another, ef ther 'd ben one: + We don't make _no_ charge for the ride an' all the other fixins. + Le' 's liquor; Gin'ral, you can chalk our friend for all the mixins." + A meetin' then wuz called, where they "RESOLVED, Thet we respec' + B.S. Esquire for quallerties o' heart an' intellec' + Peculiar to Columby's sile, an' not to no one else's, + Thet makes Európean tyrans scringe in all their gilded pel'ces, + An' doos gret honor to our race an' Southun institootions": + (I give ye jest the substance o' the leadin' resolootions:) + "RESOLVED, Thet we revere in him a soger 'thout a flor, + A martyr to the princerples o' libbaty an' lor: + RESOLVED, Thet other nations all, ef sot 'longside o' us, + For vartoo, larnin', chivverlry, ain't noways wuth a cuss." + They gut up a subscription, tu, but no gret come o' _that_; + I 'xpect in cairin' of it roun' they took a leaky hat; + Though Southun genelmun ain't slow at puttin' down their name, + (When they can write,) fer in the eend it comes to jest the same, + Because, ye see, 't 's the fashion here to sign an' not to think + A critter'd be so sordid ez to ax 'em for the chink: + I didn't call but jest on one, an' _he_ drawed toothpick on me, + An' reckoned he warn't goin' to stan' no sech dog-gauned econ'my; + So nothin' more wuz realized, 'ceptin' the good-will shown, + Than ef 't had ben from fust to last a reg'lar Cotton Loan. + It's a good way, though, come to think, coz ye enjy the sense + O' lendin' lib'rally to the Lord, an' nary red o' 'xpense: + Sence then I've gut my name up for a gin'rous-hearted man + By jes' subscribin' right an' left on this high-minded plan; + I've gin away my thousans so to every Southun sort + O' missions, colleges, an' sech, ner ain't no poorer for 't. + + I warn't so bad off, arter all; I needn't hardly mention + That Guv'ment owed me quite a pile for my arrears o' pension,-- + I mean the poor, weak thing we _hed_: we run a new one now, + Thet strings a feller with a claim up tu the nighest bough, + An' _prectises_ the rights o' man, purtects down-trodden debtors, + Ner wun't hev creditors about a-scrougin' o' their betters: + Jeff's gut the last idees ther' is, poscrip', fourteenth edition, + He knows it takes some enterprise to run an oppersition; + Ourn's the fust thru-by-daylight train, with all ou'doors for deepot, + Yourn goes so slow you'd think 't wuz drawed by a last cent'ry + teapot;-- + Wal, I gut all on 't paid in gold afore our State seceded, + An' done wal, for Confed'rit bonds warn't jest the cheese I needed: + Nut but wut they're ez _good_ ez gold, but then it's hard a-breakin' + on 'em, + An' ignorant folks is ollers sot an' wun't git used to takin' on 'em; + They're wuth ez much ez wut they wuz afore ole Mem'nger signed 'em, + An' go off middlin' wal for drinks, when ther' 's a knife behind 'em: + We _du_ miss silver, jest fer thet an' ridin' in a bus, + Now we've shook off the despots thet wuz suckin' at our pus; + An' it's _because_ the South's so rich; 't wuz nat'ral to expec' + Supplies o' change wuz jest the things we shouldn't recollec'; + We'd ough' to ha' thought aforehan', though, o' thet good rule o' + Crockett's, + For 't 's tiresome cairin' cotton-bales an' niggers in your pockets, + Ner 't ain't quite hendy to pass off one o' your six-foot Guineas + An' git your halves an' quarters back in gals an' pickaninnies: + Wal, 't ain't quite all a feller 'd ax, but then ther' 's this to say, + It's on'y jest among ourselves thet we expec' to pay; + Our system would ha' caird us thru in any Bible cent'ry, + 'Fore this onscripted plan come up o' books by double entry; + We go the patriarkle here out o' all sight an' hearin', + For Jacob warn't a circumstance to Jeff at financierin'; + _He_ never 'd thought o' borryin' from Esau like all nater + An' then cornfiscatin' all debts to sech a small pertater; + There's p'litickle econ'my, now, combined 'ith morril beauty + Thet saycrifices privit eends (your in'my's, tu) to dooty! + Wy, Jeff'd ha' gin him five an' won his eye-teeth 'fore he knowed it, + An', slid o' wastin' pottage, he'd ha' eat it up an' owed it. + + But I wuz goin' on to say how I come here to dwall;-- + 'Nough said, thet, arter lookin' roun', I liked the place so wal, + Where niggers doos a double good, with us atop to stiddy 'em, + By bein' proofs o' prophecy an' cirkleatin' medium, + Where a man's sunthin' coz he's white, an' whiskey's cheap ez fleas, + An' the financial pollercy jest sooted my idees, + Thet I friz down right where I wuz, merried the Widder Shennon, + (Her thirds wuz part in cotton-land, part in the curse o' Canaan,) + An' here I be ez lively ez a chipmunk on a wall, + With nothin' to feel riled about much later 'n Eddam's fall. + + Ez fur ez human foresight goes, we made an even trade: + She gut an overseer, an' I a fem'ly ready-made, + (The youngest on 'em's 'most growed up,) rugged an' spry ez weazles, + So's 't ther' 's no resk o' doctors' bills fer hoopin'-cough an' + measles. + Our farm's at Turkey-Buzzard Roost, Little Big Boosy River, + Wal located in all respex,--fer 't ain't the chills 'n' fever + Thet makes my writin' seem to squirm; a Southuner'd allow I'd + Some call to shake, for I've jest hed to meller a new cowhide. + + Miss S. is all 'f a lady; th' ain't no better on Big Boosy, + Ner one with more accomplishmunts 'twixt here an' Tuscaloosy; + She's an F.F., the tallest kind, an' prouder 'n the Gran' Turk, + An' never hed a relative thet done a stroke o' work; + Hern ain't a scrimpin' fem'ly sech ez _you_ git up Down East, + Th' ain't a growed member on 't but owes his thousuns et the least: + She _is_ some old; but then agin ther' 's drawbacks in my sheer; + Wut's left o' me ain't more 'n enough to make a Brigadier: + The wust is, she hez tantrums; she is like Seth Moody's gun + (Him thet wuz nicknamed frum his limp Ole Dot an' Kerry One); + He'd left her loaded up a spell, an' hed to git her clear, + So he onhitched,--Jeerusalem! the middle o' last year + Wuz right nex' door compared to where she kicked the critter tu + (Though _jest_ where he brought up wuz wut no human never knew); + His brother Asaph picked her up an' tied her to a tree, + An' then she kicked an hour 'n' a half afore she'd let it be: + Wal, Miss S. _doos_ hev cuttins-up an' pourins-out o' vials, + But then she hez her widder's thirds, an' all on us hez trials. + My objec', though, in writin' now warn't to allude to sech, + But to another suckemstance more dellykit to tech,-- + I want thet you should grad'lly break my merriage to Jerushy, + An' ther' 's a heap of argymunts thet's emple to indooce ye: + Fust place, State's Prison,--wal, it's true it warn't fer crime, o' + course, + But then it's jest the same fer her in gittin' a disvorce; + Nex' place, my State's secedin' out hez leg'lly lef' me free + To merry any one I please, pervidin' it's a she; + Fin'lly, I never wun't come back, she needn't hev no fear on 't, + But then it 's wal to fix things right fer fear Miss S. should hear + on 't; + Lastly, I've gut religion South, an' Rushy she's a pagan + Thet sets by th' graven imiges o' the gret Nothun Dagon; + (Now I hain't seen one in six munts, for, sence our Treasury Loan, + Though yaller boys is thick anough, eagles hez kind o' flown;) + An' ef J. wants a stronger pint than them thet I hev stated, + Wy, she's an aliun in'my now, an' I've ben cornfiscated,-- + For sence we've entered on th' estate o' the late nayshnul eagle, + She hain't no kin' o' right but jest wut I allow ez legle: + Wut _doos_ Secedin' mean, ef't ain't thet nat'rul rights hez riz, 'n' + Thet wut is mine's my own, but wut's another man's ain't his'n? + + Bersides, I couldn't do no else; Miss S. suz she to me, + "You've sheered my bed," [Thet's when I paid my interdiction fee + To Southun rites,] "an' kep' your sheer," [Wal, I allow it sticked + So's 't I wuz most six weeks in jail afore I gut me picked,] + "Ner never paid no demmiges; but thet wun't do no harm, + Pervidin' thet you'll ondertake to oversee the farm; + (My eldes' boy is so took up, wut with the Ringtail Rangers + An' settin' in the Jestice-Court for welcomin' o' strangers";) + [He sot on _me_;] "an' so, ef you'll jest ondertake the care + Upon a mod'rit sellery, we'll up an' call it square; + But ef you _can't_ conclude," suz she, an' give a kin' o' grin, + "Wy, the Gran' Jury, I expect, 'll hev to set agin." + Thet's the way metters stood at fust; now wut wuz I to du, + But jest to make the best on't an' off coat an' buckle tu? + Ther' ain't a livin' man thet finds an income necessarier + Than me,--bimeby I'll tell ye how I fin'lly come to merry her. + + She hed another motive, tu: I mention of it here + T' encourage lads thet's growin' up to study 'n' persevere, + An' show 'em how much better 't pays to mind their winter-schoolin' + Than to go off on benders 'n' sech, an' waste their time in foolin'; + Ef 't warn't for studyin', evening, I never 'd ha' ben here + An orn'ment o' saciety, in my approprut spear: + She wanted somebody, ye see, o' taste an' cultivation, + To talk along o' preachers when they stopt to the plantation; + For folks in Dixie th't read an' write, onless it is by jarks, + Is skurce ez wut they wuz among th' oridgenal patriarchs; + To fit a feller f' wut they call the soshle higherarchy, + All thet you've gut to know is jest beyund an evrage darky; + Schoolin' 's wut they can't seem to stan', they're tu consarned + high-pressure, + An' knowin' t' much might spile a boy for bein' a Secesher. + We hain't no settled preachin' here, ner ministeril taxes; + The min'ster's only settlement 's the carpet-bag he packs his + Razor an' soap-brush intu, with his hymbook an' his Bible,-- + But they _du_ preach, I swan to man, it's puf'kly indescrib'le! + They go it like an Ericsson's ten-hoss-power coleric ingine, + An' make Ole Split-Foot winch an' squirm, for all he's used to + singein'; + Hawkins's whetstone ain't a pinch o' primin' to the innards + To hearin' on 'em put free grace t' a lot o' tough old sin-hards! + + But I must eend this letter now: 'fore long I'll send a fresh un; + I've lots o' things to write about, perticklerly Seceshun: + I'm called off now to mission-work, to let a leetle law in + To Cynthy's hide: an' so, till death, + + Yourn, + + BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN. + + * * * * * + + + + +OLD AGE. + + +On the last anniversary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, the +venerable President Quincy, senior member of the Society, as well as +senior alumnus of the University, was received at the dinner with peculiar +demonstrations of respect. He replied to these compliments in a speech, +and, gracefully claiming the privileges of a literary society, entered at +some length into an Apology for Old Age, and, aiding himself by notes in +his hand, made a sort of running commentary on Cicero's chapter "De +Senectute." The character of the speaker, the transparent good faith of +his praise and blame, and the _naïveté_ of his eager preference of +Cicero's opinions to King David's, gave unusual interest to the College +festival. It was a discourse full of dignity, honoring him who spoke and +those who heard. + +The speech led me to look over at home--an easy task--Cicero's famous +essay, charming by its uniform rhetorical merit; heroic with Stoical +precepts; with a Roman eye to the claims of the State; happiest, perhaps, +in his praise of life on the farm; and rising, at the conclusion, to a +lofty strain. But he does not exhaust the subject; rather invites the +attempt to add traits to the picture from our broader modern life. + +Cicero makes no reference to the illusions which cling to the element of +time, and in which Nature delights. Wellington, in speaking of military +men, said,--"What masks are these uniforms to hide cowards! When our +journal is published, many statues must come down." I have often detected +the like deception in the cloth shoe, wadded pelisse, wig and spectacles, +and padded chair of Age. Nature lends herself to these illusions, and adds +dim sight, deafness, cracked voice, snowy hair, short memory, and sleep. +These also are masks, and all is not Age that wears them. Whilst we yet +call ourselves young, and all our mates are yet youths and boyish, one +good fellow in the set prematurely sports a gray or a bald head, which +does not impose on us who know how innocent of sanctity or of Platonism he +is, but does not less deceive his juniors and the public, who presently +distinguish him with a most amusing respect: and this lets us into the +secret, that the venerable forms that so awed our childhood were just such +impostors. Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young +shoulders, and then a young heart beating under fourscore winters. + +For if the essence of age is not present, these signs, whether of Art or +Nature, are counterfeit and ridiculous: and the essence of age is +intellect. Wherever that appears, we call it old. If we look into the eyes +of the youngest person, we sometimes discover that here is one who knows +already what you would go about with much pains to teach him; there is +that in him which is the ancestor of all around him: which fact the Indian +Vedas express, when they say, "He that can discriminate is the father of +his father." And in our old British legends of Arthur and the Round-Table, +his friend and counsellor, Merlin the Wise, is a babe found exposed in a +basket by the river-side, and, though an infant of only a few days, he +speaks to those who discover him, tells his name and history, and +presently foretells the fate of the by-standers. Wherever there is power, +there is age. Don't be deceived by dimples and curls. I tell you that babe +is a thousand years old. + +Time is, indeed, the theatre and seat of illusion. Nothing is so ductile +and elastic. The mind stretches an hour to a century, and dwarfs an age to +an hour. Saadi found in a mosque at Damascus an old Persian of a hundred +and fifty years who was dying, and was saying to himself, "I said, coming +into the world by birth, 'I will enjoy myself for a few moments.' Alas! at +the variegated table of life I partook of a few mouthfuls, and the Fates +said, '_Enough!_'" That which does not decay is so central and controlling +in us, that, as long as one is alone by himself, he is not sensible of the +inroads of time, which always begin at the surface-edges. If, on a winter +day, you should stand within a bell-glass, the face and color of the +afternoon clouds would not indicate whether it were June or January; and +if we did not find the reflection of ourselves in the eyes of the young +people, we could not know that the century-clock had struck seventy +instead of twenty. How many men habitually believe that each chance +passenger with whom they converse is of their own age, and presently find +it was his father, and not his brother, whom they knew! + +But, not to press too hard on these deceits and illusions of Nature, which +are inseparable from our condition, and looking at age under an aspect +more conformed to the common sense, if the question be the felicity of +age, I fear the first popular judgments will be unfavorable. From the +point of sensuous experience, seen from the streets and markets and the +haunts of pleasure and gain, the estimate of age is low, melancholy, and +skeptical. Frankly face the facts, and see the result. Tobacco, coffee, +alcohol, hashish, prussic acid, strychnine, are weak dilutions: the surest +poison is time. This cup, which Nature puts to our lips, has a wonderful +virtue, surpassing that of any other draught. It opens the senses, adds +power, fills us with exalted dreams, which we call hope, love, ambition, +science: especially, it creates a craving for larger draughts of itself. +But they who take the larger draughts are drunk with it, lose their +stature, strength, beauty, and senses, and end in folly and delirium. We +postpone our literary work until we have more ripeness and skill to write, +and we one day discover that our literary talent was a youthful +effervescence which we have now lost. We had a judge in Massachusetts who +at sixty proposed to resign, alleging that he perceived a certain decay in +his faculties: he was dissuaded by his friends, on account of the public +convenience at that time. At seventy it was hinted to him that it was time +to retire; but he now replied, that he thought his judgment as robust, and +all his faculties as good as ever they were. But besides the +self-deception, the strong and hasty laborers of the street do not work +well with the chronic valetudinarian. Youth is everywhere in place. Age, +like woman, requires fit surroundings. Age is comely in coaches, in +churches, in chairs of state and ceremony, in council-chambers, in courts +of justice, and historical societies. Age is becoming in the country. But +in the rush and uproar of Broadway, if you look into the faces of the +passengers, there is dejection or indignation in the seniors, a certain +concealed sense of injury, and the lip made up with a heroic determination +not to mind it. Few envy the consideration enjoyed by the oldest +inhabitant. We do not count a man's years, until he has nothing else to +count. The vast inconvenience of animal immortality was told in the fable +of Tithonus. In short, the creed of the street is, Old Age is not +disgraceful, but immensely disadvantageous. Life is well enough, but we +shall all be glad to get out of it, and they will all be glad to have us. + +This is odious on the face of it. Universal convictions are not to be +shaken by the whimseys of overfed butchers and firemen, or by the +sentimental fears of girls who would keep the infantile bloom on their +cheeks. We know the value of experience. Life and art are cumulative; and +he who has accomplished something in any department alone deserves to be +heard on that subject. A man of great employments and excellent +performance used to assure me that he did not think a man worth anything +until he was sixty; although this smacks a little of the resolution of a +certain "Young Men's Republican Club," that all men should be held +eligible who were under seventy. But in all governments, the councils of +power were held by the old; and patricians or _patres_, senate or _senes_, +_seigneurs_ or seniors, _gerousia_, the senate of Sparta, the presbytery +of the Church, and the like, all signify simply old men. + +This cynical lampoon is refuted by the universal prayer for long life, +which is the verdict of Nature, and justified by all history. We have, it +is true, examples of an accelerated pace, by which young men achieved +grand works; as in the Macedonian Alexander, in Raffaelle, Shakspeare, +Pascal, Burns, and Byron; but these are rare exceptions. Nature, in the +main, vindicates her law. Skill to do comes of doing; knowledge comes by +eyes always open, and working hands; and there is no knowledge that is not +power. And if the life be true and noble, we have quite another sort of +seniors than the frowzy, timorous, peevish dotards who are falsely +old,--namely, the men who fear no city, but by whom cities stand; who +appearing in any street, the people empty their houses to gaze at and obey +them: as at "My Cid, with the fleecy beard," in Toledo; or Bruce, as +Barbour reports him; as blind old Dandolo, elected Doge at eighty-four +years, storming Constantinople at ninety-four, and after the revolt again +victorious, and elected at the age of ninety-six to the throne of the +Eastern Empire, which he declined, and died Doge at ninety-seven. We still +feel the force of Socrates, "whom well-advised the oracle pronounced +wisest of men"; of Archimedes, holding Syracuse against the Romans by his +wit, and himself better than all their nation; of Michel Angelo, wearing +the four crowns of architecture, sculpture, painting, and poetry; of +Galileo, of whose blindness Castelli said, "The noblest eye is darkened +that Nature ever made,--an eye that hath seen more than all that went +before him, and hath opened the eyes of all that shall come after him"; of +Newton, who made an important discovery for every one of his eighty-five +years; of Bacon, who "took all knowledge to be his province"; of +Fontenelle, "that precious porcelain vase laid up in the centre of France +to be guarded with the utmost care for a hundred years"; of Franklin, +Jefferson, and Adams, the wise and heroic statesmen; of Washington, the +perfect citizen; of Wellington, the perfect soldier; of Goethe, the +all-knowing poet; of Humboldt, the encyclopædia of science. + +Under the general assertion of the well-being of age, we can easily count +particular benefits of that condition. It has weathered the perilous capes +and shoals in the sea whereon we sail, and the chief evil of life is taken +away in removing the grounds of fear. The insurance of a ship expires as +she enters the harbor at home. It were strange, if a man should turn his +sixtieth year without a feeling of immense relief from the number of +dangers he has escaped. When the old wife says, "Take care of that tumor +in your shoulder, perhaps it is cancerous,"--he replies, "What if it is?" +The humorous thief who drank a pot of beer at the gallows blew off the +froth because he had heard it was unhealthy; but it will not add a pang to +the prisoner marched out to be shot, to assure him that the pain in his +knee threatens mortification. When the pleuro-pneumonia of the cows raged, +the butchers said, that, though the acute degree was novel, there never +was a time when this disease did not occur among cattle. All men carry +seeds of all distempers through life latent, and we die without developing +them: such is the affirmative force of the constitution. But if you are +enfeebled by any cause, the disease becomes strong. At every stage we lose +a foe. At fifty years, 't is said, afflicted citizens lose their +sick-headaches. I hope this _hegira_ is not as movable a feast as that one +I annually look for, when the horticulturists assure me that the rose-bugs +in our gardens disappear on the tenth of July: they stay a fortnight later +in mine. But be it as it may with the sick-headache,--'t is certain that +graver headaches and heart-aches are lulled, once for all, as we come up +with certain goals of time. The passions have answered their purpose: that +slight, but dread overweight, with which, in each instance, Nature secures +the execution of her aim, drops off. To keep man in the planet, she +impresses the terror of death. To perfect the commisariat, she implants in +each a little rapacity to get the supply, and a little over-supply, of his +wants. To insure the existence of the race, she reinforces the sexual +instinct, at the risk of disorder, grief, and pain. To secure strength, +she plants cruel hunger and thirst, which so easily overdo their office, +and invite disease. But these temporary stays and shifts for the +protection of the young animal are shed as fast as they can be replaced by +nobler resources. We live in youth amidst this rabble of passions, quite +too tender, quite too hungry and irritable. Later, the interiors of mind +and heart open, and supply grander motives. We learn the fatal +compensations that wait on every act. Then,--one mischief at a time,--this +riotous time-destroying crew disappear. + +I count it another capital advantage of age, this, that a success more or +less signifies nothing. Little by little, it has amassed such a fund of +merit, that it can very well afford to go on its credit when it will. When +I chanced to meet the poet Wordsworth, then sixty-three years old, he told +me, "that he had just had a fall and lost a tooth, and, when his +companions were much concerned for the mischance, he had replied, that he +was glad it had not happened forty years before." Well, Nature takes care +that we shall not lose our organs forty years too soon. A lawyer argued a +cause yesterday in the Supreme Court, and I was struck with a certain air +of levity and defiance which vastly became him. Thirty years ago it was a +serious concern to him whether his pleading was good and effective. Now it +is of importance to his client, but of none to himself. It is long already +fixed what he can do and cannot do, and his reputation does not gain or +suffer from one or a dozen new performances. If he should, on a new +occasion, rise quite beyond his mark, and do somewhat extraordinary and +great, that, of course, would instantly tell; but he may go below his mark +with impunity, and people will say, "Oh, he had headache," or, "He lost +his sleep for two nights." What a lust of appearance, what a load of +anxieties that once degraded him, he is thus rid of! Every one is sensible +of this cumulative advantage in living. All the good days behind him are +sponsors, who speak for him when he is silent, pay for him when he has no +money, introduce him where he has no letters, and work for him when he +sleeps. + +A third felicity of age is, that it has found expression. Youth suffers +not only from ungratified desires, but from powers untried, and from a +picture in his mind of a career which has, as yet, no outward reality. He +is tormented with the want of correspondence between things and thoughts. +Michel Angelo's head is full of masculine and gigantic figures as gods +walking, which make him savage until his furious chisel can render them +into marble; and of architectural dreams, until a hundred stone-masons can +lay them in courses of travertine. There is the like tempest in every good +head in which some great benefit for the world is planted. The throes +continue until the child is born. Every faculty new to each man thus goads +him and drives him out into doleful deserts, until it finds proper vent. +All the functions of human duty irritate and lash him forward, bemoaning +and chiding, until they are performed. He wants friends, employment, +knowledge, power, house and land, wife and children, honor and fame; he +has religious wants, aesthetic wants, domestic, civil, humane wants. One +by one, day after day, he learns to coin his wishes into facts. He has his +calling, homestead, social connection, and personal power, and thus, at +the end of fifty years, his soul is appeased by seeing some sort of +correspondence between his wish and his possession. This makes the value +of age, the satisfaction it slowly offers to every craving. He is serene +who does not feel himself pinched and wronged, but whose condition, in +particular and in general, allows the utterance of his mind. In old +persons, when thus fully expressed, we often observe a fair, plump, +perennial, waxen complexion, which indicates that all the ferment of +earlier days has subsided into serenity of thought and behavior. + +For a fourth benefit, age sets its house in order, and finishes its works, +which to every artist is a supreme pleasure. Youth has an excess of +sensibility, to which every object glitters and attracts. We leave one +pursuit for another, and the young man's year is a heap of beginnings. At +the end of a twelvemonth, he has nothing to show for it, not one completed +work. But the time is not lost. Our instincts drove us to hive innumerable +experiences, that are yet of no visible value, and which we may keep for +twice seven years before they shall be wanted. The best things are of +secular growth. The instinct of classifying marks the wise and healthy +mind. Linnæus projects his system, and lays out his twenty-four classes of +plants, before yet he has found in Nature a single plant to justify +certain of his classes. His seventh class has not one. In process of time, +he finds with delight the little white _Trientalis_, the only plant with +seven petals and sometimes seven stamens, which constitutes a seventh +class in conformity with his system. The conchologist builds his cabinet +whilst as yet he has few shells. He labels shelves for classes, cells for +species: all but a few are empty. But every year fills some blanks, and +with accelerating speed as he becomes knowing and known. An old scholar +finds keen delight in verifying all the impressive anecdotes and citations +he has met with in miscellaneous reading and hearing, in all the years of +youth. We carry in memory important anecdotes, and have lost all clue to +the author from whom we had them. We have a heroic speech from Rome or +Greece, but cannot fix it on the man who said it. We have an admirable +line worthy of Horace, ever and anon resounding in our mind's ear, but +have searched all probable and improbable books for it in vain. We consult +the reading men: but, strangely enough, they who know everything know not +this. But especially we have a certain insulated thought, which haunts us, +but remains insulated and barren. Well, there is nothing for all this but +patience and time. Time, yes, that is the finder, the unweariable +explorer, not subject to casualties, omniscient at last. The day comes +when the hidden author of our story is found; when the brave speech +returns straight to the hero who said it; when the admirable verse finds +the poet to whom it belongs; and best of all, when the lonely thought, +which seemed so wise, yet half-wise, half-thought, because it cast no +light abroad, is suddenly matched in our mind by its twin, by its +sequence, or next related analogy, which gives it instantly radiating +power, and justifies the superstitious instinct with which we had hoarded +it. We remember our old Greek Professor at Cambridge, an ancient bachelor, +amid his folios, possessed by this hope of completing a task, with nothing +to break his leisure after the three hours of his daily classes, yet ever +restlessly stroking his leg, and assuring himself "he should retire from +the University and read the authors." In Goethe's Romance, Makaria, the +central figure for wisdom and influence, pleases herself with withdrawing +into solitude to astronomy and epistolary correspondence. Goethe himself +carried this completion of studies to the highest point. Many of his works +hung on the easel from youth to age, and received a stroke in every month +or year of his life. A literary astrologer, he never applied himself to +any task but at the happy moment when all the stars consented. Bentley +thought himself likely to live till fourscore,--long enough to read +everything that was worth reading,--"_Et tunc magna mei sub terris ibit +imago_." Much wider is spread the pleasure which old men take in +completing their secular affairs, the inventor his inventions, the +agriculturist his experiments, and all old men in finishing their houses, +rounding their estates, clearing their titles, reducing tangled interests +to order, reconciling enmities, and leaving all in the best posture for +the future. It must be believed that there is a proportion between the +designs of a man and the length of his life: there is a calendar of his +years, so of his performances. + +America is the country of young men, and too full of work hitherto for +leisure and tranquillity; yet we have had robust centenarians, and +examples of dignity and wisdom. I have lately found in an old note-book a +record of a visit to Ex-President John Adams, in 1825, soon after the +election of his _son_ to the Presidency. It is but a sketch, and nothing +important passed in the conversation; but it reports a moment in the life +of a heroic person, who, in extreme old age, appeared still erect, and +worthy of his fame. + + ----, _Feb._, 1825. To-day, at Quincy, with my brother, by + invitation of Mr. Adams's family. The old President sat in a large + stuffed arm-chair, dressed in a blue coat, black small-clothes, + white stockings, and a cotton cap covered his bald head. We made + our compliment, told him he must let us join our congratulations + to those of the nation on the happiness of his house. He thanked + us, and said, "I am rejoiced, because the nation is happy. The + time of gratulation and congratulations is nearly over with me: I + am astonished that I have lived to see and know of this event. I + have lived now nearly a century: [he was ninety in the following + October:] a long, harassed, and distracted life."--I said, "The + world thinks a good deal of joy has been mixed with it."--"The + world does not know," he replied, "how much toil, anxiety, and + sorrow I have suffered."--I asked if Mr. Adams's letter of + acceptance had been read to him.--"Yes," he said, and added, "My + son has more political prudence than any man that I know who has + existed in my time; he never was put off his guard: and I hope he + will continue such; but what effect age may work in diminishing + the power of his mind, I do not know; it has been very much on the + stretch, ever since he was born. He has always been laborious, + child and man, from infancy."--When Mr. J.Q. Adams's age was + mentioned, he said, "He is now fifty-eight, or will be in July"; + and remarked that "all the Presidents were of the same age: + General Washington was about fifty-eight, and I was about + fifty-eight, and Mr. Jefferson, and Mr. Madison, and Mr. + Monroe."--We inquired, when he expected to see Mr. Adams.--He + said, "Never: Mr. Adams will not come to Quincy, but to my + funeral. It would be a great satisfaction to me to see him, but I + don't wish him to come on my account."--He spoke of Mr. Lechmere, + whom "he well remembered to have seen come down daily, at a great + age, to walk in the old town-house,"--adding, "And I wish I could + walk as well as he did. He was Collector of the Customs for many + years, under the Royal Government"--E. said, "I suppose, Sir, you + would not have taken his place, even to walk as well as + he."--"No," he replied, "that was not what I wanted."--He talked + of Whitefield, and "remembered, when he was a Freshman in college, + to have come in to the _Old South_, [I think,] to hear him, but + could not get into the house;--I, however, saw him," he said, + "through a window, and distinctly heard all. He had a voice such + as I never heard before or since. He cast it out so that you might + hear it at the meeting-house, [pointing towards the Quincy + meeting-house,] and he had the grace of a dancing-master, of an + actor of plays. His voice and manner helped him more than his + sermons. I went with Jonathan Sewall."--"And you were pleased with + him, Sir?"--"Pleased! I was delighted beyond measure."--We asked, + if at Whitefield's return the same popularity continued.--"Not the + same fury," he said, "not the same wild enthusiasm as before, but + a greater esteem, as he became more known. He did not terrify, but + was admired." + +We spent about an hour in his room. He speaks very distinctly for so old a +man, enters bravely into long sentences, which are interrupted by want of +breath, but carries them invariably to a conclusion, without ever +correcting a word. + +He spoke of the new novels of Cooper, and "Peep at the Pilgrims," and +"Saratoga," with praise, and named with accuracy the characters in them. +He likes to have a person always reading to him, or company talking in his +room, and is better the next day after having visitors in his chamber from +morning to night. + +He received a premature report of his son's election, on Sunday afternoon, +without any excitement, and told the reporter he had been hoaxed, for it +was not yet time for any news to arrive. The informer, something damped in +his heart, insisted on repairing to the meeting-house, and proclaimed it +aloud to the congregation, who were so overjoyed that they rose in their +seats and cheered thrice. The Reverend Mr. Whitney dismissed them +immediately. + +When life has been well spent, age is a loss of what it can well +spare,--muscular strength, organic instincts, gross bulk, and works that +belong to these. But the central wisdom, which was old in infancy, is +young in fourscore years, and, dropping off obstructions, leaves in happy +subjects the mind purified and wise. I have heard that whoever loves is in +no condition old. I have heard, that, whenever the name of man is spoken, +the doctrine of immortality is announced; it cleaves to his constitution. +The mode of it baffles our wit, and no whisper comes to us from the other +side. But the inference from the working of intellect, hiving knowledge, +hiving skill,--at the end of life just ready to be born,--affirms the +inspirations of affection and of the moral sentiment. + + * * * * * + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + + _Lectures on the Science of Languages_, delivered at the Royal + Institution of Great Britain in April, May, and June, 1861. By MAX + MÜLLER, M.A., Fellow of All-Souls College, Oxford; Corresponding + Member of the Imperial Institute of France. London: Longman, + Green, Longman, & Roberts. 1861. 8vo. pp. xii., 399. + +The name of Mr. Max Müller is familiar to American students as that of a +man who, learned in the high German fashion, has the pleasant faculty, +unhappily too rare among Germans, of communicating his erudition in a way +not only comprehensible, but agreeable to the laity. The Teutonic +_Gelehrte_, gallantly devoting a half-century to his pipe and his locative +case, fencing the result of his labors with a bristling hedge of +abbreviations, cross-references, and untranslated citations that take +panglottism for granted as an ordinary incident of human culture, too +hastily assumes a tenacity of life on the part of his reader as great as +his own. All but those with whom the study of language is a specialty pass +him by as Dante does Nimrod, gladly concluding + + "Che così è a lui ciascun linguaggio, + Come il suo ad altrui, che a nullo è noto." + +The brothers Grimm are known to what is called the reading public chiefly +as contributors to the literature of the nursery; and as for Bopp, Pott, +Zeuss, Lassen, Diefenbach, and the rest, men who look upon the curse of +Babel as the luckiest event in human annals, their names and works are +terrors to the uninitiated. They are the giants of these latter days, of +whom all we know is that they now and then snatch up some unhappy friend +of ours and imprison him in their terrible castle of Nongtongpaw, whence, +if he ever escape, he comes back to us emaciated, unintelligible, and with +a passion for roots that would make him an ornament of society among the +Digger Indians. + +Yet though in metaphor giants of learning, their office seems practically +rather that of the dwarfs, as gatherers and guardians of treasure useless +to themselves, but with which some luck's-child may enrich himself and his +neighbors. Other analogies between them and the dwarfs, such as their +accomplishing superhuman things and being prematurely subject to the +dryness of old ago, ("_Der Zwerg ist schon im siebenten Jahr ein Greis_," +says Grimm,) will at once suggest themselves. + +Mr. Müller is one of the agreeable luck's-children who lay these swarthy +miners under contribution for us, understand their mystic sign-language, +and save us the trouble of climbing the mountain and scratching through +the thickets for ourselves. Happy the man who can make knowledge +entertaining! Thrice happy his readers! The author of these Lectures is +already well known as not only, perhaps, the best living scholar of +Sanscrit literature, (and by scholar we mean one who regards study as a +means, not an end, and who is capable of drawing original conclusions,) +but a _savant_ who can teach without tiring, and can administer learning +as if it were something else than medicine. Whoever reads this volume will +regret that Mr. Müller's eminent qualifications for the Boden +Professorship at Oxford should have failed to turn the scale against the +assumed superior orthodoxy of his competitor. Was it in Sanscrit that he +was heterodox? or in Hindoo mythology? + +The Lectures are nine in number. The titles of them will show the range +and nature of Mr. Müller's dissertations. They are, (1.) On the science of +language as one of the physical sciences; (2.) On the growth of language +in contradistinction to the history of language; (3.) On the empirical +stage in the science of language; (4.) On the classificatory stage in the +same; (5.) On the genealogical classification of languages; (6.) On +comparative grammar; (7.) On the constituent elements of language; (8.) On +the morphological classification of languages; (9.) On the theoretical +stage in the science of languages and the origin of language. An Appendix +contains a genealogical table of languages; and an ample Index (why have +authors forgotten, what was once so well known, that an index is all that +saves the contents of a book from being mere birds in the bush?) makes the +volume as useful on the shelf as it is interesting and instructive in the +hand. Of the catholic spirit in which Mr. Müller treats his various topics +of discussion and illustration, his own theory of the true method of +investigation is the best proof. + + "There are two ways," he says, in discussing the origin of + language, "of judging of former philosophers. One is, to put aside + their opinions as simply erroneous, where they differ from our + own. This is the least satisfactory way of studying ancient + philosophy. Another way is, to try to enter into the opinions of + those from whom we differ, to make them, our a time at least, our + own, till at least we discover the point of view from which each + philosopher looked at the facts before him and catch the light in + which he regarded them. We shall then find that there is much less + of downright error in the history of philosophy than is commonly + supposed; nay, _we shall find nothing so conducive to a right + appreciation of truth as a right appreciation of the error by + which it is surrounded_." (p. 360. The Italics are ours.) + +A mere philologist might complain that the book contained nothing new. And +this is in the main true, though by no means altogether so, especially as +regards the nomenclature of classification, and the illustration of +special points by pertinent examples. In this last respect Mr. Müller is +particularly happy, as, for instance, in what he says of "Yes 'r and Yes +'m." (pp. 210 ff.) And as regards originality in the treatment of a purely +scientific subject, a good deal depends on the meaning we attach to the +term. If we understand by it striking conclusions drawn from theoretic +premises, (as in Knox's "Races of Man,") clever generalizations from +fortuitous analogies and coincidences insufficiently weighed, (as in +Pococke's "India in Greece,") or, to take a philologic example, +speculations suggestive of thought, it may be, but too insecurely based on +positive data, (as in Rapp's "Physiologie der Sprache,") we shall vainly +seek for such originality in Mr. Müller's Lectures. But if we take it to +mean, as we certainly prefer to do, safety of conclusion founded on +thorough knowledge and comparison, clear statement guarded on all sides by +long intimacy with the subject, and theory the result of legitimate +deduction and judicial weighing of evidence, we shall find enough in the +book to content us. Mr. Müller does not now enter the lists for the first +time to win his spurs as an original writer. The plan of the work before +us necessarily excluded any great display of recondite learning or of +profound speculation. Delivered at first as popularly scientific lectures, +and now published for the general reader, it seems to us admirably +conceived and executed. Easily comprehensible, and yet always pointing out +the sources of fuller investigation, it is ample both to satisfy the +desire of those who wish to get the latest results of philology and to +stimulate the curiosity of whoever wishes to go farther and deeper. It is +by far the best and clearest summing-up of the present condition of the +Science of Language that we have ever seen, while the liveliness of the +style and the variety and freshness of illustration make it exceedingly +entertaining. + +We hope that a book of such slight assumption and such solid merit, a +model of clear arrangement and popular treatment, may be widely read in +this country, where the ignorance, carelessness, or dishonest good-nature +even of journals professedly literary is apt to turn over the unlearned +reader to such blind guides as Swinton's "Rambles among Words," compounds +of plagiarism and pretension. Philology as a science is but just beginning +to assert its claims in America, though we may already point with +satisfaction to several distinguished workers in the field. The names of +Professor Sophocles, at Cambridge, and Professor Whitney, at New Haven, +rank with those of European scholars; and we have already borne the +warmest testimony in these pages to the value of Mr. Marsh's contributions +to the study of English, a judgment which we are glad to see confirmed by +the weighty authority of Mr, Müller. + + * * * * * + + 1. _On Translating Homer_. Three Lectures given at Oxford by + MATTHEW ARNOLD, M.A., Professor of Poetry in the University of + Oxford, and formerly Fellow of Oriel College. London: Longmans. + 1861. pp. 104. + + 2. _Homeric Translation in Theory and Practice_. A Reply to + Matthew Arnold, Esq., Professor of Poetry at Oxford. By FRANCIS W. + NEWMAN, a Translator of the Iliad. London: Williams & Norgate. + 1801. pp. 104. + +MR. F.W. NEWMAN, Professor of Latin in the University of London, probably +without much hope of satisfying himself, and certain to dissatisfy every +one who could read, or pretend to read, the original, did nevertheless +complete and publish a translation of the "Iliad." And now, unmindful of +Bentley's _dictum_, that no man was ever written down but by himself, he +has published an answer to Mr. Arnold's criticism of his work. Thackeray +has said that it is of no use pretending not to care if your book is cut +up by the "Times"; and it is not surprising that Mr. Newman should be +uneasy at being first held up as an awful example to the youth of Oxford +in academical lectures, and then to the public of England in a printed +monograph, by a man of so much reputation for scholarship and taste as the +present incumbent of Thomas Warton's chair. + +Mr. Arnold's little book is, we need scarcely say, full of delicate +criticism and suggestion. He treats his subject with great cleverness, and +on many points carries the reader along with him. Especially good is all +that he says about the "grand style," so far as his general propositions +are concerned. But when he comes to apply his criticisms, he instinctively +feels the want of an absolute standard of judgment in aesthetic matters, +and accordingly appeals to the verdict of "scholars,"--a somewhat vague +term, to be sure, but by which he evidently understands men not merely of +learning, but of taste. Of course, his reasoning is all _a posteriori_, +and from the narrowest premises,--namely, from an unpleasant effect on his +own nerves, to an efficient cause in the badness of Mr. Newman's +translation. + +No quarrels, perhaps, are so bitter as those about matters of taste: +hardly even is the _odium theologicum_, so profound as the _odium +æstheticum_. A man, perhaps, will more easily forgive another for +disbelieving his own total depravity than for believing that Guido is a +great painter or Tupper an inspiring poet. The present dispute, therefore, +tenderly personal as it is on the part of one of the pleaders, is +especially interesting as showing a very decided and gratifying advance in +the civilization of literary men to-day as compared with that of a century +or indeed half a century ago. If we go back still farther, matters were +still worse, and we find Luther and even Milton raking the kennel for dirt +dirty enough to fling at an antagonist. But even within the memory of man, +the style of the "Dunciad" was hardly obsolete in "Blackwood" and the +"Quarterly." It is very pleasant, in the present case, to see both attack +and defence conducted with so gentlemanlike a reserve,--and the latter, +which is even more surprising, with an approach to amenity. + +In Mr. Newman the Professor of Poetry finds an able and wary antagonist, +and one who, in point of learning, carries heavier metal than himself. The +dispute turns partly on the character of Homer's poetry, partly on the +true method of translation, (especially Homeric translation,) and partly +on the particular merits of Mr. Newman's attempt as compared with those of +others. Of course, many side-topics are incidentally touched upon, among +others, the English hexameter, Mr. Newman's objections to which are +particularly worthy of attention. + +Mr. Newman instantly sees and strikes at the weak point of his adversary's +argument. "You appeal to scholars," he says in substance; "you admit that +I am one; now you _don't_ like my choice of words or metre; I _do_; who, +then, shall decide? Why, the public, of course, which is the court of last +appeal in such cases." It appears to us, that, on most of the points at +issue, the truth lies somewhere between the two disputants. We do not +think that Mr. Newman has made out his case that Homer was antiquated, +quaint, and even grotesque to the Greeks themselves because his cast of +thought and his language were archaic, or strange to them because he wrote +in a dialect almost as different from Attic as Scotch from English. The +Bible is as far from us in language and in the Orientalism of its thought +and expression as Homer was from them; yet we are so familiar with it that +it produces on us no impression of being antiquated or quaint, seldom of +being grotesque, and what is still more to the purpose, produces that +impression as little on illiterate persons to whom many of the words are +incomprehensible. So, too, it seems to us, no part of Burns is alien to a +man whose mother-tongue is English, in the same sense that some parts of +Béranger are; because Burns, though a North Briton, was still a Briton, as +Homer, though an Ionian, was still a Greek. We think he does prove that +neither Mr. Arnold nor any other scholar can form any adequate conception +of the impression which the poems of Homer produced either on the ear or +the mind of a Greek; but in doing this he proves too much for his own +case, where it turns upon the class of words proper to be used in +translating him. Mr. Newman says he sometimes used low words; and since +his theory of the duty of a translator is, that he should reproduce the +moral effect of his author,--be noble where he is noble, barbarous, if he +be barbarous, and quaint, if quaint,--so he should render low words by +words as low. But here his own dilemma meets him: how does he know that +Homer's words _did_ seem low to a Greek? We agree with him in refusing to +be conventional; so would Mr. Arnold; only one would call conventional +what the other would call elegant, the question again resolving itself +into one of personal taste. We agree with him also in his preference for +words that have it certain strangeness and antique dignity about them, but +think he should stop short of anything that needs a glossary. He might +learn from Chapman's version, however, that it is not the widest choice of +archaic words, but intensity of conception and phrase, that gives a poem +life, and keeps it living, in spite of grave defects. Where Chapman, in a +famous passage, ("Odyssey," v. 612,) tells us, that, when Ulysses crawled +ashore after his shipwreck, "_the sea had soaked his heart through_," it +is not the mere simplicity of the language, but the vivid conception which +went before and compelled the simplicity, that is impressive. We believe +Mr. Newman is right in refusing to sacrifice a good word because it may be +pronounced mean by individual caprice, wrong in attempting the fatal +impossibility of rescuing a word which to all minds alike conveys a low or +ludicrous meaning, as, for example, _pate_, and _dopper_, for which he +does battle doughtily. Mr. Newman is guilty of a fallacy when he brings up +_brick, sell_, and _cut_ as instances in support of his position, for in +these cases Mr. Arnold would only object to his use of them in their +_slang_ sense. He himself would hardly venture to say that Hector was a +_brick_, that Achilles _cut_ Agamemnon, or that Ulysses _sold_ Polyphemus. +It is precisely because Hobbes used language in this way that his +translation of Homer is so ludicrous. Wordsworth broke down in his theory, +that the language of poetry should be the every-day speech of men and +women, though he nearly succeeded in finally extirpating "poetic diction." +We think the proper antithesis is not between prosaic and poetic words, +nor between the speech of actual life and a conventionalized diction, but +between the language of _real_ life (which is something different from the +actual, or matter-of-fact) and that of _artificial_ life, or +society,--that is, between phrases fit to express the highest passion, +feeling, aspiration, and those adapted to the intercourse of polite life, +whence all violent emotion, or, at least, the expression of it, is +excluded. This latter highly artificial and polished dialect is +accordingly as suitable to the Mock-Heroic (like "The Rape of the Lock") +as it is inefficient and even distasteful when employed for the higher and +more serious purposes of poetry. It was most fortunate for English poetry +that our translation of the Bible and Shakspeare arrested our language, +and, as it were, crystallized it, precisely at its freshest and most +vigorous period, giving us an inexhaustible mine of words familiar to the +heart and mind, yet unvulgarized to the ear by trivial associations. + +The whole question of Homeric translation in its entire range, between +Chapman on the one hand and Pope and Cowper on the other, is opened afresh +by this controversy. The difficulty of the undertaking, and still more of +dogmatizing on the proper mode of executing it, is manifest from the fact +that Mr. Newman is quite as successful in turning some specimens of Mr. +Arnold's into ridicule as the latter had been with his. Meanwhile we +commend the two little books to our readers as containing an able and +entertaining discussion on a question of general and permanent interest, +and as showing that the "Quarrels of Authors" may be conducted in a +dignified and scholarly way. + + * * * * * + + + + +OBITUARY. + + +The last English steamer brings us the sad news of the death of Arthur +Hugh Clough. Mr. Clough had so many personal friends, as well as warm +admirers, in America, that his death will be felt by numbers of our +readers both as a private grief and a public loss. The earth will not soon +close over a man of more lovely character or more true and delicate +genius. This is not the place or the occasion to do justice to the many +eminent qualities of his heart and mind, and we only allude to his death +at all because in him the "Atlantic" has lost one of its most valued +contributors. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. +51, January, 1862, by Various + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13924 *** |