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diff --git a/old/14319.txt b/old/14319.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d271d29 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14319.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6283 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., +No. 4., by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. + +Author: Various + +Release Date: December 10, 2004 [EBook #14319] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Richard J. Shiffer and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + [Note: The Table of Contents and the list of illustrations were added + by the transcriber.] + + + + + McCLURE'S MAGAZINE + + MARCH, 1896. + + VOL. VI. NO. 4. + + + + + TABLE OF CONTENTS + + ILLUSTRATIONS. + ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Ida M. Tarbell. + Lincoln Is Admitted to the Bar. + Lincoln in the Tenth Assembly of Illinois. + The Removal of the Capital to Springfield. + Lincoln's First Reported Speech. + Abraham Lincoln's First Protest Against Slavery. + Social Life in Vandalia in 1836 and 1837. + Lincoln Moves to Springfield. + Lincoln's Position in Springfield. + THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF. By Rudyard Kipling. + A CENTURY OF PAINTING. By Will H. Low. + CY AND I. By Eugene Field. + A YOUNG HERO. By John Hay. + CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. + LOST YOUTH. By R.L. Stevenson. + THE DIVIDED HOUSE. By Julia D. Whiting. + SCIENTIFIC KITE-FLYING. By Cleveland Moffett. + How to Make a Scientific Kite. + How to Send Up a Kite. + Runaway Tandems. + The Lifting Power of Kites. + The Meteorological Use of Kites. + The Highest Flight Ever Made by a Kite. + Drawing Down Electricity by a Kite-string. + The Use of Kites in Photography. + Possible Use of Kites in War. + A DRAMATIC POINT. By Robert Barr. + EDITORIAL NOTES. + "Justice, Where Art Thou?" + "A Disgrace to Civilization." + The Real Lincoln. + Lincoln in 1860--J. Henry Brown's Journal. + + + ILLUSTRATIONS + + LINCOLN IN 1860. + LINCOLN IN 1860. + EBENEZER PECK. + MEMBERS OF THE SANGAMON SOCIETY DELEGATION IN THE TENTH ILLINOIS + ASSEMBLY. + ELIJAH PARISH LOVEJOY. + LINCOLN IN 1863 OR 1864. + FRONTISPIECE OF "ALTON TRIALS," A SMALL VOLUME PUBLISHED IN 1838. + STUART AND LINCOLN'S PROFESSIONAL CARD. + OFFICE CHAIR FROM STUART AND LINCOLN'S LAW OFFICE. + STUART AND LINCOLN'S LAW OFFICE. + A STAGE-COACH ADVERTISEMENT, 1834. + MARY L. OWENS. + LINCOLN AND HIS SON THOMAS, FAMILIARLY KNOWN AS "TAD." + PAGE FROM STUART AND LINCOLN'S FEE BOOK. + OLD SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS. + WILLIAM BUTLER. + INVITATION TO A SPRINGFIELD COTILLION PARTY. + MAP OF ILLINOIS. + THE WAVE "WENT OUT IN THREE SURGES, MAKING A CLEAN SWEEP OF A BOAT." + THE "DIMBULA" TAKING CARGO FOR HER FIRST VOYAGE. + "AN UNUSUALLY SEVERE PITCH ... HAD LIFTED THE BIG THROBBING SCREW + NEARLY TO THE SURFACE." + THE GARROTED MAN. FROM AN ETCHING BY GOYA. + DEATH ON THE BATTLE-FIELD. FROM AN ETCHING BY GOYA. + GOYA. FROM A PORTRAIT ETCHED BY HIMSELF. + ST. JUSTINA AND ST. RUFINA. FROM A PAINTING BY GOYA. + THE BLIND FIDDLER. FROM A PAINTING BY SIR DAVID WILKIE. + CHOOSING THE WEDDING GOWN. FROM A PAINTING BY WILLIAM MULREADY. + CONTRARY WINDS. FROM A PAINTING BY THOMAS WEBSTER. + SANCHO PANZA IN THE APARTMENT OF THE DUCHESS. + THE RAFT OF THE "MEDUSA." FROM A PAINTING BY GERICAULT. + INGRES. FROM A PORTRAIT PAINTED BY HIMSELF. + DELACROIX. FROM A PORTRAIT PAINTED BY HIMSELF IN 1837. + A PORTRAIT OF INGRES, DRAWN IN ROME IN 1816. + APOTHEOSIS OF HOMER. FROM A PAINTING BY INGRES. + THE SEIZURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE BY THE CRUSADERS. + DANTE AND VIRGIL CROSSING THE LAKE WHICH SURROUNDS THE INFERNAL + CITY OF DITE. + HENRY H. MILLER, A MEMBER OF THE ORGINAL COMPANY OF ELLSWORTH + ZOUAVES. + ELLSWORTH IN THE SPRING OF 1861. + ELLSWORTH IN 1860. + FRANK E. BROWNELL, WHO KILLED THE ASSASSIN OF COLONEL ELLSWORTH. + THE DEATH OF COLONEL ELLSWORTH. + THE MARSHALL HOUSE, ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA. + COLONEL ELLSWORTH AND A GROUP OF MILITIA OFFICERS. + "THE OLD BRICK ACADEMY," PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASSACUSETTS. + ABBOT ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS. + "THE STONE BUILDING," PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS. + THE HOUSE IN ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS, CONTAINING THE SCHOOL CALLED + "THE NUNNERY." + HENRY MILLS ALDEN, EDITOR OF "HARPER'S MAGAZINE." + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN. + "THE DOCTOR DON'T SEEM TO THINK I SHALL TUCKER IT OUT MUCH LONGER." + THE DIVIDED HOUSE. + "AS ARMIDA SAT ON THE BENCH UNDER THE OLD RUSSET APPLE-TREE, ..." + EVENING IN THE DIVIDED KITCHEN. + "LOOKING BEFORE THEM THEY COULD SEE BOTH HUSBAND AND WIFE MOTIONLESS + IN THE ROAD." + HARGRAVE LIFTED SIXTEEN FEET FROM THE GROUND BY A TANDEM OF HIS + BOX-KITES. + FRANKFORT STREET. PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEW FROM A KITE. + FRANKFORT STREET. PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEW FROM A KITE. (ANOTHER VIEW.) + THE EDDY TAILLESS KITE. + THE HARGRAVE BOX-KITE. + NEW YORK, EAST RIVER, BROOKLYN, AND NEW YORK BAY, FROM A KITE. + PHOTOGRAPHING FROM A KITE-LINE. + CITY HALL PARK AND BROADWAY FROM A KITE. + MURRAY AND WARREN STREETS, NEW YORK CITY, FROM A KITE. + KITE-DRAWN BUOY. + DIRIGIBLE KITE-DRAWN BUOY. + THE KITE-BUOY IN SERVICE. + "MY GOD!--YOU WERE RIGHT--AFTER ALL." + + + + +[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1860.--HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED. + +From an ambrotype taken in Springfield, Illinois, on August 13, 1860, +and now owned by Mr. William H. Lambert of Philadelphia, through +whose courtesy we are allowed to reproduce it here. This ambrotype was +bought by Mr. Lambert from Mr. W.P. Brown of Philadelphia. Mr. Brown +writes of the portrait: "This picture, along with another one of the +same kind, was presented by President Lincoln to my father, J. Henry +Brown, deceased (miniature artist), after he had finished painting +Lincoln's picture on ivory, at Springfield, Illinois. The commission +was given my father by Judge Read (John M. Read of the Supreme Court +of Pennsylvania), immediately after Lincoln's nomination for the +Presidency. One of the ambrotypes I sold to the Historical Society +of Boston, Massachusetts, and it is now in their possession." The +miniature referred to is now owned by Mr. Robert T. Lincoln. It +was engraved by Samuel Sartain, and circulated widely before the +inauguration. After Mr. Lincoln grew a beard, Sartain put a beard on +his plate, and the engraving continued to sell extensively. While Mr. +Brown was in Springfield painting the miniature he kept a journal, +which Mr. Lambert also owns and which he has generously put at our +disposal. It will be found on page 400.] + + + + +McCLURE'S MAGAZINE. + + +VOL. VI. MARCH, 1896. No. 4. + + + + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN. + +BY IDA M. TARBELL. + +LINCOLN'S ELECTION TO THE TENTH ASSEMBLY.--ADMISSION TO THE +BAR.--REMOVAL TO SPRINGFIELD. + + +The first twenty-six years of Abraham Lincoln's life have been traced +in the preceding chapters. We have seen him struggling to escape +from the lot of a common farm laborer, to which he seemed to be born; +becoming a flatboatman, a grocery clerk, a store-keeper, a postmaster, +and finally a surveyor. We have traced his efforts to rise above +the intellectual apathy and the indifference to culture which +characterized the people among whom he was reared, by studying with +eagerness every subject on which he could find books,--biography, +state history, mathematics, grammar, surveying, and finally law. We +have followed his growth in ambition and in popularity from the day +when, on a keg in an Indiana grocery, he debated the contents of the +Louisville "Journal" with a company of admiring elders, to the +time when, purely because he was liked, he was elected to the State +Assembly of Illinois by the people of Sangamon County. His joys and +sorrows have been reviewed from his childhood in Kentucky to the day +of the death of the woman he loved and had hoped to make his wife. +These twenty-six years form the first period of Lincoln's life. It was +a period of makeshifts and experiments, ending in a tragic sorrow; +but at its close he had definite aims, and preparation and experience +enough to convince him that he dared follow them. Law and politics +were the fields he had chosen, and in the first year of the second +period of his life, 1836, he entered them definitely. + +The Ninth General Assembly of Illinois, in which Lincoln had done his +preparatory work as a legislator, was dissolved, and in June, 1836, +he announced himself as a candidate for the Tenth Assembly. A few days +later the "Sangamon Journal" published his simple platform: + + NEW SALEM, _June 13, 1836_. + TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'JOURNAL': + + "In your paper of last Saturday I see a communication over the + signature of 'Many Voters,' in which the candidates who are + announced in the 'Journal' are called upon to 'show their + hands.' Agreed. Here's mine: + + I go for all sharing the privileges of the government + who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for + admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay taxes or + bear arms (by no means excluding females). + + If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sangamon my + constituents, as well those that oppose as those that support + me. + + While acting as their representative, I shall be governed + by their will on all subjects upon which I have the means of + knowing what their will is; and upon all others, I shall + do what my own judgment teaches me will best advance their + interests. Whether elected or not, I go for distributing the + proceeds of the sales of public lands to the several States, + to enable our State, in common with others, to dig canals and + construct railroads without borrowing money and paying the + interest on it. + + "If alive on the first Monday in November, I shall vote for + Hugh L. White for President. + + "Very respectfully, + "A. LINCOLN." + +The campaign which Lincoln began with this letter was in every way +more exciting for him than those of 1832 and 1834. Since the last +election a census had been taken in Illinois which showed so large +an increase in the population that the legislative districts had been +reapportioned and the General Assembly increased by fifty members. In +this reapportionment Sangamon County's delegation had been enlarged +to seven representatives and two senators. This gave large new +opportunity to political ambition, and doubled the enthusiasm of +political meetings. + +But the increase of the representation was not all that made the +campaign exciting. Party lines had never before been so clearly drawn, +nor personal abuse quite so intense. One of Lincoln's first acts was +to answer a personal attack. He did it in a letter marked by candor, +good-humor, and shrewdness. + + "NEW SALEM, _June 21, 1836_. + "DEAR COLONEL: + + "I am told that during my absence last week you passed through + the place and stated publicly that you were in possession of + a fact or facts which, if known to the public, would entirely + destroy the prospects of N.W. Edwards and myself at the + ensuing election; but that through favor to us you would + forbear to divulge them. No one has needed favors more than I, + and generally few have been less unwilling to accept them; but + in this case favor to me would be injustice to the public, and + therefore I must beg your pardon for declining it. That I + once had the confidence of the people of Sangamon County is + sufficiently evident; and if I have done anything, either by + design or misadventure, which if known would subject me to a + forfeiture of that confidence, he that knows of that thing and + conceals it is a traitor to his country's interest. + + "I find myself wholly unable to form any conjecture of what + fact or facts, real or supposed, you spoke; but my opinion of + your veracity will not permit me for a moment to doubt that + you at least believed what you said. I am flattered with the + personal regard you manifested for me; but I do hope that + on mature reflection you will view the public interest as a + paramount consideration and therefore let the worst come. + + "I assure you that the candid statement of facts on your part, + however low it may sink me, shall never break the ties of + personal friendship between us. + + "I wish an answer to this, and you are at liberty to publish + both if you choose. + + "Very respectfully, + "A. LINCOLN." + + "COLONEL ROBERT ALLEN." + +Usually during the campaign Lincoln was obliged to meet personal +attacks, not by letter, but on the platform. Joshua Speed, who later +became the most intimate friend that Lincoln probably ever had, tells +of one occasion when he was obliged to meet such an attack on the +very spur of the moment. A great mass-meeting was in progress at +Springfield, and Lincoln had made a speech which had produced a deep +impression. "I was then fresh from Kentucky," says Mr. Speed, "and had +heard many of her great orators. It seemed to me then, as it seems to +me now, that I never heard a more effective speaker. He carried the +crowd with him, and swayed them as he pleased. So deep an impression +did he make that George Forquer, a man of much celebrity as a +sarcastic speaker and with a great reputation throughout the State +as an orator, rose and asked the people to hear _him_. He began his +speech by saying that this young man would have to be taken down, and +he was sorry that the task devolved upon him. He made what was called +one of his 'slasher-gaff' speeches, dealing much in ridicule +and sarcasm. Lincoln stood near him, with his arms folded, never +interrupting him. When Forquer was done, Lincoln walked to the stand, +and replied so fully and completely that his friends bore him from the +court-house on their shoulders. + +"So deep an impression did this first speech make upon me that I +remember its conclusion now, after a lapse of thirty-eight years. Said +he: + +"'The gentleman commenced his speech by saying that this young man +would have to be taken down, and he was sorry the task devolved upon +him. I am not so young in years as I am in the tricks and trade of a +politician; but live long or die young, I would rather die now than, +like the gentleman, change my politics and simultaneous with the +change receive an office worth three thousand dollars a year, and +then have to erect a lightning-rod over my house to protect a guilty +conscience from an offended God.' + +"To understand the point of this it must be explained that Forquer +had been a Whig, but had changed his politics, and had been appointed +Register of the Land Office; and over his house was the only +lightning-rod in the town or country. Lincoln had seen the +lightning-rod for the first time on the day before." + +[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1860.--HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED. + +From a carbon enlargement, made by Sherman and McHugh of New York +City, of an ambrotype owned by Mr. A. Montgomery of Columbus, Ohio, +to whose generosity we owe the right of reproduction. This portrait +of Lincoln was made in June, 1860, by Butler, a Springfield (Illinois) +photographer. On July 4th of that year, Mr. Lincoln delivered an +address at Atlanta, Illinois, where he was the guest of Mr. Vester +Strong. Before leaving town he handed Mr. Strong the ambrotype which +we copy here. Mr. Strong valued the picture highly, but as he had no +children to whom to leave it, and as he wished it to be in the care of +one who would appreciate its value, he gave it a few years ago to Mr. +Montgomery.] + +This speech has never been forgotten in Springfield, and on my visits +there I have repeatedly had the site of the house on which this +particular lightning-rod was placed pointed out, and one or another of +the many versions which the story has been given, related to me. + +It was the practice at that date in Illinois for two rival candidates +to travel over the district together. The custom led to much +good-natured raillery between them; and in such contests Lincoln was +rarely, if ever, worsted. He could even turn the generosity of his +rival to account by his whimsical treatment, as the following shows: +He had driven out from Springfield in company with a political +opponent to engage in joint debate. The carriage, it seems, belonged +to his opponent. In addressing the gathering of farmers that met them, +Lincoln was lavish in praise of the generosity of his friend. "I am +too poor to own a carriage," he said, "but my friend has generously +invited me to ride with him. I want you to vote for me if you will; +but if not, then vote for my opponent, for he is a fine man." His +extravagant and persistent praise of his opponent appealed to the +sense of humor in his farmer audience, to whom Lincoln's inability to +own a carriage was by no means a disqualification.[1] + +The election came off in August, and resulted in the choice of a +delegation from Sangamon County famous in the annals of Illinois. The +nine successful candidates were Abraham Lincoln, John Dawson, Daniel +Stone, Ninian W. Edwards, William F. Elkins, R.L. Wilson, Andrew +McCormick, Job Fletcher, and Arthur Herndon. Each one of these men +was over six feet in height, their combined stature being, it is said, +fifty-five feet. The "Long Nine" was the name Sangamon County gave +them. + +[Illustration: EBENEZER PECK. + +Ebenezer Peck, who was chiefly instrumental in introducing the +convention system into Illinois politics, was born in Portland, Maine, +May 22, 1805. He lived for some time in Peacham, Vermont, where he +was educated. While yet a boy, removed with his parents to Canada. He +studied law at Montreal, and practised there; became King's Counsel +for Canada East, and was finally elected to the provincial parliament +on the Reform ticket. In the summer of 1835 he removed to Chicago, and +there, as a lawyer and a politician, he at once made his mark. He was +a delegate to the first Democratic State convention in Illinois, +held at Vandalia, December 7, 1835, and was the chief advocate of the +general adoption of the convention system--a system which was at first +opposed and ridiculed by the Whigs, but which very soon they were +forced to adopt. In 1837 Mr. Peck was made one of the Internal +Improvement Commissioners. In 1838 he was elected to the State Senate, +and in 1840 to the House. He was clerk of the Supreme Court from +1841 to 1848, and reporter of that court from 1849 to 1863. His +anti-slavery sentiments led him to abandon the Democratic party in +1853, and in 1856 he helped establish the Republican party in the +State. He was again elected to the legislature in 1858. In 1863 +President Lincoln appointed him a judge of the Court of Claims, and +he held this position until 1875. He died May 25, 1881.--_J. McCan +Davis._] + + +LINCOLN IS ADMITTED TO THE BAR. + +As soon as the election was over Lincoln occupied himself in settling +another matter, of much greater moment, in his own judgment. He went +to Springfield to seek admission to the bar. The "roll of attorneys +and counsellors at law," on file in the office of the clerk of the +Supreme Court at Springfield, Illinois, shows that his license was +dated September 9, 1836, and that the date of the enrollment of his +name upon the official list was March 1, 1837. The first case in which +he was concerned, as far as we know, was that of Hawthorn against +Woolridge. He made his first appearance in court in October, 1836. + +Although he had given much time during this year to politics and the +law, he had by no means abandoned surveying. Indeed he never had +more calls. Surveying was particularly brisk at the moment, and he +frequently was obliged to be away for three and four weeks at a time, +laying out towns or locating roads. "When he got a job," says the Hon. +J.M. Ruggles, a friend and political supporter of Mr. Lincoln, "there +was a picnic and jolly time in the neighborhood. Men and boys would +gather around, ready to carry chain, drive stakes, and blaze trees, +but mainly to hear Lincoln's odd stories and jokes. The fun was +interspersed with foot races and wrestling matches. To this day the +old settlers around Bath repeat the incidents of Lincoln's sojourns in +their neighborhood while surveying that town." + +[Illustration: NINIAN W. EDWARDS., JOB FLETCHER, SR., +WILLIAM F. ELKINS., ROBERT L. WILSON., JOHN DAWSON. + +MEMBERS OF THE SANGAMON COUNTY DELEGATION IN THE TENTH ILLINOIS +ASSEMBLY--THE DELEGATION KNOWN AS THE "LONG NINE." + +NINIAN W. EDWARDS was born in Kentucky in 1809, a son of Ninian +Edwards, who in the same year was appointed Governor of the new +Territory of Illinois. Mr. Edwards was appointed Attorney-General +of Illinois in 1834; in 1836 was elected to the legislature; was +reelected in 1838; served in the State Senate from 1844 to 1848, +and again in the House from 1848 to 1852. He was a member of the +constitutional convention of 1847. He died at Springfield, September +2, 1889. + +JOB FLETCHER, SR., was born in Virginia in 1793; removed to Sangamon +County, Illinois, in 1819. In 1826 he was elected to the Illinois +House of Representatives, and in 1834 to the State Senate, where he +served six years. He died in Sangamon County in 1872. + +WILLIAM F. ELKINS was born in Kentucky in 1792. He went to Sangamon +County, Illinois, in 1825. In 1828, 1836, and 1838 he was elected to +the legislature. In 1831 he raised a company for the Black Hawk War, +and was its captain. In 1861 President Lincoln appointed him Register +of the United States Land Office at Springfield, an office which he +held until 1872, when he resigned. He died at Decatur, Illinois, 1880. + +ROBERT LANG WILSON was born in Pennsylvania in 1805. In 1831 he went +to Kentucky; in 1833 removed to Sangamon County, Illinois; in 1836 was +elected to the Illinois House. He removed to Sterling, Illinois, in +1840, and died there in 1880. For some years he was paymaster in the +United States Army. + +JOHN DAWSON was born in Virginia in 1791; he removed to Sangamon +County, Illinois, in 1827. He was elected to the lower house of the +legislature in 1830, 1834, 1836, 1838, and 1846. He was a member of +the constitutional convention of 1847. He died November 12, 1850. + +The other members of the "Long Nine" were Abraham Lincoln, Daniel +Stone, Andrew McCormick, and Arthur Herndon.] + + +LINCOLN IN THE TENTH ASSEMBLY OF ILLINOIS + +In December Lincoln put away his surveying instruments to go to +Vandalia for the opening session of the Tenth Assembly. Larger by +fifty members than its predecessor, this body was as much superior +in intellect as in numbers. It included among its members a future +President of the United States, a future candidate for the same high +office, six future United States Senators, eight future members of the +National House of Representatives, a future Secretary of the Interior, +and three future Judges of the State Supreme Court. Here sat side by +side Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas; Edward Dickinson Baker, +who represented at different times the States of Illinois and Oregon +in the national councils; O.H. Browning, a prospective senator and +future cabinet officer, and William L.D. Ewing, who had just served +in the senate; John Logan, father of the late General John A. +Logan; Robert M. Cullom, father of Senator Shelby M. Cullom; John +A. McClernand, afterward member of Congress for many years, and +a distinguished general in the late Civil War; and many others of +national repute.[2] + +[Illustration: ELIJAH PARISH LOVEJOY. + +From a silhouette loaned by Mr. Owen Lovejoy of Princeton, Illinois. +Elijah Lovejoy was born in Maine in 1802. When twenty-five years old +he emigrated to St. Louis, where he at first did journalistic work on +a Whig newspaper. In 1833 he entered the ministry, and was soon after +made editor of a religious newspaper, the "St. Louis Observer." Mr. +Lovejoy began, in 1835, to turn his paper against slavery, but the +opposition he found in Missouri was so strong that in the summer of +1836 he decided to move his paper to Alton, Illinois. Before he could +get his plant out of St. Louis a mob destroyed the greater part. The +remainder he succeeded in getting to Alton, but a mob met it there and +threw it into the river. The citizens of Alton, ashamed of this act, +gave Mr. Lovejoy money to buy a new press. At first the tone of +the paper was moderate, but gradually it grew more emphatic in its +utterances against slavery. The pro-slavery element of the town +protested, indignation meetings were held, and in August, 1837, his +press was thrown into the river. Another was immediately bought, +which, in September, followed its predecessor to the bottom of the +Mississippi. When it was known in Alton that Mr. Lovejoy had ordered +a fourth press, and had resolved to fight the opposition to the end, +a public meeting was called, at which many speeches were made on both +sides, and he was urged to leave Alton. This he refused to do, and +his fourth press was landed on November 6, 1837. The next night a mob +attacked the warehouse where it was placed, and in the riot one of the +assailants, Lyman Bishop, and Elijah Lovejoy himself were killed.] + +The members came to Vandalia full of hope and exultation. In their +judgment it needed only a few months of legislation to put their State +by the side of New York; and from the opening of the session they were +overflowing with excitement and schemes. In the general ebullition of +spirits which characterized the Assembly, Lincoln had little share. +Only a week after the opening of the session he wrote to a friend, +Mary Owens, at New Salem, that he had been ill, though he believed +himself to be about well then; and he added: "But that, with other +things I cannot account for, have conspired, and have gotten my +spirits so low that I feel I would rather be any place in the world +than here. I really cannot endure the thought of staying here ten +weeks." + +Though depressed, he was far from being inactive. The Sangamon +delegation, in fact, had their hands full, and to no one of the nine +had more been entrusted than to Lincoln. In common with almost every +delegation, they had been instructed by their constituents to adopt a +scheme of internal improvements complete enough to give every budding +town in Illinois easy communication with the world. This for the State +in general; for Sangamon County in particular, they had been directed +to secure the capital. The change in the State's centre of population +made it advisable to move the seat of government northward from +Vandalia, and Springfield was anxious to secure it. To Lincoln was +entrusted the work of putting through the bill to remove the capital. +In the same letter quoted from above he tells Miss Owens, "Our +chance to take the seat of government to Springfield is better than +I expected." Regarding the internal improvements scheme he feels less +confident: "Some of the legislature are for it, and some against; +which has the majority, I cannot tell." + +[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1863 OR 1864. + +From a photograph by Brady, and kindly loaned by Mr. Noah Brooks for +this reproduction.] + +[Illustration: Frontispiece of "Alton Trials," a small volume +published in 1838, containing full notes taken at the time of the +trial of the persons engaged in what is called the "Alton riot." +Twelve persons were indicted "for the crime of riot committed on +the night of the 7th of November, 1837, while engaged in defending +a Printing Press from an attack made on it at that time by an Armed +Mob;" eleven others were indicted "for a riot committed in Alton on +the night of the 7th of November, 1837, in unlawfully and forcibly +entering the warehouse of Godfrey Gilman and Company, and breaking up +and destroying a printing press." In both cases the juries returned a +verdict of "not guilty." (See note on Elijah Lovejoy.)] + +It was not long, however, before all uncertainty about internal +improvements was over. The people were determined to have them, +and the Assembly responded to their demands by passing an act +which provided, at State expense, for railroads, canals, or river +improvements in almost every county in Illinois. To compensate those +counties to which they could not give anything else, they voted them +a sum of money for roads and bridges. No finer bit of imaginative +work was ever done, in fact, by a legislative body, than the map of +internal improvements made by the Tenth Assembly of Illinois. + +There was no time to estimate exactly the cost of these fine plans. +Nor did they feel any need of estimates; that was a mere matter of +detail. They would vote a fund, and when that was exhausted they +would vote more; and so they appropriated sum after sum: one hundred +thousand dollars to improve the Rock River; one million eight hundred +thousand dollars to build a road from Quincy to Danville; four million +dollars to complete the Illinois and Michigan Canal; two hundred and +fifty thousand for the Western Mail Route--in all, some twelve +million dollars. To carry out the elaborate scheme, they provided a +commission, one of the first duties of which was to sell the bonds of +the State to raise the money for the enterprise. The majority of the +Assembly seem not to have entertained for a moment an idea that there +would be any difficulty in selling at a premium the bonds of Illinois. +"On the contrary," as General Linder says in his "Reminiscences," "the +enthusiastic friends of the measure maintained that, instead of there +being any difficulty in obtaining a loan of the fifteen or twenty +millions authorized to be borrowed, our bonds would go like hot cakes, +and be sought for by the Rothschilds, and Baring Brothers, and others +of that stamp; and that the premiums which we would obtain upon them +would range from fifty to one hundred per cent., and that the premium +itself would be sufficient to construct most of the important works, +leaving the principal sum to go into our treasury, and leave the +people free from taxation for years to come." + +[Illustration: STUART AND LINCOLN'S PROFESSIONAL CARD. + +The professional card of Stuart and Lincoln shows that the +copartnership began April 12, 1837. The card appeared in the next +issue of the "Sangamo Journal," and was continued until Lincoln became +the partner of Judge Logan, in 1841.] + + +THE REMOVAL OF THE CAPITAL TO SPRINGFIELD. + +Although Lincoln favored and aided in every way the plan for internal +improvements, his real work was in securing the removal of the capital +to Springfield. The task was by no means an easy one to direct; for +outside of the "Long Nine" there was, of course, nobody particularly +interested in Springfield, and there were delegations from a dozen +other counties hot to secure the capital for their own constituencies. +It took patient and clever manipulation to put the bill through. +Certain votes Lincoln, no doubt, gained for his cause by force of +his personal qualities. Thus Jesse K. Dubois says that he and his +colleagues voted for the bill because they liked Lincoln, and +wanted to oblige him. But probably the majority were won by skilful +log-rolling. Not that Lincoln ever sanctioned "trading" to the +sacrifice of his own convictions. General T.H. Henderson, of Illinois, +says in some interesting reminiscences of Lincoln, prepared for this +Life and hitherto unpublished: "Before I had ever seen Abraham Lincoln +I heard my father, who served with him in the legislature of 1838-39 +and of 1840-41, relate an incident in Mr. Lincoln's life which +illustrates his character for integrity and his firmness in +maintaining what he regarded as right in his public acts, in a marked +manner. + +"I do not remember whether this incident occurred during the session +of the legislature in 1836-37 or 1838-39. But I think it was in +that of 1836-37, when it was said that there was a great deal of +log-rolling going on among the members. But, however that may be, +according to the story related by my father, an effort was made to +unite the friends of capital removal with the friends of some measure +which Mr. Lincoln, for some reason, did not approve. What that measure +was to which he objected, I am not now able to recall. But those who +desired the removal of the capital to Springfield were very anxious to +effect the proposed combination, and a meeting was held to see if it +could be accomplished. The meeting continued in session nearly all +night, when it adjourned without accomplishing anything, Mr. Lincoln +refusing to yield his objections and to support the obnoxious measure." + +[Illustration: OFFICE CHAIR FROM STUART AND LINCOLN'S LAW OFFICE. + +The chair is now in the Oldroyd Collection in Washington, D.C.] + +"Another meeting was called, and at this second meeting a number +of citizens, not members of the legislature, from the central and +northern parts of the State, among them my father, were present +by invitation. The meeting was long protracted, and earnest in its +deliberations. Every argument that could be thought of was used to +induce Mr. Lincoln to yield his objections and unite with his friends, +and thus secure the removal of the capital to his own city; but +without effect. Finally, after midnight, when everybody seemed +exhausted with the discussion, and when the candles were burning low +in the room, Mr. Lincoln rose amid the silence and solemnity which +prevailed, and, my father said, made one of the most eloquent and +powerful speeches to which he had ever listened. And he concluded his +remarks by saying, 'You may burn my body to ashes, and scatter them +to the winds of heaven; you may drag my soul down to the regions of +darkness and despair to be tormented forever; but you will never get +me to support a measure which I believe to be wrong, although by doing +so I may accomplish that which I believe to be right.' And the meeting +adjourned." + +[Illustration: STUART AND LINCOLN'S LAW OFFICE. + +From a photograph loaned by Jesse W. Weik. The law office of Stuart +and Lincoln was in the second story of the building occupied at the +time the photograph was made by "Tom Dupleaux's Furniture Store." +Hoffman's Row, as this group of buildings was called, was used as a +court-house at that date, 1837. The court-room was in the lower story +of the two central buildings.] + +If Lincoln did not support measures which he considered doubtful, he +did, now and then, "tack a provision" on a bill to please a friend, as +the following letter, hitherto unpublished, shows:[3] + + "SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, _August 5, 1837_. + + "DEAR SIR: + + "Mr. Edwards tells me you wish to know whether the act to + which your town incorporation provision was attached passed + into a law. It did. You can organize under the general + incorporation law as soon as you choose. + + "I also tacked a provision on to a fellow's bill, to authorize + the relocation of the road from Salem down to your town, but + I am not certain whether or not the bill passed. Neither do I + suppose I can ascertain before the law will be published--if + it is a law. Bowling Green, Bennett Abell, and yourself are + appointed to make the change. + + "No news. No excitement, except a little about the election of + Monday next. I suppose, of course, our friend Dr. Henry stands + no chance in your 'diggings.' + + "Your friend and honorable servant, + + "A. LINCOLN." + + "JOHN BENNETT, ESQ. + +As was to be expected, the Democrats charged that the Whigs of +Sangamon had won their victory by "bargain and corruption." These +charges became so serious that, in an extra session called in the +summer of 1837, a few months after the bill passed, Lincoln had a +bitter fight over them with General L.D. Ewing, who wanted to keep +Vandalia as the capital. "The arrogance of Springfield," said General +Ewing, "its presumption in claiming the seat of government, is not +to be endured; the law has been passed by chicanery and trickery; the +Springfield delegation has sold out to the internal improvement men, +and has promised its support to every measure that would gain a vote +to the law removing the seat of government." + +Lincoln answered in a speech of such severity and keenness that +the House believed he was "digging his own grave;" for Ewing was a +high-spirited man who would not hesitate to answer by a challenge. It +was, in fact, only the interference of their friends which prevented +a duel at this time between Ewing and Lincoln. This speech, to many of +Lincoln's colleagues, was a revelation of his ability and character. +"This was the first time," said General Linder, "that I began to +conceive a very high opinion of the talents and personal courage of +Abraham Lincoln." + +[Illustration: A STAGE-COACH ADVERTISEMENT, 1834. + +This advertisement appeared in the "Sangamo Journal" in April, 1834, +and held a place in the paper through the next three years. As +the "Four Horse Coach" ran through Sangamon town and New Salem, it +doubtless had Lincoln as a passenger now and then, but not often, +probably, for the fare from New Salem to Springfield was one dollar +and twenty-five cents, and walking, or riding upon a borrowed horse, +must generally have been preferred by Lincoln to so costly a mode of +travelling.] + +A few months later the "Long Nine" were again attacked, Lincoln +specially being abused. The assailant this time was a prominent +Democrat, Mr. J.B. Thomas. When he had ended, Lincoln replied in +a speech which was long known in local political circles as the +"skinning of Thomas." + + +LINCOLN'S FIRST REPORTED SPEECH. + +No one doubted after this that Lincoln could defend himself. He became +doubly respected as an opponent, for his reputation for good-humored +raillery had been established in his campaigns. In a speech made in +January he gave another evidence of his skill in the use of ridicule. +A resolution had been offered by Mr. Linder to institute an inquiry +into the management of the affairs of the State bank. Lincoln's +remarks on the resolution form his first reported speech. This speech +has been unnoticed by his biographers hitherto; and it appears in none +of the editions of his speeches and letters. It was discovered in the +"Sangamo Journal" for January 28, 1837, by Mr. J. McCan Davis, in the +course of a search through the files instituted by this Magazine. + +[Illustration: MARY L. OWENS. + +Born in Kentucky in 1808. Lincoln first met Miss Owens in 1833 at +New Salem, where she made a short visit. In 1836 she came back to New +Salem, and a warm friendship sprang up between them. The question +of marriage was discussed in a disinterested way. Miss Owens left +Illinois in 1838, and in 1841 she married a Mr. Jesse Vineyard. The +letters written to her by Mr. Lincoln she herself gave to Mr. Herndon +for publication.] + +Lincoln began these remarks by good-humored but nettling chaffing of +his opponent. + + "Mr. Chairman," he said: "Lest I should fall into the too + common error of being mistaken in regard to which side I + design to be upon, I shall make it my first care to remove + all doubt on that point, by declaring that I am opposed to the + resolution under consideration, _in toto_. Before I proceed to + the body of the subject, I will further remark, that it is not + without a considerable degree of apprehension that I venture + to cross the track of the gentleman from Coles [Mr. Linder]. + Indeed, I do not believe I could muster a sufficiency of + courage to come in contact with that gentleman, were it + not for the fact that he, some days since, most graciously + condescended to assure us that he would never be found wasting + ammunition on _small game_. On the same fortunate occasion he + further gave us to understand that he regarded _himself_ + as being decidedly the _superior_ of our common friend from + Randolph [Mr. Shields]; and feeling, as I really do, that I, + to say the most of myself, am nothing more than the peer of + our friend from Randolph, I shall regard the gentleman from + Coles as decidedly my superior also; and consequently, in + the course of what I shall have to say, whenever I shall have + occasion to allude to that gentleman I shall endeavor to adopt + that kind of court language which I understand to be due to + decided superiority. In one faculty, at least, there can be no + dispute of the gentleman's superiority over me, and most other + men; and that is, the faculty of entangling a subject so that + neither himself, or any other man, can find head or tail to + it." + +[Illustration: LINCOLN AND HIS SON THOMAS, FAMILIARLY KNOWN AS "TAD." + +From a photograph made by Brady early in Mr. Lincoln's first term.] + +[Illustration: PAGE FROM STUART AND LINCOLN'S FEE BOOK. + +From the original, owned by Jesse W. Weik, by permission.] + +Taking up the resolution on the bank, he declared its meaning: + + "Some gentlemen have their stock in their hands, while others, + who have more money than they know what to do with, want it; + and this, and this alone, is the question, to settle which + we are called on to squander thousands of the people's money. + What interest, let me ask, have the people in the settlement + of this question? What difference is it to them whether the + stock is owned by Judge Smith or Sam Wiggins? If any gentleman + be entitled to stock in the bank, which he is kept out of + possession of by others, let him assert his right in the + Supreme Court, and let him or his antagonist, whichever may be + found in the wrong, pay the costs of suit. It is an old maxim, + and a very sound one, that he that dances should always pay + the fiddler. Now, sir, in the present case, if any gentlemen + whose money is a burden to them, choose to lead off a dance, + I am decidedly opposed to the people's money being used to pay + the fiddler. No one can doubt that the examination proposed + by this resolution must cost the State some ten or twelve + thousand dollars; and all this to settle a question in + which the people have no interest, and about which they care + nothing. These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in + concert to fleece the people; and now that they have got into + a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate + the people's money to settle the quarrel." + +The resolution had declared that the bank practised various methods +which were "to the great injury of the people." Lincoln took the +occasion to announce his ideas of the people and the politicians. + + "If the bank really be a grievance, why is it that no one of + the real people is found to ask redress of it? The truth is, + no such oppression exists. If it did, our people would groan + with memorials and petitions, and we would not be permitted + to rest day or night till we had put it down. The people know + their rights, and they are never slow to assert and + maintain them when they are invaded. Let them call for an + investigation, and I shall ever stand ready to respond to the + call. But they have made no such call. I make the assertion + boldly, and without fear of contradiction, that no man who + does not hold an office, or does not aspire to one, has ever + found any fault of the bank. It has doubled the prices of the + products of their farms, and filled their pockets with a sound + circulating medium; and they are all well pleased with its + operations. No, sir, it is the politician who is the first to + sound the alarm (which, by the way, is a false one). It is he + who, by these unholy means, is endeavoring to blow up a storm + that he may ride upon and direct. It is he, and he alone, + that here proposes to spend thousands of the people's + public treasure, for no other advantage to them than to make + valueless in their pockets the reward of their industry. Mr. + Chairman, this work is exclusively the work, of politicians--a + set of men who have interests aside from the interests of + the people, and who, to say the most of them, are, taken as + a mass, at least one long step removed from honest men. I say + this with the greater freedom, because, being a politician + myself, none can regard it as personal." + +[Illustration: OLD SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS. + +During the special session of the legislature convened in the fall of +1839 (the first one held at Springfield), the House of Representatives +occupied this church, the State House being unfinished. At the short +special session which opened November 23, 1840, the House first went +into the Methodist church, but on the second day Representative John +Logan (father of General John A. Logan) offered a resolution "that the +Senate be respectfully requested to exchange places of convening with +this House for a short time on account of the impossibility of the +House discharging its business in so small a place as the Methodist +church." This was adopted, and the House moved over to the Second +Presbyterian church. At this special session the Whigs were interested +in preventing a _sine die_ adjournment (because they desired to +protect the State bank, which had been authorized in 1838 to suspend +specie payment until after the adjournment of the next session of the +General Assembly), and to this end they sought to break the quorum. +All the Whigs walked out, except Lincoln and Joseph Gillespie, who +were left behind to demand a roll-call when deemed expedient. A +few were brought in by the sergeant-at-arms. Lincoln and Gillespie, +perceiving that there would be a quorum if they remained, started to +leave; and finding the doors locked, Lincoln raised a window, and +both men jumped out--an incident, as Mr. Herndon says, which Lincoln +"always seemed willing to forget." It was in this church, too, that +Lincoln delivered an address before the Washingtonian Temperance +Society, on Washington's birthday, in 1842. The church was erected in +1839, and stood until torn down, some thirty years later, to make room +for a new edifice.--_J. McCan Davis._] + +The speech was published in full in the "Sangamo Journal" and the +editor commented: + + "Mr. Lincoln's remarks on Mr. Linder's bank resolution in + the paper are quite to the point. Our friend carries the true + Kentucky rifle, and when he fires he seldom fails of sending + the shot home." + + +ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FIRST PROTEST AGAINST SLAVERY. + +One other act of his in this session cannot be ignored. It is a +sinister note in the hopeful chorus of the Tenth Assembly. For months +there had come from the Southern States violent protests against the +growth of abolition agitation in the North. Garrison's paper, the +"infernal Liberator," as it was called in the pro-slavery part of +the country, had been gradually extending its circulation and its +influence; and it already had imitators even on the banks of the +Mississippi. The American Anti-slavery Society was now over three +years old. A deep, unconquerable conviction of the iniquity of slavery +was spreading through the North. The South felt it and protested, and +the statesmen of the North joined them in their protest. Slavery +could not be crushed, said the conservatives. It was sanctioned by the +Constitution. The South must be supported in its claims, and agitation +stopped. But the agitation went on, and riots, violence, and hatred +pursued the agitators. In Illinois, in this very year, 1837, we have +a printing-office raided and an anti-slavery editor, Elijah Lovejoy, +killed by the citizens of Alton, who were determined that it should +not be said among them that slavery was an iniquity. + +To silence the storm, mass-meetings of citizens, the United States +Congress, the State legislatures, took up the question and voted, +again and again, resolutions assuring the South that the Abolitionists +were not supported; that the country recognized their right to their +"peculiar institution," and that in no case should they be interfered +with. At Springfield, this same year (1837) the citizens convened and +passed a resolution declaring that "the efforts of Abolitionists +in this community are neither necessary nor useful." When the +riot occurred in Alton, the Springfield papers uttered no word of +condemnation, giving the affair only a laconic mention. + +The Illinois Assembly joined in the general disapproval, and on March +3d passed the following resolutions: + + "Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of Illinois: + + "That we highly disapprove of the formation of Abolition + societies, and of the doctrines promulgated by them. + + "That the right of property in slaves is sacred to the + slave-holding States by the Federal Constitution, and that + they cannot be deprived of that right without their consent. + + "That the General Government cannot abolish slavery in the + District of Columbia against the consent of the citizens of + said District, without a manifest breach of good faith. + + "That the Governor be requested to transmit to the States of + Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, New York, and Connecticut a + copy of the foregoing report and resolutions." + +Lincoln refused to vote for these resolutions. In his judgment no +expression on the slavery question should go unaccompanied by the +statement that it was an evil, and he had the boldness to protest +immediately against the action of the House. He found only one man in +the Assembly willing to join him in his action. These two names are +joined to the document they presented: + + "Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having + passed both branches of the General Assembly at its present + session, the undersigned hereby protest against the passage of + the same. + + "They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on + both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of + abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its + evils. + + "They believe that the Congress of the United States has no + power under the Constitution to interfere with the institution + of slavery in the different States. + + "They believe that the Congress of the United States has power + under the Constitution to abolish slavery in the District of + Columbia, but that the power ought not to be exercised unless + at the request of the people of the District. + + "The difference between these opinions and those contained + in the above resolutions, is their reason for entering this + protest. + + "DAN STONE, + + "A. LINCOLN, + + "Representatives from the County of Sangamon." + +[Illustration: WILLIAM BUTLER. + +From a photograph owned by his grandson, Hon. William J. Butler, +Springfield, Illinois. William Butler was a native of Kentucky, being +born in Adair County, that State, December 15, 1797. In the war of +1812, he carried important despatches from the Governor of Kentucky +to General Harrison in the field, travelling on horseback. He went to +Sangamon County, Illinois, in 1828. In 1836 he was appointed clerk of +the Circuit Court by Judge Logan, whom he had known in Kentucky. In +1859 he was appointed by Governor Bissell State treasurer of Illinois, +to fill a vacancy, and in 1860 was elected to that office. He +was married to Elizabeth Rickard, December 18, 1863. He died in +Springfield, January 11, 1876. Soon after becoming a resident of +Springfield, Lincoln went to William Butler's house to board. There +he was like a member of the family. He lived with Mr. Butler until +his marriage in 1842. The two men were ever the warmest personal and +political friends.] + + +SOCIAL LIFE IN VANDALIA IN 1836 AND 1837. + +The Tenth Assembly was important to Lincoln not only in its +legislation; it greatly increased his circle of acquaintances. The +character of the work of the session called to Vandalia numbers of +persons of influence from almost every county in the State. They were +invariably there to secure something for their town or county, and +naturally made a point of getting acquainted. Game suppers seem to +have been the means usually employed by visitors for bringing people +together. The lobbyists were not the only ones in Vandalia who gave +suppers, however. Not a bill was passed nor an election decided that +a banquet did not follow. Mr. John Bryant, the brother of William +Cullen, was in Vandalia that winter in the interest of his county, and +he attended one of these banquets, given by the successful candidate +for the United States Senate. Lincoln was present, of course, and so +were all the prominent politicians of the State. + +"After the company had gotten pretty noisy and mellow from their +imbibitions of Yellow Seal and 'corn juice,'" says Mr. Bryant, "Mr. +Douglas and General Shields, to the consternation of the host and +intense merriment of the guests, climbed up on the table, at one end, +encircled each other's waists, and to the tune of a rollicking song, +pirouetted down the whole length of the table, shouting, singing, +and kicking dishes, glasses, and everything right and left, helter +skelter. For this night of entertainment to his constituents, the +successful candidate was presented with a bill, in the morning, for +supper, wines, liquors, and damages, which amounted to six hundred +dollars." + +But boisterous suppers were not by any means the important feature of +Lincoln's social life that winter in Vandalia. There was another +and quieter side in which he showed his rare companionableness and +endeared himself to many people. In the midst of the log-rolling +and jubilations of the session he would often slip away to some +acquaintance's room and spend hours in talk and stories. Mr. John +Bryant tells of his coming frequently to his room at the hotel, and +sitting "with his knees up to his chin, telling his inimitable stories +and his triumphs in the House in circumventing the Democrats." + +Major Newton Walker, of Lewiston, was in Vandalia at the time; +and still talks with pleasure not only of the Assembly's energetic +legislation, but of the way Lincoln endeared himself to him and to +his colleague. "We both loved him," says Major Walker, "but I little +thought then that he would become the greatest man that this country +ever produced, or perhaps ever will. Many a night I have sat up +listening to Lincoln's wonderful stories. That was a long time +ago--nearly sixty years. I shall be ninety-two years old in a few +days. I was six years older than Lincoln." + +[Illustration: INVITATION TO A SPRINGFIELD COTILLION PARTY OF WHICH +LINCOLN WAS ONE OF THE MANAGERS. + +The invitation is in the collection of Mr. C.F. Gunther of Chicago, +through whose courtesy it is here reproduced.] + +"I used to play the fiddle a great deal, and have played for Lincoln a +number of times. He used to come over to where I was boarding and ask +me to play the fiddle for him; and I would take it with me when I went +over to visit him, and when he grew weary of telling stories he would +ask me to give him a tune, which I never refused to do." + + +LINCOLN MOVES TO SPRINGFIELD. + +As soon as the Assembly closed, Lincoln returned to New Salem; but it +was not to stay. He had determined to go to Springfield. Major John +Stuart, the friend who had advised him to study law and who had lent +him books and with whom he had been associated closely in politics, +had offered to take him as a partner. It was a good opening, for +Stuart was one of the leading lawyers and politicians of the State, +and his influence would place Lincoln at once in command of more or +less business. From every point of view the change seems to have been +wise; yet Lincoln made it with foreboding. + +To practise law he must abandon his business as surveyor, which was +bringing him a fair income; he must for a time, at least, go without +any certain income. If he failed, what then? The uncertainty weighed +on him heavily, the more so because he was burdened by the debts left +from his store and because he was constantly called upon to aid his +father's family. Thomas Lincoln had remained in Coles County, but he +had not, in these six years in which his son had risen so rapidly, +been able to get anything more than a poor livelihood from his farm. +The sense of responsibility Lincoln had towards his father's family +made it the more difficult for him to undertake a new profession. His +decision was made, however, and as soon as the session of the Tenth +Assembly was over he started for Springfield. His first appearance +there is as pathetic as amusing. + +"He had ridden into town," says Joshua Speed, "on a borrowed horse, +with no earthly property save a pair of saddle-bags containing a few +clothes. I was a merchant at Springfield, and kept a large country +store, embracing dry-goods, groceries, hardware, books, medicines, +bed-clothes, mattresses--in fact, everything that the country needed. +Lincoln came into the store with his saddle-bags on his arm. He +said he wanted to buy the furniture for a single bed. The mattress, +blankets, sheets, coverlid, and pillow, according to the figures made +by me, would cost seventeen dollars. He said that perhaps was cheap +enough; but small as the price was, he was unable to pay it. But if I +would credit him till Christmas, and his experiment as a lawyer was a +success, he would pay then; saying in the saddest tone, 'If I fail in +this I do not know that I can ever pay you.' As I looked up at him I +thought then, and I think now, that I never saw a sadder face. + +"I said to him: 'You seem to be so much pained at contracting so small +a debt, I think I can suggest a plan by which you can avoid the debt, +and at the same time attain your end. I have a large room with a +double bed upstairs, which you are very welcome to share with me.' + +"'Where is your room?' said he. + +"'Upstairs,' said I, pointing to a pair of winding stairs which led +from the store to my room. + +"He took his saddle-bags on his arm, went upstairs, set them on the +floor, and came down with the most changed expression of countenance. +Beaming with pleasure, he exclaimed: + +"'Well, Speed, I am moved.'" + +Another friend, William Butler, with whom Lincoln had become intimate +at Vandalia, took him to board; life at Springfield thus began under +as favorable auspices as he could hope for. + +After Chicago, Springfield was at that day the most promising city in +Illinois. It had some fifteen hundred inhabitants, and the removal of +the capital was certain to bring many more. Already, in fact, the town +felt the effect. Houses and blocks were started; lawyers, politicians, +tradesmen, laborers, were pouring in. Hitherto most of the dwellings +had been of log or frame; now, however, there was an increase in brick +buildings. + +The effect was apparent too, in society. "We used to eat all +together," said an old man who in the early thirties came to +Springfield as a hostler; "but about this time some one came along and +told the people they oughtn't to do so, and then the hired folks ate +in the kitchen." This differentiation was apparent to Lincoln and +a little discouraging. He was thinking vaguely, at the time of this +removal to Springfield, that perhaps he best marry a Miss Mary Owens, +with whom he had become intimately acquainted in 1836 in New Salem; +but Springfield society, and the impossibility of his supporting a +wife in it, discouraged him. + + "I am often thinking of what we said about your coming to live + at Springfield," he wrote her in May. + + "I am afraid you would not be satisfied. There is a great deal + of flourishing about in carriages here, which it would be your + doom to see without sharing it. You would have to be poor, + without the means of hiding your poverty. Do you believe you + could bear that patiently? Whatever woman may cast her lot + with mine, should any ever do so, it is my intention to do + all in my power to make her happy and contented; and there is + nothing I can imagine that would make me more unhappy than to + fail in the effort. I know I should be much happier with you + than the way I am, provided I saw no signs of discontent in + you. What you have said to me may have been in the way of + jest, or I may have misunderstood it. If so, then let it be + forgotten; if otherwise, I much wish you would think seriously + before you decide. What I have said I will most positively + abide by, provided you wish it. My opinion is that you had + better not do it. You have not been accustomed to hardship, + and it may be more severe than you now imagine. I know you + are capable of thinking correctly on any subject, and if you + deliberate maturely upon this before you decide, then I am + willing to abide your decision." + +[Illustration: (MAP OF ILLINOIS ILLUSTRATING "_An Act to establish and +maintain a General System of Internal Improvements, in force 27th Feb. +1837_") + +When the Illinois legislature adopted the above plan of internal +improvement in 1837, there was in the whole United States only about +eleven hundred miles of railroad. The above scheme provided for +thirteen hundred and fifty. The basis of the outlines used by +the committee in developing the plan was contained in a series of +resolutions offered in the beginning of the session by Stephen A. +Douglas. In the house the vote on the bill stood sixty-one in favor to +twenty-five against.] + +This decidedly dispassionate view of their relation seems not to +have brought any decision from Miss Owens; for three months later +Mr. Lincoln wrote her an equally judicial letter, telling her that +he could not think of her "with entire indifference," that he in all +cases wanted to do right and "most particularly so in all cases with +women," and summing up his position as follows: + + "What I do wish is that our further acquaintance shall depend + upon yourself. If such further acquaintance would contribute + nothing to your happiness, I am sure it would not to mine. If + you feel yourself in any degree bound to me, I am now willing + to release you, provided you wish it; while, on the other + hand, I am willing and even anxious to bind you faster, if I + can be convinced that it will in any considerable degree add + to your happiness. This, indeed, is the whole question with + me. Nothing would make me more miserable than to believe you + miserable--nothing more happy than to know you were so." + +Miss Owens had enough discernment to recognize the disinterestedness +of this love-making, and she refused Mr. Lincoln's offer. She found +him "deficient in those little links which make up the chain of a +woman's happiness," she said. The affair seems to have been a rather +vigorous flirtation on her part, which had interested and perhaps +flattered Mr. Lincoln. In the sincerity of his nature he feared he had +awakened a genuine attachment, and his notions of honor compelled +him to find out. When finally refused, he wrote a description of the +affair to a friend, in which he ridiculed himself unmercifully: + + "I was mortified, it seemed to me, in a hundred different + ways. My vanity was deeply wounded by the reflection that I + had so long been too stupid to discover her intentions, and at + the same time never doubting that I understood them perfectly; + and also that she, whom I had taught myself to believe nobody + else would have, had actually rejected me with all my fancied + greatness. And, to cap the whole, I then for the first time + began to suspect that I was really a little in love with her. + But let it all go! I'll try and outlive it. Others have been + made fools of by the girls, but this can never with truth be + said of me. I most emphatically, in this instance, made a fool + of myself. I have now come to the conclusion never again + to think of marrying; and for this reason--I can never be + satisfied with any one who would be blockhead enough to have + me." + + +LINCOLN'S POSITION IN SPRINGFIELD. + +It was not long before Lincoln became a favorite figure in +Springfield. The skill, the courage, and the good-will he had shown in +his management of the bill for the removal of the capital gave him at +once, of course, special prominence. The entire "Long Nine," indeed, +were regarded by the county as its benefactors, and throughout the +summer there were barbecues and fireworks, dinners and speeches +in their honor. "The service rendered Old Sangamon by the present +delegation" was a continually recurring toast at every gathering. +At one "sumptuous dinner" the internal improvement scheme in all its +phases was toasted again and again by the banqueters, "'The Long Nine' +of Old Sangamon--well done, good and faithful servants," drew forth +long applause. Among those who offered volunteer toasts at this dinner +were "A. Lincoln, Esq.," and "S.A. Douglas, Esq." + +At a dinner at Athens, given to the delegation, eight formal toasts +and twenty-five volunteers are quoted in the report of the affair in +the "Sangamo Journal." Among them were the following: + + A. Lincoln. He has fulfilled the expectations of his friends + and disappointed the hopes of his enemies. + + A. Lincoln. One of nature's noblemen. + + By A. Lincoln. Sangamon County will ever be true to her best + interests, and never more so than in reciprocating the good + feelings of the citizens of Athens and neighborhood. + +Lincoln had not been long in Springfield before he soon was able to +support himself, a result due, no doubt, very largely to his personal +qualities and to his reputation as a shrewd politician. Not that he +made money. The fee-book of Lincoln and Stuart shows that the returns +were modest enough, and that sometimes they even "traded out" their +account. Nevertheless it was a satisfaction to earn a livelihood so +soon. Of his peculiar methods as a lawyer at this date we know very +little. Most of his cases are utterly uninteresting. The very first +year he was in Springfield, however, he had one case which created +a great sensation, and which, so far as we know, has been overlooked +entirely by his biographers. It is an admirable example of the +way Lincoln could combine business and politics as well as of his +merciless persistency in pursuing a man whom he believed unjust. + +It seems that among the offices to be filled at the August election of +1837 was that of probate justice of the peace. One of the candidates +was General James Adams, a man who had come on from the East in the +early twenties, and who had at first claimed to be a lawyer. He had +been an aspirant for various offices, among them that of governor +of the State, but with little success. A few days before the August +election of 1837 an anonymous hand-bill was scattered about the +streets. It was an attack on General Adams, charging him with having +acquired the title to a ten-acre lot of ground near the town by the +deliberate forgery of the name of Joseph Anderson, of Fulton County, +Illinois, to an assignment of a judgment. Anderson had died, and the +widow, upon going to Springfield to dispose of the land, was surprised +to find that it was claimed by General Adams, and she employed Stuart +and Lincoln to look into the matter. The hand-bill, which went into +all of the details at great length, concluded as follows: "I have +only made these statements because I am known by many to be one of +the individuals against whom the charge of forging the assignment and +slipping it into the general's papers has been made; and because our +silence might be construed into a confession of the truth. I shall not +subscribe my name; but hereby authorize the editor of the 'Journal' to +give it up to any one who may call for it.". + +After the election, at which General Adams had been elected, the +hand-bill was reproduced in the "Sangamo Journal," with a card signed +by the editor, in which he said: "To save any further remarks on +this subject, I now state that A. Lincoln, Esq., is the author of +the hand-bill in question." The same issue of the paper contained a +lengthy communication from General Adams, denying the charge of fraud. + +The controversy was continued for several weeks. General Adams used, +mostly, the columns of the "Springfield Republican," filling six +columns of a single issue. He charged that the assault upon him was +the result of a conspiracy between "a knot of lawyers, doctors, and +others," who wished to ruin his reputation. Lincoln's answers to Adams +are most emphatic. In one case, quoting several of his assertions, +he pronounced them "all as false as hell, as all this community must +know." Adams's replies were always voluminous. "Such is the turn which +things have lately taken," wrote Lincoln, "that when General Adams +writes a book I am expected to write a commentary on it." Replying to +Adams's denunciation of the lawyers, he said: "He attempted to impose +himself upon the community as a lawyer, and he actually carried the +attempt so far as to induce a man who was under the charge of murder +to entrust the defence of his life to his hands, and finally took his +money and got him hanged. Is this the man that is to raise a breeze +in his favor by abusing lawyers? ... If he is not a lawyer, he _is_ +a liar; for he proclaimed himself a lawyer, and got a man hanged by +depending on him." Lincoln concluded: "Farewell, General. I will see +you again at court, if not before--when and where we will settle the +question whether you or the widow shall have the land." The widow did +get the land, but this was not the worst thing that happened to Adams. +The climax was reached when the "Sangamo Journal" published a long +editorial (written by Lincoln, no doubt) on the controversy, and +followed it with a copy of an indictment found against Adams in Oswego +County, New York, in 1818. The offence charged in this indictment was +the forgery of a deed by Adams--"a person of evil name and fame and of +a wicked disposition." + +Lincoln's victory in this controversy undoubtedly did much to impress +the community, not necessarily that he was a good lawyer, but rather +that he was a clever strategist and a fearless enemy. It was not, in +fact, as a lawyer that he was prominent in the first years after he +came to Springfield. Reelected to the Assembly in 1838, and again in +1840, his real impress on the community was made as a politician. +The qualities which he had already shown in public life were only +strengthened as he gained experience and self-confidence. He was the +terror of the pretentious and insincere, and had a way of exposing +their shams by clever tricks which, to voters, were unanswerable +arguments. A case in point happened in 1840. It was considered +necessary, at that day, by a candidate to prove to the farmers that +he was poor and, like themselves, horny-handed. Those politicians who +wore good clothes and dined sumptuously were careful to conceal their +regard for the elegancies of life from their constituents. One of +the Democrats who in this campaign took particular pains to decry the +Whigs for their wealth and aristocratic principles was Colonel Dick +Taylor, generally known in Illinois as "ruffled-shirt Taylor." He was +a vain and handsome man, who habitually arrayed himself as gorgeously +as the fashion allowed. One day when he and Lincoln had met in debate +at a countryside gathering, Colonel Dick became particularly bitter +in his condemnation of Whig elegance. Lincoln listened for a time, and +then, slipping near the speaker, suddenly caught his coat, which +was buttoned up close, and tore it open. A mass of ruffled shirt, +a gorgeous velvet vest, and a great gold chain from which dangled +numerous rings and seals, were uncovered to the crowd. Lincoln needed +to make no further reply that day to the charge of being a "rag +baron." + +Lincoln loved fair play as he hated shams; and throughout these early +years in Springfield are examples of his boldness in insisting that +friend and enemy have the chance due them. A most dramatic case of +this kind occurred at a political meeting held one evening in the +Springfield court-room, which at that date was temporarily in a hall +under Stuart and Lincoln's law office. Directly over the platform was +a trap-door. Lincoln frequently would lie by this opening during a +meeting, listening to the speeches. One evening one of his friends, +E.D. Baker, in speaking angered the crowd, and an attempt was made +to "pull him down." Before the assailants could reach the platform, +however, a pair of long legs dangled from the trap-door, and in an +instant Lincoln dropped down beside Baker, crying out, "Hold on, +gentlemen, this is a land of free speech." His appearance was so +unexpected, and his attitude so determined, that the crowd soon was +quiet, and Baker went on with his speech. + +In all the intellectual life of the town he took a place. With a few +of the leading young men he formed a young men's lyceum. One of his +speeches before this body has been preserved in full. Its subject is +"The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions."[4] The speech has +not, however, any of the peculiarly original style which usually +characterized his efforts. + +He came immediately to be a favorite figure in all sorts of local +affairs. What he said and did on these occasions is still recollected +by those interested in them. "When the seat of government was removed +from Vandalia to Springfield in 1836," says the Rev. Peter Wallace +of Chicago "I obtained the contract of taking down the court-house to +make a place for the State House. Lincoln, with others, was present +to receive the job. 'Peter,' he said to me, 'if you succeed as well +in building houses as you have in tearing this one down, you will make +your mark as a builder.'" Mr. Wallace tells, too, of hearing Lincoln +say in a speech, at the funeral of one of their friends: "I read in a +book whose author never errs, 'Woe unto you when all men shall speak +well of you.' Our friend will escape that woe, for he would be the +exception had he no enemies." + +The most pleasing feature of his early life in the town was the way in +which he attached all classes of people to him. He naturally, from his +political importance and from his relation to Mr. Stuart, was admitted +to the most exclusive circle of society. But Lincoln was not received +there from tolerance of his position only. The few members left of +that interesting circle of Springfield in the thirties are emphatic in +their statements that he was recognized as a valuable social factor. +If indifferent to forms and little accustomed to conventional usages, +he had a native dignity and self-respect which stamped him at once as +a superior man. He had a good will, an easy adaptability to people, +which made him take a hand in everything that went on. His name +appears in every list of banqueters and merry-makers reported in the +Springfield papers. He even served as committee-man for cotillion +parties. "We liked Lincoln, though he was not gay," said one charming +and cultivated old lady to me in Springfield. "He rarely danced, he +was never very attentive to ladies, but he was always a welcome guest +everywhere, and the centre of a circle of animated talkers. Indeed, I +think the only thing we girls had against Lincoln was that he always +attracted all the men around him." + +Lincoln's kindly interest and perfectly democratic feeling attached to +him many people whom he never met save on the streets. Indeed his life +in the streets of Springfield is a most touching and delightful study. +He concerned himself in the progress of every building which was put +up, of every new street which was opened; he passed nobody without +recognition; he seemed always to have time to stop and talk. He +became, in fact, part of Springfield street life, just as he had of +the town's politics and society. By 1840 there was no man in the town +better known, better liked, more sought for; though there were more +than one whose future was considered brighter. + + * * * * * + +[Footnote 1: Reminiscences of Mr. Weir, a former resident of Sangamon +County, related by E.B. Howell of Butte, Montana.] + +[Footnote 2: Summary condensed from Moses's "History of Illinois."] + +[Footnote 3: The original of this letter is owned by E.R. Oeltjen of +Petersburg, Illinois.] + +[Footnote 4: Lincoln's address on "The Perpetuation of Our Political +Institutions" is dated January 27, 1837, in most biographies, but +it was published in the "Sangamo Journal" of February 3, 1838. The +address is preceded by the following resolution: + + "YOUNG MEN'S LYCEUM, + SPRINGFIELD, _January 27, 1837[8]_. + + "_Resolved_, That the thanks of this Lyceum be presented to A. + Lincoln, Esq., for the lecture delivered by him this evening, + and that he be solicited to furnish a copy for publication. + + "JAS. H. MATHENY, _Secretary_" + +The confusion as to the date of the delivery of this address evidently +arises from the fact that the resolution here quoted bears the date of +"1837"--a mere slip of the pen, of course. In January, 1837, Lincoln +was in the legislature at Vandalia. He had not yet become a resident +of Springfield. According to Mr. Herndon, who was a member of the +Young Men's Lyceum, that society was not formed until the fall of +1837.] + + + + +[Illustration: THE WAVE "WENT OUT IN THREE SURGES, MAKING A CLEAN +SWEEP OF A BOAT."] + + + + +THE SHIP THAT FOUND HERSELF. + +BY RUDYARD KIPLING, + +Author of "The Jungle Book," "Plain Tales from the Hills," etc. + + +It was her first voyage, and though she was only a little cargo +steamer of two thousand five hundred tons, she was the very best of +her kind, the outcome of forty years of experiments and improvements +in framework and machinery; and her designers and owners thought just +as much of her as though she had been the "Lucania." Any one can make +a floating hotel that will pay her expenses, if he only puts enough +money into the saloon, and charges for private baths, suites of rooms, +and such like; but in these days of competition and low freights every +square inch of a cargo boat must be built for cheapness, great hold +capacity, and a certain steady speed. This boat was perhaps +two hundred and forty feet long and thirty-two feet wide, with +arrangements that enabled her to carry cattle on her main and sheep on +her upper deck if she wanted to; but her great glory was the amount of +cargo that she could store away in her holds. Her owners--they were +a very well-known Scotch family--came round with her from the North, +where she had been launched and christened and fitted, to Liverpool, +where she was to take cargo for New York; and the owner's daughter, +Miss Frazier, went to and fro on the clean decks, admiring the new +paint and the brass-work and the patent winches, and particularly the +strong, straight bow, over which she had cracked a bottle of very +good champagne when she christened the steamer the "Dimbula." It was +a beautiful September afternoon, and the boat in all her newness (she +was painted lead color, with a red funnel) looked very fine indeed. +Her house flag was flying, and her whistle from time to time +acknowledged the salutes of friendly boats, who saw that she was new +to the sea and wished to make her welcome. + +"And now," said Miss Frazier, delightedly, to the captain, "she's +a real ship, isn't she? It seems only the other day father gave the +order for her, and now--and now--isn't she a beauty?" The girl was +proud of the firm, and talked as though she were the controlling +partner. + +"Oh, she's no so bad," the skipper replied, cautiously. "But I'm +sayin' that it takes more than the christenin' to mak' a ship. In the +nature o' things, Miss Frazier, if ye follow me, she's just irons and +rivets and plates put into the form of a ship. She has to find herself +yet." + +"But I thought father said she was exceptionally well found." + +"So she is," said the skipper, with a laugh. "But it's this way wi' +ships, Miss Frazier. She's all here, but the parts of her have not +learned to work together yet. They've had no chance." + +"But the engines are working beautifully. I can hear them." + +"Yes, indeed. But there is more than engines to a ship. Every inch of +her, ye'll understand, has to be livened up, and made to work wi' its +neighbor--sweetenin' her, we call it, technically." + +"And how will you do it?" the girl asked. + +"We can no more than drive and steer her and so forth; but if we have +rough weather this trip--it's likely--she'll learn the rest by heart! +For a ship, ye'll obsairve, Miss Frazier, is in no sense a reegid +body, closed at both ends. She's a highly complex structure o' various +an' conflictin' strains, wi' tissues that must give an' tak' accordin' +to her personal modulus of eelasteecity." Mr. Buchanan, the chief +engineer, in his blue coat with gilt buttons, was coming toward them. +"I'm sayin' to Miss Frazier, here, that our little 'Dimbula' has to be +sweetened yet, and nothin' but a gale will do it. How's all wi' your +engines, Buck?" + +"Well enough--true by plumb an' rule, of course; but there's no +spontaneeity yet." He turned to the girl. "Take my word, Miss +Frazier, and maybe ye'll comprehend later, even after a pretty girl's +christened a ship it does not follow that there's such a thing as a +ship under the men that work her." + +"I was sayin' the very same, Mr. Buchanan," the skipper interrupted. + +"That's more metaphysical than I can follow," said Miss Frazier, +laughing. + +"Why so? Ye're good Scotch, an'--I knew your mother's father; he was +fra' Dumfries--ye've a vested right in metapheesics, Miss Frazier, +just as ye have in the 'Dimbula,'" the engineer said. + +"Eh, well, we must go down to the deep watters, an' earn Miss Frazier +her deevidends. Will you not come to my cabin for tea?" said the +skipper. "We'll be in dock the night, and when you're goin' back to +Glasgie ye can think of us loadin' her down an' drivin' her forth--all +for your sake." + +In the next four days they stowed nearly four thousand tons dead +weight into the "Dimbula," and took her out from Liverpool. As soon as +she met the lift of the open water she naturally began to talk. If +you put your ear to the side of the cabin the next time you are in a +steamer, you will hear hundreds of little voices in every direction, +thrilling and buzzing, and whispering and popping, and gurgling and +sobbing and squeaking exactly like a telephone in a thunder storm. +Wooden ships shriek and growl and grunt, but iron vessels throb and +quiver through all their hundreds of ribs and thousands of rivets. The +"Dimbula" was very strongly built, and every piece of her had a letter +or a number or both to describe it, and every piece had been hammered +or forged or rolled or punched by man and had lived in the roar and +rattle of the shipyard for months. Therefore, every piece had its own +separate voice in exact proportion to the amount of trouble spent upon +it. Cast iron, as a rule, says very little; but mild steel plates and +wrought iron, and ribs and beams that have been bent and welded and +riveted a good deal, talk continuously. Their conversation, of course, +is not half as wise as human talk, because they are all, though they +do not know it, bound down one to the other in black darkness, where +they cannot tell what is happening near them, nor what is going to +happen next. + +A very short while after she had cleared the Irish coast a sullen, +gray-headed old wave of the Atlantic climbed leisurely over her +straight bows, and sat down on the steam capstan, used for hauling +up the anchor. Now, the capstan and the engine that drove it had been +newly painted red and green; besides which, nobody cares for being +ducked. + +"Don't you do that again," the capstan sputtered through the teeth of +his cogs. "Hi! Where's the fellow gone?" + +The wave had slouched overside with a plop and a chuckle; but "Plenty +more where he came from," said a brother wave, and went through and +over the capstan, who was bolted firmly to an iron plate on the iron +deck beams below. + +[Illustration: THE "DIMBULA" TAKING CARGO FOR HER FIRST VOYAGE.] + +"Can't you keep still up there," said the deck beams. "What's the +matter with you? One minute you weigh twice as much as you ought to, +and the next you don't." + +"It isn't my fault," said the capstan. "There's a green brute from +outside that comes and hits me on the head." + +"Tell that to the shipwrights. You've been in position up there for +months, and you've never wriggled like this before. If you aren't +careful you'll strain _us_." + +"Talking of strain," said a low, rasping, unpleasant voice, "are any +of you fellows--you deck beams, we mean--aware that those exceedingly +ugly knees of yours happen to be riveted into our structure--_ours_?" + +"Who might you be?" the deck beams inquired. + +"Oh, nobody in particular," was the answer. "We're only the port and +starboard upper-deck stringers; and, if you persist in heaving and +hiking like this, we shall be reluctantly compelled to take steps." + +Now, the stringers of the ship are long iron girders, so to speak, +that run lengthways from stern to bow. They keep the iron frames (what +are called ribs in a wooden ship) in place, and also help to hold +the ends of the deck beams which go from side to side of the ship. +Stringers always consider themselves most important, because they are +so long. In the "Dimbula" there were four stringers on each side--one +far down by the bottom of the hold, called the bilge stringer; one a +little higher up, called the side stringer; one on the floor of the +lower deck; and the upper-deck stringers that have been heard from +already. + +"You will take steps, will you?" This was a long, echoing rumble. +It came from the frames; scores and scores of them, each one about +eighteen inches distant from the next, and each riveted to the +stringers in four places. "We think you will have a certain amount of +trouble in _that_;" and thousands and thousands of the little rivets +that held everything together whispered: "You will! You will! Stop +quivering and be quiet. Hold on, brethren! Hold on! Hot punches! +What's that?" + +Rivets have no teeth, so they can't chatter with fright; but they did +their best as a fluttering jar swept along the ship from stern to bow, +and she shook like a rat in a terrier's mouth. + +An unusually severe pitch, for the sea was rising, had lifted the big +throbbing screw nearly to the surface, and it was spinning round in a +kind of soda water--half sea and half air--going much faster than was +right, because there was no deep water for it to work in. As it sank +again, the engines--and they were triple-expansion, three cylinders in +a row--snorted through all their three pistons: "Was that a joke, you +fellow outside? It's an uncommonly poor one. How are we to do _our_ +work if you fly off the handle that way?" + +"I didn't fly off the handle," said the screw, twirling huskily at +the end of the screw shaft. "If I had, _you'd_ have been scrap iron +by this time. The sea dropped away from under me, and I had nothing to +catch on to. That's all." + +"That's all, d'you call it?" said the thrust-block, whose business it +is to take the push of the screw; for if a screw had nothing to hold +it back it would crawl right into the engine room. (It is the holding +back of the screwing action that gives the drive to a ship.) "I know +I do my work deep down and out of sight, but I warn you I expect +justice. All _I_ ask is justice. Why can't you push steadily and +evenly, instead of whizzing like a whirligig and making me hot under +all my collars?" The thrust-block had six collars, each faced with +brass, and he did not want to get them heated. + +All the bearings that supported the fifty feet of screw shaft as it +ran to the stern whispered: "Justice--give us justice." + +"I can only give you what I get," the screw answered. "Look out! It's +coming again!" + +He rose with a roar as the "Dimbula" plunged; and +"whack--whack--whack--whack" went the engines furiously, for they had +little to check them. + +"I'm the noblest outcome of human ingenuity--Mr. Buchanan says so," +squealed the high-pressure cylinder. "This is simply ridiculous." The +piston went up savagely and choked, for half the steam behind it +was mixed with dirty water. "Help! Oiler! Fitter! Stoker! Help! I'm +choking," it gasped. "Never in the history of maritime invention has +such a calamity overtaken one so young and strong. And if I go, who's +to drive the ship?" + +"Hush! oh, hush!" whispered the steam, who, of course, had been to sea +many times before. He used to spend his leisure ashore, in a cloud, or +a gutter, or a flower-pot, or a thunder storm, or anywhere else where +water was needed. "That's only a little priming, as they call it. +It'll happen all night, on and off. I don't say it's nice, but it's +the best we can do under the circumstances." + +"What difference can circumstances make? I'm here to do my work--on +clean, dry steam. Blow circumstances!" the cylinder roared. + +"The circumstances will attend to the blowing. I've worked on the +North Atlantic run a good many times--it's going to be rough before +morning." + +"It isn't distressingly calm now," said the extra strong frames, they +were called web frames, in the engine room. "There's an upward thrust +that we don't understand, and there's a twist that is very bad for our +brackets and diamond plates, and there's a sort of northwestward pull +that follows the twist, which seriously annoys us. We mention this +because _we_ happened to cost a great deal of money, and we feel +sure that the owner would not approve of our being treated in this +frivolous way." + +"I'm afraid the matter's out of the owner's hands for the present," +said the steam, slipping into the condenser. "You're left to your own +devices till the weather betters." + +"I wouldn't mind the weather," said a flat bass voice deep below; +"it's this confounded cargo that's breaking my heart. I'm the garboard +strake, and I'm twice as thick as most of the others, and I ought to +know something." + +The garboard strake is the very bottom-most plate in the bottom of +a ship, and the "Dimbula's" garboard strake (she was a flat-bottomed +boat) was nearly three-quarters of an inch mild steel. + +"The sea pushes me up in a way I should never have expected," the +strake went on, "and the cargo pushes me down, and between the two I +don't know what I'm supposed to do." + +"When in doubt, hold on," rumbled the steam, making head in the +boilers. + +"Yes, but there's only dark and cold and hurry down here, and how do +I know whether the other plates are doing their duty? Those bulwark +plates up above, I've heard, aren't more than five-sixteenths of an +inch thick--scandalous, I call it." + +"I agree with you," said a huge web frame by the main cargo hatch. He +was deeper and thicker than all the others, and curved half-way across +the ship's side in the shape of half an arch, to support the deck +where deck beams would have been in the way of cargo coming up and +down. "I work entirely unsupported, and I observe that I am the +sole strength of this vessel, so far as my vision extends. The +responsibility, I assure you, is enormous. I believe the money value +of the cargo is over one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Think of +that!" + +"And every pound of it dependent on my personal exertions." Here spoke +a sea-valve that communicated directly with the water outside and was +seated not very far from the garboard strake. "I rejoice to think that +I am a Prince-Hyde valve, with best Para rubber facings. Five patents +cover me--I mention this without pride--five separate and several +patents, each one finer than the other. At present I am screwed +fast. Should I open, you would immediately be swamped. This is +incontrovertible!" + +Patent things always use the longest words they can. It is a trick +they pick up from their inventors. + +"That's news," said a big centrifugal bilge pump. "I had an idea that +you were employed to clean decks and things with. At least, I've used +you for that more than once. I forget the precise number in thousands +of gallons which I am guaranteed to pump in an hour; but I assure you, +my complaining friends, that there is not the least danger. _I_ alone +am capable of clearing any water that may find its way here. By my +biggest delivery, we pitched then!" + +The sea was getting up in workmanlike style. It was a dead westerly +gale, blown from under a ragged opening of green sky, narrowed on all +sides by fat gray clouds; and the wind bit like pincers, as it fretted +the spray into lace-work on the heads of the waves. + +"I tell you what it is," the foremast telephoned down its wire stays. +"I'm up here, and I can take a dispassionate view of things. There's +an organized conspiracy against us. I'm sure of it, because every +single one of these waves is heading directly for our bows. The whole +sea is concerned in it--and so's the wind. It's awful!" + +"What's awful?" said a wave, drowning the capstan for the hundredth +time. + +"This organized conspiracy on your part," the capstan gurgled, taking +his cue from the mast. + +"Organized bubbles and spindrift! There has been a depression in the +Gulf of Mexico. Excuse me!" He leaped overside; but his friends took +up the tale one after another. + +"Which has advanced--" _That_ wave threw green over the funnel. + +"As far as Cape Hatteras--" _He_ drenched the bridge. + +"And is now going out to sea--to sea--to sea!" _He_ went out in three +surges, making a clean sweep of a boat, which turned bottom up and +sank in the darkening troughs alongside. + +"That's all there is to it," seethed the broken water, roaring +through the scuppers. "There's no animus in our proceedings. We're a +meteorological corollary." + +"Is it going to get any worse?" said the bow anchor, chained down to +the deck, where he could only breathe once in five minutes. + +"Not knowing, can't say. Wind may blow a bit by midnight. Thanks +awfully. Good-by." + +The wave that spoke so politely had travelled some distance aft, and +got itself all mixed up on the deck amidships, which was a well deck +sunk between high bulwarks. One of the bulwark plates, which was hung +on hinges to open outward, had swung out, and passed the bulk of the +water back to the sea again with a wop. + +"Evidently that's what I'm made for," said the plate, shutting up +again with a sputter of pride. "Oh, no, you don't, my friend!" + +The top of a wave was trying to get in from outside, but the plate did +not open in that direction, and the defeated water spurted back. + +"Not bad for five-sixteenths of an inch," said the bulwark plate. "My +work, I see, is laid down for the night;" and it began opening and +shutting, as it was designed to do, with the motion of the ship. + +"We are not what you might call idle," groaned all the frames +together, as the "Dimbula" climbed a big wave, lay on her side at the +top, and shot into the next hollow, twisting as she descended. A huge +swell pushed up exactly under her middle, and her bow and stern hung +free, with nothing to support them, and then one joking wave caught +her up at the bow, and another at the stern, while the rest of the +water fell away from under her, just to see how she would like it, and +she was held up at the two ends, and the weight of the cargo and the +machinery fell on the groaning iron keels and bilge stringers. + +"Ease off! Ease off there!" roared the garboard strake. "I want an +eighth of an inch play. D'you hear me, you young rivets!" + +"Ease off! ease off!" cried the bilge stringers. "Don't hold us so +tight to the frames!" + +"Ease off!" grunted the deck beams, as the "Dimbula" rolled fearfully. +"You've cramped our knees into the stringers and we can't move. Ease +off, you flat-headed little nuisances." + +[Illustration: "AN UNUSUALLY SEVERE PITCH ... HAD LIFTED THE BIG +THROBBING SCREW NEARLY TO THE SURFACE."] + +Then two converging seas hit the bows, one on each side, and fell away +in torrents of streaming thunder. + +"Ease off!" shouted the forward collision bulkhead. "I want to crumple +up, but I'm stiffened in every direction. Ease off, you dirty little +forge filings. Let me breathe!" + +All the hundreds of plates that are riveted on to the frames, and make +the outside skin of every steamer, echoed the call, for each plate +wanted to shift and creep a little, and each plate, according to its +position, complained against the rivets. + +"We can't help it! _We_ can't help it!" they murmured. "We're put here +to hold you, and we're going to do it. You never pull us twice in the +same direction. If you'd say what you were going to do next, we'd try +to meet your views." + +"As far as I could feel," said the upper-deck planking, and that was +four inches thick, "every single iron near me was pushing or pulling +in opposite directions. Now, what's the sense of that? My friends, let +us all pull together." + +"Pull any way you please." roared the funnel, "so long as you don't +try your experiments on _me_. I need fourteen wire ropes, all pulling +in opposite directions, to hold me steady. Isn't that so?" + +"We believe you, my boy!" whistled the funnel stays through their +clenched teeth, as they twanged in the wind from the top of the funnel +to the deck. + +"Nonsense! We must all pull together," the decks repeated. "Pull +lengthways." + +"Very good," said the stringers; "then stop pushing sideways when you +get wet. Be content to run gracefully fore and aft, and curve in at +the ends as we do." + +"No, no curves at the end. A very slight workmanlike curve from side +to side, with a good grip at each knee, and little pieces welded on," +said the deck beams. + +"Fiddle!" said the iron pillars of the deep, dark hold. "Who ever +heard of curves? Stand up straight; be a perfectly round column, and +carry tons of good solid weight. Like that! There!" A big sea smashed +on to the deck above, and the pillars stiffened themselves to the +load. + +"Straight up and down is not bad," said the frames who run that way +in the sides of the ship, "but you must also expand yourself sideways. +Expansion is the law of life, children. Open out! Open out!" + +"Come back!" said the deck beam, savagely, as the upward heave of +the sea made the frames try to open. "Come back to your bearings, you +slack-jawed irons!" + +"Rigidity! Rigidity! Rigidity!" thumped the engines. "Absolute, +unvarying rigidity--rigidity!" + +"You see!" whined the rivets in chorus. "No two of you will ever pull +alike, and--and you blame it all on us. We only know how to go through +a plate and bite down on both sides so that it can't and mustn't and +sha'n't move." + +"I've got one-sixteenth of an inch play at any rate," said the +garboard strake triumphantly; and so he had, and all the bottom of the +ship felt a good deal easier for it. + +"Then we're no good," sobbed the bottom rivets. "We were ordered--we +were _ordered_--never to give, and we've given, and the sea will come +in, and we'll all go to the bottom together! First we're blamed for +everything unpleasant, and now we haven't the consolation of having +done our work." + +"Don't say I told you," whispered the steam consolingly; "but, between +you and me and the cloud I last came from, it was bound to happen +sooner or later. You _had_ to give a fraction, and you've given +without knowing it. Now hold on, as before." + +"What's the use?" a few hundred rivets chattered. "We've given--we've +given; and the sooner we confess that we can't keep the ship together +and go off our little heads, the easier it will be. No rivet forged +could stand this strain." + +"No one rivet was ever meant to. Share it among you," the steam +answered. + +"The others can have my share. I'm going to pull out," said a rivet in +one of the forward plates. + +"If you go, others will follow," hissed the steam. "There's nothing so +contagious in a boat as rivets going. Why, I knew a little chap like +you--he was an eighth of an inch fatter, though--on a steamer--to be +sure, she was only twelve tons, now I come to think of it--in exactly +the same place as you are. _He_ pulled out in a bit of a bobble of a +sea, not half as bad as this, and he started all his friends on the +same butt-strap, and the plate opened like a furnace door, and I had +to climb into the nearest fog bank while the boat went down." + +"Now that's peculiarly disgraceful," said the rivet. "Fatter than me, +was he, and in a steamer not half our tonnage? Reedy little peg! I +blush for the family, sir." He settled himself more firmly than ever +in his place, and the steam chuckled. + +"You see," he went on quite gravely, "a rivet, and especially a rivet +in _your_ position, is really the _one_ indispensable part of the +ship." The steam did not say that he had whispered the very same thing +to every single piece of iron aboard. There is no sense in telling too +much. + +And all that while the little "Dimbula" pitched and chopped and swung +and slewed, and lay down as though she were going to die, and got up +as though she had been stung, and threw her nose round and round in +circles half a dozen times as she dipped, for the gale was at its +worst. It was inky black, in spite of the tearing white froth on the +waves, and, to top everything, the rain began to fall in sheets, so +that you could not see your hand before your face. This did not make +much difference to the iron-work below, but it troubled the foremast a +good deal. + +"Now it's all finished," he said, dismally. "The conspiracy is too +strong for us. There is nothing left but to--" + +"Hurraar! Brrrraaah! Brrrrrrp!" roared the steam through the foghorn, +till the decks quivered. "Don't be frightened below. It's only me, +just throwing out a few words in case any one happens to be rolling +round to-night," + +"You don't mean to say there's any one except _us_ on the sea in such +weather?" said the funnel, in a husky snuffle. + +"Scores of 'em," said the steam, clearing its throat. "Rrrrrraaa! +Brraaaaa! Prrrrp! It's a trifle windy up here; and, great boilers, how +it rains!" + +"We're drowning," said the scuppers. They had been doing nothing else +all night, but this steady thresh of rain above them seemed to be the +end of the world. + +"That's all right. We'll be easier in an hour or two. First the +wind and then the rain; soon you may make sail again! Grrraaaaah! +Drrrraaaa! Drrrrrp! I have a notion that the sea is going down +already. If it does you'll learn something about rolling. We've only +pitched till now. By the way, aren't you chaps in the hold a little +easier than you were?" + +There was just as much groaning and straining as ever, but it was not +so loud or squeaky in tone; and when the ship quivered she did not +jar stiffly, like a poker hit on the floor, but gave a supple little +waggle, like a perfectly balanced golf club. + +"We have made a most amazing discovery," said the stringers, one after +another; "a discovery that entirely changes the situation. We have +found, for the first time in the history of shipbuilding, that the +inward pull of the deck beams and the outward thrust of the frames +locks us, as it were, more closely in our places, and enables us to +endure a strain which is entirely without parallel in the records of +marine architecture." + +The steam turned a laugh quickly into a roar up the foghorn. "What +massive intellects you great stringers have!" he said, softly, when he +had finished. + +"We, also," began the deck beams, "are discoverers and geniuses. We +are of opinion that the support of the hold-pillars materially helps +_us_. We find that we lock upon them when we are subjected to a heavy +and singular weight of sea above." + +Here the "Dimbula" shot down a hollow, lying almost on her side, and +righting at the bottom with a wrench and a spasm. + +"In these cases--are you aware of this, steam?--the plating at the +bows, and particularly at the stern,--we would also mention the floors +beneath us,--helps _us_ to resist any tendency to spring." It was the +frames who were speaking in the solemn and awed voice which people use +when they have just come across something entirely new for the very +first time. + +"I'm only a poor, puffy little flutterer," said the steam, "but I have +to stand a good deal of pressure in my business. It's all tremendously +interesting. Tell us some more. You fellows are _so_ strong." + +"You'll see," said the bow plates proudly. "Ready behind there! Here's +the father and mother of waves coming! Sit tight, rivets all!" The +great sluicing comber thundered by, but through all the scuffle and +confusion the steam could hear the low, quick cries of the iron-work +as the various strains took them--cries like these: "Easy now, easy! +_Now_ push for all your strength! Hold out! Give a fraction! Hold up! +Pull in! Shove crossways! Mind the strain at the ends! Grip now! Bite +tight! Let the water get away from under, and there she goes." + +The wave raced off into the darkness shouting, "Not bad that, if it's +your first run!" and the drenched and ducked ship throbbed to the beat +of the engines inside her. All three cylinders were wet and white with +the salt spray that had come down through the engine-room hatch; there +was white salt on the canvas-bound steam pipes, and even the bright +work below was speckled and soiled; but the cylinders had learned to +make the most of steam that was half water, and were pounding along +cheerfully. + +"How's the noblest outcome of human ingenuity hitting it?" said the +steam, as he whirled through the engine room. + +"Nothing for nothing in the world of woe," the cylinders answered, +as if they had been working for centuries, "and precious little for +seventy-five pounds head. We've made two knots this last hour and a +quarter! Rather humiliating for eight hundred horse-power, isn't it?" + +"Well, it's better than drifting astern, at any rate. You seem rather +less--how shall I put it?--stiff in the back than you were." + +"If you'd been hammered as we've been this night, you wouldn't be +stiff--ffreff--ff--either. Theoreti--retti--retti--cally, of course, +rigidity is _the_ thing. Purr--purr--practically, there has to be a +little give and take. _We_ found that out by working on our sides for +five minutes at a stretch--chch--chh. How's the weather?" + +"Sea's going down fast," said the steam. + +"Good business," said the high-pressure cylinder. "Whack her up along, +boys. They've given us five pounds more steam;" and he began humming +the first bars of "Said the young Obadiah to the old Obadiah," which, +as you must have noticed, is a pet tune among engines not made for +high speed. Racing liners with twin screws sing "The Turkish Patrol" +and the overture to the "Bronze Horse" and "Madame Angot," till +something goes wrong, and then they give Gounod's "Funeral March of a +Marionette" with variations. + +"You'll learn a song of your own some fine day," said the steam, as he +flew up the foghorn for one last bellow. + +Next day the sky cleared and the sea dropped a little, and the +"Dimbula" began to roll from side to side till every inch of iron in +her was sick and giddy. But, luckily, they did not all feel ill at the +same time; otherwise she would have opened out like a wet paper box. +The steam whistled warnings as he went about his business, for it is +in this short, quick roll and tumble that follows a heavy sea that +most of the accidents happen; because then everything thinks that the +worst is over and goes off guard. So he orated and chattered till the +beams and frames and floors and stringers and things had learned how +to lock down and lock up on one another, and endure this new kind of +strain. + +They had ample time, for they were sixteen days at sea, and it was +foul weather till within a hundred miles of New York. The "Dimbula" +picked up her pilot, and came in covered with salt and red rust. Her +funnel was dirty gray from top to bottom; two boats had been carried +away; three copper ventilators looked like hats after a fight with the +police; the bridge had a dimple in the middle of it; the house that +covered the steam steering-gear was split as with hatchets; there +was a bill for small repairs in the engine room almost as long as the +screw-shaft; the forward cargo hatch fell into bucket staves when +they raised the iron crossbars; and the steam capstan had been badly +wrenched on its bed. Altogether, as the skipper said, it was "a pretty +general average." + +"But she's soupled," he said to Mr. Buchanan. "For all her dead +weight, she rode like a yacht. Ye mind that last blow off the Banks? I +was proud of her." + +"It's vara good," said the chief engineer, looking along the +dishevelled decks. "Now, a man judging superficially would say we were +a wreck, but we know otherwise--by experience." + +Naturally, everything in the "Dimbula" stiffened with pride, and +the foremast and the forward collision bulkhead, who are pushing +creatures, begged the steam to warn the port of New York of their +arrival. "Tell those big boats all about us," they said. "They seem to +take us quite as a matter of course." + +It was a glorious, clear, dead calm morning, and in single file, with +less than half a mile between each, their bands playing, and +their tugboats shouting and waving handkerchiefs beneath, were the +"Majestic," the "Paris," the "Touraine," the "Servia," the "Kaiser +Wilhelm II." and the "Werkendam," all statelily going out to sea. As +the "Dimbula" shifted her helm to give the great boats clear way, the +steam (who knows far too much to mind making an exhibition of himself +now and then) shouted: + +"Oyez! oyez! oyez! Princes, Dukes, and Barons of the High Seas! Know +ye by these presents we are the 'Dimbula,' fifteen days nine hours out +from Liverpool, having crossed the Atlantic with four thousand ton of +cargo for the first time in our career. We have not foundered! We are +here! Eer! eer! We are not disabled. But we have had a time wholly +unparalleled in the annals of shipbuilding. Our decks were swept. We +pitched, we rolled! We thought we were going to die! Hi! hi! But we +didn't! We wish to give notice that we have come to New York all the +way across the Atlantic, through the worst weather in the world; and +we are the 'Dimbula.' We are--arr--ha--ha--ha-r-r!" + +The beautiful line of boats swept by as steadily as the procession of +the seasons. The "Dimbula" heard the "Majestic" say "Humph!" and the +"Paris" grunted "How!" and the "Touraine" said "Oui!" with a little +coquettish flicker of steam; and the "Servia" said "Haw!" and the +"Kaiser" and the "Werkendam" said "Hoch!" Dutch fashion--and that was +absolutely all. + +"I did my best," said the steam, gravely, "but I don't think they were +much impressed with us, somehow. Do you?" + +"It's simply disgusting," said the bow-plates. "They might have +seen what we've been through. There isn't a ship on the sea that has +suffered as we have--is there now?" + +"Well, I wouldn't go so far as that," said the steam, "because I've +worked on some of those boats, and put them through weather quite as +bad as we've had in six days; and some of them are a little over ten +thousand tons, I believe. Now, I've seen the 'Majestic,' for instance, +ducked from her bows to her funnel, and I've helped the 'Arizona,' I +think she was, to back off an iceberg she met with one dark night; and +I had to run out of the 'Paris's' engine room one day because there +was thirty foot of water in it. Of course, I don't deny--" The steam +shut off suddenly as a tugboat, loaded with a political club and a +brass band that had been to see a senator off to Europe, crossed the +bows, going to Hoboken. There was a long silence, that reached without +a break from the cut-water to the propeller blades of the "Dimbula." + +Then one big voice said slowly and thickly, as though the owner had +just waked up: "It's my conviction that I have made a fool of myself." + +The steam knew what had happened at once; for when a ship finds +herself, all the talking of the separate pieces ceases and melts into +one deep voice, which is the soul of the ship. + +"Who are you?" he said, with a laugh. + +"I am the 'Dimbula,' of course. I've never been anything else except +that--and a fool." + +The tugboat, which was doing its very best to be run down, got away +just in time, and its band was playing clashily and brassily a popular +but impolite air: + + In the days of old Rameses--are you on? + In the days of old Rameses--are you on? + In the days of old Rameses, + That story had paresis-- + Are you on--are you on--are you on? + +"Well, I'm glad you've found yourself," said the steam. "To tell the +truth, I was a little tired of talking to all those ribs of stringers. +Here's quarantine. After that we'll go to our wharf and clean up a +little, and next month we'll do it all over again." + + + + +A CENTURY OF PAINTING. + +NOTES DESCRIPTIVE AND CRITICAL.--GOYA AND HIS CAREER.--FOUR ENGLISH +PAINTERS OF FAMILIAR LIFE.--GERICAULT, INGRES, AND DELACROIX. + +BY WILL H. LOW. + + +Looking backward to the first quarter of this century, it is hardly +too sweeping an assertion to say that, with a single exception, there +was little that was important in the way of painting outside of France +and England. There were local reputations in all the other countries, +practitioners of the art who joined to a respectable proficiency in +painting an adhesion to the traditions which had been handed down to +them. These men, in their time and place, were notable; and in +the museums of their respective countries their works remain of +chronological interest to students of painting. But to the larger +public which these papers address, they are of little importance, +having exercised but slight influence on contemporaneous art. + +The exception already noted was in Spain, and there only in the case +of a single painter. Francisco Goya y Lucientes, "Pintor Espanol," as +he delighted to call himself, would be, indeed has been, a fascinating +subject for picturesque biography. Charles Yriarte, the well-known +French art critic, has given the world a most interesting and complete +story of Goya's life, which, though it is only separated from our own +day by a span of seventy years, chronicles the exploits of one who +in the history of art must hark back to Benvenuto Cellini in the +sixteenth century to find his parallel. + +Goya was born March 31, 1746, at Fuente de Todos, in the province of +Aragon. The son of a small farmer, he was placed when very young +in the local Academy of Fine Arts at Saragossa, where he received +instruction from Bayen and Luzan, painters little known outside of +Spain. The swashbuckler instincts which were to govern him through +life manifested themselves here, where in a street brawl he laid low +three of his adversaries. He found it prudent to evade both justice +and the vengeance which followed swift and sure in those days in +Spain, by flying to Madrid. Soon after his arrival in the capital, +however, in continuation of his old mode of life, he was picked up for +dead in one of the low quarters of the town. Surviving the poignard, +but again threatened with arrest, he joined a _quadrilla_ of +bull-fighters, in whose company he went from town to town, giving +exhibitions of his prowess in the national sport. + +[Illustration: THE GARROTED MAN. FROM AN ETCHING BY GOYA. + +There is a tradition that this etching was made from nature, the +model--some malefactor executed by the strangling method employed in +Spain--being studied by Goya from his chamber window.] + +With all this, painting must have been somewhat of an interlude; +but Goya had early shown signs of great talent, and before he left +Saragossa, his master, Josepha Bayen, had confidence enough in +his future to entrust the happiness of his daughter to his care by +permitting his marriage to her. Goya's biographer notes that through +all the various adventures of his career he had the utmost care for +the material comfort of this lady. Her character must impress us +to-day as charitable to excess; for, shortly after the bull-fighting +episode, Goya found himself in Rome, where his next exploit was the +abduction, from a convent, of a noble Roman girl. With the police once +more on his track, he sought refuge at the Spanish Embassy, whence +he was despatched home in disguise, probably to the relief of his +country's representative in Rome. Before this adventure, which was +only one of many which the charitable wife had to pardon, he had +attracted the attention of David, who was then in Italy, and who, +as his art differed in every way from that of Goya, must have been +strongly impressed by his work to give it his approval. + +[Illustration: DEATH ON THE BATTLE-FIELD. FROM AN ETCHING BY GOYA. + +One of the plates from the "Disasters of War" where the grotesque and +huge figure of Death appears to the combatants.] + +On arriving home Goya was given employment in designing a series of +tapestries for the royal palace; and from 1780, when he was made a +member of the Spanish Royal Academy, ensues the period of his +greatest artistic activity. Carrying into his art the same excess +of temperament which marked his life, his execution was rapid and +decisive. Rebellious to the ordinary means employed by painters, he +used various mediums, some of which have ill withstood the ravages of +time; and, disdaining brushes, he often employed sponges or bits of +rag in their place. In the case of one of his pictures, a revolt of +the Madrilenians against the French, it is said that he employed a +spoon. + +In 1799 Goya was made painter to the king, Charles III., whose +successor, the fourth of his name, continued his favor. The time, +which was that of the notorious "Prince of Peace," Godoy, was +favorable for a character like that of Goya, whose eccentricities were +looked upon with an indulgent eye by a court which must have felt +that its function was hardly that of moral censor. At least Goya, the +intimate of Maria Louisa and the court circle, by no means abandoned +his friends the bull-fighters and tavern-keepers. Fresh from an +altar-piece for a cathedral, or a royal portrait, his ready brush +found employment in rapidly painting a street scene, or even a sign +for a wine-shop. A whitewashed wall for canvas and mud from the gutter +for pigment, were the means employed to embody a patriotic theme at +the entrance of the French soldiers into Madrid--a popular masterpiece +executed to the plaudits of the crowd. + +All this would seem to denote a charlatan; yet withal, Goya has fairly +won his place amid the great painters of the world. Perhaps no better +example could be found of the essential difference between the outward +and visible actions of a man and the inward and spiritual grace of an +artist than in this instance; and the Latin standpoint, always more +intellectually liberal than our own Anglo-Saxon appreciation of the +same problem furnishes the reason why Goya was left free to pursue his +artistic career instead of languishing in prison. His illogical brush +filled the cathedrals of Saragossa, Seville, Toledo, and Valencia +with masterly frescoes, while with the etching needle he produced +many plates. Some of these, like the "Caprices," a series of eighty +etchings, are filled with imagination alternately tragical and +grotesque; while another series, representing bull-fights, throughout +its thirty-three plates depicts the incidents of the game with intense +realism. The "Disasters of War," another series of eighty, were +inspired by the French invasion; and never, perhaps, were the +cruelties of war more strenuously realized in art than in these. +Probably these etchings, executed, like all his works, by methods +peculiar to himself, constitute his best title to remembrance. But +his painting, replete though it be with the defects of his qualities, +stands as a precursor of the great coloristic school of which +Delacroix was the head and front. This is notably to be felt in his +portraits, and in some of the rapidly executed single figures of +which the Louvre has a specimen and the Metropolitan Museum, New York, +another--the latter, "A Jewess of Tangiers." + +[Illustration: GOYA. FROM A PORTRAIT ETCHED BY HIMSELF. + +This portrait is the frontispiece to a series of etchings by Goya.] + +Before leaving Goya for men whose works are their only history, +a characteristic incident, which caused his flight from Spain to +Bordeaux in France, must be told. In 1814 Wellington was in Madrid +and sat for his portrait to Goya. After the first sitting, the soldier +presumed to criticise the work; whereat Goya, seizing a cutlass, +attacked him, causing the future hero of Waterloo to flee for his life +from the maniacal fury of the painter. It is said that, later, peace +was made between the two men, and that the portrait was achieved; +but for the moment Goya found safety in France, together with his +long-suffering wife, who had incidentally borne him twenty children. +At the green old age of eighty-two Goya died at Bordeaux, April 16, +1828. + +[Illustration: ST. JUSTINA AND ST. RUFINA. FROM A PAINTING BY GOYA IN +THE CATHEDRAL AT SEVILLE. + +These are the patron saints of Seville. The legend has it that they +were the daughters of a potter and followed their father's trade, +giving away in charity, however, all that they earned more than was +sufficient to supply their simple wants. At the time of a festival +to Venus, they were requested to supply the vessels to be used in her +worship, and on their refusing, they were dragged before the prefect, +who condemned them to death, July 19, A.D. 304. They are generally +represented with earthen vessels and the palms of martyrdom; in this +case, the broken statue of Venus lies in the foreground. The Giralda +tower, the chief ornament of Seville, and the prototype of the Madison +Square tower in New York City, is their especial care, and it is +believed that its preservation from lightning is due to them.] + +No greater contrast could be devised than the four works which follow, +either in the character of the art or in the uneventful respectability +of the painters' lives. They are all typical of a class of pictures +which has been popular in England, from the time of Hogarth to the +present day. The earliest of them is the "Blind Fiddler" of Sir David +Wilkie, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1807. The dates at +which the others, by Mulready, Webster, and Leslie, were painted would +preclude their appearance here, if strict chronological sequence were +imposed, as they were painted about 1840. It is instructive, +however, to group them together, to show that these artists and their +followers, who were legion, thought at least as much of subject as of +method. Not that the latter quality is lacking. On the contrary, it +is only too evident; but it is a method of convention. No one would +imagine for a moment, in looking at any one of these pictures, that +he was admitted an unseen spectator to some scene of intimate family +life. It is this quality which the great Dutchmen in all their scenes +of familiar life preserved; and when we look at a Pieter de Hooge, +for instance, there is no suspicion that the homely scene has been +arranged for our delectation. In its transplantation from Holland, +however, English art lost just this quality. + +David Wilkie, born in Scotland, at Cults in Fifeshire, November 18, +1785, came to London in 1805 to enter the Royal Academy schools, after +some preliminary training at Edinburgh. His first picture, in the +exhibition of 1806, "The Village Politicians," attracted attention, +and was followed the next year by "The Blind Fiddler." The work of +a youth of twenty-two, it is remarkable for its close observation +of character and the skilful use made of what may be termed the +theatrical faculty of grouping the personages so that their action +tells the story. This is not a merit, and there is little doubt that +the scene would be greater as art were it more consistently human. +Character is well and pictorially rendered; but by its insistence in +every figure, we feel that it is but a moment since the curtain +was withdrawn and the _tableau vivant_ shown. This and the pictures +following it met with the most unbounded popular approval, were +reproduced by engraving, and exercised an influence increased by the +honors and fortune which were showered on the painter. + +In 1825 Wilkie made an extended continental tour, and three years +later, after his return to England, changed his class of subjects for +historical and portrait painting, bringing to these later themes the +same ability and the same lack of _naivete_ which characterized his +former work. A Royal Academician since 1811, he was appointed first +painter in ordinary to the king, on the death of Lawrence, in 1830. He +was knighted in 1836, and died at sea on June 1, 1841, while returning +from Egypt. + +[Illustration: THE BLIND FIDDLER. FROM A PAINTING BY SIR DAVID WILKIE. + +"An itinerant musician is entertaining a cottager and his family with a +tune on the fiddle; the father gayly snaps his fingers at an infant on +the knees of the mother, behind whom a mischievous boy, with the poker +and bellows in his hands, is mimicking the action of the musician. +With this exception, all, even the dog standing by the chair of its +mistress, appear to be intent upon the music of the blind fiddler." +This quotation, from the catalogue of the National Gallery where the +original picture is placed, accurately describes it.] + +[Illustration: CHOOSING THE WEDDING GOWN. FROM A PAINTING BY WILLIAM +MULREADY IN THE SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM, LONDON. + +To the title of this picture, the painter himself added, as expository +of his theme and the source of his inspiration, the following passage +from Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield": "I had scarcely taken orders +a year, before I began to think seriously of matrimony, and chose my +wife, as she did her wedding gown, not for a fine glossy surface, but +for such qualities as would wear well." The picture thus affords +a good instance of the dependence on literature of the painters of +Mulready's school. Its title alone would suffice, so well and simply +is the story told; but, apparently, with the British public, and in +the painter's mind, it gained an added grace by diverting the visual +impression of the observer to the realm of literature. The picture is +here reproduced from a copyrighted photograph by Frederick Hollyer, +Kensington.] + +William Mulready was of Irish birth, having come into the world at +Ennis, in the County Clare, April 1, 1786. In 1809, after a period +in the schools of the Royal Academy, he exhibited there a picture +entitled "Fair Time," which gave him almost instant success; and until +his death, July 7, 1863, though producing fewer pictures than Wilkie, +he worked on very much the same class of subjects. His color is less +agreeable than that of the Scot, and his execution very much more +labored. His life was uneventful, occupied exclusively with his work, +which he loved; so much so that two days before his death, an old +man of seventy-seven, he sat drawing in the evening life class at the +Royal Academy. He had been a member of the Academy since 1816. The +picture here reproduced is (even without the quotation from the "Vicar +of Wakefield" which accompanies it in the catalogue of the South +Kensington Museum) a simple story simply told. It is free from the +mannerisms which mar much of Mulready's work, especially in the +portrayal of children, and in the original is more agreeable in color +than are many of his pictures. + +[Illustration: CONTRARY WINDS. FROM A PAINTING BY THOMAS WEBSTER. The +happily chosen title explains sufficiently this pleasant scene. The +picture, painted in 1843, is now in the South Kensington Museum.] + +Thomas Webster, born March 20, 1800, in London, and dying at Cranbrook +in Kent, September, 1886, was another painter whose work had enjoyed +the full meed of popularity, from 1825 to the time of his retirement +from the Royal Academy in 1877. Pictures like the one here reproduced +(from the original in the South Kensington Museum, painted in 1843, +and entitled "Contrary Winds"), pictures depicting homely rustic +life, were his specialty. His work had gained him the title of Royal +Academician in 1846. + +Through all this time, and in the work of many painters unnoticed +here, the qualities are evident of an honest endeavor to paint the +simple life of the country. With a higher standard of taste, and +better preliminary instruction, painting would have gained; and the +defect with which British art has been so often reproached, of being +too literary, might have been lessened. Charles Robert Leslie, +whose works are almost uniformly inspired by literature, was born at +Clerkenwell in England, of American parents, October 19, 1794. He was +taken to Philadelphia when five years of age, but returned to England +in 1811, to study at the Royal Academy. Washington Allston and +Benjamin West, both Americans--the latter at the time President of the +Royal Academy--aided Leslie by advice. + +After a preliminary stage as a portrait painter, Leslie exhibited at +the Royal Academy in 1819 a picture of "Sir Roger de Coverley Going to +Church," the first of a long series of pictures dependent on books +for their subjects. In 1825 he painted "Sancho Panza and the Duchess," +which procured him his election as an Academician the following year. +The picture here reproduced is a repetition, with some slight changes, +of the same subject, but was painted in 1844. Leslie may be said to +have originated this style of subject in England, where he has had +many followers; and, given the requisite knowledge of literature, his +pictures tell their story with directness and humor. In painting, his +work is rather hard; but in grace and style of drawing he was much +superior to his contemporaries. Among his pictures are many suggested +by Shakespeare, which have been popularized by engraving. + +[Illustration: SANCHO PANZA IN THE APARTMENT OF THE DUCHESS. FROM A +PAINTING BY C.E. LESLIE. + +Sancho having, by the command of the Duchess, seated himself upon a +low stool, is saying, "Now, madam, that I am sure that nobody but the +company present hears us, I will answer without fear or emotion to all +you have asked and to all you shall ask me; and the first thing I tell +you is that I take my master, Don Quixote, for a downright madman." +The original picture is in the National Gallery, London.] + +Leslie returned to this country in 1833 to accept the professorship +of drawing at the West Point Military Academy, but remained only a +few months. After returning to London, he enjoyed a successful +career until his death, May 5, 1859. He was one of the first and most +consistent admirers of Constable's work, and wrote his life. He also +published lectures on painting, delivered at the Royal Academy, where +he had been appointed lecturer in 1848. + +The consideration of the two men whose portraits face each other here, +and who stood thus opposed, during their lives, as the leaders of +all that constituted art in their time and country, takes us back to +France. Frequent returns of this character will be necessary in the +course of these papers; for, without undue prejudice in favor of +the French, it must be said that they alone have through the century +maintained a consistent attitude in regard to art. Other countries +have from time to time encouraged painting, with as frequent lapses +of interest or lack of men who could legitimately inspire interest. +Although transplanted bodily from Italy to France, in the time of +Francis the First, art had taken so firm a root by the commencement +of this century that, as we have seen, it grew and flourished though +watered by the red blood of revolution. As a national institution, +following the prescribed rules of the Academy, it has, of course, +met with frequent assaults at the hands of men for whom prescribed +academic law was as naught in comparison with the higher law of +genius. In 1819 such a man appeared, with a picture which violated the +unwritten law formulated by David: "Look in your Plutarch and paint!" + +[Illustration: THE RAFT OF THE "MEDUSA." FROM A PAINTING BY GERICAULT +IN THE LOUVRE. + +The frigate "Medusa," accompanied by three other vessels, left France +June 17, 1816, heading for Saint-Louis (Senegal), with the governor +and principal officers of the colony as passengers. On July 2 the +vessel stranded on a reef, and after five days of ineffectual effort +to float her, was abandoned. A raft was constructed and one hundred +and forty-nine men embarked on it, the remainder of the crew and +passengers, four hundred all told, taking to the boats. For twelve +days, the raft floated at the will of the waves and winds; then it +was sighted by one of the convoys, the brig Argus. Only fifteen men +survived. The picture represents the moment of their deliverance.] + +Jean Louis Andre Theodore Gericault, born at Rouen, September 26, +1791, came to Paris in 1808, and entered the studio of Guerin, where +his method of painting displeased his master to such a degree that he +advised him to abandon the study of art. Guerin had thoroughly imbibed +the defects of the David method; and the spectacle of a youth who +obstinately persisted in trying to paint the model as he really +appeared, instead of making a pink imitation of antique sculpture, +seemed to him to be of little promise. + +Gericault, however, persisted; and with the exception of about a year, +when the halo of military glory seduced him from his work, he worked +so well and earnestly that, after two years' sojourn in Italy, he +returned to Paris, a few weeks before the Salon of 1819, equipped with +the knowledge of a master. + +Taking a canvas about fifteen feet high by twenty in length, using the +green-room of a theatre for a studio, he set to work. Disdaining the +prevailing taste for mythology and classic themes, he took from the +journals of the time the moving recital of the sufferings of the crew +of the frigate "Medusa," abandoned on a raft in mid-ocean. Choosing +the moment when the fifteen survivors of the hundred and forty-nine +men who had embarked on the raft sighted the sail in the offing which +meant their deliverance, he worked with an energy and fire which have +remained remarkable in the annals of art. Certain of the figures, all +of which are more than life size, were painted in a day, and when the +Salon of 1819 opened, the picture was finished. + +[Illustration: INGRES. FROM A PORTRAIT PAINTED BY HIMSELF. + +Painted for the gallery of Painters' Portraits in the Uffizi, +Florence, in 1858, according to the inscription on the picture. This +most interesting collection, which is still being added to year by +year, comprises the portraits of the great painters, in most cases by +their own hands, from the time of the Renaissance to our day.] + +Seen as it is to-day in the Louvre, blackened by time and the neglect +from which it suffered for six or seven years before it was placed +there, it remains one of the capital pages in the history of modern +art. The effect on the younger generation who saw it fresh from the +hand of the master, accustomed as they were to the lifeless +effigies of the classic school, was puzzling, and none but the most +revolutionary dared approve of it. With the older painters there was +a similar distrust of the impression which it caused. Yet David--an +artistic kernel encased in an academic husk--admired it; and so did a +swarthy youth who was soon to make his mark and who was a friend and +former comrade of Gericault in the _atelier_ Guerin--Eugene Delacroix. + +[Illustration: DELACROIX. FROM A PORTRAIT PAINTED BY HIMSELF IN 1837. + +This portrait was left by the painter at his death to Mlle. Jenny +Leguillon, his housekeeper, and by her was bequeathed to the Louvre in +1872.] + +Gericault received a recompense of the fourth class, and, disgusted +with his lot, took the immense canvas to London, where it was +exhibited with success. During his sojourn in England he executed a +number of pictures in oil and water color, and many lithographs, which +are to-day eagerly sought by collectors. Returning to France full of +projects for work, his health began to give way, and on the 18th of +January, 1824, he died. The influence which he exercised had, however, +borne its fruits. Already in the Salon of 1822 Ferdinand Victor Eugene +Delacroix, born at Charenton, near Paris, April 26, 1799, had shown +his "Dante and Virgil." + +Before considering Delacroix, however, it is best to return to the +earlier years of the century, and give J. Dominique Auguste Ingres, +whose stern face confronts Delacroix's portrait, the precedence to +which his age entitles him. + +"Monsieur" Ingres, as the iconoclastic leaders of the romantic school +called him in mock deference, was born at Montauban, August 29, 1780. +His life was fortunate, and his history, which is chiefly that of his +works, can be told in few words. A pupil of David, he received +the Prix de Rome in 1801. He remained in Rome much longer than the +allotted four years to which his prize entitled him, and returned +there often during his life as to the source of all art. By +portraiture and the constant patronage of the government, the material +conditions of his life, which was of a simple character, befitting +a man who viewed his mission as that of an apostle preaching the +doctrine of pure classicism, were made easy; and the official titles +of Member of the Institute, Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, and +Senator of the Empire all came to him with the lapse of years. + +More royalist than the king, and the last of David's disciples, Ingres +pursued throughout his life the even tenor of a man convinced that +the source of all inspiration in art was Greek sculpture as amplified, +transmuted, and translated to the realm of painting by Raphael. +Painting in his hands became almost purely a matter of form. The +element of color was virtually ignored, and form, chastened in contour +and modelling, became through the magic of his genius the almost +sufficient quality. The qualification is necessary. For though too +great a man to lose, as too many of his master's pupils did, the grasp +on nature; and while, therefore, his works, seen as they are through +the glamour of the antique, never lack an intimate relation to +existing life, it is impossible to resist the feeling before them that +it is life beautified, of exquisite yet virile choice, but of life +arrested. The reproach of his opponents of the romantic school that he +was an "embalmer" has a foundation of truth. + +[Illustration: A PORTRAIT OF INGRES, DRAWN IN ROME IN 1816. + +This lovely drawing, from the collection in the Louvre, shows Ingres +in his most pleasing aspect. By the magic of a few lines faintly +traced, he has evoked for us the image of a charming person; and by +the slight indication of costume, has also fixed the epoch at which +the drawing was made. It was in the earlier years of the master, while +he was in Rome, that he drew many such little masterpieces as a means +of livelihood, drawings which he then made for a few francs, and which +are now eagerly sought by the museums of Europe.] + +[Illustration: APOTHEOSIS OF HOMER. FROM A PAINTING BY INGRES. + +Originally painted for a ceiling in the gallery of Greek and Roman +Antiquities, in the Louvre, where it is now replaced by a copy of the +same executed by Ingres's pupils. The picture represents Homer crowned +as Jupiter by Victory, and seated before his temple receiving the +homage of the poets, painters, sculptors, and architects of the +world.] + +[Illustration: THE SEIZURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE BY THE CRUSADERS. FROM A +PAINTING BY EUGENE DELACROIX. + +In 1203, through political intrigue, a French army, raised to take +part in the fourth crusade for the rescue of Jerusalem from +the Mohammedans, joined with a Venetian army in an attack on +Constantinople, then a Christian city, the capital of the Byzantine +Empire. The city fell, but later was recovered. Then, on April 12, +1204, the invaders secured it again, and subjected it to a despoilment +without parallel. Delacroix's picture portrays a scene in this +despoilment. One of the invading barons, attended by his escort, rides +on to a terrace, and the citizens fall before him, praying his mercy. +Behind lies the Bosphorous, and beyond it are the shores of Asia.] + +For all this, it is hardly superlative to say that, since art began, +no man has ever felt the exquisite and subtle harmony of line to +the same degree as Ingres. Naturally the best examples of this, his +greatest quality, are to be found in his rendering of the nude human +form; and from the "Oedipus and the Sphinx," of 1808, to "La Source," +of 1856, both of which are now in the Louvre, he returned again and +again to its study, producing each time a masterpiece. His portraits, +again, are most masterly, occasionally rising through sheer force of +rendering each characteristic trait of his model (as in the portrait +of M. Bertin, the editor of the "Debats"), to the extreme exactitude +of Holbein, coupled with an _allure_ so thoroughly modern that +the whole epoch of Louis Philippe lives before us. In the slighter +drawings of his earlier years in Rome, one of which is reproduced +here, only the most typical details are chosen, and these are +indicated with a delicacy of touch, a sureness of hand, that not +only indicates the master, but lends a distinctive charm of truthful +delicacy of which none but Ingres has known the secret. It is in such +works that his influence will be felt the longest; for, as with his +master, the great pictures in which he exemplified his principles +remain cold and uninteresting. The "Homer Deified," reproduced here, +was originally intended as a ceiling for the Louvre, and from a +decorative point of view would excite a pitying smile from Veronese +or Tiepolo. Taken bit by bit, as a beautiful exhibition of supreme +knowledge, of the evasive quality of style in drawing, it is, however, +admirable, and as a whole it has the merits of grave, balanced +composition. It was the spirit of work like this which the master +sought to force upon his epoch, rather than that of his portraits or +of pictures like the "Source;" and the austerity of these principles +met with more submission in the earlier years of the century than when +later Gericault had shown the path in which the audacious Delacroix +threw himself at the head of a band of romantic followers. + +[Illustration: DANTE AND VIRGIL CROSSING THE LAKE WHICH SURROUNDS THE +INFERNAL CITY OF DITE. FROM A PAINTING BY EUGENE DELACROIX, IN THE +LOUVRE. + +The subject is taken from Dante's "Inferno," and represents the poet +and his companions and guide standing in a bark conducted by Phlegyas, +while around them appear on the surface of the water the writhing +bodies of the condemned, among whom Dante recognizes certain +Florentines.] + +I have used the term audacious in speaking of Delacroix, and +circumstances forced him to justify the epithet. Yet to a student of +his work, and still more of his character as revealed in his writings +(his recently published letters and the few articles published during +his life in the "Revue des Deux-Mondes"), he would appear to have been +by nature prepared to receive the full academic tradition, and +only because of what appeared a violation of the tradition _as he +understood it_, to have arrayed himself in violent opposition: a +situation which rendered him in work and in life contradictory to his +natural instinct. It is the old story of the defect of system. Even +the most cunningly devised cannot make a place for all the many +manifestations of temperamental activity. Like Gericault, a pupil of +Guerin, Delacroix found in his master and in the general spirit of +the school an insistence on the letter of the classic law to which his +richly endowed nature could not bend, and was thus forced to rebel; +whereas a more elastic application of received principles would have +found him an enthusiastic adherent. In this way he missed acquiring +the technical mastery over form, which proved a stumbling block to him +through life. At times his drawing is possessed of a vigor and life +which even Ingres never had; at others his work is almost lamentable +in its lack of constructive form. In respect to color in its finest, +most harmonic qualities, he is the greatest of French painters; and +at all times he is master of an intense dramatic force. It was with a +masterpiece--"Dante and Virgil"--that he made his first appearance at +the Salon in 1822. At a bound he found himself famous. Guerin, who had +counselled him against sending his picture to the Salon, grudgingly +acknowledged that he was wrong. Gros told him that it was like Rubens, +with more correctness of form--Rubens "chastened" was the word. The +government bought the picture, paying the artist two hundred and forty +dollars--twelve hundred francs--for it. + +The same year Delacroix submissively made his final attempt for the +Prix de Rome, but came out sixtieth in the competition. Thenceforward +he was to be constantly before the public, constantly opposed, +misunderstood, criticised; but nevertheless, with all the energy which +shows in his portrait, constantly in the front. When his defenders had +sufficient influence to force the hand of the ministry of fine arts, +he was commissioned to paint for the state; and to this we owe the +decorations in the gallery of Apollon in the Louvre, the decorations +in the church of St. Sulpice, and others. When he received the order +for the entrance of the Crusaders to Constantinople for the Gallery of +Battles at Versailles, the good King Louis Philippe sent him word to +make it as little like his usual style as possible! + +Among Delacroix's critics Ingres, with all the force of his +convictions, was the foremost. He to whom a sky had always served as +a simple background was not created to understand the almost purple +canopy of azure stretching far above the heads of the Crusaders; nor +to find barbaric delight in the rich trappings of horses and men, +since to him a drapery was simply a textureless covering adjusted to +accentuate the form beneath. Delacroix, whose intelligence was of a +higher order and who said of himself that he was "more rebellious than +revolutionary," treated Ingres when they met on official occasions, +as at the meetings of the Institute (where finally Delacroix had +penetrated), with a high and distant courtesy which his sturdy +adversary, strong in his pious devotion to classicism, hardly +returned. Delacroix had by far the most brilliant following, +reinforced as it was by the landscape painters, who from 1830 onwards +gave to this century its most notable school of painting. Added to +this was a fair measure of appreciation on the part of collectors. + +Delacroix's genius found expression in many small pictures, all of +them characterized by a gem-like coloration (which is more than mere +color, however, for in it lies the secret of a powerful and direct +expression of sentiment) and by a vivid realization of movement. Proud +by nature, delicate in health, his life was far from happy; he never +ceased to feel the sting of adverse criticism. "For more than thirty +years I have been given over to the wild beasts," he said once. He +had warm friends, who have left many records of his sweetness of +disposition when the outer barrier of haughty reserve was broken +through; but they were few in number. He never married; painting, +he said, was his only mistress, and his passion for his art is felt +through all his work. His death occurred at Champrosay near Paris, +where he had a modest country house, on August 13, 1863; and four +years later, January 14, 1867, his great adversary, Ingres, followed +him. + + + + +CY AND I. + +BY EUGENE FIELD. + + + As I went moseyin' down th' street, + My Denver friend I chanced t' meet. + "Hello!" says I, + "Where have you been so long a time + That we have missed your soothin' rhyme?" + "New York," says Cy. + "Gee whiz!" says I. + + "You must have seen some wonders down + In that historic, splendid town;" + And then says I: + "For bridges, parks, and crowded streets + There is no other place that beats + New York," says I. + "_Correct!_" says Cy. + + "The town is mighty big, but then + It isn't in it with its men, + Is it?" says I. + "And tell me, Cyrus, if you can, + Who is its biggest, brainiest man?" + "Dana!" says Cy. + "You _bet_!" says I. + + "He's big of heart and big of brain, + And he's been good unto us twain"-- + Choked up, says I. + "I love him, and I pray God give + Him many, many years to live! + Eh, Cy?" says I. + "_Amen!_" says Cy. + + + + +A YOUNG HERO + +PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF COLONEL E.E. ELLSWORTH. + +BY JOHN HAY, + +Author, with John G. Nicolay, of "Abraham Lincoln: a History." + + +[Illustration: HENRY H. MILLER, A MEMBER OF THE ORIGINAL COMPANY OF +ELLSWORTH ZOUAVES. + +From a photograph loaned by Mr. Miller and taken in 1861 by Colonel +E.L. Brand, at that time commanding the company.] + +It is in contemplating what the world loses in the deaths of brilliant +young citizen soldiers that we appreciate most fully the waste of +war and the priceless value of the cause for which such lives were +sacrificed. When a man like Henri Regnault--the most substantial +hope and promise of art in our century--is seen at the siege of Paris +lingering behind his retreating comrades, "_le temps de bruler une +derniere cartouche_" the last words he uttered; when a genius like +Theodore Winthrop is extinguished in its ardent dawn on an obscure +skirmish field; when a patriot and poet like Koerner dies in battle +with his work hardly begun--we feel how inadequate are all the +millions of the treasury to rival such offerings. We shall have no +correct idea what our country is worth to us if we forget all the +singing voices that were hushed, all the noble hearts that stopped +beating, all the fiery energies that were quenched, that we might be +citizens of the great and indivisible Republic of the Western world. + +I believe that few men who fell in our civil conflict bore with them +out of the world possibilities of fame and usefulness so bright or +so important as Colonel Ephraim Elmer Ellsworth, who was killed at +Alexandria, Virginia, on May 24, 1861--the first conspicuous victim of +the war. The world can never compute, can hardly even guess, what was +lost in his untimely end. He was killed by the first gun he ever heard +fired in strife; and his friends, who believe him to have had in him +the making of a great soldier, have nothing to support their opinion +but the impression made upon them by his manly character, his winning +and vigorous personality, and the extraordinary ardor and zest with +which his powerful mind turned towards military affairs in the midst +of circumstances of almost incredible difficulty and privation. He was +one of the dearest of the friends of my youth. I cannot hope to +enable the readers of this paper to see him as I saw him. No words can +express the vivid brilliancy of his look and his speech, the swift and +graceful energy of his bearing. He was not a scholar, yet his words +were like martial music; in stature he was less than the medium size, +yet his strength was extraordinary; he seemed made of tempered steel. +His entire aspect breathed high ambition and daring. His jet-black +curls, his open candid brow, his dark eyes, at once fiery and tender, +his eagle profile, his mouth just shaded by the youthful growth that +hid none of its powerful and delicate lines--the whole face, which +seemed made for nothing less than the command of men, whether as +general or as orator, comes before me as I write, with a look of +indignant appeal to the future for the chance of fame which inexorable +fate denied him. The appeal, of course, is in vain. Only a few men, +now growing old, knew what he was and what he might have been if life +had been spared him for a year or two. I will merely try to show in +these few pages, mainly from his own words, how great a heart was +broken by the slugs of the assassin at the Marshall House. + +He was born in the village of Mechanicsville, Saratoga County, New +York, on April 23, 1837. His parents were plain people, without +culture or means; one cannot guess how this eaglet came into so lowly +a nest. He went out into the world at the first opportunity, to seek +his fortune; he turned his hand, like other American boys, to anything +he could find to do. He lived a while in New York, and finally drifted +to Chicago, where we find him, in the spring of 1859, a clerk and +student in the law office of Mr. J.E. Cone. From his earliest boyhood +he had a passionate love of the army. He learned as a child the manual +of arms; he picked up instinctively a knowledge of the pistol and the +rifle; he became, almost without instruction, a scientific fencer. +But he was now of age, and determined to be a lawyer, since, to all +appearance, there was no chance for him in the army. The way in which +he pursued his legal studies he has set down in a diary which he kept +for a little while. He began it on his twenty-second birthday. "I do +this," he said, "because it seems pleasant to be able to look back +upon our past lives and note the gradual change in our sentiments and +views of life; and because my life has been, and bids fair to be, +such a jumble of strange incidents that, should I become anybody or +anything, this will be useful as a means of showing how much suffering +and temptation a man may undergo and still keep clear of despair and +vice." + +[Illustration: ELLSWORTH IN THE SPRING OF 1861, WHEN HE WAS A +LIEUTENANT IN THE REGULAR ARMY AND JUST BEFORE HE RECRUITED THE +REGIMENT OF NEW YORK ZOUAVES. + +From a photograph by Brady in the Civil War collection of Mr. Robert +Coster, by whose permission it is here reproduced.] + +He was neat, almost foppish, in his attire; not strictly fashionable, +for he liked bright colors, flowing cravats, and hats that suggested +the hunter or ranger rather than the law clerk; yet the pittance for +which he worked was very small, and his poverty extreme. He therefore +economized upon his food. He lived for months together upon dry +biscuits and water. Here is a touching entry from his diary: "Had +an opportunity to buy a desk to-day worth forty-five dollars, for +fourteen dollars. It was just such a one as I needed, and I could sell +at any time for more than was asked for it. I bought it at auction. I +can now indulge my ideas of order in the arrangement of my papers to +their fullest extent. Paid five dollars of my own money and borrowed +ten dollars of James Clayburne; promised to return it next Tuesday. +By the way, this was an instance in a small way of the importance of +little things. Some two years since, when I was so poor, I went one +day into an eating-house on an errand. While there, Clayburne and +several friends came in. + +"As I started to go out they stopped me and insisted upon my having +an oyster stew. I refused, for I always made it a practice never to +accept even an apple from any one, because I could not return like +courtesies. While they were clamoring about the matter and I trying to +get from them, the waiter brought on the oysters for the whole party, +having taken it for granted that I was going to stay. So to escape +making myself any more conspicuous by further refusal, I sat down. How +gloriously every morsel tasted--the first food I had touched for three +days and three nights. When I came to Chicago with a pocket full of +money I sought James out and told him I owed him half a dollar. He +said no, but I insisted my memory was better than his, and made him +take it. Well, when I wanted ten dollars, I went to him, and he gave +it to me freely, and would take no security. Have written four hours +this evening; two pounds of crackers; sleep on office floor to-night." + +The diary relates many incidents like this. He took a boyish pride +in refusing offers of assistance, in resisting temptation to innocent +indulgence, in passing most of his hours in study, earning only enough +by his copying to keep body and soul together. One entry is, "Read one +hundred and fifty pages of Blackstone--slept on floor." Such a regimen +was not long in having its effect upon even his rugged health. He +writes: "I tried to read, but could not. I am afraid my strength will +not hold out. I have contracted a cold by sleeping on the floor, which +has settled in my head, and nearly sets me crazy with catarrh. Then +there is that gnawing, unsatisfied sensation which I begin to feel +again, which prevents any long-continued application." About this time +he was urged to take command of a company of cadets which, through +mismanagement, had been reduced to a deplorable condition. He at first +declined, but afterward consented if the company would accept certain +rigorous conditions of discipline and obedience. He was as firm as +granite to his company, and cheery and gay to the world, while in his +private life he was subjecting himself to the cruel rigors described +in his diary of April 21: "I am convinced that the course of reading +which I am pursuing is not sufficiently thorough. Have commenced again +at beginning of Blackstone. I now read a proposition or paragraph +and reason upon it; try to get at the principle involved, in my own +language; view it in every light till I think I understand it; then +write it down in my commonplace book. My progress is, in consequence, +very slow, as it takes on an average half an hour to each page. +Attended meeting of cadets' committee on ways and means; all my +propositions accepted. I spent my last ten cents for crackers to-day. +Ten pages of Blackstone." + +The next day he writes: "My mind was so occupied with obtaining +money due to-morrow that I could not study. Five pages of Blackstone. +Nothing whatever to eat. I am very tired and hungry to-night. Onward." + +[Illustration: ELLSWORTH IN 1860, WHEN HE WAS CAPTAIN OF THE CHICAGO +COMPANY. + +From a photograph loaned by Mr. H.H. Miller of Chicago, a member of +the Chicago company, and taken July 2, 1860, by Colonel E.L. Brand of +Chicago, a member of Ellsworth's Chicago company, and afterwards +in command of it. In the State House at Springfield, Illinois, is +a portrait group of the members of the Ellsworth company, with a +reproduction of this portrait of Ellsworth in the centre.] + +In these circumstances of hunger and toil, he took charge of the +company of cadets, which was falling to pieces from neglect. There was +no sign in his bearing of the poverty and famine which were consuming +him. He told them roundly that if they elected him their captain they +did so with their eyes open; that he should enforce the strictest +discipline, and make their company second to none in the United +States. His laws were Draconic in their severity. He forbade his +cadets from entering a drinking or gambling saloon or any other +disreputable place under penalty of expulsion, publication of the +offender's name in the city papers, and forfeiture of uniform. He +insisted on prompt obedience and unremitting drill. The company under +his firm and inspiring command rapidly pulled itself together, +and attracted all at once the notice and admiration of Chicago and +northern Illinois. The young captain did not give up his law studies. +He wrote and affixed to his desk a card which contained his own daily +orders: "So aim to spend your time that at night, when looking back at +the disposal of the day, you find no time misspent, no hour, no moment +even, which has not resulted in some benefit, no action which had not +a purpose in it. Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays: Rise at 5 o'clock; +5 to 10, study; 10 to 1, copy; 1 to 4, business; 4 to 7, study; 7 to +8, exercise; 8 to 10, study. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays: Rise +at 6; 6 to 10, study; 10 to 1, business; 1 to 7, study and copy; 7 to +11, drill." + +Working faithfully as he did in the office, his whole heart was in his +drill room. His fame as a fencer went abroad in the town, and he was +challenged to a bout by the principal teacher of the art in Chicago. +Ellsworth records the combat in his diary of May 24th: "This evening +the fencer of whom I have heard so much came up to the armory to fence +with me. He said to his pupils and several others that if I held to +the low guard he would disarm me every time I raised my foil. He is +a great gymnast, and I fully expected to be beaten. The result was: I +disarmed him four times, hit him thirty times. He disarmed me once +and hit me five times. At the _touche-a-touche_ I touched him in two +places at the same allonge, and threw his foil from him several feet. +He was very angry, though he tried to conceal it." + +[Illustration: FRANK E. BROWNELL, WHO KILLED THE ASSASSIN OF COLONEL +ELLSWORTH. + +From a photograph in the Civil War collection of Mr. Robert Coster, by +whose permission it is here reproduced.] + +Public interest constantly grew in the Zouaves and their young +captain. Large crowds attended every drill. The newspapers began to +report all their proceedings, and to comment upon them with more +or less malevolence; for military companies were treated with scant +respect in Western towns before the war. Ellsworth at last determined +to confront hostile opinion by giving a public exhibition of the +proficiency of his company on the Fourth of July. He was not without +trepidation. The night before the Fourth he wrote: "To-morrow will +be an eventful day to me; to-morrow I have to appear in a conspicuous +position before thousands of citizens--an immense number of whom, +without knowing me except by sight, are prejudiced against me. +To-morrow will demonstrate the truth or falsity of my assertion that +the citizens would encourage military companies if they were worthy +of respect." The result was an overwhelming success; and the young +soldier, after his feast of crackers the next night, wrote in +exultation: "Victory! And thank God!" + +The Chicago "Tribune," which had previously been unfriendly to the +little company who were trying to make soldiers of themselves, gave +a long and flattering account of the performance, and said: "We but +express the opinion of all who saw the drill yesterday morning, when +we say this company cannot be surpassed this side of West Point." + +Encouraged by this public applause, he brought his company of Zouaves +as near to absolute perfection of drill as was possible; and then, +having tested them in as many competitive contests as were within +reach, he challenged the militia companies of the United States, and +set forth in the summer of 1860 on a tour of the country which was one +unbroken succession of triumphs. He defeated the crack companies in +all the principal Eastern cities, and went back to Chicago one of +the most talked-of men in the country. Hundreds of Zouave companies +started up in his wake, and a very considerable awakening of interest +in military matters was the substantial result of his journey. + +[Illustration: THE DEATH OF COLONEL ELLSWORTH.] + +On his return to Illinois he made the acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln, +and gained at once his friendship and esteem. He entered his office +in Springfield ostensibly as a law student; but Mr. Lincoln was then a +candidate for the Presidency, and Ellsworth read very little law that +autumn. He made some Republican speeches in the country towns about +Springfield, bright, witty, and good-natured. But his mind was full of +a project which he hoped to accomplish by the aid of Mr. Lincoln--no +less than the establishment in the War Department of a bureau of +militia, by which the entire militia system of the United States +should be concentrated, systematized, and made efficient: an enormous +undertaking for a boy of twenty-three; but his plans were clear, +definite, and comprehensive. + +[Illustration: THE MARSHALL HOUSE, ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA, IN WHICH +COLONEL ELLSWORTH WAS KILLED. + +From a photograph owned by Bryan, Taylor & Co., publishers, New York, +and reproduced here by their permission.] + +After Mr. Lincoln's election Ellsworth accompanied him to Washington. +As a preliminary step towards placing him in charge of a bureau of +militia, the President gave him a commission as a lieutenant in the +army. Shortly afterward he fell seriously ill with the measles; and +before he was thoroughly convalescent, the guns about Sumter opened +the Civil War. There had been much doubt in many minds as to the +loyalty of the people in case of actual war. Ellsworth never had +doubted it. He said to me as I sat by his bedside: "You know I have a +great work to do, to which my life is pledged; I am the only earthly +stay of my parents; there is a young woman whose happiness I regard as +dearer than my own; yet I could ask no better death than to fall next +week before Sumter. I am not better than other men. You will find that +patriotism is not dead, even if it sleeps." When the news came that +South Carolina had begun the war, he did not wait an instant. He threw +up his commission in the regulars, took all the money we both had, +which was not much, and thus insufficiently equipped, started for New +York, and raised, with incredible celerity, the New York Zouaves, a +regiment eleven hundred strong. + +This unique organization filled so large a space in the public mind +while Ellsworth commanded it that it seems hard to realize that its +history with him is only a matter of a few weeks. He brought +his regiment down to Washington early in May, arriving thin as a +greyhound, his voice hoarse with drilling; but flushed and happy to +know he was busy and useful at last. + +There was no limit to the hopes and the confidence of his friends. +We had grown to admire and respect him for his high and honorable +character, his thorough knowledge of his business, ardent zeal for the +flag he followed, and his extraordinary courage and energy. We fully +expected, relying upon his splendid talents and the President's +affectionate regard, that his first battle would make him a +brigadier-general, and that his second would give him a division. +There was no limit to the glory and usefulness we anticipated for him. +How soon all these hopes were dust and ashes! + +[Illustration: COLONEL ELLSWORTH AND A GROUP OF MILITIA OFFICERS. + +From a photograph taken by Colonel E.L. Brand, a member of Ellsworth's +Chicago company, and reproduced by the courtesy of Mr. H.H. Miller, +also a member of the company. The photograph was taken in New York +City, July, 1860, on the occasion of an exhibition drill given +there by Ellsworth's company. The persons shown in the picture are, +beginning on the left, the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Sixth Regiment, +New York Militia; E.E. Ellsworth, Captain of the United States Zouave +Cadets (Ellsworth's Chicago company); Joseph C. Pinckney, Colonel +of the Sixth Regiment, New York Militia; the Adjutant of the Sixth +Regiment, New York Militia; H. Dwight Laflin, Second Lieutenant of the +United States Zouave Cadets, and J.R. Scott, First Lieutenant of the +United States Zouave Cadets. The colors shown in the picture were +won by Ellsworth's company in a drill competition at the National +Agricultural Fair, Chicago, September, 15, 1859, and were, by it, +never lost. They are to-day in the custody of the company's color +sergeant, B.B. Botteford, Chicago.] + +On the evening of May 23d he received his orders to lead his regiment +on the extreme left of the Union lines in the advance into Virginia. +The part assigned him was the occupation of Alexandria. He worked +almost all night in his tent, arranging the business of his regiment, +and then wrote a touching letter of farewell to his parents. +Anticipating an engagement, he said: "It may be my lot to be injured +in some manner. Whatever may happen, cherish the consolation that +I was engaged in the performance of a sacred duty; and to-night, +thinking over the probabilities of the morrow and the occurrences of +the past, I am perfectly content to accept whatever my fortune may be, +confident that He who noteth even the fall of a sparrow will have some +purpose even in the fate of one like me. My darling and ever-loved +parents, good-by. God bless, protect, and care for you." These loving +and filial words were the last that came from his pen. + +The Zouaves were embarked before dawn the next morning. The celerity +and order with which Ellsworth performed his work excited the +admiration and surprise of Admiral Dahlgren, who commanded the navy +yard. + +The town of Alexandria was occupied without resistance; and Ellsworth, +with a squad of Zouaves, hurried off to take possession of the +telegraph office. On his way he caught sight of a Confederate flag +floating from the summit of the Marshall House. He had often seen, +from the window of the Executive Mansion in Washington, this self-same +banner flaunting defiance; and the temptation to tear it down with his +own hands was too much for his boyish patriotism. Accompanied by four +soldiers only and several civilians, he ran into the hotel, up the +stairs to the roof, and tore down the flag; but coming down was met on +the stairs by the hotel-keeper and shot dead. His assassin perished at +the same moment, killed by Frank E. Brownell. + +Ellsworth was buried from the East Room of the White House by the +special order of the President, who mourned him as a son. Many brave +and able officers were to perish in the four years that followed that +mournful day; but there was not one whose death was more sincerely +lamented than that of this young soldier who had never seen a battle; +and it is the belief of his friends that he had not his superior in +natural capacity among all the most eminent heroes of the war. But who +will care to hear this said? If Napoleon Bonaparte had been killed at +the siege of Toulon, who would have listened to some grief-stricken +comrade's assertion that this young Corsican was the greatest soldier +since Caesar? I have written these lines merely to show how simple, +kindly, and heroic a heart Colonel Ellsworth had--and not to claim for +him what can never be proved. + + + + +CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE. + +BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS, + +Author of "The Gates Ajar," "The Madonna of the Tubs," etc. + +ANDOVER GIRLS AS STUDENTS OF THEOLOGY.--THE DARK DAYS OF THE +WAR.--WRITING MAGAZINE STORIES AND SUNDAY-SCHOOL BOOKS.--THE +DIFFICULTY AND UNCERTAINTY OF WRITING FOR A LIVING. + + +One study in our curriculum at the Andover School I have omitted +to mention in its place; but, of them all, it was the most +characteristic, and would be most interesting to an outsider. Where +else but in Andover would a group of a dozen and a half girls be put +to studying theology? Yet this is precisely what we did. Not that we +called our short hour with Professor Park on Tuesday evenings by that +long word; nor did he. It was understood that we had Bible lessons. + +But the gist of the matter was, that we were taught Professor Park's +theology. + +We had our note-books, like the students in the chapel lecture-rooms, +and we took docile notes of the great man's views on the attributes of +the Deity, on election and probation, on atonement and sanctification, +on eschatology, and the rest. + +Girls' with pink ribbons at white throats, and girls with blue silk +nets on their pretty hair, fluttered in like bees and butterflies, and +settled about the long dining-room table, at whose end, with a shade +over his eyes to shield them from the light, the professor sat in a +dark corner. + +Thence he promulgated stately doctrines to those soft and dreaming +woman-creatures, who did not care a maple-leaf whether we sinned +in Adam, or whether the Trinity were separate as persons or as +attributes; but who drew little portraits of their dearest Academy +boys on the margins of their lecture-books, and passed these to their +particular intimates in surreptitious interludes between doctrines. + +What must have been the professor's private speculations on those +Tuesday evenings? I had a certain sense of their probable nature, even +then; and glanced furtively into the dark corner for glimpses of the +distant, sarcastic smile which I felt must be carving itself upon the +lines of his strong face. But I never caught him at it; not once. With +the gravity befitting his awful topics, and with the dignity belonging +to his Chair and to his fame, the professor taught the butterflies, +to the best of my knowledge and belief, as conscientiously as he did +those black-coated beetles yonder, the theologues on the Seminary +benches. + +[Illustration: "THE OLD BRICK ACADEMY," PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, +MASSACHUSETTS, WITH THE CLASS OF 1861 IN FRONT. + +Of the class of 1861 over twenty went into the war, and several died +in battle or in war prisons. Lieutenant S.H. Thompson, son of the late +Professor William Thompson of East Windsor Seminary, was among this +number. Also, Sergeant J.H. Thompson, son of the late Dr. Joseph P. +Thompson of New York City. President Ward of Franklin College, the +Rev. Dr. Dougherty of Kansas City, and the Rev. Dr. Brand of Oberlin +College, were members of the class, and their portraits appear in the +picture. The valedictorian was Carlos F. Carter, brother of President +Carter of Williams College. He was drowned in the Jordan a few months +after graduation.] + +I ought to say, just here, that, in a recent correspondence with +Professor Park upon this matter, I found him more or less unconscious +of having been so generous with his theology to the girls. I am giving +the pupil's impressions, not the teacher's recollections, of that +Bible-class; and I can give no other. Of course, I may be mistaken, +and am liable to correction; but my impressions are, that he gave us +his system of theology pretty straight and very faithfully. + +I cannot deny that I enjoyed those stern lessons. Not that I had any +marked predilections towards theology, but I liked the psychology of +it. I experienced my first appreciation of the nature and value of +logic in that class-room, and it did me good, and not evil altogether. +There I learned to reason with more patience than a school-girl may +always care to suffer; and there I observed that the mysteries of time +and eternity, whatever one might personally conclude about them, were +material of reason. + +In many a mental upheaval of later life, the basis of that theological +training has made itself felt to me, as one feels rocks or stumps or +solid things underfoot in the sickly swaying of wet sands. I may not +always believe all I was taught, but what I was taught has helped me +to what I believe. I certainly think of those theological lectures +with unqualified gratitude. + +The Tuesday evenings grow warm and warmer. The butterflies hover about +in white muslins, and pretty little bows of summer colors glisten on +bright heads as they bend over the doctrines, around the long table. +On the screens of the open windows the June beetles knock their heads, +like theologues who wish they could get in. There is a moon without. +Visions of possible forbidden ecstasies of strolls under the arches of +the Seminary elms with the bravest boy in the Academy melt before the +gentle minds, through which depravity, election, predestination, and +justification are filing sternly. The professor's voice arises: + +"A sin is a wrong committed against God. God is an Infinite Being; +therefore sin against Him is an infinite wrong. An infinite wrong +against an Infinite Being deserves an infinite punishment--" + +Now, the professor says that he has no recollection of ever having +said this in the Bible-class; but there is the note-book of the girl's +brain, stamped with the sentence for these thirty years! + +"I have sometimes quoted it at the Seminary," he writes, "for +the purpose of exposing the impropriety of it. I do not think any +professor ever quoted the statement, without adding that it is +untenable. The Andover argument was ----"[5] He adds the proper +controversial language, which, it seems, went solidly out of my head. +Tenable or untenable, my memory has clutched the stately syllogism. + +Sharp upon the doctrines there falls across the silence and the +sweetness of the moonlit Hill a strange and sudden sound. It is +louder than theology. It is more solemn than the professor's system. +Insistent, urging everything before it--the toil of strenuous study, +the fret of little trouble, and the dreams of dawning love--the call +stirs on. It is the beat of a drum. + +The boys of old Phillips, with the down on their faces, and that +eternal fire in their hearts which has burned upon the youth of all +the ages when their country has commanded: "Die for me!" are drilling +by moonlight. + +The Academy Company is out in force, passing up and down the quiet, +studious streets. The marching of their feet beats solemnly at the +meeting of the paths where (like the gardens of the professors) the +long walks of the Seminary lawns form the shape of a mighty cross. + +"An infinite wrong deserves an infinite punishment--" The +theologian's voice falls solemnly. The girls turn their grave faces to +the open windows. Silence helps the drum-beat, which lifts its cry to +Heaven unimpeded; and the awful questions which it asks, what system +of theology can answer? + + * * * * * + +Andover was no more loyal, probably, than other New England villages; +but perhaps the presence of so many young men helped to make her seem +so to those who passed the years from 1861 to 1865 upon the Hill. + +Theology and church history and exegesis and sacred rhetoric retreated +from the foreground of that scholastic drama. The great Presence that +is called War swept up and filled the scene. + +Gray-haired men went to their lecture-rooms with bowed heads, the +morning papers shaking in their hands. The accuracy of the Hebrew +verb did not matter so much as it did last term. The homiletic uses or +abuses of an applied text, the soundness of the new school doctrine of +free will, seemed less important to the universe than they were +before the Flag went down on Sumter. Young eyes looked up at their +instructors mistily, for the dawn of utter sacrifice was in them. He +was only an Academy boy yesterday, or a theologue; unknown, unnoticed, +saying his lesson in Xenophon, taking his notes on the Nicene Creed; +blamed a little, possibly, by his teacher or by his professor, for +inattention. + +To-day he comes proudly to the desk. His step rings on the old, bare +floors that he will never tread again. "Sir, my father gives his +permission. I enlist at once." + +To-day he is a hero, and the hero's light is glorious on his face. +To-day _he_ is the teacher, and the professor learns lessons in his +turn now. The boy whom he has lectured and scolded towers above him +suddenly, a sacred thing to see. The old man stands uncovered before +his pupil as they clasp hands and part. + +The drum calls on, and the boys drill bravely--no boys' parade this, +but awful earnest now. The ladies of Andover sew red braid upon blue +flannel shirts, with which the Academy Company make simple uniform. + +Then comes a morning when the professors cannot read the papers for +the news they bring; but cover streaming eyes with trembling hands, +and turn their faces. For the black day of the defeat at Bull Run has +darkened the summer sky. + +Andover does not sew for the missionaries now. Her poor married +theologues must wait a little for their babies' dresses. Even the blue +flannel shirts for the drill are forgotten. The chapel is turned into +sudden, awful uses, of which the "pious founders" in their comfortable +graves did never dream. For there the women of the Hill, staying for +no prayer-meeting, and delaying to sing no hymns, pick lint and roll +bandages and pack supplies for the field; and there they sacrifice and +suffer, like women who knew no theology at all; and since it was not +theirs to offer life to the teeth of shot and shell, they "gave their +happiness instead." + + * * * * * + +The first thing which I wrote, marking in any sense the beginning of +what authors are accustomed to call their "literary career"--I dislike +the phrase and wish we had a better--was a war story. + +As nearly as I can recall the facts, up to this time I had shown no +literary tendency whatever, since the receipt of that check for two +dollars and a half. Possibly the munificence of that honorarium seemed +to me to satiate mortal ambition for years. It is true that, during my +schooldays, I did perpetrate three full-grown novels in manuscript. My +dearest particular intimate and I shared in this exploit, and read our +chapters to each other on Saturday afternoons. + +I remember that the title of one of these "books" was "The Shadow of +a Lifetime." It was a double title with a heroine to it, but I forget +the lady's name, or even the nature of her particular shadow. The +only thing that can be said about these three volumes is, that their +youthful author had the saving sense not to try the Christian temper +of a publisher with their perusal. + +Yet, in truth, I have never regretted the precious portion of human +existence spent in their creation; for I must have written off in that +way a certain amount of apprenticeship which does, in some cases, find +its way into type, and devastate the endurance of a patient public. + +The war story of which I speak was distinctly the beginning of +anything like genuine work for me. Mr. Alden tells me that it was +published in January, 1864; but I think it must have been written +a while before that, though not long, for its appearance quickly +followed the receipt of the manuscript. The name of the story was "A +Sacrifice Consumed." It was a very little story, not covering more +than four or five pages in print. I sent it to "Harper's Magazine," +without introduction or what young writers are accustomed to call +"influence;" it was sent quite privately, without the knowledge of +any friend. It was immediately accepted, and a prompt check for +twenty-five dollars accompanied the acceptance. Even my father knew +nothing of the venture until I carried the letter and enclosure to +him. The pleasure on his expressive face was only equalled by its +frank and unqualified astonishment. He read the story when it came +out, and, I think, was touched by it--it was a story of a poor and +plain little dressmaker who lost her lover in the army--and his +genuine emotion gave me a kind of awed elation which has never been +repeated in my experience. Ten hundred thousand unknown voices could +not move me to the pride and pleasure which my father's first gentle +word of approval gave to a girl who cared much to be loved, and little +to be praised; and the plaudits of a "career" were the last things in +earth or heaven then occupying her mind. + +[Illustration: ABBOT ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS. + +From a photograph by Geo. H. Leek, Lawrence, Massachusetts, taken in +1864.] + +Afterwards, I wrote with a distinct purpose, and, I think, quite +steadily. I know that longer stories went, soon and often, to the old +magazine, which never sent them back; and to which I am glad to pay +the tribute of a gratitude that I have never outgrown. There was +nothing of the stuff that heroines and geniuses are made of in a shy +and self-distrustful girl who had no faith in her own capabilities, +and, indeed, at that time, the smallest possible amount of interest in +the subject. + +It may be a humiliating fact, but it is the truth, that had my first +story been refused, or even the second or the third, I should have +written no more. + +For the opinion of important editors, and for the sacredness of market +value in literary wares, as well as in professorships or cotton cloth, +I had a kind of respect at which I sometimes wonder; for I do not +recall that it was ever distinctly taught me. But, assuredly, if +nobody had cared for my stories enough to print them, I should have +been the last person to differ from the ruling opinion, and should +have bought at Warren Draper's old Andover book-store no more cheap +printer's paper on which to inscribe the girlish handwriting (with the +pointed letters and the big capitals) which my father, with patient +pains, had caused to be taught me by a queer old travelling-master +with an idea. Professor Phelps, by the way, had an exquisite +chirography, which none of his children, to his evident +disappointment, inherited. + +[Illustration: "THE STONE BUILDING," PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, +MASSACHUSETTS. + +This building was burned in 1864 or 1865.] + +But the editor of "Harper's" took everything I sent him; so the +pointed letters and the large capitals continued to flow towards his +desk. + +Long after I had achieved whatever success has been given me, this +magazine returned me one of my stories--it was the only one in a +lifetime. I think the Editor then in power called it too tragic, +or too something; it came out forthwith in the columns of another +magazine that did not agree with him, and was afterwards issued, I +think, in some sort of "classic" series of little books. + +I was a little sorry, I know, at the time, for I had the most +superstitious attachment for the magazine that, when "I was a +stranger, took me in;" but it was probably necessary to break the +record in this, as in all other forms of human happiness. + +Other magazines took their turn--the "Atlantic," I remember--in due +course; but I shared the general awe of this magazine at that time +prevailing in New England, and, having, possibly, more than my share +of personal pride, did not very early venture to intrude my little +risk upon that fearful lottery. + +Perhaps this reserve was more natural because "Harper's" published +as fast as I could write; which is not saying much, to be sure, for I +have always been a slow worker. The first story of mine which appeared +in the "Atlantic" was a fictitious narrative of certain psychical +phenomena occurring in Connecticut, and known to me, at first hand, +to be authentic. I have yet to learn that the story attracted any +attention from anybody more disinterested than those few friends +of the sort who, in such cases, are wont to inquire, in tones more +freighted with wonder than admiration: "What! Has she got into the +'_Atlantic_'?" + +The "Century" came in turn, when it came into being. To this +delightful magazine I have always been, and always hope to be, a +contributor. + +[Illustration: THE HOUSE IN ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS, WHERE THE SCHOOL +CALLED "THE NUNNERY" WAS HELD. + +From a photograph taken in 1864 by Geo. H. Leek, Lawrence, +Massachusetts.] + +I read, with a kind of hopeless envy, histories and legends of people +of our craft who "do not write for money." It must be a pleasant +experience to be able to cultivate so delicate a class of motives for +the privilege of doing one's best to express one's thoughts to people +who care for them. Personally, I have yet to breathe the ether of such +a transcendent sphere. I am proud to say that I have always been a +working-woman, and always had to be; though I ought to add that I am +sure the proposal that my father's allowance to his daughter should +cease, did not come from the father. + +When the first little story appeared in "Harper's Magazine," it +occurred to me, with a throb of pleasure greater than I supposed then +that life could hold, that I could take care of myself, and from that +day to this I have done so. + +One hesitates a little, even in autobiography, about saying precisely +this. But when I remember the thousands of women who find it too easy +to be dependent on too heavily-weighted and too generous men, +one hesitates no longer to say anything that may help those other +thousands of women who stand on their own feet, and their own pluck, +to understand how good a thing it is to be there. + +Of all the methods of making a living open to educated people to-day, +the profession of literature is, probably, the poorest in point of +monetary returns. A couple of authors, counted successful as the world +and the word go, said once: + +"We have earned less this year than the fisherman in the dory before +the door of our summer home." Perhaps it had been a good year for +Jack; possibly a poor one for those other fishers, who spread their +brains and hearts--a piteous net--into the seas of life in quest of +thought and feeling that the idlers on the banks may take a summer's +fancy to. But the truth remains. A successful teacher, a clever +manufacturer, a steady mechanic, may depend upon a better income in +this country than the writer whose supposed wealth he envies, and +whose books he reads on Sunday afternoons, if he is not too sleepy, or +does not prefer his bicycle. + +When we see (as we have actually done) our market-man driving by our +old buggy and cheap horse on holidays, with a barouche and span, we +enjoy the sight very much; and when I say (for the other occupant of +the buggy has a little taste for two horses, which I am so plebeian +as not to share, having never been able to understand why one is +not enough for anybody): "But would you _be_ the span-owner--for the +span?" we see the end of the subject, and grow ravenously contented. + +One cannot live by bread or magazine stories alone, as the young +daughter of toil too soon found out. Like other writers I did hack +work. My main dependence was on that venerable and useful form of it +which consists in making Sunday-school books. Of these I must have +written over a dozen; I wince, sometimes, when I see their forgotten +dates and titles in encyclopaedias; but a better judgment tells me that +one should not be ashamed of doing hard work honestly. I was not an +artist at Sunday-school literature (there are such), and have often +wondered why the religious publishing societies kept me at it so +steadily and so long. + +There were tales of piety and of mischief, of war and of home, of +babies and of army nurses, of Tom-boys, and of girls who did their +mending and obeyed their mothers. + +The variety was the only thing I can recall that was commendable about +these little books, unless one except a considerable dash of fun. + +One of them came back to me--it happened to be the only book I ever +wrote that did--and when the Andover expressman brought in the +square package, just before tea, I felt my heart stand still with +mortification. Fortunately nobody saw the expressman. I always kept +my ventures to myself, and did not, that I can remember, read +any manuscript of mine to suffering relatives or friends, before +publication. Indeed, I carried on the writer's profession for many +years as if it had been a burglar's. + +At the earliest moment possible I got myself into my little room, and +turned both keys upon myself and my rejected manuscript. But when +I came to read the publisher's letter, I learned that hope still +remained, a flickering torch, upon a darkened universe. That excellent +man did not refuse the story, but raised objections to certain points +or forms therein, to which he summoned my attention. The criticism +called substantially for the rewriting of the book. I lighted my lamp, +and, with the June beetles butting at my head, I wrote all night. At +three o'clock in the morning I put the last sentence to the remodelled +story--the whole was a matter of some three hundred and fifty pages +of manuscript--and crawled to bed. At six, I stole out and found the +expressman, that innocent and ignorant messenger of joy or woe. The +revised manuscript reached the publisher by ten o'clock, and his +letter of unconditional acceptance was in my hands before another +tea-time. + +I have never been in the habit of writing at night, having been early +warned against this practice by the wisest of fathers (who notably +failed to follow his own advice); and this almost solitary experience +of the midnight oil remains as vivid as yesterday's sunset to me. +My present opinion of that night's exploit is, that it signified an +abnormal pride which might as well have received its due humiliation. +But, at the time, it seemed to be the inevitable or even the +creditable thing. + +[Illustration: HENRY MILLS ALDEN, EDITOR OF "HARPER'S MAGAZINE." + +From a photograph by G.C. Cox, New York.] + +Sunday-school writers did books by sets in those days; perhaps they +do still. And at least two such sets I provided to order, each of four +volumes. Both of these, it so happens, have survived their day and +generation--the Tiny books, we called them, and the Gypsy books. Only +last year I was called upon to renew the copyright for Gypsy, a young +person now thirty years old in type. + +There is a certain poetic justice in this little circumstance, owing +to the fact that I never _worked_ harder in my life at anything than +I did upon those little books; for I had, madly enough, contracted to +supply four within a year. + +We had no vacations in those days; I knew nothing of hills or shore; +but "spoke straight on" through the terrible Andover weather. Our July +and August thermometers used to stand up hard at over ninety degrees, +day and night, for nearly a week at a time. The large white mansion +was as comfortable as ceiled walls and back plaster could be in that +furnace; but my own small room, on the sunny side of the house, was +heated seven times hotter than endurance. Sometimes I got over an open +register in a lower room, and wrote in the faint puffs of damp air +that played with my misery. Sometimes I sat in the cellar itself; but +it was rather dark, and one cherished a consciousness of mice. In the +orchard, or the grove, one's brains fricasseed quickly; in fact, all +out-of-doors was a scene of bottomless torment worthy of a theology +older and severer than Andover's. + +When the last chapter of the last book was done, it occurred to me to +wonder whether I might ever be able to afford to get for a week or two +where the thermometer went below ninety degrees in summer. But +this was a wild and baseless dream, whose irrationality I quickly +recognized. For such books as those into which I had been coining a +year of my young strength and heart, I received the sum of one hundred +dollars apiece. The "Gypsy" publisher was more munificent. He offered +one hundred and fifty; a price which I accepted with incredible +gratitude. + +I mention these figures distinctly, with the cold-blooded view of +dimming the rosy dreams of those young ladies and gentlemen with whom, +if I may judge by their letters, our country seems to be brimming +over. + +"Will you read my poem?" "Won't you criticize my manuscript?" "I would +like to forward my novel for your perusal." "I have sent you the copy +of a rejected article of mine, on which I venture to ask--," etc., +etc. "I have been told that all I need is Influence." "My friends +think my book shows genius; but I have no Influence." "Will it trouble +you too much to get this published for me?" + +"Your Influence--" and so on, and so on, run the piteous appeals +which every successful author receives from the great unknown world of +discouraged and perplexed young people who are mistaking the stir of +youth or vanity, or the _ennui_ of idleness, or the sting of poverty, +for the solemn throes of power. + +What can one do for them, whom no one but themselves can help? What +can one say to them, when anything one says is sure to give pain, or +dishearten courage? + +Write, if you _must_; not otherwise. Do not write, if you can earn +a fair living at teaching or dressmaking, at electricity or +hod-carrying. Make shoes, weed cabbages, survey land, keep house, make +ice-cream, sell cake, climb a telephone pole. Nay, be a lightning-rod +peddler or a book agent, before you set your heart upon it that you +shall write for a living. Do anything honest, but do not write, unless +God calls you, and publishers want you, and people read you, and +editors claim you. Respect the market laws. Lean on nobody. Trust +the common sense of an experienced publisher to know whether your +manuscript is worth something or nothing. Do not depend on influence. +Editors do not care a drop of ink for influence. What they want is +good material, and the fresher it is, the better. An editor will pass +by an old writer, any day, for an unknown and gifted new one, with +power to say a good thing in a fresh way. Make your calling and +election sure. Do not flirt with your pen. Emerson's phrase was, +"toiling terribly." Nothing less will hint at the grinding drudgery of +a life spent in living "by your brains." + +Inspiration is all very well; but "genius is the infinite capacity for +taking pains." + +Living? It is more likely to be dying by your pen; despairing by your +pen; burying hope and heart and youth and courage in your ink-stand. + +Unless you are prepared to work like a slave at his galley, for the +toss-up chance of a freedom which may be denied him when his work is +done, do not write. There are some pleasant things about this way of +spending a lifetime, but there are no easy ones. + +There are privileges in it, but there are heart-ache, mortification, +discouragement, and an eternal doubt. + +Had one not better have made bread or picture-frames, run a motor, or +invented a bicycle tire? + +Time alone--perhaps one might say, eternity--can answer. + + * * * * * + +[Footnote 5: "A sin once committed, always _deserves_ punishment; +and, as long as strict _Justice_ is administered, the sin _must_ be +punished. Unless there be an Atonement, strict Justice _must_ be +administered; that is, Sin must be punished forever; but, on the +ground of the Atonement, _Grace_ may be administered, instead of +_Justice_, and then the sinner may be pardoned."] + + + + +[Illustration: ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN. + +From a photograph by Fradelle & Young, London.] + + + + +LOST YOUTH. + +BY R.L. STEVENSON. + + + Sing me a song of a lad that is gone, + Say, could that lad be I? + Merry of soul he sailed on a day + Over the sea to Skye. + + Mull was astern, Egg on the port, + Rum on the starboard bow; + Glory of youth glowed in his soul: + Where is that glory now? + + Sing me a song of a lad that is gone, + Say, could that lad be I? + Merry of soul he sailed on a day + Over the sea to Skye. + + Give me again all that was there, + Give me the sun that shone! + Give me the eyes, give me soul, + Give me the lad that's gone! + + Sing me a song of a lad that is gone, + Say, could that lad be I? + Merry of soul he sailed on a day + Over the sea to Skye. + + Billows and breeze, islands and seas, + Mountains of rain and sun, + All that was good, all that was fair, + All that was me is gone. + + +Originally published in the "Pall Mall Gazette." + + + + +THE DIVIDED HOUSE + +BY JULIA D. WHITING, + +Author of "The Story of Myra," "Brother Sesostris," "A special +Providence," and other stories. + + +When Selucius Huxter had arrived at his last illness, he proved +himself more than ever in his life troublesome and wearing. Having +a suspicion that his condition was worse than his doctor or children +allowed, he gave them no peace until he had extracted an admission +that such was the case. Left alone with the doctor at his request, he +reproached him. + +"Ye might as well told me before as let me lay here thinkin' and +stewin' about it. I've lost a sight of strength tryin' to git the +truth from ye, and there wa'n't no need. Wall--I suppose I ain't reely +dyin' naow, while I'm a-talkin', be I?" + +Assured as to that point, he added: "The reason I wanted to know is +because I've got to fix my concerns so as to leave 'em as well as I +can; and all I want of you is that when you think I'm--wall--if you +see there's goin' to be a change, I want you should tell me, so's't I +can straighten things right out and git their consent to it." Having +promised, the doctor apprised him as the last moments drew near. + +"Sho! I want to know! Why, I feel full as well as I did yes'dy and a +leetle grain easier, if anythin'." + +"I hope this notice does not find you unprepared," observed the +doctor. + +"Wall, no; I'm prepared as much as I can be, as you may say. I've +been a member in good and regular standin' this fifty-five year--and +I hain't arrived at my age without seeing there's somethin' in life +beside livin'." He paused, then added with an accent of pride, "I +don't owe any man a cent, nor never cheated a man of one. Wall, I've +had quite a spell to think of things in, durin' my sickness, and I +don't know but what I've enjoyed it considerable. Thought of things +all along back to when I was a boy. Events come up that I'd clean +forgot." + +The doctor gone, he called his children in. + +"Wall, Armidy, wall, Lucas, the doctor don't seem to think I shall +tucker it out much longer. Wall, naow," he exclaimed, quite vexed, "I +vow for't if I didn't forgit to ask him how long! Wall, too late naow. +He's got out of sight, I s'pose." + +Armida stepped to the window, and assured him of the fact. + +"Wall, no gret matter. I jist thought if I could git him to fix the +time I'd like to see how nigh he'd hit it. + +"Naow, I want to fix the property so's't you won't have no trouble +with it. No use wastin' money gittin' lawyers here. There ain't no +cheatin' nor double-dealin' anywhere to be found amongst the Huxters +nor the Lucases; and when you give me your promises to abide by my +last will and testament I shall expect you to hold to it jist the same +as if it was writ out. + +"Naow, about the farm and house. The house, as you know, stands in +the middle line of the farm; that is, the north side has a leetle the +advantage in hevin' the Jabez Norcross paster tacked unto it, over and +above the south half, but it's near enough. That paster don't count +for much. Pooty thick with sheep laurel. Wall, seein' the land lies +jist as it does, and the house is jist as it is, I propose to divide +it even. Lucas, you can have the north half, and Armidy the south, +beginnin' right to the front door, and runnin' right through the house +and right along down to the river, straight as you can fetch it. Do +you agree to my plan?" + +Armida and Lucas exchanged glances. "You speak," said Lucas in a low +tone. + +"No, you," said Armida. + +"What you whisperin' about? P'raps you think I can't hear because I'm +dyin', but I'd have you to know my hearin' ain't affected a grain. +Speak up naow! What is it, Lucas?" + +"We were thinkin' of Theodore," said Lucas. "You're leavin' him out, +seems so." + +"'Tain't 'cause I forgot him; but I give him all I cal'lated to +when he quit home five year ago--money; and so I sha'n't leave him +anythin'. Wouldn't do him no good, if I did," he said to himself. + +"Well, we should feel better if you did," said Armida. "I don't want +he should be left out. Neither would mother if she was livin'; she'd +feel bad." + +[Illustration: "'WALL, ARMIDY, WALL, LUCAS, THE DOCTOR DON'T SEEM TO +THINK I SHALL TUCKER IT OUT MUCH LONGER.'"] + +"I'll settle it with your ma when I see her. Come, now, what do you +say?" + +There was a long silence, which Armida broke by saying, "S'posin' him +or me was to want to leave the place, I mean for good--get tired of +stayin' here to home?" + +"Wall," said her father with a chuckle, "if either of you feels like +_givin_ your share to the other, you may. I ain't goin' to leave my +old place for either of you to sell to each other nor nobody else. I +expect you to live on't." + +"Well," now objected Lucas; "s'posin' one of us should git married, +then how would it be?" + +"Why, live along. Put in and work a leetle harder, maybe. This farm +carried a pooty fair number when I was younger. If you should git too +numerous you could build on either side. I guess there ain't no gret +danger," he added. + +As neither offered further objections, Mr. Huxter said: "There's been +talk enough, I s'pose. Do you agree to 't?" He waited while each +gave an audible "yes." "Naow," said he, "I hain't an earthly thing to +hamper me." + +The father dead, for the brother and sister no new life began. Armida +still skimmed all the milk and made the butter, looked after Lucas +as she had before, and Lucas attended impartially to the whole of the +farm, and Armida sometimes wondered what difference it made. To be +sure the profits were divided with the most rigid exactness; but +everything went tranquilly on until more than a year after their +father's death, when Armida had a suspicion, confirmed by appearances, +that Lucas was becoming interested in a young girl in a neighborhood +a few miles away. The spirit of jealousy surely animated poor Armida, +for nothing else could have prompted her action. Having ascertained +the girl's name, she caused to be conveyed to her the facts, colored +for the occasion, relating to the partition of the house and land; and +the young woman, having a shrewd eye to the main chance, bluntly told +Lucas when next she saw him that she didn't wish the half of a house +nor the half of a farm. + +[Illustration: THE DIVIDED HOUSE.--"ARMIDA'S SIDE OF THE HOUSE FELL +MORE AND MORE INTO RUIN; WHILE LUCAS ... KEPT HIS IN EXCELLENT REPAIR, +AND OCCASIONALLY RENEWED THE PAINT."] + +Lucas had thought all might go on smoothly with a wife, and had +counted on her accepting the situation. Inquiring as to who had +meddled in his affairs, he traced the matter back to Armida, and +coming home mortified and angry, reproached her in unsparing terms, +ending his recital of wrongs with: "I don't know what you did it for, +unless you was afraid your half was going to be invaded; and if you +feel that way you'd better keep to your side and take care of your own +property. I ain't going to interfere." + +Armida was powerless to protect herself except with tears, which did +not avail with Lucas. She made overtures of peace, such as offering to +cook her brother's meals and look after his share of the milk; but was +warned to attend to her own business. + +Lucas had a new pipe-hole made in the kitchen chimney, and bought +a new stove, and hunted up a kitchen table, telling Armida she was +welcome to the stove and table they had previously used in common, +but he'd thank her to stay on her own side of the room. The situation +would have been ludicrous if it had not been grim earnest to the +brother and sister. Lucas had a hard side to his character, and he +could not forgive his sister's interference. He would not even give +Armida advice, but allowed her cows to break into her cornfield and +her sheep to stray away, without warning her, though all the while his +heart pricked him at sight of her distress. Still all he would do was +to suggest that she get a hired man. + +Accordingly Armida, in despair, hired an easy-going, good-natured +creature that offered his services. He did very well, and Armida got +on better, and took courage. + +But there was a dreadful blow in store for her. Lucas brought a gang +of carpenters to the farm, who instituted repairs on his half of the +house. He even went so far as to commit the extravagance of having +blinds hung for his sitting-room and front chamber windows, and his +half of the front porch was trimmed with brackets, and then the whole +of his half of the house painted white, so that his neighbors rallied +him on being proud. "Only," as one said, "why don't you extend your +improvements right along acrost the house, Lucas? It looks sorter +queer to see one-half so fine and the other so slack." + +"Armida's free to do she's a mind to," said Lucas. "If she wants to +fix up her side, she can. I don't hinder her--" + +"Nor you don't help her neither, as I see," said the other. + +"I believe in 'tendin' to your own affairs and not interferin' with +other folks," Lucas rejoined. + +Armida was made very unhappy by these changes and the comments of the +neighbors, and would gladly have beautified her half also, but had no +money to spend. The farm had fallen behind, and she was pinched for +means. She did what she could, taking more care than usual of vines +and flowers, and even had an extra bed dug under her front windows, +where she had many bright-hued flowers; but as she rose from digging +around her plants and surveyed the house--Lucas's side with the new +green blinds and the clapboards shining with paint, hers with its +stained, weather-beaten appearance and its staring windows--she felt +ashamed and discouraged. + +[Illustration: "AS ARMIDA SAT ON THE BENCH UNDER THE OLD RUSSET +APPLE-TREE, ... SHE ... LOOKED UP TO SEE A SHABBY, SHAMBLING, OLDISH +MAN COMING AROUND THE SIDE OF THE HOUSE."] + +She feared her hired man was slack and neglected his work; yet when he +threatened to go, and afterward compromised the matter by offering to +stay if she'd marry him, at a loss what to do, and partly because +she was lonely, she married him. He was a respectable man, whose only +fault was laziness, and she hoped that now he would take an interest. +When Armida and her husband came back from the minister's and +announced to Lucas that they were married, his only comment was, +"Well, a slack help will make a shif'less husband." + +Years went by, and Armida's side of the house fell more and more into +ruin; while Lucas, with what Armida considered cruel carefulness, +kept his in excellent repair and occasionally renewed the paint. The +contrast was so great that passers-by stopped their horses that they +might look and wonder at their leisure. Every glance was like a blow +to Armida, so that she avoided her sitting-room and kept herself +in the uncomfortable kitchen that was divided by an imaginary line +directly through the middle, a line never crossed by her brother, her +husband, or herself. + +It would have looked absurd enough to a stranger to see this divided +room, with the brother clumsily carrying on his household affairs on +the one side and the sister doing her work on the other, with often +not a word exchanged between them for days together. Absurd it might +be, but it was certainly wretched. Armida grew old rapidly. Her +husband was a poor stick, and when, as years passed, a touch of +rheumatism gave him a real excuse for laziness, he did little more +than sit by the fire and smoke. + +As Armida sat on the bench under the old russet apple-tree by the +back door one day, regretting her evil fate, she heard footsteps +approaching, and, pushing back her old sun-bonnet, looked up to see a +shabby, shambling, oldish man coming around the side of the house and +gazing in at the windows, "What ye doin' there?" said Armida sharply. + +The man turned, surveyed her with a smile, then said with a drawl she +remembered: "I hain't been gone so long but that I know ye, Armidy. +Don't you remember me?" + +"Theodore Huxter! Is that you? Well!" and she hurried up to him, and +shook hands violently. + +"I heard only last week that father was dead," he explained. "I seen a +man from this way, and he said he was gone. How long since?" + +"More than ten years ago." + +"Well, I thought I'd come and see ye." + +"I'm glad you did," she said. "But come right in;" and she led the way +into the kitchen. + +He leaned up against the door and surveyed the room. "I should 'a' +s'posed I'd have remembered this room, but what ye done to it? What +hev you got two stoves and two tables and all that for, Armidy?" + +Armida told him all, winding up her story with a few tears. + +"That accounts for the looks of the outside, I s'pose," was his +only comment. "I thought it was about the queerest I ever see. It's +ridiculous! Why haven't you and Lucas straightened out affairs before +this?" + +"I can't, and he can't, I s'pose," she said hopelessly; "and +everything makes it worse. I wouldn't care so much if he hadn't fixed +up the outside the way he did." + +"Oh, well now, don't you fret. If I had money--but then I haven't." + +"How have you lived sence you left home?" Armida inquired. + +"Why, I've had a still, and made essence and peddled it out; but I +sold the still to git money to come here, and it took all I had." + +"Well now, Theodore, I wish you'd stay here now you've got round +again," said Armida with great earnestness. "I've worried about you a +sight. I'd be glad to have you, and Lucas would, I know." + +To spare a possible rebuff for Theodore, she ran out as she saw +Lucas coming to the house to get his supper, and apprised him of his +brother's arrival, glad to find he shared her pleasure in it. As Lucas +entered the room he shook hands with Theodore, saying, "How are ye?" +to which Theodore responded with "How are you, Lucas?" + +Theodore was a relief and pleasure to all the family. He observed a +strict impartiality. If he split some kindling-wood for Armida, he +churned for Lucas. If he took Armida's old horse to be shod, he helped +Lucas wash his sheep. He accepted everything, asking no questions +after the first evening, but kept an observant eye on all. + +Both Lucas and Armida had loved him since their earliest remembrance, +and retained their old fondness for him now. He was a welcome guest on +either side of the kitchen, and though when he announced of an evening +that he was going visiting, and stepped across the line to the other +side of the half from where he had been sitting, the owner of the +side he honored felt pleased by the distinction, yet the one on the +opposite side, though no longer (according to an understood law) +joining in the conversation, still had the benefit of Theodore's +narratives. + +[Illustration: EVENING IN THE DIVIDED KITCHEN.] + +He was busy, too, in his way. He was indefatigable in berry-picking +and herb-gathering, selling what Armida and Lucas did not wish, and +showing not a little shrewdness. When he had laid a little money +together he bought a still, and distilled essences of peppermint, +wintergreen, and other sweet-smelling herbs and roots, and when a +store was accumulated he filled a basket and departed on a peddling +expedition, returning with money in his purse and a handkerchief or +ribbon for Armida. Once he bought her a stuff gown, which she came +near ruining by weeping over it, it was such a delight. + +Lucas remonstrated. "I think you're foolish, Theodore. Why don't +you spend your money on yourself? You'd a sight better get you a new +coat." + +"I'd rather see Armida crying over that stuff," said Theodore, "than +have a dozen coats. Nobody knows Armida's good looking, because she's +no good clothes. But she is, and when she gets that dress made up and +puts it on with that pink ribbon I bought her last time, she'll look +as pretty as a pink." + +Not so great a success were the Venetian blinds that he bought +second-hand and gave to Armida to hang in the sitting-room. They +proved to be in sorry condition, and Theodore was much mortified. +Being a handy creature, he managed to patch them up so that, though +they could not be rolled up, they looked very well from the outside; +and, as he philosophically remarked: + +"What more do you want, Armidy? A room you never set in, you don't +want any light in." + +There was one thing that Theodore would not do. He would not, as he +said, fellowship with Jerry, Armida's husband. "Tell you, Armidy," he +would say, "I can't put up with a man like him." + +"Some folks call you shif'less, Theodore," Armida retorted with +bitterness. + +"Well, I am," he allowed; "but the difference is--I'm lazy, but work, +my fashion; but he's lazy, and don't work at all." + +Though he disdained Jerry, he would rather do his tasks than see +Armida's interests suffer; and when he was not occupied with his still +or peddling, he busied himself on her side of the farm. Lucas would +at any time give him a helping hand rather than see Theodore hurt +himself, and so Armida's fences were mended and sundry repairs on her +barns and out-houses made. Lucas was still as stiff as ever, and the +help given was always to oblige Theodore, who laughed to himself but +said nothing. + +He once attempted to wheedle Lucas into painting at least all of the +front of the house, but Lucas was not to be moved. Disappointed in +that, Theodore brought home a pot of yellow paint when returning from +his next expedition, and painted his sister's half of the kitchen +floor, in spite of her remonstrating that Lucas wouldn't like it, +though she acknowledged it looked pretty, and in spite of Lucas's +vexation at finding the room ridiculous. + +"No more ridiculous than it was before," Theodore assured him; "it +couldn't be. Besides," he added, as an afterthought, "I'll bring it +plumb up to the middle, and neither of you will be trespassin' on the +other's side. I noticed one of your chairs was a leetle grain onto +Armidy's side the other night, and that ain't right." + +In the middle of an afternoon, as Lucas was ploughing out his corn, +he heard a "Hello!" to which, when it had been two or three times +repeated, he replied, though without looking around. Presently he +heard some one coming, in a sort of scuffling run, and breathing +heavily, and looked over his shoulder to see Theodore, who dropped +into a walk as he spied him, and gasped: "Lucas! Say! Stop! Look +here!" + +"Well?" said Lucas, and pulled up his horse. + +"I'm too old to run like this, that's a fact," said Theodore, mopping +his face and leaning up against the plough. "There's a queer piece of +work for us to do, Lucas. Armidy's all smashed up on the road, right +down here on that second dip, and I guess Jerry is stone dead, and we +must fetch 'em up just as soon as we can." + +Lucas made no comment, but mechanically unfastened the horse and +turned toward the house, his brother stumbling behind, quite exhausted +by the hurry and fatigue of the hour. + +As they went Lucas said: "How did you come to know of it?" + +"Well, it was cur'us," said Theodore. "You know I had old Sam this +morning, bringing in a little jag of wood for Armidy, and lengthened +out the traces to fit the old waggin. Well, all I know about it is +what I guess. I see from the looks they must 'a' concluded to go to +the village with some eggs and so on, 'cause you can see in the road +where they smashed when the basket flew out; and Jerry didn't know no +more than to hitch up into the buggy without shortenin' the traces, +and you know how that would work. Well, the cur'us thing is that I was +out in the paster mowin' some brakes--here, let me hitch up this +side, while you do the other--and I heard somebody or somethin' comin' +slam-bang, and I looked up--I wa'n't near enough so as to see who +'twas nor anythin'--and I looked up, and see 'em comin' like hudy, +down one of them pitches. Thinks said I, well, there's a hitch-up +that's goin' to flinders--and just then the forward wheel struck a big +stone, and I see the woman and man and all fly inter the air and come +down agin, and the hoss went." + +"Where's the horse now?" said Lucas. + +"I don't know, and I don't care. Tell ye, best put a feather-bed in +the bottom of this waggin, because her arm's broke for certain, and I +don't know what else. I'll fetch it--if you've got some spirits." + +"Yes," said Lucas, "I'll fetch some;" and both hurried into the house, +and soon came out again and hastened off. + +"How did you know who 'twas?" Lucas inquired, with solemn curiosity +fitting the occasion. + +"Why, I didn't; but I knew when they didn't offer to git up, whoever +'twas wanted help, and I put across the lot to 'em, and sure enough +'twas Armidy and Jerry. I looked her over, and see by the way she +lay that one of her arms was broke, anyway, and stepped over to where +Jerry was, and sir! he was as dead as Moses! Head struck right on a +big stone and broke his neck--his head hung down like that," letting +his hand fall limply from the wrist. + +"Does she know?" said Lucas. + +"No, and I hope she won't for a spell. She hadn't come to when I left +her." + +Lucas struck the horse with the end of the reins to urge him on. + +"There, now you can see 'em," said Theodore, rising in his seat and +pointing down the road. Lucas followed his example, and looking before +them they could see both husband and wife lying motionless in the +road. + +[Illustration: "LOOKING BEFORE THEM THEY COULD SEE BOTH HUSBAND AND +WIFE LYING MOTIONLESS IN THE ROAD."] + +Between them they soon lifted poor Armida into the wagon, and laid +her on the bed as tenderly as might be, eliciting a groan by the +operation. + +"Best give her some?" said Lucas, bringing a bottle of brandy from out +his pocket. "Come to think of it, best not. She won't sense it so much +if she don't realize." + +A brief examination of Jerry was sufficient. The brothers exchanged +glances and shakes of the head. "And to think," said Theodore, as they +regarded the body, "that it was only this morning I said to Armidy +there was one tramp too many in the house, meaning me, and now to have +my words brought before me like this! 'Twasn't anything but a joke, +but I hope she won't remember it against me." + +"Well, first thing we've got to do is to get her to the house," said +Lucas. + +Armida having been made as comfortable as the present would allow, +and Jerry having been brought up and consigned to the best chamber, +as befitted his state, Lucas hastened after the doctor and Aunt Polly +Slater. The doctor found Armida in a sad case. "Though I don't think," +he assured the brothers, "if she isn't worried she will be hard sick. +She's naturally rugged, and it's merely a simple fracture of the +forearm. The sprained ankle will be the most tedious thing, but I must +charge you to keep her in ignorance of her husband's death." + +Theodore helped Aunt Polly in caring for Armida, and never was woman +more tenderly cared for. Many were the lies he was forced to tell, +as Armida was first surprised, then indignant, at Jerry's apparent +neglect. + +"Even Lucas has come to the door and looked at me," she complained, +"and Jerry ain't so much as been near me." + +Theodore was fain to concoct a story about a strained back that would +not allow Jerry to rise from the bed. When it was deemed prudent +to tell her, the task fell to Theodore, who was very tender of his +sister, remembering that though he considered Jerry a shiftless, poor +shack of a creature, Armida probably had affection for him. She took +her loss very quietly. + +"He was always good to me," she said, "and he cared for me when no one +else did." + +"You're wrong there," Theodore remonstrated. + +"I used to tell myself I was," she replied sadly. "I knew I give the +first offence, but Lucas never would 'a' done as he did by the house +if he'd cared for me." + +Lucas heard the reproach where he stood out of sight in the little +entry that led to Armida's room, listening to the brother and sister +as they talked together within. He often lingered there, wishing to +enter, but not daring to; longing to atone for the unhappiness he had +caused his sister, but not knowing how to set about it. Now, taking +Theodore into his confidence, he set to work to obliterate all outward +signs that made it "the divided house," leaving to his brother the +task of keeping it from Armida. As she querulously inquired what all +the hammering and pounding that was going on in front of the house +meant, Theodore had a story ready about the steps to the front porch +being so worn out that Lucas had to have some new ones, "or else break +his legs goin' over them." The smell of paint was accounted for by +Lucas "havin' one of his spells of gittin' his side painted over +agin;" on which Armida gave way to tears, until her brother comforted +her by saying it didn't make much difference, a new coat couldn't make +it any whiter than it was. + +It was a great day when Armida was pronounced well enough to eat +breakfast in the kitchen. Hobbling out with the aid of Theodore's arm, +she stepped on the threshold, and looked over to where Lucas stood +by his window. He greeted her with, "How are ye, Armidy?" but did not +leave his place. + +"It seems good to git out of my bedroom," said Armida; then stopped, +gazed about her, and sank into a convenient chair, exclaiming, "What +does it mean?" + +For both her and Lucas's old stoves were gone, and a new one stood +directly before the middle of the chimney, with its pipe running into +the old pipe-hole that they used before the house was divided. The +coffee-pot steamed and bubbled over the fire, and a platter of ham and +eggs stood on the hearth, while the table, set for breakfast, stood +exactly in the centre of the room; the dividing line had been wiped +out by the paint-brush, and Lucas's side shone with yellow paint like +her own. + +"What does it mean?" she cried, trembling and clutching at Theodore's +arm. Theodore said nothing, but slipped out of the room, and Lucas, +after an awkward pause, said: "Armidy, I wanted, if you was willin', +that we should quit doin' as we have done and have things together as +we used to. Seems as if it would be pleasanter, and if you can forgive +what I've done, I'll try to make it up to ye." + +"Why, Lucas!" was all she could say. + +"I know I hain't done by ye like a brother," said Lucas, anxious to +get his self-imposed humiliation over, "and I'm sorry, and I'd like to +begin over again." + +"I'm just as much a transgressor as you be," said Armida, anxious +to spare him. "If I hadn't said what I did, I 'spose you'd married +Ianthe, and like as not had a family round ye." + +"I don't know as I care _now_," said Lucas; "I have felt hard to ye; +but I see Ianthe last March"--he laughed--"and I didn't mourn much +that her name wa'n't Huxter. But that's neither here nor there. If +you feel as if you could git along with two old brothers to look after +instead of one, and overlook what's passed--" + +"I'd be glad to, Lucas, if you won't lay up anything against me." + +"Well, then;" and coming to her side Lucas bent over her, and, to her +great surprise, kissed her. Turning away before she could return the +kiss, he opened the back door and called to Theodore. + +As Theodore came in, Lucas said: "If you had a shawl round ye, Armidy, +wouldn't you like to git out a minute before breakfast?" and without +waiting for an answer, he brought her shawl and wrapped it round her, +then put on her bonnet. + +"Can't you and I," he said to Theodore, "make a chair and take her +out? You hain't forgot sence you left school, hev you?" + +Locking their hands together they formed what school-children call a +chair, and lifting Armida between them, carried her through the hall, +out at the front door, down the walk to the gate, and turned round, +while Theodore bade his sister look up at the house. Armida obeyed. +She saw the house glistening with paint, her side of it as white as +Lucas's, and blinds adorning her front windows, while the front porch, +with new-laid floor and steps and bristling with brackets, was, in her +eyes, the most imposing of entrances. + +Could it be true? she asked herself, and shut her eyes; then glanced +again, then looked at her brothers, who were both silent, Theodore +smiling with joy, while Lucas looked gravely down at her. + +"Oh, Lucas!" she cried, throwing her arms around his neck, "you done +this for me!" + +"I _told_ you I was sorry, Armidy," he said. + + + + +SCIENTIFIC KITE-FLYING. + +BY CLEVELAND MOFFETT. + + +On the long peninsula that separates New York Bay from Newark Bay, +there is, among other things, a red house by an open field, in which +lives the king of kite-flyers. Every one in Bayonne, the town which +covers this peninsula, knows the red house by the open field; for +scarcely a day passes, winter or summer, that kites are not seen +sailing above this spot--sometimes a solitary "hurricane flyer," when +the wind is sweeping in strong from the ocean; sometimes a tandem +string of seven or eight six-footers, each one fastened to the +main line by its separate cord. And wonderful are the feats in +kite-illumination accomplished by Mr. Eddy (the king aforesaid) on +holiday nights, especially on the Fourth of July, when he keeps the +sky ablaze with gracefully waving meteors, to the profound awe or +admiration of his fellow-townsmen. + +If you enter the red house and show a proper interest in the subject, +Mr. Eddy will take you up to his kite-room, where skyflyers of all +sorts, sizes, and materials range the walls--from the tiniest, made +of tissue paper, to nine-footers, with lath frames and oil-cloth +coverings. Hanging from the ceiling is one of the queer Hargrave +kites, which looks like a double box, and seems as little likely to +fly as a full-legged dining-table; yet fly it will, and beautifully +too, though by a principle of aeroplanes only recently understood. + +Then Mr. Eddy will show you the room where, with the help of his +deft-fingered wife, also a kite enthusiast, he spends many hours +developing and mounting photographs taken from high altitudes, with a +camera especially constructed to be swung and operated from the kite +cord. + +Until one talks with a man like Mr. Eddy--though, indeed, there is +no one just like him--one does not realize what a large and important +subject this of scientific kite-flying is. Many men of distinction +have devoted years of their best energies to experiments with kites. +Mr. Eddy himself is a scientist first, last, and always; for the +sake of a new observation he will send up a tandem of kites when +the thermometer is below zero, or stand half a night at his reeling +apparatus, getting records of the thermograph. + +[Illustration: HARGRAVE LIFTED SIXTEEN FEET FROM THE GROUND BY A +TANDEM OF HIS BOX-KITES.] + +Perhaps I shall do best to begin by giving some useful information to +those who may contemplate constructing a modern scientific kite. The +first thing that should be done by such a person, be he boy or man, is +to rid his mind of all his preconceived notions about kites, for it is +almost certain that they are incorrect. To begin with, the scientific +kite has no tail. A few years ago people would have laughed at any one +who attempted to send up a kite without a tail. But the question is +now no longer even open with the scientific kite-flyers, who not +only send up tailless kites with the greatest ease, but do so under +conditions which, to kites with tails, would be impossible: for +instance, in dead calms and in driving hurricanes. The tailless kite, +sent from the hands of a master, will fly in all winds. + +It is true that kites with tails have given good results in +experimental work; but the tails are annoying and an unnecessary +weight, and may better be dispensed with. Every boy has had the +vexatious experience of sending up a kite in a light breeze with a +tail made light in proportion, only to find that, on reaching stronger +air currents above, the kite has begun to dive and grow unmanageable. +Then, when he has taken the kite down and added a heavier tail, he has +found the breeze at the ground insufficient to lift the extra load; +and so, between two difficulties, has had to give up his sport in +disgust. This is the one serious defect of kites with tails, that +they cannot adapt themselves to wind currents of varying intensities; +whereas the tailless kites do so without difficulty. And in tandem +flying, which is the backbone of the modern system, the weight of a +half dozen or more heavy tails would be a serious impediment, to +say nothing of the perpetual danger of the different tails getting +entangled in the lines. + + +HOW TO MAKE A SCIENTIFIC KITE. + +It is important, then, to know how to make a scientific tailless kite, +such as is used by the experts at the Smithsonian Institution, or at +the Blue Hills Conservatory near Boston, for it must not be supposed +that kite-flying is merely an idle pastime; it is a pleasure doubtless +for boys, but it is also a field of serious experiment and observation +for men. The information I here present, including practical +directions as well as interesting theories, was obtained from Mr. Eddy +himself, and may be regarded as strictly accurate. + +[Illustration: Frankfort Street. PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEW FROM A KITE. + +This view, from a photograph taken from a kite by Mr. W.A. Eddy, New +York City at the crossing of Frankfort and William Streets.] + +It is much better for amateurs to begin with a kite designed to fly in +strong winds, as it is a long and delicate task to learn to manage the +variety with extra wide cross-stick meant for ascension in calms. The +two sticks which form the skeleton should be of equal lengths, say six +feet; and should cross each other at right angles at a point on the +upright stick eighteen per cent. of its length below the top. This +point of crossing is of great importance, and was only located by +Mr. Eddy after months of wearisome experiment. He was misled in his +earlier efforts at tailless kite-making by the example of the Malay +kiter-flyers, who are reputed to be the most skilful in the world, and +who cross the sticks much nearer the middle of the upright one. In a +six-foot kite the two sticks, equal in length, should cross at about +thirteen inches from the top of the upright stick; and the same +proportion should be observed for kites of other dimensions. At the +point of crossing, the sticks should be slightly notched, and strongly +bound together with twine tied in flat knots. Driving a nail or screw +through the sticks, to bind them, weakens the frame at the point of +greatest strain. + +As material for the sticks Mr. Eddy has found clear spruce better +than any other wood. Bamboo is bad, because it bends unevenly at +the joints. White pine is not tough enough, and cypress is both too +brittle and too flexible. The hard woods, like ash, hickory, and oak, +are too heavy; in scientific kite-flying, even so small a weight as +a quarter of an ounce may make all the difference between failure and +success. All winds are broken by frequent brief intervals of calm, +and a kite must rely on its lightness to outride these. Whoever +contemplates going seriously into kite-flying will do well to +provide himself with a store of suitable sticks by purchasing a +straight-grained, well-planed spruce plank, free from knots, and +having it sawed on a circular saw into sticks five-sixteenths and +seven-sixteenths inches in thickness, to be cut later into such +lengths as he may choose. + +[Illustration: Frankfort Street. PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEW FROM A KITE. + +From a photograph taken from a kite by Mr. W.A. Eddy. This view +also is of New York City about the crossing of Frankfort and William +Streets. The high wall on the right of Frankfort Street is the back +of the "World" building; the high wall on the left is the back of the +"Tribune" building.] + +The two sticks (there are never more than two) having been fastened +firmly together, the cross-stick must be sprung backward; so that, +when finished, the kite will present a convex or bulging surface to +the wind. It might be imagined that a concave surface to the wind +would be better; and indeed this has been tried. But it has invariably +proved that with a concave surface the kite receives too much of the +breeze and becomes quite uncontrollable. The amount of spring that +must be given the cross-piece is in proportion to its length, Mr. +Eddy's rule being to spring the cross-stick, by means of a cord +joining the two ends like a bow, until the perpendicular between the +point of juncture of the two sticks and the centre of the cord is +equal to one-tenth of the length of the cross-stick, or a little more +than one-tenth, if the kite is to be flown in very high winds. + +It is of the first importance to keep the two halves of the kite on +the right and the left of the upright stick perfectly symmetrical. And +this is by no means an easy matter. It often happens in bending the +cross-stick that, owing to differences in the fibre and elasticity of +the wood, one side bends more than the other, with the result that +the two halves present different curves and consequently unequal wind +areas. To offset this difficulty, and also to strengthen the skeleton, +Mr. Eddy's practice is to add a bracing piece at the back of the +cross-stick--a piece about one-fourth of the length of the cross-stick +itself, and of the same width and thickness. If the two halves of the +kite are already quite symmetrical, he places this bracing stick with +its centre directly even with the point of juncture of the two large +sticks, its two ends being fastened with twine to the cross-stick, +about nine inches on either side of the crossing-point. But if one +half of the cross-stick shows a greater bend than the other, he places +the longer arm of the bracing piece toward the side that bends the +most, thus presenting a greater leverage against the wind on that side +than on the other, and so equalizing things. + +With the two sticks and the brace all thus properly in place, a +supporting frame for the paper or cloth is formed by running, not +cord, but fine picture wire, over the tips of the sticks, notched to +hold it in place, in the ordinary way. Then, with a thin, clear paste +made of starch, the paper may be laid on, care being taken to paste +the edges so as to leave a certain amount of slack or looseness in +the part of the kite below the cross-stick, so that each of the lower +faces will present concave wind surfaces. To preserve the required +equilibrium, it is important that the amount of looseness in the paper +be equal on the two sides; and in order to keep it so, it is necessary +to measure exactly the amount allowed. + +[Illustration: THE EDDY TAILLESS KITE. + +Front view, showing how the line is attached. + +A storm-flyer.--The diamond-shaped figure in the centre is an opening +made to lessen the wind pressure.] + +Those who wish to make many kites will do well to buy thin manilla +paper, as wide as possible, having the dealer roll off for them seven +hundred or eight hundred feet, say a yard in width, which will insure +a cheap as well as an abundant supply. For strong winds and large +kites it is best to use cloth as the covering. It should be sewed to +the frame, and, if carefully put on, will do service for years. Silk, +of course, is the ideal material; but its costliness puts it beyond +ordinary means, and common silesia, such as is used in dress linings, +is almost as good. Whatever the material, the kite should be fortified +at the corners by pasting or sewing on quadrants of paper or cloth, +so as to give double thickness at the points most liable to injury. +A finished six-footer should not weigh over twenty ounces, if covered +with paper; or twenty-five ounces, if covered with cloth. Mr. Eddy has +made a six-footer for calm flying as light as eight ounces. + + +HOW TO SEND UP A KITE. + +There is only one way to learn the practical art of kite-flying, and +that is to begin and do the thing yourself--with many mishaps and +disappointments at the outset. One of Mr. Eddy's practices when +sending kites up in very light winds or in an apparent calm, is to +reel out two hundred yards or so of cord in a convenient open space, +leaving kite and cord on the ground until ready to start. Then, by +taking the cord at the extreme distance from the kite, and beginning +to run with it, he gets it quickly into the upper air currents, which +are always stirring more than those at the surface. It is sometimes +necessary to run for a considerable distance before the kite reaches +a sustaining current; but a real kite enthusiast will not mind taking +trouble; indeed he had better abandon the whole business if he does. +It is worth noting that even in a dead calm a kite may be kept up +indefinitely as long as the flyer is willing to run with the cord at +the rate of about five miles an hour. + +In flying kites tandem there is always to be guarded against the +danger of a breaking of the cord. Few people realize how hard a +pull is exerted by a series of kites well up in the air. A strain of +twenty-five or thirty pounds on the cord is not uncommon; and not only +the strength of the cord, but the way of attaching it, is of great +importance. There should be two strings (never more), fastened to the +upright stick at its lower end and at the point of crossing, the +upper length being about one-third of the lower one, and the two being +adjusted so that, when taut, the kite takes an angle of about twenty +degrees with the ground--which means that the kite goes up almost +straight overhead, the string making an angle of about seventy degrees +with the ground. + +[Illustration: THE HARGRAVE BOX-KITE. + +It was by kites of this variety, flown in tandem, that the inventor, +Hargrave, was lifted sixteen feet from the ground on November 12, +1894.] + +In sending up a series of kites to fly tandem, it is best to head the +line with a small kite, three or, four feet in diameter, and gradually +increase the size until a diameter of six feet is reached for the one +sent last. This arrangement makes it possible to hold the upper kites +by lighter cord, the heavier kites being reserved for the half of the +line nearest to the ground; and thus there is a material lessening +of the load to be borne. The first kite should be well up, say five +hundred feet, before the second is attached to the line. But after +that they maybe sent at closer intervals, sometimes with only a few +hundred feet between them--say two hundred feet in light winds, and +five hundred feet in heavy winds. Each kite in a tandem should have +a length of at least one hundred feet of cord from the main line, and +great care should be exercised in knotting fast the individual lines. + +The best way of starting a second kite, after the first is well up, is +to pay out about a hundred feet of cord for the tandem line, attaching +one end of this to the main cord and the other to the second kite, +which is left lying on the ground back downward. Then pay out the main +line evenly until the tandem line begins to lift. As the pendent kite +is borne higher and higher, it will swing for a while in a horizontal +position; but will presently begin to flutter and sail sideways, and +then finally come up more and more, until the wind catches it and +it shoots up like a bird into its proper position. In fact, once the +first kite is securely up, the others will fly themselves by merely +being attached to the main line as described. Of course each fresh +kite increases the pull on the main line, and the line must be made +proportionately stronger as the tandem is increased. + + +RUNAWAY TANDEMS. + +Mr. Eddy has had some remarkable experiences with escaping kites. One +day at Bayonne, in July, 1894, while he was flying a tandem of eight +kites in a northwest wind blowing eighteen miles an hour, the main +line broke with a loud snap, and the kites sailed away towards Staten +Island with the speed of an escaped balloon. One can scarcely conceive +the rapidity with which a line of kites like this travels over the +first four or five hundred feet after its release. An ice-boat goes no +faster, and one might as well pursue the shadow of a flying cloud +as chase that string. At the time of the escape the top kite, a +four-footer, was up nearly a mile, and the other seven were flying +at a good elevation. The consequence was that although, as invariably +happens in such cases, they began to drop, the lowest kite did not +strike the ground until it had been carried about a quarter of a mile, +to the New Jersey shore of the Kill von Kull, which is half a mile +wide at this point. Here kite number eight, a six-footer, caught in +a tree and held the line for a few seconds until its own cord broke, +under the strain, and set the other kites free. This check had lifted +the other kites, and they now flew right bravely across the water, +not one of the seven wetting its heels before the farther shore was +reached. Then the lowest of them came to the ground, in its turn +putting a brief check on the others. But its cord soon broke under the +strain, and the six still flying went sailing over the trees of Staten +Island, hundreds of people watching them as they flew--six tailless +kites driving along towards New York Bay, the main line trailing +behind over lawns and house-tops. + +Then a queer thing happened. As the loose end of the main line trailed +along, it whipped against a line of telegraph wires with such +violence as to wind itself around the wires again and again, just as +a whip-lash winds round a hitching-post when whipped against one. The +result was that the runaway kites were finally anchored by the main +line, and held fast until their owner, coming in quick pursuit on +ferryboat and train, could secure them. + +On another occasion, two of Mr. Eddy's kites flying in tandem broke +away, and started out to sea, the dangling line passing over a moored +coal barge on which a man was working. Feeling something tickle his +neck, the man put up his hand quickly and touched the kite-cord. +Greatly surprised, he seized the cord and made it fast; and he was not +at all disposed to give up the kites when Mr. Eddy claimed them. There +is no property, indeed, so hard to prove and recover as a runaway +kite. For one thing, there is absolutely no telling how far a runaway +kite will sail before landing. Mr. Eddy estimates that when the main +line breaks, a kite well up in a twenty-five mile breeze will travel, +before alighting, a distance equal to twelve times its height from the +ground. This means that a kite straight over the Battery, in New York +City, and a mile in the air, driven by a stiff south wind, might +land in Yonkers if the cord broke. There is, by the way, an old-time +ordinance on the statute book, prohibiting the flying of kites in any +part of New York City below Fourteenth Street. This, however, did not +prevent Mr. Eddy from taking recently a series of unique photographs +(some of them are reproduced in this article), by means of a tandem of +kites sent up from a high building near the City Hall Park. The only +complication that resulted was a fierce contention among a crowd of +idlers and gamins over the possession of one of the kites, which came +down accidentally and lodged in one of the Park trees. + +[Illustration: NEW YORK, EAST RIVER, BROOKLYN, AND NEW YORK BAY, FROM +A KITE. + +From a photograph taken from a kite by Mr. W.A. Eddy.] + + +THE LIFTING POWER OF KITES. + +A tandem of six or eight six-foot kites exerts a pull of thirty pounds +or more on the main line; but it must not be assumed that such a +tandem would lift and carry through the air a weight of thirty pounds. +The weight of thirty pounds would be carried a short distance; but +as the weight moved off, there would be a sudden lessening of the +resistance on the line, and so of the wind pressure against the kites, +which would soon cause them to sink. A tandem of strong kites in +a good breeze might be made to operate a sort of jumping apparatus +which, after being carried a short distance, would anchor itself to +the ground until the renewed strength of the kites lifted it up again +for another jump. But all kite experts are agreed that a kite's power +for lifting loads clear of the ground must be enormously increased +according as the distance to which the load is to be lifted is +increased. It would be possible, for example, to build a tandem of +kites strong enough to lift a man clear of the ground, supposing him +to be swung in a basket from the main line. This, indeed, has been +actually accomplished. September 18, 1895, in England, Captain +Baden-Powell was lifted to a height of one hundred feet on a +kite-string supported by five large hexagon kites. But Mr. Eddy +calculates that to lift a man of the same weight (one hundred and +fifty pounds) to a height of fifteen hundred feet, with a wind blowing +at the same rate (twenty miles an hour), would require seven kites +with upright and cross-sticks not less than sixty-four feet each in +length. + +The only other instance on record where a man has been lifted by a +kite-cord was in the experiment of the great Australian kite expert, +Hargrave, who, on November 12, 1894, placed himself in a sling seat +attached to a tandem of his wonderful box kites, and was swung sixteen +feet clear of the earth. The entire load, including the seat and +appurtenances, amounted to two hundred and eight pounds. Mr. Eddy +calculates that six of his bird-shaped kites, twenty feet in diameter, +would lift a man and basket in safety to a height of one hundred feet, +assuming the wind to be blowing steadily at twenty miles an hour. + +[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPHING FROM A KITE-LINE. + +NOTE.--In this picture the square box suspended from the upper line is +the camera. The ball hanging from the camera is the burnished signal +which, by its fall, informs the operator on the ground when the +shutter of the camera has opened. The shutter and the ball are +controlled from the ground by the lower line.] + + +THE METEOROLOGICAL USE OF KITES. + +Although Mr. Eddy began flying kites as a diversion, he soon saw that +there were more serious reasons for continuing his experiments. Having +long been interested in meteorological problems, it occurred to him +that good results might be obtained by sending aloft, on kite-strings, +self-registering thermometers and apparatus for indicating the +direction and strength of the air currents. On February 4, 1891, he +sent up what is believed to be the first thermometer ever attached +to a kite for scientific purposes. This was at nine o'clock in the +evening on a cold winter's night, the thermometer registering ten +degrees Fahrenheit at the ground. On reading the record after the +descent, the thermometer was found to mark six degrees Fahrenheit, +which indicated, according to the recognized law of decrease of +temperature, that the kite had been sent to a height of one thousand +feet. The law is that in ascending from the earth the temperature +falls one degree for every two hundred and fifty feet; but subsequent +experiments convinced Mr. Eddy that it was by no means to be relied +upon as an indication of the height of kites. Not that the law is +false; but it holds good only when the meteorological conditions above +are the same as at the earth's surface, which is very far from being +the case always. + +Out of these experiments Mr. Eddy evolved an important theory which +has since been abundantly verified. Seeing the frequent variations in +the thermometric readings from what the law had led him to expect, he +concluded that these were due to meteorological variations overhead; +and that changes in the weather, say the approach of warm waves or +cold waves, make themselves felt in the air strata above the earth's +surface several hours before they can be detected at the surface. +Observations extending over months at the Blue Hills Observatory, near +Boston, and elsewhere, have abundantly confirmed this theory. + +With this fact established, it followed, in Mr. Eddy's opinion, +that it was perfectly possible to use kites in making weather +prognostications; and, indeed, he has been doing this himself for +several years with the best results. Whenever his kite-thermometers, +sent to a fixed height which he determines independently by a +specially devised kite-quadrant, show actual readings which are either +warmer or cooler than the theoretical readings, he prophesies that +the weather will, within a few hours, become warmer or colder at +the earth's surface, and these prophecies are fulfilled in a +large majority of cases. If the kite-thermometers show exactly the +temperature which the law would call for, he prophesies that there +will be no change in the weather. + +[Illustration: CITY HALL PARK AND BROADWAY FROM A KITE. + +From a photograph taken from a kite by Mr. W.A. Eddy. City Hall Park, +New York City, appears in the foreground, with Broadway back of it.] + +It has also been demonstrated that kites may be used by meteorologists +to indicate the approach of storms, which they foretell by a sudden +and continuous veering over a considerable arc, usually about sixty +degrees. This veering begins usually six or seven hours before a +storm, and often as much as twelve hours. And another sure sign of a +storm is the continuous and sudden dropping of the kites followed by +a quick recovery, which shows that the wind is blowing in gusts +interspersed with periods of calm. + +In making a series of meteorological experiments which he conducted at +the Blue Hills Observatory, Mr. Eddy often employed as many as eight +or ten kites; and in August, 1895, he sent up twelve kites on one +line, three of them being nine-footers. This is probably the largest +number of kites ever sent up in tandem; and although on this occasion +the line carried only the thermographs suspended in a basket, the +whole weighing not more than two pounds, a very much larger load might +have been carried, had it been desired. + +[Illustration: Murray Street. Warren Street. + +MURRAY AND WARREN STREETS, NEW YORK CITY, FROM A KITE. + +From a photograph taken from a kite by Mr. W.A. Eddy, showing Murray +and Warren Streets, New York City, as they run west from Broadway.] + +Among many other curious things about the wind observed by Mr. Eddy, +is the fact that the night winds are by far the steadiest and most +satisfactory for kite-flying. On this account much of his work with +kites has been done in the darkness, although he uses lanterns on +the lines to assist him in locating the kites. It has also been +demonstrated that the force of the wind increases steadily as the +distance from the earth increases. Archibald proved this conclusively, +by suspending a series of wind-measuring instruments at intervals +along the main line, their registration showing almost invariably +greater wind pressure at the higher altitude. Mr. Eddy has furthermore +noted that, while the early morning wind is usually very light at the +earth's surface, it is almost invariably good aloft; and he has again +and again verified the well-established fact that all clouds herald +their approach and are accompanied by increased wind velocity. + + +THE HIGHEST FLIGHT EVER MADE BY A KITE. + +The modern system of flying kites tandem was devised by Mr. Eddy in +1890, although it was hit upon two years later independently by Dr. +Alexander B. Johnson, the distinguished surgeon of the Roosevelt +Hospital in New York. The tandem system makes it possible to send +kites to far greater altitudes than had ever been previously attained. +And here the best record is undoubtedly held by one of Mr. Eddy's +tandems, sent aloft at Bayonne, on November 7, 1893. Mr. Eddy began to +send up the kites at 7:30 A.M.; but, being hampered by light breezes +from the east, found he was kept busy until half-past three in the +afternoon in getting nine kites aloft. He had paid out nearly two +miles of cord, when the top kite, a little two-footer, stood straight +over the spar buoy in Newark Bay. The lowest kite, a six-footer, was +hovering some distance inland from the shore, on a line from the shore +to Mr. Eddy's house (where the end of the line was anchored) measuring +fifty-five hundred feet by the surveyor's map. Taking two observations +from the two ends of this base line, Mr. Eddy's kite-quadrant showed +angles of thirty-five and sixty-six degrees; and these data, by simple +methods of triangulation, were sufficient to determine the altitude +of the kite, which was found to be five thousand five hundred and +ninety-five feet--or something over one mile. The kites were seen by +hundreds of persons during the fifteen hours that they remained up, +the experiment coming to an abrupt end at ten o'clock that night by +the blowing away of the two upper kites in the increasing wind. The +escaped kites disappeared in Newark Bay, along with three thousand +feet of the line. + +[Illustration: KITE-DRAWN BUOY. + +Invented by Prof. J. Woodbridge Davis. This buoy lacks the steering +appliances of the one shown below, and travels simply in a line with +the kite that draws it.] + +Much interest attaches from a scientific point of view to experiments +designed to test how great an altitude may be reached by kites; and +for a year past Mr. Eddy has been working in this direction for +the Smithsonian Institution, the hope being that he will ultimately +succeed in sending kites two miles above the earth's surface. +Professor Langley has been following these experiments with great +interest, and has furnished Mr. Eddy with a special quality of silk +cord which, it is believed, will give better results in meteorological +observation than the ordinary hempen twine or rope. The great +difficulty that Mr. Eddy finds in the way of making his kites reach +great altitudes, is the pull on the cord, which increases greatly +as the kites rise higher. It is probable that a tandem of fifteen or +twenty big kites, reaching to a mile above the earth's surface, would +exert a pull of one hundred pounds; while at a height of two miles +they might, Mr. Eddy thinks, exert a pull of three hundred and fifty +pounds; and at a height of three miles, a pull of seven hundred +pounds. However great the pull, it is essential to successful flying +that the man in control be able to let out or reel in the main line +with great rapidity, and it is evident that a dozen men could not by +hand alone accomplish this if the kites were sent as high as might +be. It is likely, therefore, that, as the importance of scientific +kite-flying becomes more widely understood, some simple dummy engine +will be devised for rapidly turning the windlass on which the main +line is wound. + +Mr. Eddy has made frequent experiments with rain-kites, which he used +for the first time in November, 1893. It is true that Franklin sent +up a flyer during a shower, but in his case the rain was merely an +accident accompanying the electric storm, which was his only concern. +Mr. Eddy, however, has sent up kites in the rain for the purpose of +studying cloud altitudes and other meteorological phenomena; and by +this means he has discovered what was not previously believed to be +true: that clouds sometimes sink to within six hundred feet of the +earth's surface without actually coming down to it. In fact, Mr. Eddy +has had kites disappear in a cloud at a height of only five hundred +and sixty-eight feet. It has sometimes happened that clouds settling +toward the earth have obscured the kites gradually, the top one +becoming invisible first, and then the others in succession. Mr. Eddy +has found that by such indications he is able to foretell the approach +of fog four or five hours before it reaches the earth's surface, so +slowly do the clouds settle through the air strata. + +[Illustration: DIRIGIBLE KITE-DRAWN BUOY. + +This is the buoy invented by Prof. J. Woodbridge Davis for conveying +messages, food, or life-lines between disabled vessels and the shore. +The buoy is drawn over the water by the kite-line, like the one shown +above, but the setting of the keel and the three guy-ropes give it +whatever direction is desired.] + +[Illustration: THE KITE-BUOY IN SERVICE.] + +It is best to make rain-kites of oil-skin or paraffine paper, as the +ordinary paper or cloth becomes saturated with the dampness and very +heavy, thus lessening the buoyancy of the line. So penetrating is the +dampness of clouds, even without a rain-storm, that the wooden frames +sometimes become warped and the paste seams soak open. + + +DRAWING DOWN ELECTRICITY BY A KITE-STRING. + +The scientific kite-flyer will find much to tempt him into the field +of electricity; and will be able, not only to duplicate Dr. Franklin's +historic experiment of bringing down sparks from the heavens, but +may go far beyond this, taking advantage of the greater knowledge of +electricity at his disposal and the superior apparatus. In the summer +of 1885, Alexander McAdie, at the Blue Hills Observatory, got strong +sparks at the earth's surface from a wire connected with a kite +whose surface had been coated with tinfoil so as to form an electric +collector. He also, by the brightness and increased lengths of the +sparks obtained, proved that the electric force in the atmosphere is +very greatly increased with the approach of thunder clouds; and +also that this force increases steadily as the kites reach greater +altitude, and _vice versa_. Indeed Mr. Eddy and others who have +conducted similar experiments, have found the electric force so strong +at certain altitudes as to make the manipulation of the conducting +wire a source of considerable danger. + +On October 8, 1892, Mr. Eddy made an important advance in electrical +experiments with kites, by using a collector quite separate from the +kites themselves, which were merely used in tandem to support the line +on which the collector was swung and raised to any desired altitude. +By this arrangement any accident that might befall one of the kites is +less likely to ruin the whole experiment. + +Much experience with the kite-collector has convinced Mr. Eddy that +there is always in the air overhead, at all times of the year and +in all weathers, an abundant, practically a boundless, supply of +electricity. It has never yet happened to him to send his collector up +to even so low a height as four hundred feet without getting a spark +in his discharge-box at the earth. He has discovered, however, that +the greater the amount of moisture in the air, the greater is the +height to which he must send the collector before getting the first +spark. There is no doubt that large quantities of electricity might +be obtained by hoisting large collectors, supported by strong flying +tandems, to considerable altitudes, and drawing off the supply at +the earth by means of a system of transformers which would lower the +electricity from the dangerously high tension at which it discharges +down the wire, to a voltage that could be handled with safety. In his +experiments thus far, Mr. Eddy has discharged the copper wire leading +from his collector into a wooden box containing a pasteboard wheel +with darning-needle axle and tinfoil edges. The axle is grounded, and +the copper wire from the collector placed near the tinfoil periphery +of the wheel, so as to discharge its sparks through the intervening +distance, and by the shock cause the wheel to turn. + + +THE USE OF KITES IN PHOTOGRAPHY. + +One of the most interesting applications of the kite, but a thoroughly +practical one, is its use in photography. This has been +entirely developed within the past year or two; indeed the first +kite-photograph taken on the American continent was one made by +Mr. Eddy's camera on May 30, 1895. Although some attempts in this +direction had been previously made in Europe, this was the first +clearly focused kite-photograph obtained. The previous ones had been +blurred, owing to defects in the devices for swinging the camera +apparatus from the kite-cord, and for loosening the shutter. Mr. +Eddy's apparatus will be better understood from the accompanying +cut than from any description. In a general way it is a wooden frame +capable of holding the camera, and terminating behind in a long stick +or boom, by means of which the camera is made to point in any desired +direction or at any angle. This is arranged before sending up the +apparatus, the boom being properly placed and held in position by +means of guy cords from the main kite-line. A separate line hangs +from the spring of the camera shutter, with which is also connected +a hollow ball of polished metal supported in such a way that it will +drop from its position, five or six feet through the air, when the +camera cord is pulled. The purpose of this ball is to allow the +operator on the ground to be sure that the camera has responded to his +pull and that the desired photograph has been taken. He is assured of +this, having given the pull, on seeing the flash made by the polished +ball in its fall. + +All this being arranged, it is only necessary to send the camera up +to any desired altitude and pull the camera cord, in order to get +photographs of wide-stretching landscapes, extensive cities, like New +York, and panoramas of every description. Such photographs could +not but be of the greatest value to geologists, mountain climbers, +surveyors, and explorers. And they must possess particular interest +for students of geography and for map-makers. + + +POSSIBLE USE OF KITES IN WAR. + +It is obvious, too, that kite-photographs might be of great value +in time of war, since a detailed view of an enemy's lines and +fortifications might be thus obtained; while at sea a perfected +kite-photographing apparatus might be of great value in recording +the approach of an enemy's ships. Mr. Eddy regards it as perfectly +possible to send up a tandem of kites from the deck of a man-of-war, +with a circular camera, such as has already been devised, attached +to the main line, and an apparatus for snapping all the shutters +simultaneously; and photograph, not only the whole horizon as seen +from the deck of a vessel, but, because of the greater elevation, many +miles beyond. A battle-ship provided with this photographing device +would enjoy as great an advantage as if it were able at will to +stretch out its mainmast into a tower of observation a mile high. + +It is true that some of the lenses in the circular camera, the +ones facing the sun, might give imperfect pictures; but in whatever +position the sun might be, at least one hundred and eighty degrees +of the horizon would be clearly photographed. And by taking such +observations in the early morning, and again in the middle of the +afternoon, it would be possible to cover the whole circuit, and thus +be aware of the approach of an enemy's ships long before they would +have been visible to a telescope used on the deck. In such a circular +camera each lens would be numbered, and the position of each would be +accurately determined with regard to the points of the compass by the +use of guy-cords stretching from the main line to the framework of the +apparatus. Thus, on looking at the number of a lens, the photographer +would immediately know from which direction any vessel whose image was +shown might be coming. + +Nor is the use of the kite in war limited to the services it would +render in photography; it might easily do more than that, and become a +most efficient and novel engine of destruction. As has been shown, it +is merely a question of carpenter work to send up a tandem of kites +that will swing a heavy load high in the air. Suppose that load were +dynamite, with an arrangement for dropping it over any desired spot. +Mr. Eddy suggests that this might be effected by means of a slow match +made by soaking a cotton string in saltpetre, which would be lighted +on despatching the load of dynamite, and would burn at a regular rate, +say one foot in five minutes, so that the length of the match could be +timed to meet the necessities of the case. On burning to its end, +the match would ignite a cord holding the dynamite in a pasteboard +receptacle, one side of which would fall down like the front of a +wall-pocket as soon as the restraining cord was burned through; and +immediately the dynamite in the box would be launched toward its +destination. Mr. Eddy has already carried out an experiment similar +to this, in setting loose from high elevations tiny paper aeroplanes. +With a little practice he found he could start the slow match with +such precision as to cause the aeroplanes to burst out into flight at +any desired altitude. This interesting and beautiful experiment was +performed for the first time by Mr. Eddy on February 22, 1893, when +he sent off from a height of one thousand feet forty aeroplanes, their +forward edges weighted with pins for greater stability. + +Assuming such an arrangement made for discharging a load of dynamite, +Mr. Eddy calculates that, with a twenty-mile breeze, six eighteen-foot +kites would lift fifty pounds of the explosive a quarter of a mile +in the air and suspend it over a fort or beleaguered city half a mile +distant. It would thus be perfectly possible, supposing the wind to be +in the right direction, to bombard Staten Island with dynamite dropped +from kites sent up from the Jersey shore. It is evident that, +for purposes of bombardment, a tandem of kites possesses several +advantages over the war balloon. Kites are much cheaper. Then it would +be far more difficult to disable them than to disable a balloon, since +they offer a smaller mark to the enemy's guns; and even if one or two +were destroyed, the others would still suffice to carry the dynamite. +Finally, the kites may be sent up without risk to the lives of those +who directed them, which is not the case with the balloons. + +Another interesting and important application of the modern kite has +been conceived by Professor J. Woodbridge Davis, principal of the +Woodbridge Boys' School, in New York, who is one of the most famous +kite-flyers in the world, in addition to being a distinguished +scientist and mathematician. It was Professor Davis who invented the +dirigible kite several years ago, three strings allowing the operator +to steer the kite from right to left at will or to make it sink to +earth. Having perfected this curious kite, which is of hexagon shape, +is covered with oiled silk, is foldable, portable, and has a tail, +Professor Davis turned his attention to his more recent and important +discovery of the dirigible buoy, which bids fair to do much to lessen +the dangers of shipwreck. For months past Professor Davis, assisted by +Mr. Eddy, has been experimenting on the Kill von Kull with this buoy, +and has obtained most encouraging results. There are two kinds, both +being designed to be attached to kite lines and drawn over the water +by the power of the kite. The simpler variety is merely a long wooden +tube about three inches in diameter and shaped very much like a gun +projectile, with a cone of tin dragging behind to give steadiness. It +is for use only when the wind is blowing in exactly the direction in +which it is designed to send a message or carry a rope. It will be +observed that, in a large number of cases when ships are driven on +rocks, the wind is blowing toward the shore, and in such cases a +line of kites would readily carry one of these buoys ashore with the +important words inside or the still more important rope following +after. + +Not satisfied, however, with this buoy, Professor Davis sought some +means of making kites draw a load across the water in any direction +desired, regardless of the way the wind might be blowing; and, after +much thought and calculation, he hit upon what is now known as the +Davis buoy, an object that has become familiar to dwellers at Bergen +Point and Port Richmond, from the frequent experiments on the Kill +that have been carried on during the past year. This form of buoy is +much larger than the other, being three or four feet in length; and +its essential feature is a deep iron keel that projects below out of +the block of wood forming the body. It is evident that this keel will +tend to keep the buoy headed in any given direction; and stability of +position is further assured by the presence of guy-ropes attached to +the main line of the kite. Each buoy is provided with three of these +ropes, which, by being lengthened or shortened, may cause the buoy to +form any desired angle with the kite-cord, and to keep it. Professor +Davis has entirely succeeded in making the kites drag the buoy along +the water in various directions in the very strongest gales--in fact, +under precisely the conditions that would assist when the buoys would +be needed for life-saving service from wrecks. And he is positive +that, with further experiment, he will be able, by moving along the +shore until a tacking angle is reached, not only to send lines, food, +or messages to a disabled vessel from the shore, but to bring back +by the same kites and the same buoy other lines and messages from the +people in distress. + +Considering the important offices of which it has already been +proved capable, and the possibility which these suggest of many other +practical applications, it is clear that the kite is no longer to +be regarded as simply a toy. And this, in turn, suggests anew the +familiar truth that, after all, nothing in this world is of small +consequence. + + + + +A DRAMATIC POINT. + +BY ROBERT BARR, + +Author of "In the Midst of Alarms," "A Typewritten Letter," etc. + + +In the bad days of Balmaceda, when Chili was rent in twain, and its +capital was practically a besieged city, two actors walked together +along the chief street of the place towards the one theatre that +was then open. They belonged to a French dramatic company that would +gladly have left Chili if it could; but being compelled by stress +of war to remain, the company did the next best thing, and gave +performances at the principal theatre on such nights as a paying +audience came. + +A stranger would hardly have suspected, by the look of the streets, +that a deadly war was going on, and that the rebels--so called--were +almost at the city gates. Although business was ruined, credit dead, +and no man's life or liberty safe, the streets were filled with a +crowd that seemed bent on enjoyment and making the best of things. + +As Jacques Dupre and Carlos Lemoine walked together they were talking +earnestly, not of the real war so close to their doors, but of the +mimic conflicts of the stage. M. Dupre was the leading man of the +company, and he listened with the amused tolerance of an elder man to +the energetic vehemence of the younger. + +"You are all wrong, Dupre," cried Lemoine, "all wrong! I have studied +the subject. Remember I am saying nothing against your acting in +general. You know you have no greater admirer than I am, and that is +something to say when you know that the members of a dramatic company +are usually at loggerheads through jealousy." + +"Speak for yourself, Lemoine. You know I am green with jealousy of +you. You are the rising star, and I am setting. You can't teach an old +dog new tricks, Carl, my boy." + +"That's nonsense, Dupre. I wish you would consider this seriously. It +is because you are so good on the stage that I can't bear to see you +false to your art just to please the gallery. You should be above all +that." + +"How can a man be above his gallery--the highest spot in the house? +Talk sense, Carlos, and I'll listen." + +"Yes, you're flippant simply because you know you're wrong, and +dare not argue this matter soberly. Now she stabs you through the +heart--" + +"No. False premises entirely. She says something about my wicked +heart, and evidently _intends_ to pierce that depraved organ; but a +woman never hits what she aims at, and I deny that I'm ever stabbed +through the heart. Say in the region or the neighborhood of the heart, +and go on with your talk." + +"Very well. She stabs you in a spot so vital that you die in a +few minutes. You throw up your hands, you stagger against the +mantel-shelf, you tear open your collar and then grope at nothing; you +press your hands on your wound and take two reeling steps forward; you +call feebly for help and stumble against the sofa which you fall upon, +and finally, still groping wildly, you roll off on the floor, where +you kick out once or twice; your clinched hand comes down with a thud +on the boards, and all is over." + +"Admirably described, Carlos. I wish my audience paid such attention +to my efforts as you do. Now, you claim this is all wrong, do you?" + +"All wrong." + +"Suppose she stabbed you, what would _you_ do?" + +"I would plunge forward on my face--dead." + +"Great Heavens! What would become of your curtain?" + +"Oh, bother the curtain!" + +"It's all very well for you to condemn the curtain, Carl, but you must +work up to it. Your curtain would come down, and your friends in +the gallery would not know what had happened. Now, I go through the +evolutions you so graphically describe, and the audience gets time +to take in the situation. They say, chuckling to themselves, 'That +villain's got his dose at last, and serves him right, too.' They want +to enjoy his struggles, while she stands grimly at the door taking +care that he doesn't get away. Then when my fist comes down flop on +the stage, and they realize that I am indeed done for, the yell of +triumph that goes up is something delicious to hear." + +"That's just the point, Dupre. I claim the actor has no right to +hear applause--that he should not know there is such a thing as an +audience. His business is to portray life exactly as it is." + +"You can't portray life in a death scene, Carl." + +"Dupre, I lose all patience with you, or rather I would did I not +know that you are much deeper than you would have us suppose. You +apparently won't see that I am very much in earnest about this." + +"Of course you are, my boy, and that is one reason why you will +become a very great actor, I was ambitious myself once; but as we grow +older"--Dupre shrugged his shoulders--"well, we begin to have an eye +on the box-office receipts. I think you sometimes forget that I am a +good deal older than you are." + +"You mean that I am a fool and that I may learn wisdom with age. I +quite admit that you are a better actor than I am; in fact, I said so +only a moment ago, but--" + +"You wrong me, Brutus; I said an older soldier, not a better. But I +will take you on your own grounds. Have you ever seen a man stabbed or +shot through the heart?" + +"I never have, but I know mighty well he wouldn't undo his necktie +afterwards." + +Dupre threw back his head and laughed. + +"Who is flippant now?" he asked. + +"I don't undo my necktie; I merely tear off my collar, which a dying +man may surely be permitted to do. But until you have seen a man die +from such a stab as I receive every night, I don't understand how you +can justly find fault with my rendition of the tragedy. I imagine, you +know, that the truth lies between the two extremes. The man done to +death would likely not make such a fuss as I make; nor would he depart +so quickly as you say he would, without giving the gallery gods a +show for their money. But here we are at the theatre, Carlos, and this +acrimonious debate is closed--until we take our next walk together." + +In front of the theatre soldiers were on duty, marching up and down +with muskets on their shoulders, to show that the state was mighty and +could take care of a theatre as well as conduct a war. There were many +loungers about, which might have indicated to a person who did not +know, that there would be a good house when the play began. The two +actors met the manager in the throng near the door. + +"How are prospects to-night?" asked Dupre. + +"Very poor," replied the manager. "Not half a dozen seats have been +sold." + +"Then it isn't worth while beginning?" + +"We must begin," said the manager, lowering his voice. "The President +has ordered me not to close the theatre." + +"Oh, hang the President!" cried Lemoine impatiently. "Why doesn't he +put a stop to the war, and then the theatre would remain open of its +own accord?" + +"He is doing his best to put a stop to the war, only his army does not +carry out his orders as implicitly as our manager does," said Dupre, +smiling at the other's vehemence. + +"Balmaceda is a fool," retorted the younger actor. "If he were out of +the way the war would not last another day. I believe he is playing a +losing game, anyhow. It's a pity he hasn't to go to the front himself, +and then a stray bullet might find him and put an end to the war, +which would save the lives of many better men." + +"I say, Lemoine, I wish you wouldn't talk like that," expostulated the +manager gently, "especially when there are so many listeners." + +"Oh, the larger my audience the better I like it," rejoined Lemoine. +"I have all an actor's vanity in that respect. I say what I think, and +I don't care who hears me." + +"Yes; but you forget that we are, in a measure, guests of this +country, and we should not abuse our hosts, or the man who represents +them." + +"Ah, does he represent them? It seems to me that begs the whole +question; that's just what the war is about. The general opinion is +that Balmaceda misrepresents them, and that the country would be glad +to be rid of him." + +"That may all be," said the manager almost in a whisper, for he was a +man evidently inclined towards peace; "but it does not rest with us +to say so. We are French, and I think therefore it is better not to +express an opinion." + +"I'm not French," cried Lemoine. "I'm a native Chilian, and I have a +right to abuse my own country if I choose to do so." + +"All the more reason, then," said the manager, looking timorously over +his shoulder--"all the more reason that you should be careful what you +say." + +"I suppose," said Dupre, by way of putting an end to the discussion, +"it is time for us to get our war paint on. Come along, Lemoine, +and lecture me on our mutual art, and stop talking politics--if the +nonsense you utter about Chili and its President is politics." + +[Illustration: "MY GOD!--YOU WERE RIGHT--AFTER ALL."] + +The two actors entered the theatre; they occupied the same +dressing-room, and the volatile Lemoine talked incessantly. Although +there were but few people in the stalls, the gallery was well filled, +as was usually the case. When going on for the last act in the final +scene, Dupre whispered a word to the man who controlled the falling of +the curtain; and when the actor, as the villain of the piece, received +the fatal knife-thrust from the ill-used heroine, he plunged forward +on his face and died without a struggle, to the amazement of the +manager, who was watching the play from the front of the house, and +to the evident bewilderment of the gallery, who had counted on an +exciting struggle with death. Much as they desired the cutting off of +the villain, they were not pleased to see him so suddenly shift +his worlds without an agonizing realization of the fact that he was +quitting an existence in which he had done nothing but evil. The +curtain came down upon the climax, but there was no applause, and the +audience silently filtered out into the street. + +"There," said Dupre, when he returned to his dressing-room, "I hope +you are satisfied now, Lemoine, and if you are, you are the only +satisfied person in the house. I fell perfectly flat, as you +suggested, and you must have seen that the climax of the play fell +flat also." + +"Nevertheless," persisted Lemoine stoutly, "it was the true rendition +of the part." + +As they were talking, the manager came into their dressing-room. "Good +Heavens, Dupre!" he said, "why did you end the piece in that idiotic +way? What on earth got into you?" + +"The knife," said Dupre, flippantly. "It went directly through the +heart, and Lemoine, here, insists that when that happens a man should +fall dead instantly. I did it to please Lemoine." + +"But you spoiled your curtain," protested the manager. + +"Yes; I knew that would happen, and I told Lemoine so; but he insists +on art for art's sake. You must expostulate with Lemoine; although I +don't mind telling you both frankly that I don't intend to die in that +way again." + +"Well, I hope not," replied the manager. "I don't want you to kill the +play as well as yourself, you know, Dupre." + +Lemoine, whose face had by this time become restored to its normal +appearance, retorted hotly: + +"It all goes to show how we are surrounded and hampered by the +traditions of the stage. The gallery wants to see a man die all over +the place, and so the victim has to scatter the furniture about and +make a fool of himself generally, when he should quietly succumb to a +well-deserved blow. You ask any physician, and he will tell you that +a man stabbed or shot through the heart collapses at once. There is +no jumping-jack business in such a case. He doesn't play at leap-frog +with the chairs and sofas, but sinks instantly to the floor and is +done for." + +"Come along, Lemoine," cried Dupre, putting on his coat, "and stop +talking nonsense. True art consists in a judicious blending of the +preconceived ideas of the gallery with the actual facts of the +case. An instantaneous photograph of a trotting horse is doubtless +technically and absolutely correct, yet it is not a true picture of +the animal in motion." + +"Then you admit," said Lemoine quickly, "that I am technically correct +in what I state about the result of such a wound?" + +"I admit nothing," said Dupre. "I don't believe you are correct in +anything you say about the matter. I suppose the truth is that no two +men die alike under the same circumstances." + +"They do when the heart is touched." + +"What absurd nonsense you talk! No two men act alike when the heart +is touched in love; why then should they when it is touched in death? +Come along to the hotel, and let us stop this idiotic discussion." + +"Ah!" sighed Lemoine, "you will throw your chances away. You are too +careless, Dupre; you do not study enough. This kind of thing is all +well enough in Chili, but it will wreck your chances when you go to +Paris. If you studied more deeply, Dupre, you would take Paris by +storm." + +"Thanks," said Dupre lightly; "but unless the rebels take this city +by storm, and that shortly, we may never see Paris again. To tell the +truth, I have no heart for anything but the heroine's knife. I am sick +and tired of the situation here." + +As Dupre spoke they met a small squad of soldiers coming briskly +towards the theatre. The man in charge evidently recognized them, for +saying a word to his men, they instantly surrounded the two actors. +The sergeant touched Lemoine on the shoulder, and said: + +"It is my duty to arrest you, sir." + +"In Heaven's name, why?" asked Lemoine. + +The man did not answer; but a soldier stepped to each side of Lemoine. + +"Am I under arrest also?" asked Dupre. + +"No." + +"By what authority do you arrest my friend?" inquired Dupre. + +"By the President's order." + +"But where is your authority? Where are your papers? Why is this +arrest made?" + +The sergeant shook his head and said: + +"We have the orders of the President, and that is sufficient for us. +Stand back, please!" + +The next instant Dupre found himself alone, with the squad and their +prisoner disappearing down a back street. For a moment he stood there +as if dazed, then he turned and ran as fast as he could back to the +theatre again, hoping to meet a carriage for hire on the way. Arriving +at the theatre he found the lights out and the manager on the point of +leaving. + +"Lemoine has been arrested," he cried; "arrested by a squad of +soldiers whom we met, and they said they acted by the order of the +President." + +The manager seemed thunderstruck by the intelligence, and gazed +helplessly at Dupre. + +"What is the charge?" he said at last. + +"That I do not know," answered the actor. "They simply said they were +acting under the President's orders." + +"This is bad, as bad as can be," said the manager, looking over +his shoulder, and speaking as if in fear. "Lemoine has been talking +recklessly. I never could get him to realize that he was in Chili, +and that he must not be so free in his speech. He always insisted that +this was the nineteenth century, and a man could say what he liked; as +if the nineteenth century had anything to do with Chili in its present +state." + +"You don't imagine," said Dupre, with a touch of pallor coming into +his cheeks, "that this is anything serious? It will mean nothing more +than a day or two in prison, at the worst?" + +The manager shook his head and said: + +"We had better get a carriage and see the President as soon as +possible. I'll undertake to send Lemoine back to Paris, or to put +him on board one of the French iron-clads. But there is no time to be +lost. We can probably get a carriage in the square." + +They found a carriage, and drove as quickly as they could to the +residence of the President. At first they were refused admittance; but +finally they were allowed to wait in a small room while their message +was taken to Balmaceda. An hour passed, but still no invitation came +to them from the President. The manager sat silent in a corner, but +Dupre paced up and down the small room, torn with anxiety about his +friend. At last an officer entered the room, and presented them with +the compliments of the President, who regretted that it was impossible +for him to see them that night. He added for their information, by +order of the President, that Lemoine was to be shot at day-break. He +had been tried by court-martial, and condemned to death for sedition. +The President regretted having kept them waiting so long, but the +court-martial had been going on when they arrived, and the President +thought that perhaps they would be interested in the verdict. With +that the officer escorted the two dumfounded men to the door, where +they got into their carriage without a word. The moment they were out +of ear-shot, the manager said to the coachman: + +"Drive as quickly as you can to the residence of the French minister." + +Every one at the French Legation had retired when the two +panic-stricken men reached there; but after a time the secretary +consented to see them, and on learning the seriousness of the case, he +undertook to arouse his Excellency, and see if anything could be +done. The minister entered the room shortly after, and listened with +interest to what they had to say. + +"You have your carriage at the door?" he asked, when they had finished +their recital. + +"Yes." + +"Then I will take it, and see the President at once. Perhaps you will +wait here until I return." + +Another hour dragged its slow length along, and they were well into +the second hour before the rattle of the wheels was heard in the +silent street. The minister came in, and the two anxious men saw by +his face that he had failed in his mission. + +"I am sorry to say," said his Excellency, "that I have been unable +even to get the execution postponed. I did not understand, when I +undertook the mission, that M. Lemoine was a citizen of Chili. +You see, that fact puts the matter entirely out of my hands. I am +powerless. I could only advise the President not to carry out his +intentions; but he is to-night in a most unreasonable and excited +mood, and I fear nothing can be done to save your friend. If he had +been a citizen of France, of course this execution would not have +been permitted to take place; but as it is, it is not our affair. M. +Lemoine seems to have been talking with some indiscretion. He does not +deny it himself, nor does he deny his citizenship. If he had taken a +conciliatory attitude at the court-martial the result might not have +been so disastrous; but it seems that he insulted the President to his +face, and predicted that he would within two weeks meet him in Hades. +The utmost I could do was to get the President to sign a permit for +you to see your friend, if you present it at the prison before the +execution takes place. I fear you have no time to lose. Here is the +paper." + +Dupre took the document, and thanked his Excellency for his exertions +on their behalf. He realized that Lemoine had sealed his own fate by +his independence and lack of tact. + +The two dejected men drove from the Legation and through the deserted +streets to the prison. They were shown through several stone-paved +rooms to a stone-paved court-yard, and there they waited for some time +until the prisoner was brought in between two soldiers. Lemoine had +thrown off his coat, and appeared in his shirt-sleeves. He was not +manacled or bound in any way, there being too many prisoners for each +one to be allowed the luxury of fetters. + +"Ah," cried Lemoine, when he saw them, "I knew you would come if that +old scoundrel of a President would allow you in, of which I had my +doubts. How did you manage it?" + +"The French minister got us a permit," said Dupre. + +"Oh, you went to him, did you? Of course he could do nothing, for, as +I told you, I have the misfortune to be a citizen of this country. How +comically life is made up of trivialities! I remember once in Paris +going with a friend to take the oath of allegiance to the French +Republic." + +"And did you take it?" cried Dupre eagerly. + +"Alas, no! We met two other friends, and we all adjourned to a cafe +and had something to drink. I little thought that bottle of champagne +was going to cost me my life; for, of course, if I had taken the oath +of allegiance, my friend the French minister would have bombarded the +city before he would have allowed this execution to go on." + +"Then you know to what you are condemned?" said the manager, with +tears in his eyes. + +"Oh, I know that Balmaceda thinks he is going to have me shot; but +then he always was a fool, and never knew what he was talking about. I +told him if he would allow you two in at the execution, and instead of +ordering a whole squad to fire at me, order one expert marksman, if +he had such a thing in his whole army, who would shoot me through +the heart, that I would show you, Dupre, how a man dies under such +circumstances; but the villain refused. The usurper has no soul for +art, or for anything else, for that matter. I hope you two won't mind +my death. I assure you I don't mind it myself I would much rather be +shot than live in this confounded country any longer. But I have made +up my mind to cheat old Balmaceda if I can, and I want you, Dupre, to +pay particular attention, and not to interfere." + +As Lemoine said this he quickly snatched from the sheath at the +soldier's side the bayonet which hung at his hip. The soldiers were +standing one to the right and one to the left of him, with their hands +interlaced over the muzzles of their guns, whose butts rested on the +stone floor. They apparently paid no attention to the conversation +that was going on, if they understood it, which was unlikely. Lemoine +had the bayonet in his hands before either of the four men present +knew what he was doing. + +Grasping both hands over the butt of the bayonet, with the point +towards his breast, he thrust the blade with desperate energy nearly +through his body. The whole action was done so quickly that no one +realized what had happened until Lemoine threw his hands up and they +saw the bayonet sticking in his breast. A look of agony came in the +wounded man's eyes, and his lips whitened. He staggered against +the soldier at his right, who gave way with the impact, and then he +tottered against the whitewashed stone wall, his right arm sweeping +automatically up and down the wall as if he were brushing something +from the stones. A groan escaped him, and he dropped on one knee. His +eyes turned helplessly towards Dupre, and he gasped out the words: + +"My God!--you were right--after all." + +Then he fell forward on his face, and the tragedy ended. + + + + +EDITORIAL NOTES. + + +MR. WARD'S STORY "THE SILENT WITNESS." + +We published in our January number the first of a series of stories by +Herbert D. Ward, in which Mr. Ward will exhibit in dramatic form some +monstrous imperfections in the present modes of judicial procedure. +That there is great need of such a study is shown by the remarkable +effect produced by the story already published, "The Silent Witness." +In various parts of the country the press has taken particular notice +of the story and of the question with which it deals. A recent +number of "The Argus," Avoca, Pennsylvania, contained the following +editorial: + + +"JUSTICE, WHERE ART THOU?" + +"'The Silent Witness,' a powerful story in McCLURE's MAGAZINE for +January, portrays in a graphic and thrilling manner the evil, which +in some cases amounts almost to a horror, of holding in confinement +witnesses in cases of capital crime who are unable to furnish bail. + +"The story tells of a young and stalwart country lad who goes to +Boston in search of fortune, and on the night of his arrival, while +wandering about in quest of lodgings to suit his scanty purse, is the +unwilling witness of a murder. + +"He is arrested and held in the city jail to await the trial of the +murderer. + +"The news of his imprisonment reaches his widow mother up among the +New Hampshire hills. She knows nothing of the circumstances further +than the rumors brought to her by her country neighbors. She dies of a +broken heart, though never doubting the innocence of her noble-hearted +boy. + +"The unfortunate young man learns of her death through his sweetheart, +who comes to the Boston prison to see him. + +"His grief is beyond endurance, and he curses the law that forces such +suffering upon the innocent. He has brain fever, and when the case +is called several months after the incarceration, the sheriff, who is +asked to produce the only witness for the commonwealth, responds that +he died that morning. + +"The murderer, a saloon-keeper and ward man, has been at liberty under +bail during the time that the innocent witness has been suffering the +untold agony experienced by one who comes with spotless character +from green fields and rural simplicity to the company of felons in a +wretched cell. There being no witnesses against him at the trial, a +_nolle prosequi_ is found, and he goes free. + +"This story is fiction, but it is not overdrawn. Such horrible things +do happen in these _fin-de-siecle_ days in a civilized country. + +"In Scranton, only this week, a woman, Mrs. Nicotera, was released +after having been in custody since February 28th last, as a witness in +the Rosa murder case. She was confined with, her husband, who was also +a witness, in the Lackawanna county jail until her health broke down, +when she was removed to the Lackawanna hospital. + +"On Tuesday she was released on her own recognizance. Her husband had +been given his liberty in a similar manner some weeks before. She was +thin and pale when she appeared in court, and had evidently passed +through severe suffering. Careful nursing will be required to restore +her to health. + +"It would seem as if some means of meeting the ends of justice could +be devised without the necessity of subjecting innocent persons to a +felon's fate for simply being a chance witness of an affair that is to +be brought into the court." + +In the editorial columns of a recent number of the Cleveland, Ohio, +"World" appeared the following: + + +"A DISGRACE TO CIVILIZATION." + +"A heart-breaking story, founded on fact, in McCLURE's MAGAZINE +for the current month, is an arraignment of the nineteenth century +civilization that, considering its boasts of enlightenment and +decency, is as horrible an official crime as any that has given so +dark a stain to Russian treatment of innocence." + +Following this is a long outline of Mr. Ward's story, and then the +article continues: + +"It is impossible to conceive of more awful inhuman injustice than +this. But the story is not overdrawn. It has happened with variations +scores, if not hundreds, of times. It is occurring or liable to occur +this very day, not alone in Boston, but in Cleveland. + +"At a meeting of the judges, a short time ago, Judge Lamson used the +following language: + +"'The detention of innocent persons as witnesses is, under the best +of circumstances, bad. It is clearly the duty of the people of this +country or their representatives to see that the present disgraceful +method in vogue in the county jail is abolished. We have no right, +under any law, to place innocent persons on a plane with criminals. It +is nothing more or less than an outrage, inflicted on helpless people. +I hope that the people of this county will be aroused to the enormity +of this problem, and very soon put an end to this imposition.' + +"And the counterpart of the story in McCLURE's MAGAZINE has happened +here within a short time. Lewis Gerardin, a sailor, was released last +April, after being detained six months. Several months before, Frank +Blaha, a saloon-keeper, who committed the crime of murder in the +second degree, managed to get bail. While Gerardin was held he +received pathetic letters from his wife and family begging him to come +home. They did not know why he was held, and he said that if they were +to learn of his imprisonment they could not understand his innocence +of crime. One day a letter was received from home, announcing that his +favorite little son had died but a week before. The last words of the +child called for his father. But Gerardin was not released until the +prosecutor was ready to dismiss him. + +"Such possibilities are a disgrace to any community that tolerates +such a horrible law or such a feeble administration of it, and such +callousness to human suffering that it will not save these innocent +victims from its outrageous injustice. When to this brutality are +added the comparative safety of the criminal, and the vile jails and +the vile inmates with whom young boys and girls and honest men and +decent women are thrown for the crime of witnessing a crime, it +convicts the civilization of the age with a combination of stupidity +and heartlessness that had better say nothing of the Czar of Russia or +the ferocious Kurds. In its essential injustice and inhumanity it is +not many removes from the lynchings of the South." + + +THE REAL LINCOLN. + +The "McClure's Early Life of Lincoln," which has just been published, +is worthy of comment in these pages for several reasons. + +1st. It contains no less than twenty portraits of Lincoln; and +although this is only one-third of the number that will appear in +the whole life, it is more than twice as many as have appeared in +any previous life. Furthermore, most of the portraits are new to the +public. + +2d. There are a large number of entirely fresh documents, several +of which are absolutely essential to a full understanding of Abraham +Lincoln, and some of which make it necessary to revise our opinion of +Lincoln's career. + +3d. It contains a remarkable record of the achievements of the Lincoln +family, whose services to the country extended through nearly a +century--a century which included the Revolutionary War and the Civil +War. Lincoln himself was ignorant of much of the history we have given +about his ancestors; but in the light of the facts set forth, his +career is logical and easily understood. + +4th. We have shown by new documents that Lincoln's father was by no +means the colorless individual we have hitherto understood him to be. +The reminiscences of Christopher Columbus Graham, first published in +this volume, together with records we have unearthed in Kentucky, show +that Thomas Lincoln was the owner of a farm three years before his +marriage, that he was a good carpenter, and that he was held in esteem +by his neighbors; while according to Mr. Graham, Thomas's brother +Mordecai (uncle of Abraham Lincoln) was a member of the Kentucky +legislature. His two sisters married into leading families. + +5th. In regard to Lincoln personally, we have shown how thoroughly he +educated himself, so that at twenty-six he was able to more than hold +his own as a member of the legislature of Illinois. + +It does not detract from the great fame of Abraham Lincoln to show +that he was a worthy son of a splendid ancestry, for his extraordinary +personality would be just as hard to account for had he been a +scion of the most notable family in the world. When a man climbs the +Matterhorn it matters little whether he began his journey at Zermatt +or a few furlongs farther on. + + * * * * * + +LINCOLN IN 1860--J. HENRY BROWN'S JOURNAL. + +As stated in the note to the portrait of Lincoln which makes the +frontispiece of this number of the MAGAZINE, the late J. Henry Brown, +who went to Springfield, Illinois, in 1860, and painted a miniature +of Mr. Lincoln on ivory, left at his death a manuscript journal +which contains interesting entries regarding Mr. Brown's sojourn in +Springfield and his acquaintance with Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln. We print +herewith this part of the journal entire: + + 1860. AUGUST, _Continued_. + + Spring- Illinois. 12. Sunday. Arrived here at three o'clock + field this morning. Wrote some letters. + " " 13. Called at Mr. Lincoln's house to see him. As + he was not in, I was directed to the Executive + Chamber, in the State Capitol. I found him + there. Handed him my letters from Judge Read. + He at once consented to sit for his picture. + We walked together from the Executive Chamber + to a daguerrean establishment. I had a half + dozen of ambrotypes taken of him before I + could get one to suit me. I was at once most + favorably impressed with Mr. Lincoln. In the + afternoon I unpacked my painting materials. + " " 14. Commenced Mr. Lincoln's picture; at it all day. + " " 15. At Mr. Lincoln's picture. + " " 16. Mr. Lincoln gave me his first sitting, in the + library room of the State Capitol. Called + to see Mrs. Lincoln; much pleased with her. + Wrote five letters. + " " 17, 18. At Mr. Lincoln's picture. Received an + invitation from Mrs. Lincoln to take tea with + them. + " " 19. Sunday. Wrote letters. + " " 20. Mr. Lincoln's second sitting. Have arranged to + have his sittings in the Representative + Chamber. + " " 21. At Mr. Lincoln's picture. Heard from home; all + well. + " " 22. Mr. Lincoln's third sitting. + " " 23. At Mr. Lincoln's picture. + " " 24. Mr. Lincoln's fourth sitting. + " " 25. Mr. Lincoln's fifth and last sitting. The + picture gives great satisfaction; Mrs. Lincoln + speaks of it in the most extravagant terms of + approbation. + " " 26. Sunday. At church. Saw Mr. Lincoln there. I + hardly know how to express the strength of my + personal regard for Mr. Lincoln. I never saw a + man for whom I so soon formed an attachment. I + like him much, and agree with him in all things + but his politics. He is kind and very sociable; + immensely popular among the people of + Springfield; even those opposed to him in + politics speak of him in unqualified terms of + praise. He is fifty-one years old, six feet + four inches high, and weighs one hundred and + sixty pounds. There are so many hard lines in + his face that it becomes a mask to the inner + man. His true character only shines out when + in an animated conversation, or when telling an + amusing tale, of which he is very fond. He is + said to be a homely man; I do not think so. + Mrs. Lincoln is a very fine-looking woman, + apparently in excellent health, and seems to be + about forty or forty-five years of age. + " " 27. The people of Springfield who have seen Mr. + Lincoln's picture speak of it in strong terms + of approbation, declaring it to be the best + that has yet been taken of him. Received a + letter from Mr. Lincoln indorsing the picture; + also one from Mrs. Lincoln expressing her + unqualified satisfaction with it; also one + from Mr. John G. Nicolay, Mr. Lincoln's + confidential clerk; and one from the man who + took the ambrotype. This would be, I suppose, + the proper place to say a word about + Springfield, the prairie city, as it is + sometimes called. It is a very pretty place; + the streets eighty feet wide. It contains many + very fine buildings, and has a population of + about ten thousand. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. +VI., No. 4., by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE *** + +***** This file should be named 14319.txt or 14319.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/3/1/14319/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Richard J. 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