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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/15838-8.txt b/15838-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4f8530c --- /dev/null +++ b/15838-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9236 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, +October, 1863, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: May 16, 2005 [EBook #15838] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. *** + + + + +Produced by Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes moved to end of document.] + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. XII.--OCTOBER, 1863.--NO. LXXII. + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by TICKNOR AND +FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of +Massachusetts. + + * * * * * + +CHARLES LAMB'S UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS.[1] + +SECOND PAPER. + + +Readers of Lamb's "Life and Letters" remember that before "Mr. H." was +written, before Kemble had rejected "John Woodvil," Godwin's tragedy of +"Antonio" had been produced at Drury-Lane Theatre, and that Elia was +present at the performance thereof. But perhaps they do not know (at +least, not many of them) that Elia's essay on "The Artificial Comedy of +the Last Century," as originally published in the "London Magazine," +contained a full and circumstantial account of the cold and stately +manner in which John Kemble performed the part of Antonio in Godwin's +unfortunate play. For some reason or other, Lamb did not reprint this +part of the article. Admirers of Charles Lamb and admirers of the drama +will be pleased--for 'tis a very characteristic bit of writing--with +what Elia says of + + * * * * * + +JOHN KEMBLE AND GODWIN'S TRAGEDY OF "ANTONIO." + +"The story of his swallowing opium-pills to keep him lively upon the +first night of a certain tragedy we may presume to be a piece of +retaliatory pleasantry on the part of the suffering author. But, indeed, +John had the art of diffusing a complacent equable dulness (which you +knew not where to quarrel with) over a piece which he did not like, +beyond any of his contemporaries. John Kemble had made up his mind early +that all the good tragedies which could be written had been written, and +he resented any new attempt. His shelves were full. The old standards +were scope enough for his ambition. He ranged in them absolute, and +'fair in Otway, full in Shakspeare shone.' He succeeded to the old +lawful thrones, and did not care to adventure bottomry with a Sir Edward +Mortimer, or any casual speculator that offered. + +"I remember, too acutely for my peace, the deadly extinguisher which he +put upon my friend G.'s 'Antonio' G., satiate with visions of political +justice, (possibly not to be realized in our time,) or willing to let +the skeptical worldlings see that his anticipations of the future did +not preclude a warm sympathy for men as they are and have been, wrote a +tragedy. He chose a story, affecting, romantic, Spanish,--the plot +simple, without being naked,--the incidents uncommon, without being +overstrained. Antonio, who gives the name to the piece, is a sensitive +young Castilian, who, in a fit of his country honor, immolates his +sister-- + +"But I must not anticipate the catastrophe. The play, reader, is extant +in choice English, and you will employ a spare half-crown not +injudiciously in the quest of it. + +"The conception was bold, and the _dénouement_--the time and place in +which the hero of it existed considered--not much out of keeping; yet it +must be confessed that it required a delicacy of handling, both from the +author and the performer, so as not much to shock the prejudices of a +modern English audience. G., in my opinion, had done his part. John, who +was in familiar habits with the philosopher, had undertaken to play +Antonio. Great expectations were formed. A philosopher's first play was +a new era. The night arrived. I was favored with a seat in an +advantageous box, between the author and his friend M.G. sat cheerful +and confident. In his friend M.'s looks, who had perused the manuscript, +I read some terror. Antonio, in the person of John Philip Kemble, at +length appeared, starched out in a ruff which no one could dispute, and +in most irreproachable mustachios. John always dressed most provokingly +correct on these occasions. The first act swept by, solemn and silent. +It went off, as G. assured M., exactly as the opening act of a +piece--the _protasis_--should do. The cue of the spectators was to be +mute. The characters were but in their introduction. The passions and +the incidents would be developed hereafter. Applause hitherto would be +impertinent. Silent attention was the effect all-desirable. Poor M. +acquiesced,--but in his honest, friendly face I could discern a working +which told how much more acceptable the plaudit of a single hand +(however misplaced) would have been than all this reasoning. The second +act (as in duty bound) rose a little in interest; but still John kept +his forces under,--in policy, as G. would have it,--and the audience +were most complacently attentive. The _protasis_, in fact, was scarcely +unfolded. The interest would warm in the next act, against which a +special incident was provided. M. wiped his cheek, flushed with a +friendly perspiration,--'tis M.'s way of showing his zeal,--'from every +pore of him a perfume falls.' I honor it above Alexander's. He had once +or twice during this act joined his palms in a feeble endeavor to elicit +a sound; they emitted a solitary noise without an echo; there was no +deep to answer to his deep. G. repeatedly begged him to be quiet. The +third act at length brought on the scene which was to warm the piece +progressively to the final flaming forth of the catastrophe. A +philosophic calm settled upon the clear brow of G., as it approached. +The lips of M. quivered. A challenge was held forth upon the stage, and +there was promise of a fight. The pit roused themselves on this +extraordinary occasion, and, as their manner is, seemed disposed to make +a ring,--when suddenly Antonio, who was the challenged, turning the +tables upon the hot challenger, Don Gusman, (who, by the way, should +have had his sister,) balks his humor, and the pit's reasonable +expectation at the same time, with some speeches out of the new +philosophy against duelling. The audience were here fairly +caught,--their courage was up, and on the alert,--a few blows, _ding +dong_, as R----s the dramatist afterwards expressed it to me, might have +done the business,--when their most exquisite moral sense was suddenly +called in to assist in the mortifying negation of their own pleasure. +They could not applaud, for disappointment; they would not condemn, for +morality's sake. The interest stood stone-still; and John's manner was +not at all calculated to unpetrify it. It was Christmas time, and the +atmosphere furnished some pretext for asthmatic affections. One began to +cough, his neighbor sympathized with him, till a cough became +epidemical. But when, from being half artificial in the pit, the cough +got frightfully naturalized among the fictitious persons of the drama, +and Antonio himself (albeit it was not set down in the stage-directions) +seemed more intent upon relieving his own lungs than the distresses of +the author and his friends,--then G. 'first knew fear,' and, mildly +turning to M., intimated that he had not been aware that Mr. Kemble +labored under a cold, and that the performance might possibly have been +postponed with advantage for some nights further,--still keeping the +same serene countenance, while M. sweat like a bull. + +"It would be invidious to pursue the fates of this ill-starred evening. +In vain did the plot thicken in the scenes that followed, in vain the +dialogue wax more passionate and stirring, and the progress of the +sentiment point more and more clearly to the arduous development which +impended. In vain the action was accelerated, while the acting stood +still. From the beginning, John had taken his stand,--had wound himself +up to an even tenor of stately declamation, from which no exigence of +dialogue or person could make him swerve for an instant. To dream of his +rising with the scene (the common trick of tragedians) was preposterous; +for from the onset he had planted himself, as upon a terrace, on an +eminence vastly above the audience, and he kept that sublime level to +the end. He looked from his throne of elevated sentiment upon the +under-world of spectators with a most sovran and becoming contempt. +There was excellent pathos delivered out to them: an they would receive +it, so; an they would not receive it, so. There was no offence against +decorum in all this; nothing to condemn, to damn. Not an irreverent +symptom of a sound was to be heard. The procession of verbiage stalked +on through four and five acts, no one venturing to predict what would +come of it, when, towards the winding-up of the latter, Antonio, with an +irrelevancy that seemed to stagger Elvira herself,--for she had been +coolly arguing the point of honor with him,--suddenly whips out a +poniard, and stabs his sister to the heart. The effect was as if a +murder had been committed in cold blood. The whole house rose up in +clamorous indignation, demanding justice. The feeling rose far above +hisses. I believe at that instant, if they could have got him, they +would have torn the unfortunate author to pieces. Not that the act +itself was so exorbitant, or of a complexion different from what they +themselves would have applauded upon another occasion in a Brutus or an +Appius,--but, for want of attending to Antonio's _words_, which palpably +led to the expectation of no less dire an event, instead of being +seduced by his _manner_, which seemed to promise a sleep of a less +alarming nature than it was his cue to inflict upon Elvira, they found +themselves betrayed into an accompliceship of murder, a perfect +misprision of parricide, while they dreamed of nothing less. + +"M., I believe, was the only person who suffered acutely from the +failure; for G. thenceforward, with a serenity unattainable but by the +true philosophy, abandoning a precarious popularity, retired into his +fast hold of speculation,--the drama in which the world was to be his +tiring-room, and remote posterity his applauding spectators, at once, +and actors." + + * * * * * + +"The least shavings of gold are valuable, men say," says Archbishop +Leighton, in his masterly Commentary on Peter; and the veriest trifle +from the pen of such a writer as Charles Lamb should be highly prized by +all readers that are readers. Therefore I think it would be unwise in me +not to print Elia's Postscript to his "Chapter on Ears," and his +Answers to Correspondents. Indeed, I do not know but that they contain +some of the most racy sentences Lamb ever wrote. At any rate, they do +contain some delightful banter and "most ingenious nonsense." In their +pleasantry, archness, and good-natured raillery, these two little +articles of Elia's remind me of some of Addison's happiest papers in the +"Spectator." + +Better than anything in Southey's "Doctor" concerning the authorship of +that queer, quaint, delightful book are Elia's affected anger and +indignation against the author of the "Indicator" for attributing the +essays of Elia to their right author. Leigh Hunt must have "laughed +consumedly," as he read the P.S. to the "Chapter on Ears." And in his +Answers to Correspondents how many delightful changes Elia rings upon +the name of the unlucky Peter Bell! How cavalierly he answers +"Indagator," and the others, who are so importunate about the true +locality of his birth,--"as if, forsooth, Elia were presently about to +be passed to his parish "! + + * * * * * + +P.S. TO THE "CHAPTER ON EARS." + +"A writer, whose real name, it seems, is _Boldero_, but who has been +entertaining the town for the last twelve months with some very pleasant +lucubrations under the assumed signature of _Leigh Hunt_,[2] in his +'Indicator' of the 31st January last has thought fit to insinuate that +I, _Elia_, do not write the little sketches which bear my signature, in +this Magazine, but that the true author of them is a Mr. L----b. Observe +the critical period at which he has chosen to impute the calumny!--on +the very eve of the publication of our last number,--affording no scope +for explanation for a full month,--during which time I must needs lie +writhing and tossing under the cruel imputation of nonentity.--Good +heavens! that a plain man must not be allowed _to be!_ + +"They call this an age of personality: but surely this spirit of +anti-personality (if I may so express it) is something worse. + +"Take away my moral reputation,--I may live to discredit that calumny. +Injure my literary fame,--I may write that up again. But when a +gentleman is robbed of his identity, where is he? + +"Other murderers stab but at our existence, a frail and perishing trifle +at the best. But here is an assassin who aims at our very essence,--who +not only forbids us _to be_ any longer, but _to have been_ at all. Let +our ancestors look to it. + +"Is the parish register nothing? Is the house in Princes Street, +Cavendish Square, where we saw the light six-and-forty years ago, +nothing? Were our progenitors from stately Genoa, where we flourished +four centuries back, before the barbarous name of Boldero[3] was known +to a European mouth, nothing? Was the goodly scion of our name, +transplanted into England in the reign of the seventh Henry, nothing? +Are the archives of the steelyard, in succeeding reigns, (if haply they +survive the fury of our envious enemies,) showing that we flourished in +prime repute, as merchants, down to the period of the Commonwealth, +nothing? + + "'Why, then the world, and all that's in't is nothing, + The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing.' + +"I am ashamed that this trifling writer should have power to move me so. + +"ELIA." + + * * * * * + +"ELIA TO HIS CORRESPONDENTS. + +"A correspondent, who writes himself Peter Ball, or Bell,--for his +hand-writing is as ragged as his manners,--admonishes me of the old +saying, that some people (under a courteous periphrasis I slur his less +ceremonious epithet) had need have good memories. In my 'Old Benchers of +the Inner Temple,' I have delivered myself, and truly, a Templar born. +Bell clamors upon this, and thinketh that he hath caught a fox. It seems +that in a former paper, retorting upon a weekly scribbler who had called +my good identity in question, (see P.S. to my 'Chapter on Ears,') I +profess myself a native of some spot near Cavendish Square, deducing my +remoter origin from Italy. But who does not see, except this tinkling +cymbal, that in that idle fiction of Genoese ancestry I was answering a +fool according to his folly,--that Elia there expresseth himself +ironically, as to an approved slanderer, who hath no right to the truth, +and can be no fit recipient of it? Such a one it is usual to leave to +his delusions,--or, leading him from error still to contradictory error, +to plunge him (as we say) deeper in the mire, and give him line till he +suspend himself. No understanding reader could be imposed upon by such +obvious rodomontade to suspect me for an alien, or believe me other than +English. + +"To a second correspondent, who signs himself 'A Wiltshire Man,' and +claims me for a countryman upon the strength of an equivocal phrase in +my 'Christ's Hospital,' a more mannerly reply is due. Passing over the +Genoese fable, which Bell makes such a ring about, he nicely detects a +more subtle discrepancy, which Bell was too obtuse to strike upon. +Referring to the passage, I must confess that the term 'native town,' +applied to Calne, _primâ facie_ seems to bear out the construction which +my friendly correspondent is willing to put upon it. The context, too, I +am afraid, a little favors it. But where the words of an author, taken +literally, compared with some other passage in his writings, admitted to +be authentic, involve a palpable contradiction, it hath been the custom +of the ingenuous commentator to smooth the difficulty by the supposition +that in the one case an allegorical or tropical sense was chiefly +intended. So by the word 'native' I may be supposed to mean a town where +I might have been born,--or where it might be desirable that I should +have been born, as being situate in wholesome air, upon a dry, chalky +soil, in which I delight,--or a town with the inhabitants of which I +passed some weeks, a summer or two ago, so agreeably, that they and it +became in a manner native to me. Without some such latitude of +interpretation in the present case, I see not how we can avoid falling +into a gross error in physics, as to conceive that a gentleman may be +born in two places, from which all modern and ancient testimony is alike +abhorrent. Bacchus cometh the nearest to it, whom I remember Ovid to +have honored with the epithet 'twice-born.'[4] But not to mention that +he is so called (we conceive) in reference to the places _whence_ rather +than the places _where_ he was delivered,--for by either birth he may +probably be challenged for a Theban,--in a strict way of speaking, he +was a _filius femoris_ by no means in the same sense as he had been +before a _filius alvi_, for that latter was but a secondary and +tralatitious way of being born, and he but a denizen of the second house +of his geniture. Thus much by way of explanation was thought due to the +courteous 'Wiltshire Man.' + +"To 'Indagator,' 'Investigator, 'Incertus,' and the rest of the pack, +that are so importunate about the true localities of his birth,--as if, +forsooth, Elia were presently about to be passed to his parish,--to all +such church-warden critics he answereth, that, any explanation here +given notwithstanding, he hath not so fixed his nativity (like a rusty +vane) to one dull spot, but that, if he seeth occasion, or the argument +shall demand it, he will be born again, in future papers, in whatever +place, and at whatever period, shall seem good unto him,-- + + "'Modò me Thebis, modò Athenis.' + +"ELIA." + + * * * * * + +Lamb excels as a critic. His article on Hogarth is a masterly specimen +of acute and subtile criticism. Hazlitt says it ought to be read by +every lover of Hogarth and English genius. His paper on "The Tragedies +of Shakspeare, considered with Reference to their Fitness for +Stage-Representation," is, in the opinion of good judges, the noblest +criticism ever written. The brief, "matterful" notes to his Specimens of +the Old English Dramatists are the very quintessence of criticism,--the +flower and fruit of years of thoughtful reading of the old English +drama. Nay, even his incidental allusions to his favorite old poets and +prose-writers are worth whole pages of ordinary criticism. + +Therefore I do not see what reason or excuse Talfourd could have for not +publishing the critical paper on De Foe's Secondary Novels, which Lamb +contributed to Walter Wilson's Life of De Foe. The author of "Robinson +Crusoe" was a great favorite with Lamb, and his criticism of "Colonel +Jack," "Moll Flanders," etc., was written _con amore_, and is, perhaps, +the very best thing ever said about those remarkable works. Those who +have read Lamb's letter to Wilson, dated December, 1822, and therefore +know how admirably he could write of the author of the best and most +popular book for boys ever written, will be right glad to read his + + * * * * * + +ESTIMATE OF DE FOE'S SECONDARY NOVELS. + +"It has happened not seldom that one work of some author has so +transcendently surpassed in execution the rest of his compositions, that +the world has agreed to pass a sentence of dismissal upon the latter, +and to consign them to total neglect and oblivion. It has done wisely in +this, not to suffer the contemplation of excellencies of a lower +standard to abate or stand in the way of the pleasure it has agreed to +receive from the master-piece. + +"Again, it has happened, that, from no inferior merit of execution in +the rest, but from superior good fortune in the choice of its subject, +some single work shall have been suffered to eclipse and cast into shade +the deserts of its less fortunate brethren. This has been done with more +or less injustice in the case of the popular allegory of Bunyan, in +which the beautiful and Scriptural image of a pilgrim or wayfarer, (we +are all such upon earth,) addressing itself intelligibly and feelingly +to the bosoms of all, has silenced, and made almost to be forgotten, the +more awful and scarcely less tender beauties of the 'Holy War made by +Shaddai upon Diabolus,' of the same author,--a romance less happy in its +subject, but surely well worthy of a secondary immortality. But in no +instance has this excluding partiality been exerted with more unfairness +than against what may be termed the secondary novels or romances of De +Foe. + +"While all ages and descriptions of people hang delighted over the +'Adventures of Robinson Crusoe,' and shall continue to do so, we trust, +while the world lasts, how few comparatively will bear to be told that +there exist other fictitious narratives by the same writer,--four of +them at least of no inferior interest, except what results from a less +felicitous choice of situation! 'Roxana.' 'Singleton,' 'Moll Flanders,' +'Colonel Jack,' are all genuine offspring of the same father. They bear +the veritable impress of De Foe. An unpractised midwife that would not +swear to the nose, lip, forehead, and eye of every one of them! They are +in their way as full of incident, and some of them every bit as +romantic; only they want the uninhabited island, and the charm that has +bewitched the world, of the striking solitary situation. + +"But are there no solitudes out of the cave and the desert? or cannot +the heart in the midst of crowds feel frightfully alone? Singleton on +the world of waters, prowling about with pirates less merciful than the +creatures of any howling wilderness,--is he not alone, with the faces of +men about him, but without a guide that can conduct him through the +mists of educational and habitual ignorance, or a fellow-heart that can +interpret to him the new-born yearnings and aspirations of unpractised +penitence? Or when the boy Colonel Jack, in the loneliness of the heart, +(the worst solitude,) goes to hide his ill-purchased treasure in the +hollow tree by night, and miraculously loses, and miraculously finds it +again--whom hath he there to sympathize with him? or of what sort are +his associates? + +"The narrative manner of De Foe has a naturalness about it beyond that +of any other novel or romance writer. His fictions have all the air of +true stories. It is impossible to believe, while you are reading them, +that a real person is not narrating to you everywhere nothing but what +really happened to himself. To this the extreme _homeliness_ of their +style mainly contributes. We use the word in its best and heartiest +sense,--that which comes _home_ to the reader. The narrators everywhere +are chosen from low life, or have had their origin in it; therefore they +tell their own tales, (Mr. Coleridge has anticipated us in this remark,) +as persons in their degree are observed to do, with infinite repetition, +and an overacted exactness, lest the hearer should not have minded, or +have forgotten, some things that had been told before. Hence the +emphatic sentences marked in the good old (but deserted) Italic type; +and hence, too, the frequent interposition of the reminding old +colloquial parenthesis, 'I say,' 'Mind,' and the like, when the +story-teller repeats what, to a practised reader, might appear to have +been sufficiently insisted upon before: which made an ingenious critic +observe, that his works, in this kind, were excellent reading for the +kitchen. And, in truth, the heroes and heroines of De Foe can never +again hope to be popular with a much higher class of readers than that +of the servant-maid or the sailor. Crusoe keeps its rank only by tough +prescription; Singleton, the pirate--Colonel Jack, the thief,--Moll +Flanders, both thief and harlot,--Roxana, harlot and something +worse,--would be startling ingredients in the bill-of-fare of modern +literary delicacies. But, then, what pirates, what thieves, and what +harlots is _the thief, the harlot_, and _the pirate_ of De Foe? We would +not hesitate to say, that in no other book of fiction, where the lives +of such characters are described, is guilt and delinquency made less +seductive, or the suffering made more closely to follow the commission, +or the penitence more earnest or more bleeding, or the intervening +flashes of religious visitation upon the rude and uninstructed soul more +meltingly and fearfully painted. They, in this, come near to the +tenderness of Bunyan; while the livelier pictures and incidents in them, +as in Hogarth or in Fielding, tend to diminish that fastidiousness to +the concerns and pursuits of common life which an unrestrained passion +for the ideal and the sentimental is in danger of producing." + + * * * * * + +Lamb, in a letter to one of his correspondents, says, after speaking of +his recent contributions to the "London Magazine,"--"In the next number +I shall figure as a theologian, and have attacked my late brethren, the +Unitarians. What Jack-Pudding tricks I shall play next I know not; I am +almost at the end of my tether." Talfourd, of course, does not publish +the article, or even give its title, which is, "Unitarian Protests." +Those who would see how well or how ill Elia figures as a theologian +should read + + * * * * * + +"UNITARIAN PROTESTS: IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND OF THAT PERSUASION NEWLY +MARRIED. + +"Dear M----,--Though none of your acquaintance can with greater +sincerity congratulate you upon this happy conjuncture than myself, one +of the oldest of them, it was with pain I found you, after the ceremony, +depositing in the vestry-room what is called a Protest. I thought you +superior to this little sophistry. What! after submitting to the service +of the Church of England,--after consenting to receive a boon from her, +in the person of your amiable consort,--was it consistent with sense, or +common good manners, to turn round upon her, and flatly taunt her with +false worship? This language is a little of the strongest in your books +and from your pulpits, though there it may well enough be excused from +religious zeal and the native warmth of Non-Conformity. But at the +altar,--the Church-of-England altar,--adopting her forms, and complying +with her requisitions to the letter,--to be consistent, together with +the practice, I fear, you must drop the language of dissent. You are no +longer sturdy Non-Cons; you are there Occasional Conformists. You submit +to accept the privileges communicated by a form of words exceptionable, +and perhaps justly, in your view; but so submitting, you have no right +to quarrel with the ritual which you have just condescended to owe an +obligation to. They do not force you into their churches. You come +voluntarily, knowing the terms. You marry in the name of the Trinity. +There is no evading this by pretending that you take the formula with +your own interpretation (and so long as you can do this, where is the +necessity of protesting?): for the meaning of a vow is to be settled by +the sense of the imposer, not by any forced construction of the taker: +else might all vows, and oaths too, be eluded with impunity. You marry, +then, essentially as Trinitarians; and the altar no sooner satisfied +than, hey, presto! with the celerity of a juggler, you shift habits, and +proceed pure Unitarians again in the vestry. You cheat the Church out of +a wife, and go home smiling in your sleeves that you have so cunningly +despoiled the Egyptians. In plain English, the Church has married you in +the name of so and so, assuming that you took the words in her sense; +but you outwitted her; you assented to them in your sense only, and took +from her what, upon a right understanding, she would have declined +giving you. + +"This is the fair construction to be put upon all Unitarian marriages, +as at present contracted; and so long as you Unitarians could salve your +consciences with the _équivoque_, I do not see why the Established +Church should have troubled herself at all about the matter. But the +Protesters necessarily see further. They have some glimmerings of the +deception; they apprehend a flaw somewhere; they would fain be honest, +and yet they must marry notwithstanding; for honesty's sake, they are +fain to dehonestate themselves a little. Let me try the very words of +your own Protest, to see what confessions we can pick out of them. + +"'As Unitarians, therefore, we' (you and your newly espoused bride) +'most solemnly protest against the service,' (which yourselves have just +demanded,) 'because we are thereby called upon, not only tacitly to +acquiesce, but to profess a belief, in a doctrine which is a dogma, as +we believe, totally unfounded.' But do you profess that belief during +the ceremony? or are you only called upon for the profession, but do not +make it? If the latter, then you fall in with the rest of your more +consistent brethren, who waive the Protest; if the former, then, I fear, +your Protest cannot save you. + +"Hard and grievous it is, that, in any case, an institution so broad +and general as the union of man and wife should be so cramped and +straitened by the hands of an imposing hierarchy, that, to plight troth +to a lovely woman, a man must be necessitated to compromise his truth +and faith to Heaven; but so it must be, so long as you choose to marry +by the forms of the church over which that hierarchy presides. + +"'Therefore,' say you, 'we protest.' O poor and much fallen word, +Protest! It was not so that the first heroic reformers protested. They +departed out of Babylon once for good and all; they came not back for an +occasional contact with her altars--a dallying, and then a protesting +against dalliance; they stood not shuffling in the porch, with a Popish +foot within, and its lame Lutheran fellow without, halting betwixt. +These were the true Protestants. You are--Protesters. + +"Besides the inconsistency of this proceeding, I must think it a piece +of impertinence, unseasonable at least, and out of place, to obtrude +these papers upon the officiating clergyman,--to offer to a public +functionary an instrument which by the tenor of his function he is not +obliged to accept, but, rather, he is called upon to reject. Is it done +in his clerical capacity? He has no power of redressing the grievance. +It is to take the benefit of his ministry, and then insult him. If in +his capacity of fellow-Christian only, what are your scruples to him, so +long as you yourselves are able to get over them, and do get over them +by the very fact of coming to require his services? The thing you call a +Protest might with just as good a reason be presented to the +church-warden for the time being, to the parish-clerk, or the +pew-opener. + +"The Parliament alone can redress your grievance, if any. Yet I see not +how with any grace your people can petition for relief, so long as, by +the very fact of your coming to church to be married, they do _bonâ +fide_ and strictly relieve themselves. The Upper House, in particular, +is not unused to these same things called Protests, among themselves. +But how would this honorable body stare to find a noble Lord conceding a +measure, and in the next breath, by a solemn Protest, disowning it! A +Protest there is a reason given for non-compliance, not a subterfuge for +an equivocal occasional compliance. It was reasonable in the primitive +Christians to avert from their persons, by whatever lawful means, the +compulsory eating of meats which had been offered unto idols. I dare say +the Roman Prefects and Exarchates had plenty of petitioning in their +days. But what would a Festus or Agrippa have replied to a petition to +that effect, presented to him by some evasive Laodicean, with the very +meat between his teeth, which he had been chewing voluntarily rather +than abide the penalty? Relief for tender consciences means nothing, +where the conscience has previously relieved itself,--that is, has +complied with the injunctions which it seeks preposterously to be rid +of. Relief for conscience there is properly none, but what by better +information makes an act appear innocent and lawful with which the +previous conscience was not satisfied to comply. All else is but relief +from penalties, from scandal incurred by a complying practice, where the +conscience itself is not fully satisfied. + +"But, say you, we have hard measure: the Quakers are indulged with the +liberty denied to us. They are; and dearly have they earned it. You have +come in (as a sect, at least) in the cool of the evening, at the +eleventh hour. The Quaker character was hardened in the fires of +persecution in the seventeenth century,--not quite to the stake and +fagot, but little short of that: they grew up and thrived against +noisome prisons, cruel beatings, whippings, stockings. They have since +endured a century or two of scoffs, contempts; they have been a by-word, +and a nay-word; they have stood unmoved: and the consequence of long +conscientious resistance on one part is invariably, in the end, +remission on the other. The legislature, that denied you the tolerance, +which I do not know that at that time you even asked, gave them the +liberty which, without granting, they would have assumed. No penalties +could have driven them into the churches. This is the consequence of +entire measures. Had the early Quakers consented to take oaths, leaving +a Protest with the clerk of the court against them in the same breath +with which they had taken them, do you in your conscience think that +they would have been indulged at this day in their exclusive privilege +of affirming? Let your people go on for a century or so, marrying in +your own fashion, and I will warrant them, before the end of it, the +legislature will be willing to concede to them more than they at present +demand. + +"Either the institution of marriage depends not for its validity upon +hypocritical compliances with the ritual of an alien church, and then I +do not see why you cannot marry among yourselves, as the Quakers, +without their indulgence, would have been doing to this day,--or it does +depend upon such ritual compliance, and then in your Protests you offend +against a divine ordinance. I have read in the Essex-Street Liturgy a +form for the celebration of marriage. Why is this become a dead letter? +Oh! it has never been legalized: that is to say, in the law's eye it is +no marriage. But do you take upon you to say, in the view of the gospel +it would be none? Would your own people, at least, look upon a couple so +paired to be none? But the case of dowries, alimonies, inheritances, +etc., which depend for their validity upon the ceremonial of the church +by law established,--are these nothing? That our children are not +legally _Filii Nullius_,--is this nothing? I answer, Nothing; to the +preservation of a good conscience, nothing; to a consistent +Christianity, less than nothing. Sad worldly thorns they are indeed, and +stumbling-blocks well worthy to be set out of the way by a legislature +calling itself Christian; but not likely to be removed in a hurry by any +shrewd legislators who perceive that the petitioning complainants have +not so much as bruised a shin in the resistance, but, prudently +declining the briers and the prickles, nestle quietly down in the smooth +two-sided velvet of a Protesting Occasional Conformity. + +"I am, dear Sir, + +"With much respect, yours, etc., + +"ELIA." + + * * * * * + +Lamb once said, of all the lies he ever put off,--and he put off a good +many,--indeed, he valued himself on being "a matter-of-lie man," +believing truth to be too precious to be wasted upon everybody,--of all +the lies he ever put off, he valued his "Memoir of Liston" the most. "It +is," he confessed to Miss Hutchinson, "from top to toe, every paragraph, +pure invention, and has passed for gospel,--has been republished in the +newspapers, and in the penny play-bills of the night, as an authentic +account." And yet, notwithstanding its incidents are all imaginary, its +facts all fictions, is not Lamb's "Memoir of Liston" a truer and more +trustworthy work than any of the productions of those contemptible +biographers--unfortunately not yet extinct--so admirably ridiculed in +the thirty-fifth number of the "Freeholder"? In fact, is not this "lying +Life of Liston" a very clever satire on those biographers who, like the +monkish historians mentioned by Fuller, in his "Church History of +Britain," swell the bowels of their books with empty wind, in default of +sufficient solid food to fill them,--who, according to Addison, ascribe +to the unfortunate persons whose lives they pretend to write works which +they never wrote and actions which they never performed, celebrate +virtues which they were never famous for and excuse faults which they +were never guilty of? And does not Lamb, in this work, very happily +ridicule the pedantry and conceit of certain grave and dignified +biographers whose works are to be found in most gentlemen's libraries? + +Therefore, as a piece of most admirable fooling, as a bit of harmless, +good-natured pleasantry, as a specimen of pleasant satire, of subtile +irony, this "Memoir of Listen" is well worthy of a place in all editions +of Charles Lamb's writings. + + * * * * * + +"BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF MR. LISTON. + +"The subject of our Memoir is lineally descended from Johan de +L'Estonne, (see 'Domesday Book,' where he is so written,) who came in +with the Conqueror, and had lands awarded him at Lupton Magna, in Kent. +His particular merits or services Fabian, whose authority I chiefly +follow, has forgotten, or perhaps thought it immaterial, to specify. +Fuller thinks that he was standard-bearer to Hugo de Agmondesham, a +powerful Norman baron, who was slain by the hand of Harold himself at +the fatal Battle of Hastings. Be this as it may, we find a family of +that name flourishing some centuries later in that county. John +Delliston, Knight, was high sheriff for Kent, according to Fabian, +_quinto Henrici Sexti_; and we trace the lineal branch flourishing +downwards,--the orthography varying, according to the unsettled usage of +the times, from Delleston to Leston or Liston, between which it seems to +have alternated, till, in the latter end of the reign of James I., it +finally settled into the determinate and pleasing dissyllabic +arrangement which it still retains. Aminadab Liston, the eldest male +representative of the family of that day, was of the strictest order of +Puritans. Mr. Foss, of Pall Mall, has obligingly communicated to me an +undoubted tract of his, which bears the initials only, A.L., and is +entitled, 'The Grinning Glass: or Actor's Mirrour, wherein the +vituperative Visnomy of vicious Players for the Scene is as virtuously +reflected back upon their mimetic Monstrosities as it has viciously +(hitherto) vitiated with its vile Vanities her Votarists.' A strange +title, but bearing the impress of those absurdities with which the +title-pages of that pamphlet-spawning age abounded. The work bears date +1617. It preceded the 'Histriomastix' by fifteen years; and as it went +before it in time, so it comes not far short of it in virulence. It is +amusing to find an ancestor of Listen's thus bespattering the players at +the commencement of the seventeenth century:-- + + "'Thinketh He,' (the actor,) 'with his costive countenances, to + wry a sorrowing soul out of her anguish, or by defacing the divine + denotement of destinate dignity (daignely described in the face + humane and no other) to reinstamp the Paradice-plotted similitude + with a novel and naughty approximation (not in the first + intention) to those abhorred and ugly God-forbidden + correspondences, with flouting Apes' jeering gibberings, and + Babion babbling-like, to hoot out of countenance all modest + measure, as if our sins were not sufficing to stoop our backs + without He wresting and crooking his members to mistimed mirth + (rather malice) in deformed fashion, leering when he should learn, + prating for praying, goggling his eyes, (better upturned for + grace,) whereas in Paradice (if we can go thus high for His + profession) that devilish Serpent appeareth his undoubted + Predecessor, first induing a mask like some roguish roistering + Roscius (I spit at them all) to beguile with Stage shows the + gaping Woman, whose Sex hath still chiefly upheld these Mysteries, + and are voiced to be the chief Stage-haunters, where, as I am + told, the custom is commonly to mumble (between acts) apples, not + ambiguously derived from that pernicious Pippin, (worse in effect + than the Apples of Discord,) whereas sometimes the hissing sounds + of displeasure, as I hear, do lively reintonate that + snake-taking-leave, and diabolical goings off, in Paradice.' + +"The Puritanic effervescence of the early Presbyterians appears to have +abated with time, and the opinions of the more immediate ancestors of +our subject to have subsided at length into a strain of moderate +Calvinism. Still a tincture of the old leaven was to be expected among +the posterity of A.L. + +"Our hero was the only son of Habakkuk Liston, settled as an anabaptist +minister upon the patrimonial soil of his ancestors. A regular +certificate appears, thus entered in the Church-Book at Lupton +Magna:--'_Johannes, filius Habakkuk et Rebecccæ Liston, Dissentientium, +natus quinto Decembri_, 1780, _baptizatus sexto Februarii sequentis; +Sponsoribus J. et W. Woollaston, unâ cum Maria Merryweather_.' The +singularity of an Anabaptist minister conforming to the child-rites of +the Church would have tempted me to doubt the authenticity of this +entry, had I not been obliged with the actual sight of it, by the favor +of Mr. Minns, the intelligent and worthy parish-clerk of Lupton. +Possibly some expectation in point of worldly advantages from some of +the sponsors might have induced this unseemly deviation, as it must have +appeared, from the practice and principles of that generally rigid sect. +The term _Dissentientium_ was possibly intended by the orthodox +clergyman as a slur upon the supposed inconsistency. What, or of what +nature, the expectations we have hinted at may have been, we have now no +means of ascertaining. Of the Woollastons no trace is now discoverable +in the village. The name of Merryweather occurs over the front of a +grocer's shop at the western extremity of Lupton. + +"Of the infant Liston we find no events recorded before his fourth year, +in which a severe attack of the measles bid fair to have robbed the +rising generation of a fund of innocent entertainment. He had it of the +confluent kind, as it is called, and the child's life was for a week or +two despaired of. His recovery he always attributes (under Heaven) to +the humane interference of one Doctor Wilhelm Richter, a German empiric, +who, in this extremity, prescribed a copious diet of _sauer-kraut_, +which the child was observed to reach at with avidity, when other food +repelled him; and from this change of diet his restoration was rapid and +complete. We have often heard him name the circumstance with gratitude; +and it is not altogether surprising that a relish for this kind of +aliment, so abhorrent and harsh to common English palates, has +accompanied him through life. When any of Mr. Listen's intimates invite +him to supper, he never fails of finding, nearest to his knife and fork, +a dish of _sauer-kraut_. + +"At the age of nine we find our subject under the tuition of the Rev. +Mr. Goodenough, (his father's health not permitting him probably to +instruct him himself,) by whom he was inducted into a competent portion +of Latin and Greek, with some mathematics, till the death of Mr. +Goodenough, in his own seventieth, and Master Liston's eleventh year, +put a stop for the present to his classical progress. + +"We have heard our hero, with emotions which do his heart honor, +describe the awful circumstances attending the decease of this worthy +old gentleman. It seems they had been walking out together, master and +pupil, in a fine sunset, to the distance of three-quarters of a mile +west of Lupton, when a sudden curiosity took Mr. Goodenough to look down +upon a chasm, where a shaft had been lately sunk in a mining speculation +(then projecting, but abandoned soon after, as not answering the +promised success, by Sir Ralph Shepperton, Knight, and member for the +county). The old clergyman leaning over, either with incaution or sudden +giddiness, (probably a mixture of both,) suddenly lost his footing, +and, to use Mr. Listen's phrase, disappeared, and was doubtless broken +into a thousand pieces. The sound of his head, etc., dashing +successively upon the projecting masses of the chasm, had such an effect +upon the child that a serious sickness ensued, and even for many years +after his recovery he was not once seen so much as to smile. + +"The joint death of both his parents, which happened not many months +after this disastrous accident, and were probably (one or both of them) +accelerated by it, threw our youth upon the protection of his maternal +great-aunt, Mrs. Sittingbourn. Of this aunt we have never heard him +speak but with expressions amounting almost to reverence. To the +influence of her early counsels and manners he has always attributed the +firmness with which, in maturer years, thrown upon a way of life +commonly not the best adapted to gravity and self-retirement, he has +been able to maintain a serious character, untinctured with the levities +incident to his profession. Ann Sittingbourn (we have seen her portrait +by Hudson) was stately, stiff, tall, with a cast of features strikingly +resembling the subject of this memoir. Her estate in Kent was spacious +and well-wooded; the house, one of those venerable old mansions which +are so impressive in childhood, and so hardly forgotten in succeeding +years. In the venerable solitudes of Charnwood, among thick shades of +the oak and beech, (this last his favorite tree,) the young Listen +cultivated those contemplative habits which have never entirely deserted +him in after-years. Here he was commonly in the summer months to be met +with, with a book in his hand,--not a play-book,--meditating. Boyle's +'Reflections' was at one time the darling volume, which in its turn was +superseded by Young's 'Night Thoughts,' which has continued its hold +upon him through life. He carries it always about him; and it is no +uncommon thing for him to be seen, in the refreshing intervals of his +occupation, leaning against a side-scene, in a sort of +Herbert-of-Cherbury posture, turning over a pocket-edition of his +favorite author. + +"But the solitudes of Charnwood were not destined always to obscure the +path of our young hero. The premature death of Mrs. Sittingbourn, at the +age of seventy, occasioned by incautious burning of a pot of charcoal in +her sleeping-chamber, left him in his nineteenth year nearly without +resources. That the stage at all should have presented itself as an +eligible scope for his talents, and, in particular, that he should have +chosen a line so foreign to what appears to have been his turn of mind, +may require some explanation. + +"At Charnwood, then, we behold him thoughtful, grave, ascetic. From his +cradle averse to flesh-meats and strong drink; abstemious even beyond +the genius of the place, and almost in spite of the remonstrances of his +great-aunt, who, though strict, was not rigid; water was his habitual +drink, and his food little beyond the mast and beech-nuts of his +favorite groves. It is a medical fact, that this kind of diet, however +favorable to the contemplative powers of the primitive hermits, etc., is +but ill adapted to the less robust minds and bodies of a later +generation. Hypochondria almost constantly ensues. It was so in the case +of the young Liston. He was subject to sights, and had visions. Those +arid beech-nuts, distilled by a complexion naturally adust, mounted into +an occiput already prepared to kindle by long seclusion and the fervor +of strict Calvinistic notions. In the glooms of Charnwood he was +assailed by illusions similar in kind to those which are related of the +famous Anthony of Padua. Wild antic faces would ever and anon protrude +themselves upon his sensorium. Whether he shut his eyes or kept them +open, the same illusions operated. The darker and more profound were his +cogitations, the droller and more whimsical became the apparitions. +They buzzed about him thick as flies, flapping at him, flouting him, +hooting in his ear, yet with such comic appendages, that what at first +was his bane became at length his solace; and he desired no better +society than that of his merry phantasmata. We shall presently find in +what way this remarkable phenomenon influenced his future destiny. + +"On the death of Mrs. Sittingbourn, we find him received into the family +of Mr. Willoughby, an eminent Turkey merchant, resident in Birchin Lane, +London. We lose a little while here the chain of his history,--by what +inducements this gentleman was determined to make him an inmate of his +house. Probably he had had some personal kindness for Mrs. Sittingbourn +formerly; but however it was, the young man was here treated more like a +son than a clerk, though he was nominally but the latter. Different +avocations, the change of scene, with that alternation of business and +recreation which in its greatest perfection is to be had only in London, +appear to have weaned him in a short time from the hypochondriacal +affections which had beset him at Charnwood. + +"In the three years which followed his removal to Birchin Lane, we find +him making more than one voyage to the Levant, as chief factor for Mr. +Willoughby at the Porte. We could easily fill our biography with the +pleasant passages which we have heard him relate as having happened to +him at Constantinople, such as his having been taken up on suspicion of +a design of penetrating the seraglio, etc.; but, with the deepest +convincement of this gentleman's own veracity, we think that some of the +stories are of that whimsical, and others of that romantic nature, +which, however diverting, would be out of place in a narrative of this +kind, which aims not only at strict truth, but at avoiding the very +appearance of the contrary. + +"We will now bring him over the seas again, and suppose him in the +counting-house in Birchin Lane, his protector satisfied with the returns +of his factorage, and all going on so smoothly that we may expect to +find Mr. Liston at last an opulent merchant upon 'Change, as it is +called. But see the turns of destiny! Upon a summer's excursion into +Norfolk, in the year 1801, the accidental sight of pretty Sally Parker, +as she was called, (then in the Norwich company,) diverted his +inclinations at once from commerce; and he became, in the language of +commonplace biography, stage-struck. Happy for the lovers of mirth was +it that our hero took this turn; he might else have been to this hour +that unentertaining character, a plodding London merchant. + +"We accordingly find him shortly after making his _début_, as it is +called, upon the Norwich boards, in the season of that year, being then +in the twenty-second year of his age. Having a natural bent to tragedy, +he chose the part of Pyrrhus in the 'Distressed Mother,' to Sally +Parker's Hermione. We find him afterwards as Barnwell, Altamont, +Chamont, etc.; but, as if Nature had destined him to the sock, an +unavoidable infirmity absolutely discapacitated him for tragedy. His +person, at this latter period of which I have been speaking, was +graceful, and even commanding; his countenance set to gravity; he had +the power of arresting the attention of an audience at first sight +almost beyond any other tragic actor. But he could not hold it. To +understand this obstacle, we must go back a few years to those appalling +reveries at Charnwood. Those illusions, which had vanished before the +dissipation of a less recluse life and more free society, now in his +solitary tragic studies, and amid the intense calls upon feeling +incident to tragic acting, came back upon him with tenfold vividness. In +the midst of some most pathetic passage, the parting of Jaffier with his +dying friend, for instance, he would suddenly be surprised with a fit of +violent horse-laughter. While the spectators were all sobbing before +him with emotion, suddenly one of those grotesque faces would peep out +upon him, and he could not resist the impulse. A timely excuse once or +twice served his purpose; but no audiences could be expected to bear +repeatedly this violation of the continuity of feeling. He describes +them (the illusions) as so many demons haunting him, and paralyzing +every effect. Even now, I am told, he cannot recite the famous soliloquy +in 'Hamlet,' even in private, without immoderate bursts of laughter. +However, what he had not force of reason sufficient to overcome he had +good sense enough to turn into emolument, and determined to make a +commodity of his distemper. He prudently exchanged the buskin for the +sock, and the illusions instantly ceased; or, if they occurred for a +short season, by their very cooperation added a zest to his comic +vein,--some of his most catching faces being (as he expresses it) little +more than transcripts and copies of those extraordinary phantasmata. + +"We have now drawn out our hero's existence to the period when he was +about to meet for the first time the sympathies of a London audience. +The particulars of his success since have been too much before our eyes +to render a circumstantial detail of them expedient. I shall only +mention, that Mr. Willoughby, his resentments having had time to +subside, is at present one of the fastest friends of his old renegado +factor; and that Mr. Listen's hopes of Miss Parker vanishing along with +his unsuccessful suit to Melpomene, in the autumn of 1811 he married his +present lady, by whom he has been blest with one son, Philip, and two +daughters, Ann and Angustina." + + * * * * * + +"Ask anybody you meet," writes Lamb to Miss Wordsworth, then visiting +some friends in Cambridge, "who is the biggest woman in Cambridge, and +I'll hold a wager they'll say Mrs. ----. She broke down two benches in +Trinity Gardens,--one on the confines of St. John's, which occasioned a +litigation between the societies as to repairing it. In warm weather she +retires into an ice-cellar, (literally,) and dates from a hot Thursday +some twenty years back. She sits in a room with opposite doors and +windows, to let in a thorough draft, which gives her slenderer friends +toothaches. She is to be seen in the market every morning at ten, +cheapening fowls, which I observe the Cambridge poulterers are not +sufficiently careful to stump." + +On the person thus briefly sketched Elia wrote an article for the +"London Magazine." As it is not to be found in the standard editions of +its author's works, we herewith present it to our readers. They will +find it to be a clever specimen of Lamb's peculiar and delightful humor. +In truth, it is one of the very best things he ever conjured up. We +observe he has changed the locality of the stout woman, and places her +in Oxford, instead of Cambridge. + + * * * * * + +"THE GENTLE GIANTESS. + +"The widow Blacket, of Oxford, is the largest female I ever had the +pleasure of beholding. There may be her parallel upon the earth, but +surely I never saw it. I take her to be lineally descended from the +maid's aunt of Brainford, who caused Master Ford such uneasiness. She +hath Atlantean shoulders; and as she stoopeth in her gait,--with as few +offences to answer for in her own particular as any of Eve's +daughters,--her back seems broad enough to bear the blame of all the +peccadilloes that have been committed since Adam. She girdeth her +waist--or what she is pleased to esteem as such--nearly up to her +shoulders, from beneath which that huge dorsal expanse, in mountainous +declivity, emergeth. Respect for her alone preventeth the idle boys, who +follow her about in shoals, whenever she cometh abroad, from getting up +and riding. But her presence infallibly commands a reverence. She is, +indeed, as the Americans would express it, something awful. Her person +is a burden to herself, no less than to the ground which bears her. + +"To her mighty bone she hath a pinguitude withal which makes the depth +of winter to her the most desirable season. Her distress in the warmer +solstice is pitiable. During the months of July and August she usually +renteth a cool cellar, where ices are kept, whereinto she descendeth +when Sirius rageth. She dates from a hot Thursday, some twenty-five +years ago. Her apartment in summer is pervious to the four winds. Two +doors in north and south direction, and two windows fronting the rising +and the setting sun, never closed, from every cardinal point catch the +contributory breezes. She loves to enjoy what she calls a quadruple +draught. That must be a shrewd zephyr that can escape her. I owe a +painful face-ache, which oppresses me at this moment, to a cold caught, +sitting by her, one day in last July, at this receipt of coolness. Her +fan in ordinary resembleth a banner spread, which she keepeth +continually on the alert to detect the least breeze. + +"She possesseth an active and gadding mind, totally incommensurate with +her person. No one delighteth more than herself in country exercises and +pastimes. I have passed many an agreeable holiday with her in her +favorite park at Woodstock. She performs her part in these delightful +ambulatory excursions by the aid of a portable garden-chair. She setteth +out with you at a fair foot-gallop, which she keepeth up till you are +both well breathed, and then she reposeth for a few seconds. Then she is +up again for a hundred paces or so, and again resteth,--her movement, on +these sprightly occasions, being something between walking and flying. +Her great weight seemeth to propel her forward, ostrich-fashion. In this +kind of relieved marching I have traversed with her many scores of acres +on those well-wooded and well-watered domains. + +"Her delight at Oxford is in the public walks and gardens, where, when +the weather is not too oppressive, she passeth much of her valuable +time. There is a bench at Maudlin, or rather, situated between the +frontiers of that and ----'s College,--some litigation, latterly, about +repairs, has vested the property of it finally in ----'s,--where at the +hour of noon she is ordinarily to be found sitting,--so she calls it by +courtesy,--but, in fact, pressing and breaking of it down with her +enormous settlement; as both those Foundations, who, however, are +good-natured enough to wink at it, have found, I believe, to their cost. +Here she taketh the fresh air, principally at vacation times, when the +walks are freest from interruption of the younger fry of students. Here +she passeth her idle hours, not idly, but generally accompanied with a +book,--blest, if she can but intercept some resident Fellow, (as usually +there are some of that brood left behind at these periods,) or stray +Master of Arts, (to most of whom she is better known than their +dinner-bell,) with whom she may confer upon any curious topic of +literature. I have seen these shy gownsmen, who truly set but a very +slight value upon female conversation, cast a hawk's eye upon her from +the length of Maudlin Grove, and warily glide off into another +walk,--true monks as they are, and ungently neglecting the delicacies of +her polished converse, for their own perverse and uncommunicating +solitariness! + +"Within doors her principal diversion is music, vocal and instrumental, +in both which she is no mean professor. Her voice is wonderfully fine; +but, till I got used to it, I confess it staggered me. It is for all the +world like that of a piping bulfinch, while from her size and stature +you would expect notes to drown the deep organ. The shake, which most +fine singers reserve for the close or cadence, by some unaccountable +flexibility, or tremulousness of pipe, she carrieth quite through the +composition; so that her time, to a common air or ballad, keeps double +motion, like the earth,--running the primary circuit of the tune, and +still revolving upon its own axis. The effect, as I said before, when +you are used to it, is as agreeable as it is altogether new and +surprising. + +"The spacious apartment of her outward frame lodgeth a soul in all +respects disproportionate. Of more than mortal make, she evinceth withal +a trembling sensibility, a yielding infirmity of purpose, a quick +susceptibility to reproach, and all the train of diffident and blushing +virtues, which for their habitation usually seek out a feeble frame, an +attenuated and meagre constitution. With more than man's bulk, her +humors and occupations are eminently feminine. She sighs,--being six +foot high. She languisheth,--being two feet wide. She worketh slender +sprigs upon the delicate muslin,--her fingers being capable of moulding +a Colossus. She sippeth her wine out of her glass daintily,--her +capacity being that of a tun of Heidelberg. She goeth mincingly with +those feet of hers,--whose solidity need not fear the black ox's +pressure. + +"Softest and largest of thy sex, adieu! By what parting attribute may I +salute thee?--last and best of the Titanesses!--Ogress, fed with milk +instead of blood!--not least, or least handsome, among Oxford's stately +structures!--Oxford, who, in its deadest time of vacation, can never +properly be said to be empty, having thee to fill it!" + + * * * * * + +MY PALACE. + + + Wound round and round within his mystic veil + The poet hid a noble truth; + The Soul's Art-Palace then he named the tale + Of those far days in youth. + + I sought that palace on its haughty height, + And came to know its starry joys, + Its sudden blackness, and the withering blight + Of all its mortal toys. + + At length the soul took lesson from her past, + And found a vale wherein to dwell, + With no Arcadian visions overcast + Or history to tell. + + My fellows tended wandering flocks and herds, + Or tilled and nursed their scanty corn; + Little they heeded life that grew to words, + Yet gave no man their scorn. + + Like them I wrought my task and took its gain, + That one might serve their homely need, + When skies were dark, and every cloud a pain, + And there were mouths to feed. + + Thus labored day by day these unskilled hands, + Whose only master was a willing heart, + Till barren space smiled into garden-lands + Where roses shone apart. + + Half faint with toil from morn to set of sun, + One night I watched the shadows creep + With stealthy footstep, when the day was done, + Toward my encastled steep. + + The palace gleamed upon my dazzled sight,-- + From long estrangement grown more fair: + I sank and dreamed my feet were mounting light + Over each golden stair. + + Once more there came the voice of waters low + On cooling breezes perfume-fed: + It seemed I followed a grand leader, slow + Through marble galleries led. + + Then sad I wakened in the vale, but found + The stately guide still drew me on: + Her name was Charity; her voice a sound + Of pure compassion. + + She said,--"Beside thee every day I stood + To keep false memories aloof; + To-night I sorrowed for thy labor rude, + And put thee to the proof. + + "Ascend again to yon high palace-towers, + With brothers share its plenitude, + And gather up with all thy princely powers + Joys to infinitude." + + "Ay me!" I cried, "bid me not go afar, + While yet these little children call, + Lest life grow pallid as the morning star + In that cold shining hall! + + "All shall be theirs: my lot is here below + To minister the goods I hold, + While suffering ones shall watch the torrent flow + In waves of amber gold. + + "There childhood shall be laid on gleaming beds, + A saintly-eyed prophetic band, + And tinted oriels flame above their heads + To picture the new land. + + "And dusky men shall press the snowy lawn, + Shall feel those tears that ease all pain, + Then wake to greet the free earth's noble dawn + And turn to rest again. + + "There tired soldiers wash their bleeding feet, + Who gave for us their ripening youth + To earn pure freedom, dared all danger meet, + Content to die for truth. + + "There, in the sleepless watch the organ's tone + Shall bear them on its swelling wing + To dreamful space, while star-fires one by one + In vibrant chorus sing." + + Sudden there came a thought,--Thou hast no home, + No shaded haunt, or mansion wide, + No refuge after toil in which to roam, + Where silence may abide. + + And then I saw a palace broad as earth, + Built beautiful of land and seas,-- + Its eastern gate shone in the morning's birth, + The west o'ertopped the trees. + + Free as wild waves upon an autumn day, + A world of brothers through its space + Might wander up and down, and sunbeams play + Even on Sorrow's face. + + Here in the broad sunned silence of the noon + Peace waiteth to salute the worn, + And ever crowneth with her tender boon + Those who have nobly borne. + + Like shafted light dropped in a sunset sea, + The radiant pillars of my home + Send from their glowing swift mortality + Great voices crying, "Come!" + + * * * * * + +THE DEACON'S HOLOCAUST. + +I + + +A First-class old lady is the most precious social possession of a +New-England town. I have been in places where this office of Select +Woman had languished for want of a proper incumbent,--that is, where the +feminine element was always supplicatory, never authoritative. In such a +place you may find the Select Men as vulgar and unclean as are some of +the more pretentious politicians of State or nation; the variety-store +sands its sugar quite up to the city-standard; and the parson is as +timid a timeserver as the Bishop of Babylon. No rich local tone and +character are to be found in such a place. + +This deplorable state of things had never existed in Foxden. When +strangers took a carriage at the depot and asked to be shown whatever +was noteworthy in the town, they were driven to a many-gabled house +shaded by a majestic oak, and informed that there lived Mrs. Widesworth, +the grand-daughter of Twynintuft, the famous elocutionist. They were +also assured that the oak was no other than the Twynintuft Oak, +celebrated in the well-known sonnet of a distinguished American poet. +Moreover, they were instructed that the room just to the right of the +porch was a study added by Twynintuft himself in the year '87, and that +the shattered shed in the background was originally an elocutionary +laboratory which had seen the forming of many Congressional orators. + +In so confident a way was this information imparted, that visitors were +compelled to receive it in all humbleness, and as a matter of course. +They could only feign that Twynintuft had been a household word from +their tenderest infancy, and that they have made pilgrimage to Foxden to +gaze upon the earthly abiding-place of this remarkable man. Accordingly, +young ladies sent their best respects from the hotel, and "Would dear +Mrs. Widesworth spare them a few leaves from her grandfather's oak?" And +simple young gentlemen, with a morbid passion for notorieties and moral +sentiments, forwarded little books, bound in sheepskin heavily gilt, +inscribed, "World-Thoughts of My Country's Gifted Minds," and "Mrs. +Widesworth is requested to write any maxim which her experience of life +may have suggested on page 209 of this volume, just between the remarks +of the Living Skeleton and the autograph of the Idiot Albino." + +If invited to visit any one of consideration in Foxden, you would no +sooner have deposited your travelling-bag and subsided into the +arm-chair than you would perceive a curious nervous twitching about the +features of your host, which would finally culminate in these, accents +of patronizing triumph:--"My dear Sir, I shall be glad to take you +across the street to pay your respects to Mrs. Widesworth!" Every +householder quivered with anxiety until this rite had been solemnly +performed. + +Mrs. Widesworth, the actual, was a plump, well-to-do widow, of +threescore years. She lived among her fellow-creatures, but not of +them,--and that in a sense far more comfortable than Byronic misanthropy +could imagine. She managed to keep all the tumult and competition of +this rough world just outside the little whitewashed fence which +inclosed her premises. No solitary saint of the Middle Ages floated in a +more lofty independence of the foolish heresies of vulgar humanity. The +mission of woman must, of necessity, be identical with the mission of +Mrs. Widesworth,--and this was, to bestow a mellow patronage upon all +creation. That whatever is is right, and that this is the best possible +of worlds, were to Mrs. Widesworth propositions which her perfect health +and unmitigated prosperity continually proved. That, in a theological +point of view, everything was wrong, she considered an esoteric +condiment to add piquancy to the loaves and fishes which Providence had +set before her. + +Concerning the eminent Twynintuft, it may be remarked that he had +devoted a long life to elocution, and produced a bulky manual full of +illustrative quavers. And as it happened that his work was the first of +the sort published in America, it obtained a pretty general circulation +in schools and colleges, and was even patronisingly noticed in a British +Review,--at that time the apotheosis of our native authorship. But, alas +for the perishable nature of literary productions! "Twynintuft on the +Human Voice" had long been superseded, and lay comfortably buried in +that cemetery of dead textbooks from which there is no resurrection. +Yet, as he had once been one of the notables of Foxden, the inhabitants +of the town indulged themselves in the soothing fiction that his memory +was still verdant among men, and did pious homage to his representative. + +Until the correspondence of Colonel Prowley had drawn Miss Hurribattle +to Foxden, Mrs. Widesworth reigned by divine right. All quilting-bees +and charitable fairs seemed but manifestations of her pervading +vitality. Every social detail was submitted to her arbitrament. She +hovered over the gossips of the town like Fate in a Greek tragedy,--but +it was a reformed Fate, with a wholesome respect for family and +condition. + +An entertainment widely famous as "Mrs. Widesworth's Semiannual +Singing-School" brought forth every spring and fall the entire strength +of this excellent lady. The origin of this festivity was of ancient +date. The early settlers in Foxden, while holding decided opinions +concerning the mischief of church-organs, were unusually tolerant of +vocal music. They doubted not that a preached gospel might be worthily +seconded by a vigorous psalmody. Weekly meetings of the young men and +maidens were allowed for practice, and the pot of beans, surmounted by +its crisp coronal of pork, closed the evening in simple conviviality. +This singing-school had descended through the generations, and in solemn +rotation visited the families of all church-members. Under the fostering +care of Mrs. Widesworth, the occasion grew to a musical festival of +considerable importance. When the meeting was at her house, there were +invited many citizens of distinction from the neighboring towns; also, +there was summoned all that was lively, pretty, or profound in Foxden. +From three in the afternoon until nine in the evening the old house +broke out into singing, chatting, love-making, and sermonizing in rich +variety. The ancient bean-pot gave place to a tea-table loaded with +everything which might be baked or fried or stewed. Upon that day people +in wise foresight made but slender dinners. The hostess was known to +possess a culinary experience of no ordinary scope, and the air of the +house was heavy with the delicate incense of waffles and dough-nuts. +When the evening happened to be mild, and that comfortable estate of +fulness whose adjectives the Latin Grammar tells us require the ablative +had been attained, there was more music, secular, but highly decorous, +beneath the rustling boughs of the oak. Then the merriment grew hearty, +and mocked the sombre night. In vain the crickets chirped their shrill +jeer at fallen humanity; the crackling leaves whispered,--but no more +audibly than to the painted Indians who once danced beneath the tree +which the unborn Twynintuft was to monopolize. + +Perhaps you think Mrs. Widesworth a kind-hearted, charitable, +respectable old lady,--in short, a model citizeness! Many Foxden people +thought so, until, in the fulness of time, they were drugged with +iconoclastic logic, ghastly and fierce. Then this worthy person suddenly +loomed before them as a patron and upholder of every social abuse. She +was a trampler upon the rights of her sex, and deeply involved in the +guilt of baby-selling at Charleston. Above all, she was a _Moderate +Drinker_, (half a glass of Sherry with her dinner, you know,) and, as +such, could be proved to be the bulwark of the bar-room, and directly +responsible for the ruin of the most talented graduates of Harvard +College. The brutalities of every wife-beating drunkard just landed upon +our shores might be logically credited to Mrs. Widesworth, and to those +_respectable_ (with great sarcasm) _church-members_ (sarcasm more +intense) who countenanced the moderate use of intoxicating drinks. + +For now there had come upon Foxden that political, sanatory, +anti-everything revival, which, in those days, thrilled through our +river-towns and took the place of the theological revival, which the +churches seemed too feeble to produce. And--but this is addressed only +to simple souls who think that Cæsar crossed the Rubicon, and Luther +instituted the Reformation--the settlement of Miss Patience Hurribattle +in a Foxden boarding-house produced the social upheaval which shook the +place. Of course, the enlightened reader of the "Atlantic" is well aware +that the mighty personages of history may be philosophically bejuggled +out of all claim to the admiration or reprobation of men. What did they +do but react on the society which created them?--what were they but the +average tendencies of an age clad in petticoats or top-boots, as the +case might be? So let it be written, that the great Cosmos-machine had +ground itself to the precise point which necessitated a reformatory +tumult in Foxden, and it mattered little who happened to be there to +patronize it. + +For several previous years Miss Hurribattle had borne about her an +uncomfortable turbulence of heroic effort. She had gradually accustomed +herself to regard our crooked humanity as something capable of being +caught up and reformed by a rapacious philanthropist. She had reached a +mental condition to which the time was as thoroughly out of joint as it +ever appeared to Hamlet, although, unlike that impracticable character, +she took great comfort in the belief that she was especially born to set +it right. The choice varieties of _men_ know that truth as it is and +truth as it appears to them are very different matters. But, thank +Heaven, the feminine nature is bound by no such doleful barrier! The man +who thinks is limited; the woman who feels may expand indefinitely. Miss +Hurribattle's mission was to attract the world's capital of unemployed +sentiment, and to set it to work in the mills of society. Let it be said +of this woman, that, without wealth of talent or any exact culture, she +possessed the sweetest accompaniments of the highest masculine +genius,--enthusiasm and simplicity. + +The questioning spirit gradually took form in various radical clubs and +associations. Pleasing themselves with shining symbols, and +complimenting each other with antique titles of nobility, a large +majority of the Foxden shop-keepers enlisted in the sacred crusade. This +new physical revival, like the old religious revivals, soon got into the +schools, and processions of children, fluttering many-colored ribbons, +paraded the streets. There was an Anti-Spirit League and an +Anti-Tea-and-Coffee League; also an Anti-Tobacco League was in hopeful +process of formation. And soon professional reformers of most +destructive character were attracted to the place, and, having once +attached themselves, hung like leeches upon the community. The +celebrated Mrs. Romulus, and the great socialist, Mr. Stellato, snuffing +their victims afar off, left their work unfinished in towns of less +importance, and hurried to Foxden. Shrewd wasps were these, bent upon +getting up beehives of cooperative activity. Less and less grew the +stanch garrison who must defend the conservative citadel against the +daring hordes. Nevertheless, some boldly stood out, and showed a +spirit--or shall it be said an obstinacy?--which cowed unpractised +assailants. Deacon Greenlaw had not yet been persuaded to burn his +cider-mill,--although committees of matrons had visited him to ascertain +when he proposed to do so,--although bevies of children had been dressed +in white and set upon Mrs. Greenlaw,--although Mr. Stellato, as Chief +of the Progressive Gladiators, had called in person to demand a public +destruction of that accursed instrument for the ruin of men. The Deacon +defied the moral sentiment of the town. Doctor Dastick sturdily +maintained that tea and coffee were not injurious, and had got hold of +the preventing-waste-of-tissue theory in respect to more potent +beverages. The old-fashioned hospitable soul of Colonel Prowley took +cognizance of the fact that the Odes of Horace made no unkindly mention +of ripe Falernian, and that the most admirable heroes of Plutarch do not +appear to have been teetotalers. Mrs. Widesworth, good lady, rode like a +cork upon the deep unrest of society: she thought the whole business +infidel as well as absurd, and, so thinking, did not trouble herself +much about it. Mr. Clifton had preached a sermon in which he took the +ground that morality could be best promoted by regulating, instead of +extirpating, human propensities. + +Then the rising tide of reform beat heavily upon the church-doors. By +stiff, inexorable logic, those clergymen who refused to join the popular +charge against the outworks of Evil were declared to be in intimate +alliance with its very Essence. Although the Bible, as a whole, was held +in little regard by the leading reformers, they were wonderfully expert +in plucking out texts here and there, and dove-tailing them into +scaffolding to sustain their platform. The grand denunciations of +Jeremiah were shown to have been shot point-blank at our poor little +New-England meeting-houses. It was _their_ fasts and _their_ new moons +which the prophet (his prophetic claims were here generously admitted) +aimed at. Some churches stood the shock of the angry elements. But many +young ministers were borne away before the storm, and carried their +side-aisles and galleries along with them. What! had a theological +_simulacrum_ of Satan excited their fathers to doughty deeds,--and +should they hold back, when challenged to meet him in proper person, +hand to hand? Thus persuading themselves, these ardent divines caught up +bitter words which had drifted out of the dictionary, and laid about +them with a spirit not wholly removed from the old ecclesiastical rancor +which would kill where it could not convince. And taking it for granted +that it is the mission of the intellect to rectify what is wrong in the +world, fruition seemed to answer their efforts. Society was put to its +purgation in very plausible fashion. Songs about Temperance and various +desirable perfections of the outward man were shouted in bar-rooms hired +for the purpose at considerable expense. Then there was dimly seen a +further "progress," of which certain movers of the people were the warm +advocates. Having got the machinery well to work, might it not be +twitched and pulled to effect a wider purification? It began to be +hinted that the use of wine in the sacred offices of religion could not +be countenanced, if its employment elsewhere were the monster iniquity +it was shown to be. That philosophical friend of humanity, Mr. Stellato, +began to denounce the consumers of animal food with every unpleasant +illustration the shambles could be made to supply. In very select +companies of sympathizers, as well as in the Graduating Circle of +Progressive Gladiators, it was known that Mrs. Romulus maintained a +hideous doctrine subversive of that sacrament of the family which raises +the life of man above the life of the wolf and ape. + +Yet of the views and endeavors of the great mass of these earnest people +we may speak only with honor and gratitude. Much good work done in that +distant year of grace remains with us to-day. Who is more practical than +the idealist? If I read history aright, it is only the white-heat of +fanaticism which brands a true word into the tough hide of society. A +supreme pursuit of one virtue by the few can alone neutralize a supreme +devotion by the many to the opposite vice. Let us rejoice that some men +and women are under the necessity of thinking no good thought which +they do not attempt to utilize at all hazards. Also, it is well not to +repine overmuch because many conscientious citizens cannot induce a +concentration of vision which directs all feeling, hissing-hot, into one +channel. They save us from the intolerable monotony of a whole world of +heroes, and leave you and me, good reader, in blessed freedom to demand +the theoretically right and ignore the practically expedient. + +To the beginnings of this angry perturbation the Reverend Charles +Clifton had returned, after abandoning the Vannelle manuscript under +circumstances detailed in the last number of this magazine. To one in +his position of mind it was of the highest importance to come upon some +work that he was fitted to do. It was his unhappy destiny to be placed +just where such power as he had could accomplish nothing. Timid by +nature, a cautious lover of compromise, self-baffled in a brilliant +flutter for truth, what had he to do in a vulgar conflict of opinion, in +a common, healthy play of free thought and speech? Peering off into +immensity until he had become utterly adrift in theology, the minister +found himself too feeble to stand upon the moral basis of some practical +creed. His regular parish duties afforded but slender occupation; he had +the gift of speaking extemporaneously, or from such notes as might be +made upon the back of a letter half an hour before church; he was not +called upon to do more catechizing or visiting than was agreeable to his +mood. He accordingly yielded to an indolence of disposition which +detained his vanishing illusions, and indulged in such studies as served +to prolong the barren contemplation which had wasted his youth. My +knowledge of the secret committed for eighty years to the Mather Safe +made me the only person to whom Clifton could freely write. At some +private inconvenience, I admitted a tolerably full intercourse with my +new correspondent. He declared that the sympathy of a man in active +affairs was invaluable to a solitary student like himself: he hoped, so +he said, to see through my eyes the facts of life. It was not difficult +to discern the cause of the sad indecision which afflicted him. To state +the case roughly, he had too much knowledge for his will. Busy people +reason by instinct with sufficient accuracy, but with this man no +conviction was for five minutes free from the probe of a metaphysical +argument. Yet from glimpses I had obtained of that overwhelming System +of Things elaborated by the two Vannelles, I could understand the +condition in which its partial apprehension had left Clifton. The more I +considered certain statements, authoritatively made in the portion of +the manuscript I had dared to read, the firmer grew my belief that years +of concentrated thought and fervent speculation had indeed illuminated, +to these men, dim outlines of most august truths,--truths which some +possible, although very distant, advancement of physical science might +inductively realize. But I had made out to dismiss the matter, with the +consideration that whatever it concerned me to know could be tied to no +one method of pursuit,--and, so reflecting, returned contentedly to the +multiplex concerns with which I was then occupied. Clifton, on the +contrary, having always struggled loftily along the same narrow sunbeam, +was utterly unable to accept such available knowledge of a principle as +is sufficient to direct our activity,--he must ever soar skyward to gaze +upon the origin of its authority, until, entangled in a web of +contradictions, he fell impotent to earth. + +Week by week, in my city-home, through letters from the minister and +Colonel Prowley, I had been kept informed of the progress of that wild +ferment going on in Foxden. At length the contentious spirit there +evoked seemed ready to summon to trial all ancient and reputable things. +My friends of the protesting minority were surely to be credited with +good Puritan pluck; though there was also something admirable in the +vigor which had marshalled a party for their discomfiture. I began to +think it my duty to visit Clifton; moreover, I was curious to see the +town at the height of its effervescence. A note from Mrs. Widesworth +supplied me with the needed excuse. The singing-school was to hold its +semiannual meeting at her house on Thursday next; would I not come down +for a day and meet many old friends? + + +II. + +The fragrance of perfected harvests pervaded Foxden. The air was full of +those sweet remembrances of summer which are better than her radiant +presence. The sky overhead was flooded with rich autumnal sunshine. Far +to the north lay glimmering a heavy bank of clouds. There might be rain +before night. + +I entered the familiar parsonage and inquired for its occupant. He had +walked to the end of the garden with Miss Hurribattle, who had been with +him for some hours. I was at liberty to await his return in a depressing +theological lumber-room, called the study. The First Church had +liberally supplied its former ministers with the current literature of +their craft. Current literature! are not the words a mockery? could they +ever have applied to those printed petrifactions? One would sooner look +for vitality among the frozen denizens of the Morgue on St. Bernard! Yet +I doubt if these stately authors, wrapped in the cerements of their +prosiness, may reasonably reproach a forgetful world. They ministered to +the wants of _their_ present, and by so doing were privileged to fashion +a future which they might not enter and possess. Complain indeed! Why, +their progeny had a good ten, twenty, or fifty years' life of it, as the +case might be,--and here about us are men of greater enterprise and +grasp doomed to work off paragraphs that perish on the day of printing. +Well, no earnest soul can fail to modify the character of his age, and +thus of all ages. So, if our generation demands ministry in newspapers +instead of folios, a man may still win an honest immortality without the +biography and the bother of it. + +I looked up from the books to see the clergyman part with Miss +Hurribattle at the gate, and then turn his steps towards the house. + +There was something like embarrassment as we exchanged greetings, yet +there was hardly time to mark this before it had passed. + +"Ah, Heaven!" exclaimed Clifton, passionately, "how I envy that woman's +faith in the omnipotence of a trifle! Suppose you or I can attain a +judicial largeness of view, is it any compensation for that intense glow +of the sympathies as they crowd into one specious channel? Why this +man's yearning after intellectual satisfaction, when we only want a +little fragment of truth to hang our sentiments upon?" + +There was bitterness in the tone in which Clifton spoke. It hinted of +the living death of a proud, disappointed man, who has renounced his +youth of high motives and warm ideas, who has learned to contemn his +boyish ambition to do some great thing for the world. Truly it is better +to consume in the flame of a fierce sectarianism than to permit the +spirit of youth to die when the gray hairs come. + +"Nay, Sir," said I, "it is for you to be heartily thankful for this +exuberant enthusiasm which has come to town. The complaint of the day +is, that the doctrines of Christianity have either dissolved into +abstractions or hardened into formalisms; and here you have a crop of +fresh insights to direct aright, and to keep from degenerating into +fanatical clamor." + +"But how satisfy or control these crazy people who begin by ignoring the +creeping pace of Time? Why, here is Miss Hurribattle, who has been these +two hours beating into me, as with logical sledge-hammers, that it is my +duty to denounce Deacon Greenlaw from the pulpit. The argument, to her +mind, is overwhelming, as thus: Intoxicating fluids cause the breaking +of all the commandments; cider, if one drinks enough of it, is +intoxicating; Deacon Greenlaw presses apples, and sells the juice; he +therefore upholds and encourages the aforesaid commandment-breaking;--it +is the business of the pulpit to denounce sinners persisting in their +sin, therefore, etc., etc.,--you perceive the conclusion. In short, if I +do not instantly take the ruts of their narrow logic, and go about +pounding into some and propounding unto others their pet scheme of +regeneration,--why, I am a wolf in the sheep-fold, the Antichrist of +prophecy, and I know not what other accursed thing. And here is truly +the alternative,--to stagnate in a lifeless church, or to join these +ravers in their breakneck leap at the Millennium." + +"There is a noble element in this one-sided pertinacity," I suggested, +"and a wise man might humor and use it for the best ends. Instead of +attempting to pull these hopeful people back into the church, cannot you +urge the church forward to comprehend their position? This +impulse,--fanatical as some of its manifestations doubtless are,--might +it not be constrained, or at least directed?" + +"Never by me!" exclaimed Clifton, haughtily. "I should have to commit +myself to all the wild Saturnalia of their moralities before it would be +possible to acquire any power over them." + +"But surely you might go as far as any one in the advocacy of +Temperance." + +"Temperance! Why, you forget that I must denounce Temperance as the +deadliest of sins, and proclaim Abstinence to be the only virtue. There +is a grand State Convention of Progressive Gladiators at present in +session in Foxden; all the neighboring towns have sent delegates. Well, +it was only yesterday afternoon that Stellato, in behalf of one of the +committees, denounced the clergy of New England as gross flesh-eaters +who had made themselves incapable of perceiving any spiritual truth. And +I happen to know that Mrs. Romulus so successfully manipulated Chepunic, +not a hundred miles up the river, that before leaving that town she +publicly delivered her lecture entitled, 'Marriage a Barbarism,' and +professed to have discovered something far higher and holier than the +chain of wedlock." + +"I am sure that Miss Patience Hurribattle is ignorant of any such +tendency in these new doctrines," I exclaimed, indignantly. + +"Doubtless she is," assented Clifton. "There is a hopeful, +simple-hearted gleam in her eye, a fine simplicity in her speech, which +betokens enthusiasm of a purely religious type. But she is banded with +those who would use religion only as a fiery stimulant to the intellect, +never as a balm to the heart." + +A crunching upon the gravel-walk. A man and a woman were hurrying up to +the parsonage. The woman short, sharp, lean; the man unctious and +foxy,--yet also representing a chronic state of gelatinous bewilderment. +The Great Socialists,--I knew them at once. + +"Triumph! triumph!" cried Mr. Stellato, bursting into the study. "Deacon +Greenlaw has been converted at last! He will make a holocaust of his +cider-mill!" + +"He will signalize his submission to the Gladiators by a great Act of +Faith!" exclaimed Mrs. Romulus. "His cider-mill will be publicly burned +this afternoon at five o'clock. All the delegate Gladiators will march +in procession to the ground. Invitations have been sent to the Order of +Frugivorous Brothers, the Infants' Anti-Tobacco League,"-- + +"Two drops of the oil of tobacco will kill a tomcat of the largest +proportions," murmured Mr. Stellato, in choral parenthesis. + +--"the Principal and Patients of the Lilac-Hill Water-Cure, the Children +of the Public Schools, the Millennial Choir, and Progressive Citizens +generally," said Mrs. Romulus, finishing her sentence. + +"It is the afternoon of Mrs. Widesworth's semiannual supper to the +singing-school," hissed Mr. Stellato, maliciously. "The Deacon's +cider-mill stands on the hill just before Mrs. Widesworth's house: the +procession may be expected to pass before her windows about four +o'clock; it will then make the circuit of the town, and reach the top of +the hill a little before five, when the exercises will commence." + +Some petulant reply seemed ready to spring from the lips of the +clergyman, but he checked it, and said,-- + +"You will have more water than fire: those clouds drifting up over the +river mean rain." + +"Only wine-bibbers and flesh-eaters are affected by the weather!" +responded Stellato, with great contempt. "Sunshine and storm are alike +wholesome to the purified seekers for truth!" + +"But there is no time to lose," cried Mrs. Romulus. "We have come to ask +you, as pastor of the first church in this place, to make the prayer +before the torch is applied. You will doubtless decline; but we shall +then be able to assure the people that the Gladiators are rejected by an +apostate church, which has been cordially invited to become their +fellow-worker." + +"You had really better think of it," urged Stellato, in a seductive +whisper. "The fact is, there is a great excitement, and we are getting +on famously. We are bound to carry the county at the next election, and +in a year or two we shall sweep the State. We have already enrolled some +of the best members of your parish, and you see the Deacon is added to +the list. Influential men who join us now will be well provided for when +we come into power. We want funds to carry on the cause. Think how much +you might do with such men as Prowley and Dastick! Ah, those abominable +old sinners, it would be a charity to get something out of them to +repair a little of the mischief they have done in the world." + +I protested at the way in which these gentlemen were mentioned: they +were friends of mine, and highly esteemed citizens. + +"Sir, they are _Moderate Drinkers_," said Mrs. Romulus, with an emphasis +which claimed the settlement of the whole question. "The Gladiators are +full of pity for the poor lost inebriate. They propose to convert their +bar-keeping brothers by a course of moral suasion. But they will ever +proscribe and defy those relentless Moderate Drinkers who admit the +wine-cup into their families, and--and--why, Sir, did you ever see the +stomach of a Moderate Drinker?" + +I never had. + +"Mr. Stellato has one fourteen times the size of life, colored after +Nature by a progressive artist. It is a fearful sight!" + +I did not question it. + +"Once more, there is not a moment to spare," said Mrs. Romulus, turning +suddenly upon the clergyman. "The question is, Shall we put you upon our +Order of Exercises?" + +"It would not sound badly," insinuated Stellato, perusing the document +in imagination: "'Chant, by the Choir; Recitation of Original Verses, by +Jane Romulus; Prayer, by the Reverend Charles Clifton'"-- + +"Stop!" cried the clergyman. "I decline all connection with this +business. I have no sympathy with its promoters, and I will never cower +before the mob-tyranny they evoke. If I have yet any influence in the +First Church, it shall be used in solemnly counselling all youths and +maidens of the congregation to report themselves at Mrs. Widesworth's +singing-school. The feverish paroxysms of these public meetings are +doubtless more stimulating than the humble duties of home, or the modest +pleasures at which a lady of Mrs. Widesworth's character is willing to +preside; but it is not the wholesome activity which a wise man may +promote. And I know that to the children of our public schools such +excitement is far more fatal than the cup they never coveted: their +minds should be nurtured in moderation and simplicity, even as their +bodies are best nourished upon bread and milk." + +"Bread and milk!" echoed Mrs. Romulus in shrill falsetto; "say rather +loaves of plaster and alum crumbed into bowls of chalk-mixture! This is +the sort of bread and milk furnished by your barbarous civilization! +But the beginning of the end of this priestridden world has at length +come. A new era is dawning upon earth. Much-oppressed Woman asserts her +entire freedom; she insists upon her passional independence, and demands +harmonial development. She is going to get it, too! Stellato, come +along!" + +We watched them up the gravel-walk, and then off upon the dusty road. + +The minister meditated in silence, as one who had the gift of +penetrating beyond his fellows into the mystery of sin. Now he was +distrustful: the time might soon come when he would be desperate. I +think he almost longed for the power to become a proselyte to any active +communion, even if it proposed but a new whitewashing of the sepulchre +which hides the corruptions of society. Notwithstanding the vigorous +words he had spoken, I knew him for one who could never take hearty +satisfaction in denouncing any form of Error, because always fated to +discern behind it the muffled figure of Truth. More than most men he +felt the pressure of an awful fact which weighs upon such as are gifted +with any fine apprehension of these worlds of spirit and +matter,--namely, the impossibility of drawing anywhere in Nature those +definite lines of demarcation which the mind craves to limit and fortify +its feeble beliefs. If the boundaries of the animal and vegetable +kingdoms are hopelessly interlaced, it is only an image of the confusion +in which our blackest sins are shaded off into the sunlight of virtue. + +"But why am I here?" exclaimed Clifton, suddenly starting to his feet. +"I can at, least swim a few desperate strokes against this current, +before sinking beneath it forever! I can do something to save a few +ardent maidens from this whirling water of Reform! + +"And yet," he continued, after a pause, "yet many, perhaps most of these +wretched people, drained dry by their one idea, are devoted with +absolute singleness of purpose to the pursuit of an honest thing. Let us +consider whom and what we may be found fighting against. If these +subverters do not altogether prove the truth of their own opinions, do +they not at least demonstrate the error of those who totally oppose +them? Here is Miss Hurribattle,--who will not acknowledge her noble +contempt for the accidental and the transitory? I believe that woman +desires Truth as earnestly as men desire wealth or reputation!" + +"It is so, indeed," I assented. "Her large nature will assimilate +whatever grandeur of idea may be found among this acid folk. After a +little time she will reproduce in saintly form whatever gives its real +vitality to this movement." + +"Never!" said the clergyman; "they will put upon her the strait-jacket +of their system, and carry her off to doom." + +Soon after this we went in different ways through the town. + +I called upon Mrs. Widesworth, who had a culinary engagement, and could +not appear, and then walked to the top of the hill, where a number of +the faithful were heaping tar-barrels and shavings about the solitary +cider-mill. Regarding their operations from a little distance stood +Deacon Greenlaw; his face wore an expression of grim humor, underlaid by +a shrewd intelligence of the true position of affairs. + +"They are making lively preparations for your holocaust," said I. + +"Well, 't isn't exactly that long word neither," replied the Deacon. +Fact is, I just looked it out in the dictionary, and there they call it +'a whole burnt-offering'; but it won't mean all that with me, I can tell +you!" + +"But, my dear Sir, surely you mean to go under the Juggernaut +handsomely, and not squirm in the process?" + +The Deacon indulged in an interrogative whistle, and jerked his thumb in +the direction of a corn-barn which stood near the base of the hill. + +I requested explanation. + +"The floor of that corn-barn," observed its proprietor, "is covered with +husks about four foot deep. Under those husks is my patent screw and a +lot of cider-fixins. That old mill's a rattle-trap, any way. There's a +place at the other end of the orchard a sight more handy for a new one. +So, when folks get to reading their Bible without leaving out the +marriage in Cana, why"-- + +"Then you have been badgered into this," I said, seeing that the Deacon +was not disposed to finish his sentence. + +"Well, they've been pecking at me pretty hard; and when Mis' Greenlaw +and the girls went over, of course I couldn't hold out. I kept telling +'em that the Lord gave us apples, and I didn't believe He cared whether +we eat 'em or drank 'em. But you see I had to knock under." + +I questioned if it was going to rain, after all; for the clouds were +scudding off to the east. + +"They're just following the bend of the river," asserted the Deacon, +elevating his chin to bring them within range, and giving them a +significant nod, as if to recall an appointment. "These apple-trees will +be dripping well before night. I know the weather-signs in Foxden. It +_is_ going to rain,--and, what's more, when it does rain, it'll rain +artichokes,--and, what's more than that, I don't care if it does!" + + +III. + +A wretched fragment of the singing-class met at the house of Mrs. +Widesworth. Professor Owlsdarck had kindly come over from Wrexford to +help fill up the rooms; but the pressure of his ponderous attainments +seemed only to compress yet more that handful of miscellaneous +miserables in the front-parlor. Eight or ten elderly people, one or two +undergraduates at home for the college-vacation,--these were the guests. +The precautions of Mrs. Romulus had not been taken in vain,--there could +be no singing: none, unless--but I trust that this evil suggestion +occurred to nobody--we were so lost to shame as to call upon the +college-boys to supply the place of our absent psalmody with some of +those Bacchanalian choruses with which they were doubtless too familiar. +We felt rather wicked. We knew that we were stigmatized by that terrible +compound, "_Pro-Rum_"; we were held up as the respectable abettors of +drunkenness, the _dilettanti_ patrons of pot-houses, the cold-blooded +connoisseurs in wife-beating and _delirium tremens_. That we really +appeared all this to many honest, enthusiastic people could not be +doubted. + +Certain perplexing questions, which had fifty times been answered and +dismissed, were ever returning to worry the general consciousness of the +company:--Is it not best to scourge one's self along with a popular +enthusiasm, when, by many excellent methods, it would sweep society to a +definite good? Are not the ardors of the imagination better +working-powers than the cold judgments of the reason? Should we ever be +carping at controlling principles, when much of their present +manifestation seems full of active worthiness? Above all, have we not +listened to contemptible fallacies of self-indulgence and indolence, and +then cheated ourselves into believing them the sober testimonies of +conscience? + +That some such melancholic refinements were restless in the brains of +many I have no doubt. Probably only Mrs. Widesworth and the +undergraduates were wholly undisturbed by them. Yet, in spite of this +secret uneasiness, there was common to the company a stiff recognition +of its own virtue, which seemed to impart a certain queer rigidity to +the bodily presence of the guests. Dr. Dastick, for the first and only +time in my remembrance, appeared with his trousers bound with straps to +the bottoms of his boots. Colonel Prowley had thrust his neck into a +stock of extraordinary stiffness, which seemed to proceed from some +antique coat-of-mail worn beneath the waistcoat. The collar and cuffs of +Miss Prowley were wonderful in their dimensions, and fairly creaked with +the starch. The clergyman, indeed, wore his dress and manners in relaxed +and even slouchy fashion; but this seemed not due to lightness of +heart, but only to weariness of mind. I knew that something had caused +him to feel acutely the limitations of his office. One might attribute +such feelings to the bass-viol player in an orchestra, who, in whatever +whirl of harmony, is permitted to scrape out only a few gruff notes. But +there was dear Mrs. Widesworth, so deliciously drugged by the anodynes +of Authority that she could shake the chains of custom till they jingled +like sleigh-bells. + +"Come, come," said this good lady; "why, you all seem to be following +the advice of my grandfather Twynintuft,--which was, to let the mind +muddle after dinner. He thought it strengthened the voice,--gave it +_timber_, as he called it. But, ah, dear! in these days so little +attention is paid to elocution that it's of no consequence whatever!" + +"I have endeavored, Madam," said Professor Owlsdarck, with great +precision of utterance, "I have endeavored to impress upon my scholars +that Socratic wisdom which condemned books as silent: a testimony, as I +take it, of great importance to those who would perfect the instrument +of oral instruction." + +"There is no great elocutionist at the present day," said Mrs. +Widesworth with pious regret. + +"And little could we profit by him, if there were," rejoined the +Principal of the Wrexford Academy. "For, in the present excited +condition of our river-towns, men do not strive to copy the moderate +virtues of the Ancients, but only to exaggerate their heathenish +extispicy." + +"Ah, very true, very true," sighed Mrs. Widesworth; "only I forget what +that last word means." + +"Extispicy," defined the Professor, "is properly the observation of +entrails and divination thereby." + +"Yet more is to be learned from bones," said Dr. Dastick, decidedly. "I +hold that the performances of Cuvier alone are conclusive upon that +point." + +Colonel Prowley looked doubtful: it would hardly do to question thus +lightly the wisdom of Antiquity. + +Here Professor Owlsdarck experienced a queer twitching about the corners +of his mouth,--an affection which since his poetical address before the +Wrexford Trustees had occasionally troubled him. + +"At any rate, Colonel," he observed, "we can agree, that, whatever +amount of wisdom the Ancients may have shown in observing the digestive +apparatus of animals, it certainly exceeded that of our modern +philosophers, who are always contemplating their own." + +"Truly, I believe you are right," responded Colonel Prowley. "There is +my dear friend Miss Hurribattle, who is always coming to me with some +new cure for people who are perfectly well. At one time Mrs. Romulus +told her that everybody should live on fruits which ripen at least six +feet above-ground,--all roots having an earthy and degrading tendency. +The last recipe for the salvation of society is, to take a little gravel +with our meals, like birds." + +Dr. Dastick partly closed his eyes, and said, with some effort,-- + +"I think that men are befooled with these new explanations of sin and +its bitter fruits because the pulpit has done talking of the abiding +sinfulness of our inherited nature. When I was a boy, the minister +offered us the good old remedies of Baptismal Regeneration or Prevenient +Grace, instead of bidding us drench our flesh with water or crack our +bones with gymnastics." + +At that moment Mr. Clifton turned towards me a half-startled, +half-triumphant look. I felt that the idea had been working in his mind, +but that he had used another's lips for its utterance. Under +undetermined conditions certain minds are capable of employing a +physical organization alien to themselves. If I had doubted this before, +a foreign influence in my own person would have made it clear at that +moment. For I felt a reply uttered from my lips which came not from my +consciousness. + +"The moral, perhaps, is, that the pendulum has reached the other +extremity of the arc of oscillation, and that neither spiritual nor +physical regeneration can walk in the fetters of a system." + +Some one called out that the procession was passing. All crowded to the +windows. + +A few musical instruments. Plenty of ribbons and rosettes; also, emblems +of mysterious device. Banners inscribed with moral texts. Miss +Hurribattle. The school-children in white. Members of the +School-Committee in demi-toilet. More banners. Mr. Stellato, as chief of +the Gladiators, covered with a pasteboard helmet, and bearing a shield +inscribed "TRUTH." (N.B. The inscription in German text by the +school-children.) The Progressive Guard with javelins,--_papier-maché_ +tips gummed over with shiny paper. A Transparency,--at least it could be +used as such in lecturing emergencies,--representing the interesting +medical illustration to which Mrs. Romulus had alluded in the morning. +The choir singing a progressive anthem, accompanied by extravagant +gestures. Other banners waved in cadence with progressive stanzas. Mrs. +Romulus and the Lilac-Hill Water-Cure Establishment. Progressive +citizens generally; these in various stages of exaltation, and cheering +fervently. + +"The old infectious hysteria of religious revivals, limited by fresh air +and gentle exercise, is it not, Dr. Dastick?" + +The Doctor answered my inquiry with a non-committal "humph" of the most +professional sort. + +"Plato tells us that the Greek Rhapsodists could not recite Homer +without falling into convulsions," said Professor Owlsdarck. + +"That is very remarkable," said Colonel Prowley, deeply impressed. + +"I had no idea that these youths and maidens could justify their +eccentric proceedings by so high an authority," observed his sister. + +The brother objected. He thought that the same effects could not rightly +be attributed to a modern song-writer and the Blind Old Poet. + +"Blind Old Poet!" exclaimed one of the undergraduates, very +thoughtlessly. "Why, my dear Colonel Prowley, you are blinder than ever +he was! Don't you know that recent scholarship has demonstrated Homer to +be nobody in particular? The 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey' are mere +agglomerations of the poetical effusions of a variety of persons; and +doubtless all of them could see as well as you and I can." + +It was distressing to mark the grief and indignation which suddenly +clouded the countenance of my old friend. Was not the last noticeable +publication in post-classical literature the "Rasselas" of Dr. Johnson? +Had not all those well-disposed people who hailed it as the brightest +combination of literary and moral excellence which a mere modern could +produce,--had they not lived and died in respectable allegiance to the +Homeric personality? To say nothing of a mystical admiration of the +Greek hexameters which he could not construe, Colonel Prowley was a +diligent reader of Pope's sonorous travesty. He felt like some simple +believer in the divine right of kings, when the mob have broken into the +palace, and stand in no awe of the stucco and red velvet. Yes, of course +I admire original minds,--but then I love those which are not original. +And truly there was a stately echo about the old gentleman which always +went to my heart. + +"Our friend spoke incautiously," I said. "I make no doubt that Professor +Owlsdarck will tell us that the preponderant evidence is in favor of +Homer the individual, notwithstanding a few troublesome objections." + +"He was buried," replied the Professor, "perhaps at Smyrna, perhaps at +Cos, perhaps at neither. It is not easy to decide what ancient city may +rightly claim his bones." + +"He should have shown a sense of their value by writing some verses +about them," urged Dr. Dastick. "There was Shakspeare, whose genius +culminated in those important osteological observations inscribed upon +his tombstone!" + +At this point the undergraduate murmured something about "Wolf's +Prolegomena," which was lost in a dull rumble of thunder,--as if some +giant outside the house had taken up the title and was gruffly repeating +it. + +And now the storm was coming. + +The sky darkened rapidly. + +The atmosphere lay thick and yellow. + +Where was the procession? Would it not be necessary to omit the +triumphal progress through the town, and come to the hill at once? + +Windy whiffs--fledgling stormlets--practised in the branches of the +Twynintuft oak. The great tree lunged and croaked at them. Suddenly the +lilac-bushes were fanned into fantastic shapes. The sumach perked its +red _pompon_ like a holiday soldier, and then flung skyward its crimson +battle-flag. The wind blustered among the fallen leaves, and slammed a +loose blind or two. It grew darker,--still darker. + +The procession, at last,--a straggling remnant of it,--was seen pushing +up the hill. A remnant indeed! The children, and those having charge of +them, had withdrawn. The Committee-men had sought shelter. The +Progressive Guard was decimated. Every moment men and women were falling +out of rank and hurrying away. + +It was a little group that at length collected about the cider-mill. +Little at first,--less every instant. It would be necessary to abridge +the exercises. We saw Mrs. Romulus mount a barrel and harangue the +seceders with furious gesticulation. A book was passed up to her, and +she apparently gave out some hymn or ode suitable to the occasion. Alas! +there remained no choir to give it vocal expression. + +A hurricane-gust struck the town, and drove clouds of dust along the +street. Perhaps it was five minutes before the hill was again visible. +Then there stood by the Deacon's cider-mill three figures. Mr. Stellato +waved a torch about his head, and flung it into the combustibles. A +sheet of flame shot madly up. Mrs. Romulus seized one of the abandoned +banners and flourished it in triumph. + +Again the Twynintuft oak ground its great branches together, and threw +them heavenward for relief. The relief came. The dry agony of Nature +burst in a flood of tears. + +The rain came beating down. It came with a sudden plunge upon the earth, +drenching all things. And then, the sharp, curt rattle of hail. + +"Come to the middle of the room, the lightning is straight above us!" + +We crouched together as the thunder crashed over the house. +Rain,--nothing but rain. No ever-varying light and shade, as in common +squalls. One great cascade poured down its awful monotony. + +A bursting noise at the door. There stood before us Mrs. Romulus, Miss +Hurribattle, and Mr. Stellato. Soaked, dripping, reeking,--take your +choice of adjectives, or look into Worcester for better. The ladies +might have passed for transcendental relatives of Fouqué's Undine. +Stellato, with his hair and face bedaubed with a glutinous substance +into which his helmet had been resolved, did not strongly resemble one's +idea of a Progressive Gladiator. Truly, a deplorable contrast between +that late triumphant march before the house, and this present estate of +the leaders, so reduced, so pitiable! + +"Oh, dear, dear, what can I do for you?" cried good Mrs. Widesworth, +forgetting all resentment in a gracious gush of sympathy. + +"'Only wine-bibbers and flesh-eaters are affected by the weather,'" +murmured the clergyman, in bitter quotation, "'Storm and sunshine are +alike wholesome to the purified seekers for truth.'" + +"Seekers for truth!" echoed Professor Owlsdarck; "one would say that our +friends must have been seeking it in its native well." + +"As a medical man," said Dr. Dastick, "I shall direct Mrs. Widesworth to +provide some dry garments for her unexpected guests. Also, I think it my +duty to mention that a glass of hot brandy-and-water would be but +common prudence." + +"The first part of your advice shall be complied with," assented our +hostess,--"that is, if I can find anything to put on to them. As to the +last suggestion,--I have, to be sure, a decanter of fine old Cognac in +the closet, but it would be almost an insult to offer it." + +"The pledge has its important exceptions," observed Mr. Stellato, +shivering perceptibly. "'Except when prescribed by a medical +attendant,'--I believe I quote the exact language, Mrs. Romulus,--and +Dr. Dastick has a diploma." + +"Come up-stairs, then," said Mrs. Widesworth, taking the decanter from +the closet; "you will all catch your deaths of cold, if you stay another +minute." + +When the three patrons of Progress again appeared among us, they really +seemed to have accomplished their transference to an unconventional and +pastoral era. The ladies were quite lost in the spacious habits provided +for them. Likewise, they were curiously swathed in shawls and scarfs of +various make and texture, and might be considered representatives of any +age, past, present, or future, to which the beholder might take a fancy. +Mr. Stellato had been got into the only article of male attire which the +establishment afforded. This was an ancient dressing-gown, very small in +the arms, and narrow in the back: it had belonged to Twynintuft himself, +who was six feet two, and as thin as a bean-pole. The thickly wadded +skirts swept the ground, or clung heavily about the lower limbs. The +garment combined every disadvantage of a Roman toga and a fashionable +swallow-tail. + +Mrs. Romulus and Mr. Stellato, who had not scrupled to avail themselves +of the Doctor's prescription, were still noisily progressive. They at +once led a moral charge against Professor Owlsdarck and Colonel Prowley. + +Miss Hurribattle, refusing such warmth as might be administered +internally, was pale and chilly. She separated herself from her +companions, and crossed the room to where I stood. Her face was radiant +with devout simplicity. To a soul so pure and brave and feminine may I +never be guilty of applying a hard and technical criticism! He is little +to be envied who reads Don Quixote's assault upon the windmills as a +chapter of mad buffoonery. An ideal knight, without fear or reproach, +subject to disaster and ridicule, august from his faith in God and the +manly consecration of his life,--is he not rather the type of a +Christian sanity? No doubt, such a character seems altogether mad to +you, my friend, who pass the window as I write these words. You have +huckstered away opportunity just upon the edge of indictable knavery; +your ambition has been to be well with the wealth and sleek +respectability of the day, to make your son begin life the sordid +worldling that you end it, to marry your daughter to the richest +fool,--and this you call sanity and common sense! Is it not some Devil's +subtlety that deludes you? If Man is an immortal soul, to be saved or +damned forever, then he only is sane who welcomes privation, toil, +contempt, for a spiritual idea. "Attacking windmills!" you say. That is, +they seem so to you. But it may be that your brother's clearer eye and +practised intelligence show them the giants which they truly are. But, +be they giants or windmills, mark you this: his life illustrates some +grade of manly worthiness which the world would be poorer without, while +to himself the gain of an unselfish activity is a certain blessedness. I +hold it, then, of small matter, that, for a time, Miss Hurribattle +mistook two charlatans, three-fifths knavery, the rest fanaticism, for +honest workers in the Lord's vineyard. Far better such over-faith than +the fatal languor which seemed to terminate Clifton's too close scrutiny +of life. A buoyant and never-failing enthusiasm is the divine requital +of faithful service. "The reward of virtue is perpetual drunkenness!" +exclaims the half mythic Musæus; "_Crucem hanc inebriari_," the Church +has responded. It has a flavor as of Paradise when a woman brims over +with some fine excitement,--and that among godless, unrepentant men. + +"The storm has not prevented the accomplishment of our purpose," said +Miss Hurribattle, pleasantly; "we have this day made our protest against +the most dangerous form of evil." + +"One of the most obvious forms, certainly," I replied; "we might not +quite agree about its being the most dangerous." + +"I must demand all those republican virtues which should be the fruit of +our New-England liberty,--I must be strictly consistent." + +I jestingly pleaded the familiar proverb about fools and dead men, and +observed that there was great obscurity surrounding the real sources of +evil in our social life. + +"I once thought as you do," said the lady; "but, from my constant +association with philosophical minds like those of Mrs. Romulus and Mr. +Stellato, much has been made clear to me. They have devoted their lives +to the study of modern civilization, and are skilful in the nice +adaptation of remedies to all public disorders." + +"How long have you known these two persons?" I asked. + +"They came to Foxden about a month ago. I had then organized the +Temperance movement among the school-children, and devised a scheme for +furnishing employment to drunkards who would make an effort to reform. +But these more worthy guides of humanity soon reduced matters to first +principles. They showed that all Moderate Drinkers and the Church which +sustains them must be exposed and denounced. They have done a great +work, as you see. Only a few people in Foxden have dared to stand +against them. Deacon Greenlaw, one of the most obstinate cases, has just +yielded to their persevering treatment." + +The rain at length stopped. + +Many persons who had appeared in the procession straggled in, looking +rather sheepish. The singing, indeed, had failed; but the supper was in +prospect. + +Stellato was at high-pressure, and ready to lead his adventurous +Gladiators into the very camp of the enemy. Mrs. Romulus, wholly above +the prejudices of the toilet, would stay and bear him company. + +Miss Hurribattle, not having cast out that "clothes-devil" against which +the old theologians used to warn her sex, wished to return to her +boarding-house. It being by this time dark, or nearly so, I offered to +see her home. Mr. Clifton volunteered to accompany us. + +"The Deacon's cider-mill is smoking after all this drenching!" exclaimed +Mrs. Widesworth. + +"The torches of the Bacchantes, when flung into the Tiber, were said +still to burn," observed Professor Owlsdarck, after rummaging about a +little for an historical parallel. "And here we seem to find a point +where the modern enthusiasm for water and the ancient fervor for wine +tend to like results." + +Colonel Prowley was peculiarly interested,--so much so, indeed, that he +shook hands with us absently. Mrs. Widesworth was profuse in entreaties, +and then in hearty farewells. + +We walked up the street. + +A spring freshness was in that autumn evening. The air was purified by +the storm, as society is purified after a tempestuous feeling has blown +through it. + +I think that both of her companions felt abased by the vivid faith which +sparkled in Miss Hurribattle's conversation. We were both rebuked by her +life-effort for what was high and positive and real. The clergyman, +examining the depths of his own sensitive spirit, felt keener contempt +for that theoretical good-will, that indefinite feeling of profound +desire, which might not be concentrated upon any reality. And it came +over me, how mean was the thirst and struggle for a merely professional +eminence which filled my common days. As in a mental _mirage_, which +loomed above the thickening twilight, I saw how our paths diverged, and +whither each must surely tend. No doubtful way was hers, the +single-hearted woman of lofty aims, of restless feminine activity, of +holy impatience with sin. She might, indeed, miss the clue which guides +through the labyrinth; but then her life would teach mankind even better +than she designed. On the other hand,--supposing the position attained +which too constantly occupied my own thoughts,--there was an admiration +of men, a market-salutation from reputable Commonplace, a seat in a +fashionable church, a final lubrication with a fat obituary,--and then? +But it was no part of my design to invite the reader into the inner +chambers of my own personality, and I forbear. + +After a half-mile walk, we left Miss Hurribattle, and turned our steps +towards the parsonage. + +"I sometimes feel that her instinct reasons more accurately than my poor +logic," said Clifton, bitterly; "yet it is a hard necessity to sacrifice +our individual faculties of comparison and judgment for the +working-power of a fervid organization!" + +"No doubt it is a matter for serious question," I replied. "For, as soon +as we grow out of our languid and feeble maladies, we grow into the +violent inflammatory disorders which troubled our forefathers. The +doctors will tell you that this is true of our bodies; and surely the +soul's physician may pursue the analogy." + +"I can no longer hope to heal any man's soul," exclaimed the clergyman; +"it is enough if my own be not wholly lost. I shall to-morrow formally +resign the sacred office of teacher in this place. With the final +renunciation of the great purpose which once swayed my life, I must +renounce every symbol less profound, less poetic. I must make my boast +of an intellect which will never let any affection pass the line of +demonstrable truth. I once knew how grand it was to stand alone in the +world of an inward faith; but now I have renounced all belief in an +ideal human being inclosed in this poor body whom it was my business to +liberate." + +As we stopped at the broad path leading to the parsonage, I ventured to +say a few words which I will not set down. + +More and more I was drawn towards the high and intense life of the woman +in whom all that was wrong seemed but an excess of virtue. I could have +besought some fanatical warlike spirit to take possession of Clifton and +make him capable of hate, and so, perhaps, of love. Anything to arouse +this personator of our human mutability, this vacillator between doing +and letting alone! + +The wild future of the minister I did not anticipate. Hereafter it may +possibly be written, to show such lessons as it has. But on that autumn +night he walked up the gray pathway a broken man. The spiritual part was +dead; he had lost faith in the invisible. He walked as one in a funeral +procession,--ever doomed to follow a dead idea. + + * * * * * + +THE UNITED STATES ARMORY. + + +The United States Armory at Springfield, Massachusetts, is the largest, +best appointed, and altogether the most productive establishment for the +manufacture of small arms in the world,--those belonging to the Austrian +Government at Vienna, and to the British at Enfield, being greatly +inferior both in size and appointments; while the quality of the guns +manufactured here is very superior to that at either of those important +establishments. Indeed, the Springfield rifled musket is justly regarded +as the most perfect arm of its kind which has ever been produced. To +attain this desirable point of excellence has required the skill and +perseverance of the best mechanical minds which this country--always +prolific in inventive genius--has produced during a period of more than +half a century. It would be impossible to estimate the value of these +works during the existence of the present Rebellion; but some idea may +be formed of their usefulness from the fact that twenty-five thousand +rifled muskets of the most approved pattern are manufactured at this +establishment every month, and the number will soon be increased to +thirty thousand. There are at the present time one hundred and +seventy-five thousand of these muskets in the arsenal, awaiting the +orders of the War Department, and the works are daily turning out enough +to arm an entire regiment. + +When the Rebels fired upon Fort Sumter, the armory was making about one +thousand muskets per month, and three months afterwards the increase +amounted only to three thousand, so little preparation had been made by +the Government of Mr. Buchanan to meet the great struggle which Southern +demagogues were precipitating upon us. Indeed, the number of muskets +manufactured during the last year of his administration was less by +several thousand than these works turned out during the year 1815; +while, during this same period, the residents of streets leading to the +railway-station witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of a daily +procession of wagons laden with boxes of Government arms on their way to +Southern arsenals! + +Twenty-six hundred workmen are now constantly employed,--the +establishment being run day and night,--and none but the most expert and +industrious artisans are to be found among them. + +The original site of this armory was occupied during the Revolution as a +military recruiting-post, afterwards as a depot for military stores, and +then as a place for repairing arms. The first shops were on Main Street, +and among them was a laboratory for cartridges and various kinds of +fireworks. The oldest record in the armory relates to the work done in +this laboratory during the month of April, 1778, showing that about +forty men were then engaged in the business. Not far from the date of +this document the works were removed to the hill, where, enlarged and +perfected, they are legitimately the object of admiration and pride. The +act establishing the armory was passed by Congress in April, 1794. + +The arsenal, storehouse, offices, and principal manufacturing buildings +are situated on Springfield Hill, and overlook the Connecticut valley at +a commanding elevation. The heavier operations of the armory are carried +on in another part of the city, about a mile distant, in buildings known +as the water-shops. These are situated upon a small stream which flows +into the Connecticut River at this point. + +The armory-grounds on the hill cover an area of seventy-two acres, and +are surrounded, with the exception of a small square detached from the +main grounds, by an ornamental iron fence, nine feet in height. These +grounds are exceedingly beautiful, and present every variety of +landscape. A beautiful slope to the south and west, covered with +luxuriant verdure, and crowned with groves of deciduous trees and +evergreens, affords the eye peculiar gratification. The grounds combine +also the useful with the ornamental, supplying hay enough to feed a +score of horses belonging to the establishment. + +There are fifteen buildings used in the manufacture of muskets at the +works on the hill, and about the same number occupied as residences by +the various officers and head-clerks of the armory. Some of the +buildings are spacious and elegant in their construction, particularly +the quarters of the commanding officer, and the arsenal, and are +arranged in a picturesque and symmetrical manner within the square. The +grounds are shaded by ornamental trees, and the dwellings are adorned +with gardens and shrubbery. Broad and neatly kept walks, some gravelled +and others paved, bordered by finely clipped hedges, extend across the +green or along the line of the buildings, opening charming vistas in +every direction. Four venerable pieces of artillery, all betokening +great age, if not service, standing in the centre of the square, furnish +the only outward and visible show of the military character of this +immense establishment. + +The principal building, as regards size and architectural beauty, is the +arsenal, which is two hundred feet long by seventy wide, and three +stories high,--each story being sufficiently capacious to contain one +hundred thousand muskets. The muskets, when stored in this arsenal, are +arranged in racks, set up for the purpose, along the immense halls, +where they stand upright in rows of glittering steel, and so closely +resemble the pipes of an organ that the propriety of Longfellow's simile +suggests itself at once to every observer:-- + + "This is the arsenal. From floor to ceiling, + Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms; + But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing + Startles the villages with strange alarms." + +Unhappily, the last two lines of this beautiful stanza no longer +appropriately describe the quiet and peaceful condition of these then +harmless arms,--one hundred and fifty thousand of them having been +literally stolen from this arsenal by Floyd during the last year of his +secretaryship at Washington, and sent South in anticipation and +furtherance of the Rebellion, and the remainder issued to the loyal +troops raised for the defence of the Union. Thus these grim messengers +of death, of whom the poet so sweetly sings, have forced + + "The cries of agony, the endless groan," + +from Northern and Southern warriors alike, and rung the + + "loud lament and dismal Miserere" + +within the homes of every part of our once happy and peaceful land. + +The arsenal has another charm for visitors besides the beauty of the +burnished arms within, in the magnificent panorama of the surrounding +country seen from the summit of the tower. This tower, which occupies +the middle of the front of the building, is about ninety feet high by +thirty square, affording space upon the top for a large party of +visitors. Nothing can be imagined more enchanting than the view +presented from this point during the spring and summer months. At your +feet are the beautiful armory-grounds, mingling with the treeskirted +streets of the city; while beyond, the broad and luxuriant valley of the +Connecticut is spread out to view, with its numerous villages, fields, +groves, bridges, and railways, and the whole landscape framed by blue +mountain-ranges, among which Mounts Tom and Holyoke rise in towering +majesty. + +The arsenal is used for the storage of the muskets during the interval +that elapses from the finishing of them to the time when they are sent +away to the various permanent arsenals established by Government in +different parts of the country, or issued to the troops. This edifice +was constructed about a dozen years ago, and has, until recently, been +designated as the new arsenal, there being two or three other buildings +which were formerly used for the storage of finished muskets, called the +old arsenals, but which, since the Rebellion, have been relieved of +their contents and supplied with machinery for the manufacture of arms. +A portion of the new arsenal is now used for finishing barrels and +assembling muskets, and other parts for storing ordnance-supplies. + +The storehouse, offices, and workshops are extensive buildings,--the +former being eight hundred feet long, and one of the latter six hundred +feet long and thirty-two feet wide. + +In a description of the armory printed in 1817, the grounds are +described as a perfectly level, elevated plat, situated about half a +mile east of the village, from which there is a gradual ascent, flanked +on the north by a deep ravine and on the south by a less considerable +one, with an extensive plain spreading in the rear, the adjoining parts +being uncovered, fronting on the brow of the declivity, and commanding +an extensive and beautifully variegated landscape. At the present time, +the armory is not only in the city, but the streets at the north, south, +and east of the grounds are as thickly inhabited as any other portion of +the town. There has, however, been an increase in the population of +Springfield since 1817, from two to twenty-six thousand souls. A larger +number of workmen are employed within the armory-grounds at the present +time than the entire population of the place amounted to fifty years +ago. + +The water-shops formerly occupied three different sites, being +denominated the upper, middle, and lower water-shops, on a stream called +Mill River, which exhibits, in a distance of less than half a mile, four +or five of the most charming waterfalls to be seen in the State. In 1817 +these works comprised five workshops, twenty-eight forges, ten +trip-hammers, eighteen water-wheels, nine coal-houses, three stores, and +five dwellings. + +These buildings were all constructed in the most substantial manner, of +stone and brick, and yet remain in an excellent state of preservation. +The trouble and expense attending the transportation of the various +parts of the musket from one series of shops to another, however, +rendered it desirable to assemble them all in one place, and the +location of the upper shops was decided upon as the most advantageous. +About eight years ago the work of constructing the new shops was begun. +Extensive excavations were made for a new dam, the bed of the stream was +changed, the sides being laid for a distance of half a mile with +freestone, and the basin raised five feet above its former level. Some +idea of the magnitude of these works may be formed from the fact that +over one million dollars was expended upon the foundations alone, before +a brick was laid in the superstructure. + +A beautiful and extensive series of buildings has since been erected +upon these foundations, covering an area of about two acres, in which +the forging, boring, welding, rolling, grinding, swaging, and polishing +are done for the entire establishment. The buildings are, for the most +part, two stories high, and yet so immense are the operations carried on +here that numerous temporary sheds have been erected about the grounds, +in which machinery is placed in order to increase the facilities, which, +when the works were constructed, were supposed to be sufficient for all +time to come. + +Since the construction of the new dam, the water has a fall of +thirty-four feet. Three immense turbine water-wheels, having a united +power equal to three hundred horse, were put in when the consolidated +works were first constructed here, which it was supposed would prove +amply sufficient for all emergencies; but, since the breaking out of the +Rebellion, and the marvellous enlargement of these works, it has been +found necessary to put in a steam-engine of two hundred horse-power, to +act in conjunction with the water-wheels. + +Having thus given a general description of the exterior of the +establishment, let us now enter the works and witness the entire +operations of manufacturing the musket, _seriatim_. + +The first operation is the formation of the barrel. Formerly these were +made from plates of iron called scalps, about two feet long and three +inches wide, which were heated to a white-heat and then rolled up over +an iron rod, and the edges being lapped were welded together, so as to +form a tube of the requisite dimensions,--the solid rod serving to +preserve the cavity within of the proper form. This welding was +performed by tilt-hammers, which were carried by the water-wheels. +Underneath the hammer was an anvil containing a die, the upper surface +of which, as well as the under surface of a similar die inserted in the +hammer, formed a semicylindrical groove, producing, when the two +surfaces came together, a complete cylindrical cavity of the proper size +to receive the barrel to be forged. The workman, after heating a small +portion of the barrel in his forge, placed it in its bed upon the anvil, +and set his hammer in motion, turning the barrel round and round +continually under the blows. Only a small portion of the seam is closed +by this process at one heat, eleven being required to complete the work. +To effect by this operation a perfect junction of the iron, so that it +should be continuous and homogeneous throughout, without the least flaw, +seam, or crevice, required unremitting attention, as well as great +experience and skill. The welders formerly received twelve cents for +each barrel welded by them, but if, in proving the barrels, any of them +burst, through the fault of the welders, they were charged one dollar +for each barrel which failed to stand the test. This method has now, +however, been abandoned, and a much more economical and rapid process +adopted in its place. Instead of plates of two feet in length, those of +one foot are now used. These are bent around an iron rod as before; but +in place of the anvil and tilt-hammer, they are run through +rolling-machines, analogous in some respects to those by which +railway-iron is made. The scalps are first heated, in the blaze of a +bituminous coal furnace, to a white-heat,--to a point just as near the +melting as can be attained without actually dropping apart,--and then +passed between three sets of rollers, each of which elongates the +barrel, reduces its diameter, and assists in forcing it to assume the +proper size and taper. The metal by this process is firmly compacted, +becoming wholly homogeneous through its entire length. + +This operation of rolling the barrel is not only a very important and +valuable one, but very difficult of acquisition, the knowledge +appertaining to its practical working having been wholly confined to one +person in this country previously to the breaking out of the Rebellion. +The invention is English, and has been used in this country but a few +years. Only one set of rollers was used at this armory until the present +emergency demanded more. About half a dozen years ago the superintendent +of the works here sent to England and obtained a set of rollers, and a +workman to operate it, bargaining with him to remain one year at a +stipulated salary. At the expiration of the time engaged for, the +workman demanded, instead of a salary, to be paid eleven cents for each +barrel rolled by him. As he had allowed no one to learn the art of +rolling the barrel in the mean time, his demand was acceded to; but +after the breaking out of the Rebellion four additional rolling-mills +were imported, and of course new men had to be taught, or imported, to +work them. The art is now no longer a secret. There are forty men +employed, day and night, running the rolling-mills, but, instead of +twelve cents, which was paid for welding, they now receive but four +cents for rolling a barrel, with the same contingency of a dollar +forfeiture for each one that bursts. Four persons are employed at each +mill, namely: the foreman, who sees to the heating of the scalps and +barrels; the straightener, who straightens the barrel after it passes +through the roller; the catcher, who stands behind the roller to catch +the barrel when it has passed through; and the fireman. The rollers +weigh two tons apiece, and the five sets turn out one thousand barrels +per day, one per cent. of which burst in the proving-house. + +The barrel when rolled is left much larger in the circumference, and +smaller in the bore, than it is intended to be when finished, in order +to allow for the loss of metal in the various finishing-operations. When +it passes into the roller, the scalp weighs ten pounds; when it comes +from the roller, the barrel weighs a little over seven; when completed, +it weighs but four and a half: so that more than one half of the metal +originally used is lost in the forging, or cut away by the subsequent +processes. + +The first of these latter is the boring-out of the interior by machines +called boring-banks, of which the water-shops contain a large number, in +constant operation day and night. These machines consist of square, +solid frames of iron, in which the barrel is fixed, and bored out by a +succession of operations performed by augers. These augers are square +bars of steel, highly polished, and ground very sharp at the edges, and +terminating in long, stout rods to enable them to pass through the +barrel. The barrels are fixed very firmly in the boring-banks, the shank +of the auger inserted into the centre of a wheel placed at one end of +the bank, and a slow rotary motion given to the auger, together with a +still slower progressive motion at the same time. By this means the +auger gradually enters the hollow of the barrel, and enlarges the cavity +as it advances. After it has passed through, another auger, a trifle +larger, is substituted in its place, and thus the calibre of the barrel +is gradually enlarged to nearly the required size. Formerly, six borings +were given to each barrel, but at the present time only four are +permitted, aside from the rifling, which is a distinct operation, +performed at the works on the till, and will be described hereafter. + +After the boring of the barrel, it is placed in a lathe, and the outside +turned down to the proper size. The piece is supported in the lathe by +means of mandrels inserted into the two ends, and there it slowly +revolves, bringing all parts of its surface successively under the +action of a tool fixed firmly in the right position for cutting the work +to its proper form. The barrel has a slow progressive as well as rotary +motion during this process, and the tool advances or recedes very +regularly and gradually, forming the proper taper from the breech to the +muzzle, but the main work is performed by the rotation of the barrel. In +the boring, it is the tool which revolves, the piece remaining at rest; +but in the turning, the barrel must take its part in action, being +required to revolve against the tool, while the tool itself remains +fixed in its position in the rest. + +A curious and interesting part of the operation of manufacturing muskets +is the straightening of the barrel. This straightening takes place +continually in every stage of the work, from the time the barrel first +emerges from the chaotic mass produced by heating the scalp, until it +reaches the assembling-room, where the various parts of the musket are +put together. As you enter the boring and turning rooms, you are struck +with surprise at observing hundreds of workmen standing with +musket-barrels in their hands, one end held up to their eyes, and the +other pointing to some one of the innumerable windows of the apartment. +Watching them a few moments, however, you will observe, that, after +looking through the barrel for half a minute, and turning it around in +their fingers, they lay it down upon a small anvil standing at their +side, and strike upon it a gentle blow with a hammer, and then raise it +again to the eye. This is the process of straightening. + +In former times, a very slender line, a hair or some similar substance, +was passed through the barrel. This line was then drawn tight, and the +workman, looking through, turned the barrel round so as to bring the +line into coincidence successively with every portion of the inner +surface. If there existed any concavity in any part of this surface, the +line would show it by the distance which would there appear between the +line itself and its reflection in the metal. This method has not, +however, been in use for over thirty years. It gave place to a system +which, with slight modification, is still in practice. This method +consisted in placing a small mirror upon the floor near the anvil of the +straightener, which reflected a diagonal line drawn across a pane of +glass in a window. The workman then placed the barrel of the musket upon +a rest in such a position that the reflected line in the mirror could be +again reflected, through the bore of the barrel, to his eye,--the inner +surface of the barrel being in a brilliantly polished condition from the +boring. When the barrel is placed at the proper angle, which practice +enables the person performing this duty to accomplish at once, there are +two parallel shadows thrown upon opposite sides of the inner surface, +which by another deflection can be made to come to a point at the lower +end. The appearance which these shadows assume determines the question +whether the barrel is straight or not, and if not, where it requires +straightening. Although this method is so easy and plain to the +experienced workman, to the uninitiated it is perfectly +incomprehensible, the bore of the barrel presenting to his eye only a +succession of concentric rings, forming a spectacle of dazzling +brilliancy, and leaving the reflected line in as profound a mystery +after the observation as before. + +At present, the mirror is discarded, and the workman holds the barrel up +directly to the pane of glass, which is furnished with a transparent +slate, having two parallel lines drawn across it. The only purpose +subserved by the mirror was that of rendering the operation of holding +the barrel less tiresome, it being easier to keep the end of the musket +presented to the line pointing downwards than upwards. Formerly, this +means of detecting the faults, or want of straightness in the barrel, +was, like the working of the rolling-mill, the secret of one man, and he +would impart it to no one for love or money. He was watched with the +most intense interest, but no clue could be obtained to his secret. They +gazed into the barrel for hours, but what he saw they could not see. +Finally, some fortunate individual stumbled upon the wonderful +secret,--discovered the marvellous lines,--and ever since it has been +common property in the shop. Each workman is obliged to correct his own +work, and afterwards it is passed into the hands of the inspector, who +returns it to the workman, if faulty, or stamps his approval, if +correct. The next process is that of grinding, for the purpose of +removing the marks left upon the surface by the tool in turning, and of +still further perfecting its form. For this operation immense +grindstones, carried by machinery, are used, which rotate with great +rapidity,--usually, about four hundred times in a minute. These stones +are covered with large, movable wooden cases, to keep the water from +flying about the room, or over the workmen. + +An iron rod is inserted into the bore of the barrel, and is fitted very +closely. The rod is furnished with a handle, which is used by the +workman for holding the barrel against the stone, and for turning it +continually while he is grinding it, and thus bringing the action of the +stone upon every part, and so finishing the work in a true cylindrical +form. In the act of grinding, the workman inserts the barrel into a +small hole in the case in front of the stone, and then presses it hard +against the surface of the stone by means of an iron lever which is +behind him, and which he moves by the pressure of his back. The work is +very rapidly and smoothly done. + +There are twelve sets of stones in the grinding-room in constant +operation day and night. These stones, when set up, are about eight feet +in diameter, and are used to within twelve inches of the centre. They +last about ten days. + +The operation of grinding was formerly regarded as a very dangerous one, +from the liability of the stones to burst in consequence of their +enormous weight and the velocity with which they revolve; but, about +twenty years since, a new method of clamping the stone was adopted, by +means of which the danger of bursting is much diminished. The last +explosion which took place in this department occurred about nine years +ago. The operation of grinding, however, is objectionable also from the +very unhealthy nature of the work. Immense quantities of fine dust fill +the air, and the premises are always drenched with water, making the +atmosphere damp and unwholesome. + +In former times, it was customary to grind bayonets as well as barrels; +but the former are now milled instead, thus making an important saving +in expense, as well as gain in the health of the establishment. No mode, +however, has yet been devised for dispensing with the operation of +grinding the barrel; but the injury to the health, in this case, is much +less than in the other. + +When the barrels are nearly finished, they are proved by an actual test +with powder and ball. To this purpose a building at the water-shops, +called the proving-house, is specially devoted. It is very strongly +built, being wholly constructed of timber, in order to enable it to +resist the force of the explosion within, and contains openings in the +roof and at the eaves for the escape of the smoke, a very large number +of barrels being proved at once. + +The barrels are subjected to two provings. In the first, they are loaded +with a double charge of powder and two balls, thus subjecting them to a +far greater strain than they can ever be exposed to in actual service. +In the second proving, only the ordinary charge is used. + +The interior of the proving-house is very happily arranged for the +purpose to which it is put. On the right-hand end of the building as you +enter, and extending across it, is a platform of cast-iron, containing +grooves in which the muskets are placed when loaded. A train of +gunpowder is then laid on the back side of this platform, connecting +with each barrel, and passing out through a hole in the side of the +building near the door. A bank of clay is piled up on the opposite side +of the room, into which the balls are thrown. Only one fatal accident +has occurred at the armory during the last two years, and this occurred +in the proving-house. When the muskets are brought in, they are placed +upright in frames, which, when full, are laid down upon the platform. +Five barrels are placed in a frame, and these five exploded while the +man was putting them in the proper position for laying them down, and +ten balls were plunged into him. No satisfactory explanation could ever +be obtained of the cause of the premature explosion. + +About one per cent. of the barrels burst under this trial, although +under the old process of welding there was a loss of nearly two per +cent., or one in sixty. + +The pieces that fail are all carefully examined, to ascertain whether +the giving-way was owing to a defect in the rolling, or to some flaw or +other bad quality in the iron. The appearance of the rent made by the +bursting will always determine this point. The loss of those which +failed from bad rolling is then charged to the operative by whom the +work was done, at a dollar for each one so failing. The name of the +maker of each is known by the stamp which he put upon it at the time +when it passed through his hands. As the workman gets but four cents for +rolling a barrel, he loses the work done upon twenty-five for each one +that fails through his negligence. The justice of this rule will be +apparent, when it is taken into account that that amount of cost has +been expended upon the barrel prior and subsequent to the work done by +the roller, all of which has been lost through his remissness. Besides, +he is paid so liberally for his work, that he can well afford to stand +the loss. This system of accountability runs through the entire work, +and tends greatly to the promotion of care and fidelity in the various +departments of labor. + +There are forty-nine pieces used in making up a musket, which have to be +formed and finished separately; only two of these, the sight and +cone-seat, are permanently attached to any other part, so that the +musket can, at any time, be separated into forty-seven parts, by simply +turning screws and opening springs. Most of these parts are struck in +dies, and then finished by milling and filing. The process of this +manufacture is called swaging,--the forming of irregular shapes in iron +by means of dies, one of which is inserted in an anvil in a cavity made +for the purpose, and the other placed above it, in a trip-hammer, or in +a machine operated in a manner analogous to that of a pile-driver, +called a drop. Cavities are cut in the faces of the dies, so that, when +they are brought together, with the end of a flat bar of iron, out of +which the article is to be formed, inserted between them, the iron is +made to assume the form of the cavities, by means of blows of the +trip-hammer, or of the drop, upon the upper die. About one hundred and +fifty operations upon the various pieces used in the construction of the +musket are performed by these dies. Some of the pieces are struck out by +one operation of the drop, while others, as the butt-plate, require as +many as three, and others a still larger number. The hammer is first +forged, and then put twice through the drop. Four men are kept +constantly at work forging hammers in the rough, while but two are +required to put them through the two operations under the +swaging-machine. Sometimes, however, the work presses upon the droppers, +and they have the alternative either to work double time--that is, night +and day--or to allow other hands to work with them; and as they work by +the piece, and are anxious to earn as much as possible each month, they +will frequently work night and day for several consecutive days. I have +known instances where workmen have worked from Monday until Thursday, +night and day, without any intermission, excepting the hour and a half +at the morning change of hands, one hour at noon, one at tea-time, and +half an hour at midnight,--four hours out of the twenty-four. By this +means they will sometimes earn as much as one hundred and fifty dollars +per month, although this would be an extraordinary case. The average pay +in the dropping-department is about three dollars per day. + +There are twenty-four simple and seven compound dropping-machines in +constant operation. Some of the pieces are pressed into shape under +these drops when cold,--this being the case with the triggers, which +were found to use up the dies too rapidly when they were swaged while +heated; but, as a general rule, the swaging is done while the piece is +at a red or white heat. The operations of the various dropping-machines +are exceedingly interesting, and the amount of labor they save is +perfectly marvellous. + +A large number of men are kept constantly at work making dies for the +various pieces required. + +When the pieces come out of the swaging-machines, they have more or less +of surplus metal about them, which is cut off or trimmed by passing them +through machines designed for this purpose. + +The bayonet-blade is first forged under a trip-hammer, and then rolled +to the proper shape, by an operation similar to the barrel-rolling. The +socket is forged separately, and afterwards welded to the blade under a +trip-hammer. It is then passed twice under the drop, then milled and +polished, when it is ready for use. The ramrod is cut from steel rods +about the size required. It is then ground in the same manner as the +barrel, and the hammer is swaged on by two operations under the drop. +The screw-cutting and polishing are very simple, and executed with great +rapidity. + +The cone-seating, like every other part of the work done upon the +musket, is very interesting. The barrel, after it comes from the +rolling-mill, is placed in a forge and heated to a white-heat. A small +square block of iron, cut under a trip-hammer to the proper size, is +also heated to a white-heat, and then welded to the barrel by half a +dozen strokes under the trip-hammer,--the whole operation occupying less +time than is required to describe it. An iron rod is meanwhile inserted +within the barrel to maintain the continuity of the bore. + +The sights are struck in dies, and placed upon the barrel in slots cut +for the purpose. They are then brazed upon the barrel, pieces of brass +wire, half an inch long, being used for this purpose. Three men are +employed in brazing on the sights for the establishment. + +The rolling, forging, and swaging rooms are all connected, and form, as +it were, one extended apartment. In this are placed hundreds of forges, +furnaces, trip-hammers, rolling-mills, dropping-machines, and +trimming-machines,--besides scores of sledge-hammers, wielded by +stalwart arms. The noise here is so great that no effort of the voice +avails to make itself heard, and I doubt if even the loudest thunder +would make any appreciable addition to the general clangor. Small iron +carts, filled with hot iron, are incessantly whirling around you; +red-hot sparks, or melting drops of iron, are flying about the room in +all directions; the air is hot to suffocation, and sulphurous from the +burning of bituminous coal; while hundreds of swarthy faces, begrimed +with grease and dirt, are dripping with sweat: so that you can scarce +avoid the suspicion that you have at last stumbled into the infernal +regions, and are constantly wondering why some of Pluto's imps do not +seize you and plunge you into some horrible furnace, or chop you up +under a trip-hammer. + +Having survived the examination of this department, you follow your +guide from the forging-room down a winding flight of iron steps to the +water-wheels, which are situated forty feet under ground. These wheels +are so arranged that they can be run together or separately; they are +generally run together, and in connection with the immense low-pressure +engine. + +After the barrels are bored, turned, milled, and straightened, they are +next to be polished. For this purpose they are placed in upright frames, +each frame containing five barrels. The polishing is done by means of +hard, wooden rubbers, provided with a plentiful supply of lard-oil and +emery. The rubbers are placed horizontally, with their grooved ends +pressing by means of springs against the barrels, which are drawn +between them by a very regular and rapid vertical motion. The barrels +are also turned around slowly and continuously by a lateral movement, +which insures a uniform polish. They are allowed to remain in the first +polishing-machines fifteen minutes, and are then placed in a similar +machine and go through a second polishing, differing from the first +simply in the absence of the pulverized emery,--oil only being used upon +the rubbers during this finishing operation. The musket is now +completed, with the exception of the rifling, and some slight polishing +to be done by hand at the muzzle and breech. + +Two polishing-machines are used for ramrods, similar in construction to +those above described,--ten rods being polished at once. The bayonet is +polished upon emery-wheels. These wheels are made of wood bound with +leather, upon which there is placed a sizing composed of glue and +pulverized emery. The polishing by this process is very rapid. + +The number of workmen employed at the water-shops is ten hundred and +forty. The last time the writer had occasion to visit them was upon the +recurrence of an important occasion to the workmen employed there, +namely, pay-day. A temporary wooden structure has been erected +contiguous to the shops for the purpose of paying-off, and upon this +occasion it bore, from time to time, various placards, announcing which +shop was being paid, according as the paymaster arrived in succession at +the various departments. Within the densely thronged shops, and amidst +the deafening noise of hundreds of trip-hammers, perambulated a herald, +with bell in hand, and placard raised upon a pole, upon which was +painted a huge capital letter, thus designating, in alphabetical order, +the names of the workmen whose turn had arrived to affix their +signatures to rolls for a month's work, and receive in exchange a sheaf +of Uncle Sam's greenbacks. + +The works at the water-shops are surrounded by a high wooden fence, and +guarded by a small force of watchmen armed with muskets. Should occasion +require, however, a force of five thousand men, armed with the best of +small arms, could be mustered at once from among the workmen in the +armory and the citizens of the town. Ammunition of all kinds is stored +within the establishment, sufficient for all emergencies. + +I stated the number of pieces used in the construction of a musket to be +forty-nine; but this conveys no idea of the number of separate +operations which are performed upon it. The latter amount to over four +hundred, no two of which are by the same hand. Indeed, so distinct are +the various processes by which the grand result is obtained, that an +artisan employed upon one part of a musket may have no knowledge of the +process by which another part is fabricated. This, in fact, is the case +to a very large extent. Many persons employed upon particular parts of +the work in this establishment have never even seen other parts +manufactured, and in general the workmen understand only the process of +making the portions upon which they are engaged. The different parts are +of various grades in respect to character and price, and are regularly +rated, and the work done upon them is paid for by the piece. It will +scarcely be expected that I should describe all the processes included +in the four hundred separate operations performed in the manufacture of +the musket, and I shall therefore content myself with alluding to a few +of the most important or curious among them. + +The gun-barrel, after it arrives at the works on the hill from the +water-shops, is taken to the old armory buildings to be rifled. For this +purpose it is placed in a horizontal position in an iron frame, and held +there very firmly. The instruments which perform the rifling are short +steel cutters placed within three apertures situated near the end of an +iron tube which is carried through the bore of the barrel by a slow +rotary and progressive motion. The cutters are narrow bars of steel, +having upon one side three diagonal protuberances of about one-sixteenth +of an inch in height and half an inch in width, ground to a very sharp +edge at the top. It is these which produce the rifling. The three +cutters, when inserted within the iron cylinder, form upon their inner +surface a small cavity which decreases towards the top. Into this is +inserted a small iron rod attached to the machine and revolving with it, +but so controlled by a connecting cog-wheel that the rod is pressed at +every revolution a little farther into the cavity between the cutters. +The effect of this operation is to increase the pressure of the cutters +upon the inner surface of the barrel, and thus gradually deepen the +corrugations produced by the rifling. The rods make twelve revolutions +in a minute, and it occupies thirty minutes to rifle a barrel. There are +twenty-seven of these rifling-machines in constant operation day and +night. This process is the last which takes place within the barrel, and +it leaves the bore in a highly polished and brilliant condition. + +Among the innumerable machines which arrest the attention of the visitor +by the beauty and grace of their operations is the broaching-machine. +This is designed to cut out and polish the inner surface of the bands +which encompass the barrel and stock. These bands are irregular in +shape, and cannot, therefore, be bored out as the barrel is. When they +emerge from the drop, or swaging-machine, they are somewhat rough both +interiorly and exteriorly, and then undergo a series of operations which +leave them in a highly finished condition. The first of these is called +broaching. A cavity is made under a huge press in which the band is +placed. The broach consists of a steel tool about ten inches in length, +and of the exact diameter and form of the interior of the band, and is +armed upon its entire length with concentric rings composed of very +short and sharp knives. The broach, being placed over the cavity of the +band, is slowly subjected to the pressure of the two-ten press, and is +thus forced completely through the band, cutting it out as smoothly and +easily as if it were composed of lead. The bands are then milled upon +the outside by a process called profiling, drilled for the rings, placed +upon mandrels to insure the exact shape required, filed, polished, +case-hardened, and thus finished. + +The hammer passes through a great number of processes before it is +completed. It is first forged, then dropped, trimmed, punched, drifted, +milled, turned, filed, and lastly case-hardened. + +The cone, although one of the smallest pieces in the musket, is yet one +of the most important, and requires a great many separate operations in +its manufacture. It is first struck in a die, then +clamp-milled,--passing through a machine having clamps which hold short +knives that shave the entire outer surface of this very irregular-shaped +piece; then the thread is cut upon the screw, and both ends are +drilled,--this process alone requiring fourteen separate operations. It +is then squared at the base and case-hardened. + +All the various portions of the lock are made by machines which perform +their multitudinous operations with the most wonderful skill, precision, +and grace; but it would be impossible to convey to the reader by a +simple description upon paper the various processes by which these +results are obtained. + +Every portion of the musket is subjected to tests different in +character, but equally strict and rigid in respect to the qualities +which they are intended to prove. The bayonet is very carefully gauged +and measured in every part, in order that it may prove of precisely the +proper form and dimensions. A weight is hung to the point of it to try +its temper, and it is sprung by the strength of the inspector, with the +point set into a block of lead fastened to the floor, to prove its +elasticity. If it is tempered too high, it breaks; and if too low, it +bends. In either case it is condemned, and the workman through whose +fault the failure has resulted is charged with the loss. + +The most interesting process, perhaps, in the manufacture of the musket +is the operation of stocking. This is done in the old arsenal-building, +which, with the exception of one floor, is wholly devoted to this +purpose. + +The wood from which the stocks are made is the black walnut. This was +formerly obtained in Pennsylvania, and was kept on hand in the +storehouse in large quantities for the purpose of having it properly +seasoned. During the last two years, however, Ohio and Canada have +furnished the greater part. + +The wood is sawn into a rough semblance of the musket-stock before it is +sent to the armory. It then passes through seventeen different machines, +emerging from the last perfectly formed and finished. + +A gun-stock is, perhaps, as irregular a shape as the ingenuity of man +could devise, and as well calculated to bid defiance to every attempt at +applying machinery to the work of fashioning it. The difficulties, +however, insurmountable as they would seem, have all been overcome, and +every part of the stock is formed, and every perforation, groove, +cavity, and socket is cut in it, by machines that do their work with +such perfection as to awaken in all who witness the process a feeling of +astonishment and delight. + +The general principle on which this machinery operates may perhaps be +made intelligible to the reader by description; but the great charm in +these processes consists in the high perfection and finish of the +machines, the smoothness, grace, and rapidity of their motions, and in +the seemingly miraculous character of the performances which they +execute. + +The entire action of the various machines is regulated and guided by +patterns, which are models in iron of the various parts of the stock +which it is intended to form. + +The first machine in the stocking-room cuts the sides of the stock to +the proper form for turning. The second saws off the butt-end, and cuts +a diagonal line at the breech. The third is armed with two circular +saws, which cut the upper part of the stock to the form of the finished +arm. An iron pattern of the stock is placed in the machine directly +under the stock to be turned, upon which rests a guide-wheel, +corresponding in size and shape to the two saws above. The whole is then +made to revolve very rapidly, the guide-wheel controlling the action of +the cutters, the result being an exact wooden counterpart of the iron +pattern. The fourth machine forms the butt of the stock in the same +manner. The next simply planes three or four places upon the sides of +the stock, for the purpose of affording the subsequent machines certain +fixed and accurate points for holding it in the frames. This operation +is called spotting. The next machine performs six separate operations, +namely, grooving for the barrel, breechpin, and tang, heading-down, +milling, and finish-grooving. These various operations complete the +stock for the exact fitting-in of the barrel. The next machine planes +the top, bottom, and sides of the stock, and the succeeding two are +occupied in shaping and bedding for the butt-plates. The next machine is +designed for fitting in the lock, and is the most wonderful of all. It +contains two bits and three cutters pendent from a movable steel frame +situated above the stock. These cutters, or borers, are made to revolve +with immense velocity, and are susceptible of various other motions at +the pleasure of the workman. The inevitable iron pattern--the exact +counterpart of the cavity which is designed to be made for the reception +of the lock--is situated in close proximity to the stock, and a guide in +the form of the borer is inserted within the pattern, and controls the +movements of the borer. This is ejected by causing the tool to revolve +by means of small machinery within the frame, while the frame and all +within it move together, in the vertical and lateral motions. All that +the workman has to do is to bring the guide down into the pattern and +move it about the circumference and through the centre of it, the +cutting tool imitating precisely the motions of the guide, entering the +wood and cutting its way In the most perfect manner and with incredible +rapidity, forming an exact duplicate of the cavity in the pattern. It is +on this principle, substantially, that all the machines of the +stocking-shop are constructed,--every process, of course, requiring its +own peculiar mechanism. The next machine cuts for the guards and bores +for the side-screws of the lock, and the two succeeding cut places for +bands and tips. The next operation is called the second turning, +finishing the stock in a very smooth and elegant manner. The next +machine grooves for the ramrod, and the following and last in this +department is designed for boring for the ramrod from the point where +the groove terminates. This latter work has always been done by hand +until the past winter, and there is as yet but one machine for the +purpose in operation at the armory, which, running night and day, is +able to bore only six hundred stocks. The remainder have still to be +done by hand, until more machines are constructed. + +The history of the Springfield armory would be incomplete without some +allusion to the inventor of the machinery for turning irregular forms +adapted to the manufacture of gun-stocks. This was the invention of +Thomas Blanchard, then a citizen of Springfield and now of +Boston,--whose reputation as a mechanic has since become +world-wide,--and was first introduced into the armory about the year +1820. Before this the stocks were all worked and fitted by hand; but +the marvellous ingenuity of this machinery made a complete revolution in +this department, and contributed to a very large increase in the +rapidity and economy of gun-making all over the world. + +The same invention has been applied to other branches of manufacture, +such as shoe-lasts, axe-helves, etc.; and Mr. Blanchard has successfully +used it in multiplying copies of marble statuary with a degree of +accuracy and beauty which is truly wonderful. + +Eight years ago the English Government obtained permission of the then +Secretary of War--Jefferson Davis--to make draughts of this entire +establishment for the purpose of obtaining duplicate machinery for the +works at Enfield, and copies of the most novel and important parts of +the machinery were manufactured for them in the neighboring town of +Chicopee; an American machinist being employed to superintend their +operation at Enfield. + +These works were the especial favorites of the late Prince Albert, who +took great pleasure in exhibiting them to his Continental visitors; but +no portion of the works received so much attention from him as that +occupied by the stocking-machines. In this department he would +frequently spend hours, watching the operations of these incomparable +machines with the greatest interest and pleasure. + +As all of these ingenious and valuable machines are American inventions, +and nearly all of them designed by the various expert artisans who have +been employed at the armory during the last half-century, it would seem +proper and desirable that their peculiar construction should have +remained a secret within our national works, and, at any rate, not been +freely given to a rival government like that of Great Britain, who might +use the arms manufactured by American machinery against the very nation +that furnished it. It is probable, however, that the arch-traitor who +thus furnished the governments of Europe with draughts of these valuable +works had then in contemplation the monstrous rebellion which now +desolates our beautiful land, and took this means of weakening us by the +universal dissemination of the valuable secrets whereby we were enabled +to surpass the rest of the world in the rapidity of construction, and +the beauty and executive power of our rifled musket. + +When the several parts are finished, they are taken to an apartment in +the arsenal to be put together. This operation is called assembling the +musket. There are a large number of workmen whose occupations are +confined to the putting together of the various parts of the +musket,--each one having some distinct part to attend to. Thus, one man +puts the various parts of the lock together, while another screws the +lock into the stock. Another is occupied in putting on the bayonet, and +so on. Each workman has the parts upon which he is employed before him +on his bench, arranged in compartments, in regular order, and puts them +together with marvellous dexterity. The component parts of the musket +are all made according to one exact pattern, and thus, when taken up at +random, are sure to come properly together. There is no special fitting +required in each individual case. Any barrel will fit any stock, and a +screw designed for a particular plate or band will enter the proper hole +in any plate or band of a hundred thousand. There are many advantages +resulting from this exact conformity to an established pattern in the +components of the musket, such as greater facility and economy in +manufacturing them, and greater convenience in service,--spare screws, +locks, bands, springs, etc., being easily furnished in quantities, and +sent to any part of the country where needed, so that, when any part of +a soldier's gun becomes injured or broken, its place can be immediately +supplied by a new piece, which is sure to fit as perfectly into the +vacancy as the original occupant. Each soldier to whom a musket is +served is provided also with a little tool, which, though very simple +in its construction, enables him to separate his gun into its +forty-seven parts with the greatest facility. + +The most costly of the various parts of the musket is the barrel, which, +when completed, is estimated at three dollars. From this the parts +descend gradually to a little wire called the ramrod-spring-wire, the +value of which is only one mill. + +A complete percussion-musket weighs within a small fraction of ten +pounds. + +Besides the finished muskets fabricated here, there are many parts of +foreign arms duplicated at these works, for the use of our armies in the +field,--the most numerous of which are parts for the Enfield rifle, and +for a German musket manufactured from machinery made after our patterns +and models. + +In the arsenal there is a case of foreign arms, containing specimens +from nearly every nation in Europe. None among them, however, equal our +own in style or finish, while all of them--excepting the Enfield +rifle--are very inferior in every respect. The French arm comes next to +the English in point of excellence, while the Austrian is the poorest of +all. + +There are three steam-engines in operation at the works on the hill, one +connected with the stocking-department, and two with the other +operations carried on here. + +Twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of oil is used yearly in lubricating +the machinery, and the various pieces of iron and steel, as they are +being turned, bored, milled, broached, etc. + +At the water-shops there are five miles of leather belting in use, while +at the works on the hill the quantity greatly exceeds this amount. + +In this establishment there are employed at the present time, as already +remarked, twenty-six hundred workmen, who complete, on an average, about +one thousand muskets daily, and the works may be increased to almost any +extent,--a large square cast of the present works on the hill, and +belonging to the Government, being admirably situated for the +construction of additional shops. + +This extensive manufactory is under the direction of a principal who is +styled Superintendent, and who has the chief management of the business +of the armory,--contracting for and purchasing all tools and materials +necessary for manufacturing arms, engaging the workmen, determining +their wages, and prescribing the necessary regulations for the local +government of the establishment. To aid him in the important duties of +the armory, there is allowed a master-armorer, who manages the +mechanical operations, and is held accountable for all stock and tools +put under his charge for the use of the armory, and for the proper +workmanship of the muskets,--also a paymaster and storekeeper, whose +duty it is to liquidate and pay all debts contracted for the armory by +the superintendent, and to receive the finished arms, for which he is +held accountable, as well as for all other public property delivered +him. Each of these officers is allowed a numerous corps of clerks, to +aid in keeping the accounts. There is also a foreman, or assistant +master-armorer, to each principal branch of the work, and under him a +foreman over every job. These are severally held accountable for all +stock, tools, and parts of work delivered them for their respective +departments, and they in their turn severally hold the individual +workmen responsible for all stock, tools, or parts of work delivered to +them. The assistant master-armorers, or foremen, are inspectors in their +several branches, and are responsible for the faithful and correct +performance of the work. Each individual artisan puts his own private +mark on the work he executes, as do the inspectors likewise, when they +examine and approve of the various parts of the musket. Thus, in case of +any defect, the delinquent may readily be found. Monthly returns are +made to the superintendent, and from these returns the monthly pay-rolls +are made up. + +Since the establishment of the armory in 1794-5, there have been +fourteen superintendents, all but two of whom are classed as civilians, +although a few of these had seen some military service. The armory has +been under military rule but fifteen years out of the sixty-eight which +have elapsed since it was established: namely, from April, 1841, to +August, 1854; and from October, 1861, until the present time. A standing +dispute on the subject of the government of the armory, which was kept +up with much heat and acrimony for many years, culminated, in 1854, in +the passage of a law by Congress, in favor of the civil administration. +This continued until after the breaking out of the Rebellion, when +Congress restored the military superintendency. The question of civil or +military government, however, is of no practical importance to any +person other than the aspirant for the place. The same rules and +regulations governing the workmen employed at the armory, as well as the +mode of payment, and the manner of doing the work, which were +inaugurated by Benjamin Prescott, the superintendent from November, +1805, to May, 1815, are substantially in operation now, and have +continued through all the changes which have occurred during more than +half a century. + +At the end of December, 1817, there had been completed in this +manufactory 141,761 muskets. The expenditures for land and mill-seats, +and for erecting machinery, water-shops, work-shops, stores, and +buildings of every description, together with repairs, were estimated at +$155,500. The other expenses, exclusive of the cost of stock and parts +of work on hand, amounted to $1,553,100; stock and parts of muskets on +hand, $111,545; and the total expenditures, from the commencement of the +works, to December, 1817, $1,820,120.18. + +From the establishment of the armory to the present date there have been +manufactured 1,097,660 muskets, 250 rifles, 1,000 pistols, 1,202 +carbines, 8,660 musketoons, 4,806 cadets' arms, 18 model muskets, and 16 +model pistols and rifles. The reader will be surprised, perhaps, to +learn, that there were 1,020 more muskets manufactured at these works +during the year 1811 than in the year 1854. In 1850 and 1851, 113,406 +muskets were altered in their locks, from flint to percussion, involving +an amount of labor equal to the manufacture of 7,630 muskets. From 1809 +to 1822, inclusive of those years, and exclusive of 1811 and 1812, +nearly 50,000 muskets were repaired, involving labor equal to the +manufacture of 11,540 muskets. + +In addition to the large number of muskets manufactured at the +Government works in Springfield, and which amount to upwards of three +hundred thousand per annum, there are a vast number of private +establishments throughout the Northern States, which turn out from two +to five thousand muskets per month each. These various manufactories are +situated at Hartford, Norfolk, Windsor Locks, Norwich, Middletown, +Meriden, and Whitneyville, Ct., Providence, R.I., Manchester, N.H., +Windsor, Vt., Trenton, N.J., Bridesburg, Pa., and New York City, +Watertown, and Ilion, N.Y. Besides these, there are more than fifty +establishments where separate parts of the musket are manufactured in +large quantities, and purchased by Government to supply the places of +those injured or destroyed in the service. It is estimated that the +private armories alone are manufacturing monthly upwards of sixty +thousand rifled muskets. The Government contracts for these arms extend +to January next, and the total number which will then have been produced +will be enormous. The cost of manufacturing a musket at the Government +works is estimated at about nine dollars; but the contract-price to the +private arms-companies is twenty dollars for those which equal the +Government standard in every respect, nineteen dollars and ninety cents +for those which lack a little in finish, nineteen dollars for the next +grade, eighteen for the next, and sixteen for the lowest and poorest +which are accepted. + +As the arms are finished, they are sent away to the various Government +arsenals,--those made in New England to Watertown, Mass.,--where they +remain until the exigencies of the service require them. At the present +time, there is a sufficient number of new rifled muskets of the best +qualify stored in the various arsenals to arm the entire levy about to +be called into the field,--and should the war continue so long, there +will be enough manufactured during the next twelve months for a new levy +of over one million of men. These arms, it must be remembered, are +entirely independent of those ordered by the respective State +governments, which would swell the amount very largely. + + * * * * * + +THE PEWEE. + + + The listening Dryads hushed the woods; + The boughs were thick, and thin and few + The golden ribbons fluttering through; + Their sun-embroidered, leafy hoods + The lindens lifted to the blue: + Only a little forest-brook + The farthest hem of silence shook: + When in the hollow shades I heard-- + Was it a spirit, or a bird? + Or, strayed from Eden, desolate, + Some Feri calling to her mate, + Whom nevermore her mate would cheer? + "Pe-ri! Pe-ri! Peer!" + + Through rocky clefts the brooklet fell + With plashy pour, that scarce was sound, + But only quiet less profound, + A stillness fresh and audible: + A yellow leaflet to the ground + Whirled noiselessly: with wing of gloss + A hovering sunbeam brushed the moss, + And, wavering brightly over it, + Sat like a butterfly alit: + The owlet in his open door + Stared roundly: while the breezes bore + The plaint to far-off places drear,-- + "Pe-ree! pe-ree! peer!" + + To trace it in its green retreat + I sought among the boughs in vain; + And followed still the wandering strain, + So melancholy and so sweet + The dim-eyed violets yearned with pain. + 'Twas now a sorrow in the air, + Some nymph's immortalized despair + Haunting the woods and waterfalls; + And now, at long, sad intervals, + Sitting unseen in dusky shade, + His plaintive pipe some fairy played, + With long-drawn cadence thin and clear,-- + "Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!" + + Long-drawn and clear its closes were,-- + As if the hand of Music through + The sombre robe of Silence drew + A thread of golden gossamer: + So sweet a flute the fairy blew. + Like beggared princes of the wood, + In silver rags the birches stood; + The hemlocks, lordly counsellors, + Were dumb; the sturdy servitors, + In beechen jackets patched and gray, + Seemed waiting spellbound all the day + That low entrancing note to hear,-- + "Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!" + + I quit the search, and sat me down + Beside the brook, irresolute, + And watched a little bird in suit + Of sober olive, soft and brown, + Perched in the maple-branches, mute: + With greenish gold its vest was fringed, + Its tiny cap was ebon-tinged, + With ivory pale its wings were barred, + And its dark eyes were tender-starred. + "Dear bird," I said, "what is thy name?" + And thrice the mournful answer came, + So faint and far, and yet so near,-- + "Pe-wee! Pe-wee! Peer!" + + For so I found my forest-bird,-- + The pewee of the loneliest woods, + Sole singer in these solitudes, + Which never robin's whistle stirred, + Where never bluebird's plume intrudes. + Quick darting through the dewy morn, + The redstart trills his twittering horn, + And vanisheth: sometimes at even, + Like liquid pearls fresh showered from heaven, + The high notes of the lone wood-thrush + Fall on the forest's holy hush: + But thou all day complainest here,-- + "Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!" + + Hast thou too, in thy little breast, + Strange longings for a happier lot,-- + For love, for life, thou know'st not what,-- + A yearning, and a vague unrest, + For something still which thou hast not?-- + Thou soul of some benighted child + That perished, crying in the wild! + Or lost, forlorn, and wandering maid, + By love allured, by love betrayed, + Whose spirit with her latest sigh + Arose, a little winged cry, + Above her chill and mossy bier! + "Dear me! dear me! dear!" + + Ah, no such piercing sorrow mars + The pewee's life of cheerful ease! + He sings, or leaves his song to seize + An insect sporting in the bars + Of mild bright light that gild the trees. + A very poet he! For him + All pleasant places still and dim: + His heart, a spark of heavenly fire, + Burns with undying, sweet desire: + And so he sings; and so his song, + Though heard not by the hurrying throng, + Is solace to the pensive ear: + "Pewee! pewee! peer!" + + * * * * * + +MRS. LEWIS. + +A STORY IN THREE PARTS. + +PART II. + + +VI. + +In due time we found our way, through deafening clatter, to Miss Post's +door, a little below the Astor House, and in the midst of all that +female feet the soonest seek. In Maiden Lane and on Broadway it was easy +to find all that a Weston fancy painted in the shape of dry goods; and I +did my errands up with conscientious speed before indulging in a +fashionable lounge on the Battery. + +The first twenty-four hours were full of successive surprises, which +ought to have been chronicled on the spot and at the time. They affected +me like electric shocks; but in a day or two I forgot to be surprised at +the queer Dutch signs over the shops and the swine in the streets. Now I +only remember the oddity of Miss Post's poverty in the water-line; and +that she had to buy fresh water by the gallon and rain-water by the +barrel. Also, the faithlessness of the two brilliant black boys who +waited on table and at the door, and who couldn't be depended on to +take up a bundle or carry a message to your room, so unmitigatedly +wicked were they. + +"If I owned 'em," said Miss Post to me, confidentially, "I would have +'em whipped every day of their lives. It's what they need, and can't do +without. They're just like bad children!" + +That was true enough. However, she didn't own them, and got very little +out of them but show; and they looked like princes, with their white +aprons and jackets, and their glittering, haughty eyes. They played with +their duties, and disdained all directions. I used to follow them with +my eyes at the table with amused astonishment. It was very grand, and, +as the Marchioness says, "If you made believe a good deal," reminded one +of barbaric splendor, and Tippoo Saib. But poor Miss Post couldn't order +an elephant to tread their heads off, or she would have extinguished her +household twice a day. I looked back with a feeling of relief to Weston, +and my good Polly, who would scorn to be an eye-servant or men-pleaser. + +At the long table, where sat Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Mr. +and Mrs. Bennett, Babbit, and so on, I looked sharply for Mr. and Mrs. +Lewis. But neither was there the first day. All the people were +childless and desolate-looking, though much bedecked with braids and +curls, which ladies wore at that time without stint. Nobody looked as if +she could be Mr. Lewis's wife. However, the ladies all treated me with +so much cordiality and politeness that I set New York down at once as a +delightful spot. + +Happening to speak of Mrs. Lewis, I saw that the corners of Mrs. Jones's +mouth went immediately down, and Mrs. Smith's eyebrows immediately up. +Of course, no woman is going to stand that; and I inquired minutely +enough to satisfy myself either that Mrs. Lewis was very peculiar, or +that a boarding-house was not a favorable atmosphere for character. My +husband, to whom I told all they said, considered "the abundant leisure +from family-cares which these ladies enjoyed as giving them +opportunities for investigation which they carried to excess." + +"But think of Gus not being Mr. Lewis's child!" said I, after faithfully +relating all I had heard. + +"He looks like an Italian. I always thought so. But Lewis seems very +fond of him." + +"Yes, they said so. But that the mother cared nothing for him, nor for +her other children, who are off in Genesee County somewhere." + +"For health, doubtless," said my "he," dryly. + +"And the way they talked of Mr. Remington! calling him George, and more +than insinuating that she likes too well to be at the Oaks,--that is his +place. They say she has been there all the time Mr. Lewis has been +gone!" + +"Mr. Remington has been gone too, as you and I can testify," more dryly. + +"So he has. I wish I had thought to tell them so." + +I hadn't been in a boarding-house for nothing. + +"It was like Lewis to take her as he did. Very noble and generous, too, +even supposing he loved her. I dare say he does. Is Montalli dead?" + +"I don't know. I think so. At all events, they were divorced, and for +his cruelty. Only think of a lady, a young lady, not sixteen, and the +darling and idol at home, being beaten and pounded! Ugh! what horrid +creatures Italians are!" + +"And you say Lewis happened to be in Mobile at the time?" + +"Yes, and fell in love with her,--she, scarcely eighteen, and to have +had this shocking experience! I don't like to tell you how much these +ladies have hinted about her, but enough to make me feel as if I were +reading the "Mysteries of Udolpho," instead of hearing of a live woman, +out of a book, and belonging to our own time." + +"Very likely she may have amused herself at the expense of their +credulity. I have seen women do that, just for sport, and to see how +much people would believe. It is a dangerous game to play." + +Mr. Lewis came to dinner, and brought me a little three-cornered note +from his wife, written with much grace and elegance, so far as the +composition was concerned. It was sealed with a dove flying, and +expressed her thanks for my bringing the "sweet remembranser" from her +beloved child, and so on, expecting to see me the next day at the Oaks. + +The surprising part of the note was, that the writing was scrawled, and +the words misspelt in a manner that would have disgraced the youngest +member of a town-school in Weston. She had "grate" pleasure, and spoke +of my "truble" in a way that made me feel as if I should see a child. + +The next day brought Mr. Remington himself, fresh and handsome as ever, +saying that a carriage was waiting, and his tulips were at their best, +and the ladies expecting to see us,--adding, with an informality which I +had not associated with New York, that the day was all planned out for +us,--tulips and lunch at the Oaks, Hoboken in the afternoon. + +That was a white day, and one long to be remembered. First of all, for +Hoboken, which, whatever it may be now, was then a spot full of +picturesque beauty and sweet retirement, relieving and contrasting the +roar and tumult of the city; second, for the tulips, which were the most +glorious things I ever saw, and still remain the pattern of exceeding +beauty, though I have since seen wealth of floral splendor, but none +that came up to the Royal Adelaide,--nothing so queenly and so noble as +the large white cup, fit for Hebe to bear and the gods to drink out of, +and holding at least a pint within the snowy radiance of its ample brim. +I did not wonder Mr. Remington had a passion for tulips. He flitted +about among his brilliant brigade like a happy butterfly, rejoicing in +our delight and exulting in our surprise like a pleased child. + +"And is each of these different?" + +"Not a duplicate among them. Fifteen hundred varieties." + +If he had said fifteen thousand, it would not have added to my +astonishment. To be sure, no king was ever arrayed like one of these. +And fifteen hundred! each gorgeous enough for a king's ransom! It took +my breath away to look at the far-reaching parterre of nodding glories, +moved by the breath of the south-wind. + +"I am satisfied. I see you are sufficiently impressed with my tulips, +Mrs. Prince," said Mr. Remington, gleefully, "and I shall send you no +end of bulbs for your Weston garden." + +Mr. Remington had taken us directly to the garden on our arrival, and +now led the way, through large evergreens, and by a winding path, to the +house. The land was not half an acre in size, yet I was sure that I had +been over a large estate. The same delusion clung to the house, which +was in looks like one of Gainsborough's cottages, and ought to have been +at least two hundred years old, instead of two. But Downing's advent had +already wrought miracles here and there in our land; and a little while +before Mr. Remington had been bitten with an architectural mania. So +under the transplanted trees, and beneath trailing vines of Virginia +creeper and Boursault roses, there peeped the brown gables of a cottage, +which arose and stood there as reposeful and weather-stained as if it +had been built before the Revolution. Mr. Remington showed us twenty +unexpected doors, and juttings-out here and there, to catch a view, or +to let in the sun, and rejoiced in our pleasure, as he had in the +garden, like a child. In the library, Mrs. Remington received us, +looking pale, and being very silent. + +I sat down by her without being attracted at all--rather repelled by the +faint sickliness of everything connected with her appearance. But +neither her pale blue eyes, nor her yellow hair, nor her straw-colored +gown and blue ribbons would have repelled me; I could not make her talk +at all. I never saw such reticence before or since. As if she were +determined "to die and make no sign," she sat, bowing and smiling, and +amounting to nothing, one way or another,--giving no opinion, if asked, +and asking no question. She was passively polite, but so very near +nothing that I was rejoiced when Mr. Remington entered with my husband, +and proposed that we should go into the dining-room. He carelessly +introduced Mrs. Remington, but further than that seemed not to know she +was in existence; and I must confess, I did not wonder. While my husband +made, or tried to make, some conversation with her, Mr. Remington showed +me an exquisite Clytie in marble, and a landscape by Cole, which hung in +a good light, and showed its wonderful wild beauty. And now for the +third reason that this was a white day. + + +VII. + +In a little room connected with the refreshment-room there stood before +a large mirror somebody winding a red scarf about her head. I had only +time to see that the head was small and shapely, and the figure full of +flexible grace, when it turned and nodded to the party. Of course, it +could only be Mrs. Lewis, as she at once said, in a honey-sweet voice, +and with what seemed to me a foreign accent; but then I had never heard +the Southern accent, which is full of music, and seems somehow to avoid +the sibilant tone as well as the nasal drawl characteristic of Northern +tongues. + +I was attracted to her, not by her beauty, though that was marked, but +by her cordial, unaffected manner of placing her two hands in ours, and +by her infantine sweetness of expression. Whatever she might have gone +through, I saw she had not suffered. There was no line or track of +experience, on her broad, tranquil brow, nor was there the hushed, +restrained expression left in all eyes that have deeply mourned and +bitterly wept. The look was serene and youthful, with such happiness as +might come from health and elemental life,--such as a Dryad might have +in her songful bowers, or a Naiad plunging in the surf. But it was a +shallow face, and pleased only as the sunshine does. For my part, I +would rather listen to the sorrowful song of the pine-tree: that is the +tune of life. + +So, after the first five minutes, the face of Mrs. Lewis ceased to +attract me, and I only wondered how she came to attract her husband. + +At Miss Post's, our rooms were quite near each other; and I frequently +passed an hour in the morning with Mrs. Lewis, chatting with her, and +looking about her fanciful apartment. She had dozens of birds of all gay +colors,--paroquets from Brazil, cockatoos, ring-doves, and canaries; +fresh flowers, in vases on the mantel-pieces, and a blue-ribboned guitar +in the corner. No books, no pictures. A great many scarfs, bonnets, and +drapery generally, fell about on the chairs and tables. + +She never asked about Auguste, nor talked of her children. Once she said +they were at Madam somebody's, she couldn't think of the name, but a +very nice school, she believed. Everything was "very nice" or "very +horrid." Much of the time she passed in draping herself in various +finery before the mirror, and trying the effects of color on her +complexion. I could think of nothing but field-lilies, that toil not, +and yet exceed Solomon in glory; sometimes it seemed gaudiness rather +than glory, only that her brilliant complexion carried off the brightest +hues, and made them only add to the native splendor of lip and eye. Then +she had a transparent complexion, where the blood rippled vividly and +roseately at the least excitement. This expressed a vivacity of +temperament and a sensitiveness which yet she had not, so that I was +constantly looking for more than there was in her, and as constantly +disappointed. The face suggested, and so did the conversation, far more +both of native sensibility and of culture than she had of either. This +was apparent during the first twenty-four hours. + +It may seem strange that I should cultivate such a disappointing +acquaintance as Mrs. Lewis. But, first, I liked Mr. Lewis, and he was +much of the time in their parlor; and, secondly, Mrs. Lewis took a +decided fancy to me, and that had its effect. I could not deem her +insensible to excellence of some sort; besides, she was a curious study +to me, and besides, I had occasion, as the time wore on, to think more +of her. Our lives are threaded with black and gold, not of our own +selecting, and we feel that we are guided by an Unseen Hand in many of +our associations. + +There was a want of arrangement of material in her mind, which prevented +her from using what she knew, to any advantage; and what she knew, +though it had the originality of first observation, and a grace of +expression so great that more met the ear than was meant, was still so +wanting, either in insight or reflection, as to be poor and vapid as +small-beer after the first sparkle is gone. The manner was all in Mrs. +Lewis, but that was ever varying and charming. + +One day she had been wrapping some green and gold gauzes about her, and +draping herself so that you could think of nothing but sunsets and +tulip-beds, when, in pulling over her finery, she came across a +miniature of herself. She handed it to me. + +"This was what made William dead in love with me, before he saw me. I +used to wear my hair so for years after I married him; he liked me to." + +It was a very delicately painted miniature, by Staigg, I think. Still a +very good likeness, and with the perpetual childhood of the large brown +eyes, and the clusters of chestnut curls over brow and neck, that gave +an added expression of extreme youth to the face. + +"Will she never mature?" I thought. + +But always there was the same promise, the same expectation, and the +same disappointment. I used to think I would as soon marry Hoffman's +machine, who looked so beautiful, and said, "Ah! ah!" and the husband +thought her very sensible. But Hoffman's husband thought he had an +admiring wife, and her "ah! ah-s!" were appreciative, whereas Mr. Lewis +could be under no such delusion. Once I heard him say, "he cared only +for love in a wife: intellect he could find in books, but the heart only +in woman." "Eyes that look kindly on me are full of good sense,--lips +that part over pearls are better than wisdom,--and the heart-beat is the +measure of true life." + +He liked to talk in this proverb-fashion, and would often turn towards +his wife, giving his remarks point and affectionate direction by +smoothing her curls or gently touching her shoulder. He was very happy +in her beauty. + +Notwithstanding this, he often brought in books of an evening, to read +to us, leaving Lulu to get her entertainment as she could, and would +sometimes sit a whole hour, discussing literary points with me, and +metaphysical ones with the Dominie, who was only too happy to pull the +Scotch professors over the coals, and lead to condign execution Brown, +Reid, and Stewart, in their turn. Sometimes Lulu would come in, with a +bird on each hand, and sit at our feet. She then never mingled in the +conversation, but just smoothed the birds' plumage, or fed them with +crumbs from her own lips, like a child, or a princess trifling in the +harem. + +Once we were at Hoboken, where we had passed most of the warm day, and, +being weary with strolling among the trees, had seated ourselves on a +bank, whence we had a good view of the water and the vessels in the hazy +distance. Mr. Lewis took Wordsworth from his pocket, and read aloud the +"Ode to Immortality." It was so beautiful, and the images of "the calm +sea that brought us hither" so suggestive, that we listened with +rapture. Lulu twined oak-leaves into wreaths, sitting at her husband's +feet. I don't know whether she heard or not, but, as we discussed +afterwards the various beauties of the expression, and the exquisite +thoughts, Mr. Lewis leaned over and laid his hand lightly on his wife's +hair. He had done it a hundred times before. But to-day she shook her +head away from him, blushed angrily, and said, "Don't, William! I am not +a baby!" + + +VIII. + +We stayed in New York over ten days. In that time we seemed to have +known the Lewises ten years. In the last three days I had some new +views, however, and puzzled myself over manners which were apparently +contradictory. + +Lulu had told me in the morning that her husband was going to +Philadelphia, and wouldn't be back for two days. I asked her if she were +not going with him. She said, no,--that she wouldn't encounter the dust +of those Jersey wagons again; and then described, with much vivacity, +the method of transportation which was soon after succeeded by the +present railroad. + +"There were a hundred horses, at least," said she, "to drag us. +Magnificent creatures, too. But nothing pays for having one's mouth and +eyes full of grit." + +As she spoke, Mr. Lewis passed by the door, and looked at her. She went +to him at once, put up her lips to be kissed, and I heard his loving +good-bye, as they went along the entry to the top of the stairway. + +When she came back to my room, which was half an hour after, she was +dressed to go out, in a new hat and pelisse of green silk, with a plume +of the same. With her bright color, it was very becoming to her. + +"I have just got these home. William just hates me in green, but I would +have them. They make one think of fern-leaves and the deep woods, don't +they?" said she, standing before the mirror with childish admiration of +her own dress. + +She turned slowly round, and faced me. + +"Now I suppose you would dress up in a blue bag, if your husband liked +to see you in it?" + +I said I supposed so, too. + +"That's because you love him, and know that he loves you!" + +"I am sure, you may say one is true of yourself," said I, surprised at +her knitted brow and flushed cheek. + +"What was that you were reading last night in Plato's Dialogues? What +does he say is real love? for the body or the soul?" + +I was confounded. For I had never supposed she listened to a word that +was read. + +"If any one has been in love with the body of Alcibiades, that person +has not been in love with Alcibiades," said she, reciting from memory. + +"Yes, I remember." + +"But one that loves your soul does not leave you, but continues constant +after the flower of your beauty has faded, and all your admirers have +retired." + +I nodded, as much nonplussed as if she had been Socrates. + +"That is a love worth having, is it not, which will continue, though the +cheek be white and furrowed, and the eye dim?" + +I nodded again, staring at her. + +"And what is that worth," said she, stamping her foot, "which does not +recognize a soul at all? If he ever encouraged me to improve,--if he +ever read to me, or talked to me as he does to you, I might make +something of myself! I am in earnest. I do want to be something,--to +think, to learn, if I only knew how!" + +Childish tears ran down her face as she spoke. Presently she went into +her room and brought me a set of malachite, in exquisite cameo-cuttings. +I took up a microscope, and began admiring and examining them, +recognizing the subjects, which were taken from Raphael's History of +Psyche. + +"Beautiful! where did they come from?" + +"William bought them of Lloyd, who had them long ago of the Emperor's +jeweller. They had been ordered for Marie Louise." + +"And why didn't she have them, pray?" + +"Just the question I asked. He said, 'Oh, because the Emperor was down +and the Allies in Paris, and the Emperor's jeweller nobody, and glad to +sell the cameos for one-third their cost, when they were finished.'" + +"Oh, yes! I see,--at the time of Waterloo." + +Mrs. Lewis looked at me again with the same knitted brow and flushed +cheek as before. + +"All you say is Greek to me. I don't know what malachite is, nor who +Raphael is, nor who Psyche is, nor who Marie Louise is, scarcely who +Napoleon, and nothing about Waterloo. A pretty present to make to me, is +it not? I could make nothing of it. To you it is a whole volume." + +I said, with some embarrassment, that it was easy to learn, and that if +she--that is, that women should endeavor to improve themselves, and so +on. She heard me through, and then said, dryly,-- + +"How old were you when you were married?" + +"I was nearly twenty." + +"Were you well-informed? had you read a great deal?" + +"What one gets in a country-school,--and being fond of reading;--but +then I had always been in an atmosphere of books; and one takes in, one +knows not how, a thousand facts"-- + +I stopped; for I saw by her impatient nodding that she understood me. + +"Yes, yes. I knew it must be so. Now, if William would ever bring me +books, instead of jewels, or talk to me and with me, I might have been a +rational being too, instead of being absolutely ashamed to open my +mouth!" + +She clasped the jewel-case and went out; and I heard her chatting a +minute after with some gentlemen in the house, as if she were perfectly +and childishly happy. + + +IX. + +How I wished I could give Mr. Lewis some hint of what had passed between +his wife and myself! But that I could not do. Besides that it was always +best to let matrimonial improvements originate with the parties +themselves, I had an inability to interfere usefully. I could talk to +her a little,--not at all to him. He seemed fond and proud of her as she +was, and her dissatisfaction with herself was a good sign. It was +strange to me, accustomed to intellectual sympathy, that he could do +without that of his wife. But I suppose he had come to feel that she +would not understand him, and so did not try to hit her apprehension, +much less to raise or cultivate her intellect. He had lived too long at +the South. + +Her moral nature was very oddly developed, showing how starved and +stunted some of the faculties, naturally good, become without their +proper nourishment. As, intellectually, she seemed not to comprehend +herself, except that she had a vague sense of want and waste, so, from +the habit of occupying herself with the external, she had not only a +keen sense of the beautiful in outward form, but as ready a perception +of character as could consist with a want of tact. Adaptation she +certainly had. Tact she could not have, since her sympathies were so +limited and her habit so much of external perception and appreciation. +All this desolate tract in her nature might yet possibly be cultivated. +But thus far it had never been. Beyond a small circle of thoughts and +feelings, she was incapable of being interested. She didn't say, "Anan!" +but she looked it. + +There was the same want of comprehension, I may call it, in reference to +propriety of conduct. A certain nobleness, and freedom from all that was +petty and cold, kept her from coquetry. At the same time she had a +womanish vanity about her admirers, and entire freedom in speaking of +them. In vain I endeavored to insinuate the unpleasant truth, that the +fervency of her adorers was no compliment to her. She could not +understand that she ought to shrink from the implied imputation of such +manifestations. + +Somewhat out of patience, one day, at her pleasure in receiving a +bouquet of rare flowers from one of these adorers, I said,-- + +"Isn't this the person who you said professed an attachment to you, or +rather sent heliotrope to you and told you it meant _je vous aime?_" + +"The very man!" said she, smiling. + +"Then I am sure you are, as I should be, sadly mortified at his +continuing these attentions." + +"I don't see why I should be mortified," said she, "He may be, if he +likes." + +"You know what the poet says, Lulu, and it is excellent sense,-- + + 'In part she is to blame that has been tried, + He comes too near that comes to be denied.'" + +The crimson tide rippled over her forehead at this, but it was only a +passing disturbance, and she answered sweetly,-- + +"I don't think you are quite fair," as if she had been playing at some +game with me. + +Apparently, too, she had as little religious as moral sense, though she +called herself a member of the Church, and said she was confirmed at +twelve years old. + +But once, in speaking of Mr. Lewis's going to church, she told me, +"William has no religion at all." Much in the same way she would have +said he had not had luncheon. A strange responsibility, if he felt it, +had this William, a man nearly forty years old, for this young creature +not yet twenty-three, and with powers so undeveloped and a character so +unbalanced! + +In the ten days we passed together I often wished I could have known her +early, or that I now had a right to say to her what I would. However, +perhaps I overestimated the influence of outward circumstances. + +We parted rather suddenly, and in the next three years they were mostly +in Cuba, while my husband was called to leave Weston for a larger field +of usefulness. + +We had lived more than a year in Boston, and it was in the autumn of +1833 that I sat alone by a sea-coal fire, thinking, and making out faces +in the coal. I was too absorbed to hear the bell ring, or the door open, +till I felt a little rustle, and a soft, sudden kiss on my lips. I was +no way surprised, for Lulu's was the foremost face in the coals. Mr. +Lewis was close behind her, with my husband. As soon as the astral was +lighted, we gazed wistfully for a few moments at each other. Each looked +for possible alteration. + +"You have been ill!" + +"And you have had something besides Time." + +We had had grief and bereavement. Mr. Lewis had been very ill, and very +near death, with the fever of the country. It had left traces on his +worn face, and thinned his already thin enough figure. + +But a greater change had come over Mrs. Lewis. Personally, she was +fuller and handsomer than ever. She had the same grace in every motion, +the same lulling music in her sweet voice. But a soul seemed to be born +into that fine body. The brown eyes were deeper, and the voice had +thrills of feeling and sentiment. For all that, she had the same +incompleteness that she had when I last saw her, and an inharmoniousness +that was felt by the hearer whenever she spoke. It was very odd, this +impression I constantly had of her; but they were to remain in Boston +through the winter, and I supposed time would develop the mystery to me. + + +X. + +One evening, soon after Lulu's return, for she soon took up her old +habits of intimacy, she sat listlessly by the fire, holding her two +hands in her lap, as usual, and not even dawdling at netting. Perhaps +the still evening and the quiet room induced confidence, or she may have +felt the effect of my "receptivity," as she called it. (She always +insisted that she could not help telling me everything.) She turned away +abruptly from the fire, saying,-- + +"Do you know I don't love William a particle,--not the smallest atom?" + +"I hope you are only talking nonsense," said I, rising, and ringing for +lights; "but it is painful for me to hear you. Don't! I beg!" + +"No, it isn't nonsense. It is the simple truth. And it is best you +should know it. Because,--you don't want me to be a living lie, do you? +To the world I can keep up the old seeming. But it is better you should +know the truth." + +"There I differ from you entirely, Lulu. If you are so sadly +unfortunate, so wretched, as not to love your husband, it is too painful +and serious a matter lightly to be talked of. It is a matter for +grievous lamentation,--a matter between your conscience and your God. I +don't think any friend can help you; and if not, of course you can have +no motive in confiding it." + +She had the same old look, as if she would say, "Anan!" but presently +added,-- + +"He cares only for himself,--not at all for me. Don't I see that every +day? Am I but the plume in his cap? but the lace on his sleeve? but the +jewel in his linen? Whatever I might have felt for him, I am sure I have +no need to feel now; and I repeat to you, I should not care at all if I +were never again to lay my eyes on him!" + +I shuddered to hear this talk. It was said, however, without anger, and +with the air rather of a simple child who thought it right not to have +false pretences. Her frankness, if it had been united with deep feeling, +would have touched me exceedingly. As it was, I was bewildered, yet only +anxious to avoid explanations, which it seemed to me would only increase +the evil. + +Thoughts of the ill-training that had made such a poor piece of +life-work out of the rich materials before me made my heart ache. She +sat still, looking in the fire, like a child, rebuked and chidden for +some unconscious fault. So many fine traits of character, yet such a +hopeless want of balance, such an utter wrongheadedness! I turned, and +did what I very seldom do, yielded to my impulses of compassionate +tenderness and kissed her. To my surprise, she burst into a hearty fit +of crying. + +"If I had known you early! or if my mother had lived!" she sobbed; "but +now I am good for nothing! I don't know what is right nor what is +wrong!" + +"Don't say so,--we can always try." + +"Not this. I could at first. But to be always treated like a baby,--and +if I express any contrary opinion, or show that I've a mind of my +own,--a sick baby! I can tell you this comes pretty hard three hundred +and sixty-five days in a year! Oh, I wish I were a free woman! There! I +am going to stop now. But you know." + +I was only too glad to be interrupted by our two husbands. Lulu ran +up-stairs,--I supposed, to bathe her eyes and compose herself. She, +however, was down again in a minute, with some drapery which she wound +about her after the fashion Lady Hamilton was said to do, and +represented, like her, the Muses, and various statues. With the curtain +and one light she managed to give a very statuesque effect. Mr. Lewis +was evidently very proud of her grace and talent, and she had a pretty, +wilful, bird-like way with him, that was fascinating, and did not seem, +as I thought it must really be, mechanical. I felt, more than ever, how +idle it must be to talk with her. The affectionate respect, the joyful +uplooking of wifehood, was not to be taught by words, nor to be taught, +in fact, any way. Mr. Lewis's manner to his wife, which I criticized +carefully, was always tender and dignified. And, from my knowledge of +him, I felt sure that his expression was that of genuine feeling. +Evidently he did not understand her feelings at all. She longed for +encouragement and improvement. He looked at her as a lovely child only. + +Being a minister's wife, I felt called on to labor in my vocation, and +from time to time watch the pliant moment, and endeavor to lead Lulu's +mind to the foundation of all truth. But, surely, never fell seed on +such stony ground. To be sure, the flowers sprang up. Dewy, rich, and +running, they climbed over the rocks beneath; but they shed their +perfume, and shrank dead in a day, leaving the stones bare. I was +discouraged about sowing seed. + +The Lewises had been but a few weeks in Boston, when Lulu brought Mr. +Remington in one morning to make a call. He was dressed in black, and +told me he had been a widower six months. His bright, genial face and +healthful nature seemed not to have sustained any severe shock, however, +and he spoke with great composure of his loss. + +He was at Mr. Lewis's a great deal. It seemed as a matter of course. As +an accomplished man, with great powers of entertaining, he must +naturally be acceptable there; but we were too much occupied with family +and parish matters to see much of him, and about that time went on a +journey of some weeks. + + * * * * * + +THE CONQUEST OF CUBA. + + +One hundred years ago the people of America were as much moved by +martial ardor as are the American people of to-day. The year 1762 was, +indeed, a far more warlike time than was 1862. "Great war" is now +confined to the territory of the United States, and exists neither in +Asia, Africa, nor Europe. Garibaldi's laudable attempt to get it up in +Italy failed dismally. There was a flash of spirit, and there were a few +flashes of gunpowder, and all was over. "The rest is silence." There are +numerous questions unsettled in the Old World, but the disputants are +inclined to wait for settlement, it would seem, until our affairs shall +have been brought into a healthful state. Europeans complain that our +quarrel has wrought them injury, and very great injury, too. They are +right as to the fact. England has suffered more from the consequences of +the Southern Rebellion than have the Free States of the Union, and +France quite as much, and Spain as severely as any one of our States. In +Germany, in Switzerland, and in Belgium, thousands of families have had +bitter reasons for joining in the cry that Americans do not know how to +manage their politics. We have heard of riots in Moravia, not far from +the scene of Lafayette's imprisonment and that of Napoleon's greatest +victory, caused by the scarcity of cotton. Yankee cloths that used to go +into remote and barbarous regions, through the medium of the +caravan-commerce, will be known no more there for some time. Perhaps +those African chiefs who had condescended to shirt themselves, thus +taking a step toward civilization, will have to fall back upon their +skins, because Mr. Jefferson Davis and some others of the Southern +Americans chose to make war on their country, and so stop the supply of +cotton. The "too-many-shirts" cry, which so revolted the benevolent +heart of Mr. Carlyle twenty years since, has ceased to be heard. The +supply is getting exhausted. The old shirts are vanishing, and the new +ones, instead of being of good stout cloth, are of such stuff as dreams +are made of. There might be a new version of "The Song of the Shirt" +published, specially adapted to the state of the times, and which would +come home to the bosoms and backs of many men. Mr. Davis's war may be +considered as a personal one against all civilized men, for it affects +every one's person. The great civil war between Charles I. and the +English Parliament was in part caused by soap, which the monopolists +made of so bad a quality that it destroyed the clothes which it should +have cleaned. Of "the monopolers and polers of the people," as he called +them, Sir John Culpeper said, "We find them in the dye-fat, the +wash-bowl, and the powdering-tub." As a monarchy was made to fall +through the monopoly of soap and other ordinary articles, so was it +purposed that a republic should be crushed through the monopoly of the +material from which the sheets and shirts of laborers are manufactured. +There was not much chivalry in the basis of Southern power, but most +grand revolutions are brought about by acting on the lives of the +masses, who are more easily moved by appeals to their sense of immediate +interest than by reference to the probable consequences of a certain +kind of political action. Our party-men know this, and hence it is, +that, while they have not much to say about the excellence of slavery, +they ask the Irish to oppose the overthrow of that institution, on the +ground, that, if it were to cease to exist, all the negroes of the South +would come to the North, and work for a dime a day,--which nonsense +there are some persons so ignorant as to believe. + +To return to 1762: the people of the Colonies were as martially disposed +as are the people of the States in these days. "In the heat of the Old +French War," says Mr. Hawthorne, speaking of the inhabitants of New +England, "they might be termed a martial people. Every man was a +soldier, or the father or brother of a soldier; and the whole land +literally echoed with the roll of the drum, either beating up for +recruits among the towns and villages, or striking the march toward the +frontier. Besides the provincial troops, there were twenty-three British +regiments in the northern colonies. The country has never known a period +of such excitement and warlike life, except during the +Revolution,--perhaps scarcely then; for that was a lingering war, and +this a stirring and eventful one." There has not been so much movement +in the Secession War as characterized that in which our ancestors were +engaged a century ago, and which was fought in America and in India, in +Germany and in Portugal, in Italy and in Africa, in France and in +Bohemia. As the great Lisbon earthquake had been felt on the shores of +Ontario, so had the war which began the year of that earthquake's +occurrence shaken the world that lay on the American lakes. Forty years +ago, old men talked as much of the Old French War--the Seven Years' War +of European historians--as of the War of the Revolution. It was a +contest but for the happening of which there could have been no American +Revolution, at least none of the character that now occupies so high a +place in history. Or, had it happened, and had the event been different, +our annals would have been made to read differently, and the Fourth of +July could never have become an institution. It opened well for the +French, and, had not fortune changed, the colonists, instead of looking +to Paris for aid, only a dozen years after its conclusion, might have +been ruled by proconsuls sent from that "centre of civilization," as it +delights to call itself. And even if the terms of the treaty which put +an end to that war had been a little differently arranged, England might +have triumphed in the war that she carried on against our ancestors. +Both the war itself, and the manner of concluding it, were necessary to +the creation of that American empire which, according to Earl Russell, +we are fighting to maintain,--as unquestionably we are, though not in +the ignoble sense in which the noble Earl meant that his words should be +taken and understood. + +Of the many conquests which were made by the English in the Seven Years' +War, no one was more remarkable than that which placed the Havana and +its neighborhood in their hands, virtually giving them possession of the +island of Cuba; and the manner in which they disposed of their +magnificent prize, when George III. forced peace upon his unwilling +subjects, was among the causes of their failure to conquer the Thirteen +States in the War for Independence. + +That England should have been favored with the opportunity to seize Cuba +was not the least singular of the incidents of a contest that was waged +wherever Christians could meet for the pious purpose of cutting one +another's throats. The English owed it to the hatred for them that was +felt by one man, who assailed them in their hour of triumph, in the hope +of gratifying his love of revenge, but who reaped only new humiliations +from his crusade. He had better luck in after days; but in 1762 he must +have entertained some pretty strong doubts as to the wisdom of hating +his neighbors, and of allowing that sentiment to get the better of his +judgment. Charles III., King of the Spains, the best of all the Spanish +Bourbons, had, when he was King of Naples, been most grossly insulted by +a British naval commander, and he had had to swallow the affront. "Being +a good Christian, and vindictive," though he swallowed the affront, he +could not digest it. He cherished the hope of being able to repay the +English with that usurious interest with which men of all grades love to +discharge their debts of the kind. He little thought that he was to wait +near forty years for the settlement of his account, and that a +generation was to pass away before he should be able to feel as Loredano +felt when he heard of the death of Francesco Foscari. + +The fortunes of France have seldom been lower than they were in 1759, +when the energy of William Pitt had imparted itself to the whole of the +alliance which was acting against Louis XV. That year, Charles III. +ascended the Spanish throne. For some time he was apparently disposed to +continue the judicious system of neutrality which had been adopted and +pursued by his predecessor; but in 1760, partly from his fear of British +power, and partly because of the insulting conduct, of England, which +revived his recollection of her officer's action at Naples in 1742, he +was induced to enter into that arrangement which is known as the Family +Compact, (_Pacte de Famille_,) which was destined to have the most +memorable consequences,--consequences that are far from being now +exhausted. By the terms of this treaty, the sovereign princes of the +House of Bourbon agreed to support each other against all enemies. The +wisdom of this compact, on the part of France, cannot be doubted, for +her condition was so bad that it could not be made much worse, happen +what would, and it might be changed for the better through the +assistance of Spain; but it is not so clear that they were as wise at +Madrid as were the statesmen at Paris. Mr. Pitt obtained intelligence of +this treaty's existence, though it was "a profound secret," of course; +but then Mr. Pitt always had good intelligence, because he was ready to +pay roundly for it, knowing that it was the best article for which a +war-minister could lay out his money. The object of keeping secret an +arrangement that depended for its usefulness upon open action was, that +time might be gained for the arrival of the Spanish treasure-ships from +America. Mr. Pitt, who was as wise as he was arrogant, was for taking +immediate measures against Spain. He would have declared war at once, +and have seized the plate fleet. Had George II. still lived, this +judicious course--all boldness is judicious in war, in which there is +nothing so imprudent as prudence--would have been adopted. But that +monarch died on the 25th of October, 1760, and his grandson and +successor, George III., had domestic objects to accomplish with which +the continuance of the war was incompatible. His intention was to make +peace with France, and he must have deemed it the height of folly to +make war on Spain. Pitt, finding his advice disregarded, resigned his +office, much to the joy of most of his colleagues, whom he had treated +as if they had been the lackeys of his lackeys. How they ever got along +with him through one month is among the mysteries of statesmanship. +President Jackson was not the mildest of men, but he was meekness itself +in comparison with the first William Pitt. + +But if Pitt was offensive to his colleagues, he was even more offensive +to the enemies of his country. In a few weeks after he left the +Ministry, the justice of his views became clear even to the young King +and to Lord Bute, the latter personage having virtually made himself +Premier. The Spanish Government, in compliance with the terms of the +Family Compact, made war on England, and that country lost most of the +advantages which would have been hers, if the King had been governed by +Pitt's advice. The treasure-ships reached Spain in safety, and their +cargoes furnished the new belligerent with the sinews of war. So far as +they could, the English Ministers resolved to carry on the war with +Spain in conformity with the plan which Pitt had formed. One of his +projects was to send a force to seize the Havana, which, though not the +important place that it now is, in itself, was nevertheless one of the +most valuable of the commmanding points of the Spanish Indies. At that +time the colonial dominion of Spain embraced the greater part of +America, and the Havana was regarded as the key to the Occidental +possessions of Charles III.[5] This key Secretary Pitt had meant to +seize; and his successors, forced to act, availed themselves of the +preparations which he had made. An expedition sailed from Spithead on +the 5th of March, 1762, which was joined by other forces, the whole +number of vessels being almost two hundred, of which about a fifth were +ships of war. The total of the land-forces, including those sent from +North America, was 14,041. The fleet was commanded by Admiral Sir George +Pocock, and the army by General the Earl of Albemarle. Lord Albemarle +was descended from that Arnold van Keppel who came into England, not +with William the Conqueror, but with William of Orange, and who, through +the favor of the Dutch King of England, founded one of the most +respectable of British patrician houses. He was a good soldier, and in +Cuba he showed considerable energy; but his name is not high in the list +of commanders. + +It is uncertain whether the Spaniards had knowledge of the intentions of +the English, who, in those days, did not announce their points of attack +to the enemy; but the Captain-General, Don Juan de Prado Porto Carrero, +found it so very difficult to believe that the English would attack his +Government, that even so late as the 6th of June, when the invaders were +within a few hours of landing, he insisted that their fleet was a +homeward-bound convoy from Jamaica; and he found fault with one of his +officers who had taken some precautionary measures. The next day he was +compelled to admit that he was mistaken, for then the British troops had +landed. He could not have been more blind to the coming storm, had he +lived in 1861, and held a high post in the Government of the United +States. Once convinced of his error, he went vigorously to work, and +prepared for defence. He had 27,610 men, including soldiers, seamen, +marines, militia, and negroes,--for, in those days, it was not thought +wise to refuse the services of black men, and even slaves were allowed +the honor of being slain in the service of their masters. There were, +however, but few regular troops at the command of the +Captain-General,--only 4,610; but the seamen and marines, who numbered +9,000, helped to make the deficiency good. The Spaniards were situated +somewhat as were the Russians, the other day, at Sebastopol. Their naval +force was too small to have any chance whatever against that of the +English, and the men who belonged to it were employed on land, where +they behaved bravely. The best officers among the defenders were from +the fleet. The Morro was put under the charge of Don Luis de Velasco, +captain of a line-of-battle ship, who maintained the credit of his +ancient name; and he was well supported by the Marques de Gonzales, +another naval officer. Don Manuel Brizeñio, also from the fleet, with a +brother-officer for his lieutenant, had charge of the Punta castle. The +army-officers did not like these arrangements, but it was argued that +seamen were better qualified than either cavalry or infantry to defend +fortified places; and of regular artillerists there were but three +hundred in the whole Spanish force. These considerations had their +weight with the soldiers, and the conduct of the seamen fully justified +the conduct of the Captain-General. + +The English troops were landed on the 7th of June, and Colonel +Carleton--the Sir Guy Carleton of our Revolutionary history--repulsed a +cavalry attack that was made upon a detachment under his command. This +so disheartened the Spaniards, that they abandoned the position which +they had taken up at Guanabacoa for the purpose of impeding the advance +of the invaders, and fell back on the Havana. The women and children, +with the monks and nuns, were all sent out of the town, and the suburbs +destroyed. On the 11th, the Cabaña fortress, which commands the Morro, +was taken by Colonel Carleton. The Spaniards also abandoned the Chorrera +fort, on the other side. Operations against the Morro were then begun. +The English suffered much from the heat, and a little from the assaults +of the defenders; and, though greatly aided by the fleet, it was not +until the 1st of July that they were able to open fire on the Morro. +Among their laborers were five hundred black slaves, purchased at +Antigua and Martinique. Fatigue and sickness had reduced the army's +strength more than one-third, without counting the soldiers who had +died, or been slain by the Spanish fire; and three thousand seamen also +were unfit for duty. Water was procured with difficulty, and fresh +provisions were almost unknown. + +The land-batteries opened on the Morro July 1st, and were supported by a +fire from several ships. The latter were roughly received by the +Spaniards, and lost one hundred and eighty-two men, besides being +greatly damaged in hull, masts, and rigging, so that they were forced to +abandon the conflict, without having made any impression on the +fortress, though they had effected an important diversion in favor of +the land-batteries, the fire from which had proved most injurious. On +the 2d there were but two guns in condition to bear upon the besiegers. +The latter, however, had a worse enemy than the Spaniards to contend +against, the heat causing fires in their works that neither earth nor +water could extinguish; and they had to remove their mortars from the +left parallel, and substitute cannon. This was the crisis of the siege; +and had a hurricane occurred, as was expected, the fleet would have been +driven off, and the army probably captured. But no storm came, and the +English, with characteristic stubbornness, repaired their damaged works, +and erected others. On the 9th they renewed their fire, having twelve +guns, and the Spaniards but nine. The English increased the strength of +their batteries, while the Spanish guns were reduced to two by the 16th; +and on the 17th the castle made no reply to the fire of the Valiant, a +line-of-battle ship. Sapping-operations began that evening, and on the +18th a small lodgment was effected. The Spanish commander made a morning +sally against the besiegers in three columns, which, if successful, +would have necessitated the abandonment of the siege; but the first and +second columns were driven back with heavy loss, and the third retreated +without firing a shot. In this action a battalion of North Americans +bore a prominent part, aiding to drive the first Spanish column to the +water, where one hundred and fifty men were drowned. The total loss of +the assailants was four hundred, besides those wounded who returned into +the town. + +The result of this action decided the fate of the Morro. The work of +sapping went on. Reinforcements arrived from New York; and on the 30th +a practicable breach was made. Lord Albemarle had previously summoned +Don Luis de Velasco to surrender, in the most complimentary terms; but +the gallant Spaniard declined to abandon his duty, preferring death to +dishonor. On the afternoon of the 30th, the English storming-party, +headed by Lieutenant Forbes, of the Royals, mounted the breach, taking +the defenders by surprise, and dispersing them. Don Luis disdained to +fly, and was mortally wounded. He lived until the afternoon of the 31st, +receiving every possible attention from the victors, who sent him over +to the Havana, where he was buried with military honors. His son was +created Vizconde del Morro, and it was ordered that in the Spanish navy +there should always be a ship named Velasco. + +The storming of the castle cost the English but two officers and thirty +men. The Spaniards lost five hundred and thirty men, besides those who +were drowned in seeking to reach the town. During the siege the Spanish +loss exceeded a thousand men. The conquerors found a large number of +cannon, mortars, muskets, and hand-grenades, and great quantities of +powder and ball, and fixed ammunition, in the castle. + +As soon as the fortress had fallen, the Spaniards opened fire on it, +which was directed principally against the water-tank. The English +carried on their works on both sides of the city, and on the 10th of +August Lord Albemarle summoned the Governor to capitulate. After a long +detention, the flag was sent back without an answer. It was not until +the forenoon of the 11th that the English opened fire upon the city, +their batteries containing forty-five guns. That regard for "unoffending +inhabitants" with which the English of 1847 were afflicted, when +American guns fired on Vera Cruz, was not felt by their ancestors of +1762. Judging from the language of English writers, we should infer that +England has a vested right to pound and pulverize all places that refuse +to acknowledge her supremacy but that such conduct as distinguished her +troops at Copenhagen and elsewhere is wanton butchery when imitated by +the military of other nations. Be that as it may, it is a fact that the +British batteries pounded the Havana savagely on the 11th of August, one +hundred and one years ago, without causing any alarm to either Lord +Albemarle or his army as to the opinion of their countrymen; and the +pounding-match was so pronouncedly in favor of the English, that by two +o'clock in the afternoon the Spaniards offered to surrender. A +suspension of hostilities followed, and the negotiations ended in the +capitulation of the place on the 13th of August. At ten o'clock on the +14th, the Punta was taken possession of by General Keppel; and two hours +later, the city gate and battery of that name. The landward gate was +held by Colonel Howe, the Sir William Howe of our Revolutionary War. The +number of regular troops who became prisoners was nine hundred and +ninety-three, without counting the sick or wounded, and including both +men and officers. They were sent on board the English ships. + +The terms granted by the English were honorable to both parties. The +Spanish troops marched out with all the honors of war. The officers were +allowed to preserve all their personal effects. Civil officers were +permitted to remain on the island, or to leave it, as they should elect. +Everything that belonged to the Spanish army or navy, that was within +the limits of the territory surrendered, became prize of war. The +Catholic religion was to be maintained in all its force, but the +nomination of all religious functionaries was to be subject to the +approval of the English Governor. The inhabitants were to be protected +in all their rights, and might go or stay, as they should think best for +their interest. There were other liberal provisions made, indicative of +a desire on the part of the conquerors to behave handsomely toward the +conquered. The only portion of the property of the King of Spain which +the victors allowed him to retain consisted of his slaves, of which he +was left at liberty to dispose as he might think proper. England was +then a slave-holding and a slave-trading nation, and she could not +afford to set the example of disregarding the right of man to hold +property in men. Though the age of cotton had not then dawned, the age +of conscience was quite as far below the moral horizon. + +Besides the Havana and its immediate territory, the terms of the +surrender placed in the hands of the English as much of the island of +Cuba as extended one hundred and eighty miles to the west, which +belonged to the government of the place. This was a great conquest, and +it was in the power of the conquerors to become masters of the whole +island. + +The most remarkable fact connected with the conquest of Cuba was the +success with which the English contended, not only against a valiant +enemy, but against the difficulties of climate. No severer trial was +ever presented to troops than that which they encountered and overcame +on the Cuban coast at a time of the year when that coast is at its +worst; and it was a much more unhealthy quarter then than it is to-day. +They had to bear up against drought, heat, hunger, thirst, sickness, and +the fire of the Spaniards; and they stood in constant danger of being +separated from their supporting fleet, which had no sufficient shelter, +and might have been destroyed, if a tropical hurricane had set in. Yet +against all these evils they bore up, and, with very inferior means, +succeeded in accomplishing their purpose, and in making one of the +greatest conquests of the most brilliant war in which their country ever +was engaged. All this they did with but little loss, comparatively +speaking. They had 346 men and officers killed or mortally wounded; 620 +wounded; 691 died from sickness or fatigue; and 130 were missing. This +loss, 1790 in all, exclusive of the casualties on shipboard, cannot be +considered large, for it could not have been above one-eighth part of +the invading force, counting the reinforcements that arrived while the +siege was going on. Compared with the enormous losses of life and limb +that characterize our war, it is a mere bagatelle; and the magnitude of +the prize is to be set off in contrast to the price which it cost. Some +of the regiments employed, however, were destined to suffer severely +from the effects of their visit to Cuba; for, being sent to New York, +the severity of a North-American winter was too much for constitutions +that had been subjected for months to the heats of the tropics. They +were Irishly decimated, losing about nine-tenths of their men.[6] + +If we can believe the Spaniards,--and we see no reason for doubting the +substantial correctness of their assertions,--Lord Albemarle's +government was one of much severity, and even cruelty. He ruled the +Havana with a bundle of _fasces_, the rods being of iron, and the axe +sharp, and which did not become rusty from want of use. It was enough +that a man was "guilty of being suspected" to insure him a drum-head +court-martial, which tribunal sent many men to the scaffold, sometimes +denying them religious consolations, an aggravation of punishment +peculiarly terrible to Catholics, and which seems to have been wantonly +inflicted, and in a worse spirit than that of the old persecutors, for +it had not even fanaticism for its excuse. The spirit of the +capitulation seems to have been quite disregarded, though its letter may +have been adhered to. There may be some exaggeration in the Spanish +statements, too,--men who are subject to military rule generally looking +at the conduct of their governors through very powerful glasses. It is +impossible for them to do otherwise; and the mildest proconsul that ever +ruled must still be nothing but a proconsul, even if he were an angel. +Every man thus placed is entitled to as charitable construction of his +conduct as can conscientiously be made; but this the English do not +appear to understand, when the conduct of men of other races is +canvassed. With their own history blotched all over with cruel acts +perpetrated by their military commanders, they set themselves up to +judge of the deeds of the generals of other peoples, as if they alone +could furnish impartial courts for the rendering of historical verdicts. +Their treatment of some American commanders, and particularly General +Butler, is not decent in a people whose officers have wantonly poured +out blood, often innocent, in nearly every country under the sun. There +was more cruelty practised by the English in any one month of the Sepoy +War than has disgraced both sides of the Secession contest for the two +years through which it has been waged. The English are not a cruel +people,--quite the reverse,--but it is a fact that their military +history abounds more in devilish acts than that of any other people of +corresponding civilization. The reason of this is, that they look upon +all men who resist them in some such spirit as the Romans regarded their +foes, and as being in some sense rebels. It is only with those who rebel +against other Governments that those who live under the English +Government ever sympathize. + +The capture of the Havana produced a "sensation" in the North-American +colonies. The news was a month in reaching this part of the country, and +Philadelphia, the most important place in British America, had the +pleasure of first hearing it in fourteen days from the seat of war. It +was "expressed" to New York, which town got it on the 11th of September; +and it was published in the Boston "Gazette" of Monday, September 13th, +the same day on which our ancestors were gratified by the publication of +the London "Gazette" Extraordinary giving a detailed account of Prince +Ferdinand's victory at Wilhelmsthal, on the 24th of June. There is not a +line of editorial comment, but the news is clearly and vigorously given, +special mention being made of the spoil, which included, according to +one authority, fourteen million milled dollars. It is stated, in +conclusion, that "the Spanish families that had withdrawn from the city +to the country were all returned with their baggage, and were in +possession of their habitations; and some soldiers and English Negroes +were hanged for committing some small thefts on them." In the "Gazette" +of September 20th there are published some details of the operations in +Cuba; and under the "Boston head" is a brief account of the rejoicings +that took place in Boston, on the 16th, in honor of the great event, and +of British successes in Germany. "In the morning," says the account, +"His Excellency, [Governor Bernard,] accompanied by the two Houses of +Assembly, attended divine service at the Old Brick Meeting House, and a +sermon well adapted to this joyful occasion was preached by the Rev. Dr. +SEWALL: At 12 o'clock the cannon at Castle William and the batteries in +this town and Charlestown were discharged: In the afternoon the Bells +rang; and His Excellency with the two Houses was escorted by his Company +of Cadets to Concert Hall, where a fine piece of music was performed, to +the satisfaction of a very large assembly; and in the evening there were +beautiful illuminations, and a great variety of fire works in many parts +of the town.... We hear there has also been great rejoicings on the late +success of the British arms in most of the neighboring towns, +particularly at Charlestown, Salem, and Marblehead, where were +illuminations, bonfires, and other demonstrations of joy." Old +newspapers, letters, and pamphlets show that "demonstrations of joy" +were far from being confined to New-England towns. They extended over +the whole of the thirteen colonies, every man in which was proud of +belonging to a nation which had achieved such great things in a war that +had opened most gloomily, as do most English and American contests. The +conquest of Canada had removed a weight from the colonial mind that had +preyed upon it for generations; and though not one man in a hundred, it +is probable, thought of the vast consequences that were to follow from +the victories of Wolfe and Amherst, it is certain that those victories +had greatly exalted the American heart; and now that they were followed +by the conquest of Cuba, made at the expense of a great nation with +which England was at peace when Quebec and Montreal had passed into her +possession, it is not strange that our ancestors should have become more +impressed than ever with the honor of belonging to the British empire. +They were not only loyal, but they were loyal to a point that resembled +fanaticism. It has been said of them that they were "as loyal to their +prince and as proud of their country as the people of Kent or +Yorkshire,"--and these words do not exaggerate what was the general +sentiment of the colonists in 1762. England was still "home" to them, +though more than a hundred and fifty years had gone by since the first +permanent English colony was founded in America; and to the feeling that +belonged to the inhabitants of England the colonists added that +reverence which is created for the holders of power by remoteness from +their presence and want of familiarity. Such was the condition of +America a century ago, but soon to be changed through conduct on the +part of George III., conduct that amounted to a crime, and for which no +defence can be made but that of insanity,--a defence but too well +founded in this instance. The sense of the colonists, therefore, was +well expressed by Governor Bernard, when, on the 23d of September, he +put forth a proclamation, at the request of the Assembly, for a Public +Thanksgiving on the 7th of October. After enumerating various causes for +thankfulness that existed, all of which relate to victories won in +different parts of the world, His Excellency proceeds to say,--"But +above all, with hearts full of gratitude and amazement, we must +contemplate the glorious and important conquest of the Havana; which, +considering the strength of the place, the resolution of the defendants, +and the unhealthiness of the climate, seems to have the visible hand of +God in it, and to be designed by His Providence to punish the pride and +injustice of that Prince who has so unnecessarily made himself a party +in this war." + +Thus did our fathers rejoice over a great military success which gave +additional glory to a country to which they were proud to belong. Nor +were they insensible to the solid gains of that success, which, indeed, +they overrated, not only because they supposed the conquered territory +would be retained by the conquerors, but because they believed the +immediate fruits of victory were far greater than they proved to be. In +the Boston "Gazette" of September 20th it is stated that one of the +captured Spanish ships had five million dollars on board, that almost +forty million dollars in specie had already been counted, and that the +share of Lord Albemarle would give him an income of twelve thousand +pounds per annum, and Admiral Pocock was to have an equal amount. + +In our time, politicians have the advantage of all other men in the +matter of spoils. Such was not the state of things one hundred years +ago. The politicians were as well off in those times as they are in +these,--perhaps they were bettor off, for things could then be openly +done by civilians, in the way of plundering, that the men of to-day have +to do as secretly as good Christians say their prayers. There were also +many lucrative offices then in existence which have since disappeared +under the labors of those economical reformers of whom Edmund Burke was +the first in every respect. But in 1762 military men had "rights" which +this modern world has ceased to regard as utterly as if all soldiers +were Negroes. One hundred years ago it was not an uncommon thing for a +successful general to win as much gold on a victorious field as glory. +It was the sunsetting time of the age of plunder; and the sun set very +brilliantly. The solid gains of heroes were then so great that their +mere statement in figures affects the reader's mind, and perverts his +judgment of their actions. Not quite twenty years earlier, the gallant +Anson made his famous cruise round the world; and when he took the +Manila galleon, he found in her, besides other booty, silver of the +value of a million and a half of dollars, to defend which the Spaniards +fought as men generally fight for their money. Five years before +Albemarle took the Havana, Clive took, for his own share of Surajah +Doulah's personals, over a million of dollars, from the treasury of +Moorshedabad. That was the prize of Plassey. A little later, he accepted +a present in land that must have been worth over two million of dollars, +as the annual income it yielded was twenty-seven thousand pounds, or +about one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Other British proconsuls +were also fortunate in India. The same year that saw the English flag +flying over so much of Cuba saw another English force, commanded by Sir +William Draper, reduce the Philippine Islands, taking possession of the +whole group by virtue of a capitulation. The naval force that +accompanied Draper captured the Acapulco galleon, which had a cargo of +the value of three million dollars. The English attacked Manila without +the Spanish garrison's having had any official notification of the +existence of hostilities. The town was defended by the Archbishop, who +behaved with bravery, and showed considerable skill in war; but after +some days' fighting the English got into the town by storming it, and +then gave it up to the rough mercies of a hardened soldiery, some of +whom were Sepoys, a description of warriors of whom the English now ask +us to believe all that is abominable. Manila was most savagely treated +by heathen soldiers led by Christian chiefs, a fact to be commended to +the consideration of those humane Englishmen who can with difficulty +breathe while reading General Butler's arrangement for the maintenance +of order in New Orleans. The Archbishop and some of the officers got +into the citadel, and there they negotiated a capitulation. They agreed +to ransom their property by paying down two million dollars, and by +drawing bills for a like sum upon the Spanish treasury, which bills +Draper was green enough to accept. The Spanish Government refused to pay +the bills when they had matured, and though Draper entreated the English +Ministers to interpose in behalf of himself and his comrades, no +interposition could he induce them to make. When Sir William was so +unwise as to run a course of pointed pens with "Junius," that free +lancer, who upset men of all degrees as easily as Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe +unhorsed the knights-challengers in the lists at Ashby, brought up the +Manila business, and, with his usual hardihood, charged his antagonist +with having most dishonorably given up the ransom, and with having sold +his comrades. Sir William, who had volunteered in defence of his friend, +Lord Granby, (the same gentleman who used to figure on sign-boards, and +whose name was then as much in English mouths as General Meade's is on +American tongues to-day,) soon had to fight in his own defence, and he +made a very poor figure in the contest. In a letter from Clifton, to the +printer of the "Public Advertiser," he wrote,--"I here most solemnly +declare, that I never received either from the East India Company, or +from the Spaniards, directly or indirectly, any present or gratification +or any circumstance of emolument whatsoever, to the amount of five +shillings, during the whole course of the expedition, or afterwards, my +legal prize-money excepted. The Spaniards know that I refused the sum of +fifty thousand pounds offered me by the Archbishop, to mitigate the +terms of the ransom, and to reduce it to half a million, instead of a +whole one; so that, had I been disposed to have basely sold the partners +of my victory, Avarice herself could not have wished for a richer +opportunity." Sir William's language is valuable, as showing what sort +of prizes were then in the wheel of Fortune, with military men only to +take tickets. More than one British house of high consideration owes its +affluence to the good luck of some ancestor in the noble art of pillage. +Yet how often do we come across, in English books, denunciations of the +deeds of plunder done by the French in Spain and Portugal! Shall we ever +hear the last of Maréchal Soult's Murillos? It was but yesterday that +the Koh-i-Noor was stolen by the English, and added to the crown-jewels +of Great Britain; and it was exhibited at the Crystal Palace in 1851, +where it must have been regarded as a proof of the skill of the +_Chevaliers d'Industrie_. Why it should be lawful and honorable to seize +diamonds, and unlawful and improper to seize pictures, we cannot say; +but Mr. Stirling, in his "Annals of the Artists of Spain," says, "Soult +at Seville, and Sebastiani at Granada, collected with unerring taste and +unexampled rapacity, and, having thus signalized themselves as robbers +in war, became no less eminent as picture-dealers in peace." Was it more +immoral in Maréchal le Due de Dalmatie to take Murillos than it was in +Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington to take the lead in cutting the +Koh-i-Noor, the pictures as well as the diamond being spoil of war? +There is something eminently absurd in English morality, when Englishmen +seek to lay down rules for the governance of the world. It amounts to +this: that they shall be at liberty to plunder everybody, but that all +other men shall stay their hands, no matter how great may be the +temptation, to help themselves to their enemies' goods. + +The conquerors of the Havana had no scruples on the subject of plunder. +They obtained, in treasure and other property, about fourteen millions +of dollars,--a great sum, though not a third part so large as had been +assigned them by the newspapers. Not content with this, they sought to +get a donation from the citizens, to the amount of two hundred thousand +dollars; but the attempt failed, and was not persisted in, when it was +found that the Spaniards were utterly averse to giving on compulsion. A +demand was made, through Colonel Cleveland, who commanded the artillery, +"on the Bishop and the clergy, requiring an account of the bells of the +churches, convents, and monasteries of the Havana and the other towns in +the district, as well as of the _ingenios_ in the neighborhood, and of +all such metal as is used in the making of bells, in order that the +value might be adjusted, and the amount paid, according, as he asserted, +to the laws and customs of war, when a city after a siege has +surrendered by capitulation." The astonished Bishop wrote to Lord +Albemarle, and had the satisfaction of learning from that eminent +authority, that, "when a city was besieged and taken, the commander of +the artillery receives a gratification, and that Colonel Cleveland had +made the demand with his Lordship's concurrence." This mode of kissing +the rod was not at all to the taste of the worthy prelate, excellent +Christian though he was. It was bad enough to give "a gratification" to +an enemy because he had pounded them with balls until they had been +forced to surrender; but it was an aggravation of the original evil to +have to redeem "blessed bells" from the heretics who had come four +thousand miles to disturb the repose of the Spanish Indies. But +negotiation was unavoidable. What would the Colonel take, and close the +transaction? The Colonel said he would take such a sum as the captured +churches could reasonably contribute to his purse. He was offered one +thousand dollars; but that he treated as a mistake, and to assist the +reverend and venerable negotiators to a conclusion, he named thirty +thousand dollars. To this they objected, and appealed to Lord Albemarle +against the demand of his officer. His Lordship, with his pockets +crammed with Spanish gold, was disposed to act handsomely in this +instance, and cut down the Colonel's bill to ten thousand dollars. But +even this sum the clergy professed themselves utterly unable to pay. +According to their own showing, they were genuine successors of the +Apostles, being without a penny in their purses. They began to beg for +aid; but, either because the Spaniards were sulky with the Saints for +having allowed the heretics to succeed, or that they did not wish to +attract the attention of those heretics to their property, the begging +business did not pay. Only one hundred and three dollars could be +collected. This failure was made known to Lord Albemarle, but he kept a +profound silence, sending no reply to the clergy's plaintive +communication. They, however, had not long to wait for an answer. +Colonel Cleveland waited upon them again, and said, that, as the cash +was not forthcoming, he should content himself with taking the bells, +all of which must be taken down, and delivered to him on the 4th of +September. After this there was no further room for negotiation with a +gentleman who commanded great guns. The Bishop handed over the ten +thousand dollars, and the Colonel departed from his presence. The bells +remained in their proper places, and some of them, no doubt, remain +there to this day, the bell being long-lived, and making sweet music +years after Albemarle, Cleveland, and the rest of the spoilmen have gone +to their account. + +Lord Albemarle had a correspondence with the Bishop respecting the use +of one of the churches as a place of Protestant worship, and laid down +the cannon law so strongly and clearly, that the prelate, after making +such resistance as circumstances admitted of,--and he would not have +been a good Catholic, if he had done less,--told him to take whichever +church he chose; and he took that of the Franciscans. His Lordship, +however, was much more devoted to the worship of Mammon than to the +worship of God, and, accordingly, on the 19th of October, he wrote to +the Bishop concerning the donation-dodge, in the following polite and +peremptory terms;--"Most Illustrious Sir, I am sorry to be under the +necessity of writing to your Lordship what ought to have been thought of +some days ago, namely, a donation from the Church to the +Commander-in-Chief of the victorious army. The least that your Lordship +can offer will be one hundred thousand dollars. I wish to live in peace +with your Lordship and with the Church, as I have shown in all that has +hitherto occurred, and I hope that your Lordship will not give me reason +to alter my intentions. I kiss your Lordship's hand. Your humble +servant, Albemarle." The Bishop, though a clever and clear-sighted man, +could not see this matter in the light in which Lord Albemarle looked +upon it. He thought the demand a violation of the terms of surrender; +and he sought the mediation of Admiral Pocock, but without strengthening +his position. To a demand for the list of benefices, coupled with the +declaration that non-compliance would lead to the Bishop's being +proclaimed a violator of the treaty, the prelate replied, that he would +refer the matter, and some others, to the courts of Spain and England. +Upon this the British General lost all patience, and issued a +proclamation, declaring "that the conduct of the Bishop was seditious; +that he had forgotten that he was now a subject of Great Britain; and +that it was absolutely necessary he should be expelled from the island, +and sent to Florida in one of the British ships of war, in order that +public tranquillity might be maintained, and that good correspondence +and harmony might continue between the new and the old subjects of the +King, which the conduct of the Bishop had visibly interrupted." The +whole of this business presents the English commander in a most +contemptible light. Not content with the six hundred thousand dollars +which he had already pocketed, as his share of the spoil, he assumed the +part of Bull Beggar toward the Bishop, in the hope that he might extort +one hundred thousand dollars more from the Church, for his own personal +benefit, for the "donation" was not to go into the common stock; and +when his threats failed, he turned tyrant at the expense of a venerable +officer of the most ancient of Christian churches. What an outcry would +be raised in England, if an American commander were to make a similar +display of avarice and cruelty! + +The manner in which the spoil was divided among the conquerors caused +much ill-feeling, and not unnaturally. Lord Albemarle took to himself +£122,697 10_s._ 6_d._, and an equal amount was bestowed upon Admiral +Pocock. Lieutenant-General Elliot and Commodore Keppel had £24,539 +10_s._ 1_d._ each. To a major-general was given £6,816 10_s._ 6-1/2_d._ +and to a brigadier-general £1,947 11_s._ 7_d._ A captain in the navy had +£1,600 10_s._ 10_d._, and an army-captain, £184 4_s._ 7-1/4_d._ And so +the sums went on decreasing, until there were paid to the private +soldier, £4 1_s._ 8-1/2_d._, and to the ordinary seaman £3 14_s._ +9-3/4_d._ The profit as well as the honor of the expedition all went to +the leaders. What made the matter worse was, that the distribution was +made in violation of rules, which were not formed to favor "the common +file," but which would have done them more justice than they received at +the hands of Pocock and Albemarle. After all, no worse was done than +what we see daily happen in the world, and the distribution appears to +be a practical satire on the ordinary course of human life. + +Lord Albemarle was severely censured in England for his manner of +assailing the Havana, it being held that he should have attacked the +town, which was in an almost defenceless condition, whereas the Morro +was strong, and made a good defence, which might have led to the failure +of the expedition, and would have done so but for the circumstance that +no hurricane happened. But the general public was satisfied with the +victory, and did not trouble itself much about the manner in which it +had been gained. It was right. Had General McClellan taken Richmond, how +many of us would have listened to the military critics who should have +been so kind as to show us how he ought to have taken it? Judging from +some observations in Horace Walpole's "Correspondence," the English, +though surfeited with victory, were much pleased with their Cuban +conquest. Sir Joseph Yorke, writing on the 9th of October, ten days +after the news had reached England, says,--"All the world is struck with +the noble capture of the Havana, which fell into our hands on the Prince +of Wales's birthday, as a just punishment upon the Spaniards for their +unjust quarrel with us, and for the supposed difficulties they have +raised in the negotiations for peace." Those negotiations had been +openly commenced in less than a month after the fall of the Havana, and +some weeks before news of that brilliant event had reached Europe. The +terms of the treaty of peace were speedily settled, one of the +stipulations being, that Spain should preserve her old limits; and, +"moreover," says Earl Stanhope, "it was agreed that any conquests that +might meanwhile have been made by any of the parties in any quarter of +the globe, but which were not yet known, (words comprising at that +period of the negotiation both the Havana and the Philippines,) should +be restored without compensation." Had the preliminary articles been +signed at once, the Spaniards would have recovered all they had lost in +Cuba, without further trouble or cost; but their negotiator, the +celebrated Grimaldi, was so confident that the invaders of Cuba would be +beaten, that he played the waiting game, and was beaten himself. When +intelligence of English success arrived at Paris, where the treaty was +making, Grimaldi was suddenly found as ready to sign as formerly he had +been backward; but now the English negotiator, the Duke of Bedford, +became backward in his turn, as representing the unwillingness of his +Government to give up the Havana without an equivalent. Lord Bute would +have given up the conquest without a word said, but all his colleagues +were not so blind to the advantages which that conquest had placed at +the command of England; and finally it was agreed that the Duke of +Bedford should demand the cession of Florida or Porto Rico as the price +of the restoration of that portion of Cuba which was in English hands. +The Spaniards gladly complied with the British demand, and gave Florida +in exchange for Cuba. At one time it was supposed that the victory of +Albemarle and Pocock would lead to the continuance of the war. Horace +Walpole wrote to his friend Conway that the Havana was more likely to +break off the peace than to advance it, and that the English were not in +a humor to give up the world, but were much more disposed to conquer the +rest of it. He added, "We shall have some cannonading here, I believe, +if we sign the peace." But the King and the Premier were +peace-at-any-price men, and the way to their purpose was smoothed +completely; yet Lord Bute wrote to the Duke of Bedford, on the 24th of +October, "Such is the change made here by the conquest of the Havana, +that I solemnly declare, I don't meet with one man, let his attachment +be never so strong to the service of the King, his wishes for peace +never so great, that does not positively affirm, this rich acquisition +must not be ceded without satisfaction in the fishery, and some material +compensation: this is so much the opinion of all the King's servants, +that the greatest care has been taken to soften every expression," etc. +In July, 1763, the English restored their acquisitions in Cuba to the +Spaniards, and their soldiers returned to Europe. + +In a few years it was seen that the Bute arrangement, so far as +concerned the Havana, was, for England, thoroughly a Glaucian bargain. +She had obtained Florida, which was of no worth to her, and she had +given up the Havana, which might have been made one of her most useful +acquisitions. That place became the chief American port of the great +alliance that was formed against England after she had become committed +to war with the new United States. Great fleets and armies were there +assembled, which did the English much mischief. Florida was reconquered +by an expedition from the Havana, and another expedition was successful +in an attack on Nassau; and Jamaica was threatened. Had England not +given up the place to the Spaniards, not only would these things have +been impossible, but she might have employed it with effect in her own +military operations, and have maintained her ascendency in the +West-Indian seas. Or, if she had preferred that course, she might have +made it the price of Spain's neutrality during the American War, +returning it to her on condition that she should not assist the United +States; and as the Family Compact then existed in all its force, Spain's +influence might have been found sufficiently powerful to prevent France +from giving that assistance to our fathers which undoubtedly secured +their independence. All subsequent history has been deeply colored by +the surrender of the Havana in 1763. But for that, Washington and his +associates might have failed. But for that, the French Revolution might +have been postponed, as that Revolution was precipitated through the +existence of financial difficulties which were largely owing to the part +France took in the war that ended in the establishment of our +nationality. But for that, England might have secured and consolidated +her American dominion, and the House of Hanover at this moment have been +ruling over the present United States and Confederate States. George +III, and Lord Bute could not foresee any of these things, and they +cannot be censured because they were blind to what was invisible to all +men; but their reckless desire for peace led them to regret the +successes of the English arms, and they were ready to make any +sacrifices that could be named, not because they loved peace for itself, +but because, while the war should last, it would not be possible for the +monarch to follow his mother's advice to "be a king" in fact as well as +in name,--advice that was destined to cost the King much, and his realm +far more. + + * * * * * + +EQUINOCTIAL. + + + The Sun of Life has crossed the line: + The summer-shine of lengthened light + Faded and failed,--till, where I stand, + 'Tis equal Day and equal Night. + + One after one, as dwindling hours, + Youth's glowing hopes have dropped away, + And soon may barely leave the gleam + That coldly scores a winter's day. + + I am not young, I am not old; + The flush of morn, the sunset calm, + Paling, and deepening, each to each, + Meet midway with a solemn charm. + + One side I see the summer fields + Not yet disrobed of all their green; + While westerly, along the hills, + Flame the first tints of frosty sheen. + + Ah, middle-point, where cloud and storm + Make battle-ground of this my life! + Where, even-matched, the Night and Day + Wage round me their September strife! + + I bow me to the threatening gale: + I know, when that is overpast, + Among the peaceful harvest-days, + An Indian-summer comes at last! + + * * * * * + +THE LEGEND OF MONTE DEL DIABLO. + + +The cautious reader will detect a lack of authenticity in the following +pages, I am not a cautious reader myself, yet I confess with some +concern to the absence of much documentary evidence in support of the +singular incident I am about to relate. Disjointed memoranda, the +proceedings of _ayuntamientos_ and early departmental _juntas_, with +other records of a primitive and superstitious people, have been my +inadequate authorities. It is but just to state, however, that, though +this particular story lacks corroboration, in ransacking the Spanish +archives of Upper California I have met with many more surprising and +incredible stories, attested and supported to a degree that would have +placed this legend beyond a cavil or doubt. I have, also, never lost +faith in the legend myself, and in so doing have profited much from the +examples of divers grant-claimants, who have often jostled me in their +more practical researches, and who have my sincere sympathy at the +skepticism of a modern hard-headed and practical world. + +For many years after Father Junipero Serro first rang his bell in the +wilderness of Upper California, the spirit which animated that +adventurous priest did not wane. The conversion of the heathen went on +rapidly in the establishment of Missions throughout the land. So +sedulously did the good Fathers set about their work, that around their +isolated chapels there presently arose _adobe_ huts, whose mud-plastered +and savage tenants partook regularly of the provisions, and occasionally +of the Sacrament, of their pious hosts. Nay, so great was their process, +that one zealous Padre is reported to have administered the Lord's +Supper one Sabbath morning to "over three hundred heathen Salvages." It +was not to be wondered that the Enemy of Souls, being greatly incensed +thereat, and alarmed at his decreasing popularity, should have +grievously tempted and embarrassed these Holy Fathers, as we shall +presently see. + +Yet they were happy, peaceful days for California. The vagrant keels of +prying Commerce had not, as yet, ruffled the lordly gravity of her bays. +No torn and ragged gulch betrayed the suspicion of golden treasure. The +wild oats drooped idly in the morning heat, or wrestled with the +afternoon breezes. Deer and antelope dotted the plain. The water-courses +brawled in their familiar channels, nor dreamed of ever shifting their +regular tide. The wonders of the Yo-Semite and Calaveras were as yet +unrecorded. The Holy Fathers noted little of the landscape beyond the +barbaric prodigality with which the quick soil repaid the sowing. A new +conversion, the advent of a Saint's day, or the baptism of an Indian +baby, was at once the chronicle and marvel of their day. + +At this blissful epoch, there lived, at the Mission of San Pablo, Father +José Antonio Haro, a worthy brother of the Society of Jesus. He was of +tall and cadaverous aspect. A somewhat romantic history had given a +poetic interest to his lugubrious visage. While a youth, pursuing his +studies at famous Salamanca, he had become enamored of the charms of +Doña Cármen de Torrencevara, as that lady passed to her matutinal +devotions. Untoward circumstances, hastened, perhaps, by a wealthier +suitor, brought this amour to a disastrous issue; and Father José +entered a monastery, taking upon himself the vows of celibacy. It was +here that his natural fervor and poetic enthusiasm conceived expression +as a missionary. A longing to convert the uncivilized heathen succeeded +his frivolous earthly passion, and a desire to explore and develop +unknown fastnesses continually possessed him. In his flashing eye and +sombre exterior was detected a singular commingling of the discreet Las +Casas and the impetuous Balboa. + +Fired by this pious zeal, Father José went forward in the van of +Christian pioneers. On reaching Mexico, he obtained authority to +establish the Mission of San Pablo. Like the good Junipero, accompanied +only by an acolyth and muleteer, he unsaddled his mules in a dusky +_cañon_, and rang his bell in the wilderness. The savages--a peaceful, +inoffensive, and inferior race--presently flocked around him. The +nearest military post was far away, which contributed much to the +security of these pious pilgrims, who found their open trustfulness and +amiability better fitted to repress hostility than the presence of an +armed, suspicious, and brawling soldiery. So the good Father José said +matins and prime, mass and vespers, in the heart of Sin and Heathenism, +taking no heed to himself, but looking only to the welfare of the Holy +Church. Conversions soon followed, and, on the 7th of July, 1760, the +first Indian baby was baptized,--an event which, as Father José piously +records, "exceeds the richnesse of gold or precious jewels or the +chancing upon the Ophir of Solomon." I quote this incident as best +suited to show the ingenuous blending of poetry and piety which +distinguished Father José's record. + +The Mission of San Pablo progressed and prospered until the pious +founder thereof, like the infidel Alexander, might have wept that there +were no more heathen worlds to conquer. But his ardent and enthusiastic +spirit could not long brook an idleness that seemed begotten of sin; and +one pleasant August morning, in the year of grace 1770, Father José +issued from the outer court of the Mission building, equipped to explore +the field for new missionary labors. + +Nothing could exceed the quite gravity and unpretentiousness of the +little cavalcade. First rode a stout muleteer, leading a pack-mule laden +with the provisions of the party, together with a few cheap crucifixes +and hawks' bells. After him came the devout Padre José, bearing his +breviary and cross, with a black _serapa_ thrown around his shoulders; +while on either side trotted a dusky convert, anxious to show a proper +sense of their regeneration by acting as guides into the wilds of their +heathen brethren. Their new condition was agreeably shown by the absence +of the usual mud-plaster, which in their unconverted state they assumed +to keep away vermin and cold. The morning was bright and propitious. +Before their departure, mass had been said in the chapel, and the +protection of St. Ignatius invoked against all contingent evils, but +especially against bears, which, like the fiery dragons of old, seemed +to cherish an unconquerable hostility to the Holy Church. + +As they wound through the _cañon_, charming birds disported upon boughs +and sprays, and sober quails piped from the alders; the willowy +water-courses gave a musical utterance, and the long grass whispered on +the hill-side. On entering the deeper defiles, above them towered dark +green masses of pine, and occasionally the _madroño_ shook its bright +scarlet berries. As they toiled up many a steep ascent, Father José +sometimes picked up fragments of scoria, which spake to his imagination +of direful volcanoes and impending earthquakes. To the less scientific +mind of the muleteer Ignacio they had even a more terrifying +significance; and he once or twice snuffed the air suspiciously, and +declared that it smelt of sulphur. So the first day of their journey +wore away, and at night they encamped without having met a single +heathen face. + +It was on this night that the Enemy of Souls appeared to Ignacio in an +appalling form. He had retired to a secluded part of the camp, and had +sunk upon his knees in prayerful meditation, when he looked up and +perceived the Arch-Fiend in the likeness of a monstrous bear. The Evil +One was seated on his hind legs immediately before him, with his fore +paws joined together just below his black muzzle. Wisely conceiving this +remarkable attitude to be in mockery and derision of his devotions, the +worthy muleteer was transported with fury. Seizing an arquebuse, he +instantly closed his eyes and fired. When he had recovered from the +effects of the terrible discharge, the apparition had disappeared. +Father José, awakened by the report, reached the spot only in time to +chide the muleteer for wasting powder and ball in a contest with one +whom a single _ave_ would have been sufficient to utterly discomfit. +What further reliance he placed on Ignacio's story is not known; but, in +commemoration of a worthy Californian custom, the place was called _La +Cañada de la Tentacion del Pio Muletero_, or "The Glen of the Temptation +of the Pious Muleteer," a name which it retains to this day. + +The next morning, the party, issuing from a narrow gorge, came upon a +long valley, sear and burnt with the shadeless heat. Its lower extremity +was lost in a fading line of low hills, which, gathering might and +volume toward the upper end of the valley, upheaved a stupendous bulwark +against the breezy North. The peak of this awful spur was just touched +by a fleecy cloud that shifted to and fro like a banneret. Father José +gazed with mingled awe and admiration. By a singular coincidence, the +muleteer Ignacio uttered the simple ejaculation, "_Diablo_!" + +As they penetrated the valley, they soon began to miss the agreeable +life and companionable echoes of the _cañon_ they had quitted. Huge +fissures in the parched soil seemed to gape as with thirsty mouths. A +few squirrels darted from the earth, and disappeared as mysteriously +before the jingling mules. A gray wolf trotted leisurely along just +ahead. But whichever way Father José turned, the mountain always +asserted itself and arrested his wandering eye. Out of the dry and arid +valley, it seemed to spring into cooler and bracing life. Deep cavernous +shadows dwelt along its base; rocky fastnesses appeared midway of its +elevation; and on either side huge black hills diverged like massy roots +from a central trunk. His lively fancy pictured these hills peopled with +a majestic and intelligent race of savages; and looking into futurity, +he already saw a monstrous cross crowning the dome-like summit. Far +different were the sensations of the muleteer, who saw in those awful +solitudes only fiery dragons, colossal bears, and break-neck trails. The +converts, Concepcion and Incarnation, trotting modestly beside the +Padre, recognized, perhaps, some manifestation of their former weird +mythology. + +At nightfall they reached the base of the mountain. Here Father José +unpacked his mules, said vespers, and, formally ringing his bell, called +upon the Gentiles within hearing to come and accept the Holy Faith. The +echoes of the black frowning hills around him caught up the pious +invitation, and repeated it at intervals; but no Gentiles appeared that +night. Nor were the devotions of the muleteer again disturbed, although +he afterward asserted, that, when the Father's exhortation was ended, a +mocking peal of laughter came from the mountain. Nothing daunted by +these intimations of the near hostility of the Evil One, Father José +declared his intention to ascend the mountain at early dawn; and before +the sun rose the next morning he was leading the way. + +The ascent was in many places difficult and dangerous. Huge fragments of +rock often lay across the trail, and after a few hours' climbing they +were forced to leave their mules in a little gully, and continue the +ascent afoot. Unaccustomed to such exertion, Father José often stopped +to wipe the perspiration from his thin cheeks. As the day wore on, a +strange silence oppressed them. Except the occasional pattering of a +squirrel, or a rustling in the _chimisal_ bushes, there were no signs of +life. The half-human print of a bear's foot sometimes appeared before +them, at which Ignacio always crossed himself piously. The eye was +sometimes cheated by a dripping from the rocks, which on closer +inspection proved to be a resinous oily liquid with an abominable +sulphurous smell. When they were within a short distance of the summit, +the discreet Ignacio, selecting a sheltered nook for the camp, slipped +aside and busied himself in preparations for the evening, leaving the +Holy Father to continue the ascent alone. Never was there a more +thoughtless act of prudence, never a more imprudent piece of caution. +Without noticing the desertion, buried in pious reflection, Father José +pushed mechanically on, and, reaching the summit, cast himself down and +gazed upon the prospect. + +Below him lay a succession of valleys opening into each other like +gentle lakes, until they were lost to the southward. Westerly the +distant range hid the bosky _cañada_ which sheltered the Mission of San +Pablo. In the farther distance the Pacific Ocean stretched away, bearing +a cloud of fog upon its bosom, which crept through the entrance of the +bay, and rolled thickly between him and the North. Eastward, the same +fog hid the base of the mountain and the view beyond. Still, from time +to time the fleecy veil parted, and timidly disclosed charming glimpses +of mighty rivers, mountain-defiles, and rolling plains, sear with +ripened oats, and bathed in the glow of the setting sun. As Father José +gazed, he was penetrated with a pious longing. Already his imagination, +filled with enthusiastic conceptions, beheld all that vast expanse +gathered under the mild sway of the Holy Faith, and peopled with zealous +converts. Each little knoll in fancy became crowned with a chapel; from +each dark _cañon_ gleamed the white walls of a Mission building. Growing +bolder in his enthusiasm, and looking farther into futurity, he beheld a +new Spain rising on these savage shores. He already saw the spires of +stately cathedrals, the domes of palaces, vineyards, gardens, and +groves. Convents, half-hid among the hills, peeped from plantation of +branching limes; and long processions of chanting nuns wound through the +defiles. So completely was the good Father's conception of the future +confounded with the past, that even in their choral strain the +well-remembered accents of Cármen struck his ear. He was busied in these +fanciful imaginings, when suddenly over that extended prospect the +faint, distant tolling of a bell rang sadly out and died. It was the +_Angelus_. Father José listened with superstitious exaltation. The +Mission of San Pablo was far away, and the sound must have been some +miraculous omen. But never before, to his enthusiastic sense, did the +sweet seriousness of this angelic symbol come with such strange +significance. With the last faint peal, his glowing fancy seemed to +cool; the fog closed in below him, and the good Father remembered he had +not had his supper. He had risen and was wrapping his _serapa_ around +him, when he perceived for the first time that he was not alone. + +Nearly opposite, and where should have been the faithless Ignacio, a +grave and decorous figure was seated. His appearance was that of an +elderly _hidalgo_, dressed in mourning, with moustaches of iron-gray +carefully waxed and twisted around a pair of lantern-jaws. The monstrous +hat and prodigious feather, the enormous ruff and exaggerated +trunk-hose, contrasting with a frame shrivelled and wizened, all +belonged to a century previous. Yet Father José was not astonished. His +adventurous life and poetic imagination, continually on the look-out for +the marvellous, gave him a certain advantage over the practical and +material minded. He instantly detected the diabolical quality of his +visitant, and was prepared. With equal coolness and courtesy he met the +cavalier's obeisance. + +"I ask your pardon, Sir Priest," said the stranger, "for disturbing your +meditations. Pleasant they must have been, and right fanciful, I +imagine, when occasioned by so fair a prospect." + +"Worldly, perhaps, Sir Devil,--for such I take you to be," said the Holy +Father, as the stranger bowed his black plumes to the ground; "worldly, +perhaps; for it hath pleased Heaven to retain even in our regenerated +state much that pertaineth to the flesh, yet still, I trust, not without +some speculation for the welfare of the Holy Church. In dwelling upon +yon fair expanse, mine eyes have been graciously opened with prophetic +inspiration, and the promise of the heathen as an inheritance hath +marvellously recurred to me. For there can be none lack such diligence +in the True Faith, but may see that even the conversion of these pitiful +salvages hath a meaning. As the blessed St. Ignatius discreetly +observes," continued Father José, clearing his throat and slightly +elevating his voice, "'the heathen is given to the warriors of Christ, +even as the pearls of rare discovery which gladden the hearts of +shipmen.' Nay, I might say"-- + +But here the stranger, who had been wrinkling his brows and twisting his +moustaches with well-bred patience, took advantage of an oratorical +pause to observe,-- + +"It grieves me, Sir Priest, to interrupt the current of your eloquence +as discourteously as I have already broken your meditations; but the +day already waneth to night. I have matter of serious import to make +with you, could I entreat your cautious consideration a few moments." + +Father José hesitated. The temptation was great, and the prospect of +acquiring some knowledge of the Great Enemy's plans not the least +trifling object. And if the truth must be told, there was a certain +decorum about the stranger that interested the Padre. Though well aware +of the Protean shapes the Arch-Fiend could assume, and though free from +the weaknesses of the flesh, Father José was not above the temptations +of the spirit. Had the Devil appeared, as in the case of the pious St. +Anthony, in the likeness of a comely damsel, the good Father, with his +certain experience of the deceitful sex, would have whisked her away in +the saying of a paternoster. But there was, added to the security of +age, a grave sadness about the stranger,--a thoughtful consciousness as +of being at a great moral disadvantage,--which at once decided him on a +magnanimous course of conduct. + +The stranger then proceeded to inform him, that he had been diligently +observing the Holy Father's triumphs in the valley. That, far from being +greatly exercised thereat, he had been only grieved to see so +enthusiastic and chivalrous an antagonist wasting his zeal in a hopeless +work. For, he observed, the issue of the great battle of Good and Evil +had been otherwise settled, as he would presently show him. "It wants +but a few moments of night," he continued, "and over this interval of +twilight, as you know, I have been given complete control. Look to the +West." + +As the Padre turned, the stranger took his enormous hat from his head, +and waved it three times before him. At each sweep of the prodigious +feather, the fog grew thinner, until it melted impalpably away, and the +former landscape returned, yet warm with the glowing sun. As Father José +gazed, a strain of martial music arose from the valley, and, issuing +from a deep _cañon_, the good Father beheld a long cavalcade of gallant +cavaliers, habited like his companion. As they swept down the plain, +they were joined by like processions, that slowly defiled from every +ravine and _cañon_ of the mysterious mountain. From time to time the +peal of a trumpet swelled fitfully upon the breeze; the cross of +Santiago glittered, and the royal banners of Castile and Aragon waved +over the moving column. So they moved on solemnly toward the sea, where, +in the distance, Father José saw stately caravels, bearing the same +familiar banner, awaiting them. The good Padre gazed with conflicting +emotions, and the serious voice of the stranger broke the silence. + +"Thou hast beheld, Sir Priest, the fading footprints of adventurous +Castile. Thou hast seen the declining glory of old Spain,--declining as +yonder brilliant sun. The sceptre she hath wrested from the heathen is +fast dropping from her decrepit and fleshless grasp. The children she +hath fostered shall know her no longer. The soil she hath acquired shall +be lost to her as irrevocably as she herself hath thrust the Moor from +her own Granada." + +The stranger paused, and his voice seemed broken by emotion; at the same +time, Father José, whose sympathising heart yearned toward the departing +banners, cried, in poignant accents,-- + +"Farewell, ye gallant cavaliers and Christian soldiers! Farewell, thou, +Nuñez de Balboa! thou, Alonzo de Ojeda! and thou, most venerable Las +Casas! Farewell, and may Heaven prosper still the seed ye left behind!" + +Then turning to the stranger, Father José beheld him gravely draw his +pocket-handkerchief from the basket-hilt of his rapier, and apply it +decorously to his eyes. + +"Pardon this weakness, Sir Priest," said the cavalier, apologetically; +"but these worthy gentlemen were ancient friends of mine, and have done +me many a delicate service,--much more, perchance, than these poor +sables may signify," he added, with a grim gesture toward the mourning +suit he wore. + +Father José was too much preoccupied in reflection to notice the +equivocal nature of this tribute, and, after a few moments' silence, +said, as if continuing his thought,-- + +"But the seed they have planted shall thrive and prosper on this +fruitful soil?" + +As if answering the interrogatory, the stranger turned to the opposite +direction, and, again waving his hat, said, in the same serious tone,-- + +"Look to the East!" + +The Father turned, and, as the fog broke away before the waving plume, +he saw that the sun was rising. Issuing with its bright beams through +the passes of the snowy mountains beyond, appeared a strange and motley +crew. Instead of the dark and romantic visages of his last phantom +train, the Father beheld with strange concern the blue eyes and flaxen +hair of a Saxon race. In place of martial airs and musical utterance, +there rose upon the ear a strange din of harsh gutturals and singular +sibilation. Instead of the decorous tread and stately mien of the +cavaliers of the former vision, they came pushing, bustling, panting, +and swaggering. And as they passed, the good Father noticed that giant +trees were prostrated as with the breath of a tornado, and the bowels of +the earth were torn and rent as with a convulsion. And Father José +looked in vain for holy cross or Christian symbol; there was but one +that seemed an ensign, and he crossed himself with holy horror as he +perceived it bore the effigy of a bear! + +"Who are these swaggering Ishmaelites?" he asked, with something of +asperity in his tone. + +The stranger was gravely silent. + +"What do they here, with neither cross nor holy symbol?" he again +demanded. + +"Have you the courage to see, Sir Priest?" responded the stranger, +quietly. + +Father José felt his crucifix, as a lonely traveller might his rapier, +and assented. + +"Step under the shadow of my plume," said the stranger. + +Father José stepped beside him, and they instantly sank through the +earth. + +When he opened his eyes, which had remained closed in prayerful +meditation during his rapid descent, he found himself in a vast vault, +bespangled overhead with luminous points like the starred firmament. It +was also lighted by a yellow glow that seemed to proceed from a mighty +sea or lake that occupied the centre of the chamber. Around this +subterranean sea dusky figures flitted, bearing ladles filled with the +yellow fluid, which they had replenished from its depths. From this lake +diverging streams of the same mysterious flood penetrated like mighty +rivers the cavernous distance. As they walked by the banks of this +glittering Styx, Father José perceived how the liquid stream at certain +places became solid. The ground was strewn with glittering flakes. One +of these the Padre picked up and curiously examined. It was virgin gold. + +An expression of discomfiture overcast the good Father's face at this +discovery; but there was trace neither of malice nor satisfaction in the +stranger's air, which was still of serious and fateful contemplation. +When Father José recovered his equanimity, he said, bitterly,-- + +"This, then, Sir Devil, is your work! This is your deceitful lure for +the weak souls of sinful nations! So would you replace the Christian +grace of holy Spain!" + +"This is what must be," returned the stranger, gloomily. "But listen, +Sir Priest. It lies with you to avert the issue for a time. Leave me +here in peace. Go back to Castile, and take with you your bells, your +images, and your missions. Continue here, and you only precipitate +results. Stay! promise me you will do this, and you shall not lack that +which will render your old age an ornament and blessing"; and the +stranger motioned significantly to the lake. + +It was here, the legend discreetly relates, that the Devil showed--as he +always shows sooner or later--his cloven hoof. The worthy Padre, sorely +perplexed by his threefold vision, and, if the truth must be told, a +little nettled at this wresting away of the glory of holy Spanish +discovery, had shown some hesitation. But the unlucky bribe of the Enemy +of Souls touched his Castilian spirit. Starting back in deep disgust, he +brandished his crucifix in the face of the unmasked Fiend, and, in a +voice that made the dusky vault resound, cried,-- + +"Avaunt thee, Sathanas! Diabolus, I defy thee! What! wouldst thou bribe +me,--me, a brother of the Sacred Society of the Holy Jesus, Licentiate +of Cordova and Inquisitor of Guadalaxara? Thinkest thou to buy me with +thy sordid treasure? Avaunt!" + +What might have been the issue of this rupture, and how complete might +have been the triumph of the Holy Father over the Arch-Fiend, who was +recoiling aghast at these sacred titles and the flourishing symbol, we +can never know, for at that moment the crucifix slipped through his +fingers. + +Scarcely had it touched the ground before Devil and Holy Father +simultaneously cast themselves toward it. In the struggle they clenched, +and the pious José, who was as much the superior of his antagonist in +bodily as in spiritual strength, was about to treat the Great Adversary +to a back somersault, when he suddenly felt the long nails of the +stranger piercing his flesh. A new fear seized his heart, a numbing +chillness crept through his body, and he struggled to free himself, but +in vain. A strange roaring was in his ears; the late and cavern danced +before his eyes and vanished; and with a loud cry he sank senseless to +the ground. + + * * * * * + +When he recovered his consciousness he was aware of a gentle swaying +motion of his body. He opened his eyes, and saw that it was high noon, +and that he was being carried in a litter through the valley. He felt +stiff, and, looking down, perceived that his arm was tightly bandaged to +his side. + +He closed his eyes, and, after a few words of thankful prayer, thought +how miraculously he had been preserved, and made a vow of candlesticks +to the blessed Saint José. He then called in a faint voice, and +presently the penitent Ignacio stood beside him. + +The joy the poor fellow felt at his patron's returning consciousness for +some time choked his utterance. He could only ejaculate, "A miracle! +Blessed Saint José, he lives!" and kiss the Padre's bandaged hand. +Father José, more intent on his last night's experience, waited for his +emotion to subside, and then asked where he had been found. + +"On the mountain, your Reverence, but a few _varas_ from where he +attacked you." + +"How?--you saw him, then?" asked the Padre, in unfeigned astonishment. + +"Saw him, your Reverence! Mother of God, I should think I did! And your +Reverence shall see him too, if he ever comes again within range of +Ignacio's arquebuse." + +"What mean you, Ignacio?" said the Padre, sitting bolt-upright in his +litter. + +"Why, the bear, your Reverence,--the bear, Holy Father, who attacked +your worshipful person while you were meditating on the top of yonder +mountain." + +"Ah!" said the Holy Father, lying down again. "Chut, child! I would be +at peace." + +When he reached the Mission, he was tenderly cared for, and in a few +weeks was enabled to resume those duties from which, as will be seen, +not even the machinations of the Evil One could divert him. The news of +his physical disaster spread over the country; and a letter to the +Bishop of Guadalaxara contained a confidential and detailed account of +the good Father's spiritual temptation. But in some way the story +leaked out; and long after José was gathered to his fathers, his +mysterious encounter formed the theme of thrilling and whispered +narrative. The mountain was generally shunned. It is true that Señor +Joaquin Pedrillo afterward located a grant near the base of the +mountain; but as the Señora Pedrillo was known to be a termagant, +half-breed, the Señor was not supposed to be over-fastidious. + + * * * * * + +Such is the Legend of Monte del Diablo. As I said before, it may seem to +lack essential corroboration. The discrepancy between the Father's +narrative and the actual climax has given rise to some skepticism on the +part of ingenious quibblers. All such I would simply refer to that part +of the report of Señor Julio Serro, Sub-Prefect of San Pablo, before +whom attest of the above was made. Touching this matter the worthy +Prefect observes,--"That although the body of Father José doth show +evidence of grievous conflict in the flesh, yet that is no proof that +the Enemy of Souls, who could assume the figure of a decorous, elderly +_caballero_, could not at the same time transform himself into a bear +for his own vile purposes." + + * * * * * + +LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE. + + +At a lyceum, not long since, I felt that the lecturer had chosen a theme +too foreign to himself, and so failed to interest me as much as he might +have done. He described things not in or near to his heart, but toward +his extremities and superficies. There was, in this sense, no truly +central or centralizing thought in the lecture. I would have had him +deal with his privatest experience, as the poet does. The greatest +compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what _I thought_, +and attended to my answer. I am surprised, as well as delighted, when +this happens, it is such a rare use he would make of me, as if he were +acquainted with the tool. Commonly, if men want anything of me, it is +only to know how many acres I make of their land,--since I am a +surveyor,--or, at most, what trivial news I have burdened myself with. +They never will go to law for my meat; they prefer the shell. A man once +came a considerable distance to ask me to lecture on Slavery; but on +conversing with him, I found that he and his clique expected +seven-eighths of the lecture to be theirs, and only one-eighth mine; so +I declined. I take it for granted, when I am invited to lecture +anywhere,--for I have had a little experience in that business,--that +there is a desire to hear what _I think_ on some subject, though I may +be the greatest fool in the country,--and not that I should say pleasant +things merely, or such as the audience will assent to; and I resolve, +accordingly, that I will give them a strong dose of myself. They have +sent for me, and engaged to pay for me, and I am determined that they +shall have me, though I bore them beyond all precedent. + +So now I would say something similar to you, my readers. Since _you_ are +my readers, and I have, not been much of a traveller, I will not talk +about people a thousand miles off, but come as near home as I can. As +the time is short, I will leave out all the flattery, and retain all the +criticism. + +Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives. + +This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am awaked +almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It interrupts my +dreams. There is no sabbath. It would be glorious to see mankind at +leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work. I cannot easily +buy a blank-book to write thoughts in; they are commonly ruled for +dollars and cents. An Irishman, seeing me making a minute in the fields, +took it for granted that I was calculating my wages. If a man was tossed +out of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for life, or +scared out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly because +he was thus incapacitated for--business! I think that there is nothing, +not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life +itself, than this incessant business. + +There is a coarse and boisterous money-making fellow in the outskirts of +our town, who is going to build a bank-wall under the hill along the +edge of his meadow. The powers have put this into his head to keep him +out of mischief, and he wishes me to spend three weeks digging there +with him. The result will be that he will perhaps get some more money to +hoard, and leave for his heirs to spend foolishly. If I do this, most +will commend me as an industrious and hard-working man; but if I choose +to devote myself to certain labors which yield more real profit, though +but little money, they may be inclined to look on me as an idler. +Nevertheless, as I do not need the police of meaningless labor to +regulate me, and do not see anything absolutely praise-worthy in this +fellow's undertaking, any more than in many an enterprise of our own or +foreign governments, however amusing it may be to him or them, I prefer +to finish my education at a different school. + +If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in +danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as +a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her +time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a +town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down! + +Most men would feel insulted, if it were proposed to employ them in +throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that +they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now. +For instance: just after sunrise, one summer morning, I noticed one of +my neighbors walking beside his team, which was slowly drawing a heavy +hewn stone swung under the axle, surrounded by an atmosphere of +industry,--his day's work begun,--his brow commenced to sweat,--a +reproach to all sluggards and idlers,--pausing abreast the shoulders of +his oxen, and half turning round with a flourish of his merciful whip, +while they gained their length on him. And I thought, Such is the labor +which the American Congress exists to protect,--honest, manly +toil,--honest as the day is long,--that makes his bread taste sweet, and +keeps society sweet,--which all men respect and have consecrated: one of +the sacred band, doing the needful, but irksome drudgery. Indeed, I felt +a slight reproach, because I observed this from the window, and was not +abroad and stirring about a similar business. The day went by, and at +evening I passed the yard of another neighbor, who keeps many servants, +and spends much money foolishly, while he adds nothing to the common +stock, and there I saw the stone of the morning lying beside a whimsical +structure intended to adorn this Lord Timothy Dexter's premises, and the +dignity forthwith departed from the teamster's labor, in my eyes. In my +opinion, the sun was made to light worthier toil than this. I may add, +that his employer has since run off, in debt to a good part of the town, +and, after passing through Chancery, has settled somewhere else, there +to become once more a patron of the arts. + +The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead +downward. To have done anything by which you earned money _merely_ is to +have been truly idle or worse. If the laborer gets no more than the +wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself. If +you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which +is to go down perpendicularly. Those services which the community will +most readily pay for it is most disagreeable to render. You are paid for +being something less than a man. The State does not commonly reward a +genius any more wisely. Even the poet-laureate would rather not have to +celebrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe of +wine; and perhaps another poet is called away from his muse to gauge +that very pipe. As for my own business, even that kind of surveying +which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want. They +would prefer that I should do my work coarsely and not too well, ay, not +well enough. When I observe that there are different ways of surveying, +my employer commonly asks which will give him the most land, not which +is most correct. I once invented a rule for measuring cord-wood, and +tried to introduce it in Boston; but the measurer there told me that the +sellers did not wish to have their wood measured correctly,--that he was +already too accurate for them, and therefore they commonly got their +wood measured in Charlestown before crossing the bridge. + +The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get "a good +job," but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary +sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that +they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a +livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a +man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it. + +It is remarkable that there are few men so well employed, so much to +their minds, but that a little money or fame would commonly buy them off +from their present pursuit. I see advertisements for _active_ young men; +as if activity were the whole of a young man's capital. Yet I have been +surprised when one has with confidence proposed to me, a grown man, to +embark in some enterprise of his, as if I had absolutely nothing to do, +my life having been a complete failure hitherto. What a doubtful +compliment this is to pay me! As if he had met me half-way across the +ocean beating up against the wind, but bound nowhere, and proposed to me +to go along with him! If I did, what do you think the underwriters would +say? No, no! I am not without employment at this stage of the voyage. To +tell the truth, I saw an advertisement for able-bodied seamen, when I +was a boy, sauntering in my native port, and as soon as I came of age I +embarked. + +The community has no bribe that wilt tempt a wise man. You may raise +money enough to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to +hire a man who is minding _his own_ business. An efficient and valuable +man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The +inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are +forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they +were rarely disappointed. + +Perhaps I am more than usually jealous with respect to my freedom. I +feel that my connection with and obligation to society are still very +slight and transient. Those slight labors which afford me a livelihood, +and by which it is allowed that I am to some extent serviceable to my +contemporaries, are as yet commonly a pleasure to me, and I am not often +reminded that they are a necessity. So far I am successful. But I +foresee, that, if my wants should be much increased, the labor required +to supply them would become a drudgery. If I should sell both my +forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure, +that, for me, there would be nothing left worth living for. I trust that +I shall never thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage. I wish to +suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time +well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater +part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are +self-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his +poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it +makes. You must get your living by loving. But as it is said of the +merchants that ninety-seven in a hundred fail, so the life of men +generally, tried by this standard, is a failure, and bankruptcy may be +surely prophesied. + +Merely to come into the world the heir of a fortune is not to be born, +but to be still-born, rather. To be supported by the charity of friends, +or a government-pension,--provided you continue to breathe,--by whatever +fine synonymes you describe these relations, is to go into the +almshouse. On Sundays the poor debtor goes to church to take an account +of stock, and finds, of course, that his outgoes have been greater than +his income. In the Catholic Church, especially, they go into Chancery, +make a clean confession, give up all, and think to start again. Thus men +will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make +an effort to get up. + +As for the comparative demand which men make on life, it is an important +difference between two, that the one is satisfied with a level success, +that his marks can all be hit by point-blank shots, but the other, +however low and unsuccessful his life may be, constantly elevates his +aim, though at a very slight angle to the horizon. I should much rather +be the last man,--though, as the Orientals say, "Greatness doth not +approach him who is forever looking down; and all those who are looking +high are growing poor." + +It is remarkable that there is little or nothing to be remembered +written on the subject of getting a living: how to make getting a living +not merely honest and honorable, but altogether inviting and glorious; +for if _getting_ a living is not so, then living is not. One would +think, from looking at literature, that this question had never +disturbed a solitary individual's musings. Is it that men are too much +disgusted with their experience to speak of it? The lesson of value +which money teaches, which the Author of the Universe has taken so much +pains to teach us, we are inclined to skip altogether. As for the means +of living, it is wonderful how indifferent men of all classes are about +it, even reformers, so called,--whether they inherit, or earn, or steal +it. I think that society has done nothing for us in this respect, or at +least has undone what she has done. Cold and hunger seem more friendly +to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to +ward them off. + +The title _wise_ is, for the most part, falsely applied. How can one be +a wise man, if he does not know any better how to live than other +men?--if he is only more cunning and intellectually subtle? Does Wisdom +work in a tread-mill? or does she teach how to succeed _by her example_? +Is there any such thing as wisdom not applied to life? Is she merely the +miller who grinds the finest logic? It is pertinent to ask if Plato got +his _living_ in a better way or more successfully than his +contemporaries,--or did he succumb to the difficulties of life like +other men? Did he seem to prevail over some of them merely by +indifference, or by assuming grand airs? or find it easier to live, +because his aunt remembered him in her will? The ways in which most men +get their living, that is, live, are mere make-shifts, and a shirking of +the real business of life,--chiefly because they do not know, but partly +because they do not mean, any better. + +The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely of +merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to +it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to +live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others +less lucky, without contributing any value to society! And that is +called enterprise! I know of no more startling development of the +immorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a living. The +philosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are not worth the +dust of a puff-ball. The hog that gets his living by rooting, stirring +up the soil so, would be ashamed of such company. If I could command the +wealth of all the worlds by lifting my finger, I would not pay _such_ a +price for it. Even Mahomet knew that God did not make this world in +jest. It makes God to be a moneyed gentleman who scatters a handful of +pennies in order to see mankind scramble for them. The world's raffle! A +subsistence in the domains of Nature a thing to be raffled for! What a +comment, what a satire on our institutions! The conclusion will be, that +mankind will hang itself upon a tree. And have all the precepts in all +the Bibles taught men only this? and is the last and most admirable +invention of the human race only an improved muck-rake? Is this the +ground on which Orientals and Occidentals meet? Did God direct us so to +get our living, digging where we never planted,--and He would, +perchance, reward us with lumps of gold? + +God gave the righteous man a certificate entitling him to food and +raiment, but the unrighteous man found a _facsimile_ of the same in +God's coffers, and appropriated it, and obtained food and raiment like +the former. It is one of the most extensive systems of counterfeiting +that the world has seen. I did not know that mankind were suffering for +want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very +malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a +great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom. + +The gold-digger in the ravines of the mountains is as much a gambler as +his fellow in the saloons of San Francisco. What difference does it +make, whether you shake dirt or shake dice? If you win, society is the +loser. The gold-digger is the enemy of the honest laborer, whatever +checks and compensations there may be. It is not enough to tell me that +you worked hard to get your gold. So does the Devil work hard. The way +of transgressors may be hard in many respects. The humblest observer who +goes to the mines sees and says that gold-digging is of the character of +a lottery; the gold thus obtained is not the same thing with the wages +of honest toil. But, practically, he forgets what he has seen, for he +has seen only the fact, not the principle, and goes into trade there, +that is, buys a ticket in what commonly proves another lottery, where +the fact is not so obvious. + +After reading Hewitt's account of the Australian gold-diggings one +evening, I had in my mind's eye, all night, the numerous valleys, with +their streams, all cut up with foul pits, from ten to one hundred feet +deep, and half a dozen feet across, as close as they can be dug, and +partly filled with water,--the locality to which men furiously rush to +probe for their fortunes,--uncertain where they shall break ground,--not +knowing but the gold is under their camp itself,--sometimes digging one +hundred and sixty feet before they strike the vein, or then missing it +by a foot,--turned into demons, and regardless of each other's rights, +in their thirst for riches,--whole valleys, for thirty miles, suddenly +honey-combed by the pits of the miners, so that even hundreds are +drowned in them,--standing in water, and covered with mud and clay, they +work night and day, dying of exposure and disease. Having read this, and +partly forgotten it, I was thinking, accidentally, of my own +unsatisfactory life, doing as others do; and with that vision of the +diggings still before me, I asked myself, why _I_ might not be washing +some gold daily, though it were only the finest particles,--why _I_ +might not sink a shaft down to the gold within me, and work that mine. +_There_ is a Ballarat, a Bendigo for you,--what though it were a +sulky-gully? At any rate, I might pursue some path, however solitary and +narrow and crooked, in which I could walk with love and reverence. +Wherever a man separates from the multitude, and goes his own way in +this mood, there indeed is a fork in the road, though ordinary +travellers may see only a gap in the paling. His solitary path +across-lots will turn out the _higher way_ of the two. + +Men rush to California and Australia as if the true gold were to be +found in that direction; but that is to go to the very opposite extreme +to where it lies. They go prospecting farther and farther away from the +true lead, and are most unfortunate when they think themselves most +successful. Is not our _native_ soil auriferous? Does not a stream from +the golden mountains flow through our native valley? and has not this +for more than geologic ages been bringing down the shining particles and +forming the nuggets for us? Yet, strange to tell, if a digger steal +away, prospecting for this true gold, into the unexplored solitudes +around us, there is no danger that any will dog his steps, and endeavor +to supplant him. He may claim and undermine the whole valley even, both +the cultivated and the uncultivated portions, his whole life long in +peace, for no one will ever dispute his claim. They will not mind his +cradles or his toms. He is not confined to a claim twelve feet square, +as at Ballarat, but may mine anywhere, and wash the whole wide world in +his tom. + +Howitt says of the man who found the great nugget which weighed +twenty-eight pounds, at the Bendigo diggings in Australia:--"He soon +began to drink; got a horse, and rode all about, generally at full +gallop, and, when he met people, called out to inquire if they knew who +he was, and then kindly informed them that he was 'the bloody wretch +that had found the nugget.' At last he rode full speed against a tree, +and nearly knocked his brains out." I think, however, there was no +danger of that, for he had already knocked his brains out against the +nugget. Howitt adds, "He is a hopelessly ruined man." But he is a type +of the class. They are all fast men. Hear some of the names of the +places where they dig:--"Jackass Flat,"--"Sheep's-Head +Gully,"--"Murderer's Bar," etc. Is there no satire in these names? Let +them carry their ill-gotten wealth where they will, I am thinking it +will still be "Jackass Flat," if not "Murderer's Bar," where they live. + +The last resource of our energy has been the robbing of graveyards on +the Isthmus of Darien, an enterprise which appears to be but in its +infancy; for, according to late accounts, an act has passed its second +reading in the legislature of New Granada, regulating this kind of +mining; and a correspondent of the "Tribune" writes:--"In the dry +season, when the weather will permit of the country being properly +prospected, no doubt other rich '_guacas_' [that is, graveyards] will be +found." To emigrants he says:--"Do not come before December; take the +Isthmus route in preference to the Boca del Toro one; bring no useless +baggage, and do not cumber yourself with a tent; but a good pair of +blankets will be necessary; a pick, shovel, and axe of good material +will be almost all that is required": advice which might have been taken +from the "Burker's Guide." And he concludes with this line in Italics +and small capitals: "_If you are doing well at home_, STAY THERE," which +may fairly be interpreted to mean, "If you are getting a good living by +robbing graveyards at home, stay there." + +But why go to California for a text? She is the child of New England, +bred at her own school and church. + +It is remarkable that among all the preachers there are so few moral +teachers. The prophets are employed in excusing the ways of men. Most +reverend seniors, the _illuminati_ of the age, tell me, with a gracious, +reminiscent smile, betwixt an aspiration and a shudder, not to be too +tender about these things,--to lump all that, that is, make a lump of +gold of it. The highest advice I have heard on these subjects was +grovelling. The burden of it was,--It is not worth your while to +undertake to reform the world in this particular. Do not ask how your +bread is buttered; it will make you sick, if you do,--and the like. A +man had better starve at once than lose his innocence in the process of +getting his bread. If within the sophisticated man there is not an +unsophisticated one, then he is but one of the Devil's angels. As we +grow old, we live more coarsely, we relax a little in our disciplines, +and, to some extent, cease to obey our finest instincts. But we should +be fastidious to the extreme of sanity, disregarding the gibes of those +who are more unfortunate than ourselves. + +In our science and philosophy, even, there is commonly no true and +absolute account of things. The spirit of sect and bigotry has planted +its hoof amid the stars. You have only to discuss the problem, whether +the stars are inhabited or not, in order to discover it. Why must we +daub the heavens as well as the earth? It was an unfortunate discovery +that Dr. Kane was a Mason, and that Sir John Franklin was another. But +it was a more cruel suggestion that possibly that was the reason why the +former went in search of the latter. There is not a popular magazine in +this country that would dare to print a child's thought on important +subjects without comment. It must be submitted to the D.D.s. I would it +were the chickadee-dees. + +You come from attending the funeral of mankind to attend to a natural +phenomenon. A little thought is sexton to all the world. + +I hardly know an _intellectual_ man, even, who is so broad and truly +liberal that you can think aloud in his society. Most with whom you +endeavor to talk soon come to a stand against some institution in which +they appear to hold stock,--that is, some particular, not universal, way +of viewing things. They will continually thrust their own low roof, with +its narrow skylight, between you and the sky, when it is the +unobstructed heavens you would view. Get out of the way with your +cobwebs, wash your windows, I say! In some lyceums they tell me that +they have voted to exclude the subject of religion. But how do I know +what their religion is, and when I am near to or far from it? I have +walked into such an arena and done my best to make a clean breast of +what religion I have experienced, and the audience never suspected what +I was about. The lecture was as harmless as moonshine to them. Whereas, +if I had read to them the biography of the greatest scamps in history, +they might have thought that I had written the lives of the deacons of +their church. Ordinarily, the inquiry is, Where did you come from? or, +Where are you going? That was a more pertinent question which I +overheard one of my auditors put to another once.--"What does he lecture +for?" It made me quake in my shoes. + +To speak impartially, the best men that I know are not serene, a world +in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, and flatter and +study effect only more finely than the rest. We select granite for the +underpinning of our houses and barns; we build fences of stone; but we +do not ourselves rest on an underpinning of granitic truth, the lowest +primitive rock. Our sills are rotten. What stuff is the man made of who +is not coexistent in our thought with the purest and subtilest truth? I +often accuse my finest acquaintances of an immense frivolity; for, while +there are manners and compliments we do not meet, we do not teach one +another the lessons of honesty and sincerity that the brutes do, or of +steadiness and solidity that the rocks do. The fault is commonly mutual, +however; for we do not habitually demand any more of each other. + +That excitement about Kossuth, consider how characteristic, but +superficial, it was!--only another kind of politics or dancing. Men were +making speeches to him all over the country, but each expressed only the +thought, or the want of thought, of the multitude. No man stood on +truth. They were merely banded together, as usual, one leaning on +another, and all together on nothing; as the Hindoos made the world rest +on an elephant, the elephant on a tortoise, and the tortoise on a +serpent, and had nothing to put under the serpent. For all fruit of that +stir we have the Kossuth hat. + +Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary +conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward +and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a +man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or +been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference +between us and our fellow is, that he has seen the newspaper, or been +out to tea, and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails, we +go more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend on +it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of +letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from +himself this long while. + +I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have +tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt +in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so +much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day's +devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day. + +We may well be ashamed to tell what things we have read or heard in our +day. I do not know why my news should be so trivial,--considering what +one's dreams and expectations are, why the developments should be so +paltry. The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius. +It is the stalest repetition. You are often tempted to ask, why such +stress is laid on a particular experience which you have had,--that, +after twenty-five years, you should meet Hobbins Registrar of Deeds, +again on the sidewalk. Have you not budged an inch, then? Such is the +daily news. Its facts appear to float in the atmosphere, insignificant +as the sporules of fungi, and impinge on some neglected _thallus_, or +surface of our minds, which affords a basis for them, and hence a +parasitic growth. We should wash ourselves clean of such news. Of what +consequence, though our planet explode, if there is no character +involved in the explosion? In health we have not the least curiosity +about such events. We do not live for idle amusement. I would not run +round a corner to see the world blow up. + +All summer, and far into the autumn, perchance, you unconsciously went +by the newspapers and the news, and now you find it was because the +morning and the evening were full of news to you. Your walks were full +of incidents. You attended, not to the affairs of Europe, but to your +own affairs in Massachusetts fields. If you chance to live and move and +have your being in that thin stratum in which the events that make the +news transpire,--thinner than the paper on which it is printed,--then +these things will fill the world for you; but if you soar above or dive +below that plane, you cannot remember nor be reminded of them. Really to +see the sun rise or go down every day, so to relate ourselves to a +universal fact, would preserve us sane forever. Nations! What are +nations? Tartars, and Huns, and Chinamen! Like insects, they swarm. The +historian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of a +man that there are so many men. It is individuals that populate the +world. Any man thinking may say with the Spirit of Lodin,-- + + "I look down from my height on nations, + And they become ashes before me;-- + Calm is my dwelling in the clouds; + Pleasant are the great fields of my rest." + +Pray, let us live without being drawn by dogs, Esquimaux-fashion, +tearing over hill and dale, and biting each other's ears. + +Not without a slight shudder at the danger, I often perceive how near I +had come to admitting into my mind the details of some trivial +affair,--the news of the street; and I am astonished to observe how +willing men are to lumber their minds with such rubbish,--to permit idle +rumors and incidents of the most insignificant kind to intrude on ground +which should be sacred to thought. Shall the mind be a public arena, +where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table chiefly +are discussed? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself,--an hypæthral +temple, consecrated to the service of the gods? I find it so difficult +to dispose of the few facts which to me are significant, that I hesitate +to burden my attention with those which are insignificant, which only a +divine mind could illustrate. Such is, for the most part, the news in +newspapers and conversation. It is important to preserve the mind's +chastity in this respect. Think of admitting the details of a single +case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through +their very _sanctum sanctorum_ for an hour, ay, for many hours! to make +a very bar-room of the mind's inmost apartment, as if for so long the +dust of the street had occupied us,--the very street itself, with all +its travel, its bustle, and filth had passed through our thoughts' +shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide? When I have +been compelled to sit spectator and auditor in a court-room for some +hours, and have seen my neighbors, who were not compelled, stealing in +from time to time, and tiptoeing about with washed hands and faces, it +has appeared to my mind's eye, that, when they took off their hats, +their ears suddenly expanded into vast hoppers for sound, between which +even their narrow heads were crowded. Like the vanes of windmills, they +caught the broad, but shallow stream of sound, which, after a few +titillating gyrations in their coggy brains, passed out the other side. +I wondered if, when they got home, they were as careful to wash their +ears as before their hands and faces. It has seemed to me, at such a +time, that the auditors and the witnesses, the jury and the counsel, the +judge and the criminal at the bar,--if I may presume him guilty before +he is convicted,--were all equally criminal, and a thunderbolt might be +expected to descend and consume them all together. + +By all kinds of traps and sign-boards, threatening the extreme penalty +of the divine law, exclude such trespassers from the only ground which +can be sacred to you. It is so hard to forget what it is worse than +useless to remember! If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be +of the mountain-brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town-sewers. +There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the +attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale +revelation of the bar-room and the police court. The same ear is fitted +to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer +determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed. I believe +that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to +trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with +triviality. Our very intellect shall be macadamized, as it were,--its +foundation broken into fragments for the wheels of travel to roll over; +and if you would know what will make the most durable pavement, +surpassing rolled stones, spruce blocks, and asphaltum, you have only to +look into some of our minds which have been subjected to this treatment +so long. + +If we have thus desecrated ourselves,--as who has not?--the remedy will +be by wariness and devotion to reconsecrate ourselves, and make once +more a fane of the mind. We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, +as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are, and be +careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention. +Read not the Times. Read the Eternities. Conventionalities are at length +as bad as impurities. Even the facts of science may dust the mind by +their dryness, unless they are in a sense effaced each morning, or +rather rendered fertile by the dews of fresh and living truth. Knowledge +does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven. +Yes, every thought that passes through the mind helps to wear and tear +it, and to deepen the ruts, which, as in the streets of Pompeii, evince +how much it has been used. How many things there are concerning which we +might well deliberate, whether we had better know them,--had better let +their peddling-carts be driven, even at the slowest trot or walk, over +that bridge of glorious span by which we trust to pass at last from the +farthest brink of time to the nearest shore of eternity! Have we no +culture, no refinement,--but skill only to live coarsely and serve the +Devil?--to acquire a little worldly wealth, or fame, or liberty, and +make a false show with it, as if we were all husk and shell, with no +tender and living kernel to us? Shall our institutions be like those +chestnut-burs which contain abortive nuts, perfect only to prick the +fingers? + +America is said to be the arena on which the battle of freedom is to be +fought; but surely it cannot be freedom in a merely political sense that +is meant. Even if we grant that the American has freed himself from a +political tyrant, he is still the slave of an economical and moral +tyrant. Now that the republic--the _res-publica_--has been settled, it +is time to look after the _res-privata_,--the private state,--to see, as +the Roman senate charged its consuls, "_ne quid res-PRIVATA detrimenti +caperet_," that the _private_ state receive no detriment. + +Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King +George and continue the slaves of King Prejudice? What is it to be born +free and not to live free? What is the value of any political freedom, +but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves, or a +freedom to be free, of which we boast? We are a nation of politicians, +concerned about the outmost defences only of freedom. It is our +children's children who may perchance be really free. We tax ourselves +unjustly. There is a part of us which is not represented. It is taxation +without representation. We quarter troops, we quarter fools and cattle +of all sorts upon ourselves. We quarter our gross bodies on our poor +souls, till the former eat up all the latter's substance. + +With respect to a true culture and manhood, we are essentially +provincial still, not metropolitan,--mere Jonathans. We are provincial, +because we do not find at home our standards,--because we do not worship +truth, but the reflection of truth,--because we are warped and narrowed +by an exclusive devotion to trade and commerce and manufactures and +agriculture and the like, which are but means, and not the end. + +So is the English Parliament provincial. Mere country-bumpkins, they +betray themselves, when any more important question arises for them to +settle, the Irish question, for instance,--the English question why did +I not say? Their natures are subdued to what they work in. Their "good +breeding" respects only secondary objects. The finest manners in the +world are awkwardness and fatuity, when contrasted with a finer +intelligence. They appear but as the fashions of past days,--mere +courtliness, knee-buckles and small-clothes, out of date. It is the +vice, but not the excellence of manners, that they are continually being +deserted by the character; they are cast-off clothes or shells, claiming +the respect which belonged to the living creature. You are presented +with the shells instead of the meat, and it is no excuse generally, +that, in the case of some fishes, the shells are of more worth than the +meat. The man who thrusts his manners upon me does as if he were to +insist on introducing me to his cabinet of curiosities, when I wished to +see himself. It was not in this sense that the poet Decker called Christ +"the first true gentleman that ever breathed." I repeat that in this +sense the most splendid court in Christendom is provincial, having +authority to consult about Trans-alpine interests only, and not the +affairs of Rome. A prætor or proconsul would suffice to settle the +questions which absorb the attention of the English Parliament and the +American Congress. + +Government and legislation! these I thought were respectable +professions. We have heard of heaven-born Numas, Lycurguses, and Solons, +in the history of the world, whose _names_ at least may stand for ideal +legislators; but think of legislating to _regulate_ the breeding of +slaves, or the exportation of tobacco! What have divine legislators to +do with the exportation or the importation of tobacco? what humane ones +with the breeding of slaves? Suppose you were to submit the question to +any son of God,--and has He no children in the nineteenth century? is it +a family which is extinct?--in what condition would you get it again? +What shall a State like Virginia say for itself at the last day, in +which these have been the principal, the staple productions? What ground +is there for patriotism in such a State? I derive my facts from +statistical tables which the States themselves have published. + +A commerce that whitens every sea in quest of nuts and raisins, and +makes slaves of its sailors for this purpose! I saw, the other day, a +vessel which had been wrecked, and many lives lost, and her cargo of +rags, juniper-berries, and bitter almonds were strewn along the shore. +It seemed hardly worth the while to tempt the dangers of the sea between +Leghorn and New York for the sake of a cargo of juniper-berries and +bitter almonds. America sending to the Old World for her bitters! Is not +the sea-brine, is not shipwreck, bitter enough to make the cup of life +go down here? Yet such, to a great extent, is our boasted commerce; and +there are those who style themselves statesmen and philosophers who are +so blind as to think that progress and civilization depend on precisely +this kind of interchange and activity,--the activity of flies about a +molasses-hogshead. Very well, observes one, if men were oysters. And +very well, answer I, if men were mosquitoes. + +Lieutenant Herndon, whom our Government sent to explore the Amazon, and, +it is said, to extend the area of Slavery, observed that there was +wanting there "an industrious and active population, who know what the +comforts of life are, and who have artificial wants to draw out the +great resources of the country." But what are the "artificial wants" to +be encouraged? Not the love of luxuries, like the tobacco and slaves of, +I believe, his native Virginia, nor the ice and granite and other +material wealth of our native New England; nor are "the great resources +of a country" that fertility or barrenness of soil which produces these. +The chief want, in every State that I have been into, was a high and +earnest purpose in its inhabitants. This alone draws out "the great +resources" of Nature, and at, last taxes her beyond her resources; for +man naturally dies out of her. When we want culture more than potatoes, +and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a +world are taxed and drawn out, and the result, or staple production, is, +not slaves, nor operatives, but men,--those rare fruits called heroes, +saints, poets, philosophers, and redeemers. + +In short, as a snow-drift is formed where there is a lull in the wind, +so, one would say, where there is a lull of truth, an institution +springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at +length blows it down. + +What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and +inhuman, that, practically, I have never fairly recognized that it +concerns me at all. The newspapers, I perceive, devote some of their +columns specially to politics or government without charge; and this, +one would say, is all that saves it; but, as I love literature, and to +some extent, the truth also, I never read those columns at any rate. I +do not wish to blunt my sense of right so much. I have not got to answer +for having read a single President's Message. A strange age of the world +this, when empires, kingdoms, and republics come a-begging to a private +man's door, and utter their complaints at his elbow! I cannot take up a +newspaper but I find that some wretched government or other, hard +pushed, and on its last legs, is interceding with me, the reader, to +vote for it,--mere importunate than an Italian beggar; and if I have a +mind to look at its certificate, made, perchance, by some benevolent +merchant's clerk, or the skipper that brought it over, for it cannot +speak a word of English itself, I shall probably read of the eruption +of some Vesuvius, or the overflowing of some Po, true or forged, which +brought it into this condition. I do not hesitate, in such a case, to +suggest work, or the almshouse; or why not keep its castle in silence, +as I do commonly? The poor President, what with preserving his +popularity and doing his duty, is completely bewildered. The newspapers +are the ruling power. Any other government is reduced to a few marines +at Fort Independence. If a man neglects to read the Daily Times, +Government will go down on its knees to him, for this is the only +treason in these days. + +Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and +the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, +but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions +of the physical body. They are _infra_-human, a kind of vegetation. I +sometimes awake to a half-consciousness of them going on about me, as a +man may become conscious of some of the processes of digestion in a +morbid state, and so have the dyspepsia, as it is called. It is as if a +thinker submitted himself to be rasped by the great gizzard of creation. +Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit and +gravel, and the two political parties are its two opposite +halves,--sometimes split into quarters, it may be, which grind on each +other. Not only individuals, but States, have thus a confirmed +dyspepsia, which expresses itself, you can imagine by what sort of +eloquence. Thus our life is not altogether a forgetting, but also, alas! +to a great extent, a remembering of that which we should never have been +conscious of, certainly not in our waking hours. Why should we not meet, +not always as dyspeptics, to tell our bad dreams, but sometimes as +_eu_peptics, to congratulate each other on the ever glorious morning? I +do not make an exorbitant demand, surely. + + * * * * * + +BARBARA FRIETCHIE. + + + Up from the meadows rich with corn, + Clear in the cool September morn, + + The clustered spires of Frederick stand + Green-walled by the hills of Maryland. + + Round about them orchards sweep, + Apple- and peach-tree fruited deep, + + Fair as a garden of the Lord + To the eyes of the famished rebel horde, + + On that pleasant morn of the early fall + When Lee marched over the mountain-wall,-- + + Over the mountains winding down, + Horse and foot, into Frederick town. + + Forty flags with their silver stars, + Forty flags with their crimson bars, + Flapped in the morning wind: the sun + Of noon looked down, and saw not one. + + Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then, + Bowed with her fourscore years and ten; + + Bravest of all in Frederick town, + She took up the flag the men hauled down; + + In her attic-window the staff she set, + To show that one heart was loyal yet. + + Up the street came the rebel tread, + Stonewall Jackson riding ahead. + + Under his slouched hat left and right + He glanced: the old flag met his sight. + + "Halt!"--the dust-brown ranks stood fast + "Fire!"--out blazed the rifle-blast. + + It shivered the window, pane and sash; + It rent the banner with seam and gash. + + Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff + Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf; + + She leaned far out on the window-sill, + And shook it forth with a royal will. + + "Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, + But spare your country's flag," she said. + + A shade of sadness, a blush of shame, + Over the face of the leader came; + + The nobler nature within him stirred + To life at that woman's deed and word: + + "Who touches a hair of yon gray head + Dies like a dog! March on!" he said. + + All day long through Frederick street + Sounded the tread of marching feet: + + All day long that free flag tossed + Over the heads of the rebel host. + + Ever its torn folds rose and fell + On the loyal winds that loved it well; + + And through the hill-gaps sunset light + Shone over it with a warm good-night. + + Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er, + And the Rebel rides on his raids no more. + + Honor to her! and let a tear + Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier. + + Over Barbara Frietchie's grave + Flag of Freedom and Union, wave! + + Peace and order and beauty draw + Round thy symbol of light and law; + + And ever the stars above look down + On thy stars below in Frederick town! + + * * * * * + +A LETTER TO THOMAS CARLYLE. + + +SIR,--You have Homered it of late in a small way, one sees. You profess +to sing the purport of our national struggle. "South chooses to hire its +servants for life, rather than by the day, month, or year; North +bludgeons the Southern brain to prevent the same": that, you say, is the +American Iliad in a Nutshell. In a certain sense, more's the pity, it +must be supposed that you speak correctly; but be assured that this is +the American Iliad in no other nutshell than your private one,--in those +too contracted cerebral quarters to which, with respect to our matters, +your powerful intelligence, under such prolonged and pitiless extremes +of dogmatic compression, has at last got reduced. + +Seriously, not in any trivial wilfulness of retort, I accuse you of a +narrowness and pettiness of understanding with regard to America. Give +me leave to "wrestle a fall" with you on this theme. And as I can with +but twoscore years match your threescore and five, let me entreat of +your courtesy to set that circumstance aside, and to constitute me, for +the nonce, your equal in age and privilege of speech. For I must wrestle +to-day in earnest! + +You are a great nature, a great writer, and a man of piercing intellect: +he is a jack or a dunce that denies it. But of you, more than of most +men at all your equals in intellectual resource, it may be said that +yours is not a spherical or universal, but a special and linear +intelligence,--of great human depth and richness, but special +nevertheless. Of a particular order of truths you are an incomparable +champion; but always you are the champion and on the field, always your +genius has its visor down, and glares through a loop-hole with +straitened intentness of vision. A particular sort of errors and +falsities you can track with the scent of a blood-hound, and with a +speed and bottom not surpassed, if equalled; but the Destinies have put +the nose of your genius to the ground, and sent it off for good and all +upon a particular trail. You sound, indeed, before your encounter, such +a thrilling war-note as turns the cripple's crutch to an imaginary +lance; you open on your quarry with such a cry as kindles a huntsman's +heart beneath the bosoms of nursing mothers. No living writer possesses +the like fascination. Yet, in truth, we should all have tired of your +narrow stringency long ago, did there not run in the veins of your +genius so rich and ruddy a human blood. The profoundness of your +interest in man, and the masterly way in which you grasp character, give +to your thought an inner quality of centrality and wholeness, despite +the dogmatic partiality of its shaping at your hands. And so your +enticement continues, intensely partial though it be. + +Continues,--but with growing protest, and growing ground for it. For, to +speak the truth, by your kind permission, without reserve, you are +beginning to suffer from yourself. You are threatening to perish of too +much Thomas Carlyle, I venture to caution you against that tremendous +individual. He is subduing your genius to his own special humors; he is +alloying your mental activity, to a fearful degree, with dogmatic +prepossession; he is making you an intellectual _routinier_, causing +thereby an infiltration of that impurity of which all routine at last +dies. For years we that love you most have seen that you were ceasing +more and more to hold open, fresh relations with truth,--that you were +straitening and hardening into the linear, rigid eagerness of the mere +propagandist. You have, if I may so speak, been turning all your +front-head into back-head, giving to your cerebral powers the characters +of preappointed, automatic action, which are proper to the cerebellum. +It cannot be denied that you have thus acquired a remarkable, +machine-like simplicity, force, and constancy of mental action,--your +brain-wheels spinning away with such a steam-engine whirr as one cannot +but admire; but, on the other hand, as was inevitable, you have become +astonishingly insensitive to all truths, save those with which you are +established in organic connection; nor could the products of Manchester +mills be bargained for beforehand with more certainty than the results +of your intellectual activity. You can be silent,--I venture to assert +so much; but if you speak at all, we know perfectly well what +description of fabric _must_ come from your loom. + +It does not, therefore, surprise us, does not clash with our sense of +your native greatness, that for our particular Iliad you prove a very +nutshell Homer indeed. For I must not disguise it from you that this is +exactly the case. It was _Homerus in nuce_ first; and the pitiful +purport of the epic results less from any smallness in the action +celebrated than from that important law, not, perhaps, wholly new to +your own observation, which forbids a pint-measure to contain more than +a pint, though you dip it full from the ocean itself. + +You are great, but not towards us Americans. Towards us you are little +and insignificant and superfluous. Your eyes, though of wondrous +efficacy in their way, blink in our atmosphere like those of an owl in +broad sunlight; and if you come flying here, it is the privilege of the +smallest birds--of which you are quite at liberty to esteem me one--to +pester you back into your medieval twilight. + +Shall I try to tell you why you can have no right to judge us and our +affairs? By your leave, then, and briefly. + +There is a spiritual nature of man, which is ever and everywhere the +same; and, through the necessary presence of this in every human being, +there is a common sense and a common conscience, which make each man one +with all others. Here in America we are seeking to give the force of +political sovereignty to this common and unitive nature,--assuming that +all political problems are at last questions of simple justice, courage, +good sense, and fellow-feeling, which any sound heart and healthy +intelligence may appreciate. + +On the other hand, there is the truth of spiritual Rank or Degree,--that +one man may be immensely superior in human quality to another. This is +the truth that is most powerfully present to your mind, and you would +constitute government strictly, if not solely, in the light of it. To +this you are impelled by the peculiar quality of your genius, which is +so purely _biographical_, so inevitably drawn to special personalities, +that you can hardly conceive of history otherwise than as a record of +personal influence. + +We assume, then, as a basis, common sense; you, uncommon sense. We +assume Unity or Identity; you assume Difference, and seek to +reconstitute unity only through mastership on the one hand and reverent +obedience on the other. We do not deny Difference; we recognize the +truth of spiritual Degree; we merely _elect the common element as the +material out of which to constitute, and the force by which to operate, +the State._ + +Now my judgment is, that either the truth of a common Manhood or the +truth of spiritual Rank may be made primary in a State, and that with +admirable results, provided it be duly allied and tempered with its +opposite. For these opposites I hold to be correlative and polaric, each +required by the other. But chasm is worse than indistinction; and he +that breaks the circle of human fellowship is more mischievous than he +who blurs the hues of gradation. + +I affirm, then, that America has a grand spiritual fact at the base of +her political system. But you are the prophet of an opposite order of +truths. And you are so intensely the partisan of your pole, that you +have not a moment's patience with anything else, above all with an +opposite partiality. And wanting sympathy and patience with it, you +equally want apprehension of its meaning. + +But this is not all. An awful shadow accompanies the brilliant day of +your genius. That dark humor of yours, that woful demon from whose +companionship, by the law of your existence, you cannot be free, tolls +funeral-bells and chants the dirges of death in your ears forever. What +your faith does not take with warmth to its bosom it must spurn +violently away; where you cannot hope strongly, you must vehemently +despair; what your genius does not illumine to your heart it must bury +as in shadows of eternal night. It being, therefore, of the nature of +your mind to shine powerfully on the eminences of mankind, it became in +consequence no less its nature to call up over the broad levels a black +fog that even its own eye could not penetrate. Thus with you, if I +understand you rightly, the _common_ and the _fateful_ are nearly one +and the same; the Good is to you an exceptional energy which struggles +up from the level forces of the universe. Is not your conception of +human existence nearly this: a perpetual waste deluge, and here and +there some Noah in his ark above it? + +There is noble truth to be seen from this point of view,--truth to which +America also will have to attend. But being intensely limited to this +sole point of view, you are _utterly_ without eye for the whole +significance of our national life. You are not only _at_ the opposite +pole from us, but your whole heart and intelligence are _included in_ +the currents of that polaric opposition. + +Still further. I think, that, having made out its scheme of thought, +your mind soon contracts a positive demand _even for the evil +conditions_ which, in your estimation, made that scheme necessary. To +illustrate. A man is roused at night, and sent flying for a physician in +some sudden and terrible emergency. He returns, broken-winded, to learn +that it was altogether a false alarm. It is quite possible that his +first emotion, on receiving this intelligence, will not be pleasure, but +indignation; he may feel that somebody ought to _be_ sick, since he has +been at such pains. Pardon me, if I think your position not wholly +dissimilar. It seems to me to have become an imperative requisition of +your mind that nine-tenths of mankind should be fools. They _must_ be +so; else you have no place for them in your system, and know not what to +do with them. As fools, you have full arrangements made for their +accommodation. Some hero, some born ruler of men, is to come forth (out +of your books) and reduce them to obedience, and lord it over them in a +most useful manner. But if they will not be fools, if they +contumaciously refuse to be fools, they disturb the necessary +conditions of kingship, and, of course, deserve much reprobation. I do +not, therefore, feel myself unjust to you in saying, that, the better +the American people behave, _in consistency with their political +traditions and customary modes of thought_, the less you are able to be +pleased with them. If they demean themselves as fools and incapables, +(as they sometimes do,) they bring grist to your mill; but if they show +wisdom, courage, and constancy, they leave you to stand at your +mill-doors and grumble for want of toll,--as in the nutshell-epic +aforesaid. + +Well, there are many foolish and some wise, and I, for one, could +heartily wish both classes more justly placed; for he who styles me an +extreme intrepid democrat pays me a compliment to which I have no claim. +While, then, by "kingship" you meant something human and noble, while I +could deem the command you coveted for strong and wise men to be +somewhat which should _lift the weak and unwise above the range of their +own force and intelligence_, I held your prophesying in high esteem, and +readily pardoned any excesses of expression into which your prophetic +_afflatus_ (being Scotch) might betray you. + +But your appetite for kingship seems to have gained in strength while it +lost in delicacy and moral significance, till it has become an +insatiable craving, which disdains not to batten on very vile garbage. +If one rule, and another be ruled, and if the domination be open, frank, +and vigorous, you seem to feast on the fact, be this domination as +selfish in its nature and as brutal in its form as it may. Whether its +aim be to uplift or to degrade its subjects, whether it be clean or +filthy, of heaven or of hell, a stress of generous purpose or a mere +emphasis of egotism,--what pause do you make to inquire concerning this? +The appearance is, that any sovereignty, in these democratic days, is +over-welcome to your hunger to admit of pause; and a rule, whose +undisguised aim is, not to supplement the strength of the weak, but to +pillage them of its product, not to lend the ignorant a wisdom above +their own, but to make their ignorance perpetual as a source of +pecuniary profit to their masters, may reckon upon your succors whenever +succors are needed. + +Hence your patronage of our slavery. Hence your effort to commend it by +a description so incomparably false, that, though one should laugh +derision at it from Christmas to Candlemas, he would not laugh enough. +"Hiring servants for life,"--that is the most intrepid _lucus a non +lucendo_ of the century. It fairly takes one's breath away. It is +stunning, ravishing. One can but cry, on recovering his wind,--Hear, O +Caucus, and give ear, O Mock-Auction! ye railway Hudsons, tricksters, +impostors, ye demagogues that love the people in stump-speeches at $---- +per year, ye hired bravos of the bar that stab justice in the dark, ye +Jesuit priests that "lie for God," listen all, and learn how to do it! +What are your timid devices, compared with this of benumbing your +adversary at the start by an outright electric shock of untruth? But a +man must be supported by a powerful sense of sincerity to be capable of +a statement so royally false that the truth itself shall look tame and +rustic beside it. + +You have spoken ill of a certain sort of German metaphysic; but I +perceive that you have now become a convert to it. The final _arcanum_ +of that, I think, is, Something = Nothing. You give this abstraction a +concrete form; your axiom is, No Hire = Hire for Life. To deny that +laborers have any property in their own toil, and to allow them their +poor peck of maize and pound of bacon per week, not at all as a wage for +their work, but solely as a means of converting corn into cotton, and +cotton into seats in Congress and summers at Saratoga,--that, according +to the Chelsea metaphysic, is "hiring them for life"! To deny laborers +any legal _status_ as persons, and any social _status_ as human +souls,--to give them fodder for food, and pens for homes,--to withhold +from them the school, the table, and the sanctities of marriage,--if +that is not "hiring them for life," what is it? To affirm, by +consistent practice, that no spiritual, no human value appertains to the +life of laboring men and women,--to rate them in their very persons as +commercial values, measuring the virtue of their existence with coin, as +cloths are measured with a yardstick,--this, we all see, is "hiring them +for life"! To take from women the LEGAL RIGHT to be chaste,--to make it +a _capital offence_ for a woman of the laboring caste to defend her own +person by blows, for any "husband" or father of the laboring caste to +defend wife or daughter with blows, against the lust of another caste, +and, having made them thus helpless before outrage, to close the +judicial tribunals against their testimony, and refuse them the faintest +show of redress,--truly, it is very kind of you to let us know that this +is the simplest piece of "hiring for life," for without that charitable +assistance the fact would surely have eluded our discovery. How could we +have found it out without your assistance, when, after that aid has been +rendered, the fact continues to seem so utterly otherwise as to reflect +even upon your generous information the colors of an unexampled untruth? + +No-Hire + Dehumanization of the Laborer = Life-Hire? We never should +have dreamt of it! + +Within the past year, a document has come into my hands which they may +thank their stars who are not required to see. It is the private diary +of a most eminent and respectable slaveholder, recently dead. The +chances of war threw it into the hands of our troops, and the virtue of +a noble surgeon rescued it from defiling uses, and sent it to me, as one +whose duty bound him to know the worst. Of its authenticity there is not +a shadow of question. And such a record of pollution,--of wallowing, to +which the foulness of swine is as the life of honey-bees harboring in +the bosoms of roses,--I deliberately suppose can never have got into +black and white before. Save in general terms, I can hardly speak of it; +but one item I must have the courage to suggest more definitely. Having +bidden a young slave-girl (whose name, age, color, etc., with the +shameless precision that marks the entire document, are given) to attend +upon his brutal pleasure, and she silently remaining away, he +writes,--"Next morning ordered her a dozen lashes for disobedience."[7] +For disobedience, observe! She had been "hired for life"; the great +Carlyle had witnessed the bargain; and behold, she has broken the +contract! She must be punished; Mr. Carlyle and his co-cultivator of the +virtue of obedience (_par nobile fratrum_) will see to it that she is +duly punished. She shall go to the whipping-post, this disobedient +virgin; she shall have twelve lashes, (for the Chelsea gods are severe, +and know the use of "beneficent whip,")--twelve lashes on the naked +person,--blows with the terrible slave-whip, beneath which the skin +purples in long, winding lines, then breaks and gushes into spirts of +red blood, and afterwards cicatrizes into perpetual scars; for +disobedience is an immorality not to be overlooked! + +Yes, Thomas Carlyle, I hold you a party to these crimes. _You_, YOU are +the brutal old man who would flog virgins into prostitution. You approve +the system; you volunteer your best varnish in its commendation; and +this is an inseparable and _legal_ part of it. Legal, I say,--legal, and +not destructive of respectability. That is the point. In ordering such +lashes, that ancient miscreant (for old he already was) neither violated +any syllable of the slave-code, nor forfeited his social position. He +was punishing "disobedience"; he was admministering "justice"; he was +illustrating the "rights of property"; he was using the lawful +"privileges of gentlemen." + +No doubt, deeds of equal infamy are done in the dens of New York. But +in New York they _are_ infamous. In New York they are indeed done in +_dens_, by felons who flee the eye of the policeman,--unless, to be +sure, the police have been appointed by a certain _alter ego_ of yours +in negro-hatred, whilom chief magistrate and disgrace of that +unfortunate city. But under your life-service _régime_ things are +managed in a more enlightened way. There they who have liberty--and +_sometimes_ use the liberty--to torture women into beastly submissions, +do not hide from the laws, they make the laws. There such a personage as +the one mentioned may be a _gentleman_, a man of high standing," one of +the most respectable men in the State" (Florida). + +And this, just _this_,--for surely you will not be a coward, and dodge +consequences,--you name a scheme of life-hire. This you esteem so much +superior to our democratic way of holding each man and woman to be the +shrine of rights which have an infinite sanctity, and of adjudging it +the chief duty of the State to annex to these rights the requisite force +for their practical assertion. + +Is it, then, You, or is it some burglarious Devil that has broken into +your bosom and stolen your soul, who is engaged in plastering over this +infernal fester with smooth euphemisms? Are You verily the mechanic who +is engaged in veneering these out-houses of hell with rosewood? Is it +your very and proper Self that stands there sprinkling _eau-de-Cologne_ +on the accursed reek of that pit of putrescence, so to disguise and +commend it to the nostrils of mankind? Is it in very deed Thomas +Carlyle, Thomas the Great, who now volunteers his services as male +lady's-maid to the queen-strumpet of modern history, and offers to her +sceptred foulness the benefit of his skill at the literary rouge-pots? +You? Yes? I give you joy of your avocations! Truly, it was worth the +while, having such a cause, to defame a noble people in the very hour of +their life-and-death struggle! + +Well, you have made your election; now I make mine. It is my deliberate +belief that no man ever gave heartier love and homage to another than I +to you; but while one woman in America may be _lawfully_ sent to the +whipping-post on such occasion, I will hold your existence and name, if +they come between me and her rescue, but as the life of a stinging gnat! +I love you,--but cannot quite sacrifice to you the sanctity of +womanhood, and all the honor and all the high hopes of a great nation. +Your scheme of "life-hire" will therefore have to undergo very essential +modifications, such as will not only alter, but _reverse_, its most +characteristic features, before I can esteem either it or the advocacy +of it anything less than abominable. + +But where are you now with relation to that Thomas Carlyle whose "Sartor +Resartus" I read twenty years ago afoot and on horseback, sleeping with +it under my pillow and wearing it in my pocket till pocket and it were +worn out,--I alone there in the remote solitudes of Maine? We have both +travelled far since then; but whither have you been travelling? The +whole wide heaven was not too wide for you then; but now you can be +jolly in your "nutshell." Then, you held spiritual, or human, values to +be final, infinite, absolute, and could gibe in your own incomparable +way at the besotted conventionalism which would place commercial values +above them; now, who chants with such a roaring, pious nasal at that +apotheosis of Property which our modern commercial slavery essentially +is? Then, with Schiller, you desired, as a basis of political society, +something better than a doctrine of personal _rights_, something more +noble, human, unitary, something more opposed to egoistic +self-assertion, namely, a doctrine of _powers_ and their consequent +_duties_; now, a scheme of society which is the merest riot or +insurrection of property-egotism reckons you among its chiefest +advocates. Then, you struck heroically out for a society more adequate +to the spiritual possibilities of man; now, social infidelity _plus_ +cotton and polite dining would seem to suffice for you. + +Ah, Heaven! is anything sadder than to see a grand imperial soul, long +worthy and secure of all love and honor, at length committing suicide, +not by dying, but by living? Ill it is when they that do deepest homage +to a great spirit can no longer pray for the increase of his days; when +there arises in their hearts a pleasure in the growing number of his +years expressly as these constitute a deduction from the unknown sum +total of those which have been appointed him; and when the utmost +bravery of their affection must breathe, not _Serus_, but CITO _in cadum +redeas!_ O royal Lear of our literature, who have spurned from your love +the dearest daughter of your thought, is it only left us to say, "How +friendly is Death,--Death, who restores us to free relations with the +whole, when our own fierce partialities have imprisoned and bound us +hand and foot"? + +Royal you are, royal in pity as in purpose; and you have done, nay, I +trust may still be doing, imperishable work. If only you did not hate +democracy so bitterly as to be perpetually prostrated by the recoil of +your own gun! Right or wrong in its inception, this aversion has now +become a chronic ailment, which drains insatiably at the fountains of +your spiritual force. I offer you the suggestion; I can do no more. + +To have lost, in the hour of our trial, the fellowship of yourself, and +of others in England whom we most delighted to honor, is a loss indeed. +Yet we grieve a thousand times more for you than for ourselves; and are +not absorbed in any grief. It is clear to us that the Eternal Providence +has assigned us our tasks, not by your advice, nor by vote of +Parliament,--astonishing to sundry as that may seem. Your opinion of the +matter we hold, therefore, to be quite beside the matter; and drivel, +like that of your nutshell-epic, by no means tends to make us wish that +Providence had acted upon European counsel rather than upon His Own! +Moreover, we are _very_ busy in these days, and can have small eye to +the by-standers. We are busy, and are likely to be so long; for the +peace that succeeds to such a war will be as dangerous and arduous as +the war itself. We have as little time, therefore, to grieve as to brag +or bluster; we must work. We neither solicit nor repel your sympathy; we +must work,--work straight on, and let all that be as it can be. + +We seek not to conceal even from _you_ that our democracy has great +weaknesses, as well as great strength. Mean, mercenary, and stolid men +are not found in England alone; they are ominously abundant here also. +We have lunatic radicalisms as well as sane, idiotic conservatisms as +well as intelligent. Too much for safety, our politics are purulent, our +good men over-apt to forget the objects of government in a besotted +devotion to the form. It is possible we may yet discover that universal +suffrage can be a trifle too universal,--that it should pause a _little_ +short of the state-prison. New York must see to it that the thief does +not patronize the judge, and sit in the prisoner's box as on the bench +of a higher court. Our democracy has somewhat to learn; it _knows_ that +it has somewhat to learn, and says cheerfully, "What is the use of +living without learning?" + +What can we do but meet the future with an open intelligence and a stout +heart? And this I say,--I, who am almost an extreme dissenter from +extreme democracy,--if our people bring to all future emergencies those +qualities of earnestness, courage, and constancy which they have thus +far contributed to the present, they will disgrace neither themselves +nor their institutions; and it will be their honor more than once to +extort some betrayal of dissatisfaction from those who, like yourself, +are happiest to see a democracy behaving, not well, but ill. + +"Peter of the North," then, has made up his mind. He is resolved on +having three things:-- + +First, a government; a real government; a government not to be whistled +down the wind by any jack (or Jeff) who chooses to secede: a government +that will not dawdle with hands in pockets while this continent is +converted into a maggot-swarm of ten-acre empires; + +Secondly, a government whose purpose, so far as it can act, shall be to +forward _every_ man on the path of his proper humanity; + +Thirdly, a government constituted and operated, so far as shall finally +prove possible, by the common intelligence and common conscience of the +whole people. + +This is Peter's business at present: he is intently minding his +business; and has been heard to mutter in his breast that "it might be +as well if others did the same." What "others," pray? + + * * * * * + +VOLUNTARIES. + + + I. + + Low and mournful be the strain, + Haughty thought be far from me; + Tones of penitence and pain, + Moanings of the Tropic sea; + Low and tender in the cell + Where a captive sits in chains, + Crooning ditties treasured well + From his Afric's torrid plains. + Sole estate his sire bequeathed-- + Hapless sire to hapless son-- + Was the wailing song he breathed, + And his chain when life was done. + + What his fault, or what his crime? + Or what ill planet crossed his prime? + Heart too soft and will too weak + To front the fate that crouches near,-- + Dove beneath the vulture's beak;-- + Will song dissuade the thirsty spear? + Dragged from his mother's arms and breast, + Displaced, disfurnished here, + His wistful toil to do his best + Chilled by a ribald jeer. + Great men in the Senate sate, + Sage and hero, side by side, + Building for their sons the State, + Which they shall rule with pride. + They forbore to break the chain + Which bound the dusky tribe, + Checked by the owners' fierce disdain, + Lured by "Union" as the bribe. + Destiny sat by, and said, + "Pang for pang your seed shall pay, + Hide in false peace your coward head, + I bring round the harvest-day." + + + II. + + Freedom all winged expands, + Nor perches in a narrow place, + Her broad van seeks unplanted lands, + She loves a poor and virtuous race. + Clinging to the colder zone + Whose dark sky sheds the snow-flake down, + The snow-flake is her banner's star, + Her stripes the boreal streamers are. + Long she loved the Northman well; + Now the iron age is done, + She will not refuse to dwell + With the offspring of the Sun + Foundling of the desert far, + Where palms plume and siroccos blaze, + He roves unhurt the burning ways + In climates of the summer star. + He has avenues to God + Hid from men of northern brain, + Far beholding, without cloud, + What these with slowest steps attain. + If once the generous chief arrive + To lead him willing to be led, + For freedom he will strike and strive, + And drain his heart till he be dead. + + + III. + + In an age of fops and toys, + Wanting wisdom, void of right, + Who shall nerve heroic boys + To hazard all in Freedom's fight,-- + Break sharply off their jolly games, + Forsake; their comrades gay, + And quit proud homes and youthful dames, + For famine, toil, and fray? + Yet on the nimble air benign + Speed nimbler messages, + That waft the breath of grace divine + To hearts in sloth and ease. + So nigh is grandeur to our dust, + So near is God to man, + When Duty whispers low, _Thou must_, + The youth replies, _I can_. + + + IV. + + Oh, well for the fortunate soul + Which Music's wings infold, + Stealing away the memory + Of sorrows new and old! + Yet happier he whose inward sight, + Stayed on his subtile thought, + Shuts his sense on toys of time, + To vacant bosoms brought. + But best befriended of the God + He who, in evil times, + Warned by an inward voice, + Heeds not the darkness and the dread, + Biding by his rule and choice, + Feeling only the fiery thread + Leading over heroic ground, + Walled with mortal terror round, + To the aim which him allures, + And the sweet heaven his deed secures. + + Stainless soldier on the walls, + Knowing this,--and knows no more,-- + Whoever fights, whoever falls, + Justice conquers evermore, + Justice after as before,-- + And he who battles on her side, + --God--though he were ten times slain-- + Crowns him victor glorified, + Victor over death and pain; + Forever: but his erring foe, + Self-assured that he prevails, + Looks from his victim lying low, + And sees aloft the red right arm + Redress the eternal scales. + He, the poor foe, whom angels foil, + Blind with pride, and fooled by hate, + Writhes within the dragon coil, + Reserved to a speechless fate. + + + V. + + Blooms the laurel which belongs + To the valiant chief who fights; + I see the wreath, I hear the songs + Lauding the Eternal Rights, + Victors over daily wrongs: + Awful victors, they misguide + Whom they will destroy, + And their coming triumph hide + In our downfall, or our joy: + Speak it firmly,--these are gods, + All are ghosts beside. + + * * * * * + +OUR DOMESTIC RELATIONS; + +OR, HOW TO TREAT THE REBEL STATES. + + +At this moment our Domestic Relations all hinge upon one question: _How +to treat, the Rebel States?_ No patriot citizen doubts the triumph of +our arms in the suppression of the Rebellion. Early or late, this +triumph is inevitable. It may be by a sudden collapse of the bloody +imposture, or it may be by a slower and more gradual surrender. For +ourselves, we are prepared for either alternative, and shall not be +disappointed, if we are constrained to wait yet a little longer. But +when the day of triumph comes, political duties will take the place of +military. The victory won by our soldiers must be assuredly wise +counsels, so that its hard-earned fruits may not be lost. + +The relations of the States to the National Government must be carefully +considered,--not too boldly, not too timidly,--in order to see in what +way, or by what process, _the transition from Rebel forms may be most +surely accomplished_. If I do not greatly err, it will be found that the +powers of Congress, which have thus far been so effective in raising +armies and in supplying moneys, will be important, if not essential, in +fixing the conditions of perpetual peace. But there is one point on +which there can be no question. The dogma and delusion of State Rights, +which did so much for the Rebellion, must not be allowed to neutralize +all that our arms have gained. + +Already, in a remarkable instance, the President has treated the +pretension of State Rights with proper indifference. Quietly and without +much discussion, he has constituted military governments in the Rebel +States, with governors nominated by himself,--all of which testifies +against the old pretension. Strange will it be, if this extraordinary +power, amply conceded to the President, is denied to Congress. +Practically the whole question with which I began is opened here. +Therefore to this aspect of it I ask your first attention. + + +CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENT _vs._. MILITARY GOVERNMENT. + +Four military governors have been already appointed: one for Tennessee, +one for South Carolina, one for North Carolina, and the other for +Louisiana. So far as is known, the appointment of each was by a simple +letter from the Secretary of War. But if this can be done in four +States, where is the limit? It may be done in every Rebel State, and if +not in every other State of the Union, it will be simply because the +existence of a valid State government excludes the exercise of this +extraordinary power. But assuming, that, as our arms prevail, it will be +done in every Rebel State, we shall then have _eleven_ military +governors, all deriving their authority from one source, ruling a +population amounting to upwards of nine millions. And this imperatorial +dominion, indefinite in extent, will also be indefinite in duration; for +if, under the Constitution and laws, it be proper to constitute such +governors, it is clear that they may be continued without regard to +time,--for years, if you please, as well as for weeks,--and the whole +region which they are called to sway will be a military empire, with all +powers, executive, legislative, and even judicial, derived from one man +in Washington. Talk of the "one-man power." Here it is with a vengeance. +Talk of military rule. Here it is, in the name of a republic. + +The bare statement of this case may put us on our guard. We may well +hesitate to organize a single State under a military government, when we +see where such a step will lead. If you approve one, you must approve +all, and the National Government may crystallize into a military +despotism. + +In appointing military governors of States, we follow an approved +example in certain cases beyond the jurisdiction of our Constitution, as +in California and Mexico after their conquest and before peace. It is +evident that in these cases there was no constraint from the +Constitution, and we were perfectly free to act according to the assumed +exigency. It may be proper to set up military governors for a conquered +country beyond our civil jurisdiction, and yet it may be questionable if +we should undertake to set up such governors in States which we all +claim to be within our civil jurisdiction. At all events, the two cases +are different, so that it is not easy to argue from one to the other. + +In Jefferson's Inaugural Address, where he develops what he calls "the +essential principles of our government, and consequently those which +ought to shape its administration," he mentions "_the supremacy of the +civil over the military authority_" as one of these "essential +principles," and then says:-- + +"These should be the creed of our political faith,--the text of civil +instruction,--the touchstone by which to try the services of those we +trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or alarm, let +us hasten to retrace our steps, and to regain the road which alone leads +to peace, liberty, and safety." + +In undertaking to create military governors of States, we reverse the +policy of the republic, as solemnly declared by Jefferson, and subject +the civil to the military authority. If this has been done, in patriotic +ardor, without due consideration, in a moment of error or alarm, it only +remains, that, according to Jefferson, we should "hasten to retrace our +steps, and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and +safety." + +There is nothing new under the sun, and the military governors whom we +are beginning to appoint find a prototype in the Protectorate of Oliver +Cromwell. After the execution of the King and the establishment of the +Commonwealth, the Protector conceived the idea of parcelling the kingdom +into military districts, of which there were _eleven_,--being precisely +the number which it is now proposed, under the favor of success, to +establish among us. Of this system a great authority, Mr. Hallam, in his +"Constitutional History of England," speaks thus:-- + +"To govern according to law may sometimes be an usurper's wish, but can +seldom be in his power. The Protector abandoned all thought of it. +Dividing the kingdom into districts, he placed at the head of each a +major-general, as _a sort of military magistrate_, responsible for the +subjection of his prefecture. These were _eleven in number_, men +bitterly hostile to the Royalist party, and insolent towards all civil +authority."[8] + +Carlyle, in his "Life of Cromwell," gives the following glimpse of this +military government:-- + +"The beginning of a universal scheme of major-generals: the +Lord-Protector and his Council of State having well considered and found +it the feasiblest,--'if not _good_, yet best.' 'It is an arbitrary +government,' murmur many. Yes, arbitrary, but beneficial. _These are +powers unknown to the English Constitution, I believe; but they are very +necessary for the Puritan English nation at this time._"[9] + +Perhaps no better words could be found in explanation of the Cromwellian +policy adopted by our President. + +A contemporary Royalist, Colonel Ludlow, whose "Memoirs" add to our +authentic history of those interesting times, characterizes these +military magistrates as so many "bashaws." Here are some of his words:-- + +"The major-generals carried things with unheard-of insolence in their +several precincts, decimating to extremity whom they pleased, and +interrupting the proceedings at law upon petitions of those who +pretended themselves aggrieved, _threatening such as would not yield a +manly submission to their orders with transportation to Jamaica or some +other plantation in the West Indies_."[10] + +Again, says the same contemporary writer:-- + +"There were sometimes bitter reflections cast upon the proceedings of +the major-generals by the lawyers and country-gentlemen, who accused +them to have done many things oppressive to the people, in interrupting +the course of the law, and _threatening such as would not submit to +their arbitrary orders with transportation beyond the seas_."[11] + +At last, even Cromwell, at the height of his power, found it necessary +to abandon the policy of military governors. He authorized his +son-in-law, Mr. Claypole, to announce in Parliament, "that he had +formerly thought it necessary, in respect to the condition in which the +nation had been, that the major-generals should be intrusted with the +authority which they had exercised; but in the present state of affairs +he conceived it inconsistent with the laws of England and liberties of +the people to continue their power any longer."[12] + +The conduct of at least one of our military magistrates seems to have +been a counterpart to that of these "bashaws" of Cromwell; and there is +no argument against that early military despotism which may not be urged +against any attempt to revive it in our day. Some of the acts of +Governor Stanley in North Carolina are in themselves an argument against +the whole system. + +It is clear that these military magistrates are without any direct +sanction in the Constitution or in existing laws. They are not even +"major-generals," or other military officers, charged with the duty of +enforcing martial law; but they are special creations of the Secretary +of War, acting under the President, and charged with universal powers. +As governors within the limits of a State, they obviously assume the +extinction of the old State governments for which they are substituted; +and the President, in appointing them, assumes a power over these States +kindred to his acknowledged power over Territories of the Union; but, in +appointing governors for Territories, he acts in pursuance of the +Constitution and laws, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. + +That the President should assume the vacation of the State governments +is of itself no argument against the creation of military governors; for +it is simply the assumption of an unquestionable fact. But if it be true +that the State governments have ceased to exist, then the way is +prepared for the establishment of provisional governments by Congress. +In short, if a new government is to be supplied, it should be supplied +by Congress rather than by the President, and it should be according to +established law rather than according to the mere will of any +functionary, to the end that ours may be a government of laws and not of +men. + +There is no argument for military governors which is not equally strong +for Congressional governments, while the latter have in their favor two +controlling considerations: first, that they proceed from the civil +rather than the military power; and, secondly, that they are created by +law. Therefore, in considering whether Congressional governments should +be constituted, I begin the discussion by assuming everything in their +favor which is already accorded to the other system. I should not do +this, if the system of military dictators were not now recognized, so +that the question is sharply presented, which of the two to choose. Even +if provisional governments by Congress are not constitutional, it does +not follow that military governments, without the sanction of Congress, +can be constitutional. But, on the other hand, I cannot doubt, that, if +military governments are constitutional, then, surely, the provisional +governments by Congress must be so also. In truth, there can be no +opening for military governments which is not also an opening for +Congressional governments, with this great advantage for the latter, +that they are in harmony with our institutions, which favor the civil +rather than the military power. + +In thus declaring an unhesitating preference for Congressional +governments, I am obviously sustained by reason. But there is positive +authority on this identical question. I refer to the recorded opinion of +Chancellor Kent, as follows:-- + +"Though the Constitution vests the executive power in the President, and +declares him Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the United +States, _these powers must necessarily be subordinate to the legislative +power in Congress_. It would appear to me to be the policy or true +construction of this simple and general grant of power to the President, +not to suffer it to interfere with those specific powers of Congress +which are more safely deposited in the legislative department, and that +_the powers thus assumed by the President do not belong to him, but to +Congress_."[13] + +Such is the weighty testimony of this illustrious master with regard to +the assumption of power by the President, in 1847, over the Mexican +ports in our possession. It will be found in the latest edition of his +"Commentaries" published during the author's life. Of course, it is +equally applicable to the recent assumptions within our own territory. +His judgment is clear in favor of Congressional governments. + +Of course, in ordinary times, and under ordinary circumstances, neither +system of government would be valid. A State, in the full enjoyment of +its rights, would spurn a military governor or a Congressional governor. +It would insist that its governor should be neither military nor +Congressional, but such as its own people chose to elect; and nobody +would question this right. The President does not think of sending a +military governor to New York; nor does Congress think of establishing a +provisional government in that State. It is only with regard to the +Rebel States that this question arises. The occasion, then, for the +exercise of this extraordinary power is found in the Rebellion. Without +the Rebellion, there would be no talk of any governor, whether military +or Congressional. + + +STATE RIGHTS. + +And here it becomes important to consider the operation of the Rebellion +in opening the way to this question. To this end we must understand the +relations between the States and the National Government, under the +Constitution of the United States. As I approach this question of +singular delicacy, let me say on the threshold, that for all those +rights of the States which are consistent with the peace, security, and +permanence of the Union, according to the objects grandly announced in +the Preamble of the Constitution, I am the strenuous advocate, at all +times and places. Never through any word or act of mine shall those +rights be impaired; nor shall any of those other rights be called in +question by which the States are held in harmonious relations as well +with each other as with the Union. But while thus strenuous for all that +justly belongs to the States, I cannot concede to them immunities +inconsistent with that Constitution which is the supreme law of the +land; nor can I admit the impeccability of States. + +From a period even anterior to the Federal Constitution there has been a +perverse pretension of State Rights, which has perpetually interfered +with the unity of our government. Throughout the Revolution this +pretension was a check upon the powers of Congress, whether in respect +to its armies or its finances; so that it was too often constrained to +content itself with the language of advice or persuasion rather than of +command. By the Declaration of Independence it was solemnly declared +that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and +independent _States_, and that, as such, they have full powers to levy +war, to contract alliances, to establish commerce, and to do all other +acts which independent _States_ may of right do." Thus by this original +charter the early colonies were changed into independent States, under +whose protection the liberties of the country were placed. + +Early steps were taken to supply the deficiencies of this government, +which was effective only through the generous patriotism of the people. +In July, 1778, two years after the Declaration, Articles of +Confederation were framed, but they were not completely ratified by all +the States till March, 1781. The character of this new government, which +assumed the style of "The United States of America," will appear in the +title of these Articles, which was as follows:--"Articles of +Confederation and Perpetual Union _between the States_ of New Hampshire, +Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, +New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North +Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia." By the second article it was +declared, that "_each State retains its sovereignty_, freedom, and +independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by +this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress +assembled." By the third article it was further declared, that "the said +_States_ hereby severally enter into _a firm league_ of friendship with +each other, for their common defence, the security of their liberties, +and their mutual and general welfare." By another article, a "committee +of the _States_, or any nine of them," was authorized in the recess to +execute the powers of Congress. The government thus constituted was a +compact between _sovereign States_,--or, according to its precise +language, "a firm league of friendship" between _these States_, +administered, in the recess of Congress, by a "committee of _the +States_." Thus did State Rights triumph. + +But its imbecility from this pretension soon became apparent. As early +as December, 1782, a committee of Congress made an elaborate report on +the refusal of Rhode Island, one of the States, to confer certain powers +on Congress with regard to revenue and commerce. In April, 1783, an +address of Congress to _the States_ was put forth, appealing to their +justice and plighted faith, and representing the consequence of a +failure on their part to sustain the Government and provide for its +wants. In April, 1784, a similar appeal was made to what were called +"the several States," whose legislatures were recommended to vest "the +United States in Congress assembled" with certain powers. In July, 1785, +a committee of Congress made another elaborate report on the reason why +the States should confer upon Congress powers therein enumerated, in the +course of which it was urged, that, "unless _the States_ act together, +there is no plan of policy into which they can separately enter, which +they will not be separately interested to defeat, and, of course, all +their measures must prove vain and abortive." In February and March, +1786, there were two other reports of committees of Congress, exhibiting +the failure of _the States_ to comply with the requisitions of Congress, +and the necessity for a complete accession of _all the States_ to the +revenue system. In October, 1786, there was still another report, most +earnestly renewing the former appeals to _the States_. Nothing could be +more urgent. + +As early as July, 1782, even before the first report to Congress, +resolutions were adopted by the State of New York, declaring "that the +situation of _these States_ is in a peculiar manner critical," and "that +the radical source of most of our embarrassments is _the want of +sufficient power in Congress_ to effectuate that ready and perfect +cooperation of _the different States_ on which their immediate safety +and future happiness depend." Finally, in September, 1786, at Annapolis, +commissioners from several States, after declaring "the situation of the +United States delicate and critical, calling for an exertion of the +united virtue and wisdom of all the members of the Confederacy," +recommended the meeting of a Convention "to devise such further +provision as shall appear necessary to render the Constitution of the +Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." In +pursuance of this recommendation, the Congress of the Confederation +proposed a Convention "for the purpose of revising the Articles of +Confederation and Perpetual Union between the United States of America, +and reporting such alterations and amendments of the said Articles of +Confederation as the representatives met in such Convention shall judge +proper and necessary to render them adequate to the preservation and +support of the Union." + +In pursuance of the call, delegates to the proposed Convention were duly +appointed by the legislatures of the several States, and the Convention +assembled at Philadelphia in May, 1787. The present Constitution was the +well-ripened fruit of their deliberations. In transmitting it to +Congress, General Washington, who was the President of the Convention, +in a letter bearing date September 17, 1787, made use of this +instructive language:-- + + "It is obviously impracticable in the Federal Government of _these + States to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each_, + and yet provide for the interest and safety of all. Individuals + entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve + the rest. The magnitude of the sacrifice must depend as well on + situation and circumstance as on the object to be obtained. It is + at all times difficult to draw with precision the line between + those rights which must be surrendered and those which may be + reserved; and on the present occasion this difficulty will be + increased by a difference _among the several States_ as to their + situation, extent, habits, and particular interests. In all our + deliberations we kept steadily in view that which appears to us + the greatest interest of every true American,--THE CONSOLIDATION + OF OUR UNION,--in which is involved our prosperity, safety, + perhaps our national existence. + + "GEORGE WASHINGTON." + +The Constitution was duly transmitted by Congress to the several +legislatures, by which it was submitted to conventions of delegates +"chosen in each State by the people thereof," who ratified the same. +Afterwards, Congress, by resolution, dated September 13, 1788, setting +forth that the Convention had reported "a Constitution _for the people +of the United States_" which had been duly ratified, proceeded to +authorize the necessary elections under the new government. + +The Constitution, it will be seen, was framed in order to remove the +difficulties arising from _State Rights_. So paramount was this purpose, +that, according to the letter of Washington, it was kept steadily in +view in all the deliberations of the Convention, which did not hesitate +to declare _the consolidation of our Union_ as essential to our +prosperity, safety, and perhaps our national existence. + +The unity of the government was expressed in the term "Constitution," +instead of "Articles of Confederation between the States," and in the +idea of "a more perfect union," instead of a "league of friendship." It +was also announced emphatically in the Preamble:-- + +"_We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect +union_, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the +common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of +liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this +Constitution for the United States of America." + +Not "we, the States," but "we, the people of the United States." Such is +the beginning and origin of our Constitution. Here is no compact or +league between States, involving the recognition of State rights; but a +government ordained and established by the people of the United States +for themselves and their posterity. This government is not established +_by the States_, nor is it established _for the States_; but it is +established _by the people_, for themselves and their posterity. It is +true, that, in the organization of the government, the existence of the +States is recognized, and the original name of "United States" is +preserved; but the sovereignty of the States is absorbed in that more +perfect union which was then established. There is but one sovereignty +recognized, and this is the sovereignty of the United States. To the +several States is left that special local control which is essential to +the convenience and business of life, while to the United States, as a +_Plural Unit_, is allotted that commanding sovereignty which embraces +and holds the whole country within its perpetual and irreversible +jurisdiction. + +This obvious character of the Constitution did not pass unobserved at +the time of its adoption. Indeed the Constitution was most strenuously +opposed on the ground that the States were absorbed in the Nation. +Patrick Henry protested against consolidated power. In the debates of +the Virginia Convention he exclaimed:-- + +"And here I would make this inquiry of those worthy characters who +composed a part of the late Federal Convention. I am sure they were +fully impressed with the necessity of forming a great consolidated +government, instead of a confederation. _That this is a consolidated +government is demonstrably clear_; and the danger of such a government +is to my mind very striking. I have the highest veneration for those +gentlemen; but, Sir, give me leave to demand, What right had they to +say, '_We, the people'?_ Who authorized them to speak the language of +'_We, the people_,' instead of '_We, the States_'?"[14] + +And again, at another stage of the debate, the same patriotic opponent +of the Constitution declared succinctly:-- + +"The question turns, Sir, on that poor little thing, the expression, +'We, _the people_,' instead of _the States_ of America."[15] + +In the same convention another patriotic opponent of the Constitution, +George Mason, following Patrick Henry, said:-- + +"Whether the Constitution is good or bad, the present clause clearly +discovers that it is a National Government, and no longer a +Confederation."[16] + +But against all this opposition, and in the face of this exposure, the +Constitution was adopted, in the name of the people of the United +States. Much, indeed, was left to the States; but it was no longer in +their name that the government was organized, while the miserable +pretension of State "sovereignty" was discarded. Even in the discussions +of the Federal Convention Mr. Madison spoke thus plainly:-- + +"Some contend that States are _sovereign_, when, in fact, they are only +political societies. The States never possessed the essential rights of +sovereignty. These were always vested in Congress." + +Grave words, especially when we consider the position of their author. +They were substantially echoed by Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, +afterwards Vice-President, who said:-- + +"It appears to me that the States never were independent. They had only +corporate rights." + +Better words still fell from Mr. Wilson of Pennsylvania, known +afterwards as a learned judge of the Supreme Court, and also for his +Lectures on Law:-- + +"Will a regard to State rights justify the sacrifice of the rights of +men? If we proceed on any other foundation than the last, our building +will neither be solid or lasting." + +The argument was unanswerable then. It is unanswerable now. Do not +elevate the sovereignty of the States against the Constitution of the +United States. It is hardly less odious than the early pretension of +sovereign power against Magna Charta, according to the memorable words +of Lord Coke, as recorded by Rushworth:-- + +"Sovereign power is no Parliamentary word. In my opinion, it weakens +Magna Charta and all our statutes; for they are absolute without any +saving of sovereign power. And shall we now add it, we shall weaken the +foundation of law, and then the building must needs fall. Take we heed +what we yield unto. _Magna Charta is such a fellow that he will have no +sovereign._"[17] + +But the Constitution is our Magna Charta, which can bear no sovereign +but itself, as you will see at once, if you will consider its character. +And this practical truth was recognized at its formation, as may be seen +in the writings of our Rushworth,--I refer to Nathan Dane, who was a +member of Congress under the Confederation. He tells us plainly, that +the terms "sovereign States," "State sovereignty," "State rights," +"rights of States," are not "constitutional expressions." + + +POWERS OF CONGRESS. + +In the exercise of its sovereignty Congress in intrusted with large and +peculiar powers. Take notice of them, and you will see how little of +"sovereignty" is left to the States. Their simple enumeration is an +argument against the pretension of State Rights. Congress may lay and +collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and +_provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United +States_. It may borrow money on the credit of the United States; +regulate commerce with foreign nations, and _among the several States_, +and with the Indian tribes; establish a uniform rule of naturalization, +and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy, _throughout the United +States_; coin money, regulate the value thereof, and fix the standard of +weights and measures; establish post-offices and post-roads; promote the +progress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited times to +authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings +and discoveries; define and punish piracies and felonies committed on +the high seas, and offences against the law of nations; declare war; +grant letters of marque and reprisal; make rules concerning captures on +land and water; raise and support armies; provide and maintain a navy; +make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval +forces; provide for calling forth the militia to execute _the laws of +the Union_, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions; provide for +organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such +part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, +reserving to the States respectively the appointment of officers and the +authority of training the militia _according to the discipline +prescribed by Congress_; and make all laws necessary and proper for +carrying into execution the foregoing powers and all other powers vested +in the Government of the United States. + +Such are the ample and diversified powers of Congress, embracing all +those powers which enter into sovereignty. With the concession of these +to the United States there seems to be little left for the several +States. In the power to "declare war" and to "raise and support armies," +Congress possesses an exclusive power, in itself immense and infinite, +over persons and property in the several States, while by the power to +"regulate commerce" it may put limits round about the business of the +several States. And even in the case of the militia, which is the +original military organization of the people, nothing is left to the +States except "the appointment of the officers," and the authority to +train it "according to the discipline _prescribed by Congress_." It is +thus that these great agencies are all intrusted to the United States, +while the several States are subordinated to their exercise. + +Constantly, and in everything, we behold the constitutional +subordination of the States. But there are other provisions by which +the States are expressly deprived of important powers. For instance: "No +State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; coin +money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a +tender in payment of debts." Or, if the States may exercise certain +powers, it is only with the consent of Congress. For instance: "No State +shall, _without the consent of Congress_, lay any duty of tonnage, keep +troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or +compact with another State or with a foreign power." Here is a magistral +power accorded to Congress, utterly inconsistent with the pretensions of +State Rights. Then, again: "No State shall, _without the consent of the +Congress_, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what +may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the +net produce of all duties and imposts laid by any State on imports or +exports shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; _and +all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the +Congress_." Here, again, is a similar magistral power accorded to +Congress, and, as if still further to deprive the States of their much +vaunted sovereignty, the laws which they make with the consent of +Congress are expressly declared to be subject "to the revision and +control of the Congress." But there is another instance still. According +to the Constitution, "Full faith and credit shall be given in each State +to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other +State": but here mark the controlling power of Congress, which is +authorized to "prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and +proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof." + + +SUPREMACY OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. + +But there are five other provisions of the Constitution by which its +supremacy is positively established. 1. "The citizens of each State +shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the +several States." As Congress has the exclusive power to establish "an +uniform rule of naturalization," it may, under these words of the +Constitution, secure for its newly entitled citizens "all privileges and +immunities of citizens in the several States," in defiance of State +Rights. 2. "New States may be admitted _by the Congress_ into this +Union." According to these words, the States cannot even determine their +associates, but are dependent in this respect upon the will of Congress. +3. But not content with taking from the States these important powers of +sovereignty, it is solemnly declared that the Constitution, and the laws +of the United States made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties under +the authority of the United States, "SHALL BE THE SUPREME LAW OF THE +LAND, _anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary +notwithstanding_." Thus are State Rights again subordinated to the +National Constitution, which is erected into the paramount authority. 4. +But this is done again by another provision, which declares that "_the +members of the several State legislatures_, and all executive and +judicial officers of _the several States_, shall be bound by oath or +affirmation to support this Constitution"; so that not only State laws +are subordinated to the National Constitution, but the makers of State +laws, and all other State officers, are constrained to declare their +allegiance to this Constitution, thus placing the State, alike through +its acts and its agents, in complete subordination to the sovereignty of +the United States. 5. But this sovereignty is further proclaimed in the +solemn injunction, that "the United States shall guarantee to every +State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect +each of them against invasion." Here are duties of guaranty and +protection imposed upon the United States, by which their position is +fixed as the supreme power. There can be no such guaranty without the +implied right to examine and consider the governments of the several +States; and there can be no such protection without a similar right to +examine and consider the condition of the several States: thus +subjecting them to the rightful supervision and superintendence of the +National Government. + +Thus, whether we regard the large powers vested in Congress, the powers +denied to the States absolutely, the powers denied to the States without +the consent of Congress, or those other provisions which accord +supremacy to the United States, we shall find the pretension of State +sovereignty without foundation, except in the imagination of its +partisans. Before the Constitution such sovereignty may have existed; it +was declared in the Articles of Confederation; but since then it has +ceased to exist. It has disappeared and been lost in the supremacy of +the National Government, so that it can no longer be recognized. +Perverse men, insisting that it still existed, and weak men, mistaking +the shadow of former power for the reality, have made arrogant claims in +its behalf. When the Constitution was proclaimed, and George Washington +took his oath to support it as President, our career as a Nation began, +with all the unity of a nation. The States remained as living parts of +the body, important to the national strength, and essential to those +currents which maintain national life, but plainly subordinate to the +United States, which then and there stood forth a Nation, one and +indivisible. + + +MISCHIEFS IN THE NAME OF STATE RIGHTS. + +But the new government had hardly been inaugurated before it was +disturbed by the pestilent pretension of State Rights, which, indeed, +has never ceased to disturb it since. Discontent with the treaty between +the United States and Great Britain, negotiated by that purest patriot, +John Jay, under instructions from Washington, in 1794, aroused Virginia, +even at that early day, to commence an opposition to its ratification, +_in the name of State Rights_. Shortly afterwards appeared the famous +resolutions of Virginia and those of Kentucky, usually known as the +"Resolutions of '98," declaring that the National Government was founded +on a compact between the States, and claiming for the States the right +to sit in judgment on the National Government, and to interpose, if they +thought fit; all this, as you will see, _in the name of State Rights_. +This pretension on the part of the States increased, till, at last, on +the mild proposition to attach a prospective prohibition of Slavery as a +condition to the admission of Missouri into the Union as a new State, +the opposition raged furiously, even to the extent of menacing the +existence of the Union; and this, too, was done _in the name of State +Rights_. Ten years later, the pretension took the familiar form of +Nullification, insisting that our government was only a compact of +States, any one of which was free to annul an act of Congress at its own +pleasure; and all this _in the name of State Rights_. For a succession +of years afterwards, at the presentation of petitions against +Slavery,--petitions for the recognition of Hayti,--at the question of +Texas,--at the Wilmot Proviso,--at the admission of California as a Free +State,--at the discussion of the Compromises of 1850,--at the Kansas +Question,--the Union was menaced; and always _in the name of State +Rights_. The menace was constant, and it sometimes showed itself on +small as well as great occasions, but always _in the name of State +Rights_. When it was supposed that Fremont was about to be chosen +President, the menace became louder, and mingling with it was the hoarse +mutter of war; and all this audacity was _in the name of State Rights_. + +But in the autumn of 1860, on the election of Mr. Lincoln, the case +became much worse. Scarcely was the result of this election known by +telegraph before the country was startled by other intelligence, to the +effect that certain States at the South were about to put in execution +the long-pending threat of Secession, of course _in the name of State +Rights_. First came South Carolina, which, by an ordinance adopted in a +State convention, undertook to repeal the original act by which the +Constitution was adopted in this State, and to declare that the State +had ceased to be one of the States of the Union. At the same time a +Declaration of Independence was put forth by this State, which proceeded +to organize itself as an independent community. This example was +followed successively by other States, which, by formal acts of +Secession, undertook to dissolve their relations with the Union, always, +be it understood, _in the name of State Rights_. A new Confederation was +formed by these States, with a new Constitution, and Jefferson Davis at +its head; and the same oaths of loyalty by which the local functionaries +of all these States had been bound to the Union were now transferred to +this new Confederation,--of course, in utter violation of the +Constitution of the United States, but always _in the name of State +Rights_. The ordinances of Secession were next maintained by war, which, +beginning with the assault upon Fort Sumter, convulsed the whole +country, till, at last, all the States of the new Confederation are in +open rebellion, which the Government of the United States is now +exerting its energies, mustering its forces, and taxing its people to +suppress. The original claim, _in the name of State Rights_, has swollen +to all the proportions of an unparalleled war, which, _in the name of +State Rights_, now menaces the national life. + +But the pretensions in the name of State Rights are not all told. While +the ordinances of Secession were maturing, and before they were yet +consummated, Mr. Buchanan, who was then President, declined to +interfere, on the ground that what had been done was done by States, and +that it was contrary to the theory of our government "to coerce a +State." Thus was the pretension of State Rights made the apology for +imbecility. Had this President then interfered promptly and loyally, it +cannot be doubted that this whole intolerable crime might have been +trampled out forever. And now, when it is proposed that Congress shall +organise governments in these States, which are absolutely without loyal +governments, we are met by the objection founded on State Rights. The +same disastrous voice which from the beginning of our history has +sounded in our ears still makes itself heard; but, alas! it is now on +the lips of our friends. Of course, just in proportion as it prevails +will it be impossible to establish the Constitution again throughout the +Rebel States. State Rights are madly triumphant, if, first, in their +name Rebel governments can be organized, and then, again, in their name +Congressional governments to displace the Rebel governments can be +resisted. If they can be employed, first to sever the States from the +Union, and then to prevent the Union from extending its power over them, +State Rights are at once a sword and buckler to the Rebellion. It was +through the imbecility of Mr. Buchanan that the States were allowed to +use the sword. God forbid that now, through any similar imbecility of +Congress, they shall be allowed to use the buckler! + + +SHALL CONGRESS ASSUME JURISDICTION OF THE REBEL STATES? + +And now, in this discussion, we are brought to the practical question +which is destined to occupy so much of public attention. It is proposed +to bring the action of Congress to bear directly upon the Rebel States. +This may be by the establishment of provisional governments under the +authority of Congress, or simply by making the admission or recognition +of the States depend upon the action of Congress. The essential feature +of this proposition is, _that Congress shall assume jurisdiction of the +Rebel States_. A bill authorizing provisional governments in these +States was introduced into the Senate by Mr. Harris of the State of New +York, and was afterwards reported from the Judiciary Committee of that +body; but it was left with the unfinished business, when the late +Congress expired on the fourth of March. The opposition to this +proposition, so far as I understand it, assumes two forms: first, that +these States are always to be regarded as States, with State rights, and +therefore cannot be governed by Congress; and, secondly, that, if any +government is to be established over them, it must be simply a military +government, with a military governor, appointed by the President, as is +the case with Tennessee and North Carolina. But State rights are as much +disturbed by a military government as by a Congressional government. The +local government is as much set aside in one case as in the other. If +the President, within State limits, can proceed to organize a military +government to exercise all the powers of the State, surely Congress can +proceed to organize a civil government within the same limits for the +same purpose; nor can any pretension of State Rights be effective +against Congress more than against the President. Indeed, the power +belongs to Congress by a higher title than it belongs to the President: +first, because a civil government is more in harmony with our +institutions, and, wherever possible, is required; and, secondly, +because there are provisions of the Constitution under which this power +is clearly derived. + +Assuming, then, that the pretension of State Rights is as valid against +one form of government as against the other, and still further assuming, +that, in the case of military governments, this pretension is +practically overruled by the President at least, we are brought again to +consider the efficacy of this pretension when advanced against +Congressional governments. + +It is argued that the Acts of Secession are all inoperative and void, +and that therefore the States continue precisely as before, with their +local constitutions, laws, and institutions in the hands of traitors, +but totally unchanged, and ready to be quickened into life by returning +loyalty. Such, I believe, is a candid statement of the pretension for +State Rights against Congressional governments, which, it is argued, +cannot be substituted for the State governments. + +In order to prove that the Rebel States continue precisely as before, we +are reminded that Andrew Johnson continued to occupy his seat in the +Senate after Tennessee had adopted its Act of Secession, and embarked in +rebellion, and that his presence testified to the fact that Rebel +Tennessee was still a State of the Union. No such conclusion is +authorized by the incident in question. There are two principles of +Parliamentary law long ago fixed: first, that the power once conferred +by an election to Parliament is _irrevocable_, so that it is not +affected by any subsequent change in the constituency; and, secondly, +that a member, when once chosen, is _a member for the whole kingdom_, +becoming thereby, according to the words of an early author, not merely +knight or burgess of the county or borough which elected him, but knight +or burgess of England.[18] If these two principles are not entirely +inapplicable to our political system, then the seat of Andrew Johnson +was not in any respect affected by the subsequent madness of his State, +nor can the legality of his seat be any argument for his State. + +We are also reminded that during the last session of Congress two +Senators from Virginia represented that State in the Senate; and the +argument is pressed, that no such representation would be valid, if the +State government of Virginia was vacated. This is a mistake. Two things +are established by the presence of these Senators in the National +Senate: first, that the old State government of Virginia is extinct, +and, secondly, that a new government has been set up in its place. It +was my fortune to listen to one of these Senators while he earnestly +denounced the idea that a State government might disappear. I could not +but think that he strangely forgot the principle to which he owed his +seat in the Senate,--as men sometimes forget a benefactor. + +It is true, beyond question, that the Acts of Secession are all +inoperative and void against the Constitution of the United States. +Though matured in successive conventions, sanctioned in various forms, +and maintained ever since by bloody war, these acts--no matter by what +name they may be called--are all equally impotent to withdraw an acre of +territory or a single inhabitant from the rightful jurisdiction of the +United States. But while thus impotent against the United States, it +does not follow that they were equally impotent in the work of +self-destruction. Clearly, the Rebels, by utmost efforts, could not +impair the National jurisdiction; but it remains to be seen if their +enmity did not act back with fatal rebound upon those very State Rights +in behalf of which they commenced their treason. + + +STATE SUICIDE. + +It is sometimes said that the States themselves committed _suicide_, so +that as States they ceased to exist, leaving their whole jurisdiction +open to the occupation of the United States under the Constitution. This +assumption is founded on the fact, that, whatever may be the existing +governments in these States, they are in no respect constitutional, and +since the State itself is known by the government, with which its life +is intertwined, it must cease to exist constitutionally when its +government no longer exists constitutionally. Perhaps, however, it would +be better to avoid the whole question of the life or death of the State, +and to content ourselves with an inquiry into the condition of its +government. It is not easy to say what constitutes that entity which we +call a State; nor is the discussion much advanced by any theory with +regard to it. To my mind it seems a topic fit for the old schoolmen or a +modern debating society; and yet, considering the part it has already +played in this discussion, I shall be pardoned for a brief allusion to +it. + +There are well-known words which ask and answer the question, "What +constitutes _a State_?" But the scholarly poet was not thinking of a +"State" of the American Union. Indeed, this term is various in its use. +Sometimes it stands for civil society itself. Sometimes it is the +general name for a political community, not unlike "nation" or +"country,"--as where our fathers, in the Resolution of Independence, +which preceded the Declaration, spoke of "the _State_ of Great Britain." +Sometimes it stands for the government,--as when Louis XIV., at the +height of his power, exclaimed, "The _State_, it is I"; or when Sir +Christopher Hatton, in the famous farce of "The Critic," ejaculates,-- + + "Oh, pardon me, if my conjecture's rash, + But I surmise--_the State_-- + Some danger apprehends." + +Among us the term is most known as the technical name for one of the +political societies which compose our Union. Of course, when used in the +latter restricted sense, it must not be confounded with the same term +when used in a different and broader sense. But it is obvious that some +persons attribute to the one something of the qualities which can belong +only to the other. Nobody has suggested, I presume, that any "State" of +our Union has, through rebellion, ceased to exist as a _civil society_, +or even as a _political community_. It is only as a _State of the +Union_, armed with State rights, or at least as a _local government_, +which annually renews itself, as the snake its skin, that it can be +called in question. But it is vain to challenge for the technical +"State," or for the annual government, that immortality which belongs to +civil society. The one is an artificial body, the other is a natural +body; and while the first, overwhelmed by insurrection or war, may +change or die, the latter can change or die only with the extinction of +the community itself, whatever may be its name or its form. + +It is because of confusion in the use of this term that there has been +so much confusion in the political controversies where it has been +employed. But nowhere has this confusion led to greater absurdity than +in the pretension which has been recently made in the name of State +Rights,--as if it were reasonable to attribute to a technical "State" of +the Union that immortality which belongs to civil society. + +From approved authorities it appears that a "State," even in a broader +signification, may lose its life. Mr. Phillimore, in his recent work on +International Law, says:--"A State, like an individual, may die," and +among the various ways, he says, "by its submission and the donation of +itself to another country."[19] But in the case of our Rebel States +there has been a plain submission and donation of +themselves,--_effective, at least, to break the continuity of +government_, if not to destroy that immortality which has been claimed. +Nor can it make any difference, in breaking this continuity, that the +submission and donation, constituting a species of attornment, were to +enemies at home rather than to enemies abroad,--to Jefferson Davis +rather than to Louis Napoleon. The thread is snapped in one case as much +as in the other. + +But a _change of form_ in the actual government may be equally +effective. Cicero speaks of a change so complete as "to leave no image +of a State behind." But this is precisely what has been done throughout +the whole Rebel region: there is no image of a _constitutional_ State +left behind. Another authority, Aristotle, whose words are always +weighty, says, that, _the form of the State being changed, the State is +no longer the same_, as the harmony is not the same when we modulate out +of the Dorian mood into the Phrygian. But if ever an unlucky people +modulated out of one mood into another, it was our Rebels, when they +undertook to modulate out of the harmonies of the Constitution into +their bloody discords. + +Without stopping further for these diversions, I content myself with the +testimony of Edmund Burke, who, in a striking passage, which seems to +have been written for us, portrays the extinction of a political +community; but I quote his eloquent words rather for suggestion than for +authority:-- + +"In a state of _rude_ Nature there is no such thing as a people. A +number of men in themselves have no collective capacity. The idea of +people is the idea of a corporation. It is wholly artificial, and made, +like all other legal fictions, by common agreement. What the particular +nature of that agreement was is collected from the form into which the +particular society has been cast. Any other is not _their_ covenant. +_When men, therefore, break p the original compact or agreement which +gives its corporate form and capacity to a State, they are no longer a +people; they have no longer a corporate existence_; they have no longer +a legal coactive force to bind within, nor a claim to be recognized +abroad. They are a number of vague, loose individuals, and nothing more. +With them all is to begin again. Alas! they little know how many a weary +step is to be taken before they can form themselves into a mass which +has a true politic personality."[20] + +If that great master of eloquence could be heard, who can doubt that he +would blast our Rebel States, as senseless communities who have +sacrificed that corporate existence which makes them living, component +members of our Union of States? + + +STATE FORFEITURE. + +But again it is sometimes said, that the States, by their flagrant +treason, have _forfeited_ their rights as States, so as to be civilly +dead. It is a patent and indisputable fact, that this gigantic treason +was inaugurated with all the forms of law known to the States; that it +was carried forward not only by individuals, but also by States, so far +as States can perpetrate treason; that the States pretended to withdraw +bodily in their corporate capacities;--that the Rebellion, as it showed +itself, was _by_ States as well as _in_ States; that it was by the +governments of States as well as by the people of States; and that, to +the common observer, the crime was consummated by the several +corporations as well as by the individuals of whom they were composed. +From this fact, obvious to all, it is argued, that, since, according to +Blackstone, "a traitor hath abandoned his connection with society, and +hath no longer any right to the advantages which before belonged to him +purely as a member of the community," by the same principle the traitor +State is no longer to be regarded as a member of the Union. But it is +not necessary, on the present occasion, to insist on the application of +any such principle to States. + + +STATE ABDICATION. + +Again it is said, that the States by their treason and rebellion, +levying war upon the National Government, have _abdicated_ their places +in the Union; and here the argument is upheld by the historic example of +England, at the Revolution of 1688, when, on the flight of James II. and +the abandonment of his kingly duties, the two Houses of Parliament +voted, that the monarch, "having violated the fundamental laws, and +having withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, _had abdicated the +government_, and that the throne had thereby become vacant."[21] But it +is not necessary for us to rely on any allegation of abdication, +applicable as it may be. + + +RIGHTFUL GOVERNMENT IN THE REBEL STATES VACATED. + +It only remains that we should see things as they are, and not seek to +substitute theory for fact. On this important question I discard all +theory, whether it be of State suicide or State forfeiture or State +abdication, on the one side, or of State rights, immortal and +unimpeachable, on the other side. Such discussions are only endless +mazes in which a whole senate may be lost. And in discarding all theory, +I discard also the question of _de jure_,--whether, for instance, the +Rebel States, while the Rebellion is flagrant, are _de jure_ States of +the Union, with all the rights of States. It is enough, that, for the +time being, and _in the absence of a loyal government_, they can take no +part and perform no function in the Union, _so that they cannot be +recognized by the National Government_. The reason is plain. There are +in these States no local functionaries bound by constitutional oaths, so +that, in fact, there are no constitutional functionaries; and since the +State government is necessarily composed of such functionaries, there +can be no State government. Thus, for instance, in South Carolina, +Pickens and his associates may call themselves the governor and +legislature, and in Virginia, Letcher and his associates may call +themselves governor and legislature; but we cannot recognize them as +such. Therefore to all pretensions in behalf of State governments in the +Rebel States I oppose the simple FACT, that for the time being no such +governments exist. The broad spaces once occupied by those governments +are now abandoned and vacated. + +That patriot Senator, Andrew Johnson,--faithful among the faithless, the +Abdiel of the South,--began his attempt to reorganize Tennessee by an +Address, as early as the 18th of March, 1862, in which he made use of +these words:-- + +"I find most, if not all, of the offices, both State and Federal, +_vacated, either by actual abandonment, or by the action of the +incumbents in attempting to subordinate their functions_ to a power in +hostility to the fundamental law of the State and subversive of her +national allegiance." + +In employing the word "vacated," Mr. Johnson hit upon the very term +which, in the famous resolution of 1688, was held to be most effective +in dethroning King James. After declaring that he had abdicated the +government, it was added, "that the throne had thereby become _vacant_" +on which Macaulay happily remarks:-- + +"The word _abdication_ conciliated politicians of a more timid school. +To the real statesman the simple important clause was that _which +declared the throne vacant_; and if that clause could be carried, he +cared little by what preamble it might be introduced."[22] + +And the same simple principle is now in issue. It is enough that the +Rebel States be declared _vacated_, as _in fact_ they are, by all local +government which we are bound to recognize, so that the way is open to +the exercise of a rightful jurisdiction. + + +TRANSITION TO RIGHTFUL GOVERNMENT. + +And here the question occurs, How shall this rightful jurisdiction be +established in the vacated States? Some there are, so impassioned for +State rights, and so anxious for forms even at the expense of substance, +that they insist upon the instant restoration of the old State +governments in all their parts, through the agency of loyal citizens, +who meanwhile must be protected in this work of restoration. But, +assuming that all this is practicable, as it clearly is not, it +attributes to the loyal citizens of a Rebel State, however few in +numbers,--it may be an insignificant minority,--a power clearly +inconsistent with the received principle of popular government, that the +majority must rule. The seven voters of Old Sarum were allowed to return +two members of Parliament, because this place,--once a Roman fort, and +afterwards a sheepwalk,--many generations before, at the early casting +of the House of Commons, had been entitled to this representation; but +the argument for State Rights assumes that all these rights may be +lodged in voters as few in number as ever controlled a rotten borough of +England. + +Pray, admitting that an insignificant minority is to organize the new +government, how shall it be done? and by whom shall it be set in motion? +In putting these questions I open the difficulties. As the original +government has ceased to exist, and there are none who can be its legal +successors, so as to administer the requisite oaths, it is not easy to +see how the new government can be set in motion without a resort to some +revolutionary proceeding, instituted either by the citizens or by the +military power,--unless Congress, in the exercise of its plenary powers, +should undertake to organize the new jurisdiction. + +But every revolutionary proceeding is to be avoided. It will be within +the recollection of all familiar with our history, that our fathers, +while regulating the separation of the Colonies from the parent country, +were careful that all should be done according to the forms of law, so +that the thread of _legality_ should continue unbroken. To this end the +Continental Congress interfered by a supervising direction. But the Tory +argument in that day denied the power of Congress as earnestly as it +denies this power now. Mr. Duane, of the Continental Congress, made +himself the mouthpiece of this denial:-- + +"_Congress ought not to determine a point, of this sort about +instituting government_. What is it to Congress how justice is +administered? You have no right to pass the resolution, any more than +Parliament has. How does it appear that no favorable answer is likely to +be given to our petitions?"[23] + +In spite of this argument, the Congress of that day undertook, by formal +resolutions, to indicate the process by which the new governments should +be constituted.[24] + +If we seek, for our guidance, the principle which entered into this +proceeding of the Continental Congress, we shall find it in the idea, +that nothing must be left to illegal or informal action, but that all +must be done according to rules of constitution and law previously +ordained. Perhaps this principle has never been more distinctly or +powerfully enunciated than by Mr. Webster, in his speech against the +Dorr Constitution in Rhode Island. According to him, this principle is a +fundamental part of what he calls our American system, requiring that +the right of suffrage shall be prescribed by _previous law_, including +its qualifications, the time and place of its exercise, and the manner +of its exercise; and then again, that the results are to be certified to +the central power by some certain rule, _by some known public officers_, +in some clear and definite form, to the end that two things may be done: +first, that every man entitled to vote may vote; secondly, that his vote +may he sent forward and counted, and so he may exercise his part of +sovereignty, in common with his fellow-citizens. Such, according to Mr. +Webster, are the minute forms which must be followed, if we would impart +to the result the crowning character of law. And here are other positive +words from him on this important point:-- + +"We are not to take the will of the people from public meetings, nor +from tumultuous assemblies, by which the timid are terrified, the +prudent are alarmed, and by which society is disturbed. These are not +American modes of signifying the will of the people, and they never +were.... + +"Is it not obvious enough, that men cannot get together and count +themselves, and say they are so many hundreds and so many thousands, and +judge of their own qualifications, and call themselves the people, and +set up a government? _Why, another set of men, forty miles off, on the +same day, with the same propriety, with as good qualifications, and in +as large numbers, may meet and set up another government_.... + +"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to ascertain +the will of the people on a new exigency, or a new state of things, or +of opinion, _the legislative power provides for that ascertainment by an +ordinary act of legislation_. + +"What do I contend for? I say that the will of the people must prevail, +when it is ascertained; but there must be _some legal and authentic mode +of ascertaining that will_; and then the people may make what government +they please.... + +"All that is necessary here is, that the will of the people should be +ascertained by some regular rule of proceeding, _prescribed by previous +law_.... + +"But the law and the Constitution, the whole system of American +institutions, do not contemplate a case in which a resort will be +necessary to proceedings _aliunde_, or _outside of the law and the +Constitution_, for the purpose of amending the frame of government."[25] + + +CONGRESS THE TRUE AGENT. + +But, happily, we are not constrained to any such revolutionary +proceeding. The new governments can all be organized by Congress, which +is the natural guardian of people without any immediate government, and +within the jurisdiction of the Constitution of the United States. +Indeed, with the State governments already _vacated_ by rebellion, the +Constitution becomes, for the time, the supreme and only law, binding +alike on President and Congress, so that neither can establish any law +or institution incompatible with it. And the whole Rebel region, +deprived of all local government, lapses under the exclusive +jurisdiction of Congress, precisely as any other territory; or, in other +words, the lifting of the local governments leaves the whole vast region +without any other government than Congress, unless the President should +undertake to govern it by military power. Startling as this proposition +may seem, especially to all who believe that "there is a divinity that +doth hedge" a State, hardly less than a king, it will appear, on careful +consideration, to be as well founded in the Constitution as it is simple +and natural, while it affords an easy and constitutional solution to our +present embarrassments. + +I have no theory to maintain, but only the truth; and in presenting this +argument for Congressional government, I simply follow teachings which I +cannot control. The wisdom of Socrates, in the words of Plato, has aptly +described these teachings, when he says:-- + +"These things are secured and bound, even if the expression be somewhat +too rude, with iron and adamant; and unless you or some one more +vigorous than you can break them, it is impossible for any one speaking +otherwise than I now speak to speak well; since, for my part, I have +always the same thing to say, that I know not how these things are, but +that out of all with whom I have ever discoursed, as now, not one is +able to say otherwise and to maintain himself."[26] + +Show me that I am wrong,--that this conclusion is not founded in the +Constitution, and is not sustained by reason,--and I shall at once +renounce it; for, in the present condition of affairs, there can be no +pride of opinion which must not fall at once before the sacred demands +of country. Not as a partisan, not as an advocate, do I make this +appeal; but simply as a citizen, who seeks, in all sincerity, to offer +his contribution to the establishment of that policy by which Union and +Peace may be restored. + + +THREE SOURCES OF CONGRESSIONAL POWER. + +If we loot at the origin of this power in Congress, we shall find that +it comes from three distinct fountains, any one of which is ample to +supply it. Three fountains, generous and hospitable, will be found in +the Constitution ready for this occasion. + +First. From the necessity of the case, _ex necessitate rei_, Congress +must have jurisdiction over every portion of the United States _where +there is no other government_; and since in the present case there is no +other government, the whole region falls within the jurisdiction of +Congress. This jurisdiction is incident, if you please, to that +guardianship and eminent domain which belong to the United States with +regard to all its territory and the people thereof, and it comes into +activity when the local government ceases to exist. It can be questioned +only in the name of the local government; but since this government has +disappeared in the Rebel States, the jurisdiction of Congress is +uninterrupted there. The whole broad Rebel region is _tabula rasa_, or +"a clean slate," where Congress, under the Constitution of the United +States, may write the laws. In adopting this principle, I follow the +authority of the Supreme Court of the United States in determining the +jurisdiction of Congress over the Territories. Here are the words of +Chief-Justice Marshall:-- + +"Perhaps the power of governing a territory belonging to the United +States, which has not, by becoming a State, acquired the means of +self-government, _may result necessarily from the facts that it is not +within the jurisdiction of any particular State_ and is within the power +and jurisdiction of the United States. The right to govern may be the +natural consequence of the right to acquire territory."[27] + +If the right to govern may be the natural consequence of the right to +acquire territory, surely, and by much stronger reason, this right must +be the natural consequence of the sovereignty of the United States +wherever there is no local government. + +Secondly. This jurisdiction may also be derived from the _Rights of +War_, which surely are not less abundant for Congress than for the +President. If the President, disregarding the pretension of State +Rights, can appoint military governors within the Rebel States, to serve +a temporary purpose, who can doubt that Congress can exercise a similar +jurisdiction? That of the President is derived from the war-powers; but +these are not sealed to Congress. If it be asked where in the +Constitution such powers are bestowed upon Congress, I reply, that they +will be found precisely where the President now finds his powers. But it +is clear that the powers to "declare war," to "suppress insurrections," +and to "support armies," are all ample for this purpose. It is Congress +that conquers; and the same authority that conquers must govern. Nor is +this authority derived from any strained construction; but it springs +from the very heart of the Constitution. It is among those powers, +latent in peace, which war and insurrection call into being, but which +are as intrinsically constitutional as any other power. + +Even if not conceded to the President, these powers must be conceded to +Congress. Would you know their extent? They will be found in the +authoritative texts of Public Law,--in the works of Grotius, Vattel, and +Wheaton. They are the powers conceded by civilized society to nations at +war, known as the Rights of War, at once multitudinous and minute, vast +and various. It would be strange, if Congress could organize armies and +navies to conquer, and could not also organize governments to protect. + +De Tocqueville, who saw our institutions with so keen an eye, remarked, +that, since, in spite of all political fictions, the preponderating +power resided in the State governments, and not in the National +Government, a civil war here "would be nothing but a foreign war in +disguise."[28] Of course the natural consequence would be to give the +National Government in such a civil war all the rights which it would +have in a foreign war. And this conclusion from the observation of the +ingenious publicist has been practically adopted by the Supreme Court of +the United States in those recent cases where this tribunal, after the +most learned argument, followed by the most careful consideration, +adjudged, that, since the Act of Congress of July 13th, 1861, the +National Government has been waging "a _territorial_ civil war," in +which all property afloat belonging to a resident of the _belligerent +territory_ is liable to capture and condemnation as lawful prize. But +surely, if the National Government may stamp upon all residents in this +_belligerent territory_ the character of foreign enemies, so as to +subject their ships and cargoes to the penalties of confiscation, it may +perform the milder service of making all needful rules and regulations +for the government of this territory under the Constitution, so long as +may be requisite for the sake of peace and order; and since the object +of war is "indemnity for the past and security for the future," it may +do everything necessary to make these effectual. But it will not be +enough to crush the Rebellion. Its terrible root must be exterminated, +so that it may no more flaunt in blood. + +Thirdly. But there is another source for this jurisdiction which is +common alike to Congress and the President. It will be found in the +constitutional provision, that "the United States shall guarantee to +every State in tins Union a republican form of government, and shall +protect each of them against invasion." Here, be it observed, are words +of guaranty and an obligation of protection. In the original concession +to the United States of this twofold power there was an open recognition +of the ultimate responsibility and duty of the National Government, +_conferring jurisdiction above all pretended State rights_; and now the +occasion has come for the exercise of this twofold power thus solemnly +conceded. The words of twofold power and corresponding obligation are +plain and beyond question. If there be any ambiguity, it is only as to +what constitutes a republican form of government. But for the present +this question does not arise. It is enough that a wicked rebellion has +undertaken to detach certain States from the Union, and to take them +beyond the protection and sovereignty of the United States, with the +menace of seeking foreign alliance and support, even at the cost of +every distinctive institution. It is well known that _Mr. Madison +anticipated this precise danger from Slavery, and upheld this precise +grant of power in order to counteract this danger_. His words, which +will be found in a yet unpublished document, produced by Mr. Collamer in +the Senate, seem prophetic. + +Among the defects which he remarked in the old Confederation was what he +called "want of guaranty to the States of their constitutions and laws +_against internal violence_." In showing why this guaranty was needed, +he says, that, "according to republican theory, right and power, being +both vested in the majority, are held to be synonymous; according to +fact and experience, a minority may, in an appeal to force, be an +overmatch for the majority"; and he then adds, in words of wonderful +prescience, "_where Slavery exists the republican theory becomes still +more fallacious_." This was written in April, 1787, before the meeting +of the Convention that formed the National Constitution. But here we +have the origin of the very clause in question. The danger which this +statesman foresaw is now upon us. When a State fails to maintain a +republican government _with officers sworn according to the requirements +of the Constitution_, it ceases to be a constitutional State. The very +case contemplated by the Constitution has arrived, and the National +Government is invested with plenary powers, whether of peace or war. +There is nothing in the storehouse of peace, and there is nothing in the +arsenal of war, which it may not employ in the maintenance of this +solemn guaranty, and in the extension of that protection against +invasion to which it is pledged. But this extraordinary power carries +with it a corresponding duty. Whatever shows itself dangerous to a +republican form of government must be removed without delay or +hesitation; and if the evil be Slavery, our action will be bolder when +it is known that the danger was foreseen. + +In reviewing these three sources of power, I know not which is most +complete. Either would be ample alone; but the three together are three +times ample. Thus, out of this triple fountain, or, if you please, by +this triple cord, do I vindicate the power of Congress over the vacated +Rebel States. + +But there are yet other words of the Constitution which cannot be +forgotten: "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union." +Assuming that the Rebel States are no longer _de facto_ States of this +Union, but that the territory occupied by them is within the +jurisdiction of Congress, then these words become completely applicable. +It will be for Congress, in such way as it shall think best, to regulate +the return of these States to the Union, whether in time or manner. No +special form is prescribed. But the vital act must proceed from +Congress. And here again is another testimony to that Congressional +power which, under the Constitution, will restore the Republic. + + +UNANSWERABLE REASONS FOR CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENTS + +Against this power I have heard no argument which can be called an +argument. There are objections founded chiefly in the baneful pretension +of State Rights; but these objections are animated by prejudice rather +than reason. Assuming the impeccability of the States, and openly +declaring that states, like kings, can do no wrong, while, like kings, +they wear the "round and top of sovereignty," politicians treat them +with most mistaken forbearance and tenderness, as if these Rebel +corporations could be dandled into loyalty. At every suggestion of rigor +State Rights are invoked, and we are vehemently told not to destroy the +States, when all that Congress proposes is simply to recognize the +actual condition of the States and to undertake their temporary +government, by providing for the condition of political syncope into +which they have fallen, and, during this interval, to substitute its own +constitutional powers for the unconstitutional powers of the Rebellion. +Of course, therefore, Congress will blot no star from the flag, nor will +it obliterate any State liabilities. But it will seek, according to its +duty, in the best way, to maintain the great and real sovereignty of the +Union, by upholding the flag unsullied, and by enforcing everywhere +within its jurisdiction the supreme law of the Constitution. + +At the close of an argument already too long drawn out, I shall not stop +to array the considerations of reason and expediency in behalf of this +jurisdiction; nor shall I dwell on the inevitable influence that it must +exercise over Slavery, which is the motive of the Rebellion. To my mind +nothing can be clearer, as a proposition of constitutional law, than +that everywhere within the exclusive jurisdiction of the National +Government Slavery is impossible. The argument is as brief as it is +unanswerable. Slavery is so odious that it can exist only by virtue of +positive law, plain and unequivocal; but no such words can be found in +the Constitution. Therefore Slavery is impossible within the exclusive +jurisdiction of the National Government. For many years I have had this +conviction, and have constantly maintained it. I am glad to believe that +it is implied, if not expressed, in the Chicago Platform. Mr. Chase, +among our public men, is known to accept it sincerely. Thus Slavery in +the Territories is unconstitutional; but if the Rebel territory falls +under the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Government, then +Slavery will be impossible there. In a legal and constitutional sense, +it will die at once. The air will be too pure for a slave. I cannot +doubt that this great triumph has been already won. The moment that the +States fell, Slavery fell also; so that, even without any Proclamation +of the President, Slavery had ceased to have a legal and constitutional +existence in every Rebel State. + +But even if we hesitate to accept this important conclusion, which +treats Slavery within Rebel States as already dead in law and +Constitution, it cannot be doubted, that, by the extension of the +Congressional jurisdiction over the Rebel States, many difficulties will +be removed. Holding every acre of soil and every inhabitant of these +states within its jurisdiction, Congress can easily do, by proper +legislation, whatever may be needful within Rebel limits in order to +assure freedom and to save society. The soil may be divided among +patriot soldiers, poor-whites, and freedmen. But above all things, the +inhabitants may be saved from harm. Those citizens in the Rebel States, +who, throughout the darkness of the Rebellion, have kept there faith, +will be protected, and the freedmen will be rescued from the hands that +threaten to cast them back into Slavery. + +But this jurisdiction, which is so completely practical, is grandly +conservative also. Had it been early recognized that Slavery depends +exclusively upon the local government, and that it falls with that +government, who can doubt that every Rebel movement would have been +checked? Tennessee and Virginia would never have stirred; Maryland and +Kentucky would never have thought of stirring. There would have been no +talk of neutrality between the Constitution and the Rebellion, and every +Border State would have been fixed in its loyalty. Let it be established +in advance, as an inseparable incident to every Act of Secession, that +it is not only impotent against the Constitution of the United States, +but that, on its occurrence, both soil and inhabitants will lapse +beneath the jurisdiction of Congress, and no State will ever again +pretend to secede. The word "territory," according to an old and quaint +etymology, is said to come from _terreo_, to terrify, because it was a +bulwark against the enemy. A scholiast tells us, "_Territorium est +quicquid hostis terrendi causâ constitutum_," "A territory is something +constituted in order to terrify the enemy." But I know of no way in +which our Rebel enemy would have been more terrified than by being told +that his course would inevitably precipitate him into a territorial +condition. Let this principle be adopted now, and it will contribute +essentially to that consolidation of the Union which was so near the +heart of Washington. + +The necessity of this principle is apparent as a restraint upon the +lawless vindictiveness and inhumanity of the Rebel States, whether +against Union men or against freedmen. Union men in Virginia already +tremble at the thought of being delivered over to a State government +wielded by original Rebels pretending to be patriots. But the freedmen, +who have only recently gained their birthright, are justified in a +keener anxiety, lest it should be lost as soon as won. Mr. Saulsbury, a +Senator from Delaware, with most instructive frankness, has announced, +in public debate, what the restored State governments will do. Assuming +that the local governments will be preserved, he predicts that in 1870 +there will be more slaves in the United States than there were in 1860, +and then unfolds the reason as follows,--all of which will be found in +the "Congressional Globe"[29]:-- + +"By your acts you attempt to free the slaves. You will not have them +among you. You leave them where they are. Then what is to be the +result?--I presume that local State governments will be preserved. If +they are, if the people have a right to make their own laws, and to +govern themselves, they will not only reënslave every person that you +attempt to set free, but they will reënslave the whole race." + +Nor has the horrid menace of reënslavement proceeded from the Senator +from Delaware alone. It has been uttered even by Mr. Willey, the mild +Senator from Virginia, speaking in the name of State Rights. Newspapers +have taken up and repeated the revolting strain. That is to say, no +matter what may be done for Emancipation, whether by Proclamation of the +President, or by Congress even, the State, on resuming its place in the +Union, will, in the exercise of its sovereign power, reënslave every +colored person within its jurisdiction; and this is the menace from +Delaware, and even from regenerated Western Virginia! I am obliged to +Senators for their frankness. If I needed any additional motive for the +urgency with which I assert the power of Congress, I should find it in +the pretensions thus savagely proclaimed. In the name of Heaven, let us +spare no effort to save the country from this shame, and an oppressed +people from this additional outrage! + +"Once free, always free." This is a rule of law, and an instinct of +humanity. It is a self-evident axiom, which only tyrants and +slave-traders have denied. The brutal pretension thus flamingly +advanced, to reënslave those who have been set free, puts us all on our +guard. There must be no chance or loop-hole for such an intolerable, +Heaven-defying iniquity. Alas! there have been crimes in human history; +but I know of none blacker than this. There have been acts of baseness; +but I know of none more utterly vile. Against the possibility of such a +sacrifice we must take a bond which cannot be set aside,--and this can +be found only in the powers of Congress. + +Congress has already done much. Besides its noble Act of Emancipation, +it has provided that every person guilty of treason, or of inciting or +assisting the Rebellion, "shall be disqualified to hold any office under +the United States." And by another act, it has provided that every +person elected or appointed to any office of honor or profit under the +Government of the United States shall, before entering upon its duties, +_take an oath_ "that he has not voluntarily borne arms against the +United States, or given aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to +persons engaged in armed hostility thereto, or sought or accepted or +attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever under any +authority, or pretended authority, in hostility to the United +States."[30] This oath will be a bar against the return to _National +office_ of any who have taken part with the Rebels. It shuts out in +advance the whole criminal gang. But these same persons, rejected by the +National Government, are left free to hold office in the States. And +here is another motive to further action by Congress. The oath, is well +as far as it goes; more must be done in the same spirit. + +But enough. The case is clear. Behold the Rebel States in arms against +that paternal government to which, as the supreme condition of their +constitutional existence, they owe duty and love; and behold all +legitimate powers, executive, legislative, and judicial, in these +States, abandoned and vacated. _It only remains that Congress should +enter and assume the proper jurisdiction._ If we are not ready to +exclaim with Burke, speaking of Revolutionary France, "It is but an +empty space on the political map," we may at least adopt the response +hurled back by Mirabeau, that this empty space is a volcano red with +flames and overflowing with lava-floods. But whether we deal with it as +"empty space" or as "volcano," the jurisdiction, civil and military, +centres in Congress, to be employed for the happiness, welfare, and +renown of the American people,--changing Slavery into Freedom, and +present chaos into a Cosmos of perpetual beauty and power. + + * * * * * + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_The Thoughts of the Emperor M. Aurelius Antoninus._ Translated by +GEORGE LONG. London: Bell & Daldy. + +Dulness is usually reckoned the prescriptive right of kings; at least, +they are supposed to be officially incapable of literary eminence. And +yet it is a curious fact, that, of those idiomatic works which +literature will not "let die," of those marked productions which survive +by their individuality, three, at least, bear the impress of royal +names. + +Devotion has found, in the contributions of three thousand years, no +utterance so fit as the lyrics of a Hebrew king; satiety has breathed no +sigh so profound as "The Words of the Preacher, the Son of David, King +of Jerusalem"[31]; and the wisdom of the Stoics has no worthier exponent +than the meditations of a sovereign who ruled the greatest empire known +to history, and glorified it with his own imperial spirit,--the noblest +that ever bore the burden of state. + +Our third example, unlike the other two, has not been adopted by +ecclesiastical authority, and is not incorporated in any Vulgate of +sacred lore; but its place in the canon of philosophy has long been +established, and is often confirmed by fresh recognition. A new +translation of this celebrated work, of which several versions already +existed, has just been given to the English public by Mr. George Long, a +well-known scholar and critic, with the title above named. We should +have preferred the old title, "Meditations," so long endeared; but we +are none the less grateful to Mr. Long for this needful service, for +which no ordinary qualifications were required, and which has never +before been performed by such competent hands. + +Gibbon has said, that, "if a man were called to fix the period in the +history of the world during which the condition of the human race was +most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which +elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus." This +period comprises, together with the four concluding years of the first +century of the Christian era, four-fifths of the second. The last of +these fifths, deducting one year, (A.D. 161-180,) was occupied by the +supreme rule of Annios Verus, better known by his assumed name of Marcus +Ælius Aurelius Antoninus, fifteenth emperor of the Romans, nephew and +successor of another Antoninus, whose virtues, and especially his +grateful remembrance of his predecessor and benefactor, procured him the +_agnomen_ of "Pius." In a line of sovereigns which numbers a larger +proportion of wise and good men than most dynasties, perhaps than any +other, M. Antoninus ranks first, so far as those qualities are +concerned. A man of singular and sublime virtue, whose imperial station, +so trying to human character, but served to render more conspicuous his +rare and transcendent excellence. With an empire such as never before or +since the Augustan dynasty has fallen to the lot of an individual, lord +of the civilized earth, he lived simply and abstemiously as the poorest +citizen in his dominions, frugal with unlimited means, humble with +unlimited sway. Not a Christian by profession, in piety toward God and +charity toward man he was yet a better Christian in fact than any of the +Christian emperors who succeeded him. He governed his life by the Stoic +discipline, the most hardy, in its practical requirements, of ancient +systems, so rigorous in its ethic that Josephus is proud to claim an +affinity with it for the "straitest" of the Jewish sects, and so pure in +its spirit that St. Jerome ranks its best-known writer as a +Christian,--a philosophy which taught men to consider virtue as the only +good, vice as the only evil, all external things as indifferent. "His +life," says Gibbon, "was the noblest commentary on the precepts of Zeno. +He was severe to himself, indulgent to the imperfections of others, just +and beneficent to all mankind. He regretted that Avidius Cassius, who +had excited a rebellion in Syria, had by a voluntary death deprived him +of the pleasure of converting an enemy into a friend. War he detested as +the disgrace and calamity of human nature; but when the necessity of a +just defence called upon him to take up arms, he readily exposed his +person to eight winter campaigns on the frozen banks of the Danube, the +severity of which was at last fatal to the weakness of his constitution. +His memory was revered by a grateful posterity, and above a century +after his death there were many who preserved the image of Marcus +Antoninus among their household gods." + +The learned Casaubon, after placing him above Solomon, "as being lord +and master of more great kingdoms than Solomon was of towns," speaks of +him as a man "who, for goodness and wisdom, was had by all men during +his life in such honor and reputation as never man was either before him +or after him." "There hath ever been store enough of men," he says, +"that could speak well and give good instructions, but great want of +them that could or so much as endeavored to do as they spake or taught +others to do. Be it therefore spoken to the immortal praise and +commendation of Antoninus, that as he did write so he did live. Never +did writers so conspire to give all possible testimony of goodness, +uprightness, innocence, as they have done to commend this one. They +commend him, not as the best prince only, but absolutely as the best man +and best philosopher that ever lived." + +Merivale, who concludes with the reign of M. Antoninus his "History of +the Romans under the Empire," adds his testimony to that of the cloud of +witnesses who have trumpeted the great _Imperator's_ praise. "Of all the +Cæsars whose names are enshrined in the page of history, or whose +features are preserved to us in the repositories of art, one alone seems +still to haunt the Eternal City in the place and the posture most +familiar to him in life. In the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, +which crowns the platform of the Campidoglio, Imperial Rome lives +again.... In this figure we behold an emperor, of all the line the +noblest and the dearest, such as he actually appeared; we realize in one +august exemplar the character and image of the rulers of the world. We +stand here face to face with a representative of the Scipios and Cæsars, +the heroes of Tacitus and Livy. Our other Romans are effigies of the +closet and the museum; this alone is a man of the streets, the forum, +and the capitol. Such special prominence is well reserved, amid the +wreck of ages, for him whom historians combine to honor as the worthiest +of the Roman people." + +Mr. Long, in his biographical introduction, examines at length the +evidence for Marcus's alleged persecution of the Christians. Lardner, +and other writers in the Christian ecclesiastical interest, assuming the +fact, denounce it as a blot on the Emperor's fame. The translator +devotes more space to the consideration of this matter than, perhaps, in +the judgment of the historical critic at this day, it will seem to +deserve. That Christians, in the time of M. Antoninus, in Asia Minor and +in Gaul, suffered torture and death on account of their faith, admits of +no reasonable doubt. That Marcus authorized these persecutions, in any +sense implying the responsibility of an original decision, does not +appear. The imperial power, it must be remembered, was not absolute, but +constitutionally defined. The Augusti, for the most part, were but the +executors of existing laws. The punishment of Christians, who refused to +sacrifice, and persisted in contravening the religion of the State, was +one of those laws. In some places, especially at Lyons and Vienne, the +Christians were the victims of popular riots; but where they suffered by +legal authority, in the name of the imperial government, it was under +the well-known law of Trajan, a law which had been sixty years in +operation when Marcus came upon the throne. The only blame that can be +imputed to him in this relation (if blame it be) is that of failing to +discern and acknowledge the divine authority of the new religion which +was silently undermining the old Roman world. But no one who puts +himself in the Emperor's time and place will think the worse of him for +not adopting a view of this subject which educated and serious minds +were precisely the least likely to adopt. To such, Christianity +presented itself simply as a novelty opposed to religion and threatening +the State. The case of Justin may be cited as an instance of a +thoughtful and philosophic mind embracing Christianity in spite of the +strong presumption against it in minds of that class. But, not to speak +of the very wide difference between the steady, conservative Roman and +the volatile Greek, all the life-circumstances of Justin, a Palestinian +by birth, favored his adoption of the Christian faith; everything in the +life of Antoninus tended in the opposite direction. Justin embraced the +religion first on its philosophic side, where Antoninus was especially +fortified against it, having early come to an understanding with himself +on the deepest questions of the soul. His decisions on these questions +did not differ materially from those of the Gospel; they might, unknown +to himself, have been modified by a subtile atmospheric influence +derived from that source and acting on a nature so receptive of its +spirit. But the very fact, that he had in a measure anticipated the +teachings of the Gospel, precluded the chance of his being surprised +into acquiescence with the new religion by its moral beauty, if brought +fairly before him, which perhaps it never was; for it does not appear +that he read the Christian apologies framed in his day. What was best in +Christianity, as a system of doctrine,--its ethical precepts,--he had +already embraced; its substance he possessed; its external form he knew +only as opposition to institutions which he was bound by all the +sanctities of his office, by all the dignity of a Roman patrician, and +by all the currents of his life, to uphold. For the rest, the relation +of a mind like his to polytheism could be nothing more than the formal +acceptance of its symbols in the interest of piety, implying no +intellectual enslavement to its myths and traditions. + +De Quincey calls attention to one merit of Antoninus, which, he says, +has been "utterly unnoticed hitherto by historians, but which will +hereafter obtain a conspicuous place in any perfect record of the steps +by which civilization has advanced and human nature been exalted. It is +this: Marcus Aurelius was the first great military leader who allowed +rights indefeasible, rights uncancelled by misfortune in the field, to +the prisoner of war. Others had been merciful and variously indulgent, +upon their own discretion, and upon a random impulse, to some, or +possibly to all of their prisoners; ... but Marcus Aurelius first +resolutely maintained that certain indestructible rights adhered to +every soldier simply as a man, which rights capture by the sword, or any +other accident of war, could do nothing to shake or diminish.... Here is +an immortal act of goodness built upon an immortal basis; for so long as +armies congregate and the sword is the arbiter of international +quarrels, so long will it deserve to be had in remembrance that the +first man who set limits to the empire of wrong, and first translated +within the jurisdiction of man's moral nature that state of war which +had heretofore been consigned by principle no less than by practice to +anarchy, animal violence, and brute force, was also the first +philosopher who sat upon a throne. In this, and in his universal spirit +of forgiveness, we cannot but acknowledge a Christian by +anticipation.... And when we view him from this distant age, as heading +that shining array, the Howards and the Wilberforces, who have since +then, in a practical sense, hearkened to the sighs of 'all prisoners and +captives,' we are ready to suppose him addressed by the great Founder of +Christianity in the words of Scripture, 'Thou art not far from the +kingdom of God.'"[32] + +Born to be a thinker rather than an actor, by nature framed for the life +of a recluse, by temperament inclined to private study and +contemplation, this best of emperors and of men by Providential destiny +was doomed to spend the greater part of his days in the tumult of +affairs, and, like a true Roman, died at last a soldier's death in his +camp on the banks of the Danube, where, in after years, another line of +"Roman Emperors," the sovereigns of the "Holy Roman Empire of Germany," +had their seat. For more than a century after his death, and so long as +Rome retained a remnant of her old vitality, a grateful people adored +him as a saint, and he who "had no bust, picture, or statue of Marcus in +his house was looked upon as a profane and irreligious man." To this +day, beside the equestrian statue named by Merivale, in the heart of +modern Rome, a few steps from her principal thronged thoroughfare, a +column which time has spared still commemorates the last of the Romans. +The Emperor's statue which once surmounted it was destroyed, and +centuries after the statue of St. Paul exalted to the vacant place, as +if to show that the "height of Rome" is not quite the perfection of all +humanity, and that even the purest of ancient philosophies is incomplete +without the supplement of a more humane and universal wisdom. + +Mr. Long's preliminary dissertation on "The Philosophy of Antoninus" is +thorough and satisfactory, so far as that specific subject is concerned, +but presents a very inadequate view of the Stoic philosophy in general, +and strikes us as unjust in its incidental disparaging notice (in a +footnote) of Seneca, who, after all, will ever be regarded as the +greatest literary product of that school. + +The book itself to which this essay introduces us is one of the few +monuments that remain to us, and by far the best monument that remains +to us, of the interior spiritual life of the better class of that +Græco-Roman world of whose exterior life we know so much. Not to have +read it is not to know the deepest mind of the ancients. Two things in +it are prevailingly prominent: first, a noble nature; secondly, an +extreme civilization, already faltering, turned to decline, expecting +its fall. On every page lies the shadow of impending doom; on every page +shines forth the great, heroic soul equal to every fate. The work--if +work it can be called--is entirely aphoristic, with no apparent plan; in +fact, a note-book or diary of thoughts and fancies, set down as they +occurred from time to time, and as leisure favored the record. In its +structure, or rather want of structure, and in some of its suggestions, +it reminds one of the Book of Ecclesiastes. Yet the difference between +them is immense. The prevailing tone of Ecclesiastes is skepticism, that +of the "Thoughts" is faith. The one is morbid, the other sane; the one +relaxes, the other braces; the one is steeped in despondency and gloom, +the other is redolent of manly courage and cheerful trust. The Emperor, +like the Preacher, has much to say about death; but he views the subject +from a higher plane, and envisages the final event with a better hope. +He does not think that a living dog is better than a dead lion. + +"What, then, is that which is able to conduct a man? One thing, and only +one, philosophy.[33] But this consists in keeping the dæmon within a man +free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing +nothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy,... and +besides accepting all that happens, and all that is allotted, as coming +from thence, wherever it is, from whence he himself came, and finally +waiting for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than a +dissolution of the elements of which every living being is compounded. +But if there is no harm to the elements themselves, in each continually +changing into the other, why should a man have any apprehension about +the change and dissolution of all the elements? For it is according to +Nature, and nothing is evil which is according to Nature."[34] + +"Thou hast embarked, thou hast made the voyage, thou art come to shore; +get out. If, indeed, to another life, there is no want of gods, not even +there. But if to a state without sensation, thou wilt cease to be held +by pains and pleasures, and to be a slave to the vessel which is as much +inferior as that which serves it is superior; for the one is +intelligence and deity, the other is earth and corruption."[35] + +"Man, thou hast been a citizen in this great state [the world]; what +difference does it make to thee whether for five years or three? for +that which is conformable to the laws is just for all. Where is the +hardship, then, if no tyrant or unjust judge sends thee away from the +state, but Nature who brought thee into it? The same as if a prætor who +has employed an actor dismisses him from the stage. 'But I have not +finished the five acts,--only three of them.' Thou sayest well; but in +life the three acts are the whole drama; for what shall be a complete +drama is determined by him who was once the cause of its composition, +and now of its dissolution; but thou art the cause of neither. Depart, +then, satisfied, for he who dismisses thee is satisfied."[36] + +The book is one which scarcely admits of analysis, and of which it is +impossible to convey an idea by any discussion of its contents. In +characterizing the man we have characterized the "Thoughts" as the +commentary of personal experience on the virtues of fortitude, patience, +piety, love, and trust. They have a history, and have been the chosen +companion of many and very different men of note. Our own native Stoic, +the latest, and, since Fichte, the best representative of that school, +fed his youth at this fountain, and shows, in his earlier writings +especially, the influence of his imperial predecessor. Mr. Long reminds +us that this was one of the two books which Captain John Smith, the hero +of young Virginia, selected for his daily use. Unlike the generality of +John Smiths and of modern Virginians, the brave soldier found here a +kindred spirit. + +The Christian world possesses in its Bible a record of Semitic piety +whose genuine utterances will never be surpassed; but when the Vulgate +of the Aryan races shall be published, these confessions of a noble soul +will claim a prominent place among its scriptures. + + +_Levana; or, The Doctrine of Education._ Translated from the German of +JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. + +We call to mind certain phrases wherein the critic may honestly express +satisfaction that a portion of the world's plastic stock of useful +knowledge has been skilfully manipulated into a volume. Truly, none of +them will do for this sweetest household blossom of a commanding +intellect. We have poetry too discursively brilliant for the trammels of +verse, eloquence which has drawn its materials from the purest sources, +and instructiveness running into sparkling effusions or soaring in +aërial fancies. It is hard to speak adequately of this delicious, +accidental "Levana." It is no schoolmaster's manual, no elaborated +system set to snap like a spring-trap upon the heads of incautious +meddlers,--it is only the very aroma of the married life of a wise and +tender poet. + +Those early years which held Richter in the grasp of their miseries and +perplexities had passed away. Bravely had he struggled through +temptations which at all times and in all places beset young men, added +to such as are peculiar to one of the highest inspirations steeped to +the lips in poverty. Through all perils he had borne the purity of his +youth, the freedom and simplicity of his deep soul. And so he is +privileged to bring to marriage and the delicate nurture of children the +fine insights of a man of genius who has been wholly true to the costly +gift he possessed. Of the domestic fragrance of a well-ordered family no +savor eludes him. The wife and children, the vigorous and rich life +which they offer to a good man,--those are touched with keenest analysis +and in festal spirit. Most thoroughly does the author possess that rare +combination of mind which seeks speculative truth no less than ideal +beauty; with him emotion is nothing, unless it leads to principle. + +"Levana," as we have said, is no iron system for the education of +children; it is rather a most readable text-book for the education of +parents. It sustains a relation of spiritual fathership to common +fathers, and offers choicest counsel to those who would assume the +office of family-teacher honestly and in the fear of God. And it seems +to us that of these subtle influences of home-culture, whose gospel +Richter here declares, our American parents have been too neglectful. +The world knows that we are proud, and justly so, of our public +educational apparatus. But that our legislation in this direction +produces nothing but good, no observing man can admit. This elaborate +reading-and-writing machine of which the State turns the handle, while +it induces a certain average sharpness in the children, leaves rusting +some of the noblest privileges as well as the highest duties of the +parent. Yet citizens will cry that they feel their responsibilities for +educating, and, to their better fulfilment, work daily for dollars. This +is well; but let us not throw our dollars in a parabolic curve over the +house, on the chance of their making a happy descent in some distant +school-room. The bringing-up of children is something very different +from pickling cucumbers or salting fish,--it cannot be done by contract +and in the gross. But, ah, there is no time for anything else! Then +reduce your way of living to anything above the food-and-shelter point, +and so make time. Richter was always poor, always a man of great labor +and great performance, and here is what he says:--"I deny myself my +evening meal in my eagerness to work; but the interruptions by my +children I cannot deny myself." + +"Levana" is peculiarly adapted to cause those who have to do with +children to feel all the emancipating and renovating power of their +trust. It cannot leave us satisfied with any conventional arrangement +which brings to plausible maturity a limited per cent. There are, +indeed, minds strong enough to pass through the bitter years of +unlearning what has been taught amiss, and then, bating no jot of heart +or courage, to begin education for themselves in middle life. But often +it is far otherwise. Too often, owing to the indolence or immaturity of +those who assume the responsibility of parents, the child is cast into a +terrible moral perplexity, which is at last moral corruption. Our duties +toward different children are as eclectic and irregular as Nature +herself. There is a need to study and respect the individual character, +which claims from parents the daily use of their mental powers,--and +this without a compelling external stimulus. Now it is easy and not +unpleasant to work in a routine. Schiller used to say that he found the +great happiness of life to consist in the discharge of some mechanical +duty. He was in the right. Nevertheless, for the worth and blessedness +of life we must look to the discharge of duties which are not +mechanical. Of mechanical teaching the highest result proposed is the +multiplication of photographs from the teacher's negative, or, in the +words of Richter, "to fill our streets with perpetual stiff, feeble +copies of the same pedagogue type." But the parent's office demands +courage,--courage not so much to originate as to accept the wisdom of +thinking men, some of whom have spoken more than a hundred years ago. +The folly of cramming a child with words representing no ideas, instead +of giving him ideas to find themselves words, is no new discovery. +Milton, in his letter to Master Hartlib, assails that "scholastic +grossness of barbarous ages" from which we nineteenth-century citizens +have by no means escaped. "We do amiss," exclaims the eloquent scholar, +"to spend seven or eight years in scraping together so much miserable +Latin and Greek as might otherwise be learned easily and pleasantly in +one year." He denounces this "misspending our prime youth at schools and +universities as we do, either in learning mere words, or such things +chiefly as were better unlearned." We quote the words of Milton rather +than those of other eminent men to the same effect, because the poet +cannot be accused of objecting to Latin and Greek taught at the right +time and in the right way. A man whose mighty English was always fast +anchored to classic bottoms had surely no sentimental preference for +modern sciences. Indeed, in this very essay he seems to demand what at +present we must consider as a too early initiation into the ancient +languages, no longer the exclusive keys to knowledge. But Milton +realized that there was a natural development to the imitative and +perceptive powers of man, and he knew that a mere tasking of the verbal +memory blighted the diviner faculties of comparison and judgment. We +hold that the ideal system of education, to which through coming +centuries men can only approximate, must present to the child the +precise step in knowledge which he waits for, and upon which he is able +to raise himself with that glow of pleasurable activity which God gives +to exertion directed to a comprehensible end. The feeblest mind is +capable of assimilating knowledge with a satisfaction the same in kind +as that which rewarded the maturest labors of Humboldt or Newton. There +are sequences of facts every one of which, imparted in its natural +order, brings an immediate interest. It is no nebulous scheme of +combining instruction with amusement which is to be sought. One might as +well look after the Philosopher's Stone or the Elixir of Life. Good +things are to be had upon no easier terms than privation and work. But +there is a wide difference between a man toiling to gain material +comforts for those who are dear to him, or laboring to enlighten and +reform his own spirit that he may give good gifts to his generation, and +a beast whipped round a treadmill to the din of its own everlasting +clatter. It is only work whose end shall, in some faint degree, be +intelligible, which is demanded for the child; and with this sort of +work we believe that it is very possible to furnish him. But our +philanthropies in this direction may not be wrought by deputy; they must +be aimed at the few, and not at once at the many. + +The reader of "Levana" will find much incidental commendation of those +true relations of intellectual sympathy and confidence between parents +and children which in this country are far rarer than they should be. +Seldom do we hear the average American citizen speak of either parent in +that tone of tender and respectful companionship with which the average +Frenchman pronounces "_ma mère_" or "_mon père_." Seldom do we see that +relation between an eminent man and his mother which, in the Old World, +has been exemplified from Augustine to Buckle. Some of the causes of +this have been admirably set forth in a recent essay in these pages. The +article by Gail Hamilton in the April number of the "Atlantic" contains +much _uncommon_ sense, which our lady-readers cannot ponder too often. +All honor to those mothers who, meeting extreme and unexpected poverty, +turn themselves into drudges that their children may be decently clothed +and wholesomely fed! But dishonor to those women who stunt their own +intellectual powers, which should educate and accompany the immortal +souls of their sons and daughters through this world and perhaps +another,--and this, in order that their bodies may be fed luxuriously, +or dressed in lace and ruffles to vie with the children of richer +neighbors! There can be no tolerance for the _indolence_--we emphasize +the word--which elects a mechanical routine instead of those harder +mental efforts through which a mother's highest duties may be +comprehended and performed. And what shall be said for the despicable +vanity which would barter opportunities of forming and directing a human +character for the sake of trimmings and fancy buttons? We cannot possess +the confidence and friendship of our children without taking pains to +deserve them. If the father chooses to be "the governor" of his family, +then the _ex-governor_, and nothing more, can he be to his grown-up +children,--an official once set over them by some Know-Nothing or other +fatality, at length happily shelved with the rubbish of the nursery. +Nowhere are the external sanctities of domestic life more respected than +in our Northern States, and here should its fairest promises be +bountifully fulfilled. Above all things, it is to be remembered that +whatever moral power a man would have his children possess, that must he +especially demand and exercise in himself. The Law of the household must +afford the luxury of a Conscience; for if ever the maxim "_Summum jus, +summa, injuria_" be worthy of remembrance, it is in the management of +children. Well for those who realize that education is no merely lineal +advancement, but a spreading and flowering in many directions! well for +those who cultivate all the capabilities of love and trust in their +children! "When I think," says Jean Paul, "that I never saw in my father +a trace of selfishness, I thank God!" There comes the time when young +men go forth to battle in the world, and the father prays bitterly for +the power to endow them with the results of his own experience. But only +to him who has borne himself truthfully and honorably before his family +can that good gift be given. + +Upon the subject of religious education "Levana" is finely suggestive. +All cobweb-makeshifts which obscure the beautiful substance of a holy +life are swept aside. To the young, not what others say, but what they +do, is right. Children, like their elders, will resist all mere +reasoning upon the disadvantages, whether temporal or spiritual, of +actions to which they are tempted. But they are ever ready to absorb the +faith of the household, and to be nourished by it. "For those who wish +to give anything," exclaims our author, "the first rule is, that they +shall have it to give; no one can teach religion who does not himself +possess it; hypocrisy and mouth-religion will bring forth only their +like." The hardly noticeable habits of unrestrained intercourse, the +indulgence of petty selfishness not acknowledged to ourselves,--these +are seeds of evil quick to germinate in a virgin soil. No iteration of +pedagogical maxims can annul the influence of some little mean or +graceless act. Let every parent take heed lest, through his own weakness +and folly, he lose the divine privilege of obedience through confidence. +In the world, obedience through discipline must indeed come; but let it +be unknown in the family as long as it may. And of "mouth-religion" what +fatal abundance! To a child, it is no more than the creaking and +rattling of a vehicle, which is of a certain worth, doubtless, to the +weary, sinful adult,--but to one who feels his life in every limb, +incomprehensible, and an offence. Of the vulgar superstition which would +confuse the nursery with creeds and vain prayer-repetitions of the +heathen there is far too much. We have known parents, reputed pious and +church-going, who delighted to pour crushing enigmas into infant ears, +and then to make a sorry household jest of the feeble one's grotesque +attempts to extend or limit the Unspeakable. As the highest concerns of +man can be known only by the spirit, so they can be taught only by the +spirit. It is not the words we repeat, but the temper in which we daily +live, that moulds the family to honor or dishonor. It is the spirit of +the father and mother which produces results mistaken for intuitions by +the superficial. And, truly, youth, thus warmly rooted in generosity and +nobility, will, in its own good time, stretch tender leaves up to the +Higher Light. And when Nature is ready for worship, mark how wisely +Richter directs it:--"The sublime is a step to the temple of religion, +as the stars are to that of infinity. Let the name of God be heard by +the child in connection with all that is great in Nature,--the storm, +the thunder, the starry heavens, and death,--a great misfortune,--a +great piece of good-fortune,--a great crime,--a greatly noble action: +these are the sites on which to build the wandering church of +childhood." + +In conclusion, we can only repeat, that the greatest charm of "Levana" +is its suggestion of a possible household, from what the reader feels +was once an actual household. The cheap sentimentalism of parental +relations has often been a favorite property with men of imaginative +genius. Rousseau and Byron knew how to use it as a fictitious background +before which they might posture with effect. But, until the world's +literature shall mercifully forget them, the "Enfants Trouvés" and the +Venetian bagnio strip these writers of their fine words, and hold them +before the generations in scandal and disgrace. No reader of "Levana" +can miss the refutation of that poisonous lie, that men of genius, +because of their mental endowments, have a natural inaptitude for +domestic relations, or are unhappy therein from any other cause than +their own foolishness or guilt. We hear the tender strains of a deep +poet, privileged by acquired worthiness to return to those divine +instincts which were vivid in the simplest condition of the family. To +all who can bring the writings of Richter within their range we commend +this book. Those who have learned to enjoy his strong-darting language, +his complex constructions, his kindly humor, will find these working +together with noblest aim. In these times of our country's peril, there +is some sanative virtue outside of treatises upon strategy or Union +pamphlets. It is well to print and circulate the literature of war. But +it is also a sweet and a timely mission to impart a new inspiration into +that life of the family to-day which shall become the life of the nation +to-morrow. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: See Atlantic Monthly, May Number.] + +[Footnote 2: "Clearly a fictitious appellation; for, if we admit the +latter of these names to be in a manner English, what is _Leigh_? +Christian nomenclature knows no such."] + +[Footnote 3: "It is clearly of transatlantic origin."] + +[Footnote 4: + + "'Imperfectus adhuc infans genetricis ab alvo + Eripitur, patrioque tener (si credere dignum) + Insuitur femori ... + Tutaque bis geniti sunt incunabula Bacchi.' + +_Metamorph_. Lib. 3."] + +[Footnote 5: It was Philip II. who gave to the Havana a coat of arms, in +which was a golden key, to signify that it was the key of the Indies. +The house being lost, the key has, oddly enough, become more valuable +than ever to Spain.] + +[Footnote 6: The "Annual Register" states that but 2,500 of the +conquerors were fit for duty when the Havana surrendered. The Boston +"Gazette" says 3,000, and that the arrival of reinforcements was +critical. Even disease could not break down armies in those days. The +Spaniards had 6,000 sick.] + +[Footnote 7: The writer is known to the publishers of the "Atlantic +Monthly": he is one whose word is not and cannot be called in question; +and he pledges his word that the above is exact and _proven_ fact. +Horace Mann, years ago, made public some similar cases.] + +[Footnote 8: _Constitutional History of England_, Vol. II. p. 340.] + +[Footnote 9: Carlyle's _Life of Cromwell_, Part IX. Vol. II. p. 168.] + +[Footnote 10: Ludlow's _Memoirs_, p. 559.] + +[Footnote 11: Ibid. p. 580.] + +[Footnote 12: Ibid. p. 582.] + +[Footnote 13: Kent's _Commentaries_, Vol. I. p. 292, note b.] + +[Footnote 14: Elliott's _Debates_, Vol. III, p. 22.] + +[Footnote 15: Elliott's _Debates_, Vol. III. p. 44.] + +[Footnote 16: _Ibid._ p. 29.] + +[Footnote 17: Rushworth's _Historical Collections_, Vol. I. p. 609.] + +[Footnote 18: See Cushing, _Parliamentary Law_, p. 284.] + +[Footnote 19: Phillimore's _International Law_, Vol. I. p. 147.] + +[Footnote 20: Burke's _Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs_.] + +[Footnote 21: Macaulay's _History of England_, Vol. II. p. 623.] + +[Footnote 22: Macaulay's _History of England_, Vol. II. p. 624.] + +[Footnote 23: John Adams's _Works_, Vol. II. p. 490.] + +[Footnote 24: _Ibid_. Vol. III. pp. 17, 19, 45, 46.] + +[Footnote 25: Webster's _Works_, Vol. VI. pp. 225, 226, 227, 228, 231.] + +[Footnote 26: The _Gorgias_ of Plato.] + +[Footnote 27: _American Insurance Company_ v. _Carter_, 1 Peters, p. +542.] + +[Footnote 28: _Democracy in America_, Vol. II. ch. 25, p. 343.] + +[Footnote 29: Thirty-Seventh Congress, Second Session, 2d May, 1862, +Part III. p. 1923.] + +[Footnote 30: Act of Congress, July 2, 1862, ch. 123.] + +[Footnote 31: Jewish tradition, in spite of German criticism, still +ascribes the Book of Ecclesiastes to Solomon.] + +[Footnote 32: _The Cæsars_, p. 170, Boston edition.] + +[Footnote 33: This word, as Marcus uses it, is equivalent to religion.] + +[Footnote 34: p. 25.] + +[Footnote 35: p. 29.] + +[Footnote 36: p. 217.] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, +October, 1863, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. *** + +***** This file should be named 15838-8.txt or 15838-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/8/3/15838/ + +Produced by Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: May 16, 2005 [EBook #15838] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. *** + + + + +Produced by Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407"></a></p> +<h1>THE</h1> + +<h1>ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</h1> + +<h2>A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.</h2> + +<h3>VOL. XII.—OCTOBER, 1863.—NO. LXXII.</h3> + +<p>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by TICKNOR AND +FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of +Massachusetts.</p> + + + +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#CHARLES_LAMBS_UNCOLLECTED_WRITINGS"><b>CHARLES LAMB'S UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#MY_PALACE"><b>MY PALACE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_DEACONS_HOLOCAUST"><b>THE DEACON'S HOLOCAUST.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_UNITED_STATES_ARMORY"><b>THE UNITED STATES ARMORY.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_PEWEE"><b>THE PEWEE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#MRS_LEWIS"><b>MRS. LEWIS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_CONQUEST_OF_CUBA"><b>THE CONQUEST OF CUBA.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#EQUINOCTIAL"><b>EQUINOCTIAL.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_LEGEND_OF_MONTE_DEL_DIABLO"><b>THE LEGEND OF MONTE DEL DIABLO.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#LIFE_WITHOUT_PRINCIPLE"><b>LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#BARBARA_FRIETCHIE"><b>BARBARA FRIETCHIE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#A_LETTER_TO_THOMAS_CARLYLE"><b>A LETTER TO THOMAS CARLYLE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#VOLUNTARIES"><b>VOLUNTARIES.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#OUR_DOMESTIC_RELATIONS"><b>OUR DOMESTIC RELATIONS;</b></a><br /> +<a href="#REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES"><b>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</b></a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHARLES_LAMBS_UNCOLLECTED_WRITINGS" id="CHARLES_LAMBS_UNCOLLECTED_WRITINGS"></a>CHARLES LAMB'S UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2> + +<h3>SECOND PAPER.</h3> + + +<p>Readers of Lamb's "Life and Letters" remember that before "Mr. H." was +written, before Kemble had rejected "John Woodvil," Godwin's tragedy of +"Antonio" had been produced at Drury-Lane Theatre, and that Elia was +present at the performance thereof. But perhaps they do not know (at +least, not many of them) that Elia's essay on "The Artificial Comedy of +the Last Century," as originally published in the "London Magazine," +contained a full and circumstantial account of the cold and stately +manner in which John Kemble performed the part of Antonio in Godwin's +unfortunate play. For some reason or other, Lamb did not reprint this +part of the article. Admirers of Charles Lamb and admirers of the drama +will be pleased—for 'tis a very characteristic bit of writing—with +what Elia says of</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>JOHN KEMBLE AND GODWIN'S TRAGEDY OF "ANTONIO."</p> + +<p>"The story of his swallowing opium-pills to keep him lively upon the +first night of a certain tragedy we may presume to be a piece of +retaliatory pleasantry on the part of the suffering author. But, indeed, +John had the art of diffusing a complacent equable dulness (which you +knew not where to quarrel with) over a piece which he did not like, +beyond any of his contemporaries. John Kemble had made up his mind early +that all the good tragedies which could be written had been written, and +he resented any new attempt. His shelves were full. The old standards +were scope enough for his ambition. He ranged in them absolute, and +'fair in Otway, full in Shakspeare shone.' He succeeded to the old +lawful thrones, and did not care to adventure bottomry with a Sir Edward +Mortimer, or any casual speculator that offered.</p> + +<p>"I remember, too acutely for my peace, the deadly extinguisher which he +put upon my friend G.'s 'Antonio' G., satiate with visions of political +justice, (possibly not to be realized in our time,) or willing to let +the skeptical worldlings see that his anticipations of the future did +not preclude a warm sympathy for men as they are and have been, wrote a<a name="Page_408" id="Page_408"></a> +tragedy. He chose a story, affecting, romantic, Spanish,—the plot +simple, without being naked,—the incidents uncommon, without being +overstrained. Antonio, who gives the name to the piece, is a sensitive +young Castilian, who, in a fit of his country honor, immolates his +sister—</p> + +<p>"But I must not anticipate the catastrophe. The play, reader, is extant +in choice English, and you will employ a spare half-crown not +injudiciously in the quest of it.</p> + +<p>"The conception was bold, and the <i>dénouement</i>—the time and place in +which the hero of it existed considered—not much out of keeping; yet it +must be confessed that it required a delicacy of handling, both from the +author and the performer, so as not much to shock the prejudices of a +modern English audience. G., in my opinion, had done his part. John, who +was in familiar habits with the philosopher, had undertaken to play +Antonio. Great expectations were formed. A philosopher's first play was +a new era. The night arrived. I was favored with a seat in an +advantageous box, between the author and his friend M.G. sat cheerful +and confident. In his friend M.'s looks, who had perused the manuscript, +I read some terror. Antonio, in the person of John Philip Kemble, at +length appeared, starched out in a ruff which no one could dispute, and +in most irreproachable mustachios. John always dressed most provokingly +correct on these occasions. The first act swept by, solemn and silent. +It went off, as G. assured M., exactly as the opening act of a +piece—the <i>protasis</i>—should do. The cue of the spectators was to be +mute. The characters were but in their introduction. The passions and +the incidents would be developed hereafter. Applause hitherto would be +impertinent. Silent attention was the effect all-desirable. Poor M. +acquiesced,—but in his honest, friendly face I could discern a working +which told how much more acceptable the plaudit of a single hand +(however misplaced) would have been than all this reasoning. The second +act (as in duty bound) rose a little in interest; but still John kept +his forces under,—in policy, as G. would have it,—and the audience +were most complacently attentive. The <i>protasis</i>, in fact, was scarcely +unfolded. The interest would warm in the next act, against which a +special incident was provided. M. wiped his cheek, flushed with a +friendly perspiration,—'tis M.'s way of showing his zeal,—'from every +pore of him a perfume falls.' I honor it above Alexander's. He had once +or twice during this act joined his palms in a feeble endeavor to elicit +a sound; they emitted a solitary noise without an echo; there was no +deep to answer to his deep. G. repeatedly begged him to be quiet. The +third act at length brought on the scene which was to warm the piece +progressively to the final flaming forth of the catastrophe. A +philosophic calm settled upon the clear brow of G., as it approached. +The lips of M. quivered. A challenge was held forth upon the stage, and +there was promise of a fight. The pit roused themselves on this +extraordinary occasion, and, as their manner is, seemed disposed to make +a ring,—when suddenly Antonio, who was the challenged, turning the +tables upon the hot challenger, Don Gusman, (who, by the way, should +have had his sister,) balks his humor, and the pit's reasonable +expectation at the same time, with some speeches out of the new +philosophy against duelling. The audience were here fairly +caught,—their courage was up, and on the alert,—a few blows, <i>ding +dong</i>, as R——s the dramatist afterwards expressed it to me, might have +done the business,—when their most exquisite moral sense was suddenly +called in to assist in the mortifying negation of their own pleasure. +They could not applaud, for disappointment; they would not condemn, for +morality's sake. The interest stood stone-still; and John's manner was +not at all calculated to unpetrify<a name="Page_409" id="Page_409"></a> it. It was Christmas time, and the +atmosphere furnished some pretext for asthmatic affections. One began to +cough, his neighbor sympathized with him, till a cough became +epidemical. But when, from being half artificial in the pit, the cough +got frightfully naturalized among the fictitious persons of the drama, +and Antonio himself (albeit it was not set down in the stage-directions) +seemed more intent upon relieving his own lungs than the distresses of +the author and his friends,—then G. 'first knew fear,' and, mildly +turning to M., intimated that he had not been aware that Mr. Kemble +labored under a cold, and that the performance might possibly have been +postponed with advantage for some nights further,—still keeping the +same serene countenance, while M. sweat like a bull.</p> + +<p>"It would be invidious to pursue the fates of this ill-starred evening. +In vain did the plot thicken in the scenes that followed, in vain the +dialogue wax more passionate and stirring, and the progress of the +sentiment point more and more clearly to the arduous development which +impended. In vain the action was accelerated, while the acting stood +still. From the beginning, John had taken his stand,—had wound himself +up to an even tenor of stately declamation, from which no exigence of +dialogue or person could make him swerve for an instant. To dream of his +rising with the scene (the common trick of tragedians) was preposterous; +for from the onset he had planted himself, as upon a terrace, on an +eminence vastly above the audience, and he kept that sublime level to +the end. He looked from his throne of elevated sentiment upon the +under-world of spectators with a most sovran and becoming contempt. +There was excellent pathos delivered out to them: an they would receive +it, so; an they would not receive it, so. There was no offence against +decorum in all this; nothing to condemn, to damn. Not an irreverent +symptom of a sound was to be heard. The procession of verbiage stalked +on through four and five acts, no one venturing to predict what would +come of it, when, towards the winding-up of the latter, Antonio, with an +irrelevancy that seemed to stagger Elvira herself,—for she had been +coolly arguing the point of honor with him,—suddenly whips out a +poniard, and stabs his sister to the heart. The effect was as if a +murder had been committed in cold blood. The whole house rose up in +clamorous indignation, demanding justice. The feeling rose far above +hisses. I believe at that instant, if they could have got him, they +would have torn the unfortunate author to pieces. Not that the act +itself was so exorbitant, or of a complexion different from what they +themselves would have applauded upon another occasion in a Brutus or an +Appius,—but, for want of attending to Antonio's <i>words</i>, which palpably +led to the expectation of no less dire an event, instead of being +seduced by his <i>manner</i>, which seemed to promise a sleep of a less +alarming nature than it was his cue to inflict upon Elvira, they found +themselves betrayed into an accompliceship of murder, a perfect +misprision of parricide, while they dreamed of nothing less.</p> + +<p>"M., I believe, was the only person who suffered acutely from the +failure; for G. thenceforward, with a serenity unattainable but by the +true philosophy, abandoning a precarious popularity, retired into his +fast hold of speculation,—the drama in which the world was to be his +tiring-room, and remote posterity his applauding spectators, at once, +and actors."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"The least shavings of gold are valuable, men say," says Archbishop +Leighton, in his masterly Commentary on Peter; and the veriest trifle +from the pen of such a writer as Charles Lamb should be highly prized by +all readers that are readers. Therefore I think it would be unwise in me +not to print<a name="Page_410" id="Page_410"></a> Elia's Postscript to his "Chapter on Ears," and his +Answers to Correspondents. Indeed, I do not know but that they contain +some of the most racy sentences Lamb ever wrote. At any rate, they do +contain some delightful banter and "most ingenious nonsense." In their +pleasantry, archness, and good-natured raillery, these two little +articles of Elia's remind me of some of Addison's happiest papers in the +"Spectator."</p> + +<p>Better than anything in Southey's "Doctor" concerning the authorship of +that queer, quaint, delightful book are Elia's affected anger and +indignation against the author of the "Indicator" for attributing the +essays of Elia to their right author. Leigh Hunt must have "laughed +consumedly," as he read the P.S. to the "Chapter on Ears." And in his +Answers to Correspondents how many delightful changes Elia rings upon +the name of the unlucky Peter Bell! How cavalierly he answers +"Indagator," and the others, who are so importunate about the true +locality of his birth,—"as if, forsooth, Elia were presently about to +be passed to his parish "!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>P.S. TO THE "CHAPTER ON EARS."</p> + +<p>"A writer, whose real name, it seems, is <i>Boldero</i>, but who has been +entertaining the town for the last twelve months with some very pleasant +lucubrations under the assumed signature of <i>Leigh Hunt</i>,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> in his +'Indicator' of the 31st January last has thought fit to insinuate that +I, <i>Elia</i>, do not write the little sketches which bear my signature, in +this Magazine, but that the true author of them is a Mr. L——b. Observe +the critical period at which he has chosen to impute the calumny!—on +the very eve of the publication of our last number,—affording no scope +for explanation for a full month,—during which time I must needs lie +writhing and tossing under the cruel imputation of nonentity.—Good +heavens! that a plain man must not be allowed <i>to be!</i></p> + +<p>"They call this an age of personality: but surely this spirit of +anti-personality (if I may so express it) is something worse.</p> + +<p>"Take away my moral reputation,—I may live to discredit that calumny. +Injure my literary fame,—I may write that up again. But when a +gentleman is robbed of his identity, where is he?</p> + +<p>"Other murderers stab but at our existence, a frail and perishing trifle +at the best. But here is an assassin who aims at our very essence,—who +not only forbids us <i>to be</i> any longer, but <i>to have been</i> at all. Let +our ancestors look to it.</p> + +<p>"Is the parish register nothing? Is the house in Princes Street, +Cavendish Square, where we saw the light six-and-forty years ago, +nothing? Were our progenitors from stately Genoa, where we flourished +four centuries back, before the barbarous name of Boldero<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> was known +to a European mouth, nothing? Was the goodly scion of our name, +transplanted into England in the reign of the seventh Henry, nothing? +Are the archives of the steelyard, in succeeding reigns, (if haply they +survive the fury of our envious enemies,) showing that we flourished in +prime repute, as merchants, down to the period of the Commonwealth, +nothing?</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Why, then the world, and all that's in't is nothing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"I am ashamed that this trifling writer should have power to move me so.</p> + +<p>"ELIA."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"ELIA TO HIS CORRESPONDENTS.</p> + +<p>"A correspondent, who writes himself Peter Ball, or Bell,—for his +hand-writing is as ragged as his manners,—admonishes<a name="Page_411" id="Page_411"></a> me of the old +saying, that some people (under a courteous periphrasis I slur his less +ceremonious epithet) had need have good memories. In my 'Old Benchers of +the Inner Temple,' I have delivered myself, and truly, a Templar born. +Bell clamors upon this, and thinketh that he hath caught a fox. It seems +that in a former paper, retorting upon a weekly scribbler who had called +my good identity in question, (see P.S. to my 'Chapter on Ears,') I +profess myself a native of some spot near Cavendish Square, deducing my +remoter origin from Italy. But who does not see, except this tinkling +cymbal, that in that idle fiction of Genoese ancestry I was answering a +fool according to his folly,—that Elia there expresseth himself +ironically, as to an approved slanderer, who hath no right to the truth, +and can be no fit recipient of it? Such a one it is usual to leave to +his delusions,—or, leading him from error still to contradictory error, +to plunge him (as we say) deeper in the mire, and give him line till he +suspend himself. No understanding reader could be imposed upon by such +obvious rodomontade to suspect me for an alien, or believe me other than +English.</p> + +<p>"To a second correspondent, who signs himself 'A Wiltshire Man,' and +claims me for a countryman upon the strength of an equivocal phrase in +my 'Christ's Hospital,' a more mannerly reply is due. Passing over the +Genoese fable, which Bell makes such a ring about, he nicely detects a +more subtle discrepancy, which Bell was too obtuse to strike upon. +Referring to the passage, I must confess that the term 'native town,' +applied to Calne, <i>primâ facie</i> seems to bear out the construction which +my friendly correspondent is willing to put upon it. The context, too, I +am afraid, a little favors it. But where the words of an author, taken +literally, compared with some other passage in his writings, admitted to +be authentic, involve a palpable contradiction, it hath been the custom +of the ingenuous commentator to smooth the difficulty by the supposition +that in the one case an allegorical or tropical sense was chiefly +intended. So by the word 'native' I may be supposed to mean a town where +I might have been born,—or where it might be desirable that I should +have been born, as being situate in wholesome air, upon a dry, chalky +soil, in which I delight,—or a town with the inhabitants of which I +passed some weeks, a summer or two ago, so agreeably, that they and it +became in a manner native to me. Without some such latitude of +interpretation in the present case, I see not how we can avoid falling +into a gross error in physics, as to conceive that a gentleman may be +born in two places, from which all modern and ancient testimony is alike +abhorrent. Bacchus cometh the nearest to it, whom I remember Ovid to +have honored with the epithet 'twice-born.'<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> But not to mention that +he is so called (we conceive) in reference to the places <i>whence</i> rather +than the places <i>where</i> he was delivered,—for by either birth he may +probably be challenged for a Theban,—in a strict way of speaking, he +was a <i>filius femoris</i> by no means in the same sense as he had been +before a <i>filius alvi</i>, for that latter was but a secondary and +tralatitious way of being born, and he but a denizen of the second house +of his geniture. Thus much by way of explanation was thought due to the +courteous 'Wiltshire Man.'</p> + +<p>"To 'Indagator,' 'Investigator, 'Incertus,' and the rest of the pack, +that are so importunate about the true localities of his birth,—as if, +forsooth, Elia were presently about to be passed to his parish,—to all +such church-warden critics he answereth, that, any explanation<a name="Page_412" id="Page_412"></a> here +given notwithstanding, he hath not so fixed his nativity (like a rusty +vane) to one dull spot, but that, if he seeth occasion, or the argument +shall demand it, he will be born again, in future papers, in whatever +place, and at whatever period, shall seem good unto him,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Modò me Thebis, modò Athenis.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"ELIA."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Lamb excels as a critic. His article on Hogarth is a masterly specimen +of acute and subtile criticism. Hazlitt says it ought to be read by +every lover of Hogarth and English genius. His paper on "The Tragedies +of Shakspeare, considered with Reference to their Fitness for +Stage-Representation," is, in the opinion of good judges, the noblest +criticism ever written. The brief, "matterful" notes to his Specimens of +the Old English Dramatists are the very quintessence of criticism,—the +flower and fruit of years of thoughtful reading of the old English +drama. Nay, even his incidental allusions to his favorite old poets and +prose-writers are worth whole pages of ordinary criticism.</p> + +<p>Therefore I do not see what reason or excuse Talfourd could have for not +publishing the critical paper on De Foe's Secondary Novels, which Lamb +contributed to Walter Wilson's Life of De Foe. The author of "Robinson +Crusoe" was a great favorite with Lamb, and his criticism of "Colonel +Jack," "Moll Flanders," etc., was written <i>con amore</i>, and is, perhaps, +the very best thing ever said about those remarkable works. Those who +have read Lamb's letter to Wilson, dated December, 1822, and therefore +know how admirably he could write of the author of the best and most +popular book for boys ever written, will be right glad to read his</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>ESTIMATE OF DE FOE'S SECONDARY NOVELS.</p> + +<p>"It has happened not seldom that one work of some author has so +transcendently surpassed in execution the rest of his compositions, that +the world has agreed to pass a sentence of dismissal upon the latter, +and to consign them to total neglect and oblivion. It has done wisely in +this, not to suffer the contemplation of excellencies of a lower +standard to abate or stand in the way of the pleasure it has agreed to +receive from the master-piece.</p> + +<p>"Again, it has happened, that, from no inferior merit of execution in +the rest, but from superior good fortune in the choice of its subject, +some single work shall have been suffered to eclipse and cast into shade +the deserts of its less fortunate brethren. This has been done with more +or less injustice in the case of the popular allegory of Bunyan, in +which the beautiful and Scriptural image of a pilgrim or wayfarer, (we +are all such upon earth,) addressing itself intelligibly and feelingly +to the bosoms of all, has silenced, and made almost to be forgotten, the +more awful and scarcely less tender beauties of the 'Holy War made by +Shaddai upon Diabolus,' of the same author,—a romance less happy in its +subject, but surely well worthy of a secondary immortality. But in no +instance has this excluding partiality been exerted with more unfairness +than against what may be termed the secondary novels or romances of De +Foe.</p> + +<p>"While all ages and descriptions of people hang delighted over the +'Adventures of Robinson Crusoe,' and shall continue to do so, we trust, +while the world lasts, how few comparatively will bear to be told that +there exist other fictitious narratives by the same writer,—four of +them at least of no inferior interest, except what results from a less +felicitous choice of situation! 'Roxana.' 'Singleton,' 'Moll Flanders,' +'Colonel Jack,' are all genuine offspring of the same father. They bear +the veritable impress of De Foe. An unpractised midwife that would not +swear to the nose, lip, forehead, and eye of every one of them! They are +in their way as full of incident, and some of them every bit<a name="Page_413" id="Page_413"></a> as +romantic; only they want the uninhabited island, and the charm that has +bewitched the world, of the striking solitary situation.</p> + +<p>"But are there no solitudes out of the cave and the desert? or cannot +the heart in the midst of crowds feel frightfully alone? Singleton on +the world of waters, prowling about with pirates less merciful than the +creatures of any howling wilderness,—is he not alone, with the faces of +men about him, but without a guide that can conduct him through the +mists of educational and habitual ignorance, or a fellow-heart that can +interpret to him the new-born yearnings and aspirations of unpractised +penitence? Or when the boy Colonel Jack, in the loneliness of the heart, +(the worst solitude,) goes to hide his ill-purchased treasure in the +hollow tree by night, and miraculously loses, and miraculously finds it +again—whom hath he there to sympathize with him? or of what sort are +his associates?</p> + +<p>"The narrative manner of De Foe has a naturalness about it beyond that +of any other novel or romance writer. His fictions have all the air of +true stories. It is impossible to believe, while you are reading them, +that a real person is not narrating to you everywhere nothing but what +really happened to himself. To this the extreme <i>homeliness</i> of their +style mainly contributes. We use the word in its best and heartiest +sense,—that which comes <i>home</i> to the reader. The narrators everywhere +are chosen from low life, or have had their origin in it; therefore they +tell their own tales, (Mr. Coleridge has anticipated us in this remark,) +as persons in their degree are observed to do, with infinite repetition, +and an overacted exactness, lest the hearer should not have minded, or +have forgotten, some things that had been told before. Hence the +emphatic sentences marked in the good old (but deserted) Italic type; +and hence, too, the frequent interposition of the reminding old +colloquial parenthesis, 'I say,' 'Mind,' and the like, when the +story-teller repeats what, to a practised reader, might appear to have +been sufficiently insisted upon before: which made an ingenious critic +observe, that his works, in this kind, were excellent reading for the +kitchen. And, in truth, the heroes and heroines of De Foe can never +again hope to be popular with a much higher class of readers than that +of the servant-maid or the sailor. Crusoe keeps its rank only by tough +prescription; Singleton, the pirate—Colonel Jack, the thief,—Moll +Flanders, both thief and harlot,—Roxana, harlot and something +worse,—would be startling ingredients in the bill-of-fare of modern +literary delicacies. But, then, what pirates, what thieves, and what +harlots is <i>the thief, the harlot</i>, and <i>the pirate</i> of De Foe? We would +not hesitate to say, that in no other book of fiction, where the lives +of such characters are described, is guilt and delinquency made less +seductive, or the suffering made more closely to follow the commission, +or the penitence more earnest or more bleeding, or the intervening +flashes of religious visitation upon the rude and uninstructed soul more +meltingly and fearfully painted. They, in this, come near to the +tenderness of Bunyan; while the livelier pictures and incidents in them, +as in Hogarth or in Fielding, tend to diminish that fastidiousness to +the concerns and pursuits of common life which an unrestrained passion +for the ideal and the sentimental is in danger of producing."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Lamb, in a letter to one of his correspondents, says, after speaking of +his recent contributions to the "London Magazine,"—"In the next number +I shall figure as a theologian, and have attacked my late brethren, the +Unitarians. What Jack-Pudding tricks I shall play next I know not; I am +almost at the end of my tether." Talfourd, of course, does not publish +the article, or even give its title, which is, "Unitarian<a name="Page_414" id="Page_414"></a> Protests." +Those who would see how well or how ill Elia figures as a theologian +should read</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"UNITARIAN PROTESTS: IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND OF THAT PERSUASION NEWLY +MARRIED.</p> + +<p>"Dear M——,—Though none of your acquaintance can with greater +sincerity congratulate you upon this happy conjuncture than myself, one +of the oldest of them, it was with pain I found you, after the ceremony, +depositing in the vestry-room what is called a Protest. I thought you +superior to this little sophistry. What! after submitting to the service +of the Church of England,—after consenting to receive a boon from her, +in the person of your amiable consort,—was it consistent with sense, or +common good manners, to turn round upon her, and flatly taunt her with +false worship? This language is a little of the strongest in your books +and from your pulpits, though there it may well enough be excused from +religious zeal and the native warmth of Non-Conformity. But at the +altar,—the Church-of-England altar,—adopting her forms, and complying +with her requisitions to the letter,—to be consistent, together with +the practice, I fear, you must drop the language of dissent. You are no +longer sturdy Non-Cons; you are there Occasional Conformists. You submit +to accept the privileges communicated by a form of words exceptionable, +and perhaps justly, in your view; but so submitting, you have no right +to quarrel with the ritual which you have just condescended to owe an +obligation to. They do not force you into their churches. You come +voluntarily, knowing the terms. You marry in the name of the Trinity. +There is no evading this by pretending that you take the formula with +your own interpretation (and so long as you can do this, where is the +necessity of protesting?): for the meaning of a vow is to be settled by +the sense of the imposer, not by any forced construction of the taker: +else might all vows, and oaths too, be eluded with impunity. You marry, +then, essentially as Trinitarians; and the altar no sooner satisfied +than, hey, presto! with the celerity of a juggler, you shift habits, and +proceed pure Unitarians again in the vestry. You cheat the Church out of +a wife, and go home smiling in your sleeves that you have so cunningly +despoiled the Egyptians. In plain English, the Church has married you in +the name of so and so, assuming that you took the words in her sense; +but you outwitted her; you assented to them in your sense only, and took +from her what, upon a right understanding, she would have declined +giving you.</p> + +<p>"This is the fair construction to be put upon all Unitarian marriages, +as at present contracted; and so long as you Unitarians could salve your +consciences with the <i>équivoque</i>, I do not see why the Established +Church should have troubled herself at all about the matter. But the +Protesters necessarily see further. They have some glimmerings of the +deception; they apprehend a flaw somewhere; they would fain be honest, +and yet they must marry notwithstanding; for honesty's sake, they are +fain to dehonestate themselves a little. Let me try the very words of +your own Protest, to see what confessions we can pick out of them.</p> + +<p>"'As Unitarians, therefore, we' (you and your newly espoused bride) +'most solemnly protest against the service,' (which yourselves have just +demanded,) 'because we are thereby called upon, not only tacitly to +acquiesce, but to profess a belief, in a doctrine which is a dogma, as +we believe, totally unfounded.' But do you profess that belief during +the ceremony? or are you only called upon for the profession, but do not +make it? If the latter, then you fall in with the rest of your more +consistent brethren, who waive the Protest; if the former, then, I fear, +your Protest cannot save you.</p> + +<p>"Hard and grievous it is, that, in any<a name="Page_415" id="Page_415"></a> case, an institution so broad +and general as the union of man and wife should be so cramped and +straitened by the hands of an imposing hierarchy, that, to plight troth +to a lovely woman, a man must be necessitated to compromise his truth +and faith to Heaven; but so it must be, so long as you choose to marry +by the forms of the church over which that hierarchy presides.</p> + +<p>"'Therefore,' say you, 'we protest.' O poor and much fallen word, +Protest! It was not so that the first heroic reformers protested. They +departed out of Babylon once for good and all; they came not back for an +occasional contact with her altars—a dallying, and then a protesting +against dalliance; they stood not shuffling in the porch, with a Popish +foot within, and its lame Lutheran fellow without, halting betwixt. +These were the true Protestants. You are—Protesters.</p> + +<p>"Besides the inconsistency of this proceeding, I must think it a piece +of impertinence, unseasonable at least, and out of place, to obtrude +these papers upon the officiating clergyman,—to offer to a public +functionary an instrument which by the tenor of his function he is not +obliged to accept, but, rather, he is called upon to reject. Is it done +in his clerical capacity? He has no power of redressing the grievance. +It is to take the benefit of his ministry, and then insult him. If in +his capacity of fellow-Christian only, what are your scruples to him, so +long as you yourselves are able to get over them, and do get over them +by the very fact of coming to require his services? The thing you call a +Protest might with just as good a reason be presented to the +church-warden for the time being, to the parish-clerk, or the +pew-opener.</p> + +<p>"The Parliament alone can redress your grievance, if any. Yet I see not +how with any grace your people can petition for relief, so long as, by +the very fact of your coming to church to be married, they do <i>bonâ +fide</i> and strictly relieve themselves. The Upper House, in particular, +is not unused to these same things called Protests, among themselves. +But how would this honorable body stare to find a noble Lord conceding a +measure, and in the next breath, by a solemn Protest, disowning it! A +Protest there is a reason given for non-compliance, not a subterfuge for +an equivocal occasional compliance. It was reasonable in the primitive +Christians to avert from their persons, by whatever lawful means, the +compulsory eating of meats which had been offered unto idols. I dare say +the Roman Prefects and Exarchates had plenty of petitioning in their +days. But what would a Festus or Agrippa have replied to a petition to +that effect, presented to him by some evasive Laodicean, with the very +meat between his teeth, which he had been chewing voluntarily rather +than abide the penalty? Relief for tender consciences means nothing, +where the conscience has previously relieved itself,—that is, has +complied with the injunctions which it seeks preposterously to be rid +of. Relief for conscience there is properly none, but what by better +information makes an act appear innocent and lawful with which the +previous conscience was not satisfied to comply. All else is but relief +from penalties, from scandal incurred by a complying practice, where the +conscience itself is not fully satisfied.</p> + +<p>"But, say you, we have hard measure: the Quakers are indulged with the +liberty denied to us. They are; and dearly have they earned it. You have +come in (as a sect, at least) in the cool of the evening, at the +eleventh hour. The Quaker character was hardened in the fires of +persecution in the seventeenth century,—not quite to the stake and +fagot, but little short of that: they grew up and thrived against +noisome prisons, cruel beatings, whippings, stockings. They have since +endured a century or two of scoffs, contempts; they have been a by-word, +and a nay-word; they have stood unmoved: and<a name="Page_416" id="Page_416"></a> the consequence of long +conscientious resistance on one part is invariably, in the end, +remission on the other. The legislature, that denied you the tolerance, +which I do not know that at that time you even asked, gave them the +liberty which, without granting, they would have assumed. No penalties +could have driven them into the churches. This is the consequence of +entire measures. Had the early Quakers consented to take oaths, leaving +a Protest with the clerk of the court against them in the same breath +with which they had taken them, do you in your conscience think that +they would have been indulged at this day in their exclusive privilege +of affirming? Let your people go on for a century or so, marrying in +your own fashion, and I will warrant them, before the end of it, the +legislature will be willing to concede to them more than they at present +demand.</p> + +<p>"Either the institution of marriage depends not for its validity upon +hypocritical compliances with the ritual of an alien church, and then I +do not see why you cannot marry among yourselves, as the Quakers, +without their indulgence, would have been doing to this day,—or it does +depend upon such ritual compliance, and then in your Protests you offend +against a divine ordinance. I have read in the Essex-Street Liturgy a +form for the celebration of marriage. Why is this become a dead letter? +Oh! it has never been legalized: that is to say, in the law's eye it is +no marriage. But do you take upon you to say, in the view of the gospel +it would be none? Would your own people, at least, look upon a couple so +paired to be none? But the case of dowries, alimonies, inheritances, +etc., which depend for their validity upon the ceremonial of the church +by law established,—are these nothing? That our children are not +legally <i>Filii Nullius</i>,—is this nothing? I answer, Nothing; to the +preservation of a good conscience, nothing; to a consistent +Christianity, less than nothing. Sad worldly thorns they are indeed, and +stumbling-blocks well worthy to be set out of the way by a legislature +calling itself Christian; but not likely to be removed in a hurry by any +shrewd legislators who perceive that the petitioning complainants have +not so much as bruised a shin in the resistance, but, prudently +declining the briers and the prickles, nestle quietly down in the smooth +two-sided velvet of a Protesting Occasional Conformity.</p> + +<p>"I am, dear Sir,</p> + +<p>"With much respect, yours, etc.,</p> + +<p>"ELIA."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Lamb once said, of all the lies he ever put off,—and he put off a good +many,—indeed, he valued himself on being "a matter-of-lie man," +believing truth to be too precious to be wasted upon everybody,—of all +the lies he ever put off, he valued his "Memoir of Liston" the most. "It +is," he confessed to Miss Hutchinson, "from top to toe, every paragraph, +pure invention, and has passed for gospel,—has been republished in the +newspapers, and in the penny play-bills of the night, as an authentic +account." And yet, notwithstanding its incidents are all imaginary, its +facts all fictions, is not Lamb's "Memoir of Liston" a truer and more +trustworthy work than any of the productions of those contemptible +biographers—unfortunately not yet extinct—so admirably ridiculed in +the thirty-fifth number of the "Freeholder"? In fact, is not this "lying +Life of Liston" a very clever satire on those biographers who, like the +monkish historians mentioned by Fuller, in his "Church History of +Britain," swell the bowels of their books with empty wind, in default of +sufficient solid food to fill them,—who, according to Addison, ascribe +to the unfortunate persons whose lives they pretend to write works which +they never wrote and actions which they never performed, celebrate +virtues which they were never famous for and excuse faults<a name="Page_417" id="Page_417"></a> which they +were never guilty of? And does not Lamb, in this work, very happily +ridicule the pedantry and conceit of certain grave and dignified +biographers whose works are to be found in most gentlemen's libraries?</p> + +<p>Therefore, as a piece of most admirable fooling, as a bit of harmless, +good-natured pleasantry, as a specimen of pleasant satire, of subtile +irony, this "Memoir of Listen" is well worthy of a place in all editions +of Charles Lamb's writings.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF MR. LISTON.</p> + +<p>"The subject of our Memoir is lineally descended from Johan de +L'Estonne, (see 'Domesday Book,' where he is so written,) who came in +with the Conqueror, and had lands awarded him at Lupton Magna, in Kent. +His particular merits or services Fabian, whose authority I chiefly +follow, has forgotten, or perhaps thought it immaterial, to specify. +Fuller thinks that he was standard-bearer to Hugo de Agmondesham, a +powerful Norman baron, who was slain by the hand of Harold himself at +the fatal Battle of Hastings. Be this as it may, we find a family of +that name flourishing some centuries later in that county. John +Delliston, Knight, was high sheriff for Kent, according to Fabian, +<i>quinto Henrici Sexti</i>; and we trace the lineal branch flourishing +downwards,—the orthography varying, according to the unsettled usage of +the times, from Delleston to Leston or Liston, between which it seems to +have alternated, till, in the latter end of the reign of James I., it +finally settled into the determinate and pleasing dissyllabic +arrangement which it still retains. Aminadab Liston, the eldest male +representative of the family of that day, was of the strictest order of +Puritans. Mr. Foss, of Pall Mall, has obligingly communicated to me an +undoubted tract of his, which bears the initials only, A.L., and is +entitled, 'The Grinning Glass: or Actor's Mirrour, wherein the +vituperative Visnomy of vicious Players for the Scene is as virtuously +reflected back upon their mimetic Monstrosities as it has viciously +(hitherto) vitiated with its vile Vanities her Votarists.' A strange +title, but bearing the impress of those absurdities with which the +title-pages of that pamphlet-spawning age abounded. The work bears date +1617. It preceded the 'Histriomastix' by fifteen years; and as it went +before it in time, so it comes not far short of it in virulence. It is +amusing to find an ancestor of Listen's thus bespattering the players at +the commencement of the seventeenth century:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"'Thinketh He,' (the actor,) 'with his costive countenances, to +wry a sorrowing soul out of her anguish, or by defacing the divine +denotement of destinate dignity (daignely described in the face +humane and no other) to reinstamp the Paradice-plotted similitude +with a novel and naughty approximation (not in the first +intention) to those abhorred and ugly God-forbidden +correspondences, with flouting Apes' jeering gibberings, and +Babion babbling-like, to hoot out of countenance all modest +measure, as if our sins were not sufficing to stoop our backs +without He wresting and crooking his members to mistimed mirth +(rather malice) in deformed fashion, leering when he should learn, +prating for praying, goggling his eyes, (better upturned for +grace,) whereas in Paradice (if we can go thus high for His +profession) that devilish Serpent appeareth his undoubted +Predecessor, first induing a mask like some roguish roistering +Roscius (I spit at them all) to beguile with Stage shows the +gaping Woman, whose Sex hath still chiefly upheld these Mysteries, +and are voiced to be the chief Stage-haunters, where, as I am +told, the custom is commonly to mumble (between acts) apples, not +ambiguously derived from that pernicious Pippin, (worse in effect +than<a name="Page_418" id="Page_418"></a> the Apples of Discord,) whereas sometimes the hissing sounds +of displeasure, as I hear, do lively reintonate that +snake-taking-leave, and diabolical goings off, in Paradice.'</p></div> + +<p>"The Puritanic effervescence of the early Presbyterians appears to have +abated with time, and the opinions of the more immediate ancestors of +our subject to have subsided at length into a strain of moderate +Calvinism. Still a tincture of the old leaven was to be expected among +the posterity of A.L.</p> + +<p>"Our hero was the only son of Habakkuk Liston, settled as an anabaptist +minister upon the patrimonial soil of his ancestors. A regular +certificate appears, thus entered in the Church-Book at Lupton +Magna:—'<i>Johannes, filius Habakkuk et Rebecccæ Liston, Dissentientium, +natus quinto Decembri</i>, 1780, <i>baptizatus sexto Februarii sequentis; +Sponsoribus J. et W. Woollaston, unâ cum Maria Merryweather</i>.' The +singularity of an Anabaptist minister conforming to the child-rites of +the Church would have tempted me to doubt the authenticity of this +entry, had I not been obliged with the actual sight of it, by the favor +of Mr. Minns, the intelligent and worthy parish-clerk of Lupton. +Possibly some expectation in point of worldly advantages from some of +the sponsors might have induced this unseemly deviation, as it must have +appeared, from the practice and principles of that generally rigid sect. +The term <i>Dissentientium</i> was possibly intended by the orthodox +clergyman as a slur upon the supposed inconsistency. What, or of what +nature, the expectations we have hinted at may have been, we have now no +means of ascertaining. Of the Woollastons no trace is now discoverable +in the village. The name of Merryweather occurs over the front of a +grocer's shop at the western extremity of Lupton.</p> + +<p>"Of the infant Liston we find no events recorded before his fourth year, +in which a severe attack of the measles bid fair to have robbed the +rising generation of a fund of innocent entertainment. He had it of the +confluent kind, as it is called, and the child's life was for a week or +two despaired of. His recovery he always attributes (under Heaven) to +the humane interference of one Doctor Wilhelm Richter, a German empiric, +who, in this extremity, prescribed a copious diet of <i>sauer-kraut</i>, +which the child was observed to reach at with avidity, when other food +repelled him; and from this change of diet his restoration was rapid and +complete. We have often heard him name the circumstance with gratitude; +and it is not altogether surprising that a relish for this kind of +aliment, so abhorrent and harsh to common English palates, has +accompanied him through life. When any of Mr. Listen's intimates invite +him to supper, he never fails of finding, nearest to his knife and fork, +a dish of <i>sauer-kraut</i>.</p> + +<p>"At the age of nine we find our subject under the tuition of the Rev. +Mr. Goodenough, (his father's health not permitting him probably to +instruct him himself,) by whom he was inducted into a competent portion +of Latin and Greek, with some mathematics, till the death of Mr. +Goodenough, in his own seventieth, and Master Liston's eleventh year, +put a stop for the present to his classical progress.</p> + +<p>"We have heard our hero, with emotions which do his heart honor, +describe the awful circumstances attending the decease of this worthy +old gentleman. It seems they had been walking out together, master and +pupil, in a fine sunset, to the distance of three-quarters of a mile +west of Lupton, when a sudden curiosity took Mr. Goodenough to look down +upon a chasm, where a shaft had been lately sunk in a mining speculation +(then projecting, but abandoned soon after, as not answering the +promised success, by Sir Ralph Shepperton, Knight, and member for the +county). The old clergyman leaning over, either with incaution or sudden +giddiness, (probably a mixture of both,)<a name="Page_419" id="Page_419"></a> suddenly lost his footing, +and, to use Mr. Listen's phrase, disappeared, and was doubtless broken +into a thousand pieces. The sound of his head, etc., dashing +successively upon the projecting masses of the chasm, had such an effect +upon the child that a serious sickness ensued, and even for many years +after his recovery he was not once seen so much as to smile.</p> + +<p>"The joint death of both his parents, which happened not many months +after this disastrous accident, and were probably (one or both of them) +accelerated by it, threw our youth upon the protection of his maternal +great-aunt, Mrs. Sittingbourn. Of this aunt we have never heard him +speak but with expressions amounting almost to reverence. To the +influence of her early counsels and manners he has always attributed the +firmness with which, in maturer years, thrown upon a way of life +commonly not the best adapted to gravity and self-retirement, he has +been able to maintain a serious character, untinctured with the levities +incident to his profession. Ann Sittingbourn (we have seen her portrait +by Hudson) was stately, stiff, tall, with a cast of features strikingly +resembling the subject of this memoir. Her estate in Kent was spacious +and well-wooded; the house, one of those venerable old mansions which +are so impressive in childhood, and so hardly forgotten in succeeding +years. In the venerable solitudes of Charnwood, among thick shades of +the oak and beech, (this last his favorite tree,) the young Listen +cultivated those contemplative habits which have never entirely deserted +him in after-years. Here he was commonly in the summer months to be met +with, with a book in his hand,—not a play-book,—meditating. Boyle's +'Reflections' was at one time the darling volume, which in its turn was +superseded by Young's 'Night Thoughts,' which has continued its hold +upon him through life. He carries it always about him; and it is no +uncommon thing for him to be seen, in the refreshing intervals of his +occupation, leaning against a side-scene, in a sort of +Herbert-of-Cherbury posture, turning over a pocket-edition of his +favorite author.</p> + +<p>"But the solitudes of Charnwood were not destined always to obscure the +path of our young hero. The premature death of Mrs. Sittingbourn, at the +age of seventy, occasioned by incautious burning of a pot of charcoal in +her sleeping-chamber, left him in his nineteenth year nearly without +resources. That the stage at all should have presented itself as an +eligible scope for his talents, and, in particular, that he should have +chosen a line so foreign to what appears to have been his turn of mind, +may require some explanation.</p> + +<p>"At Charnwood, then, we behold him thoughtful, grave, ascetic. From his +cradle averse to flesh-meats and strong drink; abstemious even beyond +the genius of the place, and almost in spite of the remonstrances of his +great-aunt, who, though strict, was not rigid; water was his habitual +drink, and his food little beyond the mast and beech-nuts of his +favorite groves. It is a medical fact, that this kind of diet, however +favorable to the contemplative powers of the primitive hermits, etc., is +but ill adapted to the less robust minds and bodies of a later +generation. Hypochondria almost constantly ensues. It was so in the case +of the young Liston. He was subject to sights, and had visions. Those +arid beech-nuts, distilled by a complexion naturally adust, mounted into +an occiput already prepared to kindle by long seclusion and the fervor +of strict Calvinistic notions. In the glooms of Charnwood he was +assailed by illusions similar in kind to those which are related of the +famous Anthony of Padua. Wild antic faces would ever and anon protrude +themselves upon his sensorium. Whether he shut his eyes or kept them +open, the same illusions operated. The darker and more profound were his +cogitations, the droller and more whimsical became the apparitions.<a name="Page_420" id="Page_420"></a> +They buzzed about him thick as flies, flapping at him, flouting him, +hooting in his ear, yet with such comic appendages, that what at first +was his bane became at length his solace; and he desired no better +society than that of his merry phantasmata. We shall presently find in +what way this remarkable phenomenon influenced his future destiny.</p> + +<p>"On the death of Mrs. Sittingbourn, we find him received into the family +of Mr. Willoughby, an eminent Turkey merchant, resident in Birchin Lane, +London. We lose a little while here the chain of his history,—by what +inducements this gentleman was determined to make him an inmate of his +house. Probably he had had some personal kindness for Mrs. Sittingbourn +formerly; but however it was, the young man was here treated more like a +son than a clerk, though he was nominally but the latter. Different +avocations, the change of scene, with that alternation of business and +recreation which in its greatest perfection is to be had only in London, +appear to have weaned him in a short time from the hypochondriacal +affections which had beset him at Charnwood.</p> + +<p>"In the three years which followed his removal to Birchin Lane, we find +him making more than one voyage to the Levant, as chief factor for Mr. +Willoughby at the Porte. We could easily fill our biography with the +pleasant passages which we have heard him relate as having happened to +him at Constantinople, such as his having been taken up on suspicion of +a design of penetrating the seraglio, etc.; but, with the deepest +convincement of this gentleman's own veracity, we think that some of the +stories are of that whimsical, and others of that romantic nature, +which, however diverting, would be out of place in a narrative of this +kind, which aims not only at strict truth, but at avoiding the very +appearance of the contrary.</p> + +<p>"We will now bring him over the seas again, and suppose him in the +counting-house in Birchin Lane, his protector satisfied with the returns +of his factorage, and all going on so smoothly that we may expect to +find Mr. Liston at last an opulent merchant upon 'Change, as it is +called. But see the turns of destiny! Upon a summer's excursion into +Norfolk, in the year 1801, the accidental sight of pretty Sally Parker, +as she was called, (then in the Norwich company,) diverted his +inclinations at once from commerce; and he became, in the language of +commonplace biography, stage-struck. Happy for the lovers of mirth was +it that our hero took this turn; he might else have been to this hour +that unentertaining character, a plodding London merchant.</p> + +<p>"We accordingly find him shortly after making his <i>début</i>, as it is +called, upon the Norwich boards, in the season of that year, being then +in the twenty-second year of his age. Having a natural bent to tragedy, +he chose the part of Pyrrhus in the 'Distressed Mother,' to Sally +Parker's Hermione. We find him afterwards as Barnwell, Altamont, +Chamont, etc.; but, as if Nature had destined him to the sock, an +unavoidable infirmity absolutely discapacitated him for tragedy. His +person, at this latter period of which I have been speaking, was +graceful, and even commanding; his countenance set to gravity; he had +the power of arresting the attention of an audience at first sight +almost beyond any other tragic actor. But he could not hold it. To +understand this obstacle, we must go back a few years to those appalling +reveries at Charnwood. Those illusions, which had vanished before the +dissipation of a less recluse life and more free society, now in his +solitary tragic studies, and amid the intense calls upon feeling +incident to tragic acting, came back upon him with tenfold vividness. In +the midst of some most pathetic passage, the parting of Jaffier with his +dying friend, for instance, he would suddenly be surprised with a fit of +violent horse-laughter.<a name="Page_421" id="Page_421"></a> While the spectators were all sobbing before +him with emotion, suddenly one of those grotesque faces would peep out +upon him, and he could not resist the impulse. A timely excuse once or +twice served his purpose; but no audiences could be expected to bear +repeatedly this violation of the continuity of feeling. He describes +them (the illusions) as so many demons haunting him, and paralyzing +every effect. Even now, I am told, he cannot recite the famous soliloquy +in 'Hamlet,' even in private, without immoderate bursts of laughter. +However, what he had not force of reason sufficient to overcome he had +good sense enough to turn into emolument, and determined to make a +commodity of his distemper. He prudently exchanged the buskin for the +sock, and the illusions instantly ceased; or, if they occurred for a +short season, by their very cooperation added a zest to his comic +vein,—some of his most catching faces being (as he expresses it) little +more than transcripts and copies of those extraordinary phantasmata.</p> + +<p>"We have now drawn out our hero's existence to the period when he was +about to meet for the first time the sympathies of a London audience. +The particulars of his success since have been too much before our eyes +to render a circumstantial detail of them expedient. I shall only +mention, that Mr. Willoughby, his resentments having had time to +subside, is at present one of the fastest friends of his old renegado +factor; and that Mr. Listen's hopes of Miss Parker vanishing along with +his unsuccessful suit to Melpomene, in the autumn of 1811 he married his +present lady, by whom he has been blest with one son, Philip, and two +daughters, Ann and Angustina."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"Ask anybody you meet," writes Lamb to Miss Wordsworth, then visiting +some friends in Cambridge, "who is the biggest woman in Cambridge, and +I'll hold a wager they'll say Mrs. ——. She broke down two benches in +Trinity Gardens,—one on the confines of St. John's, which occasioned a +litigation between the societies as to repairing it. In warm weather she +retires into an ice-cellar, (literally,) and dates from a hot Thursday +some twenty years back. She sits in a room with opposite doors and +windows, to let in a thorough draft, which gives her slenderer friends +toothaches. She is to be seen in the market every morning at ten, +cheapening fowls, which I observe the Cambridge poulterers are not +sufficiently careful to stump."</p> + +<p>On the person thus briefly sketched Elia wrote an article for the +"London Magazine." As it is not to be found in the standard editions of +its author's works, we herewith present it to our readers. They will +find it to be a clever specimen of Lamb's peculiar and delightful humor. +In truth, it is one of the very best things he ever conjured up. We +observe he has changed the locality of the stout woman, and places her +in Oxford, instead of Cambridge.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"THE GENTLE GIANTESS.</p> + +<p>"The widow Blacket, of Oxford, is the largest female I ever had the +pleasure of beholding. There may be her parallel upon the earth, but +surely I never saw it. I take her to be lineally descended from the +maid's aunt of Brainford, who caused Master Ford such uneasiness. She +hath Atlantean shoulders; and as she stoopeth in her gait,—with as few +offences to answer for in her own particular as any of Eve's +daughters,—her back seems broad enough to bear the blame of all the +peccadilloes that have been committed since Adam. She girdeth her +waist—or what she is pleased to esteem as such—nearly up to her +shoulders, from beneath which that huge dorsal expanse, in mountainous +declivity, emergeth. Respect for her alone preventeth the idle boys, who +follow her about in <a name="Page_422" id="Page_422"></a>shoals, whenever she cometh abroad, from getting up +and riding. But her presence infallibly commands a reverence. She is, +indeed, as the Americans would express it, something awful. Her person +is a burden to herself, no less than to the ground which bears her.</p> + +<p>"To her mighty bone she hath a pinguitude withal which makes the depth +of winter to her the most desirable season. Her distress in the warmer +solstice is pitiable. During the months of July and August she usually +renteth a cool cellar, where ices are kept, whereinto she descendeth +when Sirius rageth. She dates from a hot Thursday, some twenty-five +years ago. Her apartment in summer is pervious to the four winds. Two +doors in north and south direction, and two windows fronting the rising +and the setting sun, never closed, from every cardinal point catch the +contributory breezes. She loves to enjoy what she calls a quadruple +draught. That must be a shrewd zephyr that can escape her. I owe a +painful face-ache, which oppresses me at this moment, to a cold caught, +sitting by her, one day in last July, at this receipt of coolness. Her +fan in ordinary resembleth a banner spread, which she keepeth +continually on the alert to detect the least breeze.</p> + +<p>"She possesseth an active and gadding mind, totally incommensurate with +her person. No one delighteth more than herself in country exercises and +pastimes. I have passed many an agreeable holiday with her in her +favorite park at Woodstock. She performs her part in these delightful +ambulatory excursions by the aid of a portable garden-chair. She setteth +out with you at a fair foot-gallop, which she keepeth up till you are +both well breathed, and then she reposeth for a few seconds. Then she is +up again for a hundred paces or so, and again resteth,—her movement, on +these sprightly occasions, being something between walking and flying. +Her great weight seemeth to propel her forward, ostrich-fashion. In this +kind of relieved marching I have traversed with her many scores of acres +on those well-wooded and well-watered domains.</p> + +<p>"Her delight at Oxford is in the public walks and gardens, where, when +the weather is not too oppressive, she passeth much of her valuable +time. There is a bench at Maudlin, or rather, situated between the +frontiers of that and ——'s College,—some litigation, latterly, about +repairs, has vested the property of it finally in ——'s,—where at the +hour of noon she is ordinarily to be found sitting,—so she calls it by +courtesy,—but, in fact, pressing and breaking of it down with her +enormous settlement; as both those Foundations, who, however, are +good-natured enough to wink at it, have found, I believe, to their cost. +Here she taketh the fresh air, principally at vacation times, when the +walks are freest from interruption of the younger fry of students. Here +she passeth her idle hours, not idly, but generally accompanied with a +book,—blest, if she can but intercept some resident Fellow, (as usually +there are some of that brood left behind at these periods,) or stray +Master of Arts, (to most of whom she is better known than their +dinner-bell,) with whom she may confer upon any curious topic of +literature. I have seen these shy gownsmen, who truly set but a very +slight value upon female conversation, cast a hawk's eye upon her from +the length of Maudlin Grove, and warily glide off into another +walk,—true monks as they are, and ungently neglecting the delicacies of +her polished converse, for their own perverse and uncommunicating +solitariness!</p> + +<p>"Within doors her principal diversion is music, vocal and instrumental, +in both which she is no mean professor. Her voice is wonderfully fine; +but, till I got used to it, I confess it staggered me. It is for all the +world like that of a piping bulfinch, while from her size and stature +you would expect notes to drown the deep organ. The shake, which most +fine singers reserve for the close <a name="Page_423" id="Page_423"></a>or cadence, by some unaccountable +flexibility, or tremulousness of pipe, she carrieth quite through the +composition; so that her time, to a common air or ballad, keeps double +motion, like the earth,—running the primary circuit of the tune, and +still revolving upon its own axis. The effect, as I said before, when +you are used to it, is as agreeable as it is altogether new and +surprising.</p> + +<p>"The spacious apartment of her outward frame lodgeth a soul in all +respects disproportionate. Of more than mortal make, she evinceth withal +a trembling sensibility, a yielding infirmity of purpose, a quick +susceptibility to reproach, and all the train of diffident and blushing +virtues, which for their habitation usually seek out a feeble frame, an +attenuated and meagre constitution. With more than man's bulk, her +humors and occupations are eminently feminine. She sighs,—being six +foot high. She languisheth,—being two feet wide. She worketh slender +sprigs upon the delicate muslin,—her fingers being capable of moulding +a Colossus. She sippeth her wine out of her glass daintily,—her +capacity being that of a tun of Heidelberg. She goeth mincingly with +those feet of hers,—whose solidity need not fear the black ox's +pressure.</p> + +<p>"Softest and largest of thy sex, adieu! By what parting attribute may I +salute thee?—last and best of the Titanesses!—Ogress, fed with milk +instead of blood!—not least, or least handsome, among Oxford's stately +structures!—Oxford, who, in its deadest time of vacation, can never +properly be said to be empty, having thee to fill it!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="MY_PALACE" id="MY_PALACE"></a>MY PALACE.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Wound round and round within his mystic veil<br /></span> +<span class="i5">The poet hid a noble truth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Soul's Art-Palace then he named the tale<br /></span> +<span class="i5">Of those far days in youth.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I sought that palace on its haughty height,<br /></span> +<span class="i5">And came to know its starry joys,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its sudden blackness, and the withering blight<br /></span> +<span class="i5">Of all its mortal toys.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At length the soul took lesson from her past,<br /></span> +<span class="i5">And found a vale wherein to dwell,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With no Arcadian visions overcast<br /></span> +<span class="i5">Or history to tell.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My fellows tended wandering flocks and herds,<br /></span> +<span class="i5">Or tilled and nursed their scanty corn;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Little they heeded life that grew to words,<br /></span> +<span class="i5">Yet gave no man their scorn.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424"></a>Like them I wrought my task and took its gain,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">That one might serve their homely need,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When skies were dark, and every cloud a pain,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And there were mouths to feed.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thus labored day by day these unskilled hands,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Whose only master was a willing heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till barren space smiled into garden-lands<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Where roses shone apart.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Half faint with toil from morn to set of sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">One night I watched the shadows creep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With stealthy footstep, when the day was done,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Toward my encastled steep.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The palace gleamed upon my dazzled sight,—<br /></span> +<span class="i3">From long estrangement grown more fair:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I sank and dreamed my feet were mounting light<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Over each golden stair.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Once more there came the voice of waters low<br /></span> +<span class="i3">On cooling breezes perfume-fed:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It seemed I followed a grand leader, slow<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Through marble galleries led.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then sad I wakened in the vale, but found<br /></span> +<span class="i3">The stately guide still drew me on:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her name was Charity; her voice a sound<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Of pure compassion.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">She said,—"Beside thee every day I stood<br /></span> +<span class="i3">To keep false memories aloof;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To-night I sorrowed for thy labor rude,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And put thee to the proof.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ascend again to yon high palace-towers,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">With brothers share its plenitude,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And gather up with all thy princely powers<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Joys to infinitude."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ay me!" I cried, "bid me not go afar,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">While yet these little children call,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lest life grow pallid as the morning star<br /></span> +<span class="i3">In that cold shining hall!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"All shall be theirs: my lot is here below<br /></span> +<span class="i3">To minister the goods I hold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While suffering ones shall watch the torrent flow<br /></span> +<span class="i3">In waves of amber gold.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425"></a>"There childhood shall be laid on gleaming beds,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">A saintly-eyed prophetic band,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And tinted oriels flame above their heads<br /></span> +<span class="i3">To picture the new land.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And dusky men shall press the snowy lawn,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Shall feel those tears that ease all pain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then wake to greet the free earth's noble dawn<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And turn to rest again.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"There tired soldiers wash their bleeding feet,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Who gave for us their ripening youth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To earn pure freedom, dared all danger meet,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Content to die for truth.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"There, in the sleepless watch the organ's tone<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Shall bear them on its swelling wing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To dreamful space, while star-fires one by one<br /></span> +<span class="i3">In vibrant chorus sing."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sudden there came a thought,—Thou hast no home,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">No shaded haunt, or mansion wide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No refuge after toil in which to roam,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Where silence may abide.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And then I saw a palace broad as earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Built beautiful of land and seas,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its eastern gate shone in the morning's birth,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">The west o'ertopped the trees.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Free as wild waves upon an autumn day,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">A world of brothers through its space<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Might wander up and down, and sunbeams play<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Even on Sorrow's face.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Here in the broad sunned silence of the noon<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Peace waiteth to salute the worn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And ever crowneth with her tender boon<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Those who have nobly borne.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Like shafted light dropped in a sunset sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">The radiant pillars of my home<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Send from their glowing swift mortality<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Great voices crying, "Come!"<br /></span> +</div></div><p><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426"></a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_DEACONS_HOLOCAUST" id="THE_DEACONS_HOLOCAUST"></a>THE DEACON'S HOLOCAUST.</h2> + +<p>I</p> + + +<p>A First-class old lady is the most precious social possession of a +New-England town. I have been in places where this office of Select +Woman had languished for want of a proper incumbent,—that is, where the +feminine element was always supplicatory, never authoritative. In such a +place you may find the Select Men as vulgar and unclean as are some of +the more pretentious politicians of State or nation; the variety-store +sands its sugar quite up to the city-standard; and the parson is as +timid a timeserver as the Bishop of Babylon. No rich local tone and +character are to be found in such a place.</p> + +<p>This deplorable state of things had never existed in Foxden. When +strangers took a carriage at the depot and asked to be shown whatever +was noteworthy in the town, they were driven to a many-gabled house +shaded by a majestic oak, and informed that there lived Mrs. Widesworth, +the grand-daughter of Twynintuft, the famous elocutionist. They were +also assured that the oak was no other than the Twynintuft Oak, +celebrated in the well-known sonnet of a distinguished American poet. +Moreover, they were instructed that the room just to the right of the +porch was a study added by Twynintuft himself in the year '87, and that +the shattered shed in the background was originally an elocutionary +laboratory which had seen the forming of many Congressional orators.</p> + +<p>In so confident a way was this information imparted, that visitors were +compelled to receive it in all humbleness, and as a matter of course. +They could only feign that Twynintuft had been a household word from +their tenderest infancy, and that they have made pilgrimage to Foxden to +gaze upon the earthly abiding-place of this remarkable man. Accordingly, +young ladies sent their best respects from the hotel, and "Would dear +Mrs. Widesworth spare them a few leaves from her grandfather's oak?" And +simple young gentlemen, with a morbid passion for notorieties and moral +sentiments, forwarded little books, bound in sheepskin heavily gilt, +inscribed, "World-Thoughts of My Country's Gifted Minds," and "Mrs. +Widesworth is requested to write any maxim which her experience of life +may have suggested on page 209 of this volume, just between the remarks +of the Living Skeleton and the autograph of the Idiot Albino."</p> + +<p>If invited to visit any one of consideration in Foxden, you would no +sooner have deposited your travelling-bag and subsided into the +arm-chair than you would perceive a curious nervous twitching about the +features of your host, which would finally culminate in these, accents +of patronizing triumph:—"My dear Sir, I shall be glad to take you +across the street to pay your respects to Mrs. Widesworth!" Every +householder quivered with anxiety until this rite had been solemnly +performed.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Widesworth, the actual, was a plump, well-to-do widow, of +threescore years. She lived among her fellow-creatures, but not of +them,—and that in a sense far more comfortable than Byronic misanthropy +could imagine. She managed to keep all the tumult and competition of +this rough world just outside the little whitewashed fence which +inclosed her premises. No solitary saint of the Middle Ages floated in a +more lofty independence of the foolish heresies of vulgar humanity. The +mission of woman must, of necessity, be identical with the mission of +Mrs. Widesworth,—and this was, to bestow a mellow patronage upon all +creation. That whatever is is right, and that this is the best possible +of worlds, were to Mrs. Widesworth propositions which her perfect health +and unmitigated prosperity continually proved.<a name="Page_427" id="Page_427"></a> That, in a theological +point of view, everything was wrong, she considered an esoteric +condiment to add piquancy to the loaves and fishes which Providence had +set before her.</p> + +<p>Concerning the eminent Twynintuft, it may be remarked that he had +devoted a long life to elocution, and produced a bulky manual full of +illustrative quavers. And as it happened that his work was the first of +the sort published in America, it obtained a pretty general circulation +in schools and colleges, and was even patronisingly noticed in a British +Review,—at that time the apotheosis of our native authorship. But, alas +for the perishable nature of literary productions! "Twynintuft on the +Human Voice" had long been superseded, and lay comfortably buried in +that cemetery of dead textbooks from which there is no resurrection. +Yet, as he had once been one of the notables of Foxden, the inhabitants +of the town indulged themselves in the soothing fiction that his memory +was still verdant among men, and did pious homage to his representative.</p> + +<p>Until the correspondence of Colonel Prowley had drawn Miss Hurribattle +to Foxden, Mrs. Widesworth reigned by divine right. All quilting-bees +and charitable fairs seemed but manifestations of her pervading +vitality. Every social detail was submitted to her arbitrament. She +hovered over the gossips of the town like Fate in a Greek tragedy,—but +it was a reformed Fate, with a wholesome respect for family and +condition.</p> + +<p>An entertainment widely famous as "Mrs. Widesworth's Semiannual +Singing-School" brought forth every spring and fall the entire strength +of this excellent lady. The origin of this festivity was of ancient +date. The early settlers in Foxden, while holding decided opinions +concerning the mischief of church-organs, were unusually tolerant of +vocal music. They doubted not that a preached gospel might be worthily +seconded by a vigorous psalmody. Weekly meetings of the young men and +maidens were allowed for practice, and the pot of beans, surmounted by +its crisp coronal of pork, closed the evening in simple conviviality. +This singing-school had descended through the generations, and in solemn +rotation visited the families of all church-members. Under the fostering +care of Mrs. Widesworth, the occasion grew to a musical festival of +considerable importance. When the meeting was at her house, there were +invited many citizens of distinction from the neighboring towns; also, +there was summoned all that was lively, pretty, or profound in Foxden. +From three in the afternoon until nine in the evening the old house +broke out into singing, chatting, love-making, and sermonizing in rich +variety. The ancient bean-pot gave place to a tea-table loaded with +everything which might be baked or fried or stewed. Upon that day people +in wise foresight made but slender dinners. The hostess was known to +possess a culinary experience of no ordinary scope, and the air of the +house was heavy with the delicate incense of waffles and dough-nuts. +When the evening happened to be mild, and that comfortable estate of +fulness whose adjectives the Latin Grammar tells us require the ablative +had been attained, there was more music, secular, but highly decorous, +beneath the rustling boughs of the oak. Then the merriment grew hearty, +and mocked the sombre night. In vain the crickets chirped their shrill +jeer at fallen humanity; the crackling leaves whispered,—but no more +audibly than to the painted Indians who once danced beneath the tree +which the unborn Twynintuft was to monopolize.</p> + +<p>Perhaps you think Mrs. Widesworth a kind-hearted, charitable, +respectable old lady,—in short, a model citizeness! Many Foxden people +thought so, until, in the fulness of time, they were drugged with +iconoclastic logic, ghastly and fierce. Then this worthy person suddenly +loomed before them as a patron and upholder of every social abuse. She +was a trampler upon the rights of her sex, and deeply involved in the +guilt of baby-selling at Charleston. Above all, she was a <i>Moderate +Drinker</i>,<a name="Page_428" id="Page_428"></a> (half a glass of Sherry with her dinner, you know,) and, as +such, could be proved to be the bulwark of the bar-room, and directly +responsible for the ruin of the most talented graduates of Harvard +College. The brutalities of every wife-beating drunkard just landed upon +our shores might be logically credited to Mrs. Widesworth, and to those +<i>respectable</i> (with great sarcasm) <i>church-members</i> (sarcasm more +intense) who countenanced the moderate use of intoxicating drinks.</p> + +<p>For now there had come upon Foxden that political, sanatory, +anti-everything revival, which, in those days, thrilled through our +river-towns and took the place of the theological revival, which the +churches seemed too feeble to produce. And—but this is addressed only +to simple souls who think that Cæsar crossed the Rubicon, and Luther +instituted the Reformation—the settlement of Miss Patience Hurribattle +in a Foxden boarding-house produced the social upheaval which shook the +place. Of course, the enlightened reader of the "Atlantic" is well aware +that the mighty personages of history may be philosophically bejuggled +out of all claim to the admiration or reprobation of men. What did they +do but react on the society which created them?—what were they but the +average tendencies of an age clad in petticoats or top-boots, as the +case might be? So let it be written, that the great Cosmos-machine had +ground itself to the precise point which necessitated a reformatory +tumult in Foxden, and it mattered little who happened to be there to +patronize it.</p> + +<p>For several previous years Miss Hurribattle had borne about her an +uncomfortable turbulence of heroic effort. She had gradually accustomed +herself to regard our crooked humanity as something capable of being +caught up and reformed by a rapacious philanthropist. She had reached a +mental condition to which the time was as thoroughly out of joint as it +ever appeared to Hamlet, although, unlike that impracticable character, +she took great comfort in the belief that she was especially born to set +it right. The choice varieties of <i>men</i> know that truth as it is and +truth as it appears to them are very different matters. But, thank +Heaven, the feminine nature is bound by no such doleful barrier! The man +who thinks is limited; the woman who feels may expand indefinitely. Miss +Hurribattle's mission was to attract the world's capital of unemployed +sentiment, and to set it to work in the mills of society. Let it be said +of this woman, that, without wealth of talent or any exact culture, she +possessed the sweetest accompaniments of the highest masculine +genius,—enthusiasm and simplicity.</p> + +<p>The questioning spirit gradually took form in various radical clubs and +associations. Pleasing themselves with shining symbols, and +complimenting each other with antique titles of nobility, a large +majority of the Foxden shop-keepers enlisted in the sacred crusade. This +new physical revival, like the old religious revivals, soon got into the +schools, and processions of children, fluttering many-colored ribbons, +paraded the streets. There was an Anti-Spirit League and an +Anti-Tea-and-Coffee League; also an Anti-Tobacco League was in hopeful +process of formation. And soon professional reformers of most +destructive character were attracted to the place, and, having once +attached themselves, hung like leeches upon the community. The +celebrated Mrs. Romulus, and the great socialist, Mr. Stellato, snuffing +their victims afar off, left their work unfinished in towns of less +importance, and hurried to Foxden. Shrewd wasps were these, bent upon +getting up beehives of cooperative activity. Less and less grew the +stanch garrison who must defend the conservative citadel against the +daring hordes. Nevertheless, some boldly stood out, and showed a +spirit—or shall it be said an obstinacy?—which cowed unpractised +assailants. Deacon Greenlaw had not yet been persuaded to burn his +cider-mill,—although committees of matrons had visited him to ascertain +when he proposed to do so,—although bevies of children had been dressed +<a name="Page_429" id="Page_429"></a>in white and set upon Mrs. Greenlaw,—although Mr. Stellato, as Chief +of the Progressive Gladiators, had called in person to demand a public +destruction of that accursed instrument for the ruin of men. The Deacon +defied the moral sentiment of the town. Doctor Dastick sturdily +maintained that tea and coffee were not injurious, and had got hold of +the preventing-waste-of-tissue theory in respect to more potent +beverages. The old-fashioned hospitable soul of Colonel Prowley took +cognizance of the fact that the Odes of Horace made no unkindly mention +of ripe Falernian, and that the most admirable heroes of Plutarch do not +appear to have been teetotalers. Mrs. Widesworth, good lady, rode like a +cork upon the deep unrest of society: she thought the whole business +infidel as well as absurd, and, so thinking, did not trouble herself +much about it. Mr. Clifton had preached a sermon in which he took the +ground that morality could be best promoted by regulating, instead of +extirpating, human propensities.</p> + +<p>Then the rising tide of reform beat heavily upon the church-doors. By +stiff, inexorable logic, those clergymen who refused to join the popular +charge against the outworks of Evil were declared to be in intimate +alliance with its very Essence. Although the Bible, as a whole, was held +in little regard by the leading reformers, they were wonderfully expert +in plucking out texts here and there, and dove-tailing them into +scaffolding to sustain their platform. The grand denunciations of +Jeremiah were shown to have been shot point-blank at our poor little +New-England meeting-houses. It was <i>their</i> fasts and <i>their</i> new moons +which the prophet (his prophetic claims were here generously admitted) +aimed at. Some churches stood the shock of the angry elements. But many +young ministers were borne away before the storm, and carried their +side-aisles and galleries along with them. What! had a theological +<i>simulacrum</i> of Satan excited their fathers to doughty deeds,—and +should they hold back, when challenged to meet him in proper person, +hand to hand? Thus persuading themselves, these ardent divines caught up +bitter words which had drifted out of the dictionary, and laid about +them with a spirit not wholly removed from the old ecclesiastical rancor +which would kill where it could not convince. And taking it for granted +that it is the mission of the intellect to rectify what is wrong in the +world, fruition seemed to answer their efforts. Society was put to its +purgation in very plausible fashion. Songs about Temperance and various +desirable perfections of the outward man were shouted in bar-rooms hired +for the purpose at considerable expense. Then there was dimly seen a +further "progress," of which certain movers of the people were the warm +advocates. Having got the machinery well to work, might it not be +twitched and pulled to effect a wider purification? It began to be +hinted that the use of wine in the sacred offices of religion could not +be countenanced, if its employment elsewhere were the monster iniquity +it was shown to be. That philosophical friend of humanity, Mr. Stellato, +began to denounce the consumers of animal food with every unpleasant +illustration the shambles could be made to supply. In very select +companies of sympathizers, as well as in the Graduating Circle of +Progressive Gladiators, it was known that Mrs. Romulus maintained a +hideous doctrine subversive of that sacrament of the family which raises +the life of man above the life of the wolf and ape.</p> + +<p>Yet of the views and endeavors of the great mass of these earnest people +we may speak only with honor and gratitude. Much good work done in that +distant year of grace remains with us to-day. Who is more practical than +the idealist? If I read history aright, it is only the white-heat of +fanaticism which brands a true word into the tough hide of society. A +supreme pursuit of one virtue by the few can alone neutralize a supreme +devotion by the many to the opposite vice. Let us rejoice that some men +and women are under the necessity <a name="Page_430" id="Page_430"></a>of thinking no good thought which +they do not attempt to utilize at all hazards. Also, it is well not to +repine overmuch because many conscientious citizens cannot induce a +concentration of vision which directs all feeling, hissing-hot, into one +channel. They save us from the intolerable monotony of a whole world of +heroes, and leave you and me, good reader, in blessed freedom to demand +the theoretically right and ignore the practically expedient.</p> + +<p>To the beginnings of this angry perturbation the Reverend Charles +Clifton had returned, after abandoning the Vannelle manuscript under +circumstances detailed in the last number of this magazine. To one in +his position of mind it was of the highest importance to come upon some +work that he was fitted to do. It was his unhappy destiny to be placed +just where such power as he had could accomplish nothing. Timid by +nature, a cautious lover of compromise, self-baffled in a brilliant +flutter for truth, what had he to do in a vulgar conflict of opinion, in +a common, healthy play of free thought and speech? Peering off into +immensity until he had become utterly adrift in theology, the minister +found himself too feeble to stand upon the moral basis of some practical +creed. His regular parish duties afforded but slender occupation; he had +the gift of speaking extemporaneously, or from such notes as might be +made upon the back of a letter half an hour before church; he was not +called upon to do more catechizing or visiting than was agreeable to his +mood. He accordingly yielded to an indolence of disposition which +detained his vanishing illusions, and indulged in such studies as served +to prolong the barren contemplation which had wasted his youth. My +knowledge of the secret committed for eighty years to the Mather Safe +made me the only person to whom Clifton could freely write. At some +private inconvenience, I admitted a tolerably full intercourse with my +new correspondent. He declared that the sympathy of a man in active +affairs was invaluable to a solitary student like himself: he hoped, so +he said, to see through my eyes the facts of life. It was not difficult +to discern the cause of the sad indecision which afflicted him. To state +the case roughly, he had too much knowledge for his will. Busy people +reason by instinct with sufficient accuracy, but with this man no +conviction was for five minutes free from the probe of a metaphysical +argument. Yet from glimpses I had obtained of that overwhelming System +of Things elaborated by the two Vannelles, I could understand the +condition in which its partial apprehension had left Clifton. The more I +considered certain statements, authoritatively made in the portion of +the manuscript I had dared to read, the firmer grew my belief that years +of concentrated thought and fervent speculation had indeed illuminated, +to these men, dim outlines of most august truths,—truths which some +possible, although very distant, advancement of physical science might +inductively realize. But I had made out to dismiss the matter, with the +consideration that whatever it concerned me to know could be tied to no +one method of pursuit,—and, so reflecting, returned contentedly to the +multiplex concerns with which I was then occupied. Clifton, on the +contrary, having always struggled loftily along the same narrow sunbeam, +was utterly unable to accept such available knowledge of a principle as +is sufficient to direct our activity,—he must ever soar skyward to gaze +upon the origin of its authority, until, entangled in a web of +contradictions, he fell impotent to earth.</p> + +<p>Week by week, in my city-home, through letters from the minister and +Colonel Prowley, I had been kept informed of the progress of that wild +ferment going on in Foxden. At length the contentious spirit there +evoked seemed ready to summon to trial all ancient and reputable things. +My friends of the protesting minority were surely to be credited with +good Puritan pluck; though there was also something admirable in the +vigor which had marshalled a party <a name="Page_431" id="Page_431"></a>for their discomfiture. I began to +think it my duty to visit Clifton; moreover, I was curious to see the +town at the height of its effervescence. A note from Mrs. Widesworth +supplied me with the needed excuse. The singing-school was to hold its +semiannual meeting at her house on Thursday next; would I not come down +for a day and meet many old friends?</p> + + +<p>II.</p> + +<p>The fragrance of perfected harvests pervaded Foxden. The air was full of +those sweet remembrances of summer which are better than her radiant +presence. The sky overhead was flooded with rich autumnal sunshine. Far +to the north lay glimmering a heavy bank of clouds. There might be rain +before night.</p> + +<p>I entered the familiar parsonage and inquired for its occupant. He had +walked to the end of the garden with Miss Hurribattle, who had been with +him for some hours. I was at liberty to await his return in a depressing +theological lumber-room, called the study. The First Church had +liberally supplied its former ministers with the current literature of +their craft. Current literature! are not the words a mockery? could they +ever have applied to those printed petrifactions? One would sooner look +for vitality among the frozen denizens of the Morgue on St. Bernard! Yet +I doubt if these stately authors, wrapped in the cerements of their +prosiness, may reasonably reproach a forgetful world. They ministered to +the wants of <i>their</i> present, and by so doing were privileged to fashion +a future which they might not enter and possess. Complain indeed! Why, +their progeny had a good ten, twenty, or fifty years' life of it, as the +case might be,—and here about us are men of greater enterprise and +grasp doomed to work off paragraphs that perish on the day of printing. +Well, no earnest soul can fail to modify the character of his age, and +thus of all ages. So, if our generation demands ministry in newspapers +instead of folios, a man may still win an honest immortality without the +biography and the bother of it.</p> + +<p>I looked up from the books to see the clergyman part with Miss +Hurribattle at the gate, and then turn his steps towards the house.</p> + +<p>There was something like embarrassment as we exchanged greetings, yet +there was hardly time to mark this before it had passed.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Heaven!" exclaimed Clifton, passionately, "how I envy that woman's +faith in the omnipotence of a trifle! Suppose you or I can attain a +judicial largeness of view, is it any compensation for that intense glow +of the sympathies as they crowd into one specious channel? Why this +man's yearning after intellectual satisfaction, when we only want a +little fragment of truth to hang our sentiments upon?"</p> + +<p>There was bitterness in the tone in which Clifton spoke. It hinted of +the living death of a proud, disappointed man, who has renounced his +youth of high motives and warm ideas, who has learned to contemn his +boyish ambition to do some great thing for the world. Truly it is better +to consume in the flame of a fierce sectarianism than to permit the +spirit of youth to die when the gray hairs come.</p> + +<p>"Nay, Sir," said I, "it is for you to be heartily thankful for this +exuberant enthusiasm which has come to town. The complaint of the day +is, that the doctrines of Christianity have either dissolved into +abstractions or hardened into formalisms; and here you have a crop of +fresh insights to direct aright, and to keep from degenerating into +fanatical clamor."</p> + +<p>"But how satisfy or control these crazy people who begin by ignoring the +creeping pace of Time? Why, here is Miss Hurribattle, who has been these +two hours beating into me, as with logical sledge-hammers, that it is my +duty to denounce Deacon Greenlaw from the pulpit. The argument, to her +mind, is overwhelming, as thus: Intoxicating fluids cause the breaking +of all the commandments; cider, if one drinks enough of it, <a name="Page_432" id="Page_432"></a>is +intoxicating; Deacon Greenlaw presses apples, and sells the juice; he +therefore upholds and encourages the aforesaid commandment-breaking;—it +is the business of the pulpit to denounce sinners persisting in their +sin, therefore, etc., etc.,—you perceive the conclusion. In short, if I +do not instantly take the ruts of their narrow logic, and go about +pounding into some and propounding unto others their pet scheme of +regeneration,—why, I am a wolf in the sheep-fold, the Antichrist of +prophecy, and I know not what other accursed thing. And here is truly +the alternative,—to stagnate in a lifeless church, or to join these +ravers in their breakneck leap at the Millennium."</p> + +<p>"There is a noble element in this one-sided pertinacity," I suggested, +"and a wise man might humor and use it for the best ends. Instead of +attempting to pull these hopeful people back into the church, cannot you +urge the church forward to comprehend their position? This +impulse,—fanatical as some of its manifestations doubtless are,—might +it not be constrained, or at least directed?"</p> + +<p>"Never by me!" exclaimed Clifton, haughtily. "I should have to commit +myself to all the wild Saturnalia of their moralities before it would be +possible to acquire any power over them."</p> + +<p>"But surely you might go as far as any one in the advocacy of +Temperance."</p> + +<p>"Temperance! Why, you forget that I must denounce Temperance as the +deadliest of sins, and proclaim Abstinence to be the only virtue. There +is a grand State Convention of Progressive Gladiators at present in +session in Foxden; all the neighboring towns have sent delegates. Well, +it was only yesterday afternoon that Stellato, in behalf of one of the +committees, denounced the clergy of New England as gross flesh-eaters +who had made themselves incapable of perceiving any spiritual truth. And +I happen to know that Mrs. Romulus so successfully manipulated Chepunic, +not a hundred miles up the river, that before leaving that town she +publicly delivered her lecture entitled, 'Marriage a Barbarism,' and +professed to have discovered something far higher and holier than the +chain of wedlock."</p> + +<p>"I am sure that Miss Patience Hurribattle is ignorant of any such +tendency in these new doctrines," I exclaimed, indignantly.</p> + +<p>"Doubtless she is," assented Clifton. "There is a hopeful, +simple-hearted gleam in her eye, a fine simplicity in her speech, which +betokens enthusiasm of a purely religious type. But she is banded with +those who would use religion only as a fiery stimulant to the intellect, +never as a balm to the heart."</p> + +<p>A crunching upon the gravel-walk. A man and a woman were hurrying up to +the parsonage. The woman short, sharp, lean; the man unctious and +foxy,—yet also representing a chronic state of gelatinous bewilderment. +The Great Socialists,—I knew them at once.</p> + +<p>"Triumph! triumph!" cried Mr. Stellato, bursting into the study. "Deacon +Greenlaw has been converted at last! He will make a holocaust of his +cider-mill!"</p> + +<p>"He will signalize his submission to the Gladiators by a great Act of +Faith!" exclaimed Mrs. Romulus. "His cider-mill will be publicly burned +this afternoon at five o'clock. All the delegate Gladiators will march +in procession to the ground. Invitations have been sent to the Order of +Frugivorous Brothers, the Infants' Anti-Tobacco League,"—</p> + +<p>"Two drops of the oil of tobacco will kill a tomcat of the largest +proportions," murmured Mr. Stellato, in choral parenthesis.</p> + +<p>—"the Principal and Patients of the Lilac-Hill Water-Cure, the Children +of the Public Schools, the Millennial Choir, and Progressive Citizens +generally," said Mrs. Romulus, finishing her sentence.</p> + +<p>"It is the afternoon of Mrs. Widesworth's semiannual supper to the +singing-school," hissed Mr. Stellato, maliciously. "The Deacon's +cider-mill stands on the hill just before Mrs. Widesworth's house: the +procession may be expected <a name="Page_433" id="Page_433"></a>to pass before her windows about four +o'clock; it will then make the circuit of the town, and reach the top of +the hill a little before five, when the exercises will commence."</p> + +<p>Some petulant reply seemed ready to spring from the lips of the +clergyman, but he checked it, and said,—</p> + +<p>"You will have more water than fire: those clouds drifting up over the +river mean rain."</p> + +<p>"Only wine-bibbers and flesh-eaters are affected by the weather!" +responded Stellato, with great contempt. "Sunshine and storm are alike +wholesome to the purified seekers for truth!"</p> + +<p>"But there is no time to lose," cried Mrs. Romulus. "We have come to ask +you, as pastor of the first church in this place, to make the prayer +before the torch is applied. You will doubtless decline; but we shall +then be able to assure the people that the Gladiators are rejected by an +apostate church, which has been cordially invited to become their +fellow-worker."</p> + +<p>"You had really better think of it," urged Stellato, in a seductive +whisper. "The fact is, there is a great excitement, and we are getting +on famously. We are bound to carry the county at the next election, and +in a year or two we shall sweep the State. We have already enrolled some +of the best members of your parish, and you see the Deacon is added to +the list. Influential men who join us now will be well provided for when +we come into power. We want funds to carry on the cause. Think how much +you might do with such men as Prowley and Dastick! Ah, those abominable +old sinners, it would be a charity to get something out of them to +repair a little of the mischief they have done in the world."</p> + +<p>I protested at the way in which these gentlemen were mentioned: they +were friends of mine, and highly esteemed citizens.</p> + +<p>"Sir, they are <i>Moderate Drinkers</i>," said Mrs. Romulus, with an emphasis +which claimed the settlement of the whole question. "The Gladiators are +full of pity for the poor lost inebriate. They propose to convert their +bar-keeping brothers by a course of moral suasion. But they will ever +proscribe and defy those relentless Moderate Drinkers who admit the +wine-cup into their families, and—and—why, Sir, did you ever see the +stomach of a Moderate Drinker?"</p> + +<p>I never had.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Stellato has one fourteen times the size of life, colored after +Nature by a progressive artist. It is a fearful sight!"</p> + +<p>I did not question it.</p> + +<p>"Once more, there is not a moment to spare," said Mrs. Romulus, turning +suddenly upon the clergyman. "The question is, Shall we put you upon our +Order of Exercises?"</p> + +<p>"It would not sound badly," insinuated Stellato, perusing the document +in imagination: "'Chant, by the Choir; Recitation of Original Verses, by +Jane Romulus; Prayer, by the Reverend Charles Clifton'"—</p> + +<p>"Stop!" cried the clergyman. "I decline all connection with this +business. I have no sympathy with its promoters, and I will never cower +before the mob-tyranny they evoke. If I have yet any influence in the +First Church, it shall be used in solemnly counselling all youths and +maidens of the congregation to report themselves at Mrs. Widesworth's +singing-school. The feverish paroxysms of these public meetings are +doubtless more stimulating than the humble duties of home, or the modest +pleasures at which a lady of Mrs. Widesworth's character is willing to +preside; but it is not the wholesome activity which a wise man may +promote. And I know that to the children of our public schools such +excitement is far more fatal than the cup they never coveted: their +minds should be nurtured in moderation and simplicity, even as their +bodies are best nourished upon bread and milk."</p> + +<p>"Bread and milk!" echoed Mrs. Romulus in shrill falsetto; "say rather +loaves of plaster and alum crumbed into bowls of chalk-mixture! This is +the sort of bread and milk furnished by your barbarous <a name="Page_434" id="Page_434"></a>civilization! +But the beginning of the end of this priestridden world has at length +come. A new era is dawning upon earth. Much-oppressed Woman asserts her +entire freedom; she insists upon her passional independence, and demands +harmonial development. She is going to get it, too! Stellato, come +along!"</p> + +<p>We watched them up the gravel-walk, and then off upon the dusty road.</p> + +<p>The minister meditated in silence, as one who had the gift of +penetrating beyond his fellows into the mystery of sin. Now he was +distrustful: the time might soon come when he would be desperate. I +think he almost longed for the power to become a proselyte to any active +communion, even if it proposed but a new whitewashing of the sepulchre +which hides the corruptions of society. Notwithstanding the vigorous +words he had spoken, I knew him for one who could never take hearty +satisfaction in denouncing any form of Error, because always fated to +discern behind it the muffled figure of Truth. More than most men he +felt the pressure of an awful fact which weighs upon such as are gifted +with any fine apprehension of these worlds of spirit and +matter,—namely, the impossibility of drawing anywhere in Nature those +definite lines of demarcation which the mind craves to limit and fortify +its feeble beliefs. If the boundaries of the animal and vegetable +kingdoms are hopelessly interlaced, it is only an image of the confusion +in which our blackest sins are shaded off into the sunlight of virtue.</p> + +<p>"But why am I here?" exclaimed Clifton, suddenly starting to his feet. +"I can at, least swim a few desperate strokes against this current, +before sinking beneath it forever! I can do something to save a few +ardent maidens from this whirling water of Reform!</p> + +<p>"And yet," he continued, after a pause, "yet many, perhaps most of these +wretched people, drained dry by their one idea, are devoted with +absolute singleness of purpose to the pursuit of an honest thing. Let us +consider whom and what we may be found fighting against. If these +subverters do not altogether prove the truth of their own opinions, do +they not at least demonstrate the error of those who totally oppose +them? Here is Miss Hurribattle,—who will not acknowledge her noble +contempt for the accidental and the transitory? I believe that woman +desires Truth as earnestly as men desire wealth or reputation!"</p> + +<p>"It is so, indeed," I assented. "Her large nature will assimilate +whatever grandeur of idea may be found among this acid folk. After a +little time she will reproduce in saintly form whatever gives its real +vitality to this movement."</p> + +<p>"Never!" said the clergyman; "they will put upon her the strait-jacket +of their system, and carry her off to doom."</p> + +<p>Soon after this we went in different ways through the town.</p> + +<p>I called upon Mrs. Widesworth, who had a culinary engagement, and could +not appear, and then walked to the top of the hill, where a number of +the faithful were heaping tar-barrels and shavings about the solitary +cider-mill. Regarding their operations from a little distance stood +Deacon Greenlaw; his face wore an expression of grim humor, underlaid by +a shrewd intelligence of the true position of affairs.</p> + +<p>"They are making lively preparations for your holocaust," said I.</p> + +<p>"Well, 't isn't exactly that long word neither," replied the Deacon. +Fact is, I just looked it out in the dictionary, and there they call it +'a whole burnt-offering'; but it won't mean all that with me, I can tell +you!"</p> + +<p>"But, my dear Sir, surely you mean to go under the Juggernaut +handsomely, and not squirm in the process?"</p> + +<p>The Deacon indulged in an interrogative whistle, and jerked his thumb in +the direction of a corn-barn which stood near the base of the hill.</p> + +<p>I requested explanation.</p> + +<p>"The floor of that corn-barn," observed its proprietor, "is covered with +husks about four foot deep. Under those husks is my patent screw and a +lot of cider-fixins. That old mill's a rattle-trap, <a name="Page_435" id="Page_435"></a>any way. There's a +place at the other end of the orchard a sight more handy for a new one. +So, when folks get to reading their Bible without leaving out the +marriage in Cana, why"—</p> + +<p>"Then you have been badgered into this," I said, seeing that the Deacon +was not disposed to finish his sentence.</p> + +<p>"Well, they've been pecking at me pretty hard; and when Mis' Greenlaw +and the girls went over, of course I couldn't hold out. I kept telling +'em that the Lord gave us apples, and I didn't believe He cared whether +we eat 'em or drank 'em. But you see I had to knock under."</p> + +<p>I questioned if it was going to rain, after all; for the clouds were +scudding off to the east.</p> + +<p>"They're just following the bend of the river," asserted the Deacon, +elevating his chin to bring them within range, and giving them a +significant nod, as if to recall an appointment. "These apple-trees will +be dripping well before night. I know the weather-signs in Foxden. It +<i>is</i> going to rain,—and, what's more, when it does rain, it'll rain +artichokes,—and, what's more than that, I don't care if it does!"</p> + + +<p>III.</p> + +<p>A wretched fragment of the singing-class met at the house of Mrs. +Widesworth. Professor Owlsdarck had kindly come over from Wrexford to +help fill up the rooms; but the pressure of his ponderous attainments +seemed only to compress yet more that handful of miscellaneous +miserables in the front-parlor. Eight or ten elderly people, one or two +undergraduates at home for the college-vacation,—these were the guests. +The precautions of Mrs. Romulus had not been taken in vain,—there could +be no singing: none, unless—but I trust that this evil suggestion +occurred to nobody—we were so lost to shame as to call upon the +college-boys to supply the place of our absent psalmody with some of +those Bacchanalian choruses with which they were doubtless too familiar. +We felt rather wicked. We knew that we were stigmatized by that terrible +compound, "<i>Pro-Rum</i>"; we were held up as the respectable abettors of +drunkenness, the <i>dilettanti</i> patrons of pot-houses, the cold-blooded +connoisseurs in wife-beating and <i>delirium tremens</i>. That we really +appeared all this to many honest, enthusiastic people could not be +doubted.</p> + +<p>Certain perplexing questions, which had fifty times been answered and +dismissed, were ever returning to worry the general consciousness of the +company:—Is it not best to scourge one's self along with a popular +enthusiasm, when, by many excellent methods, it would sweep society to a +definite good? Are not the ardors of the imagination better +working-powers than the cold judgments of the reason? Should we ever be +carping at controlling principles, when much of their present +manifestation seems full of active worthiness? Above all, have we not +listened to contemptible fallacies of self-indulgence and indolence, and +then cheated ourselves into believing them the sober testimonies of +conscience?</p> + +<p>That some such melancholic refinements were restless in the brains of +many I have no doubt. Probably only Mrs. Widesworth and the +undergraduates were wholly undisturbed by them. Yet, in spite of this +secret uneasiness, there was common to the company a stiff recognition +of its own virtue, which seemed to impart a certain queer rigidity to +the bodily presence of the guests. Dr. Dastick, for the first and only +time in my remembrance, appeared with his trousers bound with straps to +the bottoms of his boots. Colonel Prowley had thrust his neck into a +stock of extraordinary stiffness, which seemed to proceed from some +antique coat-of-mail worn beneath the waistcoat. The collar and cuffs of +Miss Prowley were wonderful in their dimensions, and fairly creaked with +the starch. The clergyman, indeed, wore his dress and manners in relaxed +and even slouchy fashion; but this seemed <a name="Page_436" id="Page_436"></a>not due to lightness of +heart, but only to weariness of mind. I knew that something had caused +him to feel acutely the limitations of his office. One might attribute +such feelings to the bass-viol player in an orchestra, who, in whatever +whirl of harmony, is permitted to scrape out only a few gruff notes. But +there was dear Mrs. Widesworth, so deliciously drugged by the anodynes +of Authority that she could shake the chains of custom till they jingled +like sleigh-bells.</p> + +<p>"Come, come," said this good lady; "why, you all seem to be following +the advice of my grandfather Twynintuft,—which was, to let the mind +muddle after dinner. He thought it strengthened the voice,—gave it +<i>timber</i>, as he called it. But, ah, dear! in these days so little +attention is paid to elocution that it's of no consequence whatever!"</p> + +<p>"I have endeavored, Madam," said Professor Owlsdarck, with great +precision of utterance, "I have endeavored to impress upon my scholars +that Socratic wisdom which condemned books as silent: a testimony, as I +take it, of great importance to those who would perfect the instrument +of oral instruction."</p> + +<p>"There is no great elocutionist at the present day," said Mrs. +Widesworth with pious regret.</p> + +<p>"And little could we profit by him, if there were," rejoined the +Principal of the Wrexford Academy. "For, in the present excited +condition of our river-towns, men do not strive to copy the moderate +virtues of the Ancients, but only to exaggerate their heathenish +extispicy."</p> + +<p>"Ah, very true, very true," sighed Mrs. Widesworth; "only I forget what +that last word means."</p> + +<p>"Extispicy," defined the Professor, "is properly the observation of +entrails and divination thereby."</p> + +<p>"Yet more is to be learned from bones," said Dr. Dastick, decidedly. "I +hold that the performances of Cuvier alone are conclusive upon that +point."</p> + +<p>Colonel Prowley looked doubtful: it would hardly do to question thus +lightly the wisdom of Antiquity.</p> + +<p>Here Professor Owlsdarck experienced a queer twitching about the corners +of his mouth,—an affection which since his poetical address before the +Wrexford Trustees had occasionally troubled him.</p> + +<p>"At any rate, Colonel," he observed, "we can agree, that, whatever +amount of wisdom the Ancients may have shown in observing the digestive +apparatus of animals, it certainly exceeded that of our modern +philosophers, who are always contemplating their own."</p> + +<p>"Truly, I believe you are right," responded Colonel Prowley. "There is +my dear friend Miss Hurribattle, who is always coming to me with some +new cure for people who are perfectly well. At one time Mrs. Romulus +told her that everybody should live on fruits which ripen at least six +feet above-ground,—all roots having an earthy and degrading tendency. +The last recipe for the salvation of society is, to take a little gravel +with our meals, like birds."</p> + +<p>Dr. Dastick partly closed his eyes, and said, with some effort,—</p> + +<p>"I think that men are befooled with these new explanations of sin and +its bitter fruits because the pulpit has done talking of the abiding +sinfulness of our inherited nature. When I was a boy, the minister +offered us the good old remedies of Baptismal Regeneration or Prevenient +Grace, instead of bidding us drench our flesh with water or crack our +bones with gymnastics."</p> + +<p>At that moment Mr. Clifton turned towards me a half-startled, +half-triumphant look. I felt that the idea had been working in his mind, +but that he had used another's lips for its utterance. Under +undetermined conditions certain minds are capable of employing a +physical organization alien to themselves. If I had doubted this before, +a foreign influence in my own person would have made it clear at that +moment. For I felt a reply uttered from my lips which came not from my +consciousness.</p> + +<p>"The moral, perhaps, is, that the pendulum has reached the other +extremity <a name="Page_437" id="Page_437"></a>of the arc of oscillation, and that neither spiritual nor +physical regeneration can walk in the fetters of a system."</p> + +<p>Some one called out that the procession was passing. All crowded to the +windows.</p> + +<p>A few musical instruments. Plenty of ribbons and rosettes; also, emblems +of mysterious device. Banners inscribed with moral texts. Miss +Hurribattle. The school-children in white. Members of the +School-Committee in demi-toilet. More banners. Mr. Stellato, as chief of +the Gladiators, covered with a pasteboard helmet, and bearing a shield +inscribed "TRUTH." (N.B. The inscription in German text by the +school-children.) The Progressive Guard with javelins,—<i>papier-maché</i> +tips gummed over with shiny paper. A Transparency,—at least it could be +used as such in lecturing emergencies,—representing the interesting +medical illustration to which Mrs. Romulus had alluded in the morning. +The choir singing a progressive anthem, accompanied by extravagant +gestures. Other banners waved in cadence with progressive stanzas. Mrs. +Romulus and the Lilac-Hill Water-Cure Establishment. Progressive +citizens generally; these in various stages of exaltation, and cheering +fervently.</p> + +<p>"The old infectious hysteria of religious revivals, limited by fresh air +and gentle exercise, is it not, Dr. Dastick?"</p> + +<p>The Doctor answered my inquiry with a non-committal "humph" of the most +professional sort.</p> + +<p>"Plato tells us that the Greek Rhapsodists could not recite Homer +without falling into convulsions," said Professor Owlsdarck.</p> + +<p>"That is very remarkable," said Colonel Prowley, deeply impressed.</p> + +<p>"I had no idea that these youths and maidens could justify their +eccentric proceedings by so high an authority," observed his sister.</p> + +<p>The brother objected. He thought that the same effects could not rightly +be attributed to a modern song-writer and the Blind Old Poet.</p> + +<p>"Blind Old Poet!" exclaimed one of the undergraduates, very +thoughtlessly. "Why, my dear Colonel Prowley, you are blinder than ever +he was! Don't you know that recent scholarship has demonstrated Homer to +be nobody in particular? The 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey' are mere +agglomerations of the poetical effusions of a variety of persons; and +doubtless all of them could see as well as you and I can."</p> + +<p>It was distressing to mark the grief and indignation which suddenly +clouded the countenance of my old friend. Was not the last noticeable +publication in post-classical literature the "Rasselas" of Dr. Johnson? +Had not all those well-disposed people who hailed it as the brightest +combination of literary and moral excellence which a mere modern could +produce,—had they not lived and died in respectable allegiance to the +Homeric personality? To say nothing of a mystical admiration of the +Greek hexameters which he could not construe, Colonel Prowley was a +diligent reader of Pope's sonorous travesty. He felt like some simple +believer in the divine right of kings, when the mob have broken into the +palace, and stand in no awe of the stucco and red velvet. Yes, of course +I admire original minds,—but then I love those which are not original. +And truly there was a stately echo about the old gentleman which always +went to my heart.</p> + +<p>"Our friend spoke incautiously," I said. "I make no doubt that Professor +Owlsdarck will tell us that the preponderant evidence is in favor of +Homer the individual, notwithstanding a few troublesome objections."</p> + +<p>"He was buried," replied the Professor, "perhaps at Smyrna, perhaps at +Cos, perhaps at neither. It is not easy to decide what ancient city may +rightly claim his bones."</p> + +<p>"He should have shown a sense of their value by writing some verses +about them," urged Dr. Dastick. "There was Shakspeare, whose genius +culminated in those important osteological observations inscribed upon +his tombstone!"</p><p><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438"></a></p> + +<p>At this point the undergraduate murmured something about "Wolf's +Prolegomena," which was lost in a dull rumble of thunder,—as if some +giant outside the house had taken up the title and was gruffly repeating +it.</p> + +<p>And now the storm was coming.</p> + +<p>The sky darkened rapidly.</p> + +<p>The atmosphere lay thick and yellow.</p> + +<p>Where was the procession? Would it not be necessary to omit the +triumphal progress through the town, and come to the hill at once?</p> + +<p>Windy whiffs—fledgling stormlets—practised in the branches of the +Twynintuft oak. The great tree lunged and croaked at them. Suddenly the +lilac-bushes were fanned into fantastic shapes. The sumach perked its +red <i>pompon</i> like a holiday soldier, and then flung skyward its crimson +battle-flag. The wind blustered among the fallen leaves, and slammed a +loose blind or two. It grew darker,—still darker.</p> + +<p>The procession, at last,—a straggling remnant of it,—was seen pushing +up the hill. A remnant indeed! The children, and those having charge of +them, had withdrawn. The Committee-men had sought shelter. The +Progressive Guard was decimated. Every moment men and women were falling +out of rank and hurrying away.</p> + +<p>It was a little group that at length collected about the cider-mill. +Little at first,—less every instant. It would be necessary to abridge +the exercises. We saw Mrs. Romulus mount a barrel and harangue the +seceders with furious gesticulation. A book was passed up to her, and +she apparently gave out some hymn or ode suitable to the occasion. Alas! +there remained no choir to give it vocal expression.</p> + +<p>A hurricane-gust struck the town, and drove clouds of dust along the +street. Perhaps it was five minutes before the hill was again visible. +Then there stood by the Deacon's cider-mill three figures. Mr. Stellato +waved a torch about his head, and flung it into the combustibles. A +sheet of flame shot madly up. Mrs. Romulus seized one of the abandoned +banners and flourished it in triumph.</p> + +<p>Again the Twynintuft oak ground its great branches together, and threw +them heavenward for relief. The relief came. The dry agony of Nature +burst in a flood of tears.</p> + +<p>The rain came beating down. It came with a sudden plunge upon the earth, +drenching all things. And then, the sharp, curt rattle of hail.</p> + +<p>"Come to the middle of the room, the lightning is straight above us!"</p> + +<p>We crouched together as the thunder crashed over the house. +Rain,—nothing but rain. No ever-varying light and shade, as in common +squalls. One great cascade poured down its awful monotony.</p> + +<p>A bursting noise at the door. There stood before us Mrs. Romulus, Miss +Hurribattle, and Mr. Stellato. Soaked, dripping, reeking,—take your +choice of adjectives, or look into Worcester for better. The ladies +might have passed for transcendental relatives of Fouqué's Undine. +Stellato, with his hair and face bedaubed with a glutinous substance +into which his helmet had been resolved, did not strongly resemble one's +idea of a Progressive Gladiator. Truly, a deplorable contrast between +that late triumphant march before the house, and this present estate of +the leaders, so reduced, so pitiable!</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, dear, what can I do for you?" cried good Mrs. Widesworth, +forgetting all resentment in a gracious gush of sympathy.</p> + +<p>"'Only wine-bibbers and flesh-eaters are affected by the weather,'" +murmured the clergyman, in bitter quotation, "'Storm and sunshine are +alike wholesome to the purified seekers for truth.'"</p> + +<p>"Seekers for truth!" echoed Professor Owlsdarck; "one would say that our +friends must have been seeking it in its native well."</p> + +<p>"As a medical man," said Dr. Dastick, "I shall direct Mrs. Widesworth to +provide some dry garments for her unexpected guests. Also, I think it my +duty <a name="Page_439" id="Page_439"></a>to mention that a glass of hot brandy-and-water would be but +common prudence."</p> + +<p>"The first part of your advice shall be complied with," assented our +hostess,—"that is, if I can find anything to put on to them. As to the +last suggestion,—I have, to be sure, a decanter of fine old Cognac in +the closet, but it would be almost an insult to offer it."</p> + +<p>"The pledge has its important exceptions," observed Mr. Stellato, +shivering perceptibly. "'Except when prescribed by a medical +attendant,'—I believe I quote the exact language, Mrs. Romulus,—and +Dr. Dastick has a diploma."</p> + +<p>"Come up-stairs, then," said Mrs. Widesworth, taking the decanter from +the closet; "you will all catch your deaths of cold, if you stay another +minute."</p> + +<p>When the three patrons of Progress again appeared among us, they really +seemed to have accomplished their transference to an unconventional and +pastoral era. The ladies were quite lost in the spacious habits provided +for them. Likewise, they were curiously swathed in shawls and scarfs of +various make and texture, and might be considered representatives of any +age, past, present, or future, to which the beholder might take a fancy. +Mr. Stellato had been got into the only article of male attire which the +establishment afforded. This was an ancient dressing-gown, very small in +the arms, and narrow in the back: it had belonged to Twynintuft himself, +who was six feet two, and as thin as a bean-pole. The thickly wadded +skirts swept the ground, or clung heavily about the lower limbs. The +garment combined every disadvantage of a Roman toga and a fashionable +swallow-tail.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Romulus and Mr. Stellato, who had not scrupled to avail themselves +of the Doctor's prescription, were still noisily progressive. They at +once led a moral charge against Professor Owlsdarck and Colonel Prowley.</p> + +<p>Miss Hurribattle, refusing such warmth as might be administered +internally, was pale and chilly. She separated herself from her +companions, and crossed the room to where I stood. Her face was radiant +with devout simplicity. To a soul so pure and brave and feminine may I +never be guilty of applying a hard and technical criticism! He is little +to be envied who reads Don Quixote's assault upon the windmills as a +chapter of mad buffoonery. An ideal knight, without fear or reproach, +subject to disaster and ridicule, august from his faith in God and the +manly consecration of his life,—is he not rather the type of a +Christian sanity? No doubt, such a character seems altogether mad to +you, my friend, who pass the window as I write these words. You have +huckstered away opportunity just upon the edge of indictable knavery; +your ambition has been to be well with the wealth and sleek +respectability of the day, to make your son begin life the sordid +worldling that you end it, to marry your daughter to the richest +fool,—and this you call sanity and common sense! Is it not some Devil's +subtlety that deludes you? If Man is an immortal soul, to be saved or +damned forever, then he only is sane who welcomes privation, toil, +contempt, for a spiritual idea. "Attacking windmills!" you say. That is, +they seem so to you. But it may be that your brother's clearer eye and +practised intelligence show them the giants which they truly are. But, +be they giants or windmills, mark you this: his life illustrates some +grade of manly worthiness which the world would be poorer without, while +to himself the gain of an unselfish activity is a certain blessedness. I +hold it, then, of small matter, that, for a time, Miss Hurribattle +mistook two charlatans, three-fifths knavery, the rest fanaticism, for +honest workers in the Lord's vineyard. Far better such over-faith than +the fatal languor which seemed to terminate Clifton's too close scrutiny +of life. A buoyant and never-failing enthusiasm is the divine requital +of faithful service. "The reward of virtue is perpetual drunkenness!" +exclaims the half mythic Musæus; "<i>Crucem hanc inebriari</i>,"<a name="Page_440" id="Page_440"></a> the Church +has responded. It has a flavor as of Paradise when a woman brims over +with some fine excitement,—and that among godless, unrepentant men.</p> + +<p>"The storm has not prevented the accomplishment of our purpose," said +Miss Hurribattle, pleasantly; "we have this day made our protest against +the most dangerous form of evil."</p> + +<p>"One of the most obvious forms, certainly," I replied; "we might not +quite agree about its being the most dangerous."</p> + +<p>"I must demand all those republican virtues which should be the fruit of +our New-England liberty,—I must be strictly consistent."</p> + +<p>I jestingly pleaded the familiar proverb about fools and dead men, and +observed that there was great obscurity surrounding the real sources of +evil in our social life.</p> + +<p>"I once thought as you do," said the lady; "but, from my constant +association with philosophical minds like those of Mrs. Romulus and Mr. +Stellato, much has been made clear to me. They have devoted their lives +to the study of modern civilization, and are skilful in the nice +adaptation of remedies to all public disorders."</p> + +<p>"How long have you known these two persons?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"They came to Foxden about a month ago. I had then organized the +Temperance movement among the school-children, and devised a scheme for +furnishing employment to drunkards who would make an effort to reform. +But these more worthy guides of humanity soon reduced matters to first +principles. They showed that all Moderate Drinkers and the Church which +sustains them must be exposed and denounced. They have done a great +work, as you see. Only a few people in Foxden have dared to stand +against them. Deacon Greenlaw, one of the most obstinate cases, has just +yielded to their persevering treatment."</p> + +<p>The rain at length stopped.</p> + +<p>Many persons who had appeared in the procession straggled in, looking +rather sheepish. The singing, indeed, had failed; but the supper was in +prospect.</p> + +<p>Stellato was at high-pressure, and ready to lead his adventurous +Gladiators into the very camp of the enemy. Mrs. Romulus, wholly above +the prejudices of the toilet, would stay and bear him company.</p> + +<p>Miss Hurribattle, not having cast out that "clothes-devil" against which +the old theologians used to warn her sex, wished to return to her +boarding-house. It being by this time dark, or nearly so, I offered to +see her home. Mr. Clifton volunteered to accompany us.</p> + +<p>"The Deacon's cider-mill is smoking after all this drenching!" exclaimed +Mrs. Widesworth.</p> + +<p>"The torches of the Bacchantes, when flung into the Tiber, were said +still to burn," observed Professor Owlsdarck, after rummaging about a +little for an historical parallel. "And here we seem to find a point +where the modern enthusiasm for water and the ancient fervor for wine +tend to like results."</p> + +<p>Colonel Prowley was peculiarly interested,—so much so, indeed, that he +shook hands with us absently. Mrs. Widesworth was profuse in entreaties, +and then in hearty farewells.</p> + +<p>We walked up the street.</p> + +<p>A spring freshness was in that autumn evening. The air was purified by +the storm, as society is purified after a tempestuous feeling has blown +through it.</p> + +<p>I think that both of her companions felt abased by the vivid faith which +sparkled in Miss Hurribattle's conversation. We were both rebuked by her +life-effort for what was high and positive and real. The clergyman, +examining the depths of his own sensitive spirit, felt keener contempt +for that theoretical good-will, that indefinite feeling of profound +desire, which might not be concentrated upon any reality. And it came +over me, how mean was the thirst and struggle for a merely professional +eminence which filled my common days. As in a mental<a name="Page_441" id="Page_441"></a> <i>mirage</i>, which +loomed above the thickening twilight, I saw how our paths diverged, and +whither each must surely tend. No doubtful way was hers, the +single-hearted woman of lofty aims, of restless feminine activity, of +holy impatience with sin. She might, indeed, miss the clue which guides +through the labyrinth; but then her life would teach mankind even better +than she designed. On the other hand,—supposing the position attained +which too constantly occupied my own thoughts,—there was an admiration +of men, a market-salutation from reputable Commonplace, a seat in a +fashionable church, a final lubrication with a fat obituary,—and then? +But it was no part of my design to invite the reader into the inner +chambers of my own personality, and I forbear.</p> + +<p>After a half-mile walk, we left Miss Hurribattle, and turned our steps +towards the parsonage.</p> + +<p>"I sometimes feel that her instinct reasons more accurately than my poor +logic," said Clifton, bitterly; "yet it is a hard necessity to sacrifice +our individual faculties of comparison and judgment for the +working-power of a fervid organization!"</p> + +<p>"No doubt it is a matter for serious question," I replied. "For, as soon +as we grow out of our languid and feeble maladies, we grow into the +violent inflammatory disorders which troubled our forefathers. The +doctors will tell you that this is true of our bodies; and surely the +soul's physician may pursue the analogy."</p> + +<p>"I can no longer hope to heal any man's soul," exclaimed the clergyman; +"it is enough if my own be not wholly lost. I shall to-morrow formally +resign the sacred office of teacher in this place. With the final +renunciation of the great purpose which once swayed my life, I must +renounce every symbol less profound, less poetic. I must make my boast +of an intellect which will never let any affection pass the line of +demonstrable truth. I once knew how grand it was to stand alone in the +world of an inward faith; but now I have renounced all belief in an +ideal human being inclosed in this poor body whom it was my business to +liberate."</p> + +<p>As we stopped at the broad path leading to the parsonage, I ventured to +say a few words which I will not set down.</p> + +<p>More and more I was drawn towards the high and intense life of the woman +in whom all that was wrong seemed but an excess of virtue. I could have +besought some fanatical warlike spirit to take possession of Clifton and +make him capable of hate, and so, perhaps, of love. Anything to arouse +this personator of our human mutability, this vacillator between doing +and letting alone!</p> + +<p>The wild future of the minister I did not anticipate. Hereafter it may +possibly be written, to show such lessons as it has. But on that autumn +night he walked up the gray pathway a broken man. The spiritual part was +dead; he had lost faith in the invisible. He walked as one in a funeral +procession,—ever doomed to follow a dead idea.</p><p><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442"></a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_UNITED_STATES_ARMORY" id="THE_UNITED_STATES_ARMORY"></a>THE UNITED STATES ARMORY.</h2> + + +<p>The United States Armory at Springfield, Massachusetts, is the largest, +best appointed, and altogether the most productive establishment for the +manufacture of small arms in the world,—those belonging to the Austrian +Government at Vienna, and to the British at Enfield, being greatly +inferior both in size and appointments; while the quality of the guns +manufactured here is very superior to that at either of those important +establishments. Indeed, the Springfield rifled musket is justly regarded +as the most perfect arm of its kind which has ever been produced. To +attain this desirable point of excellence has required the skill and +perseverance of the best mechanical minds which this country—always +prolific in inventive genius—has produced during a period of more than +half a century. It would be impossible to estimate the value of these +works during the existence of the present Rebellion; but some idea may +be formed of their usefulness from the fact that twenty-five thousand +rifled muskets of the most approved pattern are manufactured at this +establishment every month, and the number will soon be increased to +thirty thousand. There are at the present time one hundred and +seventy-five thousand of these muskets in the arsenal, awaiting the +orders of the War Department, and the works are daily turning out enough +to arm an entire regiment.</p> + +<p>When the Rebels fired upon Fort Sumter, the armory was making about one +thousand muskets per month, and three months afterwards the increase +amounted only to three thousand, so little preparation had been made by +the Government of Mr. Buchanan to meet the great struggle which Southern +demagogues were precipitating upon us. Indeed, the number of muskets +manufactured during the last year of his administration was less by +several thousand than these works turned out during the year 1815; +while, during this same period, the residents of streets leading to the +railway-station witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of a daily +procession of wagons laden with boxes of Government arms on their way to +Southern arsenals!</p> + +<p>Twenty-six hundred workmen are now constantly employed,—the +establishment being run day and night,—and none but the most expert and +industrious artisans are to be found among them.</p> + +<p>The original site of this armory was occupied during the Revolution as a +military recruiting-post, afterwards as a depot for military stores, and +then as a place for repairing arms. The first shops were on Main Street, +and among them was a laboratory for cartridges and various kinds of +fireworks. The oldest record in the armory relates to the work done in +this laboratory during the month of April, 1778, showing that about +forty men were then engaged in the business. Not far from the date of +this document the works were removed to the hill, where, enlarged and +perfected, they are legitimately the object of admiration and pride. The +act establishing the armory was passed by Congress in April, 1794.</p> + +<p>The arsenal, storehouse, offices, and principal manufacturing buildings +are situated on Springfield Hill, and overlook the Connecticut valley at +a commanding elevation. The heavier operations of the armory are carried +on in another part of the city, about a mile distant, in buildings known +as the water-shops. These are situated upon a small stream which flows +into the Connecticut River at this point.</p> + +<p>The armory-grounds on the hill cover an area of seventy-two acres, and +are surrounded, with the exception of a small square detached from the +main grounds, by an ornamental iron fence, nine feet in height. These +grounds are exceedingly beautiful, and present every <a name="Page_443" id="Page_443"></a>variety of +landscape. A beautiful slope to the south and west, covered with +luxuriant verdure, and crowned with groves of deciduous trees and +evergreens, affords the eye peculiar gratification. The grounds combine +also the useful with the ornamental, supplying hay enough to feed a +score of horses belonging to the establishment.</p> + +<p>There are fifteen buildings used in the manufacture of muskets at the +works on the hill, and about the same number occupied as residences by +the various officers and head-clerks of the armory. Some of the +buildings are spacious and elegant in their construction, particularly +the quarters of the commanding officer, and the arsenal, and are +arranged in a picturesque and symmetrical manner within the square. The +grounds are shaded by ornamental trees, and the dwellings are adorned +with gardens and shrubbery. Broad and neatly kept walks, some gravelled +and others paved, bordered by finely clipped hedges, extend across the +green or along the line of the buildings, opening charming vistas in +every direction. Four venerable pieces of artillery, all betokening +great age, if not service, standing in the centre of the square, furnish +the only outward and visible show of the military character of this +immense establishment.</p> + +<p>The principal building, as regards size and architectural beauty, is the +arsenal, which is two hundred feet long by seventy wide, and three +stories high,—each story being sufficiently capacious to contain one +hundred thousand muskets. The muskets, when stored in this arsenal, are +arranged in racks, set up for the purpose, along the immense halls, +where they stand upright in rows of glittering steel, and so closely +resemble the pipes of an organ that the propriety of Longfellow's simile +suggests itself at once to every observer:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"This is the arsenal. From floor to ceiling,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Startles the villages with strange alarms."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Unhappily, the last two lines of this beautiful stanza no longer +appropriately describe the quiet and peaceful condition of these then +harmless arms,—one hundred and fifty thousand of them having been +literally stolen from this arsenal by Floyd during the last year of his +secretaryship at Washington, and sent South in anticipation and +furtherance of the Rebellion, and the remainder issued to the loyal +troops raised for the defence of the Union. Thus these grim messengers +of death, of whom the poet so sweetly sings, have forced</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The cries of agony, the endless groan,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>from Northern and Southern warriors alike, and rung the</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"loud lament and dismal Miserere"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>within the homes of every part of our once happy and peaceful land.</p> + +<p>The arsenal has another charm for visitors besides the beauty of the +burnished arms within, in the magnificent panorama of the surrounding +country seen from the summit of the tower. This tower, which occupies +the middle of the front of the building, is about ninety feet high by +thirty square, affording space upon the top for a large party of +visitors. Nothing can be imagined more enchanting than the view +presented from this point during the spring and summer months. At your +feet are the beautiful armory-grounds, mingling with the treeskirted +streets of the city; while beyond, the broad and luxuriant valley of the +Connecticut is spread out to view, with its numerous villages, fields, +groves, bridges, and railways, and the whole landscape framed by blue +mountain-ranges, among which Mounts Tom and Holyoke rise in towering +majesty.</p> + +<p>The arsenal is used for the storage of the muskets during the interval +that elapses from the finishing of them to the time when they are sent +away to the various permanent arsenals established by Government in +different parts of the country, or issued to the troops. This edifice +was constructed about a dozen <a name="Page_444" id="Page_444"></a>years ago, and has, until recently, been +designated as the new arsenal, there being two or three other buildings +which were formerly used for the storage of finished muskets, called the +old arsenals, but which, since the Rebellion, have been relieved of +their contents and supplied with machinery for the manufacture of arms. +A portion of the new arsenal is now used for finishing barrels and +assembling muskets, and other parts for storing ordnance-supplies.</p> + +<p>The storehouse, offices, and workshops are extensive buildings,—the +former being eight hundred feet long, and one of the latter six hundred +feet long and thirty-two feet wide.</p> + +<p>In a description of the armory printed in 1817, the grounds are +described as a perfectly level, elevated plat, situated about half a +mile east of the village, from which there is a gradual ascent, flanked +on the north by a deep ravine and on the south by a less considerable +one, with an extensive plain spreading in the rear, the adjoining parts +being uncovered, fronting on the brow of the declivity, and commanding +an extensive and beautifully variegated landscape. At the present time, +the armory is not only in the city, but the streets at the north, south, +and east of the grounds are as thickly inhabited as any other portion of +the town. There has, however, been an increase in the population of +Springfield since 1817, from two to twenty-six thousand souls. A larger +number of workmen are employed within the armory-grounds at the present +time than the entire population of the place amounted to fifty years +ago.</p> + +<p>The water-shops formerly occupied three different sites, being +denominated the upper, middle, and lower water-shops, on a stream called +Mill River, which exhibits, in a distance of less than half a mile, four +or five of the most charming waterfalls to be seen in the State. In 1817 +these works comprised five workshops, twenty-eight forges, ten +trip-hammers, eighteen water-wheels, nine coal-houses, three stores, and +five dwellings.</p> + +<p>These buildings were all constructed in the most substantial manner, of +stone and brick, and yet remain in an excellent state of preservation. +The trouble and expense attending the transportation of the various +parts of the musket from one series of shops to another, however, +rendered it desirable to assemble them all in one place, and the +location of the upper shops was decided upon as the most advantageous. +About eight years ago the work of constructing the new shops was begun. +Extensive excavations were made for a new dam, the bed of the stream was +changed, the sides being laid for a distance of half a mile with +freestone, and the basin raised five feet above its former level. Some +idea of the magnitude of these works may be formed from the fact that +over one million dollars was expended upon the foundations alone, before +a brick was laid in the superstructure.</p> + +<p>A beautiful and extensive series of buildings has since been erected +upon these foundations, covering an area of about two acres, in which +the forging, boring, welding, rolling, grinding, swaging, and polishing +are done for the entire establishment. The buildings are, for the most +part, two stories high, and yet so immense are the operations carried on +here that numerous temporary sheds have been erected about the grounds, +in which machinery is placed in order to increase the facilities, which, +when the works were constructed, were supposed to be sufficient for all +time to come.</p> + +<p>Since the construction of the new dam, the water has a fall of +thirty-four feet. Three immense turbine water-wheels, having a united +power equal to three hundred horse, were put in when the consolidated +works were first constructed here, which it was supposed would prove +amply sufficient for all emergencies; but, since the breaking out of the +Rebellion, and the marvellous enlargement of these works, it has been +found necessary to put in a steam-engine of two hundred horse-power, to +act in conjunction with the water-wheels.</p><p><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445"></a></p> + +<p>Having thus given a general description of the exterior of the +establishment, let us now enter the works and witness the entire +operations of manufacturing the musket, <i>seriatim</i>.</p> + +<p>The first operation is the formation of the barrel. Formerly these were +made from plates of iron called scalps, about two feet long and three +inches wide, which were heated to a white-heat and then rolled up over +an iron rod, and the edges being lapped were welded together, so as to +form a tube of the requisite dimensions,—the solid rod serving to +preserve the cavity within of the proper form. This welding was +performed by tilt-hammers, which were carried by the water-wheels. +Underneath the hammer was an anvil containing a die, the upper surface +of which, as well as the under surface of a similar die inserted in the +hammer, formed a semicylindrical groove, producing, when the two +surfaces came together, a complete cylindrical cavity of the proper size +to receive the barrel to be forged. The workman, after heating a small +portion of the barrel in his forge, placed it in its bed upon the anvil, +and set his hammer in motion, turning the barrel round and round +continually under the blows. Only a small portion of the seam is closed +by this process at one heat, eleven being required to complete the work. +To effect by this operation a perfect junction of the iron, so that it +should be continuous and homogeneous throughout, without the least flaw, +seam, or crevice, required unremitting attention, as well as great +experience and skill. The welders formerly received twelve cents for +each barrel welded by them, but if, in proving the barrels, any of them +burst, through the fault of the welders, they were charged one dollar +for each barrel which failed to stand the test. This method has now, +however, been abandoned, and a much more economical and rapid process +adopted in its place. Instead of plates of two feet in length, those of +one foot are now used. These are bent around an iron rod as before; but +in place of the anvil and tilt-hammer, they are run through +rolling-machines, analogous in some respects to those by which +railway-iron is made. The scalps are first heated, in the blaze of a +bituminous coal furnace, to a white-heat,—to a point just as near the +melting as can be attained without actually dropping apart,—and then +passed between three sets of rollers, each of which elongates the +barrel, reduces its diameter, and assists in forcing it to assume the +proper size and taper. The metal by this process is firmly compacted, +becoming wholly homogeneous through its entire length.</p> + +<p>This operation of rolling the barrel is not only a very important and +valuable one, but very difficult of acquisition, the knowledge +appertaining to its practical working having been wholly confined to one +person in this country previously to the breaking out of the Rebellion. +The invention is English, and has been used in this country but a few +years. Only one set of rollers was used at this armory until the present +emergency demanded more. About half a dozen years ago the superintendent +of the works here sent to England and obtained a set of rollers, and a +workman to operate it, bargaining with him to remain one year at a +stipulated salary. At the expiration of the time engaged for, the +workman demanded, instead of a salary, to be paid eleven cents for each +barrel rolled by him. As he had allowed no one to learn the art of +rolling the barrel in the mean time, his demand was acceded to; but +after the breaking out of the Rebellion four additional rolling-mills +were imported, and of course new men had to be taught, or imported, to +work them. The art is now no longer a secret. There are forty men +employed, day and night, running the rolling-mills, but, instead of +twelve cents, which was paid for welding, they now receive but four +cents for rolling a barrel, with the same contingency of a dollar +forfeiture for each one that bursts. Four persons are employed at each +mill, namely: the foreman, who sees to the heating of the scalps and +barrels; the straightener, who straightens the barrel <a name="Page_446" id="Page_446"></a>after it passes +through the roller; the catcher, who stands behind the roller to catch +the barrel when it has passed through; and the fireman. The rollers +weigh two tons apiece, and the five sets turn out one thousand barrels +per day, one per cent. of which burst in the proving-house.</p> + +<p>The barrel when rolled is left much larger in the circumference, and +smaller in the bore, than it is intended to be when finished, in order +to allow for the loss of metal in the various finishing-operations. When +it passes into the roller, the scalp weighs ten pounds; when it comes +from the roller, the barrel weighs a little over seven; when completed, +it weighs but four and a half: so that more than one half of the metal +originally used is lost in the forging, or cut away by the subsequent +processes.</p> + +<p>The first of these latter is the boring-out of the interior by machines +called boring-banks, of which the water-shops contain a large number, in +constant operation day and night. These machines consist of square, +solid frames of iron, in which the barrel is fixed, and bored out by a +succession of operations performed by augers. These augers are square +bars of steel, highly polished, and ground very sharp at the edges, and +terminating in long, stout rods to enable them to pass through the +barrel. The barrels are fixed very firmly in the boring-banks, the shank +of the auger inserted into the centre of a wheel placed at one end of +the bank, and a slow rotary motion given to the auger, together with a +still slower progressive motion at the same time. By this means the +auger gradually enters the hollow of the barrel, and enlarges the cavity +as it advances. After it has passed through, another auger, a trifle +larger, is substituted in its place, and thus the calibre of the barrel +is gradually enlarged to nearly the required size. Formerly, six borings +were given to each barrel, but at the present time only four are +permitted, aside from the rifling, which is a distinct operation, +performed at the works on the till, and will be described hereafter.</p> + +<p>After the boring of the barrel, it is placed in a lathe, and the outside +turned down to the proper size. The piece is supported in the lathe by +means of mandrels inserted into the two ends, and there it slowly +revolves, bringing all parts of its surface successively under the +action of a tool fixed firmly in the right position for cutting the work +to its proper form. The barrel has a slow progressive as well as rotary +motion during this process, and the tool advances or recedes very +regularly and gradually, forming the proper taper from the breech to the +muzzle, but the main work is performed by the rotation of the barrel. In +the boring, it is the tool which revolves, the piece remaining at rest; +but in the turning, the barrel must take its part in action, being +required to revolve against the tool, while the tool itself remains +fixed in its position in the rest.</p> + +<p>A curious and interesting part of the operation of manufacturing muskets +is the straightening of the barrel. This straightening takes place +continually in every stage of the work, from the time the barrel first +emerges from the chaotic mass produced by heating the scalp, until it +reaches the assembling-room, where the various parts of the musket are +put together. As you enter the boring and turning rooms, you are struck +with surprise at observing hundreds of workmen standing with +musket-barrels in their hands, one end held up to their eyes, and the +other pointing to some one of the innumerable windows of the apartment. +Watching them a few moments, however, you will observe, that, after +looking through the barrel for half a minute, and turning it around in +their fingers, they lay it down upon a small anvil standing at their +side, and strike upon it a gentle blow with a hammer, and then raise it +again to the eye. This is the process of straightening.</p> + +<p>In former times, a very slender line, a hair or some similar substance, +was passed through the barrel. This line was then drawn tight, and the +workman, looking through, turned the barrel round <a name="Page_447" id="Page_447"></a>so as to bring the +line into coincidence successively with every portion of the inner +surface. If there existed any concavity in any part of this surface, the +line would show it by the distance which would there appear between the +line itself and its reflection in the metal. This method has not, +however, been in use for over thirty years. It gave place to a system +which, with slight modification, is still in practice. This method +consisted in placing a small mirror upon the floor near the anvil of the +straightener, which reflected a diagonal line drawn across a pane of +glass in a window. The workman then placed the barrel of the musket upon +a rest in such a position that the reflected line in the mirror could be +again reflected, through the bore of the barrel, to his eye,—the inner +surface of the barrel being in a brilliantly polished condition from the +boring. When the barrel is placed at the proper angle, which practice +enables the person performing this duty to accomplish at once, there are +two parallel shadows thrown upon opposite sides of the inner surface, +which by another deflection can be made to come to a point at the lower +end. The appearance which these shadows assume determines the question +whether the barrel is straight or not, and if not, where it requires +straightening. Although this method is so easy and plain to the +experienced workman, to the uninitiated it is perfectly +incomprehensible, the bore of the barrel presenting to his eye only a +succession of concentric rings, forming a spectacle of dazzling +brilliancy, and leaving the reflected line in as profound a mystery +after the observation as before.</p> + +<p>At present, the mirror is discarded, and the workman holds the barrel up +directly to the pane of glass, which is furnished with a transparent +slate, having two parallel lines drawn across it. The only purpose +subserved by the mirror was that of rendering the operation of holding +the barrel less tiresome, it being easier to keep the end of the musket +presented to the line pointing downwards than upwards. Formerly, this +means of detecting the faults, or want of straightness in the barrel, +was, like the working of the rolling-mill, the secret of one man, and he +would impart it to no one for love or money. He was watched with the +most intense interest, but no clue could be obtained to his secret. They +gazed into the barrel for hours, but what he saw they could not see. +Finally, some fortunate individual stumbled upon the wonderful +secret,—discovered the marvellous lines,—and ever since it has been +common property in the shop. Each workman is obliged to correct his own +work, and afterwards it is passed into the hands of the inspector, who +returns it to the workman, if faulty, or stamps his approval, if +correct. The next process is that of grinding, for the purpose of +removing the marks left upon the surface by the tool in turning, and of +still further perfecting its form. For this operation immense +grindstones, carried by machinery, are used, which rotate with great +rapidity,—usually, about four hundred times in a minute. These stones +are covered with large, movable wooden cases, to keep the water from +flying about the room, or over the workmen.</p> + +<p>An iron rod is inserted into the bore of the barrel, and is fitted very +closely. The rod is furnished with a handle, which is used by the +workman for holding the barrel against the stone, and for turning it +continually while he is grinding it, and thus bringing the action of the +stone upon every part, and so finishing the work in a true cylindrical +form. In the act of grinding, the workman inserts the barrel into a +small hole in the case in front of the stone, and then presses it hard +against the surface of the stone by means of an iron lever which is +behind him, and which he moves by the pressure of his back. The work is +very rapidly and smoothly done.</p> + +<p>There are twelve sets of stones in the grinding-room in constant +operation day and night. These stones, when set up, are about eight feet +in diameter, and are used to within twelve inches of the centre. They +last about ten days.</p><p><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448"></a></p> + +<p>The operation of grinding was formerly regarded as a very dangerous one, +from the liability of the stones to burst in consequence of their +enormous weight and the velocity with which they revolve; but, about +twenty years since, a new method of clamping the stone was adopted, by +means of which the danger of bursting is much diminished. The last +explosion which took place in this department occurred about nine years +ago. The operation of grinding, however, is objectionable also from the +very unhealthy nature of the work. Immense quantities of fine dust fill +the air, and the premises are always drenched with water, making the +atmosphere damp and unwholesome.</p> + +<p>In former times, it was customary to grind bayonets as well as barrels; +but the former are now milled instead, thus making an important saving +in expense, as well as gain in the health of the establishment. No mode, +however, has yet been devised for dispensing with the operation of +grinding the barrel; but the injury to the health, in this case, is much +less than in the other.</p> + +<p>When the barrels are nearly finished, they are proved by an actual test +with powder and ball. To this purpose a building at the water-shops, +called the proving-house, is specially devoted. It is very strongly +built, being wholly constructed of timber, in order to enable it to +resist the force of the explosion within, and contains openings in the +roof and at the eaves for the escape of the smoke, a very large number +of barrels being proved at once.</p> + +<p>The barrels are subjected to two provings. In the first, they are loaded +with a double charge of powder and two balls, thus subjecting them to a +far greater strain than they can ever be exposed to in actual service. +In the second proving, only the ordinary charge is used.</p> + +<p>The interior of the proving-house is very happily arranged for the +purpose to which it is put. On the right-hand end of the building as you +enter, and extending across it, is a platform of cast-iron, containing +grooves in which the muskets are placed when loaded. A train of +gunpowder is then laid on the back side of this platform, connecting +with each barrel, and passing out through a hole in the side of the +building near the door. A bank of clay is piled up on the opposite side +of the room, into which the balls are thrown. Only one fatal accident +has occurred at the armory during the last two years, and this occurred +in the proving-house. When the muskets are brought in, they are placed +upright in frames, which, when full, are laid down upon the platform. +Five barrels are placed in a frame, and these five exploded while the +man was putting them in the proper position for laying them down, and +ten balls were plunged into him. No satisfactory explanation could ever +be obtained of the cause of the premature explosion.</p> + +<p>About one per cent. of the barrels burst under this trial, although +under the old process of welding there was a loss of nearly two per +cent., or one in sixty.</p> + +<p>The pieces that fail are all carefully examined, to ascertain whether +the giving-way was owing to a defect in the rolling, or to some flaw or +other bad quality in the iron. The appearance of the rent made by the +bursting will always determine this point. The loss of those which +failed from bad rolling is then charged to the operative by whom the +work was done, at a dollar for each one so failing. The name of the +maker of each is known by the stamp which he put upon it at the time +when it passed through his hands. As the workman gets but four cents for +rolling a barrel, he loses the work done upon twenty-five for each one +that fails through his negligence. The justice of this rule will be +apparent, when it is taken into account that that amount of cost has +been expended upon the barrel prior and subsequent to the work done by +the roller, all of which has been lost through his remissness. Besides, +he is paid so liberally for his work, that he can well afford to stand +the loss. This system of accountability runs through the <a name="Page_449" id="Page_449"></a>entire work, +and tends greatly to the promotion of care and fidelity in the various +departments of labor.</p> + +<p>There are forty-nine pieces used in making up a musket, which have to be +formed and finished separately; only two of these, the sight and +cone-seat, are permanently attached to any other part, so that the +musket can, at any time, be separated into forty-seven parts, by simply +turning screws and opening springs. Most of these parts are struck in +dies, and then finished by milling and filing. The process of this +manufacture is called swaging,—the forming of irregular shapes in iron +by means of dies, one of which is inserted in an anvil in a cavity made +for the purpose, and the other placed above it, in a trip-hammer, or in +a machine operated in a manner analogous to that of a pile-driver, +called a drop. Cavities are cut in the faces of the dies, so that, when +they are brought together, with the end of a flat bar of iron, out of +which the article is to be formed, inserted between them, the iron is +made to assume the form of the cavities, by means of blows of the +trip-hammer, or of the drop, upon the upper die. About one hundred and +fifty operations upon the various pieces used in the construction of the +musket are performed by these dies. Some of the pieces are struck out by +one operation of the drop, while others, as the butt-plate, require as +many as three, and others a still larger number. The hammer is first +forged, and then put twice through the drop. Four men are kept +constantly at work forging hammers in the rough, while but two are +required to put them through the two operations under the +swaging-machine. Sometimes, however, the work presses upon the droppers, +and they have the alternative either to work double time—that is, night +and day—or to allow other hands to work with them; and as they work by +the piece, and are anxious to earn as much as possible each month, they +will frequently work night and day for several consecutive days. I have +known instances where workmen have worked from Monday until Thursday, +night and day, without any intermission, excepting the hour and a half +at the morning change of hands, one hour at noon, one at tea-time, and +half an hour at midnight,—four hours out of the twenty-four. By this +means they will sometimes earn as much as one hundred and fifty dollars +per month, although this would be an extraordinary case. The average pay +in the dropping-department is about three dollars per day.</p> + +<p>There are twenty-four simple and seven compound dropping-machines in +constant operation. Some of the pieces are pressed into shape under +these drops when cold,—this being the case with the triggers, which +were found to use up the dies too rapidly when they were swaged while +heated; but, as a general rule, the swaging is done while the piece is +at a red or white heat. The operations of the various dropping-machines +are exceedingly interesting, and the amount of labor they save is +perfectly marvellous.</p> + +<p>A large number of men are kept constantly at work making dies for the +various pieces required.</p> + +<p>When the pieces come out of the swaging-machines, they have more or less +of surplus metal about them, which is cut off or trimmed by passing them +through machines designed for this purpose.</p> + +<p>The bayonet-blade is first forged under a trip-hammer, and then rolled +to the proper shape, by an operation similar to the barrel-rolling. The +socket is forged separately, and afterwards welded to the blade under a +trip-hammer. It is then passed twice under the drop, then milled and +polished, when it is ready for use. The ramrod is cut from steel rods +about the size required. It is then ground in the same manner as the +barrel, and the hammer is swaged on by two operations under the drop. +The screw-cutting and polishing are very simple, and executed with great +rapidity.</p> + +<p>The cone-seating, like every other part of the work done upon the +musket, is very interesting. The barrel, after it comes from the +rolling-mill, is placed in <a name="Page_450" id="Page_450"></a>a forge and heated to a white-heat. A small +square block of iron, cut under a trip-hammer to the proper size, is +also heated to a white-heat, and then welded to the barrel by half a +dozen strokes under the trip-hammer,—the whole operation occupying less +time than is required to describe it. An iron rod is meanwhile inserted +within the barrel to maintain the continuity of the bore.</p> + +<p>The sights are struck in dies, and placed upon the barrel in slots cut +for the purpose. They are then brazed upon the barrel, pieces of brass +wire, half an inch long, being used for this purpose. Three men are +employed in brazing on the sights for the establishment.</p> + +<p>The rolling, forging, and swaging rooms are all connected, and form, as +it were, one extended apartment. In this are placed hundreds of forges, +furnaces, trip-hammers, rolling-mills, dropping-machines, and +trimming-machines,—besides scores of sledge-hammers, wielded by +stalwart arms. The noise here is so great that no effort of the voice +avails to make itself heard, and I doubt if even the loudest thunder +would make any appreciable addition to the general clangor. Small iron +carts, filled with hot iron, are incessantly whirling around you; +red-hot sparks, or melting drops of iron, are flying about the room in +all directions; the air is hot to suffocation, and sulphurous from the +burning of bituminous coal; while hundreds of swarthy faces, begrimed +with grease and dirt, are dripping with sweat: so that you can scarce +avoid the suspicion that you have at last stumbled into the infernal +regions, and are constantly wondering why some of Pluto's imps do not +seize you and plunge you into some horrible furnace, or chop you up +under a trip-hammer.</p> + +<p>Having survived the examination of this department, you follow your +guide from the forging-room down a winding flight of iron steps to the +water-wheels, which are situated forty feet under ground. These wheels +are so arranged that they can be run together or separately; they are +generally run together, and in connection with the immense low-pressure +engine.</p> + +<p>After the barrels are bored, turned, milled, and straightened, they are +next to be polished. For this purpose they are placed in upright frames, +each frame containing five barrels. The polishing is done by means of +hard, wooden rubbers, provided with a plentiful supply of lard-oil and +emery. The rubbers are placed horizontally, with their grooved ends +pressing by means of springs against the barrels, which are drawn +between them by a very regular and rapid vertical motion. The barrels +are also turned around slowly and continuously by a lateral movement, +which insures a uniform polish. They are allowed to remain in the first +polishing-machines fifteen minutes, and are then placed in a similar +machine and go through a second polishing, differing from the first +simply in the absence of the pulverized emery,—oil only being used upon +the rubbers during this finishing operation. The musket is now +completed, with the exception of the rifling, and some slight polishing +to be done by hand at the muzzle and breech.</p> + +<p>Two polishing-machines are used for ramrods, similar in construction to +those above described,—ten rods being polished at once. The bayonet is +polished upon emery-wheels. These wheels are made of wood bound with +leather, upon which there is placed a sizing composed of glue and +pulverized emery. The polishing by this process is very rapid.</p> + +<p>The number of workmen employed at the water-shops is ten hundred and +forty. The last time the writer had occasion to visit them was upon the +recurrence of an important occasion to the workmen employed there, +namely, pay-day. A temporary wooden structure has been erected +contiguous to the shops for the purpose of paying-off, and upon this +occasion it bore, from time to time, various placards, announcing which +shop was being paid, according as the paymaster arrived in succession at +the various departments. Within the densely thronged shops, and amidst +the deafening noise of hundreds of trip-hammers, <a name="Page_451" id="Page_451"></a>perambulated a herald, +with bell in hand, and placard raised upon a pole, upon which was +painted a huge capital letter, thus designating, in alphabetical order, +the names of the workmen whose turn had arrived to affix their +signatures to rolls for a month's work, and receive in exchange a sheaf +of Uncle Sam's greenbacks.</p> + +<p>The works at the water-shops are surrounded by a high wooden fence, and +guarded by a small force of watchmen armed with muskets. Should occasion +require, however, a force of five thousand men, armed with the best of +small arms, could be mustered at once from among the workmen in the +armory and the citizens of the town. Ammunition of all kinds is stored +within the establishment, sufficient for all emergencies.</p> + +<p>I stated the number of pieces used in the construction of a musket to be +forty-nine; but this conveys no idea of the number of separate +operations which are performed upon it. The latter amount to over four +hundred, no two of which are by the same hand. Indeed, so distinct are +the various processes by which the grand result is obtained, that an +artisan employed upon one part of a musket may have no knowledge of the +process by which another part is fabricated. This, in fact, is the case +to a very large extent. Many persons employed upon particular parts of +the work in this establishment have never even seen other parts +manufactured, and in general the workmen understand only the process of +making the portions upon which they are engaged. The different parts are +of various grades in respect to character and price, and are regularly +rated, and the work done upon them is paid for by the piece. It will +scarcely be expected that I should describe all the processes included +in the four hundred separate operations performed in the manufacture of +the musket, and I shall therefore content myself with alluding to a few +of the most important or curious among them.</p> + +<p>The gun-barrel, after it arrives at the works on the hill from the +water-shops, is taken to the old armory buildings to be rifled. For this +purpose it is placed in a horizontal position in an iron frame, and held +there very firmly. The instruments which perform the rifling are short +steel cutters placed within three apertures situated near the end of an +iron tube which is carried through the bore of the barrel by a slow +rotary and progressive motion. The cutters are narrow bars of steel, +having upon one side three diagonal protuberances of about one-sixteenth +of an inch in height and half an inch in width, ground to a very sharp +edge at the top. It is these which produce the rifling. The three +cutters, when inserted within the iron cylinder, form upon their inner +surface a small cavity which decreases towards the top. Into this is +inserted a small iron rod attached to the machine and revolving with it, +but so controlled by a connecting cog-wheel that the rod is pressed at +every revolution a little farther into the cavity between the cutters. +The effect of this operation is to increase the pressure of the cutters +upon the inner surface of the barrel, and thus gradually deepen the +corrugations produced by the rifling. The rods make twelve revolutions +in a minute, and it occupies thirty minutes to rifle a barrel. There are +twenty-seven of these rifling-machines in constant operation day and +night. This process is the last which takes place within the barrel, and +it leaves the bore in a highly polished and brilliant condition.</p> + +<p>Among the innumerable machines which arrest the attention of the visitor +by the beauty and grace of their operations is the broaching-machine. +This is designed to cut out and polish the inner surface of the bands +which encompass the barrel and stock. These bands are irregular in +shape, and cannot, therefore, be bored out as the barrel is. When they +emerge from the drop, or swaging-machine, they are somewhat rough both +interiorly and exteriorly, and then undergo a series of operations which +leave them in a highly finished condition. The <a name="Page_452" id="Page_452"></a>first of these is called +broaching. A cavity is made under a huge press in which the band is +placed. The broach consists of a steel tool about ten inches in length, +and of the exact diameter and form of the interior of the band, and is +armed upon its entire length with concentric rings composed of very +short and sharp knives. The broach, being placed over the cavity of the +band, is slowly subjected to the pressure of the two-ten press, and is +thus forced completely through the band, cutting it out as smoothly and +easily as if it were composed of lead. The bands are then milled upon +the outside by a process called profiling, drilled for the rings, placed +upon mandrels to insure the exact shape required, filed, polished, +case-hardened, and thus finished.</p> + +<p>The hammer passes through a great number of processes before it is +completed. It is first forged, then dropped, trimmed, punched, drifted, +milled, turned, filed, and lastly case-hardened.</p> + +<p>The cone, although one of the smallest pieces in the musket, is yet one +of the most important, and requires a great many separate operations in +its manufacture. It is first struck in a die, then +clamp-milled,—passing through a machine having clamps which hold short +knives that shave the entire outer surface of this very irregular-shaped +piece; then the thread is cut upon the screw, and both ends are +drilled,—this process alone requiring fourteen separate operations. It +is then squared at the base and case-hardened.</p> + +<p>All the various portions of the lock are made by machines which perform +their multitudinous operations with the most wonderful skill, precision, +and grace; but it would be impossible to convey to the reader by a +simple description upon paper the various processes by which these +results are obtained.</p> + +<p>Every portion of the musket is subjected to tests different in +character, but equally strict and rigid in respect to the qualities +which they are intended to prove. The bayonet is very carefully gauged +and measured in every part, in order that it may prove of precisely the +proper form and dimensions. A weight is hung to the point of it to try +its temper, and it is sprung by the strength of the inspector, with the +point set into a block of lead fastened to the floor, to prove its +elasticity. If it is tempered too high, it breaks; and if too low, it +bends. In either case it is condemned, and the workman through whose +fault the failure has resulted is charged with the loss.</p> + +<p>The most interesting process, perhaps, in the manufacture of the musket +is the operation of stocking. This is done in the old arsenal-building, +which, with the exception of one floor, is wholly devoted to this +purpose.</p> + +<p>The wood from which the stocks are made is the black walnut. This was +formerly obtained in Pennsylvania, and was kept on hand in the +storehouse in large quantities for the purpose of having it properly +seasoned. During the last two years, however, Ohio and Canada have +furnished the greater part.</p> + +<p>The wood is sawn into a rough semblance of the musket-stock before it is +sent to the armory. It then passes through seventeen different machines, +emerging from the last perfectly formed and finished.</p> + +<p>A gun-stock is, perhaps, as irregular a shape as the ingenuity of man +could devise, and as well calculated to bid defiance to every attempt at +applying machinery to the work of fashioning it. The difficulties, +however, insurmountable as they would seem, have all been overcome, and +every part of the stock is formed, and every perforation, groove, +cavity, and socket is cut in it, by machines that do their work with +such perfection as to awaken in all who witness the process a feeling of +astonishment and delight.</p> + +<p>The general principle on which this machinery operates may perhaps be +made intelligible to the reader by description; but the great charm in +these processes consists in the high perfection and finish of the +machines, the smoothness, grace, and rapidity of their motions, and in +the <a name="Page_453" id="Page_453"></a>seemingly miraculous character of the performances which they +execute.</p> + +<p>The entire action of the various machines is regulated and guided by +patterns, which are models in iron of the various parts of the stock +which it is intended to form.</p> + +<p>The first machine in the stocking-room cuts the sides of the stock to +the proper form for turning. The second saws off the butt-end, and cuts +a diagonal line at the breech. The third is armed with two circular +saws, which cut the upper part of the stock to the form of the finished +arm. An iron pattern of the stock is placed in the machine directly +under the stock to be turned, upon which rests a guide-wheel, +corresponding in size and shape to the two saws above. The whole is then +made to revolve very rapidly, the guide-wheel controlling the action of +the cutters, the result being an exact wooden counterpart of the iron +pattern. The fourth machine forms the butt of the stock in the same +manner. The next simply planes three or four places upon the sides of +the stock, for the purpose of affording the subsequent machines certain +fixed and accurate points for holding it in the frames. This operation +is called spotting. The next machine performs six separate operations, +namely, grooving for the barrel, breechpin, and tang, heading-down, +milling, and finish-grooving. These various operations complete the +stock for the exact fitting-in of the barrel. The next machine planes +the top, bottom, and sides of the stock, and the succeeding two are +occupied in shaping and bedding for the butt-plates. The next machine is +designed for fitting in the lock, and is the most wonderful of all. It +contains two bits and three cutters pendent from a movable steel frame +situated above the stock. These cutters, or borers, are made to revolve +with immense velocity, and are susceptible of various other motions at +the pleasure of the workman. The inevitable iron pattern—the exact +counterpart of the cavity which is designed to be made for the reception +of the lock—is situated in close proximity to the stock, and a guide in +the form of the borer is inserted within the pattern, and controls the +movements of the borer. This is ejected by causing the tool to revolve +by means of small machinery within the frame, while the frame and all +within it move together, in the vertical and lateral motions. All that +the workman has to do is to bring the guide down into the pattern and +move it about the circumference and through the centre of it, the +cutting tool imitating precisely the motions of the guide, entering the +wood and cutting its way In the most perfect manner and with incredible +rapidity, forming an exact duplicate of the cavity in the pattern. It is +on this principle, substantially, that all the machines of the +stocking-shop are constructed,—every process, of course, requiring its +own peculiar mechanism. The next machine cuts for the guards and bores +for the side-screws of the lock, and the two succeeding cut places for +bands and tips. The next operation is called the second turning, +finishing the stock in a very smooth and elegant manner. The next +machine grooves for the ramrod, and the following and last in this +department is designed for boring for the ramrod from the point where +the groove terminates. This latter work has always been done by hand +until the past winter, and there is as yet but one machine for the +purpose in operation at the armory, which, running night and day, is +able to bore only six hundred stocks. The remainder have still to be +done by hand, until more machines are constructed.</p> + +<p>The history of the Springfield armory would be incomplete without some +allusion to the inventor of the machinery for turning irregular forms +adapted to the manufacture of gun-stocks. This was the invention of +Thomas Blanchard, then a citizen of Springfield and now of +Boston,—whose reputation as a mechanic has since become +world-wide,—and was first introduced into the armory about the year +1820. Before this the stocks were all worked and fitted by <a name="Page_454" id="Page_454"></a>hand; but +the marvellous ingenuity of this machinery made a complete revolution in +this department, and contributed to a very large increase in the +rapidity and economy of gun-making all over the world.</p> + +<p>The same invention has been applied to other branches of manufacture, +such as shoe-lasts, axe-helves, etc.; and Mr. Blanchard has successfully +used it in multiplying copies of marble statuary with a degree of +accuracy and beauty which is truly wonderful.</p> + +<p>Eight years ago the English Government obtained permission of the then +Secretary of War—Jefferson Davis—to make draughts of this entire +establishment for the purpose of obtaining duplicate machinery for the +works at Enfield, and copies of the most novel and important parts of +the machinery were manufactured for them in the neighboring town of +Chicopee; an American machinist being employed to superintend their +operation at Enfield.</p> + +<p>These works were the especial favorites of the late Prince Albert, who +took great pleasure in exhibiting them to his Continental visitors; but +no portion of the works received so much attention from him as that +occupied by the stocking-machines. In this department he would +frequently spend hours, watching the operations of these incomparable +machines with the greatest interest and pleasure.</p> + +<p>As all of these ingenious and valuable machines are American inventions, +and nearly all of them designed by the various expert artisans who have +been employed at the armory during the last half-century, it would seem +proper and desirable that their peculiar construction should have +remained a secret within our national works, and, at any rate, not been +freely given to a rival government like that of Great Britain, who might +use the arms manufactured by American machinery against the very nation +that furnished it. It is probable, however, that the arch-traitor who +thus furnished the governments of Europe with draughts of these valuable +works had then in contemplation the monstrous rebellion which now +desolates our beautiful land, and took this means of weakening us by the +universal dissemination of the valuable secrets whereby we were enabled +to surpass the rest of the world in the rapidity of construction, and +the beauty and executive power of our rifled musket.</p> + +<p>When the several parts are finished, they are taken to an apartment in +the arsenal to be put together. This operation is called assembling the +musket. There are a large number of workmen whose occupations are +confined to the putting together of the various parts of the +musket,—each one having some distinct part to attend to. Thus, one man +puts the various parts of the lock together, while another screws the +lock into the stock. Another is occupied in putting on the bayonet, and +so on. Each workman has the parts upon which he is employed before him +on his bench, arranged in compartments, in regular order, and puts them +together with marvellous dexterity. The component parts of the musket +are all made according to one exact pattern, and thus, when taken up at +random, are sure to come properly together. There is no special fitting +required in each individual case. Any barrel will fit any stock, and a +screw designed for a particular plate or band will enter the proper hole +in any plate or band of a hundred thousand. There are many advantages +resulting from this exact conformity to an established pattern in the +components of the musket, such as greater facility and economy in +manufacturing them, and greater convenience in service,—spare screws, +locks, bands, springs, etc., being easily furnished in quantities, and +sent to any part of the country where needed, so that, when any part of +a soldier's gun becomes injured or broken, its place can be immediately +supplied by a new piece, which is sure to fit as perfectly into the +vacancy as the original occupant. Each soldier to whom a musket is +served is provided also with a little <a name="Page_455" id="Page_455"></a>tool, which, though very simple +in its construction, enables him to separate his gun into its +forty-seven parts with the greatest facility.</p> + +<p>The most costly of the various parts of the musket is the barrel, which, +when completed, is estimated at three dollars. From this the parts +descend gradually to a little wire called the ramrod-spring-wire, the +value of which is only one mill.</p> + +<p>A complete percussion-musket weighs within a small fraction of ten +pounds.</p> + +<p>Besides the finished muskets fabricated here, there are many parts of +foreign arms duplicated at these works, for the use of our armies in the +field,—the most numerous of which are parts for the Enfield rifle, and +for a German musket manufactured from machinery made after our patterns +and models.</p> + +<p>In the arsenal there is a case of foreign arms, containing specimens +from nearly every nation in Europe. None among them, however, equal our +own in style or finish, while all of them—excepting the Enfield +rifle—are very inferior in every respect. The French arm comes next to +the English in point of excellence, while the Austrian is the poorest of +all.</p> + +<p>There are three steam-engines in operation at the works on the hill, one +connected with the stocking-department, and two with the other +operations carried on here.</p> + +<p>Twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of oil is used yearly in lubricating +the machinery, and the various pieces of iron and steel, as they are +being turned, bored, milled, broached, etc.</p> + +<p>At the water-shops there are five miles of leather belting in use, while +at the works on the hill the quantity greatly exceeds this amount.</p> + +<p>In this establishment there are employed at the present time, as already +remarked, twenty-six hundred workmen, who complete, on an average, about +one thousand muskets daily, and the works may be increased to almost any +extent,—a large square cast of the present works on the hill, and +belonging to the Government, being admirably situated for the +construction of additional shops.</p> + +<p>This extensive manufactory is under the direction of a principal who is +styled Superintendent, and who has the chief management of the business +of the armory,—contracting for and purchasing all tools and materials +necessary for manufacturing arms, engaging the workmen, determining +their wages, and prescribing the necessary regulations for the local +government of the establishment. To aid him in the important duties of +the armory, there is allowed a master-armorer, who manages the +mechanical operations, and is held accountable for all stock and tools +put under his charge for the use of the armory, and for the proper +workmanship of the muskets,—also a paymaster and storekeeper, whose +duty it is to liquidate and pay all debts contracted for the armory by +the superintendent, and to receive the finished arms, for which he is +held accountable, as well as for all other public property delivered +him. Each of these officers is allowed a numerous corps of clerks, to +aid in keeping the accounts. There is also a foreman, or assistant +master-armorer, to each principal branch of the work, and under him a +foreman over every job. These are severally held accountable for all +stock, tools, and parts of work delivered them for their respective +departments, and they in their turn severally hold the individual +workmen responsible for all stock, tools, or parts of work delivered to +them. The assistant master-armorers, or foremen, are inspectors in their +several branches, and are responsible for the faithful and correct +performance of the work. Each individual artisan puts his own private +mark on the work he executes, as do the inspectors likewise, when they +examine and approve of the various parts of the musket. Thus, in case of +any defect, the delinquent may readily be found. Monthly returns are +made to the superintendent, and from these returns the monthly pay-rolls +are made up.</p><p><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456"></a></p> + +<p>Since the establishment of the armory in 1794-5, there have been +fourteen superintendents, all but two of whom are classed as civilians, +although a few of these had seen some military service. The armory has +been under military rule but fifteen years out of the sixty-eight which +have elapsed since it was established: namely, from April, 1841, to +August, 1854; and from October, 1861, until the present time. A standing +dispute on the subject of the government of the armory, which was kept +up with much heat and acrimony for many years, culminated, in 1854, in +the passage of a law by Congress, in favor of the civil administration. +This continued until after the breaking out of the Rebellion, when +Congress restored the military superintendency. The question of civil or +military government, however, is of no practical importance to any +person other than the aspirant for the place. The same rules and +regulations governing the workmen employed at the armory, as well as the +mode of payment, and the manner of doing the work, which were +inaugurated by Benjamin Prescott, the superintendent from November, +1805, to May, 1815, are substantially in operation now, and have +continued through all the changes which have occurred during more than +half a century.</p> + +<p>At the end of December, 1817, there had been completed in this +manufactory 141,761 muskets. The expenditures for land and mill-seats, +and for erecting machinery, water-shops, work-shops, stores, and +buildings of every description, together with repairs, were estimated at +$155,500. The other expenses, exclusive of the cost of stock and parts +of work on hand, amounted to $1,553,100; stock and parts of muskets on +hand, $111,545; and the total expenditures, from the commencement of the +works, to December, 1817, $1,820,120.18.</p> + +<p>From the establishment of the armory to the present date there have been +manufactured 1,097,660 muskets, 250 rifles, 1,000 pistols, 1,202 +carbines, 8,660 musketoons, 4,806 cadets' arms, 18 model muskets, and 16 +model pistols and rifles. The reader will be surprised, perhaps, to +learn, that there were 1,020 more muskets manufactured at these works +during the year 1811 than in the year 1854. In 1850 and 1851, 113,406 +muskets were altered in their locks, from flint to percussion, involving +an amount of labor equal to the manufacture of 7,630 muskets. From 1809 +to 1822, inclusive of those years, and exclusive of 1811 and 1812, +nearly 50,000 muskets were repaired, involving labor equal to the +manufacture of 11,540 muskets.</p> + +<p>In addition to the large number of muskets manufactured at the +Government works in Springfield, and which amount to upwards of three +hundred thousand per annum, there are a vast number of private +establishments throughout the Northern States, which turn out from two +to five thousand muskets per month each. These various manufactories are +situated at Hartford, Norfolk, Windsor Locks, Norwich, Middletown, +Meriden, and Whitneyville, Ct., Providence, R.I., Manchester, N.H., +Windsor, Vt., Trenton, N.J., Bridesburg, Pa., and New York City, +Watertown, and Ilion, N.Y. Besides these, there are more than fifty +establishments where separate parts of the musket are manufactured in +large quantities, and purchased by Government to supply the places of +those injured or destroyed in the service. It is estimated that the +private armories alone are manufacturing monthly upwards of sixty +thousand rifled muskets. The Government contracts for these arms extend +to January next, and the total number which will then have been produced +will be enormous. The cost of manufacturing a musket at the Government +works is estimated at about nine dollars; but the contract-price to the +private arms-companies is twenty dollars for those which equal the +Government standard in every respect, nineteen dollars and ninety cents +for those which lack a little in finish, nineteen dollars for the next +grade, eighteen for the next, and sixteen for the lowest and poorest +which are accepted.</p><p><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457"></a></p> + +<p>As the arms are finished, they are sent away to the various Government +arsenals,—those made in New England to Watertown, Mass.,—where they +remain until the exigencies of the service require them. At the present +time, there is a sufficient number of new rifled muskets of the best +qualify stored in the various arsenals to arm the entire levy about to +be called into the field,—and should the war continue so long, there +will be enough manufactured during the next twelve months for a new levy +of over one million of men. These arms, it must be remembered, are +entirely independent of those ordered by the respective State +governments, which would swell the amount very largely.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_PEWEE" id="THE_PEWEE"></a>THE PEWEE.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The listening Dryads hushed the woods;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The boughs were thick, and thin and few<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The golden ribbons fluttering through;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their sun-embroidered, leafy hoods<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The lindens lifted to the blue:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only a little forest-brook<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The farthest hem of silence shook:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When in the hollow shades I heard—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was it a spirit, or a bird?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or, strayed from Eden, desolate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some Feri calling to her mate,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whom nevermore her mate would cheer?<br /></span> +<span class="i6">"Pe-ri! Pe-ri! Peer!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Through rocky clefts the brooklet fell<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With plashy pour, that scarce was sound,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But only quiet less profound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A stillness fresh and audible:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A yellow leaflet to the ground<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whirled noiselessly: with wing of gloss<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A hovering sunbeam brushed the moss,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, wavering brightly over it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sat like a butterfly alit:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The owlet in his open door<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stared roundly: while the breezes bore<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The plaint to far-off places drear,—<br /></span> +<span class="i6">"Pe-ree! pe-ree! peer!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To trace it in its green retreat<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I sought among the boughs in vain;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And followed still the wandering strain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So melancholy and so sweet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The dim-eyed violets yearned with pain.<br /></span><p><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458"></a></p> +<span class="i0">'Twas now a sorrow in the air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some nymph's immortalized despair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Haunting the woods and waterfalls;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And now, at long, sad intervals,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sitting unseen in dusky shade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His plaintive pipe some fairy played,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With long-drawn cadence thin and clear,—<br /></span> +<span class="i6">"Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Long-drawn and clear its closes were,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As if the hand of Music through<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The sombre robe of Silence drew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A thread of golden gossamer:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So sweet a flute the fairy blew.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like beggared princes of the wood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In silver rags the birches stood;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hemlocks, lordly counsellors,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were dumb; the sturdy servitors,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In beechen jackets patched and gray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seemed waiting spellbound all the day<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That low entrancing note to hear,—<br /></span> +<span class="i6">"Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I quit the search, and sat me down<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beside the brook, irresolute,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And watched a little bird in suit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of sober olive, soft and brown,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Perched in the maple-branches, mute:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With greenish gold its vest was fringed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its tiny cap was ebon-tinged,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With ivory pale its wings were barred,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And its dark eyes were tender-starred.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Dear bird," I said, "what is thy name?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thrice the mournful answer came,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So faint and far, and yet so near,—<br /></span> +<span class="i6">"Pe-wee! Pe-wee! Peer!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For so I found my forest-bird,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The pewee of the loneliest woods,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sole singer in these solitudes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which never robin's whistle stirred,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where never bluebird's plume intrudes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quick darting through the dewy morn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The redstart trills his twittering horn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And vanisheth: sometimes at even,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like liquid pearls fresh showered from heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The high notes of the lone wood-thrush<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fall on the forest's holy hush:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But thou all day complainest here,—<br /></span> +<span class="i6">"Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!"<br /></span><p><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459"></a></p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Hast thou too, in thy little breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Strange longings for a happier lot,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For love, for life, thou know'st not what,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A yearning, and a vague unrest,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For something still which thou hast not?—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou soul of some benighted child<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That perished, crying in the wild!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or lost, forlorn, and wandering maid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By love allured, by love betrayed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose spirit with her latest sigh<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Arose, a little winged cry,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Above her chill and mossy bier!<br /></span> +<span class="i6">"Dear me! dear me! dear!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ah, no such piercing sorrow mars<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The pewee's life of cheerful ease!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">He sings, or leaves his song to seize<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An insect sporting in the bars<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of mild bright light that gild the trees.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A very poet he! For him<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All pleasant places still and dim:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His heart, a spark of heavenly fire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Burns with undying, sweet desire:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so he sings; and so his song,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though heard not by the hurrying throng,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is solace to the pensive ear:<br /></span> +<span class="i5">"Pewee! pewee! peer!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="MRS_LEWIS" id="MRS_LEWIS"></a>MRS. LEWIS.</h2> + +<p>A STORY IN THREE PARTS.</p> + +<p>PART II.</p> + + +<p>VI.</p> + +<p>In due time we found our way, through deafening clatter, to Miss Post's +door, a little below the Astor House, and in the midst of all that +female feet the soonest seek. In Maiden Lane and on Broadway it was easy +to find all that a Weston fancy painted in the shape of dry goods; and I +did my errands up with conscientious speed before indulging in a +fashionable lounge on the Battery.</p> + +<p>The first twenty-four hours were full of successive surprises, which +ought to have been chronicled on the spot and at the time. They affected +me like electric shocks; but in a day or two I forgot to be surprised at +the queer Dutch signs over the shops and the swine in the streets. Now I +only remember the oddity of Miss Post's poverty in the water-line; and +that she had to buy fresh water by the gallon and rain-water by the +barrel. Also, the faithlessness of the two brilliant black boys who +waited on table and at the door, and who couldn't be <a name="Page_460" id="Page_460"></a>depended on to +take up a bundle or carry a message to your room, so unmitigatedly +wicked were they.</p> + +<p>"If I owned 'em," said Miss Post to me, confidentially, "I would have +'em whipped every day of their lives. It's what they need, and can't do +without. They're just like bad children!"</p> + +<p>That was true enough. However, she didn't own them, and got very little +out of them but show; and they looked like princes, with their white +aprons and jackets, and their glittering, haughty eyes. They played with +their duties, and disdained all directions. I used to follow them with +my eyes at the table with amused astonishment. It was very grand, and, +as the Marchioness says, "If you made believe a good deal," reminded one +of barbaric splendor, and Tippoo Saib. But poor Miss Post couldn't order +an elephant to tread their heads off, or she would have extinguished her +household twice a day. I looked back with a feeling of relief to Weston, +and my good Polly, who would scorn to be an eye-servant or men-pleaser.</p> + +<p>At the long table, where sat Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Mr. +and Mrs. Bennett, Babbit, and so on, I looked sharply for Mr. and Mrs. +Lewis. But neither was there the first day. All the people were +childless and desolate-looking, though much bedecked with braids and +curls, which ladies wore at that time without stint. Nobody looked as if +she could be Mr. Lewis's wife. However, the ladies all treated me with +so much cordiality and politeness that I set New York down at once as a +delightful spot.</p> + +<p>Happening to speak of Mrs. Lewis, I saw that the corners of Mrs. Jones's +mouth went immediately down, and Mrs. Smith's eyebrows immediately up. +Of course, no woman is going to stand that; and I inquired minutely +enough to satisfy myself either that Mrs. Lewis was very peculiar, or +that a boarding-house was not a favorable atmosphere for character. My +husband, to whom I told all they said, considered "the abundant leisure +from family-cares which these ladies enjoyed as giving them +opportunities for investigation which they carried to excess."</p> + +<p>"But think of Gus not being Mr. Lewis's child!" said I, after faithfully +relating all I had heard.</p> + +<p>"He looks like an Italian. I always thought so. But Lewis seems very +fond of him."</p> + +<p>"Yes, they said so. But that the mother cared nothing for him, nor for +her other children, who are off in Genesee County somewhere."</p> + +<p>"For health, doubtless," said my "he," dryly.</p> + +<p>"And the way they talked of Mr. Remington! calling him George, and more +than insinuating that she likes too well to be at the Oaks,—that is his +place. They say she has been there all the time Mr. Lewis has been +gone!"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Remington has been gone too, as you and I can testify," more dryly.</p> + +<p>"So he has. I wish I had thought to tell them so."</p> + +<p>I hadn't been in a boarding-house for nothing.</p> + +<p>"It was like Lewis to take her as he did. Very noble and generous, too, +even supposing he loved her. I dare say he does. Is Montalli dead?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I think so. At all events, they were divorced, and for +his cruelty. Only think of a lady, a young lady, not sixteen, and the +darling and idol at home, being beaten and pounded! Ugh! what horrid +creatures Italians are!"</p> + +<p>"And you say Lewis happened to be in Mobile at the time?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and fell in love with her,—she, scarcely eighteen, and to have +had this shocking experience! I don't like to tell you how much these +ladies have hinted about her, but enough to make me feel as if I were +reading the "Mysteries of Udolpho," instead of hearing of a live woman, +out of a book, and belonging to our own time."</p> + +<p>"Very likely she may have amused herself at the expense of their +credulity. I have seen women do that, just for sport, <a name="Page_461" id="Page_461"></a>and to see how +much people would believe. It is a dangerous game to play."</p> + +<p>Mr. Lewis came to dinner, and brought me a little three-cornered note +from his wife, written with much grace and elegance, so far as the +composition was concerned. It was sealed with a dove flying, and +expressed her thanks for my bringing the "sweet remembranser" from her +beloved child, and so on, expecting to see me the next day at the Oaks.</p> + +<p>The surprising part of the note was, that the writing was scrawled, and +the words misspelt in a manner that would have disgraced the youngest +member of a town-school in Weston. She had "grate" pleasure, and spoke +of my "truble" in a way that made me feel as if I should see a child.</p> + +<p>The next day brought Mr. Remington himself, fresh and handsome as ever, +saying that a carriage was waiting, and his tulips were at their best, +and the ladies expecting to see us,—adding, with an informality which I +had not associated with New York, that the day was all planned out for +us,—tulips and lunch at the Oaks, Hoboken in the afternoon.</p> + +<p>That was a white day, and one long to be remembered. First of all, for +Hoboken, which, whatever it may be now, was then a spot full of +picturesque beauty and sweet retirement, relieving and contrasting the +roar and tumult of the city; second, for the tulips, which were the most +glorious things I ever saw, and still remain the pattern of exceeding +beauty, though I have since seen wealth of floral splendor, but none +that came up to the Royal Adelaide,—nothing so queenly and so noble as +the large white cup, fit for Hebe to bear and the gods to drink out of, +and holding at least a pint within the snowy radiance of its ample brim. +I did not wonder Mr. Remington had a passion for tulips. He flitted +about among his brilliant brigade like a happy butterfly, rejoicing in +our delight and exulting in our surprise like a pleased child.</p> + +<p>"And is each of these different?"</p> + +<p>"Not a duplicate among them. Fifteen hundred varieties."</p> + +<p>If he had said fifteen thousand, it would not have added to my +astonishment. To be sure, no king was ever arrayed like one of these. +And fifteen hundred! each gorgeous enough for a king's ransom! It took +my breath away to look at the far-reaching parterre of nodding glories, +moved by the breath of the south-wind.</p> + +<p>"I am satisfied. I see you are sufficiently impressed with my tulips, +Mrs. Prince," said Mr. Remington, gleefully, "and I shall send you no +end of bulbs for your Weston garden."</p> + +<p>Mr. Remington had taken us directly to the garden on our arrival, and +now led the way, through large evergreens, and by a winding path, to the +house. The land was not half an acre in size, yet I was sure that I had +been over a large estate. The same delusion clung to the house, which +was in looks like one of Gainsborough's cottages, and ought to have been +at least two hundred years old, instead of two. But Downing's advent had +already wrought miracles here and there in our land; and a little while +before Mr. Remington had been bitten with an architectural mania. So +under the transplanted trees, and beneath trailing vines of Virginia +creeper and Boursault roses, there peeped the brown gables of a cottage, +which arose and stood there as reposeful and weather-stained as if it +had been built before the Revolution. Mr. Remington showed us twenty +unexpected doors, and juttings-out here and there, to catch a view, or +to let in the sun, and rejoiced in our pleasure, as he had in the +garden, like a child. In the library, Mrs. Remington received us, +looking pale, and being very silent.</p> + +<p>I sat down by her without being attracted at all—rather repelled by the +faint sickliness of everything connected with her appearance. But +neither her pale blue eyes, nor her yellow hair, nor her straw-colored +gown and blue ribbons would have repelled me; I could not <a name="Page_462" id="Page_462"></a>make her talk +at all. I never saw such reticence before or since. As if she were +determined "to die and make no sign," she sat, bowing and smiling, and +amounting to nothing, one way or another,—giving no opinion, if asked, +and asking no question. She was passively polite, but so very near +nothing that I was rejoiced when Mr. Remington entered with my husband, +and proposed that we should go into the dining-room. He carelessly +introduced Mrs. Remington, but further than that seemed not to know she +was in existence; and I must confess, I did not wonder. While my husband +made, or tried to make, some conversation with her, Mr. Remington showed +me an exquisite Clytie in marble, and a landscape by Cole, which hung in +a good light, and showed its wonderful wild beauty. And now for the +third reason that this was a white day.</p> + + +<p>VII.</p> + +<p>In a little room connected with the refreshment-room there stood before +a large mirror somebody winding a red scarf about her head. I had only +time to see that the head was small and shapely, and the figure full of +flexible grace, when it turned and nodded to the party. Of course, it +could only be Mrs. Lewis, as she at once said, in a honey-sweet voice, +and with what seemed to me a foreign accent; but then I had never heard +the Southern accent, which is full of music, and seems somehow to avoid +the sibilant tone as well as the nasal drawl characteristic of Northern +tongues.</p> + +<p>I was attracted to her, not by her beauty, though that was marked, but +by her cordial, unaffected manner of placing her two hands in ours, and +by her infantine sweetness of expression. Whatever she might have gone +through, I saw she had not suffered. There was no line or track of +experience, on her broad, tranquil brow, nor was there the hushed, +restrained expression left in all eyes that have deeply mourned and +bitterly wept. The look was serene and youthful, with such happiness as +might come from health and elemental life,—such as a Dryad might have +in her songful bowers, or a Naiad plunging in the surf. But it was a +shallow face, and pleased only as the sunshine does. For my part, I +would rather listen to the sorrowful song of the pine-tree: that is the +tune of life.</p> + +<p>So, after the first five minutes, the face of Mrs. Lewis ceased to +attract me, and I only wondered how she came to attract her husband.</p> + +<p>At Miss Post's, our rooms were quite near each other; and I frequently +passed an hour in the morning with Mrs. Lewis, chatting with her, and +looking about her fanciful apartment. She had dozens of birds of all gay +colors,—paroquets from Brazil, cockatoos, ring-doves, and canaries; +fresh flowers, in vases on the mantel-pieces, and a blue-ribboned guitar +in the corner. No books, no pictures. A great many scarfs, bonnets, and +drapery generally, fell about on the chairs and tables.</p> + +<p>She never asked about Auguste, nor talked of her children. Once she said +they were at Madam somebody's, she couldn't think of the name, but a +very nice school, she believed. Everything was "very nice" or "very +horrid." Much of the time she passed in draping herself in various +finery before the mirror, and trying the effects of color on her +complexion. I could think of nothing but field-lilies, that toil not, +and yet exceed Solomon in glory; sometimes it seemed gaudiness rather +than glory, only that her brilliant complexion carried off the brightest +hues, and made them only add to the native splendor of lip and eye. Then +she had a transparent complexion, where the blood rippled vividly and +roseately at the least excitement. This expressed a vivacity of +temperament and a sensitiveness which yet she had not, so that I was +constantly looking for more than there was in her, and as constantly +disappointed. The face suggested, and so did the conversation, far more +both of native sensibility and of culture than she had of either. This +was apparent during the first twenty-four hours.</p><p><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463"></a></p> + +<p>It may seem strange that I should cultivate such a disappointing +acquaintance as Mrs. Lewis. But, first, I liked Mr. Lewis, and he was +much of the time in their parlor; and, secondly, Mrs. Lewis took a +decided fancy to me, and that had its effect. I could not deem her +insensible to excellence of some sort; besides, she was a curious study +to me, and besides, I had occasion, as the time wore on, to think more +of her. Our lives are threaded with black and gold, not of our own +selecting, and we feel that we are guided by an Unseen Hand in many of +our associations.</p> + +<p>There was a want of arrangement of material in her mind, which prevented +her from using what she knew, to any advantage; and what she knew, +though it had the originality of first observation, and a grace of +expression so great that more met the ear than was meant, was still so +wanting, either in insight or reflection, as to be poor and vapid as +small-beer after the first sparkle is gone. The manner was all in Mrs. +Lewis, but that was ever varying and charming.</p> + +<p>One day she had been wrapping some green and gold gauzes about her, and +draping herself so that you could think of nothing but sunsets and +tulip-beds, when, in pulling over her finery, she came across a +miniature of herself. She handed it to me.</p> + +<p>"This was what made William dead in love with me, before he saw me. I +used to wear my hair so for years after I married him; he liked me to."</p> + +<p>It was a very delicately painted miniature, by Staigg, I think. Still a +very good likeness, and with the perpetual childhood of the large brown +eyes, and the clusters of chestnut curls over brow and neck, that gave +an added expression of extreme youth to the face.</p> + +<p>"Will she never mature?" I thought.</p> + +<p>But always there was the same promise, the same expectation, and the +same disappointment. I used to think I would as soon marry Hoffman's +machine, who looked so beautiful, and said, "Ah! ah!" and the husband +thought her very sensible. But Hoffman's husband thought he had an +admiring wife, and her "ah! ah-s!" were appreciative, whereas Mr. Lewis +could be under no such delusion. Once I heard him say, "he cared only +for love in a wife: intellect he could find in books, but the heart only +in woman." "Eyes that look kindly on me are full of good sense,—lips +that part over pearls are better than wisdom,—and the heart-beat is the +measure of true life."</p> + +<p>He liked to talk in this proverb-fashion, and would often turn towards +his wife, giving his remarks point and affectionate direction by +smoothing her curls or gently touching her shoulder. He was very happy +in her beauty.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding this, he often brought in books of an evening, to read +to us, leaving Lulu to get her entertainment as she could, and would +sometimes sit a whole hour, discussing literary points with me, and +metaphysical ones with the Dominie, who was only too happy to pull the +Scotch professors over the coals, and lead to condign execution Brown, +Reid, and Stewart, in their turn. Sometimes Lulu would come in, with a +bird on each hand, and sit at our feet. She then never mingled in the +conversation, but just smoothed the birds' plumage, or fed them with +crumbs from her own lips, like a child, or a princess trifling in the +harem.</p> + +<p>Once we were at Hoboken, where we had passed most of the warm day, and, +being weary with strolling among the trees, had seated ourselves on a +bank, whence we had a good view of the water and the vessels in the hazy +distance. Mr. Lewis took Wordsworth from his pocket, and read aloud the +"Ode to Immortality." It was so beautiful, and the images of "the calm +sea that brought us hither" so suggestive, that we listened with +rapture. Lulu twined oak-leaves into wreaths, sitting at her husband's +feet. I don't know whether she heard or not, but, as we discussed +afterwards the various beauties of the expression, and the exquisite +thoughts, Mr. Lewis leaned over and laid his hand lightly on his wife's +hair. He <a name="Page_464" id="Page_464"></a>had done it a hundred times before. But to-day she shook her +head away from him, blushed angrily, and said, "Don't, William! I am not +a baby!"</p> + + +<p>VIII.</p> + +<p>We stayed in New York over ten days. In that time we seemed to have +known the Lewises ten years. In the last three days I had some new +views, however, and puzzled myself over manners which were apparently +contradictory.</p> + +<p>Lulu had told me in the morning that her husband was going to +Philadelphia, and wouldn't be back for two days. I asked her if she were +not going with him. She said, no,—that she wouldn't encounter the dust +of those Jersey wagons again; and then described, with much vivacity, +the method of transportation which was soon after succeeded by the +present railroad.</p> + +<p>"There were a hundred horses, at least," said she, "to drag us. +Magnificent creatures, too. But nothing pays for having one's mouth and +eyes full of grit."</p> + +<p>As she spoke, Mr. Lewis passed by the door, and looked at her. She went +to him at once, put up her lips to be kissed, and I heard his loving +good-bye, as they went along the entry to the top of the stairway.</p> + +<p>When she came back to my room, which was half an hour after, she was +dressed to go out, in a new hat and pelisse of green silk, with a plume +of the same. With her bright color, it was very becoming to her.</p> + +<p>"I have just got these home. William just hates me in green, but I would +have them. They make one think of fern-leaves and the deep woods, don't +they?" said she, standing before the mirror with childish admiration of +her own dress.</p> + +<p>She turned slowly round, and faced me.</p> + +<p>"Now I suppose you would dress up in a blue bag, if your husband liked +to see you in it?"</p> + +<p>I said I supposed so, too.</p> + +<p>"That's because you love him, and know that he loves you!"</p> + +<p>"I am sure, you may say one is true of yourself," said I, surprised at +her knitted brow and flushed cheek.</p> + +<p>"What was that you were reading last night in Plato's Dialogues? What +does he say is real love? for the body or the soul?"</p> + +<p>I was confounded. For I had never supposed she listened to a word that +was read.</p> + +<p>"If any one has been in love with the body of Alcibiades, that person +has not been in love with Alcibiades," said she, reciting from memory.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I remember."</p> + +<p>"But one that loves your soul does not leave you, but continues constant +after the flower of your beauty has faded, and all your admirers have +retired."</p> + +<p>I nodded, as much nonplussed as if she had been Socrates.</p> + +<p>"That is a love worth having, is it not, which will continue, though the +cheek be white and furrowed, and the eye dim?"</p> + +<p>I nodded again, staring at her.</p> + +<p>"And what is that worth," said she, stamping her foot, "which does not +recognize a soul at all? If he ever encouraged me to improve,—if he +ever read to me, or talked to me as he does to you, I might make +something of myself! I am in earnest. I do want to be something,—to +think, to learn, if I only knew how!"</p> + +<p>Childish tears ran down her face as she spoke. Presently she went into +her room and brought me a set of malachite, in exquisite cameo-cuttings. +I took up a microscope, and began admiring and examining them, +recognizing the subjects, which were taken from Raphael's History of +Psyche.</p> + +<p>"Beautiful! where did they come from?"</p> + +<p>"William bought them of Lloyd, who had them long ago of the Emperor's +jeweller. They had been ordered for Marie Louise."</p> + +<p>"And why didn't she have them, pray?"</p><p><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465"></a></p> + +<p>"Just the question I asked. He said, 'Oh, because the Emperor was down +and the Allies in Paris, and the Emperor's jeweller nobody, and glad to +sell the cameos for one-third their cost, when they were finished.'"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! I see,—at the time of Waterloo."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Lewis looked at me again with the same knitted brow and flushed +cheek as before.</p> + +<p>"All you say is Greek to me. I don't know what malachite is, nor who +Raphael is, nor who Psyche is, nor who Marie Louise is, scarcely who +Napoleon, and nothing about Waterloo. A pretty present to make to me, is +it not? I could make nothing of it. To you it is a whole volume."</p> + +<p>I said, with some embarrassment, that it was easy to learn, and that if +she—that is, that women should endeavor to improve themselves, and so +on. She heard me through, and then said, dryly,—</p> + +<p>"How old were you when you were married?"</p> + +<p>"I was nearly twenty."</p> + +<p>"Were you well-informed? had you read a great deal?"</p> + +<p>"What one gets in a country-school,—and being fond of reading;—but +then I had always been in an atmosphere of books; and one takes in, one +knows not how, a thousand facts"—</p> + +<p>I stopped; for I saw by her impatient nodding that she understood me.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes. I knew it must be so. Now, if William would ever bring me +books, instead of jewels, or talk to me and with me, I might have been a +rational being too, instead of being absolutely ashamed to open my +mouth!"</p> + +<p>She clasped the jewel-case and went out; and I heard her chatting a +minute after with some gentlemen in the house, as if she were perfectly +and childishly happy.</p> + + +<p>IX.</p> + +<p>How I wished I could give Mr. Lewis some hint of what had passed between +his wife and myself! But that I could not do. Besides that it was always +best to let matrimonial improvements originate with the parties +themselves, I had an inability to interfere usefully. I could talk to +her a little,—not at all to him. He seemed fond and proud of her as she +was, and her dissatisfaction with herself was a good sign. It was +strange to me, accustomed to intellectual sympathy, that he could do +without that of his wife. But I suppose he had come to feel that she +would not understand him, and so did not try to hit her apprehension, +much less to raise or cultivate her intellect. He had lived too long at +the South.</p> + +<p>Her moral nature was very oddly developed, showing how starved and +stunted some of the faculties, naturally good, become without their +proper nourishment. As, intellectually, she seemed not to comprehend +herself, except that she had a vague sense of want and waste, so, from +the habit of occupying herself with the external, she had not only a +keen sense of the beautiful in outward form, but as ready a perception +of character as could consist with a want of tact. Adaptation she +certainly had. Tact she could not have, since her sympathies were so +limited and her habit so much of external perception and appreciation. +All this desolate tract in her nature might yet possibly be cultivated. +But thus far it had never been. Beyond a small circle of thoughts and +feelings, she was incapable of being interested. She didn't say, "Anan!" +but she looked it.</p> + +<p>There was the same want of comprehension, I may call it, in reference to +propriety of conduct. A certain nobleness, and freedom from all that was +petty and cold, kept her from coquetry. At the same time she had a +womanish vanity about her admirers, and entire freedom in speaking of +them. In vain I endeavored to insinuate the unpleasant truth, that the +fervency of her adorers was no compliment to her. She could not +understand that she ought to shrink from the implied imputation of such +manifestations.</p><p><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466"></a></p> + +<p>Somewhat out of patience, one day, at her pleasure in receiving a +bouquet of rare flowers from one of these adorers, I said,—</p> + +<p>"Isn't this the person who you said professed an attachment to you, or +rather sent heliotrope to you and told you it meant <i>je vous aime?</i>"</p> + +<p>"The very man!" said she, smiling.</p> + +<p>"Then I am sure you are, as I should be, sadly mortified at his +continuing these attentions."</p> + +<p>"I don't see why I should be mortified," said she, "He may be, if he +likes."</p> + +<p>"You know what the poet says, Lulu, and it is excellent sense,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'In part she is to blame that has been tried,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He comes too near that comes to be denied.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The crimson tide rippled over her forehead at this, but it was only a +passing disturbance, and she answered sweetly,—</p> + +<p>"I don't think you are quite fair," as if she had been playing at some +game with me.</p> + +<p>Apparently, too, she had as little religious as moral sense, though she +called herself a member of the Church, and said she was confirmed at +twelve years old.</p> + +<p>But once, in speaking of Mr. Lewis's going to church, she told me, +"William has no religion at all." Much in the same way she would have +said he had not had luncheon. A strange responsibility, if he felt it, +had this William, a man nearly forty years old, for this young creature +not yet twenty-three, and with powers so undeveloped and a character so +unbalanced!</p> + +<p>In the ten days we passed together I often wished I could have known her +early, or that I now had a right to say to her what I would. However, +perhaps I overestimated the influence of outward circumstances.</p> + +<p>We parted rather suddenly, and in the next three years they were mostly +in Cuba, while my husband was called to leave Weston for a larger field +of usefulness.</p> + +<p>We had lived more than a year in Boston, and it was in the autumn of +1833 that I sat alone by a sea-coal fire, thinking, and making out faces +in the coal. I was too absorbed to hear the bell ring, or the door open, +till I felt a little rustle, and a soft, sudden kiss on my lips. I was +no way surprised, for Lulu's was the foremost face in the coals. Mr. +Lewis was close behind her, with my husband. As soon as the astral was +lighted, we gazed wistfully for a few moments at each other. Each looked +for possible alteration.</p> + +<p>"You have been ill!"</p> + +<p>"And you have had something besides Time."</p> + +<p>We had had grief and bereavement. Mr. Lewis had been very ill, and very +near death, with the fever of the country. It had left traces on his +worn face, and thinned his already thin enough figure.</p> + +<p>But a greater change had come over Mrs. Lewis. Personally, she was +fuller and handsomer than ever. She had the same grace in every motion, +the same lulling music in her sweet voice. But a soul seemed to be born +into that fine body. The brown eyes were deeper, and the voice had +thrills of feeling and sentiment. For all that, she had the same +incompleteness that she had when I last saw her, and an inharmoniousness +that was felt by the hearer whenever she spoke. It was very odd, this +impression I constantly had of her; but they were to remain in Boston +through the winter, and I supposed time would develop the mystery to me.</p> + + +<p>X.</p> + +<p>One evening, soon after Lulu's return, for she soon took up her old +habits of intimacy, she sat listlessly by the fire, holding her two +hands in her lap, as usual, and not even dawdling at netting. Perhaps +the still evening and the quiet room induced confidence, or she may have +felt the effect of my "receptivity," as she called it. (She always +insisted that she could not help telling me everything.) She turned away +abruptly from the fire, saying,—</p><p><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467"></a></p> + +<p>"Do you know I don't love William a particle,—not the smallest atom?"</p> + +<p>"I hope you are only talking nonsense," said I, rising, and ringing for +lights; "but it is painful for me to hear you. Don't! I beg!"</p> + +<p>"No, it isn't nonsense. It is the simple truth. And it is best you +should know it. Because,—you don't want me to be a living lie, do you? +To the world I can keep up the old seeming. But it is better you should +know the truth."</p> + +<p>"There I differ from you entirely, Lulu. If you are so sadly +unfortunate, so wretched, as not to love your husband, it is too painful +and serious a matter lightly to be talked of. It is a matter for +grievous lamentation,—a matter between your conscience and your God. I +don't think any friend can help you; and if not, of course you can have +no motive in confiding it."</p> + +<p>She had the same old look, as if she would say, "Anan!" but presently +added,—</p> + +<p>"He cares only for himself,—not at all for me. Don't I see that every +day? Am I but the plume in his cap? but the lace on his sleeve? but the +jewel in his linen? Whatever I might have felt for him, I am sure I have +no need to feel now; and I repeat to you, I should not care at all if I +were never again to lay my eyes on him!"</p> + +<p>I shuddered to hear this talk. It was said, however, without anger, and +with the air rather of a simple child who thought it right not to have +false pretences. Her frankness, if it had been united with deep feeling, +would have touched me exceedingly. As it was, I was bewildered, yet only +anxious to avoid explanations, which it seemed to me would only increase +the evil.</p> + +<p>Thoughts of the ill-training that had made such a poor piece of +life-work out of the rich materials before me made my heart ache. She +sat still, looking in the fire, like a child, rebuked and chidden for +some unconscious fault. So many fine traits of character, yet such a +hopeless want of balance, such an utter wrongheadedness! I turned, and +did what I very seldom do, yielded to my impulses of compassionate +tenderness and kissed her. To my surprise, she burst into a hearty fit +of crying.</p> + +<p>"If I had known you early! or if my mother had lived!" she sobbed; "but +now I am good for nothing! I don't know what is right nor what is +wrong!"</p> + +<p>"Don't say so,—we can always try."</p> + +<p>"Not this. I could at first. But to be always treated like a baby,—and +if I express any contrary opinion, or show that I've a mind of my +own,—a sick baby! I can tell you this comes pretty hard three hundred +and sixty-five days in a year! Oh, I wish I were a free woman! There! I +am going to stop now. But you know."</p> + +<p>I was only too glad to be interrupted by our two husbands. Lulu ran +up-stairs,—I supposed, to bathe her eyes and compose herself. She, +however, was down again in a minute, with some drapery which she wound +about her after the fashion Lady Hamilton was said to do, and +represented, like her, the Muses, and various statues. With the curtain +and one light she managed to give a very statuesque effect. Mr. Lewis +was evidently very proud of her grace and talent, and she had a pretty, +wilful, bird-like way with him, that was fascinating, and did not seem, +as I thought it must really be, mechanical. I felt, more than ever, how +idle it must be to talk with her. The affectionate respect, the joyful +uplooking of wifehood, was not to be taught by words, nor to be taught, +in fact, any way. Mr. Lewis's manner to his wife, which I criticized +carefully, was always tender and dignified. And, from my knowledge of +him, I felt sure that his expression was that of genuine feeling. +Evidently he did not understand her feelings at all. She longed for +encouragement and improvement. He looked at her as a lovely child only.</p> + +<p>Being a minister's wife, I felt called on to labor in my vocation, and +from time to time watch the pliant moment, and endeavor <a name="Page_468" id="Page_468"></a>to lead Lulu's +mind to the foundation of all truth. But, surely, never fell seed on +such stony ground. To be sure, the flowers sprang up. Dewy, rich, and +running, they climbed over the rocks beneath; but they shed their +perfume, and shrank dead in a day, leaving the stones bare. I was +discouraged about sowing seed.</p> + +<p>The Lewises had been but a few weeks in Boston, when Lulu brought Mr. +Remington in one morning to make a call. He was dressed in black, and +told me he had been a widower six months. His bright, genial face and +healthful nature seemed not to have sustained any severe shock, however, +and he spoke with great composure of his loss.</p> + +<p>He was at Mr. Lewis's a great deal. It seemed as a matter of course. As +an accomplished man, with great powers of entertaining, he must +naturally be acceptable there; but we were too much occupied with family +and parish matters to see much of him, and about that time went on a +journey of some weeks.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_CONQUEST_OF_CUBA" id="THE_CONQUEST_OF_CUBA"></a>THE CONQUEST OF CUBA.</h2> + + +<p>One hundred years ago the people of America were as much moved by +martial ardor as are the American people of to-day. The year 1762 was, +indeed, a far more warlike time than was 1862. "Great war" is now +confined to the territory of the United States, and exists neither in +Asia, Africa, nor Europe. Garibaldi's laudable attempt to get it up in +Italy failed dismally. There was a flash of spirit, and there were a few +flashes of gunpowder, and all was over. "The rest is silence." There are +numerous questions unsettled in the Old World, but the disputants are +inclined to wait for settlement, it would seem, until our affairs shall +have been brought into a healthful state. Europeans complain that our +quarrel has wrought them injury, and very great injury, too. They are +right as to the fact. England has suffered more from the consequences of +the Southern Rebellion than have the Free States of the Union, and +France quite as much, and Spain as severely as any one of our States. In +Germany, in Switzerland, and in Belgium, thousands of families have had +bitter reasons for joining in the cry that Americans do not know how to +manage their politics. We have heard of riots in Moravia, not far from +the scene of Lafayette's imprisonment and that of Napoleon's greatest +victory, caused by the scarcity of cotton. Yankee cloths that used to go +into remote and barbarous regions, through the medium of the +caravan-commerce, will be known no more there for some time. Perhaps +those African chiefs who had condescended to shirt themselves, thus +taking a step toward civilization, will have to fall back upon their +skins, because Mr. Jefferson Davis and some others of the Southern +Americans chose to make war on their country, and so stop the supply of +cotton. The "too-many-shirts" cry, which so revolted the benevolent +heart of Mr. Carlyle twenty years since, has ceased to be heard. The +supply is getting exhausted. The old shirts are vanishing, and the new +ones, instead of being of good stout cloth, are of such stuff as dreams +are made of. There might be a new version of "The Song of the Shirt" +published, specially adapted to the state of the times, and which would +come home to the bosoms and backs of many men. Mr. Davis's war may be +considered as a personal one against all civilized men, for it affects +every one's person. The great civil war between Charles I. and the +English Parliament was in part caused by soap, <a name="Page_469" id="Page_469"></a>which the monopolists +made of so bad a quality that it destroyed the clothes which it should +have cleaned. Of "the monopolers and polers of the people," as he called +them, Sir John Culpeper said, "We find them in the dye-fat, the +wash-bowl, and the powdering-tub." As a monarchy was made to fall +through the monopoly of soap and other ordinary articles, so was it +purposed that a republic should be crushed through the monopoly of the +material from which the sheets and shirts of laborers are manufactured. +There was not much chivalry in the basis of Southern power, but most +grand revolutions are brought about by acting on the lives of the +masses, who are more easily moved by appeals to their sense of immediate +interest than by reference to the probable consequences of a certain +kind of political action. Our party-men know this, and hence it is, +that, while they have not much to say about the excellence of slavery, +they ask the Irish to oppose the overthrow of that institution, on the +ground, that, if it were to cease to exist, all the negroes of the South +would come to the North, and work for a dime a day,—which nonsense +there are some persons so ignorant as to believe.</p> + +<p>To return to 1762: the people of the Colonies were as martially disposed +as are the people of the States in these days. "In the heat of the Old +French War," says Mr. Hawthorne, speaking of the inhabitants of New +England, "they might be termed a martial people. Every man was a +soldier, or the father or brother of a soldier; and the whole land +literally echoed with the roll of the drum, either beating up for +recruits among the towns and villages, or striking the march toward the +frontier. Besides the provincial troops, there were twenty-three British +regiments in the northern colonies. The country has never known a period +of such excitement and warlike life, except during the +Revolution,—perhaps scarcely then; for that was a lingering war, and +this a stirring and eventful one." There has not been so much movement +in the Secession War as characterized that in which our ancestors were +engaged a century ago, and which was fought in America and in India, in +Germany and in Portugal, in Italy and in Africa, in France and in +Bohemia. As the great Lisbon earthquake had been felt on the shores of +Ontario, so had the war which began the year of that earthquake's +occurrence shaken the world that lay on the American lakes. Forty years +ago, old men talked as much of the Old French War—the Seven Years' War +of European historians—as of the War of the Revolution. It was a +contest but for the happening of which there could have been no American +Revolution, at least none of the character that now occupies so high a +place in history. Or, had it happened, and had the event been different, +our annals would have been made to read differently, and the Fourth of +July could never have become an institution. It opened well for the +French, and, had not fortune changed, the colonists, instead of looking +to Paris for aid, only a dozen years after its conclusion, might have +been ruled by proconsuls sent from that "centre of civilization," as it +delights to call itself. And even if the terms of the treaty which put +an end to that war had been a little differently arranged, England might +have triumphed in the war that she carried on against our ancestors. +Both the war itself, and the manner of concluding it, were necessary to +the creation of that American empire which, according to Earl Russell, +we are fighting to maintain,—as unquestionably we are, though not in +the ignoble sense in which the noble Earl meant that his words should be +taken and understood.</p> + +<p>Of the many conquests which were made by the English in the Seven Years' +War, no one was more remarkable than that which placed the Havana and +its neighborhood in their hands, virtually giving them possession of the +island of Cuba; and the manner in which they disposed of their +magnificent prize, when George III. forced peace upon his unwilling +subjects, was among the causes of <a name="Page_470" id="Page_470"></a>their failure to conquer the Thirteen +States in the War for Independence.</p> + +<p>That England should have been favored with the opportunity to seize Cuba +was not the least singular of the incidents of a contest that was waged +wherever Christians could meet for the pious purpose of cutting one +another's throats. The English owed it to the hatred for them that was +felt by one man, who assailed them in their hour of triumph, in the hope +of gratifying his love of revenge, but who reaped only new humiliations +from his crusade. He had better luck in after days; but in 1762 he must +have entertained some pretty strong doubts as to the wisdom of hating +his neighbors, and of allowing that sentiment to get the better of his +judgment. Charles III., King of the Spains, the best of all the Spanish +Bourbons, had, when he was King of Naples, been most grossly insulted by +a British naval commander, and he had had to swallow the affront. "Being +a good Christian, and vindictive," though he swallowed the affront, he +could not digest it. He cherished the hope of being able to repay the +English with that usurious interest with which men of all grades love to +discharge their debts of the kind. He little thought that he was to wait +near forty years for the settlement of his account, and that a +generation was to pass away before he should be able to feel as Loredano +felt when he heard of the death of Francesco Foscari.</p> + +<p>The fortunes of France have seldom been lower than they were in 1759, +when the energy of William Pitt had imparted itself to the whole of the +alliance which was acting against Louis XV. That year, Charles III. +ascended the Spanish throne. For some time he was apparently disposed to +continue the judicious system of neutrality which had been adopted and +pursued by his predecessor; but in 1760, partly from his fear of British +power, and partly because of the insulting conduct, of England, which +revived his recollection of her officer's action at Naples in 1742, he +was induced to enter into that arrangement which is known as the Family +Compact, (<i>Pacte de Famille</i>,) which was destined to have the most +memorable consequences,—consequences that are far from being now +exhausted. By the terms of this treaty, the sovereign princes of the +House of Bourbon agreed to support each other against all enemies. The +wisdom of this compact, on the part of France, cannot be doubted, for +her condition was so bad that it could not be made much worse, happen +what would, and it might be changed for the better through the +assistance of Spain; but it is not so clear that they were as wise at +Madrid as were the statesmen at Paris. Mr. Pitt obtained intelligence of +this treaty's existence, though it was "a profound secret," of course; +but then Mr. Pitt always had good intelligence, because he was ready to +pay roundly for it, knowing that it was the best article for which a +war-minister could lay out his money. The object of keeping secret an +arrangement that depended for its usefulness upon open action was, that +time might be gained for the arrival of the Spanish treasure-ships from +America. Mr. Pitt, who was as wise as he was arrogant, was for taking +immediate measures against Spain. He would have declared war at once, +and have seized the plate fleet. Had George II. still lived, this +judicious course—all boldness is judicious in war, in which there is +nothing so imprudent as prudence—would have been adopted. But that +monarch died on the 25th of October, 1760, and his grandson and +successor, George III., had domestic objects to accomplish with which +the continuance of the war was incompatible. His intention was to make +peace with France, and he must have deemed it the height of folly to +make war on Spain. Pitt, finding his advice disregarded, resigned his +office, much to the joy of most of his colleagues, whom he had treated +as if they had been the lackeys of his lackeys. How they ever got along +with him through one month is among the mysteries of statesmanship. +President Jackson was not the mildest of men, but he was meekness itself +<a name="Page_471" id="Page_471"></a>in comparison with the first William Pitt.</p> + +<p>But if Pitt was offensive to his colleagues, he was even more offensive +to the enemies of his country. In a few weeks after he left the +Ministry, the justice of his views became clear even to the young King +and to Lord Bute, the latter personage having virtually made himself +Premier. The Spanish Government, in compliance with the terms of the +Family Compact, made war on England, and that country lost most of the +advantages which would have been hers, if the King had been governed by +Pitt's advice. The treasure-ships reached Spain in safety, and their +cargoes furnished the new belligerent with the sinews of war. So far as +they could, the English Ministers resolved to carry on the war with +Spain in conformity with the plan which Pitt had formed. One of his +projects was to send a force to seize the Havana, which, though not the +important place that it now is, in itself, was nevertheless one of the +most valuable of the commmanding points of the Spanish Indies. At that +time the colonial dominion of Spain embraced the greater part of +America, and the Havana was regarded as the key to the Occidental +possessions of Charles III.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> This key Secretary Pitt had meant to +seize; and his successors, forced to act, availed themselves of the +preparations which he had made. An expedition sailed from Spithead on +the 5th of March, 1762, which was joined by other forces, the whole +number of vessels being almost two hundred, of which about a fifth were +ships of war. The total of the land-forces, including those sent from +North America, was 14,041. The fleet was commanded by Admiral Sir George +Pocock, and the army by General the Earl of Albemarle. Lord Albemarle +was descended from that Arnold van Keppel who came into England, not +with William the Conqueror, but with William of Orange, and who, through +the favor of the Dutch King of England, founded one of the most +respectable of British patrician houses. He was a good soldier, and in +Cuba he showed considerable energy; but his name is not high in the list +of commanders.</p> + +<p>It is uncertain whether the Spaniards had knowledge of the intentions of +the English, who, in those days, did not announce their points of attack +to the enemy; but the Captain-General, Don Juan de Prado Porto Carrero, +found it so very difficult to believe that the English would attack his +Government, that even so late as the 6th of June, when the invaders were +within a few hours of landing, he insisted that their fleet was a +homeward-bound convoy from Jamaica; and he found fault with one of his +officers who had taken some precautionary measures. The next day he was +compelled to admit that he was mistaken, for then the British troops had +landed. He could not have been more blind to the coming storm, had he +lived in 1861, and held a high post in the Government of the United +States. Once convinced of his error, he went vigorously to work, and +prepared for defence. He had 27,610 men, including soldiers, seamen, +marines, militia, and negroes,—for, in those days, it was not thought +wise to refuse the services of black men, and even slaves were allowed +the honor of being slain in the service of their masters. There were, +however, but few regular troops at the command of the +Captain-General,—only 4,610; but the seamen and marines, who numbered +9,000, helped to make the deficiency good. The Spaniards were situated +somewhat as were the Russians, the other day, at Sebastopol. Their naval +force was too small to have any chance whatever against that of the +English, and the men who belonged to it were employed on land, where +they behaved bravely. The best officers among the defenders were from +the fleet. The Morro was put under the charge of Don Luis de Velasco, +captain of a line-of-battle ship, who maintained <a name="Page_472" id="Page_472"></a>the credit of his +ancient name; and he was well supported by the Marques de Gonzales, +another naval officer. Don Manuel Brizeñio, also from the fleet, with a +brother-officer for his lieutenant, had charge of the Punta castle. The +army-officers did not like these arrangements, but it was argued that +seamen were better qualified than either cavalry or infantry to defend +fortified places; and of regular artillerists there were but three +hundred in the whole Spanish force. These considerations had their +weight with the soldiers, and the conduct of the seamen fully justified +the conduct of the Captain-General.</p> + +<p>The English troops were landed on the 7th of June, and Colonel +Carleton—the Sir Guy Carleton of our Revolutionary history—repulsed a +cavalry attack that was made upon a detachment under his command. This +so disheartened the Spaniards, that they abandoned the position which +they had taken up at Guanabacoa for the purpose of impeding the advance +of the invaders, and fell back on the Havana. The women and children, +with the monks and nuns, were all sent out of the town, and the suburbs +destroyed. On the 11th, the Cabaña fortress, which commands the Morro, +was taken by Colonel Carleton. The Spaniards also abandoned the Chorrera +fort, on the other side. Operations against the Morro were then begun. +The English suffered much from the heat, and a little from the assaults +of the defenders; and, though greatly aided by the fleet, it was not +until the 1st of July that they were able to open fire on the Morro. +Among their laborers were five hundred black slaves, purchased at +Antigua and Martinique. Fatigue and sickness had reduced the army's +strength more than one-third, without counting the soldiers who had +died, or been slain by the Spanish fire; and three thousand seamen also +were unfit for duty. Water was procured with difficulty, and fresh +provisions were almost unknown.</p> + +<p>The land-batteries opened on the Morro July 1st, and were supported by a +fire from several ships. The latter were roughly received by the +Spaniards, and lost one hundred and eighty-two men, besides being +greatly damaged in hull, masts, and rigging, so that they were forced to +abandon the conflict, without having made any impression on the +fortress, though they had effected an important diversion in favor of +the land-batteries, the fire from which had proved most injurious. On +the 2d there were but two guns in condition to bear upon the besiegers. +The latter, however, had a worse enemy than the Spaniards to contend +against, the heat causing fires in their works that neither earth nor +water could extinguish; and they had to remove their mortars from the +left parallel, and substitute cannon. This was the crisis of the siege; +and had a hurricane occurred, as was expected, the fleet would have been +driven off, and the army probably captured. But no storm came, and the +English, with characteristic stubbornness, repaired their damaged works, +and erected others. On the 9th they renewed their fire, having twelve +guns, and the Spaniards but nine. The English increased the strength of +their batteries, while the Spanish guns were reduced to two by the 16th; +and on the 17th the castle made no reply to the fire of the Valiant, a +line-of-battle ship. Sapping-operations began that evening, and on the +18th a small lodgment was effected. The Spanish commander made a morning +sally against the besiegers in three columns, which, if successful, +would have necessitated the abandonment of the siege; but the first and +second columns were driven back with heavy loss, and the third retreated +without firing a shot. In this action a battalion of North Americans +bore a prominent part, aiding to drive the first Spanish column to the +water, where one hundred and fifty men were drowned. The total loss of +the assailants was four hundred, besides those wounded who returned into +the town.</p> + +<p>The result of this action decided the fate of the Morro. The work of +sapping <a name="Page_473" id="Page_473"></a>went on. Reinforcements arrived from New York; and on the 30th +a practicable breach was made. Lord Albemarle had previously summoned +Don Luis de Velasco to surrender, in the most complimentary terms; but +the gallant Spaniard declined to abandon his duty, preferring death to +dishonor. On the afternoon of the 30th, the English storming-party, +headed by Lieutenant Forbes, of the Royals, mounted the breach, taking +the defenders by surprise, and dispersing them. Don Luis disdained to +fly, and was mortally wounded. He lived until the afternoon of the 31st, +receiving every possible attention from the victors, who sent him over +to the Havana, where he was buried with military honors. His son was +created Vizconde del Morro, and it was ordered that in the Spanish navy +there should always be a ship named Velasco.</p> + +<p>The storming of the castle cost the English but two officers and thirty +men. The Spaniards lost five hundred and thirty men, besides those who +were drowned in seeking to reach the town. During the siege the Spanish +loss exceeded a thousand men. The conquerors found a large number of +cannon, mortars, muskets, and hand-grenades, and great quantities of +powder and ball, and fixed ammunition, in the castle.</p> + +<p>As soon as the fortress had fallen, the Spaniards opened fire on it, +which was directed principally against the water-tank. The English +carried on their works on both sides of the city, and on the 10th of +August Lord Albemarle summoned the Governor to capitulate. After a long +detention, the flag was sent back without an answer. It was not until +the forenoon of the 11th that the English opened fire upon the city, +their batteries containing forty-five guns. That regard for "unoffending +inhabitants" with which the English of 1847 were afflicted, when +American guns fired on Vera Cruz, was not felt by their ancestors of +1762. Judging from the language of English writers, we should infer that +England has a vested right to pound and pulverize all places that refuse +to acknowledge her supremacy but that such conduct as distinguished her +troops at Copenhagen and elsewhere is wanton butchery when imitated by +the military of other nations. Be that as it may, it is a fact that the +British batteries pounded the Havana savagely on the 11th of August, one +hundred and one years ago, without causing any alarm to either Lord +Albemarle or his army as to the opinion of their countrymen; and the +pounding-match was so pronouncedly in favor of the English, that by two +o'clock in the afternoon the Spaniards offered to surrender. A +suspension of hostilities followed, and the negotiations ended in the +capitulation of the place on the 13th of August. At ten o'clock on the +14th, the Punta was taken possession of by General Keppel; and two hours +later, the city gate and battery of that name. The landward gate was +held by Colonel Howe, the Sir William Howe of our Revolutionary War. The +number of regular troops who became prisoners was nine hundred and +ninety-three, without counting the sick or wounded, and including both +men and officers. They were sent on board the English ships.</p> + +<p>The terms granted by the English were honorable to both parties. The +Spanish troops marched out with all the honors of war. The officers were +allowed to preserve all their personal effects. Civil officers were +permitted to remain on the island, or to leave it, as they should elect. +Everything that belonged to the Spanish army or navy, that was within +the limits of the territory surrendered, became prize of war. The +Catholic religion was to be maintained in all its force, but the +nomination of all religious functionaries was to be subject to the +approval of the English Governor. The inhabitants were to be protected +in all their rights, and might go or stay, as they should think best for +their interest. There were other liberal provisions made, indicative of +a desire on the part of the conquerors to behave handsomely toward the +conquered. The only portion of the property of the King of Spain which +the victors allowed him <a name="Page_474" id="Page_474"></a>to retain consisted of his slaves, of which he +was left at liberty to dispose as he might think proper. England was +then a slave-holding and a slave-trading nation, and she could not +afford to set the example of disregarding the right of man to hold +property in men. Though the age of cotton had not then dawned, the age +of conscience was quite as far below the moral horizon.</p> + +<p>Besides the Havana and its immediate territory, the terms of the +surrender placed in the hands of the English as much of the island of +Cuba as extended one hundred and eighty miles to the west, which +belonged to the government of the place. This was a great conquest, and +it was in the power of the conquerors to become masters of the whole +island.</p> + +<p>The most remarkable fact connected with the conquest of Cuba was the +success with which the English contended, not only against a valiant +enemy, but against the difficulties of climate. No severer trial was +ever presented to troops than that which they encountered and overcame +on the Cuban coast at a time of the year when that coast is at its +worst; and it was a much more unhealthy quarter then than it is to-day. +They had to bear up against drought, heat, hunger, thirst, sickness, and +the fire of the Spaniards; and they stood in constant danger of being +separated from their supporting fleet, which had no sufficient shelter, +and might have been destroyed, if a tropical hurricane had set in. Yet +against all these evils they bore up, and, with very inferior means, +succeeded in accomplishing their purpose, and in making one of the +greatest conquests of the most brilliant war in which their country ever +was engaged. All this they did with but little loss, comparatively +speaking. They had 346 men and officers killed or mortally wounded; 620 +wounded; 691 died from sickness or fatigue; and 130 were missing. This +loss, 1790 in all, exclusive of the casualties on shipboard, cannot be +considered large, for it could not have been above one-eighth part of +the invading force, counting the reinforcements that arrived while the +siege was going on. Compared with the enormous losses of life and limb +that characterize our war, it is a mere bagatelle; and the magnitude of +the prize is to be set off in contrast to the price which it cost. Some +of the regiments employed, however, were destined to suffer severely +from the effects of their visit to Cuba; for, being sent to New York, +the severity of a North-American winter was too much for constitutions +that had been subjected for months to the heats of the tropics. They +were Irishly decimated, losing about nine-tenths of their men.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<p>If we can believe the Spaniards,—and we see no reason for doubting the +substantial correctness of their assertions,—Lord Albemarle's +government was one of much severity, and even cruelty. He ruled the +Havana with a bundle of <i>fasces</i>, the rods being of iron, and the axe +sharp, and which did not become rusty from want of use. It was enough +that a man was "guilty of being suspected" to insure him a drum-head +court-martial, which tribunal sent many men to the scaffold, sometimes +denying them religious consolations, an aggravation of punishment +peculiarly terrible to Catholics, and which seems to have been wantonly +inflicted, and in a worse spirit than that of the old persecutors, for +it had not even fanaticism for its excuse. The spirit of the +capitulation seems to have been quite disregarded, though its letter may +have been adhered to. There may be some exaggeration in the Spanish +statements, too,—men who are subject to military rule generally looking +at the conduct of their governors through very powerful glasses. It is +impossible for them to do otherwise; and the mildest proconsul that ever +ruled must still be <a name="Page_475" id="Page_475"></a>nothing but a proconsul, even if he were an angel. +Every man thus placed is entitled to as charitable construction of his +conduct as can conscientiously be made; but this the English do not +appear to understand, when the conduct of men of other races is +canvassed. With their own history blotched all over with cruel acts +perpetrated by their military commanders, they set themselves up to +judge of the deeds of the generals of other peoples, as if they alone +could furnish impartial courts for the rendering of historical verdicts. +Their treatment of some American commanders, and particularly General +Butler, is not decent in a people whose officers have wantonly poured +out blood, often innocent, in nearly every country under the sun. There +was more cruelty practised by the English in any one month of the Sepoy +War than has disgraced both sides of the Secession contest for the two +years through which it has been waged. The English are not a cruel +people,—quite the reverse,—but it is a fact that their military +history abounds more in devilish acts than that of any other people of +corresponding civilization. The reason of this is, that they look upon +all men who resist them in some such spirit as the Romans regarded their +foes, and as being in some sense rebels. It is only with those who rebel +against other Governments that those who live under the English +Government ever sympathize.</p> + +<p>The capture of the Havana produced a "sensation" in the North-American +colonies. The news was a month in reaching this part of the country, and +Philadelphia, the most important place in British America, had the +pleasure of first hearing it in fourteen days from the seat of war. It +was "expressed" to New York, which town got it on the 11th of September; +and it was published in the Boston "Gazette" of Monday, September 13th, +the same day on which our ancestors were gratified by the publication of +the London "Gazette" Extraordinary giving a detailed account of Prince +Ferdinand's victory at Wilhelmsthal, on the 24th of June. There is not a +line of editorial comment, but the news is clearly and vigorously given, +special mention being made of the spoil, which included, according to +one authority, fourteen million milled dollars. It is stated, in +conclusion, that "the Spanish families that had withdrawn from the city +to the country were all returned with their baggage, and were in +possession of their habitations; and some soldiers and English Negroes +were hanged for committing some small thefts on them." In the "Gazette" +of September 20th there are published some details of the operations in +Cuba; and under the "Boston head" is a brief account of the rejoicings +that took place in Boston, on the 16th, in honor of the great event, and +of British successes in Germany. "In the morning," says the account, +"His Excellency, [Governor Bernard,] accompanied by the two Houses of +Assembly, attended divine service at the Old Brick Meeting House, and a +sermon well adapted to this joyful occasion was preached by the Rev. Dr. +SEWALL: At 12 o'clock the cannon at Castle William and the batteries in +this town and Charlestown were discharged: In the afternoon the Bells +rang; and His Excellency with the two Houses was escorted by his Company +of Cadets to Concert Hall, where a fine piece of music was performed, to +the satisfaction of a very large assembly; and in the evening there were +beautiful illuminations, and a great variety of fire works in many parts +of the town.... We hear there has also been great rejoicings on the late +success of the British arms in most of the neighboring towns, +particularly at Charlestown, Salem, and Marblehead, where were +illuminations, bonfires, and other demonstrations of joy." Old +newspapers, letters, and pamphlets show that "demonstrations of joy" +were far from being confined to New-England towns. They extended over +the whole of the thirteen colonies, every man in which was proud of +belonging to a nation which had achieved such great things in a war that +had opened most gloomily, as do <a name="Page_476" id="Page_476"></a>most English and American contests. The +conquest of Canada had removed a weight from the colonial mind that had +preyed upon it for generations; and though not one man in a hundred, it +is probable, thought of the vast consequences that were to follow from +the victories of Wolfe and Amherst, it is certain that those victories +had greatly exalted the American heart; and now that they were followed +by the conquest of Cuba, made at the expense of a great nation with +which England was at peace when Quebec and Montreal had passed into her +possession, it is not strange that our ancestors should have become more +impressed than ever with the honor of belonging to the British empire. +They were not only loyal, but they were loyal to a point that resembled +fanaticism. It has been said of them that they were "as loyal to their +prince and as proud of their country as the people of Kent or +Yorkshire,"—and these words do not exaggerate what was the general +sentiment of the colonists in 1762. England was still "home" to them, +though more than a hundred and fifty years had gone by since the first +permanent English colony was founded in America; and to the feeling that +belonged to the inhabitants of England the colonists added that +reverence which is created for the holders of power by remoteness from +their presence and want of familiarity. Such was the condition of +America a century ago, but soon to be changed through conduct on the +part of George III., conduct that amounted to a crime, and for which no +defence can be made but that of insanity,—a defence but too well +founded in this instance. The sense of the colonists, therefore, was +well expressed by Governor Bernard, when, on the 23d of September, he +put forth a proclamation, at the request of the Assembly, for a Public +Thanksgiving on the 7th of October. After enumerating various causes for +thankfulness that existed, all of which relate to victories won in +different parts of the world, His Excellency proceeds to say,—"But +above all, with hearts full of gratitude and amazement, we must +contemplate the glorious and important conquest of the Havana; which, +considering the strength of the place, the resolution of the defendants, +and the unhealthiness of the climate, seems to have the visible hand of +God in it, and to be designed by His Providence to punish the pride and +injustice of that Prince who has so unnecessarily made himself a party +in this war."</p> + +<p>Thus did our fathers rejoice over a great military success which gave +additional glory to a country to which they were proud to belong. Nor +were they insensible to the solid gains of that success, which, indeed, +they overrated, not only because they supposed the conquered territory +would be retained by the conquerors, but because they believed the +immediate fruits of victory were far greater than they proved to be. In +the Boston "Gazette" of September 20th it is stated that one of the +captured Spanish ships had five million dollars on board, that almost +forty million dollars in specie had already been counted, and that the +share of Lord Albemarle would give him an income of twelve thousand +pounds per annum, and Admiral Pocock was to have an equal amount.</p> + +<p>In our time, politicians have the advantage of all other men in the +matter of spoils. Such was not the state of things one hundred years +ago. The politicians were as well off in those times as they are in +these,—perhaps they were bettor off, for things could then be openly +done by civilians, in the way of plundering, that the men of to-day have +to do as secretly as good Christians say their prayers. There were also +many lucrative offices then in existence which have since disappeared +under the labors of those economical reformers of whom Edmund Burke was +the first in every respect. But in 1762 military men had "rights" which +this modern world has ceased to regard as utterly as if all soldiers +were Negroes. One hundred years ago it was not an uncommon thing for a +successful general to win as much gold <a name="Page_477" id="Page_477"></a>on a victorious field as glory. +It was the sunsetting time of the age of plunder; and the sun set very +brilliantly. The solid gains of heroes were then so great that their +mere statement in figures affects the reader's mind, and perverts his +judgment of their actions. Not quite twenty years earlier, the gallant +Anson made his famous cruise round the world; and when he took the +Manila galleon, he found in her, besides other booty, silver of the +value of a million and a half of dollars, to defend which the Spaniards +fought as men generally fight for their money. Five years before +Albemarle took the Havana, Clive took, for his own share of Surajah +Doulah's personals, over a million of dollars, from the treasury of +Moorshedabad. That was the prize of Plassey. A little later, he accepted +a present in land that must have been worth over two million of dollars, +as the annual income it yielded was twenty-seven thousand pounds, or +about one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Other British proconsuls +were also fortunate in India. The same year that saw the English flag +flying over so much of Cuba saw another English force, commanded by Sir +William Draper, reduce the Philippine Islands, taking possession of the +whole group by virtue of a capitulation. The naval force that +accompanied Draper captured the Acapulco galleon, which had a cargo of +the value of three million dollars. The English attacked Manila without +the Spanish garrison's having had any official notification of the +existence of hostilities. The town was defended by the Archbishop, who +behaved with bravery, and showed considerable skill in war; but after +some days' fighting the English got into the town by storming it, and +then gave it up to the rough mercies of a hardened soldiery, some of +whom were Sepoys, a description of warriors of whom the English now ask +us to believe all that is abominable. Manila was most savagely treated +by heathen soldiers led by Christian chiefs, a fact to be commended to +the consideration of those humane Englishmen who can with difficulty +breathe while reading General Butler's arrangement for the maintenance +of order in New Orleans. The Archbishop and some of the officers got +into the citadel, and there they negotiated a capitulation. They agreed +to ransom their property by paying down two million dollars, and by +drawing bills for a like sum upon the Spanish treasury, which bills +Draper was green enough to accept. The Spanish Government refused to pay +the bills when they had matured, and though Draper entreated the English +Ministers to interpose in behalf of himself and his comrades, no +interposition could he induce them to make. When Sir William was so +unwise as to run a course of pointed pens with "Junius," that free +lancer, who upset men of all degrees as easily as Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe +unhorsed the knights-challengers in the lists at Ashby, brought up the +Manila business, and, with his usual hardihood, charged his antagonist +with having most dishonorably given up the ransom, and with having sold +his comrades. Sir William, who had volunteered in defence of his friend, +Lord Granby, (the same gentleman who used to figure on sign-boards, and +whose name was then as much in English mouths as General Meade's is on +American tongues to-day,) soon had to fight in his own defence, and he +made a very poor figure in the contest. In a letter from Clifton, to the +printer of the "Public Advertiser," he wrote,—"I here most solemnly +declare, that I never received either from the East India Company, or +from the Spaniards, directly or indirectly, any present or gratification +or any circumstance of emolument whatsoever, to the amount of five +shillings, during the whole course of the expedition, or afterwards, my +legal prize-money excepted. The Spaniards know that I refused the sum of +fifty thousand pounds offered me by the Archbishop, to mitigate the +terms of the ransom, and to reduce it to half a million, instead of a +whole one; so that, had I been disposed to have basely sold the partners +of my victory, Avarice herself could not have <a name="Page_478" id="Page_478"></a>wished for a richer +opportunity." Sir William's language is valuable, as showing what sort +of prizes were then in the wheel of Fortune, with military men only to +take tickets. More than one British house of high consideration owes its +affluence to the good luck of some ancestor in the noble art of pillage. +Yet how often do we come across, in English books, denunciations of the +deeds of plunder done by the French in Spain and Portugal! Shall we ever +hear the last of Maréchal Soult's Murillos? It was but yesterday that +the Koh-i-Noor was stolen by the English, and added to the crown-jewels +of Great Britain; and it was exhibited at the Crystal Palace in 1851, +where it must have been regarded as a proof of the skill of the +<i>Chevaliers d'Industrie</i>. Why it should be lawful and honorable to seize +diamonds, and unlawful and improper to seize pictures, we cannot say; +but Mr. Stirling, in his "Annals of the Artists of Spain," says, "Soult +at Seville, and Sebastiani at Granada, collected with unerring taste and +unexampled rapacity, and, having thus signalized themselves as robbers +in war, became no less eminent as picture-dealers in peace." Was it more +immoral in Maréchal le Due de Dalmatie to take Murillos than it was in +Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington to take the lead in cutting the +Koh-i-Noor, the pictures as well as the diamond being spoil of war? +There is something eminently absurd in English morality, when Englishmen +seek to lay down rules for the governance of the world. It amounts to +this: that they shall be at liberty to plunder everybody, but that all +other men shall stay their hands, no matter how great may be the +temptation, to help themselves to their enemies' goods.</p> + +<p>The conquerors of the Havana had no scruples on the subject of plunder. +They obtained, in treasure and other property, about fourteen millions +of dollars,—a great sum, though not a third part so large as had been +assigned them by the newspapers. Not content with this, they sought to +get a donation from the citizens, to the amount of two hundred thousand +dollars; but the attempt failed, and was not persisted in, when it was +found that the Spaniards were utterly averse to giving on compulsion. A +demand was made, through Colonel Cleveland, who commanded the artillery, +"on the Bishop and the clergy, requiring an account of the bells of the +churches, convents, and monasteries of the Havana and the other towns in +the district, as well as of the <i>ingenios</i> in the neighborhood, and of +all such metal as is used in the making of bells, in order that the +value might be adjusted, and the amount paid, according, as he asserted, +to the laws and customs of war, when a city after a siege has +surrendered by capitulation." The astonished Bishop wrote to Lord +Albemarle, and had the satisfaction of learning from that eminent +authority, that, "when a city was besieged and taken, the commander of +the artillery receives a gratification, and that Colonel Cleveland had +made the demand with his Lordship's concurrence." This mode of kissing +the rod was not at all to the taste of the worthy prelate, excellent +Christian though he was. It was bad enough to give "a gratification" to +an enemy because he had pounded them with balls until they had been +forced to surrender; but it was an aggravation of the original evil to +have to redeem "blessed bells" from the heretics who had come four +thousand miles to disturb the repose of the Spanish Indies. But +negotiation was unavoidable. What would the Colonel take, and close the +transaction? The Colonel said he would take such a sum as the captured +churches could reasonably contribute to his purse. He was offered one +thousand dollars; but that he treated as a mistake, and to assist the +reverend and venerable negotiators to a conclusion, he named thirty +thousand dollars. To this they objected, and appealed to Lord Albemarle +against the demand of his officer. His Lordship, with his pockets +crammed with Spanish gold, was disposed to act handsomely in this +instance, and cut down the Colonel's bill to ten thousand dollars.<a name="Page_479" id="Page_479"></a> But +even this sum the clergy professed themselves utterly unable to pay. +According to their own showing, they were genuine successors of the +Apostles, being without a penny in their purses. They began to beg for +aid; but, either because the Spaniards were sulky with the Saints for +having allowed the heretics to succeed, or that they did not wish to +attract the attention of those heretics to their property, the begging +business did not pay. Only one hundred and three dollars could be +collected. This failure was made known to Lord Albemarle, but he kept a +profound silence, sending no reply to the clergy's plaintive +communication. They, however, had not long to wait for an answer. +Colonel Cleveland waited upon them again, and said, that, as the cash +was not forthcoming, he should content himself with taking the bells, +all of which must be taken down, and delivered to him on the 4th of +September. After this there was no further room for negotiation with a +gentleman who commanded great guns. The Bishop handed over the ten +thousand dollars, and the Colonel departed from his presence. The bells +remained in their proper places, and some of them, no doubt, remain +there to this day, the bell being long-lived, and making sweet music +years after Albemarle, Cleveland, and the rest of the spoilmen have gone +to their account.</p> + +<p>Lord Albemarle had a correspondence with the Bishop respecting the use +of one of the churches as a place of Protestant worship, and laid down +the cannon law so strongly and clearly, that the prelate, after making +such resistance as circumstances admitted of,—and he would not have +been a good Catholic, if he had done less,—told him to take whichever +church he chose; and he took that of the Franciscans. His Lordship, +however, was much more devoted to the worship of Mammon than to the +worship of God, and, accordingly, on the 19th of October, he wrote to +the Bishop concerning the donation-dodge, in the following polite and +peremptory terms;—"Most Illustrious Sir, I am sorry to be under the +necessity of writing to your Lordship what ought to have been thought of +some days ago, namely, a donation from the Church to the +Commander-in-Chief of the victorious army. The least that your Lordship +can offer will be one hundred thousand dollars. I wish to live in peace +with your Lordship and with the Church, as I have shown in all that has +hitherto occurred, and I hope that your Lordship will not give me reason +to alter my intentions. I kiss your Lordship's hand. Your humble +servant, Albemarle." The Bishop, though a clever and clear-sighted man, +could not see this matter in the light in which Lord Albemarle looked +upon it. He thought the demand a violation of the terms of surrender; +and he sought the mediation of Admiral Pocock, but without strengthening +his position. To a demand for the list of benefices, coupled with the +declaration that non-compliance would lead to the Bishop's being +proclaimed a violator of the treaty, the prelate replied, that he would +refer the matter, and some others, to the courts of Spain and England. +Upon this the British General lost all patience, and issued a +proclamation, declaring "that the conduct of the Bishop was seditious; +that he had forgotten that he was now a subject of Great Britain; and +that it was absolutely necessary he should be expelled from the island, +and sent to Florida in one of the British ships of war, in order that +public tranquillity might be maintained, and that good correspondence +and harmony might continue between the new and the old subjects of the +King, which the conduct of the Bishop had visibly interrupted." The +whole of this business presents the English commander in a most +contemptible light. Not content with the six hundred thousand dollars +which he had already pocketed, as his share of the spoil, he assumed the +part of Bull Beggar toward the Bishop, in the hope that he might extort +one hundred thousand dollars more from the Church, for his own personal +benefit, for the "donation" was not to go into the common stock; and +when his threats <a name="Page_480" id="Page_480"></a>failed, he turned tyrant at the expense of a venerable +officer of the most ancient of Christian churches. What an outcry would +be raised in England, if an American commander were to make a similar +display of avarice and cruelty!</p> + +<p>The manner in which the spoil was divided among the conquerors caused +much ill-feeling, and not unnaturally. Lord Albemarle took to himself +£122,697 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, and an equal amount was bestowed upon Admiral +Pocock. Lieutenant-General Elliot and Commodore Keppel had £24,539 +10<i>s.</i> 1<i>d.</i> each. To a major-general was given £6,816 10<i>s.</i> 6-1/2<i>d.</i> +and to a brigadier-general £1,947 11<i>s.</i> 7<i>d.</i> A captain in the navy had +£1,600 10<i>s.</i> 10<i>d.</i>, and an army-captain, £184 4<i>s.</i> 7-1/4<i>d.</i> And so +the sums went on decreasing, until there were paid to the private +soldier, £4 1<i>s.</i> 8-1/2<i>d.</i>, and to the ordinary seaman £3 14<i>s.</i> +9-3/4<i>d.</i> The profit as well as the honor of the expedition all went to +the leaders. What made the matter worse was, that the distribution was +made in violation of rules, which were not formed to favor "the common +file," but which would have done them more justice than they received at +the hands of Pocock and Albemarle. After all, no worse was done than +what we see daily happen in the world, and the distribution appears to +be a practical satire on the ordinary course of human life.</p> + +<p>Lord Albemarle was severely censured in England for his manner of +assailing the Havana, it being held that he should have attacked the +town, which was in an almost defenceless condition, whereas the Morro +was strong, and made a good defence, which might have led to the failure +of the expedition, and would have done so but for the circumstance that +no hurricane happened. But the general public was satisfied with the +victory, and did not trouble itself much about the manner in which it +had been gained. It was right. Had General McClellan taken Richmond, how +many of us would have listened to the military critics who should have +been so kind as to show us how he ought to have taken it? Judging from +some observations in Horace Walpole's "Correspondence," the English, +though surfeited with victory, were much pleased with their Cuban +conquest. Sir Joseph Yorke, writing on the 9th of October, ten days +after the news had reached England, says,—"All the world is struck with +the noble capture of the Havana, which fell into our hands on the Prince +of Wales's birthday, as a just punishment upon the Spaniards for their +unjust quarrel with us, and for the supposed difficulties they have +raised in the negotiations for peace." Those negotiations had been +openly commenced in less than a month after the fall of the Havana, and +some weeks before news of that brilliant event had reached Europe. The +terms of the treaty of peace were speedily settled, one of the +stipulations being, that Spain should preserve her old limits; and, +"moreover," says Earl Stanhope, "it was agreed that any conquests that +might meanwhile have been made by any of the parties in any quarter of +the globe, but which were not yet known, (words comprising at that +period of the negotiation both the Havana and the Philippines,) should +be restored without compensation." Had the preliminary articles been +signed at once, the Spaniards would have recovered all they had lost in +Cuba, without further trouble or cost; but their negotiator, the +celebrated Grimaldi, was so confident that the invaders of Cuba would be +beaten, that he played the waiting game, and was beaten himself. When +intelligence of English success arrived at Paris, where the treaty was +making, Grimaldi was suddenly found as ready to sign as formerly he had +been backward; but now the English negotiator, the Duke of Bedford, +became backward in his turn, as representing the unwillingness of his +Government to give up the Havana without an equivalent. Lord Bute would +have given up the conquest without a word said, but all his colleagues +were not so blind to the advantages which that conquest had placed at +the command of England; and finally it was agreed that the Duke of +Bedford should demand the cession of<a name="Page_481" id="Page_481"></a> Florida or Porto Rico as the price +of the restoration of that portion of Cuba which was in English hands. +The Spaniards gladly complied with the British demand, and gave Florida +in exchange for Cuba. At one time it was supposed that the victory of +Albemarle and Pocock would lead to the continuance of the war. Horace +Walpole wrote to his friend Conway that the Havana was more likely to +break off the peace than to advance it, and that the English were not in +a humor to give up the world, but were much more disposed to conquer the +rest of it. He added, "We shall have some cannonading here, I believe, +if we sign the peace." But the King and the Premier were +peace-at-any-price men, and the way to their purpose was smoothed +completely; yet Lord Bute wrote to the Duke of Bedford, on the 24th of +October, "Such is the change made here by the conquest of the Havana, +that I solemnly declare, I don't meet with one man, let his attachment +be never so strong to the service of the King, his wishes for peace +never so great, that does not positively affirm, this rich acquisition +must not be ceded without satisfaction in the fishery, and some material +compensation: this is so much the opinion of all the King's servants, +that the greatest care has been taken to soften every expression," etc. +In July, 1763, the English restored their acquisitions in Cuba to the +Spaniards, and their soldiers returned to Europe.</p> + +<p>In a few years it was seen that the Bute arrangement, so far as +concerned the Havana, was, for England, thoroughly a Glaucian bargain. +She had obtained Florida, which was of no worth to her, and she had +given up the Havana, which might have been made one of her most useful +acquisitions. That place became the chief American port of the great +alliance that was formed against England after she had become committed +to war with the new United States. Great fleets and armies were there +assembled, which did the English much mischief. Florida was reconquered +by an expedition from the Havana, and another expedition was successful +in an attack on Nassau; and Jamaica was threatened. Had England not +given up the place to the Spaniards, not only would these things have +been impossible, but she might have employed it with effect in her own +military operations, and have maintained her ascendency in the +West-Indian seas. Or, if she had preferred that course, she might have +made it the price of Spain's neutrality during the American War, +returning it to her on condition that she should not assist the United +States; and as the Family Compact then existed in all its force, Spain's +influence might have been found sufficiently powerful to prevent France +from giving that assistance to our fathers which undoubtedly secured +their independence. All subsequent history has been deeply colored by +the surrender of the Havana in 1763. But for that, Washington and his +associates might have failed. But for that, the French Revolution might +have been postponed, as that Revolution was precipitated through the +existence of financial difficulties which were largely owing to the part +France took in the war that ended in the establishment of our +nationality. But for that, England might have secured and consolidated +her American dominion, and the House of Hanover at this moment have been +ruling over the present United States and Confederate States. George +III, and Lord Bute could not foresee any of these things, and they +cannot be censured because they were blind to what was invisible to all +men; but their reckless desire for peace led them to regret the +successes of the English arms, and they were ready to make any +sacrifices that could be named, not because they loved peace for itself, +but because, while the war should last, it would not be possible for the +monarch to follow his mother's advice to "be a king" in fact as well as +in name,—advice that was destined to cost the King much, and his realm +far more.</p><p><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482"></a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="EQUINOCTIAL" id="EQUINOCTIAL"></a>EQUINOCTIAL.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Sun of Life has crossed the line:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The summer-shine of lengthened light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Faded and failed,—till, where I stand,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'Tis equal Day and equal Night.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">One after one, as dwindling hours,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Youth's glowing hopes have dropped away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And soon may barely leave the gleam<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That coldly scores a winter's day.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I am not young, I am not old;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The flush of morn, the sunset calm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Paling, and deepening, each to each,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Meet midway with a solemn charm.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">One side I see the summer fields<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Not yet disrobed of all their green;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While westerly, along the hills,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Flame the first tints of frosty sheen.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ah, middle-point, where cloud and storm<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Make battle-ground of this my life!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where, even-matched, the Night and Day<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wage round me their September strife!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I bow me to the threatening gale:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I know, when that is overpast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Among the peaceful harvest-days,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An Indian-summer comes at last!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_LEGEND_OF_MONTE_DEL_DIABLO" id="THE_LEGEND_OF_MONTE_DEL_DIABLO"></a>THE LEGEND OF MONTE DEL DIABLO.</h2> + + +<p>The cautious reader will detect a lack of authenticity in the following +pages, I am not a cautious reader myself, yet I confess with some +concern to the absence of much documentary evidence in support of the +singular incident I am about to relate. Disjointed memoranda, the +proceedings of <i>ayuntamientos</i> and early departmental <i>juntas</i>, with +other records of a primitive and superstitious people, have been my +inadequate authorities. It is but just to state, however, that, though +this particular story lacks corroboration, in ransacking the Spanish +archives of Upper California I have met with many more surprising and +incredible stories, attested and supported to a degree that would have +placed this legend beyond a cavil or doubt. I have, also, never lost +faith in the legend myself, and in so doing have profited much from the +examples of divers <a name="Page_483" id="Page_483"></a>grant-claimants, who have often jostled me in their +more practical researches, and who have my sincere sympathy at the +skepticism of a modern hard-headed and practical world.</p> + +<p>For many years after Father Junipero Serro first rang his bell in the +wilderness of Upper California, the spirit which animated that +adventurous priest did not wane. The conversion of the heathen went on +rapidly in the establishment of Missions throughout the land. So +sedulously did the good Fathers set about their work, that around their +isolated chapels there presently arose <i>adobe</i> huts, whose mud-plastered +and savage tenants partook regularly of the provisions, and occasionally +of the Sacrament, of their pious hosts. Nay, so great was their process, +that one zealous Padre is reported to have administered the Lord's +Supper one Sabbath morning to "over three hundred heathen Salvages." It +was not to be wondered that the Enemy of Souls, being greatly incensed +thereat, and alarmed at his decreasing popularity, should have +grievously tempted and embarrassed these Holy Fathers, as we shall +presently see.</p> + +<p>Yet they were happy, peaceful days for California. The vagrant keels of +prying Commerce had not, as yet, ruffled the lordly gravity of her bays. +No torn and ragged gulch betrayed the suspicion of golden treasure. The +wild oats drooped idly in the morning heat, or wrestled with the +afternoon breezes. Deer and antelope dotted the plain. The water-courses +brawled in their familiar channels, nor dreamed of ever shifting their +regular tide. The wonders of the Yo-Semite and Calaveras were as yet +unrecorded. The Holy Fathers noted little of the landscape beyond the +barbaric prodigality with which the quick soil repaid the sowing. A new +conversion, the advent of a Saint's day, or the baptism of an Indian +baby, was at once the chronicle and marvel of their day.</p> + +<p>At this blissful epoch, there lived, at the Mission of San Pablo, Father +José Antonio Haro, a worthy brother of the Society of Jesus. He was of +tall and cadaverous aspect. A somewhat romantic history had given a +poetic interest to his lugubrious visage. While a youth, pursuing his +studies at famous Salamanca, he had become enamored of the charms of +Doña Cármen de Torrencevara, as that lady passed to her matutinal +devotions. Untoward circumstances, hastened, perhaps, by a wealthier +suitor, brought this amour to a disastrous issue; and Father José +entered a monastery, taking upon himself the vows of celibacy. It was +here that his natural fervor and poetic enthusiasm conceived expression +as a missionary. A longing to convert the uncivilized heathen succeeded +his frivolous earthly passion, and a desire to explore and develop +unknown fastnesses continually possessed him. In his flashing eye and +sombre exterior was detected a singular commingling of the discreet Las +Casas and the impetuous Balboa.</p> + +<p>Fired by this pious zeal, Father José went forward in the van of +Christian pioneers. On reaching Mexico, he obtained authority to +establish the Mission of San Pablo. Like the good Junipero, accompanied +only by an acolyth and muleteer, he unsaddled his mules in a dusky +<i>cañon</i>, and rang his bell in the wilderness. The savages—a peaceful, +inoffensive, and inferior race—presently flocked around him. The +nearest military post was far away, which contributed much to the +security of these pious pilgrims, who found their open trustfulness and +amiability better fitted to repress hostility than the presence of an +armed, suspicious, and brawling soldiery. So the good Father José said +matins and prime, mass and vespers, in the heart of Sin and Heathenism, +taking no heed to himself, but looking only to the welfare of the Holy +Church. Conversions soon followed, and, on the 7th of July, 1760, the +first Indian baby was baptized,—an event which, as Father José piously +records, "exceeds the richnesse of gold or precious jewels or <a name="Page_484" id="Page_484"></a>the +chancing upon the Ophir of Solomon." I quote this incident as best +suited to show the ingenuous blending of poetry and piety which +distinguished Father José's record.</p> + +<p>The Mission of San Pablo progressed and prospered until the pious +founder thereof, like the infidel Alexander, might have wept that there +were no more heathen worlds to conquer. But his ardent and enthusiastic +spirit could not long brook an idleness that seemed begotten of sin; and +one pleasant August morning, in the year of grace 1770, Father José +issued from the outer court of the Mission building, equipped to explore +the field for new missionary labors.</p> + +<p>Nothing could exceed the quite gravity and unpretentiousness of the +little cavalcade. First rode a stout muleteer, leading a pack-mule laden +with the provisions of the party, together with a few cheap crucifixes +and hawks' bells. After him came the devout Padre José, bearing his +breviary and cross, with a black <i>serapa</i> thrown around his shoulders; +while on either side trotted a dusky convert, anxious to show a proper +sense of their regeneration by acting as guides into the wilds of their +heathen brethren. Their new condition was agreeably shown by the absence +of the usual mud-plaster, which in their unconverted state they assumed +to keep away vermin and cold. The morning was bright and propitious. +Before their departure, mass had been said in the chapel, and the +protection of St. Ignatius invoked against all contingent evils, but +especially against bears, which, like the fiery dragons of old, seemed +to cherish an unconquerable hostility to the Holy Church.</p> + +<p>As they wound through the <i>cañon</i>, charming birds disported upon boughs +and sprays, and sober quails piped from the alders; the willowy +water-courses gave a musical utterance, and the long grass whispered on +the hill-side. On entering the deeper defiles, above them towered dark +green masses of pine, and occasionally the <i>madroño</i> shook its bright +scarlet berries. As they toiled up many a steep ascent, Father José +sometimes picked up fragments of scoria, which spake to his imagination +of direful volcanoes and impending earthquakes. To the less scientific +mind of the muleteer Ignacio they had even a more terrifying +significance; and he once or twice snuffed the air suspiciously, and +declared that it smelt of sulphur. So the first day of their journey +wore away, and at night they encamped without having met a single +heathen face.</p> + +<p>It was on this night that the Enemy of Souls appeared to Ignacio in an +appalling form. He had retired to a secluded part of the camp, and had +sunk upon his knees in prayerful meditation, when he looked up and +perceived the Arch-Fiend in the likeness of a monstrous bear. The Evil +One was seated on his hind legs immediately before him, with his fore +paws joined together just below his black muzzle. Wisely conceiving this +remarkable attitude to be in mockery and derision of his devotions, the +worthy muleteer was transported with fury. Seizing an arquebuse, he +instantly closed his eyes and fired. When he had recovered from the +effects of the terrible discharge, the apparition had disappeared. +Father José, awakened by the report, reached the spot only in time to +chide the muleteer for wasting powder and ball in a contest with one +whom a single <i>ave</i> would have been sufficient to utterly discomfit. +What further reliance he placed on Ignacio's story is not known; but, in +commemoration of a worthy Californian custom, the place was called <i>La +Cañada de la Tentacion del Pio Muletero</i>, or "The Glen of the Temptation +of the Pious Muleteer," a name which it retains to this day.</p> + +<p>The next morning, the party, issuing from a narrow gorge, came upon a +long valley, sear and burnt with the shadeless heat. Its lower extremity +was lost in a fading line of low hills, which, gathering might and +volume toward the upper end of the valley, upheaved a stupendous bulwark +against the breezy North. The peak of this awful spur was <a name="Page_485" id="Page_485"></a>just touched +by a fleecy cloud that shifted to and fro like a banneret. Father José +gazed with mingled awe and admiration. By a singular coincidence, the +muleteer Ignacio uttered the simple ejaculation, "<i>Diablo</i>!"</p> + +<p>As they penetrated the valley, they soon began to miss the agreeable +life and companionable echoes of the <i>cañon</i> they had quitted. Huge +fissures in the parched soil seemed to gape as with thirsty mouths. A +few squirrels darted from the earth, and disappeared as mysteriously +before the jingling mules. A gray wolf trotted leisurely along just +ahead. But whichever way Father José turned, the mountain always +asserted itself and arrested his wandering eye. Out of the dry and arid +valley, it seemed to spring into cooler and bracing life. Deep cavernous +shadows dwelt along its base; rocky fastnesses appeared midway of its +elevation; and on either side huge black hills diverged like massy roots +from a central trunk. His lively fancy pictured these hills peopled with +a majestic and intelligent race of savages; and looking into futurity, +he already saw a monstrous cross crowning the dome-like summit. Far +different were the sensations of the muleteer, who saw in those awful +solitudes only fiery dragons, colossal bears, and break-neck trails. The +converts, Concepcion and Incarnation, trotting modestly beside the +Padre, recognized, perhaps, some manifestation of their former weird +mythology.</p> + +<p>At nightfall they reached the base of the mountain. Here Father José +unpacked his mules, said vespers, and, formally ringing his bell, called +upon the Gentiles within hearing to come and accept the Holy Faith. The +echoes of the black frowning hills around him caught up the pious +invitation, and repeated it at intervals; but no Gentiles appeared that +night. Nor were the devotions of the muleteer again disturbed, although +he afterward asserted, that, when the Father's exhortation was ended, a +mocking peal of laughter came from the mountain. Nothing daunted by +these intimations of the near hostility of the Evil One, Father José +declared his intention to ascend the mountain at early dawn; and before +the sun rose the next morning he was leading the way.</p> + +<p>The ascent was in many places difficult and dangerous. Huge fragments of +rock often lay across the trail, and after a few hours' climbing they +were forced to leave their mules in a little gully, and continue the +ascent afoot. Unaccustomed to such exertion, Father José often stopped +to wipe the perspiration from his thin cheeks. As the day wore on, a +strange silence oppressed them. Except the occasional pattering of a +squirrel, or a rustling in the <i>chimisal</i> bushes, there were no signs of +life. The half-human print of a bear's foot sometimes appeared before +them, at which Ignacio always crossed himself piously. The eye was +sometimes cheated by a dripping from the rocks, which on closer +inspection proved to be a resinous oily liquid with an abominable +sulphurous smell. When they were within a short distance of the summit, +the discreet Ignacio, selecting a sheltered nook for the camp, slipped +aside and busied himself in preparations for the evening, leaving the +Holy Father to continue the ascent alone. Never was there a more +thoughtless act of prudence, never a more imprudent piece of caution. +Without noticing the desertion, buried in pious reflection, Father José +pushed mechanically on, and, reaching the summit, cast himself down and +gazed upon the prospect.</p> + +<p>Below him lay a succession of valleys opening into each other like +gentle lakes, until they were lost to the southward. Westerly the +distant range hid the bosky <i>cañada</i> which sheltered the Mission of San +Pablo. In the farther distance the Pacific Ocean stretched away, bearing +a cloud of fog upon its bosom, which crept through the entrance of the +bay, and rolled thickly between him and the North. Eastward, the same +fog hid the base of the mountain and the view beyond. Still, from time +to time the fleecy veil <a name="Page_486" id="Page_486"></a>parted, and timidly disclosed charming glimpses +of mighty rivers, mountain-defiles, and rolling plains, sear with +ripened oats, and bathed in the glow of the setting sun. As Father José +gazed, he was penetrated with a pious longing. Already his imagination, +filled with enthusiastic conceptions, beheld all that vast expanse +gathered under the mild sway of the Holy Faith, and peopled with zealous +converts. Each little knoll in fancy became crowned with a chapel; from +each dark <i>cañon</i> gleamed the white walls of a Mission building. Growing +bolder in his enthusiasm, and looking farther into futurity, he beheld a +new Spain rising on these savage shores. He already saw the spires of +stately cathedrals, the domes of palaces, vineyards, gardens, and +groves. Convents, half-hid among the hills, peeped from plantation of +branching limes; and long processions of chanting nuns wound through the +defiles. So completely was the good Father's conception of the future +confounded with the past, that even in their choral strain the +well-remembered accents of Cármen struck his ear. He was busied in these +fanciful imaginings, when suddenly over that extended prospect the +faint, distant tolling of a bell rang sadly out and died. It was the +<i>Angelus</i>. Father José listened with superstitious exaltation. The +Mission of San Pablo was far away, and the sound must have been some +miraculous omen. But never before, to his enthusiastic sense, did the +sweet seriousness of this angelic symbol come with such strange +significance. With the last faint peal, his glowing fancy seemed to +cool; the fog closed in below him, and the good Father remembered he had +not had his supper. He had risen and was wrapping his <i>serapa</i> around +him, when he perceived for the first time that he was not alone.</p> + +<p>Nearly opposite, and where should have been the faithless Ignacio, a +grave and decorous figure was seated. His appearance was that of an +elderly <i>hidalgo</i>, dressed in mourning, with moustaches of iron-gray +carefully waxed and twisted around a pair of lantern-jaws. The monstrous +hat and prodigious feather, the enormous ruff and exaggerated +trunk-hose, contrasting with a frame shrivelled and wizened, all +belonged to a century previous. Yet Father José was not astonished. His +adventurous life and poetic imagination, continually on the look-out for +the marvellous, gave him a certain advantage over the practical and +material minded. He instantly detected the diabolical quality of his +visitant, and was prepared. With equal coolness and courtesy he met the +cavalier's obeisance.</p> + +<p>"I ask your pardon, Sir Priest," said the stranger, "for disturbing your +meditations. Pleasant they must have been, and right fanciful, I +imagine, when occasioned by so fair a prospect."</p> + +<p>"Worldly, perhaps, Sir Devil,—for such I take you to be," said the Holy +Father, as the stranger bowed his black plumes to the ground; "worldly, +perhaps; for it hath pleased Heaven to retain even in our regenerated +state much that pertaineth to the flesh, yet still, I trust, not without +some speculation for the welfare of the Holy Church. In dwelling upon +yon fair expanse, mine eyes have been graciously opened with prophetic +inspiration, and the promise of the heathen as an inheritance hath +marvellously recurred to me. For there can be none lack such diligence +in the True Faith, but may see that even the conversion of these pitiful +salvages hath a meaning. As the blessed St. Ignatius discreetly +observes," continued Father José, clearing his throat and slightly +elevating his voice, "'the heathen is given to the warriors of Christ, +even as the pearls of rare discovery which gladden the hearts of +shipmen.' Nay, I might say"—</p> + +<p>But here the stranger, who had been wrinkling his brows and twisting his +moustaches with well-bred patience, took advantage of an oratorical +pause to observe,—</p> + +<p>"It grieves me, Sir Priest, to interrupt the current of your eloquence +as discourteously as I have already broken <a name="Page_487" id="Page_487"></a>your meditations; but the +day already waneth to night. I have matter of serious import to make +with you, could I entreat your cautious consideration a few moments."</p> + +<p>Father José hesitated. The temptation was great, and the prospect of +acquiring some knowledge of the Great Enemy's plans not the least +trifling object. And if the truth must be told, there was a certain +decorum about the stranger that interested the Padre. Though well aware +of the Protean shapes the Arch-Fiend could assume, and though free from +the weaknesses of the flesh, Father José was not above the temptations +of the spirit. Had the Devil appeared, as in the case of the pious St. +Anthony, in the likeness of a comely damsel, the good Father, with his +certain experience of the deceitful sex, would have whisked her away in +the saying of a paternoster. But there was, added to the security of +age, a grave sadness about the stranger,—a thoughtful consciousness as +of being at a great moral disadvantage,—which at once decided him on a +magnanimous course of conduct.</p> + +<p>The stranger then proceeded to inform him, that he had been diligently +observing the Holy Father's triumphs in the valley. That, far from being +greatly exercised thereat, he had been only grieved to see so +enthusiastic and chivalrous an antagonist wasting his zeal in a hopeless +work. For, he observed, the issue of the great battle of Good and Evil +had been otherwise settled, as he would presently show him. "It wants +but a few moments of night," he continued, "and over this interval of +twilight, as you know, I have been given complete control. Look to the +West."</p> + +<p>As the Padre turned, the stranger took his enormous hat from his head, +and waved it three times before him. At each sweep of the prodigious +feather, the fog grew thinner, until it melted impalpably away, and the +former landscape returned, yet warm with the glowing sun. As Father José +gazed, a strain of martial music arose from the valley, and, issuing +from a deep <i>cañon</i>, the good Father beheld a long cavalcade of gallant +cavaliers, habited like his companion. As they swept down the plain, +they were joined by like processions, that slowly defiled from every +ravine and <i>cañon</i> of the mysterious mountain. From time to time the +peal of a trumpet swelled fitfully upon the breeze; the cross of +Santiago glittered, and the royal banners of Castile and Aragon waved +over the moving column. So they moved on solemnly toward the sea, where, +in the distance, Father José saw stately caravels, bearing the same +familiar banner, awaiting them. The good Padre gazed with conflicting +emotions, and the serious voice of the stranger broke the silence.</p> + +<p>"Thou hast beheld, Sir Priest, the fading footprints of adventurous +Castile. Thou hast seen the declining glory of old Spain,—declining as +yonder brilliant sun. The sceptre she hath wrested from the heathen is +fast dropping from her decrepit and fleshless grasp. The children she +hath fostered shall know her no longer. The soil she hath acquired shall +be lost to her as irrevocably as she herself hath thrust the Moor from +her own Granada."</p> + +<p>The stranger paused, and his voice seemed broken by emotion; at the same +time, Father José, whose sympathising heart yearned toward the departing +banners, cried, in poignant accents,—</p> + +<p>"Farewell, ye gallant cavaliers and Christian soldiers! Farewell, thou, +Nuñez de Balboa! thou, Alonzo de Ojeda! and thou, most venerable Las +Casas! Farewell, and may Heaven prosper still the seed ye left behind!"</p> + +<p>Then turning to the stranger, Father José beheld him gravely draw his +pocket-handkerchief from the basket-hilt of his rapier, and apply it +decorously to his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Pardon this weakness, Sir Priest," said the cavalier, apologetically; +"but these worthy gentlemen were ancient friends of mine, and have done +me many a delicate service,—much more, <a name="Page_488" id="Page_488"></a>perchance, than these poor +sables may signify," he added, with a grim gesture toward the mourning +suit he wore.</p> + +<p>Father José was too much preoccupied in reflection to notice the +equivocal nature of this tribute, and, after a few moments' silence, +said, as if continuing his thought,—</p> + +<p>"But the seed they have planted shall thrive and prosper on this +fruitful soil?"</p> + +<p>As if answering the interrogatory, the stranger turned to the opposite +direction, and, again waving his hat, said, in the same serious tone,—</p> + +<p>"Look to the East!"</p> + +<p>The Father turned, and, as the fog broke away before the waving plume, +he saw that the sun was rising. Issuing with its bright beams through +the passes of the snowy mountains beyond, appeared a strange and motley +crew. Instead of the dark and romantic visages of his last phantom +train, the Father beheld with strange concern the blue eyes and flaxen +hair of a Saxon race. In place of martial airs and musical utterance, +there rose upon the ear a strange din of harsh gutturals and singular +sibilation. Instead of the decorous tread and stately mien of the +cavaliers of the former vision, they came pushing, bustling, panting, +and swaggering. And as they passed, the good Father noticed that giant +trees were prostrated as with the breath of a tornado, and the bowels of +the earth were torn and rent as with a convulsion. And Father José +looked in vain for holy cross or Christian symbol; there was but one +that seemed an ensign, and he crossed himself with holy horror as he +perceived it bore the effigy of a bear!</p> + +<p>"Who are these swaggering Ishmaelites?" he asked, with something of +asperity in his tone.</p> + +<p>The stranger was gravely silent.</p> + +<p>"What do they here, with neither cross nor holy symbol?" he again +demanded.</p> + +<p>"Have you the courage to see, Sir Priest?" responded the stranger, +quietly.</p> + +<p>Father José felt his crucifix, as a lonely traveller might his rapier, +and assented.</p> + +<p>"Step under the shadow of my plume," said the stranger.</p> + +<p>Father José stepped beside him, and they instantly sank through the +earth.</p> + +<p>When he opened his eyes, which had remained closed in prayerful +meditation during his rapid descent, he found himself in a vast vault, +bespangled overhead with luminous points like the starred firmament. It +was also lighted by a yellow glow that seemed to proceed from a mighty +sea or lake that occupied the centre of the chamber. Around this +subterranean sea dusky figures flitted, bearing ladles filled with the +yellow fluid, which they had replenished from its depths. From this lake +diverging streams of the same mysterious flood penetrated like mighty +rivers the cavernous distance. As they walked by the banks of this +glittering Styx, Father José perceived how the liquid stream at certain +places became solid. The ground was strewn with glittering flakes. One +of these the Padre picked up and curiously examined. It was virgin gold.</p> + +<p>An expression of discomfiture overcast the good Father's face at this +discovery; but there was trace neither of malice nor satisfaction in the +stranger's air, which was still of serious and fateful contemplation. +When Father José recovered his equanimity, he said, bitterly,—</p> + +<p>"This, then, Sir Devil, is your work! This is your deceitful lure for +the weak souls of sinful nations! So would you replace the Christian +grace of holy Spain!"</p> + +<p>"This is what must be," returned the stranger, gloomily. "But listen, +Sir Priest. It lies with you to avert the issue for a time. Leave me +here in peace. Go back to Castile, and take with you your bells, your +images, and your missions. Continue here, and you only precipitate +results. Stay! promise me you will do this, and you shall not lack that +which will render your old age an ornament <a name="Page_489" id="Page_489"></a>and blessing"; and the +stranger motioned significantly to the lake.</p> + +<p>It was here, the legend discreetly relates, that the Devil showed—as he +always shows sooner or later—his cloven hoof. The worthy Padre, sorely +perplexed by his threefold vision, and, if the truth must be told, a +little nettled at this wresting away of the glory of holy Spanish +discovery, had shown some hesitation. But the unlucky bribe of the Enemy +of Souls touched his Castilian spirit. Starting back in deep disgust, he +brandished his crucifix in the face of the unmasked Fiend, and, in a +voice that made the dusky vault resound, cried,—</p> + +<p>"Avaunt thee, Sathanas! Diabolus, I defy thee! What! wouldst thou bribe +me,—me, a brother of the Sacred Society of the Holy Jesus, Licentiate +of Cordova and Inquisitor of Guadalaxara? Thinkest thou to buy me with +thy sordid treasure? Avaunt!"</p> + +<p>What might have been the issue of this rupture, and how complete might +have been the triumph of the Holy Father over the Arch-Fiend, who was +recoiling aghast at these sacred titles and the flourishing symbol, we +can never know, for at that moment the crucifix slipped through his +fingers.</p> + +<p>Scarcely had it touched the ground before Devil and Holy Father +simultaneously cast themselves toward it. In the struggle they clenched, +and the pious José, who was as much the superior of his antagonist in +bodily as in spiritual strength, was about to treat the Great Adversary +to a back somersault, when he suddenly felt the long nails of the +stranger piercing his flesh. A new fear seized his heart, a numbing +chillness crept through his body, and he struggled to free himself, but +in vain. A strange roaring was in his ears; the late and cavern danced +before his eyes and vanished; and with a loud cry he sank senseless to +the ground.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When he recovered his consciousness he was aware of a gentle swaying +motion of his body. He opened his eyes, and saw that it was high noon, +and that he was being carried in a litter through the valley. He felt +stiff, and, looking down, perceived that his arm was tightly bandaged to +his side.</p> + +<p>He closed his eyes, and, after a few words of thankful prayer, thought +how miraculously he had been preserved, and made a vow of candlesticks +to the blessed Saint José. He then called in a faint voice, and +presently the penitent Ignacio stood beside him.</p> + +<p>The joy the poor fellow felt at his patron's returning consciousness for +some time choked his utterance. He could only ejaculate, "A miracle! +Blessed Saint José, he lives!" and kiss the Padre's bandaged hand. +Father José, more intent on his last night's experience, waited for his +emotion to subside, and then asked where he had been found.</p> + +<p>"On the mountain, your Reverence, but a few <i>varas</i> from where he +attacked you."</p> + +<p>"How?—you saw him, then?" asked the Padre, in unfeigned astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Saw him, your Reverence! Mother of God, I should think I did! And your +Reverence shall see him too, if he ever comes again within range of +Ignacio's arquebuse."</p> + +<p>"What mean you, Ignacio?" said the Padre, sitting bolt-upright in his +litter.</p> + +<p>"Why, the bear, your Reverence,—the bear, Holy Father, who attacked +your worshipful person while you were meditating on the top of yonder +mountain."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said the Holy Father, lying down again. "Chut, child! I would be +at peace."</p> + +<p>When he reached the Mission, he was tenderly cared for, and in a few +weeks was enabled to resume those duties from which, as will be seen, +not even the machinations of the Evil One could divert him. The news of +his physical disaster spread over the country; and a letter to the +Bishop of Guadalaxara contained a confidential and detailed account of +the <a name="Page_490" id="Page_490"></a>good Father's spiritual temptation. But in some way the story +leaked out; and long after José was gathered to his fathers, his +mysterious encounter formed the theme of thrilling and whispered +narrative. The mountain was generally shunned. It is true that Señor +Joaquin Pedrillo afterward located a grant near the base of the +mountain; but as the Señora Pedrillo was known to be a termagant, +half-breed, the Señor was not supposed to be over-fastidious.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Such is the Legend of Monte del Diablo. As I said before, it may seem to +lack essential corroboration. The discrepancy between the Father's +narrative and the actual climax has given rise to some skepticism on the +part of ingenious quibblers. All such I would simply refer to that part +of the report of Señor Julio Serro, Sub-Prefect of San Pablo, before +whom attest of the above was made. Touching this matter the worthy +Prefect observes,—"That although the body of Father José doth show +evidence of grievous conflict in the flesh, yet that is no proof that +the Enemy of Souls, who could assume the figure of a decorous, elderly +<i>caballero</i>, could not at the same time transform himself into a bear +for his own vile purposes."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LIFE_WITHOUT_PRINCIPLE" id="LIFE_WITHOUT_PRINCIPLE"></a>LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE.</h2> + + +<p>At a lyceum, not long since, I felt that the lecturer had chosen a theme +too foreign to himself, and so failed to interest me as much as he might +have done. He described things not in or near to his heart, but toward +his extremities and superficies. There was, in this sense, no truly +central or centralizing thought in the lecture. I would have had him +deal with his privatest experience, as the poet does. The greatest +compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what <i>I thought</i>, +and attended to my answer. I am surprised, as well as delighted, when +this happens, it is such a rare use he would make of me, as if he were +acquainted with the tool. Commonly, if men want anything of me, it is +only to know how many acres I make of their land,—since I am a +surveyor,—or, at most, what trivial news I have burdened myself with. +They never will go to law for my meat; they prefer the shell. A man once +came a considerable distance to ask me to lecture on Slavery; but on +conversing with him, I found that he and his clique expected +seven-eighths of the lecture to be theirs, and only one-eighth mine; so +I declined. I take it for granted, when I am invited to lecture +anywhere,—for I have had a little experience in that business,—that +there is a desire to hear what <i>I think</i> on some subject, though I may +be the greatest fool in the country,—and not that I should say pleasant +things merely, or such as the audience will assent to; and I resolve, +accordingly, that I will give them a strong dose of myself. They have +sent for me, and engaged to pay for me, and I am determined that they +shall have me, though I bore them beyond all precedent.</p> + +<p>So now I would say something similar to you, my readers. Since <i>you</i> are +my readers, and I have, not been much of a traveller, I will not talk +about people a thousand miles off, but come as near home as I can. As +the time is short, I will leave out all the flattery, and retain all the +criticism.</p> + +<p>Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives.</p> + +<p>This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am awaked +almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It interrupts my +dreams.<a name="Page_491" id="Page_491"></a> There is no sabbath. It would be glorious to see mankind at +leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work. I cannot easily +buy a blank-book to write thoughts in; they are commonly ruled for +dollars and cents. An Irishman, seeing me making a minute in the fields, +took it for granted that I was calculating my wages. If a man was tossed +out of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for life, or +scared out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly because +he was thus incapacitated for—business! I think that there is nothing, +not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life +itself, than this incessant business.</p> + +<p>There is a coarse and boisterous money-making fellow in the outskirts of +our town, who is going to build a bank-wall under the hill along the +edge of his meadow. The powers have put this into his head to keep him +out of mischief, and he wishes me to spend three weeks digging there +with him. The result will be that he will perhaps get some more money to +hoard, and leave for his heirs to spend foolishly. If I do this, most +will commend me as an industrious and hard-working man; but if I choose +to devote myself to certain labors which yield more real profit, though +but little money, they may be inclined to look on me as an idler. +Nevertheless, as I do not need the police of meaningless labor to +regulate me, and do not see anything absolutely praise-worthy in this +fellow's undertaking, any more than in many an enterprise of our own or +foreign governments, however amusing it may be to him or them, I prefer +to finish my education at a different school.</p> + +<p>If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in +danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as +a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her +time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a +town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down!</p> + +<p>Most men would feel insulted, if it were proposed to employ them in +throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that +they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now. +For instance: just after sunrise, one summer morning, I noticed one of +my neighbors walking beside his team, which was slowly drawing a heavy +hewn stone swung under the axle, surrounded by an atmosphere of +industry,—his day's work begun,—his brow commenced to sweat,—a +reproach to all sluggards and idlers,—pausing abreast the shoulders of +his oxen, and half turning round with a flourish of his merciful whip, +while they gained their length on him. And I thought, Such is the labor +which the American Congress exists to protect,—honest, manly +toil,—honest as the day is long,—that makes his bread taste sweet, and +keeps society sweet,—which all men respect and have consecrated: one of +the sacred band, doing the needful, but irksome drudgery. Indeed, I felt +a slight reproach, because I observed this from the window, and was not +abroad and stirring about a similar business. The day went by, and at +evening I passed the yard of another neighbor, who keeps many servants, +and spends much money foolishly, while he adds nothing to the common +stock, and there I saw the stone of the morning lying beside a whimsical +structure intended to adorn this Lord Timothy Dexter's premises, and the +dignity forthwith departed from the teamster's labor, in my eyes. In my +opinion, the sun was made to light worthier toil than this. I may add, +that his employer has since run off, in debt to a good part of the town, +and, after passing through Chancery, has settled somewhere else, there +to become once more a patron of the arts.</p> + +<p>The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead +downward. To have done anything by which you earned money <i>merely</i> is to +have been truly idle or worse. If the laborer gets no more than the +wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself. If +you would get money as a <a name="Page_492" id="Page_492"></a>writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which +is to go down perpendicularly. Those services which the community will +most readily pay for it is most disagreeable to render. You are paid for +being something less than a man. The State does not commonly reward a +genius any more wisely. Even the poet-laureate would rather not have to +celebrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe of +wine; and perhaps another poet is called away from his muse to gauge +that very pipe. As for my own business, even that kind of surveying +which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want. They +would prefer that I should do my work coarsely and not too well, ay, not +well enough. When I observe that there are different ways of surveying, +my employer commonly asks which will give him the most land, not which +is most correct. I once invented a rule for measuring cord-wood, and +tried to introduce it in Boston; but the measurer there told me that the +sellers did not wish to have their wood measured correctly,—that he was +already too accurate for them, and therefore they commonly got their +wood measured in Charlestown before crossing the bridge.</p> + +<p>The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get "a good +job," but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary +sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that +they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a +livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a +man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.</p> + +<p>It is remarkable that there are few men so well employed, so much to +their minds, but that a little money or fame would commonly buy them off +from their present pursuit. I see advertisements for <i>active</i> young men; +as if activity were the whole of a young man's capital. Yet I have been +surprised when one has with confidence proposed to me, a grown man, to +embark in some enterprise of his, as if I had absolutely nothing to do, +my life having been a complete failure hitherto. What a doubtful +compliment this is to pay me! As if he had met me half-way across the +ocean beating up against the wind, but bound nowhere, and proposed to me +to go along with him! If I did, what do you think the underwriters would +say? No, no! I am not without employment at this stage of the voyage. To +tell the truth, I saw an advertisement for able-bodied seamen, when I +was a boy, sauntering in my native port, and as soon as I came of age I +embarked.</p> + +<p>The community has no bribe that wilt tempt a wise man. You may raise +money enough to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to +hire a man who is minding <i>his own</i> business. An efficient and valuable +man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The +inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are +forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they +were rarely disappointed.</p> + +<p>Perhaps I am more than usually jealous with respect to my freedom. I +feel that my connection with and obligation to society are still very +slight and transient. Those slight labors which afford me a livelihood, +and by which it is allowed that I am to some extent serviceable to my +contemporaries, are as yet commonly a pleasure to me, and I am not often +reminded that they are a necessity. So far I am successful. But I +foresee, that, if my wants should be much increased, the labor required +to supply them would become a drudgery. If I should sell both my +forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure, +that, for me, there would be nothing left worth living for. I trust that +I shall never thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage. I wish to +suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time +well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater +part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are +self-supporting.<a name="Page_493" id="Page_493"></a> The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his +poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it +makes. You must get your living by loving. But as it is said of the +merchants that ninety-seven in a hundred fail, so the life of men +generally, tried by this standard, is a failure, and bankruptcy may be +surely prophesied.</p> + +<p>Merely to come into the world the heir of a fortune is not to be born, +but to be still-born, rather. To be supported by the charity of friends, +or a government-pension,—provided you continue to breathe,—by whatever +fine synonymes you describe these relations, is to go into the +almshouse. On Sundays the poor debtor goes to church to take an account +of stock, and finds, of course, that his outgoes have been greater than +his income. In the Catholic Church, especially, they go into Chancery, +make a clean confession, give up all, and think to start again. Thus men +will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make +an effort to get up.</p> + +<p>As for the comparative demand which men make on life, it is an important +difference between two, that the one is satisfied with a level success, +that his marks can all be hit by point-blank shots, but the other, +however low and unsuccessful his life may be, constantly elevates his +aim, though at a very slight angle to the horizon. I should much rather +be the last man,—though, as the Orientals say, "Greatness doth not +approach him who is forever looking down; and all those who are looking +high are growing poor."</p> + +<p>It is remarkable that there is little or nothing to be remembered +written on the subject of getting a living: how to make getting a living +not merely honest and honorable, but altogether inviting and glorious; +for if <i>getting</i> a living is not so, then living is not. One would +think, from looking at literature, that this question had never +disturbed a solitary individual's musings. Is it that men are too much +disgusted with their experience to speak of it? The lesson of value +which money teaches, which the Author of the Universe has taken so much +pains to teach us, we are inclined to skip altogether. As for the means +of living, it is wonderful how indifferent men of all classes are about +it, even reformers, so called,—whether they inherit, or earn, or steal +it. I think that society has done nothing for us in this respect, or at +least has undone what she has done. Cold and hunger seem more friendly +to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to +ward them off.</p> + +<p>The title <i>wise</i> is, for the most part, falsely applied. How can one be +a wise man, if he does not know any better how to live than other +men?—if he is only more cunning and intellectually subtle? Does Wisdom +work in a tread-mill? or does she teach how to succeed <i>by her example</i>? +Is there any such thing as wisdom not applied to life? Is she merely the +miller who grinds the finest logic? It is pertinent to ask if Plato got +his <i>living</i> in a better way or more successfully than his +contemporaries,—or did he succumb to the difficulties of life like +other men? Did he seem to prevail over some of them merely by +indifference, or by assuming grand airs? or find it easier to live, +because his aunt remembered him in her will? The ways in which most men +get their living, that is, live, are mere make-shifts, and a shirking of +the real business of life,—chiefly because they do not know, but partly +because they do not mean, any better.</p> + +<p>The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely of +merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to +it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to +live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others +less lucky, without contributing any value to society! And that is +called enterprise! I know of no more startling development of the +immorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a living. The +philosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are not worth the +dust of a puff-ball. The hog that gets his <a name="Page_494" id="Page_494"></a>living by rooting, stirring +up the soil so, would be ashamed of such company. If I could command the +wealth of all the worlds by lifting my finger, I would not pay <i>such</i> a +price for it. Even Mahomet knew that God did not make this world in +jest. It makes God to be a moneyed gentleman who scatters a handful of +pennies in order to see mankind scramble for them. The world's raffle! A +subsistence in the domains of Nature a thing to be raffled for! What a +comment, what a satire on our institutions! The conclusion will be, that +mankind will hang itself upon a tree. And have all the precepts in all +the Bibles taught men only this? and is the last and most admirable +invention of the human race only an improved muck-rake? Is this the +ground on which Orientals and Occidentals meet? Did God direct us so to +get our living, digging where we never planted,—and He would, +perchance, reward us with lumps of gold?</p> + +<p>God gave the righteous man a certificate entitling him to food and +raiment, but the unrighteous man found a <i>facsimile</i> of the same in +God's coffers, and appropriated it, and obtained food and raiment like +the former. It is one of the most extensive systems of counterfeiting +that the world has seen. I did not know that mankind were suffering for +want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very +malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a +great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.</p> + +<p>The gold-digger in the ravines of the mountains is as much a gambler as +his fellow in the saloons of San Francisco. What difference does it +make, whether you shake dirt or shake dice? If you win, society is the +loser. The gold-digger is the enemy of the honest laborer, whatever +checks and compensations there may be. It is not enough to tell me that +you worked hard to get your gold. So does the Devil work hard. The way +of transgressors may be hard in many respects. The humblest observer who +goes to the mines sees and says that gold-digging is of the character of +a lottery; the gold thus obtained is not the same thing with the wages +of honest toil. But, practically, he forgets what he has seen, for he +has seen only the fact, not the principle, and goes into trade there, +that is, buys a ticket in what commonly proves another lottery, where +the fact is not so obvious.</p> + +<p>After reading Hewitt's account of the Australian gold-diggings one +evening, I had in my mind's eye, all night, the numerous valleys, with +their streams, all cut up with foul pits, from ten to one hundred feet +deep, and half a dozen feet across, as close as they can be dug, and +partly filled with water,—the locality to which men furiously rush to +probe for their fortunes,—uncertain where they shall break ground,—not +knowing but the gold is under their camp itself,—sometimes digging one +hundred and sixty feet before they strike the vein, or then missing it +by a foot,—turned into demons, and regardless of each other's rights, +in their thirst for riches,—whole valleys, for thirty miles, suddenly +honey-combed by the pits of the miners, so that even hundreds are +drowned in them,—standing in water, and covered with mud and clay, they +work night and day, dying of exposure and disease. Having read this, and +partly forgotten it, I was thinking, accidentally, of my own +unsatisfactory life, doing as others do; and with that vision of the +diggings still before me, I asked myself, why <i>I</i> might not be washing +some gold daily, though it were only the finest particles,—why <i>I</i> +might not sink a shaft down to the gold within me, and work that mine. +<i>There</i> is a Ballarat, a Bendigo for you,—what though it were a +sulky-gully? At any rate, I might pursue some path, however solitary and +narrow and crooked, in which I could walk with love and reverence. +Wherever a man separates from the multitude, and goes his own way in +this mood, there indeed is a fork in the road, though ordinary +travellers may see only a gap in the paling. His solitary path +across-lots will turn out the <i>higher way</i> of the two.</p><p><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495"></a></p> + +<p>Men rush to California and Australia as if the true gold were to be +found in that direction; but that is to go to the very opposite extreme +to where it lies. They go prospecting farther and farther away from the +true lead, and are most unfortunate when they think themselves most +successful. Is not our <i>native</i> soil auriferous? Does not a stream from +the golden mountains flow through our native valley? and has not this +for more than geologic ages been bringing down the shining particles and +forming the nuggets for us? Yet, strange to tell, if a digger steal +away, prospecting for this true gold, into the unexplored solitudes +around us, there is no danger that any will dog his steps, and endeavor +to supplant him. He may claim and undermine the whole valley even, both +the cultivated and the uncultivated portions, his whole life long in +peace, for no one will ever dispute his claim. They will not mind his +cradles or his toms. He is not confined to a claim twelve feet square, +as at Ballarat, but may mine anywhere, and wash the whole wide world in +his tom.</p> + +<p>Howitt says of the man who found the great nugget which weighed +twenty-eight pounds, at the Bendigo diggings in Australia:—"He soon +began to drink; got a horse, and rode all about, generally at full +gallop, and, when he met people, called out to inquire if they knew who +he was, and then kindly informed them that he was 'the bloody wretch +that had found the nugget.' At last he rode full speed against a tree, +and nearly knocked his brains out." I think, however, there was no +danger of that, for he had already knocked his brains out against the +nugget. Howitt adds, "He is a hopelessly ruined man." But he is a type +of the class. They are all fast men. Hear some of the names of the +places where they dig:—"Jackass Flat,"—"Sheep's-Head +Gully,"—"Murderer's Bar," etc. Is there no satire in these names? Let +them carry their ill-gotten wealth where they will, I am thinking it +will still be "Jackass Flat," if not "Murderer's Bar," where they live.</p> + +<p>The last resource of our energy has been the robbing of graveyards on +the Isthmus of Darien, an enterprise which appears to be but in its +infancy; for, according to late accounts, an act has passed its second +reading in the legislature of New Granada, regulating this kind of +mining; and a correspondent of the "Tribune" writes:—"In the dry +season, when the weather will permit of the country being properly +prospected, no doubt other rich '<i>guacas</i>' [that is, graveyards] will be +found." To emigrants he says:—"Do not come before December; take the +Isthmus route in preference to the Boca del Toro one; bring no useless +baggage, and do not cumber yourself with a tent; but a good pair of +blankets will be necessary; a pick, shovel, and axe of good material +will be almost all that is required": advice which might have been taken +from the "Burker's Guide." And he concludes with this line in Italics +and small capitals: "<i>If you are doing well at home</i>, STAY THERE," which +may fairly be interpreted to mean, "If you are getting a good living by +robbing graveyards at home, stay there."</p> + +<p>But why go to California for a text? She is the child of New England, +bred at her own school and church.</p> + +<p>It is remarkable that among all the preachers there are so few moral +teachers. The prophets are employed in excusing the ways of men. Most +reverend seniors, the <i>illuminati</i> of the age, tell me, with a gracious, +reminiscent smile, betwixt an aspiration and a shudder, not to be too +tender about these things,—to lump all that, that is, make a lump of +gold of it. The highest advice I have heard on these subjects was +grovelling. The burden of it was,—It is not worth your while to +undertake to reform the world in this particular. Do not ask how your +bread is buttered; it will make you sick, if you do,—and the like. A +man had better starve at once than lose his innocence in the process of +getting his bread. If within the sophisticated man there is not an +unsophisticated one, then he is but one of the Devil's angels. As <a name="Page_496" id="Page_496"></a>we +grow old, we live more coarsely, we relax a little in our disciplines, +and, to some extent, cease to obey our finest instincts. But we should +be fastidious to the extreme of sanity, disregarding the gibes of those +who are more unfortunate than ourselves.</p> + +<p>In our science and philosophy, even, there is commonly no true and +absolute account of things. The spirit of sect and bigotry has planted +its hoof amid the stars. You have only to discuss the problem, whether +the stars are inhabited or not, in order to discover it. Why must we +daub the heavens as well as the earth? It was an unfortunate discovery +that Dr. Kane was a Mason, and that Sir John Franklin was another. But +it was a more cruel suggestion that possibly that was the reason why the +former went in search of the latter. There is not a popular magazine in +this country that would dare to print a child's thought on important +subjects without comment. It must be submitted to the D.D.s. I would it +were the chickadee-dees.</p> + +<p>You come from attending the funeral of mankind to attend to a natural +phenomenon. A little thought is sexton to all the world.</p> + +<p>I hardly know an <i>intellectual</i> man, even, who is so broad and truly +liberal that you can think aloud in his society. Most with whom you +endeavor to talk soon come to a stand against some institution in which +they appear to hold stock,—that is, some particular, not universal, way +of viewing things. They will continually thrust their own low roof, with +its narrow skylight, between you and the sky, when it is the +unobstructed heavens you would view. Get out of the way with your +cobwebs, wash your windows, I say! In some lyceums they tell me that +they have voted to exclude the subject of religion. But how do I know +what their religion is, and when I am near to or far from it? I have +walked into such an arena and done my best to make a clean breast of +what religion I have experienced, and the audience never suspected what +I was about. The lecture was as harmless as moonshine to them. Whereas, +if I had read to them the biography of the greatest scamps in history, +they might have thought that I had written the lives of the deacons of +their church. Ordinarily, the inquiry is, Where did you come from? or, +Where are you going? That was a more pertinent question which I +overheard one of my auditors put to another once.—"What does he lecture +for?" It made me quake in my shoes.</p> + +<p>To speak impartially, the best men that I know are not serene, a world +in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, and flatter and +study effect only more finely than the rest. We select granite for the +underpinning of our houses and barns; we build fences of stone; but we +do not ourselves rest on an underpinning of granitic truth, the lowest +primitive rock. Our sills are rotten. What stuff is the man made of who +is not coexistent in our thought with the purest and subtilest truth? I +often accuse my finest acquaintances of an immense frivolity; for, while +there are manners and compliments we do not meet, we do not teach one +another the lessons of honesty and sincerity that the brutes do, or of +steadiness and solidity that the rocks do. The fault is commonly mutual, +however; for we do not habitually demand any more of each other.</p> + +<p>That excitement about Kossuth, consider how characteristic, but +superficial, it was!—only another kind of politics or dancing. Men were +making speeches to him all over the country, but each expressed only the +thought, or the want of thought, of the multitude. No man stood on +truth. They were merely banded together, as usual, one leaning on +another, and all together on nothing; as the Hindoos made the world rest +on an elephant, the elephant on a tortoise, and the tortoise on a +serpent, and had nothing to put under the serpent. For all fruit of that +stir we have the Kossuth hat.</p> + +<p>Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary +conversation.<a name="Page_497" id="Page_497"></a> Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward +and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a +man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or +been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference +between us and our fellow is, that he has seen the newspaper, or been +out to tea, and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails, we +go more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend on +it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of +letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from +himself this long while.</p> + +<p>I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have +tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt +in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so +much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day's +devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.</p> + +<p>We may well be ashamed to tell what things we have read or heard in our +day. I do not know why my news should be so trivial,—considering what +one's dreams and expectations are, why the developments should be so +paltry. The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius. +It is the stalest repetition. You are often tempted to ask, why such +stress is laid on a particular experience which you have had,—that, +after twenty-five years, you should meet Hobbins Registrar of Deeds, +again on the sidewalk. Have you not budged an inch, then? Such is the +daily news. Its facts appear to float in the atmosphere, insignificant +as the sporules of fungi, and impinge on some neglected <i>thallus</i>, or +surface of our minds, which affords a basis for them, and hence a +parasitic growth. We should wash ourselves clean of such news. Of what +consequence, though our planet explode, if there is no character +involved in the explosion? In health we have not the least curiosity +about such events. We do not live for idle amusement. I would not run +round a corner to see the world blow up.</p> + +<p>All summer, and far into the autumn, perchance, you unconsciously went +by the newspapers and the news, and now you find it was because the +morning and the evening were full of news to you. Your walks were full +of incidents. You attended, not to the affairs of Europe, but to your +own affairs in Massachusetts fields. If you chance to live and move and +have your being in that thin stratum in which the events that make the +news transpire,—thinner than the paper on which it is printed,—then +these things will fill the world for you; but if you soar above or dive +below that plane, you cannot remember nor be reminded of them. Really to +see the sun rise or go down every day, so to relate ourselves to a +universal fact, would preserve us sane forever. Nations! What are +nations? Tartars, and Huns, and Chinamen! Like insects, they swarm. The +historian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of a +man that there are so many men. It is individuals that populate the +world. Any man thinking may say with the Spirit of Lodin,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I look down from my height on nations,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they become ashes before me;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Calm is my dwelling in the clouds;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pleasant are the great fields of my rest."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Pray, let us live without being drawn by dogs, Esquimaux-fashion, +tearing over hill and dale, and biting each other's ears.</p> + +<p>Not without a slight shudder at the danger, I often perceive how near I +had come to admitting into my mind the details of some trivial +affair,—the news of the street; and I am astonished to observe how +willing men are to lumber their minds with such rubbish,—to permit idle +rumors and incidents of the most insignificant kind to intrude on ground +which should be sacred to thought. Shall the mind be a public arena, +where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table chiefly +are discussed? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself,—an hypæthral +temple, consecrated to the service <a name="Page_498" id="Page_498"></a>of the gods? I find it so difficult +to dispose of the few facts which to me are significant, that I hesitate +to burden my attention with those which are insignificant, which only a +divine mind could illustrate. Such is, for the most part, the news in +newspapers and conversation. It is important to preserve the mind's +chastity in this respect. Think of admitting the details of a single +case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through +their very <i>sanctum sanctorum</i> for an hour, ay, for many hours! to make +a very bar-room of the mind's inmost apartment, as if for so long the +dust of the street had occupied us,—the very street itself, with all +its travel, its bustle, and filth had passed through our thoughts' +shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide? When I have +been compelled to sit spectator and auditor in a court-room for some +hours, and have seen my neighbors, who were not compelled, stealing in +from time to time, and tiptoeing about with washed hands and faces, it +has appeared to my mind's eye, that, when they took off their hats, +their ears suddenly expanded into vast hoppers for sound, between which +even their narrow heads were crowded. Like the vanes of windmills, they +caught the broad, but shallow stream of sound, which, after a few +titillating gyrations in their coggy brains, passed out the other side. +I wondered if, when they got home, they were as careful to wash their +ears as before their hands and faces. It has seemed to me, at such a +time, that the auditors and the witnesses, the jury and the counsel, the +judge and the criminal at the bar,—if I may presume him guilty before +he is convicted,—were all equally criminal, and a thunderbolt might be +expected to descend and consume them all together.</p> + +<p>By all kinds of traps and sign-boards, threatening the extreme penalty +of the divine law, exclude such trespassers from the only ground which +can be sacred to you. It is so hard to forget what it is worse than +useless to remember! If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be +of the mountain-brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town-sewers. +There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the +attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale +revelation of the bar-room and the police court. The same ear is fitted +to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer +determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed. I believe +that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to +trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with +triviality. Our very intellect shall be macadamized, as it were,—its +foundation broken into fragments for the wheels of travel to roll over; +and if you would know what will make the most durable pavement, +surpassing rolled stones, spruce blocks, and asphaltum, you have only to +look into some of our minds which have been subjected to this treatment +so long.</p> + +<p>If we have thus desecrated ourselves,—as who has not?—the remedy will +be by wariness and devotion to reconsecrate ourselves, and make once +more a fane of the mind. We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, +as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are, and be +careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention. +Read not the Times. Read the Eternities. Conventionalities are at length +as bad as impurities. Even the facts of science may dust the mind by +their dryness, unless they are in a sense effaced each morning, or +rather rendered fertile by the dews of fresh and living truth. Knowledge +does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven. +Yes, every thought that passes through the mind helps to wear and tear +it, and to deepen the ruts, which, as in the streets of Pompeii, evince +how much it has been used. How many things there are concerning which we +might well deliberate, whether we had better know them,—had better let +their peddling-carts be driven, even at the slowest trot or walk, over +that bridge of glorious span by which we trust to <a name="Page_499" id="Page_499"></a>pass at last from the +farthest brink of time to the nearest shore of eternity! Have we no +culture, no refinement,—but skill only to live coarsely and serve the +Devil?—to acquire a little worldly wealth, or fame, or liberty, and +make a false show with it, as if we were all husk and shell, with no +tender and living kernel to us? Shall our institutions be like those +chestnut-burs which contain abortive nuts, perfect only to prick the +fingers?</p> + +<p>America is said to be the arena on which the battle of freedom is to be +fought; but surely it cannot be freedom in a merely political sense that +is meant. Even if we grant that the American has freed himself from a +political tyrant, he is still the slave of an economical and moral +tyrant. Now that the republic—the <i>res-publica</i>—has been settled, it +is time to look after the <i>res-privata</i>,—the private state,—to see, as +the Roman senate charged its consuls, "<i>ne quid res-PRIVATA detrimenti +caperet</i>," that the <i>private</i> state receive no detriment.</p> + +<p>Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King +George and continue the slaves of King Prejudice? What is it to be born +free and not to live free? What is the value of any political freedom, +but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves, or a +freedom to be free, of which we boast? We are a nation of politicians, +concerned about the outmost defences only of freedom. It is our +children's children who may perchance be really free. We tax ourselves +unjustly. There is a part of us which is not represented. It is taxation +without representation. We quarter troops, we quarter fools and cattle +of all sorts upon ourselves. We quarter our gross bodies on our poor +souls, till the former eat up all the latter's substance.</p> + +<p>With respect to a true culture and manhood, we are essentially +provincial still, not metropolitan,—mere Jonathans. We are provincial, +because we do not find at home our standards,—because we do not worship +truth, but the reflection of truth,—because we are warped and narrowed +by an exclusive devotion to trade and commerce and manufactures and +agriculture and the like, which are but means, and not the end.</p> + +<p>So is the English Parliament provincial. Mere country-bumpkins, they +betray themselves, when any more important question arises for them to +settle, the Irish question, for instance,—the English question why did +I not say? Their natures are subdued to what they work in. Their "good +breeding" respects only secondary objects. The finest manners in the +world are awkwardness and fatuity, when contrasted with a finer +intelligence. They appear but as the fashions of past days,—mere +courtliness, knee-buckles and small-clothes, out of date. It is the +vice, but not the excellence of manners, that they are continually being +deserted by the character; they are cast-off clothes or shells, claiming +the respect which belonged to the living creature. You are presented +with the shells instead of the meat, and it is no excuse generally, +that, in the case of some fishes, the shells are of more worth than the +meat. The man who thrusts his manners upon me does as if he were to +insist on introducing me to his cabinet of curiosities, when I wished to +see himself. It was not in this sense that the poet Decker called Christ +"the first true gentleman that ever breathed." I repeat that in this +sense the most splendid court in Christendom is provincial, having +authority to consult about Trans-alpine interests only, and not the +affairs of Rome. A prætor or proconsul would suffice to settle the +questions which absorb the attention of the English Parliament and the +American Congress.</p> + +<p>Government and legislation! these I thought were respectable +professions. We have heard of heaven-born Numas, Lycurguses, and Solons, +in the history of the world, whose <i>names</i> at least may stand for ideal +legislators; but think of legislating to <i>regulate</i> the breeding of +slaves, or the exportation of tobacco! What have divine legislators to +do with <a name="Page_500" id="Page_500"></a>the exportation or the importation of tobacco? what humane ones +with the breeding of slaves? Suppose you were to submit the question to +any son of God,—and has He no children in the nineteenth century? is it +a family which is extinct?—in what condition would you get it again? +What shall a State like Virginia say for itself at the last day, in +which these have been the principal, the staple productions? What ground +is there for patriotism in such a State? I derive my facts from +statistical tables which the States themselves have published.</p> + +<p>A commerce that whitens every sea in quest of nuts and raisins, and +makes slaves of its sailors for this purpose! I saw, the other day, a +vessel which had been wrecked, and many lives lost, and her cargo of +rags, juniper-berries, and bitter almonds were strewn along the shore. +It seemed hardly worth the while to tempt the dangers of the sea between +Leghorn and New York for the sake of a cargo of juniper-berries and +bitter almonds. America sending to the Old World for her bitters! Is not +the sea-brine, is not shipwreck, bitter enough to make the cup of life +go down here? Yet such, to a great extent, is our boasted commerce; and +there are those who style themselves statesmen and philosophers who are +so blind as to think that progress and civilization depend on precisely +this kind of interchange and activity,—the activity of flies about a +molasses-hogshead. Very well, observes one, if men were oysters. And +very well, answer I, if men were mosquitoes.</p> + +<p>Lieutenant Herndon, whom our Government sent to explore the Amazon, and, +it is said, to extend the area of Slavery, observed that there was +wanting there "an industrious and active population, who know what the +comforts of life are, and who have artificial wants to draw out the +great resources of the country." But what are the "artificial wants" to +be encouraged? Not the love of luxuries, like the tobacco and slaves of, +I believe, his native Virginia, nor the ice and granite and other +material wealth of our native New England; nor are "the great resources +of a country" that fertility or barrenness of soil which produces these. +The chief want, in every State that I have been into, was a high and +earnest purpose in its inhabitants. This alone draws out "the great +resources" of Nature, and at, last taxes her beyond her resources; for +man naturally dies out of her. When we want culture more than potatoes, +and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a +world are taxed and drawn out, and the result, or staple production, is, +not slaves, nor operatives, but men,—those rare fruits called heroes, +saints, poets, philosophers, and redeemers.</p> + +<p>In short, as a snow-drift is formed where there is a lull in the wind, +so, one would say, where there is a lull of truth, an institution +springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at +length blows it down.</p> + +<p>What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and +inhuman, that, practically, I have never fairly recognized that it +concerns me at all. The newspapers, I perceive, devote some of their +columns specially to politics or government without charge; and this, +one would say, is all that saves it; but, as I love literature, and to +some extent, the truth also, I never read those columns at any rate. I +do not wish to blunt my sense of right so much. I have not got to answer +for having read a single President's Message. A strange age of the world +this, when empires, kingdoms, and republics come a-begging to a private +man's door, and utter their complaints at his elbow! I cannot take up a +newspaper but I find that some wretched government or other, hard +pushed, and on its last legs, is interceding with me, the reader, to +vote for it,—mere importunate than an Italian beggar; and if I have a +mind to look at its certificate, made, perchance, by some benevolent +merchant's clerk, or the skipper that brought it over, for it cannot +speak a <a name="Page_501" id="Page_501"></a>word of English itself, I shall probably read of the eruption +of some Vesuvius, or the overflowing of some Po, true or forged, which +brought it into this condition. I do not hesitate, in such a case, to +suggest work, or the almshouse; or why not keep its castle in silence, +as I do commonly? The poor President, what with preserving his +popularity and doing his duty, is completely bewildered. The newspapers +are the ruling power. Any other government is reduced to a few marines +at Fort Independence. If a man neglects to read the Daily Times, +Government will go down on its knees to him, for this is the only +treason in these days.</p> + +<p>Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and +the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, +but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions +of the physical body. They are <i>infra</i>-human, a kind of vegetation. I +sometimes awake to a half-consciousness of them going on about me, as a +man may become conscious of some of the processes of digestion in a +morbid state, and so have the dyspepsia, as it is called. It is as if a +thinker submitted himself to be rasped by the great gizzard of creation. +Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit and +gravel, and the two political parties are its two opposite +halves,—sometimes split into quarters, it may be, which grind on each +other. Not only individuals, but States, have thus a confirmed +dyspepsia, which expresses itself, you can imagine by what sort of +eloquence. Thus our life is not altogether a forgetting, but also, alas! +to a great extent, a remembering of that which we should never have been +conscious of, certainly not in our waking hours. Why should we not meet, +not always as dyspeptics, to tell our bad dreams, but sometimes as +<i>eu</i>peptics, to congratulate each other on the ever glorious morning? I +do not make an exorbitant demand, surely.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BARBARA_FRIETCHIE" id="BARBARA_FRIETCHIE"></a>BARBARA FRIETCHIE.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Up from the meadows rich with corn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clear in the cool September morn,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The clustered spires of Frederick stand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Round about them orchards sweep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Apple- and peach-tree fruited deep,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Fair as a garden of the Lord<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">On that pleasant morn of the early fall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When Lee marched over the mountain-wall,—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Over the mountains winding down,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Horse and foot, into Frederick town.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Forty flags with their silver stars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forty flags with their crimson bars,<br /></span><p><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502"></a></p> +<span class="i0">Flapped in the morning wind: the sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of noon looked down, and saw not one.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Bravest of all in Frederick town,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She took up the flag the men hauled down;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In her attic-window the staff she set,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To show that one heart was loyal yet.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Up the street came the rebel tread,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Under his slouched hat left and right<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He glanced: the old flag met his sight.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Halt!"—the dust-brown ranks stood fast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Fire!"—out blazed the rifle-blast.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It shivered the window, pane and sash;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It rent the banner with seam and gash.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">She leaned far out on the window-sill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And shook it forth with a royal will.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But spare your country's flag," she said.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over the face of the leader came;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The nobler nature within him stirred<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To life at that woman's deed and word:<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Who touches a hair of yon gray head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dies like a dog! March on!" he said.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All day long through Frederick street<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sounded the tread of marching feet:<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All day long that free flag tossed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over the heads of the rebel host.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ever its torn folds rose and fell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the loyal winds that loved it well;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And through the hill-gaps sunset light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shone over it with a warm good-night.<br /></span><p><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503"></a></p> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the Rebel rides on his raids no more.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Honor to her! and let a tear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Over Barbara Frietchie's grave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Peace and order and beauty draw<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round thy symbol of light and law;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And ever the stars above look down<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On thy stars below in Frederick town!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="A_LETTER_TO_THOMAS_CARLYLE" id="A_LETTER_TO_THOMAS_CARLYLE"></a>A LETTER TO THOMAS CARLYLE.</h2> + + +<p>SIR,—You have Homered it of late in a small way, one sees. You profess +to sing the purport of our national struggle. "South chooses to hire its +servants for life, rather than by the day, month, or year; North +bludgeons the Southern brain to prevent the same": that, you say, is the +American Iliad in a Nutshell. In a certain sense, more's the pity, it +must be supposed that you speak correctly; but be assured that this is +the American Iliad in no other nutshell than your private one,—in those +too contracted cerebral quarters to which, with respect to our matters, +your powerful intelligence, under such prolonged and pitiless extremes +of dogmatic compression, has at last got reduced.</p> + +<p>Seriously, not in any trivial wilfulness of retort, I accuse you of a +narrowness and pettiness of understanding with regard to America. Give +me leave to "wrestle a fall" with you on this theme. And as I can with +but twoscore years match your threescore and five, let me entreat of +your courtesy to set that circumstance aside, and to constitute me, for +the nonce, your equal in age and privilege of speech. For I must wrestle +to-day in earnest!</p> + +<p>You are a great nature, a great writer, and a man of piercing intellect: +he is a jack or a dunce that denies it. But of you, more than of most +men at all your equals in intellectual resource, it may be said that +yours is not a spherical or universal, but a special and linear +intelligence,—of great human depth and richness, but special +nevertheless. Of a particular order of truths you are an incomparable +champion; but always you are the champion and on the field, always your +genius has its visor down, and glares through a loop-hole with +straitened intentness of vision. A particular sort of errors and +falsities you can track with the scent of a blood-hound, and with a +speed and bottom not surpassed, if equalled; but the Destinies have put +the nose of your genius to the ground, and sent it off for good and all +upon a particular trail. You sound, indeed, before your encounter, such +a thrilling war-note as turns the cripple's crutch to an imaginary +lance; you open on your quarry with such a cry as kindles a huntsman's +heart beneath the bosoms of nursing mothers. No living writer possesses +the like fascination. Yet, in truth, we should all have tired of your +narrow stringency <a name="Page_504" id="Page_504"></a>long ago, did there not run in the veins of your +genius so rich and ruddy a human blood. The profoundness of your +interest in man, and the masterly way in which you grasp character, give +to your thought an inner quality of centrality and wholeness, despite +the dogmatic partiality of its shaping at your hands. And so your +enticement continues, intensely partial though it be.</p> + +<p>Continues,—but with growing protest, and growing ground for it. For, to +speak the truth, by your kind permission, without reserve, you are +beginning to suffer from yourself. You are threatening to perish of too +much Thomas Carlyle, I venture to caution you against that tremendous +individual. He is subduing your genius to his own special humors; he is +alloying your mental activity, to a fearful degree, with dogmatic +prepossession; he is making you an intellectual <i>routinier</i>, causing +thereby an infiltration of that impurity of which all routine at last +dies. For years we that love you most have seen that you were ceasing +more and more to hold open, fresh relations with truth,—that you were +straitening and hardening into the linear, rigid eagerness of the mere +propagandist. You have, if I may so speak, been turning all your +front-head into back-head, giving to your cerebral powers the characters +of preappointed, automatic action, which are proper to the cerebellum. +It cannot be denied that you have thus acquired a remarkable, +machine-like simplicity, force, and constancy of mental action,—your +brain-wheels spinning away with such a steam-engine whirr as one cannot +but admire; but, on the other hand, as was inevitable, you have become +astonishingly insensitive to all truths, save those with which you are +established in organic connection; nor could the products of Manchester +mills be bargained for beforehand with more certainty than the results +of your intellectual activity. You can be silent,—I venture to assert +so much; but if you speak at all, we know perfectly well what +description of fabric <i>must</i> come from your loom.</p> + +<p>It does not, therefore, surprise us, does not clash with our sense of +your native greatness, that for our particular Iliad you prove a very +nutshell Homer indeed. For I must not disguise it from you that this is +exactly the case. It was <i>Homerus in nuce</i> first; and the pitiful +purport of the epic results less from any smallness in the action +celebrated than from that important law, not, perhaps, wholly new to +your own observation, which forbids a pint-measure to contain more than +a pint, though you dip it full from the ocean itself.</p> + +<p>You are great, but not towards us Americans. Towards us you are little +and insignificant and superfluous. Your eyes, though of wondrous +efficacy in their way, blink in our atmosphere like those of an owl in +broad sunlight; and if you come flying here, it is the privilege of the +smallest birds—of which you are quite at liberty to esteem me one—to +pester you back into your medieval twilight.</p> + +<p>Shall I try to tell you why you can have no right to judge us and our +affairs? By your leave, then, and briefly.</p> + +<p>There is a spiritual nature of man, which is ever and everywhere the +same; and, through the necessary presence of this in every human being, +there is a common sense and a common conscience, which make each man one +with all others. Here in America we are seeking to give the force of +political sovereignty to this common and unitive nature,—assuming that +all political problems are at last questions of simple justice, courage, +good sense, and fellow-feeling, which any sound heart and healthy +intelligence may appreciate.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, there is the truth of spiritual Rank or Degree,—that +one man may be immensely superior in human quality to another. This is +the truth that is most powerfully present to your mind, and you would +constitute government strictly, if not solely, in the light of it. To +this you are impelled by the peculiar quality of your genius, which is +so purely <i>biographical</i>, so inevitably <a name="Page_505" id="Page_505"></a>drawn to special personalities, +that you can hardly conceive of history otherwise than as a record of +personal influence.</p> + +<p>We assume, then, as a basis, common sense; you, uncommon sense. We +assume Unity or Identity; you assume Difference, and seek to +reconstitute unity only through mastership on the one hand and reverent +obedience on the other. We do not deny Difference; we recognize the +truth of spiritual Degree; we merely <i>elect the common element as the +material out of which to constitute, and the force by which to operate, +the State.</i></p> + +<p>Now my judgment is, that either the truth of a common Manhood or the +truth of spiritual Rank may be made primary in a State, and that with +admirable results, provided it be duly allied and tempered with its +opposite. For these opposites I hold to be correlative and polaric, each +required by the other. But chasm is worse than indistinction; and he +that breaks the circle of human fellowship is more mischievous than he +who blurs the hues of gradation.</p> + +<p>I affirm, then, that America has a grand spiritual fact at the base of +her political system. But you are the prophet of an opposite order of +truths. And you are so intensely the partisan of your pole, that you +have not a moment's patience with anything else, above all with an +opposite partiality. And wanting sympathy and patience with it, you +equally want apprehension of its meaning.</p> + +<p>But this is not all. An awful shadow accompanies the brilliant day of +your genius. That dark humor of yours, that woful demon from whose +companionship, by the law of your existence, you cannot be free, tolls +funeral-bells and chants the dirges of death in your ears forever. What +your faith does not take with warmth to its bosom it must spurn +violently away; where you cannot hope strongly, you must vehemently +despair; what your genius does not illumine to your heart it must bury +as in shadows of eternal night. It being, therefore, of the nature of +your mind to shine powerfully on the eminences of mankind, it became in +consequence no less its nature to call up over the broad levels a black +fog that even its own eye could not penetrate. Thus with you, if I +understand you rightly, the <i>common</i> and the <i>fateful</i> are nearly one +and the same; the Good is to you an exceptional energy which struggles +up from the level forces of the universe. Is not your conception of +human existence nearly this: a perpetual waste deluge, and here and +there some Noah in his ark above it?</p> + +<p>There is noble truth to be seen from this point of view,—truth to which +America also will have to attend. But being intensely limited to this +sole point of view, you are <i>utterly</i> without eye for the whole +significance of our national life. You are not only <i>at</i> the opposite +pole from us, but your whole heart and intelligence are <i>included in</i> +the currents of that polaric opposition.</p> + +<p>Still further. I think, that, having made out its scheme of thought, +your mind soon contracts a positive demand <i>even for the evil +conditions</i> which, in your estimation, made that scheme necessary. To +illustrate. A man is roused at night, and sent flying for a physician in +some sudden and terrible emergency. He returns, broken-winded, to learn +that it was altogether a false alarm. It is quite possible that his +first emotion, on receiving this intelligence, will not be pleasure, but +indignation; he may feel that somebody ought to <i>be</i> sick, since he has +been at such pains. Pardon me, if I think your position not wholly +dissimilar. It seems to me to have become an imperative requisition of +your mind that nine-tenths of mankind should be fools. They <i>must</i> be +so; else you have no place for them in your system, and know not what to +do with them. As fools, you have full arrangements made for their +accommodation. Some hero, some born ruler of men, is to come forth (out +of your books) and reduce them to obedience, and lord it over them in a +most useful manner. But if they will not be fools, if they +contumaciously refuse to be fools, they disturb the necessary +<a name="Page_506" id="Page_506"></a>conditions of kingship, and, of course, deserve much reprobation. I do +not, therefore, feel myself unjust to you in saying, that, the better +the American people behave, <i>in consistency with their political +traditions and customary modes of thought</i>, the less you are able to be +pleased with them. If they demean themselves as fools and incapables, +(as they sometimes do,) they bring grist to your mill; but if they show +wisdom, courage, and constancy, they leave you to stand at your +mill-doors and grumble for want of toll,—as in the nutshell-epic +aforesaid.</p> + +<p>Well, there are many foolish and some wise, and I, for one, could +heartily wish both classes more justly placed; for he who styles me an +extreme intrepid democrat pays me a compliment to which I have no claim. +While, then, by "kingship" you meant something human and noble, while I +could deem the command you coveted for strong and wise men to be +somewhat which should <i>lift the weak and unwise above the range of their +own force and intelligence</i>, I held your prophesying in high esteem, and +readily pardoned any excesses of expression into which your prophetic +<i>afflatus</i> (being Scotch) might betray you.</p> + +<p>But your appetite for kingship seems to have gained in strength while it +lost in delicacy and moral significance, till it has become an +insatiable craving, which disdains not to batten on very vile garbage. +If one rule, and another be ruled, and if the domination be open, frank, +and vigorous, you seem to feast on the fact, be this domination as +selfish in its nature and as brutal in its form as it may. Whether its +aim be to uplift or to degrade its subjects, whether it be clean or +filthy, of heaven or of hell, a stress of generous purpose or a mere +emphasis of egotism,—what pause do you make to inquire concerning this? +The appearance is, that any sovereignty, in these democratic days, is +over-welcome to your hunger to admit of pause; and a rule, whose +undisguised aim is, not to supplement the strength of the weak, but to +pillage them of its product, not to lend the ignorant a wisdom above +their own, but to make their ignorance perpetual as a source of +pecuniary profit to their masters, may reckon upon your succors whenever +succors are needed.</p> + +<p>Hence your patronage of our slavery. Hence your effort to commend it by +a description so incomparably false, that, though one should laugh +derision at it from Christmas to Candlemas, he would not laugh enough. +"Hiring servants for life,"—that is the most intrepid <i>lucus a non +lucendo</i> of the century. It fairly takes one's breath away. It is +stunning, ravishing. One can but cry, on recovering his wind,—Hear, O +Caucus, and give ear, O Mock-Auction! ye railway Hudsons, tricksters, +impostors, ye demagogues that love the people in stump-speeches at $—— +per year, ye hired bravos of the bar that stab justice in the dark, ye +Jesuit priests that "lie for God," listen all, and learn how to do it! +What are your timid devices, compared with this of benumbing your +adversary at the start by an outright electric shock of untruth? But a +man must be supported by a powerful sense of sincerity to be capable of +a statement so royally false that the truth itself shall look tame and +rustic beside it.</p> + +<p>You have spoken ill of a certain sort of German metaphysic; but I +perceive that you have now become a convert to it. The final <i>arcanum</i> +of that, I think, is, Something = Nothing. You give this abstraction a +concrete form; your axiom is, No Hire = Hire for Life. To deny that +laborers have any property in their own toil, and to allow them their +poor peck of maize and pound of bacon per week, not at all as a wage for +their work, but solely as a means of converting corn into cotton, and +cotton into seats in Congress and summers at Saratoga,—that, according +to the Chelsea metaphysic, is "hiring them for life"! To deny laborers +any legal <i>status</i> as persons, and any social <i>status</i> as human +souls,—to give them fodder for food, and pens for homes,—to withhold +from them the school, the table, and the sanctities of marriage,—if +<a name="Page_507" id="Page_507"></a>that is not "hiring them for life," what is it? To affirm, by +consistent practice, that no spiritual, no human value appertains to the +life of laboring men and women,—to rate them in their very persons as +commercial values, measuring the virtue of their existence with coin, as +cloths are measured with a yardstick,—this, we all see, is "hiring them +for life"! To take from women the LEGAL RIGHT to be chaste,—to make it +a <i>capital offence</i> for a woman of the laboring caste to defend her own +person by blows, for any "husband" or father of the laboring caste to +defend wife or daughter with blows, against the lust of another caste, +and, having made them thus helpless before outrage, to close the +judicial tribunals against their testimony, and refuse them the faintest +show of redress,—truly, it is very kind of you to let us know that this +is the simplest piece of "hiring for life," for without that charitable +assistance the fact would surely have eluded our discovery. How could we +have found it out without your assistance, when, after that aid has been +rendered, the fact continues to seem so utterly otherwise as to reflect +even upon your generous information the colors of an unexampled untruth?</p> + +<p>No-Hire + Dehumanization of the Laborer = Life-Hire? We never should +have dreamt of it!</p> + +<p>Within the past year, a document has come into my hands which they may +thank their stars who are not required to see. It is the private diary +of a most eminent and respectable slaveholder, recently dead. The +chances of war threw it into the hands of our troops, and the virtue of +a noble surgeon rescued it from defiling uses, and sent it to me, as one +whose duty bound him to know the worst. Of its authenticity there is not +a shadow of question. And such a record of pollution,—of wallowing, to +which the foulness of swine is as the life of honey-bees harboring in +the bosoms of roses,—I deliberately suppose can never have got into +black and white before. Save in general terms, I can hardly speak of it; +but one item I must have the courage to suggest more definitely. Having +bidden a young slave-girl (whose name, age, color, etc., with the +shameless precision that marks the entire document, are given) to attend +upon his brutal pleasure, and she silently remaining away, he +writes,—"Next morning ordered her a dozen lashes for disobedience."<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> +For disobedience, observe! She had been "hired for life"; the great +Carlyle had witnessed the bargain; and behold, she has broken the +contract! She must be punished; Mr. Carlyle and his co-cultivator of the +virtue of obedience (<i>par nobile fratrum</i>) will see to it that she is +duly punished. She shall go to the whipping-post, this disobedient +virgin; she shall have twelve lashes, (for the Chelsea gods are severe, +and know the use of "beneficent whip,")—twelve lashes on the naked +person,—blows with the terrible slave-whip, beneath which the skin +purples in long, winding lines, then breaks and gushes into spirts of +red blood, and afterwards cicatrizes into perpetual scars; for +disobedience is an immorality not to be overlooked!</p> + +<p>Yes, Thomas Carlyle, I hold you a party to these crimes. <i>You</i>, YOU are +the brutal old man who would flog virgins into prostitution. You approve +the system; you volunteer your best varnish in its commendation; and +this is an inseparable and <i>legal</i> part of it. Legal, I say,—legal, and +not destructive of respectability. That is the point. In ordering such +lashes, that ancient miscreant (for old he already was) neither violated +any syllable of the slave-code, nor forfeited his social position. He +was punishing "disobedience"; he was admministering "justice"; he was +illustrating the "rights of property"; he was using the lawful +"privileges of gentlemen."</p> + +<p>No doubt, deeds of equal infamy are done in the dens of New York. But +in<a name="Page_508" id="Page_508"></a> New York they <i>are</i> infamous. In New York they are indeed done in +<i>dens</i>, by felons who flee the eye of the policeman,—unless, to be +sure, the police have been appointed by a certain <i>alter ego</i> of yours +in negro-hatred, whilom chief magistrate and disgrace of that +unfortunate city. But under your life-service <i>régime</i> things are +managed in a more enlightened way. There they who have liberty—and +<i>sometimes</i> use the liberty—to torture women into beastly submissions, +do not hide from the laws, they make the laws. There such a personage as +the one mentioned may be a <i>gentleman</i>, a man of high standing," one of +the most respectable men in the State" (Florida).</p> + +<p>And this, just <i>this</i>,—for surely you will not be a coward, and dodge +consequences,—you name a scheme of life-hire. This you esteem so much +superior to our democratic way of holding each man and woman to be the +shrine of rights which have an infinite sanctity, and of adjudging it +the chief duty of the State to annex to these rights the requisite force +for their practical assertion.</p> + +<p>Is it, then, You, or is it some burglarious Devil that has broken into +your bosom and stolen your soul, who is engaged in plastering over this +infernal fester with smooth euphemisms? Are You verily the mechanic who +is engaged in veneering these out-houses of hell with rosewood? Is it +your very and proper Self that stands there sprinkling <i>eau-de-Cologne</i> +on the accursed reek of that pit of putrescence, so to disguise and +commend it to the nostrils of mankind? Is it in very deed Thomas +Carlyle, Thomas the Great, who now volunteers his services as male +lady's-maid to the queen-strumpet of modern history, and offers to her +sceptred foulness the benefit of his skill at the literary rouge-pots? +You? Yes? I give you joy of your avocations! Truly, it was worth the +while, having such a cause, to defame a noble people in the very hour of +their life-and-death struggle!</p> + +<p>Well, you have made your election; now I make mine. It is my deliberate +belief that no man ever gave heartier love and homage to another than I +to you; but while one woman in America may be <i>lawfully</i> sent to the +whipping-post on such occasion, I will hold your existence and name, if +they come between me and her rescue, but as the life of a stinging gnat! +I love you,—but cannot quite sacrifice to you the sanctity of +womanhood, and all the honor and all the high hopes of a great nation. +Your scheme of "life-hire" will therefore have to undergo very essential +modifications, such as will not only alter, but <i>reverse</i>, its most +characteristic features, before I can esteem either it or the advocacy +of it anything less than abominable.</p> + +<p>But where are you now with relation to that Thomas Carlyle whose "Sartor +Resartus" I read twenty years ago afoot and on horseback, sleeping with +it under my pillow and wearing it in my pocket till pocket and it were +worn out,—I alone there in the remote solitudes of Maine? We have both +travelled far since then; but whither have you been travelling? The +whole wide heaven was not too wide for you then; but now you can be +jolly in your "nutshell." Then, you held spiritual, or human, values to +be final, infinite, absolute, and could gibe in your own incomparable +way at the besotted conventionalism which would place commercial values +above them; now, who chants with such a roaring, pious nasal at that +apotheosis of Property which our modern commercial slavery essentially +is? Then, with Schiller, you desired, as a basis of political society, +something better than a doctrine of personal <i>rights</i>, something more +noble, human, unitary, something more opposed to egoistic +self-assertion, namely, a doctrine of <i>powers</i> and their consequent +<i>duties</i>; now, a scheme of society which is the merest riot or +insurrection of property-egotism reckons you among its chiefest +advocates. Then, you struck heroically out for a society more adequate +to the spiritual possibilities of man; now, social infidelity <i>plus</i> +cotton and polite dining would seem to suffice for you.</p><p><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509"></a></p> + +<p>Ah, Heaven! is anything sadder than to see a grand imperial soul, long +worthy and secure of all love and honor, at length committing suicide, +not by dying, but by living? Ill it is when they that do deepest homage +to a great spirit can no longer pray for the increase of his days; when +there arises in their hearts a pleasure in the growing number of his +years expressly as these constitute a deduction from the unknown sum +total of those which have been appointed him; and when the utmost +bravery of their affection must breathe, not <i>Serus</i>, but CITO <i>in cadum +redeas!</i> O royal Lear of our literature, who have spurned from your love +the dearest daughter of your thought, is it only left us to say, "How +friendly is Death,—Death, who restores us to free relations with the +whole, when our own fierce partialities have imprisoned and bound us +hand and foot"?</p> + +<p>Royal you are, royal in pity as in purpose; and you have done, nay, I +trust may still be doing, imperishable work. If only you did not hate +democracy so bitterly as to be perpetually prostrated by the recoil of +your own gun! Right or wrong in its inception, this aversion has now +become a chronic ailment, which drains insatiably at the fountains of +your spiritual force. I offer you the suggestion; I can do no more.</p> + +<p>To have lost, in the hour of our trial, the fellowship of yourself, and +of others in England whom we most delighted to honor, is a loss indeed. +Yet we grieve a thousand times more for you than for ourselves; and are +not absorbed in any grief. It is clear to us that the Eternal Providence +has assigned us our tasks, not by your advice, nor by vote of +Parliament,—astonishing to sundry as that may seem. Your opinion of the +matter we hold, therefore, to be quite beside the matter; and drivel, +like that of your nutshell-epic, by no means tends to make us wish that +Providence had acted upon European counsel rather than upon His Own! +Moreover, we are <i>very</i> busy in these days, and can have small eye to +the by-standers. We are busy, and are likely to be so long; for the +peace that succeeds to such a war will be as dangerous and arduous as +the war itself. We have as little time, therefore, to grieve as to brag +or bluster; we must work. We neither solicit nor repel your sympathy; we +must work,—work straight on, and let all that be as it can be.</p> + +<p>We seek not to conceal even from <i>you</i> that our democracy has great +weaknesses, as well as great strength. Mean, mercenary, and stolid men +are not found in England alone; they are ominously abundant here also. +We have lunatic radicalisms as well as sane, idiotic conservatisms as +well as intelligent. Too much for safety, our politics are purulent, our +good men over-apt to forget the objects of government in a besotted +devotion to the form. It is possible we may yet discover that universal +suffrage can be a trifle too universal,—that it should pause a <i>little</i> +short of the state-prison. New York must see to it that the thief does +not patronize the judge, and sit in the prisoner's box as on the bench +of a higher court. Our democracy has somewhat to learn; it <i>knows</i> that +it has somewhat to learn, and says cheerfully, "What is the use of +living without learning?"</p> + +<p>What can we do but meet the future with an open intelligence and a stout +heart? And this I say,—I, who am almost an extreme dissenter from +extreme democracy,—if our people bring to all future emergencies those +qualities of earnestness, courage, and constancy which they have thus +far contributed to the present, they will disgrace neither themselves +nor their institutions; and it will be their honor more than once to +extort some betrayal of dissatisfaction from those who, like yourself, +are happiest to see a democracy behaving, not well, but ill.</p> + +<p>"Peter of the North," then, has made up his mind. He is resolved on +having three things:—</p> + +<p>First, a government; a real government; a government not to be whistled +down the wind by any jack (or Jeff) who chooses to secede: a government +that will <a name="Page_510" id="Page_510"></a>not dawdle with hands in pockets while this continent is +converted into a maggot-swarm of ten-acre empires;</p> + +<p>Secondly, a government whose purpose, so far as it can act, shall be to +forward <i>every</i> man on the path of his proper humanity;</p> + +<p>Thirdly, a government constituted and operated, so far as shall finally +prove possible, by the common intelligence and common conscience of the +whole people.</p> + +<p>This is Peter's business at present: he is intently minding his +business; and has been heard to mutter in his breast that "it might be +as well if others did the same." What "others," pray?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VOLUNTARIES" id="VOLUNTARIES"></a>VOLUNTARIES.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Low and mournful be the strain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Haughty thought be far from me;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tones of penitence and pain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Moanings of the Tropic sea;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Low and tender in the cell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where a captive sits in chains,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Crooning ditties treasured well<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From his Afric's torrid plains.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sole estate his sire bequeathed—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hapless sire to hapless son—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was the wailing song he breathed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And his chain when life was done.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What his fault, or what his crime?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or what ill planet crossed his prime?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heart too soft and will too weak<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To front the fate that crouches near,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dove beneath the vulture's beak;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Will song dissuade the thirsty spear?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dragged from his mother's arms and breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Displaced, disfurnished here,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His wistful toil to do his best<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chilled by a ribald jeer.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Great men in the Senate sate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sage and hero, side by side,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Building for their sons the State,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which they shall rule with pride.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They forbore to break the chain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which bound the dusky tribe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Checked by the owners' fierce disdain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lured by "Union" as the bribe.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Destiny sat by, and said,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Pang for pang your seed shall pay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hide in false peace your coward head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I bring round the harvest-day."<br /></span><p><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511"></a></p> +</div><div class="stanza"> + +<span class="i0">II.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Freedom all winged expands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor perches in a narrow place,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her broad van seeks unplanted lands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She loves a poor and virtuous race.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clinging to the colder zone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose dark sky sheds the snow-flake down,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The snow-flake is her banner's star,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her stripes the boreal streamers are.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Long she loved the Northman well;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now the iron age is done,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She will not refuse to dwell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the offspring of the Sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Foundling of the desert far,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where palms plume and siroccos blaze,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He roves unhurt the burning ways<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In climates of the summer star.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He has avenues to God<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hid from men of northern brain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far beholding, without cloud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What these with slowest steps attain.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If once the generous chief arrive<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To lead him willing to be led,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For freedom he will strike and strive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And drain his heart till he be dead.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> + +<span class="i0">III.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In an age of fops and toys,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wanting wisdom, void of right,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who shall nerve heroic boys<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hazard all in Freedom's fight,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Break sharply off their jolly games,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forsake; their comrades gay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And quit proud homes and youthful dames,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For famine, toil, and fray?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet on the nimble air benign<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Speed nimbler messages,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That waft the breath of grace divine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hearts in sloth and ease.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So nigh is grandeur to our dust,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So near is God to man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When Duty whispers low, <i>Thou must</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The youth replies, <i>I can</i>.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> + +<span class="i0">IV.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, well for the fortunate soul<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which Music's wings infold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stealing away the memory<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of sorrows new and old!<br /></span><p><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512"></a></p> +<span class="i0">Yet happier he whose inward sight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stayed on his subtile thought,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shuts his sense on toys of time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To vacant bosoms brought.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But best befriended of the God<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He who, in evil times,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Warned by an inward voice,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heeds not the darkness and the dread,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Biding by his rule and choice,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Feeling only the fiery thread<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leading over heroic ground,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Walled with mortal terror round,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the aim which him allures,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the sweet heaven his deed secures.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Stainless soldier on the walls,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Knowing this,—and knows no more,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whoever fights, whoever falls,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Justice conquers evermore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Justice after as before,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he who battles on her side,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">—God—though he were ten times slain—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Crowns him victor glorified,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Victor over death and pain;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forever: but his erring foe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Self-assured that he prevails,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Looks from his victim lying low,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sees aloft the red right arm<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Redress the eternal scales.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He, the poor foe, whom angels foil,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blind with pride, and fooled by hate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Writhes within the dragon coil,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reserved to a speechless fate.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> + +<span class="i0">V.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Blooms the laurel which belongs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the valiant chief who fights;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I see the wreath, I hear the songs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lauding the Eternal Rights,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Victors over daily wrongs:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Awful victors, they misguide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whom they will destroy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And their coming triumph hide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In our downfall, or our joy:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Speak it firmly,—these are gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All are ghosts beside.<br /></span> +</div></div><p><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513"></a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="OUR_DOMESTIC_RELATIONS" id="OUR_DOMESTIC_RELATIONS"></a>OUR DOMESTIC RELATIONS;</h2> + +<p>OR, HOW TO TREAT THE REBEL STATES.</p> + + +<p>At this moment our Domestic Relations all hinge upon one question: <i>How +to treat, the Rebel States?</i> No patriot citizen doubts the triumph of +our arms in the suppression of the Rebellion. Early or late, this +triumph is inevitable. It may be by a sudden collapse of the bloody +imposture, or it may be by a slower and more gradual surrender. For +ourselves, we are prepared for either alternative, and shall not be +disappointed, if we are constrained to wait yet a little longer. But +when the day of triumph comes, political duties will take the place of +military. The victory won by our soldiers must be assuredly wise +counsels, so that its hard-earned fruits may not be lost.</p> + +<p>The relations of the States to the National Government must be carefully +considered,—not too boldly, not too timidly,—in order to see in what +way, or by what process, <i>the transition from Rebel forms may be most +surely accomplished</i>. If I do not greatly err, it will be found that the +powers of Congress, which have thus far been so effective in raising +armies and in supplying moneys, will be important, if not essential, in +fixing the conditions of perpetual peace. But there is one point on +which there can be no question. The dogma and delusion of State Rights, +which did so much for the Rebellion, must not be allowed to neutralize +all that our arms have gained.</p> + +<p>Already, in a remarkable instance, the President has treated the +pretension of State Rights with proper indifference. Quietly and without +much discussion, he has constituted military governments in the Rebel +States, with governors nominated by himself,—all of which testifies +against the old pretension. Strange will it be, if this extraordinary +power, amply conceded to the President, is denied to Congress. +Practically the whole question with which I began is opened here. +Therefore to this aspect of it I ask your first attention.</p> + + +<p>CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENT <i>vs.</i>. MILITARY GOVERNMENT.</p> + +<p>Four military governors have been already appointed: one for Tennessee, +one for South Carolina, one for North Carolina, and the other for +Louisiana. So far as is known, the appointment of each was by a simple +letter from the Secretary of War. But if this can be done in four +States, where is the limit? It may be done in every Rebel State, and if +not in every other State of the Union, it will be simply because the +existence of a valid State government excludes the exercise of this +extraordinary power. But assuming, that, as our arms prevail, it will be +done in every Rebel State, we shall then have <i>eleven</i> military +governors, all deriving their authority from one source, ruling a +population amounting to upwards of nine millions. And this imperatorial +dominion, indefinite in extent, will also be indefinite in duration; for +if, under the Constitution and laws, it be proper to constitute such +governors, it is clear that they may be continued without regard to +time,—for years, if you please, as well as for weeks,—and the whole +region which they are called to sway will be a military empire, with all +powers, executive, legislative, and even judicial, derived from one man +in Washington. Talk of the "one-man power." Here it is with a vengeance. +Talk of military rule. Here it is, in the name of a republic.</p> + +<p>The bare statement of this case may put us on our guard. We may well +hesitate to organize a single State under a military government, when we +see where such a step will lead. If you approve one, you <a name="Page_514" id="Page_514"></a>must approve +all, and the National Government may crystallize into a military +despotism.</p> + +<p>In appointing military governors of States, we follow an approved +example in certain cases beyond the jurisdiction of our Constitution, as +in California and Mexico after their conquest and before peace. It is +evident that in these cases there was no constraint from the +Constitution, and we were perfectly free to act according to the assumed +exigency. It may be proper to set up military governors for a conquered +country beyond our civil jurisdiction, and yet it may be questionable if +we should undertake to set up such governors in States which we all +claim to be within our civil jurisdiction. At all events, the two cases +are different, so that it is not easy to argue from one to the other.</p> + +<p>In Jefferson's Inaugural Address, where he develops what he calls "the +essential principles of our government, and consequently those which +ought to shape its administration," he mentions "<i>the supremacy of the +civil over the military authority</i>" as one of these "essential +principles," and then says:—</p> + +<p>"These should be the creed of our political faith,—the text of civil +instruction,—the touchstone by which to try the services of those we +trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or alarm, let +us hasten to retrace our steps, and to regain the road which alone leads +to peace, liberty, and safety."</p> + +<p>In undertaking to create military governors of States, we reverse the +policy of the republic, as solemnly declared by Jefferson, and subject +the civil to the military authority. If this has been done, in patriotic +ardor, without due consideration, in a moment of error or alarm, it only +remains, that, according to Jefferson, we should "hasten to retrace our +steps, and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and +safety."</p> + +<p>There is nothing new under the sun, and the military governors whom we +are beginning to appoint find a prototype in the Protectorate of Oliver +Cromwell. After the execution of the King and the establishment of the +Commonwealth, the Protector conceived the idea of parcelling the kingdom +into military districts, of which there were <i>eleven</i>,—being precisely +the number which it is now proposed, under the favor of success, to +establish among us. Of this system a great authority, Mr. Hallam, in his +"Constitutional History of England," speaks thus:—</p> + +<p>"To govern according to law may sometimes be an usurper's wish, but can +seldom be in his power. The Protector abandoned all thought of it. +Dividing the kingdom into districts, he placed at the head of each a +major-general, as <i>a sort of military magistrate</i>, responsible for the +subjection of his prefecture. These were <i>eleven in number</i>, men +bitterly hostile to the Royalist party, and insolent towards all civil +authority."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>Carlyle, in his "Life of Cromwell," gives the following glimpse of this +military government:—</p> + +<p>"The beginning of a universal scheme of major-generals: the +Lord-Protector and his Council of State having well considered and found +it the feasiblest,—'if not <i>good</i>, yet best.' 'It is an arbitrary +government,' murmur many. Yes, arbitrary, but beneficial. <i>These are +powers unknown to the English Constitution, I believe; but they are very +necessary for the Puritan English nation at this time.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>Perhaps no better words could be found in explanation of the Cromwellian +policy adopted by our President.</p> + +<p>A contemporary Royalist, Colonel Ludlow, whose "Memoirs" add to our +authentic history of those interesting times, characterizes these +military magistrates as so many "bashaws." Here are some of his words:—</p> + +<p>"The major-generals carried things with unheard-of insolence in their +several precincts, decimating to extremity whom they pleased, and +interrupting <a name="Page_515" id="Page_515"></a>the proceedings at law upon petitions of those who +pretended themselves aggrieved, <i>threatening such as would not yield a +manly submission to their orders with transportation to Jamaica or some +other plantation in the West Indies</i>."<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> + +<p>Again, says the same contemporary writer:—</p> + +<p>"There were sometimes bitter reflections cast upon the proceedings of +the major-generals by the lawyers and country-gentlemen, who accused +them to have done many things oppressive to the people, in interrupting +the course of the law, and <i>threatening such as would not submit to +their arbitrary orders with transportation beyond the seas</i>."<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p>At last, even Cromwell, at the height of his power, found it necessary +to abandon the policy of military governors. He authorized his +son-in-law, Mr. Claypole, to announce in Parliament, "that he had +formerly thought it necessary, in respect to the condition in which the +nation had been, that the major-generals should be intrusted with the +authority which they had exercised; but in the present state of affairs +he conceived it inconsistent with the laws of England and liberties of +the people to continue their power any longer."<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> + +<p>The conduct of at least one of our military magistrates seems to have +been a counterpart to that of these "bashaws" of Cromwell; and there is +no argument against that early military despotism which may not be urged +against any attempt to revive it in our day. Some of the acts of +Governor Stanley in North Carolina are in themselves an argument against +the whole system.</p> + +<p>It is clear that these military magistrates are without any direct +sanction in the Constitution or in existing laws. They are not even +"major-generals," or other military officers, charged with the duty of +enforcing martial law; but they are special creations of the Secretary +of War, acting under the President, and charged with universal powers. +As governors within the limits of a State, they obviously assume the +extinction of the old State governments for which they are substituted; +and the President, in appointing them, assumes a power over these States +kindred to his acknowledged power over Territories of the Union; but, in +appointing governors for Territories, he acts in pursuance of the +Constitution and laws, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.</p> + +<p>That the President should assume the vacation of the State governments +is of itself no argument against the creation of military governors; for +it is simply the assumption of an unquestionable fact. But if it be true +that the State governments have ceased to exist, then the way is +prepared for the establishment of provisional governments by Congress. +In short, if a new government is to be supplied, it should be supplied +by Congress rather than by the President, and it should be according to +established law rather than according to the mere will of any +functionary, to the end that ours may be a government of laws and not of +men.</p> + +<p>There is no argument for military governors which is not equally strong +for Congressional governments, while the latter have in their favor two +controlling considerations: first, that they proceed from the civil +rather than the military power; and, secondly, that they are created by +law. Therefore, in considering whether Congressional governments should +be constituted, I begin the discussion by assuming everything in their +favor which is already accorded to the other system. I should not do +this, if the system of military dictators were not now recognized, so +that the question is sharply presented, which of the two to choose. Even +if provisional governments by Congress are not constitutional, it does +not follow that military governments, without the sanction of Congress, +can be constitutional. But, on the other hand, I cannot doubt, that, if +military governments are constitutional, then, surely, the provisional +governments by<a name="Page_516" id="Page_516"></a> Congress must be so also. In truth, there can be no +opening for military governments which is not also an opening for +Congressional governments, with this great advantage for the latter, +that they are in harmony with our institutions, which favor the civil +rather than the military power.</p> + +<p>In thus declaring an unhesitating preference for Congressional +governments, I am obviously sustained by reason. But there is positive +authority on this identical question. I refer to the recorded opinion of +Chancellor Kent, as follows:—</p> + +<p>"Though the Constitution vests the executive power in the President, and +declares him Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the United +States, <i>these powers must necessarily be subordinate to the legislative +power in Congress</i>. It would appear to me to be the policy or true +construction of this simple and general grant of power to the President, +not to suffer it to interfere with those specific powers of Congress +which are more safely deposited in the legislative department, and that +<i>the powers thus assumed by the President do not belong to him, but to +Congress</i>."<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> + +<p>Such is the weighty testimony of this illustrious master with regard to +the assumption of power by the President, in 1847, over the Mexican +ports in our possession. It will be found in the latest edition of his +"Commentaries" published during the author's life. Of course, it is +equally applicable to the recent assumptions within our own territory. +His judgment is clear in favor of Congressional governments.</p> + +<p>Of course, in ordinary times, and under ordinary circumstances, neither +system of government would be valid. A State, in the full enjoyment of +its rights, would spurn a military governor or a Congressional governor. +It would insist that its governor should be neither military nor +Congressional, but such as its own people chose to elect; and nobody +would question this right. The President does not think of sending a +military governor to New York; nor does Congress think of establishing a +provisional government in that State. It is only with regard to the +Rebel States that this question arises. The occasion, then, for the +exercise of this extraordinary power is found in the Rebellion. Without +the Rebellion, there would be no talk of any governor, whether military +or Congressional.</p> + + +<p>STATE RIGHTS.</p> + +<p>And here it becomes important to consider the operation of the Rebellion +in opening the way to this question. To this end we must understand the +relations between the States and the National Government, under the +Constitution of the United States. As I approach this question of +singular delicacy, let me say on the threshold, that for all those +rights of the States which are consistent with the peace, security, and +permanence of the Union, according to the objects grandly announced in +the Preamble of the Constitution, I am the strenuous advocate, at all +times and places. Never through any word or act of mine shall those +rights be impaired; nor shall any of those other rights be called in +question by which the States are held in harmonious relations as well +with each other as with the Union. But while thus strenuous for all that +justly belongs to the States, I cannot concede to them immunities +inconsistent with that Constitution which is the supreme law of the +land; nor can I admit the impeccability of States.</p> + +<p>From a period even anterior to the Federal Constitution there has been a +perverse pretension of State Rights, which has perpetually interfered +with the unity of our government. Throughout the Revolution this +pretension was a check upon the powers of Congress, whether in respect +to its armies or its finances; so that it was too often constrained to +content itself with the language of advice or persuasion rather than of +command. By the Declaration of Independence it was solemnly declared +that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought <a name="Page_517" id="Page_517"></a>to be, free and +independent <i>States</i>, and that, as such, they have full powers to levy +war, to contract alliances, to establish commerce, and to do all other +acts which independent <i>States</i> may of right do." Thus by this original +charter the early colonies were changed into independent States, under +whose protection the liberties of the country were placed.</p> + +<p>Early steps were taken to supply the deficiencies of this government, +which was effective only through the generous patriotism of the people. +In July, 1778, two years after the Declaration, Articles of +Confederation were framed, but they were not completely ratified by all +the States till March, 1781. The character of this new government, which +assumed the style of "The United States of America," will appear in the +title of these Articles, which was as follows:—"Articles of +Confederation and Perpetual Union <i>between the States</i> of New Hampshire, +Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, +New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North +Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia." By the second article it was +declared, that "<i>each State retains its sovereignty</i>, freedom, and +independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by +this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress +assembled." By the third article it was further declared, that "the said +<i>States</i> hereby severally enter into <i>a firm league</i> of friendship with +each other, for their common defence, the security of their liberties, +and their mutual and general welfare." By another article, a "committee +of the <i>States</i>, or any nine of them," was authorized in the recess to +execute the powers of Congress. The government thus constituted was a +compact between <i>sovereign States</i>,—or, according to its precise +language, "a firm league of friendship" between <i>these States</i>, +administered, in the recess of Congress, by a "committee of <i>the +States</i>." Thus did State Rights triumph.</p> + +<p>But its imbecility from this pretension soon became apparent. As early +as December, 1782, a committee of Congress made an elaborate report on +the refusal of Rhode Island, one of the States, to confer certain powers +on Congress with regard to revenue and commerce. In April, 1783, an +address of Congress to <i>the States</i> was put forth, appealing to their +justice and plighted faith, and representing the consequence of a +failure on their part to sustain the Government and provide for its +wants. In April, 1784, a similar appeal was made to what were called +"the several States," whose legislatures were recommended to vest "the +United States in Congress assembled" with certain powers. In July, 1785, +a committee of Congress made another elaborate report on the reason why +the States should confer upon Congress powers therein enumerated, in the +course of which it was urged, that, "unless <i>the States</i> act together, +there is no plan of policy into which they can separately enter, which +they will not be separately interested to defeat, and, of course, all +their measures must prove vain and abortive." In February and March, +1786, there were two other reports of committees of Congress, exhibiting +the failure of <i>the States</i> to comply with the requisitions of Congress, +and the necessity for a complete accession of <i>all the States</i> to the +revenue system. In October, 1786, there was still another report, most +earnestly renewing the former appeals to <i>the States</i>. Nothing could be +more urgent.</p> + +<p>As early as July, 1782, even before the first report to Congress, +resolutions were adopted by the State of New York, declaring "that the +situation of <i>these States</i> is in a peculiar manner critical," and "that +the radical source of most of our embarrassments is <i>the want of +sufficient power in Congress</i> to effectuate that ready and perfect +cooperation of <i>the different States</i> on which their immediate safety +and future happiness depend." Finally, in September, 1786, at Annapolis, +commissioners from several States, after declaring "the situation of the +United States delicate and critical, calling for <a name="Page_518" id="Page_518"></a>an exertion of the +united virtue and wisdom of all the members of the Confederacy," +recommended the meeting of a Convention "to devise such further +provision as shall appear necessary to render the Constitution of the +Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." In +pursuance of this recommendation, the Congress of the Confederation +proposed a Convention "for the purpose of revising the Articles of +Confederation and Perpetual Union between the United States of America, +and reporting such alterations and amendments of the said Articles of +Confederation as the representatives met in such Convention shall judge +proper and necessary to render them adequate to the preservation and +support of the Union."</p> + +<p>In pursuance of the call, delegates to the proposed Convention were duly +appointed by the legislatures of the several States, and the Convention +assembled at Philadelphia in May, 1787. The present Constitution was the +well-ripened fruit of their deliberations. In transmitting it to +Congress, General Washington, who was the President of the Convention, +in a letter bearing date September 17, 1787, made use of this +instructive language:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is obviously impracticable in the Federal Government of <i>these +States to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each</i>, +and yet provide for the interest and safety of all. Individuals +entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve +the rest. The magnitude of the sacrifice must depend as well on +situation and circumstance as on the object to be obtained. It is +at all times difficult to draw with precision the line between +those rights which must be surrendered and those which may be +reserved; and on the present occasion this difficulty will be +increased by a difference <i>among the several States</i> as to their +situation, extent, habits, and particular interests. In all our +deliberations we kept steadily in view that which appears to us +the greatest interest of every true American,—THE CONSOLIDATION +OF OUR UNION,—in which is involved our prosperity, safety, +perhaps our national existence.</p> + +<p>"GEORGE WASHINGTON."</p></div> + +<p>The Constitution was duly transmitted by Congress to the several +legislatures, by which it was submitted to conventions of delegates +"chosen in each State by the people thereof," who ratified the same. +Afterwards, Congress, by resolution, dated September 13, 1788, setting +forth that the Convention had reported "a Constitution <i>for the people +of the United States</i>" which had been duly ratified, proceeded to +authorize the necessary elections under the new government.</p> + +<p>The Constitution, it will be seen, was framed in order to remove the +difficulties arising from <i>State Rights</i>. So paramount was this purpose, +that, according to the letter of Washington, it was kept steadily in +view in all the deliberations of the Convention, which did not hesitate +to declare <i>the consolidation of our Union</i> as essential to our +prosperity, safety, and perhaps our national existence.</p> + +<p>The unity of the government was expressed in the term "Constitution," +instead of "Articles of Confederation between the States," and in the +idea of "a more perfect union," instead of a "league of friendship." It +was also announced emphatically in the Preamble:—</p> + +<p>"<i>We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect +union</i>, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the +common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of +liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this +Constitution for the United States of America."</p> + +<p>Not "we, the States," but "we, the people of the United States." Such is +the beginning and origin of our Constitution. Here is no compact or +league between States, involving the recognition of State rights; but a +government ordained and established by the people of the United States +for themselves and their <a name="Page_519" id="Page_519"></a>posterity. This government is not established +<i>by the States</i>, nor is it established <i>for the States</i>; but it is +established <i>by the people</i>, for themselves and their posterity. It is +true, that, in the organization of the government, the existence of the +States is recognized, and the original name of "United States" is +preserved; but the sovereignty of the States is absorbed in that more +perfect union which was then established. There is but one sovereignty +recognized, and this is the sovereignty of the United States. To the +several States is left that special local control which is essential to +the convenience and business of life, while to the United States, as a +<i>Plural Unit</i>, is allotted that commanding sovereignty which embraces +and holds the whole country within its perpetual and irreversible +jurisdiction.</p> + +<p>This obvious character of the Constitution did not pass unobserved at +the time of its adoption. Indeed the Constitution was most strenuously +opposed on the ground that the States were absorbed in the Nation. +Patrick Henry protested against consolidated power. In the debates of +the Virginia Convention he exclaimed:—</p> + +<p>"And here I would make this inquiry of those worthy characters who +composed a part of the late Federal Convention. I am sure they were +fully impressed with the necessity of forming a great consolidated +government, instead of a confederation. <i>That this is a consolidated +government is demonstrably clear</i>; and the danger of such a government +is to my mind very striking. I have the highest veneration for those +gentlemen; but, Sir, give me leave to demand, What right had they to +say, '<i>We, the people'?</i> Who authorized them to speak the language of +'<i>We, the people</i>,' instead of '<i>We, the States</i>'?"<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p>And again, at another stage of the debate, the same patriotic opponent +of the Constitution declared succinctly:—</p> + +<p>"The question turns, Sir, on that poor little thing, the expression, +'We, <i>the people</i>,' instead of <i>the States</i> of America."<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<p>In the same convention another patriotic opponent of the Constitution, +George Mason, following Patrick Henry, said:—</p> + +<p>"Whether the Constitution is good or bad, the present clause clearly +discovers that it is a National Government, and no longer a +Confederation."<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p> + +<p>But against all this opposition, and in the face of this exposure, the +Constitution was adopted, in the name of the people of the United +States. Much, indeed, was left to the States; but it was no longer in +their name that the government was organized, while the miserable +pretension of State "sovereignty" was discarded. Even in the discussions +of the Federal Convention Mr. Madison spoke thus plainly:—</p> + +<p>"Some contend that States are <i>sovereign</i>, when, in fact, they are only +political societies. The States never possessed the essential rights of +sovereignty. These were always vested in Congress."</p> + +<p>Grave words, especially when we consider the position of their author. +They were substantially echoed by Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, +afterwards Vice-President, who said:—</p> + +<p>"It appears to me that the States never were independent. They had only +corporate rights."</p> + +<p>Better words still fell from Mr. Wilson of Pennsylvania, known +afterwards as a learned judge of the Supreme Court, and also for his +Lectures on Law:—</p> + +<p>"Will a regard to State rights justify the sacrifice of the rights of +men? If we proceed on any other foundation than the last, our building +will neither be solid or lasting."</p> + +<p>The argument was unanswerable then. It is unanswerable now. Do not +elevate the sovereignty of the States against the Constitution of the +United States. It is hardly less odious than the early pretension of +sovereign power against Magna Charta, according to the memorable words +<a name="Page_520" id="Page_520"></a>of Lord Coke, as recorded by Rushworth:—</p> + +<p>"Sovereign power is no Parliamentary word. In my opinion, it weakens +Magna Charta and all our statutes; for they are absolute without any +saving of sovereign power. And shall we now add it, we shall weaken the +foundation of law, and then the building must needs fall. Take we heed +what we yield unto. <i>Magna Charta is such a fellow that he will have no +sovereign.</i>"<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> + +<p>But the Constitution is our Magna Charta, which can bear no sovereign +but itself, as you will see at once, if you will consider its character. +And this practical truth was recognized at its formation, as may be seen +in the writings of our Rushworth,—I refer to Nathan Dane, who was a +member of Congress under the Confederation. He tells us plainly, that +the terms "sovereign States," "State sovereignty," "State rights," +"rights of States," are not "constitutional expressions."</p> + + +<p>POWERS OF CONGRESS.</p> + +<p>In the exercise of its sovereignty Congress in intrusted with large and +peculiar powers. Take notice of them, and you will see how little of +"sovereignty" is left to the States. Their simple enumeration is an +argument against the pretension of State Rights. Congress may lay and +collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and +<i>provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United +States</i>. It may borrow money on the credit of the United States; +regulate commerce with foreign nations, and <i>among the several States</i>, +and with the Indian tribes; establish a uniform rule of naturalization, +and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy, <i>throughout the United +States</i>; coin money, regulate the value thereof, and fix the standard of +weights and measures; establish post-offices and post-roads; promote the +progress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited times to +authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings +and discoveries; define and punish piracies and felonies committed on +the high seas, and offences against the law of nations; declare war; +grant letters of marque and reprisal; make rules concerning captures on +land and water; raise and support armies; provide and maintain a navy; +make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval +forces; provide for calling forth the militia to execute <i>the laws of +the Union</i>, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions; provide for +organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such +part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, +reserving to the States respectively the appointment of officers and the +authority of training the militia <i>according to the discipline +prescribed by Congress</i>; and make all laws necessary and proper for +carrying into execution the foregoing powers and all other powers vested +in the Government of the United States.</p> + +<p>Such are the ample and diversified powers of Congress, embracing all +those powers which enter into sovereignty. With the concession of these +to the United States there seems to be little left for the several +States. In the power to "declare war" and to "raise and support armies," +Congress possesses an exclusive power, in itself immense and infinite, +over persons and property in the several States, while by the power to +"regulate commerce" it may put limits round about the business of the +several States. And even in the case of the militia, which is the +original military organization of the people, nothing is left to the +States except "the appointment of the officers," and the authority to +train it "according to the discipline <i>prescribed by Congress</i>." It is +thus that these great agencies are all intrusted to the United States, +while the several States are subordinated to their exercise.</p> + +<p>Constantly, and in everything, we behold the constitutional +subordination of <a name="Page_521" id="Page_521"></a>the States. But there are other provisions by which +the States are expressly deprived of important powers. For instance: "No +State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; coin +money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a +tender in payment of debts." Or, if the States may exercise certain +powers, it is only with the consent of Congress. For instance: "No State +shall, <i>without the consent of Congress</i>, lay any duty of tonnage, keep +troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or +compact with another State or with a foreign power." Here is a magistral +power accorded to Congress, utterly inconsistent with the pretensions of +State Rights. Then, again: "No State shall, <i>without the consent of the +Congress</i>, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what +may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the +net produce of all duties and imposts laid by any State on imports or +exports shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; <i>and +all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the +Congress</i>." Here, again, is a similar magistral power accorded to +Congress, and, as if still further to deprive the States of their much +vaunted sovereignty, the laws which they make with the consent of +Congress are expressly declared to be subject "to the revision and +control of the Congress." But there is another instance still. According +to the Constitution, "Full faith and credit shall be given in each State +to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other +State": but here mark the controlling power of Congress, which is +authorized to "prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and +proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof."</p> + + +<p>SUPREMACY OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.</p> + +<p>But there are five other provisions of the Constitution by which its +supremacy is positively established. 1. "The citizens of each State +shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the +several States." As Congress has the exclusive power to establish "an +uniform rule of naturalization," it may, under these words of the +Constitution, secure for its newly entitled citizens "all privileges and +immunities of citizens in the several States," in defiance of State +Rights. 2. "New States may be admitted <i>by the Congress</i> into this +Union." According to these words, the States cannot even determine their +associates, but are dependent in this respect upon the will of Congress. +3. But not content with taking from the States these important powers of +sovereignty, it is solemnly declared that the Constitution, and the laws +of the United States made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties under +the authority of the United States, "SHALL BE THE SUPREME LAW OF THE +LAND, <i>anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary +notwithstanding</i>." Thus are State Rights again subordinated to the +National Constitution, which is erected into the paramount authority. 4. +But this is done again by another provision, which declares that "<i>the +members of the several State legislatures</i>, and all executive and +judicial officers of <i>the several States</i>, shall be bound by oath or +affirmation to support this Constitution"; so that not only State laws +are subordinated to the National Constitution, but the makers of State +laws, and all other State officers, are constrained to declare their +allegiance to this Constitution, thus placing the State, alike through +its acts and its agents, in complete subordination to the sovereignty of +the United States. 5. But this sovereignty is further proclaimed in the +solemn injunction, that "the United States shall guarantee to every +State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect +each of them against invasion." Here are duties of guaranty and +protection imposed upon the United States, by which their position is +fixed as the supreme power. There can be no such guaranty without the +<a name="Page_522" id="Page_522"></a>implied right to examine and consider the governments of the several +States; and there can be no such protection without a similar right to +examine and consider the condition of the several States: thus +subjecting them to the rightful supervision and superintendence of the +National Government.</p> + +<p>Thus, whether we regard the large powers vested in Congress, the powers +denied to the States absolutely, the powers denied to the States without +the consent of Congress, or those other provisions which accord +supremacy to the United States, we shall find the pretension of State +sovereignty without foundation, except in the imagination of its +partisans. Before the Constitution such sovereignty may have existed; it +was declared in the Articles of Confederation; but since then it has +ceased to exist. It has disappeared and been lost in the supremacy of +the National Government, so that it can no longer be recognized. +Perverse men, insisting that it still existed, and weak men, mistaking +the shadow of former power for the reality, have made arrogant claims in +its behalf. When the Constitution was proclaimed, and George Washington +took his oath to support it as President, our career as a Nation began, +with all the unity of a nation. The States remained as living parts of +the body, important to the national strength, and essential to those +currents which maintain national life, but plainly subordinate to the +United States, which then and there stood forth a Nation, one and +indivisible.</p> + + +<p>MISCHIEFS IN THE NAME OF STATE RIGHTS.</p> + +<p>But the new government had hardly been inaugurated before it was +disturbed by the pestilent pretension of State Rights, which, indeed, +has never ceased to disturb it since. Discontent with the treaty between +the United States and Great Britain, negotiated by that purest patriot, +John Jay, under instructions from Washington, in 1794, aroused Virginia, +even at that early day, to commence an opposition to its ratification, +<i>in the name of State Rights</i>. Shortly afterwards appeared the famous +resolutions of Virginia and those of Kentucky, usually known as the +"Resolutions of '98," declaring that the National Government was founded +on a compact between the States, and claiming for the States the right +to sit in judgment on the National Government, and to interpose, if they +thought fit; all this, as you will see, <i>in the name of State Rights</i>. +This pretension on the part of the States increased, till, at last, on +the mild proposition to attach a prospective prohibition of Slavery as a +condition to the admission of Missouri into the Union as a new State, +the opposition raged furiously, even to the extent of menacing the +existence of the Union; and this, too, was done <i>in the name of State +Rights</i>. Ten years later, the pretension took the familiar form of +Nullification, insisting that our government was only a compact of +States, any one of which was free to annul an act of Congress at its own +pleasure; and all this <i>in the name of State Rights</i>. For a succession +of years afterwards, at the presentation of petitions against +Slavery,—petitions for the recognition of Hayti,—at the question of +Texas,—at the Wilmot Proviso,—at the admission of California as a Free +State,—at the discussion of the Compromises of 1850,—at the Kansas +Question,—the Union was menaced; and always <i>in the name of State +Rights</i>. The menace was constant, and it sometimes showed itself on +small as well as great occasions, but always <i>in the name of State +Rights</i>. When it was supposed that Fremont was about to be chosen +President, the menace became louder, and mingling with it was the hoarse +mutter of war; and all this audacity was <i>in the name of State Rights</i>.</p> + +<p>But in the autumn of 1860, on the election of Mr. Lincoln, the case +became much worse. Scarcely was the result of this election known by +telegraph before the country was startled by other intelligence, to the +effect that certain States <a name="Page_523" id="Page_523"></a>at the South were about to put in execution +the long-pending threat of Secession, of course <i>in the name of State +Rights</i>. First came South Carolina, which, by an ordinance adopted in a +State convention, undertook to repeal the original act by which the +Constitution was adopted in this State, and to declare that the State +had ceased to be one of the States of the Union. At the same time a +Declaration of Independence was put forth by this State, which proceeded +to organize itself as an independent community. This example was +followed successively by other States, which, by formal acts of +Secession, undertook to dissolve their relations with the Union, always, +be it understood, <i>in the name of State Rights</i>. A new Confederation was +formed by these States, with a new Constitution, and Jefferson Davis at +its head; and the same oaths of loyalty by which the local functionaries +of all these States had been bound to the Union were now transferred to +this new Confederation,—of course, in utter violation of the +Constitution of the United States, but always <i>in the name of State +Rights</i>. The ordinances of Secession were next maintained by war, which, +beginning with the assault upon Fort Sumter, convulsed the whole +country, till, at last, all the States of the new Confederation are in +open rebellion, which the Government of the United States is now +exerting its energies, mustering its forces, and taxing its people to +suppress. The original claim, <i>in the name of State Rights</i>, has swollen +to all the proportions of an unparalleled war, which, <i>in the name of +State Rights</i>, now menaces the national life.</p> + +<p>But the pretensions in the name of State Rights are not all told. While +the ordinances of Secession were maturing, and before they were yet +consummated, Mr. Buchanan, who was then President, declined to +interfere, on the ground that what had been done was done by States, and +that it was contrary to the theory of our government "to coerce a +State." Thus was the pretension of State Rights made the apology for +imbecility. Had this President then interfered promptly and loyally, it +cannot be doubted that this whole intolerable crime might have been +trampled out forever. And now, when it is proposed that Congress shall +organise governments in these States, which are absolutely without loyal +governments, we are met by the objection founded on State Rights. The +same disastrous voice which from the beginning of our history has +sounded in our ears still makes itself heard; but, alas! it is now on +the lips of our friends. Of course, just in proportion as it prevails +will it be impossible to establish the Constitution again throughout the +Rebel States. State Rights are madly triumphant, if, first, in their +name Rebel governments can be organized, and then, again, in their name +Congressional governments to displace the Rebel governments can be +resisted. If they can be employed, first to sever the States from the +Union, and then to prevent the Union from extending its power over them, +State Rights are at once a sword and buckler to the Rebellion. It was +through the imbecility of Mr. Buchanan that the States were allowed to +use the sword. God forbid that now, through any similar imbecility of +Congress, they shall be allowed to use the buckler!</p> + + +<p>SHALL CONGRESS ASSUME JURISDICTION OF THE REBEL STATES?</p> + +<p>And now, in this discussion, we are brought to the practical question +which is destined to occupy so much of public attention. It is proposed +to bring the action of Congress to bear directly upon the Rebel States. +This may be by the establishment of provisional governments under the +authority of Congress, or simply by making the admission or recognition +of the States depend upon the action of Congress. The essential feature +of this proposition is, <i>that Congress shall assume jurisdiction of the +Rebel States</i>. A bill authorizing provisional governments in these +States was introduced into the Senate by Mr.<a name="Page_524" id="Page_524"></a> Harris of the State of New +York, and was afterwards reported from the Judiciary Committee of that +body; but it was left with the unfinished business, when the late +Congress expired on the fourth of March. The opposition to this +proposition, so far as I understand it, assumes two forms: first, that +these States are always to be regarded as States, with State rights, and +therefore cannot be governed by Congress; and, secondly, that, if any +government is to be established over them, it must be simply a military +government, with a military governor, appointed by the President, as is +the case with Tennessee and North Carolina. But State rights are as much +disturbed by a military government as by a Congressional government. The +local government is as much set aside in one case as in the other. If +the President, within State limits, can proceed to organize a military +government to exercise all the powers of the State, surely Congress can +proceed to organize a civil government within the same limits for the +same purpose; nor can any pretension of State Rights be effective +against Congress more than against the President. Indeed, the power +belongs to Congress by a higher title than it belongs to the President: +first, because a civil government is more in harmony with our +institutions, and, wherever possible, is required; and, secondly, +because there are provisions of the Constitution under which this power +is clearly derived.</p> + +<p>Assuming, then, that the pretension of State Rights is as valid against +one form of government as against the other, and still further assuming, +that, in the case of military governments, this pretension is +practically overruled by the President at least, we are brought again to +consider the efficacy of this pretension when advanced against +Congressional governments.</p> + +<p>It is argued that the Acts of Secession are all inoperative and void, +and that therefore the States continue precisely as before, with their +local constitutions, laws, and institutions in the hands of traitors, +but totally unchanged, and ready to be quickened into life by returning +loyalty. Such, I believe, is a candid statement of the pretension for +State Rights against Congressional governments, which, it is argued, +cannot be substituted for the State governments.</p> + +<p>In order to prove that the Rebel States continue precisely as before, we +are reminded that Andrew Johnson continued to occupy his seat in the +Senate after Tennessee had adopted its Act of Secession, and embarked in +rebellion, and that his presence testified to the fact that Rebel +Tennessee was still a State of the Union. No such conclusion is +authorized by the incident in question. There are two principles of +Parliamentary law long ago fixed: first, that the power once conferred +by an election to Parliament is <i>irrevocable</i>, so that it is not +affected by any subsequent change in the constituency; and, secondly, +that a member, when once chosen, is <i>a member for the whole kingdom</i>, +becoming thereby, according to the words of an early author, not merely +knight or burgess of the county or borough which elected him, but knight +or burgess of England.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> If these two principles are not entirely +inapplicable to our political system, then the seat of Andrew Johnson +was not in any respect affected by the subsequent madness of his State, +nor can the legality of his seat be any argument for his State.</p> + +<p>We are also reminded that during the last session of Congress two +Senators from Virginia represented that State in the Senate; and the +argument is pressed, that no such representation would be valid, if the +State government of Virginia was vacated. This is a mistake. Two things +are established by the presence of these Senators in the National +Senate: first, that the old State government of Virginia is extinct, +and, secondly, that a new government has been set up in its place. It +was my fortune to listen to one of these Senators while he earnestly +denounced the idea <a name="Page_525" id="Page_525"></a>that a State government might disappear. I could not +but think that he strangely forgot the principle to which he owed his +seat in the Senate,—as men sometimes forget a benefactor.</p> + +<p>It is true, beyond question, that the Acts of Secession are all +inoperative and void against the Constitution of the United States. +Though matured in successive conventions, sanctioned in various forms, +and maintained ever since by bloody war, these acts—no matter by what +name they may be called—are all equally impotent to withdraw an acre of +territory or a single inhabitant from the rightful jurisdiction of the +United States. But while thus impotent against the United States, it +does not follow that they were equally impotent in the work of +self-destruction. Clearly, the Rebels, by utmost efforts, could not +impair the National jurisdiction; but it remains to be seen if their +enmity did not act back with fatal rebound upon those very State Rights +in behalf of which they commenced their treason.</p> + + +<p>STATE SUICIDE.</p> + +<p>It is sometimes said that the States themselves committed <i>suicide</i>, so +that as States they ceased to exist, leaving their whole jurisdiction +open to the occupation of the United States under the Constitution. This +assumption is founded on the fact, that, whatever may be the existing +governments in these States, they are in no respect constitutional, and +since the State itself is known by the government, with which its life +is intertwined, it must cease to exist constitutionally when its +government no longer exists constitutionally. Perhaps, however, it would +be better to avoid the whole question of the life or death of the State, +and to content ourselves with an inquiry into the condition of its +government. It is not easy to say what constitutes that entity which we +call a State; nor is the discussion much advanced by any theory with +regard to it. To my mind it seems a topic fit for the old schoolmen or a +modern debating society; and yet, considering the part it has already +played in this discussion, I shall be pardoned for a brief allusion to +it.</p> + +<p>There are well-known words which ask and answer the question, "What +constitutes <i>a State</i>?" But the scholarly poet was not thinking of a +"State" of the American Union. Indeed, this term is various in its use. +Sometimes it stands for civil society itself. Sometimes it is the +general name for a political community, not unlike "nation" or +"country,"—as where our fathers, in the Resolution of Independence, +which preceded the Declaration, spoke of "the <i>State</i> of Great Britain." +Sometimes it stands for the government,—as when Louis XIV., at the +height of his power, exclaimed, "The <i>State</i>, it is I"; or when Sir +Christopher Hatton, in the famous farce of "The Critic," ejaculates,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Oh, pardon me, if my conjecture's rash,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I surmise—<i>the State</i>—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some danger apprehends."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Among us the term is most known as the technical name for one of the +political societies which compose our Union. Of course, when used in the +latter restricted sense, it must not be confounded with the same term +when used in a different and broader sense. But it is obvious that some +persons attribute to the one something of the qualities which can belong +only to the other. Nobody has suggested, I presume, that any "State" of +our Union has, through rebellion, ceased to exist as a <i>civil society</i>, +or even as a <i>political community</i>. It is only as a <i>State of the +Union</i>, armed with State rights, or at least as a <i>local government</i>, +which annually renews itself, as the snake its skin, that it can be +called in question. But it is vain to challenge for the technical +"State," or for the annual government, that immortality which belongs to +civil society. The one is an artificial body, the other is a natural +body; and while the first, overwhelmed by insurrection or war, may +change or die, the latter can change or die only with the extinction <a name="Page_526" id="Page_526"></a>of +the community itself, whatever may be its name or its form.</p> + +<p>It is because of confusion in the use of this term that there has been +so much confusion in the political controversies where it has been +employed. But nowhere has this confusion led to greater absurdity than +in the pretension which has been recently made in the name of State +Rights,—as if it were reasonable to attribute to a technical "State" of +the Union that immortality which belongs to civil society.</p> + +<p>From approved authorities it appears that a "State," even in a broader +signification, may lose its life. Mr. Phillimore, in his recent work on +International Law, says:—"A State, like an individual, may die," and +among the various ways, he says, "by its submission and the donation of +itself to another country."<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> But in the case of our Rebel States +there has been a plain submission and donation of +themselves,—<i>effective, at least, to break the continuity of +government</i>, if not to destroy that immortality which has been claimed. +Nor can it make any difference, in breaking this continuity, that the +submission and donation, constituting a species of attornment, were to +enemies at home rather than to enemies abroad,—to Jefferson Davis +rather than to Louis Napoleon. The thread is snapped in one case as much +as in the other.</p> + +<p>But a <i>change of form</i> in the actual government may be equally +effective. Cicero speaks of a change so complete as "to leave no image +of a State behind." But this is precisely what has been done throughout +the whole Rebel region: there is no image of a <i>constitutional</i> State +left behind. Another authority, Aristotle, whose words are always +weighty, says, that, <i>the form of the State being changed, the State is +no longer the same</i>, as the harmony is not the same when we modulate out +of the Dorian mood into the Phrygian. But if ever an unlucky people +modulated out of one mood into another, it was our Rebels, when they +undertook to modulate out of the harmonies of the Constitution into +their bloody discords.</p> + +<p>Without stopping further for these diversions, I content myself with the +testimony of Edmund Burke, who, in a striking passage, which seems to +have been written for us, portrays the extinction of a political +community; but I quote his eloquent words rather for suggestion than for +authority:—</p> + +<p>"In a state of <i>rude</i> Nature there is no such thing as a people. A +number of men in themselves have no collective capacity. The idea of +people is the idea of a corporation. It is wholly artificial, and made, +like all other legal fictions, by common agreement. What the particular +nature of that agreement was is collected from the form into which the +particular society has been cast. Any other is not <i>their</i> covenant. +<i>When men, therefore, break p the original compact or agreement which +gives its corporate form and capacity to a State, they are no longer a +people; they have no longer a corporate existence</i>; they have no longer +a legal coactive force to bind within, nor a claim to be recognized +abroad. They are a number of vague, loose individuals, and nothing more. +With them all is to begin again. Alas! they little know how many a weary +step is to be taken before they can form themselves into a mass which +has a true politic personality."<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> + +<p>If that great master of eloquence could be heard, who can doubt that he +would blast our Rebel States, as senseless communities who have +sacrificed that corporate existence which makes them living, component +members of our Union of States?</p> + + +<p>STATE FORFEITURE.</p> + +<p>But again it is sometimes said, that the States, by their flagrant +treason, have <i>forfeited</i> their rights as States, so as to be civilly +dead. It is a patent and indisputable fact, that this gigantic treason +was inaugurated with all the forms of <a name="Page_527" id="Page_527"></a>law known to the States; that it +was carried forward not only by individuals, but also by States, so far +as States can perpetrate treason; that the States pretended to withdraw +bodily in their corporate capacities;—that the Rebellion, as it showed +itself, was <i>by</i> States as well as <i>in</i> States; that it was by the +governments of States as well as by the people of States; and that, to +the common observer, the crime was consummated by the several +corporations as well as by the individuals of whom they were composed. +From this fact, obvious to all, it is argued, that, since, according to +Blackstone, "a traitor hath abandoned his connection with society, and +hath no longer any right to the advantages which before belonged to him +purely as a member of the community," by the same principle the traitor +State is no longer to be regarded as a member of the Union. But it is +not necessary, on the present occasion, to insist on the application of +any such principle to States.</p> + + +<p>STATE ABDICATION.</p> + +<p>Again it is said, that the States by their treason and rebellion, +levying war upon the National Government, have <i>abdicated</i> their places +in the Union; and here the argument is upheld by the historic example of +England, at the Revolution of 1688, when, on the flight of James II. and +the abandonment of his kingly duties, the two Houses of Parliament +voted, that the monarch, "having violated the fundamental laws, and +having withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, <i>had abdicated the +government</i>, and that the throne had thereby become vacant."<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> But it +is not necessary for us to rely on any allegation of abdication, +applicable as it may be.</p> + + +<p>RIGHTFUL GOVERNMENT IN THE REBEL STATES VACATED.</p> + +<p>It only remains that we should see things as they are, and not seek to +substitute theory for fact. On this important question I discard all +theory, whether it be of State suicide or State forfeiture or State +abdication, on the one side, or of State rights, immortal and +unimpeachable, on the other side. Such discussions are only endless +mazes in which a whole senate may be lost. And in discarding all theory, +I discard also the question of <i>de jure</i>,—whether, for instance, the +Rebel States, while the Rebellion is flagrant, are <i>de jure</i> States of +the Union, with all the rights of States. It is enough, that, for the +time being, and <i>in the absence of a loyal government</i>, they can take no +part and perform no function in the Union, <i>so that they cannot be +recognized by the National Government</i>. The reason is plain. There are +in these States no local functionaries bound by constitutional oaths, so +that, in fact, there are no constitutional functionaries; and since the +State government is necessarily composed of such functionaries, there +can be no State government. Thus, for instance, in South Carolina, +Pickens and his associates may call themselves the governor and +legislature, and in Virginia, Letcher and his associates may call +themselves governor and legislature; but we cannot recognize them as +such. Therefore to all pretensions in behalf of State governments in the +Rebel States I oppose the simple FACT, that for the time being no such +governments exist. The broad spaces once occupied by those governments +are now abandoned and vacated.</p> + +<p>That patriot Senator, Andrew Johnson,—faithful among the faithless, the +Abdiel of the South,—began his attempt to reorganize Tennessee by an +Address, as early as the 18th of March, 1862, in which he made use of +these words:—</p> + +<p>"I find most, if not all, of the offices, both State and Federal, +<i>vacated, either by actual abandonment, or by the action of the +incumbents in attempting to subordinate their functions</i> to a power in +hostility to the fundamental law of the State and subversive of her +national allegiance."</p> + +<p>In employing the word "vacated," Mr.<a name="Page_528" id="Page_528"></a> Johnson hit upon the very term +which, in the famous resolution of 1688, was held to be most effective +in dethroning King James. After declaring that he had abdicated the +government, it was added, "that the throne had thereby become <i>vacant</i>" +on which Macaulay happily remarks:—</p> + +<p>"The word <i>abdication</i> conciliated politicians of a more timid school. +To the real statesman the simple important clause was that <i>which +declared the throne vacant</i>; and if that clause could be carried, he +cared little by what preamble it might be introduced."<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> + +<p>And the same simple principle is now in issue. It is enough that the +Rebel States be declared <i>vacated</i>, as <i>in fact</i> they are, by all local +government which we are bound to recognize, so that the way is open to +the exercise of a rightful jurisdiction.</p> + + +<p>TRANSITION TO RIGHTFUL GOVERNMENT.</p> + +<p>And here the question occurs, How shall this rightful jurisdiction be +established in the vacated States? Some there are, so impassioned for +State rights, and so anxious for forms even at the expense of substance, +that they insist upon the instant restoration of the old State +governments in all their parts, through the agency of loyal citizens, +who meanwhile must be protected in this work of restoration. But, +assuming that all this is practicable, as it clearly is not, it +attributes to the loyal citizens of a Rebel State, however few in +numbers,—it may be an insignificant minority,—a power clearly +inconsistent with the received principle of popular government, that the +majority must rule. The seven voters of Old Sarum were allowed to return +two members of Parliament, because this place,—once a Roman fort, and +afterwards a sheepwalk,—many generations before, at the early casting +of the House of Commons, had been entitled to this representation; but +the argument for State Rights assumes that all these rights may be +lodged in voters as few in number as ever controlled a rotten borough of +England.</p> + +<p>Pray, admitting that an insignificant minority is to organize the new +government, how shall it be done? and by whom shall it be set in motion? +In putting these questions I open the difficulties. As the original +government has ceased to exist, and there are none who can be its legal +successors, so as to administer the requisite oaths, it is not easy to +see how the new government can be set in motion without a resort to some +revolutionary proceeding, instituted either by the citizens or by the +military power,—unless Congress, in the exercise of its plenary powers, +should undertake to organize the new jurisdiction.</p> + +<p>But every revolutionary proceeding is to be avoided. It will be within +the recollection of all familiar with our history, that our fathers, +while regulating the separation of the Colonies from the parent country, +were careful that all should be done according to the forms of law, so +that the thread of <i>legality</i> should continue unbroken. To this end the +Continental Congress interfered by a supervising direction. But the Tory +argument in that day denied the power of Congress as earnestly as it +denies this power now. Mr. Duane, of the Continental Congress, made +himself the mouthpiece of this denial:—</p> + +<p>"<i>Congress ought not to determine a point, of this sort about +instituting government</i>. What is it to Congress how justice is +administered? You have no right to pass the resolution, any more than +Parliament has. How does it appear that no favorable answer is likely to +be given to our petitions?"<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p> + +<p>In spite of this argument, the Congress of that day undertook, by formal +resolutions, to indicate the process by which the new governments should +be constituted.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p><p><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529"></a></p> + +<p>If we seek, for our guidance, the principle which entered into this +proceeding of the Continental Congress, we shall find it in the idea, +that nothing must be left to illegal or informal action, but that all +must be done according to rules of constitution and law previously +ordained. Perhaps this principle has never been more distinctly or +powerfully enunciated than by Mr. Webster, in his speech against the +Dorr Constitution in Rhode Island. According to him, this principle is a +fundamental part of what he calls our American system, requiring that +the right of suffrage shall be prescribed by <i>previous law</i>, including +its qualifications, the time and place of its exercise, and the manner +of its exercise; and then again, that the results are to be certified to +the central power by some certain rule, <i>by some known public officers</i>, +in some clear and definite form, to the end that two things may be done: +first, that every man entitled to vote may vote; secondly, that his vote +may he sent forward and counted, and so he may exercise his part of +sovereignty, in common with his fellow-citizens. Such, according to Mr. +Webster, are the minute forms which must be followed, if we would impart +to the result the crowning character of law. And here are other positive +words from him on this important point:—</p> + +<p>"We are not to take the will of the people from public meetings, nor +from tumultuous assemblies, by which the timid are terrified, the +prudent are alarmed, and by which society is disturbed. These are not +American modes of signifying the will of the people, and they never +were....</p> + +<p>"Is it not obvious enough, that men cannot get together and count +themselves, and say they are so many hundreds and so many thousands, and +judge of their own qualifications, and call themselves the people, and +set up a government? <i>Why, another set of men, forty miles off, on the +same day, with the same propriety, with as good qualifications, and in +as large numbers, may meet and set up another government</i>....</p> + +<p>"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to ascertain +the will of the people on a new exigency, or a new state of things, or +of opinion, <i>the legislative power provides for that ascertainment by an +ordinary act of legislation</i>.</p> + +<p>"What do I contend for? I say that the will of the people must prevail, +when it is ascertained; but there must be <i>some legal and authentic mode +of ascertaining that will</i>; and then the people may make what government +they please....</p> + +<p>"All that is necessary here is, that the will of the people should be +ascertained by some regular rule of proceeding, <i>prescribed by previous +law</i>....</p> + +<p>"But the law and the Constitution, the whole system of American +institutions, do not contemplate a case in which a resort will be +necessary to proceedings <i>aliunde</i>, or <i>outside of the law and the +Constitution</i>, for the purpose of amending the frame of government."<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p> + + +<p>CONGRESS THE TRUE AGENT.</p> + +<p>But, happily, we are not constrained to any such revolutionary +proceeding. The new governments can all be organized by Congress, which +is the natural guardian of people without any immediate government, and +within the jurisdiction of the Constitution of the United States. +Indeed, with the State governments already <i>vacated</i> by rebellion, the +Constitution becomes, for the time, the supreme and only law, binding +alike on President and Congress, so that neither can establish any law +or institution incompatible with it. And the whole Rebel region, +deprived of all local government, lapses under the exclusive +jurisdiction of Congress, precisely as any other territory; or, in other +words, the lifting of the local governments leaves the whole vast region +without any other government than Congress, unless the President should +undertake to govern it by military power. Startling as this proposition +may seem, especially <a name="Page_530" id="Page_530"></a>to all who believe that "there is a divinity that +doth hedge" a State, hardly less than a king, it will appear, on careful +consideration, to be as well founded in the Constitution as it is simple +and natural, while it affords an easy and constitutional solution to our +present embarrassments.</p> + +<p>I have no theory to maintain, but only the truth; and in presenting this +argument for Congressional government, I simply follow teachings which I +cannot control. The wisdom of Socrates, in the words of Plato, has aptly +described these teachings, when he says:—</p> + +<p>"These things are secured and bound, even if the expression be somewhat +too rude, with iron and adamant; and unless you or some one more +vigorous than you can break them, it is impossible for any one speaking +otherwise than I now speak to speak well; since, for my part, I have +always the same thing to say, that I know not how these things are, but +that out of all with whom I have ever discoursed, as now, not one is +able to say otherwise and to maintain himself."<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p> + +<p>Show me that I am wrong,—that this conclusion is not founded in the +Constitution, and is not sustained by reason,—and I shall at once +renounce it; for, in the present condition of affairs, there can be no +pride of opinion which must not fall at once before the sacred demands +of country. Not as a partisan, not as an advocate, do I make this +appeal; but simply as a citizen, who seeks, in all sincerity, to offer +his contribution to the establishment of that policy by which Union and +Peace may be restored.</p> + + +<p>THREE SOURCES OF CONGRESSIONAL POWER.</p> + +<p>If we loot at the origin of this power in Congress, we shall find that +it comes from three distinct fountains, any one of which is ample to +supply it. Three fountains, generous and hospitable, will be found in +the Constitution ready for this occasion.</p> + +<p>First. From the necessity of the case, <i>ex necessitate rei</i>, Congress +must have jurisdiction over every portion of the United States <i>where +there is no other government</i>; and since in the present case there is no +other government, the whole region falls within the jurisdiction of +Congress. This jurisdiction is incident, if you please, to that +guardianship and eminent domain which belong to the United States with +regard to all its territory and the people thereof, and it comes into +activity when the local government ceases to exist. It can be questioned +only in the name of the local government; but since this government has +disappeared in the Rebel States, the jurisdiction of Congress is +uninterrupted there. The whole broad Rebel region is <i>tabula rasa</i>, or +"a clean slate," where Congress, under the Constitution of the United +States, may write the laws. In adopting this principle, I follow the +authority of the Supreme Court of the United States in determining the +jurisdiction of Congress over the Territories. Here are the words of +Chief-Justice Marshall:—</p> + +<p>"Perhaps the power of governing a territory belonging to the United +States, which has not, by becoming a State, acquired the means of +self-government, <i>may result necessarily from the facts that it is not +within the jurisdiction of any particular State</i> and is within the power +and jurisdiction of the United States. The right to govern may be the +natural consequence of the right to acquire territory."<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> + +<p>If the right to govern may be the natural consequence of the right to +acquire territory, surely, and by much stronger reason, this right must +be the natural consequence of the sovereignty of the United States +wherever there is no local government.</p> + +<p>Secondly. This jurisdiction may also be derived from the <i>Rights of +War</i>, which surely are not less abundant for Congress than for the +President. If the President, <a name="Page_531" id="Page_531"></a>disregarding the pretension of State +Rights, can appoint military governors within the Rebel States, to serve +a temporary purpose, who can doubt that Congress can exercise a similar +jurisdiction? That of the President is derived from the war-powers; but +these are not sealed to Congress. If it be asked where in the +Constitution such powers are bestowed upon Congress, I reply, that they +will be found precisely where the President now finds his powers. But it +is clear that the powers to "declare war," to "suppress insurrections," +and to "support armies," are all ample for this purpose. It is Congress +that conquers; and the same authority that conquers must govern. Nor is +this authority derived from any strained construction; but it springs +from the very heart of the Constitution. It is among those powers, +latent in peace, which war and insurrection call into being, but which +are as intrinsically constitutional as any other power.</p> + +<p>Even if not conceded to the President, these powers must be conceded to +Congress. Would you know their extent? They will be found in the +authoritative texts of Public Law,—in the works of Grotius, Vattel, and +Wheaton. They are the powers conceded by civilized society to nations at +war, known as the Rights of War, at once multitudinous and minute, vast +and various. It would be strange, if Congress could organize armies and +navies to conquer, and could not also organize governments to protect.</p> + +<p>De Tocqueville, who saw our institutions with so keen an eye, remarked, +that, since, in spite of all political fictions, the preponderating +power resided in the State governments, and not in the National +Government, a civil war here "would be nothing but a foreign war in +disguise."<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> Of course the natural consequence would be to give the +National Government in such a civil war all the rights which it would +have in a foreign war. And this conclusion from the observation of the +ingenious publicist has been practically adopted by the Supreme Court of +the United States in those recent cases where this tribunal, after the +most learned argument, followed by the most careful consideration, +adjudged, that, since the Act of Congress of July 13th, 1861, the +National Government has been waging "a <i>territorial</i> civil war," in +which all property afloat belonging to a resident of the <i>belligerent +territory</i> is liable to capture and condemnation as lawful prize. But +surely, if the National Government may stamp upon all residents in this +<i>belligerent territory</i> the character of foreign enemies, so as to +subject their ships and cargoes to the penalties of confiscation, it may +perform the milder service of making all needful rules and regulations +for the government of this territory under the Constitution, so long as +may be requisite for the sake of peace and order; and since the object +of war is "indemnity for the past and security for the future," it may +do everything necessary to make these effectual. But it will not be +enough to crush the Rebellion. Its terrible root must be exterminated, +so that it may no more flaunt in blood.</p> + +<p>Thirdly. But there is another source for this jurisdiction which is +common alike to Congress and the President. It will be found in the +constitutional provision, that "the United States shall guarantee to +every State in tins Union a republican form of government, and shall +protect each of them against invasion." Here, be it observed, are words +of guaranty and an obligation of protection. In the original concession +to the United States of this twofold power there was an open recognition +of the ultimate responsibility and duty of the National Government, +<i>conferring jurisdiction above all pretended State rights</i>; and now the +occasion has come for the exercise of this twofold power thus solemnly +conceded. The words of twofold power and corresponding obligation are +plain and beyond question. If there be any ambiguity, it is only as to +what constitutes a republican form <a name="Page_532" id="Page_532"></a>of government. But for the present +this question does not arise. It is enough that a wicked rebellion has +undertaken to detach certain States from the Union, and to take them +beyond the protection and sovereignty of the United States, with the +menace of seeking foreign alliance and support, even at the cost of +every distinctive institution. It is well known that <i>Mr. Madison +anticipated this precise danger from Slavery, and upheld this precise +grant of power in order to counteract this danger</i>. His words, which +will be found in a yet unpublished document, produced by Mr. Collamer in +the Senate, seem prophetic.</p> + +<p>Among the defects which he remarked in the old Confederation was what he +called "want of guaranty to the States of their constitutions and laws +<i>against internal violence</i>." In showing why this guaranty was needed, +he says, that, "according to republican theory, right and power, being +both vested in the majority, are held to be synonymous; according to +fact and experience, a minority may, in an appeal to force, be an +overmatch for the majority"; and he then adds, in words of wonderful +prescience, "<i>where Slavery exists the republican theory becomes still +more fallacious</i>." This was written in April, 1787, before the meeting +of the Convention that formed the National Constitution. But here we +have the origin of the very clause in question. The danger which this +statesman foresaw is now upon us. When a State fails to maintain a +republican government <i>with officers sworn according to the requirements +of the Constitution</i>, it ceases to be a constitutional State. The very +case contemplated by the Constitution has arrived, and the National +Government is invested with plenary powers, whether of peace or war. +There is nothing in the storehouse of peace, and there is nothing in the +arsenal of war, which it may not employ in the maintenance of this +solemn guaranty, and in the extension of that protection against +invasion to which it is pledged. But this extraordinary power carries +with it a corresponding duty. Whatever shows itself dangerous to a +republican form of government must be removed without delay or +hesitation; and if the evil be Slavery, our action will be bolder when +it is known that the danger was foreseen.</p> + +<p>In reviewing these three sources of power, I know not which is most +complete. Either would be ample alone; but the three together are three +times ample. Thus, out of this triple fountain, or, if you please, by +this triple cord, do I vindicate the power of Congress over the vacated +Rebel States.</p> + +<p>But there are yet other words of the Constitution which cannot be +forgotten: "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union." +Assuming that the Rebel States are no longer <i>de facto</i> States of this +Union, but that the territory occupied by them is within the +jurisdiction of Congress, then these words become completely applicable. +It will be for Congress, in such way as it shall think best, to regulate +the return of these States to the Union, whether in time or manner. No +special form is prescribed. But the vital act must proceed from +Congress. And here again is another testimony to that Congressional +power which, under the Constitution, will restore the Republic.</p> + + +<p>UNANSWERABLE REASONS FOR CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENTS</p> + +<p>Against this power I have heard no argument which can be called an +argument. There are objections founded chiefly in the baneful pretension +of State Rights; but these objections are animated by prejudice rather +than reason. Assuming the impeccability of the States, and openly +declaring that states, like kings, can do no wrong, while, like kings, +they wear the "round and top of sovereignty," politicians treat them +with most mistaken forbearance and tenderness, as if these Rebel +corporations could be dandled into loyalty. At every suggestion of rigor +State Rights are invoked, and we are vehemently told not to destroy <a name="Page_533" id="Page_533"></a>the +States, when all that Congress proposes is simply to recognize the +actual condition of the States and to undertake their temporary +government, by providing for the condition of political syncope into +which they have fallen, and, during this interval, to substitute its own +constitutional powers for the unconstitutional powers of the Rebellion. +Of course, therefore, Congress will blot no star from the flag, nor will +it obliterate any State liabilities. But it will seek, according to its +duty, in the best way, to maintain the great and real sovereignty of the +Union, by upholding the flag unsullied, and by enforcing everywhere +within its jurisdiction the supreme law of the Constitution.</p> + +<p>At the close of an argument already too long drawn out, I shall not stop +to array the considerations of reason and expediency in behalf of this +jurisdiction; nor shall I dwell on the inevitable influence that it must +exercise over Slavery, which is the motive of the Rebellion. To my mind +nothing can be clearer, as a proposition of constitutional law, than +that everywhere within the exclusive jurisdiction of the National +Government Slavery is impossible. The argument is as brief as it is +unanswerable. Slavery is so odious that it can exist only by virtue of +positive law, plain and unequivocal; but no such words can be found in +the Constitution. Therefore Slavery is impossible within the exclusive +jurisdiction of the National Government. For many years I have had this +conviction, and have constantly maintained it. I am glad to believe that +it is implied, if not expressed, in the Chicago Platform. Mr. Chase, +among our public men, is known to accept it sincerely. Thus Slavery in +the Territories is unconstitutional; but if the Rebel territory falls +under the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Government, then +Slavery will be impossible there. In a legal and constitutional sense, +it will die at once. The air will be too pure for a slave. I cannot +doubt that this great triumph has been already won. The moment that the +States fell, Slavery fell also; so that, even without any Proclamation +of the President, Slavery had ceased to have a legal and constitutional +existence in every Rebel State.</p> + +<p>But even if we hesitate to accept this important conclusion, which +treats Slavery within Rebel States as already dead in law and +Constitution, it cannot be doubted, that, by the extension of the +Congressional jurisdiction over the Rebel States, many difficulties will +be removed. Holding every acre of soil and every inhabitant of these +states within its jurisdiction, Congress can easily do, by proper +legislation, whatever may be needful within Rebel limits in order to +assure freedom and to save society. The soil may be divided among +patriot soldiers, poor-whites, and freedmen. But above all things, the +inhabitants may be saved from harm. Those citizens in the Rebel States, +who, throughout the darkness of the Rebellion, have kept there faith, +will be protected, and the freedmen will be rescued from the hands that +threaten to cast them back into Slavery.</p> + +<p>But this jurisdiction, which is so completely practical, is grandly +conservative also. Had it been early recognized that Slavery depends +exclusively upon the local government, and that it falls with that +government, who can doubt that every Rebel movement would have been +checked? Tennessee and Virginia would never have stirred; Maryland and +Kentucky would never have thought of stirring. There would have been no +talk of neutrality between the Constitution and the Rebellion, and every +Border State would have been fixed in its loyalty. Let it be established +in advance, as an inseparable incident to every Act of Secession, that +it is not only impotent against the Constitution of the United States, +but that, on its occurrence, both soil and inhabitants will lapse +beneath the jurisdiction of Congress, and no State will ever again +pretend to secede. The word "territory," according to an old and quaint +etymology, is said to come from <i>terreo</i>, to terrify, because it was a +bulwark against the enemy. A scholiast tells us, "<i>Territorium est +quicquid <a name="Page_534" id="Page_534"></a>hostis terrendi causâ constitutum</i>," "A territory is something +constituted in order to terrify the enemy." But I know of no way in +which our Rebel enemy would have been more terrified than by being told +that his course would inevitably precipitate him into a territorial +condition. Let this principle be adopted now, and it will contribute +essentially to that consolidation of the Union which was so near the +heart of Washington.</p> + +<p>The necessity of this principle is apparent as a restraint upon the +lawless vindictiveness and inhumanity of the Rebel States, whether +against Union men or against freedmen. Union men in Virginia already +tremble at the thought of being delivered over to a State government +wielded by original Rebels pretending to be patriots. But the freedmen, +who have only recently gained their birthright, are justified in a +keener anxiety, lest it should be lost as soon as won. Mr. Saulsbury, a +Senator from Delaware, with most instructive frankness, has announced, +in public debate, what the restored State governments will do. Assuming +that the local governments will be preserved, he predicts that in 1870 +there will be more slaves in the United States than there were in 1860, +and then unfolds the reason as follows,—all of which will be found in +the "Congressional Globe"<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a>:—</p> + +<p>"By your acts you attempt to free the slaves. You will not have them +among you. You leave them where they are. Then what is to be the +result?—I presume that local State governments will be preserved. If +they are, if the people have a right to make their own laws, and to +govern themselves, they will not only reënslave every person that you +attempt to set free, but they will reënslave the whole race."</p> + +<p>Nor has the horrid menace of reënslavement proceeded from the Senator +from Delaware alone. It has been uttered even by Mr. Willey, the mild +Senator from Virginia, speaking in the name of State Rights. Newspapers +have taken up and repeated the revolting strain. That is to say, no +matter what may be done for Emancipation, whether by Proclamation of the +President, or by Congress even, the State, on resuming its place in the +Union, will, in the exercise of its sovereign power, reënslave every +colored person within its jurisdiction; and this is the menace from +Delaware, and even from regenerated Western Virginia! I am obliged to +Senators for their frankness. If I needed any additional motive for the +urgency with which I assert the power of Congress, I should find it in +the pretensions thus savagely proclaimed. In the name of Heaven, let us +spare no effort to save the country from this shame, and an oppressed +people from this additional outrage!</p> + +<p>"Once free, always free." This is a rule of law, and an instinct of +humanity. It is a self-evident axiom, which only tyrants and +slave-traders have denied. The brutal pretension thus flamingly +advanced, to reënslave those who have been set free, puts us all on our +guard. There must be no chance or loop-hole for such an intolerable, +Heaven-defying iniquity. Alas! there have been crimes in human history; +but I know of none blacker than this. There have been acts of baseness; +but I know of none more utterly vile. Against the possibility of such a +sacrifice we must take a bond which cannot be set aside,—and this can +be found only in the powers of Congress.</p> + +<p>Congress has already done much. Besides its noble Act of Emancipation, +it has provided that every person guilty of treason, or of inciting or +assisting the Rebellion, "shall be disqualified to hold any office under +the United States." And by another act, it has provided that every +person elected or appointed to any office of honor or profit under the +Government of the United States shall, before entering upon its duties, +<i>take an oath</i> "that he has not voluntarily borne arms against the +United States, or given aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to +persons engaged in armed hostility thereto, <a name="Page_535" id="Page_535"></a>or sought or accepted or +attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever under any +authority, or pretended authority, in hostility to the United +States."<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> This oath will be a bar against the return to <i>National +office</i> of any who have taken part with the Rebels. It shuts out in +advance the whole criminal gang. But these same persons, rejected by the +National Government, are left free to hold office in the States. And +here is another motive to further action by Congress. The oath, is well +as far as it goes; more must be done in the same spirit.</p> + +<p>But enough. The case is clear. Behold the Rebel States in arms against +that paternal government to which, as the supreme condition of their +constitutional existence, they owe duty and love; and behold all +legitimate powers, executive, legislative, and judicial, in these +States, abandoned and vacated. <i>It only remains that Congress should +enter and assume the proper jurisdiction.</i> If we are not ready to +exclaim with Burke, speaking of Revolutionary France, "It is but an +empty space on the political map," we may at least adopt the response +hurled back by Mirabeau, that this empty space is a volcano red with +flames and overflowing with lava-floods. But whether we deal with it as +"empty space" or as "volcano," the jurisdiction, civil and military, +centres in Congress, to be employed for the happiness, welfare, and +renown of the American people,—changing Slavery into Freedom, and +present chaos into a Cosmos of perpetual beauty and power.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES" id="REVIEWS_AND_LITERARY_NOTICES"></a>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</h2> + + +<p><i>The Thoughts of the Emperor M. Aurelius Antoninus.</i> Translated by +GEORGE LONG. London: Bell & Daldy.</p> + +<p>Dulness is usually reckoned the prescriptive right of kings; at least, +they are supposed to be officially incapable of literary eminence. And +yet it is a curious fact, that, of those idiomatic works which +literature will not "let die," of those marked productions which survive +by their individuality, three, at least, bear the impress of royal +names.</p> + +<p>Devotion has found, in the contributions of three thousand years, no +utterance so fit as the lyrics of a Hebrew king; satiety has breathed no +sigh so profound as "The Words of the Preacher, the Son of David, King +of Jerusalem"<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a>; and the wisdom of the Stoics has no worthier exponent +than the meditations of a sovereign who ruled the greatest empire known +to history, and glorified it with his own imperial spirit,—the noblest +that ever bore the burden of state.</p> + +<p>Our third example, unlike the other two, has not been adopted by +ecclesiastical authority, and is not incorporated in any Vulgate of +sacred lore; but its place in the canon of philosophy has long been +established, and is often confirmed by fresh recognition. A new +translation of this celebrated work, of which several versions already +existed, has just been given to the English public by Mr. George Long, a +well-known scholar and critic, with the title above named. We should +have preferred the old title, "Meditations," so long endeared; but we +are none the less grateful to Mr. Long for this needful service, for +which no ordinary qualifications were required, and which has never +before been performed by such competent hands.</p> + +<p>Gibbon has said, that, "if a man were called to fix the period in the +history of the world during which the condition of the human race was +most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which +elapsed from the death <a name="Page_536" id="Page_536"></a>of Domitian to the accession of Commodus." This +period comprises, together with the four concluding years of the first +century of the Christian era, four-fifths of the second. The last of +these fifths, deducting one year, (A.D. 161-180,) was occupied by the +supreme rule of Annios Verus, better known by his assumed name of Marcus +Ælius Aurelius Antoninus, fifteenth emperor of the Romans, nephew and +successor of another Antoninus, whose virtues, and especially his +grateful remembrance of his predecessor and benefactor, procured him the +<i>agnomen</i> of "Pius." In a line of sovereigns which numbers a larger +proportion of wise and good men than most dynasties, perhaps than any +other, M. Antoninus ranks first, so far as those qualities are +concerned. A man of singular and sublime virtue, whose imperial station, +so trying to human character, but served to render more conspicuous his +rare and transcendent excellence. With an empire such as never before or +since the Augustan dynasty has fallen to the lot of an individual, lord +of the civilized earth, he lived simply and abstemiously as the poorest +citizen in his dominions, frugal with unlimited means, humble with +unlimited sway. Not a Christian by profession, in piety toward God and +charity toward man he was yet a better Christian in fact than any of the +Christian emperors who succeeded him. He governed his life by the Stoic +discipline, the most hardy, in its practical requirements, of ancient +systems, so rigorous in its ethic that Josephus is proud to claim an +affinity with it for the "straitest" of the Jewish sects, and so pure in +its spirit that St. Jerome ranks its best-known writer as a +Christian,—a philosophy which taught men to consider virtue as the only +good, vice as the only evil, all external things as indifferent. "His +life," says Gibbon, "was the noblest commentary on the precepts of Zeno. +He was severe to himself, indulgent to the imperfections of others, just +and beneficent to all mankind. He regretted that Avidius Cassius, who +had excited a rebellion in Syria, had by a voluntary death deprived him +of the pleasure of converting an enemy into a friend. War he detested as +the disgrace and calamity of human nature; but when the necessity of a +just defence called upon him to take up arms, he readily exposed his +person to eight winter campaigns on the frozen banks of the Danube, the +severity of which was at last fatal to the weakness of his constitution. +His memory was revered by a grateful posterity, and above a century +after his death there were many who preserved the image of Marcus +Antoninus among their household gods."</p> + +<p>The learned Casaubon, after placing him above Solomon, "as being lord +and master of more great kingdoms than Solomon was of towns," speaks of +him as a man "who, for goodness and wisdom, was had by all men during +his life in such honor and reputation as never man was either before him +or after him." "There hath ever been store enough of men," he says, +"that could speak well and give good instructions, but great want of +them that could or so much as endeavored to do as they spake or taught +others to do. Be it therefore spoken to the immortal praise and +commendation of Antoninus, that as he did write so he did live. Never +did writers so conspire to give all possible testimony of goodness, +uprightness, innocence, as they have done to commend this one. They +commend him, not as the best prince only, but absolutely as the best man +and best philosopher that ever lived."</p> + +<p>Merivale, who concludes with the reign of M. Antoninus his "History of +the Romans under the Empire," adds his testimony to that of the cloud of +witnesses who have trumpeted the great <i>Imperator's</i> praise. "Of all the +Cæsars whose names are enshrined in the page of history, or whose +features are preserved to us in the repositories of art, one alone seems +still to haunt the Eternal City in the place and the posture most +familiar to him in life. In the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, +which crowns the platform of the Campidoglio, Imperial Rome lives +again.... In this figure we behold an emperor, of all the line the +noblest and the dearest, such as he actually appeared; we realize in one +august exemplar the character and image of the rulers of the world. We +stand here face to face with a representative of the Scipios and Cæsars, +the heroes of Tacitus and Livy. Our other Romans are effigies of the +closet and the museum; this alone is a man of the streets, the forum, +and the capitol. Such special prominence is well reserved, amid the +wreck of ages, for him whom historians combine to honor as the worthiest +of the Roman people."</p><p><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537"></a></p> + +<p>Mr. Long, in his biographical introduction, examines at length the +evidence for Marcus's alleged persecution of the Christians. Lardner, +and other writers in the Christian ecclesiastical interest, assuming the +fact, denounce it as a blot on the Emperor's fame. The translator +devotes more space to the consideration of this matter than, perhaps, in +the judgment of the historical critic at this day, it will seem to +deserve. That Christians, in the time of M. Antoninus, in Asia Minor and +in Gaul, suffered torture and death on account of their faith, admits of +no reasonable doubt. That Marcus authorized these persecutions, in any +sense implying the responsibility of an original decision, does not +appear. The imperial power, it must be remembered, was not absolute, but +constitutionally defined. The Augusti, for the most part, were but the +executors of existing laws. The punishment of Christians, who refused to +sacrifice, and persisted in contravening the religion of the State, was +one of those laws. In some places, especially at Lyons and Vienne, the +Christians were the victims of popular riots; but where they suffered by +legal authority, in the name of the imperial government, it was under +the well-known law of Trajan, a law which had been sixty years in +operation when Marcus came upon the throne. The only blame that can be +imputed to him in this relation (if blame it be) is that of failing to +discern and acknowledge the divine authority of the new religion which +was silently undermining the old Roman world. But no one who puts +himself in the Emperor's time and place will think the worse of him for +not adopting a view of this subject which educated and serious minds +were precisely the least likely to adopt. To such, Christianity +presented itself simply as a novelty opposed to religion and threatening +the State. The case of Justin may be cited as an instance of a +thoughtful and philosophic mind embracing Christianity in spite of the +strong presumption against it in minds of that class. But, not to speak +of the very wide difference between the steady, conservative Roman and +the volatile Greek, all the life-circumstances of Justin, a Palestinian +by birth, favored his adoption of the Christian faith; everything in the +life of Antoninus tended in the opposite direction. Justin embraced the +religion first on its philosophic side, where Antoninus was especially +fortified against it, having early come to an understanding with himself +on the deepest questions of the soul. His decisions on these questions +did not differ materially from those of the Gospel; they might, unknown +to himself, have been modified by a subtile atmospheric influence +derived from that source and acting on a nature so receptive of its +spirit. But the very fact, that he had in a measure anticipated the +teachings of the Gospel, precluded the chance of his being surprised +into acquiescence with the new religion by its moral beauty, if brought +fairly before him, which perhaps it never was; for it does not appear +that he read the Christian apologies framed in his day. What was best in +Christianity, as a system of doctrine,—its ethical precepts,—he had +already embraced; its substance he possessed; its external form he knew +only as opposition to institutions which he was bound by all the +sanctities of his office, by all the dignity of a Roman patrician, and +by all the currents of his life, to uphold. For the rest, the relation +of a mind like his to polytheism could be nothing more than the formal +acceptance of its symbols in the interest of piety, implying no +intellectual enslavement to its myths and traditions.</p> + +<p>De Quincey calls attention to one merit of Antoninus, which, he says, +has been "utterly unnoticed hitherto by historians, but which will +hereafter obtain a conspicuous place in any perfect record of the steps +by which civilization has advanced and human nature been exalted. It is +this: Marcus Aurelius was the first great military leader who allowed +rights indefeasible, rights uncancelled by misfortune in the field, to +the prisoner of war. Others had been merciful and variously indulgent, +upon their own discretion, and upon a random impulse, to some, or +possibly to all of their prisoners; ... but Marcus Aurelius first +resolutely maintained that certain indestructible rights adhered to +every soldier simply as a man, which rights capture by the sword, or any +other accident of war, could do nothing to shake or diminish.... Here is +an immortal act of goodness built upon an immortal basis; for so long as +armies congregate and the sword is the arbiter of international +quarrels, so long will it deserve to be had in remembrance that the +first man who set limits to the empire <a name="Page_538" id="Page_538"></a>of wrong, and first translated +within the jurisdiction of man's moral nature that state of war which +had heretofore been consigned by principle no less than by practice to +anarchy, animal violence, and brute force, was also the first +philosopher who sat upon a throne. In this, and in his universal spirit +of forgiveness, we cannot but acknowledge a Christian by +anticipation.... And when we view him from this distant age, as heading +that shining array, the Howards and the Wilberforces, who have since +then, in a practical sense, hearkened to the sighs of 'all prisoners and +captives,' we are ready to suppose him addressed by the great Founder of +Christianity in the words of Scripture, 'Thou art not far from the +kingdom of God.'"<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p> + +<p>Born to be a thinker rather than an actor, by nature framed for the life +of a recluse, by temperament inclined to private study and +contemplation, this best of emperors and of men by Providential destiny +was doomed to spend the greater part of his days in the tumult of +affairs, and, like a true Roman, died at last a soldier's death in his +camp on the banks of the Danube, where, in after years, another line of +"Roman Emperors," the sovereigns of the "Holy Roman Empire of Germany," +had their seat. For more than a century after his death, and so long as +Rome retained a remnant of her old vitality, a grateful people adored +him as a saint, and he who "had no bust, picture, or statue of Marcus in +his house was looked upon as a profane and irreligious man." To this +day, beside the equestrian statue named by Merivale, in the heart of +modern Rome, a few steps from her principal thronged thoroughfare, a +column which time has spared still commemorates the last of the Romans. +The Emperor's statue which once surmounted it was destroyed, and +centuries after the statue of St. Paul exalted to the vacant place, as +if to show that the "height of Rome" is not quite the perfection of all +humanity, and that even the purest of ancient philosophies is incomplete +without the supplement of a more humane and universal wisdom.</p> + +<p>Mr. Long's preliminary dissertation on "The Philosophy of Antoninus" is +thorough and satisfactory, so far as that specific subject is concerned, +but presents a very inadequate view of the Stoic philosophy in general, +and strikes us as unjust in its incidental disparaging notice (in a +footnote) of Seneca, who, after all, will ever be regarded as the +greatest literary product of that school.</p> + +<p>The book itself to which this essay introduces us is one of the few +monuments that remain to us, and by far the best monument that remains +to us, of the interior spiritual life of the better class of that +Græco-Roman world of whose exterior life we know so much. Not to have +read it is not to know the deepest mind of the ancients. Two things in +it are prevailingly prominent: first, a noble nature; secondly, an +extreme civilization, already faltering, turned to decline, expecting +its fall. On every page lies the shadow of impending doom; on every page +shines forth the great, heroic soul equal to every fate. The work—if +work it can be called—is entirely aphoristic, with no apparent plan; in +fact, a note-book or diary of thoughts and fancies, set down as they +occurred from time to time, and as leisure favored the record. In its +structure, or rather want of structure, and in some of its suggestions, +it reminds one of the Book of Ecclesiastes. Yet the difference between +them is immense. The prevailing tone of Ecclesiastes is skepticism, that +of the "Thoughts" is faith. The one is morbid, the other sane; the one +relaxes, the other braces; the one is steeped in despondency and gloom, +the other is redolent of manly courage and cheerful trust. The Emperor, +like the Preacher, has much to say about death; but he views the subject +from a higher plane, and envisages the final event with a better hope. +He does not think that a living dog is better than a dead lion.</p> + +<p>"What, then, is that which is able to conduct a man? One thing, and only +one, philosophy.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> But this consists in keeping the dæmon within a man +free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing +nothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy,... and +besides accepting all that happens, and all that is allotted, as coming +from thence, wherever it is, from whence he himself came, and finally +waiting for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than a +dissolution of the elements <a name="Page_539" id="Page_539"></a>of which every living being is compounded. +But if there is no harm to the elements themselves, in each continually +changing into the other, why should a man have any apprehension about +the change and dissolution of all the elements? For it is according to +Nature, and nothing is evil which is according to Nature."<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p> + +<p>"Thou hast embarked, thou hast made the voyage, thou art come to shore; +get out. If, indeed, to another life, there is no want of gods, not even +there. But if to a state without sensation, thou wilt cease to be held +by pains and pleasures, and to be a slave to the vessel which is as much +inferior as that which serves it is superior; for the one is +intelligence and deity, the other is earth and corruption."<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p> + +<p>"Man, thou hast been a citizen in this great state [the world]; what +difference does it make to thee whether for five years or three? for +that which is conformable to the laws is just for all. Where is the +hardship, then, if no tyrant or unjust judge sends thee away from the +state, but Nature who brought thee into it? The same as if a prætor who +has employed an actor dismisses him from the stage. 'But I have not +finished the five acts,—only three of them.' Thou sayest well; but in +life the three acts are the whole drama; for what shall be a complete +drama is determined by him who was once the cause of its composition, +and now of its dissolution; but thou art the cause of neither. Depart, +then, satisfied, for he who dismisses thee is satisfied."<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p> + +<p>The book is one which scarcely admits of analysis, and of which it is +impossible to convey an idea by any discussion of its contents. In +characterizing the man we have characterized the "Thoughts" as the +commentary of personal experience on the virtues of fortitude, patience, +piety, love, and trust. They have a history, and have been the chosen +companion of many and very different men of note. Our own native Stoic, +the latest, and, since Fichte, the best representative of that school, +fed his youth at this fountain, and shows, in his earlier writings +especially, the influence of his imperial predecessor. Mr. Long reminds +us that this was one of the two books which Captain John Smith, the hero +of young Virginia, selected for his daily use. Unlike the generality of +John Smiths and of modern Virginians, the brave soldier found here a +kindred spirit.</p> + +<p>The Christian world possesses in its Bible a record of Semitic piety +whose genuine utterances will never be surpassed; but when the Vulgate +of the Aryan races shall be published, these confessions of a noble soul +will claim a prominent place among its scriptures.</p> + + +<p><i>Levana; or, The Doctrine of Education.</i> Translated from the German of +JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.</p> + +<p>We call to mind certain phrases wherein the critic may honestly express +satisfaction that a portion of the world's plastic stock of useful +knowledge has been skilfully manipulated into a volume. Truly, none of +them will do for this sweetest household blossom of a commanding +intellect. We have poetry too discursively brilliant for the trammels of +verse, eloquence which has drawn its materials from the purest sources, +and instructiveness running into sparkling effusions or soaring in +aërial fancies. It is hard to speak adequately of this delicious, +accidental "Levana." It is no schoolmaster's manual, no elaborated +system set to snap like a spring-trap upon the heads of incautious +meddlers,—it is only the very aroma of the married life of a wise and +tender poet.</p> + +<p>Those early years which held Richter in the grasp of their miseries and +perplexities had passed away. Bravely had he struggled through +temptations which at all times and in all places beset young men, added +to such as are peculiar to one of the highest inspirations steeped to +the lips in poverty. Through all perils he had borne the purity of his +youth, the freedom and simplicity of his deep soul. And so he is +privileged to bring to marriage and the delicate nurture of children the +fine insights of a man of genius who has been wholly true to the costly +gift he possessed. Of the domestic fragrance of a well-ordered family no +savor eludes him. The wife and children, the vigorous and rich life +which they offer to a good man,—those are touched with keenest analysis +and in festal spirit. Most thoroughly does the author possess that rare +combination of mind which seeks speculative truth no less than ideal +beauty; <a name="Page_540" id="Page_540"></a>with him emotion is nothing, unless it leads to principle.</p> + +<p>"Levana," as we have said, is no iron system for the education of +children; it is rather a most readable text-book for the education of +parents. It sustains a relation of spiritual fathership to common +fathers, and offers choicest counsel to those who would assume the +office of family-teacher honestly and in the fear of God. And it seems +to us that of these subtle influences of home-culture, whose gospel +Richter here declares, our American parents have been too neglectful. +The world knows that we are proud, and justly so, of our public +educational apparatus. But that our legislation in this direction +produces nothing but good, no observing man can admit. This elaborate +reading-and-writing machine of which the State turns the handle, while +it induces a certain average sharpness in the children, leaves rusting +some of the noblest privileges as well as the highest duties of the +parent. Yet citizens will cry that they feel their responsibilities for +educating, and, to their better fulfilment, work daily for dollars. This +is well; but let us not throw our dollars in a parabolic curve over the +house, on the chance of their making a happy descent in some distant +school-room. The bringing-up of children is something very different +from pickling cucumbers or salting fish,—it cannot be done by contract +and in the gross. But, ah, there is no time for anything else! Then +reduce your way of living to anything above the food-and-shelter point, +and so make time. Richter was always poor, always a man of great labor +and great performance, and here is what he says:—"I deny myself my +evening meal in my eagerness to work; but the interruptions by my +children I cannot deny myself."</p> + +<p>"Levana" is peculiarly adapted to cause those who have to do with +children to feel all the emancipating and renovating power of their +trust. It cannot leave us satisfied with any conventional arrangement +which brings to plausible maturity a limited per cent. There are, +indeed, minds strong enough to pass through the bitter years of +unlearning what has been taught amiss, and then, bating no jot of heart +or courage, to begin education for themselves in middle life. But often +it is far otherwise. Too often, owing to the indolence or immaturity of +those who assume the responsibility of parents, the child is cast into a +terrible moral perplexity, which is at last moral corruption. Our duties +toward different children are as eclectic and irregular as Nature +herself. There is a need to study and respect the individual character, +which claims from parents the daily use of their mental powers,—and +this without a compelling external stimulus. Now it is easy and not +unpleasant to work in a routine. Schiller used to say that he found the +great happiness of life to consist in the discharge of some mechanical +duty. He was in the right. Nevertheless, for the worth and blessedness +of life we must look to the discharge of duties which are not +mechanical. Of mechanical teaching the highest result proposed is the +multiplication of photographs from the teacher's negative, or, in the +words of Richter, "to fill our streets with perpetual stiff, feeble +copies of the same pedagogue type." But the parent's office demands +courage,—courage not so much to originate as to accept the wisdom of +thinking men, some of whom have spoken more than a hundred years ago. +The folly of cramming a child with words representing no ideas, instead +of giving him ideas to find themselves words, is no new discovery. +Milton, in his letter to Master Hartlib, assails that "scholastic +grossness of barbarous ages" from which we nineteenth-century citizens +have by no means escaped. "We do amiss," exclaims the eloquent scholar, +"to spend seven or eight years in scraping together so much miserable +Latin and Greek as might otherwise be learned easily and pleasantly in +one year." He denounces this "misspending our prime youth at schools and +universities as we do, either in learning mere words, or such things +chiefly as were better unlearned." We quote the words of Milton rather +than those of other eminent men to the same effect, because the poet +cannot be accused of objecting to Latin and Greek taught at the right +time and in the right way. A man whose mighty English was always fast +anchored to classic bottoms had surely no sentimental preference for +modern sciences. Indeed, in this very essay he seems to demand what at +present we must consider as a too early initiation into the ancient +languages, no longer the exclusive keys to knowledge. But Milton +realized that there was a natural development to the imitative and +perceptive <a name="Page_541" id="Page_541"></a>powers of man, and he knew that a mere tasking of the verbal +memory blighted the diviner faculties of comparison and judgment. We +hold that the ideal system of education, to which through coming +centuries men can only approximate, must present to the child the +precise step in knowledge which he waits for, and upon which he is able +to raise himself with that glow of pleasurable activity which God gives +to exertion directed to a comprehensible end. The feeblest mind is +capable of assimilating knowledge with a satisfaction the same in kind +as that which rewarded the maturest labors of Humboldt or Newton. There +are sequences of facts every one of which, imparted in its natural +order, brings an immediate interest. It is no nebulous scheme of +combining instruction with amusement which is to be sought. One might as +well look after the Philosopher's Stone or the Elixir of Life. Good +things are to be had upon no easier terms than privation and work. But +there is a wide difference between a man toiling to gain material +comforts for those who are dear to him, or laboring to enlighten and +reform his own spirit that he may give good gifts to his generation, and +a beast whipped round a treadmill to the din of its own everlasting +clatter. It is only work whose end shall, in some faint degree, be +intelligible, which is demanded for the child; and with this sort of +work we believe that it is very possible to furnish him. But our +philanthropies in this direction may not be wrought by deputy; they must +be aimed at the few, and not at once at the many.</p> + +<p>The reader of "Levana" will find much incidental commendation of those +true relations of intellectual sympathy and confidence between parents +and children which in this country are far rarer than they should be. +Seldom do we hear the average American citizen speak of either parent in +that tone of tender and respectful companionship with which the average +Frenchman pronounces "<i>ma mère</i>" or "<i>mon père</i>." Seldom do we see that +relation between an eminent man and his mother which, in the Old World, +has been exemplified from Augustine to Buckle. Some of the causes of +this have been admirably set forth in a recent essay in these pages. The +article by Gail Hamilton in the April number of the "Atlantic" contains +much <i>uncommon</i> sense, which our lady-readers cannot ponder too often. +All honor to those mothers who, meeting extreme and unexpected poverty, +turn themselves into drudges that their children may be decently clothed +and wholesomely fed! But dishonor to those women who stunt their own +intellectual powers, which should educate and accompany the immortal +souls of their sons and daughters through this world and perhaps +another,—and this, in order that their bodies may be fed luxuriously, +or dressed in lace and ruffles to vie with the children of richer +neighbors! There can be no tolerance for the <i>indolence</i>—we emphasize +the word—which elects a mechanical routine instead of those harder +mental efforts through which a mother's highest duties may be +comprehended and performed. And what shall be said for the despicable +vanity which would barter opportunities of forming and directing a human +character for the sake of trimmings and fancy buttons? We cannot possess +the confidence and friendship of our children without taking pains to +deserve them. If the father chooses to be "the governor" of his family, +then the <i>ex-governor</i>, and nothing more, can he be to his grown-up +children,—an official once set over them by some Know-Nothing or other +fatality, at length happily shelved with the rubbish of the nursery. +Nowhere are the external sanctities of domestic life more respected than +in our Northern States, and here should its fairest promises be +bountifully fulfilled. Above all things, it is to be remembered that +whatever moral power a man would have his children possess, that must he +especially demand and exercise in himself. The Law of the household must +afford the luxury of a Conscience; for if ever the maxim "<i>Summum jus, +summa, injuria</i>" be worthy of remembrance, it is in the management of +children. Well for those who realize that education is no merely lineal +advancement, but a spreading and flowering in many directions! well for +those who cultivate all the capabilities of love and trust in their +children! "When I think," says Jean Paul, "that I never saw in my father +a trace of selfishness, I thank God!" There comes the time when young +men go forth to battle in the world, and the father prays bitterly for +the power to endow them with the results of his own experience. But only +to<a name="Page_542" id="Page_542"></a> him who has borne himself truthfully and honorably before his family +can that good gift be given.</p> + +<p>Upon the subject of religious education "Levana" is finely suggestive. +All cobweb-makeshifts which obscure the beautiful substance of a holy +life are swept aside. To the young, not what others say, but what they +do, is right. Children, like their elders, will resist all mere +reasoning upon the disadvantages, whether temporal or spiritual, of +actions to which they are tempted. But they are ever ready to absorb the +faith of the household, and to be nourished by it. "For those who wish +to give anything," exclaims our author, "the first rule is, that they +shall have it to give; no one can teach religion who does not himself +possess it; hypocrisy and mouth-religion will bring forth only their +like." The hardly noticeable habits of unrestrained intercourse, the +indulgence of petty selfishness not acknowledged to ourselves,—these +are seeds of evil quick to germinate in a virgin soil. No iteration of +pedagogical maxims can annul the influence of some little mean or +graceless act. Let every parent take heed lest, through his own weakness +and folly, he lose the divine privilege of obedience through confidence. +In the world, obedience through discipline must indeed come; but let it +be unknown in the family as long as it may. And of "mouth-religion" what +fatal abundance! To a child, it is no more than the creaking and +rattling of a vehicle, which is of a certain worth, doubtless, to the +weary, sinful adult,—but to one who feels his life in every limb, +incomprehensible, and an offence. Of the vulgar superstition which would +confuse the nursery with creeds and vain prayer-repetitions of the +heathen there is far too much. We have known parents, reputed pious and +church-going, who delighted to pour crushing enigmas into infant ears, +and then to make a sorry household jest of the feeble one's grotesque +attempts to extend or limit the Unspeakable. As the highest concerns of +man can be known only by the spirit, so they can be taught only by the +spirit. It is not the words we repeat, but the temper in which we daily +live, that moulds the family to honor or dishonor. It is the spirit of +the father and mother which produces results mistaken for intuitions by +the superficial. And, truly, youth, thus warmly rooted in generosity and +nobility, will, in its own good time, stretch tender leaves up to the +Higher Light. And when Nature is ready for worship, mark how wisely +Richter directs it:—"The sublime is a step to the temple of religion, +as the stars are to that of infinity. Let the name of God be heard by +the child in connection with all that is great in Nature,—the storm, +the thunder, the starry heavens, and death,—a great misfortune,—a +great piece of good-fortune,—a great crime,—a greatly noble action: +these are the sites on which to build the wandering church of +childhood."</p> + +<p>In conclusion, we can only repeat, that the greatest charm of "Levana" +is its suggestion of a possible household, from what the reader feels +was once an actual household. The cheap sentimentalism of parental +relations has often been a favorite property with men of imaginative +genius. Rousseau and Byron knew how to use it as a fictitious background +before which they might posture with effect. But, until the world's +literature shall mercifully forget them, the "Enfants Trouvés" and the +Venetian bagnio strip these writers of their fine words, and hold them +before the generations in scandal and disgrace. No reader of "Levana" +can miss the refutation of that poisonous lie, that men of genius, +because of their mental endowments, have a natural inaptitude for +domestic relations, or are unhappy therein from any other cause than +their own foolishness or guilt. We hear the tender strains of a deep +poet, privileged by acquired worthiness to return to those divine +instincts which were vivid in the simplest condition of the family. To +all who can bring the writings of Richter within their range we commend +this book. Those who have learned to enjoy his strong-darting language, +his complex constructions, his kindly humor, will find these working +together with noblest aim. In these times of our country's peril, there +is some sanative virtue outside of treatises upon strategy or Union +pamphlets. It is well to print and circulate the literature of war. But +it is also a sweet and a timely mission to impart a new inspiration into +that life of the family to-day which shall become the life of the nation +to-morrow.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See Atlantic Monthly, May Number.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> "Clearly a fictitious appellation; for, if we admit the +latter of these names to be in a manner English, what is <i>Leigh</i>? +Christian nomenclature knows no such."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> "It is clearly of transatlantic origin."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Imperfectus adhuc infans genetricis ab alvo<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eripitur, patrioque tener (si credere dignum)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Insuitur femori ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tutaque bis geniti sunt incunabula Bacchi.'<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +<i>Metamorph</i>. Lib. 3."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> It was Philip II. who gave to the Havana a coat of arms, in +which was a golden key, to signify that it was the key of the Indies. +The house being lost, the key has, oddly enough, become more valuable +than ever to Spain.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> The "Annual Register" states that but 2,500 of the +conquerors were fit for duty when the Havana surrendered. The Boston +"Gazette" says 3,000, and that the arrival of reinforcements was +critical. Even disease could not break down armies in those days. The +Spaniards had 6,000 sick.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> The writer is known to the publishers of the "Atlantic +Monthly": he is one whose word is not and cannot be called in question; +and he pledges his word that the above is exact and <i>proven</i> fact. +Horace Mann, years ago, made public some similar cases.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> <i>Constitutional History of England</i>, Vol. II. p. 340.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Carlyle's <i>Life of Cromwell</i>, Part IX. Vol. II. p. 168.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Ludlow's <i>Memoirs</i>, p. 559.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Ibid. p. 580.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Ibid. p. 582.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Kent's <i>Commentaries</i>, Vol. I. p. 292, note b.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Elliott's <i>Debates</i>, Vol. III, p. 22.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Elliott's <i>Debates</i>, Vol. III. p. 44.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Rushworth's <i>Historical Collections</i>, Vol. I. p. 609.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> See Cushing, <i>Parliamentary Law</i>, p. 284.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Phillimore's <i>International Law</i>, Vol. I. p. 147.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Burke's <i>Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Macaulay's <i>History of England</i>, Vol. II. p. 623.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Macaulay's <i>History of England</i>, Vol. II. p. 624.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> John Adams's <i>Works</i>, Vol. II. p. 490.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> <i>Ibid</i>. Vol. III. pp. 17, 19, 45, 46.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Webster's <i>Works</i>, Vol. VI. pp. 225, 226, 227, 228, 231.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> The <i>Gorgias</i> of Plato.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> <i>American Insurance Company</i> v. <i>Carter</i>, 1 Peters, p. +542.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <i>Democracy in America</i>, Vol. II. ch. 25, p. 343.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Thirty-Seventh Congress, Second Session, 2d May, 1862, +Part III. p. 1923.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Act of Congress, July 2, 1862, ch. 123.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Jewish tradition, in spite of German criticism, still +ascribes the Book of Ecclesiastes to Solomon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> <i>The Cæsars</i>, p. 170, Boston edition.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> This word, as Marcus uses it, is equivalent to religion.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> p. 25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> p. 29.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> p. 217.</p></div> + +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, +October, 1863, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. *** + +***** This file should be named 15838-h.htm or 15838-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/8/3/15838/ + +Produced by Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: May 16, 2005 [EBook #15838] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. *** + + + + +Produced by Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes moved to end of document.] + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. XII.--OCTOBER, 1863.--NO. LXXII. + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by TICKNOR AND +FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of +Massachusetts. + + * * * * * + +CHARLES LAMB'S UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS.[1] + +SECOND PAPER. + + +Readers of Lamb's "Life and Letters" remember that before "Mr. H." was +written, before Kemble had rejected "John Woodvil," Godwin's tragedy of +"Antonio" had been produced at Drury-Lane Theatre, and that Elia was +present at the performance thereof. But perhaps they do not know (at +least, not many of them) that Elia's essay on "The Artificial Comedy of +the Last Century," as originally published in the "London Magazine," +contained a full and circumstantial account of the cold and stately +manner in which John Kemble performed the part of Antonio in Godwin's +unfortunate play. For some reason or other, Lamb did not reprint this +part of the article. Admirers of Charles Lamb and admirers of the drama +will be pleased--for 'tis a very characteristic bit of writing--with +what Elia says of + + * * * * * + +JOHN KEMBLE AND GODWIN'S TRAGEDY OF "ANTONIO." + +"The story of his swallowing opium-pills to keep him lively upon the +first night of a certain tragedy we may presume to be a piece of +retaliatory pleasantry on the part of the suffering author. But, indeed, +John had the art of diffusing a complacent equable dulness (which you +knew not where to quarrel with) over a piece which he did not like, +beyond any of his contemporaries. John Kemble had made up his mind early +that all the good tragedies which could be written had been written, and +he resented any new attempt. His shelves were full. The old standards +were scope enough for his ambition. He ranged in them absolute, and +'fair in Otway, full in Shakspeare shone.' He succeeded to the old +lawful thrones, and did not care to adventure bottomry with a Sir Edward +Mortimer, or any casual speculator that offered. + +"I remember, too acutely for my peace, the deadly extinguisher which he +put upon my friend G.'s 'Antonio' G., satiate with visions of political +justice, (possibly not to be realized in our time,) or willing to let +the skeptical worldlings see that his anticipations of the future did +not preclude a warm sympathy for men as they are and have been, wrote a +tragedy. He chose a story, affecting, romantic, Spanish,--the plot +simple, without being naked,--the incidents uncommon, without being +overstrained. Antonio, who gives the name to the piece, is a sensitive +young Castilian, who, in a fit of his country honor, immolates his +sister-- + +"But I must not anticipate the catastrophe. The play, reader, is extant +in choice English, and you will employ a spare half-crown not +injudiciously in the quest of it. + +"The conception was bold, and the _denouement_--the time and place in +which the hero of it existed considered--not much out of keeping; yet it +must be confessed that it required a delicacy of handling, both from the +author and the performer, so as not much to shock the prejudices of a +modern English audience. G., in my opinion, had done his part. John, who +was in familiar habits with the philosopher, had undertaken to play +Antonio. Great expectations were formed. A philosopher's first play was +a new era. The night arrived. I was favored with a seat in an +advantageous box, between the author and his friend M.G. sat cheerful +and confident. In his friend M.'s looks, who had perused the manuscript, +I read some terror. Antonio, in the person of John Philip Kemble, at +length appeared, starched out in a ruff which no one could dispute, and +in most irreproachable mustachios. John always dressed most provokingly +correct on these occasions. The first act swept by, solemn and silent. +It went off, as G. assured M., exactly as the opening act of a +piece--the _protasis_--should do. The cue of the spectators was to be +mute. The characters were but in their introduction. The passions and +the incidents would be developed hereafter. Applause hitherto would be +impertinent. Silent attention was the effect all-desirable. Poor M. +acquiesced,--but in his honest, friendly face I could discern a working +which told how much more acceptable the plaudit of a single hand +(however misplaced) would have been than all this reasoning. The second +act (as in duty bound) rose a little in interest; but still John kept +his forces under,--in policy, as G. would have it,--and the audience +were most complacently attentive. The _protasis_, in fact, was scarcely +unfolded. The interest would warm in the next act, against which a +special incident was provided. M. wiped his cheek, flushed with a +friendly perspiration,--'tis M.'s way of showing his zeal,--'from every +pore of him a perfume falls.' I honor it above Alexander's. He had once +or twice during this act joined his palms in a feeble endeavor to elicit +a sound; they emitted a solitary noise without an echo; there was no +deep to answer to his deep. G. repeatedly begged him to be quiet. The +third act at length brought on the scene which was to warm the piece +progressively to the final flaming forth of the catastrophe. A +philosophic calm settled upon the clear brow of G., as it approached. +The lips of M. quivered. A challenge was held forth upon the stage, and +there was promise of a fight. The pit roused themselves on this +extraordinary occasion, and, as their manner is, seemed disposed to make +a ring,--when suddenly Antonio, who was the challenged, turning the +tables upon the hot challenger, Don Gusman, (who, by the way, should +have had his sister,) balks his humor, and the pit's reasonable +expectation at the same time, with some speeches out of the new +philosophy against duelling. The audience were here fairly +caught,--their courage was up, and on the alert,--a few blows, _ding +dong_, as R----s the dramatist afterwards expressed it to me, might have +done the business,--when their most exquisite moral sense was suddenly +called in to assist in the mortifying negation of their own pleasure. +They could not applaud, for disappointment; they would not condemn, for +morality's sake. The interest stood stone-still; and John's manner was +not at all calculated to unpetrify it. It was Christmas time, and the +atmosphere furnished some pretext for asthmatic affections. One began to +cough, his neighbor sympathized with him, till a cough became +epidemical. But when, from being half artificial in the pit, the cough +got frightfully naturalized among the fictitious persons of the drama, +and Antonio himself (albeit it was not set down in the stage-directions) +seemed more intent upon relieving his own lungs than the distresses of +the author and his friends,--then G. 'first knew fear,' and, mildly +turning to M., intimated that he had not been aware that Mr. Kemble +labored under a cold, and that the performance might possibly have been +postponed with advantage for some nights further,--still keeping the +same serene countenance, while M. sweat like a bull. + +"It would be invidious to pursue the fates of this ill-starred evening. +In vain did the plot thicken in the scenes that followed, in vain the +dialogue wax more passionate and stirring, and the progress of the +sentiment point more and more clearly to the arduous development which +impended. In vain the action was accelerated, while the acting stood +still. From the beginning, John had taken his stand,--had wound himself +up to an even tenor of stately declamation, from which no exigence of +dialogue or person could make him swerve for an instant. To dream of his +rising with the scene (the common trick of tragedians) was preposterous; +for from the onset he had planted himself, as upon a terrace, on an +eminence vastly above the audience, and he kept that sublime level to +the end. He looked from his throne of elevated sentiment upon the +under-world of spectators with a most sovran and becoming contempt. +There was excellent pathos delivered out to them: an they would receive +it, so; an they would not receive it, so. There was no offence against +decorum in all this; nothing to condemn, to damn. Not an irreverent +symptom of a sound was to be heard. The procession of verbiage stalked +on through four and five acts, no one venturing to predict what would +come of it, when, towards the winding-up of the latter, Antonio, with an +irrelevancy that seemed to stagger Elvira herself,--for she had been +coolly arguing the point of honor with him,--suddenly whips out a +poniard, and stabs his sister to the heart. The effect was as if a +murder had been committed in cold blood. The whole house rose up in +clamorous indignation, demanding justice. The feeling rose far above +hisses. I believe at that instant, if they could have got him, they +would have torn the unfortunate author to pieces. Not that the act +itself was so exorbitant, or of a complexion different from what they +themselves would have applauded upon another occasion in a Brutus or an +Appius,--but, for want of attending to Antonio's _words_, which palpably +led to the expectation of no less dire an event, instead of being +seduced by his _manner_, which seemed to promise a sleep of a less +alarming nature than it was his cue to inflict upon Elvira, they found +themselves betrayed into an accompliceship of murder, a perfect +misprision of parricide, while they dreamed of nothing less. + +"M., I believe, was the only person who suffered acutely from the +failure; for G. thenceforward, with a serenity unattainable but by the +true philosophy, abandoning a precarious popularity, retired into his +fast hold of speculation,--the drama in which the world was to be his +tiring-room, and remote posterity his applauding spectators, at once, +and actors." + + * * * * * + +"The least shavings of gold are valuable, men say," says Archbishop +Leighton, in his masterly Commentary on Peter; and the veriest trifle +from the pen of such a writer as Charles Lamb should be highly prized by +all readers that are readers. Therefore I think it would be unwise in me +not to print Elia's Postscript to his "Chapter on Ears," and his +Answers to Correspondents. Indeed, I do not know but that they contain +some of the most racy sentences Lamb ever wrote. At any rate, they do +contain some delightful banter and "most ingenious nonsense." In their +pleasantry, archness, and good-natured raillery, these two little +articles of Elia's remind me of some of Addison's happiest papers in the +"Spectator." + +Better than anything in Southey's "Doctor" concerning the authorship of +that queer, quaint, delightful book are Elia's affected anger and +indignation against the author of the "Indicator" for attributing the +essays of Elia to their right author. Leigh Hunt must have "laughed +consumedly," as he read the P.S. to the "Chapter on Ears." And in his +Answers to Correspondents how many delightful changes Elia rings upon +the name of the unlucky Peter Bell! How cavalierly he answers +"Indagator," and the others, who are so importunate about the true +locality of his birth,--"as if, forsooth, Elia were presently about to +be passed to his parish "! + + * * * * * + +P.S. TO THE "CHAPTER ON EARS." + +"A writer, whose real name, it seems, is _Boldero_, but who has been +entertaining the town for the last twelve months with some very pleasant +lucubrations under the assumed signature of _Leigh Hunt_,[2] in his +'Indicator' of the 31st January last has thought fit to insinuate that +I, _Elia_, do not write the little sketches which bear my signature, in +this Magazine, but that the true author of them is a Mr. L----b. Observe +the critical period at which he has chosen to impute the calumny!--on +the very eve of the publication of our last number,--affording no scope +for explanation for a full month,--during which time I must needs lie +writhing and tossing under the cruel imputation of nonentity.--Good +heavens! that a plain man must not be allowed _to be!_ + +"They call this an age of personality: but surely this spirit of +anti-personality (if I may so express it) is something worse. + +"Take away my moral reputation,--I may live to discredit that calumny. +Injure my literary fame,--I may write that up again. But when a +gentleman is robbed of his identity, where is he? + +"Other murderers stab but at our existence, a frail and perishing trifle +at the best. But here is an assassin who aims at our very essence,--who +not only forbids us _to be_ any longer, but _to have been_ at all. Let +our ancestors look to it. + +"Is the parish register nothing? Is the house in Princes Street, +Cavendish Square, where we saw the light six-and-forty years ago, +nothing? Were our progenitors from stately Genoa, where we flourished +four centuries back, before the barbarous name of Boldero[3] was known +to a European mouth, nothing? Was the goodly scion of our name, +transplanted into England in the reign of the seventh Henry, nothing? +Are the archives of the steelyard, in succeeding reigns, (if haply they +survive the fury of our envious enemies,) showing that we flourished in +prime repute, as merchants, down to the period of the Commonwealth, +nothing? + + "'Why, then the world, and all that's in't is nothing, + The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing.' + +"I am ashamed that this trifling writer should have power to move me so. + +"ELIA." + + * * * * * + +"ELIA TO HIS CORRESPONDENTS. + +"A correspondent, who writes himself Peter Ball, or Bell,--for his +hand-writing is as ragged as his manners,--admonishes me of the old +saying, that some people (under a courteous periphrasis I slur his less +ceremonious epithet) had need have good memories. In my 'Old Benchers of +the Inner Temple,' I have delivered myself, and truly, a Templar born. +Bell clamors upon this, and thinketh that he hath caught a fox. It seems +that in a former paper, retorting upon a weekly scribbler who had called +my good identity in question, (see P.S. to my 'Chapter on Ears,') I +profess myself a native of some spot near Cavendish Square, deducing my +remoter origin from Italy. But who does not see, except this tinkling +cymbal, that in that idle fiction of Genoese ancestry I was answering a +fool according to his folly,--that Elia there expresseth himself +ironically, as to an approved slanderer, who hath no right to the truth, +and can be no fit recipient of it? Such a one it is usual to leave to +his delusions,--or, leading him from error still to contradictory error, +to plunge him (as we say) deeper in the mire, and give him line till he +suspend himself. No understanding reader could be imposed upon by such +obvious rodomontade to suspect me for an alien, or believe me other than +English. + +"To a second correspondent, who signs himself 'A Wiltshire Man,' and +claims me for a countryman upon the strength of an equivocal phrase in +my 'Christ's Hospital,' a more mannerly reply is due. Passing over the +Genoese fable, which Bell makes such a ring about, he nicely detects a +more subtle discrepancy, which Bell was too obtuse to strike upon. +Referring to the passage, I must confess that the term 'native town,' +applied to Calne, _prima facie_ seems to bear out the construction which +my friendly correspondent is willing to put upon it. The context, too, I +am afraid, a little favors it. But where the words of an author, taken +literally, compared with some other passage in his writings, admitted to +be authentic, involve a palpable contradiction, it hath been the custom +of the ingenuous commentator to smooth the difficulty by the supposition +that in the one case an allegorical or tropical sense was chiefly +intended. So by the word 'native' I may be supposed to mean a town where +I might have been born,--or where it might be desirable that I should +have been born, as being situate in wholesome air, upon a dry, chalky +soil, in which I delight,--or a town with the inhabitants of which I +passed some weeks, a summer or two ago, so agreeably, that they and it +became in a manner native to me. Without some such latitude of +interpretation in the present case, I see not how we can avoid falling +into a gross error in physics, as to conceive that a gentleman may be +born in two places, from which all modern and ancient testimony is alike +abhorrent. Bacchus cometh the nearest to it, whom I remember Ovid to +have honored with the epithet 'twice-born.'[4] But not to mention that +he is so called (we conceive) in reference to the places _whence_ rather +than the places _where_ he was delivered,--for by either birth he may +probably be challenged for a Theban,--in a strict way of speaking, he +was a _filius femoris_ by no means in the same sense as he had been +before a _filius alvi_, for that latter was but a secondary and +tralatitious way of being born, and he but a denizen of the second house +of his geniture. Thus much by way of explanation was thought due to the +courteous 'Wiltshire Man.' + +"To 'Indagator,' 'Investigator, 'Incertus,' and the rest of the pack, +that are so importunate about the true localities of his birth,--as if, +forsooth, Elia were presently about to be passed to his parish,--to all +such church-warden critics he answereth, that, any explanation here +given notwithstanding, he hath not so fixed his nativity (like a rusty +vane) to one dull spot, but that, if he seeth occasion, or the argument +shall demand it, he will be born again, in future papers, in whatever +place, and at whatever period, shall seem good unto him,-- + + "'Modo me Thebis, modo Athenis.' + +"ELIA." + + * * * * * + +Lamb excels as a critic. His article on Hogarth is a masterly specimen +of acute and subtile criticism. Hazlitt says it ought to be read by +every lover of Hogarth and English genius. His paper on "The Tragedies +of Shakspeare, considered with Reference to their Fitness for +Stage-Representation," is, in the opinion of good judges, the noblest +criticism ever written. The brief, "matterful" notes to his Specimens of +the Old English Dramatists are the very quintessence of criticism,--the +flower and fruit of years of thoughtful reading of the old English +drama. Nay, even his incidental allusions to his favorite old poets and +prose-writers are worth whole pages of ordinary criticism. + +Therefore I do not see what reason or excuse Talfourd could have for not +publishing the critical paper on De Foe's Secondary Novels, which Lamb +contributed to Walter Wilson's Life of De Foe. The author of "Robinson +Crusoe" was a great favorite with Lamb, and his criticism of "Colonel +Jack," "Moll Flanders," etc., was written _con amore_, and is, perhaps, +the very best thing ever said about those remarkable works. Those who +have read Lamb's letter to Wilson, dated December, 1822, and therefore +know how admirably he could write of the author of the best and most +popular book for boys ever written, will be right glad to read his + + * * * * * + +ESTIMATE OF DE FOE'S SECONDARY NOVELS. + +"It has happened not seldom that one work of some author has so +transcendently surpassed in execution the rest of his compositions, that +the world has agreed to pass a sentence of dismissal upon the latter, +and to consign them to total neglect and oblivion. It has done wisely in +this, not to suffer the contemplation of excellencies of a lower +standard to abate or stand in the way of the pleasure it has agreed to +receive from the master-piece. + +"Again, it has happened, that, from no inferior merit of execution in +the rest, but from superior good fortune in the choice of its subject, +some single work shall have been suffered to eclipse and cast into shade +the deserts of its less fortunate brethren. This has been done with more +or less injustice in the case of the popular allegory of Bunyan, in +which the beautiful and Scriptural image of a pilgrim or wayfarer, (we +are all such upon earth,) addressing itself intelligibly and feelingly +to the bosoms of all, has silenced, and made almost to be forgotten, the +more awful and scarcely less tender beauties of the 'Holy War made by +Shaddai upon Diabolus,' of the same author,--a romance less happy in its +subject, but surely well worthy of a secondary immortality. But in no +instance has this excluding partiality been exerted with more unfairness +than against what may be termed the secondary novels or romances of De +Foe. + +"While all ages and descriptions of people hang delighted over the +'Adventures of Robinson Crusoe,' and shall continue to do so, we trust, +while the world lasts, how few comparatively will bear to be told that +there exist other fictitious narratives by the same writer,--four of +them at least of no inferior interest, except what results from a less +felicitous choice of situation! 'Roxana.' 'Singleton,' 'Moll Flanders,' +'Colonel Jack,' are all genuine offspring of the same father. They bear +the veritable impress of De Foe. An unpractised midwife that would not +swear to the nose, lip, forehead, and eye of every one of them! They are +in their way as full of incident, and some of them every bit as +romantic; only they want the uninhabited island, and the charm that has +bewitched the world, of the striking solitary situation. + +"But are there no solitudes out of the cave and the desert? or cannot +the heart in the midst of crowds feel frightfully alone? Singleton on +the world of waters, prowling about with pirates less merciful than the +creatures of any howling wilderness,--is he not alone, with the faces of +men about him, but without a guide that can conduct him through the +mists of educational and habitual ignorance, or a fellow-heart that can +interpret to him the new-born yearnings and aspirations of unpractised +penitence? Or when the boy Colonel Jack, in the loneliness of the heart, +(the worst solitude,) goes to hide his ill-purchased treasure in the +hollow tree by night, and miraculously loses, and miraculously finds it +again--whom hath he there to sympathize with him? or of what sort are +his associates? + +"The narrative manner of De Foe has a naturalness about it beyond that +of any other novel or romance writer. His fictions have all the air of +true stories. It is impossible to believe, while you are reading them, +that a real person is not narrating to you everywhere nothing but what +really happened to himself. To this the extreme _homeliness_ of their +style mainly contributes. We use the word in its best and heartiest +sense,--that which comes _home_ to the reader. The narrators everywhere +are chosen from low life, or have had their origin in it; therefore they +tell their own tales, (Mr. Coleridge has anticipated us in this remark,) +as persons in their degree are observed to do, with infinite repetition, +and an overacted exactness, lest the hearer should not have minded, or +have forgotten, some things that had been told before. Hence the +emphatic sentences marked in the good old (but deserted) Italic type; +and hence, too, the frequent interposition of the reminding old +colloquial parenthesis, 'I say,' 'Mind,' and the like, when the +story-teller repeats what, to a practised reader, might appear to have +been sufficiently insisted upon before: which made an ingenious critic +observe, that his works, in this kind, were excellent reading for the +kitchen. And, in truth, the heroes and heroines of De Foe can never +again hope to be popular with a much higher class of readers than that +of the servant-maid or the sailor. Crusoe keeps its rank only by tough +prescription; Singleton, the pirate--Colonel Jack, the thief,--Moll +Flanders, both thief and harlot,--Roxana, harlot and something +worse,--would be startling ingredients in the bill-of-fare of modern +literary delicacies. But, then, what pirates, what thieves, and what +harlots is _the thief, the harlot_, and _the pirate_ of De Foe? We would +not hesitate to say, that in no other book of fiction, where the lives +of such characters are described, is guilt and delinquency made less +seductive, or the suffering made more closely to follow the commission, +or the penitence more earnest or more bleeding, or the intervening +flashes of religious visitation upon the rude and uninstructed soul more +meltingly and fearfully painted. They, in this, come near to the +tenderness of Bunyan; while the livelier pictures and incidents in them, +as in Hogarth or in Fielding, tend to diminish that fastidiousness to +the concerns and pursuits of common life which an unrestrained passion +for the ideal and the sentimental is in danger of producing." + + * * * * * + +Lamb, in a letter to one of his correspondents, says, after speaking of +his recent contributions to the "London Magazine,"--"In the next number +I shall figure as a theologian, and have attacked my late brethren, the +Unitarians. What Jack-Pudding tricks I shall play next I know not; I am +almost at the end of my tether." Talfourd, of course, does not publish +the article, or even give its title, which is, "Unitarian Protests." +Those who would see how well or how ill Elia figures as a theologian +should read + + * * * * * + +"UNITARIAN PROTESTS: IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND OF THAT PERSUASION NEWLY +MARRIED. + +"Dear M----,--Though none of your acquaintance can with greater +sincerity congratulate you upon this happy conjuncture than myself, one +of the oldest of them, it was with pain I found you, after the ceremony, +depositing in the vestry-room what is called a Protest. I thought you +superior to this little sophistry. What! after submitting to the service +of the Church of England,--after consenting to receive a boon from her, +in the person of your amiable consort,--was it consistent with sense, or +common good manners, to turn round upon her, and flatly taunt her with +false worship? This language is a little of the strongest in your books +and from your pulpits, though there it may well enough be excused from +religious zeal and the native warmth of Non-Conformity. But at the +altar,--the Church-of-England altar,--adopting her forms, and complying +with her requisitions to the letter,--to be consistent, together with +the practice, I fear, you must drop the language of dissent. You are no +longer sturdy Non-Cons; you are there Occasional Conformists. You submit +to accept the privileges communicated by a form of words exceptionable, +and perhaps justly, in your view; but so submitting, you have no right +to quarrel with the ritual which you have just condescended to owe an +obligation to. They do not force you into their churches. You come +voluntarily, knowing the terms. You marry in the name of the Trinity. +There is no evading this by pretending that you take the formula with +your own interpretation (and so long as you can do this, where is the +necessity of protesting?): for the meaning of a vow is to be settled by +the sense of the imposer, not by any forced construction of the taker: +else might all vows, and oaths too, be eluded with impunity. You marry, +then, essentially as Trinitarians; and the altar no sooner satisfied +than, hey, presto! with the celerity of a juggler, you shift habits, and +proceed pure Unitarians again in the vestry. You cheat the Church out of +a wife, and go home smiling in your sleeves that you have so cunningly +despoiled the Egyptians. In plain English, the Church has married you in +the name of so and so, assuming that you took the words in her sense; +but you outwitted her; you assented to them in your sense only, and took +from her what, upon a right understanding, she would have declined +giving you. + +"This is the fair construction to be put upon all Unitarian marriages, +as at present contracted; and so long as you Unitarians could salve your +consciences with the _equivoque_, I do not see why the Established +Church should have troubled herself at all about the matter. But the +Protesters necessarily see further. They have some glimmerings of the +deception; they apprehend a flaw somewhere; they would fain be honest, +and yet they must marry notwithstanding; for honesty's sake, they are +fain to dehonestate themselves a little. Let me try the very words of +your own Protest, to see what confessions we can pick out of them. + +"'As Unitarians, therefore, we' (you and your newly espoused bride) +'most solemnly protest against the service,' (which yourselves have just +demanded,) 'because we are thereby called upon, not only tacitly to +acquiesce, but to profess a belief, in a doctrine which is a dogma, as +we believe, totally unfounded.' But do you profess that belief during +the ceremony? or are you only called upon for the profession, but do not +make it? If the latter, then you fall in with the rest of your more +consistent brethren, who waive the Protest; if the former, then, I fear, +your Protest cannot save you. + +"Hard and grievous it is, that, in any case, an institution so broad +and general as the union of man and wife should be so cramped and +straitened by the hands of an imposing hierarchy, that, to plight troth +to a lovely woman, a man must be necessitated to compromise his truth +and faith to Heaven; but so it must be, so long as you choose to marry +by the forms of the church over which that hierarchy presides. + +"'Therefore,' say you, 'we protest.' O poor and much fallen word, +Protest! It was not so that the first heroic reformers protested. They +departed out of Babylon once for good and all; they came not back for an +occasional contact with her altars--a dallying, and then a protesting +against dalliance; they stood not shuffling in the porch, with a Popish +foot within, and its lame Lutheran fellow without, halting betwixt. +These were the true Protestants. You are--Protesters. + +"Besides the inconsistency of this proceeding, I must think it a piece +of impertinence, unseasonable at least, and out of place, to obtrude +these papers upon the officiating clergyman,--to offer to a public +functionary an instrument which by the tenor of his function he is not +obliged to accept, but, rather, he is called upon to reject. Is it done +in his clerical capacity? He has no power of redressing the grievance. +It is to take the benefit of his ministry, and then insult him. If in +his capacity of fellow-Christian only, what are your scruples to him, so +long as you yourselves are able to get over them, and do get over them +by the very fact of coming to require his services? The thing you call a +Protest might with just as good a reason be presented to the +church-warden for the time being, to the parish-clerk, or the +pew-opener. + +"The Parliament alone can redress your grievance, if any. Yet I see not +how with any grace your people can petition for relief, so long as, by +the very fact of your coming to church to be married, they do _bona +fide_ and strictly relieve themselves. The Upper House, in particular, +is not unused to these same things called Protests, among themselves. +But how would this honorable body stare to find a noble Lord conceding a +measure, and in the next breath, by a solemn Protest, disowning it! A +Protest there is a reason given for non-compliance, not a subterfuge for +an equivocal occasional compliance. It was reasonable in the primitive +Christians to avert from their persons, by whatever lawful means, the +compulsory eating of meats which had been offered unto idols. I dare say +the Roman Prefects and Exarchates had plenty of petitioning in their +days. But what would a Festus or Agrippa have replied to a petition to +that effect, presented to him by some evasive Laodicean, with the very +meat between his teeth, which he had been chewing voluntarily rather +than abide the penalty? Relief for tender consciences means nothing, +where the conscience has previously relieved itself,--that is, has +complied with the injunctions which it seeks preposterously to be rid +of. Relief for conscience there is properly none, but what by better +information makes an act appear innocent and lawful with which the +previous conscience was not satisfied to comply. All else is but relief +from penalties, from scandal incurred by a complying practice, where the +conscience itself is not fully satisfied. + +"But, say you, we have hard measure: the Quakers are indulged with the +liberty denied to us. They are; and dearly have they earned it. You have +come in (as a sect, at least) in the cool of the evening, at the +eleventh hour. The Quaker character was hardened in the fires of +persecution in the seventeenth century,--not quite to the stake and +fagot, but little short of that: they grew up and thrived against +noisome prisons, cruel beatings, whippings, stockings. They have since +endured a century or two of scoffs, contempts; they have been a by-word, +and a nay-word; they have stood unmoved: and the consequence of long +conscientious resistance on one part is invariably, in the end, +remission on the other. The legislature, that denied you the tolerance, +which I do not know that at that time you even asked, gave them the +liberty which, without granting, they would have assumed. No penalties +could have driven them into the churches. This is the consequence of +entire measures. Had the early Quakers consented to take oaths, leaving +a Protest with the clerk of the court against them in the same breath +with which they had taken them, do you in your conscience think that +they would have been indulged at this day in their exclusive privilege +of affirming? Let your people go on for a century or so, marrying in +your own fashion, and I will warrant them, before the end of it, the +legislature will be willing to concede to them more than they at present +demand. + +"Either the institution of marriage depends not for its validity upon +hypocritical compliances with the ritual of an alien church, and then I +do not see why you cannot marry among yourselves, as the Quakers, +without their indulgence, would have been doing to this day,--or it does +depend upon such ritual compliance, and then in your Protests you offend +against a divine ordinance. I have read in the Essex-Street Liturgy a +form for the celebration of marriage. Why is this become a dead letter? +Oh! it has never been legalized: that is to say, in the law's eye it is +no marriage. But do you take upon you to say, in the view of the gospel +it would be none? Would your own people, at least, look upon a couple so +paired to be none? But the case of dowries, alimonies, inheritances, +etc., which depend for their validity upon the ceremonial of the church +by law established,--are these nothing? That our children are not +legally _Filii Nullius_,--is this nothing? I answer, Nothing; to the +preservation of a good conscience, nothing; to a consistent +Christianity, less than nothing. Sad worldly thorns they are indeed, and +stumbling-blocks well worthy to be set out of the way by a legislature +calling itself Christian; but not likely to be removed in a hurry by any +shrewd legislators who perceive that the petitioning complainants have +not so much as bruised a shin in the resistance, but, prudently +declining the briers and the prickles, nestle quietly down in the smooth +two-sided velvet of a Protesting Occasional Conformity. + +"I am, dear Sir, + +"With much respect, yours, etc., + +"ELIA." + + * * * * * + +Lamb once said, of all the lies he ever put off,--and he put off a good +many,--indeed, he valued himself on being "a matter-of-lie man," +believing truth to be too precious to be wasted upon everybody,--of all +the lies he ever put off, he valued his "Memoir of Liston" the most. "It +is," he confessed to Miss Hutchinson, "from top to toe, every paragraph, +pure invention, and has passed for gospel,--has been republished in the +newspapers, and in the penny play-bills of the night, as an authentic +account." And yet, notwithstanding its incidents are all imaginary, its +facts all fictions, is not Lamb's "Memoir of Liston" a truer and more +trustworthy work than any of the productions of those contemptible +biographers--unfortunately not yet extinct--so admirably ridiculed in +the thirty-fifth number of the "Freeholder"? In fact, is not this "lying +Life of Liston" a very clever satire on those biographers who, like the +monkish historians mentioned by Fuller, in his "Church History of +Britain," swell the bowels of their books with empty wind, in default of +sufficient solid food to fill them,--who, according to Addison, ascribe +to the unfortunate persons whose lives they pretend to write works which +they never wrote and actions which they never performed, celebrate +virtues which they were never famous for and excuse faults which they +were never guilty of? And does not Lamb, in this work, very happily +ridicule the pedantry and conceit of certain grave and dignified +biographers whose works are to be found in most gentlemen's libraries? + +Therefore, as a piece of most admirable fooling, as a bit of harmless, +good-natured pleasantry, as a specimen of pleasant satire, of subtile +irony, this "Memoir of Listen" is well worthy of a place in all editions +of Charles Lamb's writings. + + * * * * * + +"BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF MR. LISTON. + +"The subject of our Memoir is lineally descended from Johan de +L'Estonne, (see 'Domesday Book,' where he is so written,) who came in +with the Conqueror, and had lands awarded him at Lupton Magna, in Kent. +His particular merits or services Fabian, whose authority I chiefly +follow, has forgotten, or perhaps thought it immaterial, to specify. +Fuller thinks that he was standard-bearer to Hugo de Agmondesham, a +powerful Norman baron, who was slain by the hand of Harold himself at +the fatal Battle of Hastings. Be this as it may, we find a family of +that name flourishing some centuries later in that county. John +Delliston, Knight, was high sheriff for Kent, according to Fabian, +_quinto Henrici Sexti_; and we trace the lineal branch flourishing +downwards,--the orthography varying, according to the unsettled usage of +the times, from Delleston to Leston or Liston, between which it seems to +have alternated, till, in the latter end of the reign of James I., it +finally settled into the determinate and pleasing dissyllabic +arrangement which it still retains. Aminadab Liston, the eldest male +representative of the family of that day, was of the strictest order of +Puritans. Mr. Foss, of Pall Mall, has obligingly communicated to me an +undoubted tract of his, which bears the initials only, A.L., and is +entitled, 'The Grinning Glass: or Actor's Mirrour, wherein the +vituperative Visnomy of vicious Players for the Scene is as virtuously +reflected back upon their mimetic Monstrosities as it has viciously +(hitherto) vitiated with its vile Vanities her Votarists.' A strange +title, but bearing the impress of those absurdities with which the +title-pages of that pamphlet-spawning age abounded. The work bears date +1617. It preceded the 'Histriomastix' by fifteen years; and as it went +before it in time, so it comes not far short of it in virulence. It is +amusing to find an ancestor of Listen's thus bespattering the players at +the commencement of the seventeenth century:-- + + "'Thinketh He,' (the actor,) 'with his costive countenances, to + wry a sorrowing soul out of her anguish, or by defacing the divine + denotement of destinate dignity (daignely described in the face + humane and no other) to reinstamp the Paradice-plotted similitude + with a novel and naughty approximation (not in the first + intention) to those abhorred and ugly God-forbidden + correspondences, with flouting Apes' jeering gibberings, and + Babion babbling-like, to hoot out of countenance all modest + measure, as if our sins were not sufficing to stoop our backs + without He wresting and crooking his members to mistimed mirth + (rather malice) in deformed fashion, leering when he should learn, + prating for praying, goggling his eyes, (better upturned for + grace,) whereas in Paradice (if we can go thus high for His + profession) that devilish Serpent appeareth his undoubted + Predecessor, first induing a mask like some roguish roistering + Roscius (I spit at them all) to beguile with Stage shows the + gaping Woman, whose Sex hath still chiefly upheld these Mysteries, + and are voiced to be the chief Stage-haunters, where, as I am + told, the custom is commonly to mumble (between acts) apples, not + ambiguously derived from that pernicious Pippin, (worse in effect + than the Apples of Discord,) whereas sometimes the hissing sounds + of displeasure, as I hear, do lively reintonate that + snake-taking-leave, and diabolical goings off, in Paradice.' + +"The Puritanic effervescence of the early Presbyterians appears to have +abated with time, and the opinions of the more immediate ancestors of +our subject to have subsided at length into a strain of moderate +Calvinism. Still a tincture of the old leaven was to be expected among +the posterity of A.L. + +"Our hero was the only son of Habakkuk Liston, settled as an anabaptist +minister upon the patrimonial soil of his ancestors. A regular +certificate appears, thus entered in the Church-Book at Lupton +Magna:--'_Johannes, filius Habakkuk et Rebecccae Liston, Dissentientium, +natus quinto Decembri_, 1780, _baptizatus sexto Februarii sequentis; +Sponsoribus J. et W. Woollaston, una cum Maria Merryweather_.' The +singularity of an Anabaptist minister conforming to the child-rites of +the Church would have tempted me to doubt the authenticity of this +entry, had I not been obliged with the actual sight of it, by the favor +of Mr. Minns, the intelligent and worthy parish-clerk of Lupton. +Possibly some expectation in point of worldly advantages from some of +the sponsors might have induced this unseemly deviation, as it must have +appeared, from the practice and principles of that generally rigid sect. +The term _Dissentientium_ was possibly intended by the orthodox +clergyman as a slur upon the supposed inconsistency. What, or of what +nature, the expectations we have hinted at may have been, we have now no +means of ascertaining. Of the Woollastons no trace is now discoverable +in the village. The name of Merryweather occurs over the front of a +grocer's shop at the western extremity of Lupton. + +"Of the infant Liston we find no events recorded before his fourth year, +in which a severe attack of the measles bid fair to have robbed the +rising generation of a fund of innocent entertainment. He had it of the +confluent kind, as it is called, and the child's life was for a week or +two despaired of. His recovery he always attributes (under Heaven) to +the humane interference of one Doctor Wilhelm Richter, a German empiric, +who, in this extremity, prescribed a copious diet of _sauer-kraut_, +which the child was observed to reach at with avidity, when other food +repelled him; and from this change of diet his restoration was rapid and +complete. We have often heard him name the circumstance with gratitude; +and it is not altogether surprising that a relish for this kind of +aliment, so abhorrent and harsh to common English palates, has +accompanied him through life. When any of Mr. Listen's intimates invite +him to supper, he never fails of finding, nearest to his knife and fork, +a dish of _sauer-kraut_. + +"At the age of nine we find our subject under the tuition of the Rev. +Mr. Goodenough, (his father's health not permitting him probably to +instruct him himself,) by whom he was inducted into a competent portion +of Latin and Greek, with some mathematics, till the death of Mr. +Goodenough, in his own seventieth, and Master Liston's eleventh year, +put a stop for the present to his classical progress. + +"We have heard our hero, with emotions which do his heart honor, +describe the awful circumstances attending the decease of this worthy +old gentleman. It seems they had been walking out together, master and +pupil, in a fine sunset, to the distance of three-quarters of a mile +west of Lupton, when a sudden curiosity took Mr. Goodenough to look down +upon a chasm, where a shaft had been lately sunk in a mining speculation +(then projecting, but abandoned soon after, as not answering the +promised success, by Sir Ralph Shepperton, Knight, and member for the +county). The old clergyman leaning over, either with incaution or sudden +giddiness, (probably a mixture of both,) suddenly lost his footing, +and, to use Mr. Listen's phrase, disappeared, and was doubtless broken +into a thousand pieces. The sound of his head, etc., dashing +successively upon the projecting masses of the chasm, had such an effect +upon the child that a serious sickness ensued, and even for many years +after his recovery he was not once seen so much as to smile. + +"The joint death of both his parents, which happened not many months +after this disastrous accident, and were probably (one or both of them) +accelerated by it, threw our youth upon the protection of his maternal +great-aunt, Mrs. Sittingbourn. Of this aunt we have never heard him +speak but with expressions amounting almost to reverence. To the +influence of her early counsels and manners he has always attributed the +firmness with which, in maturer years, thrown upon a way of life +commonly not the best adapted to gravity and self-retirement, he has +been able to maintain a serious character, untinctured with the levities +incident to his profession. Ann Sittingbourn (we have seen her portrait +by Hudson) was stately, stiff, tall, with a cast of features strikingly +resembling the subject of this memoir. Her estate in Kent was spacious +and well-wooded; the house, one of those venerable old mansions which +are so impressive in childhood, and so hardly forgotten in succeeding +years. In the venerable solitudes of Charnwood, among thick shades of +the oak and beech, (this last his favorite tree,) the young Listen +cultivated those contemplative habits which have never entirely deserted +him in after-years. Here he was commonly in the summer months to be met +with, with a book in his hand,--not a play-book,--meditating. Boyle's +'Reflections' was at one time the darling volume, which in its turn was +superseded by Young's 'Night Thoughts,' which has continued its hold +upon him through life. He carries it always about him; and it is no +uncommon thing for him to be seen, in the refreshing intervals of his +occupation, leaning against a side-scene, in a sort of +Herbert-of-Cherbury posture, turning over a pocket-edition of his +favorite author. + +"But the solitudes of Charnwood were not destined always to obscure the +path of our young hero. The premature death of Mrs. Sittingbourn, at the +age of seventy, occasioned by incautious burning of a pot of charcoal in +her sleeping-chamber, left him in his nineteenth year nearly without +resources. That the stage at all should have presented itself as an +eligible scope for his talents, and, in particular, that he should have +chosen a line so foreign to what appears to have been his turn of mind, +may require some explanation. + +"At Charnwood, then, we behold him thoughtful, grave, ascetic. From his +cradle averse to flesh-meats and strong drink; abstemious even beyond +the genius of the place, and almost in spite of the remonstrances of his +great-aunt, who, though strict, was not rigid; water was his habitual +drink, and his food little beyond the mast and beech-nuts of his +favorite groves. It is a medical fact, that this kind of diet, however +favorable to the contemplative powers of the primitive hermits, etc., is +but ill adapted to the less robust minds and bodies of a later +generation. Hypochondria almost constantly ensues. It was so in the case +of the young Liston. He was subject to sights, and had visions. Those +arid beech-nuts, distilled by a complexion naturally adust, mounted into +an occiput already prepared to kindle by long seclusion and the fervor +of strict Calvinistic notions. In the glooms of Charnwood he was +assailed by illusions similar in kind to those which are related of the +famous Anthony of Padua. Wild antic faces would ever and anon protrude +themselves upon his sensorium. Whether he shut his eyes or kept them +open, the same illusions operated. The darker and more profound were his +cogitations, the droller and more whimsical became the apparitions. +They buzzed about him thick as flies, flapping at him, flouting him, +hooting in his ear, yet with such comic appendages, that what at first +was his bane became at length his solace; and he desired no better +society than that of his merry phantasmata. We shall presently find in +what way this remarkable phenomenon influenced his future destiny. + +"On the death of Mrs. Sittingbourn, we find him received into the family +of Mr. Willoughby, an eminent Turkey merchant, resident in Birchin Lane, +London. We lose a little while here the chain of his history,--by what +inducements this gentleman was determined to make him an inmate of his +house. Probably he had had some personal kindness for Mrs. Sittingbourn +formerly; but however it was, the young man was here treated more like a +son than a clerk, though he was nominally but the latter. Different +avocations, the change of scene, with that alternation of business and +recreation which in its greatest perfection is to be had only in London, +appear to have weaned him in a short time from the hypochondriacal +affections which had beset him at Charnwood. + +"In the three years which followed his removal to Birchin Lane, we find +him making more than one voyage to the Levant, as chief factor for Mr. +Willoughby at the Porte. We could easily fill our biography with the +pleasant passages which we have heard him relate as having happened to +him at Constantinople, such as his having been taken up on suspicion of +a design of penetrating the seraglio, etc.; but, with the deepest +convincement of this gentleman's own veracity, we think that some of the +stories are of that whimsical, and others of that romantic nature, +which, however diverting, would be out of place in a narrative of this +kind, which aims not only at strict truth, but at avoiding the very +appearance of the contrary. + +"We will now bring him over the seas again, and suppose him in the +counting-house in Birchin Lane, his protector satisfied with the returns +of his factorage, and all going on so smoothly that we may expect to +find Mr. Liston at last an opulent merchant upon 'Change, as it is +called. But see the turns of destiny! Upon a summer's excursion into +Norfolk, in the year 1801, the accidental sight of pretty Sally Parker, +as she was called, (then in the Norwich company,) diverted his +inclinations at once from commerce; and he became, in the language of +commonplace biography, stage-struck. Happy for the lovers of mirth was +it that our hero took this turn; he might else have been to this hour +that unentertaining character, a plodding London merchant. + +"We accordingly find him shortly after making his _debut_, as it is +called, upon the Norwich boards, in the season of that year, being then +in the twenty-second year of his age. Having a natural bent to tragedy, +he chose the part of Pyrrhus in the 'Distressed Mother,' to Sally +Parker's Hermione. We find him afterwards as Barnwell, Altamont, +Chamont, etc.; but, as if Nature had destined him to the sock, an +unavoidable infirmity absolutely discapacitated him for tragedy. His +person, at this latter period of which I have been speaking, was +graceful, and even commanding; his countenance set to gravity; he had +the power of arresting the attention of an audience at first sight +almost beyond any other tragic actor. But he could not hold it. To +understand this obstacle, we must go back a few years to those appalling +reveries at Charnwood. Those illusions, which had vanished before the +dissipation of a less recluse life and more free society, now in his +solitary tragic studies, and amid the intense calls upon feeling +incident to tragic acting, came back upon him with tenfold vividness. In +the midst of some most pathetic passage, the parting of Jaffier with his +dying friend, for instance, he would suddenly be surprised with a fit of +violent horse-laughter. While the spectators were all sobbing before +him with emotion, suddenly one of those grotesque faces would peep out +upon him, and he could not resist the impulse. A timely excuse once or +twice served his purpose; but no audiences could be expected to bear +repeatedly this violation of the continuity of feeling. He describes +them (the illusions) as so many demons haunting him, and paralyzing +every effect. Even now, I am told, he cannot recite the famous soliloquy +in 'Hamlet,' even in private, without immoderate bursts of laughter. +However, what he had not force of reason sufficient to overcome he had +good sense enough to turn into emolument, and determined to make a +commodity of his distemper. He prudently exchanged the buskin for the +sock, and the illusions instantly ceased; or, if they occurred for a +short season, by their very cooperation added a zest to his comic +vein,--some of his most catching faces being (as he expresses it) little +more than transcripts and copies of those extraordinary phantasmata. + +"We have now drawn out our hero's existence to the period when he was +about to meet for the first time the sympathies of a London audience. +The particulars of his success since have been too much before our eyes +to render a circumstantial detail of them expedient. I shall only +mention, that Mr. Willoughby, his resentments having had time to +subside, is at present one of the fastest friends of his old renegado +factor; and that Mr. Listen's hopes of Miss Parker vanishing along with +his unsuccessful suit to Melpomene, in the autumn of 1811 he married his +present lady, by whom he has been blest with one son, Philip, and two +daughters, Ann and Angustina." + + * * * * * + +"Ask anybody you meet," writes Lamb to Miss Wordsworth, then visiting +some friends in Cambridge, "who is the biggest woman in Cambridge, and +I'll hold a wager they'll say Mrs. ----. She broke down two benches in +Trinity Gardens,--one on the confines of St. John's, which occasioned a +litigation between the societies as to repairing it. In warm weather she +retires into an ice-cellar, (literally,) and dates from a hot Thursday +some twenty years back. She sits in a room with opposite doors and +windows, to let in a thorough draft, which gives her slenderer friends +toothaches. She is to be seen in the market every morning at ten, +cheapening fowls, which I observe the Cambridge poulterers are not +sufficiently careful to stump." + +On the person thus briefly sketched Elia wrote an article for the +"London Magazine." As it is not to be found in the standard editions of +its author's works, we herewith present it to our readers. They will +find it to be a clever specimen of Lamb's peculiar and delightful humor. +In truth, it is one of the very best things he ever conjured up. We +observe he has changed the locality of the stout woman, and places her +in Oxford, instead of Cambridge. + + * * * * * + +"THE GENTLE GIANTESS. + +"The widow Blacket, of Oxford, is the largest female I ever had the +pleasure of beholding. There may be her parallel upon the earth, but +surely I never saw it. I take her to be lineally descended from the +maid's aunt of Brainford, who caused Master Ford such uneasiness. She +hath Atlantean shoulders; and as she stoopeth in her gait,--with as few +offences to answer for in her own particular as any of Eve's +daughters,--her back seems broad enough to bear the blame of all the +peccadilloes that have been committed since Adam. She girdeth her +waist--or what she is pleased to esteem as such--nearly up to her +shoulders, from beneath which that huge dorsal expanse, in mountainous +declivity, emergeth. Respect for her alone preventeth the idle boys, who +follow her about in shoals, whenever she cometh abroad, from getting up +and riding. But her presence infallibly commands a reverence. She is, +indeed, as the Americans would express it, something awful. Her person +is a burden to herself, no less than to the ground which bears her. + +"To her mighty bone she hath a pinguitude withal which makes the depth +of winter to her the most desirable season. Her distress in the warmer +solstice is pitiable. During the months of July and August she usually +renteth a cool cellar, where ices are kept, whereinto she descendeth +when Sirius rageth. She dates from a hot Thursday, some twenty-five +years ago. Her apartment in summer is pervious to the four winds. Two +doors in north and south direction, and two windows fronting the rising +and the setting sun, never closed, from every cardinal point catch the +contributory breezes. She loves to enjoy what she calls a quadruple +draught. That must be a shrewd zephyr that can escape her. I owe a +painful face-ache, which oppresses me at this moment, to a cold caught, +sitting by her, one day in last July, at this receipt of coolness. Her +fan in ordinary resembleth a banner spread, which she keepeth +continually on the alert to detect the least breeze. + +"She possesseth an active and gadding mind, totally incommensurate with +her person. No one delighteth more than herself in country exercises and +pastimes. I have passed many an agreeable holiday with her in her +favorite park at Woodstock. She performs her part in these delightful +ambulatory excursions by the aid of a portable garden-chair. She setteth +out with you at a fair foot-gallop, which she keepeth up till you are +both well breathed, and then she reposeth for a few seconds. Then she is +up again for a hundred paces or so, and again resteth,--her movement, on +these sprightly occasions, being something between walking and flying. +Her great weight seemeth to propel her forward, ostrich-fashion. In this +kind of relieved marching I have traversed with her many scores of acres +on those well-wooded and well-watered domains. + +"Her delight at Oxford is in the public walks and gardens, where, when +the weather is not too oppressive, she passeth much of her valuable +time. There is a bench at Maudlin, or rather, situated between the +frontiers of that and ----'s College,--some litigation, latterly, about +repairs, has vested the property of it finally in ----'s,--where at the +hour of noon she is ordinarily to be found sitting,--so she calls it by +courtesy,--but, in fact, pressing and breaking of it down with her +enormous settlement; as both those Foundations, who, however, are +good-natured enough to wink at it, have found, I believe, to their cost. +Here she taketh the fresh air, principally at vacation times, when the +walks are freest from interruption of the younger fry of students. Here +she passeth her idle hours, not idly, but generally accompanied with a +book,--blest, if she can but intercept some resident Fellow, (as usually +there are some of that brood left behind at these periods,) or stray +Master of Arts, (to most of whom she is better known than their +dinner-bell,) with whom she may confer upon any curious topic of +literature. I have seen these shy gownsmen, who truly set but a very +slight value upon female conversation, cast a hawk's eye upon her from +the length of Maudlin Grove, and warily glide off into another +walk,--true monks as they are, and ungently neglecting the delicacies of +her polished converse, for their own perverse and uncommunicating +solitariness! + +"Within doors her principal diversion is music, vocal and instrumental, +in both which she is no mean professor. Her voice is wonderfully fine; +but, till I got used to it, I confess it staggered me. It is for all the +world like that of a piping bulfinch, while from her size and stature +you would expect notes to drown the deep organ. The shake, which most +fine singers reserve for the close or cadence, by some unaccountable +flexibility, or tremulousness of pipe, she carrieth quite through the +composition; so that her time, to a common air or ballad, keeps double +motion, like the earth,--running the primary circuit of the tune, and +still revolving upon its own axis. The effect, as I said before, when +you are used to it, is as agreeable as it is altogether new and +surprising. + +"The spacious apartment of her outward frame lodgeth a soul in all +respects disproportionate. Of more than mortal make, she evinceth withal +a trembling sensibility, a yielding infirmity of purpose, a quick +susceptibility to reproach, and all the train of diffident and blushing +virtues, which for their habitation usually seek out a feeble frame, an +attenuated and meagre constitution. With more than man's bulk, her +humors and occupations are eminently feminine. She sighs,--being six +foot high. She languisheth,--being two feet wide. She worketh slender +sprigs upon the delicate muslin,--her fingers being capable of moulding +a Colossus. She sippeth her wine out of her glass daintily,--her +capacity being that of a tun of Heidelberg. She goeth mincingly with +those feet of hers,--whose solidity need not fear the black ox's +pressure. + +"Softest and largest of thy sex, adieu! By what parting attribute may I +salute thee?--last and best of the Titanesses!--Ogress, fed with milk +instead of blood!--not least, or least handsome, among Oxford's stately +structures!--Oxford, who, in its deadest time of vacation, can never +properly be said to be empty, having thee to fill it!" + + * * * * * + +MY PALACE. + + + Wound round and round within his mystic veil + The poet hid a noble truth; + The Soul's Art-Palace then he named the tale + Of those far days in youth. + + I sought that palace on its haughty height, + And came to know its starry joys, + Its sudden blackness, and the withering blight + Of all its mortal toys. + + At length the soul took lesson from her past, + And found a vale wherein to dwell, + With no Arcadian visions overcast + Or history to tell. + + My fellows tended wandering flocks and herds, + Or tilled and nursed their scanty corn; + Little they heeded life that grew to words, + Yet gave no man their scorn. + + Like them I wrought my task and took its gain, + That one might serve their homely need, + When skies were dark, and every cloud a pain, + And there were mouths to feed. + + Thus labored day by day these unskilled hands, + Whose only master was a willing heart, + Till barren space smiled into garden-lands + Where roses shone apart. + + Half faint with toil from morn to set of sun, + One night I watched the shadows creep + With stealthy footstep, when the day was done, + Toward my encastled steep. + + The palace gleamed upon my dazzled sight,-- + From long estrangement grown more fair: + I sank and dreamed my feet were mounting light + Over each golden stair. + + Once more there came the voice of waters low + On cooling breezes perfume-fed: + It seemed I followed a grand leader, slow + Through marble galleries led. + + Then sad I wakened in the vale, but found + The stately guide still drew me on: + Her name was Charity; her voice a sound + Of pure compassion. + + She said,--"Beside thee every day I stood + To keep false memories aloof; + To-night I sorrowed for thy labor rude, + And put thee to the proof. + + "Ascend again to yon high palace-towers, + With brothers share its plenitude, + And gather up with all thy princely powers + Joys to infinitude." + + "Ay me!" I cried, "bid me not go afar, + While yet these little children call, + Lest life grow pallid as the morning star + In that cold shining hall! + + "All shall be theirs: my lot is here below + To minister the goods I hold, + While suffering ones shall watch the torrent flow + In waves of amber gold. + + "There childhood shall be laid on gleaming beds, + A saintly-eyed prophetic band, + And tinted oriels flame above their heads + To picture the new land. + + "And dusky men shall press the snowy lawn, + Shall feel those tears that ease all pain, + Then wake to greet the free earth's noble dawn + And turn to rest again. + + "There tired soldiers wash their bleeding feet, + Who gave for us their ripening youth + To earn pure freedom, dared all danger meet, + Content to die for truth. + + "There, in the sleepless watch the organ's tone + Shall bear them on its swelling wing + To dreamful space, while star-fires one by one + In vibrant chorus sing." + + Sudden there came a thought,--Thou hast no home, + No shaded haunt, or mansion wide, + No refuge after toil in which to roam, + Where silence may abide. + + And then I saw a palace broad as earth, + Built beautiful of land and seas,-- + Its eastern gate shone in the morning's birth, + The west o'ertopped the trees. + + Free as wild waves upon an autumn day, + A world of brothers through its space + Might wander up and down, and sunbeams play + Even on Sorrow's face. + + Here in the broad sunned silence of the noon + Peace waiteth to salute the worn, + And ever crowneth with her tender boon + Those who have nobly borne. + + Like shafted light dropped in a sunset sea, + The radiant pillars of my home + Send from their glowing swift mortality + Great voices crying, "Come!" + + * * * * * + +THE DEACON'S HOLOCAUST. + +I + + +A First-class old lady is the most precious social possession of a +New-England town. I have been in places where this office of Select +Woman had languished for want of a proper incumbent,--that is, where the +feminine element was always supplicatory, never authoritative. In such a +place you may find the Select Men as vulgar and unclean as are some of +the more pretentious politicians of State or nation; the variety-store +sands its sugar quite up to the city-standard; and the parson is as +timid a timeserver as the Bishop of Babylon. No rich local tone and +character are to be found in such a place. + +This deplorable state of things had never existed in Foxden. When +strangers took a carriage at the depot and asked to be shown whatever +was noteworthy in the town, they were driven to a many-gabled house +shaded by a majestic oak, and informed that there lived Mrs. Widesworth, +the grand-daughter of Twynintuft, the famous elocutionist. They were +also assured that the oak was no other than the Twynintuft Oak, +celebrated in the well-known sonnet of a distinguished American poet. +Moreover, they were instructed that the room just to the right of the +porch was a study added by Twynintuft himself in the year '87, and that +the shattered shed in the background was originally an elocutionary +laboratory which had seen the forming of many Congressional orators. + +In so confident a way was this information imparted, that visitors were +compelled to receive it in all humbleness, and as a matter of course. +They could only feign that Twynintuft had been a household word from +their tenderest infancy, and that they have made pilgrimage to Foxden to +gaze upon the earthly abiding-place of this remarkable man. Accordingly, +young ladies sent their best respects from the hotel, and "Would dear +Mrs. Widesworth spare them a few leaves from her grandfather's oak?" And +simple young gentlemen, with a morbid passion for notorieties and moral +sentiments, forwarded little books, bound in sheepskin heavily gilt, +inscribed, "World-Thoughts of My Country's Gifted Minds," and "Mrs. +Widesworth is requested to write any maxim which her experience of life +may have suggested on page 209 of this volume, just between the remarks +of the Living Skeleton and the autograph of the Idiot Albino." + +If invited to visit any one of consideration in Foxden, you would no +sooner have deposited your travelling-bag and subsided into the +arm-chair than you would perceive a curious nervous twitching about the +features of your host, which would finally culminate in these, accents +of patronizing triumph:--"My dear Sir, I shall be glad to take you +across the street to pay your respects to Mrs. Widesworth!" Every +householder quivered with anxiety until this rite had been solemnly +performed. + +Mrs. Widesworth, the actual, was a plump, well-to-do widow, of +threescore years. She lived among her fellow-creatures, but not of +them,--and that in a sense far more comfortable than Byronic misanthropy +could imagine. She managed to keep all the tumult and competition of +this rough world just outside the little whitewashed fence which +inclosed her premises. No solitary saint of the Middle Ages floated in a +more lofty independence of the foolish heresies of vulgar humanity. The +mission of woman must, of necessity, be identical with the mission of +Mrs. Widesworth,--and this was, to bestow a mellow patronage upon all +creation. That whatever is is right, and that this is the best possible +of worlds, were to Mrs. Widesworth propositions which her perfect health +and unmitigated prosperity continually proved. That, in a theological +point of view, everything was wrong, she considered an esoteric +condiment to add piquancy to the loaves and fishes which Providence had +set before her. + +Concerning the eminent Twynintuft, it may be remarked that he had +devoted a long life to elocution, and produced a bulky manual full of +illustrative quavers. And as it happened that his work was the first of +the sort published in America, it obtained a pretty general circulation +in schools and colleges, and was even patronisingly noticed in a British +Review,--at that time the apotheosis of our native authorship. But, alas +for the perishable nature of literary productions! "Twynintuft on the +Human Voice" had long been superseded, and lay comfortably buried in +that cemetery of dead textbooks from which there is no resurrection. +Yet, as he had once been one of the notables of Foxden, the inhabitants +of the town indulged themselves in the soothing fiction that his memory +was still verdant among men, and did pious homage to his representative. + +Until the correspondence of Colonel Prowley had drawn Miss Hurribattle +to Foxden, Mrs. Widesworth reigned by divine right. All quilting-bees +and charitable fairs seemed but manifestations of her pervading +vitality. Every social detail was submitted to her arbitrament. She +hovered over the gossips of the town like Fate in a Greek tragedy,--but +it was a reformed Fate, with a wholesome respect for family and +condition. + +An entertainment widely famous as "Mrs. Widesworth's Semiannual +Singing-School" brought forth every spring and fall the entire strength +of this excellent lady. The origin of this festivity was of ancient +date. The early settlers in Foxden, while holding decided opinions +concerning the mischief of church-organs, were unusually tolerant of +vocal music. They doubted not that a preached gospel might be worthily +seconded by a vigorous psalmody. Weekly meetings of the young men and +maidens were allowed for practice, and the pot of beans, surmounted by +its crisp coronal of pork, closed the evening in simple conviviality. +This singing-school had descended through the generations, and in solemn +rotation visited the families of all church-members. Under the fostering +care of Mrs. Widesworth, the occasion grew to a musical festival of +considerable importance. When the meeting was at her house, there were +invited many citizens of distinction from the neighboring towns; also, +there was summoned all that was lively, pretty, or profound in Foxden. +From three in the afternoon until nine in the evening the old house +broke out into singing, chatting, love-making, and sermonizing in rich +variety. The ancient bean-pot gave place to a tea-table loaded with +everything which might be baked or fried or stewed. Upon that day people +in wise foresight made but slender dinners. The hostess was known to +possess a culinary experience of no ordinary scope, and the air of the +house was heavy with the delicate incense of waffles and dough-nuts. +When the evening happened to be mild, and that comfortable estate of +fulness whose adjectives the Latin Grammar tells us require the ablative +had been attained, there was more music, secular, but highly decorous, +beneath the rustling boughs of the oak. Then the merriment grew hearty, +and mocked the sombre night. In vain the crickets chirped their shrill +jeer at fallen humanity; the crackling leaves whispered,--but no more +audibly than to the painted Indians who once danced beneath the tree +which the unborn Twynintuft was to monopolize. + +Perhaps you think Mrs. Widesworth a kind-hearted, charitable, +respectable old lady,--in short, a model citizeness! Many Foxden people +thought so, until, in the fulness of time, they were drugged with +iconoclastic logic, ghastly and fierce. Then this worthy person suddenly +loomed before them as a patron and upholder of every social abuse. She +was a trampler upon the rights of her sex, and deeply involved in the +guilt of baby-selling at Charleston. Above all, she was a _Moderate +Drinker_, (half a glass of Sherry with her dinner, you know,) and, as +such, could be proved to be the bulwark of the bar-room, and directly +responsible for the ruin of the most talented graduates of Harvard +College. The brutalities of every wife-beating drunkard just landed upon +our shores might be logically credited to Mrs. Widesworth, and to those +_respectable_ (with great sarcasm) _church-members_ (sarcasm more +intense) who countenanced the moderate use of intoxicating drinks. + +For now there had come upon Foxden that political, sanatory, +anti-everything revival, which, in those days, thrilled through our +river-towns and took the place of the theological revival, which the +churches seemed too feeble to produce. And--but this is addressed only +to simple souls who think that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, and Luther +instituted the Reformation--the settlement of Miss Patience Hurribattle +in a Foxden boarding-house produced the social upheaval which shook the +place. Of course, the enlightened reader of the "Atlantic" is well aware +that the mighty personages of history may be philosophically bejuggled +out of all claim to the admiration or reprobation of men. What did they +do but react on the society which created them?--what were they but the +average tendencies of an age clad in petticoats or top-boots, as the +case might be? So let it be written, that the great Cosmos-machine had +ground itself to the precise point which necessitated a reformatory +tumult in Foxden, and it mattered little who happened to be there to +patronize it. + +For several previous years Miss Hurribattle had borne about her an +uncomfortable turbulence of heroic effort. She had gradually accustomed +herself to regard our crooked humanity as something capable of being +caught up and reformed by a rapacious philanthropist. She had reached a +mental condition to which the time was as thoroughly out of joint as it +ever appeared to Hamlet, although, unlike that impracticable character, +she took great comfort in the belief that she was especially born to set +it right. The choice varieties of _men_ know that truth as it is and +truth as it appears to them are very different matters. But, thank +Heaven, the feminine nature is bound by no such doleful barrier! The man +who thinks is limited; the woman who feels may expand indefinitely. Miss +Hurribattle's mission was to attract the world's capital of unemployed +sentiment, and to set it to work in the mills of society. Let it be said +of this woman, that, without wealth of talent or any exact culture, she +possessed the sweetest accompaniments of the highest masculine +genius,--enthusiasm and simplicity. + +The questioning spirit gradually took form in various radical clubs and +associations. Pleasing themselves with shining symbols, and +complimenting each other with antique titles of nobility, a large +majority of the Foxden shop-keepers enlisted in the sacred crusade. This +new physical revival, like the old religious revivals, soon got into the +schools, and processions of children, fluttering many-colored ribbons, +paraded the streets. There was an Anti-Spirit League and an +Anti-Tea-and-Coffee League; also an Anti-Tobacco League was in hopeful +process of formation. And soon professional reformers of most +destructive character were attracted to the place, and, having once +attached themselves, hung like leeches upon the community. The +celebrated Mrs. Romulus, and the great socialist, Mr. Stellato, snuffing +their victims afar off, left their work unfinished in towns of less +importance, and hurried to Foxden. Shrewd wasps were these, bent upon +getting up beehives of cooperative activity. Less and less grew the +stanch garrison who must defend the conservative citadel against the +daring hordes. Nevertheless, some boldly stood out, and showed a +spirit--or shall it be said an obstinacy?--which cowed unpractised +assailants. Deacon Greenlaw had not yet been persuaded to burn his +cider-mill,--although committees of matrons had visited him to ascertain +when he proposed to do so,--although bevies of children had been dressed +in white and set upon Mrs. Greenlaw,--although Mr. Stellato, as Chief +of the Progressive Gladiators, had called in person to demand a public +destruction of that accursed instrument for the ruin of men. The Deacon +defied the moral sentiment of the town. Doctor Dastick sturdily +maintained that tea and coffee were not injurious, and had got hold of +the preventing-waste-of-tissue theory in respect to more potent +beverages. The old-fashioned hospitable soul of Colonel Prowley took +cognizance of the fact that the Odes of Horace made no unkindly mention +of ripe Falernian, and that the most admirable heroes of Plutarch do not +appear to have been teetotalers. Mrs. Widesworth, good lady, rode like a +cork upon the deep unrest of society: she thought the whole business +infidel as well as absurd, and, so thinking, did not trouble herself +much about it. Mr. Clifton had preached a sermon in which he took the +ground that morality could be best promoted by regulating, instead of +extirpating, human propensities. + +Then the rising tide of reform beat heavily upon the church-doors. By +stiff, inexorable logic, those clergymen who refused to join the popular +charge against the outworks of Evil were declared to be in intimate +alliance with its very Essence. Although the Bible, as a whole, was held +in little regard by the leading reformers, they were wonderfully expert +in plucking out texts here and there, and dove-tailing them into +scaffolding to sustain their platform. The grand denunciations of +Jeremiah were shown to have been shot point-blank at our poor little +New-England meeting-houses. It was _their_ fasts and _their_ new moons +which the prophet (his prophetic claims were here generously admitted) +aimed at. Some churches stood the shock of the angry elements. But many +young ministers were borne away before the storm, and carried their +side-aisles and galleries along with them. What! had a theological +_simulacrum_ of Satan excited their fathers to doughty deeds,--and +should they hold back, when challenged to meet him in proper person, +hand to hand? Thus persuading themselves, these ardent divines caught up +bitter words which had drifted out of the dictionary, and laid about +them with a spirit not wholly removed from the old ecclesiastical rancor +which would kill where it could not convince. And taking it for granted +that it is the mission of the intellect to rectify what is wrong in the +world, fruition seemed to answer their efforts. Society was put to its +purgation in very plausible fashion. Songs about Temperance and various +desirable perfections of the outward man were shouted in bar-rooms hired +for the purpose at considerable expense. Then there was dimly seen a +further "progress," of which certain movers of the people were the warm +advocates. Having got the machinery well to work, might it not be +twitched and pulled to effect a wider purification? It began to be +hinted that the use of wine in the sacred offices of religion could not +be countenanced, if its employment elsewhere were the monster iniquity +it was shown to be. That philosophical friend of humanity, Mr. Stellato, +began to denounce the consumers of animal food with every unpleasant +illustration the shambles could be made to supply. In very select +companies of sympathizers, as well as in the Graduating Circle of +Progressive Gladiators, it was known that Mrs. Romulus maintained a +hideous doctrine subversive of that sacrament of the family which raises +the life of man above the life of the wolf and ape. + +Yet of the views and endeavors of the great mass of these earnest people +we may speak only with honor and gratitude. Much good work done in that +distant year of grace remains with us to-day. Who is more practical than +the idealist? If I read history aright, it is only the white-heat of +fanaticism which brands a true word into the tough hide of society. A +supreme pursuit of one virtue by the few can alone neutralize a supreme +devotion by the many to the opposite vice. Let us rejoice that some men +and women are under the necessity of thinking no good thought which +they do not attempt to utilize at all hazards. Also, it is well not to +repine overmuch because many conscientious citizens cannot induce a +concentration of vision which directs all feeling, hissing-hot, into one +channel. They save us from the intolerable monotony of a whole world of +heroes, and leave you and me, good reader, in blessed freedom to demand +the theoretically right and ignore the practically expedient. + +To the beginnings of this angry perturbation the Reverend Charles +Clifton had returned, after abandoning the Vannelle manuscript under +circumstances detailed in the last number of this magazine. To one in +his position of mind it was of the highest importance to come upon some +work that he was fitted to do. It was his unhappy destiny to be placed +just where such power as he had could accomplish nothing. Timid by +nature, a cautious lover of compromise, self-baffled in a brilliant +flutter for truth, what had he to do in a vulgar conflict of opinion, in +a common, healthy play of free thought and speech? Peering off into +immensity until he had become utterly adrift in theology, the minister +found himself too feeble to stand upon the moral basis of some practical +creed. His regular parish duties afforded but slender occupation; he had +the gift of speaking extemporaneously, or from such notes as might be +made upon the back of a letter half an hour before church; he was not +called upon to do more catechizing or visiting than was agreeable to his +mood. He accordingly yielded to an indolence of disposition which +detained his vanishing illusions, and indulged in such studies as served +to prolong the barren contemplation which had wasted his youth. My +knowledge of the secret committed for eighty years to the Mather Safe +made me the only person to whom Clifton could freely write. At some +private inconvenience, I admitted a tolerably full intercourse with my +new correspondent. He declared that the sympathy of a man in active +affairs was invaluable to a solitary student like himself: he hoped, so +he said, to see through my eyes the facts of life. It was not difficult +to discern the cause of the sad indecision which afflicted him. To state +the case roughly, he had too much knowledge for his will. Busy people +reason by instinct with sufficient accuracy, but with this man no +conviction was for five minutes free from the probe of a metaphysical +argument. Yet from glimpses I had obtained of that overwhelming System +of Things elaborated by the two Vannelles, I could understand the +condition in which its partial apprehension had left Clifton. The more I +considered certain statements, authoritatively made in the portion of +the manuscript I had dared to read, the firmer grew my belief that years +of concentrated thought and fervent speculation had indeed illuminated, +to these men, dim outlines of most august truths,--truths which some +possible, although very distant, advancement of physical science might +inductively realize. But I had made out to dismiss the matter, with the +consideration that whatever it concerned me to know could be tied to no +one method of pursuit,--and, so reflecting, returned contentedly to the +multiplex concerns with which I was then occupied. Clifton, on the +contrary, having always struggled loftily along the same narrow sunbeam, +was utterly unable to accept such available knowledge of a principle as +is sufficient to direct our activity,--he must ever soar skyward to gaze +upon the origin of its authority, until, entangled in a web of +contradictions, he fell impotent to earth. + +Week by week, in my city-home, through letters from the minister and +Colonel Prowley, I had been kept informed of the progress of that wild +ferment going on in Foxden. At length the contentious spirit there +evoked seemed ready to summon to trial all ancient and reputable things. +My friends of the protesting minority were surely to be credited with +good Puritan pluck; though there was also something admirable in the +vigor which had marshalled a party for their discomfiture. I began to +think it my duty to visit Clifton; moreover, I was curious to see the +town at the height of its effervescence. A note from Mrs. Widesworth +supplied me with the needed excuse. The singing-school was to hold its +semiannual meeting at her house on Thursday next; would I not come down +for a day and meet many old friends? + + +II. + +The fragrance of perfected harvests pervaded Foxden. The air was full of +those sweet remembrances of summer which are better than her radiant +presence. The sky overhead was flooded with rich autumnal sunshine. Far +to the north lay glimmering a heavy bank of clouds. There might be rain +before night. + +I entered the familiar parsonage and inquired for its occupant. He had +walked to the end of the garden with Miss Hurribattle, who had been with +him for some hours. I was at liberty to await his return in a depressing +theological lumber-room, called the study. The First Church had +liberally supplied its former ministers with the current literature of +their craft. Current literature! are not the words a mockery? could they +ever have applied to those printed petrifactions? One would sooner look +for vitality among the frozen denizens of the Morgue on St. Bernard! Yet +I doubt if these stately authors, wrapped in the cerements of their +prosiness, may reasonably reproach a forgetful world. They ministered to +the wants of _their_ present, and by so doing were privileged to fashion +a future which they might not enter and possess. Complain indeed! Why, +their progeny had a good ten, twenty, or fifty years' life of it, as the +case might be,--and here about us are men of greater enterprise and +grasp doomed to work off paragraphs that perish on the day of printing. +Well, no earnest soul can fail to modify the character of his age, and +thus of all ages. So, if our generation demands ministry in newspapers +instead of folios, a man may still win an honest immortality without the +biography and the bother of it. + +I looked up from the books to see the clergyman part with Miss +Hurribattle at the gate, and then turn his steps towards the house. + +There was something like embarrassment as we exchanged greetings, yet +there was hardly time to mark this before it had passed. + +"Ah, Heaven!" exclaimed Clifton, passionately, "how I envy that woman's +faith in the omnipotence of a trifle! Suppose you or I can attain a +judicial largeness of view, is it any compensation for that intense glow +of the sympathies as they crowd into one specious channel? Why this +man's yearning after intellectual satisfaction, when we only want a +little fragment of truth to hang our sentiments upon?" + +There was bitterness in the tone in which Clifton spoke. It hinted of +the living death of a proud, disappointed man, who has renounced his +youth of high motives and warm ideas, who has learned to contemn his +boyish ambition to do some great thing for the world. Truly it is better +to consume in the flame of a fierce sectarianism than to permit the +spirit of youth to die when the gray hairs come. + +"Nay, Sir," said I, "it is for you to be heartily thankful for this +exuberant enthusiasm which has come to town. The complaint of the day +is, that the doctrines of Christianity have either dissolved into +abstractions or hardened into formalisms; and here you have a crop of +fresh insights to direct aright, and to keep from degenerating into +fanatical clamor." + +"But how satisfy or control these crazy people who begin by ignoring the +creeping pace of Time? Why, here is Miss Hurribattle, who has been these +two hours beating into me, as with logical sledge-hammers, that it is my +duty to denounce Deacon Greenlaw from the pulpit. The argument, to her +mind, is overwhelming, as thus: Intoxicating fluids cause the breaking +of all the commandments; cider, if one drinks enough of it, is +intoxicating; Deacon Greenlaw presses apples, and sells the juice; he +therefore upholds and encourages the aforesaid commandment-breaking;--it +is the business of the pulpit to denounce sinners persisting in their +sin, therefore, etc., etc.,--you perceive the conclusion. In short, if I +do not instantly take the ruts of their narrow logic, and go about +pounding into some and propounding unto others their pet scheme of +regeneration,--why, I am a wolf in the sheep-fold, the Antichrist of +prophecy, and I know not what other accursed thing. And here is truly +the alternative,--to stagnate in a lifeless church, or to join these +ravers in their breakneck leap at the Millennium." + +"There is a noble element in this one-sided pertinacity," I suggested, +"and a wise man might humor and use it for the best ends. Instead of +attempting to pull these hopeful people back into the church, cannot you +urge the church forward to comprehend their position? This +impulse,--fanatical as some of its manifestations doubtless are,--might +it not be constrained, or at least directed?" + +"Never by me!" exclaimed Clifton, haughtily. "I should have to commit +myself to all the wild Saturnalia of their moralities before it would be +possible to acquire any power over them." + +"But surely you might go as far as any one in the advocacy of +Temperance." + +"Temperance! Why, you forget that I must denounce Temperance as the +deadliest of sins, and proclaim Abstinence to be the only virtue. There +is a grand State Convention of Progressive Gladiators at present in +session in Foxden; all the neighboring towns have sent delegates. Well, +it was only yesterday afternoon that Stellato, in behalf of one of the +committees, denounced the clergy of New England as gross flesh-eaters +who had made themselves incapable of perceiving any spiritual truth. And +I happen to know that Mrs. Romulus so successfully manipulated Chepunic, +not a hundred miles up the river, that before leaving that town she +publicly delivered her lecture entitled, 'Marriage a Barbarism,' and +professed to have discovered something far higher and holier than the +chain of wedlock." + +"I am sure that Miss Patience Hurribattle is ignorant of any such +tendency in these new doctrines," I exclaimed, indignantly. + +"Doubtless she is," assented Clifton. "There is a hopeful, +simple-hearted gleam in her eye, a fine simplicity in her speech, which +betokens enthusiasm of a purely religious type. But she is banded with +those who would use religion only as a fiery stimulant to the intellect, +never as a balm to the heart." + +A crunching upon the gravel-walk. A man and a woman were hurrying up to +the parsonage. The woman short, sharp, lean; the man unctious and +foxy,--yet also representing a chronic state of gelatinous bewilderment. +The Great Socialists,--I knew them at once. + +"Triumph! triumph!" cried Mr. Stellato, bursting into the study. "Deacon +Greenlaw has been converted at last! He will make a holocaust of his +cider-mill!" + +"He will signalize his submission to the Gladiators by a great Act of +Faith!" exclaimed Mrs. Romulus. "His cider-mill will be publicly burned +this afternoon at five o'clock. All the delegate Gladiators will march +in procession to the ground. Invitations have been sent to the Order of +Frugivorous Brothers, the Infants' Anti-Tobacco League,"-- + +"Two drops of the oil of tobacco will kill a tomcat of the largest +proportions," murmured Mr. Stellato, in choral parenthesis. + +--"the Principal and Patients of the Lilac-Hill Water-Cure, the Children +of the Public Schools, the Millennial Choir, and Progressive Citizens +generally," said Mrs. Romulus, finishing her sentence. + +"It is the afternoon of Mrs. Widesworth's semiannual supper to the +singing-school," hissed Mr. Stellato, maliciously. "The Deacon's +cider-mill stands on the hill just before Mrs. Widesworth's house: the +procession may be expected to pass before her windows about four +o'clock; it will then make the circuit of the town, and reach the top of +the hill a little before five, when the exercises will commence." + +Some petulant reply seemed ready to spring from the lips of the +clergyman, but he checked it, and said,-- + +"You will have more water than fire: those clouds drifting up over the +river mean rain." + +"Only wine-bibbers and flesh-eaters are affected by the weather!" +responded Stellato, with great contempt. "Sunshine and storm are alike +wholesome to the purified seekers for truth!" + +"But there is no time to lose," cried Mrs. Romulus. "We have come to ask +you, as pastor of the first church in this place, to make the prayer +before the torch is applied. You will doubtless decline; but we shall +then be able to assure the people that the Gladiators are rejected by an +apostate church, which has been cordially invited to become their +fellow-worker." + +"You had really better think of it," urged Stellato, in a seductive +whisper. "The fact is, there is a great excitement, and we are getting +on famously. We are bound to carry the county at the next election, and +in a year or two we shall sweep the State. We have already enrolled some +of the best members of your parish, and you see the Deacon is added to +the list. Influential men who join us now will be well provided for when +we come into power. We want funds to carry on the cause. Think how much +you might do with such men as Prowley and Dastick! Ah, those abominable +old sinners, it would be a charity to get something out of them to +repair a little of the mischief they have done in the world." + +I protested at the way in which these gentlemen were mentioned: they +were friends of mine, and highly esteemed citizens. + +"Sir, they are _Moderate Drinkers_," said Mrs. Romulus, with an emphasis +which claimed the settlement of the whole question. "The Gladiators are +full of pity for the poor lost inebriate. They propose to convert their +bar-keeping brothers by a course of moral suasion. But they will ever +proscribe and defy those relentless Moderate Drinkers who admit the +wine-cup into their families, and--and--why, Sir, did you ever see the +stomach of a Moderate Drinker?" + +I never had. + +"Mr. Stellato has one fourteen times the size of life, colored after +Nature by a progressive artist. It is a fearful sight!" + +I did not question it. + +"Once more, there is not a moment to spare," said Mrs. Romulus, turning +suddenly upon the clergyman. "The question is, Shall we put you upon our +Order of Exercises?" + +"It would not sound badly," insinuated Stellato, perusing the document +in imagination: "'Chant, by the Choir; Recitation of Original Verses, by +Jane Romulus; Prayer, by the Reverend Charles Clifton'"-- + +"Stop!" cried the clergyman. "I decline all connection with this +business. I have no sympathy with its promoters, and I will never cower +before the mob-tyranny they evoke. If I have yet any influence in the +First Church, it shall be used in solemnly counselling all youths and +maidens of the congregation to report themselves at Mrs. Widesworth's +singing-school. The feverish paroxysms of these public meetings are +doubtless more stimulating than the humble duties of home, or the modest +pleasures at which a lady of Mrs. Widesworth's character is willing to +preside; but it is not the wholesome activity which a wise man may +promote. And I know that to the children of our public schools such +excitement is far more fatal than the cup they never coveted: their +minds should be nurtured in moderation and simplicity, even as their +bodies are best nourished upon bread and milk." + +"Bread and milk!" echoed Mrs. Romulus in shrill falsetto; "say rather +loaves of plaster and alum crumbed into bowls of chalk-mixture! This is +the sort of bread and milk furnished by your barbarous civilization! +But the beginning of the end of this priestridden world has at length +come. A new era is dawning upon earth. Much-oppressed Woman asserts her +entire freedom; she insists upon her passional independence, and demands +harmonial development. She is going to get it, too! Stellato, come +along!" + +We watched them up the gravel-walk, and then off upon the dusty road. + +The minister meditated in silence, as one who had the gift of +penetrating beyond his fellows into the mystery of sin. Now he was +distrustful: the time might soon come when he would be desperate. I +think he almost longed for the power to become a proselyte to any active +communion, even if it proposed but a new whitewashing of the sepulchre +which hides the corruptions of society. Notwithstanding the vigorous +words he had spoken, I knew him for one who could never take hearty +satisfaction in denouncing any form of Error, because always fated to +discern behind it the muffled figure of Truth. More than most men he +felt the pressure of an awful fact which weighs upon such as are gifted +with any fine apprehension of these worlds of spirit and +matter,--namely, the impossibility of drawing anywhere in Nature those +definite lines of demarcation which the mind craves to limit and fortify +its feeble beliefs. If the boundaries of the animal and vegetable +kingdoms are hopelessly interlaced, it is only an image of the confusion +in which our blackest sins are shaded off into the sunlight of virtue. + +"But why am I here?" exclaimed Clifton, suddenly starting to his feet. +"I can at, least swim a few desperate strokes against this current, +before sinking beneath it forever! I can do something to save a few +ardent maidens from this whirling water of Reform! + +"And yet," he continued, after a pause, "yet many, perhaps most of these +wretched people, drained dry by their one idea, are devoted with +absolute singleness of purpose to the pursuit of an honest thing. Let us +consider whom and what we may be found fighting against. If these +subverters do not altogether prove the truth of their own opinions, do +they not at least demonstrate the error of those who totally oppose +them? Here is Miss Hurribattle,--who will not acknowledge her noble +contempt for the accidental and the transitory? I believe that woman +desires Truth as earnestly as men desire wealth or reputation!" + +"It is so, indeed," I assented. "Her large nature will assimilate +whatever grandeur of idea may be found among this acid folk. After a +little time she will reproduce in saintly form whatever gives its real +vitality to this movement." + +"Never!" said the clergyman; "they will put upon her the strait-jacket +of their system, and carry her off to doom." + +Soon after this we went in different ways through the town. + +I called upon Mrs. Widesworth, who had a culinary engagement, and could +not appear, and then walked to the top of the hill, where a number of +the faithful were heaping tar-barrels and shavings about the solitary +cider-mill. Regarding their operations from a little distance stood +Deacon Greenlaw; his face wore an expression of grim humor, underlaid by +a shrewd intelligence of the true position of affairs. + +"They are making lively preparations for your holocaust," said I. + +"Well, 't isn't exactly that long word neither," replied the Deacon. +Fact is, I just looked it out in the dictionary, and there they call it +'a whole burnt-offering'; but it won't mean all that with me, I can tell +you!" + +"But, my dear Sir, surely you mean to go under the Juggernaut +handsomely, and not squirm in the process?" + +The Deacon indulged in an interrogative whistle, and jerked his thumb in +the direction of a corn-barn which stood near the base of the hill. + +I requested explanation. + +"The floor of that corn-barn," observed its proprietor, "is covered with +husks about four foot deep. Under those husks is my patent screw and a +lot of cider-fixins. That old mill's a rattle-trap, any way. There's a +place at the other end of the orchard a sight more handy for a new one. +So, when folks get to reading their Bible without leaving out the +marriage in Cana, why"-- + +"Then you have been badgered into this," I said, seeing that the Deacon +was not disposed to finish his sentence. + +"Well, they've been pecking at me pretty hard; and when Mis' Greenlaw +and the girls went over, of course I couldn't hold out. I kept telling +'em that the Lord gave us apples, and I didn't believe He cared whether +we eat 'em or drank 'em. But you see I had to knock under." + +I questioned if it was going to rain, after all; for the clouds were +scudding off to the east. + +"They're just following the bend of the river," asserted the Deacon, +elevating his chin to bring them within range, and giving them a +significant nod, as if to recall an appointment. "These apple-trees will +be dripping well before night. I know the weather-signs in Foxden. It +_is_ going to rain,--and, what's more, when it does rain, it'll rain +artichokes,--and, what's more than that, I don't care if it does!" + + +III. + +A wretched fragment of the singing-class met at the house of Mrs. +Widesworth. Professor Owlsdarck had kindly come over from Wrexford to +help fill up the rooms; but the pressure of his ponderous attainments +seemed only to compress yet more that handful of miscellaneous +miserables in the front-parlor. Eight or ten elderly people, one or two +undergraduates at home for the college-vacation,--these were the guests. +The precautions of Mrs. Romulus had not been taken in vain,--there could +be no singing: none, unless--but I trust that this evil suggestion +occurred to nobody--we were so lost to shame as to call upon the +college-boys to supply the place of our absent psalmody with some of +those Bacchanalian choruses with which they were doubtless too familiar. +We felt rather wicked. We knew that we were stigmatized by that terrible +compound, "_Pro-Rum_"; we were held up as the respectable abettors of +drunkenness, the _dilettanti_ patrons of pot-houses, the cold-blooded +connoisseurs in wife-beating and _delirium tremens_. That we really +appeared all this to many honest, enthusiastic people could not be +doubted. + +Certain perplexing questions, which had fifty times been answered and +dismissed, were ever returning to worry the general consciousness of the +company:--Is it not best to scourge one's self along with a popular +enthusiasm, when, by many excellent methods, it would sweep society to a +definite good? Are not the ardors of the imagination better +working-powers than the cold judgments of the reason? Should we ever be +carping at controlling principles, when much of their present +manifestation seems full of active worthiness? Above all, have we not +listened to contemptible fallacies of self-indulgence and indolence, and +then cheated ourselves into believing them the sober testimonies of +conscience? + +That some such melancholic refinements were restless in the brains of +many I have no doubt. Probably only Mrs. Widesworth and the +undergraduates were wholly undisturbed by them. Yet, in spite of this +secret uneasiness, there was common to the company a stiff recognition +of its own virtue, which seemed to impart a certain queer rigidity to +the bodily presence of the guests. Dr. Dastick, for the first and only +time in my remembrance, appeared with his trousers bound with straps to +the bottoms of his boots. Colonel Prowley had thrust his neck into a +stock of extraordinary stiffness, which seemed to proceed from some +antique coat-of-mail worn beneath the waistcoat. The collar and cuffs of +Miss Prowley were wonderful in their dimensions, and fairly creaked with +the starch. The clergyman, indeed, wore his dress and manners in relaxed +and even slouchy fashion; but this seemed not due to lightness of +heart, but only to weariness of mind. I knew that something had caused +him to feel acutely the limitations of his office. One might attribute +such feelings to the bass-viol player in an orchestra, who, in whatever +whirl of harmony, is permitted to scrape out only a few gruff notes. But +there was dear Mrs. Widesworth, so deliciously drugged by the anodynes +of Authority that she could shake the chains of custom till they jingled +like sleigh-bells. + +"Come, come," said this good lady; "why, you all seem to be following +the advice of my grandfather Twynintuft,--which was, to let the mind +muddle after dinner. He thought it strengthened the voice,--gave it +_timber_, as he called it. But, ah, dear! in these days so little +attention is paid to elocution that it's of no consequence whatever!" + +"I have endeavored, Madam," said Professor Owlsdarck, with great +precision of utterance, "I have endeavored to impress upon my scholars +that Socratic wisdom which condemned books as silent: a testimony, as I +take it, of great importance to those who would perfect the instrument +of oral instruction." + +"There is no great elocutionist at the present day," said Mrs. +Widesworth with pious regret. + +"And little could we profit by him, if there were," rejoined the +Principal of the Wrexford Academy. "For, in the present excited +condition of our river-towns, men do not strive to copy the moderate +virtues of the Ancients, but only to exaggerate their heathenish +extispicy." + +"Ah, very true, very true," sighed Mrs. Widesworth; "only I forget what +that last word means." + +"Extispicy," defined the Professor, "is properly the observation of +entrails and divination thereby." + +"Yet more is to be learned from bones," said Dr. Dastick, decidedly. "I +hold that the performances of Cuvier alone are conclusive upon that +point." + +Colonel Prowley looked doubtful: it would hardly do to question thus +lightly the wisdom of Antiquity. + +Here Professor Owlsdarck experienced a queer twitching about the corners +of his mouth,--an affection which since his poetical address before the +Wrexford Trustees had occasionally troubled him. + +"At any rate, Colonel," he observed, "we can agree, that, whatever +amount of wisdom the Ancients may have shown in observing the digestive +apparatus of animals, it certainly exceeded that of our modern +philosophers, who are always contemplating their own." + +"Truly, I believe you are right," responded Colonel Prowley. "There is +my dear friend Miss Hurribattle, who is always coming to me with some +new cure for people who are perfectly well. At one time Mrs. Romulus +told her that everybody should live on fruits which ripen at least six +feet above-ground,--all roots having an earthy and degrading tendency. +The last recipe for the salvation of society is, to take a little gravel +with our meals, like birds." + +Dr. Dastick partly closed his eyes, and said, with some effort,-- + +"I think that men are befooled with these new explanations of sin and +its bitter fruits because the pulpit has done talking of the abiding +sinfulness of our inherited nature. When I was a boy, the minister +offered us the good old remedies of Baptismal Regeneration or Prevenient +Grace, instead of bidding us drench our flesh with water or crack our +bones with gymnastics." + +At that moment Mr. Clifton turned towards me a half-startled, +half-triumphant look. I felt that the idea had been working in his mind, +but that he had used another's lips for its utterance. Under +undetermined conditions certain minds are capable of employing a +physical organization alien to themselves. If I had doubted this before, +a foreign influence in my own person would have made it clear at that +moment. For I felt a reply uttered from my lips which came not from my +consciousness. + +"The moral, perhaps, is, that the pendulum has reached the other +extremity of the arc of oscillation, and that neither spiritual nor +physical regeneration can walk in the fetters of a system." + +Some one called out that the procession was passing. All crowded to the +windows. + +A few musical instruments. Plenty of ribbons and rosettes; also, emblems +of mysterious device. Banners inscribed with moral texts. Miss +Hurribattle. The school-children in white. Members of the +School-Committee in demi-toilet. More banners. Mr. Stellato, as chief of +the Gladiators, covered with a pasteboard helmet, and bearing a shield +inscribed "TRUTH." (N.B. The inscription in German text by the +school-children.) The Progressive Guard with javelins,--_papier-mache_ +tips gummed over with shiny paper. A Transparency,--at least it could be +used as such in lecturing emergencies,--representing the interesting +medical illustration to which Mrs. Romulus had alluded in the morning. +The choir singing a progressive anthem, accompanied by extravagant +gestures. Other banners waved in cadence with progressive stanzas. Mrs. +Romulus and the Lilac-Hill Water-Cure Establishment. Progressive +citizens generally; these in various stages of exaltation, and cheering +fervently. + +"The old infectious hysteria of religious revivals, limited by fresh air +and gentle exercise, is it not, Dr. Dastick?" + +The Doctor answered my inquiry with a non-committal "humph" of the most +professional sort. + +"Plato tells us that the Greek Rhapsodists could not recite Homer +without falling into convulsions," said Professor Owlsdarck. + +"That is very remarkable," said Colonel Prowley, deeply impressed. + +"I had no idea that these youths and maidens could justify their +eccentric proceedings by so high an authority," observed his sister. + +The brother objected. He thought that the same effects could not rightly +be attributed to a modern song-writer and the Blind Old Poet. + +"Blind Old Poet!" exclaimed one of the undergraduates, very +thoughtlessly. "Why, my dear Colonel Prowley, you are blinder than ever +he was! Don't you know that recent scholarship has demonstrated Homer to +be nobody in particular? The 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey' are mere +agglomerations of the poetical effusions of a variety of persons; and +doubtless all of them could see as well as you and I can." + +It was distressing to mark the grief and indignation which suddenly +clouded the countenance of my old friend. Was not the last noticeable +publication in post-classical literature the "Rasselas" of Dr. Johnson? +Had not all those well-disposed people who hailed it as the brightest +combination of literary and moral excellence which a mere modern could +produce,--had they not lived and died in respectable allegiance to the +Homeric personality? To say nothing of a mystical admiration of the +Greek hexameters which he could not construe, Colonel Prowley was a +diligent reader of Pope's sonorous travesty. He felt like some simple +believer in the divine right of kings, when the mob have broken into the +palace, and stand in no awe of the stucco and red velvet. Yes, of course +I admire original minds,--but then I love those which are not original. +And truly there was a stately echo about the old gentleman which always +went to my heart. + +"Our friend spoke incautiously," I said. "I make no doubt that Professor +Owlsdarck will tell us that the preponderant evidence is in favor of +Homer the individual, notwithstanding a few troublesome objections." + +"He was buried," replied the Professor, "perhaps at Smyrna, perhaps at +Cos, perhaps at neither. It is not easy to decide what ancient city may +rightly claim his bones." + +"He should have shown a sense of their value by writing some verses +about them," urged Dr. Dastick. "There was Shakspeare, whose genius +culminated in those important osteological observations inscribed upon +his tombstone!" + +At this point the undergraduate murmured something about "Wolf's +Prolegomena," which was lost in a dull rumble of thunder,--as if some +giant outside the house had taken up the title and was gruffly repeating +it. + +And now the storm was coming. + +The sky darkened rapidly. + +The atmosphere lay thick and yellow. + +Where was the procession? Would it not be necessary to omit the +triumphal progress through the town, and come to the hill at once? + +Windy whiffs--fledgling stormlets--practised in the branches of the +Twynintuft oak. The great tree lunged and croaked at them. Suddenly the +lilac-bushes were fanned into fantastic shapes. The sumach perked its +red _pompon_ like a holiday soldier, and then flung skyward its crimson +battle-flag. The wind blustered among the fallen leaves, and slammed a +loose blind or two. It grew darker,--still darker. + +The procession, at last,--a straggling remnant of it,--was seen pushing +up the hill. A remnant indeed! The children, and those having charge of +them, had withdrawn. The Committee-men had sought shelter. The +Progressive Guard was decimated. Every moment men and women were falling +out of rank and hurrying away. + +It was a little group that at length collected about the cider-mill. +Little at first,--less every instant. It would be necessary to abridge +the exercises. We saw Mrs. Romulus mount a barrel and harangue the +seceders with furious gesticulation. A book was passed up to her, and +she apparently gave out some hymn or ode suitable to the occasion. Alas! +there remained no choir to give it vocal expression. + +A hurricane-gust struck the town, and drove clouds of dust along the +street. Perhaps it was five minutes before the hill was again visible. +Then there stood by the Deacon's cider-mill three figures. Mr. Stellato +waved a torch about his head, and flung it into the combustibles. A +sheet of flame shot madly up. Mrs. Romulus seized one of the abandoned +banners and flourished it in triumph. + +Again the Twynintuft oak ground its great branches together, and threw +them heavenward for relief. The relief came. The dry agony of Nature +burst in a flood of tears. + +The rain came beating down. It came with a sudden plunge upon the earth, +drenching all things. And then, the sharp, curt rattle of hail. + +"Come to the middle of the room, the lightning is straight above us!" + +We crouched together as the thunder crashed over the house. +Rain,--nothing but rain. No ever-varying light and shade, as in common +squalls. One great cascade poured down its awful monotony. + +A bursting noise at the door. There stood before us Mrs. Romulus, Miss +Hurribattle, and Mr. Stellato. Soaked, dripping, reeking,--take your +choice of adjectives, or look into Worcester for better. The ladies +might have passed for transcendental relatives of Fouque's Undine. +Stellato, with his hair and face bedaubed with a glutinous substance +into which his helmet had been resolved, did not strongly resemble one's +idea of a Progressive Gladiator. Truly, a deplorable contrast between +that late triumphant march before the house, and this present estate of +the leaders, so reduced, so pitiable! + +"Oh, dear, dear, what can I do for you?" cried good Mrs. Widesworth, +forgetting all resentment in a gracious gush of sympathy. + +"'Only wine-bibbers and flesh-eaters are affected by the weather,'" +murmured the clergyman, in bitter quotation, "'Storm and sunshine are +alike wholesome to the purified seekers for truth.'" + +"Seekers for truth!" echoed Professor Owlsdarck; "one would say that our +friends must have been seeking it in its native well." + +"As a medical man," said Dr. Dastick, "I shall direct Mrs. Widesworth to +provide some dry garments for her unexpected guests. Also, I think it my +duty to mention that a glass of hot brandy-and-water would be but +common prudence." + +"The first part of your advice shall be complied with," assented our +hostess,--"that is, if I can find anything to put on to them. As to the +last suggestion,--I have, to be sure, a decanter of fine old Cognac in +the closet, but it would be almost an insult to offer it." + +"The pledge has its important exceptions," observed Mr. Stellato, +shivering perceptibly. "'Except when prescribed by a medical +attendant,'--I believe I quote the exact language, Mrs. Romulus,--and +Dr. Dastick has a diploma." + +"Come up-stairs, then," said Mrs. Widesworth, taking the decanter from +the closet; "you will all catch your deaths of cold, if you stay another +minute." + +When the three patrons of Progress again appeared among us, they really +seemed to have accomplished their transference to an unconventional and +pastoral era. The ladies were quite lost in the spacious habits provided +for them. Likewise, they were curiously swathed in shawls and scarfs of +various make and texture, and might be considered representatives of any +age, past, present, or future, to which the beholder might take a fancy. +Mr. Stellato had been got into the only article of male attire which the +establishment afforded. This was an ancient dressing-gown, very small in +the arms, and narrow in the back: it had belonged to Twynintuft himself, +who was six feet two, and as thin as a bean-pole. The thickly wadded +skirts swept the ground, or clung heavily about the lower limbs. The +garment combined every disadvantage of a Roman toga and a fashionable +swallow-tail. + +Mrs. Romulus and Mr. Stellato, who had not scrupled to avail themselves +of the Doctor's prescription, were still noisily progressive. They at +once led a moral charge against Professor Owlsdarck and Colonel Prowley. + +Miss Hurribattle, refusing such warmth as might be administered +internally, was pale and chilly. She separated herself from her +companions, and crossed the room to where I stood. Her face was radiant +with devout simplicity. To a soul so pure and brave and feminine may I +never be guilty of applying a hard and technical criticism! He is little +to be envied who reads Don Quixote's assault upon the windmills as a +chapter of mad buffoonery. An ideal knight, without fear or reproach, +subject to disaster and ridicule, august from his faith in God and the +manly consecration of his life,--is he not rather the type of a +Christian sanity? No doubt, such a character seems altogether mad to +you, my friend, who pass the window as I write these words. You have +huckstered away opportunity just upon the edge of indictable knavery; +your ambition has been to be well with the wealth and sleek +respectability of the day, to make your son begin life the sordid +worldling that you end it, to marry your daughter to the richest +fool,--and this you call sanity and common sense! Is it not some Devil's +subtlety that deludes you? If Man is an immortal soul, to be saved or +damned forever, then he only is sane who welcomes privation, toil, +contempt, for a spiritual idea. "Attacking windmills!" you say. That is, +they seem so to you. But it may be that your brother's clearer eye and +practised intelligence show them the giants which they truly are. But, +be they giants or windmills, mark you this: his life illustrates some +grade of manly worthiness which the world would be poorer without, while +to himself the gain of an unselfish activity is a certain blessedness. I +hold it, then, of small matter, that, for a time, Miss Hurribattle +mistook two charlatans, three-fifths knavery, the rest fanaticism, for +honest workers in the Lord's vineyard. Far better such over-faith than +the fatal languor which seemed to terminate Clifton's too close scrutiny +of life. A buoyant and never-failing enthusiasm is the divine requital +of faithful service. "The reward of virtue is perpetual drunkenness!" +exclaims the half mythic Musaeus; "_Crucem hanc inebriari_," the Church +has responded. It has a flavor as of Paradise when a woman brims over +with some fine excitement,--and that among godless, unrepentant men. + +"The storm has not prevented the accomplishment of our purpose," said +Miss Hurribattle, pleasantly; "we have this day made our protest against +the most dangerous form of evil." + +"One of the most obvious forms, certainly," I replied; "we might not +quite agree about its being the most dangerous." + +"I must demand all those republican virtues which should be the fruit of +our New-England liberty,--I must be strictly consistent." + +I jestingly pleaded the familiar proverb about fools and dead men, and +observed that there was great obscurity surrounding the real sources of +evil in our social life. + +"I once thought as you do," said the lady; "but, from my constant +association with philosophical minds like those of Mrs. Romulus and Mr. +Stellato, much has been made clear to me. They have devoted their lives +to the study of modern civilization, and are skilful in the nice +adaptation of remedies to all public disorders." + +"How long have you known these two persons?" I asked. + +"They came to Foxden about a month ago. I had then organized the +Temperance movement among the school-children, and devised a scheme for +furnishing employment to drunkards who would make an effort to reform. +But these more worthy guides of humanity soon reduced matters to first +principles. They showed that all Moderate Drinkers and the Church which +sustains them must be exposed and denounced. They have done a great +work, as you see. Only a few people in Foxden have dared to stand +against them. Deacon Greenlaw, one of the most obstinate cases, has just +yielded to their persevering treatment." + +The rain at length stopped. + +Many persons who had appeared in the procession straggled in, looking +rather sheepish. The singing, indeed, had failed; but the supper was in +prospect. + +Stellato was at high-pressure, and ready to lead his adventurous +Gladiators into the very camp of the enemy. Mrs. Romulus, wholly above +the prejudices of the toilet, would stay and bear him company. + +Miss Hurribattle, not having cast out that "clothes-devil" against which +the old theologians used to warn her sex, wished to return to her +boarding-house. It being by this time dark, or nearly so, I offered to +see her home. Mr. Clifton volunteered to accompany us. + +"The Deacon's cider-mill is smoking after all this drenching!" exclaimed +Mrs. Widesworth. + +"The torches of the Bacchantes, when flung into the Tiber, were said +still to burn," observed Professor Owlsdarck, after rummaging about a +little for an historical parallel. "And here we seem to find a point +where the modern enthusiasm for water and the ancient fervor for wine +tend to like results." + +Colonel Prowley was peculiarly interested,--so much so, indeed, that he +shook hands with us absently. Mrs. Widesworth was profuse in entreaties, +and then in hearty farewells. + +We walked up the street. + +A spring freshness was in that autumn evening. The air was purified by +the storm, as society is purified after a tempestuous feeling has blown +through it. + +I think that both of her companions felt abased by the vivid faith which +sparkled in Miss Hurribattle's conversation. We were both rebuked by her +life-effort for what was high and positive and real. The clergyman, +examining the depths of his own sensitive spirit, felt keener contempt +for that theoretical good-will, that indefinite feeling of profound +desire, which might not be concentrated upon any reality. And it came +over me, how mean was the thirst and struggle for a merely professional +eminence which filled my common days. As in a mental _mirage_, which +loomed above the thickening twilight, I saw how our paths diverged, and +whither each must surely tend. No doubtful way was hers, the +single-hearted woman of lofty aims, of restless feminine activity, of +holy impatience with sin. She might, indeed, miss the clue which guides +through the labyrinth; but then her life would teach mankind even better +than she designed. On the other hand,--supposing the position attained +which too constantly occupied my own thoughts,--there was an admiration +of men, a market-salutation from reputable Commonplace, a seat in a +fashionable church, a final lubrication with a fat obituary,--and then? +But it was no part of my design to invite the reader into the inner +chambers of my own personality, and I forbear. + +After a half-mile walk, we left Miss Hurribattle, and turned our steps +towards the parsonage. + +"I sometimes feel that her instinct reasons more accurately than my poor +logic," said Clifton, bitterly; "yet it is a hard necessity to sacrifice +our individual faculties of comparison and judgment for the +working-power of a fervid organization!" + +"No doubt it is a matter for serious question," I replied. "For, as soon +as we grow out of our languid and feeble maladies, we grow into the +violent inflammatory disorders which troubled our forefathers. The +doctors will tell you that this is true of our bodies; and surely the +soul's physician may pursue the analogy." + +"I can no longer hope to heal any man's soul," exclaimed the clergyman; +"it is enough if my own be not wholly lost. I shall to-morrow formally +resign the sacred office of teacher in this place. With the final +renunciation of the great purpose which once swayed my life, I must +renounce every symbol less profound, less poetic. I must make my boast +of an intellect which will never let any affection pass the line of +demonstrable truth. I once knew how grand it was to stand alone in the +world of an inward faith; but now I have renounced all belief in an +ideal human being inclosed in this poor body whom it was my business to +liberate." + +As we stopped at the broad path leading to the parsonage, I ventured to +say a few words which I will not set down. + +More and more I was drawn towards the high and intense life of the woman +in whom all that was wrong seemed but an excess of virtue. I could have +besought some fanatical warlike spirit to take possession of Clifton and +make him capable of hate, and so, perhaps, of love. Anything to arouse +this personator of our human mutability, this vacillator between doing +and letting alone! + +The wild future of the minister I did not anticipate. Hereafter it may +possibly be written, to show such lessons as it has. But on that autumn +night he walked up the gray pathway a broken man. The spiritual part was +dead; he had lost faith in the invisible. He walked as one in a funeral +procession,--ever doomed to follow a dead idea. + + * * * * * + +THE UNITED STATES ARMORY. + + +The United States Armory at Springfield, Massachusetts, is the largest, +best appointed, and altogether the most productive establishment for the +manufacture of small arms in the world,--those belonging to the Austrian +Government at Vienna, and to the British at Enfield, being greatly +inferior both in size and appointments; while the quality of the guns +manufactured here is very superior to that at either of those important +establishments. Indeed, the Springfield rifled musket is justly regarded +as the most perfect arm of its kind which has ever been produced. To +attain this desirable point of excellence has required the skill and +perseverance of the best mechanical minds which this country--always +prolific in inventive genius--has produced during a period of more than +half a century. It would be impossible to estimate the value of these +works during the existence of the present Rebellion; but some idea may +be formed of their usefulness from the fact that twenty-five thousand +rifled muskets of the most approved pattern are manufactured at this +establishment every month, and the number will soon be increased to +thirty thousand. There are at the present time one hundred and +seventy-five thousand of these muskets in the arsenal, awaiting the +orders of the War Department, and the works are daily turning out enough +to arm an entire regiment. + +When the Rebels fired upon Fort Sumter, the armory was making about one +thousand muskets per month, and three months afterwards the increase +amounted only to three thousand, so little preparation had been made by +the Government of Mr. Buchanan to meet the great struggle which Southern +demagogues were precipitating upon us. Indeed, the number of muskets +manufactured during the last year of his administration was less by +several thousand than these works turned out during the year 1815; +while, during this same period, the residents of streets leading to the +railway-station witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of a daily +procession of wagons laden with boxes of Government arms on their way to +Southern arsenals! + +Twenty-six hundred workmen are now constantly employed,--the +establishment being run day and night,--and none but the most expert and +industrious artisans are to be found among them. + +The original site of this armory was occupied during the Revolution as a +military recruiting-post, afterwards as a depot for military stores, and +then as a place for repairing arms. The first shops were on Main Street, +and among them was a laboratory for cartridges and various kinds of +fireworks. The oldest record in the armory relates to the work done in +this laboratory during the month of April, 1778, showing that about +forty men were then engaged in the business. Not far from the date of +this document the works were removed to the hill, where, enlarged and +perfected, they are legitimately the object of admiration and pride. The +act establishing the armory was passed by Congress in April, 1794. + +The arsenal, storehouse, offices, and principal manufacturing buildings +are situated on Springfield Hill, and overlook the Connecticut valley at +a commanding elevation. The heavier operations of the armory are carried +on in another part of the city, about a mile distant, in buildings known +as the water-shops. These are situated upon a small stream which flows +into the Connecticut River at this point. + +The armory-grounds on the hill cover an area of seventy-two acres, and +are surrounded, with the exception of a small square detached from the +main grounds, by an ornamental iron fence, nine feet in height. These +grounds are exceedingly beautiful, and present every variety of +landscape. A beautiful slope to the south and west, covered with +luxuriant verdure, and crowned with groves of deciduous trees and +evergreens, affords the eye peculiar gratification. The grounds combine +also the useful with the ornamental, supplying hay enough to feed a +score of horses belonging to the establishment. + +There are fifteen buildings used in the manufacture of muskets at the +works on the hill, and about the same number occupied as residences by +the various officers and head-clerks of the armory. Some of the +buildings are spacious and elegant in their construction, particularly +the quarters of the commanding officer, and the arsenal, and are +arranged in a picturesque and symmetrical manner within the square. The +grounds are shaded by ornamental trees, and the dwellings are adorned +with gardens and shrubbery. Broad and neatly kept walks, some gravelled +and others paved, bordered by finely clipped hedges, extend across the +green or along the line of the buildings, opening charming vistas in +every direction. Four venerable pieces of artillery, all betokening +great age, if not service, standing in the centre of the square, furnish +the only outward and visible show of the military character of this +immense establishment. + +The principal building, as regards size and architectural beauty, is the +arsenal, which is two hundred feet long by seventy wide, and three +stories high,--each story being sufficiently capacious to contain one +hundred thousand muskets. The muskets, when stored in this arsenal, are +arranged in racks, set up for the purpose, along the immense halls, +where they stand upright in rows of glittering steel, and so closely +resemble the pipes of an organ that the propriety of Longfellow's simile +suggests itself at once to every observer:-- + + "This is the arsenal. From floor to ceiling, + Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms; + But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing + Startles the villages with strange alarms." + +Unhappily, the last two lines of this beautiful stanza no longer +appropriately describe the quiet and peaceful condition of these then +harmless arms,--one hundred and fifty thousand of them having been +literally stolen from this arsenal by Floyd during the last year of his +secretaryship at Washington, and sent South in anticipation and +furtherance of the Rebellion, and the remainder issued to the loyal +troops raised for the defence of the Union. Thus these grim messengers +of death, of whom the poet so sweetly sings, have forced + + "The cries of agony, the endless groan," + +from Northern and Southern warriors alike, and rung the + + "loud lament and dismal Miserere" + +within the homes of every part of our once happy and peaceful land. + +The arsenal has another charm for visitors besides the beauty of the +burnished arms within, in the magnificent panorama of the surrounding +country seen from the summit of the tower. This tower, which occupies +the middle of the front of the building, is about ninety feet high by +thirty square, affording space upon the top for a large party of +visitors. Nothing can be imagined more enchanting than the view +presented from this point during the spring and summer months. At your +feet are the beautiful armory-grounds, mingling with the treeskirted +streets of the city; while beyond, the broad and luxuriant valley of the +Connecticut is spread out to view, with its numerous villages, fields, +groves, bridges, and railways, and the whole landscape framed by blue +mountain-ranges, among which Mounts Tom and Holyoke rise in towering +majesty. + +The arsenal is used for the storage of the muskets during the interval +that elapses from the finishing of them to the time when they are sent +away to the various permanent arsenals established by Government in +different parts of the country, or issued to the troops. This edifice +was constructed about a dozen years ago, and has, until recently, been +designated as the new arsenal, there being two or three other buildings +which were formerly used for the storage of finished muskets, called the +old arsenals, but which, since the Rebellion, have been relieved of +their contents and supplied with machinery for the manufacture of arms. +A portion of the new arsenal is now used for finishing barrels and +assembling muskets, and other parts for storing ordnance-supplies. + +The storehouse, offices, and workshops are extensive buildings,--the +former being eight hundred feet long, and one of the latter six hundred +feet long and thirty-two feet wide. + +In a description of the armory printed in 1817, the grounds are +described as a perfectly level, elevated plat, situated about half a +mile east of the village, from which there is a gradual ascent, flanked +on the north by a deep ravine and on the south by a less considerable +one, with an extensive plain spreading in the rear, the adjoining parts +being uncovered, fronting on the brow of the declivity, and commanding +an extensive and beautifully variegated landscape. At the present time, +the armory is not only in the city, but the streets at the north, south, +and east of the grounds are as thickly inhabited as any other portion of +the town. There has, however, been an increase in the population of +Springfield since 1817, from two to twenty-six thousand souls. A larger +number of workmen are employed within the armory-grounds at the present +time than the entire population of the place amounted to fifty years +ago. + +The water-shops formerly occupied three different sites, being +denominated the upper, middle, and lower water-shops, on a stream called +Mill River, which exhibits, in a distance of less than half a mile, four +or five of the most charming waterfalls to be seen in the State. In 1817 +these works comprised five workshops, twenty-eight forges, ten +trip-hammers, eighteen water-wheels, nine coal-houses, three stores, and +five dwellings. + +These buildings were all constructed in the most substantial manner, of +stone and brick, and yet remain in an excellent state of preservation. +The trouble and expense attending the transportation of the various +parts of the musket from one series of shops to another, however, +rendered it desirable to assemble them all in one place, and the +location of the upper shops was decided upon as the most advantageous. +About eight years ago the work of constructing the new shops was begun. +Extensive excavations were made for a new dam, the bed of the stream was +changed, the sides being laid for a distance of half a mile with +freestone, and the basin raised five feet above its former level. Some +idea of the magnitude of these works may be formed from the fact that +over one million dollars was expended upon the foundations alone, before +a brick was laid in the superstructure. + +A beautiful and extensive series of buildings has since been erected +upon these foundations, covering an area of about two acres, in which +the forging, boring, welding, rolling, grinding, swaging, and polishing +are done for the entire establishment. The buildings are, for the most +part, two stories high, and yet so immense are the operations carried on +here that numerous temporary sheds have been erected about the grounds, +in which machinery is placed in order to increase the facilities, which, +when the works were constructed, were supposed to be sufficient for all +time to come. + +Since the construction of the new dam, the water has a fall of +thirty-four feet. Three immense turbine water-wheels, having a united +power equal to three hundred horse, were put in when the consolidated +works were first constructed here, which it was supposed would prove +amply sufficient for all emergencies; but, since the breaking out of the +Rebellion, and the marvellous enlargement of these works, it has been +found necessary to put in a steam-engine of two hundred horse-power, to +act in conjunction with the water-wheels. + +Having thus given a general description of the exterior of the +establishment, let us now enter the works and witness the entire +operations of manufacturing the musket, _seriatim_. + +The first operation is the formation of the barrel. Formerly these were +made from plates of iron called scalps, about two feet long and three +inches wide, which were heated to a white-heat and then rolled up over +an iron rod, and the edges being lapped were welded together, so as to +form a tube of the requisite dimensions,--the solid rod serving to +preserve the cavity within of the proper form. This welding was +performed by tilt-hammers, which were carried by the water-wheels. +Underneath the hammer was an anvil containing a die, the upper surface +of which, as well as the under surface of a similar die inserted in the +hammer, formed a semicylindrical groove, producing, when the two +surfaces came together, a complete cylindrical cavity of the proper size +to receive the barrel to be forged. The workman, after heating a small +portion of the barrel in his forge, placed it in its bed upon the anvil, +and set his hammer in motion, turning the barrel round and round +continually under the blows. Only a small portion of the seam is closed +by this process at one heat, eleven being required to complete the work. +To effect by this operation a perfect junction of the iron, so that it +should be continuous and homogeneous throughout, without the least flaw, +seam, or crevice, required unremitting attention, as well as great +experience and skill. The welders formerly received twelve cents for +each barrel welded by them, but if, in proving the barrels, any of them +burst, through the fault of the welders, they were charged one dollar +for each barrel which failed to stand the test. This method has now, +however, been abandoned, and a much more economical and rapid process +adopted in its place. Instead of plates of two feet in length, those of +one foot are now used. These are bent around an iron rod as before; but +in place of the anvil and tilt-hammer, they are run through +rolling-machines, analogous in some respects to those by which +railway-iron is made. The scalps are first heated, in the blaze of a +bituminous coal furnace, to a white-heat,--to a point just as near the +melting as can be attained without actually dropping apart,--and then +passed between three sets of rollers, each of which elongates the +barrel, reduces its diameter, and assists in forcing it to assume the +proper size and taper. The metal by this process is firmly compacted, +becoming wholly homogeneous through its entire length. + +This operation of rolling the barrel is not only a very important and +valuable one, but very difficult of acquisition, the knowledge +appertaining to its practical working having been wholly confined to one +person in this country previously to the breaking out of the Rebellion. +The invention is English, and has been used in this country but a few +years. Only one set of rollers was used at this armory until the present +emergency demanded more. About half a dozen years ago the superintendent +of the works here sent to England and obtained a set of rollers, and a +workman to operate it, bargaining with him to remain one year at a +stipulated salary. At the expiration of the time engaged for, the +workman demanded, instead of a salary, to be paid eleven cents for each +barrel rolled by him. As he had allowed no one to learn the art of +rolling the barrel in the mean time, his demand was acceded to; but +after the breaking out of the Rebellion four additional rolling-mills +were imported, and of course new men had to be taught, or imported, to +work them. The art is now no longer a secret. There are forty men +employed, day and night, running the rolling-mills, but, instead of +twelve cents, which was paid for welding, they now receive but four +cents for rolling a barrel, with the same contingency of a dollar +forfeiture for each one that bursts. Four persons are employed at each +mill, namely: the foreman, who sees to the heating of the scalps and +barrels; the straightener, who straightens the barrel after it passes +through the roller; the catcher, who stands behind the roller to catch +the barrel when it has passed through; and the fireman. The rollers +weigh two tons apiece, and the five sets turn out one thousand barrels +per day, one per cent. of which burst in the proving-house. + +The barrel when rolled is left much larger in the circumference, and +smaller in the bore, than it is intended to be when finished, in order +to allow for the loss of metal in the various finishing-operations. When +it passes into the roller, the scalp weighs ten pounds; when it comes +from the roller, the barrel weighs a little over seven; when completed, +it weighs but four and a half: so that more than one half of the metal +originally used is lost in the forging, or cut away by the subsequent +processes. + +The first of these latter is the boring-out of the interior by machines +called boring-banks, of which the water-shops contain a large number, in +constant operation day and night. These machines consist of square, +solid frames of iron, in which the barrel is fixed, and bored out by a +succession of operations performed by augers. These augers are square +bars of steel, highly polished, and ground very sharp at the edges, and +terminating in long, stout rods to enable them to pass through the +barrel. The barrels are fixed very firmly in the boring-banks, the shank +of the auger inserted into the centre of a wheel placed at one end of +the bank, and a slow rotary motion given to the auger, together with a +still slower progressive motion at the same time. By this means the +auger gradually enters the hollow of the barrel, and enlarges the cavity +as it advances. After it has passed through, another auger, a trifle +larger, is substituted in its place, and thus the calibre of the barrel +is gradually enlarged to nearly the required size. Formerly, six borings +were given to each barrel, but at the present time only four are +permitted, aside from the rifling, which is a distinct operation, +performed at the works on the till, and will be described hereafter. + +After the boring of the barrel, it is placed in a lathe, and the outside +turned down to the proper size. The piece is supported in the lathe by +means of mandrels inserted into the two ends, and there it slowly +revolves, bringing all parts of its surface successively under the +action of a tool fixed firmly in the right position for cutting the work +to its proper form. The barrel has a slow progressive as well as rotary +motion during this process, and the tool advances or recedes very +regularly and gradually, forming the proper taper from the breech to the +muzzle, but the main work is performed by the rotation of the barrel. In +the boring, it is the tool which revolves, the piece remaining at rest; +but in the turning, the barrel must take its part in action, being +required to revolve against the tool, while the tool itself remains +fixed in its position in the rest. + +A curious and interesting part of the operation of manufacturing muskets +is the straightening of the barrel. This straightening takes place +continually in every stage of the work, from the time the barrel first +emerges from the chaotic mass produced by heating the scalp, until it +reaches the assembling-room, where the various parts of the musket are +put together. As you enter the boring and turning rooms, you are struck +with surprise at observing hundreds of workmen standing with +musket-barrels in their hands, one end held up to their eyes, and the +other pointing to some one of the innumerable windows of the apartment. +Watching them a few moments, however, you will observe, that, after +looking through the barrel for half a minute, and turning it around in +their fingers, they lay it down upon a small anvil standing at their +side, and strike upon it a gentle blow with a hammer, and then raise it +again to the eye. This is the process of straightening. + +In former times, a very slender line, a hair or some similar substance, +was passed through the barrel. This line was then drawn tight, and the +workman, looking through, turned the barrel round so as to bring the +line into coincidence successively with every portion of the inner +surface. If there existed any concavity in any part of this surface, the +line would show it by the distance which would there appear between the +line itself and its reflection in the metal. This method has not, +however, been in use for over thirty years. It gave place to a system +which, with slight modification, is still in practice. This method +consisted in placing a small mirror upon the floor near the anvil of the +straightener, which reflected a diagonal line drawn across a pane of +glass in a window. The workman then placed the barrel of the musket upon +a rest in such a position that the reflected line in the mirror could be +again reflected, through the bore of the barrel, to his eye,--the inner +surface of the barrel being in a brilliantly polished condition from the +boring. When the barrel is placed at the proper angle, which practice +enables the person performing this duty to accomplish at once, there are +two parallel shadows thrown upon opposite sides of the inner surface, +which by another deflection can be made to come to a point at the lower +end. The appearance which these shadows assume determines the question +whether the barrel is straight or not, and if not, where it requires +straightening. Although this method is so easy and plain to the +experienced workman, to the uninitiated it is perfectly +incomprehensible, the bore of the barrel presenting to his eye only a +succession of concentric rings, forming a spectacle of dazzling +brilliancy, and leaving the reflected line in as profound a mystery +after the observation as before. + +At present, the mirror is discarded, and the workman holds the barrel up +directly to the pane of glass, which is furnished with a transparent +slate, having two parallel lines drawn across it. The only purpose +subserved by the mirror was that of rendering the operation of holding +the barrel less tiresome, it being easier to keep the end of the musket +presented to the line pointing downwards than upwards. Formerly, this +means of detecting the faults, or want of straightness in the barrel, +was, like the working of the rolling-mill, the secret of one man, and he +would impart it to no one for love or money. He was watched with the +most intense interest, but no clue could be obtained to his secret. They +gazed into the barrel for hours, but what he saw they could not see. +Finally, some fortunate individual stumbled upon the wonderful +secret,--discovered the marvellous lines,--and ever since it has been +common property in the shop. Each workman is obliged to correct his own +work, and afterwards it is passed into the hands of the inspector, who +returns it to the workman, if faulty, or stamps his approval, if +correct. The next process is that of grinding, for the purpose of +removing the marks left upon the surface by the tool in turning, and of +still further perfecting its form. For this operation immense +grindstones, carried by machinery, are used, which rotate with great +rapidity,--usually, about four hundred times in a minute. These stones +are covered with large, movable wooden cases, to keep the water from +flying about the room, or over the workmen. + +An iron rod is inserted into the bore of the barrel, and is fitted very +closely. The rod is furnished with a handle, which is used by the +workman for holding the barrel against the stone, and for turning it +continually while he is grinding it, and thus bringing the action of the +stone upon every part, and so finishing the work in a true cylindrical +form. In the act of grinding, the workman inserts the barrel into a +small hole in the case in front of the stone, and then presses it hard +against the surface of the stone by means of an iron lever which is +behind him, and which he moves by the pressure of his back. The work is +very rapidly and smoothly done. + +There are twelve sets of stones in the grinding-room in constant +operation day and night. These stones, when set up, are about eight feet +in diameter, and are used to within twelve inches of the centre. They +last about ten days. + +The operation of grinding was formerly regarded as a very dangerous one, +from the liability of the stones to burst in consequence of their +enormous weight and the velocity with which they revolve; but, about +twenty years since, a new method of clamping the stone was adopted, by +means of which the danger of bursting is much diminished. The last +explosion which took place in this department occurred about nine years +ago. The operation of grinding, however, is objectionable also from the +very unhealthy nature of the work. Immense quantities of fine dust fill +the air, and the premises are always drenched with water, making the +atmosphere damp and unwholesome. + +In former times, it was customary to grind bayonets as well as barrels; +but the former are now milled instead, thus making an important saving +in expense, as well as gain in the health of the establishment. No mode, +however, has yet been devised for dispensing with the operation of +grinding the barrel; but the injury to the health, in this case, is much +less than in the other. + +When the barrels are nearly finished, they are proved by an actual test +with powder and ball. To this purpose a building at the water-shops, +called the proving-house, is specially devoted. It is very strongly +built, being wholly constructed of timber, in order to enable it to +resist the force of the explosion within, and contains openings in the +roof and at the eaves for the escape of the smoke, a very large number +of barrels being proved at once. + +The barrels are subjected to two provings. In the first, they are loaded +with a double charge of powder and two balls, thus subjecting them to a +far greater strain than they can ever be exposed to in actual service. +In the second proving, only the ordinary charge is used. + +The interior of the proving-house is very happily arranged for the +purpose to which it is put. On the right-hand end of the building as you +enter, and extending across it, is a platform of cast-iron, containing +grooves in which the muskets are placed when loaded. A train of +gunpowder is then laid on the back side of this platform, connecting +with each barrel, and passing out through a hole in the side of the +building near the door. A bank of clay is piled up on the opposite side +of the room, into which the balls are thrown. Only one fatal accident +has occurred at the armory during the last two years, and this occurred +in the proving-house. When the muskets are brought in, they are placed +upright in frames, which, when full, are laid down upon the platform. +Five barrels are placed in a frame, and these five exploded while the +man was putting them in the proper position for laying them down, and +ten balls were plunged into him. No satisfactory explanation could ever +be obtained of the cause of the premature explosion. + +About one per cent. of the barrels burst under this trial, although +under the old process of welding there was a loss of nearly two per +cent., or one in sixty. + +The pieces that fail are all carefully examined, to ascertain whether +the giving-way was owing to a defect in the rolling, or to some flaw or +other bad quality in the iron. The appearance of the rent made by the +bursting will always determine this point. The loss of those which +failed from bad rolling is then charged to the operative by whom the +work was done, at a dollar for each one so failing. The name of the +maker of each is known by the stamp which he put upon it at the time +when it passed through his hands. As the workman gets but four cents for +rolling a barrel, he loses the work done upon twenty-five for each one +that fails through his negligence. The justice of this rule will be +apparent, when it is taken into account that that amount of cost has +been expended upon the barrel prior and subsequent to the work done by +the roller, all of which has been lost through his remissness. Besides, +he is paid so liberally for his work, that he can well afford to stand +the loss. This system of accountability runs through the entire work, +and tends greatly to the promotion of care and fidelity in the various +departments of labor. + +There are forty-nine pieces used in making up a musket, which have to be +formed and finished separately; only two of these, the sight and +cone-seat, are permanently attached to any other part, so that the +musket can, at any time, be separated into forty-seven parts, by simply +turning screws and opening springs. Most of these parts are struck in +dies, and then finished by milling and filing. The process of this +manufacture is called swaging,--the forming of irregular shapes in iron +by means of dies, one of which is inserted in an anvil in a cavity made +for the purpose, and the other placed above it, in a trip-hammer, or in +a machine operated in a manner analogous to that of a pile-driver, +called a drop. Cavities are cut in the faces of the dies, so that, when +they are brought together, with the end of a flat bar of iron, out of +which the article is to be formed, inserted between them, the iron is +made to assume the form of the cavities, by means of blows of the +trip-hammer, or of the drop, upon the upper die. About one hundred and +fifty operations upon the various pieces used in the construction of the +musket are performed by these dies. Some of the pieces are struck out by +one operation of the drop, while others, as the butt-plate, require as +many as three, and others a still larger number. The hammer is first +forged, and then put twice through the drop. Four men are kept +constantly at work forging hammers in the rough, while but two are +required to put them through the two operations under the +swaging-machine. Sometimes, however, the work presses upon the droppers, +and they have the alternative either to work double time--that is, night +and day--or to allow other hands to work with them; and as they work by +the piece, and are anxious to earn as much as possible each month, they +will frequently work night and day for several consecutive days. I have +known instances where workmen have worked from Monday until Thursday, +night and day, without any intermission, excepting the hour and a half +at the morning change of hands, one hour at noon, one at tea-time, and +half an hour at midnight,--four hours out of the twenty-four. By this +means they will sometimes earn as much as one hundred and fifty dollars +per month, although this would be an extraordinary case. The average pay +in the dropping-department is about three dollars per day. + +There are twenty-four simple and seven compound dropping-machines in +constant operation. Some of the pieces are pressed into shape under +these drops when cold,--this being the case with the triggers, which +were found to use up the dies too rapidly when they were swaged while +heated; but, as a general rule, the swaging is done while the piece is +at a red or white heat. The operations of the various dropping-machines +are exceedingly interesting, and the amount of labor they save is +perfectly marvellous. + +A large number of men are kept constantly at work making dies for the +various pieces required. + +When the pieces come out of the swaging-machines, they have more or less +of surplus metal about them, which is cut off or trimmed by passing them +through machines designed for this purpose. + +The bayonet-blade is first forged under a trip-hammer, and then rolled +to the proper shape, by an operation similar to the barrel-rolling. The +socket is forged separately, and afterwards welded to the blade under a +trip-hammer. It is then passed twice under the drop, then milled and +polished, when it is ready for use. The ramrod is cut from steel rods +about the size required. It is then ground in the same manner as the +barrel, and the hammer is swaged on by two operations under the drop. +The screw-cutting and polishing are very simple, and executed with great +rapidity. + +The cone-seating, like every other part of the work done upon the +musket, is very interesting. The barrel, after it comes from the +rolling-mill, is placed in a forge and heated to a white-heat. A small +square block of iron, cut under a trip-hammer to the proper size, is +also heated to a white-heat, and then welded to the barrel by half a +dozen strokes under the trip-hammer,--the whole operation occupying less +time than is required to describe it. An iron rod is meanwhile inserted +within the barrel to maintain the continuity of the bore. + +The sights are struck in dies, and placed upon the barrel in slots cut +for the purpose. They are then brazed upon the barrel, pieces of brass +wire, half an inch long, being used for this purpose. Three men are +employed in brazing on the sights for the establishment. + +The rolling, forging, and swaging rooms are all connected, and form, as +it were, one extended apartment. In this are placed hundreds of forges, +furnaces, trip-hammers, rolling-mills, dropping-machines, and +trimming-machines,--besides scores of sledge-hammers, wielded by +stalwart arms. The noise here is so great that no effort of the voice +avails to make itself heard, and I doubt if even the loudest thunder +would make any appreciable addition to the general clangor. Small iron +carts, filled with hot iron, are incessantly whirling around you; +red-hot sparks, or melting drops of iron, are flying about the room in +all directions; the air is hot to suffocation, and sulphurous from the +burning of bituminous coal; while hundreds of swarthy faces, begrimed +with grease and dirt, are dripping with sweat: so that you can scarce +avoid the suspicion that you have at last stumbled into the infernal +regions, and are constantly wondering why some of Pluto's imps do not +seize you and plunge you into some horrible furnace, or chop you up +under a trip-hammer. + +Having survived the examination of this department, you follow your +guide from the forging-room down a winding flight of iron steps to the +water-wheels, which are situated forty feet under ground. These wheels +are so arranged that they can be run together or separately; they are +generally run together, and in connection with the immense low-pressure +engine. + +After the barrels are bored, turned, milled, and straightened, they are +next to be polished. For this purpose they are placed in upright frames, +each frame containing five barrels. The polishing is done by means of +hard, wooden rubbers, provided with a plentiful supply of lard-oil and +emery. The rubbers are placed horizontally, with their grooved ends +pressing by means of springs against the barrels, which are drawn +between them by a very regular and rapid vertical motion. The barrels +are also turned around slowly and continuously by a lateral movement, +which insures a uniform polish. They are allowed to remain in the first +polishing-machines fifteen minutes, and are then placed in a similar +machine and go through a second polishing, differing from the first +simply in the absence of the pulverized emery,--oil only being used upon +the rubbers during this finishing operation. The musket is now +completed, with the exception of the rifling, and some slight polishing +to be done by hand at the muzzle and breech. + +Two polishing-machines are used for ramrods, similar in construction to +those above described,--ten rods being polished at once. The bayonet is +polished upon emery-wheels. These wheels are made of wood bound with +leather, upon which there is placed a sizing composed of glue and +pulverized emery. The polishing by this process is very rapid. + +The number of workmen employed at the water-shops is ten hundred and +forty. The last time the writer had occasion to visit them was upon the +recurrence of an important occasion to the workmen employed there, +namely, pay-day. A temporary wooden structure has been erected +contiguous to the shops for the purpose of paying-off, and upon this +occasion it bore, from time to time, various placards, announcing which +shop was being paid, according as the paymaster arrived in succession at +the various departments. Within the densely thronged shops, and amidst +the deafening noise of hundreds of trip-hammers, perambulated a herald, +with bell in hand, and placard raised upon a pole, upon which was +painted a huge capital letter, thus designating, in alphabetical order, +the names of the workmen whose turn had arrived to affix their +signatures to rolls for a month's work, and receive in exchange a sheaf +of Uncle Sam's greenbacks. + +The works at the water-shops are surrounded by a high wooden fence, and +guarded by a small force of watchmen armed with muskets. Should occasion +require, however, a force of five thousand men, armed with the best of +small arms, could be mustered at once from among the workmen in the +armory and the citizens of the town. Ammunition of all kinds is stored +within the establishment, sufficient for all emergencies. + +I stated the number of pieces used in the construction of a musket to be +forty-nine; but this conveys no idea of the number of separate +operations which are performed upon it. The latter amount to over four +hundred, no two of which are by the same hand. Indeed, so distinct are +the various processes by which the grand result is obtained, that an +artisan employed upon one part of a musket may have no knowledge of the +process by which another part is fabricated. This, in fact, is the case +to a very large extent. Many persons employed upon particular parts of +the work in this establishment have never even seen other parts +manufactured, and in general the workmen understand only the process of +making the portions upon which they are engaged. The different parts are +of various grades in respect to character and price, and are regularly +rated, and the work done upon them is paid for by the piece. It will +scarcely be expected that I should describe all the processes included +in the four hundred separate operations performed in the manufacture of +the musket, and I shall therefore content myself with alluding to a few +of the most important or curious among them. + +The gun-barrel, after it arrives at the works on the hill from the +water-shops, is taken to the old armory buildings to be rifled. For this +purpose it is placed in a horizontal position in an iron frame, and held +there very firmly. The instruments which perform the rifling are short +steel cutters placed within three apertures situated near the end of an +iron tube which is carried through the bore of the barrel by a slow +rotary and progressive motion. The cutters are narrow bars of steel, +having upon one side three diagonal protuberances of about one-sixteenth +of an inch in height and half an inch in width, ground to a very sharp +edge at the top. It is these which produce the rifling. The three +cutters, when inserted within the iron cylinder, form upon their inner +surface a small cavity which decreases towards the top. Into this is +inserted a small iron rod attached to the machine and revolving with it, +but so controlled by a connecting cog-wheel that the rod is pressed at +every revolution a little farther into the cavity between the cutters. +The effect of this operation is to increase the pressure of the cutters +upon the inner surface of the barrel, and thus gradually deepen the +corrugations produced by the rifling. The rods make twelve revolutions +in a minute, and it occupies thirty minutes to rifle a barrel. There are +twenty-seven of these rifling-machines in constant operation day and +night. This process is the last which takes place within the barrel, and +it leaves the bore in a highly polished and brilliant condition. + +Among the innumerable machines which arrest the attention of the visitor +by the beauty and grace of their operations is the broaching-machine. +This is designed to cut out and polish the inner surface of the bands +which encompass the barrel and stock. These bands are irregular in +shape, and cannot, therefore, be bored out as the barrel is. When they +emerge from the drop, or swaging-machine, they are somewhat rough both +interiorly and exteriorly, and then undergo a series of operations which +leave them in a highly finished condition. The first of these is called +broaching. A cavity is made under a huge press in which the band is +placed. The broach consists of a steel tool about ten inches in length, +and of the exact diameter and form of the interior of the band, and is +armed upon its entire length with concentric rings composed of very +short and sharp knives. The broach, being placed over the cavity of the +band, is slowly subjected to the pressure of the two-ten press, and is +thus forced completely through the band, cutting it out as smoothly and +easily as if it were composed of lead. The bands are then milled upon +the outside by a process called profiling, drilled for the rings, placed +upon mandrels to insure the exact shape required, filed, polished, +case-hardened, and thus finished. + +The hammer passes through a great number of processes before it is +completed. It is first forged, then dropped, trimmed, punched, drifted, +milled, turned, filed, and lastly case-hardened. + +The cone, although one of the smallest pieces in the musket, is yet one +of the most important, and requires a great many separate operations in +its manufacture. It is first struck in a die, then +clamp-milled,--passing through a machine having clamps which hold short +knives that shave the entire outer surface of this very irregular-shaped +piece; then the thread is cut upon the screw, and both ends are +drilled,--this process alone requiring fourteen separate operations. It +is then squared at the base and case-hardened. + +All the various portions of the lock are made by machines which perform +their multitudinous operations with the most wonderful skill, precision, +and grace; but it would be impossible to convey to the reader by a +simple description upon paper the various processes by which these +results are obtained. + +Every portion of the musket is subjected to tests different in +character, but equally strict and rigid in respect to the qualities +which they are intended to prove. The bayonet is very carefully gauged +and measured in every part, in order that it may prove of precisely the +proper form and dimensions. A weight is hung to the point of it to try +its temper, and it is sprung by the strength of the inspector, with the +point set into a block of lead fastened to the floor, to prove its +elasticity. If it is tempered too high, it breaks; and if too low, it +bends. In either case it is condemned, and the workman through whose +fault the failure has resulted is charged with the loss. + +The most interesting process, perhaps, in the manufacture of the musket +is the operation of stocking. This is done in the old arsenal-building, +which, with the exception of one floor, is wholly devoted to this +purpose. + +The wood from which the stocks are made is the black walnut. This was +formerly obtained in Pennsylvania, and was kept on hand in the +storehouse in large quantities for the purpose of having it properly +seasoned. During the last two years, however, Ohio and Canada have +furnished the greater part. + +The wood is sawn into a rough semblance of the musket-stock before it is +sent to the armory. It then passes through seventeen different machines, +emerging from the last perfectly formed and finished. + +A gun-stock is, perhaps, as irregular a shape as the ingenuity of man +could devise, and as well calculated to bid defiance to every attempt at +applying machinery to the work of fashioning it. The difficulties, +however, insurmountable as they would seem, have all been overcome, and +every part of the stock is formed, and every perforation, groove, +cavity, and socket is cut in it, by machines that do their work with +such perfection as to awaken in all who witness the process a feeling of +astonishment and delight. + +The general principle on which this machinery operates may perhaps be +made intelligible to the reader by description; but the great charm in +these processes consists in the high perfection and finish of the +machines, the smoothness, grace, and rapidity of their motions, and in +the seemingly miraculous character of the performances which they +execute. + +The entire action of the various machines is regulated and guided by +patterns, which are models in iron of the various parts of the stock +which it is intended to form. + +The first machine in the stocking-room cuts the sides of the stock to +the proper form for turning. The second saws off the butt-end, and cuts +a diagonal line at the breech. The third is armed with two circular +saws, which cut the upper part of the stock to the form of the finished +arm. An iron pattern of the stock is placed in the machine directly +under the stock to be turned, upon which rests a guide-wheel, +corresponding in size and shape to the two saws above. The whole is then +made to revolve very rapidly, the guide-wheel controlling the action of +the cutters, the result being an exact wooden counterpart of the iron +pattern. The fourth machine forms the butt of the stock in the same +manner. The next simply planes three or four places upon the sides of +the stock, for the purpose of affording the subsequent machines certain +fixed and accurate points for holding it in the frames. This operation +is called spotting. The next machine performs six separate operations, +namely, grooving for the barrel, breechpin, and tang, heading-down, +milling, and finish-grooving. These various operations complete the +stock for the exact fitting-in of the barrel. The next machine planes +the top, bottom, and sides of the stock, and the succeeding two are +occupied in shaping and bedding for the butt-plates. The next machine is +designed for fitting in the lock, and is the most wonderful of all. It +contains two bits and three cutters pendent from a movable steel frame +situated above the stock. These cutters, or borers, are made to revolve +with immense velocity, and are susceptible of various other motions at +the pleasure of the workman. The inevitable iron pattern--the exact +counterpart of the cavity which is designed to be made for the reception +of the lock--is situated in close proximity to the stock, and a guide in +the form of the borer is inserted within the pattern, and controls the +movements of the borer. This is ejected by causing the tool to revolve +by means of small machinery within the frame, while the frame and all +within it move together, in the vertical and lateral motions. All that +the workman has to do is to bring the guide down into the pattern and +move it about the circumference and through the centre of it, the +cutting tool imitating precisely the motions of the guide, entering the +wood and cutting its way In the most perfect manner and with incredible +rapidity, forming an exact duplicate of the cavity in the pattern. It is +on this principle, substantially, that all the machines of the +stocking-shop are constructed,--every process, of course, requiring its +own peculiar mechanism. The next machine cuts for the guards and bores +for the side-screws of the lock, and the two succeeding cut places for +bands and tips. The next operation is called the second turning, +finishing the stock in a very smooth and elegant manner. The next +machine grooves for the ramrod, and the following and last in this +department is designed for boring for the ramrod from the point where +the groove terminates. This latter work has always been done by hand +until the past winter, and there is as yet but one machine for the +purpose in operation at the armory, which, running night and day, is +able to bore only six hundred stocks. The remainder have still to be +done by hand, until more machines are constructed. + +The history of the Springfield armory would be incomplete without some +allusion to the inventor of the machinery for turning irregular forms +adapted to the manufacture of gun-stocks. This was the invention of +Thomas Blanchard, then a citizen of Springfield and now of +Boston,--whose reputation as a mechanic has since become +world-wide,--and was first introduced into the armory about the year +1820. Before this the stocks were all worked and fitted by hand; but +the marvellous ingenuity of this machinery made a complete revolution in +this department, and contributed to a very large increase in the +rapidity and economy of gun-making all over the world. + +The same invention has been applied to other branches of manufacture, +such as shoe-lasts, axe-helves, etc.; and Mr. Blanchard has successfully +used it in multiplying copies of marble statuary with a degree of +accuracy and beauty which is truly wonderful. + +Eight years ago the English Government obtained permission of the then +Secretary of War--Jefferson Davis--to make draughts of this entire +establishment for the purpose of obtaining duplicate machinery for the +works at Enfield, and copies of the most novel and important parts of +the machinery were manufactured for them in the neighboring town of +Chicopee; an American machinist being employed to superintend their +operation at Enfield. + +These works were the especial favorites of the late Prince Albert, who +took great pleasure in exhibiting them to his Continental visitors; but +no portion of the works received so much attention from him as that +occupied by the stocking-machines. In this department he would +frequently spend hours, watching the operations of these incomparable +machines with the greatest interest and pleasure. + +As all of these ingenious and valuable machines are American inventions, +and nearly all of them designed by the various expert artisans who have +been employed at the armory during the last half-century, it would seem +proper and desirable that their peculiar construction should have +remained a secret within our national works, and, at any rate, not been +freely given to a rival government like that of Great Britain, who might +use the arms manufactured by American machinery against the very nation +that furnished it. It is probable, however, that the arch-traitor who +thus furnished the governments of Europe with draughts of these valuable +works had then in contemplation the monstrous rebellion which now +desolates our beautiful land, and took this means of weakening us by the +universal dissemination of the valuable secrets whereby we were enabled +to surpass the rest of the world in the rapidity of construction, and +the beauty and executive power of our rifled musket. + +When the several parts are finished, they are taken to an apartment in +the arsenal to be put together. This operation is called assembling the +musket. There are a large number of workmen whose occupations are +confined to the putting together of the various parts of the +musket,--each one having some distinct part to attend to. Thus, one man +puts the various parts of the lock together, while another screws the +lock into the stock. Another is occupied in putting on the bayonet, and +so on. Each workman has the parts upon which he is employed before him +on his bench, arranged in compartments, in regular order, and puts them +together with marvellous dexterity. The component parts of the musket +are all made according to one exact pattern, and thus, when taken up at +random, are sure to come properly together. There is no special fitting +required in each individual case. Any barrel will fit any stock, and a +screw designed for a particular plate or band will enter the proper hole +in any plate or band of a hundred thousand. There are many advantages +resulting from this exact conformity to an established pattern in the +components of the musket, such as greater facility and economy in +manufacturing them, and greater convenience in service,--spare screws, +locks, bands, springs, etc., being easily furnished in quantities, and +sent to any part of the country where needed, so that, when any part of +a soldier's gun becomes injured or broken, its place can be immediately +supplied by a new piece, which is sure to fit as perfectly into the +vacancy as the original occupant. Each soldier to whom a musket is +served is provided also with a little tool, which, though very simple +in its construction, enables him to separate his gun into its +forty-seven parts with the greatest facility. + +The most costly of the various parts of the musket is the barrel, which, +when completed, is estimated at three dollars. From this the parts +descend gradually to a little wire called the ramrod-spring-wire, the +value of which is only one mill. + +A complete percussion-musket weighs within a small fraction of ten +pounds. + +Besides the finished muskets fabricated here, there are many parts of +foreign arms duplicated at these works, for the use of our armies in the +field,--the most numerous of which are parts for the Enfield rifle, and +for a German musket manufactured from machinery made after our patterns +and models. + +In the arsenal there is a case of foreign arms, containing specimens +from nearly every nation in Europe. None among them, however, equal our +own in style or finish, while all of them--excepting the Enfield +rifle--are very inferior in every respect. The French arm comes next to +the English in point of excellence, while the Austrian is the poorest of +all. + +There are three steam-engines in operation at the works on the hill, one +connected with the stocking-department, and two with the other +operations carried on here. + +Twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of oil is used yearly in lubricating +the machinery, and the various pieces of iron and steel, as they are +being turned, bored, milled, broached, etc. + +At the water-shops there are five miles of leather belting in use, while +at the works on the hill the quantity greatly exceeds this amount. + +In this establishment there are employed at the present time, as already +remarked, twenty-six hundred workmen, who complete, on an average, about +one thousand muskets daily, and the works may be increased to almost any +extent,--a large square cast of the present works on the hill, and +belonging to the Government, being admirably situated for the +construction of additional shops. + +This extensive manufactory is under the direction of a principal who is +styled Superintendent, and who has the chief management of the business +of the armory,--contracting for and purchasing all tools and materials +necessary for manufacturing arms, engaging the workmen, determining +their wages, and prescribing the necessary regulations for the local +government of the establishment. To aid him in the important duties of +the armory, there is allowed a master-armorer, who manages the +mechanical operations, and is held accountable for all stock and tools +put under his charge for the use of the armory, and for the proper +workmanship of the muskets,--also a paymaster and storekeeper, whose +duty it is to liquidate and pay all debts contracted for the armory by +the superintendent, and to receive the finished arms, for which he is +held accountable, as well as for all other public property delivered +him. Each of these officers is allowed a numerous corps of clerks, to +aid in keeping the accounts. There is also a foreman, or assistant +master-armorer, to each principal branch of the work, and under him a +foreman over every job. These are severally held accountable for all +stock, tools, and parts of work delivered them for their respective +departments, and they in their turn severally hold the individual +workmen responsible for all stock, tools, or parts of work delivered to +them. The assistant master-armorers, or foremen, are inspectors in their +several branches, and are responsible for the faithful and correct +performance of the work. Each individual artisan puts his own private +mark on the work he executes, as do the inspectors likewise, when they +examine and approve of the various parts of the musket. Thus, in case of +any defect, the delinquent may readily be found. Monthly returns are +made to the superintendent, and from these returns the monthly pay-rolls +are made up. + +Since the establishment of the armory in 1794-5, there have been +fourteen superintendents, all but two of whom are classed as civilians, +although a few of these had seen some military service. The armory has +been under military rule but fifteen years out of the sixty-eight which +have elapsed since it was established: namely, from April, 1841, to +August, 1854; and from October, 1861, until the present time. A standing +dispute on the subject of the government of the armory, which was kept +up with much heat and acrimony for many years, culminated, in 1854, in +the passage of a law by Congress, in favor of the civil administration. +This continued until after the breaking out of the Rebellion, when +Congress restored the military superintendency. The question of civil or +military government, however, is of no practical importance to any +person other than the aspirant for the place. The same rules and +regulations governing the workmen employed at the armory, as well as the +mode of payment, and the manner of doing the work, which were +inaugurated by Benjamin Prescott, the superintendent from November, +1805, to May, 1815, are substantially in operation now, and have +continued through all the changes which have occurred during more than +half a century. + +At the end of December, 1817, there had been completed in this +manufactory 141,761 muskets. The expenditures for land and mill-seats, +and for erecting machinery, water-shops, work-shops, stores, and +buildings of every description, together with repairs, were estimated at +$155,500. The other expenses, exclusive of the cost of stock and parts +of work on hand, amounted to $1,553,100; stock and parts of muskets on +hand, $111,545; and the total expenditures, from the commencement of the +works, to December, 1817, $1,820,120.18. + +From the establishment of the armory to the present date there have been +manufactured 1,097,660 muskets, 250 rifles, 1,000 pistols, 1,202 +carbines, 8,660 musketoons, 4,806 cadets' arms, 18 model muskets, and 16 +model pistols and rifles. The reader will be surprised, perhaps, to +learn, that there were 1,020 more muskets manufactured at these works +during the year 1811 than in the year 1854. In 1850 and 1851, 113,406 +muskets were altered in their locks, from flint to percussion, involving +an amount of labor equal to the manufacture of 7,630 muskets. From 1809 +to 1822, inclusive of those years, and exclusive of 1811 and 1812, +nearly 50,000 muskets were repaired, involving labor equal to the +manufacture of 11,540 muskets. + +In addition to the large number of muskets manufactured at the +Government works in Springfield, and which amount to upwards of three +hundred thousand per annum, there are a vast number of private +establishments throughout the Northern States, which turn out from two +to five thousand muskets per month each. These various manufactories are +situated at Hartford, Norfolk, Windsor Locks, Norwich, Middletown, +Meriden, and Whitneyville, Ct., Providence, R.I., Manchester, N.H., +Windsor, Vt., Trenton, N.J., Bridesburg, Pa., and New York City, +Watertown, and Ilion, N.Y. Besides these, there are more than fifty +establishments where separate parts of the musket are manufactured in +large quantities, and purchased by Government to supply the places of +those injured or destroyed in the service. It is estimated that the +private armories alone are manufacturing monthly upwards of sixty +thousand rifled muskets. The Government contracts for these arms extend +to January next, and the total number which will then have been produced +will be enormous. The cost of manufacturing a musket at the Government +works is estimated at about nine dollars; but the contract-price to the +private arms-companies is twenty dollars for those which equal the +Government standard in every respect, nineteen dollars and ninety cents +for those which lack a little in finish, nineteen dollars for the next +grade, eighteen for the next, and sixteen for the lowest and poorest +which are accepted. + +As the arms are finished, they are sent away to the various Government +arsenals,--those made in New England to Watertown, Mass.,--where they +remain until the exigencies of the service require them. At the present +time, there is a sufficient number of new rifled muskets of the best +qualify stored in the various arsenals to arm the entire levy about to +be called into the field,--and should the war continue so long, there +will be enough manufactured during the next twelve months for a new levy +of over one million of men. These arms, it must be remembered, are +entirely independent of those ordered by the respective State +governments, which would swell the amount very largely. + + * * * * * + +THE PEWEE. + + + The listening Dryads hushed the woods; + The boughs were thick, and thin and few + The golden ribbons fluttering through; + Their sun-embroidered, leafy hoods + The lindens lifted to the blue: + Only a little forest-brook + The farthest hem of silence shook: + When in the hollow shades I heard-- + Was it a spirit, or a bird? + Or, strayed from Eden, desolate, + Some Feri calling to her mate, + Whom nevermore her mate would cheer? + "Pe-ri! Pe-ri! Peer!" + + Through rocky clefts the brooklet fell + With plashy pour, that scarce was sound, + But only quiet less profound, + A stillness fresh and audible: + A yellow leaflet to the ground + Whirled noiselessly: with wing of gloss + A hovering sunbeam brushed the moss, + And, wavering brightly over it, + Sat like a butterfly alit: + The owlet in his open door + Stared roundly: while the breezes bore + The plaint to far-off places drear,-- + "Pe-ree! pe-ree! peer!" + + To trace it in its green retreat + I sought among the boughs in vain; + And followed still the wandering strain, + So melancholy and so sweet + The dim-eyed violets yearned with pain. + 'Twas now a sorrow in the air, + Some nymph's immortalized despair + Haunting the woods and waterfalls; + And now, at long, sad intervals, + Sitting unseen in dusky shade, + His plaintive pipe some fairy played, + With long-drawn cadence thin and clear,-- + "Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!" + + Long-drawn and clear its closes were,-- + As if the hand of Music through + The sombre robe of Silence drew + A thread of golden gossamer: + So sweet a flute the fairy blew. + Like beggared princes of the wood, + In silver rags the birches stood; + The hemlocks, lordly counsellors, + Were dumb; the sturdy servitors, + In beechen jackets patched and gray, + Seemed waiting spellbound all the day + That low entrancing note to hear,-- + "Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!" + + I quit the search, and sat me down + Beside the brook, irresolute, + And watched a little bird in suit + Of sober olive, soft and brown, + Perched in the maple-branches, mute: + With greenish gold its vest was fringed, + Its tiny cap was ebon-tinged, + With ivory pale its wings were barred, + And its dark eyes were tender-starred. + "Dear bird," I said, "what is thy name?" + And thrice the mournful answer came, + So faint and far, and yet so near,-- + "Pe-wee! Pe-wee! Peer!" + + For so I found my forest-bird,-- + The pewee of the loneliest woods, + Sole singer in these solitudes, + Which never robin's whistle stirred, + Where never bluebird's plume intrudes. + Quick darting through the dewy morn, + The redstart trills his twittering horn, + And vanisheth: sometimes at even, + Like liquid pearls fresh showered from heaven, + The high notes of the lone wood-thrush + Fall on the forest's holy hush: + But thou all day complainest here,-- + "Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!" + + Hast thou too, in thy little breast, + Strange longings for a happier lot,-- + For love, for life, thou know'st not what,-- + A yearning, and a vague unrest, + For something still which thou hast not?-- + Thou soul of some benighted child + That perished, crying in the wild! + Or lost, forlorn, and wandering maid, + By love allured, by love betrayed, + Whose spirit with her latest sigh + Arose, a little winged cry, + Above her chill and mossy bier! + "Dear me! dear me! dear!" + + Ah, no such piercing sorrow mars + The pewee's life of cheerful ease! + He sings, or leaves his song to seize + An insect sporting in the bars + Of mild bright light that gild the trees. + A very poet he! For him + All pleasant places still and dim: + His heart, a spark of heavenly fire, + Burns with undying, sweet desire: + And so he sings; and so his song, + Though heard not by the hurrying throng, + Is solace to the pensive ear: + "Pewee! pewee! peer!" + + * * * * * + +MRS. LEWIS. + +A STORY IN THREE PARTS. + +PART II. + + +VI. + +In due time we found our way, through deafening clatter, to Miss Post's +door, a little below the Astor House, and in the midst of all that +female feet the soonest seek. In Maiden Lane and on Broadway it was easy +to find all that a Weston fancy painted in the shape of dry goods; and I +did my errands up with conscientious speed before indulging in a +fashionable lounge on the Battery. + +The first twenty-four hours were full of successive surprises, which +ought to have been chronicled on the spot and at the time. They affected +me like electric shocks; but in a day or two I forgot to be surprised at +the queer Dutch signs over the shops and the swine in the streets. Now I +only remember the oddity of Miss Post's poverty in the water-line; and +that she had to buy fresh water by the gallon and rain-water by the +barrel. Also, the faithlessness of the two brilliant black boys who +waited on table and at the door, and who couldn't be depended on to +take up a bundle or carry a message to your room, so unmitigatedly +wicked were they. + +"If I owned 'em," said Miss Post to me, confidentially, "I would have +'em whipped every day of their lives. It's what they need, and can't do +without. They're just like bad children!" + +That was true enough. However, she didn't own them, and got very little +out of them but show; and they looked like princes, with their white +aprons and jackets, and their glittering, haughty eyes. They played with +their duties, and disdained all directions. I used to follow them with +my eyes at the table with amused astonishment. It was very grand, and, +as the Marchioness says, "If you made believe a good deal," reminded one +of barbaric splendor, and Tippoo Saib. But poor Miss Post couldn't order +an elephant to tread their heads off, or she would have extinguished her +household twice a day. I looked back with a feeling of relief to Weston, +and my good Polly, who would scorn to be an eye-servant or men-pleaser. + +At the long table, where sat Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Mr. +and Mrs. Bennett, Babbit, and so on, I looked sharply for Mr. and Mrs. +Lewis. But neither was there the first day. All the people were +childless and desolate-looking, though much bedecked with braids and +curls, which ladies wore at that time without stint. Nobody looked as if +she could be Mr. Lewis's wife. However, the ladies all treated me with +so much cordiality and politeness that I set New York down at once as a +delightful spot. + +Happening to speak of Mrs. Lewis, I saw that the corners of Mrs. Jones's +mouth went immediately down, and Mrs. Smith's eyebrows immediately up. +Of course, no woman is going to stand that; and I inquired minutely +enough to satisfy myself either that Mrs. Lewis was very peculiar, or +that a boarding-house was not a favorable atmosphere for character. My +husband, to whom I told all they said, considered "the abundant leisure +from family-cares which these ladies enjoyed as giving them +opportunities for investigation which they carried to excess." + +"But think of Gus not being Mr. Lewis's child!" said I, after faithfully +relating all I had heard. + +"He looks like an Italian. I always thought so. But Lewis seems very +fond of him." + +"Yes, they said so. But that the mother cared nothing for him, nor for +her other children, who are off in Genesee County somewhere." + +"For health, doubtless," said my "he," dryly. + +"And the way they talked of Mr. Remington! calling him George, and more +than insinuating that she likes too well to be at the Oaks,--that is his +place. They say she has been there all the time Mr. Lewis has been +gone!" + +"Mr. Remington has been gone too, as you and I can testify," more dryly. + +"So he has. I wish I had thought to tell them so." + +I hadn't been in a boarding-house for nothing. + +"It was like Lewis to take her as he did. Very noble and generous, too, +even supposing he loved her. I dare say he does. Is Montalli dead?" + +"I don't know. I think so. At all events, they were divorced, and for +his cruelty. Only think of a lady, a young lady, not sixteen, and the +darling and idol at home, being beaten and pounded! Ugh! what horrid +creatures Italians are!" + +"And you say Lewis happened to be in Mobile at the time?" + +"Yes, and fell in love with her,--she, scarcely eighteen, and to have +had this shocking experience! I don't like to tell you how much these +ladies have hinted about her, but enough to make me feel as if I were +reading the "Mysteries of Udolpho," instead of hearing of a live woman, +out of a book, and belonging to our own time." + +"Very likely she may have amused herself at the expense of their +credulity. I have seen women do that, just for sport, and to see how +much people would believe. It is a dangerous game to play." + +Mr. Lewis came to dinner, and brought me a little three-cornered note +from his wife, written with much grace and elegance, so far as the +composition was concerned. It was sealed with a dove flying, and +expressed her thanks for my bringing the "sweet remembranser" from her +beloved child, and so on, expecting to see me the next day at the Oaks. + +The surprising part of the note was, that the writing was scrawled, and +the words misspelt in a manner that would have disgraced the youngest +member of a town-school in Weston. She had "grate" pleasure, and spoke +of my "truble" in a way that made me feel as if I should see a child. + +The next day brought Mr. Remington himself, fresh and handsome as ever, +saying that a carriage was waiting, and his tulips were at their best, +and the ladies expecting to see us,--adding, with an informality which I +had not associated with New York, that the day was all planned out for +us,--tulips and lunch at the Oaks, Hoboken in the afternoon. + +That was a white day, and one long to be remembered. First of all, for +Hoboken, which, whatever it may be now, was then a spot full of +picturesque beauty and sweet retirement, relieving and contrasting the +roar and tumult of the city; second, for the tulips, which were the most +glorious things I ever saw, and still remain the pattern of exceeding +beauty, though I have since seen wealth of floral splendor, but none +that came up to the Royal Adelaide,--nothing so queenly and so noble as +the large white cup, fit for Hebe to bear and the gods to drink out of, +and holding at least a pint within the snowy radiance of its ample brim. +I did not wonder Mr. Remington had a passion for tulips. He flitted +about among his brilliant brigade like a happy butterfly, rejoicing in +our delight and exulting in our surprise like a pleased child. + +"And is each of these different?" + +"Not a duplicate among them. Fifteen hundred varieties." + +If he had said fifteen thousand, it would not have added to my +astonishment. To be sure, no king was ever arrayed like one of these. +And fifteen hundred! each gorgeous enough for a king's ransom! It took +my breath away to look at the far-reaching parterre of nodding glories, +moved by the breath of the south-wind. + +"I am satisfied. I see you are sufficiently impressed with my tulips, +Mrs. Prince," said Mr. Remington, gleefully, "and I shall send you no +end of bulbs for your Weston garden." + +Mr. Remington had taken us directly to the garden on our arrival, and +now led the way, through large evergreens, and by a winding path, to the +house. The land was not half an acre in size, yet I was sure that I had +been over a large estate. The same delusion clung to the house, which +was in looks like one of Gainsborough's cottages, and ought to have been +at least two hundred years old, instead of two. But Downing's advent had +already wrought miracles here and there in our land; and a little while +before Mr. Remington had been bitten with an architectural mania. So +under the transplanted trees, and beneath trailing vines of Virginia +creeper and Boursault roses, there peeped the brown gables of a cottage, +which arose and stood there as reposeful and weather-stained as if it +had been built before the Revolution. Mr. Remington showed us twenty +unexpected doors, and juttings-out here and there, to catch a view, or +to let in the sun, and rejoiced in our pleasure, as he had in the +garden, like a child. In the library, Mrs. Remington received us, +looking pale, and being very silent. + +I sat down by her without being attracted at all--rather repelled by the +faint sickliness of everything connected with her appearance. But +neither her pale blue eyes, nor her yellow hair, nor her straw-colored +gown and blue ribbons would have repelled me; I could not make her talk +at all. I never saw such reticence before or since. As if she were +determined "to die and make no sign," she sat, bowing and smiling, and +amounting to nothing, one way or another,--giving no opinion, if asked, +and asking no question. She was passively polite, but so very near +nothing that I was rejoiced when Mr. Remington entered with my husband, +and proposed that we should go into the dining-room. He carelessly +introduced Mrs. Remington, but further than that seemed not to know she +was in existence; and I must confess, I did not wonder. While my husband +made, or tried to make, some conversation with her, Mr. Remington showed +me an exquisite Clytie in marble, and a landscape by Cole, which hung in +a good light, and showed its wonderful wild beauty. And now for the +third reason that this was a white day. + + +VII. + +In a little room connected with the refreshment-room there stood before +a large mirror somebody winding a red scarf about her head. I had only +time to see that the head was small and shapely, and the figure full of +flexible grace, when it turned and nodded to the party. Of course, it +could only be Mrs. Lewis, as she at once said, in a honey-sweet voice, +and with what seemed to me a foreign accent; but then I had never heard +the Southern accent, which is full of music, and seems somehow to avoid +the sibilant tone as well as the nasal drawl characteristic of Northern +tongues. + +I was attracted to her, not by her beauty, though that was marked, but +by her cordial, unaffected manner of placing her two hands in ours, and +by her infantine sweetness of expression. Whatever she might have gone +through, I saw she had not suffered. There was no line or track of +experience, on her broad, tranquil brow, nor was there the hushed, +restrained expression left in all eyes that have deeply mourned and +bitterly wept. The look was serene and youthful, with such happiness as +might come from health and elemental life,--such as a Dryad might have +in her songful bowers, or a Naiad plunging in the surf. But it was a +shallow face, and pleased only as the sunshine does. For my part, I +would rather listen to the sorrowful song of the pine-tree: that is the +tune of life. + +So, after the first five minutes, the face of Mrs. Lewis ceased to +attract me, and I only wondered how she came to attract her husband. + +At Miss Post's, our rooms were quite near each other; and I frequently +passed an hour in the morning with Mrs. Lewis, chatting with her, and +looking about her fanciful apartment. She had dozens of birds of all gay +colors,--paroquets from Brazil, cockatoos, ring-doves, and canaries; +fresh flowers, in vases on the mantel-pieces, and a blue-ribboned guitar +in the corner. No books, no pictures. A great many scarfs, bonnets, and +drapery generally, fell about on the chairs and tables. + +She never asked about Auguste, nor talked of her children. Once she said +they were at Madam somebody's, she couldn't think of the name, but a +very nice school, she believed. Everything was "very nice" or "very +horrid." Much of the time she passed in draping herself in various +finery before the mirror, and trying the effects of color on her +complexion. I could think of nothing but field-lilies, that toil not, +and yet exceed Solomon in glory; sometimes it seemed gaudiness rather +than glory, only that her brilliant complexion carried off the brightest +hues, and made them only add to the native splendor of lip and eye. Then +she had a transparent complexion, where the blood rippled vividly and +roseately at the least excitement. This expressed a vivacity of +temperament and a sensitiveness which yet she had not, so that I was +constantly looking for more than there was in her, and as constantly +disappointed. The face suggested, and so did the conversation, far more +both of native sensibility and of culture than she had of either. This +was apparent during the first twenty-four hours. + +It may seem strange that I should cultivate such a disappointing +acquaintance as Mrs. Lewis. But, first, I liked Mr. Lewis, and he was +much of the time in their parlor; and, secondly, Mrs. Lewis took a +decided fancy to me, and that had its effect. I could not deem her +insensible to excellence of some sort; besides, she was a curious study +to me, and besides, I had occasion, as the time wore on, to think more +of her. Our lives are threaded with black and gold, not of our own +selecting, and we feel that we are guided by an Unseen Hand in many of +our associations. + +There was a want of arrangement of material in her mind, which prevented +her from using what she knew, to any advantage; and what she knew, +though it had the originality of first observation, and a grace of +expression so great that more met the ear than was meant, was still so +wanting, either in insight or reflection, as to be poor and vapid as +small-beer after the first sparkle is gone. The manner was all in Mrs. +Lewis, but that was ever varying and charming. + +One day she had been wrapping some green and gold gauzes about her, and +draping herself so that you could think of nothing but sunsets and +tulip-beds, when, in pulling over her finery, she came across a +miniature of herself. She handed it to me. + +"This was what made William dead in love with me, before he saw me. I +used to wear my hair so for years after I married him; he liked me to." + +It was a very delicately painted miniature, by Staigg, I think. Still a +very good likeness, and with the perpetual childhood of the large brown +eyes, and the clusters of chestnut curls over brow and neck, that gave +an added expression of extreme youth to the face. + +"Will she never mature?" I thought. + +But always there was the same promise, the same expectation, and the +same disappointment. I used to think I would as soon marry Hoffman's +machine, who looked so beautiful, and said, "Ah! ah!" and the husband +thought her very sensible. But Hoffman's husband thought he had an +admiring wife, and her "ah! ah-s!" were appreciative, whereas Mr. Lewis +could be under no such delusion. Once I heard him say, "he cared only +for love in a wife: intellect he could find in books, but the heart only +in woman." "Eyes that look kindly on me are full of good sense,--lips +that part over pearls are better than wisdom,--and the heart-beat is the +measure of true life." + +He liked to talk in this proverb-fashion, and would often turn towards +his wife, giving his remarks point and affectionate direction by +smoothing her curls or gently touching her shoulder. He was very happy +in her beauty. + +Notwithstanding this, he often brought in books of an evening, to read +to us, leaving Lulu to get her entertainment as she could, and would +sometimes sit a whole hour, discussing literary points with me, and +metaphysical ones with the Dominie, who was only too happy to pull the +Scotch professors over the coals, and lead to condign execution Brown, +Reid, and Stewart, in their turn. Sometimes Lulu would come in, with a +bird on each hand, and sit at our feet. She then never mingled in the +conversation, but just smoothed the birds' plumage, or fed them with +crumbs from her own lips, like a child, or a princess trifling in the +harem. + +Once we were at Hoboken, where we had passed most of the warm day, and, +being weary with strolling among the trees, had seated ourselves on a +bank, whence we had a good view of the water and the vessels in the hazy +distance. Mr. Lewis took Wordsworth from his pocket, and read aloud the +"Ode to Immortality." It was so beautiful, and the images of "the calm +sea that brought us hither" so suggestive, that we listened with +rapture. Lulu twined oak-leaves into wreaths, sitting at her husband's +feet. I don't know whether she heard or not, but, as we discussed +afterwards the various beauties of the expression, and the exquisite +thoughts, Mr. Lewis leaned over and laid his hand lightly on his wife's +hair. He had done it a hundred times before. But to-day she shook her +head away from him, blushed angrily, and said, "Don't, William! I am not +a baby!" + + +VIII. + +We stayed in New York over ten days. In that time we seemed to have +known the Lewises ten years. In the last three days I had some new +views, however, and puzzled myself over manners which were apparently +contradictory. + +Lulu had told me in the morning that her husband was going to +Philadelphia, and wouldn't be back for two days. I asked her if she were +not going with him. She said, no,--that she wouldn't encounter the dust +of those Jersey wagons again; and then described, with much vivacity, +the method of transportation which was soon after succeeded by the +present railroad. + +"There were a hundred horses, at least," said she, "to drag us. +Magnificent creatures, too. But nothing pays for having one's mouth and +eyes full of grit." + +As she spoke, Mr. Lewis passed by the door, and looked at her. She went +to him at once, put up her lips to be kissed, and I heard his loving +good-bye, as they went along the entry to the top of the stairway. + +When she came back to my room, which was half an hour after, she was +dressed to go out, in a new hat and pelisse of green silk, with a plume +of the same. With her bright color, it was very becoming to her. + +"I have just got these home. William just hates me in green, but I would +have them. They make one think of fern-leaves and the deep woods, don't +they?" said she, standing before the mirror with childish admiration of +her own dress. + +She turned slowly round, and faced me. + +"Now I suppose you would dress up in a blue bag, if your husband liked +to see you in it?" + +I said I supposed so, too. + +"That's because you love him, and know that he loves you!" + +"I am sure, you may say one is true of yourself," said I, surprised at +her knitted brow and flushed cheek. + +"What was that you were reading last night in Plato's Dialogues? What +does he say is real love? for the body or the soul?" + +I was confounded. For I had never supposed she listened to a word that +was read. + +"If any one has been in love with the body of Alcibiades, that person +has not been in love with Alcibiades," said she, reciting from memory. + +"Yes, I remember." + +"But one that loves your soul does not leave you, but continues constant +after the flower of your beauty has faded, and all your admirers have +retired." + +I nodded, as much nonplussed as if she had been Socrates. + +"That is a love worth having, is it not, which will continue, though the +cheek be white and furrowed, and the eye dim?" + +I nodded again, staring at her. + +"And what is that worth," said she, stamping her foot, "which does not +recognize a soul at all? If he ever encouraged me to improve,--if he +ever read to me, or talked to me as he does to you, I might make +something of myself! I am in earnest. I do want to be something,--to +think, to learn, if I only knew how!" + +Childish tears ran down her face as she spoke. Presently she went into +her room and brought me a set of malachite, in exquisite cameo-cuttings. +I took up a microscope, and began admiring and examining them, +recognizing the subjects, which were taken from Raphael's History of +Psyche. + +"Beautiful! where did they come from?" + +"William bought them of Lloyd, who had them long ago of the Emperor's +jeweller. They had been ordered for Marie Louise." + +"And why didn't she have them, pray?" + +"Just the question I asked. He said, 'Oh, because the Emperor was down +and the Allies in Paris, and the Emperor's jeweller nobody, and glad to +sell the cameos for one-third their cost, when they were finished.'" + +"Oh, yes! I see,--at the time of Waterloo." + +Mrs. Lewis looked at me again with the same knitted brow and flushed +cheek as before. + +"All you say is Greek to me. I don't know what malachite is, nor who +Raphael is, nor who Psyche is, nor who Marie Louise is, scarcely who +Napoleon, and nothing about Waterloo. A pretty present to make to me, is +it not? I could make nothing of it. To you it is a whole volume." + +I said, with some embarrassment, that it was easy to learn, and that if +she--that is, that women should endeavor to improve themselves, and so +on. She heard me through, and then said, dryly,-- + +"How old were you when you were married?" + +"I was nearly twenty." + +"Were you well-informed? had you read a great deal?" + +"What one gets in a country-school,--and being fond of reading;--but +then I had always been in an atmosphere of books; and one takes in, one +knows not how, a thousand facts"-- + +I stopped; for I saw by her impatient nodding that she understood me. + +"Yes, yes. I knew it must be so. Now, if William would ever bring me +books, instead of jewels, or talk to me and with me, I might have been a +rational being too, instead of being absolutely ashamed to open my +mouth!" + +She clasped the jewel-case and went out; and I heard her chatting a +minute after with some gentlemen in the house, as if she were perfectly +and childishly happy. + + +IX. + +How I wished I could give Mr. Lewis some hint of what had passed between +his wife and myself! But that I could not do. Besides that it was always +best to let matrimonial improvements originate with the parties +themselves, I had an inability to interfere usefully. I could talk to +her a little,--not at all to him. He seemed fond and proud of her as she +was, and her dissatisfaction with herself was a good sign. It was +strange to me, accustomed to intellectual sympathy, that he could do +without that of his wife. But I suppose he had come to feel that she +would not understand him, and so did not try to hit her apprehension, +much less to raise or cultivate her intellect. He had lived too long at +the South. + +Her moral nature was very oddly developed, showing how starved and +stunted some of the faculties, naturally good, become without their +proper nourishment. As, intellectually, she seemed not to comprehend +herself, except that she had a vague sense of want and waste, so, from +the habit of occupying herself with the external, she had not only a +keen sense of the beautiful in outward form, but as ready a perception +of character as could consist with a want of tact. Adaptation she +certainly had. Tact she could not have, since her sympathies were so +limited and her habit so much of external perception and appreciation. +All this desolate tract in her nature might yet possibly be cultivated. +But thus far it had never been. Beyond a small circle of thoughts and +feelings, she was incapable of being interested. She didn't say, "Anan!" +but she looked it. + +There was the same want of comprehension, I may call it, in reference to +propriety of conduct. A certain nobleness, and freedom from all that was +petty and cold, kept her from coquetry. At the same time she had a +womanish vanity about her admirers, and entire freedom in speaking of +them. In vain I endeavored to insinuate the unpleasant truth, that the +fervency of her adorers was no compliment to her. She could not +understand that she ought to shrink from the implied imputation of such +manifestations. + +Somewhat out of patience, one day, at her pleasure in receiving a +bouquet of rare flowers from one of these adorers, I said,-- + +"Isn't this the person who you said professed an attachment to you, or +rather sent heliotrope to you and told you it meant _je vous aime?_" + +"The very man!" said she, smiling. + +"Then I am sure you are, as I should be, sadly mortified at his +continuing these attentions." + +"I don't see why I should be mortified," said she, "He may be, if he +likes." + +"You know what the poet says, Lulu, and it is excellent sense,-- + + 'In part she is to blame that has been tried, + He comes too near that comes to be denied.'" + +The crimson tide rippled over her forehead at this, but it was only a +passing disturbance, and she answered sweetly,-- + +"I don't think you are quite fair," as if she had been playing at some +game with me. + +Apparently, too, she had as little religious as moral sense, though she +called herself a member of the Church, and said she was confirmed at +twelve years old. + +But once, in speaking of Mr. Lewis's going to church, she told me, +"William has no religion at all." Much in the same way she would have +said he had not had luncheon. A strange responsibility, if he felt it, +had this William, a man nearly forty years old, for this young creature +not yet twenty-three, and with powers so undeveloped and a character so +unbalanced! + +In the ten days we passed together I often wished I could have known her +early, or that I now had a right to say to her what I would. However, +perhaps I overestimated the influence of outward circumstances. + +We parted rather suddenly, and in the next three years they were mostly +in Cuba, while my husband was called to leave Weston for a larger field +of usefulness. + +We had lived more than a year in Boston, and it was in the autumn of +1833 that I sat alone by a sea-coal fire, thinking, and making out faces +in the coal. I was too absorbed to hear the bell ring, or the door open, +till I felt a little rustle, and a soft, sudden kiss on my lips. I was +no way surprised, for Lulu's was the foremost face in the coals. Mr. +Lewis was close behind her, with my husband. As soon as the astral was +lighted, we gazed wistfully for a few moments at each other. Each looked +for possible alteration. + +"You have been ill!" + +"And you have had something besides Time." + +We had had grief and bereavement. Mr. Lewis had been very ill, and very +near death, with the fever of the country. It had left traces on his +worn face, and thinned his already thin enough figure. + +But a greater change had come over Mrs. Lewis. Personally, she was +fuller and handsomer than ever. She had the same grace in every motion, +the same lulling music in her sweet voice. But a soul seemed to be born +into that fine body. The brown eyes were deeper, and the voice had +thrills of feeling and sentiment. For all that, she had the same +incompleteness that she had when I last saw her, and an inharmoniousness +that was felt by the hearer whenever she spoke. It was very odd, this +impression I constantly had of her; but they were to remain in Boston +through the winter, and I supposed time would develop the mystery to me. + + +X. + +One evening, soon after Lulu's return, for she soon took up her old +habits of intimacy, she sat listlessly by the fire, holding her two +hands in her lap, as usual, and not even dawdling at netting. Perhaps +the still evening and the quiet room induced confidence, or she may have +felt the effect of my "receptivity," as she called it. (She always +insisted that she could not help telling me everything.) She turned away +abruptly from the fire, saying,-- + +"Do you know I don't love William a particle,--not the smallest atom?" + +"I hope you are only talking nonsense," said I, rising, and ringing for +lights; "but it is painful for me to hear you. Don't! I beg!" + +"No, it isn't nonsense. It is the simple truth. And it is best you +should know it. Because,--you don't want me to be a living lie, do you? +To the world I can keep up the old seeming. But it is better you should +know the truth." + +"There I differ from you entirely, Lulu. If you are so sadly +unfortunate, so wretched, as not to love your husband, it is too painful +and serious a matter lightly to be talked of. It is a matter for +grievous lamentation,--a matter between your conscience and your God. I +don't think any friend can help you; and if not, of course you can have +no motive in confiding it." + +She had the same old look, as if she would say, "Anan!" but presently +added,-- + +"He cares only for himself,--not at all for me. Don't I see that every +day? Am I but the plume in his cap? but the lace on his sleeve? but the +jewel in his linen? Whatever I might have felt for him, I am sure I have +no need to feel now; and I repeat to you, I should not care at all if I +were never again to lay my eyes on him!" + +I shuddered to hear this talk. It was said, however, without anger, and +with the air rather of a simple child who thought it right not to have +false pretences. Her frankness, if it had been united with deep feeling, +would have touched me exceedingly. As it was, I was bewildered, yet only +anxious to avoid explanations, which it seemed to me would only increase +the evil. + +Thoughts of the ill-training that had made such a poor piece of +life-work out of the rich materials before me made my heart ache. She +sat still, looking in the fire, like a child, rebuked and chidden for +some unconscious fault. So many fine traits of character, yet such a +hopeless want of balance, such an utter wrongheadedness! I turned, and +did what I very seldom do, yielded to my impulses of compassionate +tenderness and kissed her. To my surprise, she burst into a hearty fit +of crying. + +"If I had known you early! or if my mother had lived!" she sobbed; "but +now I am good for nothing! I don't know what is right nor what is +wrong!" + +"Don't say so,--we can always try." + +"Not this. I could at first. But to be always treated like a baby,--and +if I express any contrary opinion, or show that I've a mind of my +own,--a sick baby! I can tell you this comes pretty hard three hundred +and sixty-five days in a year! Oh, I wish I were a free woman! There! I +am going to stop now. But you know." + +I was only too glad to be interrupted by our two husbands. Lulu ran +up-stairs,--I supposed, to bathe her eyes and compose herself. She, +however, was down again in a minute, with some drapery which she wound +about her after the fashion Lady Hamilton was said to do, and +represented, like her, the Muses, and various statues. With the curtain +and one light she managed to give a very statuesque effect. Mr. Lewis +was evidently very proud of her grace and talent, and she had a pretty, +wilful, bird-like way with him, that was fascinating, and did not seem, +as I thought it must really be, mechanical. I felt, more than ever, how +idle it must be to talk with her. The affectionate respect, the joyful +uplooking of wifehood, was not to be taught by words, nor to be taught, +in fact, any way. Mr. Lewis's manner to his wife, which I criticized +carefully, was always tender and dignified. And, from my knowledge of +him, I felt sure that his expression was that of genuine feeling. +Evidently he did not understand her feelings at all. She longed for +encouragement and improvement. He looked at her as a lovely child only. + +Being a minister's wife, I felt called on to labor in my vocation, and +from time to time watch the pliant moment, and endeavor to lead Lulu's +mind to the foundation of all truth. But, surely, never fell seed on +such stony ground. To be sure, the flowers sprang up. Dewy, rich, and +running, they climbed over the rocks beneath; but they shed their +perfume, and shrank dead in a day, leaving the stones bare. I was +discouraged about sowing seed. + +The Lewises had been but a few weeks in Boston, when Lulu brought Mr. +Remington in one morning to make a call. He was dressed in black, and +told me he had been a widower six months. His bright, genial face and +healthful nature seemed not to have sustained any severe shock, however, +and he spoke with great composure of his loss. + +He was at Mr. Lewis's a great deal. It seemed as a matter of course. As +an accomplished man, with great powers of entertaining, he must +naturally be acceptable there; but we were too much occupied with family +and parish matters to see much of him, and about that time went on a +journey of some weeks. + + * * * * * + +THE CONQUEST OF CUBA. + + +One hundred years ago the people of America were as much moved by +martial ardor as are the American people of to-day. The year 1762 was, +indeed, a far more warlike time than was 1862. "Great war" is now +confined to the territory of the United States, and exists neither in +Asia, Africa, nor Europe. Garibaldi's laudable attempt to get it up in +Italy failed dismally. There was a flash of spirit, and there were a few +flashes of gunpowder, and all was over. "The rest is silence." There are +numerous questions unsettled in the Old World, but the disputants are +inclined to wait for settlement, it would seem, until our affairs shall +have been brought into a healthful state. Europeans complain that our +quarrel has wrought them injury, and very great injury, too. They are +right as to the fact. England has suffered more from the consequences of +the Southern Rebellion than have the Free States of the Union, and +France quite as much, and Spain as severely as any one of our States. In +Germany, in Switzerland, and in Belgium, thousands of families have had +bitter reasons for joining in the cry that Americans do not know how to +manage their politics. We have heard of riots in Moravia, not far from +the scene of Lafayette's imprisonment and that of Napoleon's greatest +victory, caused by the scarcity of cotton. Yankee cloths that used to go +into remote and barbarous regions, through the medium of the +caravan-commerce, will be known no more there for some time. Perhaps +those African chiefs who had condescended to shirt themselves, thus +taking a step toward civilization, will have to fall back upon their +skins, because Mr. Jefferson Davis and some others of the Southern +Americans chose to make war on their country, and so stop the supply of +cotton. The "too-many-shirts" cry, which so revolted the benevolent +heart of Mr. Carlyle twenty years since, has ceased to be heard. The +supply is getting exhausted. The old shirts are vanishing, and the new +ones, instead of being of good stout cloth, are of such stuff as dreams +are made of. There might be a new version of "The Song of the Shirt" +published, specially adapted to the state of the times, and which would +come home to the bosoms and backs of many men. Mr. Davis's war may be +considered as a personal one against all civilized men, for it affects +every one's person. The great civil war between Charles I. and the +English Parliament was in part caused by soap, which the monopolists +made of so bad a quality that it destroyed the clothes which it should +have cleaned. Of "the monopolers and polers of the people," as he called +them, Sir John Culpeper said, "We find them in the dye-fat, the +wash-bowl, and the powdering-tub." As a monarchy was made to fall +through the monopoly of soap and other ordinary articles, so was it +purposed that a republic should be crushed through the monopoly of the +material from which the sheets and shirts of laborers are manufactured. +There was not much chivalry in the basis of Southern power, but most +grand revolutions are brought about by acting on the lives of the +masses, who are more easily moved by appeals to their sense of immediate +interest than by reference to the probable consequences of a certain +kind of political action. Our party-men know this, and hence it is, +that, while they have not much to say about the excellence of slavery, +they ask the Irish to oppose the overthrow of that institution, on the +ground, that, if it were to cease to exist, all the negroes of the South +would come to the North, and work for a dime a day,--which nonsense +there are some persons so ignorant as to believe. + +To return to 1762: the people of the Colonies were as martially disposed +as are the people of the States in these days. "In the heat of the Old +French War," says Mr. Hawthorne, speaking of the inhabitants of New +England, "they might be termed a martial people. Every man was a +soldier, or the father or brother of a soldier; and the whole land +literally echoed with the roll of the drum, either beating up for +recruits among the towns and villages, or striking the march toward the +frontier. Besides the provincial troops, there were twenty-three British +regiments in the northern colonies. The country has never known a period +of such excitement and warlike life, except during the +Revolution,--perhaps scarcely then; for that was a lingering war, and +this a stirring and eventful one." There has not been so much movement +in the Secession War as characterized that in which our ancestors were +engaged a century ago, and which was fought in America and in India, in +Germany and in Portugal, in Italy and in Africa, in France and in +Bohemia. As the great Lisbon earthquake had been felt on the shores of +Ontario, so had the war which began the year of that earthquake's +occurrence shaken the world that lay on the American lakes. Forty years +ago, old men talked as much of the Old French War--the Seven Years' War +of European historians--as of the War of the Revolution. It was a +contest but for the happening of which there could have been no American +Revolution, at least none of the character that now occupies so high a +place in history. Or, had it happened, and had the event been different, +our annals would have been made to read differently, and the Fourth of +July could never have become an institution. It opened well for the +French, and, had not fortune changed, the colonists, instead of looking +to Paris for aid, only a dozen years after its conclusion, might have +been ruled by proconsuls sent from that "centre of civilization," as it +delights to call itself. And even if the terms of the treaty which put +an end to that war had been a little differently arranged, England might +have triumphed in the war that she carried on against our ancestors. +Both the war itself, and the manner of concluding it, were necessary to +the creation of that American empire which, according to Earl Russell, +we are fighting to maintain,--as unquestionably we are, though not in +the ignoble sense in which the noble Earl meant that his words should be +taken and understood. + +Of the many conquests which were made by the English in the Seven Years' +War, no one was more remarkable than that which placed the Havana and +its neighborhood in their hands, virtually giving them possession of the +island of Cuba; and the manner in which they disposed of their +magnificent prize, when George III. forced peace upon his unwilling +subjects, was among the causes of their failure to conquer the Thirteen +States in the War for Independence. + +That England should have been favored with the opportunity to seize Cuba +was not the least singular of the incidents of a contest that was waged +wherever Christians could meet for the pious purpose of cutting one +another's throats. The English owed it to the hatred for them that was +felt by one man, who assailed them in their hour of triumph, in the hope +of gratifying his love of revenge, but who reaped only new humiliations +from his crusade. He had better luck in after days; but in 1762 he must +have entertained some pretty strong doubts as to the wisdom of hating +his neighbors, and of allowing that sentiment to get the better of his +judgment. Charles III., King of the Spains, the best of all the Spanish +Bourbons, had, when he was King of Naples, been most grossly insulted by +a British naval commander, and he had had to swallow the affront. "Being +a good Christian, and vindictive," though he swallowed the affront, he +could not digest it. He cherished the hope of being able to repay the +English with that usurious interest with which men of all grades love to +discharge their debts of the kind. He little thought that he was to wait +near forty years for the settlement of his account, and that a +generation was to pass away before he should be able to feel as Loredano +felt when he heard of the death of Francesco Foscari. + +The fortunes of France have seldom been lower than they were in 1759, +when the energy of William Pitt had imparted itself to the whole of the +alliance which was acting against Louis XV. That year, Charles III. +ascended the Spanish throne. For some time he was apparently disposed to +continue the judicious system of neutrality which had been adopted and +pursued by his predecessor; but in 1760, partly from his fear of British +power, and partly because of the insulting conduct, of England, which +revived his recollection of her officer's action at Naples in 1742, he +was induced to enter into that arrangement which is known as the Family +Compact, (_Pacte de Famille_,) which was destined to have the most +memorable consequences,--consequences that are far from being now +exhausted. By the terms of this treaty, the sovereign princes of the +House of Bourbon agreed to support each other against all enemies. The +wisdom of this compact, on the part of France, cannot be doubted, for +her condition was so bad that it could not be made much worse, happen +what would, and it might be changed for the better through the +assistance of Spain; but it is not so clear that they were as wise at +Madrid as were the statesmen at Paris. Mr. Pitt obtained intelligence of +this treaty's existence, though it was "a profound secret," of course; +but then Mr. Pitt always had good intelligence, because he was ready to +pay roundly for it, knowing that it was the best article for which a +war-minister could lay out his money. The object of keeping secret an +arrangement that depended for its usefulness upon open action was, that +time might be gained for the arrival of the Spanish treasure-ships from +America. Mr. Pitt, who was as wise as he was arrogant, was for taking +immediate measures against Spain. He would have declared war at once, +and have seized the plate fleet. Had George II. still lived, this +judicious course--all boldness is judicious in war, in which there is +nothing so imprudent as prudence--would have been adopted. But that +monarch died on the 25th of October, 1760, and his grandson and +successor, George III., had domestic objects to accomplish with which +the continuance of the war was incompatible. His intention was to make +peace with France, and he must have deemed it the height of folly to +make war on Spain. Pitt, finding his advice disregarded, resigned his +office, much to the joy of most of his colleagues, whom he had treated +as if they had been the lackeys of his lackeys. How they ever got along +with him through one month is among the mysteries of statesmanship. +President Jackson was not the mildest of men, but he was meekness itself +in comparison with the first William Pitt. + +But if Pitt was offensive to his colleagues, he was even more offensive +to the enemies of his country. In a few weeks after he left the +Ministry, the justice of his views became clear even to the young King +and to Lord Bute, the latter personage having virtually made himself +Premier. The Spanish Government, in compliance with the terms of the +Family Compact, made war on England, and that country lost most of the +advantages which would have been hers, if the King had been governed by +Pitt's advice. The treasure-ships reached Spain in safety, and their +cargoes furnished the new belligerent with the sinews of war. So far as +they could, the English Ministers resolved to carry on the war with +Spain in conformity with the plan which Pitt had formed. One of his +projects was to send a force to seize the Havana, which, though not the +important place that it now is, in itself, was nevertheless one of the +most valuable of the commmanding points of the Spanish Indies. At that +time the colonial dominion of Spain embraced the greater part of +America, and the Havana was regarded as the key to the Occidental +possessions of Charles III.[5] This key Secretary Pitt had meant to +seize; and his successors, forced to act, availed themselves of the +preparations which he had made. An expedition sailed from Spithead on +the 5th of March, 1762, which was joined by other forces, the whole +number of vessels being almost two hundred, of which about a fifth were +ships of war. The total of the land-forces, including those sent from +North America, was 14,041. The fleet was commanded by Admiral Sir George +Pocock, and the army by General the Earl of Albemarle. Lord Albemarle +was descended from that Arnold van Keppel who came into England, not +with William the Conqueror, but with William of Orange, and who, through +the favor of the Dutch King of England, founded one of the most +respectable of British patrician houses. He was a good soldier, and in +Cuba he showed considerable energy; but his name is not high in the list +of commanders. + +It is uncertain whether the Spaniards had knowledge of the intentions of +the English, who, in those days, did not announce their points of attack +to the enemy; but the Captain-General, Don Juan de Prado Porto Carrero, +found it so very difficult to believe that the English would attack his +Government, that even so late as the 6th of June, when the invaders were +within a few hours of landing, he insisted that their fleet was a +homeward-bound convoy from Jamaica; and he found fault with one of his +officers who had taken some precautionary measures. The next day he was +compelled to admit that he was mistaken, for then the British troops had +landed. He could not have been more blind to the coming storm, had he +lived in 1861, and held a high post in the Government of the United +States. Once convinced of his error, he went vigorously to work, and +prepared for defence. He had 27,610 men, including soldiers, seamen, +marines, militia, and negroes,--for, in those days, it was not thought +wise to refuse the services of black men, and even slaves were allowed +the honor of being slain in the service of their masters. There were, +however, but few regular troops at the command of the +Captain-General,--only 4,610; but the seamen and marines, who numbered +9,000, helped to make the deficiency good. The Spaniards were situated +somewhat as were the Russians, the other day, at Sebastopol. Their naval +force was too small to have any chance whatever against that of the +English, and the men who belonged to it were employed on land, where +they behaved bravely. The best officers among the defenders were from +the fleet. The Morro was put under the charge of Don Luis de Velasco, +captain of a line-of-battle ship, who maintained the credit of his +ancient name; and he was well supported by the Marques de Gonzales, +another naval officer. Don Manuel Brizenio, also from the fleet, with a +brother-officer for his lieutenant, had charge of the Punta castle. The +army-officers did not like these arrangements, but it was argued that +seamen were better qualified than either cavalry or infantry to defend +fortified places; and of regular artillerists there were but three +hundred in the whole Spanish force. These considerations had their +weight with the soldiers, and the conduct of the seamen fully justified +the conduct of the Captain-General. + +The English troops were landed on the 7th of June, and Colonel +Carleton--the Sir Guy Carleton of our Revolutionary history--repulsed a +cavalry attack that was made upon a detachment under his command. This +so disheartened the Spaniards, that they abandoned the position which +they had taken up at Guanabacoa for the purpose of impeding the advance +of the invaders, and fell back on the Havana. The women and children, +with the monks and nuns, were all sent out of the town, and the suburbs +destroyed. On the 11th, the Cabana fortress, which commands the Morro, +was taken by Colonel Carleton. The Spaniards also abandoned the Chorrera +fort, on the other side. Operations against the Morro were then begun. +The English suffered much from the heat, and a little from the assaults +of the defenders; and, though greatly aided by the fleet, it was not +until the 1st of July that they were able to open fire on the Morro. +Among their laborers were five hundred black slaves, purchased at +Antigua and Martinique. Fatigue and sickness had reduced the army's +strength more than one-third, without counting the soldiers who had +died, or been slain by the Spanish fire; and three thousand seamen also +were unfit for duty. Water was procured with difficulty, and fresh +provisions were almost unknown. + +The land-batteries opened on the Morro July 1st, and were supported by a +fire from several ships. The latter were roughly received by the +Spaniards, and lost one hundred and eighty-two men, besides being +greatly damaged in hull, masts, and rigging, so that they were forced to +abandon the conflict, without having made any impression on the +fortress, though they had effected an important diversion in favor of +the land-batteries, the fire from which had proved most injurious. On +the 2d there were but two guns in condition to bear upon the besiegers. +The latter, however, had a worse enemy than the Spaniards to contend +against, the heat causing fires in their works that neither earth nor +water could extinguish; and they had to remove their mortars from the +left parallel, and substitute cannon. This was the crisis of the siege; +and had a hurricane occurred, as was expected, the fleet would have been +driven off, and the army probably captured. But no storm came, and the +English, with characteristic stubbornness, repaired their damaged works, +and erected others. On the 9th they renewed their fire, having twelve +guns, and the Spaniards but nine. The English increased the strength of +their batteries, while the Spanish guns were reduced to two by the 16th; +and on the 17th the castle made no reply to the fire of the Valiant, a +line-of-battle ship. Sapping-operations began that evening, and on the +18th a small lodgment was effected. The Spanish commander made a morning +sally against the besiegers in three columns, which, if successful, +would have necessitated the abandonment of the siege; but the first and +second columns were driven back with heavy loss, and the third retreated +without firing a shot. In this action a battalion of North Americans +bore a prominent part, aiding to drive the first Spanish column to the +water, where one hundred and fifty men were drowned. The total loss of +the assailants was four hundred, besides those wounded who returned into +the town. + +The result of this action decided the fate of the Morro. The work of +sapping went on. Reinforcements arrived from New York; and on the 30th +a practicable breach was made. Lord Albemarle had previously summoned +Don Luis de Velasco to surrender, in the most complimentary terms; but +the gallant Spaniard declined to abandon his duty, preferring death to +dishonor. On the afternoon of the 30th, the English storming-party, +headed by Lieutenant Forbes, of the Royals, mounted the breach, taking +the defenders by surprise, and dispersing them. Don Luis disdained to +fly, and was mortally wounded. He lived until the afternoon of the 31st, +receiving every possible attention from the victors, who sent him over +to the Havana, where he was buried with military honors. His son was +created Vizconde del Morro, and it was ordered that in the Spanish navy +there should always be a ship named Velasco. + +The storming of the castle cost the English but two officers and thirty +men. The Spaniards lost five hundred and thirty men, besides those who +were drowned in seeking to reach the town. During the siege the Spanish +loss exceeded a thousand men. The conquerors found a large number of +cannon, mortars, muskets, and hand-grenades, and great quantities of +powder and ball, and fixed ammunition, in the castle. + +As soon as the fortress had fallen, the Spaniards opened fire on it, +which was directed principally against the water-tank. The English +carried on their works on both sides of the city, and on the 10th of +August Lord Albemarle summoned the Governor to capitulate. After a long +detention, the flag was sent back without an answer. It was not until +the forenoon of the 11th that the English opened fire upon the city, +their batteries containing forty-five guns. That regard for "unoffending +inhabitants" with which the English of 1847 were afflicted, when +American guns fired on Vera Cruz, was not felt by their ancestors of +1762. Judging from the language of English writers, we should infer that +England has a vested right to pound and pulverize all places that refuse +to acknowledge her supremacy but that such conduct as distinguished her +troops at Copenhagen and elsewhere is wanton butchery when imitated by +the military of other nations. Be that as it may, it is a fact that the +British batteries pounded the Havana savagely on the 11th of August, one +hundred and one years ago, without causing any alarm to either Lord +Albemarle or his army as to the opinion of their countrymen; and the +pounding-match was so pronouncedly in favor of the English, that by two +o'clock in the afternoon the Spaniards offered to surrender. A +suspension of hostilities followed, and the negotiations ended in the +capitulation of the place on the 13th of August. At ten o'clock on the +14th, the Punta was taken possession of by General Keppel; and two hours +later, the city gate and battery of that name. The landward gate was +held by Colonel Howe, the Sir William Howe of our Revolutionary War. The +number of regular troops who became prisoners was nine hundred and +ninety-three, without counting the sick or wounded, and including both +men and officers. They were sent on board the English ships. + +The terms granted by the English were honorable to both parties. The +Spanish troops marched out with all the honors of war. The officers were +allowed to preserve all their personal effects. Civil officers were +permitted to remain on the island, or to leave it, as they should elect. +Everything that belonged to the Spanish army or navy, that was within +the limits of the territory surrendered, became prize of war. The +Catholic religion was to be maintained in all its force, but the +nomination of all religious functionaries was to be subject to the +approval of the English Governor. The inhabitants were to be protected +in all their rights, and might go or stay, as they should think best for +their interest. There were other liberal provisions made, indicative of +a desire on the part of the conquerors to behave handsomely toward the +conquered. The only portion of the property of the King of Spain which +the victors allowed him to retain consisted of his slaves, of which he +was left at liberty to dispose as he might think proper. England was +then a slave-holding and a slave-trading nation, and she could not +afford to set the example of disregarding the right of man to hold +property in men. Though the age of cotton had not then dawned, the age +of conscience was quite as far below the moral horizon. + +Besides the Havana and its immediate territory, the terms of the +surrender placed in the hands of the English as much of the island of +Cuba as extended one hundred and eighty miles to the west, which +belonged to the government of the place. This was a great conquest, and +it was in the power of the conquerors to become masters of the whole +island. + +The most remarkable fact connected with the conquest of Cuba was the +success with which the English contended, not only against a valiant +enemy, but against the difficulties of climate. No severer trial was +ever presented to troops than that which they encountered and overcame +on the Cuban coast at a time of the year when that coast is at its +worst; and it was a much more unhealthy quarter then than it is to-day. +They had to bear up against drought, heat, hunger, thirst, sickness, and +the fire of the Spaniards; and they stood in constant danger of being +separated from their supporting fleet, which had no sufficient shelter, +and might have been destroyed, if a tropical hurricane had set in. Yet +against all these evils they bore up, and, with very inferior means, +succeeded in accomplishing their purpose, and in making one of the +greatest conquests of the most brilliant war in which their country ever +was engaged. All this they did with but little loss, comparatively +speaking. They had 346 men and officers killed or mortally wounded; 620 +wounded; 691 died from sickness or fatigue; and 130 were missing. This +loss, 1790 in all, exclusive of the casualties on shipboard, cannot be +considered large, for it could not have been above one-eighth part of +the invading force, counting the reinforcements that arrived while the +siege was going on. Compared with the enormous losses of life and limb +that characterize our war, it is a mere bagatelle; and the magnitude of +the prize is to be set off in contrast to the price which it cost. Some +of the regiments employed, however, were destined to suffer severely +from the effects of their visit to Cuba; for, being sent to New York, +the severity of a North-American winter was too much for constitutions +that had been subjected for months to the heats of the tropics. They +were Irishly decimated, losing about nine-tenths of their men.[6] + +If we can believe the Spaniards,--and we see no reason for doubting the +substantial correctness of their assertions,--Lord Albemarle's +government was one of much severity, and even cruelty. He ruled the +Havana with a bundle of _fasces_, the rods being of iron, and the axe +sharp, and which did not become rusty from want of use. It was enough +that a man was "guilty of being suspected" to insure him a drum-head +court-martial, which tribunal sent many men to the scaffold, sometimes +denying them religious consolations, an aggravation of punishment +peculiarly terrible to Catholics, and which seems to have been wantonly +inflicted, and in a worse spirit than that of the old persecutors, for +it had not even fanaticism for its excuse. The spirit of the +capitulation seems to have been quite disregarded, though its letter may +have been adhered to. There may be some exaggeration in the Spanish +statements, too,--men who are subject to military rule generally looking +at the conduct of their governors through very powerful glasses. It is +impossible for them to do otherwise; and the mildest proconsul that ever +ruled must still be nothing but a proconsul, even if he were an angel. +Every man thus placed is entitled to as charitable construction of his +conduct as can conscientiously be made; but this the English do not +appear to understand, when the conduct of men of other races is +canvassed. With their own history blotched all over with cruel acts +perpetrated by their military commanders, they set themselves up to +judge of the deeds of the generals of other peoples, as if they alone +could furnish impartial courts for the rendering of historical verdicts. +Their treatment of some American commanders, and particularly General +Butler, is not decent in a people whose officers have wantonly poured +out blood, often innocent, in nearly every country under the sun. There +was more cruelty practised by the English in any one month of the Sepoy +War than has disgraced both sides of the Secession contest for the two +years through which it has been waged. The English are not a cruel +people,--quite the reverse,--but it is a fact that their military +history abounds more in devilish acts than that of any other people of +corresponding civilization. The reason of this is, that they look upon +all men who resist them in some such spirit as the Romans regarded their +foes, and as being in some sense rebels. It is only with those who rebel +against other Governments that those who live under the English +Government ever sympathize. + +The capture of the Havana produced a "sensation" in the North-American +colonies. The news was a month in reaching this part of the country, and +Philadelphia, the most important place in British America, had the +pleasure of first hearing it in fourteen days from the seat of war. It +was "expressed" to New York, which town got it on the 11th of September; +and it was published in the Boston "Gazette" of Monday, September 13th, +the same day on which our ancestors were gratified by the publication of +the London "Gazette" Extraordinary giving a detailed account of Prince +Ferdinand's victory at Wilhelmsthal, on the 24th of June. There is not a +line of editorial comment, but the news is clearly and vigorously given, +special mention being made of the spoil, which included, according to +one authority, fourteen million milled dollars. It is stated, in +conclusion, that "the Spanish families that had withdrawn from the city +to the country were all returned with their baggage, and were in +possession of their habitations; and some soldiers and English Negroes +were hanged for committing some small thefts on them." In the "Gazette" +of September 20th there are published some details of the operations in +Cuba; and under the "Boston head" is a brief account of the rejoicings +that took place in Boston, on the 16th, in honor of the great event, and +of British successes in Germany. "In the morning," says the account, +"His Excellency, [Governor Bernard,] accompanied by the two Houses of +Assembly, attended divine service at the Old Brick Meeting House, and a +sermon well adapted to this joyful occasion was preached by the Rev. Dr. +SEWALL: At 12 o'clock the cannon at Castle William and the batteries in +this town and Charlestown were discharged: In the afternoon the Bells +rang; and His Excellency with the two Houses was escorted by his Company +of Cadets to Concert Hall, where a fine piece of music was performed, to +the satisfaction of a very large assembly; and in the evening there were +beautiful illuminations, and a great variety of fire works in many parts +of the town.... We hear there has also been great rejoicings on the late +success of the British arms in most of the neighboring towns, +particularly at Charlestown, Salem, and Marblehead, where were +illuminations, bonfires, and other demonstrations of joy." Old +newspapers, letters, and pamphlets show that "demonstrations of joy" +were far from being confined to New-England towns. They extended over +the whole of the thirteen colonies, every man in which was proud of +belonging to a nation which had achieved such great things in a war that +had opened most gloomily, as do most English and American contests. The +conquest of Canada had removed a weight from the colonial mind that had +preyed upon it for generations; and though not one man in a hundred, it +is probable, thought of the vast consequences that were to follow from +the victories of Wolfe and Amherst, it is certain that those victories +had greatly exalted the American heart; and now that they were followed +by the conquest of Cuba, made at the expense of a great nation with +which England was at peace when Quebec and Montreal had passed into her +possession, it is not strange that our ancestors should have become more +impressed than ever with the honor of belonging to the British empire. +They were not only loyal, but they were loyal to a point that resembled +fanaticism. It has been said of them that they were "as loyal to their +prince and as proud of their country as the people of Kent or +Yorkshire,"--and these words do not exaggerate what was the general +sentiment of the colonists in 1762. England was still "home" to them, +though more than a hundred and fifty years had gone by since the first +permanent English colony was founded in America; and to the feeling that +belonged to the inhabitants of England the colonists added that +reverence which is created for the holders of power by remoteness from +their presence and want of familiarity. Such was the condition of +America a century ago, but soon to be changed through conduct on the +part of George III., conduct that amounted to a crime, and for which no +defence can be made but that of insanity,--a defence but too well +founded in this instance. The sense of the colonists, therefore, was +well expressed by Governor Bernard, when, on the 23d of September, he +put forth a proclamation, at the request of the Assembly, for a Public +Thanksgiving on the 7th of October. After enumerating various causes for +thankfulness that existed, all of which relate to victories won in +different parts of the world, His Excellency proceeds to say,--"But +above all, with hearts full of gratitude and amazement, we must +contemplate the glorious and important conquest of the Havana; which, +considering the strength of the place, the resolution of the defendants, +and the unhealthiness of the climate, seems to have the visible hand of +God in it, and to be designed by His Providence to punish the pride and +injustice of that Prince who has so unnecessarily made himself a party +in this war." + +Thus did our fathers rejoice over a great military success which gave +additional glory to a country to which they were proud to belong. Nor +were they insensible to the solid gains of that success, which, indeed, +they overrated, not only because they supposed the conquered territory +would be retained by the conquerors, but because they believed the +immediate fruits of victory were far greater than they proved to be. In +the Boston "Gazette" of September 20th it is stated that one of the +captured Spanish ships had five million dollars on board, that almost +forty million dollars in specie had already been counted, and that the +share of Lord Albemarle would give him an income of twelve thousand +pounds per annum, and Admiral Pocock was to have an equal amount. + +In our time, politicians have the advantage of all other men in the +matter of spoils. Such was not the state of things one hundred years +ago. The politicians were as well off in those times as they are in +these,--perhaps they were bettor off, for things could then be openly +done by civilians, in the way of plundering, that the men of to-day have +to do as secretly as good Christians say their prayers. There were also +many lucrative offices then in existence which have since disappeared +under the labors of those economical reformers of whom Edmund Burke was +the first in every respect. But in 1762 military men had "rights" which +this modern world has ceased to regard as utterly as if all soldiers +were Negroes. One hundred years ago it was not an uncommon thing for a +successful general to win as much gold on a victorious field as glory. +It was the sunsetting time of the age of plunder; and the sun set very +brilliantly. The solid gains of heroes were then so great that their +mere statement in figures affects the reader's mind, and perverts his +judgment of their actions. Not quite twenty years earlier, the gallant +Anson made his famous cruise round the world; and when he took the +Manila galleon, he found in her, besides other booty, silver of the +value of a million and a half of dollars, to defend which the Spaniards +fought as men generally fight for their money. Five years before +Albemarle took the Havana, Clive took, for his own share of Surajah +Doulah's personals, over a million of dollars, from the treasury of +Moorshedabad. That was the prize of Plassey. A little later, he accepted +a present in land that must have been worth over two million of dollars, +as the annual income it yielded was twenty-seven thousand pounds, or +about one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Other British proconsuls +were also fortunate in India. The same year that saw the English flag +flying over so much of Cuba saw another English force, commanded by Sir +William Draper, reduce the Philippine Islands, taking possession of the +whole group by virtue of a capitulation. The naval force that +accompanied Draper captured the Acapulco galleon, which had a cargo of +the value of three million dollars. The English attacked Manila without +the Spanish garrison's having had any official notification of the +existence of hostilities. The town was defended by the Archbishop, who +behaved with bravery, and showed considerable skill in war; but after +some days' fighting the English got into the town by storming it, and +then gave it up to the rough mercies of a hardened soldiery, some of +whom were Sepoys, a description of warriors of whom the English now ask +us to believe all that is abominable. Manila was most savagely treated +by heathen soldiers led by Christian chiefs, a fact to be commended to +the consideration of those humane Englishmen who can with difficulty +breathe while reading General Butler's arrangement for the maintenance +of order in New Orleans. The Archbishop and some of the officers got +into the citadel, and there they negotiated a capitulation. They agreed +to ransom their property by paying down two million dollars, and by +drawing bills for a like sum upon the Spanish treasury, which bills +Draper was green enough to accept. The Spanish Government refused to pay +the bills when they had matured, and though Draper entreated the English +Ministers to interpose in behalf of himself and his comrades, no +interposition could he induce them to make. When Sir William was so +unwise as to run a course of pointed pens with "Junius," that free +lancer, who upset men of all degrees as easily as Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe +unhorsed the knights-challengers in the lists at Ashby, brought up the +Manila business, and, with his usual hardihood, charged his antagonist +with having most dishonorably given up the ransom, and with having sold +his comrades. Sir William, who had volunteered in defence of his friend, +Lord Granby, (the same gentleman who used to figure on sign-boards, and +whose name was then as much in English mouths as General Meade's is on +American tongues to-day,) soon had to fight in his own defence, and he +made a very poor figure in the contest. In a letter from Clifton, to the +printer of the "Public Advertiser," he wrote,--"I here most solemnly +declare, that I never received either from the East India Company, or +from the Spaniards, directly or indirectly, any present or gratification +or any circumstance of emolument whatsoever, to the amount of five +shillings, during the whole course of the expedition, or afterwards, my +legal prize-money excepted. The Spaniards know that I refused the sum of +fifty thousand pounds offered me by the Archbishop, to mitigate the +terms of the ransom, and to reduce it to half a million, instead of a +whole one; so that, had I been disposed to have basely sold the partners +of my victory, Avarice herself could not have wished for a richer +opportunity." Sir William's language is valuable, as showing what sort +of prizes were then in the wheel of Fortune, with military men only to +take tickets. More than one British house of high consideration owes its +affluence to the good luck of some ancestor in the noble art of pillage. +Yet how often do we come across, in English books, denunciations of the +deeds of plunder done by the French in Spain and Portugal! Shall we ever +hear the last of Marechal Soult's Murillos? It was but yesterday that +the Koh-i-Noor was stolen by the English, and added to the crown-jewels +of Great Britain; and it was exhibited at the Crystal Palace in 1851, +where it must have been regarded as a proof of the skill of the +_Chevaliers d'Industrie_. Why it should be lawful and honorable to seize +diamonds, and unlawful and improper to seize pictures, we cannot say; +but Mr. Stirling, in his "Annals of the Artists of Spain," says, "Soult +at Seville, and Sebastiani at Granada, collected with unerring taste and +unexampled rapacity, and, having thus signalized themselves as robbers +in war, became no less eminent as picture-dealers in peace." Was it more +immoral in Marechal le Due de Dalmatie to take Murillos than it was in +Field-Marshal the Duke of Wellington to take the lead in cutting the +Koh-i-Noor, the pictures as well as the diamond being spoil of war? +There is something eminently absurd in English morality, when Englishmen +seek to lay down rules for the governance of the world. It amounts to +this: that they shall be at liberty to plunder everybody, but that all +other men shall stay their hands, no matter how great may be the +temptation, to help themselves to their enemies' goods. + +The conquerors of the Havana had no scruples on the subject of plunder. +They obtained, in treasure and other property, about fourteen millions +of dollars,--a great sum, though not a third part so large as had been +assigned them by the newspapers. Not content with this, they sought to +get a donation from the citizens, to the amount of two hundred thousand +dollars; but the attempt failed, and was not persisted in, when it was +found that the Spaniards were utterly averse to giving on compulsion. A +demand was made, through Colonel Cleveland, who commanded the artillery, +"on the Bishop and the clergy, requiring an account of the bells of the +churches, convents, and monasteries of the Havana and the other towns in +the district, as well as of the _ingenios_ in the neighborhood, and of +all such metal as is used in the making of bells, in order that the +value might be adjusted, and the amount paid, according, as he asserted, +to the laws and customs of war, when a city after a siege has +surrendered by capitulation." The astonished Bishop wrote to Lord +Albemarle, and had the satisfaction of learning from that eminent +authority, that, "when a city was besieged and taken, the commander of +the artillery receives a gratification, and that Colonel Cleveland had +made the demand with his Lordship's concurrence." This mode of kissing +the rod was not at all to the taste of the worthy prelate, excellent +Christian though he was. It was bad enough to give "a gratification" to +an enemy because he had pounded them with balls until they had been +forced to surrender; but it was an aggravation of the original evil to +have to redeem "blessed bells" from the heretics who had come four +thousand miles to disturb the repose of the Spanish Indies. But +negotiation was unavoidable. What would the Colonel take, and close the +transaction? The Colonel said he would take such a sum as the captured +churches could reasonably contribute to his purse. He was offered one +thousand dollars; but that he treated as a mistake, and to assist the +reverend and venerable negotiators to a conclusion, he named thirty +thousand dollars. To this they objected, and appealed to Lord Albemarle +against the demand of his officer. His Lordship, with his pockets +crammed with Spanish gold, was disposed to act handsomely in this +instance, and cut down the Colonel's bill to ten thousand dollars. But +even this sum the clergy professed themselves utterly unable to pay. +According to their own showing, they were genuine successors of the +Apostles, being without a penny in their purses. They began to beg for +aid; but, either because the Spaniards were sulky with the Saints for +having allowed the heretics to succeed, or that they did not wish to +attract the attention of those heretics to their property, the begging +business did not pay. Only one hundred and three dollars could be +collected. This failure was made known to Lord Albemarle, but he kept a +profound silence, sending no reply to the clergy's plaintive +communication. They, however, had not long to wait for an answer. +Colonel Cleveland waited upon them again, and said, that, as the cash +was not forthcoming, he should content himself with taking the bells, +all of which must be taken down, and delivered to him on the 4th of +September. After this there was no further room for negotiation with a +gentleman who commanded great guns. The Bishop handed over the ten +thousand dollars, and the Colonel departed from his presence. The bells +remained in their proper places, and some of them, no doubt, remain +there to this day, the bell being long-lived, and making sweet music +years after Albemarle, Cleveland, and the rest of the spoilmen have gone +to their account. + +Lord Albemarle had a correspondence with the Bishop respecting the use +of one of the churches as a place of Protestant worship, and laid down +the cannon law so strongly and clearly, that the prelate, after making +such resistance as circumstances admitted of,--and he would not have +been a good Catholic, if he had done less,--told him to take whichever +church he chose; and he took that of the Franciscans. His Lordship, +however, was much more devoted to the worship of Mammon than to the +worship of God, and, accordingly, on the 19th of October, he wrote to +the Bishop concerning the donation-dodge, in the following polite and +peremptory terms;--"Most Illustrious Sir, I am sorry to be under the +necessity of writing to your Lordship what ought to have been thought of +some days ago, namely, a donation from the Church to the +Commander-in-Chief of the victorious army. The least that your Lordship +can offer will be one hundred thousand dollars. I wish to live in peace +with your Lordship and with the Church, as I have shown in all that has +hitherto occurred, and I hope that your Lordship will not give me reason +to alter my intentions. I kiss your Lordship's hand. Your humble +servant, Albemarle." The Bishop, though a clever and clear-sighted man, +could not see this matter in the light in which Lord Albemarle looked +upon it. He thought the demand a violation of the terms of surrender; +and he sought the mediation of Admiral Pocock, but without strengthening +his position. To a demand for the list of benefices, coupled with the +declaration that non-compliance would lead to the Bishop's being +proclaimed a violator of the treaty, the prelate replied, that he would +refer the matter, and some others, to the courts of Spain and England. +Upon this the British General lost all patience, and issued a +proclamation, declaring "that the conduct of the Bishop was seditious; +that he had forgotten that he was now a subject of Great Britain; and +that it was absolutely necessary he should be expelled from the island, +and sent to Florida in one of the British ships of war, in order that +public tranquillity might be maintained, and that good correspondence +and harmony might continue between the new and the old subjects of the +King, which the conduct of the Bishop had visibly interrupted." The +whole of this business presents the English commander in a most +contemptible light. Not content with the six hundred thousand dollars +which he had already pocketed, as his share of the spoil, he assumed the +part of Bull Beggar toward the Bishop, in the hope that he might extort +one hundred thousand dollars more from the Church, for his own personal +benefit, for the "donation" was not to go into the common stock; and +when his threats failed, he turned tyrant at the expense of a venerable +officer of the most ancient of Christian churches. What an outcry would +be raised in England, if an American commander were to make a similar +display of avarice and cruelty! + +The manner in which the spoil was divided among the conquerors caused +much ill-feeling, and not unnaturally. Lord Albemarle took to himself +L122,697 10_s._ 6_d._, and an equal amount was bestowed upon Admiral +Pocock. Lieutenant-General Elliot and Commodore Keppel had L24,539 +10_s._ 1_d._ each. To a major-general was given L6,816 10_s._ 6-1/2_d._ +and to a brigadier-general L1,947 11_s._ 7_d._ A captain in the navy had +L1,600 10_s._ 10_d._, and an army-captain, L184 4_s._ 7-1/4_d._ And so +the sums went on decreasing, until there were paid to the private +soldier, L4 1_s._ 8-1/2_d._, and to the ordinary seaman L3 14_s._ +9-3/4_d._ The profit as well as the honor of the expedition all went to +the leaders. What made the matter worse was, that the distribution was +made in violation of rules, which were not formed to favor "the common +file," but which would have done them more justice than they received at +the hands of Pocock and Albemarle. After all, no worse was done than +what we see daily happen in the world, and the distribution appears to +be a practical satire on the ordinary course of human life. + +Lord Albemarle was severely censured in England for his manner of +assailing the Havana, it being held that he should have attacked the +town, which was in an almost defenceless condition, whereas the Morro +was strong, and made a good defence, which might have led to the failure +of the expedition, and would have done so but for the circumstance that +no hurricane happened. But the general public was satisfied with the +victory, and did not trouble itself much about the manner in which it +had been gained. It was right. Had General McClellan taken Richmond, how +many of us would have listened to the military critics who should have +been so kind as to show us how he ought to have taken it? Judging from +some observations in Horace Walpole's "Correspondence," the English, +though surfeited with victory, were much pleased with their Cuban +conquest. Sir Joseph Yorke, writing on the 9th of October, ten days +after the news had reached England, says,--"All the world is struck with +the noble capture of the Havana, which fell into our hands on the Prince +of Wales's birthday, as a just punishment upon the Spaniards for their +unjust quarrel with us, and for the supposed difficulties they have +raised in the negotiations for peace." Those negotiations had been +openly commenced in less than a month after the fall of the Havana, and +some weeks before news of that brilliant event had reached Europe. The +terms of the treaty of peace were speedily settled, one of the +stipulations being, that Spain should preserve her old limits; and, +"moreover," says Earl Stanhope, "it was agreed that any conquests that +might meanwhile have been made by any of the parties in any quarter of +the globe, but which were not yet known, (words comprising at that +period of the negotiation both the Havana and the Philippines,) should +be restored without compensation." Had the preliminary articles been +signed at once, the Spaniards would have recovered all they had lost in +Cuba, without further trouble or cost; but their negotiator, the +celebrated Grimaldi, was so confident that the invaders of Cuba would be +beaten, that he played the waiting game, and was beaten himself. When +intelligence of English success arrived at Paris, where the treaty was +making, Grimaldi was suddenly found as ready to sign as formerly he had +been backward; but now the English negotiator, the Duke of Bedford, +became backward in his turn, as representing the unwillingness of his +Government to give up the Havana without an equivalent. Lord Bute would +have given up the conquest without a word said, but all his colleagues +were not so blind to the advantages which that conquest had placed at +the command of England; and finally it was agreed that the Duke of +Bedford should demand the cession of Florida or Porto Rico as the price +of the restoration of that portion of Cuba which was in English hands. +The Spaniards gladly complied with the British demand, and gave Florida +in exchange for Cuba. At one time it was supposed that the victory of +Albemarle and Pocock would lead to the continuance of the war. Horace +Walpole wrote to his friend Conway that the Havana was more likely to +break off the peace than to advance it, and that the English were not in +a humor to give up the world, but were much more disposed to conquer the +rest of it. He added, "We shall have some cannonading here, I believe, +if we sign the peace." But the King and the Premier were +peace-at-any-price men, and the way to their purpose was smoothed +completely; yet Lord Bute wrote to the Duke of Bedford, on the 24th of +October, "Such is the change made here by the conquest of the Havana, +that I solemnly declare, I don't meet with one man, let his attachment +be never so strong to the service of the King, his wishes for peace +never so great, that does not positively affirm, this rich acquisition +must not be ceded without satisfaction in the fishery, and some material +compensation: this is so much the opinion of all the King's servants, +that the greatest care has been taken to soften every expression," etc. +In July, 1763, the English restored their acquisitions in Cuba to the +Spaniards, and their soldiers returned to Europe. + +In a few years it was seen that the Bute arrangement, so far as +concerned the Havana, was, for England, thoroughly a Glaucian bargain. +She had obtained Florida, which was of no worth to her, and she had +given up the Havana, which might have been made one of her most useful +acquisitions. That place became the chief American port of the great +alliance that was formed against England after she had become committed +to war with the new United States. Great fleets and armies were there +assembled, which did the English much mischief. Florida was reconquered +by an expedition from the Havana, and another expedition was successful +in an attack on Nassau; and Jamaica was threatened. Had England not +given up the place to the Spaniards, not only would these things have +been impossible, but she might have employed it with effect in her own +military operations, and have maintained her ascendency in the +West-Indian seas. Or, if she had preferred that course, she might have +made it the price of Spain's neutrality during the American War, +returning it to her on condition that she should not assist the United +States; and as the Family Compact then existed in all its force, Spain's +influence might have been found sufficiently powerful to prevent France +from giving that assistance to our fathers which undoubtedly secured +their independence. All subsequent history has been deeply colored by +the surrender of the Havana in 1763. But for that, Washington and his +associates might have failed. But for that, the French Revolution might +have been postponed, as that Revolution was precipitated through the +existence of financial difficulties which were largely owing to the part +France took in the war that ended in the establishment of our +nationality. But for that, England might have secured and consolidated +her American dominion, and the House of Hanover at this moment have been +ruling over the present United States and Confederate States. George +III, and Lord Bute could not foresee any of these things, and they +cannot be censured because they were blind to what was invisible to all +men; but their reckless desire for peace led them to regret the +successes of the English arms, and they were ready to make any +sacrifices that could be named, not because they loved peace for itself, +but because, while the war should last, it would not be possible for the +monarch to follow his mother's advice to "be a king" in fact as well as +in name,--advice that was destined to cost the King much, and his realm +far more. + + * * * * * + +EQUINOCTIAL. + + + The Sun of Life has crossed the line: + The summer-shine of lengthened light + Faded and failed,--till, where I stand, + 'Tis equal Day and equal Night. + + One after one, as dwindling hours, + Youth's glowing hopes have dropped away, + And soon may barely leave the gleam + That coldly scores a winter's day. + + I am not young, I am not old; + The flush of morn, the sunset calm, + Paling, and deepening, each to each, + Meet midway with a solemn charm. + + One side I see the summer fields + Not yet disrobed of all their green; + While westerly, along the hills, + Flame the first tints of frosty sheen. + + Ah, middle-point, where cloud and storm + Make battle-ground of this my life! + Where, even-matched, the Night and Day + Wage round me their September strife! + + I bow me to the threatening gale: + I know, when that is overpast, + Among the peaceful harvest-days, + An Indian-summer comes at last! + + * * * * * + +THE LEGEND OF MONTE DEL DIABLO. + + +The cautious reader will detect a lack of authenticity in the following +pages, I am not a cautious reader myself, yet I confess with some +concern to the absence of much documentary evidence in support of the +singular incident I am about to relate. Disjointed memoranda, the +proceedings of _ayuntamientos_ and early departmental _juntas_, with +other records of a primitive and superstitious people, have been my +inadequate authorities. It is but just to state, however, that, though +this particular story lacks corroboration, in ransacking the Spanish +archives of Upper California I have met with many more surprising and +incredible stories, attested and supported to a degree that would have +placed this legend beyond a cavil or doubt. I have, also, never lost +faith in the legend myself, and in so doing have profited much from the +examples of divers grant-claimants, who have often jostled me in their +more practical researches, and who have my sincere sympathy at the +skepticism of a modern hard-headed and practical world. + +For many years after Father Junipero Serro first rang his bell in the +wilderness of Upper California, the spirit which animated that +adventurous priest did not wane. The conversion of the heathen went on +rapidly in the establishment of Missions throughout the land. So +sedulously did the good Fathers set about their work, that around their +isolated chapels there presently arose _adobe_ huts, whose mud-plastered +and savage tenants partook regularly of the provisions, and occasionally +of the Sacrament, of their pious hosts. Nay, so great was their process, +that one zealous Padre is reported to have administered the Lord's +Supper one Sabbath morning to "over three hundred heathen Salvages." It +was not to be wondered that the Enemy of Souls, being greatly incensed +thereat, and alarmed at his decreasing popularity, should have +grievously tempted and embarrassed these Holy Fathers, as we shall +presently see. + +Yet they were happy, peaceful days for California. The vagrant keels of +prying Commerce had not, as yet, ruffled the lordly gravity of her bays. +No torn and ragged gulch betrayed the suspicion of golden treasure. The +wild oats drooped idly in the morning heat, or wrestled with the +afternoon breezes. Deer and antelope dotted the plain. The water-courses +brawled in their familiar channels, nor dreamed of ever shifting their +regular tide. The wonders of the Yo-Semite and Calaveras were as yet +unrecorded. The Holy Fathers noted little of the landscape beyond the +barbaric prodigality with which the quick soil repaid the sowing. A new +conversion, the advent of a Saint's day, or the baptism of an Indian +baby, was at once the chronicle and marvel of their day. + +At this blissful epoch, there lived, at the Mission of San Pablo, Father +Jose Antonio Haro, a worthy brother of the Society of Jesus. He was of +tall and cadaverous aspect. A somewhat romantic history had given a +poetic interest to his lugubrious visage. While a youth, pursuing his +studies at famous Salamanca, he had become enamored of the charms of +Dona Carmen de Torrencevara, as that lady passed to her matutinal +devotions. Untoward circumstances, hastened, perhaps, by a wealthier +suitor, brought this amour to a disastrous issue; and Father Jose +entered a monastery, taking upon himself the vows of celibacy. It was +here that his natural fervor and poetic enthusiasm conceived expression +as a missionary. A longing to convert the uncivilized heathen succeeded +his frivolous earthly passion, and a desire to explore and develop +unknown fastnesses continually possessed him. In his flashing eye and +sombre exterior was detected a singular commingling of the discreet Las +Casas and the impetuous Balboa. + +Fired by this pious zeal, Father Jose went forward in the van of +Christian pioneers. On reaching Mexico, he obtained authority to +establish the Mission of San Pablo. Like the good Junipero, accompanied +only by an acolyth and muleteer, he unsaddled his mules in a dusky +_canon_, and rang his bell in the wilderness. The savages--a peaceful, +inoffensive, and inferior race--presently flocked around him. The +nearest military post was far away, which contributed much to the +security of these pious pilgrims, who found their open trustfulness and +amiability better fitted to repress hostility than the presence of an +armed, suspicious, and brawling soldiery. So the good Father Jose said +matins and prime, mass and vespers, in the heart of Sin and Heathenism, +taking no heed to himself, but looking only to the welfare of the Holy +Church. Conversions soon followed, and, on the 7th of July, 1760, the +first Indian baby was baptized,--an event which, as Father Jose piously +records, "exceeds the richnesse of gold or precious jewels or the +chancing upon the Ophir of Solomon." I quote this incident as best +suited to show the ingenuous blending of poetry and piety which +distinguished Father Jose's record. + +The Mission of San Pablo progressed and prospered until the pious +founder thereof, like the infidel Alexander, might have wept that there +were no more heathen worlds to conquer. But his ardent and enthusiastic +spirit could not long brook an idleness that seemed begotten of sin; and +one pleasant August morning, in the year of grace 1770, Father Jose +issued from the outer court of the Mission building, equipped to explore +the field for new missionary labors. + +Nothing could exceed the quite gravity and unpretentiousness of the +little cavalcade. First rode a stout muleteer, leading a pack-mule laden +with the provisions of the party, together with a few cheap crucifixes +and hawks' bells. After him came the devout Padre Jose, bearing his +breviary and cross, with a black _serapa_ thrown around his shoulders; +while on either side trotted a dusky convert, anxious to show a proper +sense of their regeneration by acting as guides into the wilds of their +heathen brethren. Their new condition was agreeably shown by the absence +of the usual mud-plaster, which in their unconverted state they assumed +to keep away vermin and cold. The morning was bright and propitious. +Before their departure, mass had been said in the chapel, and the +protection of St. Ignatius invoked against all contingent evils, but +especially against bears, which, like the fiery dragons of old, seemed +to cherish an unconquerable hostility to the Holy Church. + +As they wound through the _canon_, charming birds disported upon boughs +and sprays, and sober quails piped from the alders; the willowy +water-courses gave a musical utterance, and the long grass whispered on +the hill-side. On entering the deeper defiles, above them towered dark +green masses of pine, and occasionally the _madrono_ shook its bright +scarlet berries. As they toiled up many a steep ascent, Father Jose +sometimes picked up fragments of scoria, which spake to his imagination +of direful volcanoes and impending earthquakes. To the less scientific +mind of the muleteer Ignacio they had even a more terrifying +significance; and he once or twice snuffed the air suspiciously, and +declared that it smelt of sulphur. So the first day of their journey +wore away, and at night they encamped without having met a single +heathen face. + +It was on this night that the Enemy of Souls appeared to Ignacio in an +appalling form. He had retired to a secluded part of the camp, and had +sunk upon his knees in prayerful meditation, when he looked up and +perceived the Arch-Fiend in the likeness of a monstrous bear. The Evil +One was seated on his hind legs immediately before him, with his fore +paws joined together just below his black muzzle. Wisely conceiving this +remarkable attitude to be in mockery and derision of his devotions, the +worthy muleteer was transported with fury. Seizing an arquebuse, he +instantly closed his eyes and fired. When he had recovered from the +effects of the terrible discharge, the apparition had disappeared. +Father Jose, awakened by the report, reached the spot only in time to +chide the muleteer for wasting powder and ball in a contest with one +whom a single _ave_ would have been sufficient to utterly discomfit. +What further reliance he placed on Ignacio's story is not known; but, in +commemoration of a worthy Californian custom, the place was called _La +Canada de la Tentacion del Pio Muletero_, or "The Glen of the Temptation +of the Pious Muleteer," a name which it retains to this day. + +The next morning, the party, issuing from a narrow gorge, came upon a +long valley, sear and burnt with the shadeless heat. Its lower extremity +was lost in a fading line of low hills, which, gathering might and +volume toward the upper end of the valley, upheaved a stupendous bulwark +against the breezy North. The peak of this awful spur was just touched +by a fleecy cloud that shifted to and fro like a banneret. Father Jose +gazed with mingled awe and admiration. By a singular coincidence, the +muleteer Ignacio uttered the simple ejaculation, "_Diablo_!" + +As they penetrated the valley, they soon began to miss the agreeable +life and companionable echoes of the _canon_ they had quitted. Huge +fissures in the parched soil seemed to gape as with thirsty mouths. A +few squirrels darted from the earth, and disappeared as mysteriously +before the jingling mules. A gray wolf trotted leisurely along just +ahead. But whichever way Father Jose turned, the mountain always +asserted itself and arrested his wandering eye. Out of the dry and arid +valley, it seemed to spring into cooler and bracing life. Deep cavernous +shadows dwelt along its base; rocky fastnesses appeared midway of its +elevation; and on either side huge black hills diverged like massy roots +from a central trunk. His lively fancy pictured these hills peopled with +a majestic and intelligent race of savages; and looking into futurity, +he already saw a monstrous cross crowning the dome-like summit. Far +different were the sensations of the muleteer, who saw in those awful +solitudes only fiery dragons, colossal bears, and break-neck trails. The +converts, Concepcion and Incarnation, trotting modestly beside the +Padre, recognized, perhaps, some manifestation of their former weird +mythology. + +At nightfall they reached the base of the mountain. Here Father Jose +unpacked his mules, said vespers, and, formally ringing his bell, called +upon the Gentiles within hearing to come and accept the Holy Faith. The +echoes of the black frowning hills around him caught up the pious +invitation, and repeated it at intervals; but no Gentiles appeared that +night. Nor were the devotions of the muleteer again disturbed, although +he afterward asserted, that, when the Father's exhortation was ended, a +mocking peal of laughter came from the mountain. Nothing daunted by +these intimations of the near hostility of the Evil One, Father Jose +declared his intention to ascend the mountain at early dawn; and before +the sun rose the next morning he was leading the way. + +The ascent was in many places difficult and dangerous. Huge fragments of +rock often lay across the trail, and after a few hours' climbing they +were forced to leave their mules in a little gully, and continue the +ascent afoot. Unaccustomed to such exertion, Father Jose often stopped +to wipe the perspiration from his thin cheeks. As the day wore on, a +strange silence oppressed them. Except the occasional pattering of a +squirrel, or a rustling in the _chimisal_ bushes, there were no signs of +life. The half-human print of a bear's foot sometimes appeared before +them, at which Ignacio always crossed himself piously. The eye was +sometimes cheated by a dripping from the rocks, which on closer +inspection proved to be a resinous oily liquid with an abominable +sulphurous smell. When they were within a short distance of the summit, +the discreet Ignacio, selecting a sheltered nook for the camp, slipped +aside and busied himself in preparations for the evening, leaving the +Holy Father to continue the ascent alone. Never was there a more +thoughtless act of prudence, never a more imprudent piece of caution. +Without noticing the desertion, buried in pious reflection, Father Jose +pushed mechanically on, and, reaching the summit, cast himself down and +gazed upon the prospect. + +Below him lay a succession of valleys opening into each other like +gentle lakes, until they were lost to the southward. Westerly the +distant range hid the bosky _canada_ which sheltered the Mission of San +Pablo. In the farther distance the Pacific Ocean stretched away, bearing +a cloud of fog upon its bosom, which crept through the entrance of the +bay, and rolled thickly between him and the North. Eastward, the same +fog hid the base of the mountain and the view beyond. Still, from time +to time the fleecy veil parted, and timidly disclosed charming glimpses +of mighty rivers, mountain-defiles, and rolling plains, sear with +ripened oats, and bathed in the glow of the setting sun. As Father Jose +gazed, he was penetrated with a pious longing. Already his imagination, +filled with enthusiastic conceptions, beheld all that vast expanse +gathered under the mild sway of the Holy Faith, and peopled with zealous +converts. Each little knoll in fancy became crowned with a chapel; from +each dark _canon_ gleamed the white walls of a Mission building. Growing +bolder in his enthusiasm, and looking farther into futurity, he beheld a +new Spain rising on these savage shores. He already saw the spires of +stately cathedrals, the domes of palaces, vineyards, gardens, and +groves. Convents, half-hid among the hills, peeped from plantation of +branching limes; and long processions of chanting nuns wound through the +defiles. So completely was the good Father's conception of the future +confounded with the past, that even in their choral strain the +well-remembered accents of Carmen struck his ear. He was busied in these +fanciful imaginings, when suddenly over that extended prospect the +faint, distant tolling of a bell rang sadly out and died. It was the +_Angelus_. Father Jose listened with superstitious exaltation. The +Mission of San Pablo was far away, and the sound must have been some +miraculous omen. But never before, to his enthusiastic sense, did the +sweet seriousness of this angelic symbol come with such strange +significance. With the last faint peal, his glowing fancy seemed to +cool; the fog closed in below him, and the good Father remembered he had +not had his supper. He had risen and was wrapping his _serapa_ around +him, when he perceived for the first time that he was not alone. + +Nearly opposite, and where should have been the faithless Ignacio, a +grave and decorous figure was seated. His appearance was that of an +elderly _hidalgo_, dressed in mourning, with moustaches of iron-gray +carefully waxed and twisted around a pair of lantern-jaws. The monstrous +hat and prodigious feather, the enormous ruff and exaggerated +trunk-hose, contrasting with a frame shrivelled and wizened, all +belonged to a century previous. Yet Father Jose was not astonished. His +adventurous life and poetic imagination, continually on the look-out for +the marvellous, gave him a certain advantage over the practical and +material minded. He instantly detected the diabolical quality of his +visitant, and was prepared. With equal coolness and courtesy he met the +cavalier's obeisance. + +"I ask your pardon, Sir Priest," said the stranger, "for disturbing your +meditations. Pleasant they must have been, and right fanciful, I +imagine, when occasioned by so fair a prospect." + +"Worldly, perhaps, Sir Devil,--for such I take you to be," said the Holy +Father, as the stranger bowed his black plumes to the ground; "worldly, +perhaps; for it hath pleased Heaven to retain even in our regenerated +state much that pertaineth to the flesh, yet still, I trust, not without +some speculation for the welfare of the Holy Church. In dwelling upon +yon fair expanse, mine eyes have been graciously opened with prophetic +inspiration, and the promise of the heathen as an inheritance hath +marvellously recurred to me. For there can be none lack such diligence +in the True Faith, but may see that even the conversion of these pitiful +salvages hath a meaning. As the blessed St. Ignatius discreetly +observes," continued Father Jose, clearing his throat and slightly +elevating his voice, "'the heathen is given to the warriors of Christ, +even as the pearls of rare discovery which gladden the hearts of +shipmen.' Nay, I might say"-- + +But here the stranger, who had been wrinkling his brows and twisting his +moustaches with well-bred patience, took advantage of an oratorical +pause to observe,-- + +"It grieves me, Sir Priest, to interrupt the current of your eloquence +as discourteously as I have already broken your meditations; but the +day already waneth to night. I have matter of serious import to make +with you, could I entreat your cautious consideration a few moments." + +Father Jose hesitated. The temptation was great, and the prospect of +acquiring some knowledge of the Great Enemy's plans not the least +trifling object. And if the truth must be told, there was a certain +decorum about the stranger that interested the Padre. Though well aware +of the Protean shapes the Arch-Fiend could assume, and though free from +the weaknesses of the flesh, Father Jose was not above the temptations +of the spirit. Had the Devil appeared, as in the case of the pious St. +Anthony, in the likeness of a comely damsel, the good Father, with his +certain experience of the deceitful sex, would have whisked her away in +the saying of a paternoster. But there was, added to the security of +age, a grave sadness about the stranger,--a thoughtful consciousness as +of being at a great moral disadvantage,--which at once decided him on a +magnanimous course of conduct. + +The stranger then proceeded to inform him, that he had been diligently +observing the Holy Father's triumphs in the valley. That, far from being +greatly exercised thereat, he had been only grieved to see so +enthusiastic and chivalrous an antagonist wasting his zeal in a hopeless +work. For, he observed, the issue of the great battle of Good and Evil +had been otherwise settled, as he would presently show him. "It wants +but a few moments of night," he continued, "and over this interval of +twilight, as you know, I have been given complete control. Look to the +West." + +As the Padre turned, the stranger took his enormous hat from his head, +and waved it three times before him. At each sweep of the prodigious +feather, the fog grew thinner, until it melted impalpably away, and the +former landscape returned, yet warm with the glowing sun. As Father Jose +gazed, a strain of martial music arose from the valley, and, issuing +from a deep _canon_, the good Father beheld a long cavalcade of gallant +cavaliers, habited like his companion. As they swept down the plain, +they were joined by like processions, that slowly defiled from every +ravine and _canon_ of the mysterious mountain. From time to time the +peal of a trumpet swelled fitfully upon the breeze; the cross of +Santiago glittered, and the royal banners of Castile and Aragon waved +over the moving column. So they moved on solemnly toward the sea, where, +in the distance, Father Jose saw stately caravels, bearing the same +familiar banner, awaiting them. The good Padre gazed with conflicting +emotions, and the serious voice of the stranger broke the silence. + +"Thou hast beheld, Sir Priest, the fading footprints of adventurous +Castile. Thou hast seen the declining glory of old Spain,--declining as +yonder brilliant sun. The sceptre she hath wrested from the heathen is +fast dropping from her decrepit and fleshless grasp. The children she +hath fostered shall know her no longer. The soil she hath acquired shall +be lost to her as irrevocably as she herself hath thrust the Moor from +her own Granada." + +The stranger paused, and his voice seemed broken by emotion; at the same +time, Father Jose, whose sympathising heart yearned toward the departing +banners, cried, in poignant accents,-- + +"Farewell, ye gallant cavaliers and Christian soldiers! Farewell, thou, +Nunez de Balboa! thou, Alonzo de Ojeda! and thou, most venerable Las +Casas! Farewell, and may Heaven prosper still the seed ye left behind!" + +Then turning to the stranger, Father Jose beheld him gravely draw his +pocket-handkerchief from the basket-hilt of his rapier, and apply it +decorously to his eyes. + +"Pardon this weakness, Sir Priest," said the cavalier, apologetically; +"but these worthy gentlemen were ancient friends of mine, and have done +me many a delicate service,--much more, perchance, than these poor +sables may signify," he added, with a grim gesture toward the mourning +suit he wore. + +Father Jose was too much preoccupied in reflection to notice the +equivocal nature of this tribute, and, after a few moments' silence, +said, as if continuing his thought,-- + +"But the seed they have planted shall thrive and prosper on this +fruitful soil?" + +As if answering the interrogatory, the stranger turned to the opposite +direction, and, again waving his hat, said, in the same serious tone,-- + +"Look to the East!" + +The Father turned, and, as the fog broke away before the waving plume, +he saw that the sun was rising. Issuing with its bright beams through +the passes of the snowy mountains beyond, appeared a strange and motley +crew. Instead of the dark and romantic visages of his last phantom +train, the Father beheld with strange concern the blue eyes and flaxen +hair of a Saxon race. In place of martial airs and musical utterance, +there rose upon the ear a strange din of harsh gutturals and singular +sibilation. Instead of the decorous tread and stately mien of the +cavaliers of the former vision, they came pushing, bustling, panting, +and swaggering. And as they passed, the good Father noticed that giant +trees were prostrated as with the breath of a tornado, and the bowels of +the earth were torn and rent as with a convulsion. And Father Jose +looked in vain for holy cross or Christian symbol; there was but one +that seemed an ensign, and he crossed himself with holy horror as he +perceived it bore the effigy of a bear! + +"Who are these swaggering Ishmaelites?" he asked, with something of +asperity in his tone. + +The stranger was gravely silent. + +"What do they here, with neither cross nor holy symbol?" he again +demanded. + +"Have you the courage to see, Sir Priest?" responded the stranger, +quietly. + +Father Jose felt his crucifix, as a lonely traveller might his rapier, +and assented. + +"Step under the shadow of my plume," said the stranger. + +Father Jose stepped beside him, and they instantly sank through the +earth. + +When he opened his eyes, which had remained closed in prayerful +meditation during his rapid descent, he found himself in a vast vault, +bespangled overhead with luminous points like the starred firmament. It +was also lighted by a yellow glow that seemed to proceed from a mighty +sea or lake that occupied the centre of the chamber. Around this +subterranean sea dusky figures flitted, bearing ladles filled with the +yellow fluid, which they had replenished from its depths. From this lake +diverging streams of the same mysterious flood penetrated like mighty +rivers the cavernous distance. As they walked by the banks of this +glittering Styx, Father Jose perceived how the liquid stream at certain +places became solid. The ground was strewn with glittering flakes. One +of these the Padre picked up and curiously examined. It was virgin gold. + +An expression of discomfiture overcast the good Father's face at this +discovery; but there was trace neither of malice nor satisfaction in the +stranger's air, which was still of serious and fateful contemplation. +When Father Jose recovered his equanimity, he said, bitterly,-- + +"This, then, Sir Devil, is your work! This is your deceitful lure for +the weak souls of sinful nations! So would you replace the Christian +grace of holy Spain!" + +"This is what must be," returned the stranger, gloomily. "But listen, +Sir Priest. It lies with you to avert the issue for a time. Leave me +here in peace. Go back to Castile, and take with you your bells, your +images, and your missions. Continue here, and you only precipitate +results. Stay! promise me you will do this, and you shall not lack that +which will render your old age an ornament and blessing"; and the +stranger motioned significantly to the lake. + +It was here, the legend discreetly relates, that the Devil showed--as he +always shows sooner or later--his cloven hoof. The worthy Padre, sorely +perplexed by his threefold vision, and, if the truth must be told, a +little nettled at this wresting away of the glory of holy Spanish +discovery, had shown some hesitation. But the unlucky bribe of the Enemy +of Souls touched his Castilian spirit. Starting back in deep disgust, he +brandished his crucifix in the face of the unmasked Fiend, and, in a +voice that made the dusky vault resound, cried,-- + +"Avaunt thee, Sathanas! Diabolus, I defy thee! What! wouldst thou bribe +me,--me, a brother of the Sacred Society of the Holy Jesus, Licentiate +of Cordova and Inquisitor of Guadalaxara? Thinkest thou to buy me with +thy sordid treasure? Avaunt!" + +What might have been the issue of this rupture, and how complete might +have been the triumph of the Holy Father over the Arch-Fiend, who was +recoiling aghast at these sacred titles and the flourishing symbol, we +can never know, for at that moment the crucifix slipped through his +fingers. + +Scarcely had it touched the ground before Devil and Holy Father +simultaneously cast themselves toward it. In the struggle they clenched, +and the pious Jose, who was as much the superior of his antagonist in +bodily as in spiritual strength, was about to treat the Great Adversary +to a back somersault, when he suddenly felt the long nails of the +stranger piercing his flesh. A new fear seized his heart, a numbing +chillness crept through his body, and he struggled to free himself, but +in vain. A strange roaring was in his ears; the late and cavern danced +before his eyes and vanished; and with a loud cry he sank senseless to +the ground. + + * * * * * + +When he recovered his consciousness he was aware of a gentle swaying +motion of his body. He opened his eyes, and saw that it was high noon, +and that he was being carried in a litter through the valley. He felt +stiff, and, looking down, perceived that his arm was tightly bandaged to +his side. + +He closed his eyes, and, after a few words of thankful prayer, thought +how miraculously he had been preserved, and made a vow of candlesticks +to the blessed Saint Jose. He then called in a faint voice, and +presently the penitent Ignacio stood beside him. + +The joy the poor fellow felt at his patron's returning consciousness for +some time choked his utterance. He could only ejaculate, "A miracle! +Blessed Saint Jose, he lives!" and kiss the Padre's bandaged hand. +Father Jose, more intent on his last night's experience, waited for his +emotion to subside, and then asked where he had been found. + +"On the mountain, your Reverence, but a few _varas_ from where he +attacked you." + +"How?--you saw him, then?" asked the Padre, in unfeigned astonishment. + +"Saw him, your Reverence! Mother of God, I should think I did! And your +Reverence shall see him too, if he ever comes again within range of +Ignacio's arquebuse." + +"What mean you, Ignacio?" said the Padre, sitting bolt-upright in his +litter. + +"Why, the bear, your Reverence,--the bear, Holy Father, who attacked +your worshipful person while you were meditating on the top of yonder +mountain." + +"Ah!" said the Holy Father, lying down again. "Chut, child! I would be +at peace." + +When he reached the Mission, he was tenderly cared for, and in a few +weeks was enabled to resume those duties from which, as will be seen, +not even the machinations of the Evil One could divert him. The news of +his physical disaster spread over the country; and a letter to the +Bishop of Guadalaxara contained a confidential and detailed account of +the good Father's spiritual temptation. But in some way the story +leaked out; and long after Jose was gathered to his fathers, his +mysterious encounter formed the theme of thrilling and whispered +narrative. The mountain was generally shunned. It is true that Senor +Joaquin Pedrillo afterward located a grant near the base of the +mountain; but as the Senora Pedrillo was known to be a termagant, +half-breed, the Senor was not supposed to be over-fastidious. + + * * * * * + +Such is the Legend of Monte del Diablo. As I said before, it may seem to +lack essential corroboration. The discrepancy between the Father's +narrative and the actual climax has given rise to some skepticism on the +part of ingenious quibblers. All such I would simply refer to that part +of the report of Senor Julio Serro, Sub-Prefect of San Pablo, before +whom attest of the above was made. Touching this matter the worthy +Prefect observes,--"That although the body of Father Jose doth show +evidence of grievous conflict in the flesh, yet that is no proof that +the Enemy of Souls, who could assume the figure of a decorous, elderly +_caballero_, could not at the same time transform himself into a bear +for his own vile purposes." + + * * * * * + +LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE. + + +At a lyceum, not long since, I felt that the lecturer had chosen a theme +too foreign to himself, and so failed to interest me as much as he might +have done. He described things not in or near to his heart, but toward +his extremities and superficies. There was, in this sense, no truly +central or centralizing thought in the lecture. I would have had him +deal with his privatest experience, as the poet does. The greatest +compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what _I thought_, +and attended to my answer. I am surprised, as well as delighted, when +this happens, it is such a rare use he would make of me, as if he were +acquainted with the tool. Commonly, if men want anything of me, it is +only to know how many acres I make of their land,--since I am a +surveyor,--or, at most, what trivial news I have burdened myself with. +They never will go to law for my meat; they prefer the shell. A man once +came a considerable distance to ask me to lecture on Slavery; but on +conversing with him, I found that he and his clique expected +seven-eighths of the lecture to be theirs, and only one-eighth mine; so +I declined. I take it for granted, when I am invited to lecture +anywhere,--for I have had a little experience in that business,--that +there is a desire to hear what _I think_ on some subject, though I may +be the greatest fool in the country,--and not that I should say pleasant +things merely, or such as the audience will assent to; and I resolve, +accordingly, that I will give them a strong dose of myself. They have +sent for me, and engaged to pay for me, and I am determined that they +shall have me, though I bore them beyond all precedent. + +So now I would say something similar to you, my readers. Since _you_ are +my readers, and I have, not been much of a traveller, I will not talk +about people a thousand miles off, but come as near home as I can. As +the time is short, I will leave out all the flattery, and retain all the +criticism. + +Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives. + +This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am awaked +almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It interrupts my +dreams. There is no sabbath. It would be glorious to see mankind at +leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work. I cannot easily +buy a blank-book to write thoughts in; they are commonly ruled for +dollars and cents. An Irishman, seeing me making a minute in the fields, +took it for granted that I was calculating my wages. If a man was tossed +out of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for life, or +scared out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly because +he was thus incapacitated for--business! I think that there is nothing, +not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life +itself, than this incessant business. + +There is a coarse and boisterous money-making fellow in the outskirts of +our town, who is going to build a bank-wall under the hill along the +edge of his meadow. The powers have put this into his head to keep him +out of mischief, and he wishes me to spend three weeks digging there +with him. The result will be that he will perhaps get some more money to +hoard, and leave for his heirs to spend foolishly. If I do this, most +will commend me as an industrious and hard-working man; but if I choose +to devote myself to certain labors which yield more real profit, though +but little money, they may be inclined to look on me as an idler. +Nevertheless, as I do not need the police of meaningless labor to +regulate me, and do not see anything absolutely praise-worthy in this +fellow's undertaking, any more than in many an enterprise of our own or +foreign governments, however amusing it may be to him or them, I prefer +to finish my education at a different school. + +If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in +danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as +a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her +time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a +town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down! + +Most men would feel insulted, if it were proposed to employ them in +throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that +they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now. +For instance: just after sunrise, one summer morning, I noticed one of +my neighbors walking beside his team, which was slowly drawing a heavy +hewn stone swung under the axle, surrounded by an atmosphere of +industry,--his day's work begun,--his brow commenced to sweat,--a +reproach to all sluggards and idlers,--pausing abreast the shoulders of +his oxen, and half turning round with a flourish of his merciful whip, +while they gained their length on him. And I thought, Such is the labor +which the American Congress exists to protect,--honest, manly +toil,--honest as the day is long,--that makes his bread taste sweet, and +keeps society sweet,--which all men respect and have consecrated: one of +the sacred band, doing the needful, but irksome drudgery. Indeed, I felt +a slight reproach, because I observed this from the window, and was not +abroad and stirring about a similar business. The day went by, and at +evening I passed the yard of another neighbor, who keeps many servants, +and spends much money foolishly, while he adds nothing to the common +stock, and there I saw the stone of the morning lying beside a whimsical +structure intended to adorn this Lord Timothy Dexter's premises, and the +dignity forthwith departed from the teamster's labor, in my eyes. In my +opinion, the sun was made to light worthier toil than this. I may add, +that his employer has since run off, in debt to a good part of the town, +and, after passing through Chancery, has settled somewhere else, there +to become once more a patron of the arts. + +The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead +downward. To have done anything by which you earned money _merely_ is to +have been truly idle or worse. If the laborer gets no more than the +wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself. If +you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which +is to go down perpendicularly. Those services which the community will +most readily pay for it is most disagreeable to render. You are paid for +being something less than a man. The State does not commonly reward a +genius any more wisely. Even the poet-laureate would rather not have to +celebrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe of +wine; and perhaps another poet is called away from his muse to gauge +that very pipe. As for my own business, even that kind of surveying +which I could do with most satisfaction my employers do not want. They +would prefer that I should do my work coarsely and not too well, ay, not +well enough. When I observe that there are different ways of surveying, +my employer commonly asks which will give him the most land, not which +is most correct. I once invented a rule for measuring cord-wood, and +tried to introduce it in Boston; but the measurer there told me that the +sellers did not wish to have their wood measured correctly,--that he was +already too accurate for them, and therefore they commonly got their +wood measured in Charlestown before crossing the bridge. + +The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get "a good +job," but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary +sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that +they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a +livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a +man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it. + +It is remarkable that there are few men so well employed, so much to +their minds, but that a little money or fame would commonly buy them off +from their present pursuit. I see advertisements for _active_ young men; +as if activity were the whole of a young man's capital. Yet I have been +surprised when one has with confidence proposed to me, a grown man, to +embark in some enterprise of his, as if I had absolutely nothing to do, +my life having been a complete failure hitherto. What a doubtful +compliment this is to pay me! As if he had met me half-way across the +ocean beating up against the wind, but bound nowhere, and proposed to me +to go along with him! If I did, what do you think the underwriters would +say? No, no! I am not without employment at this stage of the voyage. To +tell the truth, I saw an advertisement for able-bodied seamen, when I +was a boy, sauntering in my native port, and as soon as I came of age I +embarked. + +The community has no bribe that wilt tempt a wise man. You may raise +money enough to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to +hire a man who is minding _his own_ business. An efficient and valuable +man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The +inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are +forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they +were rarely disappointed. + +Perhaps I am more than usually jealous with respect to my freedom. I +feel that my connection with and obligation to society are still very +slight and transient. Those slight labors which afford me a livelihood, +and by which it is allowed that I am to some extent serviceable to my +contemporaries, are as yet commonly a pleasure to me, and I am not often +reminded that they are a necessity. So far I am successful. But I +foresee, that, if my wants should be much increased, the labor required +to supply them would become a drudgery. If I should sell both my +forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure, +that, for me, there would be nothing left worth living for. I trust that +I shall never thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage. I wish to +suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time +well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater +part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are +self-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his +poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it +makes. You must get your living by loving. But as it is said of the +merchants that ninety-seven in a hundred fail, so the life of men +generally, tried by this standard, is a failure, and bankruptcy may be +surely prophesied. + +Merely to come into the world the heir of a fortune is not to be born, +but to be still-born, rather. To be supported by the charity of friends, +or a government-pension,--provided you continue to breathe,--by whatever +fine synonymes you describe these relations, is to go into the +almshouse. On Sundays the poor debtor goes to church to take an account +of stock, and finds, of course, that his outgoes have been greater than +his income. In the Catholic Church, especially, they go into Chancery, +make a clean confession, give up all, and think to start again. Thus men +will lie on their backs, talking about the fall of man, and never make +an effort to get up. + +As for the comparative demand which men make on life, it is an important +difference between two, that the one is satisfied with a level success, +that his marks can all be hit by point-blank shots, but the other, +however low and unsuccessful his life may be, constantly elevates his +aim, though at a very slight angle to the horizon. I should much rather +be the last man,--though, as the Orientals say, "Greatness doth not +approach him who is forever looking down; and all those who are looking +high are growing poor." + +It is remarkable that there is little or nothing to be remembered +written on the subject of getting a living: how to make getting a living +not merely honest and honorable, but altogether inviting and glorious; +for if _getting_ a living is not so, then living is not. One would +think, from looking at literature, that this question had never +disturbed a solitary individual's musings. Is it that men are too much +disgusted with their experience to speak of it? The lesson of value +which money teaches, which the Author of the Universe has taken so much +pains to teach us, we are inclined to skip altogether. As for the means +of living, it is wonderful how indifferent men of all classes are about +it, even reformers, so called,--whether they inherit, or earn, or steal +it. I think that society has done nothing for us in this respect, or at +least has undone what she has done. Cold and hunger seem more friendly +to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to +ward them off. + +The title _wise_ is, for the most part, falsely applied. How can one be +a wise man, if he does not know any better how to live than other +men?--if he is only more cunning and intellectually subtle? Does Wisdom +work in a tread-mill? or does she teach how to succeed _by her example_? +Is there any such thing as wisdom not applied to life? Is she merely the +miller who grinds the finest logic? It is pertinent to ask if Plato got +his _living_ in a better way or more successfully than his +contemporaries,--or did he succumb to the difficulties of life like +other men? Did he seem to prevail over some of them merely by +indifference, or by assuming grand airs? or find it easier to live, +because his aunt remembered him in her will? The ways in which most men +get their living, that is, live, are mere make-shifts, and a shirking of +the real business of life,--chiefly because they do not know, but partly +because they do not mean, any better. + +The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely of +merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to +it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to +live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others +less lucky, without contributing any value to society! And that is +called enterprise! I know of no more startling development of the +immorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a living. The +philosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are not worth the +dust of a puff-ball. The hog that gets his living by rooting, stirring +up the soil so, would be ashamed of such company. If I could command the +wealth of all the worlds by lifting my finger, I would not pay _such_ a +price for it. Even Mahomet knew that God did not make this world in +jest. It makes God to be a moneyed gentleman who scatters a handful of +pennies in order to see mankind scramble for them. The world's raffle! A +subsistence in the domains of Nature a thing to be raffled for! What a +comment, what a satire on our institutions! The conclusion will be, that +mankind will hang itself upon a tree. And have all the precepts in all +the Bibles taught men only this? and is the last and most admirable +invention of the human race only an improved muck-rake? Is this the +ground on which Orientals and Occidentals meet? Did God direct us so to +get our living, digging where we never planted,--and He would, +perchance, reward us with lumps of gold? + +God gave the righteous man a certificate entitling him to food and +raiment, but the unrighteous man found a _facsimile_ of the same in +God's coffers, and appropriated it, and obtained food and raiment like +the former. It is one of the most extensive systems of counterfeiting +that the world has seen. I did not know that mankind were suffering for +want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very +malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a +great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom. + +The gold-digger in the ravines of the mountains is as much a gambler as +his fellow in the saloons of San Francisco. What difference does it +make, whether you shake dirt or shake dice? If you win, society is the +loser. The gold-digger is the enemy of the honest laborer, whatever +checks and compensations there may be. It is not enough to tell me that +you worked hard to get your gold. So does the Devil work hard. The way +of transgressors may be hard in many respects. The humblest observer who +goes to the mines sees and says that gold-digging is of the character of +a lottery; the gold thus obtained is not the same thing with the wages +of honest toil. But, practically, he forgets what he has seen, for he +has seen only the fact, not the principle, and goes into trade there, +that is, buys a ticket in what commonly proves another lottery, where +the fact is not so obvious. + +After reading Hewitt's account of the Australian gold-diggings one +evening, I had in my mind's eye, all night, the numerous valleys, with +their streams, all cut up with foul pits, from ten to one hundred feet +deep, and half a dozen feet across, as close as they can be dug, and +partly filled with water,--the locality to which men furiously rush to +probe for their fortunes,--uncertain where they shall break ground,--not +knowing but the gold is under their camp itself,--sometimes digging one +hundred and sixty feet before they strike the vein, or then missing it +by a foot,--turned into demons, and regardless of each other's rights, +in their thirst for riches,--whole valleys, for thirty miles, suddenly +honey-combed by the pits of the miners, so that even hundreds are +drowned in them,--standing in water, and covered with mud and clay, they +work night and day, dying of exposure and disease. Having read this, and +partly forgotten it, I was thinking, accidentally, of my own +unsatisfactory life, doing as others do; and with that vision of the +diggings still before me, I asked myself, why _I_ might not be washing +some gold daily, though it were only the finest particles,--why _I_ +might not sink a shaft down to the gold within me, and work that mine. +_There_ is a Ballarat, a Bendigo for you,--what though it were a +sulky-gully? At any rate, I might pursue some path, however solitary and +narrow and crooked, in which I could walk with love and reverence. +Wherever a man separates from the multitude, and goes his own way in +this mood, there indeed is a fork in the road, though ordinary +travellers may see only a gap in the paling. His solitary path +across-lots will turn out the _higher way_ of the two. + +Men rush to California and Australia as if the true gold were to be +found in that direction; but that is to go to the very opposite extreme +to where it lies. They go prospecting farther and farther away from the +true lead, and are most unfortunate when they think themselves most +successful. Is not our _native_ soil auriferous? Does not a stream from +the golden mountains flow through our native valley? and has not this +for more than geologic ages been bringing down the shining particles and +forming the nuggets for us? Yet, strange to tell, if a digger steal +away, prospecting for this true gold, into the unexplored solitudes +around us, there is no danger that any will dog his steps, and endeavor +to supplant him. He may claim and undermine the whole valley even, both +the cultivated and the uncultivated portions, his whole life long in +peace, for no one will ever dispute his claim. They will not mind his +cradles or his toms. He is not confined to a claim twelve feet square, +as at Ballarat, but may mine anywhere, and wash the whole wide world in +his tom. + +Howitt says of the man who found the great nugget which weighed +twenty-eight pounds, at the Bendigo diggings in Australia:--"He soon +began to drink; got a horse, and rode all about, generally at full +gallop, and, when he met people, called out to inquire if they knew who +he was, and then kindly informed them that he was 'the bloody wretch +that had found the nugget.' At last he rode full speed against a tree, +and nearly knocked his brains out." I think, however, there was no +danger of that, for he had already knocked his brains out against the +nugget. Howitt adds, "He is a hopelessly ruined man." But he is a type +of the class. They are all fast men. Hear some of the names of the +places where they dig:--"Jackass Flat,"--"Sheep's-Head +Gully,"--"Murderer's Bar," etc. Is there no satire in these names? Let +them carry their ill-gotten wealth where they will, I am thinking it +will still be "Jackass Flat," if not "Murderer's Bar," where they live. + +The last resource of our energy has been the robbing of graveyards on +the Isthmus of Darien, an enterprise which appears to be but in its +infancy; for, according to late accounts, an act has passed its second +reading in the legislature of New Granada, regulating this kind of +mining; and a correspondent of the "Tribune" writes:--"In the dry +season, when the weather will permit of the country being properly +prospected, no doubt other rich '_guacas_' [that is, graveyards] will be +found." To emigrants he says:--"Do not come before December; take the +Isthmus route in preference to the Boca del Toro one; bring no useless +baggage, and do not cumber yourself with a tent; but a good pair of +blankets will be necessary; a pick, shovel, and axe of good material +will be almost all that is required": advice which might have been taken +from the "Burker's Guide." And he concludes with this line in Italics +and small capitals: "_If you are doing well at home_, STAY THERE," which +may fairly be interpreted to mean, "If you are getting a good living by +robbing graveyards at home, stay there." + +But why go to California for a text? She is the child of New England, +bred at her own school and church. + +It is remarkable that among all the preachers there are so few moral +teachers. The prophets are employed in excusing the ways of men. Most +reverend seniors, the _illuminati_ of the age, tell me, with a gracious, +reminiscent smile, betwixt an aspiration and a shudder, not to be too +tender about these things,--to lump all that, that is, make a lump of +gold of it. The highest advice I have heard on these subjects was +grovelling. The burden of it was,--It is not worth your while to +undertake to reform the world in this particular. Do not ask how your +bread is buttered; it will make you sick, if you do,--and the like. A +man had better starve at once than lose his innocence in the process of +getting his bread. If within the sophisticated man there is not an +unsophisticated one, then he is but one of the Devil's angels. As we +grow old, we live more coarsely, we relax a little in our disciplines, +and, to some extent, cease to obey our finest instincts. But we should +be fastidious to the extreme of sanity, disregarding the gibes of those +who are more unfortunate than ourselves. + +In our science and philosophy, even, there is commonly no true and +absolute account of things. The spirit of sect and bigotry has planted +its hoof amid the stars. You have only to discuss the problem, whether +the stars are inhabited or not, in order to discover it. Why must we +daub the heavens as well as the earth? It was an unfortunate discovery +that Dr. Kane was a Mason, and that Sir John Franklin was another. But +it was a more cruel suggestion that possibly that was the reason why the +former went in search of the latter. There is not a popular magazine in +this country that would dare to print a child's thought on important +subjects without comment. It must be submitted to the D.D.s. I would it +were the chickadee-dees. + +You come from attending the funeral of mankind to attend to a natural +phenomenon. A little thought is sexton to all the world. + +I hardly know an _intellectual_ man, even, who is so broad and truly +liberal that you can think aloud in his society. Most with whom you +endeavor to talk soon come to a stand against some institution in which +they appear to hold stock,--that is, some particular, not universal, way +of viewing things. They will continually thrust their own low roof, with +its narrow skylight, between you and the sky, when it is the +unobstructed heavens you would view. Get out of the way with your +cobwebs, wash your windows, I say! In some lyceums they tell me that +they have voted to exclude the subject of religion. But how do I know +what their religion is, and when I am near to or far from it? I have +walked into such an arena and done my best to make a clean breast of +what religion I have experienced, and the audience never suspected what +I was about. The lecture was as harmless as moonshine to them. Whereas, +if I had read to them the biography of the greatest scamps in history, +they might have thought that I had written the lives of the deacons of +their church. Ordinarily, the inquiry is, Where did you come from? or, +Where are you going? That was a more pertinent question which I +overheard one of my auditors put to another once.--"What does he lecture +for?" It made me quake in my shoes. + +To speak impartially, the best men that I know are not serene, a world +in themselves. For the most part, they dwell in forms, and flatter and +study effect only more finely than the rest. We select granite for the +underpinning of our houses and barns; we build fences of stone; but we +do not ourselves rest on an underpinning of granitic truth, the lowest +primitive rock. Our sills are rotten. What stuff is the man made of who +is not coexistent in our thought with the purest and subtilest truth? I +often accuse my finest acquaintances of an immense frivolity; for, while +there are manners and compliments we do not meet, we do not teach one +another the lessons of honesty and sincerity that the brutes do, or of +steadiness and solidity that the rocks do. The fault is commonly mutual, +however; for we do not habitually demand any more of each other. + +That excitement about Kossuth, consider how characteristic, but +superficial, it was!--only another kind of politics or dancing. Men were +making speeches to him all over the country, but each expressed only the +thought, or the want of thought, of the multitude. No man stood on +truth. They were merely banded together, as usual, one leaning on +another, and all together on nothing; as the Hindoos made the world rest +on an elephant, the elephant on a tortoise, and the tortoise on a +serpent, and had nothing to put under the serpent. For all fruit of that +stir we have the Kossuth hat. + +Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary +conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward +and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a +man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or +been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference +between us and our fellow is, that he has seen the newspaper, or been +out to tea, and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails, we +go more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend on +it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of +letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from +himself this long while. + +I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have +tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt +in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so +much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day's +devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day. + +We may well be ashamed to tell what things we have read or heard in our +day. I do not know why my news should be so trivial,--considering what +one's dreams and expectations are, why the developments should be so +paltry. The news we hear, for the most part, is not news to our genius. +It is the stalest repetition. You are often tempted to ask, why such +stress is laid on a particular experience which you have had,--that, +after twenty-five years, you should meet Hobbins Registrar of Deeds, +again on the sidewalk. Have you not budged an inch, then? Such is the +daily news. Its facts appear to float in the atmosphere, insignificant +as the sporules of fungi, and impinge on some neglected _thallus_, or +surface of our minds, which affords a basis for them, and hence a +parasitic growth. We should wash ourselves clean of such news. Of what +consequence, though our planet explode, if there is no character +involved in the explosion? In health we have not the least curiosity +about such events. We do not live for idle amusement. I would not run +round a corner to see the world blow up. + +All summer, and far into the autumn, perchance, you unconsciously went +by the newspapers and the news, and now you find it was because the +morning and the evening were full of news to you. Your walks were full +of incidents. You attended, not to the affairs of Europe, but to your +own affairs in Massachusetts fields. If you chance to live and move and +have your being in that thin stratum in which the events that make the +news transpire,--thinner than the paper on which it is printed,--then +these things will fill the world for you; but if you soar above or dive +below that plane, you cannot remember nor be reminded of them. Really to +see the sun rise or go down every day, so to relate ourselves to a +universal fact, would preserve us sane forever. Nations! What are +nations? Tartars, and Huns, and Chinamen! Like insects, they swarm. The +historian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of a +man that there are so many men. It is individuals that populate the +world. Any man thinking may say with the Spirit of Lodin,-- + + "I look down from my height on nations, + And they become ashes before me;-- + Calm is my dwelling in the clouds; + Pleasant are the great fields of my rest." + +Pray, let us live without being drawn by dogs, Esquimaux-fashion, +tearing over hill and dale, and biting each other's ears. + +Not without a slight shudder at the danger, I often perceive how near I +had come to admitting into my mind the details of some trivial +affair,--the news of the street; and I am astonished to observe how +willing men are to lumber their minds with such rubbish,--to permit idle +rumors and incidents of the most insignificant kind to intrude on ground +which should be sacred to thought. Shall the mind be a public arena, +where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table chiefly +are discussed? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself,--an hypaethral +temple, consecrated to the service of the gods? I find it so difficult +to dispose of the few facts which to me are significant, that I hesitate +to burden my attention with those which are insignificant, which only a +divine mind could illustrate. Such is, for the most part, the news in +newspapers and conversation. It is important to preserve the mind's +chastity in this respect. Think of admitting the details of a single +case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through +their very _sanctum sanctorum_ for an hour, ay, for many hours! to make +a very bar-room of the mind's inmost apartment, as if for so long the +dust of the street had occupied us,--the very street itself, with all +its travel, its bustle, and filth had passed through our thoughts' +shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide? When I have +been compelled to sit spectator and auditor in a court-room for some +hours, and have seen my neighbors, who were not compelled, stealing in +from time to time, and tiptoeing about with washed hands and faces, it +has appeared to my mind's eye, that, when they took off their hats, +their ears suddenly expanded into vast hoppers for sound, between which +even their narrow heads were crowded. Like the vanes of windmills, they +caught the broad, but shallow stream of sound, which, after a few +titillating gyrations in their coggy brains, passed out the other side. +I wondered if, when they got home, they were as careful to wash their +ears as before their hands and faces. It has seemed to me, at such a +time, that the auditors and the witnesses, the jury and the counsel, the +judge and the criminal at the bar,--if I may presume him guilty before +he is convicted,--were all equally criminal, and a thunderbolt might be +expected to descend and consume them all together. + +By all kinds of traps and sign-boards, threatening the extreme penalty +of the divine law, exclude such trespassers from the only ground which +can be sacred to you. It is so hard to forget what it is worse than +useless to remember! If I am to be a thoroughfare, I prefer that it be +of the mountain-brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not the town-sewers. +There is inspiration, that gossip which comes to the ear of the +attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is the profane and stale +revelation of the bar-room and the police court. The same ear is fitted +to receive both communications. Only the character of the hearer +determines to which it shall be open, and to which closed. I believe +that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to +trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with +triviality. Our very intellect shall be macadamized, as it were,--its +foundation broken into fragments for the wheels of travel to roll over; +and if you would know what will make the most durable pavement, +surpassing rolled stones, spruce blocks, and asphaltum, you have only to +look into some of our minds which have been subjected to this treatment +so long. + +If we have thus desecrated ourselves,--as who has not?--the remedy will +be by wariness and devotion to reconsecrate ourselves, and make once +more a fane of the mind. We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, +as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are, and be +careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention. +Read not the Times. Read the Eternities. Conventionalities are at length +as bad as impurities. Even the facts of science may dust the mind by +their dryness, unless they are in a sense effaced each morning, or +rather rendered fertile by the dews of fresh and living truth. Knowledge +does not come to us by details, but in flashes of light from heaven. +Yes, every thought that passes through the mind helps to wear and tear +it, and to deepen the ruts, which, as in the streets of Pompeii, evince +how much it has been used. How many things there are concerning which we +might well deliberate, whether we had better know them,--had better let +their peddling-carts be driven, even at the slowest trot or walk, over +that bridge of glorious span by which we trust to pass at last from the +farthest brink of time to the nearest shore of eternity! Have we no +culture, no refinement,--but skill only to live coarsely and serve the +Devil?--to acquire a little worldly wealth, or fame, or liberty, and +make a false show with it, as if we were all husk and shell, with no +tender and living kernel to us? Shall our institutions be like those +chestnut-burs which contain abortive nuts, perfect only to prick the +fingers? + +America is said to be the arena on which the battle of freedom is to be +fought; but surely it cannot be freedom in a merely political sense that +is meant. Even if we grant that the American has freed himself from a +political tyrant, he is still the slave of an economical and moral +tyrant. Now that the republic--the _res-publica_--has been settled, it +is time to look after the _res-privata_,--the private state,--to see, as +the Roman senate charged its consuls, "_ne quid res-PRIVATA detrimenti +caperet_," that the _private_ state receive no detriment. + +Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King +George and continue the slaves of King Prejudice? What is it to be born +free and not to live free? What is the value of any political freedom, +but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves, or a +freedom to be free, of which we boast? We are a nation of politicians, +concerned about the outmost defences only of freedom. It is our +children's children who may perchance be really free. We tax ourselves +unjustly. There is a part of us which is not represented. It is taxation +without representation. We quarter troops, we quarter fools and cattle +of all sorts upon ourselves. We quarter our gross bodies on our poor +souls, till the former eat up all the latter's substance. + +With respect to a true culture and manhood, we are essentially +provincial still, not metropolitan,--mere Jonathans. We are provincial, +because we do not find at home our standards,--because we do not worship +truth, but the reflection of truth,--because we are warped and narrowed +by an exclusive devotion to trade and commerce and manufactures and +agriculture and the like, which are but means, and not the end. + +So is the English Parliament provincial. Mere country-bumpkins, they +betray themselves, when any more important question arises for them to +settle, the Irish question, for instance,--the English question why did +I not say? Their natures are subdued to what they work in. Their "good +breeding" respects only secondary objects. The finest manners in the +world are awkwardness and fatuity, when contrasted with a finer +intelligence. They appear but as the fashions of past days,--mere +courtliness, knee-buckles and small-clothes, out of date. It is the +vice, but not the excellence of manners, that they are continually being +deserted by the character; they are cast-off clothes or shells, claiming +the respect which belonged to the living creature. You are presented +with the shells instead of the meat, and it is no excuse generally, +that, in the case of some fishes, the shells are of more worth than the +meat. The man who thrusts his manners upon me does as if he were to +insist on introducing me to his cabinet of curiosities, when I wished to +see himself. It was not in this sense that the poet Decker called Christ +"the first true gentleman that ever breathed." I repeat that in this +sense the most splendid court in Christendom is provincial, having +authority to consult about Trans-alpine interests only, and not the +affairs of Rome. A praetor or proconsul would suffice to settle the +questions which absorb the attention of the English Parliament and the +American Congress. + +Government and legislation! these I thought were respectable +professions. We have heard of heaven-born Numas, Lycurguses, and Solons, +in the history of the world, whose _names_ at least may stand for ideal +legislators; but think of legislating to _regulate_ the breeding of +slaves, or the exportation of tobacco! What have divine legislators to +do with the exportation or the importation of tobacco? what humane ones +with the breeding of slaves? Suppose you were to submit the question to +any son of God,--and has He no children in the nineteenth century? is it +a family which is extinct?--in what condition would you get it again? +What shall a State like Virginia say for itself at the last day, in +which these have been the principal, the staple productions? What ground +is there for patriotism in such a State? I derive my facts from +statistical tables which the States themselves have published. + +A commerce that whitens every sea in quest of nuts and raisins, and +makes slaves of its sailors for this purpose! I saw, the other day, a +vessel which had been wrecked, and many lives lost, and her cargo of +rags, juniper-berries, and bitter almonds were strewn along the shore. +It seemed hardly worth the while to tempt the dangers of the sea between +Leghorn and New York for the sake of a cargo of juniper-berries and +bitter almonds. America sending to the Old World for her bitters! Is not +the sea-brine, is not shipwreck, bitter enough to make the cup of life +go down here? Yet such, to a great extent, is our boasted commerce; and +there are those who style themselves statesmen and philosophers who are +so blind as to think that progress and civilization depend on precisely +this kind of interchange and activity,--the activity of flies about a +molasses-hogshead. Very well, observes one, if men were oysters. And +very well, answer I, if men were mosquitoes. + +Lieutenant Herndon, whom our Government sent to explore the Amazon, and, +it is said, to extend the area of Slavery, observed that there was +wanting there "an industrious and active population, who know what the +comforts of life are, and who have artificial wants to draw out the +great resources of the country." But what are the "artificial wants" to +be encouraged? Not the love of luxuries, like the tobacco and slaves of, +I believe, his native Virginia, nor the ice and granite and other +material wealth of our native New England; nor are "the great resources +of a country" that fertility or barrenness of soil which produces these. +The chief want, in every State that I have been into, was a high and +earnest purpose in its inhabitants. This alone draws out "the great +resources" of Nature, and at, last taxes her beyond her resources; for +man naturally dies out of her. When we want culture more than potatoes, +and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a +world are taxed and drawn out, and the result, or staple production, is, +not slaves, nor operatives, but men,--those rare fruits called heroes, +saints, poets, philosophers, and redeemers. + +In short, as a snow-drift is formed where there is a lull in the wind, +so, one would say, where there is a lull of truth, an institution +springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at +length blows it down. + +What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and +inhuman, that, practically, I have never fairly recognized that it +concerns me at all. The newspapers, I perceive, devote some of their +columns specially to politics or government without charge; and this, +one would say, is all that saves it; but, as I love literature, and to +some extent, the truth also, I never read those columns at any rate. I +do not wish to blunt my sense of right so much. I have not got to answer +for having read a single President's Message. A strange age of the world +this, when empires, kingdoms, and republics come a-begging to a private +man's door, and utter their complaints at his elbow! I cannot take up a +newspaper but I find that some wretched government or other, hard +pushed, and on its last legs, is interceding with me, the reader, to +vote for it,--mere importunate than an Italian beggar; and if I have a +mind to look at its certificate, made, perchance, by some benevolent +merchant's clerk, or the skipper that brought it over, for it cannot +speak a word of English itself, I shall probably read of the eruption +of some Vesuvius, or the overflowing of some Po, true or forged, which +brought it into this condition. I do not hesitate, in such a case, to +suggest work, or the almshouse; or why not keep its castle in silence, +as I do commonly? The poor President, what with preserving his +popularity and doing his duty, is completely bewildered. The newspapers +are the ruling power. Any other government is reduced to a few marines +at Fort Independence. If a man neglects to read the Daily Times, +Government will go down on its knees to him, for this is the only +treason in these days. + +Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and +the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, +but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions +of the physical body. They are _infra_-human, a kind of vegetation. I +sometimes awake to a half-consciousness of them going on about me, as a +man may become conscious of some of the processes of digestion in a +morbid state, and so have the dyspepsia, as it is called. It is as if a +thinker submitted himself to be rasped by the great gizzard of creation. +Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit and +gravel, and the two political parties are its two opposite +halves,--sometimes split into quarters, it may be, which grind on each +other. Not only individuals, but States, have thus a confirmed +dyspepsia, which expresses itself, you can imagine by what sort of +eloquence. Thus our life is not altogether a forgetting, but also, alas! +to a great extent, a remembering of that which we should never have been +conscious of, certainly not in our waking hours. Why should we not meet, +not always as dyspeptics, to tell our bad dreams, but sometimes as +_eu_peptics, to congratulate each other on the ever glorious morning? I +do not make an exorbitant demand, surely. + + * * * * * + +BARBARA FRIETCHIE. + + + Up from the meadows rich with corn, + Clear in the cool September morn, + + The clustered spires of Frederick stand + Green-walled by the hills of Maryland. + + Round about them orchards sweep, + Apple- and peach-tree fruited deep, + + Fair as a garden of the Lord + To the eyes of the famished rebel horde, + + On that pleasant morn of the early fall + When Lee marched over the mountain-wall,-- + + Over the mountains winding down, + Horse and foot, into Frederick town. + + Forty flags with their silver stars, + Forty flags with their crimson bars, + Flapped in the morning wind: the sun + Of noon looked down, and saw not one. + + Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then, + Bowed with her fourscore years and ten; + + Bravest of all in Frederick town, + She took up the flag the men hauled down; + + In her attic-window the staff she set, + To show that one heart was loyal yet. + + Up the street came the rebel tread, + Stonewall Jackson riding ahead. + + Under his slouched hat left and right + He glanced: the old flag met his sight. + + "Halt!"--the dust-brown ranks stood fast + "Fire!"--out blazed the rifle-blast. + + It shivered the window, pane and sash; + It rent the banner with seam and gash. + + Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff + Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf; + + She leaned far out on the window-sill, + And shook it forth with a royal will. + + "Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, + But spare your country's flag," she said. + + A shade of sadness, a blush of shame, + Over the face of the leader came; + + The nobler nature within him stirred + To life at that woman's deed and word: + + "Who touches a hair of yon gray head + Dies like a dog! March on!" he said. + + All day long through Frederick street + Sounded the tread of marching feet: + + All day long that free flag tossed + Over the heads of the rebel host. + + Ever its torn folds rose and fell + On the loyal winds that loved it well; + + And through the hill-gaps sunset light + Shone over it with a warm good-night. + + Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er, + And the Rebel rides on his raids no more. + + Honor to her! and let a tear + Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier. + + Over Barbara Frietchie's grave + Flag of Freedom and Union, wave! + + Peace and order and beauty draw + Round thy symbol of light and law; + + And ever the stars above look down + On thy stars below in Frederick town! + + * * * * * + +A LETTER TO THOMAS CARLYLE. + + +SIR,--You have Homered it of late in a small way, one sees. You profess +to sing the purport of our national struggle. "South chooses to hire its +servants for life, rather than by the day, month, or year; North +bludgeons the Southern brain to prevent the same": that, you say, is the +American Iliad in a Nutshell. In a certain sense, more's the pity, it +must be supposed that you speak correctly; but be assured that this is +the American Iliad in no other nutshell than your private one,--in those +too contracted cerebral quarters to which, with respect to our matters, +your powerful intelligence, under such prolonged and pitiless extremes +of dogmatic compression, has at last got reduced. + +Seriously, not in any trivial wilfulness of retort, I accuse you of a +narrowness and pettiness of understanding with regard to America. Give +me leave to "wrestle a fall" with you on this theme. And as I can with +but twoscore years match your threescore and five, let me entreat of +your courtesy to set that circumstance aside, and to constitute me, for +the nonce, your equal in age and privilege of speech. For I must wrestle +to-day in earnest! + +You are a great nature, a great writer, and a man of piercing intellect: +he is a jack or a dunce that denies it. But of you, more than of most +men at all your equals in intellectual resource, it may be said that +yours is not a spherical or universal, but a special and linear +intelligence,--of great human depth and richness, but special +nevertheless. Of a particular order of truths you are an incomparable +champion; but always you are the champion and on the field, always your +genius has its visor down, and glares through a loop-hole with +straitened intentness of vision. A particular sort of errors and +falsities you can track with the scent of a blood-hound, and with a +speed and bottom not surpassed, if equalled; but the Destinies have put +the nose of your genius to the ground, and sent it off for good and all +upon a particular trail. You sound, indeed, before your encounter, such +a thrilling war-note as turns the cripple's crutch to an imaginary +lance; you open on your quarry with such a cry as kindles a huntsman's +heart beneath the bosoms of nursing mothers. No living writer possesses +the like fascination. Yet, in truth, we should all have tired of your +narrow stringency long ago, did there not run in the veins of your +genius so rich and ruddy a human blood. The profoundness of your +interest in man, and the masterly way in which you grasp character, give +to your thought an inner quality of centrality and wholeness, despite +the dogmatic partiality of its shaping at your hands. And so your +enticement continues, intensely partial though it be. + +Continues,--but with growing protest, and growing ground for it. For, to +speak the truth, by your kind permission, without reserve, you are +beginning to suffer from yourself. You are threatening to perish of too +much Thomas Carlyle, I venture to caution you against that tremendous +individual. He is subduing your genius to his own special humors; he is +alloying your mental activity, to a fearful degree, with dogmatic +prepossession; he is making you an intellectual _routinier_, causing +thereby an infiltration of that impurity of which all routine at last +dies. For years we that love you most have seen that you were ceasing +more and more to hold open, fresh relations with truth,--that you were +straitening and hardening into the linear, rigid eagerness of the mere +propagandist. You have, if I may so speak, been turning all your +front-head into back-head, giving to your cerebral powers the characters +of preappointed, automatic action, which are proper to the cerebellum. +It cannot be denied that you have thus acquired a remarkable, +machine-like simplicity, force, and constancy of mental action,--your +brain-wheels spinning away with such a steam-engine whirr as one cannot +but admire; but, on the other hand, as was inevitable, you have become +astonishingly insensitive to all truths, save those with which you are +established in organic connection; nor could the products of Manchester +mills be bargained for beforehand with more certainty than the results +of your intellectual activity. You can be silent,--I venture to assert +so much; but if you speak at all, we know perfectly well what +description of fabric _must_ come from your loom. + +It does not, therefore, surprise us, does not clash with our sense of +your native greatness, that for our particular Iliad you prove a very +nutshell Homer indeed. For I must not disguise it from you that this is +exactly the case. It was _Homerus in nuce_ first; and the pitiful +purport of the epic results less from any smallness in the action +celebrated than from that important law, not, perhaps, wholly new to +your own observation, which forbids a pint-measure to contain more than +a pint, though you dip it full from the ocean itself. + +You are great, but not towards us Americans. Towards us you are little +and insignificant and superfluous. Your eyes, though of wondrous +efficacy in their way, blink in our atmosphere like those of an owl in +broad sunlight; and if you come flying here, it is the privilege of the +smallest birds--of which you are quite at liberty to esteem me one--to +pester you back into your medieval twilight. + +Shall I try to tell you why you can have no right to judge us and our +affairs? By your leave, then, and briefly. + +There is a spiritual nature of man, which is ever and everywhere the +same; and, through the necessary presence of this in every human being, +there is a common sense and a common conscience, which make each man one +with all others. Here in America we are seeking to give the force of +political sovereignty to this common and unitive nature,--assuming that +all political problems are at last questions of simple justice, courage, +good sense, and fellow-feeling, which any sound heart and healthy +intelligence may appreciate. + +On the other hand, there is the truth of spiritual Rank or Degree,--that +one man may be immensely superior in human quality to another. This is +the truth that is most powerfully present to your mind, and you would +constitute government strictly, if not solely, in the light of it. To +this you are impelled by the peculiar quality of your genius, which is +so purely _biographical_, so inevitably drawn to special personalities, +that you can hardly conceive of history otherwise than as a record of +personal influence. + +We assume, then, as a basis, common sense; you, uncommon sense. We +assume Unity or Identity; you assume Difference, and seek to +reconstitute unity only through mastership on the one hand and reverent +obedience on the other. We do not deny Difference; we recognize the +truth of spiritual Degree; we merely _elect the common element as the +material out of which to constitute, and the force by which to operate, +the State._ + +Now my judgment is, that either the truth of a common Manhood or the +truth of spiritual Rank may be made primary in a State, and that with +admirable results, provided it be duly allied and tempered with its +opposite. For these opposites I hold to be correlative and polaric, each +required by the other. But chasm is worse than indistinction; and he +that breaks the circle of human fellowship is more mischievous than he +who blurs the hues of gradation. + +I affirm, then, that America has a grand spiritual fact at the base of +her political system. But you are the prophet of an opposite order of +truths. And you are so intensely the partisan of your pole, that you +have not a moment's patience with anything else, above all with an +opposite partiality. And wanting sympathy and patience with it, you +equally want apprehension of its meaning. + +But this is not all. An awful shadow accompanies the brilliant day of +your genius. That dark humor of yours, that woful demon from whose +companionship, by the law of your existence, you cannot be free, tolls +funeral-bells and chants the dirges of death in your ears forever. What +your faith does not take with warmth to its bosom it must spurn +violently away; where you cannot hope strongly, you must vehemently +despair; what your genius does not illumine to your heart it must bury +as in shadows of eternal night. It being, therefore, of the nature of +your mind to shine powerfully on the eminences of mankind, it became in +consequence no less its nature to call up over the broad levels a black +fog that even its own eye could not penetrate. Thus with you, if I +understand you rightly, the _common_ and the _fateful_ are nearly one +and the same; the Good is to you an exceptional energy which struggles +up from the level forces of the universe. Is not your conception of +human existence nearly this: a perpetual waste deluge, and here and +there some Noah in his ark above it? + +There is noble truth to be seen from this point of view,--truth to which +America also will have to attend. But being intensely limited to this +sole point of view, you are _utterly_ without eye for the whole +significance of our national life. You are not only _at_ the opposite +pole from us, but your whole heart and intelligence are _included in_ +the currents of that polaric opposition. + +Still further. I think, that, having made out its scheme of thought, +your mind soon contracts a positive demand _even for the evil +conditions_ which, in your estimation, made that scheme necessary. To +illustrate. A man is roused at night, and sent flying for a physician in +some sudden and terrible emergency. He returns, broken-winded, to learn +that it was altogether a false alarm. It is quite possible that his +first emotion, on receiving this intelligence, will not be pleasure, but +indignation; he may feel that somebody ought to _be_ sick, since he has +been at such pains. Pardon me, if I think your position not wholly +dissimilar. It seems to me to have become an imperative requisition of +your mind that nine-tenths of mankind should be fools. They _must_ be +so; else you have no place for them in your system, and know not what to +do with them. As fools, you have full arrangements made for their +accommodation. Some hero, some born ruler of men, is to come forth (out +of your books) and reduce them to obedience, and lord it over them in a +most useful manner. But if they will not be fools, if they +contumaciously refuse to be fools, they disturb the necessary +conditions of kingship, and, of course, deserve much reprobation. I do +not, therefore, feel myself unjust to you in saying, that, the better +the American people behave, _in consistency with their political +traditions and customary modes of thought_, the less you are able to be +pleased with them. If they demean themselves as fools and incapables, +(as they sometimes do,) they bring grist to your mill; but if they show +wisdom, courage, and constancy, they leave you to stand at your +mill-doors and grumble for want of toll,--as in the nutshell-epic +aforesaid. + +Well, there are many foolish and some wise, and I, for one, could +heartily wish both classes more justly placed; for he who styles me an +extreme intrepid democrat pays me a compliment to which I have no claim. +While, then, by "kingship" you meant something human and noble, while I +could deem the command you coveted for strong and wise men to be +somewhat which should _lift the weak and unwise above the range of their +own force and intelligence_, I held your prophesying in high esteem, and +readily pardoned any excesses of expression into which your prophetic +_afflatus_ (being Scotch) might betray you. + +But your appetite for kingship seems to have gained in strength while it +lost in delicacy and moral significance, till it has become an +insatiable craving, which disdains not to batten on very vile garbage. +If one rule, and another be ruled, and if the domination be open, frank, +and vigorous, you seem to feast on the fact, be this domination as +selfish in its nature and as brutal in its form as it may. Whether its +aim be to uplift or to degrade its subjects, whether it be clean or +filthy, of heaven or of hell, a stress of generous purpose or a mere +emphasis of egotism,--what pause do you make to inquire concerning this? +The appearance is, that any sovereignty, in these democratic days, is +over-welcome to your hunger to admit of pause; and a rule, whose +undisguised aim is, not to supplement the strength of the weak, but to +pillage them of its product, not to lend the ignorant a wisdom above +their own, but to make their ignorance perpetual as a source of +pecuniary profit to their masters, may reckon upon your succors whenever +succors are needed. + +Hence your patronage of our slavery. Hence your effort to commend it by +a description so incomparably false, that, though one should laugh +derision at it from Christmas to Candlemas, he would not laugh enough. +"Hiring servants for life,"--that is the most intrepid _lucus a non +lucendo_ of the century. It fairly takes one's breath away. It is +stunning, ravishing. One can but cry, on recovering his wind,--Hear, O +Caucus, and give ear, O Mock-Auction! ye railway Hudsons, tricksters, +impostors, ye demagogues that love the people in stump-speeches at $---- +per year, ye hired bravos of the bar that stab justice in the dark, ye +Jesuit priests that "lie for God," listen all, and learn how to do it! +What are your timid devices, compared with this of benumbing your +adversary at the start by an outright electric shock of untruth? But a +man must be supported by a powerful sense of sincerity to be capable of +a statement so royally false that the truth itself shall look tame and +rustic beside it. + +You have spoken ill of a certain sort of German metaphysic; but I +perceive that you have now become a convert to it. The final _arcanum_ +of that, I think, is, Something = Nothing. You give this abstraction a +concrete form; your axiom is, No Hire = Hire for Life. To deny that +laborers have any property in their own toil, and to allow them their +poor peck of maize and pound of bacon per week, not at all as a wage for +their work, but solely as a means of converting corn into cotton, and +cotton into seats in Congress and summers at Saratoga,--that, according +to the Chelsea metaphysic, is "hiring them for life"! To deny laborers +any legal _status_ as persons, and any social _status_ as human +souls,--to give them fodder for food, and pens for homes,--to withhold +from them the school, the table, and the sanctities of marriage,--if +that is not "hiring them for life," what is it? To affirm, by +consistent practice, that no spiritual, no human value appertains to the +life of laboring men and women,--to rate them in their very persons as +commercial values, measuring the virtue of their existence with coin, as +cloths are measured with a yardstick,--this, we all see, is "hiring them +for life"! To take from women the LEGAL RIGHT to be chaste,--to make it +a _capital offence_ for a woman of the laboring caste to defend her own +person by blows, for any "husband" or father of the laboring caste to +defend wife or daughter with blows, against the lust of another caste, +and, having made them thus helpless before outrage, to close the +judicial tribunals against their testimony, and refuse them the faintest +show of redress,--truly, it is very kind of you to let us know that this +is the simplest piece of "hiring for life," for without that charitable +assistance the fact would surely have eluded our discovery. How could we +have found it out without your assistance, when, after that aid has been +rendered, the fact continues to seem so utterly otherwise as to reflect +even upon your generous information the colors of an unexampled untruth? + +No-Hire + Dehumanization of the Laborer = Life-Hire? We never should +have dreamt of it! + +Within the past year, a document has come into my hands which they may +thank their stars who are not required to see. It is the private diary +of a most eminent and respectable slaveholder, recently dead. The +chances of war threw it into the hands of our troops, and the virtue of +a noble surgeon rescued it from defiling uses, and sent it to me, as one +whose duty bound him to know the worst. Of its authenticity there is not +a shadow of question. And such a record of pollution,--of wallowing, to +which the foulness of swine is as the life of honey-bees harboring in +the bosoms of roses,--I deliberately suppose can never have got into +black and white before. Save in general terms, I can hardly speak of it; +but one item I must have the courage to suggest more definitely. Having +bidden a young slave-girl (whose name, age, color, etc., with the +shameless precision that marks the entire document, are given) to attend +upon his brutal pleasure, and she silently remaining away, he +writes,--"Next morning ordered her a dozen lashes for disobedience."[7] +For disobedience, observe! She had been "hired for life"; the great +Carlyle had witnessed the bargain; and behold, she has broken the +contract! She must be punished; Mr. Carlyle and his co-cultivator of the +virtue of obedience (_par nobile fratrum_) will see to it that she is +duly punished. She shall go to the whipping-post, this disobedient +virgin; she shall have twelve lashes, (for the Chelsea gods are severe, +and know the use of "beneficent whip,")--twelve lashes on the naked +person,--blows with the terrible slave-whip, beneath which the skin +purples in long, winding lines, then breaks and gushes into spirts of +red blood, and afterwards cicatrizes into perpetual scars; for +disobedience is an immorality not to be overlooked! + +Yes, Thomas Carlyle, I hold you a party to these crimes. _You_, YOU are +the brutal old man who would flog virgins into prostitution. You approve +the system; you volunteer your best varnish in its commendation; and +this is an inseparable and _legal_ part of it. Legal, I say,--legal, and +not destructive of respectability. That is the point. In ordering such +lashes, that ancient miscreant (for old he already was) neither violated +any syllable of the slave-code, nor forfeited his social position. He +was punishing "disobedience"; he was admministering "justice"; he was +illustrating the "rights of property"; he was using the lawful +"privileges of gentlemen." + +No doubt, deeds of equal infamy are done in the dens of New York. But +in New York they _are_ infamous. In New York they are indeed done in +_dens_, by felons who flee the eye of the policeman,--unless, to be +sure, the police have been appointed by a certain _alter ego_ of yours +in negro-hatred, whilom chief magistrate and disgrace of that +unfortunate city. But under your life-service _regime_ things are +managed in a more enlightened way. There they who have liberty--and +_sometimes_ use the liberty--to torture women into beastly submissions, +do not hide from the laws, they make the laws. There such a personage as +the one mentioned may be a _gentleman_, a man of high standing," one of +the most respectable men in the State" (Florida). + +And this, just _this_,--for surely you will not be a coward, and dodge +consequences,--you name a scheme of life-hire. This you esteem so much +superior to our democratic way of holding each man and woman to be the +shrine of rights which have an infinite sanctity, and of adjudging it +the chief duty of the State to annex to these rights the requisite force +for their practical assertion. + +Is it, then, You, or is it some burglarious Devil that has broken into +your bosom and stolen your soul, who is engaged in plastering over this +infernal fester with smooth euphemisms? Are You verily the mechanic who +is engaged in veneering these out-houses of hell with rosewood? Is it +your very and proper Self that stands there sprinkling _eau-de-Cologne_ +on the accursed reek of that pit of putrescence, so to disguise and +commend it to the nostrils of mankind? Is it in very deed Thomas +Carlyle, Thomas the Great, who now volunteers his services as male +lady's-maid to the queen-strumpet of modern history, and offers to her +sceptred foulness the benefit of his skill at the literary rouge-pots? +You? Yes? I give you joy of your avocations! Truly, it was worth the +while, having such a cause, to defame a noble people in the very hour of +their life-and-death struggle! + +Well, you have made your election; now I make mine. It is my deliberate +belief that no man ever gave heartier love and homage to another than I +to you; but while one woman in America may be _lawfully_ sent to the +whipping-post on such occasion, I will hold your existence and name, if +they come between me and her rescue, but as the life of a stinging gnat! +I love you,--but cannot quite sacrifice to you the sanctity of +womanhood, and all the honor and all the high hopes of a great nation. +Your scheme of "life-hire" will therefore have to undergo very essential +modifications, such as will not only alter, but _reverse_, its most +characteristic features, before I can esteem either it or the advocacy +of it anything less than abominable. + +But where are you now with relation to that Thomas Carlyle whose "Sartor +Resartus" I read twenty years ago afoot and on horseback, sleeping with +it under my pillow and wearing it in my pocket till pocket and it were +worn out,--I alone there in the remote solitudes of Maine? We have both +travelled far since then; but whither have you been travelling? The +whole wide heaven was not too wide for you then; but now you can be +jolly in your "nutshell." Then, you held spiritual, or human, values to +be final, infinite, absolute, and could gibe in your own incomparable +way at the besotted conventionalism which would place commercial values +above them; now, who chants with such a roaring, pious nasal at that +apotheosis of Property which our modern commercial slavery essentially +is? Then, with Schiller, you desired, as a basis of political society, +something better than a doctrine of personal _rights_, something more +noble, human, unitary, something more opposed to egoistic +self-assertion, namely, a doctrine of _powers_ and their consequent +_duties_; now, a scheme of society which is the merest riot or +insurrection of property-egotism reckons you among its chiefest +advocates. Then, you struck heroically out for a society more adequate +to the spiritual possibilities of man; now, social infidelity _plus_ +cotton and polite dining would seem to suffice for you. + +Ah, Heaven! is anything sadder than to see a grand imperial soul, long +worthy and secure of all love and honor, at length committing suicide, +not by dying, but by living? Ill it is when they that do deepest homage +to a great spirit can no longer pray for the increase of his days; when +there arises in their hearts a pleasure in the growing number of his +years expressly as these constitute a deduction from the unknown sum +total of those which have been appointed him; and when the utmost +bravery of their affection must breathe, not _Serus_, but CITO _in cadum +redeas!_ O royal Lear of our literature, who have spurned from your love +the dearest daughter of your thought, is it only left us to say, "How +friendly is Death,--Death, who restores us to free relations with the +whole, when our own fierce partialities have imprisoned and bound us +hand and foot"? + +Royal you are, royal in pity as in purpose; and you have done, nay, I +trust may still be doing, imperishable work. If only you did not hate +democracy so bitterly as to be perpetually prostrated by the recoil of +your own gun! Right or wrong in its inception, this aversion has now +become a chronic ailment, which drains insatiably at the fountains of +your spiritual force. I offer you the suggestion; I can do no more. + +To have lost, in the hour of our trial, the fellowship of yourself, and +of others in England whom we most delighted to honor, is a loss indeed. +Yet we grieve a thousand times more for you than for ourselves; and are +not absorbed in any grief. It is clear to us that the Eternal Providence +has assigned us our tasks, not by your advice, nor by vote of +Parliament,--astonishing to sundry as that may seem. Your opinion of the +matter we hold, therefore, to be quite beside the matter; and drivel, +like that of your nutshell-epic, by no means tends to make us wish that +Providence had acted upon European counsel rather than upon His Own! +Moreover, we are _very_ busy in these days, and can have small eye to +the by-standers. We are busy, and are likely to be so long; for the +peace that succeeds to such a war will be as dangerous and arduous as +the war itself. We have as little time, therefore, to grieve as to brag +or bluster; we must work. We neither solicit nor repel your sympathy; we +must work,--work straight on, and let all that be as it can be. + +We seek not to conceal even from _you_ that our democracy has great +weaknesses, as well as great strength. Mean, mercenary, and stolid men +are not found in England alone; they are ominously abundant here also. +We have lunatic radicalisms as well as sane, idiotic conservatisms as +well as intelligent. Too much for safety, our politics are purulent, our +good men over-apt to forget the objects of government in a besotted +devotion to the form. It is possible we may yet discover that universal +suffrage can be a trifle too universal,--that it should pause a _little_ +short of the state-prison. New York must see to it that the thief does +not patronize the judge, and sit in the prisoner's box as on the bench +of a higher court. Our democracy has somewhat to learn; it _knows_ that +it has somewhat to learn, and says cheerfully, "What is the use of +living without learning?" + +What can we do but meet the future with an open intelligence and a stout +heart? And this I say,--I, who am almost an extreme dissenter from +extreme democracy,--if our people bring to all future emergencies those +qualities of earnestness, courage, and constancy which they have thus +far contributed to the present, they will disgrace neither themselves +nor their institutions; and it will be their honor more than once to +extort some betrayal of dissatisfaction from those who, like yourself, +are happiest to see a democracy behaving, not well, but ill. + +"Peter of the North," then, has made up his mind. He is resolved on +having three things:-- + +First, a government; a real government; a government not to be whistled +down the wind by any jack (or Jeff) who chooses to secede: a government +that will not dawdle with hands in pockets while this continent is +converted into a maggot-swarm of ten-acre empires; + +Secondly, a government whose purpose, so far as it can act, shall be to +forward _every_ man on the path of his proper humanity; + +Thirdly, a government constituted and operated, so far as shall finally +prove possible, by the common intelligence and common conscience of the +whole people. + +This is Peter's business at present: he is intently minding his +business; and has been heard to mutter in his breast that "it might be +as well if others did the same." What "others," pray? + + * * * * * + +VOLUNTARIES. + + + I. + + Low and mournful be the strain, + Haughty thought be far from me; + Tones of penitence and pain, + Moanings of the Tropic sea; + Low and tender in the cell + Where a captive sits in chains, + Crooning ditties treasured well + From his Afric's torrid plains. + Sole estate his sire bequeathed-- + Hapless sire to hapless son-- + Was the wailing song he breathed, + And his chain when life was done. + + What his fault, or what his crime? + Or what ill planet crossed his prime? + Heart too soft and will too weak + To front the fate that crouches near,-- + Dove beneath the vulture's beak;-- + Will song dissuade the thirsty spear? + Dragged from his mother's arms and breast, + Displaced, disfurnished here, + His wistful toil to do his best + Chilled by a ribald jeer. + Great men in the Senate sate, + Sage and hero, side by side, + Building for their sons the State, + Which they shall rule with pride. + They forbore to break the chain + Which bound the dusky tribe, + Checked by the owners' fierce disdain, + Lured by "Union" as the bribe. + Destiny sat by, and said, + "Pang for pang your seed shall pay, + Hide in false peace your coward head, + I bring round the harvest-day." + + + II. + + Freedom all winged expands, + Nor perches in a narrow place, + Her broad van seeks unplanted lands, + She loves a poor and virtuous race. + Clinging to the colder zone + Whose dark sky sheds the snow-flake down, + The snow-flake is her banner's star, + Her stripes the boreal streamers are. + Long she loved the Northman well; + Now the iron age is done, + She will not refuse to dwell + With the offspring of the Sun + Foundling of the desert far, + Where palms plume and siroccos blaze, + He roves unhurt the burning ways + In climates of the summer star. + He has avenues to God + Hid from men of northern brain, + Far beholding, without cloud, + What these with slowest steps attain. + If once the generous chief arrive + To lead him willing to be led, + For freedom he will strike and strive, + And drain his heart till he be dead. + + + III. + + In an age of fops and toys, + Wanting wisdom, void of right, + Who shall nerve heroic boys + To hazard all in Freedom's fight,-- + Break sharply off their jolly games, + Forsake; their comrades gay, + And quit proud homes and youthful dames, + For famine, toil, and fray? + Yet on the nimble air benign + Speed nimbler messages, + That waft the breath of grace divine + To hearts in sloth and ease. + So nigh is grandeur to our dust, + So near is God to man, + When Duty whispers low, _Thou must_, + The youth replies, _I can_. + + + IV. + + Oh, well for the fortunate soul + Which Music's wings infold, + Stealing away the memory + Of sorrows new and old! + Yet happier he whose inward sight, + Stayed on his subtile thought, + Shuts his sense on toys of time, + To vacant bosoms brought. + But best befriended of the God + He who, in evil times, + Warned by an inward voice, + Heeds not the darkness and the dread, + Biding by his rule and choice, + Feeling only the fiery thread + Leading over heroic ground, + Walled with mortal terror round, + To the aim which him allures, + And the sweet heaven his deed secures. + + Stainless soldier on the walls, + Knowing this,--and knows no more,-- + Whoever fights, whoever falls, + Justice conquers evermore, + Justice after as before,-- + And he who battles on her side, + --God--though he were ten times slain-- + Crowns him victor glorified, + Victor over death and pain; + Forever: but his erring foe, + Self-assured that he prevails, + Looks from his victim lying low, + And sees aloft the red right arm + Redress the eternal scales. + He, the poor foe, whom angels foil, + Blind with pride, and fooled by hate, + Writhes within the dragon coil, + Reserved to a speechless fate. + + + V. + + Blooms the laurel which belongs + To the valiant chief who fights; + I see the wreath, I hear the songs + Lauding the Eternal Rights, + Victors over daily wrongs: + Awful victors, they misguide + Whom they will destroy, + And their coming triumph hide + In our downfall, or our joy: + Speak it firmly,--these are gods, + All are ghosts beside. + + * * * * * + +OUR DOMESTIC RELATIONS; + +OR, HOW TO TREAT THE REBEL STATES. + + +At this moment our Domestic Relations all hinge upon one question: _How +to treat, the Rebel States?_ No patriot citizen doubts the triumph of +our arms in the suppression of the Rebellion. Early or late, this +triumph is inevitable. It may be by a sudden collapse of the bloody +imposture, or it may be by a slower and more gradual surrender. For +ourselves, we are prepared for either alternative, and shall not be +disappointed, if we are constrained to wait yet a little longer. But +when the day of triumph comes, political duties will take the place of +military. The victory won by our soldiers must be assuredly wise +counsels, so that its hard-earned fruits may not be lost. + +The relations of the States to the National Government must be carefully +considered,--not too boldly, not too timidly,--in order to see in what +way, or by what process, _the transition from Rebel forms may be most +surely accomplished_. If I do not greatly err, it will be found that the +powers of Congress, which have thus far been so effective in raising +armies and in supplying moneys, will be important, if not essential, in +fixing the conditions of perpetual peace. But there is one point on +which there can be no question. The dogma and delusion of State Rights, +which did so much for the Rebellion, must not be allowed to neutralize +all that our arms have gained. + +Already, in a remarkable instance, the President has treated the +pretension of State Rights with proper indifference. Quietly and without +much discussion, he has constituted military governments in the Rebel +States, with governors nominated by himself,--all of which testifies +against the old pretension. Strange will it be, if this extraordinary +power, amply conceded to the President, is denied to Congress. +Practically the whole question with which I began is opened here. +Therefore to this aspect of it I ask your first attention. + + +CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENT _vs._. MILITARY GOVERNMENT. + +Four military governors have been already appointed: one for Tennessee, +one for South Carolina, one for North Carolina, and the other for +Louisiana. So far as is known, the appointment of each was by a simple +letter from the Secretary of War. But if this can be done in four +States, where is the limit? It may be done in every Rebel State, and if +not in every other State of the Union, it will be simply because the +existence of a valid State government excludes the exercise of this +extraordinary power. But assuming, that, as our arms prevail, it will be +done in every Rebel State, we shall then have _eleven_ military +governors, all deriving their authority from one source, ruling a +population amounting to upwards of nine millions. And this imperatorial +dominion, indefinite in extent, will also be indefinite in duration; for +if, under the Constitution and laws, it be proper to constitute such +governors, it is clear that they may be continued without regard to +time,--for years, if you please, as well as for weeks,--and the whole +region which they are called to sway will be a military empire, with all +powers, executive, legislative, and even judicial, derived from one man +in Washington. Talk of the "one-man power." Here it is with a vengeance. +Talk of military rule. Here it is, in the name of a republic. + +The bare statement of this case may put us on our guard. We may well +hesitate to organize a single State under a military government, when we +see where such a step will lead. If you approve one, you must approve +all, and the National Government may crystallize into a military +despotism. + +In appointing military governors of States, we follow an approved +example in certain cases beyond the jurisdiction of our Constitution, as +in California and Mexico after their conquest and before peace. It is +evident that in these cases there was no constraint from the +Constitution, and we were perfectly free to act according to the assumed +exigency. It may be proper to set up military governors for a conquered +country beyond our civil jurisdiction, and yet it may be questionable if +we should undertake to set up such governors in States which we all +claim to be within our civil jurisdiction. At all events, the two cases +are different, so that it is not easy to argue from one to the other. + +In Jefferson's Inaugural Address, where he develops what he calls "the +essential principles of our government, and consequently those which +ought to shape its administration," he mentions "_the supremacy of the +civil over the military authority_" as one of these "essential +principles," and then says:-- + +"These should be the creed of our political faith,--the text of civil +instruction,--the touchstone by which to try the services of those we +trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or alarm, let +us hasten to retrace our steps, and to regain the road which alone leads +to peace, liberty, and safety." + +In undertaking to create military governors of States, we reverse the +policy of the republic, as solemnly declared by Jefferson, and subject +the civil to the military authority. If this has been done, in patriotic +ardor, without due consideration, in a moment of error or alarm, it only +remains, that, according to Jefferson, we should "hasten to retrace our +steps, and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and +safety." + +There is nothing new under the sun, and the military governors whom we +are beginning to appoint find a prototype in the Protectorate of Oliver +Cromwell. After the execution of the King and the establishment of the +Commonwealth, the Protector conceived the idea of parcelling the kingdom +into military districts, of which there were _eleven_,--being precisely +the number which it is now proposed, under the favor of success, to +establish among us. Of this system a great authority, Mr. Hallam, in his +"Constitutional History of England," speaks thus:-- + +"To govern according to law may sometimes be an usurper's wish, but can +seldom be in his power. The Protector abandoned all thought of it. +Dividing the kingdom into districts, he placed at the head of each a +major-general, as _a sort of military magistrate_, responsible for the +subjection of his prefecture. These were _eleven in number_, men +bitterly hostile to the Royalist party, and insolent towards all civil +authority."[8] + +Carlyle, in his "Life of Cromwell," gives the following glimpse of this +military government:-- + +"The beginning of a universal scheme of major-generals: the +Lord-Protector and his Council of State having well considered and found +it the feasiblest,--'if not _good_, yet best.' 'It is an arbitrary +government,' murmur many. Yes, arbitrary, but beneficial. _These are +powers unknown to the English Constitution, I believe; but they are very +necessary for the Puritan English nation at this time._"[9] + +Perhaps no better words could be found in explanation of the Cromwellian +policy adopted by our President. + +A contemporary Royalist, Colonel Ludlow, whose "Memoirs" add to our +authentic history of those interesting times, characterizes these +military magistrates as so many "bashaws." Here are some of his words:-- + +"The major-generals carried things with unheard-of insolence in their +several precincts, decimating to extremity whom they pleased, and +interrupting the proceedings at law upon petitions of those who +pretended themselves aggrieved, _threatening such as would not yield a +manly submission to their orders with transportation to Jamaica or some +other plantation in the West Indies_."[10] + +Again, says the same contemporary writer:-- + +"There were sometimes bitter reflections cast upon the proceedings of +the major-generals by the lawyers and country-gentlemen, who accused +them to have done many things oppressive to the people, in interrupting +the course of the law, and _threatening such as would not submit to +their arbitrary orders with transportation beyond the seas_."[11] + +At last, even Cromwell, at the height of his power, found it necessary +to abandon the policy of military governors. He authorized his +son-in-law, Mr. Claypole, to announce in Parliament, "that he had +formerly thought it necessary, in respect to the condition in which the +nation had been, that the major-generals should be intrusted with the +authority which they had exercised; but in the present state of affairs +he conceived it inconsistent with the laws of England and liberties of +the people to continue their power any longer."[12] + +The conduct of at least one of our military magistrates seems to have +been a counterpart to that of these "bashaws" of Cromwell; and there is +no argument against that early military despotism which may not be urged +against any attempt to revive it in our day. Some of the acts of +Governor Stanley in North Carolina are in themselves an argument against +the whole system. + +It is clear that these military magistrates are without any direct +sanction in the Constitution or in existing laws. They are not even +"major-generals," or other military officers, charged with the duty of +enforcing martial law; but they are special creations of the Secretary +of War, acting under the President, and charged with universal powers. +As governors within the limits of a State, they obviously assume the +extinction of the old State governments for which they are substituted; +and the President, in appointing them, assumes a power over these States +kindred to his acknowledged power over Territories of the Union; but, in +appointing governors for Territories, he acts in pursuance of the +Constitution and laws, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. + +That the President should assume the vacation of the State governments +is of itself no argument against the creation of military governors; for +it is simply the assumption of an unquestionable fact. But if it be true +that the State governments have ceased to exist, then the way is +prepared for the establishment of provisional governments by Congress. +In short, if a new government is to be supplied, it should be supplied +by Congress rather than by the President, and it should be according to +established law rather than according to the mere will of any +functionary, to the end that ours may be a government of laws and not of +men. + +There is no argument for military governors which is not equally strong +for Congressional governments, while the latter have in their favor two +controlling considerations: first, that they proceed from the civil +rather than the military power; and, secondly, that they are created by +law. Therefore, in considering whether Congressional governments should +be constituted, I begin the discussion by assuming everything in their +favor which is already accorded to the other system. I should not do +this, if the system of military dictators were not now recognized, so +that the question is sharply presented, which of the two to choose. Even +if provisional governments by Congress are not constitutional, it does +not follow that military governments, without the sanction of Congress, +can be constitutional. But, on the other hand, I cannot doubt, that, if +military governments are constitutional, then, surely, the provisional +governments by Congress must be so also. In truth, there can be no +opening for military governments which is not also an opening for +Congressional governments, with this great advantage for the latter, +that they are in harmony with our institutions, which favor the civil +rather than the military power. + +In thus declaring an unhesitating preference for Congressional +governments, I am obviously sustained by reason. But there is positive +authority on this identical question. I refer to the recorded opinion of +Chancellor Kent, as follows:-- + +"Though the Constitution vests the executive power in the President, and +declares him Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the United +States, _these powers must necessarily be subordinate to the legislative +power in Congress_. It would appear to me to be the policy or true +construction of this simple and general grant of power to the President, +not to suffer it to interfere with those specific powers of Congress +which are more safely deposited in the legislative department, and that +_the powers thus assumed by the President do not belong to him, but to +Congress_."[13] + +Such is the weighty testimony of this illustrious master with regard to +the assumption of power by the President, in 1847, over the Mexican +ports in our possession. It will be found in the latest edition of his +"Commentaries" published during the author's life. Of course, it is +equally applicable to the recent assumptions within our own territory. +His judgment is clear in favor of Congressional governments. + +Of course, in ordinary times, and under ordinary circumstances, neither +system of government would be valid. A State, in the full enjoyment of +its rights, would spurn a military governor or a Congressional governor. +It would insist that its governor should be neither military nor +Congressional, but such as its own people chose to elect; and nobody +would question this right. The President does not think of sending a +military governor to New York; nor does Congress think of establishing a +provisional government in that State. It is only with regard to the +Rebel States that this question arises. The occasion, then, for the +exercise of this extraordinary power is found in the Rebellion. Without +the Rebellion, there would be no talk of any governor, whether military +or Congressional. + + +STATE RIGHTS. + +And here it becomes important to consider the operation of the Rebellion +in opening the way to this question. To this end we must understand the +relations between the States and the National Government, under the +Constitution of the United States. As I approach this question of +singular delicacy, let me say on the threshold, that for all those +rights of the States which are consistent with the peace, security, and +permanence of the Union, according to the objects grandly announced in +the Preamble of the Constitution, I am the strenuous advocate, at all +times and places. Never through any word or act of mine shall those +rights be impaired; nor shall any of those other rights be called in +question by which the States are held in harmonious relations as well +with each other as with the Union. But while thus strenuous for all that +justly belongs to the States, I cannot concede to them immunities +inconsistent with that Constitution which is the supreme law of the +land; nor can I admit the impeccability of States. + +From a period even anterior to the Federal Constitution there has been a +perverse pretension of State Rights, which has perpetually interfered +with the unity of our government. Throughout the Revolution this +pretension was a check upon the powers of Congress, whether in respect +to its armies or its finances; so that it was too often constrained to +content itself with the language of advice or persuasion rather than of +command. By the Declaration of Independence it was solemnly declared +that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and +independent _States_, and that, as such, they have full powers to levy +war, to contract alliances, to establish commerce, and to do all other +acts which independent _States_ may of right do." Thus by this original +charter the early colonies were changed into independent States, under +whose protection the liberties of the country were placed. + +Early steps were taken to supply the deficiencies of this government, +which was effective only through the generous patriotism of the people. +In July, 1778, two years after the Declaration, Articles of +Confederation were framed, but they were not completely ratified by all +the States till March, 1781. The character of this new government, which +assumed the style of "The United States of America," will appear in the +title of these Articles, which was as follows:--"Articles of +Confederation and Perpetual Union _between the States_ of New Hampshire, +Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, +New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North +Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia." By the second article it was +declared, that "_each State retains its sovereignty_, freedom, and +independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by +this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress +assembled." By the third article it was further declared, that "the said +_States_ hereby severally enter into _a firm league_ of friendship with +each other, for their common defence, the security of their liberties, +and their mutual and general welfare." By another article, a "committee +of the _States_, or any nine of them," was authorized in the recess to +execute the powers of Congress. The government thus constituted was a +compact between _sovereign States_,--or, according to its precise +language, "a firm league of friendship" between _these States_, +administered, in the recess of Congress, by a "committee of _the +States_." Thus did State Rights triumph. + +But its imbecility from this pretension soon became apparent. As early +as December, 1782, a committee of Congress made an elaborate report on +the refusal of Rhode Island, one of the States, to confer certain powers +on Congress with regard to revenue and commerce. In April, 1783, an +address of Congress to _the States_ was put forth, appealing to their +justice and plighted faith, and representing the consequence of a +failure on their part to sustain the Government and provide for its +wants. In April, 1784, a similar appeal was made to what were called +"the several States," whose legislatures were recommended to vest "the +United States in Congress assembled" with certain powers. In July, 1785, +a committee of Congress made another elaborate report on the reason why +the States should confer upon Congress powers therein enumerated, in the +course of which it was urged, that, "unless _the States_ act together, +there is no plan of policy into which they can separately enter, which +they will not be separately interested to defeat, and, of course, all +their measures must prove vain and abortive." In February and March, +1786, there were two other reports of committees of Congress, exhibiting +the failure of _the States_ to comply with the requisitions of Congress, +and the necessity for a complete accession of _all the States_ to the +revenue system. In October, 1786, there was still another report, most +earnestly renewing the former appeals to _the States_. Nothing could be +more urgent. + +As early as July, 1782, even before the first report to Congress, +resolutions were adopted by the State of New York, declaring "that the +situation of _these States_ is in a peculiar manner critical," and "that +the radical source of most of our embarrassments is _the want of +sufficient power in Congress_ to effectuate that ready and perfect +cooperation of _the different States_ on which their immediate safety +and future happiness depend." Finally, in September, 1786, at Annapolis, +commissioners from several States, after declaring "the situation of the +United States delicate and critical, calling for an exertion of the +united virtue and wisdom of all the members of the Confederacy," +recommended the meeting of a Convention "to devise such further +provision as shall appear necessary to render the Constitution of the +Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." In +pursuance of this recommendation, the Congress of the Confederation +proposed a Convention "for the purpose of revising the Articles of +Confederation and Perpetual Union between the United States of America, +and reporting such alterations and amendments of the said Articles of +Confederation as the representatives met in such Convention shall judge +proper and necessary to render them adequate to the preservation and +support of the Union." + +In pursuance of the call, delegates to the proposed Convention were duly +appointed by the legislatures of the several States, and the Convention +assembled at Philadelphia in May, 1787. The present Constitution was the +well-ripened fruit of their deliberations. In transmitting it to +Congress, General Washington, who was the President of the Convention, +in a letter bearing date September 17, 1787, made use of this +instructive language:-- + + "It is obviously impracticable in the Federal Government of _these + States to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each_, + and yet provide for the interest and safety of all. Individuals + entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve + the rest. The magnitude of the sacrifice must depend as well on + situation and circumstance as on the object to be obtained. It is + at all times difficult to draw with precision the line between + those rights which must be surrendered and those which may be + reserved; and on the present occasion this difficulty will be + increased by a difference _among the several States_ as to their + situation, extent, habits, and particular interests. In all our + deliberations we kept steadily in view that which appears to us + the greatest interest of every true American,--THE CONSOLIDATION + OF OUR UNION,--in which is involved our prosperity, safety, + perhaps our national existence. + + "GEORGE WASHINGTON." + +The Constitution was duly transmitted by Congress to the several +legislatures, by which it was submitted to conventions of delegates +"chosen in each State by the people thereof," who ratified the same. +Afterwards, Congress, by resolution, dated September 13, 1788, setting +forth that the Convention had reported "a Constitution _for the people +of the United States_" which had been duly ratified, proceeded to +authorize the necessary elections under the new government. + +The Constitution, it will be seen, was framed in order to remove the +difficulties arising from _State Rights_. So paramount was this purpose, +that, according to the letter of Washington, it was kept steadily in +view in all the deliberations of the Convention, which did not hesitate +to declare _the consolidation of our Union_ as essential to our +prosperity, safety, and perhaps our national existence. + +The unity of the government was expressed in the term "Constitution," +instead of "Articles of Confederation between the States," and in the +idea of "a more perfect union," instead of a "league of friendship." It +was also announced emphatically in the Preamble:-- + +"_We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect +union_, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the +common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of +liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this +Constitution for the United States of America." + +Not "we, the States," but "we, the people of the United States." Such is +the beginning and origin of our Constitution. Here is no compact or +league between States, involving the recognition of State rights; but a +government ordained and established by the people of the United States +for themselves and their posterity. This government is not established +_by the States_, nor is it established _for the States_; but it is +established _by the people_, for themselves and their posterity. It is +true, that, in the organization of the government, the existence of the +States is recognized, and the original name of "United States" is +preserved; but the sovereignty of the States is absorbed in that more +perfect union which was then established. There is but one sovereignty +recognized, and this is the sovereignty of the United States. To the +several States is left that special local control which is essential to +the convenience and business of life, while to the United States, as a +_Plural Unit_, is allotted that commanding sovereignty which embraces +and holds the whole country within its perpetual and irreversible +jurisdiction. + +This obvious character of the Constitution did not pass unobserved at +the time of its adoption. Indeed the Constitution was most strenuously +opposed on the ground that the States were absorbed in the Nation. +Patrick Henry protested against consolidated power. In the debates of +the Virginia Convention he exclaimed:-- + +"And here I would make this inquiry of those worthy characters who +composed a part of the late Federal Convention. I am sure they were +fully impressed with the necessity of forming a great consolidated +government, instead of a confederation. _That this is a consolidated +government is demonstrably clear_; and the danger of such a government +is to my mind very striking. I have the highest veneration for those +gentlemen; but, Sir, give me leave to demand, What right had they to +say, '_We, the people'?_ Who authorized them to speak the language of +'_We, the people_,' instead of '_We, the States_'?"[14] + +And again, at another stage of the debate, the same patriotic opponent +of the Constitution declared succinctly:-- + +"The question turns, Sir, on that poor little thing, the expression, +'We, _the people_,' instead of _the States_ of America."[15] + +In the same convention another patriotic opponent of the Constitution, +George Mason, following Patrick Henry, said:-- + +"Whether the Constitution is good or bad, the present clause clearly +discovers that it is a National Government, and no longer a +Confederation."[16] + +But against all this opposition, and in the face of this exposure, the +Constitution was adopted, in the name of the people of the United +States. Much, indeed, was left to the States; but it was no longer in +their name that the government was organized, while the miserable +pretension of State "sovereignty" was discarded. Even in the discussions +of the Federal Convention Mr. Madison spoke thus plainly:-- + +"Some contend that States are _sovereign_, when, in fact, they are only +political societies. The States never possessed the essential rights of +sovereignty. These were always vested in Congress." + +Grave words, especially when we consider the position of their author. +They were substantially echoed by Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, +afterwards Vice-President, who said:-- + +"It appears to me that the States never were independent. They had only +corporate rights." + +Better words still fell from Mr. Wilson of Pennsylvania, known +afterwards as a learned judge of the Supreme Court, and also for his +Lectures on Law:-- + +"Will a regard to State rights justify the sacrifice of the rights of +men? If we proceed on any other foundation than the last, our building +will neither be solid or lasting." + +The argument was unanswerable then. It is unanswerable now. Do not +elevate the sovereignty of the States against the Constitution of the +United States. It is hardly less odious than the early pretension of +sovereign power against Magna Charta, according to the memorable words +of Lord Coke, as recorded by Rushworth:-- + +"Sovereign power is no Parliamentary word. In my opinion, it weakens +Magna Charta and all our statutes; for they are absolute without any +saving of sovereign power. And shall we now add it, we shall weaken the +foundation of law, and then the building must needs fall. Take we heed +what we yield unto. _Magna Charta is such a fellow that he will have no +sovereign._"[17] + +But the Constitution is our Magna Charta, which can bear no sovereign +but itself, as you will see at once, if you will consider its character. +And this practical truth was recognized at its formation, as may be seen +in the writings of our Rushworth,--I refer to Nathan Dane, who was a +member of Congress under the Confederation. He tells us plainly, that +the terms "sovereign States," "State sovereignty," "State rights," +"rights of States," are not "constitutional expressions." + + +POWERS OF CONGRESS. + +In the exercise of its sovereignty Congress in intrusted with large and +peculiar powers. Take notice of them, and you will see how little of +"sovereignty" is left to the States. Their simple enumeration is an +argument against the pretension of State Rights. Congress may lay and +collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and +_provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United +States_. It may borrow money on the credit of the United States; +regulate commerce with foreign nations, and _among the several States_, +and with the Indian tribes; establish a uniform rule of naturalization, +and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy, _throughout the United +States_; coin money, regulate the value thereof, and fix the standard of +weights and measures; establish post-offices and post-roads; promote the +progress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited times to +authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings +and discoveries; define and punish piracies and felonies committed on +the high seas, and offences against the law of nations; declare war; +grant letters of marque and reprisal; make rules concerning captures on +land and water; raise and support armies; provide and maintain a navy; +make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval +forces; provide for calling forth the militia to execute _the laws of +the Union_, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions; provide for +organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such +part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, +reserving to the States respectively the appointment of officers and the +authority of training the militia _according to the discipline +prescribed by Congress_; and make all laws necessary and proper for +carrying into execution the foregoing powers and all other powers vested +in the Government of the United States. + +Such are the ample and diversified powers of Congress, embracing all +those powers which enter into sovereignty. With the concession of these +to the United States there seems to be little left for the several +States. In the power to "declare war" and to "raise and support armies," +Congress possesses an exclusive power, in itself immense and infinite, +over persons and property in the several States, while by the power to +"regulate commerce" it may put limits round about the business of the +several States. And even in the case of the militia, which is the +original military organization of the people, nothing is left to the +States except "the appointment of the officers," and the authority to +train it "according to the discipline _prescribed by Congress_." It is +thus that these great agencies are all intrusted to the United States, +while the several States are subordinated to their exercise. + +Constantly, and in everything, we behold the constitutional +subordination of the States. But there are other provisions by which +the States are expressly deprived of important powers. For instance: "No +State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; coin +money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a +tender in payment of debts." Or, if the States may exercise certain +powers, it is only with the consent of Congress. For instance: "No State +shall, _without the consent of Congress_, lay any duty of tonnage, keep +troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or +compact with another State or with a foreign power." Here is a magistral +power accorded to Congress, utterly inconsistent with the pretensions of +State Rights. Then, again: "No State shall, _without the consent of the +Congress_, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what +may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the +net produce of all duties and imposts laid by any State on imports or +exports shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; _and +all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the +Congress_." Here, again, is a similar magistral power accorded to +Congress, and, as if still further to deprive the States of their much +vaunted sovereignty, the laws which they make with the consent of +Congress are expressly declared to be subject "to the revision and +control of the Congress." But there is another instance still. According +to the Constitution, "Full faith and credit shall be given in each State +to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other +State": but here mark the controlling power of Congress, which is +authorized to "prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and +proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof." + + +SUPREMACY OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. + +But there are five other provisions of the Constitution by which its +supremacy is positively established. 1. "The citizens of each State +shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the +several States." As Congress has the exclusive power to establish "an +uniform rule of naturalization," it may, under these words of the +Constitution, secure for its newly entitled citizens "all privileges and +immunities of citizens in the several States," in defiance of State +Rights. 2. "New States may be admitted _by the Congress_ into this +Union." According to these words, the States cannot even determine their +associates, but are dependent in this respect upon the will of Congress. +3. But not content with taking from the States these important powers of +sovereignty, it is solemnly declared that the Constitution, and the laws +of the United States made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties under +the authority of the United States, "SHALL BE THE SUPREME LAW OF THE +LAND, _anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary +notwithstanding_." Thus are State Rights again subordinated to the +National Constitution, which is erected into the paramount authority. 4. +But this is done again by another provision, which declares that "_the +members of the several State legislatures_, and all executive and +judicial officers of _the several States_, shall be bound by oath or +affirmation to support this Constitution"; so that not only State laws +are subordinated to the National Constitution, but the makers of State +laws, and all other State officers, are constrained to declare their +allegiance to this Constitution, thus placing the State, alike through +its acts and its agents, in complete subordination to the sovereignty of +the United States. 5. But this sovereignty is further proclaimed in the +solemn injunction, that "the United States shall guarantee to every +State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect +each of them against invasion." Here are duties of guaranty and +protection imposed upon the United States, by which their position is +fixed as the supreme power. There can be no such guaranty without the +implied right to examine and consider the governments of the several +States; and there can be no such protection without a similar right to +examine and consider the condition of the several States: thus +subjecting them to the rightful supervision and superintendence of the +National Government. + +Thus, whether we regard the large powers vested in Congress, the powers +denied to the States absolutely, the powers denied to the States without +the consent of Congress, or those other provisions which accord +supremacy to the United States, we shall find the pretension of State +sovereignty without foundation, except in the imagination of its +partisans. Before the Constitution such sovereignty may have existed; it +was declared in the Articles of Confederation; but since then it has +ceased to exist. It has disappeared and been lost in the supremacy of +the National Government, so that it can no longer be recognized. +Perverse men, insisting that it still existed, and weak men, mistaking +the shadow of former power for the reality, have made arrogant claims in +its behalf. When the Constitution was proclaimed, and George Washington +took his oath to support it as President, our career as a Nation began, +with all the unity of a nation. The States remained as living parts of +the body, important to the national strength, and essential to those +currents which maintain national life, but plainly subordinate to the +United States, which then and there stood forth a Nation, one and +indivisible. + + +MISCHIEFS IN THE NAME OF STATE RIGHTS. + +But the new government had hardly been inaugurated before it was +disturbed by the pestilent pretension of State Rights, which, indeed, +has never ceased to disturb it since. Discontent with the treaty between +the United States and Great Britain, negotiated by that purest patriot, +John Jay, under instructions from Washington, in 1794, aroused Virginia, +even at that early day, to commence an opposition to its ratification, +_in the name of State Rights_. Shortly afterwards appeared the famous +resolutions of Virginia and those of Kentucky, usually known as the +"Resolutions of '98," declaring that the National Government was founded +on a compact between the States, and claiming for the States the right +to sit in judgment on the National Government, and to interpose, if they +thought fit; all this, as you will see, _in the name of State Rights_. +This pretension on the part of the States increased, till, at last, on +the mild proposition to attach a prospective prohibition of Slavery as a +condition to the admission of Missouri into the Union as a new State, +the opposition raged furiously, even to the extent of menacing the +existence of the Union; and this, too, was done _in the name of State +Rights_. Ten years later, the pretension took the familiar form of +Nullification, insisting that our government was only a compact of +States, any one of which was free to annul an act of Congress at its own +pleasure; and all this _in the name of State Rights_. For a succession +of years afterwards, at the presentation of petitions against +Slavery,--petitions for the recognition of Hayti,--at the question of +Texas,--at the Wilmot Proviso,--at the admission of California as a Free +State,--at the discussion of the Compromises of 1850,--at the Kansas +Question,--the Union was menaced; and always _in the name of State +Rights_. The menace was constant, and it sometimes showed itself on +small as well as great occasions, but always _in the name of State +Rights_. When it was supposed that Fremont was about to be chosen +President, the menace became louder, and mingling with it was the hoarse +mutter of war; and all this audacity was _in the name of State Rights_. + +But in the autumn of 1860, on the election of Mr. Lincoln, the case +became much worse. Scarcely was the result of this election known by +telegraph before the country was startled by other intelligence, to the +effect that certain States at the South were about to put in execution +the long-pending threat of Secession, of course _in the name of State +Rights_. First came South Carolina, which, by an ordinance adopted in a +State convention, undertook to repeal the original act by which the +Constitution was adopted in this State, and to declare that the State +had ceased to be one of the States of the Union. At the same time a +Declaration of Independence was put forth by this State, which proceeded +to organize itself as an independent community. This example was +followed successively by other States, which, by formal acts of +Secession, undertook to dissolve their relations with the Union, always, +be it understood, _in the name of State Rights_. A new Confederation was +formed by these States, with a new Constitution, and Jefferson Davis at +its head; and the same oaths of loyalty by which the local functionaries +of all these States had been bound to the Union were now transferred to +this new Confederation,--of course, in utter violation of the +Constitution of the United States, but always _in the name of State +Rights_. The ordinances of Secession were next maintained by war, which, +beginning with the assault upon Fort Sumter, convulsed the whole +country, till, at last, all the States of the new Confederation are in +open rebellion, which the Government of the United States is now +exerting its energies, mustering its forces, and taxing its people to +suppress. The original claim, _in the name of State Rights_, has swollen +to all the proportions of an unparalleled war, which, _in the name of +State Rights_, now menaces the national life. + +But the pretensions in the name of State Rights are not all told. While +the ordinances of Secession were maturing, and before they were yet +consummated, Mr. Buchanan, who was then President, declined to +interfere, on the ground that what had been done was done by States, and +that it was contrary to the theory of our government "to coerce a +State." Thus was the pretension of State Rights made the apology for +imbecility. Had this President then interfered promptly and loyally, it +cannot be doubted that this whole intolerable crime might have been +trampled out forever. And now, when it is proposed that Congress shall +organise governments in these States, which are absolutely without loyal +governments, we are met by the objection founded on State Rights. The +same disastrous voice which from the beginning of our history has +sounded in our ears still makes itself heard; but, alas! it is now on +the lips of our friends. Of course, just in proportion as it prevails +will it be impossible to establish the Constitution again throughout the +Rebel States. State Rights are madly triumphant, if, first, in their +name Rebel governments can be organized, and then, again, in their name +Congressional governments to displace the Rebel governments can be +resisted. If they can be employed, first to sever the States from the +Union, and then to prevent the Union from extending its power over them, +State Rights are at once a sword and buckler to the Rebellion. It was +through the imbecility of Mr. Buchanan that the States were allowed to +use the sword. God forbid that now, through any similar imbecility of +Congress, they shall be allowed to use the buckler! + + +SHALL CONGRESS ASSUME JURISDICTION OF THE REBEL STATES? + +And now, in this discussion, we are brought to the practical question +which is destined to occupy so much of public attention. It is proposed +to bring the action of Congress to bear directly upon the Rebel States. +This may be by the establishment of provisional governments under the +authority of Congress, or simply by making the admission or recognition +of the States depend upon the action of Congress. The essential feature +of this proposition is, _that Congress shall assume jurisdiction of the +Rebel States_. A bill authorizing provisional governments in these +States was introduced into the Senate by Mr. Harris of the State of New +York, and was afterwards reported from the Judiciary Committee of that +body; but it was left with the unfinished business, when the late +Congress expired on the fourth of March. The opposition to this +proposition, so far as I understand it, assumes two forms: first, that +these States are always to be regarded as States, with State rights, and +therefore cannot be governed by Congress; and, secondly, that, if any +government is to be established over them, it must be simply a military +government, with a military governor, appointed by the President, as is +the case with Tennessee and North Carolina. But State rights are as much +disturbed by a military government as by a Congressional government. The +local government is as much set aside in one case as in the other. If +the President, within State limits, can proceed to organize a military +government to exercise all the powers of the State, surely Congress can +proceed to organize a civil government within the same limits for the +same purpose; nor can any pretension of State Rights be effective +against Congress more than against the President. Indeed, the power +belongs to Congress by a higher title than it belongs to the President: +first, because a civil government is more in harmony with our +institutions, and, wherever possible, is required; and, secondly, +because there are provisions of the Constitution under which this power +is clearly derived. + +Assuming, then, that the pretension of State Rights is as valid against +one form of government as against the other, and still further assuming, +that, in the case of military governments, this pretension is +practically overruled by the President at least, we are brought again to +consider the efficacy of this pretension when advanced against +Congressional governments. + +It is argued that the Acts of Secession are all inoperative and void, +and that therefore the States continue precisely as before, with their +local constitutions, laws, and institutions in the hands of traitors, +but totally unchanged, and ready to be quickened into life by returning +loyalty. Such, I believe, is a candid statement of the pretension for +State Rights against Congressional governments, which, it is argued, +cannot be substituted for the State governments. + +In order to prove that the Rebel States continue precisely as before, we +are reminded that Andrew Johnson continued to occupy his seat in the +Senate after Tennessee had adopted its Act of Secession, and embarked in +rebellion, and that his presence testified to the fact that Rebel +Tennessee was still a State of the Union. No such conclusion is +authorized by the incident in question. There are two principles of +Parliamentary law long ago fixed: first, that the power once conferred +by an election to Parliament is _irrevocable_, so that it is not +affected by any subsequent change in the constituency; and, secondly, +that a member, when once chosen, is _a member for the whole kingdom_, +becoming thereby, according to the words of an early author, not merely +knight or burgess of the county or borough which elected him, but knight +or burgess of England.[18] If these two principles are not entirely +inapplicable to our political system, then the seat of Andrew Johnson +was not in any respect affected by the subsequent madness of his State, +nor can the legality of his seat be any argument for his State. + +We are also reminded that during the last session of Congress two +Senators from Virginia represented that State in the Senate; and the +argument is pressed, that no such representation would be valid, if the +State government of Virginia was vacated. This is a mistake. Two things +are established by the presence of these Senators in the National +Senate: first, that the old State government of Virginia is extinct, +and, secondly, that a new government has been set up in its place. It +was my fortune to listen to one of these Senators while he earnestly +denounced the idea that a State government might disappear. I could not +but think that he strangely forgot the principle to which he owed his +seat in the Senate,--as men sometimes forget a benefactor. + +It is true, beyond question, that the Acts of Secession are all +inoperative and void against the Constitution of the United States. +Though matured in successive conventions, sanctioned in various forms, +and maintained ever since by bloody war, these acts--no matter by what +name they may be called--are all equally impotent to withdraw an acre of +territory or a single inhabitant from the rightful jurisdiction of the +United States. But while thus impotent against the United States, it +does not follow that they were equally impotent in the work of +self-destruction. Clearly, the Rebels, by utmost efforts, could not +impair the National jurisdiction; but it remains to be seen if their +enmity did not act back with fatal rebound upon those very State Rights +in behalf of which they commenced their treason. + + +STATE SUICIDE. + +It is sometimes said that the States themselves committed _suicide_, so +that as States they ceased to exist, leaving their whole jurisdiction +open to the occupation of the United States under the Constitution. This +assumption is founded on the fact, that, whatever may be the existing +governments in these States, they are in no respect constitutional, and +since the State itself is known by the government, with which its life +is intertwined, it must cease to exist constitutionally when its +government no longer exists constitutionally. Perhaps, however, it would +be better to avoid the whole question of the life or death of the State, +and to content ourselves with an inquiry into the condition of its +government. It is not easy to say what constitutes that entity which we +call a State; nor is the discussion much advanced by any theory with +regard to it. To my mind it seems a topic fit for the old schoolmen or a +modern debating society; and yet, considering the part it has already +played in this discussion, I shall be pardoned for a brief allusion to +it. + +There are well-known words which ask and answer the question, "What +constitutes _a State_?" But the scholarly poet was not thinking of a +"State" of the American Union. Indeed, this term is various in its use. +Sometimes it stands for civil society itself. Sometimes it is the +general name for a political community, not unlike "nation" or +"country,"--as where our fathers, in the Resolution of Independence, +which preceded the Declaration, spoke of "the _State_ of Great Britain." +Sometimes it stands for the government,--as when Louis XIV., at the +height of his power, exclaimed, "The _State_, it is I"; or when Sir +Christopher Hatton, in the famous farce of "The Critic," ejaculates,-- + + "Oh, pardon me, if my conjecture's rash, + But I surmise--_the State_-- + Some danger apprehends." + +Among us the term is most known as the technical name for one of the +political societies which compose our Union. Of course, when used in the +latter restricted sense, it must not be confounded with the same term +when used in a different and broader sense. But it is obvious that some +persons attribute to the one something of the qualities which can belong +only to the other. Nobody has suggested, I presume, that any "State" of +our Union has, through rebellion, ceased to exist as a _civil society_, +or even as a _political community_. It is only as a _State of the +Union_, armed with State rights, or at least as a _local government_, +which annually renews itself, as the snake its skin, that it can be +called in question. But it is vain to challenge for the technical +"State," or for the annual government, that immortality which belongs to +civil society. The one is an artificial body, the other is a natural +body; and while the first, overwhelmed by insurrection or war, may +change or die, the latter can change or die only with the extinction of +the community itself, whatever may be its name or its form. + +It is because of confusion in the use of this term that there has been +so much confusion in the political controversies where it has been +employed. But nowhere has this confusion led to greater absurdity than +in the pretension which has been recently made in the name of State +Rights,--as if it were reasonable to attribute to a technical "State" of +the Union that immortality which belongs to civil society. + +From approved authorities it appears that a "State," even in a broader +signification, may lose its life. Mr. Phillimore, in his recent work on +International Law, says:--"A State, like an individual, may die," and +among the various ways, he says, "by its submission and the donation of +itself to another country."[19] But in the case of our Rebel States +there has been a plain submission and donation of +themselves,--_effective, at least, to break the continuity of +government_, if not to destroy that immortality which has been claimed. +Nor can it make any difference, in breaking this continuity, that the +submission and donation, constituting a species of attornment, were to +enemies at home rather than to enemies abroad,--to Jefferson Davis +rather than to Louis Napoleon. The thread is snapped in one case as much +as in the other. + +But a _change of form_ in the actual government may be equally +effective. Cicero speaks of a change so complete as "to leave no image +of a State behind." But this is precisely what has been done throughout +the whole Rebel region: there is no image of a _constitutional_ State +left behind. Another authority, Aristotle, whose words are always +weighty, says, that, _the form of the State being changed, the State is +no longer the same_, as the harmony is not the same when we modulate out +of the Dorian mood into the Phrygian. But if ever an unlucky people +modulated out of one mood into another, it was our Rebels, when they +undertook to modulate out of the harmonies of the Constitution into +their bloody discords. + +Without stopping further for these diversions, I content myself with the +testimony of Edmund Burke, who, in a striking passage, which seems to +have been written for us, portrays the extinction of a political +community; but I quote his eloquent words rather for suggestion than for +authority:-- + +"In a state of _rude_ Nature there is no such thing as a people. A +number of men in themselves have no collective capacity. The idea of +people is the idea of a corporation. It is wholly artificial, and made, +like all other legal fictions, by common agreement. What the particular +nature of that agreement was is collected from the form into which the +particular society has been cast. Any other is not _their_ covenant. +_When men, therefore, break p the original compact or agreement which +gives its corporate form and capacity to a State, they are no longer a +people; they have no longer a corporate existence_; they have no longer +a legal coactive force to bind within, nor a claim to be recognized +abroad. They are a number of vague, loose individuals, and nothing more. +With them all is to begin again. Alas! they little know how many a weary +step is to be taken before they can form themselves into a mass which +has a true politic personality."[20] + +If that great master of eloquence could be heard, who can doubt that he +would blast our Rebel States, as senseless communities who have +sacrificed that corporate existence which makes them living, component +members of our Union of States? + + +STATE FORFEITURE. + +But again it is sometimes said, that the States, by their flagrant +treason, have _forfeited_ their rights as States, so as to be civilly +dead. It is a patent and indisputable fact, that this gigantic treason +was inaugurated with all the forms of law known to the States; that it +was carried forward not only by individuals, but also by States, so far +as States can perpetrate treason; that the States pretended to withdraw +bodily in their corporate capacities;--that the Rebellion, as it showed +itself, was _by_ States as well as _in_ States; that it was by the +governments of States as well as by the people of States; and that, to +the common observer, the crime was consummated by the several +corporations as well as by the individuals of whom they were composed. +From this fact, obvious to all, it is argued, that, since, according to +Blackstone, "a traitor hath abandoned his connection with society, and +hath no longer any right to the advantages which before belonged to him +purely as a member of the community," by the same principle the traitor +State is no longer to be regarded as a member of the Union. But it is +not necessary, on the present occasion, to insist on the application of +any such principle to States. + + +STATE ABDICATION. + +Again it is said, that the States by their treason and rebellion, +levying war upon the National Government, have _abdicated_ their places +in the Union; and here the argument is upheld by the historic example of +England, at the Revolution of 1688, when, on the flight of James II. and +the abandonment of his kingly duties, the two Houses of Parliament +voted, that the monarch, "having violated the fundamental laws, and +having withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, _had abdicated the +government_, and that the throne had thereby become vacant."[21] But it +is not necessary for us to rely on any allegation of abdication, +applicable as it may be. + + +RIGHTFUL GOVERNMENT IN THE REBEL STATES VACATED. + +It only remains that we should see things as they are, and not seek to +substitute theory for fact. On this important question I discard all +theory, whether it be of State suicide or State forfeiture or State +abdication, on the one side, or of State rights, immortal and +unimpeachable, on the other side. Such discussions are only endless +mazes in which a whole senate may be lost. And in discarding all theory, +I discard also the question of _de jure_,--whether, for instance, the +Rebel States, while the Rebellion is flagrant, are _de jure_ States of +the Union, with all the rights of States. It is enough, that, for the +time being, and _in the absence of a loyal government_, they can take no +part and perform no function in the Union, _so that they cannot be +recognized by the National Government_. The reason is plain. There are +in these States no local functionaries bound by constitutional oaths, so +that, in fact, there are no constitutional functionaries; and since the +State government is necessarily composed of such functionaries, there +can be no State government. Thus, for instance, in South Carolina, +Pickens and his associates may call themselves the governor and +legislature, and in Virginia, Letcher and his associates may call +themselves governor and legislature; but we cannot recognize them as +such. Therefore to all pretensions in behalf of State governments in the +Rebel States I oppose the simple FACT, that for the time being no such +governments exist. The broad spaces once occupied by those governments +are now abandoned and vacated. + +That patriot Senator, Andrew Johnson,--faithful among the faithless, the +Abdiel of the South,--began his attempt to reorganize Tennessee by an +Address, as early as the 18th of March, 1862, in which he made use of +these words:-- + +"I find most, if not all, of the offices, both State and Federal, +_vacated, either by actual abandonment, or by the action of the +incumbents in attempting to subordinate their functions_ to a power in +hostility to the fundamental law of the State and subversive of her +national allegiance." + +In employing the word "vacated," Mr. Johnson hit upon the very term +which, in the famous resolution of 1688, was held to be most effective +in dethroning King James. After declaring that he had abdicated the +government, it was added, "that the throne had thereby become _vacant_" +on which Macaulay happily remarks:-- + +"The word _abdication_ conciliated politicians of a more timid school. +To the real statesman the simple important clause was that _which +declared the throne vacant_; and if that clause could be carried, he +cared little by what preamble it might be introduced."[22] + +And the same simple principle is now in issue. It is enough that the +Rebel States be declared _vacated_, as _in fact_ they are, by all local +government which we are bound to recognize, so that the way is open to +the exercise of a rightful jurisdiction. + + +TRANSITION TO RIGHTFUL GOVERNMENT. + +And here the question occurs, How shall this rightful jurisdiction be +established in the vacated States? Some there are, so impassioned for +State rights, and so anxious for forms even at the expense of substance, +that they insist upon the instant restoration of the old State +governments in all their parts, through the agency of loyal citizens, +who meanwhile must be protected in this work of restoration. But, +assuming that all this is practicable, as it clearly is not, it +attributes to the loyal citizens of a Rebel State, however few in +numbers,--it may be an insignificant minority,--a power clearly +inconsistent with the received principle of popular government, that the +majority must rule. The seven voters of Old Sarum were allowed to return +two members of Parliament, because this place,--once a Roman fort, and +afterwards a sheepwalk,--many generations before, at the early casting +of the House of Commons, had been entitled to this representation; but +the argument for State Rights assumes that all these rights may be +lodged in voters as few in number as ever controlled a rotten borough of +England. + +Pray, admitting that an insignificant minority is to organize the new +government, how shall it be done? and by whom shall it be set in motion? +In putting these questions I open the difficulties. As the original +government has ceased to exist, and there are none who can be its legal +successors, so as to administer the requisite oaths, it is not easy to +see how the new government can be set in motion without a resort to some +revolutionary proceeding, instituted either by the citizens or by the +military power,--unless Congress, in the exercise of its plenary powers, +should undertake to organize the new jurisdiction. + +But every revolutionary proceeding is to be avoided. It will be within +the recollection of all familiar with our history, that our fathers, +while regulating the separation of the Colonies from the parent country, +were careful that all should be done according to the forms of law, so +that the thread of _legality_ should continue unbroken. To this end the +Continental Congress interfered by a supervising direction. But the Tory +argument in that day denied the power of Congress as earnestly as it +denies this power now. Mr. Duane, of the Continental Congress, made +himself the mouthpiece of this denial:-- + +"_Congress ought not to determine a point, of this sort about +instituting government_. What is it to Congress how justice is +administered? You have no right to pass the resolution, any more than +Parliament has. How does it appear that no favorable answer is likely to +be given to our petitions?"[23] + +In spite of this argument, the Congress of that day undertook, by formal +resolutions, to indicate the process by which the new governments should +be constituted.[24] + +If we seek, for our guidance, the principle which entered into this +proceeding of the Continental Congress, we shall find it in the idea, +that nothing must be left to illegal or informal action, but that all +must be done according to rules of constitution and law previously +ordained. Perhaps this principle has never been more distinctly or +powerfully enunciated than by Mr. Webster, in his speech against the +Dorr Constitution in Rhode Island. According to him, this principle is a +fundamental part of what he calls our American system, requiring that +the right of suffrage shall be prescribed by _previous law_, including +its qualifications, the time and place of its exercise, and the manner +of its exercise; and then again, that the results are to be certified to +the central power by some certain rule, _by some known public officers_, +in some clear and definite form, to the end that two things may be done: +first, that every man entitled to vote may vote; secondly, that his vote +may he sent forward and counted, and so he may exercise his part of +sovereignty, in common with his fellow-citizens. Such, according to Mr. +Webster, are the minute forms which must be followed, if we would impart +to the result the crowning character of law. And here are other positive +words from him on this important point:-- + +"We are not to take the will of the people from public meetings, nor +from tumultuous assemblies, by which the timid are terrified, the +prudent are alarmed, and by which society is disturbed. These are not +American modes of signifying the will of the people, and they never +were.... + +"Is it not obvious enough, that men cannot get together and count +themselves, and say they are so many hundreds and so many thousands, and +judge of their own qualifications, and call themselves the people, and +set up a government? _Why, another set of men, forty miles off, on the +same day, with the same propriety, with as good qualifications, and in +as large numbers, may meet and set up another government_.... + +"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to ascertain +the will of the people on a new exigency, or a new state of things, or +of opinion, _the legislative power provides for that ascertainment by an +ordinary act of legislation_. + +"What do I contend for? I say that the will of the people must prevail, +when it is ascertained; but there must be _some legal and authentic mode +of ascertaining that will_; and then the people may make what government +they please.... + +"All that is necessary here is, that the will of the people should be +ascertained by some regular rule of proceeding, _prescribed by previous +law_.... + +"But the law and the Constitution, the whole system of American +institutions, do not contemplate a case in which a resort will be +necessary to proceedings _aliunde_, or _outside of the law and the +Constitution_, for the purpose of amending the frame of government."[25] + + +CONGRESS THE TRUE AGENT. + +But, happily, we are not constrained to any such revolutionary +proceeding. The new governments can all be organized by Congress, which +is the natural guardian of people without any immediate government, and +within the jurisdiction of the Constitution of the United States. +Indeed, with the State governments already _vacated_ by rebellion, the +Constitution becomes, for the time, the supreme and only law, binding +alike on President and Congress, so that neither can establish any law +or institution incompatible with it. And the whole Rebel region, +deprived of all local government, lapses under the exclusive +jurisdiction of Congress, precisely as any other territory; or, in other +words, the lifting of the local governments leaves the whole vast region +without any other government than Congress, unless the President should +undertake to govern it by military power. Startling as this proposition +may seem, especially to all who believe that "there is a divinity that +doth hedge" a State, hardly less than a king, it will appear, on careful +consideration, to be as well founded in the Constitution as it is simple +and natural, while it affords an easy and constitutional solution to our +present embarrassments. + +I have no theory to maintain, but only the truth; and in presenting this +argument for Congressional government, I simply follow teachings which I +cannot control. The wisdom of Socrates, in the words of Plato, has aptly +described these teachings, when he says:-- + +"These things are secured and bound, even if the expression be somewhat +too rude, with iron and adamant; and unless you or some one more +vigorous than you can break them, it is impossible for any one speaking +otherwise than I now speak to speak well; since, for my part, I have +always the same thing to say, that I know not how these things are, but +that out of all with whom I have ever discoursed, as now, not one is +able to say otherwise and to maintain himself."[26] + +Show me that I am wrong,--that this conclusion is not founded in the +Constitution, and is not sustained by reason,--and I shall at once +renounce it; for, in the present condition of affairs, there can be no +pride of opinion which must not fall at once before the sacred demands +of country. Not as a partisan, not as an advocate, do I make this +appeal; but simply as a citizen, who seeks, in all sincerity, to offer +his contribution to the establishment of that policy by which Union and +Peace may be restored. + + +THREE SOURCES OF CONGRESSIONAL POWER. + +If we loot at the origin of this power in Congress, we shall find that +it comes from three distinct fountains, any one of which is ample to +supply it. Three fountains, generous and hospitable, will be found in +the Constitution ready for this occasion. + +First. From the necessity of the case, _ex necessitate rei_, Congress +must have jurisdiction over every portion of the United States _where +there is no other government_; and since in the present case there is no +other government, the whole region falls within the jurisdiction of +Congress. This jurisdiction is incident, if you please, to that +guardianship and eminent domain which belong to the United States with +regard to all its territory and the people thereof, and it comes into +activity when the local government ceases to exist. It can be questioned +only in the name of the local government; but since this government has +disappeared in the Rebel States, the jurisdiction of Congress is +uninterrupted there. The whole broad Rebel region is _tabula rasa_, or +"a clean slate," where Congress, under the Constitution of the United +States, may write the laws. In adopting this principle, I follow the +authority of the Supreme Court of the United States in determining the +jurisdiction of Congress over the Territories. Here are the words of +Chief-Justice Marshall:-- + +"Perhaps the power of governing a territory belonging to the United +States, which has not, by becoming a State, acquired the means of +self-government, _may result necessarily from the facts that it is not +within the jurisdiction of any particular State_ and is within the power +and jurisdiction of the United States. The right to govern may be the +natural consequence of the right to acquire territory."[27] + +If the right to govern may be the natural consequence of the right to +acquire territory, surely, and by much stronger reason, this right must +be the natural consequence of the sovereignty of the United States +wherever there is no local government. + +Secondly. This jurisdiction may also be derived from the _Rights of +War_, which surely are not less abundant for Congress than for the +President. If the President, disregarding the pretension of State +Rights, can appoint military governors within the Rebel States, to serve +a temporary purpose, who can doubt that Congress can exercise a similar +jurisdiction? That of the President is derived from the war-powers; but +these are not sealed to Congress. If it be asked where in the +Constitution such powers are bestowed upon Congress, I reply, that they +will be found precisely where the President now finds his powers. But it +is clear that the powers to "declare war," to "suppress insurrections," +and to "support armies," are all ample for this purpose. It is Congress +that conquers; and the same authority that conquers must govern. Nor is +this authority derived from any strained construction; but it springs +from the very heart of the Constitution. It is among those powers, +latent in peace, which war and insurrection call into being, but which +are as intrinsically constitutional as any other power. + +Even if not conceded to the President, these powers must be conceded to +Congress. Would you know their extent? They will be found in the +authoritative texts of Public Law,--in the works of Grotius, Vattel, and +Wheaton. They are the powers conceded by civilized society to nations at +war, known as the Rights of War, at once multitudinous and minute, vast +and various. It would be strange, if Congress could organize armies and +navies to conquer, and could not also organize governments to protect. + +De Tocqueville, who saw our institutions with so keen an eye, remarked, +that, since, in spite of all political fictions, the preponderating +power resided in the State governments, and not in the National +Government, a civil war here "would be nothing but a foreign war in +disguise."[28] Of course the natural consequence would be to give the +National Government in such a civil war all the rights which it would +have in a foreign war. And this conclusion from the observation of the +ingenious publicist has been practically adopted by the Supreme Court of +the United States in those recent cases where this tribunal, after the +most learned argument, followed by the most careful consideration, +adjudged, that, since the Act of Congress of July 13th, 1861, the +National Government has been waging "a _territorial_ civil war," in +which all property afloat belonging to a resident of the _belligerent +territory_ is liable to capture and condemnation as lawful prize. But +surely, if the National Government may stamp upon all residents in this +_belligerent territory_ the character of foreign enemies, so as to +subject their ships and cargoes to the penalties of confiscation, it may +perform the milder service of making all needful rules and regulations +for the government of this territory under the Constitution, so long as +may be requisite for the sake of peace and order; and since the object +of war is "indemnity for the past and security for the future," it may +do everything necessary to make these effectual. But it will not be +enough to crush the Rebellion. Its terrible root must be exterminated, +so that it may no more flaunt in blood. + +Thirdly. But there is another source for this jurisdiction which is +common alike to Congress and the President. It will be found in the +constitutional provision, that "the United States shall guarantee to +every State in tins Union a republican form of government, and shall +protect each of them against invasion." Here, be it observed, are words +of guaranty and an obligation of protection. In the original concession +to the United States of this twofold power there was an open recognition +of the ultimate responsibility and duty of the National Government, +_conferring jurisdiction above all pretended State rights_; and now the +occasion has come for the exercise of this twofold power thus solemnly +conceded. The words of twofold power and corresponding obligation are +plain and beyond question. If there be any ambiguity, it is only as to +what constitutes a republican form of government. But for the present +this question does not arise. It is enough that a wicked rebellion has +undertaken to detach certain States from the Union, and to take them +beyond the protection and sovereignty of the United States, with the +menace of seeking foreign alliance and support, even at the cost of +every distinctive institution. It is well known that _Mr. Madison +anticipated this precise danger from Slavery, and upheld this precise +grant of power in order to counteract this danger_. His words, which +will be found in a yet unpublished document, produced by Mr. Collamer in +the Senate, seem prophetic. + +Among the defects which he remarked in the old Confederation was what he +called "want of guaranty to the States of their constitutions and laws +_against internal violence_." In showing why this guaranty was needed, +he says, that, "according to republican theory, right and power, being +both vested in the majority, are held to be synonymous; according to +fact and experience, a minority may, in an appeal to force, be an +overmatch for the majority"; and he then adds, in words of wonderful +prescience, "_where Slavery exists the republican theory becomes still +more fallacious_." This was written in April, 1787, before the meeting +of the Convention that formed the National Constitution. But here we +have the origin of the very clause in question. The danger which this +statesman foresaw is now upon us. When a State fails to maintain a +republican government _with officers sworn according to the requirements +of the Constitution_, it ceases to be a constitutional State. The very +case contemplated by the Constitution has arrived, and the National +Government is invested with plenary powers, whether of peace or war. +There is nothing in the storehouse of peace, and there is nothing in the +arsenal of war, which it may not employ in the maintenance of this +solemn guaranty, and in the extension of that protection against +invasion to which it is pledged. But this extraordinary power carries +with it a corresponding duty. Whatever shows itself dangerous to a +republican form of government must be removed without delay or +hesitation; and if the evil be Slavery, our action will be bolder when +it is known that the danger was foreseen. + +In reviewing these three sources of power, I know not which is most +complete. Either would be ample alone; but the three together are three +times ample. Thus, out of this triple fountain, or, if you please, by +this triple cord, do I vindicate the power of Congress over the vacated +Rebel States. + +But there are yet other words of the Constitution which cannot be +forgotten: "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union." +Assuming that the Rebel States are no longer _de facto_ States of this +Union, but that the territory occupied by them is within the +jurisdiction of Congress, then these words become completely applicable. +It will be for Congress, in such way as it shall think best, to regulate +the return of these States to the Union, whether in time or manner. No +special form is prescribed. But the vital act must proceed from +Congress. And here again is another testimony to that Congressional +power which, under the Constitution, will restore the Republic. + + +UNANSWERABLE REASONS FOR CONGRESSIONAL GOVERNMENTS + +Against this power I have heard no argument which can be called an +argument. There are objections founded chiefly in the baneful pretension +of State Rights; but these objections are animated by prejudice rather +than reason. Assuming the impeccability of the States, and openly +declaring that states, like kings, can do no wrong, while, like kings, +they wear the "round and top of sovereignty," politicians treat them +with most mistaken forbearance and tenderness, as if these Rebel +corporations could be dandled into loyalty. At every suggestion of rigor +State Rights are invoked, and we are vehemently told not to destroy the +States, when all that Congress proposes is simply to recognize the +actual condition of the States and to undertake their temporary +government, by providing for the condition of political syncope into +which they have fallen, and, during this interval, to substitute its own +constitutional powers for the unconstitutional powers of the Rebellion. +Of course, therefore, Congress will blot no star from the flag, nor will +it obliterate any State liabilities. But it will seek, according to its +duty, in the best way, to maintain the great and real sovereignty of the +Union, by upholding the flag unsullied, and by enforcing everywhere +within its jurisdiction the supreme law of the Constitution. + +At the close of an argument already too long drawn out, I shall not stop +to array the considerations of reason and expediency in behalf of this +jurisdiction; nor shall I dwell on the inevitable influence that it must +exercise over Slavery, which is the motive of the Rebellion. To my mind +nothing can be clearer, as a proposition of constitutional law, than +that everywhere within the exclusive jurisdiction of the National +Government Slavery is impossible. The argument is as brief as it is +unanswerable. Slavery is so odious that it can exist only by virtue of +positive law, plain and unequivocal; but no such words can be found in +the Constitution. Therefore Slavery is impossible within the exclusive +jurisdiction of the National Government. For many years I have had this +conviction, and have constantly maintained it. I am glad to believe that +it is implied, if not expressed, in the Chicago Platform. Mr. Chase, +among our public men, is known to accept it sincerely. Thus Slavery in +the Territories is unconstitutional; but if the Rebel territory falls +under the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Government, then +Slavery will be impossible there. In a legal and constitutional sense, +it will die at once. The air will be too pure for a slave. I cannot +doubt that this great triumph has been already won. The moment that the +States fell, Slavery fell also; so that, even without any Proclamation +of the President, Slavery had ceased to have a legal and constitutional +existence in every Rebel State. + +But even if we hesitate to accept this important conclusion, which +treats Slavery within Rebel States as already dead in law and +Constitution, it cannot be doubted, that, by the extension of the +Congressional jurisdiction over the Rebel States, many difficulties will +be removed. Holding every acre of soil and every inhabitant of these +states within its jurisdiction, Congress can easily do, by proper +legislation, whatever may be needful within Rebel limits in order to +assure freedom and to save society. The soil may be divided among +patriot soldiers, poor-whites, and freedmen. But above all things, the +inhabitants may be saved from harm. Those citizens in the Rebel States, +who, throughout the darkness of the Rebellion, have kept there faith, +will be protected, and the freedmen will be rescued from the hands that +threaten to cast them back into Slavery. + +But this jurisdiction, which is so completely practical, is grandly +conservative also. Had it been early recognized that Slavery depends +exclusively upon the local government, and that it falls with that +government, who can doubt that every Rebel movement would have been +checked? Tennessee and Virginia would never have stirred; Maryland and +Kentucky would never have thought of stirring. There would have been no +talk of neutrality between the Constitution and the Rebellion, and every +Border State would have been fixed in its loyalty. Let it be established +in advance, as an inseparable incident to every Act of Secession, that +it is not only impotent against the Constitution of the United States, +but that, on its occurrence, both soil and inhabitants will lapse +beneath the jurisdiction of Congress, and no State will ever again +pretend to secede. The word "territory," according to an old and quaint +etymology, is said to come from _terreo_, to terrify, because it was a +bulwark against the enemy. A scholiast tells us, "_Territorium est +quicquid hostis terrendi causa constitutum_," "A territory is something +constituted in order to terrify the enemy." But I know of no way in +which our Rebel enemy would have been more terrified than by being told +that his course would inevitably precipitate him into a territorial +condition. Let this principle be adopted now, and it will contribute +essentially to that consolidation of the Union which was so near the +heart of Washington. + +The necessity of this principle is apparent as a restraint upon the +lawless vindictiveness and inhumanity of the Rebel States, whether +against Union men or against freedmen. Union men in Virginia already +tremble at the thought of being delivered over to a State government +wielded by original Rebels pretending to be patriots. But the freedmen, +who have only recently gained their birthright, are justified in a +keener anxiety, lest it should be lost as soon as won. Mr. Saulsbury, a +Senator from Delaware, with most instructive frankness, has announced, +in public debate, what the restored State governments will do. Assuming +that the local governments will be preserved, he predicts that in 1870 +there will be more slaves in the United States than there were in 1860, +and then unfolds the reason as follows,--all of which will be found in +the "Congressional Globe"[29]:-- + +"By your acts you attempt to free the slaves. You will not have them +among you. You leave them where they are. Then what is to be the +result?--I presume that local State governments will be preserved. If +they are, if the people have a right to make their own laws, and to +govern themselves, they will not only reenslave every person that you +attempt to set free, but they will reenslave the whole race." + +Nor has the horrid menace of reenslavement proceeded from the Senator +from Delaware alone. It has been uttered even by Mr. Willey, the mild +Senator from Virginia, speaking in the name of State Rights. Newspapers +have taken up and repeated the revolting strain. That is to say, no +matter what may be done for Emancipation, whether by Proclamation of the +President, or by Congress even, the State, on resuming its place in the +Union, will, in the exercise of its sovereign power, reenslave every +colored person within its jurisdiction; and this is the menace from +Delaware, and even from regenerated Western Virginia! I am obliged to +Senators for their frankness. If I needed any additional motive for the +urgency with which I assert the power of Congress, I should find it in +the pretensions thus savagely proclaimed. In the name of Heaven, let us +spare no effort to save the country from this shame, and an oppressed +people from this additional outrage! + +"Once free, always free." This is a rule of law, and an instinct of +humanity. It is a self-evident axiom, which only tyrants and +slave-traders have denied. The brutal pretension thus flamingly +advanced, to reenslave those who have been set free, puts us all on our +guard. There must be no chance or loop-hole for such an intolerable, +Heaven-defying iniquity. Alas! there have been crimes in human history; +but I know of none blacker than this. There have been acts of baseness; +but I know of none more utterly vile. Against the possibility of such a +sacrifice we must take a bond which cannot be set aside,--and this can +be found only in the powers of Congress. + +Congress has already done much. Besides its noble Act of Emancipation, +it has provided that every person guilty of treason, or of inciting or +assisting the Rebellion, "shall be disqualified to hold any office under +the United States." And by another act, it has provided that every +person elected or appointed to any office of honor or profit under the +Government of the United States shall, before entering upon its duties, +_take an oath_ "that he has not voluntarily borne arms against the +United States, or given aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to +persons engaged in armed hostility thereto, or sought or accepted or +attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever under any +authority, or pretended authority, in hostility to the United +States."[30] This oath will be a bar against the return to _National +office_ of any who have taken part with the Rebels. It shuts out in +advance the whole criminal gang. But these same persons, rejected by the +National Government, are left free to hold office in the States. And +here is another motive to further action by Congress. The oath, is well +as far as it goes; more must be done in the same spirit. + +But enough. The case is clear. Behold the Rebel States in arms against +that paternal government to which, as the supreme condition of their +constitutional existence, they owe duty and love; and behold all +legitimate powers, executive, legislative, and judicial, in these +States, abandoned and vacated. _It only remains that Congress should +enter and assume the proper jurisdiction._ If we are not ready to +exclaim with Burke, speaking of Revolutionary France, "It is but an +empty space on the political map," we may at least adopt the response +hurled back by Mirabeau, that this empty space is a volcano red with +flames and overflowing with lava-floods. But whether we deal with it as +"empty space" or as "volcano," the jurisdiction, civil and military, +centres in Congress, to be employed for the happiness, welfare, and +renown of the American people,--changing Slavery into Freedom, and +present chaos into a Cosmos of perpetual beauty and power. + + * * * * * + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_The Thoughts of the Emperor M. Aurelius Antoninus._ Translated by +GEORGE LONG. London: Bell & Daldy. + +Dulness is usually reckoned the prescriptive right of kings; at least, +they are supposed to be officially incapable of literary eminence. And +yet it is a curious fact, that, of those idiomatic works which +literature will not "let die," of those marked productions which survive +by their individuality, three, at least, bear the impress of royal +names. + +Devotion has found, in the contributions of three thousand years, no +utterance so fit as the lyrics of a Hebrew king; satiety has breathed no +sigh so profound as "The Words of the Preacher, the Son of David, King +of Jerusalem"[31]; and the wisdom of the Stoics has no worthier exponent +than the meditations of a sovereign who ruled the greatest empire known +to history, and glorified it with his own imperial spirit,--the noblest +that ever bore the burden of state. + +Our third example, unlike the other two, has not been adopted by +ecclesiastical authority, and is not incorporated in any Vulgate of +sacred lore; but its place in the canon of philosophy has long been +established, and is often confirmed by fresh recognition. A new +translation of this celebrated work, of which several versions already +existed, has just been given to the English public by Mr. George Long, a +well-known scholar and critic, with the title above named. We should +have preferred the old title, "Meditations," so long endeared; but we +are none the less grateful to Mr. Long for this needful service, for +which no ordinary qualifications were required, and which has never +before been performed by such competent hands. + +Gibbon has said, that, "if a man were called to fix the period in the +history of the world during which the condition of the human race was +most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which +elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus." This +period comprises, together with the four concluding years of the first +century of the Christian era, four-fifths of the second. The last of +these fifths, deducting one year, (A.D. 161-180,) was occupied by the +supreme rule of Annios Verus, better known by his assumed name of Marcus +AElius Aurelius Antoninus, fifteenth emperor of the Romans, nephew and +successor of another Antoninus, whose virtues, and especially his +grateful remembrance of his predecessor and benefactor, procured him the +_agnomen_ of "Pius." In a line of sovereigns which numbers a larger +proportion of wise and good men than most dynasties, perhaps than any +other, M. Antoninus ranks first, so far as those qualities are +concerned. A man of singular and sublime virtue, whose imperial station, +so trying to human character, but served to render more conspicuous his +rare and transcendent excellence. With an empire such as never before or +since the Augustan dynasty has fallen to the lot of an individual, lord +of the civilized earth, he lived simply and abstemiously as the poorest +citizen in his dominions, frugal with unlimited means, humble with +unlimited sway. Not a Christian by profession, in piety toward God and +charity toward man he was yet a better Christian in fact than any of the +Christian emperors who succeeded him. He governed his life by the Stoic +discipline, the most hardy, in its practical requirements, of ancient +systems, so rigorous in its ethic that Josephus is proud to claim an +affinity with it for the "straitest" of the Jewish sects, and so pure in +its spirit that St. Jerome ranks its best-known writer as a +Christian,--a philosophy which taught men to consider virtue as the only +good, vice as the only evil, all external things as indifferent. "His +life," says Gibbon, "was the noblest commentary on the precepts of Zeno. +He was severe to himself, indulgent to the imperfections of others, just +and beneficent to all mankind. He regretted that Avidius Cassius, who +had excited a rebellion in Syria, had by a voluntary death deprived him +of the pleasure of converting an enemy into a friend. War he detested as +the disgrace and calamity of human nature; but when the necessity of a +just defence called upon him to take up arms, he readily exposed his +person to eight winter campaigns on the frozen banks of the Danube, the +severity of which was at last fatal to the weakness of his constitution. +His memory was revered by a grateful posterity, and above a century +after his death there were many who preserved the image of Marcus +Antoninus among their household gods." + +The learned Casaubon, after placing him above Solomon, "as being lord +and master of more great kingdoms than Solomon was of towns," speaks of +him as a man "who, for goodness and wisdom, was had by all men during +his life in such honor and reputation as never man was either before him +or after him." "There hath ever been store enough of men," he says, +"that could speak well and give good instructions, but great want of +them that could or so much as endeavored to do as they spake or taught +others to do. Be it therefore spoken to the immortal praise and +commendation of Antoninus, that as he did write so he did live. Never +did writers so conspire to give all possible testimony of goodness, +uprightness, innocence, as they have done to commend this one. They +commend him, not as the best prince only, but absolutely as the best man +and best philosopher that ever lived." + +Merivale, who concludes with the reign of M. Antoninus his "History of +the Romans under the Empire," adds his testimony to that of the cloud of +witnesses who have trumpeted the great _Imperator's_ praise. "Of all the +Caesars whose names are enshrined in the page of history, or whose +features are preserved to us in the repositories of art, one alone seems +still to haunt the Eternal City in the place and the posture most +familiar to him in life. In the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, +which crowns the platform of the Campidoglio, Imperial Rome lives +again.... In this figure we behold an emperor, of all the line the +noblest and the dearest, such as he actually appeared; we realize in one +august exemplar the character and image of the rulers of the world. We +stand here face to face with a representative of the Scipios and Caesars, +the heroes of Tacitus and Livy. Our other Romans are effigies of the +closet and the museum; this alone is a man of the streets, the forum, +and the capitol. Such special prominence is well reserved, amid the +wreck of ages, for him whom historians combine to honor as the worthiest +of the Roman people." + +Mr. Long, in his biographical introduction, examines at length the +evidence for Marcus's alleged persecution of the Christians. Lardner, +and other writers in the Christian ecclesiastical interest, assuming the +fact, denounce it as a blot on the Emperor's fame. The translator +devotes more space to the consideration of this matter than, perhaps, in +the judgment of the historical critic at this day, it will seem to +deserve. That Christians, in the time of M. Antoninus, in Asia Minor and +in Gaul, suffered torture and death on account of their faith, admits of +no reasonable doubt. That Marcus authorized these persecutions, in any +sense implying the responsibility of an original decision, does not +appear. The imperial power, it must be remembered, was not absolute, but +constitutionally defined. The Augusti, for the most part, were but the +executors of existing laws. The punishment of Christians, who refused to +sacrifice, and persisted in contravening the religion of the State, was +one of those laws. In some places, especially at Lyons and Vienne, the +Christians were the victims of popular riots; but where they suffered by +legal authority, in the name of the imperial government, it was under +the well-known law of Trajan, a law which had been sixty years in +operation when Marcus came upon the throne. The only blame that can be +imputed to him in this relation (if blame it be) is that of failing to +discern and acknowledge the divine authority of the new religion which +was silently undermining the old Roman world. But no one who puts +himself in the Emperor's time and place will think the worse of him for +not adopting a view of this subject which educated and serious minds +were precisely the least likely to adopt. To such, Christianity +presented itself simply as a novelty opposed to religion and threatening +the State. The case of Justin may be cited as an instance of a +thoughtful and philosophic mind embracing Christianity in spite of the +strong presumption against it in minds of that class. But, not to speak +of the very wide difference between the steady, conservative Roman and +the volatile Greek, all the life-circumstances of Justin, a Palestinian +by birth, favored his adoption of the Christian faith; everything in the +life of Antoninus tended in the opposite direction. Justin embraced the +religion first on its philosophic side, where Antoninus was especially +fortified against it, having early come to an understanding with himself +on the deepest questions of the soul. His decisions on these questions +did not differ materially from those of the Gospel; they might, unknown +to himself, have been modified by a subtile atmospheric influence +derived from that source and acting on a nature so receptive of its +spirit. But the very fact, that he had in a measure anticipated the +teachings of the Gospel, precluded the chance of his being surprised +into acquiescence with the new religion by its moral beauty, if brought +fairly before him, which perhaps it never was; for it does not appear +that he read the Christian apologies framed in his day. What was best in +Christianity, as a system of doctrine,--its ethical precepts,--he had +already embraced; its substance he possessed; its external form he knew +only as opposition to institutions which he was bound by all the +sanctities of his office, by all the dignity of a Roman patrician, and +by all the currents of his life, to uphold. For the rest, the relation +of a mind like his to polytheism could be nothing more than the formal +acceptance of its symbols in the interest of piety, implying no +intellectual enslavement to its myths and traditions. + +De Quincey calls attention to one merit of Antoninus, which, he says, +has been "utterly unnoticed hitherto by historians, but which will +hereafter obtain a conspicuous place in any perfect record of the steps +by which civilization has advanced and human nature been exalted. It is +this: Marcus Aurelius was the first great military leader who allowed +rights indefeasible, rights uncancelled by misfortune in the field, to +the prisoner of war. Others had been merciful and variously indulgent, +upon their own discretion, and upon a random impulse, to some, or +possibly to all of their prisoners; ... but Marcus Aurelius first +resolutely maintained that certain indestructible rights adhered to +every soldier simply as a man, which rights capture by the sword, or any +other accident of war, could do nothing to shake or diminish.... Here is +an immortal act of goodness built upon an immortal basis; for so long as +armies congregate and the sword is the arbiter of international +quarrels, so long will it deserve to be had in remembrance that the +first man who set limits to the empire of wrong, and first translated +within the jurisdiction of man's moral nature that state of war which +had heretofore been consigned by principle no less than by practice to +anarchy, animal violence, and brute force, was also the first +philosopher who sat upon a throne. In this, and in his universal spirit +of forgiveness, we cannot but acknowledge a Christian by +anticipation.... And when we view him from this distant age, as heading +that shining array, the Howards and the Wilberforces, who have since +then, in a practical sense, hearkened to the sighs of 'all prisoners and +captives,' we are ready to suppose him addressed by the great Founder of +Christianity in the words of Scripture, 'Thou art not far from the +kingdom of God.'"[32] + +Born to be a thinker rather than an actor, by nature framed for the life +of a recluse, by temperament inclined to private study and +contemplation, this best of emperors and of men by Providential destiny +was doomed to spend the greater part of his days in the tumult of +affairs, and, like a true Roman, died at last a soldier's death in his +camp on the banks of the Danube, where, in after years, another line of +"Roman Emperors," the sovereigns of the "Holy Roman Empire of Germany," +had their seat. For more than a century after his death, and so long as +Rome retained a remnant of her old vitality, a grateful people adored +him as a saint, and he who "had no bust, picture, or statue of Marcus in +his house was looked upon as a profane and irreligious man." To this +day, beside the equestrian statue named by Merivale, in the heart of +modern Rome, a few steps from her principal thronged thoroughfare, a +column which time has spared still commemorates the last of the Romans. +The Emperor's statue which once surmounted it was destroyed, and +centuries after the statue of St. Paul exalted to the vacant place, as +if to show that the "height of Rome" is not quite the perfection of all +humanity, and that even the purest of ancient philosophies is incomplete +without the supplement of a more humane and universal wisdom. + +Mr. Long's preliminary dissertation on "The Philosophy of Antoninus" is +thorough and satisfactory, so far as that specific subject is concerned, +but presents a very inadequate view of the Stoic philosophy in general, +and strikes us as unjust in its incidental disparaging notice (in a +footnote) of Seneca, who, after all, will ever be regarded as the +greatest literary product of that school. + +The book itself to which this essay introduces us is one of the few +monuments that remain to us, and by far the best monument that remains +to us, of the interior spiritual life of the better class of that +Graeco-Roman world of whose exterior life we know so much. Not to have +read it is not to know the deepest mind of the ancients. Two things in +it are prevailingly prominent: first, a noble nature; secondly, an +extreme civilization, already faltering, turned to decline, expecting +its fall. On every page lies the shadow of impending doom; on every page +shines forth the great, heroic soul equal to every fate. The work--if +work it can be called--is entirely aphoristic, with no apparent plan; in +fact, a note-book or diary of thoughts and fancies, set down as they +occurred from time to time, and as leisure favored the record. In its +structure, or rather want of structure, and in some of its suggestions, +it reminds one of the Book of Ecclesiastes. Yet the difference between +them is immense. The prevailing tone of Ecclesiastes is skepticism, that +of the "Thoughts" is faith. The one is morbid, the other sane; the one +relaxes, the other braces; the one is steeped in despondency and gloom, +the other is redolent of manly courage and cheerful trust. The Emperor, +like the Preacher, has much to say about death; but he views the subject +from a higher plane, and envisages the final event with a better hope. +He does not think that a living dog is better than a dead lion. + +"What, then, is that which is able to conduct a man? One thing, and only +one, philosophy.[33] But this consists in keeping the daemon within a man +free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing +nothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy,... and +besides accepting all that happens, and all that is allotted, as coming +from thence, wherever it is, from whence he himself came, and finally +waiting for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than a +dissolution of the elements of which every living being is compounded. +But if there is no harm to the elements themselves, in each continually +changing into the other, why should a man have any apprehension about +the change and dissolution of all the elements? For it is according to +Nature, and nothing is evil which is according to Nature."[34] + +"Thou hast embarked, thou hast made the voyage, thou art come to shore; +get out. If, indeed, to another life, there is no want of gods, not even +there. But if to a state without sensation, thou wilt cease to be held +by pains and pleasures, and to be a slave to the vessel which is as much +inferior as that which serves it is superior; for the one is +intelligence and deity, the other is earth and corruption."[35] + +"Man, thou hast been a citizen in this great state [the world]; what +difference does it make to thee whether for five years or three? for +that which is conformable to the laws is just for all. Where is the +hardship, then, if no tyrant or unjust judge sends thee away from the +state, but Nature who brought thee into it? The same as if a praetor who +has employed an actor dismisses him from the stage. 'But I have not +finished the five acts,--only three of them.' Thou sayest well; but in +life the three acts are the whole drama; for what shall be a complete +drama is determined by him who was once the cause of its composition, +and now of its dissolution; but thou art the cause of neither. Depart, +then, satisfied, for he who dismisses thee is satisfied."[36] + +The book is one which scarcely admits of analysis, and of which it is +impossible to convey an idea by any discussion of its contents. In +characterizing the man we have characterized the "Thoughts" as the +commentary of personal experience on the virtues of fortitude, patience, +piety, love, and trust. They have a history, and have been the chosen +companion of many and very different men of note. Our own native Stoic, +the latest, and, since Fichte, the best representative of that school, +fed his youth at this fountain, and shows, in his earlier writings +especially, the influence of his imperial predecessor. Mr. Long reminds +us that this was one of the two books which Captain John Smith, the hero +of young Virginia, selected for his daily use. Unlike the generality of +John Smiths and of modern Virginians, the brave soldier found here a +kindred spirit. + +The Christian world possesses in its Bible a record of Semitic piety +whose genuine utterances will never be surpassed; but when the Vulgate +of the Aryan races shall be published, these confessions of a noble soul +will claim a prominent place among its scriptures. + + +_Levana; or, The Doctrine of Education._ Translated from the German of +JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. + +We call to mind certain phrases wherein the critic may honestly express +satisfaction that a portion of the world's plastic stock of useful +knowledge has been skilfully manipulated into a volume. Truly, none of +them will do for this sweetest household blossom of a commanding +intellect. We have poetry too discursively brilliant for the trammels of +verse, eloquence which has drawn its materials from the purest sources, +and instructiveness running into sparkling effusions or soaring in +aerial fancies. It is hard to speak adequately of this delicious, +accidental "Levana." It is no schoolmaster's manual, no elaborated +system set to snap like a spring-trap upon the heads of incautious +meddlers,--it is only the very aroma of the married life of a wise and +tender poet. + +Those early years which held Richter in the grasp of their miseries and +perplexities had passed away. Bravely had he struggled through +temptations which at all times and in all places beset young men, added +to such as are peculiar to one of the highest inspirations steeped to +the lips in poverty. Through all perils he had borne the purity of his +youth, the freedom and simplicity of his deep soul. And so he is +privileged to bring to marriage and the delicate nurture of children the +fine insights of a man of genius who has been wholly true to the costly +gift he possessed. Of the domestic fragrance of a well-ordered family no +savor eludes him. The wife and children, the vigorous and rich life +which they offer to a good man,--those are touched with keenest analysis +and in festal spirit. Most thoroughly does the author possess that rare +combination of mind which seeks speculative truth no less than ideal +beauty; with him emotion is nothing, unless it leads to principle. + +"Levana," as we have said, is no iron system for the education of +children; it is rather a most readable text-book for the education of +parents. It sustains a relation of spiritual fathership to common +fathers, and offers choicest counsel to those who would assume the +office of family-teacher honestly and in the fear of God. And it seems +to us that of these subtle influences of home-culture, whose gospel +Richter here declares, our American parents have been too neglectful. +The world knows that we are proud, and justly so, of our public +educational apparatus. But that our legislation in this direction +produces nothing but good, no observing man can admit. This elaborate +reading-and-writing machine of which the State turns the handle, while +it induces a certain average sharpness in the children, leaves rusting +some of the noblest privileges as well as the highest duties of the +parent. Yet citizens will cry that they feel their responsibilities for +educating, and, to their better fulfilment, work daily for dollars. This +is well; but let us not throw our dollars in a parabolic curve over the +house, on the chance of their making a happy descent in some distant +school-room. The bringing-up of children is something very different +from pickling cucumbers or salting fish,--it cannot be done by contract +and in the gross. But, ah, there is no time for anything else! Then +reduce your way of living to anything above the food-and-shelter point, +and so make time. Richter was always poor, always a man of great labor +and great performance, and here is what he says:--"I deny myself my +evening meal in my eagerness to work; but the interruptions by my +children I cannot deny myself." + +"Levana" is peculiarly adapted to cause those who have to do with +children to feel all the emancipating and renovating power of their +trust. It cannot leave us satisfied with any conventional arrangement +which brings to plausible maturity a limited per cent. There are, +indeed, minds strong enough to pass through the bitter years of +unlearning what has been taught amiss, and then, bating no jot of heart +or courage, to begin education for themselves in middle life. But often +it is far otherwise. Too often, owing to the indolence or immaturity of +those who assume the responsibility of parents, the child is cast into a +terrible moral perplexity, which is at last moral corruption. Our duties +toward different children are as eclectic and irregular as Nature +herself. There is a need to study and respect the individual character, +which claims from parents the daily use of their mental powers,--and +this without a compelling external stimulus. Now it is easy and not +unpleasant to work in a routine. Schiller used to say that he found the +great happiness of life to consist in the discharge of some mechanical +duty. He was in the right. Nevertheless, for the worth and blessedness +of life we must look to the discharge of duties which are not +mechanical. Of mechanical teaching the highest result proposed is the +multiplication of photographs from the teacher's negative, or, in the +words of Richter, "to fill our streets with perpetual stiff, feeble +copies of the same pedagogue type." But the parent's office demands +courage,--courage not so much to originate as to accept the wisdom of +thinking men, some of whom have spoken more than a hundred years ago. +The folly of cramming a child with words representing no ideas, instead +of giving him ideas to find themselves words, is no new discovery. +Milton, in his letter to Master Hartlib, assails that "scholastic +grossness of barbarous ages" from which we nineteenth-century citizens +have by no means escaped. "We do amiss," exclaims the eloquent scholar, +"to spend seven or eight years in scraping together so much miserable +Latin and Greek as might otherwise be learned easily and pleasantly in +one year." He denounces this "misspending our prime youth at schools and +universities as we do, either in learning mere words, or such things +chiefly as were better unlearned." We quote the words of Milton rather +than those of other eminent men to the same effect, because the poet +cannot be accused of objecting to Latin and Greek taught at the right +time and in the right way. A man whose mighty English was always fast +anchored to classic bottoms had surely no sentimental preference for +modern sciences. Indeed, in this very essay he seems to demand what at +present we must consider as a too early initiation into the ancient +languages, no longer the exclusive keys to knowledge. But Milton +realized that there was a natural development to the imitative and +perceptive powers of man, and he knew that a mere tasking of the verbal +memory blighted the diviner faculties of comparison and judgment. We +hold that the ideal system of education, to which through coming +centuries men can only approximate, must present to the child the +precise step in knowledge which he waits for, and upon which he is able +to raise himself with that glow of pleasurable activity which God gives +to exertion directed to a comprehensible end. The feeblest mind is +capable of assimilating knowledge with a satisfaction the same in kind +as that which rewarded the maturest labors of Humboldt or Newton. There +are sequences of facts every one of which, imparted in its natural +order, brings an immediate interest. It is no nebulous scheme of +combining instruction with amusement which is to be sought. One might as +well look after the Philosopher's Stone or the Elixir of Life. Good +things are to be had upon no easier terms than privation and work. But +there is a wide difference between a man toiling to gain material +comforts for those who are dear to him, or laboring to enlighten and +reform his own spirit that he may give good gifts to his generation, and +a beast whipped round a treadmill to the din of its own everlasting +clatter. It is only work whose end shall, in some faint degree, be +intelligible, which is demanded for the child; and with this sort of +work we believe that it is very possible to furnish him. But our +philanthropies in this direction may not be wrought by deputy; they must +be aimed at the few, and not at once at the many. + +The reader of "Levana" will find much incidental commendation of those +true relations of intellectual sympathy and confidence between parents +and children which in this country are far rarer than they should be. +Seldom do we hear the average American citizen speak of either parent in +that tone of tender and respectful companionship with which the average +Frenchman pronounces "_ma mere_" or "_mon pere_." Seldom do we see that +relation between an eminent man and his mother which, in the Old World, +has been exemplified from Augustine to Buckle. Some of the causes of +this have been admirably set forth in a recent essay in these pages. The +article by Gail Hamilton in the April number of the "Atlantic" contains +much _uncommon_ sense, which our lady-readers cannot ponder too often. +All honor to those mothers who, meeting extreme and unexpected poverty, +turn themselves into drudges that their children may be decently clothed +and wholesomely fed! But dishonor to those women who stunt their own +intellectual powers, which should educate and accompany the immortal +souls of their sons and daughters through this world and perhaps +another,--and this, in order that their bodies may be fed luxuriously, +or dressed in lace and ruffles to vie with the children of richer +neighbors! There can be no tolerance for the _indolence_--we emphasize +the word--which elects a mechanical routine instead of those harder +mental efforts through which a mother's highest duties may be +comprehended and performed. And what shall be said for the despicable +vanity which would barter opportunities of forming and directing a human +character for the sake of trimmings and fancy buttons? We cannot possess +the confidence and friendship of our children without taking pains to +deserve them. If the father chooses to be "the governor" of his family, +then the _ex-governor_, and nothing more, can he be to his grown-up +children,--an official once set over them by some Know-Nothing or other +fatality, at length happily shelved with the rubbish of the nursery. +Nowhere are the external sanctities of domestic life more respected than +in our Northern States, and here should its fairest promises be +bountifully fulfilled. Above all things, it is to be remembered that +whatever moral power a man would have his children possess, that must he +especially demand and exercise in himself. The Law of the household must +afford the luxury of a Conscience; for if ever the maxim "_Summum jus, +summa, injuria_" be worthy of remembrance, it is in the management of +children. Well for those who realize that education is no merely lineal +advancement, but a spreading and flowering in many directions! well for +those who cultivate all the capabilities of love and trust in their +children! "When I think," says Jean Paul, "that I never saw in my father +a trace of selfishness, I thank God!" There comes the time when young +men go forth to battle in the world, and the father prays bitterly for +the power to endow them with the results of his own experience. But only +to him who has borne himself truthfully and honorably before his family +can that good gift be given. + +Upon the subject of religious education "Levana" is finely suggestive. +All cobweb-makeshifts which obscure the beautiful substance of a holy +life are swept aside. To the young, not what others say, but what they +do, is right. Children, like their elders, will resist all mere +reasoning upon the disadvantages, whether temporal or spiritual, of +actions to which they are tempted. But they are ever ready to absorb the +faith of the household, and to be nourished by it. "For those who wish +to give anything," exclaims our author, "the first rule is, that they +shall have it to give; no one can teach religion who does not himself +possess it; hypocrisy and mouth-religion will bring forth only their +like." The hardly noticeable habits of unrestrained intercourse, the +indulgence of petty selfishness not acknowledged to ourselves,--these +are seeds of evil quick to germinate in a virgin soil. No iteration of +pedagogical maxims can annul the influence of some little mean or +graceless act. Let every parent take heed lest, through his own weakness +and folly, he lose the divine privilege of obedience through confidence. +In the world, obedience through discipline must indeed come; but let it +be unknown in the family as long as it may. And of "mouth-religion" what +fatal abundance! To a child, it is no more than the creaking and +rattling of a vehicle, which is of a certain worth, doubtless, to the +weary, sinful adult,--but to one who feels his life in every limb, +incomprehensible, and an offence. Of the vulgar superstition which would +confuse the nursery with creeds and vain prayer-repetitions of the +heathen there is far too much. We have known parents, reputed pious and +church-going, who delighted to pour crushing enigmas into infant ears, +and then to make a sorry household jest of the feeble one's grotesque +attempts to extend or limit the Unspeakable. As the highest concerns of +man can be known only by the spirit, so they can be taught only by the +spirit. It is not the words we repeat, but the temper in which we daily +live, that moulds the family to honor or dishonor. It is the spirit of +the father and mother which produces results mistaken for intuitions by +the superficial. And, truly, youth, thus warmly rooted in generosity and +nobility, will, in its own good time, stretch tender leaves up to the +Higher Light. And when Nature is ready for worship, mark how wisely +Richter directs it:--"The sublime is a step to the temple of religion, +as the stars are to that of infinity. Let the name of God be heard by +the child in connection with all that is great in Nature,--the storm, +the thunder, the starry heavens, and death,--a great misfortune,--a +great piece of good-fortune,--a great crime,--a greatly noble action: +these are the sites on which to build the wandering church of +childhood." + +In conclusion, we can only repeat, that the greatest charm of "Levana" +is its suggestion of a possible household, from what the reader feels +was once an actual household. The cheap sentimentalism of parental +relations has often been a favorite property with men of imaginative +genius. Rousseau and Byron knew how to use it as a fictitious background +before which they might posture with effect. But, until the world's +literature shall mercifully forget them, the "Enfants Trouves" and the +Venetian bagnio strip these writers of their fine words, and hold them +before the generations in scandal and disgrace. No reader of "Levana" +can miss the refutation of that poisonous lie, that men of genius, +because of their mental endowments, have a natural inaptitude for +domestic relations, or are unhappy therein from any other cause than +their own foolishness or guilt. We hear the tender strains of a deep +poet, privileged by acquired worthiness to return to those divine +instincts which were vivid in the simplest condition of the family. To +all who can bring the writings of Richter within their range we commend +this book. Those who have learned to enjoy his strong-darting language, +his complex constructions, his kindly humor, will find these working +together with noblest aim. In these times of our country's peril, there +is some sanative virtue outside of treatises upon strategy or Union +pamphlets. It is well to print and circulate the literature of war. But +it is also a sweet and a timely mission to impart a new inspiration into +that life of the family to-day which shall become the life of the nation +to-morrow. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: See Atlantic Monthly, May Number.] + +[Footnote 2: "Clearly a fictitious appellation; for, if we admit the +latter of these names to be in a manner English, what is _Leigh_? +Christian nomenclature knows no such."] + +[Footnote 3: "It is clearly of transatlantic origin."] + +[Footnote 4: + + "'Imperfectus adhuc infans genetricis ab alvo + Eripitur, patrioque tener (si credere dignum) + Insuitur femori ... + Tutaque bis geniti sunt incunabula Bacchi.' + +_Metamorph_. Lib. 3."] + +[Footnote 5: It was Philip II. who gave to the Havana a coat of arms, in +which was a golden key, to signify that it was the key of the Indies. +The house being lost, the key has, oddly enough, become more valuable +than ever to Spain.] + +[Footnote 6: The "Annual Register" states that but 2,500 of the +conquerors were fit for duty when the Havana surrendered. The Boston +"Gazette" says 3,000, and that the arrival of reinforcements was +critical. Even disease could not break down armies in those days. The +Spaniards had 6,000 sick.] + +[Footnote 7: The writer is known to the publishers of the "Atlantic +Monthly": he is one whose word is not and cannot be called in question; +and he pledges his word that the above is exact and _proven_ fact. +Horace Mann, years ago, made public some similar cases.] + +[Footnote 8: _Constitutional History of England_, Vol. II. p. 340.] + +[Footnote 9: Carlyle's _Life of Cromwell_, Part IX. Vol. II. p. 168.] + +[Footnote 10: Ludlow's _Memoirs_, p. 559.] + +[Footnote 11: Ibid. p. 580.] + +[Footnote 12: Ibid. p. 582.] + +[Footnote 13: Kent's _Commentaries_, Vol. I. p. 292, note b.] + +[Footnote 14: Elliott's _Debates_, Vol. III, p. 22.] + +[Footnote 15: Elliott's _Debates_, Vol. III. p. 44.] + +[Footnote 16: _Ibid._ p. 29.] + +[Footnote 17: Rushworth's _Historical Collections_, Vol. I. p. 609.] + +[Footnote 18: See Cushing, _Parliamentary Law_, p. 284.] + +[Footnote 19: Phillimore's _International Law_, Vol. I. p. 147.] + +[Footnote 20: Burke's _Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs_.] + +[Footnote 21: Macaulay's _History of England_, Vol. II. p. 623.] + +[Footnote 22: Macaulay's _History of England_, Vol. II. p. 624.] + +[Footnote 23: John Adams's _Works_, Vol. II. p. 490.] + +[Footnote 24: _Ibid_. Vol. III. pp. 17, 19, 45, 46.] + +[Footnote 25: Webster's _Works_, Vol. VI. pp. 225, 226, 227, 228, 231.] + +[Footnote 26: The _Gorgias_ of Plato.] + +[Footnote 27: _American Insurance Company_ v. _Carter_, 1 Peters, p. +542.] + +[Footnote 28: _Democracy in America_, Vol. II. ch. 25, p. 343.] + +[Footnote 29: Thirty-Seventh Congress, Second Session, 2d May, 1862, +Part III. p. 1923.] + +[Footnote 30: Act of Congress, July 2, 1862, ch. 123.] + +[Footnote 31: Jewish tradition, in spite of German criticism, still +ascribes the Book of Ecclesiastes to Solomon.] + +[Footnote 32: _The Caesars_, p. 170, Boston edition.] + +[Footnote 33: This word, as Marcus uses it, is equivalent to religion.] + +[Footnote 34: p. 25.] + +[Footnote 35: p. 29.] + +[Footnote 36: p. 217.] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, +October, 1863, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. *** + +***** This file should be named 15838.txt or 15838.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/8/3/15838/ + +Produced by Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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